THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY 2.06 "Love Fest"
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@selfmythclcgy
THE SUMMER I TURNED PRETTY 2.06 "Love Fest"
CHALLENGERS (2023) dir. Luca Guadagnino
astrid steels herself for whatever he could possibly ask of her that is so paramount, and it takes her a brief moment to process the request in her head. “glass house? wait, you're talking about this friday, for their anniversary? how am i supposed to…” a dry scoff escapes her instinctively the moment she connects the dots, defenses building up the longer she hears sinclair speak, blocking out the tail-end of his so-called justification. memories she wishes would stay suppressed bubble to the surface along with the rancor that led them where they stood today. “what? no, sinclair, you’ve got to be kidding me. there's no way you’re being serious about this. isn't there anyone else you could've asked instead? your castmates, anybody?”
Sinclair anticipated the protest, and he damned himself to expecting anything less. Nothing good ever happened at Glass House, a conclusion that had taken some time for him to reach. He held his last time there as an anomaly, but the reality was that it was no different than the rest. That time, Astrid had just been there as proof of the destruction and a witness to the desolation.
"None of them were invited," He sighed. "I'll stay out of your way, and I'll stay away from the bar."
He didn't need to divulge that he'd spent the last few months in the face of temptation, elbows digging into the stick of a bar counter. That was a part of his recovery that took his own path, and many would disagree.
"I need to keep an eye on him so he doesn't do anything he'll regret," Sinclair pleaded. "He's done enough, but he doesn't think he's too far gone. I'm trying to keep him from doing something he'll regret. He doesn't need to crash to have proof he's in trouble."
astrid immediately picks up on the quiet unease the other radiates the moment he steps foot on the court, like he's walking on eggshells, like he shouldn't even be here. she could say the feeling's mutual whenever she’s scheduled to be at underwood for the day for charlotte, but sinclair came here on his own accord. the vague, almost cryptic text messages he sent did little to kill her curiosity. just what did he come all this way for? “well...” she blinks at him expectantly, arms crosssed. “this better be good. what are you waiting for?”
How was he suppose to ask this of her? Sinclair had done all he could to ensure that he was the one cleaning up his own mess, staying far away from anyone else's and making amends. To ask this of Astrid was surely doing the opposite, and he was unsure of how to explain his intentions even if he believed they were rightfully founded.
"I need you to get me into Glass House on Friday," He started, arms folded across his chest and finger tips digging into his skin as he fought to take action. Every part of him was already regretting it. "It's not to party or anything. I need to keep an eye on someone. They told me they're ready to take on a scene like that, but they've only just started the steps and... They're not ready, Astrid, and I want to keep them from learning that the hard way by getting even lower."
@selfmythclcgy / location: private tennis club, outskirts of beverly hills
the practice courts are relatively quiet if not for the sounds of footsteps shuffling against clay and her racket popping every volley thrown her way. astrid’s grown used to spectators over the years, but there's a nagging feeling she can't shake off, an unfamiliar gaze burning in the back of her skull as she turns off the tennis ball machine. her suspicions prove correct when the person behind it all is none other than sinclair james himself, striding in her direction.
“that favor must've been really urgent if you actually made it all the way here, huh? aren't you supposed to be shooting today?” if it weren't for the fact she had been sweating buckets in the burning july sun for the past couple hours, she might even color herself impressed. never to his face though, certainly. “what was so important you dropped everything for this?”
Whenever an invitation became the talk of the town, it always seemed to end up in the wrong hands. While it was a choice, there always seemed to be an obligation even if attendance hadn't been confirmed. Sinclair had fallen into it multiple times, giving in to the setting instead of his own rules. That was why he was adamant to find a way in now, though it was for someone else's sake.
"Hey," He said, stepping on to the court but teetering around Astrid's space. "I figured it was easier to explain it in person than over the phone."
He didn't get an invitation, but Astrid had. She remained untouched by Sinclair's brass divinity. His membership had been revoked from Glass House a long time ago, but he still needed to be there. The last time they had thrown something like this, though, had been the last time they'd ever been anything at all.
SELF MYTHOLOGY: ARCANUM NIGHTS ATTIRE
if hanuel was being honest, he was one hundred percent committed to returning as a cast member for the reboot of william’s river, under a few conditions, surely. he’d be lying if sinclair wasn’t one of the reasons for coming back.
for having quite a successful career in both south korea and the states—traveling back and forth—he’s always had fond memories of working on william’s river. han was contemplative about returning but also hesitant and nervous about what the writers would bring to the table. guess he’d have to wait for the table read to find out. “sinclair,” he was at ease after seeing his mate, to see the parker wilson return, knowing damn well that sinclair would do anything to maintain his character’s image. “believe it or not, they do, and i didn’t have to think twice about it.” han didn’t know about the rest of the cast, returning or not. after all, it was only the beginning.
“i don’t know if i should be offended by you thinking i wouldn’t come back.” he chuckles, giving him a friendly slap to his shoulder. “i mean, i was hesitant, so i guess i was bribed in the end—no, i’m messing with you. they told me you were reprising your legendary role, so i had to.”
"Flattery gets you everywhere in this business, right?" He smirked, abandoning the cigarette in his hand and returning inside.
Would it possible to return to who he was when this was all he had? Sinclair wasn't certain if he could be the same Parker Wilson noted on paper. For a long time, his life had merged with the script until he became unfavorable. Parker remained untouched even if he was just a little jarred than the rest, while Sinclair put whatever pieces of himself he had left to sell the character that made his life what it was. After all this time, could he still slip inside the eye of that mind and carry the same faith in the world his character did?
"They didn't tell me who was coming back, but I did tell them I wouldn't do it if most of us weren't. I can't believe you said yes, man. This is great!" He couldn't contain excitement, or relief that some of the people he knew well back then had come back with him. "Have they given you anything on what they're gonna do for you on the show, or not? I told them they better do Parker justice, but don't make him out to be like he's been perfect all these years, you know? We all know I'm not that good of an actor."
Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges in Soho Place's Brokeback Mountain
Liquor had settled through his blood stream, a warmth that defrosted the chilled ache he wouldn't admit was lingering. Meaningless chatter with meaningless people had kept him satiated for long enough. This was the point in the night when he would crave something more, usually to no avail, settle for more to drink, and someone vapid to wear on his arm like the expensive jewelry that adorned his wrist.
The exclusivity of it all was what usually drew him in, the best of the best, but tonight it felt all too much like exactly what his parents wanted of him. Someone rich and influential to further their empire. The drink was getting to his head, it was far too early to wallow.
Pushing his way through the crowd and up against the bar he should have known it from the smell of his cologne. That smell that has lingered through his memory, the smell that has reminded him that he could fight this. That he didn't have to feel like this anymore, that this hazy buzz that lingered, the fire in his throat and the cut of his tongue when he spat words he didn't mean at people he could have cared for didn't have to exist. That it wasn't only drink and drugs that took that edge off, there was another option, and the proof of that was standing next to him.
"sadly, you're the only one I cant take a drink from" it was enticing him, it sat between them like a ticking time bomb. Despite the sheer volume of his blood that was alcohol at this moment, he felt perfectly sober, and would try to act like it. His constant debauchery didn't feel out of place in any other situations, but this one felt like being caught. "what are you doing out tonight? and why here of all places, it has to be tough, knowing its all within arms reach.." he looked down at the drink once more. It was as if it was shouting between them, yelling to be addressed, to be drank. Oliver picked up the drink and put it behind him, offering it to the next person in line.
There was surely a madness in walking the fine line Sinclair did at Glass House, and wishful thinking on his knees would hardly clean his hands if he did fall. The difference between here and Prayer Factory was that everyone here knew what you got up to— and everyone was just waiting to throw stones. The doors downstairs were lined with paparazzi who caught every single patron walking in and out. It was a luxury to be seen worthy of the Glass House, whereas Prayer Factory was just built on chance and hoping it was yours.
Glass House held a different nostalgia for all the wrong reasons. He got his break here, but not like the rest. The first crack had been here, on his first ever event, and someone had handed him a drink to hold and Sinclair tasted it for the first time. It had tasted foul, but when he dunked the cherries in the liquor they seemed to taste better. The habit, ever so innocently, had begun there. They never quite tasted the same any other way.
"Oh come on, Ollie, you've gotta know me better than that," He said. How many times had Sinclair claimed he could sit and never take a sip? Enough times that he'd broken that promise, but it was years ago. "I'm DD for a few people on set. We agreed to come out tonight since it's the last time we'll ever finish before midnight. What about you? I'd think this place wasn't up to par for the likes of you, man."
and when i got into the accident the sight that flashed before me was your face but when i walked up to the podium i think that i forgot to say your name
“it took her some time to warm up to my sisters, but she always gets shy whenever kuya’s around. i'm talking like, giggling and hiding from him in the house." a small chuckle escapes her lips at the memory, followed by a quiet hum of acknowledgement, albeit she squints slightly at his answer.
a beat, then sinclair speaks up. she braces herself as she lifts her resigned gaze at familiar baby blues she used to get lost in. they’ve grown weary as years passed, but she recognizes a glint of desperation that eerily mirrored her own. to save herself from an inevitable media frenzy, fear drove her to become the controlling puppeteer that she vehemently detested seeing in other people behind the scenes. she questions herself every day if she made the right decision. perhaps they were doomed to fail from the start. she releases the deepest breath she didn't realize she had been holding.
"you're trying your best, clearly. i see it, i do, i really do. i look at you and i see a man who’s trying to be better for our daughter, who i want to try so hard to forgive… but behind him is the man who completely disregarded my feelings, said some of the most sickening shit about me, about my parents—” the anger she's held back for so long finally explodes, indignation coating her voice and glassy eyes, “—and the cruelest part of it all? you knew how much i was hurting after they left. i needed you, i trusted you. but instead you took a knife and just stabbed me in the spot you knew would cut the deepest. you can't pretend that just doesn't affect somebody, sinclair! i mean, do you even remember what happened that night?"
Sinclair had given up on him and Astrid a long time ago— and probably sooner than he cared to recall. It had been an era where a false sense of invincibility had led Sinclair to take on too much simply to risk failure. What should have been the one thing that would outlive every victory and every mistake, what Sinclair had wanted above all else, was risked by the ignorance of his youth. She could have been everything, but he believed he had it all either way.
Charlotte had to be some second chance, a twisted sense of it. Astrid had some how still given him everything even if it wasn't her, but it wasn't guaranteed to be his. The world fit in her small hand, hardly cut with the wrinkles of a notion of greed to hold so tightly. Not like his hands, and he could only hope she would stray from the same line of fate Sinclair had bound himself to.
He knew what was between him and Astrid was long gone, but there was a chance for something new with Charlotte tethered between them. It would be far from the same thing, and he tried to let her know whenever he could. He would be different, and it was beyond any desire. It was solely the only condition for all of it. He had tried to make his amends, but there was one night in question he left out of every letter he'd been told to send her way or any moment of reconciliation they found between the two. It was the largest crack— and Sinclair didn't remember a single moment of it.
"I don't," He said, the crackle of the cigarette upon inhale louder than his voice. "I don't, Astrid, I've told you— and that's what I've apologized for over and over again. I've done a lot, probably the worst things I've done, and I can't remember any of it but I believe you."
He still carried the rubble of that night in his back pocket, aware of the dirt from that crumble every time he spoke to her. A taste of ash sat in his mouth and was never as easy to breathe around her in some moments. He could never know why, but he always carried the fault.
"I only ever wanted to hurt you back then."
It was a damning confession, but Sinclair knew the truth was hardly ever comforting. He couldn't remember it, but he'd taken it upon himself to prove that he could never fall. That night, he'd feigned more than sobriety but trust and gotten behind the wheel with Astrid. It was only after he'd taken two red lights that it became evident that he'd twisted her faith in him. Everything else remained barely lit, black road and black memory. They'd gotten home, and the crash Astrid anticipated from what she'd already endured played out differently in that living room. Sinclair still had the scar under his foot from the glass he stepped on, never quite sure who had broken what. What mattered most was that Astrid had walked away, but it was hardly unscathed.
He looked back to the living room, trying to remember but it was just shadows of what he'd been told that climbed those stairs and threw open the doors. He wasn't sure what was said, but Sinclair knew how vile he could be. Those intentions still lied in his chest, dormant and molded over but still there.
"I can't change that, and I shouldn't," Sinclair said. "I did those things and I'll have to live with them one way or another. I won't do them to her, Astrid. I promise. I don't want her to ever think I can, either, and that's all I'll ever ask of you with her. I don't want her to ever know, please. My amends are with you, and everyone else. I'll be making up for it my whole life, and making sure I never have to do that with her."
my foes and friends watch my reign end i don't know how it could've ended this way smoke billows from my ships in the harbor people look at me like i'm a monster now they're screamin' at the palace's front gates used to chant my name now they're screaming that they hate me never wanted you to hate me my castle's crumbling down and i watch all my bridges burn to the ground and you don't want to know me, i will just let you down
mike faist & lucas hedges in brokeback mountain - @sohoplace
the subtle jabs at the fragility of his career were enough to pull a chuckle from him. he had, after all, come to fame through tending to the orchestra around him. maverick didn’t have much of a choice, he drug his last name around like a burdened ship anchor dug into a coral reef. “ you know, some of us might do well with a handler… ” a dig at none other than sinclair, of course. “ didn’t you see what happened when you tried to do things on your own will? and now that’s something that you’ll carry with you forever. ” to climb the ladder without any baggage behind him was a triumph.
“ i’m hearing a whole lot of envy, maybe even regret leaving your mouth right now. but if you ever need an actual career buff, you know i’d do wonders for you. ” maverick carries no restraint in boasting the weight his last name carried in the industry. after all, he’d been one of many who had reaped the joys of nepotism. and he did so without much regret. “ people still want to see me and you on the red carpet together, funnily enough. at least when you vanished i didn’t throw you under the bus. ” teeth grind against each other momentarily, the bitterness of the end of their relationship was still very present in his mind. “ i hear you’re hanging around em again. ” judgement laced his words. “ WAS THE FIRST TIME AROUND NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU? ”
"And that's why I'm gonna ask you— why haven't you learned any better?"
It scraped the back of his throat, pulled the taste of copper around every word that he forced out of his mouth. Any attempt of living and letting go, every lesson of it that Sinclair had carved into his bones for the sake of rewriting who he'd become all those years ago, was pushed away. There had been a time where he wanted to get better for Maverick, too, but distance hadn't made any heart grow fonder. The little care he was left to claim as genuine was put forth to some people to know that he should leave them.
Some were different. Those he knew he had to let go had the desperation fester into a resentment, and there was a chance that what he had with Maverick had found a similar fate. The anger he held towards himself was still pushed forward, still sharp, against the man before him. It was better to keep it ruined than accept that maybe there were more cracks than before Sinclair had gone and ruined so much of it all.
"I'm not hanging around Emersyn," He scoffed. "She's fucking everywhere. You know this town is run by people like the two of you. She could snap her fingers, and the whole world spins for her. It's her luck that I show up."
Em. For a long time, Sinclair had blamed her for so much of what he'd done. The frustration had subsided to one conclusion, though. Emersyn had simply given him the tools, and it was Sinclair that used them to tear everything down. The only one to blame was himself, and it had been no different when it came to Maverick as much as he wanted to blame him in moments like these just to have a reason to fight back.
what's one thing you wish you could go back in time and redo if anything?
"I've been told that I shouldn't get lost in wishful thinking like that. I should just be lucky that what I've done wasn't any worse, and that I stuck it out. I can make the apologies I can and right some wrongs, and accept that at the end of it all, I'm better than I was."
But the same bite sinks into his cheek, and Sinclair finally voices aloud that taste of copper he's swallowed every time— there's a rage towards himself for letting things go so terribly wrong. It paints his words with the truth, even if it's a red hue. The anger would never leave him. "I don't think every good thing I've done after the fact is worth what it's cost me and everyone else. I'd take back everything."
❝ It’s definitely bottom shelf, ❞ Bex tells Sinclair after a slow and steady sip. The disappointment is evident as she frowns deeply and slides the drink away from them both. ❝ Not your fault the girl has no taste. A fucking whiskey sour, she tried to give you. What is this? Two-thousand-and-fucking-thirteen?"
Bex had been drawn to Sinclair from the moment she began watching his downfall unravel. On some level, she knows it has to do with the fact that her own brother has his demons, and she’s seen first-hand how hard it is to dig yourself out of the grave that you’ve made for yourself. Bex watched her little brother go downhill so quickly. Up until that point, she would have never thought an addiction could take over someone’s life that fast. The drugs and alcohol became the most important things in his life ; they were even more important than his family. More than her. They had grown up under dysfunctional circumstances, and they both might have come out a little jaded – Bex more than her brother, thank god. At least someone still had some hope between the two of them. Despite his illness, her brother decides to keep going. Nonetheless, it still felt as if she has lost a friend.
Then, Sinclair fell into her lap. Bruised, beaten, but not undefeated and down for the count ( especially not now with Bex in his corner ). She watched the fall of Tate James as tabloid after tabloid dragged his name through the mud. Yet, no one decided to help him or protect him as he fell into his spiral. They just watched from the sidelines, which is what Bex found the most depressing. ❝ ... The culture? ❞ Bex repeats, stifling a bit of a laugh. ❝ What's that? Slurred speech, unsteady feet, mystery bruises? The loss of inhibitions? That sounds pretty sad to me, but, if you say you're not sad, you're not sad. ❞ Her tone turns deep and teasing. She didn’t understand it. Of course, she didn’t. She wasn’t the ex-addict ; to her, it seemed rather torturous being around the culture that could make even the toughest recovering addict crumble. But Bex was here to tell Sinclair what was best for his career and not his life ( though, she did anyway, to some degree ).
She grins at that, finding it funny, and honestly, she approves. Bex also loves saying no to people. ❝ They probably think you're a serious killer, if they don't know who you are already. Eating only cherries and nuts? Definitely serial killer behaviour ❞ Bex takes a cherry for herself. ❝ Have you eaten anything other than these shitty toppings? ❞
It had taken him some time to pin down why he liked a place that only brought destruction, but Sinclair had managed to separate himself from it. The blame was his alone to carry for why he'd crumbled the way he did, and he was lucky enough to have some people stick around to guide him to putting the pieces back together. In the notion of being built not stronger but aware of his own cracks and faults, he could take on a place like this.
It wasn't home— that was the key difference. It wasn't the studio, either. Sinclair didn't hold anything to his name in a place like this, and while he still didn't have anonymity, his reputation was built on something beyond his scripted sense of self.
"It's more than that," He snorted. "I think I liked it most because it was something separate from the routine, and even when I was here at the same time every day, it was never the same. People here don't care. They're looking for a good time— and genuine one, some more desperate than others to just escape. There was just enough people that understood that and some people who even just wanted to... shoot the shit and nothing else."
But Sinclair knew that it was just second best to company sought out with effort, and it was the ease and that very same desperation he mentioned that made it appealing. If he could turn away from it, surely he'd find more without old haunts at every corner.
"To be fair, I have invested far too much in this place to have to even pay for these garnishes," He pointed out. "But I wouldn't put it past them. The guy who never ID'd me back when I was here every Wednesday has since been fired to know I was always ordering a cup of these when I was drunk."
Now came the question for her, an instigation to unravel her reason. Clearing his throat, Sinclair asked, "The drinks are overpriced here, on top of everything. How come you're here? I thought this place was business, and you're not suppose to mix that with pleasure."
do you miss any of your exes?
"Can't miss them if they're never that far."