Date: October 05, 2020 08:25 am Title: august
Thank god for Isabel and her gif-laden text messages.
Do I love that Pam takes 42 photos before finding one she likes well enough to send to Jim? Yes, obviously. Do I love that she sends it to him while he's still technically working? Yes, obviously. Do I love that she's fully prepared to give him a cam-show while he's sitting in the hotel lobby? YES. OBVIOUSLY. Almost as much as I love Pam's "The Uber will be here in 10 minutes but its cool because I only need 5" confidence.
Oof. That's a real rude shutdown though. But it's okay, because I really appreciate Pam's commitment to getting Jim un-excited with the Meredith story. She sounds a tiny bit gleeful and I'm here for that.
"And while she has no doubt that he believes her when, over the years, she has said they can live in their car as long as they’re together, she doesn’t doubt that he feels a very real obligation to the people who work for him." Quick note to just tell you that I really love your grown up Jim and Pam.
The Four Seasons. I see you. Don't think I don't see you.
She. Recreates. The. Third. Photo. Listen, there's nothing trashy about any of this - it's all amazing and fantastic and then there's this part: "She’s not certain he knows he is speaking out loud when he mumbles, “I’m not coming that way,” as he guides her to turn around. Just as quickly, he’s on his knees and roughly pulling her calves so that she inches toward the edge of the bed. He tosses, yes, tosses, her knees over his shoulders and then his mouth is on her again, his tongue and lips doing unspeakable things to her." and oh hi, Caveman Jim works his way into my top 5 versions of Jim.
Ugh, and the ending? As usual, how very fucking dare you.
Date: October 05, 2020 08:02 am Title: my tears ricochet
Well, this version of Isabel is great and I love that she's not putting up with any of Pam's excuses and dragging her to a party.
Listen. Usually I consider myself to be pretty perceptive. I figure out the ends to movies, books, all of that.. pretty quickly. So, to not have ANY idea that this was THAT Marcie until the exact same time Pam figured it out? Your mind, I swear. So sneaky. And I love it a whole lot.
"That’s what she’s doing now. Staying in place so the pain doesn’t get worse. Lesson learned." Oh cool, because I needed a side of tears with my smut reading. It's fine.
You know what's not fine? My heart, in that moment when Jim and Pam see each other and did I hold my breath until they hugged each other? Yes, yes I did.
"She’ll be living with this forever. He can at least live with her scratches in his back for a couple of days." JENNA. How? Why? How are you so good at this?
"She doesn’t have it in herself to finish this with grace.
It’s going to be messy. It’s going to be hell."
I absolutely adore that she stays the night. I love even more that not one person at the Halpert house tried to bother them.
I'm so happy you gave us two smut scenes here, because I really appreciate the contrast between Pam saying goodbye in the first one, and then ultimately, saying hello (and good morning. Damn.) in the second one.
I love this chapter so, so much and I just... you and your metaphors kill me every single time, in the best of ways. Never stop.
Author's Response: Coley! Your reviews give me life. I’m so, so glad you’re not sick of metaphors yet because I can’t seem to write anything without shoving an extended metaphor into it...
1 [Report This]Date: October 05, 2020 03:33 am Title: this is me trying
Me? Putting off reading this all day because I knew it would kill me dead? More likely than you think...
“she chased the high again by turning left instead of right, towards him instead of home” Oh. Okay. This is how I know right out of the gates that this is going to destroy me.
“he had the audacity to leave her there with it, her bare feet burning in the sand; the pieces of who they were and who they never would be, scattered around her like confetti” That’ll do it. My god. The imagery. I am dying.
“Regret is a ghost that will never leave you” DAMN. Isn’t that the truth...
“pulling out of her things previously left in the shadows” I —
“"I don't want you to let me go and this was never over." Oh. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m not overwhelmed with emotion to the point of tears or anything.
"I wore this because I hoped you would see it today." This was 1000% how I wanted Beach Games to end, holy god.
“This is a show not tell thing” DEAD.
I’ll. Buy. You. The. Whole. Damn. Car. Are you kidding me?! This was so amazing. I remain in awe at the way you string words together to create the most vivid pictures. Please write all the things forever.
Author's Response: Jenna! Thank you so much! I'm kind of glad the car line worked. I was afraid it would fall flat but I had to have him say *something* there at the end. Thanks for your always awesome review. :)
1 [Report This]Date: October 05, 2020 12:22 am Title: this is me trying
This story is so beautiful that I feel I can never praise it enough. I'll try, though.
Her courage. Her blunt honesty and goodbye that (luckily) didn't happen. The whole thing between the fight and awakening — I felt somewhat weird and awkward reading it, but your descriptions, your word choices are so captivating that I couldn't stop reading (and I think that I need more! Honestly, I'm in awe how you choose words and build sentences; there is something magical in the way you paint the three-dimensional picture, it's a true mastery!). And I love that their reunion happened when the relationship with Karen had been already over. And honesty again, and I love it, love it, love it!
I officially depend on your stories, and that's the nicest addiction I've ever had.
Thank you!
Author's Response: Oh Dernhelm, I love your reviews so much. Thank you so, so much! <3
Date: October 04, 2020 11:08 pm Title: this is me trying
Ho.ly. CRAP.
Here are a few passages I loved:
*copies and pastes the whole damn thing*
But for real, this was absolutely phenomenal and beautiful and poetic and just...amazing. And the rain. The RAIN. I knew you were an amazing writer, but my goodness. This was perfection.
Author's Response: Thank you SO much, WW! Your review made me smile and I'm thrilled you loved it. :)
Date: October 04, 2020 09:10 pm Title: this is me trying
Bored! This was just amazing! I love in a heartbreakingly way, that right after Pam's run across fire and her big speech that once the adrenaline dies down she kinds takes a few steps back. The internal turmoil as she's sitting at that bar are just exquisite.
Then to hash it all out in the rain before he bends her over the car! Just bravo. Bravo!
"Take me inside" Yes! Go get him girl!
Then of course everything after that, I mean, holy hell. That's the kind of reunion that turns all of us, not just Pam, into piles of goo.
I really wish I still had some more jellybeans for this story. Truly. Outstanding.
Author's Response: Thank you so much warrior! I feel that way about stories all the time, five jellybeans is not nearly enough. :)
Date: October 04, 2020 08:48 pm Title: this is me trying
Wow okay
I don’t...how do I leave a review that encompasses how this made me feel and that does it any kind of justice at all? I started to copy/paste my favorites but my god the way you weave ideas and words and emotions together, I’d have pasted the entire thing in this review box. Good lord. You’ve rendered me speechless with how beautiful this was. I just. I don’t even know what else to say.
Author's Response: BT you have no idea what your wonderful words mean to me. Of course, that's how I feel when I read your work, generally I'm speechless. :) I was SO nervous with this first chapter but you have made me feel so much better.
1 [Report This]Date: October 04, 2020 08:45 pm Title: this is me trying
"I don't want you to let me go, and this was never over." Ooh I love this version of Jim.
The rain adds so much sexy intensity. I like the fight. I like the detail of the car against her back and then the door. I like how she thinks about his size, and that it makes her feel feminine and powerful.
The story has the feel of the song, with so much sadness and regret, and yet we get the sweet pillow talk in the morning. So good!
Author's Response: Thank you so much Sprinkles! I'm so glad that the feel of the song translated because that's what I was really going for. :)
Date: October 04, 2020 06:29 am Title: august
Oh. My. God. DC.
This is... I...
Why do I love the idea of Pam sending nudes via email from Pratt so much? Via. Email. The effort that would have gone into that. Amazing.
“Don’t fall asleep. Just...five minutes.” The most married energy ever. My word I laughed.
“all warm and rich, like melted butter” Oh okay... I’m fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine.
Pam’s unsexy talk. Dead. So dead. Hilarious.
“loud enough for the guy delivering room service three doors down to hear” So like, the perfect volume then.
DC. Seriously. This is perfection. This is everything I want their future in Austin to be. You write the words so damn well.
Date: October 04, 2020 03:39 am Title: august
For starters, thank you for forever changing the way I look at the scene where Jim tricks the camera crew into letting him lock them out of Pam's dorm room.
I love this snapshot of Pam and Jim as busy working parents who are still REALLY HOT FOR EACH OTHER, trying unsuccessfully to squeeze in phone sex while they wait for meetings and bantering about their kids and their ex co-workers. It just feels very them, and it tells you a lot about their Austin years without having to explicitly lay it out.
It's just very cute smut. I liked it.
P.S. Also, did Jim and Darryl trying showing Tidwell the money? I'm pretty sure he just wants Arizona dollars.
Date: October 04, 2020 12:31 am Title: august
Oh DC. This is *exactly* how I see their married, living in Austin relationship playing out. You have captured it FLAWLESSLY with all the love and desire and heat it deserves.
Her pictures. Her. Pictures. I could not possibly love that more.
I know I said this already but the Harvey and Donna reference made my day and then Jim being all hot and adorable and having to leave. God, DC you are just so good at this.
THEN the sex at the end was perfect. I just...ugh so perfect.
1 [Report This]Date: October 03, 2020 10:42 pm Title: august
Ma’am.
Okay, just. All of this? Amazing. Wonderful. Incredible. Show stopping. And every other adjective from that Lady Gaga sound bite from a few years ago. The way you wrote the anticipation and Pam’s nervousness to take photos and then how she whittled it down to the acceptable ones but I bet Jim would have wanted to see them all anyway because the way you write him is just???? So good????
Ugh teach me how to be as perfect as you, please.
Date: October 03, 2020 10:41 pm Title: august
I mean where to start? Holy hell the mix of hot and sexy with good Mom and Dad, with dear sweet go get home now and let me have my way with you! And through it all the love and joy they have for each other still shining through. Just amazing! I wish I could be more verbose but it's all just great!
Date: October 01, 2020 06:33 pm Title: seven
I’m really loving this collection of different writers and stories, my question though is how did so many writers manage to write different JAM stories under one title?
I’m asking because I may have an idea that I think could be fun for multiple writers and readers.
Date: October 01, 2020 02:54 am Title: seven
Let's just all agree that you are absolutely brilliant at writing and we should all just go home at this point, okay?
Seriously Coley, this ranks up there as one of my favorite things from you which is saying A LOT.
I just love love love the way you write Jim and this feels like the perfect fit into what was happening on screen. We never really got to see her process her parents divorce but this is a perfect progression of what we saw. Also, I use the word perfect a lot when I discuss your writing so you will have to get used to it.
"It was Jim, grinning widely from underneath his black baseball hat, one hand holding his phone to his ear, the other tucked casually into the back pocket of his jeans as he winked at her." Oh hi, this is the Jim that lives rent free in my mind.
Mmm and I love over-protective new-dad-Jim all worried about her.
The rest I've already expressed to you but I will will recap here regardless:
the sex swing references and putting it on the registry -- I love you
“Oh I don’t care that he slept there. It’s that he got to fuc—“ -- perfect line is perfect
Lovemaking vs. fucking -- It's possible I love you even more for this.
And then you absolutely kill me with “You can’t divorce me.”
I think it was fate that two of your chapters were back to back and this was- what's the word I'm looking for?- oh yeah, perfect.
1 [Report This]Date: September 30, 2020 06:58 pm Title: seven
Coley, this chapter gave me life tonight. I loved the fluff, the playfulness, the sex, all of it. Jim is truly the perfect man, I think I’ve fallen even more in love and I’m not sure that was even possible.
Date: September 30, 2020 04:51 pm Title: seven
In Pam's childhood treehouse? Really? Those insatiable horndogs. Shameless.
You've once again hit on one of the great under-ficced Jim/Pam storylines with the collapse of Pam's parents' marriage and what it means to Pam approaching her own wedding, and managed to flesh it out - I can only assume the Cathy incident or the driving lessons are next, but thank you so much for getting into this.
I thought the Jim-Pam banter was particularly strong in this one - the lines about Pam's dad not imagining it was going to be used as a sex swing and the first anniversary being the kink sex toy anniversary are great. And Jim's suggestion that they bring the treehouse with them is just wonderfully romantic.
Date: September 30, 2020 04:40 pm Title: seven
First of all that line where she cut him off as he was saying “got to fu-“ ma’am
And just the really real way that this read to me, like it’s a little moment between episodes or that we didn’t get to see during the writer’s strike. It was such perfect emotion and banter and dialogue. I loved every second of it. I am obsessed with how you write Jim, every iteration.
And then the sex swing and the treehouse and the sex and the part at the end oh my god you made me FEEL things how DARE you. I love you, I love this, it is perfection.
1 [Report This]Date: September 30, 2020 04:29 pm Title: seven
Start us out feeling for Pam as she watches her parents crumble, but then there's Jim to save the day. Love how he just knows she needs him. How they have that kind of connection. Which of course leads into even better connections in the treehouse. Great images of them up there.
Then of course Jim does a wonderful Jim thing and says to bring the treehouse over to their house. Aww Jim look at you go being all great. Then still getting into their sexy banter with the first anniversary kinky gifts.
Lovely chapter all around.
Date: September 30, 2020 02:37 pm Title: seven
“At least now she knew that all of her dramatic flairs were inherited and not just learned by being in close proximity to Kelly every single day.” I love this. It’s such a great line and so very true of divorced adult parent drama...
“from underneath his black baseball hat” Well. This is a visual that I’m not mad about.
That’s what this collection was missing - a sex swing reference!
“I can’t explain it. I just really feel strongly that you and I should have sex in there.” The man raises a very valid point.
“Lovemaking” I —
““You can’t divorce me.” How did you go from sweet, to hot and heavy to making me want to cry in the space of seven seconds?!
“we could take this treehouse” Wow. Now I really am crying.
On. The. Registry. COLEY.
Okay, okay and the perfect blend of humor and teasing to bring it all home. I love this. It’s absolutely gorgeous.
1 [Report This]Date: September 30, 2020 01:35 pm Title: exile
I don't even know where to begin. If I was to start a list of all of my favorite things in this, it would just be an outline of the entire chapter.
You really are the best at taking this show and molding the characters and events and dialogue into something completely new and totally your own and I just need you to keep doing that. Forever, if you could.
Kelly's birthday party. I want to be at Kelly's birthday party. The decorations, the karaoke, the games...it's all just so good.
Every time I read this, this makes me laugh the hardest: "And Katy--oof, Katy" It just says so much in the least amount of words, and it's my favorite.
Well, one of my favorites, because there's also Snobby Oscar and Teacher Appreciation Karen, and god, I love how even though she doesn't really like her all that much, Pam can't help but ask Karen what she did to get kicked out of her sorority.
"And once Ryan just because she was curious what he tasted like after he took a shot of Fireball." Shut it down. This might be my favorite part of the whole thing. For reasons.
Jesus, I haven't even talked about Jim and Pam yet. Here we go: I hate you. That's about it. "But they've never done this in a bed." How dare you. Honestly, it's unfair how you can create this entire world - like, months, if not years of tortured romance between these too, and you somehow shape it into 7,000 words and it's perfect? I mean, I want more. But if you didn't give us more - we know everything we need to know here.
"Like whoever can kiss harder and deeper will win the title of caring more." I can't even.
"It’s different than when Danny does this. Danny’s dominance always makes her a little scared that he could hurt her. That he maybe wants to. Jim’s touch feels like he just can't stand the thought of letting her go again." It's fine, I'm not crying or anything over how perfectly gorgeous every word you string together is.
Oh. Oh Jim. He just wants to cuddle, but she's leaving because she came with Danny, and now I really might be crying but whatever right? At least they'll always be friends.
Date: September 30, 2020 01:27 pm Title: seven
Well, see if I ever look at a treehouse the same way ever again.
Coley, the way you write Jim is just insanely adorable. Showing up at the house, his playful banter with Pam, the sweet and subtle concern and attention he gives to pregnant Pam...UGH its so perfect. And that’s all *before* the treehouse (which was also amazing).
Knocked it out of the park again. :)
1 [Report This]Date: September 28, 2020 09:33 am Title: mirrorball
Coley, Coley, Coley.
How are you so good at this though? There are so many fantastic lines from this, I can't even cover them all. I love that scene soooo much where she comes out of the bathroom and he looks at her and gives her flowers and you did it all sorts of justice. Ugh that kiss in the parking lot was just *chef's kiss*
"Wedding night rehearsal" -love it
Also, I think we need a follow-up fic about this tie. For science.
I know I said this before but the 'Just Us' exchange killed me.
I am so, so very excited for your next one!
1 [Report This]Date: September 28, 2020 08:17 am Title: mirrorball
So the genius of setting mirrorball during Cafe Disco is just, I mean, it’s so PERFECT and I would have NEVER thought to do that. You’re so smart and SO FUCKING GOOD AT THIS oh my goddddd
I mean of course he knew what those shoes are. I about died when he asked her to leave them on, then died when he played with the buckle, then died again when she dragged it up his friggin leg, then died YET AGAIN when he played with the buckle AGAIN and wow, is that my kink? 😂
But honestly, this was so amazing. Just with how descriptive you are and how much emotion you convey in your writing and the something old new borrowed blue and literally every single word of this was perfection. I hate you for being so good. (Jk I love you please never ever stop)
1 [Report This]Date: September 28, 2020 06:08 am Title: mirrorball
This was phenominal! Pam's preperations for all her Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue was a great way to get into this story. You hit just the right tone for her slight anxiety considering she and Jim are on their way to elope at this point. Feels very in character that those thoughts would be going through her mind.
Then of course things start getting hot and heavy in the parking lot.
Jim's lucky tie is also Pam's lucky tie! Love both the reasons for those. Wonderful detail.
Then of course the main event when they get to their bedroom. Just masterful work as always.
Jim telling her to leave the shoes on though! I mean of course that's hot as hell, but also making sure she has no further worries about those shoes. Great job Jim.
And of course it's all wrapped up in sweetness with their pillow talk. Bravo.