#the kev baker show

[ladylooch]

Has ever happened a situation where Luca went to Kevin for sex/live/hockey/relationship/marriage advice ? And what the situation might have cause the ask ?

- 🇧🇷

Dad Kev? What a gift!!!

Luca Fiala has a decision to make that feels impossible. 

24 hours before this, his college hockey team lost in the National Championship game to Denver. His chest still feels like it’s burning from the acid of that final, OT winner going into the net. He doesn’t think he will forget this pain for the rest of his life. People may say it’s just a game, but this game has been his entire life since he first put skates on at the Xcel Energy Center with his father. It’s cruel punishment that his collegiate career could have ended on that same ice.

If that is what he decides today.

Luca drove across town to his childhood home after the team bus returned to the arena. He didn’t want to stay in the hockey house with all his teammates. Not when he had to decide if he was going to return for his fourth year, or appease the team in the other major city here and sign his first professional contract.

It feels unbearable to choose right now when he is still so damn disappointed.

Luca finds himself thinking of the footsteps of his father that he may be following into the next week.

His dad never went to college. He had a much different path to the National Hockey League compared to him. Luca could have signed right after his freshman year of college as a national champion, but his mom had not liked the idea of that. What was the rush? He was barely 19. So he stayed in school. After his Sophomore year, an early playoff exit made it feel like there was unfinished business still. This year, he teeters on the edge more than ever, ready to make the jump but worried about what opportunities he may be leaving behind. Then there is the risk of a career ending injury before he even had his shot in the show. 

He isn’t sure he could live with that anymore than the disappointment over what happened yesterday evening.

Luca takes off his U of MN hat, tossing it onto the kitchen table. His little sister, Lena, sits across the table, smiling at him with a mouth full of braces. 

“Either way you’ll stay home with us.” Lena points out with a quick shrug. He smiles at her.

“That’s true. I need you for luck, bean.” 

The door to the garage opens and in walks his dad loaded down with groceries.

“You better be staying for dinner.” His dad warns before his mom walks in. “Your mom bought the whole store.”

“She does that if Luca is here or not.” Lena points out. Kevin laughs loudly. 

“Baby, tell her that when she gets in here.”

“No!” Lena giggles. “I bet she got me ice cream!”

Luca stands, helping his parents bring in the rest of the bags which does look like it is equivalent to the entire grocery section of Target.

“Okay! I have food to make whatever you could possible want.” His mom claps her hands excitedly. 

“Um, the tortellini bake? With Texas toast?”

“Perfectly you.” She smiles, then comes around to his chair to hug him across his wide shoulders. “How are you doing?”

“Good.” Luca nods. His eyes raise to where his dad is at the kitchen island, eating an apple. Kevin can see the turmoil all over his only son’s face.

“Let’s take a walk.” Kevin jerks his head towards the door. 

Kevin has mostly stayed out of his son’s decision, but in his trip to Target with his wife, Sam encouraged him to make himself available to Luca. Although their experiences are different, Kevin knows what it feels like to question if he can make it at the next level. Luca will be giving up a lot at the U- another chance at the natty, potentially a Hobey Baker nomination, and for sure the C on his left chest.

After stuffing his feet into his sneakers, Luca follows his dad down the long driveway. 

“Where you at?” Kevin asks once they pass Luca’s Jeep in the driveway.

“Huh?”

“Pick right now, what’s your choice?”

“Wha-“

“Now. Pick.”

“NHL!” Luca sputters. 

“Was that hard?”

“Yes.” Luca snaps. Kevin chuckles, tossing an arm across his son’s shoulders.

“What’s keeping you from taking the next step?”

“What if it’s not the right choice?”

“Is it what you want?” Luca sighs, stopping at the end of the driveway.

“Yes. But mama… She wants me to finish school.”

“I do too.” Kevin clarifies. “But you said you can finish in the summer, no?”

“Yes, but what about my teammates?” Luca continues.

“They will understand. You have been a team player the last three years. It’s okay to make the decision you want for yourself and this next year of your life.” 

“Would you be disappointed in me if I didn’t turn pro?”

“No.” Kevin sighs heavily, then pulls Luca into his chest to hug him. “This also isn’t about me. Or mama. Or your teammates. It’s about what you feel is your next step. No one can decide this but you, bud.”

Luca stares back at his dad. He does the visualization exercise he has been attempting to do all day. He can see himself in a green sweater, warming up on the ice at the Xcel Energy Center. His parents are there and his sisters. The number 22 is on his back and he knows this is where he is supposed to be. He gives his dad a slight smile. 

“You’re gonna go?” Kevin asks. Luca nods.

“Will you tell mama?” Kevin chuckles, rocking back on his heels.

“No. Your first big boy task is breaking the news to your mama.” Kevin squeezes the back of Luca’s neck, then turns with him back towards the house. “I’m really proud of you. I want you to know that today. Not just as a hockey player but as my son and a man. You’re a great person. Thats what makes mama and I the most proud of you every day. Don’t lose that in this next step. There will be trials… questions… about who you are and what you’re about. Stay true to yourself. You’ll be okay.” 

“I don’t think I could go now if it meant leaving you guys.” Luca answers honestly. 

“Staying here isn’t guaranteed. Just be grateful for every day, okay?” 

Luca nods, then walks into the house to tell his mom about his decision. 

[popculturebuffet]

Chirstmas in July: Here Comes Garfiled A Garfield Christmas: A Rope of Sand (Patreon Review for Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy people and welcome to christmas in july! Kev had the idea, I said why not, a bunch of my other friends and finical contributers got involved, and here we are.

And starting us off we return to Here Comes Garfield, my look at all the garfield specials and films. Last time I looked at the minty fresh Garfield Movie, which was decent and had John unraveling as it should. This time we look at one of the franchise's high points with A Garfield Christmas.

Garfield Christmas is the 7th TV Special, airing in december 1987 and being the last special to air before the advent of Garfield and Friends. I suspect they took a bit before doing christmas both to get it right and to be ready as they'd be directly compared to the juggernaught that is a Charlie Brown Christmas. And understandably so but i'm happy to say this special, while not reaching those near impossible heights, is still excellent and worth checking out both for the novelty of being the only story to focus on John's family from this era of animation and for genuine quality. Find out why and more under the cut

The special follows Garfield as he's unwillingly drug out of his bed to go down to the farm on Christmas Eve Morning to go see John's Family, something it's implied they do every year. IT's stuff like this that reminds you Garfield is more "spoiled teenage son" than "housecat" and it is great. He also has an elaborate dream about a gift giving machine with a lou rawls song about christmas greed which parents all over the world reacted to with a resounding

So let's talk about Jon's Family. Jon's two unnamed parents and brother Doc Boy are some of the strips only recurring characters. Part of the reason you get so many special exclusives is that Garfield has a very limited cast of the cat himself, Jon, Odie, Liz, Irma, Nermal, Arlene and John's Parnets. And lyman before he was banished to the phantom zone. They later added the meanest dog in the world but aside from a few one off sin the earlier days, they tend to stick to these guys.

Yet weirdly they aren't used a ton when it comes to garfield adaptations: His parents only appear here, in ONE episode of the massive run of garfield and friends, and for a guest apperance and a cameo on the garfield show. Doc Boy actually seems to get a decent chunk of apperances on the latter, but his only apperance during peak animated garfield was this special. There's also Jon's Grandma, who wasn't as recurring as the other three, but did get a week to herself early on and got a redesign for this special that stuck for the strip

As for the rest of the Arbuckles they were introduced early into the strip, two years in 1980.

As you can grab from context, Jon's parents are farmers, his mom an avid baker and loving mother his dad a somewhat terse but loveable farmer. The two don't show up a ton these days, but still show up ocasinally. They were also originally the owners of this guy

Who owns nermal now I have no idea, but yeah, while Nermal debuted before them, he was their pet originally. Later apperances including this special just sorta soft retconned that and Nermal's current owner remains one of the great mysteries of garfield lore, and one of the few left unsolved as bigguns like "Where's Lyman?" And "Who's His dad" have been answered by the Garfield Show with Lyman having gone to australia as a wildlife photgrapher and staying to protect the wildlife by dressing up as a mythical beast... and I suddenly want to watch this entire four parter because what. While the Dad situation was resolved with the movie.. which raises further questions in regards to the strip continuity, etc etc, but at least vic's appearance gives us an idea of what he looks like in most continuities if nothing else.

Doc Boy was, as I forgot till I grabbed his first apperance from teh wiki, originally not living with Jon's parents before being retconned as such witht his special. As such he stayed home while Jon moved to the city, adopted an overweight son who treats him poorly and another son who treats him better, sexually harassed his vet then backed off enough that she actually reciprocated his feelings. You know a normal track.

I've always loved Jon's family partly because I relate: my own dad was raised on a farm as one of 9 children, moved to the suburbs later and visited frequently, while like Garfield I was carted along. It wasn't nearly as much of a put out for me.. except when he made me attend church as going to a catholic church with adhd and a poor phsique is a form of torture I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Point is I visited the farm often so I relate to getting up early, being forced to help with choring despite plenty of your uncles being there who have more muscle to them, and the quite serenity of farm life. My grandma also had a nice little toy room under the stairs for the various grandkids and a giant mountain of disney and other kids vhs'. it's how I found my love of problem child and the little rascals, both of which are on my bucket list review wise. If your curious

All-Star Superman Total Drama Island (Original) Child's Play Child's Play Comic Problem Child Little Rascals Bloom County Home Movies Daria: Is it Fall Yet? Daredevil By Mark Waid House of X/Powers of X Scarlet Witch by Steve Orlando FF by Fraction and Allred Giant Days Scary Go Round TMNT IDW Steven Universe Doom Patrol by Gerard Way Doom Patrol V2 #75 Hazbin Hotel The Legend of Vox Machina For Better or For Worse The For Better or For Worse Christmas Special For Better or For Worse Animated Series Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman More of JLI X-Factor by Peter David (Both Runs) Wolverine and the X-Men Marvel Graphic Novel #4: The New Mutants Wolverine and the X-Men (Comic) Kireon Gilleon's Uncanny X-Men The Wicked+The Divine Bad Machinery The Dream of a Lifetime Space Jam Chew An Arc from Fox Trot Batman: the Caped Crusader Crisis on Infinite Earths Heart of the City Phantom of the Paradise Something Positive WALL-E The Peanuts Movie Cats Don't Dance JLA First Arc Crisis on Earth 3 That Shang Chi Arc where he has to fight a train X-Men 97 X-Men: From The Ashes (Story Arc) Birds of Prey by Gail Simone Nightwing by Tom Taylor Booster Gold TMNT: The Last Ronin Something Samurai Jack Sonic the Hedgehog Reboot by Ian Flynn (Archie) Mega Man 3 Tuca and Bertie An Extremely Goofy Movie Scream An Episode of the Red Green Show Letterkenny Shorsey Beef's Lovelife Retrospective Flame Princess Retrospective CJ Retrospective OK KO Let's Be Heroes! Storyline Retrospective A Doonesbury Special Phantom Investigators Danny Phantom: The Ultimate Enemy Final Space Top 12 Close Enough Episodes Ready to Rumble No Holds Barred The Aristocats Hades Mother 3 Ikenfell Banjo-Kazooie X-Factor by Louise Simonson X-Factor by Leah Williams The Flintstones by Mark Russel Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles Tim Curry's Album Donkey Kong Country Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie's Double Trouble More Legion of Super Heroes The First time X-Men fought Dracula That time Superboy became hitler The Death of Superman Retrospective The Death and Return of Superman DuologY Batman: The Long Halloween (Comic) The Megas Retrospective Earthbound It's CHristmas, You Dorks Girls with Slingshots House (Japanese Film) The Fall Guy (Movie) Transformers The Movie Transformers (Energon Universe) Disney Rap Album Christmas Vacation A Christmas Story My Summer Story

It helps that John's grandma looks exactly like my grandma on my dad's side... no really it's eerie: frizzy white hair, big glasses (if not blue ones), the only diffrence is my grandma pauline is more sweet , soft voiced and sedate while Grandma Arbuckle is loud, rambunctious and sarcastic. She shoudln't entirely work, essentially being one rap ballad away from being the sterotypical wacky grandma.. but there's a realness to her antics. She's mildly passive agressive with Jon's mom in a way that comes off less mean and more "they do this a lot", talking over her when she gets worked up and spiking her gravy because Jon's mom is just.. better. With Chilli Powder mind you this is still for kids. Vodka was last week when the kids werne't looking. She also sings a rocking as hell version of o christmas tree that no one else seemed to like but is easily one of the best parts of an already stellar special.

What really sells Grandma as a character though is her friendship with garfiled. While she makes the weird wood burning cat joke (something that took me YEARS to figure out and wasn't that funny when i did), after that the two really get along, from their similar sense of humor to him sneaking her food to Garfield being the only one to keep hre company in her chair as she waxes on her husband. The scene is really touching with her talking about how he didn't show much emotoin, but really cared. You get the sense Davis put his own dad into the special with Jon and Doc Boy's pajamas based on his own as a kid. It's really sweet and heartfelt. it also pays off lovely as Garfield bumps into some letters while trying to figure out what odies up to and finds their old love letters from her late husband.

IT's one of the specials strengths: i'ts warmth: Garfields around to keep it from getting TOO schmaltzy, but it still has more than enough to fit the season. The special is mostly just some fun hangout stuff as John's Mom overcooks food, Garfield snarks and hangs with grandma, and Odie works on something> We also get some fun bits as Jon and Doc Boy act like kids at times. Sometimes it's just to play with their dad as mom makes his read how binky saved christmas. I assume it was fighting the world serpent with sword in hand while riding Smaug as we don't get much. it's also fun as the two later do act like kids, wearing footy pjamas, waking their parents up at midnight, and being threatned with chorin. It's oddly adorable and works with both being manchildren, but isn't overdone enough to get annoying.

The special just moves right along footloose and fancy free and getting there is half the fun. We get bits like working in the snow (With garfield unable to see anything form how thick it is), and a few musical numbers but it's really relaxed and uses every minute well, with grandma and odie's little side plot givnig the special just enough plot to not feel aimless but just little enough to feel like a christmas.

So those musical numbers: Besides the usual from lou rawls, we get a fun one with jon that shows thom huge can really sing, while Garfiled interjects. I especially like when he responds to "wiring all the lights" with "electrical contracting". God Lorenzo music was great. I miss him.

We get a pretty bland christmas is here song that coming right after the jazzy version of o christmas tree really makes Jon's family come off bland as fuck for not liking the former. Which fits his whole personality, but still. We get another fun lou rawls bop with you can never find an elf when you need one as Odie finishes his b plot of making some thing in the background.

It's a fun runner as he grabs random stuff and the reveal it's his present to garfield, a backscratcher he can rub up against, is really sweet as is their hug. We then get a country christmas song to close it out that's a lot of funa nd stuck in my head now thanks.

So yeah, there isn't a ton to say about a garfield christmas: i'ts nostalgic, despite having seen it in high school, warm and hits me right in the heart with some really sweet moments> It's also REALLY funny when it wants to be, with garfield getting to use both his catchphrases "Nice touch", my personal faviorite and "Whoever did (X) outta be drug out into the street and shot" which works for the time but I haven't used at all for obvious reasons. Should use nice touch more. This special.. is easily one of Garfield's best if not the best. I'll have to wait till the end of this project to see, but it is a wonderful special, eaisly on par with a charlie brown christmas and worth your time this.. july season. Thanks for reading

P.S.: This episodes ranking

[thatoneao3author]

gallavich au ideas

hello i am going through my brainstorming document and looking at some ideas for gallavich aus/fics so here I am sharing some of the concepts. these aren’t planned out in detail and are rather just ideas/vibes, but I’m hoping to write them at some point after I finish bright as the stars and I thought I’d share them:

1. soulmate/arranged relationship au - “arranged to be (fate in our hands)” 

- this universe is me mashing together two tropes that are kinda similar anyways, but! there is a system, created by scientist couple! kev and v (someone needs to be the scientists and i chose them bc of course) that basically plays matchmaker to people who use it. there is a science fiction element, here, where there is some sort of scientifically and always-correct way of tracking who is meant to be together. i

- this thing starts as an app in the south side when ian is a kid but by the time he’s in his 20s, it is very popular. there’s a little bit of a dystopian vibe bc the government realizes how convenient it is to pair people off early. divorce rates go down, marriage rates go up, blah blah blah it makes things smoother. bc of this, the government has a program in place where if you take part in this program, you and your assigned soulmate get a nice apartment for cheap and additional government financial aid. it’s a scheme to get the soulmate system put in place worldwide but y’know! it works 

- ian is looking for love and mickey is looking for money + an escape from his family and obviously, they get paired together. suddenly they’re living together and ian wants his soulmate to meet his family and there’s the detail of ian and mickey knowing each other vaguely due to their families/childhood run-ins 

- it’s like ‘reluctant soulmates’ to ‘oh my god i’m actually in love’ 

- this is more background info than anything, but unlike other soulmate aus where the marks/words/strings/whatever have always existed and are just part of nature/how the world works, this system was discovered and invented in the last few decades so a lot of people think it’s absolute bullshit. this is the ballpark mickey’s in, while ian wants to be hopeful that the system is working in his favor 

- this would be a short multichaptered thing, showing their life over the course of a few months

2. bakers au - “there ain’t no need for recipes” 

- ian and mickey own a bakery on the west side, post-canon

- they are in love and married and they wear cute aprons and ian bakes cakes with strawberries in them and mickey uses chocolate in a lot of their recipes. 

- yeah that’s pretty much it. this would be a cute little oneshot, i think

3. podcaster!mickey x streamer/youtuber!ian - “listen up, I’ll fuck u-up”

- mickey has a podcast where he talks about internet trends, including popular games. he’s known for being very critical towards anything and everything, it’s his persona and people love him for it. not every episode includes a guest, but a lot of them include people relevant to the topic, and his whole bit involves bickering with them

- ian gallagher is relevant to the topic of the upcoming episode, a fictional first-person shooter type thing i’ll come up with later. ian’s online personality is very like chill and generally kind so when he agrees to guest star on the podcast, those personalities clash. so they both dial back a bit and give off a different vibe then they do in the rest of their content 

- so ppl want more of them together. 

- mickey agrees to play the game live with ian on twitch, and that does very well. then the vod is edited down for youtube. and that gets million of views 

- for the sake of mutual profit, they agree to keep doing stuff together and uh oh oh no they’re falling in love. this would could be a realllly long oneshot or a short multichaptered fic with lots of social media interludes (like fake tweets and such). 

- inspiration credit to Cooperative Gameplay for this idea obviously 

4. college kids!gallavich, annoyance to lovers au - “how to build a loving home”

- this one is actually kinda similar to the first one except they’re younger and the setting is a college campus 

- in an effort to teach young adults how to run a house and maybe convince them to go after the typical “american dream”, some colleges start requiring a home economics class for freshman. and at the end of that course, there’s a big project known as the “Domestic Experience Project”. 

- basically, two students are paired together to live in an apartment during the end of their freshman year. the project involves basically just trying to run a small-and-controlled ‘household’ without the help of any older adults. there’s assignments, too, that kinda force them to do household things together. so like, finances and cleaning and cooking all while still managing school 

- this whole thing is brand new to the college ian and mickey attends, so any non-freshman who didn’t have to take the class are offered cheaper room and board if they take the course anyways, which is how they end up in the class together

- they interact a few times over the course of the year but generally speaking, they kinda annoy each other 

- oh no oh fuck they’re paired together for the project. and now they’re living together. for two months. 

- don’t have any specifics on how their relationship would progress but by the end of the two months, they would be pretty much together so. definitely not slowburn hjjsiaksja. this would be another multichaptered fic, i think

there’s a couple more but I think that’s all I’ll share for now but yeah! ideas! if you like any of these concepts and wanna see them as fics, please reblog/reply/like this post so that I know. if you have any thoughts to share or questions to ask, feel free to share those, too! 

these are all just concepts without plans, so if will be a while before any of these become anything if they even do, but I thought I would share them in case anyone was interested! I think I’m most interested in seeing while idea people are most intrigued by. 

[postguiltypleasures]

My peak TV Journey: *Girls5Eva*

I am generally pretty strict with myself about trying to finish tv series  before starting new ones, but I made an exception for Girls5Eva. I had been meaning to try since it debuted. It was exactly as delightful as I hoped it would be. I immediately loved all four leads in the show. It is sort of n the trend of revisiting female celebrities treatment in the early 2000s. But the show’s story is also about now. It’s about the revisiting of the 2000s that we’re doing now, and it is also about how the streaming boom is one of many things that destroyed the mainstream as it existed then, creating new niches and making it harder to gain momentum. Given that, it is appropriate that it was created for Peacock, cancelled after two seasons, then renewed by Netflix before the strikes delayed it indefinitely. Will there be more? I have no idea, but, I’m glad that the two seasons of it do exist.

Watching this reigniting my enthusiasm for Sara Bareilles, which had waned after being disappointed by her 2013 album, The Blessed Unrest. (I have since re-listened, it’s too long but mostly fine. Also between that album and watching this show I saw her on Broadway as The Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods and she was great.) She’s hilarious here, as Dawn, the aspiring song writer who has been doing odd jobs in family businesses since the group’s original end. The groups aspiring song writer, some of he best moments come with singing songs that will never work. Dawn is also the only happily married member of the group and the relationship with her husband and son is delightful. Her husband, Scott, played by Daniel Breaker, is a middle school guidance counsellor. Far out enough from show business to be grounding, but also crazy in his own way. The second season ends with Dawn realizing that she’s pregnant with her second child and trying to figure out how to balance that and her firstborn with the band’s attempt at touring. There are jokes about her being a female Ted Lasso, leaving her child at home while she’s away for her career. (The final season of Ted Lasso proved to be very conscious of this aspect of the set up.) The end with an attempt at a mini tour was a good way next steps for her. 

Busy Phillips played Summer, the member of the band who was also a member of Christian purity cult who starts the series with a learned passivity, and a lot of enthusiasm. This feels like semi-subverting her character type in other shows from Freaks and Geeks to Cougar Town where she is the more sexually experienced than significant characters she’s paired up with and generally pretty aggressive, where she's the opposite here. But these type’s have to exist together. The types also are bonded through loud taste in fashion and very limited experience, making them ignorant of a lot of common knowledge, but experts on some esoterica. At the start of the series she is unhappily married to Kev, who is the same cult and as she, and is a deeply closeted homosexual. He’s played by Andrew Rannells in a way that you can understand why their marriage only worked as long as it did because they lived apart most of the time. It’s sad and funny. Summer does get to grow. Her excitement about learning how to make a salad was adorable. Her pain on realizing that her parents didn’t live up to the celibacy standards they had for her was poignant and funny. I still smile thinking of the time she explains that since separating from Kev she’s joined “Christian Kringle” a dating app for Christians who love Santa. 

I feel new to Paula Pell as a performer. Looking at her IMDB page I can see that she has had small roles in things I have seen, but I don’t really remember her. She plays Gloria, the only member of the group who has successfully pursued an alternate career since the band’s end. There are some good jokes about her continuing to work as a dentist while the group tries the relaunch.  Pell is the oldest of the actors and in the flashbacks and archive footage her character is played by Erika Henningsen. Henningsen’s role is mostly to show how repressed Gloria was then, as an in the closet lesbian.  She doesn’t really stand on her own, which does work towards Gloria’s present day neurosis. In the time between Girls5Eva’s first go round and the present Gloria’s been married and divorced to a woman named Caroline. Caroline is both the only woman she has been with and not good for her. (She’s also played by Paula Pell’s real life wife Janine Brito.) This puts Gloria in more or less the same boat as Summer and they have a great rapport. I also want to say that at the beginning of the second season Gloria has a fantasy musical number about being on Percocet while delaying knee surgery.  It was hilarious and I can’t find it online.

The supposed break-out star from the band Girls5Eva is Wickie, played by Renée Elise Goldsberry. Between the original run and the relaunch she creates the impression that she has an international star powered brand business. She doesn’t. But the show makes clear she’s the one who’s been pursuing a career in music the longest, including a stint on Star Search, and is the most enthusiastic about fame. She left the band first to pursue attempt at a solo career, which is best dramatized by a scene from an episode of Cribs. Despite not being in any high profile projects for decades, she in intensely aware of the possibility of fan interest, including with foot fetishists. Early on she moves in with Dawn and her family. She brings with her a see through piano, the last remaining thing from her failed shot at the A-List. She is a wonderfully awful houseguest, barely learning Dawn’s husband and son’s names. But she’s hilarious in her oblivious behavior and her passion for fame and music has an interesting frisson that is great for comedy. The diva faking it after her failed career wouldn’t be funny without these qualities. 

The fifth member of Girls5Eva is Ashley played by Ashley Park. At one point Wiki says Ashley was the only other member of the band she respected as a singer. Between iterations of the band she mysteriously died while taking part in a magic act involving an infinity pool. Or did she? At the end of the first season Gloria announces that she thinks Ashley faked her death. This leads her to suspecting a mysterious singer who always wears a bee keeping mask might be Ashley. While that turned out to be wrong, I hope it turns out Ashley’s not dead. 

The first season included some songs Girls5eva and their fictional contemporaries. They are wonderfully awful. Filled with poorly aged reference and regrettable world philosophies. The fact that we only hear a couple of bars from them is even funnier. But as Dawn and her bandmates take over the song writing, the songs get better. They still include some really goofy lyrics, but they work. It makes sense that they find an audience amongst their contemporaries.

[blogparanormalexpresso2stuff]

THEY STALK US FROM THE DARKNESS - Ghosts, Bigfoot, Creatures, UFOs and MORE!

Tonight, on the #Paranormal Portal, we are heading into a Shocking Saturday! And, on this show, we'll get 2 cohosts for the price of 1 as we welcome special guest cohost, Nese from The Kev Baker Show and Freaky Fridays! From #ghost encounters to #ufo encounters to creatures and other strangeness, it's all on board for tonight's show! We'll head into the News, The Discord Question of the Week and head it all out with the Cryptid Corner! Join us and we'll take you on a safari of the mind into the depths of the Paranormal Portal. Enter the Paranormal Portal...if you dare!

To join the Paranormal Portal Discord Server, go to: https://discord.gg/paranormalportal

Visit our Homepage: https://paranormalportal.net

[beforeorion]

More on Bernie Taylor’s work can be found on his web page www.beforeorion.com and in his book Before Orion: Finding the Face of the Hero.

[princemick-archive]

this is kind of random but i'm dyslexic and i saw your url and thought it said "haas oven" and i got so excited like. omg!!! what are they baking!!!! in the haas oven!!!

haas bakery/coffe shop au where gunther is the weird boss who like never shows up unless he wants to citize his workers but still calls it a 'family bakery', kev the general manager that has really been there to long and mick the talented young baker who just joined them with the dramatic past.

someone write it.

[junglxqueen]

Just Friends

Word count: 1516 Chapter 1 ¨Ugh.¨ I complain as I flop onto the couch and cover my eyes with my arm. I am dead tired, fed up with life, and with a terrible headache. We just got back from a magazine interview and I swear, the girl asking the questions was irreverent. Apart from the fact that she kept asking about our personal lives, she made a lot of out-of-place insinuations that made me want to break her operated nose with a punch (I clarify that I wasn´t going to do it, just wanted to.) Isn´t our work interesting enough? Ashton enters the room banging on the door frame, and then absolutely everything he sees, playing drums. For some reason unknown to me, he is bursting with energy. Calum follows, relaxed and with a bottle of water in hand. ¨Ash .. please be quiet.¨ My words have no effect on him, so he proceeds to drum my forehead, to which I respond with a groan and try to hit his hands. ¨Ashton stop, she's about to bite you. Besides, Luke is coming.¨ As if he was called, Luke and Michael appear at the door. ¨Don't do what because I am coming?¨ He asks as he walks up to me and leans down slightly to put a kiss on my forehead, to which I smile slightly and remove my arm from my eyes to see him. "Paugh," Calum says jokingly, pretending to be disgusted. ¨I told Ashton not to bother your girlfriend because you come and beat him up.¨ Luke raises an eyebrow at Ashton but he quickly raises his hand as if saying ¨I didn´t do anything¨ and sits on the sofa in front of me. ¨We are not in a relationship.¨ We say at the same. Since I've been in the band (which was practically two or three months after it was created) they don't stop annoying us with it, in fact, I think it's their only source of fun. Calum raises his eyebrows, looking at us and making a "yes, sure" gesture. ¨What's wrong with you anyways?¨ Michael asks, lifting my legs to sit on the seat I lie on. Everyone´s eyes land on me. ¨I have a headache, I want to sleep, I'm hungry and I want to punch that journalist.¨ I grumble under my breath and Ashton snorts. ¨She was so annoying, don't even remind me.¨ Says him. I see Luke walking to his backpack and looking for something in it. ¨Right?!¨ I exclaim. Bad idea, I feel a stitch in my head, so I groan again and cover my eyes. ¨And every single thing she implied, I think she even gave Luke her number.¨ When I hear that, I can´t avoid to raise my arm curious, Calum sees the gesture and laughs. ¨Don't worry.¨ He shows me a folded piece of paper from his pocket. ¨I have it, he gave it to me as soon as we got out of the place.¨ I smile at him in appreciation for the information and Luke comes back with a pill in hand. ¨Here, for the head.¨ He looks at Calum and gestures to his water, to which he nods and hands it to him. Luke passes it to me. ¨Thanks.¨ I smile at him as I sit up, grabbing what he gave me, I swallow the pill with some water and I give it back to Calum, murmuring a thank you and lying on the sofa again. ¨There was a point where I wanted to stand up and leave.¨ Mike says to which Ashton seconded. ¨Why did not you do it? I swear to you, I would´ve got up and left with you.¨ Luke answers, sitting on the armrest of the sofa and gently stroking my hair. ¨Because it was going to look bad, apart from the fact that we were live and I didn't even want to hear Kevin's complaints later.¨ Kevin, our Manager. I nod remembering it, I swear they are infinite, and I would of know. I think I'm the one that he yells at the most. And speaking of the King of Rome, Kevin Baker himself enters the door, speaking on the phone. Seeing us all there, he frowns and tells the person he's talking to, to wait a second. ¨People, it's 4:40 p.m., may I know what you're still doing here? At 6:00 we have to be at the stadium, and the stadium is about an hour and a half from here. I thought you guys left a long time ago.¨ I decide to get out of this and stay quiet, my head still hurts as if it is being hammered, although Luke's caresses help a little, they are not enough, and I think the pill didn´t kick in yet. ¨Sorry Kev, we

finished the interview a little later than planned and Ann's head bursts, so we thought it was okay to rest for a second. '' Kevin looks down from Luke to me, worried. ¨Does it hurt a lot?¨ I make a gesture with my head ¨more or less¨ ¨And have you already had something?¨ I nod. ¨Great, then you'll be good as new in thirty minutes. Let me know if you don't, we'll see what to do next. Meanwhile, you two.¨ He turns to Michael and Ashton. ¨Your car is leaving at any second now, I want you both inside.¨ They nod and Michael lifts my legs so he can stand up and carefully puts them back in place. ¨See you.¨ Ashton says, patting Luke on the shoulder as he walks past, and Michael pats me on the leg and gives me a "Good luck" before leaving the room. ¨Great, now Calum, can you take these boxes to his car?¨ He points at some boxes behind him that we used for the photo session before the interview. Cal nods, puts his bottle aside and takes the boxes carefully, exits without another word. ¨Great, now, Luke the bags ...¨ ¨Yes, in a few minutes we will go and I´ll take the bags.¨ Luke cuts him off, earning a frustrated look from Kevin. ¨Luke, we're late, I need you to take those bags to the car, so we can leave now.¨ To which he simply nods and repeats that we would be there in a few minutes. Kevin stares between the two of us and lets out a resigned sigh. If he has learned anything in all these years, it's that when it comes to me, it's impossible to reason with Luke (or vice versa). ¨Okay, but hurry up.. no more than five minutes.¨ He says with a warning look, to which Luke smirks and nods. Kevin just shakes his head and taking one of the bags, leaves the room, back on the call. ¨You heard it little one.¨ He murmurs, lifting my head to sit there and place it on his lap, he leaves caresses in my hair again. ¨A few more minutes, I just want peace, before all the screaming and the rush to get ready.¨I murmur with the same tone of voice, looking into his eyes. He nods, agreeing with me. ¨Okay, a few more minutes.¨ He remains silent, leaning his head against the back of the sofa and releasing a sigh. He was tired too. I understand, so I take the hand resting on my stomach and I start to play with his fingers. After a minute of silence, I can't help the question that escapes my lips. ¨So she gave you her number, huh?¨ He automatically lowers his head and looks at me amused. ¨Jealous?¨ He asks raising his eyebrow, to which I immediately shake my head. ¨Never, I just wanted to know. Why did you give Calum the number? She looked pretty." Sure, pretty, even though she was a tremendous pain in the butt. He smiles and shakes his head. ¨Nah, I wasn't interested, her attitude left a lot to be desired. Besides, having such a pretty person next to me, how can I look at someone else¨ ¨Who? Mike? Look at you, I didn't know about those interests.¨ I joke as he rolls his eyes and playfully tugs on my hair. ¨You know who I mean, silly. The only pretty girl there was you.¨ I just laugh and roll my eyes, a little flushed. ¨Shut up, or I´ll believe it.¨I murmur and hear a voice from outside that yells "GUYS! IT´S TIME!¨ I let out a sigh and sit up. ¨There goes our peace.¨Luke murmurs, getting up too and holding out his hand. "Let´s go?" ¨Let´s Go.¨ I answer, taking his hand and going out. Sometimes it is nice to have these moments of tranquility between the tours´ madness and hustle and bustle. They are really small, but I enjoy them so much that I treasure them in my heart. By the way, Luke forgot about the bags, after twenty minutes on the road we remembered and had to come back for them again, listening to Kevin's scolding. We were late, and we almost drove the stylists crazy, but we made it and that's what matters.

[welcometonvheadcanons]

Hello, lovely followers!

It has been a while since I posted any original content, let alone art, and a little birdie told me some people had been interested in knowing more about Ellie, so I decided to also include some fun facts about her!

Some of you may already be familiar with Ellie as she appears in several posts from my dear friend Parker’s blog (@video-killed-the-radio-host)

Eleanor “Ellie” Harris is the Desert Bluffs counterpart of Earl Harlan (he doesn’t have a canonical one so we can imagine them however we like! Isn’t that wonderful?). Ellie serves as volunteer Den Mother of the Smiling Girl Scouts of Desert Bluffs and, depending on the verse, she is also either a baker or an elementary school teacher.

Ellie features in the following fanfics:

From Venezuela, with Love (my high school au)

Say it again (an old fic of mine set in the Canon!verse, only avaliable on FFnet)

Ellie also features in several tik-toks made by Parker under the name: @Earlofdesertbluffs

Now let’s go to the fun facts!

1. Ellie is the only one allowed to call Kevin by the nickname of “Kev”.

2. Eleanor and Kevin are childhood best friends and Kevin (who I personally headcanon as bi) had a crush on her when they were teens.

3. Ellie is either a bisexual woman or a lesbian, depending on the verse.

4. Ellie has two dads named Armand and Jethro that run a bakery in Desert Bluffs.

5. In the high school au, Ellie has a boyfriend named David who she loves very much and an ex-girlfriend name Melanie.

6. Ellie’s favorite animals are lions.

7. Ellie has heart-shaped pupils (and Earl has snake-like pupils).

8. Ellie loves antagonizing Earl whenever they meet, but is all in good fun and they actually get along pretty well.

9. In the Canon!verse, Ellie has a daughter named Regina (Roger’s DB counterpart).

10. Eleanor was part of The Resistance against Strex when they first showed up (for more information about this, see Parker’s Strex!Ellie tag).

11. The two things Ellie loves the most besides scouting is make-up and sports.

12. Ellie likes Charles and considers him a perfect match for Kevin.

13. Eleanor enjoys baking sweets, especially if she gets to gift them to friends and family.

14. Ellie knows American Sign Language.

15. In the high school au, Ellie enjoys dressing in Goth clothes when not in scouting uniform.

16. Ellie owned a motorcycle when she was younger.

17. Ellie listens to Girl In Red.

18. Eleanor and Charles love arranging play-dates between Regina and Donovan.

19. She often volunteers at Kevin’s church.

20. Ellie loves telling Lauren to ‘Get Fucked :)’

[mccnxhild]

“ i would follow you to the ends of the earth with only mild complaining. ” kev and dev

dev felt very much like her and kevin hadn’t been having proper time together since he head gone back to work. he was working longer and more shifts and she missed him greatly. she wanted to do something nice for him but also something that would give them a chance of spending some quality time together. wanting to make tonight when he gof off work special she called in some recruitment.  she asked lux and hoon to come over for a few hours to help her prepare his favorite meal and desert.

devyn was of course no chef of baker, but she really didn’t want either of the two to do all the work. so she made sure she was actively involved in the meal and desert making. it wasn’t so bad and everything looked amazing thanks to the help of the other two whom she promised to treat soon but of course sent them both home with whatever she could force on them as a thank you. 

kevin surely would be surprised and love this, even more if they ate on the couch with sometime stupid on tv. and she did just that. had everything in the living room set up with candle light and she was in comfy pajamas. 

she was quick to greet him jumping into his arms smothering with kisses and giggles reminding him how much she missed him. after letting him change and get comfy as well she took his hand to show him what she had been up to with a grin. she smiled seeing how pleased he seemed about her little surprise.

hearing his words she laughs and hits his arm smiling be. “mild complaining my ass, i made all of his for you and you still wanna complain!” she teases him and wraps herself around him for a moment before they sit down. “i guess that is fair though, because i think i’d have to have some mild complaining myself..”

[aethucyn]

All the Comics 2019

Series I read as they came out:

Archie Assassin Nation Batman Universe Black Panther By Night Catwoman Die Exorsisters Ghosted in L.A. Ghostspider Giant Days Gwenpool Strikes Back Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy Invisible Kingdom Laguardia Last Stop on the Red Line Lazarus: Risen Lois Lane The Magnificent Ms. Marvel Man-Eaters Monstress Ms. Marvel Once & Future King Paper Girls Pretty Deadly: The Rat Redlands Sabrina the Teenage Witch Sleepless Spider-Gwen: Ghost Spider Spider-man and Venom: Double Trouble Steeple Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl The Unstoppable Wasp West Coast Avengers The White Trees The Wicked + the Divine

Graphic Novels & Trade Paperbacks

The Life of Captain Marvel Margaret Stohl Carlos Pacheco Batgirl Vol. 4: Strange Loop Hope Larson Sami Basri Jessica Jones: Blind Spot Kelly Thompson Mattia De Iulis Doom Patrol Vol 2: Nada Gerard Way Nick Derington Kim Reaper: Grim Beginnings Sarah Graley Batman Vol. 8: Cold Days Tom King Lee Weeks Hilda and the Troll Luke Pearson Batwoman Vol. 3: Fall of the House of Kane Marguerite Bennett Fernando Blanco X-23: Family Album Mariko Tamaki Juann Cabal Andre the Giant: Life and Legend Box Brown How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less Sarah Glidden Get Your War On David Rees March Book One John Lewis & Andrew Aydin Nate Powell Barbarous Vol 1 Ananth Hirsh Yuko Ota Barbarous Vol 2 Ananth Hirsh Yuko Ota March Book Two John Lewis & Andrew Aydin Nate Powell March Book Three John Lewis & Andrew Aydin Nate Powell The Real Folk Blues: A Cowboy Bebop Fanbook Anthology ed. Zainab Akhtar Batman Detective Comics Vol 2 The Victim Syndicate James Tynion IV Alvaro Martinez Off Season James Sturm Kiss Number 8 Colleen AF Venable Ellen T. Crenshaw Cleopatra in Space: Fallen Empires Mike Maihack Batman Detective Comics Vol 3: League of Shadows James Tynion IV Marcio Takara The Hero Business Season Two Bill Walko When I Arrived at the Castle Emily Carroll The Weather Man Jody LeHeup Nathan Fox The Girl Who Married a Skull & Other African Stories ed. C. Spike Trotman ed. Kate Ashwin ed. Kel McDonald ed. Taneka Stotts F*ck Off Squad Nicole Goux Dave Baker The Breakaways Cathy G. Johnson Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me Mariko Tamaki Rosemary Valero-O'Connell Batman Vol. 9 The Tyrant Wing Tom King Tom Taylor Mech Cadet Yu Volume Two Grek Pak Takeshi Miyazawa Sincerely, Harriet Sarah W. Searle The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire Part One Michael Dante DiMartino Michelle Wong Avatar The Last Airbender: Imbalance Book Two Faith Erin Hicks Peter Wartman Snotgirl: vol 2: California Screaming Bryan Lee O'Malley Leslie Hung Skyward: Vol 1 Joe Henderson Lee Garbett Shuri: Vol 1: The Search for Black Panther Nnedi Okorafor Leonardo Romero Crowded: Vol 1: Soft Apocalypse Chrisopher Sebela Ro Stein Ted Brandt I Hate Fairyland: Vol 1: Madly Ever After Skottie Young I Hate Fairyland: Vol 2: Fluff My Life Skottie Young I Hate Fairyland: Vol 3: Good Girl Skottie Young I Hate Fairyland: Vol 4:  Sadly Never After Skottie Young California Dreamin' Penelope Bagieu Runaways: Best Friends Forever Rainbow Rowell Kris Anka Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles Mark Russell Mike Feehan My Brother's Husband Gengorah Tagame Rice Boy Evan Dahm FTL Y'all ed. C. Spike Trotman ed. Amanda Lafrenais Gothic Tales of Haunted Love ed. Hope Nicholson ed. S.M.Beiko The Immortal Hulk: Or is he both? Al Ewing Joe Bennett X-23: X-Assassin Mariko Tamaki Diego Olortegui Ant-Man and the Wasp: Lost and Found Mark Waid Javier Garron Power Man and Iron Fist: The Boys Are Back in Town David Walker Sanford Greene Iceman: Thawing Out Sina Grace Alessandro Vitti Iceman: Absolute Zero Sina Grace Robert Gill Song of Aglaia Anne Simon Batman Detective Comics: Vol 4 Deus Ex Machina James Tynion IV Alvaro Martinez Harley Quinn: Broken Glass Mariko Tamaki Steve Pugh The Immortal Hulk: The Green Door Al Ewing Joe Bennett Power Man and Iron Fist: Civil War David F. Walker Flaviano Cosplayers Dash Shaw Bad Machinery: The Case of the Modern Men John Allison Is This How You See Me? Jaime Hernandez a city inside Tillie Walden The Immotal Hulk: Hulk in Hell Al Ewing Joe Bennett Slowly but Shirley Catalina Rufin Stage Dreams Melanie Gillman Homunculus Joe Sparrow Verse Book One Sam Beck Laid Waste Julia Gfrorer Gorgeous Cathy G. Johnson Cosmoknights Hannah Templer The Hard Tomorrow Eleanor Davis Pumpkin Heads Rainbow Rowell Faith Erin Hicks Funky Town Mathilde Van Gheluwe Pleading with Stars Kurt Ankeny Avatar The Last Airbender: Imbalance Book Three Faith Erin Hicks Peter Wartman The Love Bunglers Jaime Hernandez Spider-man Life Story Chip Zdarsky Mark Bagley Are You Listening? Tillie Walden November Matt Fraction Elsa Charretier Rusty Brown Chris Ware Dangerously Chloe Volume 3 David Lumsdon Jason Waltrip The Astonishing Ant-Man: Small-Time Criminal Nick Spencer Ramon Rosanas Doctor Aphra: Aphra Kieron Gillen Kev Walker Moonstruck Grace Ellis Shae Beagle

Minis

Maids no. 1 Katie Skelly Frontier #18 Tiffany Ford Two of Us Jessi Zabarsky Visiting Alivia Horsley Sobek James Stokoe Resort on Caelum Wren McDonald Boogsy Michelle Kwan Frontier #19 Hannah Waldron Maids no. 2 Katie Skelly Frontier #20 Anatola Howard Minotaar Lissa Treiman Pass the Baton Hana Chatani Cry Wolf Girl Ariel Ries At the Edge of the Stream at Dusk Jen Lee Cavity Michelle Theodore Hsthete Melanie Gillman David, I Love You Eileen Marie The Cutest Curse Laura Terry Churn Amelia Onorato An Eye for an Eye Kimberly Wang Women on Paper: 3 Stories Anna Christine Liminal State Maria Photinakis Melusine, The Collector and the Gift of the Pearls Edie Voges Infinite Wheat Paste Issue 3 Pidge Anew Dillon Gilbertson Anastasia Longoria Big Wally James McGarry Sam Bennett Frontier #21 Derek Yu Frontier #22 Tunde Adebimpe

Graphic novel is a stupid term that often encompasses things that are not novels, but I used it as a blanket term for anything comics I read that were bound rather than stapled. Minis are shorter works, stapled, and generally self-published by the artist, or done by a small press like Shortbox or Youth in Decline. I was totally lazy about crediting creators on series because my actual list for that is a grid, keeping track of each issue. Similarly, when listing creators on trades, I tended to only list writer and artist which is enough for some books, but sometimes there are many more, inkers, and colorists and letterers, and maybe I’ll do better next year.

Support your local library, your local comic shop (especially Hub Comics if you’re in the Boston area), and indie comic shows like MICE. 

[popculturebuffet]

Gay as a Fox Finale: The Great North: Pride and Preju-Dance Adventure, As Goldie as It Gets Adventure and Say It Again, Ham Adventure: Love and Acceptance (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people! It’s the final day of pride which means i’ts the final pride month review for yours truly and the conclusion of Queer as A Fox, my monthlong look at Animation Domination’s handling of queer characters and subjects. And i’ts been a roller coaster: We’ve had highs from the simpsons with classics like the simpsons meeting John Waters and Patty coming out, all time lows for this blog with Family Guys sterotyping and open transphobia, and some middling middles with American Dad keeping the steroyping but at least er trying. All thanks to WeirdKev, my consumate buisness partner and friend. 

So for our last one we go out on a high with The Great North. It’s also the only show here i’ve covered before, and no doubt will again, having both made my best episodes of 2021 list and having reviewed the pilot as a patreon sign on reward. 

As a refresher for those not familiar with it the Great North is an incredibly recent addition to Animation Domination, coming for Bobs Burgers vetrans the Mollenux Sisters that debuted in 2020. It’s in my humble opinon the best show in the lineup right now, and one of the best family adult sitcoms running alongside Close Enough. So naturally it was my idea to cover it though Kev was fully on board. The Great North follows the close knit Tobins of Lone Moose alaska and the stuff that insues whne you live in a small isolated town. 

It’s also, unsuprisingly given it’s youth, the show with the best representation: For starters it’s the only one of the animation domination lineup to have a queer character in the main cast: Ham, who is easily one of my faviorites, a teen who often misses the point, is an expert baker, and in general seems off in his own world while still being deeply loving and empathetic. 

He’s also very gay, with his sexuality established in what’s easily the best gag of a fairly strong pilot, announcing during a fairly tense family moment he’s gay.. only for him to be reminded he’s come out a bunch of times and that as his dad puts it “We love you just the way you are dammit!”. But what’s notable about the joke.. is that it’s not on ham for being gay. It’s that due to his nature, he’s apparently FORGOTTEN he’s come out multiple times. The show bathes the jokes around Ham in his character, never making his sexuality the joke. Which should be obvious but given I had to watch 5 episodes of Seth Macfarline assuming all gay people were Jack McFarlane, it’s still fucking refreshing.  Decades later and not only does fox have a gay main character, as great north is very much an ensembl epiece but one whose just gay and while two of today’s eps have very important queer aseops, and one just a general one that happens to involve a gay teen and his boyfriend, they don’t feel as Very Special Episode as episodes like this once were. The Great North didn’t go out of it’s way to have these eps, they just naturally came from the characters involved and just happen to have good messages and while I grant the first two gay simpsons episodes slack for when they came out, it’s nice we’ve evovled to the point gay issues are tackled because the characters are who they are and not because they have to build it around the issue to even adress it. So join me one last time as we live and stay from longest night to longest day in the great north. 

                                      Pride and Preju-Dance Adventure

Look this one had my attention even before it came out. I love romance, and I love dance episodes, and it was clear from the descreption what this would be about and it didn’t disapoint. 

This one centers around the Lone Moose Equvilent of a “Girls Ask the Guys” dance... which itself feels very antiquated and it feels very much the point that it is, the Thomas Wintersbone Memorial Dance. Thomas was a popular loone mooser in the 1800s who wanted to marry his fiance but her father, feeling an intellectual school teacher wouldn’t be a good provider, challenged him to spend a week in the wilderness before the two could live in seperate cabins because their love couldn’t be contained by just one. He died.. almost immedietly and this dance was created in his honor with Girls asking guys in from the cold. The unteitonal imbalance for queer students is also addressed as Ham, while not bothered by it, admits he’ll be left in the cold even if he did have the date, but thankfully his cousin Rebecca coming up with her dad Brian. And I was just as delighted by that as I assumed it’d be some time before we saw Beef’s brother Brian, after he was brought up in the second episode, but nope Brian not only comes up just two episodes later but is the star of his own subplot. 

And we’ll go ahead and get said subplot out of the way. The Great North usually has an a and b plot, sometimes linked sometimes unrelated but usually intersecting at family dinner or what have you. I do appricate that kind of continuity and when you look closesly it’s clear where scenes take place in relation to each side of the plot, making the episodes feel that much more alive knowing where everyone is during it. As such Brian’s visit takes place alongside the lead up to the dance and the climax of said plot, the client meeting he’s here for , takes place the same night as the dance and it never feels contrived. 

Said subplot is also engaging. Ther’es a funny enough subplot about fiances, married at the end of the season , Wolf and Honeybee trying to pitch Brian their buisness ideas but the main heart is Beef himself, who expects to spend time fishing with his brother whose instead busy with emails and the actual meeting.  Beef is worried his brother has changed, now wearing what they all call wedding pants and working a white collar job selling hot tubs, though we do get a cute scene of Brian comparing emails to fishing and the brothers sending them together. Things get less cute when Beef crashes the meeting and muddles it, and the resulting heart to heart makes the subplot: Beef admits he was worried thigns had changed and Brian admits not only that’s true.. but he wasn’t fully HAPPY here. He loves his brother, the town and his family, but he’s far happier selling hot tubs and wearing wedding pants than he was fishing for a living and that dosen’t make him or beef any less brothers. It’s a touching moment and also nice considering i’m very diffrent from parts of my family and can understand that disconnect. 

The meat of the episode, isn’t beef but Ham.. and Judy, ham’s sister who decides to ask out her crush Crispin, failing a lot due to nervousness.. and again I can relate. Honestly I relate to judy a lot: being talkative, awkward, and very in her own head, while at the same time being expressive. As such she makes one final run at it with Ham with her.. and given what month this is and what you saw above, you can probably tell where this is going: Crispin is gay, and is immeditly taken by ham and vice versa. And the show makes it clear from moment one some part of Judy is aware of this.. but she’s supressing the hell out of it as admitting it means loosing her crush. And while I haven’t actively supressed the idea someone i’m crushing on is gay, I have fallen for people who aren’t into men or anyone and it’s not a great feeling, so I sympathize. 

That sais the episode , while feeling bad for Judy, also makes it clear that Crispin ISN’T leading her on: he never shows any romantic intrests, agrees to go assuming it’s as a group and a means to get him in from the cold, something Ham dosen’t pick up on right away, and it’s very clear like Ham and myself and even Judy, Crispin misses some social cues. So he’s clearly unaware Judy has feelings for him. But the show also dovetails from other shows by not having the humor being in her crushing on a gay man or her being “dumb” for being oblvious but just how obvious it is.. and once she finds out her pain is played very real, with her finding the two kissing.. whcih is the only part of this that feels a tad cliche.. but also feels necessary as let’s face it, she woudln’t of got it any other way. And ham respectfully backs off as not to hurt her, having likely also not realized Judy was into crispin. 

It takes a ghost/hallucination whatever of thomas for the obvious to hit Judy: Thomas Wintersbone..was gay and the attempted marriage was one of convience so two gay people could be with who they really wanted without supscion.  He died, and the dance was clearly made up to cover for it. It also features Leslie Jordan as thomas which is just awesome and his frustration with judy’s oblviousness is great “You would’ve gotten there eventually.. that’s not true I really had to walk you up to it” And thus is the aseop: i’ts okay to feel a bit hurt but you ultimately can’t force a romance, especailly with a queer person and i’ts not good to get in the way of someone elses romance just because you feel it shoudl’ve been yours. Judy accepts it, gives the two her blessing and tells the school the truth: that they should just dance with whomever.. or in the case of Judy’s friend and one of the shows best character Bethany, make snow demons in the parking lot instead. So Judy ends up dancing with her platonic friend adn worst character of the show gill... who we thankfully don’t have to see again. Horay! It’s a decent episode, not the shows best, again it feels mildly melodramtic, but on rewatch and after all those others it still has a good message and is a good time. 

This also features what might be the first kiss with a main character on fox and one of the first incredibly romantic and lingering kisses in Animation Domination history... which it probbaly is so good going to this ep. 

                                           As Goldie as It Gets Adventure

WE jump into mid-season 2, and this one is more casual like I said: Ham’s romance with Crispin is important but it could be with any sexuality.. and that’s wonderful. This time the two are very busy, Ham volunteering at the old folks home and Crispin with his promotion at Smoothie Boss, so the two are only commuincating through text though both are being mature about it. It’s a throughline through the episode as Ham’s new friend goldie worries about time getting away from them. 

And her reasons are valid as the episode centers around Goldie, one of ham’s retirees who is a delight, a fun old woman who used to hold freakouts (basically wild parties with disgusting 70′s style dishes), with her husband paul till he died and who cons ham into holding one at her old house.. which she sold but lies to him about still owning. But she still feels sympathetic, just wanting to honor her husband, and with ham rightfully calling her out for nearly getting him arrested. Plus her casual mentions of wanting to get some coke for the party (it falls through because her dealer is going to art school now and she’s proud of him) appeals directly to my love of cocaine themed humor, so it works. 

The two’s friendship is also just heartwarming, with Ham geninely wanting ot help her and sharin ga dance with his pal and goldie giving ham solid advice: to not let the moment pass just because he’s young: he seems to have time but time is gone before you know it and thus he and Crispin should enjoy it. The episode is about not letting moments pass you by as you never know when they’ll be gone and ends with the two teens having a sixteen candles style moment on the roof that’ sutterly adorable.. even if they end up throwing out the geletan they brought because it’s gross. It has liver or something there were a llot of hilaroiusly gross dishes and a whole MUSICAL number to them in this episode. 

The subplot really barely factors in, but is still highly entertaining as Judy gets into pottery, which leads to a great bit with her teacher gently telling people not to expect him to “ghost” them as he’s in a commited throuple with his patners wintergreen and mike, which likewise is some nice poly and gay rights. The shows queer rep as a whole is just nicely casual: ham and cripsins relationship just shows up a  lot and casually as hell with the two using pet names and being cute, Judy is HEAVILY implied to be bisexual starting with season 2 and gay characters just crop up. 

Judy turns out to be bad at pottery and her family, knowign she gets discouraged easy, let her run rampant with insane creations such as a plate that not only defies gravity but has several holes in it, a ceramnic shirt moon has to be cut out of and a fork that’s actually a candleholder. I didn’t think a show could get so many good jokes out of “character is bad at pottery” and was wrong. The family then tries to talk the guy into getting judy out of the class.. and all end pu singing instead because he’s that charming. Judy is absent because she’s helping ham with the party. All in all a solid, wholesome hilarious episode. 

                                                       Say It Again, Ham Adventure

And so we come to the penultimate episode of season 2 and the last one of this marathon, and one I was honestly going to cover anyway, but rolled into this with two more fitting episodes. 

This one uses Ham’s previously mentiond habit of having come out a bunch as a plot poitn and cleverly at that: Ham and Crispin watch the hilarious film within a film Danny Vroom: Gay in the Fastlane, which is over the top from Danny’s partner being named Buisnessman Greg, whose defintely not a cop, and feeling just as over the top as an actaul insprational story. 

Ham feels coming out in films is usually overdramatic, though Crispin himself admits his had some flair as while his parents were accepting they also set off fire works and burned down their mailbox and had to pay a fine. Ham honestly can’t remember WHICH coming out was the first.. and soon realizes with Crispin’s help it’s because his coming out LACKED drama. Everyone was just .. cool with it and casually accepted it.. which is what really happened to me. While it was at the end of a long night for other reasons, my mom and brother both acccepte dme easily, as while I feared they woudln’t my fears were unfounded and I deep down knew they were. Even with my dad who I expected to reject me.. it wasn’t. He was perfectly lovely about it.. if then talking about protection. As of this review i’m still a virgin and have come nowhere near sex so.. yeah. Kinda pointless and mildly offensive but still better than I expected. So while I didn’t feel the need for a big coming out, I do feel this is something a lot of queer people might run into: because of media, assuming a coming out has to be this big dramatic teary moment when sometimes it just.. happens. 

The family is supportive though in helping Ham find someone to dramatically come out to, as is Crispin, and Beef suggests his Cousin Danica who is HILAROIUSLY awful and a great one off character, being judgemental of everything to an extreme and not all exagerated by beef degree, to the point he cut off contact with her after her response to Moon’s birth announcement was “please make it stop”. His response to it is also graet “Ten years later and i’m still going.” Gratend Ham has to be TOLD this despite it being obvious sh’es who beef means, because i’ts ham, but still it’s great and she lives down to the descrption, telling moon to leave her rabbit collection alone , despite only having one “There’s only one lincoln memorial” “Not sure that’s how that works”, calling Judy a floozy which delights her in how offensive it is, for her leggins, and even can’t get the coming out thing righ tas before Ham can, it turns out she’s wanted by the police, two delightful sisters, one played by kat dennings who banter is a higlight of the episode and who are inept at their job, assumign they should keep their guns in the glove box. They do manage to disarm her at least

Wolf and Honeybee are busy in their own fun subplot doing a true crime podcast, getting hot dogs and finding out the crime was solved and they just didn’t finish the page. not much to comment on there, but i’m pleased to say all three subplots are great. 

And of course we get payoff as Ham apologizes for this (and to the shows credit Beef offered an out if it got too intense), and admits he was just told by the media and just wanted a big moment to be seen, but admits having a family who just acccepts him is better. Though he gets his cake and eats it too as his family stages a coming out for him that night and they all hug. IT’s a wonderful episode, going into the pressures to have a big coming out, which to be fair hollywood DOES overdramatize een when the parent fully accepts as while many coming outs can be dramatic or traumtizing, they all aren’t, and just being plain funny

So that does it for gay as a fox and I have tenative plans to return it again next year with more shows, some returns to one here.. and hopefullyt his show. we have a whole season to go so hopefullyt here willb e more. Till then, thanks for reading, happy pride, and thanks for all of you who read all of these. It’s nice to see fox has come this far and hopefully it’ll only sail further as we go. 

[sarahboseman]

THE FAMILY REUNION (PART 4)

CHADWICK BOSEMAN X READER

PART 1 - PART 2 - PART 3

After having decided to make this short story become a long fiction. Here is the Part n ^ 4.

WORD COUNT: 5907

WARNING: Mentions of sex, Explicit and adult content, Angst, Disappointment

TAGLIST:

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Hope you like it and enjoy the reading ❤ Reblog if you like it ❤ Pleaseeeee or drop a comment, I like reading them and interact with u 

"Are you really sure you want to go? Did you really think about it? Any rethinking?"

"Kevin, I think I've spent the last two weeks just thinking about that and thinking about the pros and cons to just find an excuse for not leaving" you answer your friend while you close the last box full of books.

"And you found all pros …” Myra says

"Not exactly ..." you answer by moving a lock of hair from your forehead, getting up from the floor.

All your four friends are standing in your semi-empty apartment now trying to metabolize that’s the last night you’re all together. You watch your friends with big tears in your eyes trying to find the right words to greet them once again, but you can’t do it without crying. For years they’ve been your family, your support, everything you had, in addition to your mother and your job, and now they’ll remain in New York, while tomorrow you’ll leave for a new work adventure. Los Angeles and one of the most prestigious dance schools wait for you.

When you received that phone call you thought it was a joke, Chloe answered your phone and you thought she was fucking you around when she reached you in the classroom:

“There’s a Meredith Baker, she says it's urgent"

You froze at that name you know very well, because during your adolescence you had auditions to study in her dance school, but you always had to give up because of the costs your mother couldn’t afford to face. It was too far from home and she would have to revolutionize her life and do different jobs to pay that school and courses, and the scholarships had already been assigned and, in any case, very difficult to conquer.

"I'll be in NY in a couple of days, can we meet for a coffee? I have a proposal to make you” the director of the Californian school has told you on the phone with kindness and care and you’ve accepted without even remembering what were your commitments for Wednesday afternoon. And whatever they were, you would have canceled them.

And when Mrs. Baker offered you a teaching position at her school in Los Angeles, you restrained yourself to yell in the middle of the coffe shop: ”YES! where do I have to sign?” opting then for a better: “I’m flattered by your job offer, I would need a few days to think about it and in that case to organize"

And she cordially answered you "of course, but I’d be very happy to have you in our teaching staff and also in our creative team. I sincerely hope you’ll accept and hope to receive your phone call as soon as possible" ...

"What time the truck tomorrow?" Alec asks, helping you stack the boxes near the front door

"At 7 in the morning, my plane leaves at 3.30 pm. instead. I’d have liked to have it left yesterday, but they had no availability”

"Have you packed everything you need?" Myra asks, wiping her tears with the back of her hand.

"Yes, if I forgot something you have the keys, I didn’t even have the time to see the girl who will rent my apartment, but you’ll think about it Kev, right?"

"Of course, no worries, here everything is under control" he also holds back his tears.

You nod looking around, taking a last look at your almost empty apartment and a piece of your life inside boxes, a sense of nostalgia already fills you, as well as the tears that moisten your eyes.

“It'll be fantastic and you’ll be great, you deserve it” Kevin tells hugging you tight, wishing you good luck once again.

You can’t help but burst into tears on his shoulder, while all the others join you for a group hug.

“Stop crying guys, let's enjoy the last night together, who orders pizza?"

JFK New York AIRPORT - DEPARTURES

"I'll miss you so so so so much baby" Chloe tells you, who along with Kevin, accompanied you you to the airport, Myra and Alec had rehearsals with the new choreographer, so they couldn’t escape. At the thought you won’t have to deal with that arrogant who will choreograph the new show, you're really happy to leave.

“I’ll miss you too guys, but we'll see you soon. As soon as I settle,  I’ll let you know and we organize a meeting” you say while your lower lip begins to tremble.

"Hey, stop crying, let’s think about the positive things" Kevin tells you pulling your hand luggage to accompany you to the board.

“Yes, let’s think positive. For example … Los Angeles is an amazing city” Chloe says

And in turn, the two friends begin to list words to describe Los Angeles as if they were playing a word association game.

"It's always really hot" Kevin continues

"Beautiful beaches" Chloe’s turn

“Sun”

"Sea"

"Hollywood"

"The other Boseman brother ..." Chloe concludes, chuckling and winking, while Kevin rolls his eyes.

You smile nervously at that last word association made by Chloe, thinking back to when he came in New York for his work commitments.

He called you, you answered without hesitation and you met up for a dinner in a nice Italian restaurant in the center of New York.

You wore a beautiful dress that enhanced your not very obvious curves, but just in the right places. You put some light make up on, chosen the right lingerie thinking even a possible after-dinner, but when he showed up with two other friends and a woman who didn’t stop being attached to him, all your fantasies were gone.

That evening, suddenly, it was like if you weren’t even there, you wondered about the motivation for your invitation. During dinner he sat opposite to you, and for a while, you noticed that he didn’t stop looking at you, he didn’t take his eyes off you despite his "friend" insistently demanded his attention, stretching out her hands and touching him to where the decency allowed it.

More than once Chadwick's gaze for you was so languid and penetrating that you felt butterflies in your stomach and a pleasant feeling of warmth coming straight between your legs. But then he ignored you for most of the evening, while instead, one of his male friends tried to get in touch, without reaching his goal ... of course ...

He was different from the Chadwick you met at his family reunion, unlike the Chadwick of the messages and different from the Chadwick of your erotic call. You thought that his behavior was the fault of your coldness, the abrupt way with which you closed the phone call saying: "I'm not asking you anything, I'll let you know if I'm free".

You were mortified by the tone you used, but you had written him the next day. After he didn’t answer you on the phone, twice, you apologized by writing a message: - I wanted to apologize for the way I answered you last night, I didn’t want to be rude, I was just very tired. I didn’t want to use that tone. If you come to New York, I’d be very happy to see you, really -

He had answered you a few hours later, telling you that you shouldn’t worry, that he was bad, but then he understood, and he would let you know, as soon as possible, when he was in New York.

And everything seemed to be ok, you were even convinced to let yourself go following your instinct, you wanted to finished what you started and embrace the feeling, you wanted to have him. In short, you were convinced, but then, what you found in front of you wasn’t exactly what you expected. The fact that he was very interested in his female company, bothered you a lot. Seeing Chadwick flirting with ... you don’t even remember her name ... it made you nervous, seeing from the corner of your eye his hand on her exposed thigh, while whispering something in her ear was the last straw.

"I'm sorry to leave you so soon, but tomorrow will be a very busy day and I'm exhausted" You apologized and, as you went to the cashier to pay at least your part of the dinner, Chadwick joined you to tell you that the bill had already been paid because you were his guest.

"I'll take you outside and I'll call you a taxi" he said to you, resting a hand on your back and you can remember perfectly the feeling of discomfort and disapproval that filled your body and sent you out of your mind.

“I'll call you a taxi” implied that he had no intention of spending the after-dinner with you and that he had other programs for the night. He didn’t even try to kiss you while you were alone out of the restaurant, he only asked you if you were sure you wanted to leave so soon, but his tone was quite detached, cold, you noticed that there was no insistence on wanting you to stay with him.

"Fuck you" you said softly as soon as your taxi left to take you home.....

"Mmmmm Chloe, I don’t think Chadwick and I will see each other very soon"

“You do well, he was a jerk" Chloe says, hugging you again and giving you the last goodbye.

"Call us as soon as you arrive home, please" the two friends almost say in chorus.

You nod and greet them once again by moving your hand and then heading for the boarding. 

A sudden feeling of terror fills you.

Now it's permanent, you're leaving.

**************************************************

"Good morning, Miss Y/L /N, nice to meet you" the owner of the house, Ethan, says shaking your hand and helping you to come out of the taxi taking your bags.

“Nice to meet you too Ethan"

"have a good trip?"

"Yes, it wasn’t bad, but the time zone is already killing me"

"I see. Come, I'll take you upstairs” 

You had to settle for the first thing you found and with the lowest price you could afford in Los Angeles, to be close to work too. But at that price, in New York, you could have afforded a small penthouse with a rooftop pool. The apartment is small, on the second floor of a small building, the neighborhood is nice and seems quiet.

“There's no air conditioning, I'm sorry, the plant broke down a few days ago and I still have to call the technician to make him come and repair"

You nod with a little discomfort ... what the fuck!!! It's so fucking hot and just standing in the middle of the living room, you're melting like an ice cream in the sun. Fuck. "Even the microwave is out of order, forgive me, I'll have a new one as soon as possible" Seriously???? SERIOUSLY??? You can’t live without microwave, it’s your salvation! Fuck, fucking fuck!!

“ok, no problem, I can deal with it …” you try to stay calm

After having you do a mini tour of the house, Ethan explains you the essential things about the functioning, and who to call in case you need something leaving you a couple of phone numbers. You've already noticed that this guy likes to talk a lot. Too much, but maybe you notice it just because you're really tired.

Before leaving you alone, the owner of the house will extend you the keys of the apartment and pick up the first month's rent by hand. When he finally leaves the apartment, everything falls into a disquieting silence.

"Well there is no air conditioning, the shower is tiny, no microwave, but at least there is a nice view” you admit opening the window overlooking the balcony, which in turn overlooks the beach and the ocean.

You sigh, while that familiar feeling of fear and anxiety come back to visit you, but you try to ignore them by writing to your mom and your friends.

-I’m safe, everything's fine. I’ve just arrived at home now, the apartment is not the best, but for the moment it's ok, I'll soon unpack and then rest a little bit- This is the message you send both to your mom and to the whatsapp group.

In less than a few minutes all the answers arrive and even your mother's phone call, which is as caring as ever, floods you with questions to make sure you have everything under control and that you’re comfortable and relaxed. You do your best to reassure her, but you’re not very good in acting and telling lies.

-I'm so proud of you, baby- It's the last thing she tells you before closing the conversation.

-We want pictures of the apartment! -How was your trip? -Did you find the house immediately? -How is the owner?

 Even your friends flood you with questions with messages that come one after another making your phone ringing insistently. You keep answering everyone, until Kevin writes you privately:

-I know you’re there alone and anxiety is troubling you, you don’t know anyone and got tears in your eyes, but remember that it’s not the first time you’ve started such an experience and you’re the bravest woman I know. So smile and you'll see that tomorrow, after you've been at work and you'll meet someone, you'll see everything from a different perspective. Love you like a sister-

Kev is wonderful, his sensitivity exceeds all limits. You really don’t know how you would do without him

-Thank you, I love you zillions, you know that?- -Me too. And ... just because I love you, I allowed myself to do something.. -What K? -I call you”

Your phone starts ringing

"Hello? Kev?" "Hello honey, here I am, everything’s all right?" "Yes, tell me, what did you do?" "Eeehhmmmm .... ok, let me tell you, I wrote to my brother to tell him you’re in LA. Don’t get angry, please. I did it just because you're there alone at the moment and I don’t want to think that if you need something you don’t know who to call or who to reach. I did it just for your own good"

His words come out like a river in flood, without pauses, without taking breath.

"Kev, come on!! You shouldn’t have written to anyone, I can handle it alone. Especially after the treatment I received from Chadwick "

"I know, I know ... but he was very kind, he said you can call him for anything you need and he would call you later to find out if it's all right. I didn’t have to threaten him, believe me, don’t think I forced him"

You roll your eyes, but avoid discussing with Kevin, his action was noble and thoughtful, he had no intention of putting you in trouble.

After that pseudo dinner, you didn’t look for Chadwick and he did the same. You did it not because you were angry or disappointed, but just because you were taken by a thousand thoughts for your new job proposal, you had so full of worries, of evaluations to do, that you have estranged from the whole world to think about what move to do. As for Chadwick, on the other hand, you don't know why he no longer wrote or looked for you, but honestly you didn’t think much of it. 

Perhaps because he was busy, perhaps because he was on vacation, perhaps because he didn’t care anymore and had some other new toy in his hands. You gave little importance. Also because there was no importance to give.  You’re not a couple, you are nothing.  The fact of almost slept together or looking at each other on the phone while you were enjoying yourself, doesn’t imply any kind of obligation ... 

but who the hell are you kidding??? You know you already have that man under your skin.

On time, every night, when you're in bed closing your eyes, you think back to that afternoon with him. More than once you tried insistently to remember the feeling of his skin against yours and the way he made you feel ... it was the most beautiful feeling, after the one of his lips on your breast, on your neck, on your lips while he kissed you. His tongue around you, his intoxicating scent under your nose, he smelled good, he smelled so fucking good.

How much you would have wanted hug him and sink your face on his neck inhaling his intoxicating essence that night in New York. Rubbing your lips on his neck to his earlobe and feel the slight pinching of his beard on your face. It was true, you had him under your skin and you’re still fighting against this obviousness.

Apart from the two big luggages you boarded and the hand one with the most essential things, all your stuff would have arrived in two days with the truck, because you opted for the longest but cheaper option. Embarking everything on the plane it would have cost you too much, so before you collapse on the bed and get some sleep, you want to unpack your bags ago least.

LATE THAT AFTERNOON

"You don’t have to do it Chadwick, really, I can deal with it alone. Kevin didn’t even have to write to you"

“Don’t be so cocky, damn, I’m not doing it because I've been forced, but because I want to do it. I’m pleased to"

A moment of silence passes through your conversation as you snort silently on the phone looking at the ceiling

“Ok, fine. But give me time to get ready, I’m a mess”

"Write me the address, I'm going to get you"

Just as Kevin had told you, Chadwick's phone call wasn’t long in coming. You were resting on your still unmade bed when your phone started ringing incessantly. You had every intention of ignoring all the phone calls to rest, but when you saw his name appearing on the screen of your phone, you didn’t hesitate to respond ... despite everything.

His voice was quiet, inviting, you could hear him smiling as he talked and asked what you were doing in Los Angeles, since Kevin had omitted the reason.

You didn’t give him too many details, but when he proposed to take you for a drive in the late afternoon and then take you to dinner, you tried to refuse, but he insisted a lot.

After all, maybe it’s a good thing ... at least for tonight you do something and distract yourself, seeing a known face can only make you good.

In the meantime you try getting ready at your best, choosing the less wrinkled dress from one of your bag, opting for a very casual short dress and flat jewel shoes. The top and the shorts are in one piece, the top of your mini dress is in white lace, while the shorts have a beautiful red floral pattern. You love it and thank god it was no wrinkled.

It's very hot outside, and this is another thing you'll have to face. The temperature in New York is very different and you already know that you'll have to set aside heavy sweaters, hats, scarves, heavy coats and maybe go shopping to change most of your wardrobe. 

You look around while you look yourself in the mirror and you wonder if it’s appropriate to completely unpack your bags and boxes that will have to come with all your stuff inside. You realize that the apartment is really disgusting, you have to clean it from top to bottom, but beyond that, the apartment is old, the furniture is old, the plants are old ... and you promise to yourself that, as soon as you settle with your salary and monthly pay, you'll look for something else.

While you’re lost in your thoughts about money, rent, apartment, job the bell suddenly rings and you start thinking about who it might be, only to remind you that you had written to Chadwick the floor and the number of the apartment. So it must be him.

After checking through the peephole, you open the door. He takes off his sunglasses to look at you better and you notice that his eyes light up, as well as his smile. His eyes fall on your body and then return to the same level as yours. The effect is welcome, on both sides.

But before greeting you, his gaze inevitably rests behind you.

"Damn ... if you had called me, I would have recommended you something better"

He tells you standing still in the doorway, looking at the apartment over your shoulders.

In the meantime, it’s your turn to take a look to Chadwick, who is simply dressed in a tight-fitting white t-shirt that highlights his perfect body, his breath-taking figure. His light gray leather jacket holding in one hand, while in the other he holds the car keys tight. Sunglasses are hung on the V-shaped collar, and further down you can see the shape of his sculpted chest and his defined six-pack. You remember perfectly when your hands have caressed his body, perhaps a little too hastily to enjoy all its form in every detail. But the first thing you really focus on are his shoulders and his arms ... to tell the truth these are the first things you always look at in men, but his broad shoulders and toned arms are on the verge of legal. His dark jeans wrap perfectly his long, toned legs and at his feet just simple white and blue tennis shoes. You’re staring and drooling a bit.

"Hi Chadwick"

"Hi darling, how you doing?"

“A little messed up, but I'm fine, come on, come in" you wave to him.

You move to let him in and you see his look again on you, then smiling smugly stroking his soft beard, and then look around a little confused.

“Well, at least there’s a beautiful view"

You burst out laughing, an almost nervous one 

"That's what I said after walking around"

"Damn ... if you want I'll give you a hand to look for something else, have you already signed the lease?" He asks you, frowning

"No ... but I’ve already paid the first month"

"Well, do not sign anything. Can I take a look?"

You nod, smile and sigh as he disappears into the kitchen and then into the bedroom.

"Ok, are you ready? A drive and a dinner? So you can tell me what you're doing here” he says smiling as he approaches you, slightly touching an arm and then gently tighten the grip, while he makes a sign with his head that it's time to go out.

You get your bag, your sunglasses, house keys and you follow him out where his beautiful car is parked, right outside the entrance and you stop to admire it just standing a few feet away. You like beautiful cars, a passion maybe inherited from your father, but you gaze it, because you recognize it’s the same car Chadwick drives in that Super Bowl Commercial that Kevin has shown you a thousand times. A light grey Lexus L500 F Sport, with red, leather interiors

"Beautiful uh? Limited edition ... get your fine ass in” he tells you waving his head

“well … Long live the King" you say to him sensually and winking, approaching the car and passing him who keeps the door open for you.

You feel his eyes overwhelmingly on you while he licks his lips the moment your face is a few inches from his, before you lower to get into the car for sitting in the passenger place. You smile to yourself noticing his expression, at least now you’re sure he’s not completely disinterested.

DINNER

"I was not an asshole"

"Chad ... yes, you were an asshole!"

"And why would I be an asshole? Tell me"

“Oh I have a loooong list”

“fine, enlighten me”

“First of all because you invited me to dinner and you came with a woman, then because you ignored me all the time, then again because you didn’t even kiss me out of the restaurant and finally because ... because your friend didn’t leave me alone!”

"Well, you were such a bitch on the phone, so we're even"

After telling him the reason for your sudden moving, inevitably during your dinner, the argument of your meeting in New York comes out, and you can’t fail to point out your disappointment and his not very elegant and nice behavior.

But you’re appalled and your expression is clearly read on your face, when for a moment you remain silent and your mouth falls open

"No, it doesn’t work that way! I apologized immediately afterwards, but you did it on purpose, it sounded like a revenge"

"Yes, it sounded like that and I did it on purpose"

"So you admit it? You fucking asshole” you look at him with your mouth still open and eyes wide, you're incredulous at what you’re hearing, especially because he had told you that everything was ok.

“Of course I admit it. I was so damn pissed off. You can’t answer me like that, after a video call where we … we” … He lowers his voice until only you can hear him "where ... we masturbate one in front of the other, and then you treat me like a shit saying to me - I’m not asking you anything, I'll let you know if I'm free- It doesn’t work this way, beautiful. I don't beg anyone”

You raise your eyebrows as you wrinkle your lips and then soften your expression, nodding with a grin on your face thinking back to that phone call … and thinking about Chadwick begging for you and for more is really inviting.

You brush your fingertip on the edge of your glass of wine, then tasting a sip before answering

"And why are you here with me now and you're not being an asshole?"

Now he’s the one drinking some of his wine staring at you from the edge of his glass, his expression is serious, almost sorry.

"Because I saw your expression when I sent you away by taxi, I realized I went too far and you didn’t deserve that shitty behavior from me and even that bad evening, I was so awful and I didn’t know how to fix it”

You don’t know what to say, your face becomes serious and what you can do is just swallow and place your glass on the table. You can feel his sincerity, his sorry, you could go on talking about it, being bitchy, making him feel even more guilty, taking advantage of the situation and his feelings, but you opt ​​for a smile and another sip of wine, but without saying anything.

You know you’ve to learn letting go your emotions in the right way, and being quiet doesn’t help to communicate. 

"I know you cried feeling uncomfortable because of me. I don’t like it when a woman cries because of me, whatever the reason …” he says, stretching towards you, trying to take your hand in his and then brush it weaving his fingers with yours. A purely harmless gesture, but very very sweet.

But your main attention is on the fact that he knew you were bad and you cried.

"Remind me to cut your brother's tongue and fingers the next time I see him, so he can’t talk to you or write about it” and Chadwick’s look tells you hit the point. 

You curse Kevin for talking to Chadwick about that night and how you felt and you don’t even want to know what they were talking about, so you don’t ask and don’t investigate. So you enjoy that unexpected caress and sweet gesture you didn’t receive from a man since long time, or better, you did’t allow anyone to do it since long time.

"Your dessert, ma’am" as soon as the waiter approaches your table carrying your last order, instinctively your hands loose, ending under the table, almost as if to hide.

“Let’s say that tonight you've made enough of it and then I forgive you Mr. Chadwick Boseman" you jokingly tell him, trying to soften the mood of the evening, stretching your spoon towards his mouth to make him taste the ice cream you chose as dessert. You love ice cream, any taste and in any season, even in winter.

You stay with your spoon in the air for a few seconds waiting for him to open his wonderful, plump, perfect lips and taste what you propose. You don’t deny you would like to be that spoon right now.

For a few seconds his eyes go from your eyes to the spoon, and from the spoon to your eyes, he smiles slightly before tasting the ice cream and then making a slight moan of approval, closing his eyes.

At that little moan the butterflies in your stomach start flying and your temperature rises, you feel your pelvic muscles contract involuntarily and inevitably your mind explodes with the memory of him above you rubbing his body against yours and moaning inside your ear.

"Fuck ..." the curse comes out without sound from your mouth and immediately you try to hide your clear expression and your mood.

“You good?" He questions you smiling with a grin, knowing exactly the effect he caused you, also because it’s the same effect you did to him all for all the evening, especially while you ate the rest of your ice cream and you kept sliding the spoon and your tongue around. He looked at you all the time without you noticing, so you were intent on enjoying your dessert.

Dipped in his thoughts and intent to look at you intensely touching his beard on the chin, he stared at your lips, hands, inside your neckline, imagining you both in his bed while he licked off the ice cream that accidentally he would have slipped on your body.

He would have looked at your crossed legs too, drunk by the complete and meticulous vision of your body, if only they weren’t well hidden under the table.

He felt his jeans becoming too tight between his legs, unable to contain his excitement to those very impure thoughts.

But he doesn’t dare to ask ... although, what he really wants to do right now, is taking you home and fucking you non-stop in his bed until tomorrow morning, then taking a shower with you and fuck you in the shower too, under the jet of water. He just want to make you scream his name like a chant, and he wants to chant your name too, into your ear, losing himself between your legs.

"Chadwick? Chad? Are you there?"

"Mm? Yes yes, I'm here, forgive me, I was lost ... in my thoughts "

"I saw, I hope not to disturb ..."

"No, it was nothing important ..."

Insisting, he offers the dinner and you both walk out of the restaurant for a few meters to head to the car. Like a few hours ago he keeps the door open waiting for you to sit inside and fasten your seat belt.

You watch him turn it on, set the radio and easily maneuver to get out of the parking lot, he's so sexy driving his car, and you're sure to be drooling looking at him. 

After a few meters done in complete silence, except for the music, the tension between you begins unexpectedly rising. You play with the flap of your dress, intertwining your fingers and biting your lip repeatedly in a sign of nervousness, he taps his fingers on the steering wheel and on the manual gearbox, but he’s the first to break the silence after clearing his throat.

“At least, did you like the dinner and restaurant?"

"Very much, the dinner was great and the place was exquisite, thank you Chad"

“you’re welcome, I'll take you home? Tired?"

You nod just because the tiredness is felt, the time zone also, and even a bit of excitement for tomorrow morning peeps between your feelings. He also nods, even if he would rather turn the car and head for his house that is not very far from your apartment, but he can see the tiredness in your eyes and again he doesn’t dare asking, so your conversation in the car touches various topics, but without entering the lustful. No smirk and no languid look.

Chad doesn’t even dare to take an approach as soon as he parks the car under, what you now call, your home.

“here we are"

“here we are…”

"Ready for the big day tomorrow?"

"Mmm I hope so ... but I don’t wanna think about it too much, otherwise I don't sleep”

“Need a ride?”

“no thanks, she’s gonna picks me up”

“ok…”

“ok…”

Tension is palpable between you both

“well … will you update me about your new job?”

You nod smiling to all his questions, then asking: “Is it a harmless way to tell me  -let’s keep in touch, I want to see you again?- or … I didn’t get anything?” 

You ask him shyly. Damn it, you know that you don’t want emotional involvement and don’t want to tie to any man. You’re fighting with your whole self to avoid any sweet and compromising emotion, but Chadwick seems to be able to throw down all the walls with a simple smile or look. You know you’re not yourself right now, shyness and nervousness sometimes implies involvement and you’ve promised to yourself you don’t want to feel love. Love hurts. Sexual involvement ok, but love … nope.

But you can’t deny that having him close to you makes you feel good, even if he was a big asshole with you. This man is flipping your world and all the securities you built around you.

He smiles nervously as he looks in front of him avoiding your gaze, brushing the skin of the steering wheel of his Lexus LS500 F Sport and the tapping it again with is long fingers.

"It was exactly what I meant instead ... adding also, let's meet soon"

"Ok ..." you nod, smiling sweetly

"Ok ... so, good night Y/N"

"Goodnight Chadwick"

But you stay still while sitting in the car, in silence

"Chadwick ... if I don’t unlock the door, I can’t get off"

"I don’t know if I want you to get off" he tells you in a whisper, his tone is deep and sensual.

You quiver in anticipation.

You look at him with soft eyes, he looks at you through his long eyelashes ... you look at his lips, he looks at your lips licking his ... he looks into your eyes staring, you look into his eyes and you still look at his lips while your faces approach dangerously, you can feel his breath almost inside your mouth and his nose touch yours, you both start to close your eyes and what the fuck! both jumped for the scare banging hard each other foreheads.

"HEY, HEY !!! Fuck, can you move you car man?? !! I have to go in!!”

“WHAT A FUCK! I move! Keep calm! JESUS!” Chadwick answers to the idiot who is honking repeatedly behind you

"Ok, it’s better I go, otherwise the neighbors get angry” you tell him by rubbing your forehead for the hit

"Ok, write to me when you're at home and ... please, don’t sign the lease”

“Goodnight Chad”

“Night beautiful”

TO BE CONTINUED ...

Hope you like it and enjoy the reading ❤ Reblog if you like it ❤ Pleaseeeee or drop a comment, I like reading them and interact with u

[astonishinglegends]

Ep 107: EVPs at the KPW

Cathi Webber, while conducting an "EVP" recording session at the Kent Stage on Saturday night, April 28, 2018 asks, "If Merle is present, Merle, did you like a Dark Roast on your coffee or did you like something a little lighter?”  Merle Mollenkopf, poet, long-time Kent Stage volunteer, Ghost Tour guide, and coffee aficionado, who passed away on February 27, 2013, responded, "Dark Roast." 

Location:

The Kent Stage in Kent, OH.  This historic theater, constructed in 1927, first presented "Talkies" or motion pictures that had the newly added feature of dialog & sound, as well as occasional vaudeville acts.  Today it hosts everything from musical acts to films and the Kent Paranormal Weekend, which features noted authors, researchers and presenters in the Paranormal field, and includes Ghost Walks and a Ghost Hunt because the theater is also notoriously haunted!

Background:

One of the highlights of our appearance at the Kent Paranormal Weekend was participating in our very first Ghost Hunt!  The event took place at the Kent Stage in Kent, Ohio which was first built in 1927 and since then has continued to host concerts, films, and various performances.  The theater is also host to a cast of characters who were once somehow connected to this historic theater and whose spirits remain there.  We explored the most haunted areas of the theater and tried our hand at documenting spirit activity, guided by experienced paranormal investigators Theresa Argie & Cathi Weber, known as The Haunted Housewives, Ray "Gooz" Goosby, Jeff and Susie from the North Canton Paranormal Detectives team, and theater owner Richelle Charlton. One of the techniques we tried is trying to capture an "EVP" or an instance of Electronic Voice Phenomenon, which some claim could be evidence of communication with the spirit world. Electronic Voice Phenomena are said to occur when a question is asked aloud in a haunted location, or even unprompted, and what sounds like a reply is heard in an audio recording.  This hunt captured something we're convinced, believe what you may, and that when you call out into the void, you might get an answer. 

Reference Links:

The Kent Stage in Kent, OH

Electronic Voice Phenomenon 

"We don't hear with our ears, we hear with our brain."

Theresa Argie & Cathi Weber, "The Haunted Housewives" 

Cathi Weber's website 

Cathi Weber's Willoughby Ghost Walk 

Ray "The Gooz" Goosby and Dark Alley Paranormal Investigations, Northeast Ohio Chapter

Jeff & Susie, founders of North Canton Paranormal Detectives 

Seth Breedlove and his Small Town Monsters documentary production company 

Greg Lawson, the Paranormal Detective 

Clinical Therapist and Parapsychologist Brandon Massullo and his hauntedtheories.com 

Colin Schneider, The Crypto Kid 

The Strange and Spooky World of James A. Willis 

"Scientific Evidence Of The Paranormal w/Todd Schelat & Jacqueline Davieau" on the Kev Baker Show

Nellie Kampmann, author, ghostologist, and reincarnation researcher

Follow paranormal investigator Adam Bonnett on Twitter

Roger and Jill Pingleton's Streamside Software featuring paranormal themed apps for mobile

Checkout:

Roger and Jill Pingleton, listeners and new friends we met at the KPW and Ghost Hunt, have created some fun & fascinating paranormal-themed apps for mobile devices at their company, Streamside Studios!  Titles include Spirit Story Box and Paranormal Elements for Ghost Hunting and games like Cthulhu vs. Your Mom Gold, Cthulhu Beat, and Cthulhu emoji stickers!  Check 'em out here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/developer/streamside-software-llc/id654856411

Related Books:

Suggested Listening:

Listen to Jim Harold's Live Show from the Kent Paranormal Weekend, Campfire #350, featuring spooky stories told by audience members, and a brief interview with our Paranormal Podfather, Jim!  Find it here: https://jimharold.com/campfire-live-kent-ohio-campfire-350/   While there, you can also listen to other episodes of his Campfire show in which you'll hear some of the scariest and most fascinating stories from real people, plus hundreds of interviews with all of the biggest names in the field of paranormal research on his Paranormal Podcast!  And if you're still looking for more, subscribe to Jim's Paranormal Plus Club for genre-specific shows, like True Crime, UFOs, the Afterlife, Conspiracies, Cryptids, Ancient Mysteries, and so much more!

You Can Help:

The Starkey Hearing Foundation has partnered with our podcast platform provider audioBoom to launch the LISTEN IN Campaign, and they need your help!  The Starkey Hearing Foundation is a Human Services organization that provides complimentary hearing aids and hearing­ related healthcare to the hearing impaired in poor communities in the U.S., Canada, and around the world.  Since 1984, they’ve been able to help over 1.1 million people in over 100 countries. The charity’s been rated 4 out of 4 stars by Charity Navigator, the highest score an organization can receive from the trusted Charity Evaluator.  Disabling hearing loss is a global problem with an estimated ­432 million adults and 34 million children­ experiencing this detriment to the quality of life, but the good news is that you can do something that will actually help!  To give the gift of hearing, donate to the LISTEN IN Campaign today and help the Starkey Hearing Foundation reach their $25,000 goal.  Click this link: ListenInCampaign.org for more information.  

SPECIAL OFFERS FROM OUR SPECIAL SPONSORS:

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 Blue Apron – Now through May 21, 2018, Blue Apron is teaming up with Airbnb to bring you the best home cooking from around the world!  During this time, Blue Apron’s menu will feature a recipe developed in collaboration with an “Airbnb Experiences” host who will share their favorite meals from their home country!  So check out this week's menu and get your first three meals FREE by going to BlueApron.com/astonishing! 

The Dark Myths Collective  

http://darkmyths.org/

CREDITS:

Episode 107: EVPs at the KPW.  Produced by Scott Philbrook & Forrest Burgess; Audio Editing by Sarah Vorhees Wendel; Ryan McCullough Sound Design; Research Assistance by Tess Pfeifle and the astonishing League of Astonishing Researchers, a.k.a. The Astonishing Research Corps, or "A.R.C." for short. Copyright 2018 Astonishing Legends Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

[benthejrporter]

Ben Emlyn-Jones on the Kev Baker Show 77

New HPANWO Voice article: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/12/ben-emlyn-jones-on-kev-baker-show-77.html 

[whatinthechurch]

Truth Seekers

As someone who considered myself to be seeking the ultimate truth, I had to realize, with much guidance and continual grace, that no matter how much we search through the mountain of information to gather “truth” and “real” facts, nothing compares to understanding the greatest gift of truth found in God’s word. 

If you are a follower of God and you think you are receiving the “truth” from your alternative “news” source and semi-popular You tube subscriptions, think again. Many of these so called “truthers” are double agents in disguise feeding individuals fruit from the one tree we were never meant to partake in.

I used to watch some of the following and realized there was so much mixture. Be aware! These things get in your eye and ear gates and you have to go through the process of healing. Gratefully, God is able and willing to help you be cleansed but consequences are real. Wrong information can cause wrong beliefs.

Here’s a list of ministries that I thought I was learning “truth” from, but later realized were introducing me to ideas and concepts that are not only “esoteric” and “hidden” in the wrong sense, but also introduce information that in no way shapes a person towards following in the path of truth or the narrow way. 

Zen Garcia & Sacred Word Publishing

Kev Baker Show 

I would avoid pretty much everyone on Truth Frequency Radio; something’s wrong with the frequency as truth can rarely be found and heard.

Enter the Starz w/Casey Brown or Enter the St4tz

These are some of the “truther” sources I unfortunately used to tune into. I would not bother listening to anyone affiliated with them either. They definitely all have “insights” but it’s not the kind of sight you need as a follower of God in the midst of dark world.