#i also miss being That Guy at the oscars party who could explain what sound mixing and sound editing were

[merakiaes]

All Forgiven - Oscar “Spooky” Diaz

Pairing: Oscar “Spooky” Diaz x reader, everyone else x reader (platonic)

Requested: By @neelehksttr 

Prompts: None. 

Warnings/notes: I barely even know what I’ve written or what the hell this is, it turned out so bad. I didn’t really find the inspiration for this one so it’s really crappy and dull, I’m sorry😭 This is mainly platonic so there’s not much Spooky x reader interaction in this but I promise you better fics are coming when I get my inspiration back. It’s not proofread so sorry in advance for any possible mistakes, Spanish translations at the end. 

Wordcount: 6168

Summary: You’re a good friend to the Core 4 and when they find out you’ve been seeing Oscar in secret, they’re not very happy. 

It was a Friday afternoon when you were sitting with the Core 4 and Jasmine in Ruby’s living room, your feet laid out over Jamal and Cesar’s laps where they were seated beside you in the couch and your hand absentmindedly pulling through Monse’s hair where she sat below you on the floor.

The weather outside was amazing, the temperature and humidity perfect and burning rays of sun beaming down over the block, just the way you liked it.

You would have much rather been outside working on your tan and breathing in the fresh air right now and yet, you were stuck inside, staring out the window longingly while Ruby and Jasmine forced you to partake in another one of their countless meetings.

“Hey, guys!” Came the voice of Ruby then, pulling you out of your daydreaming and back to reality just in time to see him snapping his fingers at you. 

Beside you, Jamal and Cesar also whipped their head around to look at their two glaring friends.

“How did none of you hear what we just said?” Ruby asked, holding his hand on his hips and leaning forward slightly; a stance that, with his height, looked absolutely hilarious.

Cesar gave Ruby and Jasmine a guilty smile. “I’ve been zoning out for the past hours and a half.” He confessed, and Jamal heaved a dramatic sigh beside him.

“I got distracted halfway through.” He held his phone up for all to see sheepishly.

All of them turned to look at you and Monse, and the younger girl beneath you just shrugged her shoulders, leaning her head back against the couch to give you better access to her hair. “I just made a conscious decision to ignore you.”

“Damn.” Jasmine’s face fell. “Why you always gotta be so cold, Monse?”

“Why you always gotta be so boring?” She asked back without missing a beat, and you lightly slapped the back of her head, giving her a pointed look when she glared up at you.

Jasmine brought a hand up to her chest. “Okay, ouch.” She said, offended, but still nodded her head in acceptance. “But I appreciate the feedback, even though it was completely uncalled for.”

Ruby turned to you. “(Y/N).” He called your name, causing your hand to still on top of Monse’s head and your eyes to flicker away from your nails to meet his. “Will you tell them to focus? This is serious business.”

You rolled your eyes, dropping your hand from in front of your face and resuming your patting on your best friend’s hair. “We’re planning a party, Ruben.” You pointed out. “Not world domination.”

His face pulled into one of genuine shock almost immediately. “The first party we’ll be hosting in all our high school years! It’s serious!” He exclaimed, fists balling at his sides and only causing him to look even cuter.

The sight brought a chuckle from your lips. “Jesus…” You shook your head, removing your hand from Monse’s hair much to her dismay, and beginning to stand up from your seat. “I’m gonna go pee.”

Ruby hurried forward to you when you stood up, stopping you with his hands. “But we have to keep planning!”

“I’ll be right back, just carry on without me.”

He sighed, bringing his hands up to his face, but still stepped aside to let you walk around the sofa and toward the bathroom. 

Behind you, you could hear him and Jasmine getting back to the party planning and you chuckled, feeling sorry for Cesar, Jamal and Monse who were forced to listen to it.

Once you got to the bathroom, you locked yourself in and let out a loud, relieved sigh when the sounds of the outside became muffled by the closed door and you were finally left in silence, alone.

They were all were good friends to you but you could admit that it got stressful to be around them at times. 

They never took the time to just… relax. They were always running around, seemingly doing everything they shouldn’t be doing, much to yours and Oscar’s dismay; although for very different reasons.

While you just didn’t want to see them get in trouble or even worse, get hurt, he was the one left behind to clean up the messes they always seemed to stir up around Freeridge and in turn, you were always the one forced to listen to him complain.

He never understood why you were friends with his brother and his friends, seeing as they were four years younger than you and you didn’t even go to school together, you having graduated together with Ruby’s older brother, Mario.

And at this point, you didn’t really know how you became apart of their group either. 

You just remembered being there for Monse when things got rough and with time, she started seeing you as the older sister slash motherly figure she never had, and you just became one of them.

Another sigh left your lips as you leaned on the sink and looked at your reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall above it, taking in the way your face was becoming slightly paler with how much time you’d spent inside the past few weeks.

One of your hands left the sink and moved down to your back pocket, searching for your phone, only to find it wasn’t there.

Your eyes closed in annoyance, knowing you were now forced to go back outside, but you didn’t waste any time, flushing the toilet so that it wouldn’t be as obvious that you had lied about your intentions just to get away, unlocked the door and went back outside.

You calmly walked through the hallway, taking in the family pictures on the walls, and only a second later, you were back in the living room,. 

However, your body automatically stopped in the doorway when coming face to face to everyone staring right at you, the house now completely silent. 

They were all sporting different expression, but most of them were in some way ones of anger or betrayal.

You had no idea what was going on, but when Monse held up your phone, you almost instantly understood, and she confirmed your suspicions a second later.  

“Do you want to tell me why Spooky’s calling you? And why he’s put into your contacts as ‘mi amor’?”

Your eyes widened, flickering between them as you walked into the room, rushing over to Monse to snatch your phone back. “I can explain.”

“Can’t wait to hear this one.” She chuckled dryly.

You looked at her sadly. “Oscar and I-“

“Oscar?” She interrupted. “First name basis, huh?”

“Will you let me talk?” You glared pointedly at her, shoving your phone back into the pocket of your jeans.

In response, she held her arm out as a ‘go ahead’ before stubbornly crossing her arms over her chest, her hip popping out to further show how angry she was.

“Oscar and I…” You tried again, looking at them guiltily. “We’re together.”

Jamal crossed his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes accusingly at you. But he didn’t look angry the same was Monse, Cesar and Ruby did. “For how long?” He inquired, and you sighed.

“Almost seven months.” You confessed, and a scoff instantly left Monse’s lips.

But Jasmine either couldn’t read the tense atmosphere, or she just didn’t care, because the next thing you knew, she had launched herself forward from Ruby’s side to wrap her arms around you.  “Congratulations, girl!” She exclaimed. “I always knew there was some bad girl in you!”

You coughed slightly when she squeezed you hard, feeling your lungs being pushed together. But luckily, the pressure disappeared just as quickly as it got there when Monse grabbed her arm and ripped her away from you.

“No! Not congratulations!” She objected, glaring at you. “How could you do this to us?”

You raised an eyebrow, now starting to grow sick of her attitude. “Excuse me?” You asked, and she threw her arms out in exasperation.

“It’s Spooky! He’s a Santo!”

“The Santo.” Ruby joined in, stepping up to her side.

You knew his anger was justified, with how the Santos had played a major role in Olivia’s death, something he still hadn’t gotten over. But Monse’s reaction was just unnecessary, and it was getting on your nerves quickly.

“Yes, I’m very well aware, thank you.” You told her, crossing your arms over your chest to match her stance. “This is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you would react like this.”

“We have every right to be angry!” She exclaimed again and you shook your head calmly.

“No, you don’t, not really.” You denied. “I shouldn’t have kept it from you, I admit that, but you have no say in what I do with my life.”

She glared at you. “He’s dangerous.”

Her words brought a scoff out of your lips. The mere thought of Oscar hurting you was ridiculous, just as ridiculous as this conversation. 

“Not to me, he’s not.” You shook your head.

But she just wouldn’t give up. “Have you forgotten everything he’s done to us?” She asked. “You’re sleeping with the enemy.”

You breathed out through your nose in annoyance, bringing your hand up to pinch the bridge of your nose. “Now you’re just being dramatic.” You chuckled dryly.

“Dramatic my ass! You’re a traitor to this group.” She pointed a finger at you, and beside her, Ruby awkwardly shuffled on his feet.

“You deserve better.” He shrugged his shoulders, face pulled into a bitter, to say the least, expression.

You could only shake your head and sigh while rubbing your forehead. “Jesus Christ, Monse. Are you even hearing yourself right now?” You asked, ignoring Ruby’s input.

Everyone stood silently despite obviously having a lot to say, knowing that this was a conversation between you and Monse. After all, she was the one you were the closest to.

You had lost count of the nights you had stayed with her when Monty had been out on a long drive and she was lonely or having trouble with Cesar, and how many times she’d stayed at your house like that was her home in the first place, sleeping in your bed, eating your food.

You had expected to get negative reactions if the news ever became public of yours and Oscar’s secret relationship, that was the reason you had kept it a secret in the first place, but this was just ridiculous.

You thought you’d taught her better; you expected better.

”You sit here and hate on him for shit you know nothing about but as soon as you need something he’s suddenly good enough?” You asked them all with a dry laugh, shaking your head. “That's not right. I'm not the one who deserves better, he is. He's been risking his life for you every time you’ve gotten in trouble, going against Cuchillos’ orders to keep you safe."

“He could have made different choices if only he wanted to.” Monse glowered at you, and you glared right back.

"Are you really that naïve?” You asked. “You really think he's that ruthless all on his own? He's just taking orders. If he refused, you, me, all of us, would be at risk for your lives. The entire neighborhood would if he and Los Santos weren’t here. You’re all so fucking petty."

“You want to talk about petty? Fine, I’ll give you petty.” She crossed her arms over her chest, giving you the bitchiest nod you’d ever received in your life. “It’s him or us.”

Everyone quickly whipped their heads away from you to look at her with wide eyes, not believing the words that had just left her mouth. 

“Monse…” Ruby tried, but both of you ignored him.

“Are you kidding?” You asked her.

“Does it look like I’m kidding?” She challenged you, giving you another nod and raising an eyebrow. “The times he’s been helpful don’t even come close to the times he’s fucked us over. He kicked Cesar out to the street.”

You sighed, looking to the side briefly before looking back to her. “Look, I know you don’t see it that way, but he did it to keep him safe-”

“Safe?!” She exclaimed, lowering her arms and taking a step closer to you. “Constantly being on the run from Prophets is what you consider safe?!”

“It sure beats the hell out of being stabbed to death by Cuchillos.” You argued. “Which both Cesar and Oscar would have been if he hadn’t cut him off for not finishing the job.”

Monse only narrowed her eyes, your words seemingly falling to deaf ears. “It’s him or us, (Y/N). Take your pick.”

“Cesar, he’s your brother.” You turned to him suddenly, causing his eyes to widen in shock. “Haven’t you got anything to say about this?”

“Yeah, Cesar, haven’t you?” Monse agreed, turning to look at him too, and he looked between you nervously for a moment, before wiping his face free of emotion and stopping to look at you.

He shook his head. “He’s the reason my dad left. The reason for everything bad that’s ever happened to me.” He told you. “He’s not a good person, (Y/N). He’s going to end up hurting you like he hurts everyone else.”

While Monse’s face turned up into a contented, smug smirk, you could feel your vision turning red and your blood bubbling with anger.

“You should be ashamed of yourself. Do you have any idea how much he’s sacrificed for your sake?” You spat at your boyfriend’s brother, before uncrossing your arms and shaking your head with defeat. “Fine. I can really see now why people my age have always advised me not to be friends with a bunch of kids. We’re clearly not on the same level of maturity.”

Without another word, you walked around them to pick your jacket up by the front door, beginning to put it on.

When you walked away from them, they, in turn, turned around to follow your every move with their eyes, the boys and Jasmine just standing back quietly and watching you and Monse yell at each other like the situation at hand was a game of table tennis.

“You would choose him over your best friends?” Monse asked with another scoff and you didn’t miss a beat, shaking your head at her while pulling your arms through the sleeves of your jacket.

“If you were really my best friends, you would have supported me in this like I’ve always supported you and not made me choose. I’ve never been any of you guys’ first choice, but I’ve always been his. You’re not my best friends, he is.”

A hurt look crossed over her face. “You walk through that door, we’re done.”

Tears were starting to build up in her eyes and you couldn’t really understand why she was reacting as severely as she was, but nevertheless, you only glared at her. 

"I’d rather die than break his heart."

"He doesn’t even have one."

If looks could kill, Monse would have been staked, buried, dug up and then staked again for good measure at this point, nothing but pure fury showing behind your eyes.

"You would all be dead if he didn't.” You told her. “His heart is bigger than all of yours combined and after how many times he's glued the pieces back together all by himself, he doesn’t deserve to get it stabbed once more."

Her head shook. “You know he’s just gonna up and leave you once he gets tired of you, right?”

“Just because Cesar is a cheating piece of shit doesn’t mean his brother is, too.” You answered before you could stop yourself, and Cesar instantly perked up at the sound of his name, a glare crossing over his face.

“Hey!” He called, and you and Monse instantly turned to him with a glare each.

“Quiet!”

He quickly shrunk back into himself, wincing at your loud voices and looking down.

Monse turned back to look at you. “Where do you think he got it from, huh?” She asked you, not even caring that she was currently bashing her boyfriend right in front of him.

“Please, I don’t have to stand here and take relationship advice from a fifteen-year-old.” You just rolled your eyes, opening the front door and turning your back to them to leave.

“Fine!” She threw her arms out, taking a step back where she stood. “Go be a Santo slut then!”

You stopped in your tracks at the sound of her upsetting words, hearing both Jasmine and Jamal drawing in a gasp and turning around to see Cesar’s and Ruby’s eyes widely staring at Monse.

Her face instantly pulled into one of guilt when your eyes met, reality catching up with her and making her realize what she’d just said.

But you were as calm as ever as you stared back at her, face now wiped free of emotion and your eyes, as well. 

“That’s a new low, even for you.” You said slowly. “Grow the fuck up.” A dry laugh left your lips, and then you turned back around and walked out the door.

“Don’t come crying to us when you get fucked over!” She yelled after you, but you were already gone, the door slamming shut behind you and the room turning silent.

“What’s wrong with y’all?” Jasmine was the first to speak after a good minute of awkward silence hanging in the air, causing them all to turn to look at her.

“What do you mean?” Ruby asked in a small voice and she briefly looked at him, before turning to look at Monse.

“That was fucked up, Monse.” She pointed out, her face full of disbelief. “(Y/N)’s never been anything but supportive of you. She drives you around every day, basically does all of your homework for you and always stands up for you when you’re not there and someone bad-talks you. You never tell her anything, always freeze her out, and she still hasn’t questioned your shady behavior once. She’s done nothing but be a good friend to you all and this is how you repay her? Not cool, guys.”

“If she was a good friend she wouldn’t have chosen him over us.” Monse tried defending her actions, crossing her arms over her chest.

But Jasmine wouldn’t have it, glaring at her. “No, if you were good friends, you wouldn’t have forced her to choose in the first place.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Ruby quickly defended himself, stepping up to his kinda-girlfriend.

She turned to him, looking down at him with furrowed eyebrows. “No, and that just makes it worse.” She agreed. “Come find me when you’ve got your morals figured out, okay, boo? I’m out.” She said, touching Ruby’s cheek before heading for the door you had just stormed out through.

The three friends were left alone and once again, a heavy silence fell over them. This time, Monse was the one to break the silence, turning to Jamal and holding her arms out.

“You’ve been awfully quiet, too. Whose side are you on?” She asked, and he instantly groaned dramatically.

“Do I have to pick?”

“YES!” She yelled, causing them all to jump where they stood.

“Fine!” He exclaimed back and threw his arms out. “Yes, she shouldn’t have kept it from us, but maybe, just maybe, she was a little bit right!”

“Elaborate.”

“We keep literally everything from her and Spooky isn’t that bad.” He shrugged. “He scares the shit out of me but he has protected us more times than we’d be able to count. She wasn’t lying about that.”

Monse narrowed her eyes, but before she or anyone else got the chance to say something else, Cesar’s phone suddenly started ringing in his pocket, causing them all to turn their attention away from the fight and to him.

They watched as he picked the ringing smartphone up from his pocket, frowning at the unfamiliar number lighting up the screen. Still, he shrugged and swiped the green phone icon, putting the phone up to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Who is it?” Jamal wasted no time in asking as the nosy boy he was, and Cesar looked up to meet their eyes with a shocked expression crossing his face.

“It’s my dad.”

After the fiasco with Monse and the boys, you headed straight for Oscar’s house, hands clenched into fists at your sides and desperate to vent to the man who had been there to take care of you when you had been too busy taking care of everyone else around you.

But just your luck, he hadn’t been home, the red Impala nowhere in sight and, of course, he’d chosen this day out of all days to lock up after himself, something he never did anyways no matter how many times you told him to.

So you were stuck on the porch, occupying yourself with playing Subway Surf for the first time in probably over three years.

But you weren’t complaining. Despite everything that had just gone down, you felt content now that you were finally able to sit in the sun, happily sitting there for well over half an hour before the sound of the familiar engine and hip hop music reached your ears from down the street.

You spotted the red Impala instantly, following it with your gaze as it drove past the house and pulled up in the driveway, Oscar and his Santos piling out once it was parked and the music had died down.

Sad Eyes was the first one to spot you and you offered him a small wave and smile, watching as he nodded back at you before alerting Oscar, who was still doing something inside the car. 

He immediately looked up to meet your gaze through the rolled down car window, and he wasted no time in getting out, slamming the car door shut behind him. 

As he began approaching you where you sat, you exited the game on your phone and locked it, putting it back into your pocket just as Oscar reached you, the Santos busying themselves over by the sofa and weights to give you some privacy.

“Where you been?” He asked you as he came up to you, nodding his head once. “I’ve been calling you.”

You stood up, stuffing your hands into the pockets of your jacket. “Yeah, I know.” You smiled sadly at him, and he instantly noticed something was up.

“What’s wrong?” He asked, reaching his arms out to pull you into his chest.

Your hands left your pockets at that, your arms instead wrapping around his torso while he took your face in one of his hands, the other resting at the curve of your waist.

“They found out.” You muttered back, leaning into his touch when he swiped his thumb over your cheek.

“And?”

You sighed, rolling your eyes at the childishness of it. “They made me chose between you and them.” You answered, and he snorted, obviously finding it as amusing as it, in reality, was. You just couldn’t help but feel sad about it.

“Cesar, too?” He questioned, and you nodded.

“Yup.”

“And you chose me?”

“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” You raised an eyebrow.

A smile rose to his lips, his hand sliding a bit further down. Not enough to fully grope you, but just enough to show you he was being cheeky. 

“Why?” He asked, pressing his lips to the corner of your lip lightly.

You couldn’t help but smile at the feeling. “Because true friends worth my while wouldn’t have made me choose in the first place.” You hummed, getting lost in his touch and momentarily forgetting what you were even talking about.

“I know for a fact you wouldn’t have.” You added with a scoff, coming back to reality and turning sour again.

He hummed, brushing your hair away from your shoulder and leaning you back against the wall of the porch. “What did they say?” He asked, and you started thinking back to the conflict you had suffered through half an hour ago, all while letting him kiss your neck and feel you up.

“They called me a traitor, but they mostly said shit about you.”

“Like what?” He suddenly stopped, bringing his head up from your neck to look at you.

“Oh, you know, just the usual.” You drawled. “How you’ve fucked up Cesar’s and all of their lives, put them in danger, that you’re dangerous for me and that you will hurt me.”

“What else?”

“That’s it.”

“I know you, mamas.” He looked at you fondly, not in the slightest affected about what his brother and his friends had said about him; all his focus was on you. “I can see when you’re lying.”

You broke your gaze from his and averted it to the side, swallowing. But Oscar was quick, catching your chin with his hand and turning your head back so that he could look you in the eyes.

He raised an eyebrow at you and you sighed, rolling your eyes once more. “Monse called me a Santo slut.” You said, and quickly continued. “But it’s fine! I’m used to her poor impulse control at this point. I know she didn’t mean it, and I’m aware enough of my own worth to know it’s not true.”

His eyes turned cold, all emotion falling from his face. He pushed himself away from you and brought a hand up to his face, pulling it over his mouth and chin before turning around.

You quickly jumped into action, shooting your hand out and catching his wrist before he could get anywhere. "Hey, where are you going?"

Turning back around to face you, he gave you another nod, his face now pulled into a glare. "To give those little shits a piece of my mind." He said, Spanish accent thick with anger.

You shook your head, wrapping your arms around his torso to hold him in place. "No, baby, murder is illegal, remember?” You attempted to joke, but his face didn’t betray any emotion.

“Is it still murder if I give them a heads up?”

“That’s called a threat.”

He pulled his hand over his mouth again, but made no more move to walk away, placing his hands back on your waist and leaning his head back down to yours. “You’ve done nothing but help Cesar and those other putas, especially Monse.” He spat. “You don’t deserve that kind of shit.”

“I know I don’t.” You agreed. “Which is exactly why I came here.”

You put on a smile, grabbing his face in your hands and pulling him in for a kiss without another word.

You were still pissed about your fight with Monse, but you knew them well enough to know that they would drop their childish stubbornness and come around sooner or later. They always did whenever you would tell them off.

Oscar pulled you tighter against him, hands sliding down to grab your ass in his hands, giving you a good squeeze.

You chuckled against his lips when Sad Eyes yelled out a crude comment, the other Santos following shortly behind.

When you pulled apart, Oscar pulled you into his arms, your cheek pressing against his chest and his face burying in your hair. “I would never do anything to hurt you.” He mumbled into your hair while holding you close. “I hope that you know that, mamas.”

“Of course, I do.” You agreed, hugging him back. “Don’t let it get to you. They’re just kids.”

When you said those words out loud, it really dawned on you that it was the actual truth, that it was your reality. 

You were a nineteen-year-old hanging out with a bunch of fifteen-year-olds every day, playing babysitter and personal butler in exchange for little to no gratefulness.

You were certain that they would come around once their, or more specifically, Monse’s, anger died down, but this time, when this happened, you needed to set some boundaries and make some changes.

You spent the rest of your afternoon with Oscar and his Santos outside on the lawn, laughing and feeling as safe as ever in your boyfriend’s arms.

Meanwhile, the kids were beginning to come to their senses back at Ruby’s house after Cesar’s call with his dad, in which he had told his youngest son that him leaving had nothing to do with Oscar and that he ought to show his older brother some more respect.

They were finally beginning to understand how badly they had treated you and how much they had taken you for granted this entire time and Monse felt worse than anyone, guilt eating her up from the inside. 

So after talking themselves together, they headed out for the place they just knew you would be at.

By the time they walked up in front of the Diaz residence, most of the other Santos had gone home or out to do God knows what, leaving only you, Oscar, Sad Eyes and two other Santos on his porch.

Oscar was sitting on the wall, smoking a cigarette with his arm slung over your shoulder where you stood leaned between his legs, talking to him and Sad Eyes.

The kids watched as all of them laughed at something you said, Oscar looking down at you with a look they’d never seen on his face before.

"He's laughing." Monse pointed out from the other side of the street, watching yours and Oscar’s exchanged with sad eyes. “I’ve never seen him laugh like that before.”

“Well, I have.” Cesar told them, smiling faintly as he watched his older brother brush a strand of hair out of your face when you looked up at him. “And that’s sincere.”

Ruby sighed, watching the scene unfold alongside his friends. “She was really right, huh?” He asked.  “He cares about her.”

“Looks like it, yeah.” Jamal agreed, not even half as depressed as the rest of them since he hadn’t partaken in the argument at all, his conscience free. “Let’s go before his happy mood falters.” He added simply, before starting to walk over the road, forcing the others to follow.

Oscar was the first one to notice them approaching, softly moving you out of the way so that he could get down from the wall and stand next to you.

He threw his cigarette on the grass and only then, you noticed them approaching. Your eyes met Monse’s immediately, but before you could say anything, Oscar walked to meet them in the middle, speaking for you.

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough damage for one day?” His stern voice sounded, silencing any previous conversation.

While Sad Eyes signaled for the other Santos to go inside, them following him without any protest, you followed Oscar to meet the kids on the lawn.

“We came to apologize.” Monse was the one to speak, staring straight at the infamous Spooky with little to no fear in her eyes.

Her gaze shifted to you, and your face instantly turned stern. “I’m not the one you owe an apology.” You told them all, and Ruby instantly shrunk back into himself.

“What did you tell him?” He asked, and before you could answer, Oscar spoke up for you for the second time.

“All of it.”

Jamal and Ruby exchanged a look.

“We’re sorry we talked bad about you, Mr. Spooky, sir.” Jamal was the first one to apologize. “We’re very grateful for everything you and the Santos do to keep the neighborhood safe.”

“Yeah, we’re sorry.” Ruby agreed, nodding his head.

Your eyebrows rose, not being able to comprehend why they were the ones to apologize when they hadn’t been the ones talking the biggest.

Oscar knew this of course, but he didn’t care about himself at this moment, he only cared about you. 

He reached a hand up to squeeze your shoulder, turning to nod at Monse. “Your turn, chica.” He glowered at her, silently motioning towards you with his head.  

She swallowed, and looked at you nervously. “Can we do this without an audience?” She asked, her voice small and her hands twisting together in front of her.

You wasted no time in nodding, but before you could tell them to go away, Cesar stepped up and looked at his brother with an equally as guilty look. “Can we talk, mano?”

Oscar gave him a once over, but nodded, wordlessly walking toward the porch, leaving you to look at Jamal and Ruby.

The former nodded his head, taking the latter under his arm. “Alright, I can tell when I’m not wanted.” He spoke playfully, before leading Ruby over to the side and leaving you and Monse alone to talk. 

You could still feel their eyes burning holes into the side of your face, but now that they were out of earshot, Monse sighed, looking down briefly before looking back up to meet your eyes.

“I’m sorry for everything I said.” She apologized sadly. “I didn’t mean any of it. You’re not a Santo slut, you’re…”

She trailed off, looking unsure of herself, but you patiently waited, listening as she sighed again and watching her kick her foot nervously while looking to the side. “You’re like my sister. I got so attached to you when you were there for me through everything with Cesar and my mom and I just- I felt like I was losing you, I guess. It’s silly.”

All the previous annoyance melted right off when hearing her words and your head automatically shook.

“If that’s how you feel, then it’s not silly.” You disagreed, causing her eyes to flicker back up to yours. “I wouldn’t leave you, never. Me being with Oscar would never come in the way of me being there for you. You know I see you like my little sister.”

She brought her hand up to hold her arm, looking down to the ground guiltily, so you did the only thing you could think of, reaching out to grab her shoulder and pull her into an embrace.

Her arms instantly wrapped around your waist, her cheek leaning on your shoulder. “I’m sorry for always taking you for granted.” She mumbled. “I was so caught up thinking about myself that I never really realized just how much you’ve been there for me.”

“And I’m sorry, too.” You mumbled back, pressing your cheek against her head. “For keeping this all from you and yelling at you, and all that.”

She squeezed you tighter, holding the embrace for another moment, before breaking apart and smiling at you, reaching her hand out. “Friends?”

Her smile was contagious, causing an identical one to spread across your lips. “Best friends.” You agreed, grabbing her hand in yours and giving it a shake.

“But with all due respect, all of this made me realize it’s high time that I start hanging out with people my own age.” You quickly added, and she laughed, nodding her head.

“That’s fair. I get it.” She agreed. “But we’ll still have our Saturday movie nights, though, right?”

“Duh.” You answered, and before either of you could say anything else, Jamal and Ruby shuffled back over, the latter still stuck under the former’s arm.

“Is everything cool? Are we all friends again?” Jamal quickly asked, looking between you. “You were smiling so we just thought-”

“Yeah, everything’s good.” Monse interrupted him with a smile.

You took her under your arm. “Come on.” You told them, beginning to lead her towards the house where Oscar and Cesar were now hugging it out, too, Jamal and Ruby trailing behind you.

The brothers broke apart when they heard you approaching and you instantly looked to the youngest of them, offering him an apologetic smile. “Hey, I’m sorry for going off at you earlier.” You said and he wasted no time in shaking his head.

“Nah, it’s cool. I deserved it.”

“What did you say to him?” Oscar asked, raising an eyebrow and looking between the two of you.

Jamal quickly took the wheel, stepping forward with an excessively excited expression on his face. “She called him a cheating piece of shit. It was awesome.” He rushed out in one breath.

Cesar looked to the side awkwardly as he was once again reminded of his fuck-up. “Yeah, thanks.” He chuckled.

Oscar chuckled with him, giving you a smirk. “Damn, mami. You did my mano dirty, huh?”

“She was defending you, I had it coming.” Cesar offered you a smile, and you smiled back.

Realizing the conversation was over, Oscar took it upon himself to change the subject, nodding at the teenagers in front of him.

“You gamberros hungry?” He asked, and all of them instantly turned nervous under his intimidating stare.

But still, Ruby and Jamal looked at each other and shrugged, before looking back to the gang leader in front of them. “I could eat.” Ruby answered, and as everyone made some kind of sound of agreement, Oscar nodded his head back to the house.

“Vamos.” He told you, and without another word, he took his mano under his arm and started walking with him inside, none of you far behind and all of you content now that all was forgiven. 

Translations (I’m not a native Spanish speaker so this might not be a hundred percent accurate):

Mano - brother

Gamberros - troublemakers

Vamos - come on

Tagged: @babienay​ @firebenderwolf​ @fairygardenss​ @moanlightbaby​ @dolanackles​ @marvelously-flawed​ @ugh-jalynn​ @jazzwhitlockhale​ @spookysnena​ @chaneajoyyy​

#oscar diaz x reader #oscar diaz imagine #oscar diaz #oscar spooky diaz #spooky #spooky diaz #spooky x reader #on my block #on my block imagine #on my block x reader #omb imagine #omb #omb x reader #ruby martinez #monse finnie #cesar x reader #jamal turned

[youllneverknowrac]

Oscar Diaz-Second Chances

Leave a request

For @lflores2008

“Ray’s here.” Oscar says as he glances out the window after hearing a car pull up.

“What?” You ask, unsure if your were hearing correctly or not as you pace around the living room trying to console you and Oscar’s two month old son. He has been crying on and off all morning and it’s driving you a little crazy so you didn’t really want to deal with Ray as of right now, or anybody for that matter,”Why’s he here? Did he try calling?”

“I had a few missed calls from him this past week, but I didn’t really want to listen to what he had to say this time.” Oscar sighs,”He’s coming to the front door.”

“Just do what you want...he’s your father. Let him in or don’t, I just gotta get the baby to calm down before I scream.” You say truthfully, you didn’t mean for it to sound so harsh, but you’ve been stuck in the house since you were eight months pregnant and this isn’t the first time Junior has acted this way since he’s been born.

“The baby is probably why he’s here, wants to play the absent grandpa role...but to do that he’s got to actually meet him.” Oscar says as there is a light knocking on the door,”Let me see what he’s gonna come up with this time.” He tells you sadly as he walks over to the front door and opens up. You would have let Oscar handle it alone, but the change in his mood and new mama bear attitude wouldn’t let you.

“Mijo, how have you been?” Ray says, a grand smile appearing on his face when you walk behind Oscar with a still crying Junior,”Oscar Jr? Right?” He ask as he tries to peek over Oscar’s shoulder to see the baby.

“You would know that if you came to the baby shower, but you didn’t.” You speak for your husband, who was standing there with furrowed brows and sad eyes,”But you’re here now right, I’m assuming to get to know your already two month old grandson?”

“It’s lovely to see you again Y/N...and yes I would love to meet him.” Ray reply’s before adding,”I had to work that day, I wish I could have went to the party. I wanted to be there.” He sighs

“But you weren’t.” You retort as you glance at Oscar,”Talk to your son first then I’ll decide if I want you to meet OUR son.” You say curtly before walking away and into the nursery to sit in the rocking chair, leaving the door open so you could hear the conversation. The front door closes and you hear the two of them walk into the living room. Junior finally wearing himself out as he dozes off in your arms.

“Why do you want to meet him? Or better yet explain to me why I should let you? You are still in and out of my life, I don’t want my son to have to experience your absence. I’m not going to put him through that.” Oscar finally speaks after a minute or two of silence.

“That’s exactly why I want to meet him. To make up for my wrong doings. I was a shitty dad Mijo. I’m not denying that, but I want the chance to be an amazing Abuelo. I’m doing good now, I promise. A few years ago, after I got out of prison my head still wasn’t screwed on straight, but it is now.”

“So what you’re saying is that you just want to meet him to make yourself feel better. Some good karma?” Oscar snaps,”That’s not good enough. I was your son and even after the fact that I told you I never wanted to see you again, I sucked it up and tried to make amends when I found out Y/N was pregnant. You didn’t come through once, including the baby shower.”

“I’m sorry Oscar. That’s a guilt I’m going to carry with me for the rest of my life. I have a problem with running away or taking the easy way out, but it’s different now. Te prometo.”(I promise you) “I’m not going to do that to your son. Not after I did it to you and Cesar.” Ray says reaching out to squeeze Oscar’s forearm, Oscar taking a deep breath at the mention of his brother.

“Look, I’m a different person that I was a few years ago. So I’m going to let you see him because I want to him to have a grandfather and get to experience that. But if you don’t make an effort to be in his life then it’s over. You’re never going to see him again.” Oscar says and snatches his arm back as he stands up,”I mean it. You miss one birthday, or holiday, or even a phone call and it’s done.” He tells Ray seriously who nods in understanding,”Wait here. I’ll go get him.”

“You okay papi?” You ask softly when Oscar walks into the nursery.

“I’m good nena, don’t worry.”Oscar says and takes the baby from you carefully when you stand up,”I’m going to let them meet.”

“If that’s what you want, then I want them to meet too.” You smile and stand on you tip toes to press a kiss to his cheek,”Come on.” You instruct and walk out of the room first,”Ray.” You say as you appear in front of him again, clearing your throat,”Would you like some coffee?”

“I’d love some, maybe I can stay and catch up after I get to meet my grandson. I’ll even cook.” He offers

“Sure, that’d be nice.” You smile and wander off into the kitchen to get a pot started, Oscar walking over to his dad and kneeling down to place the baby in his arms.

“He looks just like you did.” Ray says and holds Junior in admiration.

“Let’s just not talk about the past.” Oscar says with a tight lip smile,”Focus on the present.”

“I can do that.” Ray agrees with a nod, leaning back against the couch to let the baby lay on his chest,”You said two months? He’s a little big, no?”

“He was a big baby. Nearly nine pounds.” You call out from the kitchen as you grab a mug.

“Nine pounds?! Wow.” He says and rest his palm on Junior’s back, soothly stroking it.

“People always think he’s older.” Oscar chuckles softly, as Ray carefully digs into his side pocket.

“I bet they do...hey mijo, you don’t mind taking a picture of us?” He asks and holds his phone out.

“Sure.” Oscar reply’s and grabs the cracked phone, snapping a few photos before handing it back,”So have you talked to Cesar?”

“I called him a few days ago, didn’t really want to talk. Said he had more important things to deal with right now.” Ray admits with hurt,”That was it. He hung up twenty seconds into the call.”

“I’m sure he did.” Oscar sighs and drags a hand down his face tiredly, the last time he sort of heard anything from his little brother being when a baby shower gift he bought was dropped off by Jasmine.

“He’ll come around.” Ray says hopefully as you come back with the hot mug and take a seat, placing it on the coster in front of him.

“He will.” You agree and change the subject not wanting to think about Cesar right now. It’ll just make everybody upset and that’s the last thing you wanted,”So Ray, do you still have that job up there?” You ask, Oscar reaching over to take the baby back so he can enjoy his coffee.

“Nah, I’m back in Freeridge. I bought myself a little portable food stand. I’m going to be making authentic Latin food. Sale it on the pier. Maybe do a few handy jobs here and there also.” He says, taking a sip after,”Thank you Y/N.”

“No problem.” You smile and take in the new information,”Well let us know when you’re all set up. We can be your first customers.”

“Will do, shouldn’t be too long now.” He grins

“Where you staying at?” Oscar inquires

“A little rental home just a few streets over. It’s decent.”

“Nice. That’s good.”

You stay out of the rest of the conversation for now, letting the two men catch up. Taking junior from your husband and laying him down in his crib, waiting in the nursery for a while. You quietly shut the door before rejoining them when you hear them begin to laugh and joke with each other, Ray standing up when you come back.

“How about some food? I did say I was going to cook.” The older Diaz man says with a clap of his hands.

“Kitchen is all yours.” You laugh and nod eagerly,”Make yourself at home.” Ray nods and walks away, searching through the pantry and fridge in search of what he could make.

“Are we happy?” You ask and softly sit down in Oscar’s lap, making sure your voice was only available to his ears.

“Yeah, we’re happy. And nervous I made the wrong choice.” He says,”I just hope he doesn’t make a fool out of me.”

“You will never be a fool papi.” You say and place your hand on his cheek, giving him a kiss on his other,”You’re doing what’s best in this moment and that’s letting Junior meet his grandpa.”

“Thank you for being on my side and supporting me mami. You don’t have to be okay with any of this and you are, even after all that he did to me.”

“We’re a team Oscar. I’m always going to have your back.Always.” You say before planting a sweet kiss to his lips, Ray calling out for you to come help him find a few things. Junior beginning to cry simultaneously.

“Dad duty.” You say pointing to yourself as you stand up,”Baby duty.” You add, pointing to Oscar.

“Did you say team?” Oscar chuckles as he stands up.

“Best one around.” You say and do a little hair flip before walking away happily and into the other room. Oscar sighing in relief as he goes to check on the baby. Today playing out better then he thought and being content with his decision to let his father meet your guys son.

#on my block season 3 #netflix on my block #santos #omb season 3 #cesar diaz #one shot #couple #oscar diaz x reader #oscar diaz #freeridge #ray diaz #spooky x reader #spooky diaz

[hideawayintheimaginationworld]

I am Machine: Chapter 8

One week had passed, Alec noticed Helpy seemed really excited about something.

“What are you jumping about for?” Alec asked him before he started to work.

“August 18th,” He replied, “It’s a great day!”

Alec was confused, did Helpy know...?

“It's the pizzeria's 50th anniversary, a big milestone,” Helpy continued talking, “The first location was opened August 18th 1970. It's also Lefty’s birthday.”

Of course, Helpy wouldn’t know, why did Alec assume?

Wait. Lefty’s birthday was on the 18th of August? He assumed they didn't celebrate anything like Birthdays.

“It’s Lefty’s birthday?”

“Yes, I don't know his real age, I've tried to guess but I never get it right!” Helpy huffed, “And he won't tell me!”

Alec couldn’t help but lightly laugh at that, that sounded like what Lefty would do. Over the last week he learnt a lot about Lefty and Helpy, Helpy did actually sleep talk so Alec saw why on that night Lefty believed he was just sleep talking.

“Hey! When’s your birthday? Mine is February 15th! The day after Valentine’s day! I apparently also share my birthday with some animatronic named Fetch! I never met him but I've seen pictures of Fetch! Of course, it's all old photos, he was made in the 1980s..... I think our history is interesting!”

“My birthday?”

“Yes, you said you're 15 when are turning 16?”

“This is really funny... My birthday is also August 18th....”

“Wow! You share Lefty’s birthday!”

“Well, I'd guess I'm younger than him....” Alec said scratching his nose.

“We can do something for your birthday too! Just because you're a Lonely Freddy now, it doesn’t mean we can't celebrate!”

"I don't know....”

“You only turn 16 once, plus as far as I believe you've never had a birthday here!”

“Well, I honestly don't have a lot of friends to justify it.”

“Why not? You seem like a nice kid,” Helpy said.

“I just... Don't get the chance, I don't talk to people a lot...” That was kind of true, he was notorious for not talking to people unless they started to irritate him, a good thing was the fact he wasn't targeted by bullies but he didn't exactly attract friends, he only had three guys at school who he considered friends.

He was almost certain he shouldn’t tell Helpy about them because they fell into the same crowd as him, so he said: “I use to have a great friend named Oscar but he moved away a couple of years ago after his father died... I've been wondering if I could get in touch with him...”

“Well, that's one of the first things you should do when you go home! Go and contact him! I'm sure he'll want to hear from you!”

When. It was nice Helpy was assuming he would get to go home and resume his life like nothing had happened.

“And hey I'm your friend now! So is Lefty! Lewis could be your friend too!”

“I never thought of that.....” Alec muttered.

“Well, I am! Hey, are you hungry? The pizzeria's closed today so we could go out into the kitchen and maybe we’ll find a pizza for lunch! We just have to watch out for the others and Mr Adams,” Helpy nodded.

“Mr Adams?”

“Our in-store technician, he's working in the back, doing repairs, checking the systems for bugs... We probably won't run into him...” Helpy walked to the door and opened it, Alec followed him outside and they went through the three doors that led them to the backstage area, then outside into the main dining area.

It was quiet.

“Why is it quiet?”

“Mike said some sickness is going around, so we need to start closing a few days a week for now,” Helpy explained, “We’re trialling being closed every second day... Might be good sometimes Lefty gets exhausted particularly on Fridays.”

Helpy and Alec walked around to the kitchen, Helpy looked inside, “Great! No one is here! Let's go!” They both stepped inside.

“Where is everyone?” Alec looked around feeling slightly anxious.

“I know Bonnie's in repair, you know Lefty is deep in research right now, Foxy is probably out the front, Chica is cleaning the party rooms I believe, Freddy is in his room I think, Security might be asleep, The Melodies and Lewis are..... Well, they're not working today so they’re at home today... Hey, we can visit Lewis! His house is close by! We just need to ask Lefty for the key to open the front door! The only thing is that usually, Lefty doesn’t like going out during the day because we could be seen... That's the only condition Mike told us when Lefty was allowed to have the key, he needs to be careful to not be caught outside, and Lefty must always relock the door when he comes back.”

“I see why you can't be caught outside..” Alec nodded knowing the most likely case is if someone saw an 8-foot-tall black bear outside the pizzeria, they would call the police.

Helpy walked over to the fridge, “Oh yes! There's still some leftover pizza dough that Lefty made! Lefty always makes the best pizza! We can put whatever we want on it!” Helpy pulled it out and walked to the kitchen island, no surprise there were steps on the side, so he was able to place it on the bench.

“Do you want anything interesting? I once made a dessert pizza and it was amazing.”

“A dessert pizza?” Alec rose his eyebrow.

“Chocolate and Marshmallows,” Helpy answered.

“Oh....”

“Let’s just have a plain cheese with some oregano...”

“Sounds good!”

Helpy had gathered everything except the oregano.

“I don't understand! It’s supposed to be here with the pepper and chilli powder!” Helpy was frustrated as he looked in the cabinets, he then groaned, “I really don't want to disturb Lefty unless I really need to... Maybe somebody misplaced it?”

Alec and Helpy looked in every cabinet, essentially they worked as a team, searching every place where it could be.

“Oh no don't tell me Pigpatch did it again....” Helpy groaned then stood on his tiptoes.

“Yup, he put the freaking Oregano on top of the fridge again! He knows I can't reach it without asking somebody! He's done it to deliberately annoy me!!”

“I’ve climbed on the fridge before, I can get it...” Alec nodded.

“Sure? Just don't fall... It's not a big fall to a human but to someone as small as you are now, you could break something,” Helpy said.

Alec had climbed into the bench next to the fridge, he used the container of flour next to it as a platform to get closer, he then jumped up and grabbed the edge. Pulling himself up to the top.

“Good job! I wouldn’t have thought to do that!” Helpy nodded.

Alec smiled, then he heard the door open, and looked, his heart dropped, he backed away so he wasn’t seen.

“Who are you talking to?”

“Oh just myself Bonnie!!” Helpy exclaimed, “I’m just saying I did a good job to solve a problem that’s been bugging me!”

“Good for you! Are you making pizza for lunch?”

“Yes, I'm giving some to Lefty.”

“Do you know what's going on with him? He's acting more jumpy than usual, and he was carrying around the book where we keep the names of all the people who visit, he keeps going into his room saying he's got a bad headache or feels sick or something... And Foxy keeps talking about how Lefty has the missing Lonely Freddy in his possession. That's not right, right? He hates them, he use to say they were Nosy, Foxy's saying Lefty is keeping one like as a pet or an experiment,” Bonnie replied.

They noticed Lefty was acting differently.

“No, I don't know...” Helpy lied immediately.

“Something isn't right here, Lefty only does practice at night then says goodnight and leaves... He's been doing it for about a week now...” Bonnie nodded, “Hey don't you usually have oregano?”

“I think Petey put on the fridge to be a jerk to me. I was debating if I should try and climb up there myself.”

“You could hurt yourself, let me grab it...” Bonnie's hand was in Alec's vision and he panicked, he couldn’t get down because Bonnie could catch him and as far as Alec knew, Lefty hadn’t told the others that he existed.

“Oh no! I'll get a chair don't trouble yourself!!!” Helpy exclaimed knowing Alec was in danger of being found.

“No, it doesn’t bother me! I don't want you to hurt yourself if you do it wrong!”

“Bonnie, I can ask Lefty! You just got repaired, go rest!”

Bonnie grabbed Alec's foot, “What's this?”

Alec tried to pull his foot away but Bonnie’s grip was stronger than he expected.

“Bonnie leave it! I can solve this for myself!”

“I got something strange!” Bonnie pulled Alec forward, he froze in terror.

"Bonnie no!!!”

He released him but it was too late.

ꇙꄲꂵꏂ꓄ꁝ꒐ꋊꍌ ꃳꋬ꒯ ꁝꋬꇙ ꁝꋬꉣꉣꏂꋊꏂ꒯.

First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

#five nights at freddy's #fazbear frights #Lonely Freddy #FNAF Alec #Helpy #Rockstar Bonnie #I am Machine- Story

[thepinkcar]

The TC Gift Exchange

words: 2K

note: I started this a year ago as a joke but then after some thought the idea grew on me. Enjoy my weird brain.

Timothée found himself in an abandoned storage lot, sitting inside his aunt’s Toyota Camry while he tried to push down the impulse to scream. The location had been the address on a note he had received prior. The handwriting was unsettlingly familiar and read:

Honorable Timothée,

It wold be an honor to have your company at the location inscribed on December 31st close to midnight. Please bring a gift to exchange during the celebration. We hope to see you there.

In retrospect, showing up at all had been a grave mistake. He probably wouldn’t have if he hadn’t desperately craved space from the New Years rager. The holiday season had been a well-desired break from the prying eyes of the public. Unfortunately it also meant an unwavering devotion to every friend and family gathering that could be stuffed into his schedule.

So here he was, risking a shoot out (or more likely, stabbing) on New Years Eve. Just as he had resolved to turn around and leave, there was a knock on his car window. A young man with long curly dark hair waved at him to get out and Timothée sighed, quickly complying. The man’s hair obscured his face, but Timothée felt a chill run down his spine once he spoke.

“You’re Timothée, right?” Timmy nodded slowly. “Is that French, ‘cause that’d be hella tight.”

Timothée froze, finally taking in the thick American accent. “Did you just say ‘hella tight’?” he whispered. The man ignored the question, instead turning towards him and offering a hand. Timothée shook it hesitantly as he tried to find the the gall to look up. 

“‘Name’s Kyle. Nice to meet you, Tim-o-tay.” Timmy looked up so fast he was almost surprised not to feel any whiplash. When he saw his own face he screamed. 

“What the fuck! What the fuck is happening? Is this some sick joke?” Timothée screeched. Kyle sighed apathetically, pulling a hand-rolled cigarette from his pocket and lighting it. Timothée continued to stare at him bug-eyed, half expecting him to glitch or evaporate from his vision when he woke up from this nightmare. 

“Dude, chill. It’s not that weird,” Kyle mumbled, taking another hit. Timothée remained frozen and Kyle sighed again. “It’s too fucking cold for this shit. C’mon, we’re going inside and you better have your gift on you.”

Kyle took a step towards Timmy and Timmy flinched. Aggravated, Kyle grabbed Timmy’s forearm and pulled him inside one of the storage buildings.

The inside of the building was surprisingly cozy with the halls decorated vibrantly for Christmas. Soon they arrived in a room occupied by a Christmas tree, cookies, and an ominous circle of chairs. 

“I have him, so we can get this over with and leave!”

“Apathy has and never will be a good look on you, Kyle,” a new voice said. Timothée turned to meet Elio (or him playing Elio) dressed in his winter time outfit. He tried to set aside the creepiness of Elio’s distressed half-smile that he remembered doing during his takes for the end credits. Elio pulled him into an embrace and Timothée suppressed the urge to wriggle. 

“It’s a joy to meet you,” he said warmly before pulling back. “You’re more handsome than I anticipated.”

“How do you manage to be so narcissistic and so self-deprecating in the same sentence?” Kyle growled. Elio rolled his eyes before taking off his headphones and handing Kyle his walkman. Kyle bitterly put it on before continuing to listen to whatever was playing. 

“What’s going on?” Timmy finally mustered, his throat burning from the screaming. 

“We’re calling it the TC Gift Exchange,” Elio stated simply. “Every year, all of the characters you play come together at an undisclosed location and give each other gifts before departing back into our separate universes.”

Timothée stared at Elio in bewilderment before bursting into laughter. Elio watched him in confusion. 

“Is everything alright?”

“Of course! It’s just that my dopplegangers have teamed up to make me feel insane. Excellent work, but I think this can stop now.”

“It’s true,” two voices say. Tim and Elio turn to face a Billy from Miss Stevens and Zac from One and Two. They both have a cookie in hand with same amount of bites taken. Tim gulps.

“Each year, the universe of the most successful part that year is where we host,” Billy explains. “Last year we partied in Crema…”

“The year before that we had to do it in the ass crack of no where,” Zac mutters. 

“Hey! That spot was next to the road that I sang with Miss Stevens in the car on the way to that theatre conference. And you’re being out of character!”

“Well I’m sorry if I’ve been cranky considering my house was burned to bits!” Zac sneers.

“Boys! You’re literally the same persona set in two different storylines. Find your zen,” Elio says, immediately cringing. “I’m starting to sound like Kyle.”

Timothée shakes his head and moves to take a seat in the circle. The others soon follow suit taking their respective seats that are conveniently in chronological order. Timothée takes the opportunity to take in the others (he’s still deciding whether or not to refer to them as individuals) profiles. Elio sat two spaces to the right of him next Kyle and another doppelgänger that Timothée could only assume to be Daniel from Hot Summer Nights based solely off the fact that he wouldn’t stop rocking back and forth.

Billy and Zac buddy up next to one another beside Daniel, followed by an awkward looking Charlie Cooper and roughed up Jace. Timothée cringed at the familiar backwards cap sitting on Jace’s head next to him. He turned to Elio who had busked himself switching the tape out of his Walkman for Kyle. “This isn’t everyone is it?”

Elio raised a brow but didn’t break his focus. “What do you mean? Timothée bit his lip. He didn’t want to come off arrogant, ironically.

“There’s do roles missing from the circle.”

“Not everyone comes every year. Some are on probation,” Kyle said matter-of-factly. Timothée rolled his eyes. He forgot how much of a douche Kyle was meant to be.

“Some aren’t old enough to come, so we mail them their gifts,” Elio finished.

“But how do you send mail to a completely different universe?”

“You’re asking too many questions. Why is he asking so many questions?” Daniel grumbled, crazed eyes now trained on Timothée. Timothée felt his hands clam up more than they already had. 

“Danny, be civil,” Elio warned, giving him a cautious pat on the back. Kyle rolled his eyes.

“We mail them the same way we’re all able to gather with you tonight. Dumbass.” Timmy nodded slowly, surveying the room of doppelgängers. The more he looked at them the less anxious he became about seeing them, which only made him more anxious about how quickly he was acclimating to his Stockholm of a situation.

“What about the ones on—“

“Probation? We try to keep the celebration to main characters only, since we’re not exactly rolling in it, y’know?” Billy quipped, jumping in before Elio had a chance. “Then some people…”

“Nic can’t come because technically he’s a fictionalized real person,” Elio cut in once again, shooting Billy a cool look.

“And he’s a drug addict,” Kyle muttered.

“Recovering addict.”

“What’s the difference? There’s only one guy missing but I don’t really care if he’s here or not. I’m not a big fan of monarchy or oligarchy or government institutions—“

“—or the government?” Timothée cut in knowingly. Kyle smiled.

“See he gets it.”

A crash of metal silences the room’s chatter. After a moment of silence another doppelgänger, this time with a stylish bowl cut appears. Timothée shivers at the memory of his lost locs. Kyle scowls while Elio beams. The others arrange their reactions neatly between the two margins.

“Hello everyone. I hope you can pardon my lateness. I struggled to drag this sorry lot to the TC Exchange,” Hal declared, ceremoniously dragging in Gatsby Welles from the he-who-shall-not-be-named movie about rain. It was Elio’s turn to grimace while Kyle smirked.

“No foul, your highness. Be seated here. As for him…”

“We can’t keep blacklisting him, Elio.”

“His film didn’t even hit theaters! Mine has an Oscar, Kyle. An Oscar!” 

“You mean the award you campaign for?”

“I don’t mind.” The room turned to Timothée who had chosen to slump comfortably in his seat. He decided to sit up for the sake of his point. “I chose to play him. He still means a lot to me.”

“He’s just Kyle wearing a blazer!”

“He’s more complex than that, Elio.”

“No one if knows what he’s supposed to be like because it’s impossible to watch the movie!” Elio whined. Timothée moved to respond when a familiar click is heard from across the room. They froze to face Jace holding his signature hand gun.

“You better shut your ass, Elliot! Just because you like dick doesn’t mean you get to make all the rules. The man of the hour said he wants Gatsby to stay, so Gatsby’s staying!”

“While I try not to condone violence, unless my advisors misadvise me, I have to agree with as the kids might say Soulja Boy over there,” Hal added causing Elio to crumple further into his seat.  Timothée frowned.

“I understand why you’re upset, Elio. He somehow managed to write a poetry collection during this whole exchange. But I still wanna keep him if we’re gonna be here.”

“I’m gonna name this last one after you, Elio,” Gatsby said softly. Elio gives a small smile.

“Okay.”

“Thank god,” Kyle sighed, “Can we get our gifts now? I don’t want to ring in the new decade with you lot.”

❄️❄️❄️

After an hour of mingling with his counterparts, the goodbyes tugged a bit on Timothée’s heart strings. He learned so much about everyone as far as the group dynamic went. He learned Kyle and Elio were actually quite close considering how much they seemed to rag on each other.

“You should have seen him the first year. An antisocial mess,” Elio reminisced fondly.

“That’s before a realized you have taste. I wouldn’t have shown up again if you hadn’t,” Kyle admitted begrudgingly.

Timothée also learned that while most of his characters felt similar, after two minutes of conversation the differences became glaring. Except for Billy and Zac. They were essentially the same person.

“I hope one day I’ll get a box of serotonin for Christmas,” Billy joked. Zac gasped.

“I asked for a bottle of Serotonin for my birthday!”

As Timothée walked back to his Aunt’s Camry with Hal, he couldn’t fight off the smile that kept creeping onto his face. Hal side-eyed him in solent satisfaction.

“Will we be seeing you again next year? I’m sure Elio wouldn’t mind providing free transit to space.”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Timothée chuckled. “This was…nice. Like really nice. It makes me kinda glad to be an actor. In an unnerving way.”

“I couldn’t have asked for better casting. Next year should be nice since Laurie will be able to come. I think him and Elio will get on nicely, then maybe…”

“Then maybe he’ll stop flirting with you? Still not sure how I feel about that,” Timothée mumbled with a shudder. The man really needs his Oliver.

“Don’t worry yourself about it. I only have one thing to request of you good sir.” Timothée raised a brow, trying not to fidget under Hal’s intense gaze. “Please, consider doing a comedic role in the future. We could use someone to shake things up around here.” The two of them smiled before bursting into fits of laughter.

“You’ve got it King!”

“No, you’re the king today. Drive safe and we’ll see you next time.” Hal walked back into the abandoned hall while Timothée sat down in his car and prepared to drive back. Maybe in the morning he’d wake up from a highly elaborate dream, but for now he could hang on to the feeling of gratitude and appreciation.

#merry christmas #christmas #xmas #xmas2019 #holidays #new year #new years eve #gift exchange #Timothee Chalamet #timothée chamalet #timothee chalamet fanfiction #timothee imagine #timothee chalamet imagine #imagine #fanfic #fanfiction #call me by your name #cmbyn #elio perlman #lady bird #little women #the King #A Rainy Day In New York #hot summer nights #dune

[msjr0119]

Hold my girl

Part 4

No one really knows about TRR Main characters past …. Most of this series is based on flashbacks from her childhood. I’ve changed the main characters name to, Freya Johnson as Riley Brooks is used in my other series.

Freya is in love with Drake, but he hasn’t returned the feelings- instead just acts horrible towards her. Will Freya return back to Cordonia with the court or will she stay in the USA after the UN party.

Catch up with Part 3 here

Tags:

@annekebbphotography @burnsoslow @drakesensworld @ladyangel70 @kingliam2019 @bbrandy2002 @butindeed @bascmve01 @drakewalker04 @pedudley @captain-kingliamsqueen @duchessemersynwalker @insideamirage @of-course-i-went-to-hartfeld @kozabaji @texaskitten30 @ibldw-main @kimmiedoo5 @nikkis1983 @dangerouseggseagleartisan @gnatbrain @walker7519 @lodberg @cmestrella @hopefulmoonobject @addictedtodrakefanfic @angi15h @liamxs-world @rafasgirl23415 @notoriouscs @whenyourheartskipsabeat @jovialyouthmusic @nz1091 @yukinagato2012 @indiacater @seriouslybadchoices @rainbowsinthestorm @cordonianroyalty @custaroonie @beardedoafdonutwagon @dcbbw @qammh-blog

*******

“Lady Freya, how nice to see you’re sticking around.” Madeleine smirked, along with a sarcastic tone of voice.

God I hate her. No that’s really nasty Freya. Use your Oscar winning fake smile. Daniel would be proud.

“Madeleine. I’m here to do you a favour.”

“Oh and what would that be?” Madeleine laughed in Freya’s face, Freya just wanted to punch her in the face- forcing her to pay a visit to the nearest plastic surgeon.

“You need to call this shower off now!”

“Really Lady Freya? I’ve been more than patient with you. I’ve looked over Liam’s obvious affection for you, endured your presence on this tour but I see no reason why......”

Suddenly Freya’s phone buzzed in her pocket. It was an email from Justin with the attachment of Tariq’s statement. Smiling, she knew that the previous smirk on Madeleine’s face would soon falter.

“If you won’t listen to me Madeleine, watch this!” As Madeleine watched the video the colour from her face slowly drains.

Maybe she feels bad? No this is Madeleine, she has no feelings.

“I see. I’ll think of something to tell everyone. Thank you for bringing this up to me. If it had played in the middle of our wedding shower... I... thank you Freya.”

“Yeah well I know what public humiliation feels like. I wouldn’t put you through that.”

What the fuck is up with you Freya. If anyone deserves humiliation it would be a snake like Madeleine. Just proves I had a good upbringing from Grace and Paul for thinking about other people as well as myself.

“I suppose that you do at that. You’re far more generous than given credit for.” Madeline walks towards the stage leaving Freya alone.

Always remember that if anyone is nasty towards you in anyway- it is most likely because they are jealous of you. Don’t allow anyone to make you feel bad. Keep your head held high. I love you baby girl.

Freya you are my daughter, I am so proud of the young woman you have become. You are so strong and determined. Never judge anyone, always have empathy towards everyone, no matter how much you may ‘hate’ them. I love you

Nobody likes us? So what? Ignore them. You’re my best friend. As long as I have you and you have me, that’s all we need. I’ll always have your back. Team Daniel and Freya!

Freya was forced to leave her memories as she saw Madeleine about to make a speech.

“Ladies and gentlemen if I may have your attention please... I’m afraid we will have to.....”

Immediately the room is filled with buzzing noises one after the other- the same noise echoing all around.

Shit!

Freya’s friends come up towards her looking shocked.

“You told Justin to not publish the statement right?” Drake asked, looking concerned towards her. Wondering why Justin would ignore her wishes, wondering why Justin would cause more trouble for her.

“Yeah. I text him- look.” Shaking, she passed Drake her phone. Looking back up towards her, he had sorrow in his eyes.

“Well I don’t know what happened but....” Maxwell panicked, it was like deja vu- a vendetta against Freya occurring all over again.

Freya heard everyone whispering around her. Penelope mentioned Tariq’s name whilst Madeleine gave Freya dagger eyes, she then heard Liam.

“They found him!”

Everyone gathered around Freya’s phone as they watched the statement. Tariq had confessed the truth around what really had happened that night at Applewood. That he was in the wrong, he apologised for all the events that had taken place in the room, and for not coming forward sooner, explaining Freya had nothing to do with it. It was a mix up and that he had invaded Freya’s privacy. Freya looked around giving everyone who was looking at her a dignified nod.

“Excuse me guys, I’m just going to get a drink of water.” All her friends looked concerned at each other as she walked away. She needed some air. She could hear all the commotion happening inside but needed to speak to her friend.

“Hey Dan, can you speak?”

“Frey what’s up?”

“It’s all over, my name is cleared.”

“That’s great sweetie, are you okay?”

“Just relieved. It’s over. No more whispering about me behind my back. They are so petty here- it’s like being back at high school. In fact no it’s worse! The fact that they are nobles you��d think they have manners, school kids have the excuse that they are kids.”

“Well you got through it then and I’m sure you will now. You’re strong Frey, if you wasn’t you wouldn’t have returned to face that shitstorm. You are determined but stubborn at the same time. They should have been afraid of you and to learn not to mess with a New Yorker.”

“Yeah, strong thanks to mom, dad and you. Talking about mom and dad, I haven’t had chance to see them. I feel guilty, and I know that sounds stupid but are you free tomorrow afternoon?”

“Of course I am. I’m sure they’ve missed you. You need to update your diary. Erm Frey?”

“Yeah...”

“You know when I said I needed to ask you something in that text? That’s what I wanted to ask. To ask if you’d been up to see them.”

“No Daniel. I feel guilty not going. No one from Cordonia knows about my past. Just gotten through one scandal- didn’t want to cause another one.”

“Well I’ve been up a few times and explained to them, and kept their graves tidy. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t. Thank you Dan! That means so much to me. Can you do me a favour? I need to send some things to your email - could you print them off for me and bring them tomorrow?”

“Sure thing Freya. See you at 2? Love ya sweetie.”

“See you then. Love ya”

Freya walked back into the room after talk with Daniel. She couldn’t believe what he had told her, he was a true friend. As she walked in Liam was on stage.

“ I propose a toast to Lady Johnson.”

Everyone in the room followed Liam’s toast. Freya saw Madeleine started to walk over just as Justin barged through the door.

No. Not dealing with this tonight. I feel like punching Justin.

“Hey guys, I’m going to head back. I’m really tired.”

“C’mon Jono, lets all get out of here before the press turn up and ask questions.”

Freya agreed with Drake, wondering why he was being so sincere for once. Along with Maxwell, Bertrand and Hana they headed back to the hotel. There was silence all the way back. She just wanted to go to sleep before seeing her mom and dad the following day but her friends insisted on coming inside with her.

“What a night!” Hana gently broke the silence between the friends.

“I can’t believe it’s over- finally.” Freya sighed as she kicked off her shoes and threw her bag onto the couch.

“Nor can I.”

“Liam?”

“I had a feeling you would all come here. I came as soon as I could. I can’t imagine how you are feeling after what my father put you through and what happened with Tariq.” Freya nodded and smiled at everyone.

How did I get lucky to gain such amazing friends? And I’m about to leave them all. Thank god for social media.

“I just feel relieved. It’s over. I’ve spent so long with schemes hanging over my head.” Maxwell jumps into the conversation- quite literally jumping. Freya raised her eyebrows at him, wondering how much alcohol he had managed to consume in the short time that they had attended the wedding shower.

“Now that you’re in the clear this calls for a celebration!”

“What did you have in mind?”

“What has amazing fried food, carnival games and crazy rides?” He said excitedly, with the biggest grin painted on his face.

“It’s Coney Island. He wants to go to Coney Island.” Drake now jumped into the conversation. He couldn’t bear anymore hints from Maxwell- they could possibly be there all night guessing. Freya laughed. “I see...”

“Yep! You. Us. Tomorrow morning? Liam can come too if he wants.”

“An excellent idea. I have things to do tonight but tomorrow sounds great.”

They arranged to meet at 10am before her friends left her room.

10am, that leaves me four hours to do Coney Island with my friends then get to my parents graves at 2pm to meet Daniel. How am I going to get away from them all without telling the truth of where I’m going? I don’t want to lie to them. Just then Freya thought of something. She had a plan.

*****

Freya couldn’t sleep after her name being cleared. Flashbacks occurred in the back of her mind from all the social season. Anyone else would have given up straight away.

Getting out of bed, she quickly showered and got dressed into a sports bra and leggings and decided to go for a run as she always did. It always cleared her mind for a bit. It was 6.30am. Plenty of time before she had to endure Coney Island with her friends. Not that she wasn’t excited to spend time with them, she just wasn’t as thrilled to be going. She went all the time. It was ‘old’ for her.

Grabbing her phone, headphones and bottle of ice cold water, Freya headed to the front door to leave for her run. As she got closer there was a knock.

Ffs Maxwell!

“Liam? I was just going to curse you thinking that you was my alarm clock also known as Maxwell!”

Liam stared at Freya, considering all the shit she had been through she could still crack a joke even at this time of the morning.

“Lady Freya, I thought I’d be disturbing you but looks like you are ready for the day and are going somewhere?”

“Yeah I couldn’t sleep. My New York brain kicked in. Whenever I couldn’t sleep, I’d go for a run to clear my mind. I’m just going now.... don’t worry I’ll be at Coney Island for ten. I’m not usually long.. scared of having a heart attack if I work out too much.”

“I don’t doubt for a minute you’d be late. And even if you was, this day is about you so we’d wait for you. I actually wanted to ask if you wanted to meet me before we went - for breakfast or a coffee somewhere? I’ve cleared my appointments for today.”

“Sure. What time? I’ll be an hour tops.”

“Ring me when you’re back. And I’ll come and collect you.”

“Okay. See you soon.”

Liam patted his pocket checking the box was still safe once Freya had left. They hadn’t been close recently- she kept ditching his suggestions of meeting up one to one. He believed it was because she didn’t want to cause another scandal whilst he was engaged to another woman.

But now her name had been cleared, he had considered asking her to become his Queen. She had won over the press during the social season, and now her name was cleared she could prove them all right that she is an amazing woman.

*********

An hour later Freya rung Liam, he immediately jumped out of his chair and grabbed his jacket. Just assuming he wanted to talk about her name being cleared, she didn’t think anything of it.

“Morning, did you enjoy your run.”

“Yes thank you. It’s good to be back to normality.” Liam wondered what she meant by the words back and normality.

“I see, so I thought we could go and visit the Statue of Liberty again?”

“Sure. Then we could beat those losers to Coney Island.” She laughed.

****

Liam admired the Statue of Liberty as he did that first night he met Freya, who went all out to make his dream come true about visiting her. Freya noticed that he was in a trance, assuming it was most likely due to the memory.

“We’ve come along way since we were last here.”

“Yes.” Liam couldn’t string a sentence together, deep down he knew she would immediately refuse his proposal due to their relationship drifting apart. Sitting down on a bench with the Statue in the distance, they both remained silent.

“Last time we was here, I was besotted with you. I always believed that if fate would bring us back together that I’d marry you.” Freya’s natural complexion suddenly drained, she wasn’t ready to break his heart. Any of their hearts in that case.

“I was going to ask you to marry me, be my Queen- but I knew deep down that you’d always say no after how my father treat you. I don’t blame you. I can see from your facial expression that you need to say something...”

“I ... I ...”

“Freya what’s up? I’ve never seen you speechless before. You’re strong. You’re determined.”

“Liam, I am those things. But deep down I’m constantly breaking down. I opened up to Duchess Adelaide at the UN party- I was drunk. I should have told you all about my past. Maxwell briefly knows. I’m so sorry Liam.” Liam looked at her bewildered, not knowing why she couldn’t talk to anyone regarding her past. After explaining about it all- he wore the same expression that Adelaide wore- both speechless.

“I’ve never seen you speechless before your Majesty.” She joked.

“You should have told us all. We all complained about our past to you. If you are feeling homesick- I’m not going to keep you tied up in a dungeon. You can leave Cordonia whenever. We can all make it a regular vacation.”

“Liam... I’m not coming back to Cordonia.”

#theroyalromance #choices trr #trr hold my girl #trr freya johnson #drakewalker #liam rhys #maxwell beaumont

[butididntpourthewhiskeys]

A Favorite 

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind I was. Lovers don’t just meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” - Rumi

A big candle is burning on the window ledge, right at the end of the living room. It’s not even late yet it’s dark outside. Winter hasn’t really come to an end yet. Winter here in California. Nothing but a mild breeze refreshing the mind. Rain coming down the sky ever since this morning. Thick clouds covering the sky, landing right on the roof of the patio and landing on the grass. Nourishing. Cleaning up the mind.

There’s bustle in the house, heels on the hardwood floor, sweet perfume in the air, two cats lounging around her massive living room armchairs and a smiling man leaning in the doorframe. He carefully witnesses every move she makes. Every sigh, every twitch of her eyes, every smile. Two assistants are whirling around, helping her close her dress and fix the curly pinned- up hairstyle.

“Baby?”

“Mhmm?”

“I have to head off. The car is here.” He says slowly, carefully makes his way over to her, always making sure he’s not tripping on her dress or bumping into one of her assistants that are crouching in front of her, helping her get into her heels.

She looks right up at him with big eyes, just nods a little distracted by maneuvering to get into her shoes and having someone else fix her hair at the same time. Joe gently smiles at her. That is giving him Taylor’s attention. He doesn’t move, just stands right in front of her and reaches for her hands.

“You look beautiful.”

A small smile appears on her lips. “No, you look beautiful” she gives back and smiles at the stubbly man in suit and tie. He looks so handsome. If she could, then she would send everyone away and spend her last minutes with him before his big night differently. With a little more body contact and a little less clothing.

“So handsome.” she then says and Joe, who is still holding both her hands gently steps closer, grinning, before gently placing his lips on hers. It’s a soft kiss. A familiar one.

“I’ll see you in a bit.” He mumbles and Taylor smiles also, stealing him another gentle kiss, “See you in a bit.” she whispers and Joe smiles. You’ll be okay. I’ll be there. Taylor takes a deep breath and smiles back at him before watching him leave through the door of the living room.

Taylor stands in the middle of the room, an ice cold whiskey on the rocks in her hand, holding smalltalk with three people she doesn’t know. Every now and then she slowly looks down, makes sure her dress is still where it’s supposed to be. The drink she got is stronger than she first thought, but just strong enough to help her relax. The last two hours have been an emotional rollercoaster for her. The excitement to see Joe on the big screen at the Oscars, the pride in her chest as well as the anxiety of stepping out into the public, into one of the most high profile events of the world, with a building full of people who don’t know her yet know exactly who she is. People who know why she’s here. For whom she is here. Joe’s and her relationship has become something that can stand the public’s attention yet she still doesn’t really like it. She doesn’t like people talking about them, speculating about them. But what she do likes is the handsome and tall guy with the stubble, the blonde hair, the blue eyes and the beautiful smile who just makes his way into the room. He shakes a man’s hand, obviously thrilled about this successful night for him and the entire cast. Taylor knows him so well, knows that he doesn’t need the attention. But at the same time, he is an exceptional talent and he deserves all the attention and all the applause in the world.

Taylor absentmindedly smiles as she watches him, sees that he discreetly scans the room to find her. It takes him a few seconds until he slowly makes his way to her table. When he approaches, he politely shakes everyone’s hands next to Taylor, introduces himself to the people who sit on their table as well.

Taylor knows that she can’t fall into a passionate kiss in front of everybody. But god, how much she would want to right now. Joe slowly grabs her hand, gives her a quick kiss and then pulls her into a warm hug. Taylor closes her eyes for a second, breaths in his scent. God, she is so proud of him.

“Congratulations, Mr. Favorite” she whispers into his ear, making him chuckle into her neck slightly. He then pulls back and smiles at her emotional face. He can see how proud she is. And it means the world to him. “Thank you miss Swift” he smiles, as Taylor slowly strokes his cheek. “Proud of you.” She just says, doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable in front of Olivia, Rachel and the other cast mates that are all standing around them, waiting to be seated while drinking champagne and holding small talk. “Thank you baby. Have you met Thomas and James?” Joe asks, sees how the two assisting directors of his latest movie make their way over to him. Taylor immediately turns around and smiles politely at the two men. “No I haven’t.” She smiles, and shakes hands. Taylor is more than advanced at this game. Shaking hands, smiling, small talk, standing next to Joe just to reassure him when he gets overwhelmed (she can sense that easily) and always making sure to crack a little joke here and there. It would be wrong to say that she’s faking anything, cause after all, she loves being here with Joe. It’s just her insecurities that always lead her to make a joke or start a conversation about the heat in LA or the rain in London as well as the current movie landscape. She just wants him to enjoy bringing her here. She wants him to feel like she fits into his world. That she can support him. That they’re together in this.

When they sit down at their table, Joe places his hand on her lap, right over her folded hands. She looks a little lost, immediately looks into his direction when she feels his hand reaching for hers.

“Hungry?” He asks, so quietly that he knows only she heard him. Taylor smiles and nods.

“Rachel said they had the most amazing dessert last year.” She smiles and Joe laughs. No matter if it’s their weekly going- to- Sainsbury’s- at 11pm- ritual or the Vanity Fair Oscar party - if there’s one thing Taylor can always get excited about, then its dessert or any form of sweets.  

“You can have mine, too. I’m not that hungry.”

Taylor’s face immediately changes a bit. “Why? You need to eat after this exciting day.” She says, his hand still in hers, resting on her lap while she slowly caresses the back of his hand. Nobody can see that they’re holding hands and she knows that Joe is rattled up. She knows what it’s like to have your dreams come true. It’s magical but also very very scary and exhausting.

“I’ll try.”

Joe closes the door of the big black car, immediately looks at her to make sure she’s fine. He closes his seatbelt, then automatically reaches for Taylor’s hands. She takes a deep breath, was looking into her phone before taking it back into her purse and looking at him with a smile.

“Tired?” He asks, and she shakes her head. After all, it’s past 2 am.

“Are you tired?” She asks him and he shakes his head with her.

“Why are we going home then?”

“Cause you’re too fucking drunk” he says and makes her giggle. She punches him into the side, then pretends to be annoyed.

“I’m not drunk.” She says, looks back at him and giggles once more. He can’t help but laugh with her. He knows that she’s not drunk rather a bit tipsy and giggly. Taylor leans her head back, looks out of the window while still holding onto his big hand.

“You’re pissed.” He says and she just chuckles once more, way too fascinated by the palm trees in the dark that their car slowly passes.

“Maybe a little. They just constantly refilled my glass. Are you tipsy as well?” She asks him, then slowly moves her head to look at him. Joe just laughs at her and shakes his head, then sits upright again and also looks out of the window. LA has always had some magic to it. He can’t explain it.

“Do you wanna go to bed or do you want to do something?” She asks excitedly and receives a questioning look from him.

“I’m up to doing in bed whatever you want, love.” He teases, then receives a punch into his side from her. She can’t believe he said this in front of their driver. Taylor doesn’t say anything, just stares out of the window and shakes her head. Joe laughs, brings her hand closer to his lips and kisses it grinning.

“I’m just kidding.” He says grinning, “What do you wanna do?”

“I don’t know, maybe watch a movie?” She asks. She knows that they’re both way too rattled up from this day to be able to just go to bed and sleep. Joe smiles and nods.

“Sounds good.”

This is one of the things he loves most about her. Being at home with him, is her safe zone. Not any glamorous party or prestigious event. She’s a multimillionaire who craves nothing more than simplicity, and safety. He loves that side to her. He loves coming home. Music and movies, her cookies, their very secret world where nothing matters but them. Just what he needs after this day.

The car disappears in the driveway of the gated house. As it finally comes to a stop, Joe is the first one to open the door and step outside, then immediately opens her door to make sure she gets out of the car with her ball gown. As he opens the door he laughs. She hands him her heels, holds layers of fabric in her hands and leaves the car barefoot.

Brandon meanwhile opens the main entrance of the house for them and Taylor smiles.

“Thanks Brandon, have a good night” she answers and disappears in the house together with Joe. She turns on the light in the hallway, hears Joe disappear in the little bathroom right next to the door.

“Mer? Dibbles? We’re home.” She yells out of reflex, then slowly walks into the kitchen to turn o the lights.

“Let us fucking get some sleep, mummy” she hears Joe with a high- pitched voice yelling from the bathroom. She immediately has to laugh. The same idiotic humor as her. There’s a reason they’re together.

Still in her black gown and barefoot, Taylor opens the cupboard and grabs a glass to fill with water from the sink. She just stands in the kitchen, juggs down water. Joe slowly walks in, sees her leaning against the counter, drinking water.

“Are you okay?” He asks immediately, slowly walks up to her. She internally smiles, loves that he cares about her well- being at any given moment.

“Yeah, just thirsty. Do you want some water as well?”

“I’ll get it babe”

“No, I’m getting it” she interrupts him and reaches for another glass faster than he is. She quickly fills it with cold water as well, then turns around and gives it to him. Her back leans against the counter now, and Joe takes a step closer towards her while taking a sip.

“Thanks” he says, places the glass next to them on the counter.

“You’re welcome.” she says a little more quiet, loving his closeness. Joe places his hands on her hips and slowly leans in to kiss her. Differently, then before. A little longer, a little closer.

“You’re so cute.. with your water.” He mumbles against her lips.

Taylor looks at him for a second, then breaks into laughter. Her hands both around his neck.

“I do think you’re drunk.” She says. Joe in the meantime has placed his lips on her forehead, right over her bangs.

“Maybe a little.” He smirks. Taylor strokes his cheek.

“I have an idea.” She says, enjoys Joe just standing there with her - his tummy on hers, not moving away from her caressing him.

“How about we go upstairs, I make some tea, we take a bath, and I put on where we left off on Birdbox last night.” She suggests and Joe nods, lets his head fall into the crook of her neck.

“Sounds amazing.” He mumbles, obviously exhausted. She can literally feel the nervousness fall off of him. He needs relaxation now. He needs to come down. Just when Taylor was about to push him off, to move to boil some water, Joe stops her, holds her hand a little tighter.

“Tay?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for tonight.” He just says. She looks at him a little confused, but steps up closer again.

“What do you mean?”

“I could never see anyone else ever by my side for these things. You’re… incredible.”

“Oh, honey..” She just whispers, places her hand carefully on his stubble. She’s obviously touched by his words, slowly searches for more proximity.

“Thank you so much for saying that. But you know that I will…”

“Pssst.” He interrupts her with a grin.

“What?”

“I just wanted to say that I love you. Like ten times more than you think.”

Taylor smiles and giggles quietly. She just places another kiss on his lips, pulls him down to her so that his forehead is against hers.

“I love you too, baby.”

“Do you need help opening it?” He asks, sees her reaching behind to open her gown. She stands in the middle of the bathroom. Her hair already back to natural, hanging a little messed up down her shoulders. She has lit some of the candles that she has decorated the entire bathroom with. Candles and flowers. Some of the her favorite things. He knows that better than anyone. Joe in the meantime has already taken off his suit, turned on the flatscreen that’s hanging directly on the wall over the bathtub in the master bathroom of the house.

Taylor just nods, looks into the mirror to find Joe struggling to open it as well. She loves beautiful dresses and feeling like Cinderella for just a few hours. But the aftermath is the not so fun part. Standing in the bathroom, just wanting to get out of the uncomfortable dress and not being able to.

“There we go.” Joe mumbles, slowly opens the zipper on the side of the dress. Taylor immediately lets the dress fall down, suddenly stands in front of the mirror in nothing but a black thong and boob tape. He smiles and Taylor laughs, turns around to look at him. Now this is the worst part. She says a little frightened, reaches for the end of the boob tape that is on her chest.

“Does it hurt?” He asks, can only imagine how painful it must be to rip off some tape that is on one of the most sensible parts of the body.

“Yeah, you have to do it super slowly..” she mumbles, busy to slowly get rid of the tape.

“Should I help you?” He asks, wants to be supportive but also would take any chance to play with her incredible boobs at any given time. After all, he loves the woman in front of him. And her incredible body is part of that.

“Sure. But go slow, especially when you’re there.. like, almost over the nipple.” she mumbles, holds her left boob while watching Joe slowly move the tape from under her breast.

“s’ that hurt?” he murmurs in a thick accent, almost makes it hard for her to understand him.

“No it’s fine.” She says, then slowly hisses when he reaches her nipple.

“Sorry, did I…”

“No, no, just continue.” She says. After a minute, the tape is gone. She sighs.

“God, I hate it.” She says, looks down at Joe who immediately helps her with the tape on her left boob. It takes less than two minutes for him to remove the last parts. Taylor just thanks him with a kiss, then places her hands slowly over her nipples. She hates the skin irritation on this sensible part of skin every time she uses boob tape. The price of beauty is just so high nowadays.

“Does it hurt?” Joe asks, after having tossed the rest of the tape into the little bin next to the toilet.

“Yeah it’s red and sore.. I have to put some cream on it later.” She says. Joe looks at her breast and can clearly see how reddened her nipples are.

“I’m sorry..” He says, can only imagine how uncomfortable this probably is.

“I can already see in your face how badly you want to apply the cream later.” She mumbles, makes him laugh.

“I mean… we both know that I’m extremely good at that stuff.” He says, makes her laugh a little. Taylor turns round, looks into the mirror in front of her. She washes her hands quickly, then pulls down her panties. Joe in the meantime tries to put on Netflix on the flatscreen over the already filled tub.

“Joe?”

“Yes” he answers distracted.

“Would you mind if I pee real quick. Like.. is that gross?” He asks, currently removes her eye make up with some coconut oil that she rubs over her face. Joe just laughs and looks at her.

“Are we really at that stage of the relationship.”

“I’m sorry, I mean if you want to leave the…”

“It’s fine. Go ahead. If you poop I will sleep on the couch.” He says, makes her laugh loudly.

“Oh my god, can you imagine.” She mumbles, never had a problem to pee in front of her friends of mum. Maybe she’s too open when it comes to these things, or maybe she just gets too comfortable with the people she loves. But doing your business in front of your partner is an absolute no- go. That is for sure.

“I just have to pee so much whenever I have champagne..” She mumbles, “I know, trust me.” He gives back sarcastically. Taylor quickly disappears on the toilet at the end of the room and starts to giggle when Joe pulls down his underwear and covers both of his ears while stepping into the bathtub.

“I’m almost done.” She laughs, just hears Joe go “la la la, I can’t hear or see anything, la la la”. Taylor flushes, just laughs and shakes her head at him. When she gets into the bathtub as well, he takes his hands off his ears, grinning at her.

“Was that so bad?” She asks, shivers a little when she feels the warm water around her skin.

“Did you poop?”

“Oh my god, no!”

“It smells.”

“It doesn’t, you idiot.” She laughs with him, as Joe already grabs her hips, pulls her closer.

“Come here, turn around..” He mumbles, as Taylor realizes that her back faces the TV. She quickly stands up in the bathtub, reaches for the light switch that is right next to the towel dryer and dims the lights a little. Just enough, so that she can still see him. She then turns around and slowly sits down again, right between Joe’s legs. She leans back and Joe immediately wraps his arms around her torso, so close that he can kiss her cheek from behind. She laughs, feels Joe squeezing her.

“So cozy..” She mumbles, takes a deep breath and enjoys the moment. This is her absolute most favorite moment of the day. A great tv show, the warm bathtub and the two arms of the man she loves.

“I know, right..” Joe mumbles into her ear, encourages Taylor to lean her head back to be more comfortable. Taylor just lets her head fall back, feels even more happier as she realized that his shoulder can function perfectly as a real life pillow in the bathtub.

“I totally forgot where we left off..” She mumbles confused, both hands on Joe’s arms that hug her tightly from behind, while staring onto the flatscreen on the wall.

“He’s her ex husband. The one with the knee injury..”

“Oh, right. And who’s the girl in the black shirt?”

Joe laughs, “That’s the main character, granny”

Taylor laughs as well, always forgets about characters in tv shows too fast. She watches too much tv, then starts to confuse the characters with each other. That’s the only explanation she has.

“But that’s not Sandra Bullock.”

“Of course it is, are you mad” he continuous to laugh.

“She looks so different.” Taylor says.

“Okay, slowly I start to think that you’re the one who’s still drunk tonight. First you poop with me in the room, now you tell me that you can’t identify Sandra Bullock on a six feet big flatscreen?!”

Taylor giggles uncontrollably, moves her elbow to punch him into the side - once more.

“I didn’t poop and the tv is NOT six feet okay.” She laughs and turns around, finds Joe just laughing behind her as well.

“Okay okay, Ms. Swift, now lean back and relax please okay.” He mumbles and Taylor turns around again and leans back. This time, Joe’s hands land on her bare stomach.

“You’re so mean to me.” She whispers. Joe has to laugh quietly. He knows that his dark British humor is sometimes a little too much for her, but he also knows that she loves it. That she speaks the same language when it comes to humor.

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m just teasing you.” He whispers into her ear and holds her a little closer. HIs hand that is on her stomach caressing her gently.

“I know.” She mumbles, holds onto his arms tightly while watching tv. Joe moves his head to the side, kisses her hair a few times. After a while, Joe looks down to her, has noticed that she became suspiciously silent.

“Tay?”

No answer. Joe chuckles slightly. Of course she would doze off in the bathtub after ten minutes. Typically Taylor.

He doesn’t move, lets her rest peacefully in his arms while continuing to watch the tv show by himself. Suddenly Taylor moves, then moves a little irritated.

“What..”

“Babe.” He says, can notice clearly that she’s in a half sleep state and a little irritated as of where she is.

Suddenly she turns around, all startled, then starts laughing.

“What on earth…”

“I fell asleep and suddenly I felt the water and woke up cause I thought I was drowning.” she says, tries to laugh slightly. Joe immediately places his hand on her neck.

“You were all cuddled up in my arms. I make sure you don’t drown. Always.” He says gently and Taylor nods, then immediately cuddles up against his neck again. This time, she has rolled her legs together, lets him hold her while sitting in front of him like an embryo.

“Joe..”

“Mhm”

“Before I forget, did I tell you how proud I am of you.”

Joe smiles, his hand still around her bare back, stroking it gently.

“You did.” He smiles.

Taylor looks up at him, just stares smiling for a few seconds, then steals one kiss.

“The Favorite is truly my favorite, did you know that.”

She can feel him breath out, laughing.

“You’re truly my favorite, did you know that.”

Taylor leans back against his chest once more, surrounded by warm water, warm arms and one heartbeat.

“I do know that. Makes me very happy.” she mumbles, steals his wet chest a kiss or two.

“Me too.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

#taylor swift #joe alwyn #taylor swift fanfiction #joe and taylor #joe and taylor fanfiction

[jaynaneeya]

And Then There Were More

To be clear, the entirety of Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party is perfect and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but here’s what I think might have happened if Chapter 5 had gone slightly differently.

***

“Miss Agatha Christie, we are indeed – Eddie?” Edgar Allan Poe gasped.

Agatha Christie was standing just outside the door, with a man whose arm she was twisting behind his back. The man was unmistakably Eddie Dantes, and he was very much alive. “You know him?” Agatha asked Edgar, releasing her grip on Eddie. “He just tried to stab me,” she added, holding up the small knife she had wrestled from his hand.

“I thought she was the murderer!” Eddie protested, massaging his wrist, as Edgar, Lenore, Emily, and HG all gaped at him in astonishment.

“The murderer?” Christie repeated.

“People have been dying here all night, right?” Eddie appealed to the others.

“Yeah, and you were one of them!” snapped Lenore. “How are you alive? And what are you doing out here?”

Before Eddie could reply, they all heard a scream. They hurried in the direction of the sound, and found Oscar Wilde pounding on the bathroom door, calling, “Mary Ann!”

“What’s going on? Where’s Annabel?” Edgar demanded.

“She went to find you,” Oscar told him. “Wait, Eddie? Are you…a ghost?”

“No, I’m alive, I was just…pretending to be dead, so I could catch the murderer.”

“But… you were the first victim,” HG pointed out. “When you faked your death, there was no murderer to catch yet.”

“George Eliot’s in trouble; let’s talk about this later,” Emily interjected, pushing her way to the front of the group and forcing in the door.

To their dismay, George Eliot was slumped on the floor, with his/her head in a picture frame. While everyone else was frozen in shock, Annabel Lee rushed in. “There you are! What’s-” she stopped suddenly. “Eddie?!” she cried. “You’re alive?!” she threw her arms around him.

“Yes, my dear, I’m so sorry, I-”

“She’s still breathing!” Edgar exclaimed, unsure whether he was more excited that George Eliot was still alive or that it gave him an excuse to interrupt Eddie and Annabel.

To Edgar’s delight, Annabel immediately broke away from Eddie and knelt beside George, who gasped and opened his/her eyes. “I have something important to say.”

“Yes? Who did this to you?” Annabel asked.

“You may not believe it, but I –” taking off the hat, “George Eliot –” and the mustache, “am a woman.”

“Yes, dear, we knew that already, but who-?” but George Eliot had died.

Annabel turned back to Eddie. “How are you alive?” she asked.

“Wait!” Edgar interrupted dramatically. “Where’s Ernest?”

“Let me get this straight,” Agatha Christie broke in. “There’s a murderer in this house, and you’re not keeping track of where everyone is at all times?”

“He was with us in the vault right before you arrived,” HG told her defensively.

“Maybe he’s in the study with Charlotte,” Emily suggested.

“Why aren’t you all staying together?” wondered the baffled Miss Christie. “No wonder you’re all dying. How many deaths have there been so far?”

“Five,” said Edgar.

“Four,” Oscar corrected, nodding to Eddie.

“Okay, now are you going to tell us how you’re still alive?” Lenore asked.

“First let’s make sure Ernest and Charlotte are okay. Then I’ll explain everything,” Eddie promised.

They all returned to the study. Charlotte was tied to the chair, just as they’d left her. Ernest was standing near the doorway, holding a bunch of knives, looking confused. “Where were you?” he asked them.

“We could ask you the same question,” Oscar countered. “What are you doing with all those knives?”

“I brought them for everyone, for protection.”

Agatha groaned and sank into a chair, her face in her hands. “You all are the worst!”

“Who’s she?” Hemingway asked.

“Agatha Christie,” Eddie responded.

“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” Charlotte asked him. “And aren’t you all satisfied that I can’t be the murderer? How am I still tied up?”

As Ernest used one of his knives to cut through the wires that bound Charlotte, Eddie finally began his tale. “As soon as I took a bite of my soup, I could tell that something was wrong with it.”

“How dare you?!” Lenore cried.

“Someone had clearly poisoned it. I could tell they were trying to kill me, so I decided my best hope of escaping death was to pretend to be dead already. I’ve been trying to catch the murderer, and I thought I’d been successful when I saw Miss Christie at the door.” He glared at her. “I’m still not convinced I was wrong. Where have you been all this time?”

“I told Edgar I was going to be late, as I had a previous engagement. I got here as soon as I could, which wasn’t nearly soon enough, apparently, but shockingly, I don’t expect everywhere I go to give me inspiration for my next mystery novel.”

Emily spoke up. “I had some of the soup.”

“Is that how you died?” Charlotte asked.

“I’m still alive!”

“Which means the soup wasn’t poisoned, and Eddie’s lying!” Edgar hastily concluded.

“Did you eat soup out of my bowl?” Eddie asked.

“No, out of the pot in the kitchen.”

“Then perhaps someone just poisoned my bowl.”

“It must have been Lenore,” Oscar asserted. “She’s the one who served the soup with her weird ghost powers.”

“Okay, will someone please coherently explain exactly what has happened here tonight?” Agatha requested. “I need to know what I missed in order to solve this mystery.”

“I am clearly the best at explaining things concisely,” Ernest bragged, taking a swig from his flask.

“You’re also drunk,” Edgar pointed out, “and as this is my house, I will tell Miss Christie what’s going on.”

Edgar explained as best he could the events surrounding the fake death of Eddie and the real deaths of Louisa May Alcott, Mary Shelley, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and George Eliot. The expression on Agatha Christie’s face grew more and more incredulous as he described their reactions, and she burst out with a loud “WHAT?!” when he mentioned that they had split up to search the house.

“And aside from the vial of poison with the blood on it, you’ve found no clues whatsoever?” Agatha asked him when he’d concluded.

“None,” he confirmed. He hadn’t mentioned the handkerchief because it seemed to implicate Annabel, though the tender way she’d been caressing Eddie’s hand throughout his tale had almost tempted him to do so. Poe glared at the others present, daring them to mention it, but no one was saying anything.

Agatha considered carefully for a moment. “It almost makes sense… Edgar, what painting did you have in your bathroom that George Eliot could have been murdered with?”

Edgar raised an eyebrow. “What kind of person has paintings in their bathroom?”

“I have five in mine,” Oscar remarked.

“What happened to your sleeve?” Agatha asked him.

“Ugh, Miss Brontë spilled wine on it. I was going to change, but I didn’t get the chance,” he added, putting his jacket back on to hide the stain.

“Because you insisted that George go into the bathroom,” Annabel said accusatorially.

“She was covered in birdie bits! I was being a gentleman.”

“Shall we all return to the washroom to see what that painting was?” HG suggested.

“No matter, I know what it was now, thank you,” Agatha responded, to the others’ astonishment.

After a long enough pause to make clear that she was not intending on saying anything further, Ernest blurted out, “So, what was it?”

“What? Oh, a painting of Oscar Wilde, of course. But what I don’t understand is how… there must be… but who…?” she trailed off pensively.

“Eddie, darling, who do you think was trying to kill you?” Annabel asked quietly, trying not to disturb Agatha.

“I don’t know, my dear. I can’t think of any enemies or rivals I might have.” He stared pointedly at Poe.

Annabel followed his gaze. Edgar had clearly overheard them and was fuming. “No, Edgar couldn’t do this,” she insisted. “He’s a good man.”

Eddie snorted. “A good man?” he repeated loudly. “He can’t even hold a dinner party that more than half his guests survive!”

“Hey, way less than half have died!” Edgar objected.

“Yeah, so far,” Eddie scoffed. “Obviously the safest thing was to pretend to be dead.”

“I’m missing something…” Agatha muttered.

“M-may I make a suggestion?” HG stammered.

“By all means,” Edgar sighed.

“If Miss Christie needs more assistance, per- perhaps Lenore could, uh, contact the psychic who conjured her ghost to, uh, summon some of the people who died here tonight? I’m sure at least one of them saw whomever killed them.”

“Surely Miss Christie can solve this murder without the assistance of ghosts,” Eddie asserted.

Agatha considered him carefully. “Miss Christie would be very interested to hear what the ghosts might say,” she informed him.

“Great, I’ll contact Krishanti!” Lenore sounded more cheerful than anyone had all evening.

When Krishanti entered the study, her eyes were immediately drawn to Eddie, the man who was constantly pestering her to bring back his brother. But he pointedly avoided her gaze, so Krishanti followed his lead and hid her recognition. When Guy’s ghost appeared, however, Eddie couldn’t help letting out an audible gasp. When the others stared at him, he quickly whispered, “Who is that? He didn’t die in this house tonight, right?” at which point Guy started his speech, which Charlotte then interrupted by sneezing and blowing out Krishanti’s candle.

As Krishanti hurried out in search of sage, Agatha asked, “Who was that?”

“Guy de Vere, my fiancé,” Lenore responded. “Krishanti could never bring him back, until now apparently.”

“Ah, I see.” Agatha turned to Annabel. “And why did he point to you and say you weren’t a bell?”

Annabel shrugged. “I thought he was saying I wasn’t able, though to do what I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Maybe he was saying she wasn’t A. Bell, like that handkerchief we found in Miss Alcott’s mouth,” Emily suggested.

Agatha turned to Emily enthusiastically. “You found a handkerchief that said A. Bell on it?!” she exclaimed.

Emily blushed and looked at the floor. “Well, not exactly. I mean, I didn’t find it, and it didn’t exactly say A. Bell. It just had the letter A and a picture of a bell. Miss Brontë seemed to think it was Annabel’s, but maybe that ghost was saying it wasn’t.”

Agatha rounded on Edgar. “And you didn’t think this was important enough to tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to think that the beautiful, sweet, innocent, beautiful Annabel Lee could have had anything to do with-”

“Oh, how tiresome of you!” exclaimed Agatha. “That was the piece I was missing. We could have avoided this whole séance if you’d just told me everything like I asked. Well, come on, everyone, we have to stop her!” She started toward the door, but no one followed.

“Er, stop whom?” Oscar asked. “And from what?”

“Stop Anne Brontë from murdering Krishanti, of course!”

“Anne Brontë?” Lenore repeated. “You mean Charlotte?”

“Well, I would, if she wasn’t standing right there. Don’t you see? It must be the other one. Look, I’ll explain in a moment. First, Edgar and Lenore lead the way to the kitchen, which is where I assume Krishanti was headed. I’ll bring up the rear to make sure no one is left behind. Just hurry!”

When they arrived at the kitchen, Krishanti was dialing a number on the telephone, but she wasn’t alone. A woman most of them had never seen before was slowly approaching the psychic, holding a large knife. “Hey!” Lenore shouted, causing Kristanti to jump and drop the phone. When she saw the knife she started to scream, but the woman immediately lowered it and feigned a look of innocence.

“Who are you?” Edgar demanded of the stranger.

“I’m Anne Brontë. So sorry I’m late for dinner, I was just looking for the food.”

“Good luck finding any,” snorted Ernest.

“Anne Brontë wasn’t on our list, was she?” Annabel asked Eddie.

“Wait a minute,” said Edgar, “Eddie told you whom I should invite?!”

Agatha glared at him. “Haven’t you figured it out yet, Mr. Poe?”

Edgar furrowed his brow. “I’m getting there. But what does any of this have to do with A. Bell?”

Agatha pointed to Anne. “Her pen name is Acton Bell. I knew that Eddie and Charlotte were in on this, but as neither of them could have killed George Eliot, there had to be a third person. I couldn’t figure out if it was one of you or someone else, at least until you told me about the handkerchief.”

“What made you think I had anything to do with this?” Charlotte cried.

“You had the greatest opportunity to kill Dostoevsky, and you obviously stained Wilde’s shirt to send him to his death in the washroom.”

Oscar gasped. “You did that on purpose?!”

“Why would I work with someone who was about to foreclose on my house?” Charlotte countered.

“I imagine he told you he’d let you keep your house if you helped him. I also assume he offered to help you cover up the murder of Jane Austen.”

“How can you possibly know about that?” Anne wondered.

Agatha smiled. “Who do you think you’re dealing with?”

“You must be making a mistake, Miss Christie,” said Annabel. “Eddie’s a great guy.”

“Then why would he fake his own death before people started dying? And why would he cheat on you with both Charlotte and Oscar?”

“I thought he was dating me!” Anne protested.

“Ha, in your dreams,” scoffed Oscar.

Annabel had let go of Eddie’s hand and began to shrink away from him, her eyes widening in horror. “Eddie? It’s not true, is it? It can’t be.”

But Eddie was ignoring her, his eyes fixed on Agatha Christie. To everyone’s astonishment and confusion, he suddenly began to clap slowly. The Brontës attempted to join in, but he silenced them and continued his solo slow clap. When this had gone on far longer than anyone else was comfortable with, he stopped clapping and said, “Congratulations, Miss Christie. You figured it out.”

Agatha rolled her eyes. “Of course I did. You knew I would, or you wouldn’t have tried to kill me before I arrived.”

“But, why would you do this, Eddie?” cried Annabel.

He opened his mouth, but before he could reply, Agatha said, “Because he’s Guy de Vere’s brother and a descendant of Edward de Vere, who claimed that Shakespeare stole his work, so he’s trying to get revenge on authors.”

Looking very disappointed at having his villain monologue stolen, Eddie asked, “How could you possibly know that?”

“It was perfectly evident that you and Krishanti recognized each other, and that you recognized the ghost of Guy de Vere. That combined with the fact that all the authors were killed in manners that reflected their work made this the only logical solution.”

“Enough chatter, let’s call the police!” Ernest shouted, a bit louder than necessary.

As Ernest lunged toward the phone, Charlotte pulled a gun out of nowhere and pointed it at him. He leapt back automatically as the others gasped. “No one goes near that phone,” Charlotte ordered.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Agatha. “The police should be here any minute anyway.”

“Why should the police come?” Anne sneered. “Nobody’s called them. We’ve been watching the phone all night. Krishanti’s call was interrupted by all of you, and no one else has used it.”

“Nobody needed to call them,” Agatha responded calmly. “A few days ago, I staged my own disappearance. After making sure it was being investigated, I led a very clear trail to this house. They’ll be here soon.”

“You said you didn’t expect everywhere you go to provide inspiration for your next novel,” Charlotte reminded her.

“Not everywhere I go, certainly, but a murder mystery dinner party at Edgar Allan Poe’s house? It would have been foolish not to take some precautions.”

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Charlotte jumped and dropped the gun; Agatha quickly retrieved it. “I suppose that must be the police. Or were you expecting anyone else, Edgar?”

“No, I don’t think so. Unless Emily Dickinson decided to finally show up.”

“She’s right there,” Agatha told him, nodding toward Emily, who beamed. Agatha pointed the gun at each of the murderers. “Right, you three, let’s go answer the door.”

Everyone followed Agatha and the murderers out of the kitchen except Annabel. When Edgar noticed she wasn’t with them in the hall, he turned back to join her. She was crying softly. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I courted Eddie because I thought my family would approve. He seemed like such a respectable, great guy. I never imagined he was capable of something like this.”

Edgar didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t understand, Edgar. I’m trying to say that I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Annabel. I know you wouldn’t have brought him if you knew he was going to kill people.”

“I mean, I’m sorry for wasting time we could have spent together.”

This was the last thing Edgar had expected. He was sure he had misheard. “What do you mean?”

Annabel took his hand and smiled through her tears. “I mean, I never loved Eddie. It was always you.”

***

Agatha Christie opened the front door triumphantly.

“Are you Mr. Allan Poe?” asked Constable Jim.

She stared at him in astonishment for a moment. “Um… no. I’m Agatha Christie.”

“Hey, we found her!” Constable Jimmy exclaimed.

“You’re going to want backup,” Agatha told them. “These three all need to be arrested for murder.” She handed the gun to Emily. “Miss Dickinson, hold them until backup arrives. I’m going to go home and divorce my unfaithful husband.”

#poe party #poeparty #edgar allan poe's murder mystery dinner party #fanfic #see if you can spot the clue references #this isn't nearly as good as what really happened #but at least significantly more people survive

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Vol. 5 The More the Merrier

This is a re-posting from October 9th, 2018 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks!

Hello, moon.

Will we ever learn what happened to you? Not in this episode! That ominous shot (countered with the oddly soothing sound of crickets) is just to situate us before we pan down, revealing the gang making their way to the meeting with Lionheart. And honestly? I kind of love everything about this composition. Let’s tick things off:

We have Jaune and Ren mirroring each other with determined expressions and clenched fists. They’re ready to kick ass if need be.

Same with Ruby and Nora except they look like they’re out for a casual moonlit stroll—with the added bonus that Nora is manically thrilled about this adventure.

Yang is pretty blasé. Been there. Done that. Survived worse.

Weiss? The embodiment of “Ugh I could be home right now instead of walking around in this heat this had better not mess up my hair.”

Oscar looks way out of his depth and is hanging back from the rest, as we’d expect given that he’s a farm boy joining a group of elite fighters that have had years to bond without him. It’s Awkward New Kid Syndrome with a side of extreme danger.

And then there’s Qrow. Out in front. Suspicious looks all around. Iconic hunched shoulders. Really wants to put his hands in his pockets but the animation isn’t quite there yet. Behold, everyone. Our leader.

For real though, jokes aside I honest to god love this opening. It’s quick and from a practical standpoint sets up only that they’re heading somewhere as a group, but if you take the time to actually look you’ll see each of their personalities shining through. We might bitch about RWBY’s faults, but there’s a whole lot of love poured into this series and more often than not you can see it in the details.

Ruby pauses then to take in Haven tower—always one to appreciate beauty even when things are bleak—and then hangs back until Oscar has caught up. It’s a wonderful little moment between them because there’s no dialogue and ultimately none is needed. He doesn’t stop for reassurance, but he could. Ruby gives him that option and waits until Oscar passes her before continuing herself. The whole scene is heavy and poignant. There’s nothing but music until they arrive inside and Lionheart breaks the peace with, “Why hello. There… seems to be more of you than last time.”

Yeah. You can hear the fear in his voice. As if the rest of this setup didn’t already scream “TRAP, TRAP, TRAP,” He’s gotta be super suspicious in his greeting too. Leading them out here in the dead of night. Lionheart up on the podium—both figuratively putting himself above them and literally keeping himself out of harm’s way. Then the first thing out of his mouth is a worried comment on their numbers? Suspicious, suspicious.

Qrow: “Oh you know what they say. The more the merrier.”

He did the title thing! Love that.

Except the delivery makes it clear that Qrow is also suspicious as hell. No one has drawn their weapon yet, but the fight has already started. Qrow and Ozpin know that this is no simple meeting. Now Lionheart knows that they know. A quick shot reveals both his fear and the fact that he came with a weapon of his own:

Qrow tries to continue the charade by asking what’s up with the council and Lionheart is so bad at acting casual it’s actually painful to watch. He wants to know why they all brought THEIR weapons while hiding his own behind his back. As if they in any way failed to miss him standing there with it in full view for the last thirty seconds.

I can’t with this guy. He's just so bad at being bad I almost feel sorry for him.

(Although, as we in the U.S. have certainly discovered the last two years, the incompetent ones are often the most dangerous…)

As said, the fight has already begun. While Qrow and Lionheart trade subtext Yang checks out their perimeter, immediately picking up on the raven that just happens to be chilling on the banister. A simple, whispered “Mom?” and Qrow has his weapon out and a shot off, barely missing Raven as she swoops down beside Lionheart.

Can we appreciate that reaction time for a second? I feel like between Ozpin’s Super Secret Magic and Qrow’s self-deprecating drinking the fandom tends to forget that he’s easily one of the most powerful fighters we’ve seen to date. He demonstrated that in his playful spar against Winter, keeping Tyrian on his toes while also ensuring that the kids were safe, and here as he responds blindingly fast to a one syllable word. A few seconds later Raven calls him out for missing or, just as likely, deliberately missing since he doesn't want to kill her—yet. Which makes it all the more impressive that he can aim and achieve the results he wants in such a short amount of time. You 100% do not want to fuck with Qrow.

A nice cut using Lionheart’s back and Raven becomes human once more. In the realm of ‘artists paying careful attention to how their background characters act,’ Oscar is uncomfortable but isn’t even looking at the threat—almost like he’s listening carefully to something the rest of them can’t hear—while Nora looks downright floored. “They really are magic,” she says to herself, solidifying with evidence what they'd been told a few episodes back.  

Okay. Rant time. I still don’t buy these reactions. Really not great on the world building front here. I mean, we’ve had Pyrrha who controls magnetism, Ren who manipulates emotions, Yang has a Hulk mode that includes changing eye color, Blake can create clones of herself, Weiss is basically a necromancer, Ruby turns into rose petals, give him an episode and Jaune will straight up heal a girl, and Nora herself can store/release electricity. Why is turning into a bird so incredibly shocking? It would feel way more natural if they saw Raven and Qrow’s transformations and went, “Okay… so that’s their semblance?” and then Oz has to explain about the difference—being born with an ability vs. being granted it—which is cool and there’s surprise that that’s a Thing, but their reaction to the ability itself is still pretty meh. Because they’ve literally seen weirder.

We’re given no indication as to WHY a bird transformation instinctually reads as more impossible than transforming into rose petals, other than “one is magic and one is not because we say so.” There’s no justification behind the characters’ ability to recognize magic when they see it, especially given the incredibly wide range of abilities RWBY has shown us over the years. Either attach more overt rules to semblances (obvious boundaries where the viewer understands what is and is not possible) or make Ozpin’s magic look radically different. In this world summoning storms and turning into birds doesn't read as radically different. Hell, in many ways Dust, an incredibly common commodity, is more powerful than this supposedly gasp-worthy magic. Why be impressed with Raven summoning rain clouds when Weiss can create powerful winds in her fight against Flynt with just a bit of Daddy’s money?

But anyway. I digress.  

The verbal sparring continues. Oscar still isn’t making eye contact. Raven spouts more of her excuses, Salem can’t possibly be stopped, we're all out for ourselves, blah blah blah. Ruby emphasizes that they’ve already done the impossible, but they only achieved that because they were working together. Separation and a pessimistic attitude is exactly what Salem wants. Ruby wants Raven to join them.

And take a gander at that contrast between sisters. As I’ve said before, Ruby is the classic full-of-heart protagonist who believes that almost everyone can be redeemed. As we’ll see in a second, the exemption to this appears to be Cinder. Her murder of Penny and Pyrrha highlights her irredeemability in a way that overshadows Raven’s—and even Salem’s—more nebulous crimes. The bigger your actions are the harder they are to conceptualize. The smaller and more personal they are the harder they are to forgive. Paradoxically, it’s easier for someone like Ruby (and the fandom…) to shrug off Raven’s actions because as of yet she hasn't felt their repercussions as intimately.

Yang though? She has. And in this moment she’s not ready to forgive.

Raven refuses of course and tells Ruby she sounds just like her mother. (Give us flashbacks of Summer!) She summons a portal where a fireball flies through, hitting Ruby square in the chest and allowing the whole evil gang to join the party. We get a closeup on Oscar as he and Oz recognize Hazel, locking them inside while the White Fang sets up their bombs.

Hazel: “No one’s getting in… and no one’s getting out.”

Because RWBY, for all its dark storylines, is still hella cheesy at times lol.

Weiss: “So this was all just a trap?”

Ren: “It appears so…”

Ah, naive little children. If only you were watching from our fourth wall perspective you would have realized it was a trap more than an episode ago! Too bad.

We learn that Lionheart was the one who secured Team Bad a place in the Vytal festival. Not only that, but he’s been passing information about huntsmen and huntress whereabouts to Salem. That’s how they were all murdered and Qrow’s realization of this—after spending all that time looking for them and hoping against hope—is definitely a kicker. “I couldn’t find any of them… because you let her kill them.”

Keep in mind, most of those people were Qrow’s friends.

Jaune, as we’d expect, is at his breaking point. Pyrrha’s murderer is standing right there and, as he says, rubbing their faces in how many people she’s killed—“All with that damn smile on your face!” We’ve had all of two instances of RWBY cursing and it’s definitely needed here. I appreciate that his tears and his anger are basically a call to arms. Most everyone draws their weapon as soon as he's finished speaking. Qrow’s still trying to keep the peace, but Jaune’s very existence is a walking testament to exactly how much these people deserve to be brought to justice.

He yells that he’s going to make Cinder pay for what she did and then comes the most brutal line in all of RWBY.

Cinder: “Who are you again?”

Damn. They’re never gonna top that.

Perfect characterization though. As the audience it’s easy to forget who knows who in a big ensemble cast and, more importantly, who cares about who. From Cinder’s perspective Jaune is a nobody she's barely met. Why would she remember him? If she’d instead made a taunt about his dead girlfriend most of us probably would have just shrugged off the plot-hole, but paying attention to details like this is not only, a) satisfying but b) wonderfully vicious. Way to twist the knife here.

Jaune attacks as we knew he would but Cinder easily blocks him. Ruby joins the fray only to be stopped by Emerald—“You’re not getting near her.” (Love the devotion.) Yang pairs off with Mercury to settle an old score. Raven orders Vernal to take out “the heiress” (rude, she has a name) and in another excellent nod to the switcheroo that tricked both the team and a large chunk of the fandom, she casually throws out that Vernal doesn’t need to use her power to kill a kid.

Good excuse too. Considering, you know, she doesn’t have any.

No more fake outs. Qrow attacks Raven head on with the announcement that they’re not family anymore. Harsh, but deserved. Raven’s “Were we ever?” smells more like denial. We also get a good look at their similar, but differently balanced color schemes.

As their fight takes them out of frame we stay with a rather terrified Weiss. To her credit though she holds her ground against Vernal, assuring her that she’s “more than a name.”

Finally, Ren and Nora—ever the perfect duo—are left to fend off Hazel. He’s one of those real asshole villains who has a “code” that they follow. He doesn’t want to fight two kids half his age and power level… but he has to. Just like he has to keep pursuing his misguided revenge against Ozpin. And he, like Raven, feels the need to announce to the world that this isn’t what he’d prefer. It’s just how things are! Totally out of his hands, I’m sorry to say.

We’re seeing a trend with the villains and their justifications, yeah?

With everyone paired off Ozpin-Oscar (I need a portmanteau for them…) sneaks over to confront Lionheart. Lionheart goes from telling this supposed stranger to get himself out of the fight while he can to attacking him with a rock-lava-energy blast thing in like five seconds flat. Of course, our two favorite BAMFs block it with ease and we get the RWBY equivalent of,

(x)

Holy shit this kid blocked my hit??

Beautiful.

The second the cane comes out though everything makes sense and we get another stellar line of “Not quite” when Lionheart identifies him as Ozpin. I really love that they let Oscar handle the first half of this battle. Yeah, it’s a little flimsy that he’s able to take on an adult after just a few weeks of training, but we also don’t know how much he and Oz are already sharing. Fighting might come naturally to him now in a muscle memory sort of way. Regardless, he kicks ass and I’m loving it.

“You found Qrow,” Lionheart says. “How?” implying that he might have been doing even more work than we saw to keep those two apart. A voiceover from Ozpin wonders what happened to his former ally. The fact that Lionheart knows all the details of Ozpin’s reincarnation tells us that yeah, they were really, really close.

That knowledge is dangerous too. Realizing that Ozpin “couldn’t have had that form for long” Lionheart gets over the debilitating shock of fighting, you know, Ozpin. We hear him rationalizing in the wonderfully creepy manner of the desperate that this is just a boy in front of him, a boy soon to be Ozpin, and if he delivers the kid to Salem he’ll “finally be free" of her. Sounds a lot like Raven thinking that the relic will protect her; a lot like a hurt Tyrian muttering that she’ll forgive him.

RWBY does a good job of reminding us in small ways how utterly terrifying Salem is...and what that fear drives people to do.  

This would be the (supposedly) perfect moment for Ozpin to take over. Oh no! Lionheart is all serious now! Oscar is worried! But the only thing Ozpin does is tell him to “fight.” I’ve heard a lot of people in the fandom claim that Ozpin is a monster for his possession, culpable for something that’s outside of his control. But Ozpin has no desire to take over people’s lives like this and—unlike Hazel or Raven—it really is out of his hands, to say nothing of the fact that he does all he can to actually achieve what he thinks is right. He can’t keep himself from merging with Oscar, but he can give Oscar as much agency as humanly possible, including here. The only times we see Ozpin take that agency away is when it really is for the greater good (they can’t afford to hide on a farm forever) or when Oscar is well and truly in over his head, like after the fight with Hazel goes on too long. Taking over Oscar at that point is to save his life, akin to forcing someone out of the way of a blast.

But we’ll get to that.

We come back to the fight between Weiss and Vernal as Weiss tries to buy herself enough time to summon her knight. Vernal easily cuts through her summoning though… which is kind of a relief? In that RWBY (usually) knows when to limit new powers. If Weiss had no real limitations on her summoning—the time it takes, the energy it requires—we’d be wondering why she didn’t just summon a whole, super-powered army every time they were in a spot of trouble. Too many shows (Supernatural...) craft crazy powerful characters and then conveniently forget about that power when it would too easily solve a conflict.

Also, check out that smile from Vernal.

We segue to Cinder and Jaune. Kudos to Jaune for holding his own one-on-one! He really is Pyrrha’s student. Remember what other kid managed to hold her own against a freaking Maiden, at least for a time? 

Emerald won’t let Ruby get anywhere near Cinder. She “owes her everything" after all. But she’s willing to indulge her (so to speak) and summons up a mirage of Cinder to fly at Ruby. That and the resulting attack startles her enough that she sets off Crescent Rose, the bullet narrowly missing Weiss.

…Portent of things to come.

Because we’re back on Weiss and it's becoming clear to the viewer why we’ve been focusing so much on her in this battle. A shock from Vernal’s weapon rips out a scream from her, draws Jaune’s attention, and Cinder cruelly asks if he’ll “let her die too.”

Gotta have the fake-out first though. Deciding to take him seriously, Cinder charges with intent to kill and the head-on strike triggers Ruby into remembering Pyrrha’s death. Her silver eyes instinctually go off, blinding everyone and halting the battle.

Emerald knocks her out fast but even those few seconds was enough to effect Cinder. Apparently once you’re struck by that kind of power your body remembers it. She’s down on her knees, clearly in pain, and Jaune takes the opportunity to get a strike in, managing to clip the half-mask she wears.

And yeah. Cinder’s pissed.

Partly from getting caught in one of Ruby’s blasts again. Partly because a “nobody” like Jaune managed to hit her. Awful when that power you sought isn’t as perfect as you were promised, huh? Jaune makes the mistake though of declaring that he’s not important, only his friends are… and Cinder knows exactly how to make one of the good guys suffer.

Why just kill him when you can instead kill the girl he was worried about moments before? Why grant him peace when you can vividly recreate the trauma of Pyrrha’s death instead?

We have just enough time left in the episode to see the team’s shocked faces, watch Cinder’s weapon disappear, and then we cut with Weiss in mid-fall.

It’s a brutal combo of content and editing. Thanks, Rooster Teeth! I hate it!

We all know how things turn out though… so that's some kind of comfort. Until next time!

Other Details of Note

When everyone enters Haven tower we see this statue… and honestly I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. Something something it’s a maiden guarding a Maiden relic. Something something broken chains and freedom. Something something Atlas-esque imagery of holding up a world…you get the idea. It’s symbolic.

Cinder calls Qrow “little bird” and Lionheart “lion.” Always something wonderfully creepy about villains with a penchant for nicknames.

When Jaune first charges Cinder we pull back behind the chain on the statue and see it sway from the force of his attack. It’s quick and subtle, but an excellent visual detail to show us how strong he’s gotten. Pre-Fall of Beacon Jaune never would have managed that kind of force.

For all its faults in places, I enjoy how much this fight makes use of space, especially when it comes to Weiss using her glyphs. It’s not perfect or as complex as what we might have had with Monty, but I think the team is improving in their choreography overall.

Yes, Jaune is well over his schoolboy crush on Weiss---something I'm pleased about---but it still hits hard to have her as the victim here. Out of every team member Cinder could have targeted she chooses the one other girl Jaune might have had legitimate, romantic feelings for. In an alternate timeline, so to speak. 

So the whole “villain walks slowly towards the person they’re gonna kill and everyone who normally has superhuman reflexes doesn’t move an inch” trope is crazy annoying, right? Just putting that out there...

#rwby #mymetas #RWBY Recaps

[yoshimickster]

WELCOME TO THE ANGST ZONE-RWBY Volume 6x02 “Uncovered” Micksterecap(Rwby volume 6 spoilers)

HEY EVERBAH-happy Saturday-WELCOME BACK TO MICKSTERECAP! I’m sure this episode will start out with  something completely norma-

HOLY SHIT-Cinder’s corpse!  OOOOOOOOOOOOR  IS  IT?!

1:49 HUZZAH-she’s alive-OR IS SHE?!  I ask because I’m  live-blogging here, FRESH reactions today!

But seriously, TURNS OUT-this isn’t a dream sequence and she IS still alive...for NOOOOOOW! Cinder than punches her way out of the cave using what LITTLE strength she had left after her Avatar battle with Raven “Mother of the Year” Branwen, and upon escaping-SHE MEETS-

2:57 SOME RANDOM LADY WITH  FOOD! Man THAT was convenient eh Cinder? Will she beg for food, or just murder her and take the basket-LET’S FIND  OU-

3:11  We need to take the relic to Atlas?

GAH-I forgot this show had multiple plotlines-CURSE YOU SHOW I LOVE!

AW  NEAT-a  pointless flashback, taking place in that house that they...rented? Or did Qrow or the school own it? They never explained WHOSE house that was and it will always always ALWAYS bug me despite it never mattering in terms of plot.

BUT-said flashback ALSO features Weiss’ initial response  to going  back to Atlas!

3:20

“You’ve GOT to be joking”.

I feel for  ya Weiss, escape your shit  dad in Atlas, pay a plane to leave, get attacked by  bees, get kidnapped by one of your possible love-interest’s moms, go to a school, fight bad guys, get IMPALED, get healed by ANOTHER of your possible love-interest( I said POSSIBLE, don’t hate me) ONLY to learn your going  back to the place you escaped! MAN-how she don’t have whiplash from that I don’t know HOW she wouldn’t!

They also  bring up a nice secondary reason for bringing the  relic to Atlas that I admittedly didn’t think  of-

3:33

Qrow: Without the Spring  Maiden here to  seal the relic back in its vault,  its our best option.

Yang:  And I just want to say its NO-ONE’S FAULT for not having Raven  seal the  vault back up after verbally decimating her for years of neglect.

Ruby: Yang its cool, you needed a cry.

3:50 We ALSO LEARN why their going to Argus in the first place, its the last Atlas  military installation that still has soldiers...and considering Adam  MOST PROBABLY hijacked the train to Argus they  BEST get  to steppin’ after this flashback is  done!

Through that they figure through  either asking nicely, or telling them they found  one of three of Jacques Schnee’s abuse victims that they could get to Atlas. After they set up the low-down, Jaune asks Oz-

4:38

Jaune: Speaking of, what does it(the  relic) do, exactly?

Oz: HAHA-definitely doesn’t attract monsters-DEFINITELY not!

But seriously, turns out it can answer ANY three questions(GEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENIE) once every 100 years about the present or past. NORA of course geeks out about it-

5:29 

Nora: CAN WE ASK FOR MORE QUESTIONS?! CAN WE ASK WHY ME AND REN HAVEN’T KISSED ON SCREEN YET?!

Ruby: Yeah what’s up with that, y’all are CLEARLY a couple!

Ren: I’m as confused as you are.

SADLY THOUGH-the magical knowledge genie can’t answer ANY of our deepest ship questions as  it turns out they were all used up before it was sealed-OR WERE THEY?! Seriously I’m legit wondering, for all we know Oz is lying.

5:40 Ruby: Well, we’ll be sure to keep it safe.

Yang: GIMME THAT STUPID LAMP-I’ma SMASH IT! 

Ruby: Isn’t that more Nora’s thing?

Yang: I DON’T CARE I’M JUST PISSED AT OUR STUPID PRINCIPAL IN A FARMBOY’S BODY!

But seriously everyone is LOGICALLY pissed off about the current  run of events, half their party is gone, Yang’s gonna push her motorcycle she should’ve left at home through  snow-

6:11 -and they  now have ANOTHER mysterious mystic old person who REEKS  of  mysterious mysticism...AAAAAAAAAAND THE PROOOOOOOOOOOOOM IS TOMOOOOOOOOOOOORROW! Remember that joke? Practically dissapeared.

LOGICALLY pissed off at Ozpin for LYING about how the ancient relic of ultimate destiny attracted murderous chimera after them, and I’m sure he won’t pull some bull-shit line like-

6:47

Ozpin: I did not lie  to you.

PFFT-look at Maria’s face here, her bullshit detectory is on POINT! Because not  informing them of the dangerous GRIMM MAGNET wasn’t a half-truth. Can we get a wizard who DOESN’T give the main heroes the run-around with their bullshit for a change, CAN WE PLEASE?!

Oz than  explains that the reason he  held  the truth  is because  he wanted to save them from anxiety and negativity, AS WELL as that being the reason for why he had it so Lionheart wasn’t revealed to be a traitor after his death, in what KINDA sounds like  a villain speech, even going  as  far  as saying “The people of Remnant  deserve more than the truth”, (because THAT line is never condescending) as WELL as saying he’s been betrayed so many times he’s straight up used to it.

Oz than  puts it all to a head when he asks where the relic is and TURNS OUT-

8:32 RUBY HAS IT! Way to stay on task girl, especially in quite possibly the most STRESSFUL year of your LIFE! Remember the silly school dance? I miss that.

Ruby than LOGICALLY calls him out for saying he had so much faith in humanity in these years when the opposite is true. Its also a good thing that he didn’t lie about the relic not being able to ask questi-

9:10

Oscar:HURRY...he’s trying...to stop you...he’s afraid you’ll find out...what  he’s hiding!

...well that’s ominous but as long as it turns out the relic still can’t work I say its o-

9:31 

Oscar: Her name...is Djinn...say her name to summon her.

...well that’s good to know but AS OZPIN SAID-the relic TOTALLY doesn’t work so saying it won’t do ANYTHI-

Ruby:...Djinn?

9:45 ...OKAY-time just happened to freeze, I’M SURE NOTHING ELSE OZPIN MURDERINGLY MAGICAL HAPPE-

10:33 Djinn: Wonderful!

...OKAY-so there was a genie in it that every single person on planet Earth saw coming, but SURELY it still can’t answer 3 questi-

10:40 Tell me, what knowledge do you seek?

SON OF A BITCH OZPIN-not ONLY did you lie about the lamp housing a genie whose PRIME waifu material, but ALSO lied about the questions being used up! Because just saying “Don’t use the relic to ask questions” would be SO hard you dis-trustworthy ass old man!

Well surely the next thing to happen is Team RWBYOMQ asking how to best murder Ozpi-

10:47 ...or cut to a random dirty ass alley, because the writers like to TORTURE us!

10:55 DAMN-Cinder, you even stole the bitch’s CLOTHES! What are you, the Terminator?!

Cinder walks through the rainy ass street of scum and villainy-UNTIL SHE SEES-

11:37 RANDOM SPIDER-MAN GRAFFITI! Didn’t know Remnant had such a Marvel fan-base, NEAT!

But seriously, it turns out to be the INSIGNIA OF-

PURPLE CLAD GANGSTERS! I gotta  assume they are like, REALLY good criminals becasue DEAR GOD do her two guards look silly, LOOK AT THEIR SCARFS!

Cinder than bribes her  for information-

Cinder: You’re little Miss Malachite?

Malachite: Is that a fat joke or color joke? Because I’ve TRIED changing my name to Violet, but UGH the system.

She then tells Spiderlady that she’s looking for team RWBYJNR by SHOWING HER-

12:35 SEASON THREE SCREEN SHOTS! ALSO-yes those are all from the Vytal festival, for some reason I thought the JNPR pics were from the placement exam. And now we wait for the Pyrrha fans to be mad she was cropped out!

AFTER Little Miss Malachite(Her name should STILL be Violet dammit, or maybe Amethyst) gives a spooky spider speech, she tells Cinder she’ll find the team in a few days-BUT IT TURNS OUT-

13:34 

Chaps: Little Miss, we all ready know where they are.

Little Miss:  Oh really, we do? Why don’t you say it louder SO THE MYSTERIOUS MURDER LADY WE DON’T KNOW CAN HEAR YOU?!

Cinder: What was that?

Little Miss: Nothin’ sweetie, just makin’ creepy spider metaphors!

A THEN CUT BACK TO-

13:55 MARIA-adjusting her broken ass cyborg eyes to double-check if she’s not looking at a floating Navii from Avatar.

And WOULDN’T YA KNOW IT-turns out Djinn can still answer TWO more questions this era! ALSO-

14:25 

Djinn: A-heh, its a pleasure to see you again old man.

AND-she’s met Oz before, PROBABLY since he asked the first question.

Ozpin pleads Ruby not to ask Djinn a question, which prompts Qrow  to ask-

Qrow: Hey-

Weiss: WANNA DIE OLD MAN?!

Qrow: GAH-I was just gonna tell Ruby to do what she felt was right!

Yang: Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse us if we can’t trust OLD PEOPLE RIGHT NOW!

Ruby than asks Djinn what is Ozpin hiding from them WHICH CAUSES OZPIN-

14:56 ...to...attempt to  tag her...slap her...push her-WHAT WERE YOU ATTEMPTING TO DO TO MY DAUGHTER YOU WEIRD OLD MAN?!

BUT-before Ozpin  can  commit attempted assault and/or attempted game of tag-TEAM RWBYQOM-

A FREAKY ASS VOID-that turns INTO-

“Once upon a time, there stood a lonely tower”-

ALSO-

Blake turns into Qrow because...genies? BUT ENOUGH ABOUT THAT-

“-that sheltered a lonely girl...named-

“-Salem”.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH SHIT-Salem used to look NORMAL ONCE! BACKSTORY MOTHER FUCKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERS!

AND THAT’S SEASON SIX EP TWO-following the classic RWBY formula of exposition episode after action episode and I gotta say we learned...A LOT! FOR ONE-Ozpin pulls a full Rose Quartz in revealing he’s not the ethical leader we all thought he was, AS WELL as showing he has a secret connection TO Salem, implying...A BILLION possible things  that I won’t put here because this is a recap blog and not a theory blog perse. HOO BOY-what a cliffhanger, NEXT WEEK-backstory time baby! SEE YOU NEXT WEEK on MICKSTERECAP!

   If you like what you read, donate to my paypal here, or my Kofi page here. I put the link for my Paypal and Kofi here as I have JUST now realized the paypal link is under the search bar on my Tumblr homepage and is impossible to click so THERE ya go!

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby 6 spoilers #rwby volume 6 spoilers #rwby six spoilers #rwby volume six spoilers #rwby 6 #rwby volume six #rwby volume 6 #rwby season 6 #rwby season 6 spoilers #rwby season six #rwby season six spoilers #yoshimickster #micksterecap #ruby rose #jaune arc #lie ren #nora valkyrie #pyrrha nikos #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #Yang Xiaolong #weiss schnee #maria calavera #qrow branwen #professor ozpin #oscar pine #cinder fall #little miss malachite

[bluezey]

How did we go from Rango to Sausage Party to Emoji Movie?

I’m not a fan of review videos right now cause they’re all taking stabs at Emoji Movie.  For one, I haven’t seen it, so I don’t want my view swayed.  And two, well, you don’t need to see it to know that it’s junk, it’s just pandering junk made for a quick buck.  But, today I was finally happy to watch a review, and it was an old review of Caddicarus spoiler-free reviewing Sausage Party.  Last year, we had Sausage Party, so should we not be that surprised we have Emoji Movie?  Well, even without seeing Emoji Movie, I have to say yes it’s surprising because even Sausage Party surprisingly had a point.  Yes, Sausage Party was meant to be raunchy and offensive and wtf, but then you see the film and not only do they own that end of the spectrum, but they make a plot about religion that’s not only another offense but serves a purpose, it made some points and even had a tacked on message about it.  So, should I not judge Emoji Movie because maybe it has a purpose outside of selling a product?  In my opinion, yes, because even with the “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” Emoji Movie does not look like my cup of tea.  I like animated films, I like cheese, but Emoji Movie does not look like my blend of cheese.

Oh, but Sausage Party is, I hear you ask?  Well, yes.  While I like animated films and even cartoons for kids, I also like adult humor, I like something smart for adults and something that’s plain candy mush for adults.  That’s why I like Rick and Morty, that’s why I like American Dad, that’s why I like Family Guy (to an extent), that’s why I like Moral Orel (to an extent), that’s why I like Squidbillies, that’s why I like Aqua Teen, that’s why I like most episodes of South Park, that’s why I like Ugly Americans.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I have a limit, so whenever I recommend Sausage Party to people, I also stressfully warn them by saying “when it comes to it’s raunchiness, you’re not ready, you may THINK you’re ready, but you’re not.”  I’ll even admit that I own a copy of Sausage Party unironically, but I still look away when it comes to THAT moment in the film (but thanks to tumblr gifsets I technically HAVE seen it, so... yeah.)

But I’m done rambling.  My point is while I have levels of adult taste and adult “lack of taste” I do have a fascination for adult animated films.  Partly because I have a fascination for the taboo, because let’s be honest animated films are still considered more for kids and families, and also because they’re few and far between.  When we weed out the sugary eye candy and the bullshit, there is a long and wide collection of good films for kids, but for adults we have... Felix the Cat... Cool World... that one film with that title I’m afraid to say... South Park... that one film Cinema Snob found about a duck... long story short, not many.

But, here’s an interesting trend, many of the adult rated animated films are made by Ralph Bakshi.  How do I explain Ralph Bakshi.  Well, Nostalgia Critic’s review of Cool World has a better description of the man, but in my words, he is a crazy, fascinating genius.  Clearly a big fan of animation and a big animation influence, but while many were making kids films, he was making something bizarre and different with animation.  Yes, he did kids films, but he did a Lord of the Rings film with rotoscoping and a fantasy film with swearing and Nazi imagery.  Yes, I’m not joking.  So, with that bit of insanity, how were his films he successfully made for adults.  He made Fritz the Cat, the first X rated animated film that’s also a porno.  And that film that I’m afraid to say the name of?  It’s about racial tension and stars Brier Rabbit, Brier Fox and Brier Bear in some kind of mafia underground.  Again, I’m not joking.  He was one of the many that knew animation was an art film, not a kids genre, but he was also one of the few that successfully made examples of it.  Despite some questionable choices he made, even in his kids films, all his cartoons had a level of smartness and a purpose, made the audience think and react.  All except Cool World, but see Nostalgia Critic’s review to get a good grasp on that story.

To almost switch tangents again, let’s briefly talk about another well known director, Gore Verbinksi.  He is known famously for the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, but did you know he is also responsible for an animated film?  Yes, 2011′s Rango was his doing.  Not only wanting to do a western and an animated film, but Gore Verbinski was quoted for saying that he missed films by Ralph Bakshi in the media and wanted to make a film much like it.  Woah, I hear you say, what kind of shit is in Rango if he wanted to make a Bakshi-esque film?  Well, overall Rango does sound like a kids film.  It’s about talking animals in the old west setting, and specifically we’re following a chameleon who goes by the name of Rango, who wants to become a hero, so he tries to save the town of Dirt from a drought, as water is not only a living sustenance but a form of currency to the denizens of the town.  Nothing that surprising yet, until you find out this film also has on screen drinking, drunkeness, smoking, gun violence, mild swearing (if you call damn and hell curse words), possibly two females of the town are dress as prostitutes so that may be their occupation.  And Rango, yes, that may not even be his real name.  He made it up because when we met him in the beginning of the film he is literally a blank slate in an existential crisis of finding his purpose in life.  Yes, I’m not joking.  Not only having some things that would make shelter parents flip like guns and tobacco, but this film has a surprisingly deep plot even for adults to grasp, and this film was meant for kids!  Even the world was not animated in a cutesy kids fashion, as the world was dirty and, despite half of the characters having out of proportion faces so they’d look aesthetically okay to look at, the characters look realistic as possible.  No smoothness, no fluff, just matted hair, scales and thorns.  Compared to other films that came out before and after it in the ten year time frame, this film was pretty gritty.

So, should we thank Rango for giving us Sausage Party?  With a big asterisk, I’d have to say, kind of, in a way we have to thank The Simpsons for giving us Family Guy.  These two films could not be any more opposite of each other.  Rango was smart and for kids and Sausage Party, while smart, was just raunchiness for adults.  But, no joking, I believe if we had an alternate reality in which Rango was not made, we would not have Sausage Party.  Let me try to explain why.  Like all evolution, we can’t just take a running leap, we need to take steps or even half-steps to get there.  And without Rango, the last step was the South Park movie back in 1999.  There was a big plateau in adult films between 1999 and 2016, so Rango in 2011 also had a purpose of being the half-step.  Yes, it was for kids and was technically inoffensive, but was also risky and challenging for having smoking, drinking, swearing and gun violence unapologetically in a kids film, like a Ralph Bakshi kids movie.  And, with Rango technically closing the gap even further by winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2012, it closes the gap even further to four years between them and Sausage Party.  So, think of Rango as Ralph Bakshi’s film Wizards and Sausage Party as Ralph Bakshi’s film Fritz the Cat, and you can see some link between the two.  While Sausage Party is the adult film we love, Rango is the film that got us there by showing the audience that it’s okay to have “edgy” things in animated form on the big screen.  Yes, we have this in a way in kids films, but they’re just blips of adult humor in kid friendly fluff.  Rango had edginess and grit throughout, it tried to not only numb us but show us it’s okay.  Sausage Party was the adult version of this by making a full on controversial film for adults.

But now that we gushed about Rango and Sausage Party, how did we go from Rango, to Sausage Party, to Emoji Movie.  The short answer, because while some filmmakers are taking us forward, some are taking us back.  Like a knock off, anyone can find something popular and make a quick buck on it.  When Rugrats movie came out in the late 90s, studios realized that it’s quick and easy to make a film based on a previous source material because people can easily grasp on the source material.  When Shrek came out in the early 2000s, studios saw modernizing tropes as the next cash grab because we are familiar with the tropes and modernizing them made the film look “smart” and “progressive” without even actually trying to be.  And now, with The Lego Movie, we have studios believing that you can make a quick buck by grabbing onto nostalgia and just bullshit the rest of your way through.  The good news, My Little Pony Movie.  The bad news, Emoji Movie.

So, yeah, compared to 2016 that gave us Finding Dory, Kubo, Sausage Party, Sing and a few sprinkles of Minions and Mr. Peabody, 2017 is the flip side.  While we’re getting Coco, we’re also getting Emoji Movie.  Hell, even I wanted to see Power Rangers out of a nostalgic rush (and because Bill Hader was playing Alpha Five) and Cars 3 because it was NOT Cars 2.  Compared to films in 2016 where there was more good films with effort, 2017 has more okay to WTF is this S films with very little effort.  

Basically, I think this is just the trends of the time, and unfortunately the trends of good to bad films and films with effort and films with no effort are both in their downswing this year.  Think about it, 2015 gave us Inside Out, how did we get to Emoji Movie?  Or close the gap even further and you think how did we get from Sausage Party to Emoji Movie?  Yeah, Sausage Party was sophomoric and not for everyone, but even that film had a purpose.  Even Sing, for being nothing but predictable cheese, at least it was an enjoyable blend of cheese.  How do you make a product out of an emoji?  The silver lining we can take out of this is, with Rango, Inside Out, Sausage Party and the upcoming Coco, there’s at least people still giving a crap out there in animation films.  Hell, we can also see that with little shorts like Pixar’s Piper and even the art project In A Heartbeat.  (How messed up is it that In A Heartbeat is now grouped in with Emoji Movie and Sausage Party?  Seriously, I genuinely want to know.)

While animated films will have its ups and down, and clearly 2017 is the downswing, at least there’s some films showing that effort and progression will not die.  And with people as insanely genius as Ralph Bakshi, Gore Verbinski and, yes, Seth Rogen and pals, giving us Fritz the Cat, Rango and Sausage Party, not only will the challenge against the “norms” and the “quick buck” still be there, but we may end up getting another R rated animated film or two in the next few years, maybe even one that’s less raunchy and more challenging than Sausage Party.  I am not kidding when I say In A Heartbeat could be expanded upon into a pre teen romantic comedy “with a PG edge” as they would star a gay couple and even mention other challenges like coming out as trans, or just plain afraid to come out, or just plain bullying.  And the best part is, without it being R rated or full of sex puns like Sausage Party, an In A Heartbeat film can be seen by everyone (except if you have sheltering parents who still don’t get it).  But, I’m rambling on something good again.  In closing, with next few years giving us Incredibles 2, Wreck-It Ralph 2, Lego Movie 2 and even The Loud House Movie, I can see animated films having an upswing in the near future.  But, with upcoming films such as Gnomeo and Juliet 2, Angry Bird 2 and Boss Baby 2, we may still have to sort through the shit to get to them.

#bluesy ramblings #Sausage Party #Rango #Emoji Movie #Ralph Bakshi #Gore Verbinski

[newlovewontletyougetaway-blog]

Chapter One

Being momentarily blinded by the bright flash of a camera was a sensation that Olivia Bellamy had grown accustomed to. The prospect of dozens or even hundreds of shouting photographers and reporters didn’t seem as daunting as it had just a couple of years earlier.

“Olivia! Olivia! Over here, Olivia! Olivia! Over here! Over the shoulder! Olivia!”

Olivia worked herself along the red carpet with expertise. She gracefully posed for the photographers while always keeping a smile on her face. As Olivia approached the very end of the red carpet, her publicist, Emma Jones, gently grabbed her hand and guided her towards a television reporter.

“One last interview before you head inside,” Emma stated quietly.

“Okay,” Olivia nodded.

Once they had reached their destination, Olivia greeted the reporter, Felicity Adams, whom she had met many times before at similar events.

“When you walked the red carpet here at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party two years ago, you had just become the youngest Best Actress winner in history for your beautiful performance in the incredible movie Violet Sky. How does that night compare to this one?” Felicity asked.

“This one is so much better,” Olivia answered without hesitation.

“Is that so?” Felicity inquired.

“Yes, because tonight I haven’t had to worry about the possibility of having to speak in front of millions of people. Plus, I’m old enough to drink here in America now so I can just get completely wasted tonight if I feel like it,” Olivia explained with a twinkle in her eye which made the reporter laugh.

“Tonight is basically a night with less stress and more booze than two years ago,” Olivia stated before giggling lightly. “But I still get to wear a pretty dress so it really is the best of both worlds.”

“What’s next for you in your career?” Felicity asked.

“I’ll be going to Minnesota in a few weeks to shoot an independent film there,” Olivia replied. “But first we’re about to finish the filming of the Mountains of Fire sequel which will be released later this year. And I’m also doing some work in television, but after that I don’t have any definite plans.”

“You’re taking it one day at a time?” Felicity asked smiling.

“Yeah, I think that’s best way for me to do it right now,” Olivia said.

“We’ll be looking forward to seeing you on the screen again soon,” Felicity said as she ended the interview. “Thank you so much for your time.”

“Thank you,” Olivia smiled and began walking to leave the red carpet.

“Olivia! Olivia! Olivia! Give us a smile! Olivia! A quick smile!” the photographers shouted.

Olivia posed for the photographers a final time before she entered the party with Emma by her side. The two were immediately surrounded by a crowd of people who wanted to chat with Olivia.

“Olivia! Emma!”

Olivia looked around to find where the voice, which she knew belonged to her personal assistant Nicholas Potter, was coming from. She eventually saw him waving his arms over his head at a table further inside the room. Sitting by his side was Olivia’s best friend, Jessica Watson, who had been completely enamored with Nicholas since she first laid her eyes on him.

“I think I should go and save Nick. Are you going to be alright on your own?” Emma questioned.

“I’ll be fine,” Olivia smiled. “Go and have some fun, Emma! I’ll see you in a little bit.”

Olivia continued to mingle cheerfully and confidently until she was overcome by the feeling that someone behind her was staring at her. She glanced over her shoulder and instantly found that a dark-haired man was watching her from across the room. Olivia couldn’t believe how handsome he looked.

Once the dark-haired man realized that he had been caught looking at Olivia, he quickly flashed a smile at her. Olivia’s heart sank as the man turned his attention to the beautiful woman he seemed to be in the middle of a conversation with. Olivia quietly scolded herself for even hoping that a man like him would take notice of her.

“We’ve got so much to talk about,” Claire Danes smiled.

“Yes. Let’s have lunch together and chat,” Olivia suggested as she turned her attention away from the dark-haired man.

Olivia genuinely adored Claire. She had been one of Olivia’s co-stars in Violet Sky and the two had kept in touch regularly ever since.

“That would be lovely! I’m free on Wednesday; would that be good for you?” Claire asked.

“Wednesday is perfect,” Olivia smiled. “Oh, we’ll have so much fun!”

“I’m really looking forward to it,” Claire replied as her publicist whispered something in her ear. “Listen, I’ll call you tomorrow so we can organize everything. I really have missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” Olivia admitted as she and Claire kissed each other’s cheeks goodbye.

“I’ll see you soon, darling,” Claire smiled as they parted.

Olivia continued mingling through the room and was happy to see Jennifer Westfeldt.

“Jennifer, you look incredible!” Olivia exclaimed as they hugged. “That dress is absolutely gorgeous!”

“Yours is stunning too,” Jennifer genuinely smiled. “Who designed it?”

“Monique Lhuillier,” Olivia answered.

Their imminent girl talk about all the different gowns they had seen during the night was hindered when Jennifer’s boyfriend Jon Hamm came over to greet Olivia.

“Look at you, Ms. Olivia,” he smiled. “You look very beautiful tonight.”

“You look very dapper yourself, Mr. Hamm,” Olivia giggled.

Olivia sensed that someone was watching her again and began looking around the room to see if her suspicion was in fact true. To her surprise she met the eyes of the same dark-haired, handsome man as before. Once again the man smiled as soon as he realized that he had been caught staring.

“You’re coming to the birthday party we’re having for Jon, right?” Jennifer questioned.

“Of course,” Olivia smiled as she turned back to Jennifer and Jon. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”

“Perfect!” Jennifer exclaimed.

“Olivia! Olivia!” Nicholas shouted across the room again.

“Hey, Nick!” Jon called as Jennifer waved to him.

“Jon!” Nicholas called back. “Your woman is looking mighty fine tonight!”

“Are you absolutely sure that he’s gay?” Jon questioned as he turned back to Olivia.

“Unquestionably gay,” Olivia replied with a smile.

“Good,” Jon replied while lightheartedly faking relief. “Otherwise I fear that he might try to steal my woman away.”

Jennifer just giggled and lovingly said, “He wouldn’t even have a chance, Jon.”

The couple shared a quick kiss which made Olivia smile.

“I should probably go and join him. He’s been calling for me ever since I got here,” Olivia explained apologetically.

“He probably needs you to save him from Jessie,” Jon said, only half-jokingly.

“We’ll see you in a few weeks,” Jennifer smiled and hugged Olivia.

“Have a good night, sweetie,” Jon said and did the same.

As Olivia was making her way to Nicholas, the dark-haired man appeared in her thoughts. Her eyes discreetly scanned the room in search of him. But when Olivia found him this time, he was no longer looking at her. She wondered why he had watched her so intently earlier. Was there something wrong with the way she looked?

“Do I look okay?” Olivia asked as soon as she reached the table.

“You’re a vision, Liv,” Nicholas replied sincerely.

“Am I?” she questioned as she sat down.

“You’re absolutely beautiful, Olivia,” Emma confirmed as she handed her a drink. “Why do you ask?”

“I just feel a little bit strange,” Olivia replied. “That’s all.”

Olivia gave in to her yearning to look at the dark-haired man again and quickly found him laughing in a conversation with a small group of people. As she studied him from afar, Olivia tried to remember if she had ever found a man to be so gorgeous.

Olivia was just about to float into her daydreams when she realized that it was now her turn to be caught staring. The dark-haired man looked her straight in the eyes and smiled warmly.

Olivia suddenly felt dizzy as hundreds of butterflies now seemed to flutter around in her stomach. She forced herself to quickly look down into her drink to pretend like nothing had happened. She could feel her blood burning her cheeks as she began to blush.

“Should we head to Elton’s party now?” Nicholas asked.

“Yes, let’s go and hang out with some British people,” Emma agreed.

“British guys truly are the best,” Jessica sighed as she gazed at Nicholas.

Olivia couldn’t keep her eyes away from the dark-haired man any longer. She looked up to where he had been standing before and saw that he was still looking at her. As their eyes met this time, however, Olivia didn’t look away. She contemplated the possibility that the dark-haired man could have been looking at her the entire time.

“What do you say, Liv?” Nicholas asked, while trying to move away from Jessica as tastefully as possible.

“What do I say about what?” Olivia replied and quickly looked at Nicholas.

“Do you want to go to Elton’s party or not?” Nicholas asked.

Olivia hesitated and met the eyes of the dark-haired man again.

“Well?” Jessica asked sounding a little conceited.

“Yes, let’s go,” Olivia answered before quickly finishing her drink.

As Olivia walked behind her friends on their way out of the party she let her eyes wander over to the dark-haired man one last time. He gave her a nod which she acknowledged with a shy smile. This caused the dark-haired man to break into the most beautiful smile that Olivia had ever seen.

Olivia followed her friends and internally tried to make peace with the fact that she would never get to see the dark-haired man again. Meanwhile the dark-haired man internally tried to make peace with the fact that the looks he had exchanged with the young Olivia Bellamy had meant nothing to her.

At that moment neither Olivia, nor the dark-haired man, could ever imagine the impact they would come to have on each other’s life.

#seth macfarlane fanfiction

[fromparishwithlove]

RENT’S 20TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR: In Memorium

IT’S BEEN OVER A WHOLE WEEK SINCE I SAW RENT AND I need to remember everything about that show because OH MY GOD it was the most perfect thing I have ever witnessed and I’m so upset I can’t go and see it a BILLION more times so I’m writing down everything so I don’t forget. I need to relive it. I’m not sorry. AND THIS IS ONLY ACT 1 HAHAHAHAHAHA

Also dedicated to my boo @itsbeaconhillsbaby because I know her memory fades so quick and we need this to LIVE ok. 

·                     Before it even begins, the curtain is up so you can see the stage and the set up and Ross e.g the guy portraying Roger is just wandering about on stage so you just kinda feel like you’ve walked into the apartment. You’re immediately transported from your seat in the theatre to their flat in New York

·                     Mark being that typical friend who shoves a camera in your face and asks you to do something cool and you’re literally like please go away but you can’t say that to him because he’s too fucking cute

·                     EVERY SINGLE PHONE CALL FROM MARK’S MUM. AND IN FACT ALL THE PARENTS. THEY ARE GOLDEN. And they give the show a sense of realism because yes they’re all bursting into song every five seconds but guess what, they still have parents who won’t leave them alone

·                     Tom Collins being that friend everyone loves to bits, he has a heart of gold and a voice to match

·                     Collins being shocked when he thinks it’s Roger that picked up the phone. Even though he’s been away for 7 months he knows his friends so well

·                     Joanne not being a theatre person when she literally sings two of the most theatrical songs in the entire production

·                     You Okay Honey is the sweetest frigging song in the entirety of the world and I cannot believe they cut it from the film. 

·                     Every single word Collins sings ever but especially the “Well you missed a sleeve” and “Angel indeed” and “Nice tree”

·                     ANGEL. TELLING. COLLINS. HE. LOOKS. CUTE. WHEN. HE. BLUSHES.

·                     That hesitation before Collins takes Angels hand. Y’all know his life just got 68796847292190465 times better after they run offstage together

·                     MARK ACTUALLY EXPLAINING WHAT HAPPENED TO APRIL. The film kinda glosses over it. You learn she died and she and Roger had AIDs but other than that you’re like huh?

·                     Roger being 100% relatable when he’s like “Zoom in on my empty wallet!”

·                     Ross Hunter singing One SOng Glory because really does life get better than this? 

·                     Philippa’s portrayal of Mimi is on point! She made it very obvious that Mimi was not only coping with AIDs but also a drug addiction. She was shaking and fidgeting and tapping and yes, just yes. She did a damn good job

·                     Her laugh when she steals her drugs back from Roger and runs off stage

·                     “WHO RAN NAKED THROUGH THE PARTHENON!” Now why has no one made a show about that?

·                     Collins throwing Mark and Roger food and drink and firewood. HOW LONG DID THEY HAVE TO REHEARSE THAT?!? 10 out of 10 was waiting for one of them to miss something

·                     “’Oh hi’ after 7 months?!” 

·                     “Struck gold at MIT” That line... god I’m drowning

·                     Roger not leaving the house and telling Collins that’s because he was waiting for him to get back. 

·                     ANGEL DUMOTT SCHUNARD SWINGING DOWN FROM THAT LADDER IN THAT OUTFIT AND FLINGING OFF THAT COAT AND THROWING THAT MONEY BEFORE COMMENCING T H A T DANCE.

·                     Layton WIlliams is a certified Queen of Dance.

·                     THAT FUCKING LEG KICK AND THOSE SPLITS. BOY HOW YOU EVEN DOING THAT?!

·                     And then when she’s done, she just goes and sits down with Collins and starts drinking vodka and fanning herself. IF THAT AIN’T ME!

·                     Benny spreading out the blueprints for his cyber-arts facility and Angel pretending to be interested

·                     “That boy could use some prosac! Or heavy drugs! Or group hugs!” Tag yourself.

·                     The little reprise to You’ll See and Roger’s “Let it be boys.”

·                     COLLINS SINGING I LIKE BOYS. I SWEAR MY HEART COMBUSTED

·                     Mark being overdramatic af as he enters the lot. I also appreciate the fact he turns the camera on himself just in case he dies at the hands of Joanne and the others never see him again

·                     TANGO MAUREEN. A S D F G H J K L

·                     The film does not have a patch on Billy and Shanay. OH MY GOD. Their dancing. The little bum wiggle Billy does and the stamping and the fucking length of time they took to take off their coats. It was intense af

·                     MARK AND JOANNE’S UNDERAPPRECIATED SEXUAL TENSION

·                     Mark squealing when Joanne stood on his toe.

·                     “fUCKING CHEATED!”

·                     Joanne answering the phone to tell Maureen they’re patched and she calls her Pookie and Mark laughed so fucking hard I was dying

·                     Angel and Collins introducing themselves at the life support meeting like asdffghjkl you guys talk about married

·                     MArk interrupting and being awkward af and kinda insensitive before just blurting his name in Paul’s face. That’s me. I’ve literally done that. Just shouted my name in someone’s face by way of introducing myself

·                     Lets talk about the fade from Steve to ROger singing about how he should’ve died. WOw. Thanks. My hearts not broken

·                     AND THEN WAM BAM THANK YOU MAM STRAIGHT INTO OUT TONIGHT

·                     HOW FAST DID SHE WHIP HER HAIR ROUND THOUGH OMFG AND THERE WERE SO MANY TIMES SHE WAS JUST HANGING ONTO THAT SCAFFOLDING BY HER LEGS ALONE. B A D A S S

·                     And then she just hops off the little platform into Roger’s apartment and does that lil face nuzzle. Mimi is my kinda girl I swear to god.

·                     Another Day... WHo doesn’t love everything about that song?

·                     HOW BEAUTIFUL DID THE ENTIRE CAST SOUND HARMONISING WILL I? God it was gorgeous. 

·                     ANd you could see Roger realising that he doesn’t want to die alone and that maybe he can have another shot at love and he puts on his coat and leaves the house. Talk about character development!

·                     “THIS LOT IS FULL OF MOTHERFUCKING ARTISTS!”

·                     That lady coming at Angel after she’s all like “Easy sugar easy” This is after Angel holds COllins back from saying something?! ANd Angel is having none of it she just backs the hell up like mmm no honey

·                     SANTA FE. SANTA FE. SANTA FE. THE MOST UNDER APPRECIATED SONG IN THE HISTORY OF THE THEATRE?!?

·                     RYAN O’GORMAN SAVED MY LIFE?

·                     “Sang it girl!”

·                     The bass line is to die for

·                     Mark third wheeling to hell and filming the whole thing

·                     There was a moment in one show when Angel got the spliff the wrong way round and then when it eventually got passed to MArk he just sat there with it like ??? before pasisng it back to Collins. WHAT A FUCKING INNOCENT

·                     Collins hitting Angels boot and doing that spin and swinging round the ladder and imitating Angel playing the drums when he says “You can drum a gentle drum”

·                     When they all sit on the bench and pretend to be driving a car to Santa Fe and then Collins pushes Mark’s camera round to film the horizon as he sings “Do you know the way to Santa Fe?”

·                     “YOU KNOW... TUMBLE WEED... PRAIRIE DOGS. YEAAAAAAAAH.”

·                     Dead. I’m dead at this point.

·                     ANd then I get hit with the intro to I’ll Cover You and I think I’m going to survive but y’all know I’m not.

·                     Anyway... Mark FINALLLLLLLY leaving!!! And Angel being like thank the gods and Collins is like “He’ll be back I can guarantee”

·                     With that in mind Angel is like shit better tell him I love him immediately before Mark crashes that party

·                     “I’ve been hearing violins all night,”

“ANything to do with me? Are we a thing?”

“Darling... We’re everything.”

CAN WE JUST !!! THEY’VE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR LIKE A DAY AND A HALF?!? nOT EVEN THAT IDK. BUT THEY BOTH LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH IM CRYING TEARS OF BLOOOOOOD

·                     They just sit on the bench and sing to each other and then Collins kneels down in front of ANgel when his verse comes on

·                     RYAN PULLING OPEN HIS SHIRT TO INDICATE “I ain’t got much baggage”

·                     Then they fucking dance and look at each other from across the stage and it’s so soft you want to die but then you realise you already have and you’re in heaven

·                     AND THEN THE KISS AT THE END. HOLY MOTHER.

·                     We’re Okay - again UNDER APPRECIATED. ALSO DISAPPOINTED IT WAS CUT FROM THE FILM.

·                     YASS YASS YASS CHRISTMAS BELLS AND ALL THE VENDORS ARE ON THE STREET AND ANGEL AND COLLINS APPEAR SHOPPING FOR A NEW COAT

·                     Collins being a sweetheart and telling Angel she doesn’t have to do this for him and Angel’s little “Hush your mouth its Christmas”

·                     The look Layton gives the vendor when she offers Angel that ugly ass coat... Stunning. Hilarious. I’m choking.

·                     KISS ME IT’S BEGINNING TO SNOW.

·                     Mark retelling the past half hour of the production as he suddenly appears with Roger and is trying to get to grips with the whole Mimi/Roger thing

·                     Roger spotting MImi and being like there she is and Mark and his one track mind is like MAUREEN?! And Roger’s voice literally sounds like an eyeroll as he says “MIMI!!!” 

·                     Mark’s “WHoa?!” Like ummm how did you get her interested in you Roger?

·                     Then the whole thing descends into chaos and its brilliant and everyone’s shouting and singing and Collins sees his old coat and he’s like fuck you but Angel wants to buy him one so she’s there haggling and Mark is filming them both again as they hug in the snow and it’s so fucking cute

·                     “WHich way to the stage!”

·                     LUCIE JONES DESERVES A TONY AWARD, AN OSCAR AND A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE. I CAN’T EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE HER PERFORMANCE. IT IS OUT OF THE PARK. WE ARE SOMEWHERE IN THE STRATOSPHERE OF BRILLIANCE AND PURE TALENT. THE NOTE SHE HOLDS FOR HALF A MINUTE, THE MOOING, THE ECHO, THE DEPTH OF HER VOICE, THE FUCKING MILK DRINKING, THE AUDIENCE REACTION. I LIVE FOR IT. And I used to think that song was weird af and now… I’d dance to it at my wedding

·                     WHEN MAUREEN IS PRETENDING TO DRINK THE MILK FROM ELSIE’S UDDER AND COLLINS TURNED TO MARK AND SAID “Hey Mark, d’you remember this?!” AND ON THE LAST NIGHT WE WERE THERE IT WAS SO LOUD AND I FUCKING CHOKED AND THEY WERE JUST ON THE VERY EDGE OF COMING OUT OF CHARACTER. BILLY WAS JUST GLARING AT RYAN AND HE WAS GRINNING AWAY TO HIMSELF AND GOD BLESS THE WRITERS FOR ADDING THAT IN BECAUSE IT’S NOT IN THE ORIGINAL SCRIPT OR THE FILM EITHER AND IT IS T H E BEST THING THAT EVER COULD’VE HAPPENED IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. SERIOUSLY.

·                     Watching everyone else through Maureen’s performance is also the cutest thing. Angel and Collins were clicking along and Mimi was trying to teach Roger the Over The Moon dance

·                     Also Joanne had me giggling the whole way through. She was stood in the background holding the boombox and whenever Maureen sings the chorus she holds it up so the backing track sounds louder. But she was wearing this beige/brown roll neck under her coat and as she lifted the boombox her coat would come open and I swear I thought I was seeing skin and I was like JOANNE!?? Where are your clothes woman!

·                     Anyway… That whole song was legendary and I can’t believe I’m so blessed to have seen it.

·                     Then we head straight into La Vie Boheme which is a personal favourite anyway but it was just to die for. All the movement of the tables, the hand clapping, the kissing, seeing Lucie Jones’ bum three times, everyone basically pretending to bang and masturbate and Mark riding Collins like a motorbike and Mimi and Angel’s friendship and just the purity of believing in something and being something that other people can’t understand. It’s a beautiful song.

·                     And we take a break from it to watch Roger and Mimi sing their lil duet an that’s really cute and sweet and HOW HAS IT TAKEN THEM THIS LONG I SWEAR TO ALL THE GODS

·                     Ok so during I Should Tell You everyone else is frozen in the background sitting round a table but on the Friday night, Ryan was just standing and then one of the swings came in and he just beckoned her over and they hugged and he gave her a lil kiss on the forehead and that was the cutest thing ever

·                     And on the Saturday night they’d been having issues with the tables and then Maureen’s chair was too close to another bit of the stage so she couldn’t pull it out to sit down so she was just in the background wrestling with it and it was just so funny

·                     And then we come crashing back into La Vie Boheme B which I’m currently trying to learn all the words too because it’s brilliant and beautiful and it’s for everyone, everyone should be accepted and loved an-THE RIOT CONITUES

·                     Yeah… One minute you’re all singing and then BAM Mark’s there shouting about a riot and the Christmas tree is burning down and Mimi and Roger are kissing in the rafters

·                     “The snow dances”

·                     Seriously everything Mark says is poetic af

·                     VIVA. LA VIE. BOHEME.

·                     Crash. Bang. End act. Sit and scream internally for 20 minutes while you wait for imminent death to occur.

#rent #rent the musical #rent on stage #rent20 #jonathan larson #billy cullum #mark cohen #ross hunter #roger davis #ryan o'gorman #tom collins #layton williams #angel dumott schunard #shanay holmes #joanne jefferson #lucie jones #maureen johnson #philippa stefanie #mimi marquez

[ramialkarmi]

The CEO of About.com has a crazy plan to save the beloved 1990's website from extinction — he's shutting it down completely

About.com launched in 1997. It used to be one of the world's most visited websites.

Today, internet entrepreneur and investor Neil Vogel has been tasked with saving the IAC-owned dot-com brand from extinction.

"I got a phone call from Joey Levin, who is the CEO of IAC. He asked, 'What do you think of About.com?'" Vogel said during a recent interview with Business Insider. "My answer — in perfect arrogance — was 'I don't.' Who thinks of About.com? Nobody."

Levin persuaded him to come in for a job interview anyway, and Vogel walked out convinced he could help turn the company around. Now he is CEO of About.com, and to save it he's trying something that sounds crazy.

He’s shutting down the entire website in early May. In its place, he's launching a half-dozen new sites.

"This is either going to work and be a great success or we're going to crash the plane as we're flying it and this is going to be a horrible failure," Vogel says he told IAC.

So far the radical plan seems to be working. We spoke with Vogel about the turnaround, and, before that, how he founded the Webby Awards, which have been dubbed "the Oscars of the internet."

On an episode of "Success! How I Did It," a Business Insider podcast about the careers of accomplished and inspiring people, Vogel also explained how a cross-country road trip in a Ford Bronco changed his life.

You can listen to this episode below.

Subscribe to "Success! How I Did It" on Acast or iTunes.

Following is a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity and length.

Alyson Shontell: About.com is a 250-person media company that you've revived. It was a dot-com baby, founded in 1996.

Neil Vogel: Nineteen ninety-six. We're 20 years old. We're not a baby — we're not even adolescent. We're like a full-fledged millennial.

Shontell: You've been a venture partner at Firstmark Capital. You've created a company that made awesome events like Internet Week and the Webby Awards, which have been called "the Oscars of the internet."

Vogel: I've done a lot of things. I'm old, man — I'm old.

Shontell: Let's go back to when you were young and hungry. How did you start this career? Investment banking, right?

Vogel: I listened to your podcast with [Bustle and Bleacher Report founder] Bryan Goldberg and he talked about this, but when I got out of college, which was in 1992 — I went to Penn — the only things seemingly you could do were become an investment banker, a consultant, or a brand manager somewhere. And I didn't do any of those things.

For a year I took an internship at IMG, the big sports agency, which I was terrible at, and I hated it. After seven months, I went back to my roots and was an investment banker. I was a banker for five or six years. I very quickly learned that I admired and respected my clients a lot more than my bosses. I did not want to be some dude eating Chinese food in the office on Sunday night at 7:30 making a model for someone else's business. That, to me, seemed stupid. It seemed to me like I wanted to be the guy the model's being made for, which makes some sense.

I ended up leaving and going to work with a couple of guys who started a company called Alloy — or Alloy Media Marketing, for you internet 1.0 people. I was the sixth person there. We ended up growing to be a $300 million-revenue business — very profitable. It went public and had a really good run.

Shontell: What was it like back in the dot-com days for people who might be too young to remember?

Vogel: It's hard to describe. We were kids. We were 27, 28, 29 when Alloy went public. We were just playing business with other people's money. And it felt irresponsible, but we tried really hard. We worked incredibly hard.

The founder of the company, Matt Diamond, was incredibly smart. He was always very focused on building a business that made money. We always made money so we didn't have the outcome of a lot of 1.0 guys. We ended up being pretty successful. But it just was crazy. Everything was at hyper speed. Nobody knew anything. We were the first at everything we did. It was really fun.

Ultimately, I wanted to run my own thing. I left, took a year off, and, with a partner, started a business called Recognition Media. We ended up owning and producing nine or 10 different award shows and events, including the Webby Awards, and we started Internet Week, which we subsequently sold.

A life-changing, yearlong road trip in a Ford Bronco

Shontell: Before we get into that, I want to discuss the time you spent in between jobs. You did a cool soul-searching experiment in which you bought a truck and you drove across the country.

Vogel: I did. I took, like, almost a year off.

Shontell: Tell me about this crazy road trip that changed your life.

Vogel: I don't know — I was 32, single, and we just had this reasonably good outcome. I had no responsibilities and no expenses. I had a dumb rental apartment. So I bought an old Ford Bronco, took the roof off and drove around for a summer.

My father gave me great advice. He said, "Look, you're in a position where you don't have kids, you don't have anything. Go get yourself bored and figure out what you want to do." 

For a couple of months I was trying really hard to think about it and figure it out. Then I decided to not think about anything. Believe me, I know it's an incredible luxury to be able to do that.

I didn't think about anything, and then everything became clear. It's an amazing feeling to have no responsibilities. Just "What am I going to do? Oh, I'm going to drive here and visit my friend." Or "I'm going to get on a plane, go to Europe, and hang out." It was amazing.

I was at the beach with some friends before Labor Day weekend in 2004. I hadn't done anything for the whole summer. I wasn't even checking email. I panicked because I had hit maximum boredom. I got in this truck and I drove back to Manhattan on the Thursday before Labor Day weekend. When everybody was going out to go the beach and have fun, I got on a plane, flew to LA to where my business partner was, and we wrote a business plan, and that became the business that was the Webby Awards and Recognition Media.

I tell people it was the best thing I've ever done in my whole life.

Shontell: You're on the beach, you realize "Oh my gosh, I actually miss work. I want to do more. I want to do something." You have this idea. Had you done anything with events before?

Vogel: No, nothing. Zero things.

Shontell: You just thought it would be a fun thing to start.

Vogel: We actually started the company by buying a very small business. Before I dropped off the face of the earth, I talked to a lot of smart media people I knew. And a guy called us with an opportunity. He said, "You can buy this thing called the Telly Awards," which was a little award show based in Ashland, Kentucky.

He found this business in an ad in the back of The Wall Street Journal. He read it, then he clipped it and faxed it to me. I took a look and said, "Wait a minute. This is a database of creative professionals who are all doing internet things and need recognition for their work." If you make TV commercials, who says whether you are doing a good job or not? You need third-party validation.

We did some research, found out there were a million of these little awards around. If we bought this first one and figured it out, we could probably do a bunch more and make this work. That's what we did. I flew to LA to do the work on this Telly Awards thing that we then raised a little bit of money and bought a few months later.

Building "The Oscars" of the Internet, The Webby Awards

Shontell: What exactly are the Webby Awards, and how did they become this glamorous thing?

Vogel: We bought the Telly Awards and we'd had some success with it. Then, we found out the Webby Awards were owned by IDG, the big media company. They started this award show in the '90s in San Francisco that got some traction. But it kind of went out of business. For two years they didn't have the show. But they had the brand. We approached them and said, "Guys, we want to buy this from you."

The business model is, people pay to enter, and we get lots of corporate sponsors and have a show. The first year we had 800 entries, mainly all from the United States. By the time we were done with it [seven years later] it was about 14,000 entries from 60 countries. It's the award, the Cannes Lions, or the Oscars for people who do internet stuff.

We built a brand really, really stealthily. We did it by just making sure the brand was impeccable, that the most important, most influential people liked it. And we did it all online at a time when that felt really weird to people.

Shontell: So it's a once-a-year event. How much money can you make from an event like that?

Vogel: I can't really tell you exactly how much. You can figure out the math. The more people who enter, the better off this thing is. Then you're connecting really big corporate sponsors with very tight, very engaged audiences that are super valuable. We can put you in front of 2,000 people who make the best stuff in the world every year. That's a really valuable thing.

Shontell: Was it ever hard?

Vogel: Everything is hard. It's impossible. It tells as a super-elegant story. No, but this is impossible. Everything was a disaster. We had eight offices. We couldn't get anything right. We made so many mistakes. The nature of the internet is it's very forgiving. You can't really make that big a mistake.

The interesting thing about a business that is an award show is it's once a year. Now, at About.com, we can make changes that are instant tomorrow. At the Webby Awards, you make a change, it takes a year to see if that worked. You learn how to manage businesses differently because you have a full-year cycle, which is often very annoying. We made every mistake a startup can make.

Shontell: Despite that, someone did come in and buy a big chunk of it.

Vogel: Yeah, we were happy. I'm still on the board. Then I transitioned to Firstmark Capital, where I have a bunch of friends who are investors.

Shontell: They've got early-stage investments and things like Pinterest, Airbnb, and Draft Kings.

Vogel: I spent probably a year hanging out with those guys, and I learned so much in that year from just sitting and listening to their process. The first thing I learned is I'm a terrible investor. I like the quick wits of running businesses. But the long lead time and thoughtfulness required to have a thesis and invest against it and follow up is just not my jam.

A radical plan to save About.com — shut down the URL and start from scratch

Shontell: So you started to get bored and then IAC called you. IAC owns About.com.

Vogel: Yes. So About.com was owned by The New York Times. They owned it for five or six years. IAC — Barry Diller and crew — bought it for about $300 million at the end of 2012.

Shontell: Significantly less than The Times paid for About.com.

Vogel: It is less than The Times paid, which is less than Prime Media paid before them. I think it's widely known, but About was a mess at that point. It was still one of the 20 biggest sites on the internet, but there had been a lot of neglect.

IAC, who's very opportunistic in buying things, said, "OK, this still does a lot of revenue. It has 100 million users a month. We're pretty sure we can do something cool with it." So they bought it.

Shontell: There was a bidding war for it too. Answers.com wanted it.

Vogel: There was a very quick bidding war that they won. I think the entire cycle was seven days, which is crazy when you think about how that works. Probably five or six months after they owned it. I wasn't there, so I can't say this definitively, but I can guess. I think it was a bit of a bigger mess than they thought.

I got a phone call from Joey Levin, who is now the CEO of IAC. He might deny it went this way, but it very much went this way. He calls me — Joey's a very direct character — and he says, "What do you think of about.com?"

My answer — in perfect arrogance was — "I don't. Who thinks of about.com? Nobody. It's a thing with these blue links on it. I don't think about About.com."

He says, "Come in and talk to me about it." I go in and talk to him about it. I thought he wanted me to help him find someone to run it. I went into his office, and the next thing I know, I'm going home with a stack of information.

I'm thinking, "Ugh, I'll look through it, I guess."

By the time I got through it, I had a full mental turnaround on what this thing could be. I was definitely like the 25th person they talked to.

Shontell: It was founded in the search era, right? There was no social or Facebook driving a ton of traffic. It was all the good old days of Google search traffic.

Vogel: It's all Google search. The model was — this is important to note because it took us a bit to figure out — the model was the same thing as AOL, or the same thing as MSN, or the same thing as Yahoo. It was a big general information site. In our case, we made the content ourselves with experts. They made content different ways. But it was a big general information site. I decided I would ... I'm like, "OK, you know what? I'm going to do this." I went and I signed up to do it, and a little bit of the reason was the "you can't fall off the floor" reason. I'm not going to be the guy who ruined About.com. It's already ruined, so this is all upside here.

What Marissa Mayer and Yahoo did wrong

Shontell: What do you think of Marissa and Yahoo?

Vogel: We can actually talk about that. We have point of view on that, which is part of how we decided to do what we did. We actually have a strong point of view on that. I'll make this story a little shorter here.

I joined, and within a year we took the employees from 150 to 250. Every person, with the exception of one or two above senior director was new. We have 250 people now, and there are probably 10 who were there before we got there. When I got there, I couldn't tell you how many ads we served the day before. I couldn't tell you how many visits we. It was just a mess.

We got there and spent the first year building a data-science team so we can understand what was going on. Building a sophisticated programmatic ad stack because our site kind of looks like crap. It's very hard for us to sell premium stuff. So we're going to start selling programmatic things like moving away from some other monetization things. We used a lot of Google ads and we have to not do that. Users don't really like that at scale. Hired a bunch of smart people. I basically went and drove the "A-Team" van around New York and was like, "I know you, you're great. We've worked together. Come join us!" I think people got excited about the chance to fix an iconic internet.

A year and a half into it, we launch a brand-new site and rewrote every line of code. We had code from the '90s in there. We put forth the new About.com and everyone was excited. We stopped the decline. We started to make more money, traffic stopped going down. We could go to a cocktail party with a straight face and say, "Look at this things." We had some pride in what we were doing and it was making some sense. We felt good, and then six months later we're still in the exact same spot and we're like, "Ugh, why is this not growing?" Again, at this time, everyone's really happy with us. IAC is happy with us.

Probably a year after we launched, we went back to IAC, and this was the scary moment, this was like the big move, and said, "Guys, everything we did was wrong. We're doing it wrong."

Shontell: How did you come to that? It just stalled?

Vogel: It goes back to your Marissa question. We realized that our fundamental model of what we were doing was wrong. Our value is we have this great content that advertisers will like and consumers like, but nobody cares about a general-information site anymore. You have three constituencies when you're a publisher: advertisers, consumers, and people who send you traffic (basically algorithms). And it turns out that if you play tennis this weekend and hurt your knee, you don't want your "why my knee hurts" advice from About Health. You want it from WebMD or Everyday Health. We're like, "Oh, point." If your router breaks at home, you don't want that from About Tech; you want that from EnGadget or The Verge or someone how to fix it.

Advertisers? We heard this constantly: "Your data is great, your scale is great, we like your content, but you're not endemic, so we're not working with you." They want head-of-household moms, and they make computers, but they would not give us any money. And then the other problem was algorithms. Google and Facebook and those guys no longer knew what to make of us. You can't have, "Symptoms of Colitis" content on the same domain that you have "How to Unclog My Drain." On the same domain you have, like, "How to Cook Beer-Battered Chicken" and "How to Fix My Tendinitis."

Shontell: It kind of works for Wikipedia, though.

Vogel: We'll talk about that in a second. It's a little bit different. For a site like us ... Wikipedia's traffic is going down, by the way, from search, because they're not specific. If you have colitis, you'd rather go to a colitis-specialty place than Wikipedia. They're losing also.

We came to the realization that we needed to do something. We went back to IAC and to that meeting and said, "Here's what we're going to do: We're going to turn this place from AOL or Yahoo or MSN, and I'm going to turn this into Condé Nast or Vox. And that's what we're going to do. This is either going to work and be a great success or we're going to crash the plane as we're flying it and this is going to be a horrible failure. But we're betting, because our content is good, because we still have search traffic, because we know how to play social, that we're betting that we can do this."

And IAC — because they're not a media company, they're an internet company; it's a huge difference that I've learned — they basically said "Do it. Do it. Go ahead, take the chance. Roll the dice and do it. We'd rather have the outcome that you are the next Condé Nast than have the outcome that is now, which is we're going sideways."

'We could have literally gone to zero"

Shontell: That sounds like it makes a lot of sense. But there is huge risk involved with a move like that.

Vogel: Existential risk. We could have literally gone to zero.

Shontell: Yes, because you have, what, over 100 million people visiting About.com?

Vogel: Yeah, about that.

Shontell: And you're talking about all these new properties that have to start from scratch, right? Then what's left for About.com?

Vogel: What we said was, we're going to take pieces of About.com, we're going to break them off and make these new brands, and then when we're done, About.com is going to go away. As of May 2, we're announcing a new brand name for all of overarching brand for our brands, and About.com is going away.

Shontell: This site that had 100 million-plus readers, you just canned.

Vogel: We didn't can it yet, but we're canning it in six weeks. Again, because we've now made five different, sites that if you add them up have more users than About.com had. That was the trick.

Shontell: How long did that take?

Vogel: We've done it over the last 12 months. The story of the first one is an easy one to tell.

Shontell: Within a year you've built four new brands that now are bigger than About.com ever was.

Vogel: In aggregate, when you add up all the things, not ever was, because that was humongous, but we are — our traffic now, we have more traffic now with four of our five brands launched. So four brands in the market, one brand still under the About.com name. We have more traffic now than we had a year ago, two years ago, when we were just About.com.

Here's what we did: The first thing we wanted to launch is we wanted to launch ... We launched a health brand called Very Well. We dove right into the pool. Health is our most valuable, most-trafficked, biggest vertical, so we came up with an idea. Our content is very much in the style of like WebMD or Everyday Health. But we thought those sites, we just didn't think they have served a market need. We thought that we could make a beautiful, kinder, gentler health site. You go to these some of other sites with a headache, you think you have a brain tumor. You come to us with a headache, we're going to make your headache feel better and explain why you had a headache and make it better. That was the thesis.

So we took our 100,000 pieces of health content of About.com, threw 50,000 in the garbage because they were old. We didn't like them. The other 50 [thousand] were read by our writers. If it was medical information; it was read by a doctor. We had 30,000 pieces of content read by physicians, edited, cleaned up. Built a brand-new site from scratch, a new taxonomy for our content, put it on the site.

We did that. We built this beautiful new site from scratch, everything from scratch. Took design, product, content, tech, everyone, walled them off. You now work for Very Well; you don't work for About anymore. You work for Very Well.

Shontell: The About people who remained were no longer able to write about beauty and health or about —

Vogel: Yeah, we moved the health stuff all to Very Well. Health is now gone from About.com, and we launched it in April.

Shontell: You see, instantly, a ton of traffic to About.com, I'm sure, go away.

Vogel: Terrifying. Really, you have to compare all of About.com to now About.com, plus Very Well, right? So here's what happens, a lot of, more, probably at the time, 70% of our traffic was from search. Three weeks after we did this —

Shontell: No search traffic, I'm sure.

Vogel: No, what you can do ... the trick is making the search traffic move to your new place. We built a new site with a new taxonomy so every URL over here gets redirected to one over here.

A month after we launched this thing, our health traffic, which is our most valuable traffic, was down. Traffic was in like 45% or 50%. But we're like, "OK, we're just going to hold on and we're already halfway done doing our next vertical." All of a sudden, Facebook, Google, all the domains figure it out. As of now, today, I think our health brand has — I'm going to get this slightly wrong because I always get numbers slightly wrong — I think we had 8 million uniques when we started a month, I think we have 17 million uniques now to Very Well. So we've pretty much doubled in size in 12 months. We're by far the fastest-growing thing in the health space. I think we're No. 4 or 5 on comScore on health because our bet was right ...

We knew that this would work. Then we launched something in the summer. Ran a very similar playbook on our personal-finance content called The Balance, which has pretty much doubled in traffic since we launched it this summer. We launched something called Life Wire in November, which is our evergreen-content tech site — how to fix my router, how to unbrick my iPhone. We launched three weeks ago, about a month ago something called The Spruce, which is the third-biggest home site on the internet, only behind HGTV and the Hearst Brands. We had such scale on About, that we're launching these new brands into the world that are new to the space with no legacy issues, look like start ups, but all of a sudden, like we're top 10 in comScore because we're coming with such scale. The market's like, "What? Where do you guys come from?"

And we have one more site to launch, called Trip Savvy, which we're launching right after we change our name. We're now going to change the name of the company May 2.

Shontell: So as a collection of sites, how much traffic do you guys have?

Vogel: More than we started. I think — I don't know — last month ... internally, I think comSquare was like 60 million last month or something. So we got a lot of scale. We're around the same size as you guys. I think internally we're like 100 million.

The future of media isn't about scale, it's about finding a niche

Shontell: So, for a while it was great to be a site that was all-encompassing, had all this scale, you know, the Yahoos, MSNs, and you. Are you're saying that that's no longer the case and that the future is to go niche?

Vogel: It doesn't work. Yeah, it doesn't. I just think everybody wants expert —

Shontell: The scale days are over?

Vogel: You see it in the mall, right? There's no place for a department store. People don't want that anymore. People want things that are specialty. I think the other people in our position —

Shontell: Except for Amazon.

Vogel: Except for Amazon. But there's always a place for that. There's a place for Amazon and Target and Wal-Mart, cause they're competing on price, or service, or something. Not on expertise. And that's more of like a retail thing. But in content, you generally want content from someone you believe is an expert in that. That trends toward being an expert in like, a domain of content, which trends toward being vertical. And I think different people have made really interesting decisions about this.

I think AOL has made a brilliant decision. We looked at our content and said, "All right, we make really premium content in these very premium areas." AOL looked at their type of content and said, "You know what, this is content that is probably going to be best served by programmatic ad selling." Cause of the type of content it was, not that it's good or bad, it just is. They built an unbelievable ad stack, they assembled properties that work like this. And it totally worked, and they crushed it. And now they're like Target. Like it totally works for them, and now that's why Yahoo makes sense. I think MSN didn't want to deal. And Yahoo made a different decision.

Like we looked at what we were doing and said, "We make money one way. We sell ads against content. And we're doing it wrong, but that's the fundamental model that works for us." Yahoo wanted to become something completely different, that I don't think anyone totally understands exactly what the thesis was. And I think that's why it didn't work. I think the AOL-Yahoo combo is gonna be great. It's gonna be great for advertisers. If it works it's gonna be like a legitimate third option to the big two. And I think they took the right approach to content.

Shontell: The big two being Facebook and Google. The Duopoly.

Vogel: The Duopoly. No media buyer in the world wants there to be only two places to buy stuff from. Look, it's really dangerous and they're growing like crazy but ... If you make valuable content, and you give people a really great experience, there is a place for you in the world. When you're general, like when you're the old About.com, there might not have been a place for us in that world. Because it just doesn't work. But when you're Very Well or The Balance, and when you're like a mutual-fund company that needs to advertise against people who are specifically looking for mutual fund information, we're an unbelievable resource for them. That's better than like guessing someone wants mutual funds on Facebook.

Shontell: So one thing you mentioned is that with AOL and Yahoo merging under Verizon, you think it'll be great. And could maybe challenge these guys. And that's a mega-merger.

Vogel: That's a big one.

Shontell: You know, all these huge companies coming together under Verizon. Do you think that's going to keep happening, and is that is your goal with About, to build it up to a point where you could join and be a power player in a big mega-merger like this?

Vogel: I don't know. I think if you look at the history of IAC they, you know, the market we have is $5 billion or $6 billion, but the value of the companies that have come out of IAC are, what, like $50 billion or $60 billion. So there is a history at IAC of being the builder, not the buildee. And if we do this right, we have a really interesting opportunity to build something great.

Shontell: So one kind of different question for you, what's Barry Diller like?

Vogel: First of all, he's great. He does not suffer fools. There's something incredible frustrating that happens when you deal with him in that you'll be in a meeting with him, or you'll get some feedback from him via email, or secondhand, or you'll talk to him directly. And he will say something to you that, at the time, you will be like, "I don't what?" Because you're like an arrogant CEO and you're like, "I ... I ... I know better about my business than he does. What's he talking about?" And then a day later, you're like in the shower, and you realize, like, "Ugh, he was totally right. He was a thousand percent right."

There's nothing he hasn't seen or been through, and he has this really unique way, which I think you do, when you sit in his perspective, of just looking at our problems or issues and just ignoring the nonsense, and like, bam. Like right to it. And sometimes by getting right to it you don't understand that right away, because you're too in the weeds, or you're busy running the business. But he just like, nails it. And he's great to work for. He does not suffer fools, there's not a lot of, like, nonsense. But it's awesome to work for someone that, and this doesn't happen a lot.

Shontell: Very true. So to wrap this all up, if you had to say the one thing you've had a lot of different lives in your careers. In all of them you've found success. So what do you think is the one common thread that has made you successful in all of these different areas and, ultimately, in your career?

Vogel: I'm annoyingly relentless when I believe in something. When I was a banker, I figured out that you'll be much better at doing something if you're passionate about it. And it's not saying like, "My great passion in life is to build publishing companies," or "My great passion in life is to build award shows." But if you believe in what you're doing and you can get excited about it, you're gonna be a thousand times better. And I'm really direct and I'm really honest with people, which doesn't always work that well. But if people always know where they stand with you, you will always know where you stand with them. And I think that's really valuable.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Animated map of what Earth would look like if all the ice melted

#Tech Insider #Arab #Entrepreneurship #sillicon alley insider