Chapter 7 – New evidence uncovered by this essay

@gottiewrites 20/08/14

While I plot my next move, I wanted to share a quick couple of things. A lot of people have recently commented on chapters with new evidence that I hadn’t seen before, including this:

Big fan of this series. I follow Rob’s younger sister’s private insta (I went to school with her BFF) and I just wanted to share some screenshots in case they’re at all useful. I went through all 900 of her posts and those are the only ones that seemed relevant, but I’ll post again if I notice anything else that seems useful.

The first link is a picture from a family BBQ in LA, August 2014.

As you can see, Rob’s cousin is in the background on the left. He has been seen at a few other events with Rob. Who’s the person his cousin is talking to? Well, that looks like none other than our good friend Nathan – that t-shirt is very similar to the one Nathan wore when he was papped at JFK airport in January.

The other two pictures also show Nathan at private Hennings family events. This is not at all conclusive in any way, but interesting none-the-less. I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually invite my colleagues to my mom’s house.

Though, Nathan does seem very friendly in this regard too, so maybe I’m wrong. Check out this recent GQ piece about him:

An Everyman in Hollywood

By Olivia Salinger

Nathan O’Donnell has the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen.

We meet on a crowded street corner in Upper Manhattan. He is swaddled in a lambskin jacket, and, if I didn’t know any better, I’d mistake him for one of the swarthy New York dads bringing their children home from pre-school.

The minute we settle down in a secluded, out-of-the-way restaurant, he pulls off his backwards baseball cap and asks in that gorgeous English accent, “Shots?”

Well, how can I resist? We order the first of many drinks, and my wild night with Nathan O’Donnell – that will take me to Queens to meet his holidaying sister for cocktails, via a dance competition on the subway – begins. I will not ask even one of my prepared questions.

O’Donnell is handsome in a familiar, boy-next-door-grows-up sort of way. He isn’t styled and groomed like most metrosexual celebrities. There’s an earthy realness to him, from the rough, un-gelled hair to the unbleached, crooked teeth. He’s got a thick bandage wrapped around his hand from a recent injury while renovating his vintage VW Westfalia campervan – apparently, he’s a little bit clumsy when it comes to DIY.

The camper “has only worked once in the fifteen years I’ve had it”, he says, as he shows me a dozen pictures of the vehicle in various states of dismantlement in a tree-strewn backyard. I don’t know enough about cars to identify any of the specifics, but I can confidently state there was a rust covered wheel rim, and a freshly veneered walnut lacquer panel.

The van renovation is clearly a passion project for him. He seems to revel in the steady, detailed work, and takes pride in authenticity. It’s impressive for an actor who, when asked what his aesthetic is, answered incredibly seriously, “Dog hair and beer signs, probably”.

He has a lot of opinions about salvaged car parts – one of the only things he gets genuinely emotional about in the time we spend together. For the most part, he has a relaxed temperament that tends more towards amused neutrality than anything fiery.

O’Donnell’s rise to fame was slow, and then very, very fast. After a career of quiet bit-parts in British BBC TV shows and low-budget action movies, a serendipitous casting in the pilot of RBC’s Loch & Ness shot him to the big leagues last year. He moved from the UK to LA to play the role of Fang, a werewolf mafioso. It was a gamble that paid off big-time. He’s now a household name – as long as the household includes a teenage girl. ●

This journalist is definitely in the fandom, you can tell, right? If Nathan introduced her to his sister, perhaps Nathan going to Rob’s cousin’s BBQ isn’t a huge sign they’re dating, after all. Perhaps Nathan and Rob are just friendly people, who invite their friends everywhere? Who knows.

---

Acknowledgement of this Essay

Yesterday someone let me know that an audience member asked Rob about this essay during a panel at this weekend’s ComicCon.

Fan: Yeah, hi. My name is Kady, I’m from Nebraska. My question is for Rob.

Rob: Go ahead, Kady.

Fan: I wanted to know if you’ve heard of gottiewrites?

Rob: I can’t say I have . . .

Fan: It’s an essay being posted online that proves you were a fan of the show when you were at college. They’ve found a LiveJournal account they think is yours – silentwakes. I was wondering if it was true?

Rob: [pause] Sorry, that’s not me. I wish it was though! I’d love to have a cool secret past online. [turning to moderator] Can we get the next question?

Fan: Sorry Rob! Thanks!

Rob: Next question . . . what’s my body count? What’s that?

Erm . . . thanks for the shoutout Kady, but I wish you hadn’t done this. Judging by the footage, Rob was made very uncomfortable by the question. Stop telling him and Nathan about fandom activities. Constantly pointing this stuff out to them does not help make progress on this case, it just makes drama. And they deserve their privacy.

(And obviously this isn’t proof of anything – he’s an actor, he’s good at lying! He could still be @silentwakes.)

My next chapter isn’t quite ready yet, as I’m still adding in all the new info that’s coming in, but it should be up within the next few days. In the meantime, you can still buy me a coffee. My part-time job is barely covering the gas I’ve used driving around LA this month. I can’t see myself getting a better job any time soon (probably because when I’m asked where I see myself in ten years, I always want to say ‘watching Rob and Nathan get married on a beach in Hawaii’.)

– gottie

This novella is being published in 2024!