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#But there are too many shitty men in the world who deserve to die more than he did! And he is going to kill them about it!
talas-first-lady · 6 months
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Post the ranking of the male legends. Let the world burn. Let chaos reign. It's on brand for the show (please read this in a funny tone)
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The official, correct ranking of male Legends from best to worst along with foolproof evidence which you can trust because I am a lesbian and I am not swayed by men of dubious attractiveness.
1: Gwyn Davies
Pros: Invented time travel so he could save the poet he spent his entire adult life pining for. Has some of the absolute best throwaway lines of S7 (with flawless delivery). Has literally never done anything wrong ever.
Cons: Not around for long enough, which was in no way his fault.
2: Ray Palmer
Pros: Delightful. Hilarious. Has great chemistry with every other character. Loves showtunes and Star Wars.
Cons: Spending billions of dollars to create a suit so you can be a superhero in a city that frankly has too many superheroes already is not a good look. Also he's way too intense in relationships.
3: Nate Heywood
Pros: He somehow manages to be the perfect combination of himbo and really smart. It shouldn't be possible. Also, I too am an overeducated nerd who is really into Tala and Maisie, so I relate to him.
Cons: He really sucks whenever he's in a relationship.
4: Jefferson Jackson
Pros: He's such a good guy through and through. He has been put through some deeply unfair things but still manages to always be a positive force. Deserves all the hugs.
Cons: His accent is ridiculous and I can't take him seriously because of that.
5: Mick Rory
Pros: Has any character on the show evolved as much as him? Probably not. He's a sweetheart. He writes romance novels. His relationships with other characters are always amazing.
Cons: We all had to watch him birth alien eggs through his nose and that can never been unseen. Way too attached to his shitty ex boyfriend.
6: Wally West
Wally is right in the middle because he is true neutral. Does he make the show better? Not really. Does he make the show worse? Not really.
Pros: Good karaoke choices.
Cons: It's really dumb that Death Totem Sara appeared to him as his ex (who he really wasn't with that long and who was very much still alive) instead of his mom (who was his only family for his entire childhood and fairly recently died).
7: Gary Green
Pros: Sweet, funny, endlessly relatable. He adds so much character to every scene he's in.
Cons: Does not understand boundaries at all. He's also very inconsistently written because obviously they didn't plan for him to be an alien from the beginning.
8: Behrad Tarazi
Pros: I enjoy the way his relationship with Zari has developed. And he's a great singer.
Cons: Weed is not a personality. They didn't bother to give him an actual personality until season 7, at which point I was already over him. I also don't like his fixation with Astra which was entirely about finding her pretty on Highcastle Abbey and has nothing to do with who she actually is.
9: Carter Hall
Pros: Had the good sense to die quickly before he could really annoy me.
Cons: Manipulative towards Kendra. Actively detracted from the 100th episode.
10: Martin Stein
Pros: Victor Garber. A+ singing.
Cons: Drugged and kidnapped Jax in the pilot. Racist, sexist, deeply selfish. He started to improve slightly but it wasn't enough.
11: Rip Hunter
Pros: Saw the potential in Sara Lance.
Cons: Told Gideon he loved her and then TURNED HER INTO A TRAINING SIMULATOR FOR THREE YEARS. He also flew her into the sun and into an atomic bomb. Lied to all the original Legends. Lied to Ava.
12: Leonard Snart
Pros: Had the good sense to die quickly. Also, I do enjoy him on The Flash.
Cons: Cruel and abusive to Mick almost constantly. Talk about kicking someone while they're down. He's an asshole to everyone, but the way he speaks to Mick is unforgivable.
13: John Constantine
Pros: He's a useful foil for some of the more optimistic Legends. Decent bisexual representation. Never met a weird unidentified substance he didn't want to put in his mouth.
Cons: He forced Charlie to face thousands of years worth of trauma, got Behrad and Charlie's friends killed in the process, and put the entire world at risk. Why? To save Astra, who he immediately forgot about and left to struggle on her own (again). He sent Desmond to hell. He abandoned Nora when she was a kid. He altered Spooner's memories despite knowing that having her mind messed with is a major source of trauma for her. Put the entire world at risk again by teaming up with Bishop. Lied to and manipulated Zari and had the gall to call it love. Also, if both Ava and Mick don't like you, you are clearly highly suspicious.
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thewhumpcaretaker · 5 months
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Poem: Why Things Are Not Any Other Way
CW: This poem is something of a vent about my real life familial issues - growing up with one parent being treated as a monster by the other for having some mix of ASPD and NPD. He did not deserve that, despite being a very shitty person in his own way. I just wanted to talk about how that affects the way I approach love today. It’s also very freeform and I didn’t pay much attention to the quality of the writing. Just getting things out of my head.
Creature in the dark, with many names,
God, the Beloved, Man:
I burn all my days for you,
Burn up my brain for you,
Cannot look away.
Please help me understand
The origin of this insatiable frenzy.
Why do you kill me this way?
The first time I met you,
On the first day of my life,
I must have loved the vessel that held you,
The Other, who is in the world with me.
But I do not recall.
I remember two creatures. 
One who never lied (my mother, myself) said the Other always lied.
What a riddle to divine.
I remember when I learned he could never weep for me,
But only for himself.
A dark stone, insensible to pain,
Alone against the ravages of rage.
God, how I longed to refute that.
But to contradict my mother was to contradict myself.
I could only study the truth, bend, forgive.
“What is it to be nothing in some secret place? Does it hurt?”
I asked myself this as I watched him breathe, bleed, drink, sing, laugh.
It must be very secret indeed - I could not find it out, this seat of the soul,
In him or in me.
No matter what he may be, I wanted to understand.
And if not for the things he did, I could not have believed.
Oh creature, in the dark!
You broke my heart in two,
With the vessel of his body as a cleaver.
A smooth cut - the left ventricle divided from the right,
A wind between that sweeps me ever towards the knife.
How dare you?
You took my right to love you. 
Don’t you know that love, unspent, is grief?
I grieve for him. 
I spend and spend,
More than I can afford, in other places,
Find you out in other men,
Who, being dark coals, absorb me,
Absorb the honeyed heat of the sun and warm away my weariness,
Hotter and hotter,
Burn me to ashes with a fevered seeking,
But never with any harm. 
None harm by nature, not one.
Some by choice, but none by nature, not one.
They have been good to me, these innocent versions of you.
But I am too late, for that first Other.
Again and again I say, “See? She lied to me.”
“Won’t you come back now and be better?”
“I am sorry. Do you hear me?”
“I take you within me, your demon soul is my demon soul, your danger is my danger, your gender is my gender, your sins are my sins.”
“We were wrong to estrange you for the nature of your mind.”
But I was not wrong to estrange him for the things he did to me.
I can never tell him how sorry I am for my reasons, when I would not take back my actions.
I can never speak to him again until he is dying, or I am.
Oh creature, who is my father and not my father:
Forgive me.
I am in flames, with no hope of extinguishment. 
I will never stop seeking you in the wild world.
The innocent You, the good, sweet Other with a stone where the heart should be,
and who, unlike him,
Is no lesser or more dangerous for that.
I will never have enough of you, sweet creature.
One day, I will die of that.
Won’t you tell me
Why things are not any other way?
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llycaons · 1 year
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ep13: oh, the misogyny
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wwx is finding a way to DISCREETLY get the formation to rest for lwj, who is walking on a broken leg, and still jc is like 'what the fuck did you do now' like damn jc he can't do anything right. makes that post about jc hero-worshipping wwx and copying what he does and idolizing him even funnier
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wwx and jc gossiping about wlj is so mean. of course she can't carry a sword, she never learned how! she was a maid. they're clearly judging her for sleeping her way into a position of power, but I see you wen chao I know it's more on you than on her
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wwx falling down/out of/off things. first of many!
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this is a really pretty shot ngl the water is lovely
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wlj being positioned as the jealous, spiteful mistress using her power to harm a Good Woman is so shitty. they both were treated (in this arc) as one-dimensional tools to support the arcs of the men around the. wlj I know the writing did you dirty but you will always be a legend to ME for miss 'ghosts don't exist'
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interesting moment - it's actually lwj who steps in to defend mm with jzx. wwx looks like he wants to, but jc shakes his head and wwx ultimately stays put. it's cool to see lwj and wwx trade off scenes that establish them as willing to defy authority and risk attack for the sake of protecting the vulnerable. it makes their ideals and goals feel truly mutual and balanced rather than wwx coming in and inspiring lwj to have a moral code (as is sometimes interpreted by fans)
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this fight scene is genuinely REALLY fun and well-crafted. jzx and lwj have some sick moves, as do jc and wwx
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WEI WUXIAN ICONIC MOMENTS. god I love it when he points out the hypocrisy of the great sects and the cultivation world. why is this scene never talked about! it's literally one of the best from him in this arc
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again a TRAGEDY that this significant moment between them chalks up to an angsty subplot for wwx and lwj later on. it's a fucking good aspect of their relationship and it does compel me like lwj drunk-branding himself is INSANE and I'll never get over it but the misogyny 😭
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wwx shot three arrows at once and took out wlj and mm's two guards without hitting mm herself LEGEND
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she is literally the only wen with an understanding of how politics work
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FAMOUS LAST WORDS. my dude you just locked the teenager who's going to torture you to death in a cave with the weapon he's going to use to do it
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this is literally such a fucking funny joke. slept on. also wwx does take serious situations seriously but he also sometimes does this. I don't even blame jc for being like 'are you serious right now'
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YOU ARE BOTH SO USELESS. SCREAM
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of COURSE mm is the one to slip and cut her hand and release blood to awaken the monster. of course it had to be her
I'd say that she deserved better but honestly after this her arc really rules and she's one of the few characters to get a happy ending so I can't be too mad
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this scene is wild. lwj jumps in and THROWS wwx behind him like 20 ft
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jc yelling at wwx to be careful and promising to come back. aw man
also WHY ARE THEY ALL LEAVING. wouldn't it be much easier to kill the false xuanwu if they stay and work together? I don't think wwx even expected lwj to stay with him. he was really ready to stay there and fight it off alone and maybe die in the process. he's unwell!
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okay this has always bothered me. WHERE DOES HE FIND THE STICKS THEY ARE UNDERGROUND
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that underrobe is so beautiful purely on an aesthetic level ugh he has such good taste. also I like that you can see his bare skin under it like HOW hot was that branding iron jfc
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EVIDENCE!!!! EVIDENCE for my 'wwx is intimidated by lwj's earnestness and his fears around commitment/the strength of his own feelings cause him to avoid his feelings because getting too attached/too serious is scary for him even tho deep down he craves it'
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wwx casually asserting getting scars/being injured as a...sexy and impressive sort of triumph of masculinity (?) as a young teenager vs. his devastated expression seeing lwj's scars as an adult. he has so much to learn
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this translation is so weird. just say inedia?
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biggest-stupidhead · 3 years
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Hello! First of all I have to say that your writing is the best I have read so far and you have a way with words that has me going crazy at 3 am 🤣🤣 I wanted to suggest a short story where Levi and the reader have feelings for each other and are on a mission together. Then it starts to rain and it gets really cold at night so they’re forced to seek shelter and have to spend the night together in an abandoned old house until the rain stops, and they basically get to know each other better and eventually start flirting ya know ya know? 😗Thank you so much and please feel free to add any more ideas you may have 😁
ahhh the classic, stuck with a stranger trope. I dig it :) 
Summary: You spend a rainy night with your bitter captain
Word Count: 1.8K
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The rain felt like needles as you rode into the wind, your cloak felt heavy and waterlogged as you struggled to see through the shower. You had lost your squad, leaving you alone in the middle of titan country. Your gear felt light, meaning that your blades were nearly gone and gas as well. In other words, you were royally fucked. 
Your horse was huffing, sides rising and falling deeply as she tried to hold the pace you had set. Her head bobbed and you threaded your fingers through her mane and stood on the saddle to ease the weight on her back, and allow her to resume her natural gait. 
Just as you emerged from the thin thicket of trees you had been riding in, you spotted a small cabin, and a black horse tied up out front. You recognized Captain Levi’s stallion and felt relief flood through you. You steered your mare towards the squat building and swung off once she came to a halt. Tying her up next to Levi’s stallion before jogging up the stairs. You lifted your hand and pounded on the door, a flash of lightning illuminated your form when Levi pulled the door open. His hair was dripping wet as was his clothes. 
“Cadet (L/n), surprised you made it this far.” He scoffed before turning and stalking back into the cabin. 
“Captain....the formation is broken.” You stated the obvious, unsure of how to respond to his jab. 
“No shit, this damn rain fucks with the signals. Seen it before.” You almost weren’t sure if he even said the last part since he muttered it so quietly. 
“So what do we do?” You asked, clutching your cloak anxiously. 
“We wait it out idiot.” Levi grunted as he began rummaging around the small cabin’s kitchen drawers. 
“What...about the formation?” 
“The formation doesn’t exist anymore, what matters now is getting back to the wall.” 
You remained silent, stunned by the gravity of the situation you’d found yourself in. 
“Shitty eyebrows needs to stop putting the fucking formation on a pedestal, you brats need to learn how to act at your own discretion.” Levi continued as he pawed through a drawer, he pulled his hand out holding two stones. Flint, to be precise, he had already taken some of the firewood that had been sitting in the cabin and chucked it into the fireplace. You wondered how long it had sat there in the lonely cabin, who had gathered it? A child maybe? When you were younger, you had lived on a farm with your family, raising horses for the military. One of your many jobs had been to get firewood. You wondered what had happened to the people who lived here before, wondered if they could ever return. 
“Oi, take off those boots. Just because nobody’s lived here in three years doesn’t mean you get to track mud inside.” He scolded and you quickly stripped yourself of your mud caked boots. 
“Yes sir.” You grumbled as you numbly wandered into the kitchen, pausing when you found a small corn husk doll, very similar to the ones you once made. You picked it up, cradling its head as you held it up in the dim light. The sound of stones clicking and then the crackle of a small fire brought you back. You turned to see Levi hanging his cloak and jacket by the flames. 
“Take off your cloak and jacket.” He ordered and you placed the doll down to fulfill his command. You shivered in just your shirt, which was soaked, the olive colored fabric nearly see through due to the wetness. Levi averted his eyes as he snatched your jacket and cloak from you. You dropped down to sit on the floor near the fire, staring into the flames as you allowed your mind to wander. Levi sat down as well, crossing his legs and closing his eyes as he tried to even out his breathing. The only sound was the crackling fire and the patter of rain on the old roof. You had nearly forgotten how it sounded, having lived in the castle for years now, the cozy cabin brought you back to your childhood. And before you could think better of it, you asked: 
“Where are you from captain?” 
“None of your concern.” He grunted, eyes still closed and face lacking any signs of emotion. 
“Well, where I’m from, when it rained like this...we’d go outside and-” 
“I didn’t fucking ask. Now shut up and go to sleep or something.” 
“There’s no need to be so bitter Captain.” You mumbled, crossing your arms over your chest and angling your shoulders away from him, the sting of his words. You sighed heavily and fell flat on your back, staring up at the rafters, a drop of water seeped through and landed right on your nose and you let out a huff of disgust. 
“....Look” Levi’s voice was heavy and less annoyed than previously. 
“If talking...makes you feel better about all of this....then I guess I don’t mind listening.” He looked at you out of the corner of his eye, bangs obscuring the top half of his face as he studied you, splayed out on the floor. 
“....Thanks.” 
“As I was saying, when I was younger, I used to be scared of thunder storms. But my grandma, she would make this cake. She called it thunder cake.” You closed your eyes and a dreamy smile curled onto your lips. Levi felt a pang of jealousy, being nearly 28, one would think that he could get over his childhood. But he just couldn’t seem to, he wished he grew up in the sunshine, known his family, gotten to be scared of thunder instead of men in the underground. 
“-it wasn’t really anything special, just a lemon cake. But making it during the storm...she said it was magic, and you know.....I believed her.” Your voice cracked and Levi frowned, he remembered that naivety, how his mother would tell him about fairies or goblins. He had believed those stories for a time as well. But when she had died, he no longer saw beauty in the world. How could he? 
“She was so smart Captain. She knew everything, how to treat a tooth ache, how to make the best bread, break a horse. I wish I could be half as wise as her.” You continued, Levi turned to look at you, your usually bright eyes seemed distant and foggy, mouth screwed into a frown, your bottom lip trembling. 
“When she died, I felt so alone. I couldn’t compare, how could I? She was so strong and, I was just a shitty kid.” You scoffed bitterly, Levi understood your pain deeply, loosing people was something he was all too familiar with. He blindly reached out and let his hand awkwardly fall over your own. You froze, head turning to look at him. 
“How about you? What did your...parent do to help you through the scary parts?” You asked, eyes wide and hopeful. Levi’s jaw locked as he tried to wrack his brain for something to say, you had just been so vulnerable with him. How could he not repay the favor? Especially if the two of you would die in this shitty cabin. 
“She would....give me a bath, or we’d clean the house.” He said with a curt nod, remembering his mother pouring soapy water over him after he had scrapped his knee, or cried so hard that his eyes were nearly swollen shut. Yes, that was the truth, they would take a bath and then she’d tell him those shitty stories. 
“That sounds nice.” You said wistfully as you turned your hand to lace your fingers with his. You sensed his tension and decided to carry on telling your own story. 
“I hated cleaning, my grandma used it as punishment for me. Like when I was 10 I threw eggs at the neighbor boy after he lifted my skirt up.” You chuckled lowly at the memory. 
“Sounds like he deserved it.” Levi said with the smallest of smiles. You beamed up at him and nodded. 
“Yeah, he sure did. My grandma made me clean the coop for two weeks after that, and the stables.” You giggled, squeezing his hand as you laughed. He felt another wave of jealousy, wishing he had memories like yours. 
“And you? Did you ever get in trouble?” You asked, rolling onto your side, pulling your hand free from his, he immediately missed the contact, not that he would admit it though. 
“That’s all I did when I was younger.” Levi scoffed, looking down at you with a gleam of amusement in his gaze. 
“What kind of trouble?” You pressed, resting your chin on your palm as you stared up at him. 
“I bet it was with girls, you seem to be popular with the cadets.” You teased and Levi’s nose wrinkled in disgust. 
“No, more like I was stealing and selling government property illegally.” He scoffed, reaching his hand down to ruffle your damp hair, you let out a bark of laughter as he grabbed the roots of your hair and shook your head playfully. 
“Yeah right, you’re the strictest of all the squad leaders, as if I would believe-” 
“I grew up in the underground, didn’t matter down there, just did what I had to do to put food on the table.” He shrugged, trying to keep the atmosphere light, yet stay honest with you. 
“No way....that’s impressive captain-”
“Levi, call me Levi.” He said, withdrawing his hand and leaning back against the couch that was behind the two of you. 
“Okay then...Levi, I call bullshit.” You said, propping yourself up on your elbow and beaming up at him. Levi glared down at you, not sure if he liked the defiance or loathed it. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed, but your eyes never strayed from his and he let out a scoff. 
“It’s true, I was born a bastard and escaped through the military.” You raised your brows at this, you hadn’t expected him to be honest. 
“I...admire you for that, takes a strong person to overcome things like that.” You said a tad sheepishly as you averted your gaze, feeling like you had overstepped some boundaries. 
“We all face our own challenges..” Levi muttered, eyes still locked on you. 
“That is true.” You agreed, with a small smile thrown his way. The rain still pounded against the windows and your gaze strayed to them, watching the water stream off of the roof. 
“This will all be a bad memory in the morning.” Levi said, following your gaze, he recalled how you said you’d been afraid of thunder when you were younger. He wondered if you still harbored that fear. 
“I don’t think it will, I hope I can look back on it fondly.” You said, turning and smiling softly up at him, and Levi’s stomach began doing flips, his cheeks flushing at the sentiment behind your words. 
“Yeah....whatever, just go to sleep brat.” He grunted, reaching down and ruffling your hair once more, you giggled and laid down, soothed to sleep by the feeling of his hand in your hair and the sound of rain on window panes. 
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Text
𝘏𝘦'𝘴 𝘢 𝘑𝘦𝘳𝘬 || 𝘗𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘰 𝘔𝘢𝘹𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘧𝘧, 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘳
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Soon on Wattpad~
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"Do you have one of the Parasites like your dad used to have?" asked Mrs. Chen the girl who paid for the snacks, eyes wide she shook her head in disagreement before stepping out of the store
PARASITE?!
"it's not my fault, dad used to call you that man just don't kill her she can give us a lot of free food you know and you can have extra brains when they always rob her poor store?" "Fine, we'll let it slide" "what do you wanna do?" "We can do whatever WE want" chuckling slightly she nodded making her way upstairs to the rooftop, sitting at the edge with venom beside her they both ate the Pack of chocolate in silence, sure, she was terrified finding out about a symbiote living inside her body just like her father after protecting herself from some scientist, but for these past years she got used to it and they were more like best friends and if something happened to Venom it's like happening to her.
𝙁𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠-
Making her way toward the bathroom, attempting to hide from those Men but a voice inside her head made her scream in fear, hiding inside one of the stalls she stared into nothing but emptiness staying quiet as if a serial killer was following her, shaking in fear she tried not to sob out loud by putting her hand on her mouth a drop of a tear falling to the ground as the 10-year-old girl cried in silence with her hands still shaking, the sound of the bathroom stalls being slammed open made her heart stop beating as she started praying for her life, she was going to die that's for sure.
The next thing she knew was the lock breaking and her being pulled harshly by 2 men, screaming in fear she tried biting their hands off but the guns aimed in her head was worse, in a blink of an eye black tentacles came out of her arms and stabbed both of them in the heart, a pool of blood surrounded her as she watched in fear at what she has just done, she just killed two men trying to kidnap her, blood on her white shoes and arms as she tried to open the door and make her way out of this hell hole, but it was the same thing instead this time a group pointed their guns at her as she looked around in search of a place to run away, giving up she sat on the ground putting her hands in the air as told letting the 'police' handcuff her, she's just a 10-year-old girl what possibly could she do?
"mom! please I am begging you to tell them to let me go, we were supposed to be having a girls' night! I promise I didn't kill those men something came out of my arm and-" she couldn't finish her words, Tears welled from deep inside and coursed down her cheeks as she begged her mother for help with a high pitched voice, Anne on the other side stared at her with a guilty look before shaking her head, staring at her in disbelieve she was brutally pulled by the handcuffs away giving her mother one last look.
Did she stay in an Asylum for 8 years without seeing her 'mother' and outside? yes sadly she did, did she get out of the asylum once? no, she never did and that was driving her crazy she was the only one in here and everyone was afraid of her, this place wasn't like any other asylum they brought people with superpowers here, like Eleven from stranger things except Mery didn't have Telekinesis she had Venom.
Sitting in the chair defeatless with an emotionless look on her face, her hands tied to the table, as always, she stared at Anne straight in her eyes "Mery-" "hey doctor, can you please open these handcuffs and let me go back to my room before I do something?" she finally said looking straight into the camera about to transform into the big giant monster when a syringe was on her neck preventing her from doing so, 'how dare she says my nickname' she thought looking straight into her eyes after 8 years of not seeing each other how would you feel and how can she still manage to say her nickname, especially when your own mother is the reason you're looked in here "I Hate you and you don't deserve to be called a mother!" she yelled out struggling from their grip, black tentacles came out of her back as she grabbed every single scientist killing them with no mercy, "Venom, let's get the hell out of here" her voice deadly as she spoke "Copy, you're the boss" just as Anne described she looked just like her father, huge teeth, white eyes, and a long tongue.
𝙀𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙛𝙡𝙖𝙨𝙝𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠-
"Don't open that door"
"Bitch, Don't order me to do something because you will die waiting?" she said with the usual level of sarcasm before taking off her apron making her way toward the door, what was shitty about this house was it didn't have a peephole, rolling her eyes she opened the door staring at the group in front of her "May I help you?" asked the girl in confusion to why the Avengers are in front of her apartment with a raised eyebrow the Black haired girl was about to close the door when black widow finally said a word after 10 seconds of silence "we need to talk to you?" "Listen, I don't have time to deal with superhero shit I've had enough" "please?" sighing she pushed the door fully letting them in sitting on the couch in front of them with her legs crossed "what?" "Can you introduce us to who you were talking to?" asked Captain America looking at her, raising her eyebrows once again, it was a habit sometimes she bites her nails "were you listening to us the whole time?" "no-" "Jesus, y'all are so famous and busy with superhero shit to the point where you don't understand a joke, Venom can you come out please?" annoyed, a black face appeared beside hers, that was the Parasite living inside her body?
"don't touch it, everyone this is Venom my best buddy and a parasite living inside my body, Her favorite food is brains and chocolate and we both kill robbers every day" putting a fake smile on her face she could see the look on their eyes, Bruce wanting to touch it so badly but stopped when Meryam sent him a look of disagreement, "alright this it, you guys can go, it was lovely meeting you, y'all are awesome superheroes and bye-bye!" "would you like to come with us we need your help, please?" asked Thor holding his hammer, glancing at Venom they both nodded at the same time, they were partners in crime anyways.
"We will but I'm coming alone, see ya at the Tower!" smiling she slammed the door shut
"Can you imagine Thor the god of thunder asking me to come with them, that is awesome right?" "not as awesome as us" nodding with a grin she grabbed her pocket knife charging the gun just in case tying her hair into a bun, putting on the mask Meryam grabbed the bag making her way out of the room.
"Hey miss Chen came to have some supplies?" stated the girl making her way toward the snack session she was probably the only customer here, the threatening sound of another robber echoed around the store as he pointed his gun at the poor woman, "That guy?" "yes bestie, free food for you tonight?" she said making her way toward the man, grabbing his wrist she punched him straight in the jaw, "Mask!" in a blink of an eye the same monster Mrs. Chen saw a long time ago was in front of her expect it was a woman, and that woman was Eddie Brock's daughter, Biting his head off she paid for the snacks before making her way out "night, thanks for the free snack!"
(venom ate the man, duh)
"This walk is boring!" "I know but we're almost there don't worry" "I Miss the Loser" "yeah, same he was the best dad" "and best Host, you both are the best" "aw thanks Venom you're the best too" a soft smile rose on her lips, The world was a better place when she smiled to Venom and he promised to Eddie he would keep her safe, thank god, she had her earphones on so people wouldn't call her crazy for talking by herself, "Jesus how many floors in this Tower?" "93"
"Excuse me is Tony Stark here, he said I can meet him here?" politely asking the blonde woman who was holding a little girl in her hand she took off her mask not to scare her, they didn't seem to recognize her right? "She's probably his wife" the voice of the symbiote echoed around her head as she nodded, "oh yes you must be Meryam, you seem kinda Familiar?" the blonde woman asked her, her heart stopped beating as soon as she said the last words, "o-oh really, who?" "oh never mind, you're so pretty by the way, I should probably go take Morgan to sleep Tony is having a meeting with the rest and they're waiting for you" "Yeah thank you?" "Pepper call me Pepper dear" nodding she waved at the little girl who had a cute smile on her face before making her way to where Pepper pointed
"Hey Old man, you wanted to meet us?" the same sound they heard 30 minutes ago echoed around the room earning their attention, chuckling at how startled they looked Meryam tried to hold her laugh while Venom was grinning evilly on the other side, "Ahh miss Brock come in" "it's Meryam, Anthony" okay that surely got him annoyed she could see how he rolled his eyes, sitting down on one of the chairs she looked around greeting the rest with a straight look.
"Tell us more about yourself?" not wanting to tell them her whole story, she shook her head with an emotionless look on her face "there's nothing more to know about me, I lived 13 years alone that's it, my life is useless anyways I only have Venom and kill robbers nothing more interesting?" one thing they learned about her was how fast she changed her emotions, 5 seconds ago she was trying not to laugh and now a deadpan look on her face. Pietro didn't trust her, not even a single bit and that was why a glare was attached to his stupid face
"So Meryam we're going to be on a mission for these past days and since you have nothing to do, you're going to catch the robbers around the city and take Morgan to school" tearing her gaze away from Pietro who was still glaring she blinked slightly trying to process what he just said, "excuse me, am I getting paid for that?" "yes" "fine, I'll do it, and will you stop glaring at me like I am some target?" her Black eyes met his as she spoke with gritted teeth's, anger rushing through her body Wanda slapping his shoulder before apologizing to her "I am so sorry Meryam-" "it's alright Wanda don't apologize in his place, he just needs to stop and do it all by himself if he's a true man, good night everyone" with that she made her way out of the place trying to calm her nerves down
Anger Issues
"Ohh she got you good" Teased Sam the twin who was still fuming in anger, rage thrummed through his veins as he swallowed down his frustration sending him a harsh look, "shut up birdy" with that he was out of sight just before Clint could say something
"oh these two are not going to be friends or work together, it's probably something worse"
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me-4eva · 3 years
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Harringrove Feedback Fest
This list is by no means exhaustive but OH MY GOD THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD FICS IN THIS FANDOM!! Anyone who knows my taste should know these are heavy on the angst by and large but there are also some sweet ones in there! (Also huge thank you to @gothyringwald for starting this!) It is currently very late so I will go through tomorrow and add some more details about each one but these are fics that live rent-free in my head... also I’ve tried to tag the authors as best I can
In no particular order:
What you had and what you lost by @its-tortle
Donna Richardson, formerly Hargrove, née Marcs, has not seen her son in nearly a decade. She had run from her husband in a panic with no time to turn back for Billy, and by the time she searched for him, he was gone without a trace.
It was her greatest regret.
OR
The one in which Billy's mom comes to look for him, just as he's begun to heal.
My broken house behind me (and all good things ahead) by @ageolwian
He relives in vivid, distorted detail that time he got into it with Jonathan behind The Hawk; and when he got beaten into oblivion at the Byers’ old house; and that interrogation under duress beneath Starcourt Mall; all of them blurring together into one violent mess inside his head. Carol Vaughn holds him off the floor by his throat in Joyce Byers’ kitchen, while her boyfriend yells at her from the sidelines that he’s had enough, Carol, that he can’t breathe; the lights around them flash neon pink and blue by turns, and at some point a gang of Russians drive a Cadillac convertible through the living room wall.
Carol says, ‘hey there little Stevie,’ and kisses him on the cheek.
Or: Mr Hargrove’s supposed to be in Chicago all weekend.
We will be citizens by sarapod (four_right_chords) (couldn’t find a tumblr so linked their AO3 account!)
"This disease will be the end of many of us, but not nearly all, and the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come."
The Party lives through the plague.
Fuck my heart, hope to die by Yassoda
When Steve notices Billy missing school, he tries to think nothing of it.
He fails.
He ends up sticking his nose in something unexpected, somewhat sad, somewhat dangerous, but ultimately good.
Like Steve needs more danger in his life.
---
A lot of Billy's life being shitty, and Steve's life being shitty, and them dealing with that however they can.
Lego Therapy by @cherrydreamer
Billy struggles with his recovery after the Mindflayer.
Steve helps.
With some Lego.
Bruises on both my knees (for you) by @bentnotbroken1fanfiction
Billy hasn't been able to satisfy the itch beneath his skin since leaving California. Unfortunately, he doesn't think he has a chance in hell to find what he needs in small town USA.
But that all changes when he sees the fire in Steve Harrington's eyes the night they fight. He sees something in them that he sometimes sees in himself when he looks in the mirror.
Harrington has demons. Just like Billy
Billy Hargrove Hates Nancy Wheeler by deadwife
Billy Hargrove Hates Nancy Wheeler.
Or
Steve gets in a car accident, and nobody understands why Billy Hargrove is in the waiting room with them.
you're cold (and i burn) by @holdenduckfield
Move on. Let it heal.
Maybe that’s why Steve said yes when Max asked him to help move boxes out of Billy’s room after the dust settled. He could hear her voice. Too many. Too heavy.
Just like his wounds. His grief. Too many. Too heavy.
(Or, Steve steals the glass ashtray from Billy's bedside table and things start to go bump in the night.)
put your lights on by @desk-of-nekostar
better leave your lights on, 'cause there's a monster livin' under my bed, whisperin' in my ear
Tommy Hagan doesn't deserve Steve Harrington, but Billy Hargrove sure as fuck doesn't deserve him either.
Vaya Con Dios by GayerThings
Neil said Hawkins was a 'fresh start', away from the sins and vices of San Francisco. A good, proper place for the family. It's everything Billy loathes. But it's somewhere quiet, a shit-hole Billy can lay low in until he makes a break for it and escapes this nightmare. He has a plan. Finish high school, save up some money, and run. No friends, no secrets spilled, no caring about anyone or anything.
But everything changes after his fight with Steve at the Byers' house when he's brought home the next morning in a cop car. It's just like old times. Something goes wrong, and he pays the goddamn price for it. Sometimes it's just for existing. Sometimes he thinks his dad dragged them out here with the hope that Billy will mess up and someone else will do his dad's dirty work for him. So he tries to hide it. All of it. Climbs to the top of the popularity ladder with his fists and his charm. Finds the easy girls. But even then he still can't stop what his dad's been trying to beat out of him for as long as he can remember.
Not with King Steve in the picture. Not when the goddamn bastard keeps messing up his plan.
Second Thoughts by @callieb
That night, 1984
Steve sits at the kitchen table, a pack of frozen carrots wrapped in a tea towel against his swollen purple face. "I'm fine," he says. It’s over. They fought the monsters, and they won. Now he can rest.
Except in real life, the credits don't roll, and they don't get to skip ahead to Christmas.
Of Cats and Men by Thei
Billy hits a cat with his car, and finds himself responsible for three little kittens.
Fortunate Son by Ludovico_is_my_homeboy
Experiment Seven escapes the Lab.
Driven on by Brenner, an inter-dimensional gateway, and his own obsessive love, Experiment Six follows him.
getting better by banksoflochlomond
"Dude," Dustin says, "You can't just Schrodinger's Cat your way out of trauma."
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tealchameleon · 2 years
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Ok ik no one is asking for this but I’m gonna spell out my opinion on a certain issue and if anyone would like to discuss it with me I’m all ears, namely if I’m misinformed or ignorant of any of the things I’m about to speak of.
I am against prostitution and sex work. But I am not one of the people that thinks sex workers are the problem and that they are to blame. They are people just the same and deserve respect and protection from the people that try to bring them down or hurt them. At the end of the day they are just trying to make money in this shitty difficult world we live in. At the same time though, I don’t think anyone should ever have to turn to sex work to make ends meet, especially if they themselves are not okay with it. Yes I know there’s plenty of women who love the work and say the chose it of their own volition, and that’s great I’m glad they’re doing well but I still don’t think this industry should ever exist in the first place. In fact I think it contributes to our society’s idea that sex is a need and that that need has to be met by any means necessary. You will not die if you go without sex. Sex is meant to be a connection between two or more consenting adults, and I think as soon as money becomes a factor then that corrodes the importance of consent. People (men) are led to think that money can be used in lieu of enthusiastic consent, and that it’s morally acceptable Bc hey she agreed to it! If you can’t get laid without coercing someone with money, someone who is probably already vulnerable and desperate for the funds, then that’s a you problem and no one else’s—especially not the women you’re burdening with it. Giving men access to this type of sexual gratification is only going to worsen the problem. I think that prostitution should remain illegal but that sex workers should not receive the ramifications (like how prostitutes are arrested for “selling sex” but never their clients for buying said sex). I also think that the porn industry needs drastic, radical reform (unions and the like) to ensure the safety and autonomy of all involved. Bc even if you don’t think porn is as bad as prostitution, think of all the sketch ass vids that find their way to mainstream porn sites, or how there was that one popular pornhub user that was discovered to be raping a minor in all his vids. It’s a huge problem and being “sex positive” is not going to fix it. We can say it’s feminism all we want but in reality this brings down countless women, in our country and all around the world, and many are okay with that Bc “hey that lady has an only fans and she’s killing it what a girl boss!” This is not to say women can’t be empowered by being sexual, this is only to say that giving men access to it in such a setting only empowers them, not the woman, to continue seeking out the same style of sexual gratification. It solidifies their ideas that women are objects, commodities to be bought and sold and that getting to have sex with a woman the normal way is just too much work. But many feminists of today would turn on that and say that I’m shaming her to be more chaste or that I’m not being supportive of women who like to be openly sexual. That I see her as a helpless little doll that can’t make her own choices, and that literally could not be further from my truth on the matter. This is a male driven industry to satisfy male desires so to be against sex workers is straight up idiotic and that’s not what I’m trying to say at all. I think sex workers need support not only from us but from the govt too to keep them from suffering the nasty situations many sex workers find themselves in throughout their career. There should be more options for them, and drastically less options for men who want to exploit their vulnerability for their fucked up sexual desires.
Im sure I’ve left out some stuff but yeah I think I fleshed out my opinion here pretty well.
I also want to say that, from what I’ve been exposed to, anti sex work ideas are often used in TERF rhetoric. Obviously I’m not a TERF with me being trans, but I just needed to make that known. This is my opinion and I’m open to hearing from anyone willing to have a civil conversation about this, Bc this is an issue where a) I feel like I might not even know enough to have a valid opinion and b) I’ve seen so many different opinions in the same community that I don’t really know what to think about what is “right” or “wrong” as far as political alignment
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need-a-fugue · 3 years
Text
Trustworthy (Chapter One)
Summary: You’ve spent the last three years teaming up with Santiago Garcia on every mission you had a hand in coordinating... and the past several months plotting with him to take down the biggest bad to hit your radar. But even all your time at the DEA and all your experience in the field couldn’t have prepared you for this. 
Pairing: Frankie “Catfish” Morales x Fem!Reader (slowburn)
Warnings: Character death, many naughty words, and soooo much angst
A/N: It would seem that my newfound Pedro Pascal obsession isn’t going to let up any time soon, so I decided to just dive headfirst into some Frankie-heavy Triple Frontier fic. It doesn’t help that @tweedlydumbtweedlydoo​ planted a seed (quite a while ago) by asking for a story where reader breaks down on that fateful mission only to be comforted by our favorite Fish. I um... may have taken that a little far and now there’s this whole multi-chapter thing happening...
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Here’s the thing… you’ve been in shit before. You’ve been shot at, even took a bullet yourself not too long ago. You’ve seen people die – some bad, some good, some deserving, some not. You held your own partner in your arms, desperately trying to stanch the flow of blood from his shorn neck before finally letting him go after he expelled one final, wet breath. You’ve killed people – a sicario outside of Bogota, two – possibly three – gang members in a shootout in Albuquerque, some dumb kid who’d been given a little bit of cash to stand guard outside a lab in Juarez.
You’ve seen tragedy, felt it, lived it, dreamed about it on an endless loop, even in your waking hours. You’ve caused it – or so you’d been told by the weeping mother of the boy in Mexico. You’ve denied it, denied that what had happened was actually tragic at all. Denied it to survive.
But you can’t deny what you’re in right now, the tragedy of having a plan go to shit in too many ways to count. The tragedy of nearly succumbing to your absolute worst fear in the world and going down in a sputtering damn helicopter. The tragedy of more lives being taken, even those of fucking Lorea and his men causing a reluctant burn at the back of your throat. Because you can’t stop seeing his children arriving home to find their worst nightmare laid out in blood and smoke, flames licking round all they’ve ever known and loved.
Children. Tom has children too. Had. Tom, who’s now being carried down the side of a mountain in a makeshift body bag, haphazardly descending with his men by his side… just ahead of you, just in your line of sight. Still leading the way, even in death.
Maybe that’s why this feels so different. This particular tragedy. Because you’re still in it. You can’t walk away and deny, shower the telling grime from your skin, bury the reality of death and failure and fear beneath a six pack of beer and a shitty TV dinner alone in your dark apartment.
And, oh, your apartment… or any apartment really, as you’re not exactly likely to return to your post in Colombia after all this. To go anywhere right now with heat and running water… and a bed. Your mind reels just thinking about it.
Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s just because you haven’t slept in days… many days. Haven’t eaten much either, each and every MRE and stale protein bar sitting heavy in your throat, choking, suffocating, blocking your breaths and words alike.
“You gotta eat,” Frankie had said to you just this morning, whispered in your ear as you carefully picked your way over and around the sharp, loose rocks in your path. “We gotta keep moving,” he muttered, the deep hum of his voice sounding less like the balm you’d come to know and more like just another resonance caught up in the icy, bitter wind. He had pressed a bar to your palm, his hand warm despite the surrounding cold, and a forced lightness filled his tone as he declared, “Need your strength or we won’t make it to the coast.”
You hadn’t even looked up to meet his gaze, instead continuing forward, glare directed down at the treacherous ground beneath your feet. “I don't really see that happening anyway,” you said as you shoved the bar deep into your pocket.
His stride halted then, leaving him standing tall and motionless as you swept idly past. But his pause was enough to make you falter, to make you turn and glance back up at him. You hadn’t even realized what you said – not really, not fully – until you took in the look on his face. That was enough – the sadness, the grief, the guilt that clouded his eyes and pinched his lips – to make you retrieve the bar from your pocket and choke down the whole damn thing in two monstrous bites.
Maybe it’s that. That look Frankie had given you just as the sun began to rise. The same look that sits on the faces of the other men even now, hangs heavily on them as they soldier on, carrying not only the load of money, but the body of their friend.
Maybe it’s being here with them as they move with purpose and the kind of fluidity that comes from too many years of practice. Practice at navigating dangerous situations. Practice at steering away from the fear and pain, sorrow and guilt that stare them right in the face, all to ensure they might survive the day.
Maybe it’s watching them move through that horrid fog that – you know – anyone else would so easily get lost in. All while reluctantly admitting, if only to yourself, that it’s the same fog you’ve been unable to effectively cut through for days.
Maybe that’s what has you feeling like you’re walking a tightrope balanced precariously between an understandable sort of disappointment and dread… and a overwhelming, blinding despair. Maybe this feels different because it isn’t just yourself you’d need escape to gain distance from this tragedy. It’s all of them as well. And you can’t very well escape the very men you need to help you through.
They climb the mountainside, traversing rocks and heaps of remaining snow that never fail to send you slipping and careening. They catch you as you slide, helping you along as they hoist bag after bag – your own contribution of carrying just your pack and one duffel seeming paltry in comparison – up and then down the stony inclines. They hand you off with care, always keeping you close, making sure that if one of them moves ahead, another is still left by your side. They carry you almost as much as they carry the money. As much as they carry Tom.
Tom. You’d only known him a handful of days… weeks? How long ago was it that you followed Santiago back to the States to meet his reinforcements? At this point, you no longer have a clue when this whole fucking mess began. A lifetime ago at least. It seems as though you’ve known these men for an entire lifetime on top of that.
Tom. Well, he’s arguably the one you got to know least. And not just because he’s been dead for… however long it’s been now. No. He was just… quiet. Reserved. Distrustful, truth be told. But, hell, you could hardly blame him for that. After all, he was considered the leader of these men. The one tasked – above all others – with getting them in and out safely. The one who would wear the most blood on his hands should any of them fall.
And from the loyalty the others showed – and the stories they shared in both forced low tones and laughter-pocked croons – you could tell that he was a good leader. A trusted leader. A loved leader. And nothing he did on this mission was ever going to change that in the eyes of anyone here.
No, you hadn’t gotten to know him well. But damn if it didn’t still hurt to see him go. To peer over Ben’s shoulder – bent and broken and wracked with sobs – and into Tom’s empty, lifeless eyes all those days ago. So damn many days ago. To watch the brothers fight over the top of his body, sidestepping his corpse to throttle each other and throw blame to lessen the grief. To sit with Benny for the hour or so after – after helping him wrap up his friend with care – as his uncharacteristic silence slinked about you both in a smothering cloud of despair.
Ben, who had been the most jovial and talkative and… bright of all. He had quite literally welcomed you into the fold with open arms, a bit drunk and a bit concussed from a fight he insisted he won just hours before meeting you. He refused your handshake when Garcia introduced you, leaning in to envelope you in a tight hug instead, and then demanding to buy you a drink, despite the fact that you’d been nursing one while waiting for them to arrive. “Pretty lady like you shouldn’t ever have to shell out her own money for a drink,” he’d said with a grin and a wink.
You might’ve rolled your eyes, might’ve told him, pass amid a chiding glare. But before you could say a word, his brother smacked him upside the head, giving a disappointed eyeroll that would’ve outdone yours tenfold, and held out a hand to shake, a deep-tenor, “Don’t mind him, and nice to meet you,” putting you immediately at ease and making it utterly clear who the Miller brothers were. Will was the politic adult, professional and well-mannered. And Benny was simply a ball full of harmless fun.
Until now, that is. Now – you can see even as his slumped body fades away into the tree line below – Ben has become little more than sorrow and sinew.
A crunching tumble of pebbles sounds suddenly in your periphery, tearing you from your spiraling thoughts. You look up to see Santiago looming to your right, effectively blocking the sliver of sunlight that remains peeking through the dusk-hued sky. “You okay, bonita?” he asks, the tone of his voice and wrinkle to his brow as he looks down at you serving to snap you back to the here and now. Here. Now. Shivering in the cold as the four of you settle in on the side of some damn mountain, having just bid farewell to yet another member of your party.
Your gaze falls from his face almost as quickly as it had jerked up to meet it just a breath of a moment ago. You shake your head and let out a sigh. “I should’ve gone with him,” you utter simply. “I thought you’d been joking about how bad his Spanish was, but…”
He snorts out a laugh, and the corner of your mouth raises in a slight, crooked smile. “Yeah, well,” he starts, dropping down to take a seat on the hard earth beside you. “With how well you’ve been hiking through these hills, he’d probably have ended up carrying you like a backpack.” He gives you a shit-eating grin, teasing brow raised high. “We’re hoping to get out of here sometime this decade. Don’t need your ass slowing us down any more.”
“Asshole,” you mutter, the taunting cadence just barely cutting through the deep rumble of his laugh.
His hand falls to your knee, palm sliding side to side in a comforting stroke before he tightens his fingers over your patella and gives you a bit of a shake. “I’m only kidding,” he states, as though you didn’t already know. “You’ve been doing great. Really.”
You issue out a quick snort, a thick, incredulous breath kicking a puff of steam up into the frigid air.
“I mean it,” he tells you, turning a serious glance your way. “I know this isn’t what you signed up for.”
“It’s not what any of us signed up for,” you interrupt pointedly.
“Yeah. But… DEA doesn’t exactly train people the same as us,” he intones, giving a nod towards the other men. “I know you’ve never been… exposed to this kind of shit.”
You wrinkle your nose and squint as you turn to look up at the mountain you’d just somehow managed to traverse. “Yeah. This has been some shit.”
He lets out another small laugh – short and fleeting – before pulling his hand from your knee and settling into the silence surrounding you. Ahead, Frankie and Will build up a rock barrier around Tom’s body, a protective cocoon for the night lest any animals come by. You’d all noticed – especially today as the sun came out in the afternoon and beat heavily down on your backs – that he’d begun to rot. To smell. And as much as everyone wanted to still hold him close, no one really wanted his steadily decaying body stinking at their sides as they attempted to sleep tonight.
Once they’re done with their makeshift mausoleum, the two men move across the way and begin digging through their packs for food. “Frankie mentioned that you hadn’t been eating,” Santi mutters from your right as both of your eyes remain trained on the men working before you.
You shrug. “I’ve eaten as much as anyone else.”
A tiny chuckle ripples through him, drawing a confused glare from you. And his smile only widens when he sees the uncertainty painted across your face. “He likes you, bonita,” he singsongs, giving your shoulder a little shove. Then, grin swiftly fading away to nothing, he rather distractedly declares, “He’s worried about you.”
Your brow furrows a bit, stare honing in on the broad-shouldered man now falling into shadow. The man you’d only just begun to know and yet somehow felt eerily connected to. Another sigh escapes your lips, shoulders slumping as you avert your eyes, looking instead to the dark tree line far below. “I’m worried about all of us.”
“Yeah,” he breathes out with a solemn nod. “Yeah. Me too.”
It hits you then… as you feel Santi slouch heavily beside you, a heady silence permeating the miniscule space between you. And as you turn back in time to see Will grimace and clutch his side, giving into the pain of a days-old gunshot wound for just a breath of a moment, all that he’ll allow himself to take. And as you watch Frankie remove his hat and wipe the sweat from his brow – despite the temperature already plummeting around you thanks to the nearly set sun – all while he stares solemnly over at the rotting, rock-covered corpse of one of his oldest friends.
You know why this feels different from any other tragedy you’d suffered in the past, any other bad op or mission gone wrong you’d ever endured. It feels different because this… this is all your fault.
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controloffandoms · 4 years
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Buck Begins Fic Recs
For @thisissirius 
Here are a couple of fics that I have written. And I’ll probably add a couple of favorites that I’ve read along the way!
Nothing I Ever Did Was Good Enough
Buck bit his tongue, looking away from his father. It was too early in their get together to have a blow out. He especially didn’t want to have that blowout in front of Chim and Albert. “You know, firefighting, until recently, has had a huge amount of off duty suicides due to improper care of mental health. The department has changed to help firefighters through hard times of losing patients or families in fires by hiring departmental psychologists and having service animals available for visits to the firehouses after really tough calls. If someone isn’t in the right mindset, we could lose more people, not to mention our own people and that person. Mental health is no joke,” Albert stated. Buck had to hide is smile, but he turned to Albert, giving him a knowing look and small smile. His parents spluttered for a few seconds before Phillip turned to Albert. “I don’t think I was talking to you. Mind your own business, this was a family matter.” “Don’t talk to him like that,” Buck nearly growled. “He is family.”
~~Or the one where the parents visit and Buck is in over his head...luckily his family has his back.
~~~~Part 1 in the Nothing I Ever Did Was Good Enough series
Nothing I Ever Did-
~~~~Part 2 in the Nothing I Ever Did Was Good Enough series
"Watch your attitude, Evan," Margaret glared. "Why should I? All you've ever done is put me down and compare me to Maddie and try to make me into her. News flash, I'm my own person and I'm different! I get that nothing I ever did was good enough, but I don't have to keep trying to appease you and let you walk on me or my family. So if you could kindly drop the attitude and rude comments regarding Eddie and Christopher, it would be much appreciated. They invited you into their home and you've been nothing but assholes since you got here! Clearly you came here with opinions and baggage and a want to have your way, but that's not going to fly here. You best just head out of town tonight, you're not wanted here in my life or Maddie's life. We don't want your toxicity melting into our families because I'll be damned if the shit you've said tonight will ever affect my niece or my kid!"
~~Or the one where Eddie hosts the Buckley parents and just tries to be supportive in general...but the parents are nightmares. Featuring cuddles with Chris, Eddie, and Buck.
Not The One You Wanted
“Evan, I don’t know what you expected us to do.”
“Love me anyway,” it had been said like his heart had been ripped out...which, it felt like it had. Because that was the truth, wasn’t it...all he ever wanted was for them to love him anyway. He wanted his parents to give a damn about him but they never did...it was like he was a responsibility that they never wanted.
Maddie had said that their parents had been different back then when they were sentimental and made a box for her...and now Buck knew why. Daniel. His older brother Daniel...a brother that he didn’t even know existed until he sat down with Maddie to look at all the baby photos in the box...and there were plenty...Buck can hardly remember ever getting portraits like these done during his childhood….but his parents were different back then.
-OR- Evan Buckley deserves love and hugs because of how shitty his parents are.
*This is honestly one of my favorites that I’ve written...it’s like a character study while Buck was trapped in the warehouse with some liberties surrounding the reason Buck’s in the warehouse*
Secrets
He’d been lied to his whole life...Maddie had never thought to tell him about not being his actual sister...his parents were acting like it didn’t matter...like he should just get over it. Buck’s eyes met Chim’s...and his whole body went rigid. “You knew,” he whispered, looking directly at Chim. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?!” He rounded on his sister, “you told him, but not me?!”
“Evan, I was trying to protect you-”
“No, you don’t get to do that! You don’t get to try and protect me! I’m a grown ass adult, I deserved to know but instead of telling me, you told him and even though I’ve known him longer he still didn’t tell me!” Buck shook his head, backing from the room. “I can’t do this,” he whispered.
-OR- Buck finds out the secret Maddie's been keeping from him while his parents are visiting...he is understandably betrayed.
*Basically, Buck Begins and the Daniel scenes hadn’t happened yet and I wanted to know what the secret was, so I came up with this.*
Ambush of the Parents
Based off the new Promo (or the one I just saw) where we see Maddie, Chim, Albert, Buck and (who I believe) are Buck and Maddie’s Parents. Buck’s dad says “you’ve been seeing a therapist?” and Buck responds “Well, the job can be stressful.”
Disclaimer: Please don't read if verbal abuse from parents triggers you.
~~~~Or Buck’s parents  are absolutely horrible and Buck’s family defends him.
Buck Begins
Buck always tried to please his parents. He wanted to be recognized and loved. He tried to get their approval but it was never enough. *Includes flashbacks, this was before Season 4 was even in production*
~Evan had thought that the SEALs would make his parents proud. He tried out for the SEALs, he went through training, but it still wasn’t enough. Then he’d dropped out. That had been the icing on the cake. Evan had never had a big blowout with his parents. He’d always tried to appease them. He tried to be the perfect son…but they never thought he was good enough. So when he dropped out of the SEALs, having a shouting match with his father as a consequence, he left for South America. He bartended and had fun. Then he’d gone to LA and became a firefighter and he hadn’t contacted his parents since the blowout. 
Here are some fic recs that are not my own works
double vision wrapped in last night’s party clothes by amirlywritingfanficnow
"I have always been honest with you." When Eddie's voice cracks, Buck's composure almost cracks with it. "Why can't you just be honest with me?"
or
When Buck is let in on a long kept family secret, he doesn't know what to do. He almost ruins things with the one person that keeps him from feeling like he's floating away with no way to land, but it ultimately turns out okay with help of a little communication.
*This one pulled at my heart strings a little*
but i leave it in my heart, cause I don’t want to stay in the dark by neoncrayolas
Buck hadn't meant for the confession to come out like it did. He'd wanted it to be more eloquent and not so full of snot and tears.
But once it was out, there was no going back.
Or, part character study of Buck, part coda to 4x05.
*Basically, Buck isolates himself, Eddie gets worried, and Buddie is endgame
Learning to Breathe by TearsThisSideofHeaven
Boy, he thinks as the city lights blur a little in his vision, my therapist is going to have a field day with this.
*Short little fic that delves into Buck’s emotions with Eddie trying to support him
Finally Safe by WinterLioness
In the aftermath of finding out a family secret Buck finds himself going to Eddie. Christopher and Eddie use their Diaz charm to help.
*This picks up on the emotions Buck feels not only because of the family secret but because Maddie kept it from him (not full on hate, but what any normal person would need to work through) and Eddie is there to support him. Features cuddles with the Diaz Boys.
Not Related to the story line of 9-1-1 but has a whole ‘Buck Begins’ vibe because I was world building: The Life We Live
*The Old Guard AU no one asked for* "Athena had seen many a millennium and many men, women, and children die. She had seen the rise and fall of civilizations. She had felt the pain of loneliness and the happiness of community...but she’d never, in her many years of living, seen something like Eddie, Buck, and Chris. She’d never seen this profound of a bond, even between herself and Bobby. After Buck lost Abby and, later, Ali, Athena wasn’t sure he would have let his heart reach out to another person that he could lose...but she was proud of him. He built something that was hard to come by in their way of living. He built a home."
*I’m really proud of this one, it turned out well*
Not Related to the Story Line of 9-1-1, Fics by others!
Please Don’t Say You Love Me (because I might not say it back) by Queerfeministdork
"Say I love you loud, and say I love you often. It was an easy sentiment, and it was a beautiful background picture. But something clenched tightly in Buck’s chest when he saw it flash open as he handed Hen her phone. Because he knew it was a simple thing for most people, that most people could just let those three little words slip out without a care. But he couldn’t. They always got caught in his throat, stuck behind his chest. Tamped down before he could think to breathe them out."
Buck always wished he could just say the words. Turns out, maybe people just know.
*Basically, Buck can’t say ‘I Love You’ as easily as everyone else and panics about it...but eventually, everyone understands.
everything is blue by amirlywritingfanficnow
When Evan Buckley is ten, he discovers nail polish.
-
In which Buck paints his nails, Eddie is flustered, and May is a matchmaker.
*Basically Buck and Eddie saying fuck toxic masculinity. Buck enjoying painting his nails and Eddie is definitely in love with him.
Coming Home To You by kariberri13
The 118 want to know more about Buck, but the man won't give them many details. That is until the biggest detail walks through the station's bay doors.
*Not focused on his past, but a different story focusing on the fact that Buck is married to Eddie and has a kid that he didn’t tell the Fire fam about.
There are tons more, but this is what I could think of off the top of my head! 
Hope you like them!
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demisexualgeralt · 3 years
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To start off my @witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo card, I have a slightly angsty Mother's Day fill for Yennefer and Ciri, for the prompt "Take me instead". I hope you enjoy!
Prompt: Take me instead/expendable Relationships:  Yennefer & Ciri Rating: T Content Warnings: some blood/violence, non-graphic. Allusions to torture Summary: Yennefer contemplates motherhood while trying to keep Ciri safe when they're captured on the run
--
From the moment she felt herself wake on the floor of that cave, she had known she’d made a mistake.
So many had patronized her, explaining as though she were a child that her ability to be a mother didn’t begin and end with a womb. As if she didn’t know that, as if it were that simple. Or worse, like Geralt, they told her of her faults, of all the ways she was unfit, as though she didn’t count her sins like sheep when she lay down at night.
No, Yennefer knew these things. But it didn’t fill the ache inside her as she looked around at her life and thought of how lonely it was.
When Geralt first came to her (damned wish) and told her of his child of surprise, of his belief that she should be a mother to this child, she’d laughed. “Many men more clever than you have devised better lies to get me back in their beds.”
But the girl was there and Yennefer had no words, no defenses when she saw her, strong, and naive, and so far in over her head. Kindness didn’t come easily to Yennefer, felt like a bone that had been broken too long and creaked stiffly, stubbornly, when she tried, but she saw Ciri and decided that she would try, no matter what it cost.
She promised to protect her, to keep her safe, and yet here they were, in some dank cell surrounded by enemies, who saw her daughter only as something valuable to be sold, or experimented on or used.
They’d bound her hands immediately once they knew who she was. She wanted to bite, to kick, to tear them apart and herself too if that’s what it took to get Ciri away. But more than that, she wanted her hands free to hold Ciri close to her and know she hadn’t failed her daughter. But the more she fought, the more they pulled Ciri from her, so she took her rage and pushed it further down, until she could use it.
“If I give you what you want, will you let her go?” she heard Ciri’s small voice ask. She wanted to scream.
A man laughed. “We don’t care about the witch. Not when we have something far more valuable.” The man held his finger to Ciri’s chin and Yennefer bit her lip until she was sure it bled.
“Let go of her. Take me instead. She’s not trained. You’re more like to die in the crossfire than get anything useful out of her in this state.” She pleaded with Ciri to understand, to know she didn’t mean it.
The man considered and nodded. “Kill them both then. At least they’ll be worth something to someone.”
Ciri screamed.
--
Yennefer woke to a ringing in her ears. She shot her head up, ignoring the rush of pain. Ciri- they had Ciri, she had to find her-
“Mama?”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Ciri. Ciri, are you alright?”
Her daughter lay a bit away, blood oozing from a cut on her head, her hair matted to her cheek, but she was alright, she was breathing.
“Did I-” Ciri started, “I- I killed them.”
“It’s alright. They can’t hurt you.”
Ciri swallowed. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“They deserved it. Far worse, in my opinion.”
Yennefer crawled to her. She let Ciri free her hands and set to work healing the cut on her face. “They’re not going to stop. That’s why we need to take your training seriously.”
“So I can kill people?”
“So you can defend yourself. A powerful girl in the world is a beacon for shitty people. You need to be able to rely on yourself.”
“Like you?”
“Hmm,” she said, cleaning the last of the dirt from her face. “I’ve gotten myself out of a fair bit of scrapes.”
“Because of your magic.”
“No. Because of myself.”
Ciri nodded and huddled close to her. “I want to be strong. Like you.”
She wanted to say all the things she felt. That Ciri was already stronger than she could ever hope to be, that it was Ciri who’d saved her, in more ways than one.
“You will be,” she said instead. Let herself pretend she was needed for a while longer.
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Hey love! How about some winteriron h/c fluff? Millennial vet Bucky, Tony as his generous amazing self just without IM. T picks B as a test subject for his project on prosthetics he started after making a new [blank] for himself after Afghanistan. B expects the public Tony Stark persona and so he's a bit rude (cuz "fuck corporations and the superwealthy") but can't afford to say no, T picked him cuz he read B's profile and found him hilarious&refreshing. Snarks ensue. You know how it ends ;)
This ended up diverging a little from the prompt but I hope you’ll still like it :)
Also on ao3 here
~
“If there’s one thing I’ve proven,” Stark says on the screen, “it’s that you can count on me to pleasure myself.”
Bucky snorts and shakes his head in disgust. Maybe he shouldn’t be so disgusted by the guy seeing as he’s the one offering to build him a new arm but honestly, Bucky just thinks it’s a publicity stunt. He knows the type of guy that Tony Stark is. He was at the last SI weapons demonstration before Stark nearly got himself blown up and he remembers how drunk the guy had been. He remembers Stark leering at Steve before climbing into a jeep with members of their sister troop—good soldiers, men and women who hadn’t deserved to die defending someone like Stark.
So what if Stark had stopped making weapons?
So what if it had turned out that Stane was double dealing?
So what if it isn’t actually Stark’s fault that Bucky had his arms blown off a few months after Stark announced he wasn’t going to make weapons anymore and the DoD had turned to Hammer who apparently couldn’t even make a decent bomb that blew up while he was setting it?
People are dead because Stark couldn’t pull his goddamn head out of his ass, because he’s just like every other billionaire in the world, obsessed with his own wants and his own wishes and expects the world to bow to his every whim. And now, when he gets called in front of Congress to account for breaking his contract with the DoD, he makes a complete mockery out of the proceedings. Not that that’s all that hard and honestly, Bucky would have probably done the same thing if he’d been in Stark’s position.
Bucky wouldn’t have even accepted the offer of the prosthetic if it hadn’t been for Steve signing the paper for him. He would have told Stark exactly where he could stuff his publicity stunt of a philanthropic endeavor. Steve had been the one to fish SI’s letter out of the trash, sign the waivers and the forms, and mail it back to a Ms. Potts to tell her that he was apparently accepting SI’s oh-so-generous offer.
Eventually, he’ll get Steve back for that. Probably after he gets used to having another arm.
“Mr. Barnes?” someone asks, walking into the waiting area from one of the many branching hallways. “Tony’s ready for you now.”
He stands, tucking his phone back into his pocket, and joins her. She’s pretty enough and once upon a time, he probably would have even flirted with her but that was back when he had two working arms and self-confidence. Now he has one arm, a cheap prosthetic that makes his shoulder seize in pain sometimes, and he’s in therapy to get his head straight.
…Dr. Beck probably wouldn’t call it that though and he’d probably get upset that Bucky is, even if it’s in his own head. He’s big on that whole “use nice terms to describe your PTSD” thing.
…He’s in therapy to learn how to manage his PTSD.
There. That sounds nice, right?
“Tony’s sorry he couldn’t get to you sooner,” the woman tells him as they walk down the hall. Her heels click on the floor, sounding a nice rhythm that Bucky finds himself emulating unconsciously. “He had you lined up for the program ages ago but then everything with Obadiah and—”
“It’s fine,” Bucky mutters. He probably wouldn’t have wanted to meet Stark back then anyway. He doesn’t even want to meet him now.
The woman stops in front of room that looks like it should have glass walls but are currently covered in some sort of black…stuff, Bucky isn’t sure what. A keypad pops out of the wall right next to the door and she types something in that looks long and complicated. Bucky looks away so she’s not worried about him trying to guess the password even though he doubts he could have remembered it even if he’d been hovering right over her shoulder.
The door slides open and Bucky follows her inside—into a wonderland.
There’s a whole bunch of absolutely gorgeous vintage cars in one corner and what looks like actual robots fighting over a smoothie machine in another and blue holograms filling the air and Stark himself talking to…thin air?
Except not thin air because a moment later thin air says, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, sir.”
“Sass!” Stark exclaims. “I’ll donate you to MIT, see if I don’t. Let the undergrads pick you apart.”
“As you say at least once a day, sir.”
“What do I have to do to get some respect around here?” he mutters and before Bucky can stop himself, he snickers.
Stark wheels around, seemingly startled, and peers first at Bucky and then turns to the woman. “Pepper,” he laments. “Why do you let me make a fool of myself?”
“You do that just fine on your own,” she says, smiling fondly.
“Hmph. Sass from you, sass from my own AI—”
“That was an AI?” Bucky blurts out. The articles don’t say anything about something like that.
Stark looks at him again and then asks, “Which answer is less likely to make you think of Skynet? Never mind, not important. Your arm is what’s important and I put it—somewhere. I put it somewhere. What the fuck did I do with it? Pepper!”
“Have you checked the fabricator?”
“…No.” He wanders off towards the robots and some sort of fancy device behind them.
Pepper must see the shell-shocked expression on Bucky’s face as he tries to put together the image of the polished Tony Stark he’s seen on TV with the greasy mechanic wearing goggles on the top of his head in front of him because she says, “You’ll get used to him.”
“Uh-huh,” he agrees doubtfully.
“Do you have a preference on color?” Stark calls from the other end of the—what does he call it, a lab? A workshop?
“What?”
“Color!”
“You might as well join him,” Pepper says. “He really wants your input on this.”
“Why?”
He must sound as confused as he feels because Pepper smiles understandingly at him and says, “Because it’s your arm. I know Tony puts on this front for—everyone, really—but he’s not as bad as he makes himself seem. He blames himself for you losing your arm.”
“Why would he do that? It’s not his fault Hammer makes shitty bombs.”
“No, but it is his fault that the Army went to Hammer in the first place. He still thinks this is the right direction to take the company in but he still feels guilty for what happened to you.”
“Do you agree with him?”
“About the company?” She looks over at Stark, a wistful look in her eyes. “I’ve always thought that Tony could do something more. About you? It doesn’t really matter how I feel. It matters how both of you feel.” She pauses and then adds, “He really liked your application, you know.”
“Application? What application? I didn’t apply for this.”
“No we both know that,” she reassures him. “Your friend did. Said you were too stubborn to take a handout from a stuck-up billionaire to fill out the application yourself. It made Tony laugh.”
Huh. That says something about him, doesn’t it? That he can laugh about being called a stuck-up billionaire?
He glances over at Stark who’s now jumping up and down in the air, waving his arms to get him to go over there. “Barnes!” Stark calls. “I want your opinion on the color of your arm.”
“Wait, that’s what he wants to know?” Bucky asks, amazed. The world suddenly feels like it’s been flipped upside down. “He’s asking my opinion about that?”
“It matters to him,” Pepper says simply. She raises her voice to ask, “Will that be all, Mr. Stark?”
“That’ll be all, Miss Potts,” Stark calls back, grinning like it’s an old joke between the two of them. “Barnes!”
As Pepper leaves, Bucky picks his way across the room, carefully dodging holograms even after Stark says it’s okay to walk through them. “You know, you can call me Bucky,” he says as he joins him.
“Sure, I’ll do that just as soon as you call me Tony,” Stark says distractedly.
“Can do, Tony.”
Tony visibly freezes, shivers a moment, and then flashes him a quick smile. It’s there and gone but it’s still surprisingly lovely, something real and sweet that Bucky thinks he’s gonna have to ponder when he gets home tonight.
“So, color?”
“I don’t really have a preference.”
“Great!” Tony says enthused. “Because I had an idea last night for interlocking plates.”
“Like armor?”
“Yes, but sexier.”
And his enthusiasm must be infectious because Bucky thinks about that quicksilver smile he saw a minute ago and says, “Sure thing, Tony.”
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irelise · 4 years
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Yassen Gregorovich - Books vs TV
With the excellent new Alex Rider tv show out, I thought I would make a comparison post for one of my old favs, Yassen Gregorovich, who has a somewhat different feel in the books as compared to the show! This post will largely cover the first book Stormbreaker and should theoretically contain no spoilers for the potential future arcs of the show, since the events of Stormbreaker are presumably non-canon now. (Spoilers abound for the episodes of the show already out, though!)
If there’s any interest, I’ll put up a second post covering Eagle Strike and some parts of Russian Roulette that delves deeper into Yassen and his complicated relationship with Alex. Just let me know!
Much like the show, Yassen was the one who killed Ian Rider. Unlike the show, however, he’s known to be active on the field and the first time we “encounter” him is prior to Alex’s first mission, where Mrs Jones gives Alex a warning:
She took out a black-and-white photograph and laid it on the table. It showed a man in a white T shirt and jeans. He was in his late twenties with light, close cropped hair, a smooth face, the body of a dancer. The photograph was slightly blurred. It had been taken from a distance, possibly with a hidden camera. “I want you to look at this,” she said.
"I’m looking."
“His name is Yassen Gregorovich. He was born in Russia, but he now works for many countries. Iraq has employed him. Also Serbia, Libya, and China.”
“What does he do?” Alex asked.
"He’s a contract killer, Alex. We believe it was he who killed Ian Rider.”
There was a long pause. Alex had almost managed to persuade himself that this whole business was just some sort of crazy adventure…a game. But looking at the cold face with its blank, hooded eyes, he felt something stirring inside him and knew it was fear. He remembered his uncle’s car, shattered by bullets. A man like this, a contract killer, would do the same to him. He wouldn’t even blink.
[…]
“Why are you telling me this now?” Alex asked. His mouth had gone dry.
"Because if you see him, if Yassen is anywhere near Sayle Enterprises, I want you to contact us at once."
“And then?"
“We’ll pull you out. It doesn’t matter how old you are, Alex. If Yassen finds out you’re working for us, he’ll kill you too.”
I always thought this was a pretty good introductory scene -- Yassen has a very deadly reputation in the books, which is established at once then hammered in over and over again. Other traits which come up again and again include his coldness and his dancer’s body which is totally something I’m into, gotta love those “elegant and deadly assassin” tropes
(also, yes, Yassen is blond in the books and definitely not a brunet or even a redhead as in the movie. he also doesn’t have a distinctive facial scar!)
Yassen doesn’t actually have many scenes in Stormbreaker, although the shadow of his presence looms pretty darkly over the narrative. Alex only runs into him twice on the mission: once from a distance -- A lean, fair-haired figure dressed in black detached himself from the assembly line and walked languidly toward a door that slid open to receive him -- and the other encounter also occurs from a distance, when Alex is spying on a mysterious delivery at the docks in the dead of the night...
And then the tower opened and a man climbed out, stretching himself in the cold morning air. Even without the half-moon, Alex would have recognized the sleek dancer’s body and the close cropped-hair of the man whose photograph he had seen only a few days before. It was Yassen Gregorovich. Alex stared at him with growing fear. This was the contract killer Mrs. Jones had told him about. The man who had murdered Ian Rider. He was dressed in grey overalls and sneakers. He was smiling. He was the last person Alex wanted to meet.
[…]
Meanwhile, the guards from Sayle Enterprises had formed a line stretching back almost to the point where the vehicles were parked. Yassen gave an order and, as Alex watched from behind the rocks, a metallic silver box with a vacuum seal appeared, held by unseen hands at the top of the submarine’s tower. Yassen himself passed it down to the first of the guards, who then passed it back up the line. About forty more boxes followed, one after another. It took almost an hour to unload the submarine. The men handled the boxes carefully. They obviously didn’t want to break whatever was inside.
By the end of the hour they were almost finished. The boxes were being repacked now into the back of the truck that Alex had vacated. And that was when it happened. One of the men, standing on the jetty, dropped one of the boxes. He managed to catch it again at the last minute, but even so it banged down heavily on the stone surface. Everyone stopped. Instantly. It was as if a switch had been thrown and Alex could almost feel the raw fear in the air.
Yassen was the first to recover. He darted forward along the jetty, moving like a cat, his feet making no sound. He reached the box and ran his hands over it, checking the seal, then nodded slowly. The metal wasn’t even dented.
With everyone so still Alex heard the exchange that followed.
“I’m sorry,” the guard said. “I won’t do that again.”
“No. You won’t,” Yassen agreed, and shot him.
Largely a reaffirmation of what we saw from the photograph scene, this time in person: Yassen is generally quiet, understated and deceptively relaxed -- up until the point he murders somebody without blinking. I think the show does a good job capturing that aspect of Yassen, with scenes like Ian’s death and Dr. Greif in the car coming to mind in particular. Gotta love that pairing of Yassen’s generally calm demeanour with the bursts of restrained yet lethal violence!
Some other minor but interesting character notes: despite being one of the most highly-paid and successful assassins in the world, Yassen is perfectly comfortable doing grunt work (passing boxes, dressing in shitty grey overalls). Similarly, despite being (presumably) more comfortable working alone, he’s also at ease with giving orders and coordinating large groups of people.
Now, moving onto the last time Yassen shows up in Stormbreaker. This is right at the end of the book after Alex successfully foils the plot of the big bad (Herod Sayle), only to get kidnapped by him while his guard is down. Sayle takes them to a rooftop where a helicopter is coming to whisk Sayle away, but first he wants to have some revenge...
"That’s my ticket out of here!” Sayle continued. “They’ll never find me! And one day I’ll be back. Next time, nothing will go wrong. And you won’t be here to stop me. This is the end for you! This is where you die!”
There was nothing Alex could do. Sayle raised the gun and took aim, his eyes wide, the pupils blacker than they had ever been, mere pinpricks in the bulging white.
There were two small explosive cracks.
Alex looked down, expecting to see blood. There was nothing. He couldn’t feel anything. Then Sayle staggered and fell onto his back. There were two gaping holes in his chest.
The helicopter landed in the center of the cross. The pilot got out.
Still holding the gun that had killed Herod Sayle, he walked over and examined the body, prodding it with his shoe. Satisfied, he nodded to himself, tucking the gun away. He had switched off the engine of the helicopter and behind him the blades slowed down and stopped. Alex stepped forward. The man seemed to notice him for the first time.
"You’re Yassen Gregorovich,” Alex said.
The Russian nodded. It was impossible to tell what was going on in his head. His clear blue eyes gave nothing away.
"Why did you kill him?” Alex asked.
“Those were my instructions.” There was no trace of an accent in his voice. He spoke softly, reasonably. “He had become an embarrassment. It was better this way."
"Not better for him.”
Yassen shrugged.
“What about me?” Alex asked.
The Russian ran his eyes over Alex, as if weighing him up. “I have no instructions concerning you,” he said.
"You’re not going to shoot me too?”
"Do I have any need to?”
There was a pause. The two of them gazed at each other over the corpse of Herod Sayle.
“You killed Ian Rider,” Alex said. “He was my uncle.”
Yassen shrugged. “I kill a lot of people"
“One day I’ll kill you.”
“A lot of people have tried.” Yassen smiled. “Believe me,” he said, “it would be better if we didn’t meet again. Go back to school. Go back to your life. And the next time they ask you, say no. Killing is for grown-ups and you’re still a child.”
He turned his back on Alex and climbed into the cabin. The blades started up, and a few seconds later, the helicopter rose back into the air. For a moment it hovered at the side of the building. Behind the glass, Yassen raised his hand. A gesture of friendship? A salute?
Alex raised his hand. The helicopter spun away.
Alex stood where he was, watching it, until it had disappeared in the dying light.
HOO BOY where to start! This is a longer scene compared to the rest but I love it so much, it’s probably the best part of Stormbreaker for me and obviously it’s fairly different from the show. I adore the last scene of the show since the tension was delightful, but this hit in a different way. Alex! And Yassen! Actually talking!!! It’s a sparse scene (like most of AH’s writing), but very atmospheric and loaded with meaning all the same.
Let’s start with the obvious stuff first - book!Yassen is fair-haired and blue-eyed (or grey, depending), and has a very measured way of speaking without any accent at all. He very much falls into the archetype of “inscrutable Russian assassin with a mysterious connection to the protagonist” and it’s delightful.
I do like the fact we only really see Yassen in person for two scenes in the entire book, and both times he kills someone ruthlessly and efficiently. (...yes, he did kill Sayle while piloting a helicopter) His reputation is well-deserved and I think the show does an excellent job with that too; every time we see Yassen on screen there’s a feeling that shit is about to go down and somebody is about to die.
The show also does a pretty good job hinting at the connection between Yassen and Alex (ughh Yassen’s expression when he sees Alex for the first time kills me every time). In Stormbreaker, Yassen does (initially) seem colder towards Alex, emotionless, just a man on a job. But even then, we get little hints of warmth shining through such as the way he smiles when Alex promises to kill him, and of course the salute! It’s pretty clear that Yassen has some measure of fondness for Alex, because no way an assassin would normally just let somebody go after they promised to kill him, even if that person is only a teenage boy (especially considering that teenage boy is driven by a desire to take revenge on his uncle’s killer). I also think it’s interesting that Alex reciprocates his salute. He’s clearly aware (even if only subconsciously) of the connection between the two of them.
Though I think what hits the hardest for me is the fact Yassen is the one to tell Alex that he belongs in school, that he’s a child and he shouldn’t be part of this world. Alex in the books is much, much lonelier compared to the show. There was no Jack or Tom there for him, since Jack was kept completely out of the loop and Tom doesn’t even exist in the book. Wolf and the K-Unit largely either ignored or bullied Alex. As for Blunt and Jones, Alex just saved thousands of kids in England yet the only thing MI6 tells him afterwards is that his actions can never be revealed to the public, his youth will make him useful for future missions, and then the only thing they give him is a doctor’s note(!!!) to explain his absence from school.
If that sounds all sorts of terrible and unfair, Alex agrees:
In the end the big difference between him and James Bond wasn’t a question of age. It was a question of loyalty. In the old days spies had done what they’d done because they loved their country, because they believed in what they were doing. But he’d never been given a choice.
Nowadays, spies weren’t employed. They were used.
And of all the people to point out how fucked up the whole situation is and how Alex needs to get out...it’s Yassen, the contract killer, his uncle’s murderer. And Yassen says it straight to Alex’s face instead of just making token protests about how wrong it is to send a teenage boy into danger and then doing it anyway. I think the moment had a fairly big impact on Alex, and I was sad it wasn’t included in the show, but ah well. Another time, maybe?
BONUS
OK i know this was meant to be a book vs tv show thing BUT I WOULD BE REMISS IN MY DUTIES NOT TO LINK TO THE LAST SCENE AS DEPICTED IN THE OLD MOVIE
‘2 minutes of questionable everything’ from the video description about sums it up. the violins. the closeness. the long lingering looks. “i’ll never forget you.”
Anyway, hope this was interesting and at least a bit informative! Do let me know there’s any interest in a part 2 of this post covering Eagle Strike and maybe a bit of Russian Roulette!
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Disney but just the Queer Mood™ Songs, a full Spotify Playlist
Open to updates should anyone notice a song I missed!
Tracklist with specific lyrics that fuck us all up under the cut:
KEY: A general list of which songs resonate with people. The 🏳️‍🌈is for general songs; if you relate to a song but don’t see ur emoji beneath it, send me a message and I’ll add it!
🏳️‍🌈 General Queer Anthem  🌈 Gays specifically have related to this song  ❤️ Gay Men specifically have related to this song  🧡 Lesbians specifically have related to this song 💕 Bisexuals/Pansexuals specifically have related to this song  💜 Asexuals/Ace-spectrum people specifically have related to this song 💚 Aromatics/Aro-spectrum people specifically have related to this song 🤍 Trans people have specifically related to this song 🖤 Nonbinary/Genderqueer people have specifically related to this song  💗 Polyamorous people have specifically related to this song
Know Who You Are - Moana
🏳️‍🌈
They have stolen the heart from inside you But this does not define you  This is not who you are You know who you are...
I Wonder - Sleeping Beauty 
🌈🧡
I wonder, I wonder, I wonder why each little bird has a someone To sing to, sweet things to, A gay little love melody I wonder, I wonder, I wonder if my heart keeps singing, Will my song go winging To someone, who'll find me And bring back a love song to me...
Mother Knows Best - Tangled
🏳️‍🌈 honestly this is just... a general song for some of our shitty relationships to guardian figures...
It's a scary world out there Mother knows best One way or another Something will go wrong, I swear
Me, I'm just your mother, what do I know? I only bathed and changed and nursed you Go ahead and leave me, I deserve it Let me die alone here, be my guest When it's too late You'll see, just wait Mother knows best
Don't forget it You'll regret it...
Dangerous to Dream - Frozen Broadway Production
🏳️‍🌈
I can't be what you expect of me But I'm trying every day with all I do and do not say Here on the edge of the abyss Knowing everything in my whole life has lead to this And so I pull inside myself, close the walls, put up my guard I've practiced every single day for this So why is it so hard?
I can't dwell on what we've lost And our secrecy and silence comes at such a cost
I wish I could tell the truth Show you who's behind the door I wish you knew what all this pantomime And pageantry was for
It's dangerous to wish I could make choices of my own Dangerous to even have that thought I'm dangerous just standing here for everyone to see If I let go of rules who knows how dangerous I'd be?
Reflection - Mulan 
🏳️‍🌈🤍🖤- literally everyone requested this. everyone. so im just copy-pasting the entire lyrics sorry not sorry
Look at me, I will never pass for a perfect bride Or a perfect daughter Can it be I'm not meant to play this part? Now I see that if I were truly to be myself I would break my family's heart
Who is that girl I see staring straight back at me? Why is my reflection someone I don't know? Somehow I cannot hide who I am, though I’ve tried  When will my reflection show who I am inside?
How I pray that a time will come I can free myself From their expectations On that day, I'll discover someway to be myself And to make my family proud They want a docile lamb No one knows who I am Must there be a secret me I'm forced to hide? Must I pretend that I'm Someone else for all time? When will my reflection show Who I am inside? When will my reflection show Who I am inside?
Everything I Ever Thought I Knew - Tangled: The Series
🏳️‍🌈 when u realize u might not be straight lol
I thought no one could love me And how could I have known? I was wrong, oh so wrong
Everything I ever thought I knew Where I've been, where I'm going Everything I counted on turned out to be untrue Could've guessed, should've known, now I do
If none of it was really me then who am I supposed to be?
I guess I'm someone else now I wonder who I am
God Help the Outcasts - Hunchback of Notre Dame
🏳️‍🌈...yeah. yeah
Yes, I know I'm just an outcast I shouldn't speak to You Still, I see Your face and wonder Were You once an outcast, too?
God help the outcasts, hungry from birth Show them the mercy they don't find on Earth God help my people, they look to You, still God help the outcasts or nobody will
I ask for nothing, I can get by But I know so many less lucky than I Please help my people, the poor and downtrod I thought we all were the children of God
Belle (Reprise) - Beauty and the Beast
🌈 when a cishet thinks ur interested smh
Madame Gaston! Can't you just see it? Madame Gaston! His little wife No, sir! Not me! I guarantee it I want much more than this provincial life!
I want adventure in the great wide somewhere I want it more than I can tell And for once it might be grand To have someone understand I want so much more than they've got planned...
Part of Your World - The Little Mermaid
🌈 SO many people requested this one guys it’s not even funny
Wandering free, wish I could be Part of that world
Betcha on land, they understand Bet they don't reprimand their daughters Bright young women, sick of swimming Ready to stand
When's it my turn? Wouldn't I love, Love to explore that shore up above?
One Jump Ahead (Reprise) - Aladdin
🏳️‍🌈
Riff-raff, street rat I don't buy that If only they'd look closer
Would they see a poor boy? No, siree They'd find out There's so much more to me...
Proud of Your Boy - Aladdin Broadway Production 
🏳️‍🌈❤️🤍
That I've been one rotten kid Some son, some pride and some joy But I'll get over these lousin' up Messin' up, screwin' up times...
Water flows under the bridge Let it pass, let it go There's no good reason that you should believe me Not yet, I know, but
Someday and soon I'll make you proud of your boy Though I can't make myself taller Or smarter or handsome or wise I'll do my best, what else can I do? Since I wasn't born perfect like Dad or you...
Someone’s Waiting for You - The Rescuers
🏳️‍🌈
Be brave, little one Make a wish for each sad little tear Hold your head up though no one is near Someone's waiting for you
Always keep a little prayer in your pocket And you're sure to see the light Soon there'll be joy and happiness And your little world will be bright
Have faith, little one Til your hopes and your wishes come true
Stick to the Status Quo - High School Musical 
🏳️‍🌈 🌈 YOU ALL KNOW EXACTLY WHY THIS IS HERE
No, no, no, stick to the stuff you know It is better by far to keep things as they are Don't mess with the flow, no no Stick to the status quo
Into the Unknown - Frozen 2
🏳️‍🌈
I can hear you, but I won't Some look for trouble while others don't There's a thousand reasons I should go about my day And ignore your whispers which I wish would go away
I've had my adventure, I don't need something new I'm afraid of what I'm risking if I follow you
Or are you someone out there who's a little bit like me? Who knows deep down I'm not where I'm meant to be? Every day's a little harder as I feel my power grow Don't you know there's part of me that longs to go
Where are you going? Don't leave me alone How do I follow you Into the unknown?
Go the Distance - Hercules 
🏳️‍🌈
I have often dreamed of a far off place Where a great, warm welcome will be waiting for me
And a voice keeps saying This is where I'm meant to be
I am on my way, I can go the distance I don't care how far, somehow I'll be strong I know every mile will be worth my while I would go most anywhere to find where I belong
Tomorrow - Annie
🏳️‍🌈 - betcha didnt know disney had an annie movie did u
The sun will come out tomorrow Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow There'll be sun
When I'm stuck in a day that's gray and lonely, I just stick out my chin and grin and say, oh, The sun’ll come out tomorrow So you gotta hang on til tomorrow, come what may...
Learn Me Right - Brave
🏳️‍🌈💜💚
Though I may speak some tongue of old Or even spit out some holy word I have no strength with which to speak When you sit me down and see I’m weak
We will run and scream you will dance with me We'll fulfill our dreams, and we'll be free We will be who we are, and they’ll heal our scars Sadness will be far away...
Strange Sight - Tinkerbell and the Legend of the Neverbeast 
🏳️‍🌈
You stand in the light You're wrong, but you're right And my heart's beating wildly Strange how I'm scared but delighted Afraid, but excited too
I will understand you Strange how I'm drawn to the danger I reach out my hand to you
If you're caught in the shadows and turned all around Lost in the darkness, you will be found If you hear my voice, follow the sound Cause I'm here to guide you home... 
I Don’t Dance - High School Musical 2 
🌈 ❤️ 💕 okay so if you weren’t here for the high school musical tumblr revival you may be confused but listen... it’s about being mlm... 
Step up to the plate, start swinging
I wanna play ball Now that’s all, this is what I do It ain’t no dance that you can show me
I’ve got what it takes playin’ my game So you best skin that pitch you gonna throw me, yeah I’ll show you how I swing
I can prove it to you ‘til you know it’s true Cause I can swing it, I can bring it to the diamond too You’re talking a lot, show me what you got Stop, swing!
Kiss the Girl - cover of The Little Mermaid 
this version is sung by a girl so 🧡💕
There you see her, sitting there across the way She don't got a lot to say but there's something about her And you don't know why, but you're dying to try You wanna kiss the girl
Yes, you want her Look at her, you know you do It's possible she want you too There is one way to ask her...
Can You Feel the Love Tonight - The Lion King 
🏳️‍🌈
An enchanted moment And it sees me through It's enough for this restless warrior Just to be with you
There's a time for everyone if they only learn That the twisting kaleidoscope moves us all in turn There's a rhyme and reason to the wild outdoors When the heart of this star-crossed voyager Beats in time with yours
And can you feel the love tonight? It is where we are It's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer That we got this far And can you feel the love tonight? How it's laid to rest It's enough to make kings and vagabonds Believe the very best
Beauty and the Beast - Beauty and the Beast 
🏳️‍🌈- a lot of queer people tend to empathize with “beastly” characters so we all latched the fuck onto this movie huh
Just a little change, small to say the least Both a little scared, neither one prepared
Ever just the same, ever a surprise Ever as before, ever just as sure As the sun will rise
Tale as old as time, tune as old as song Bittersweet and strange, finding you can change Learning you were wrong...
Healing Incantation - Tangled 
🏳️‍🌈🤍🖤
Heal what has been hurt Change the fates' design Save what has been lost Bring back what once was mine
So Close - Enchanted 
🏳️‍🌈🌈
A life goes by, romantic dreams will stop So I bid mine goodbye and never knew So close was waiting waiting here with you And now, forever, I know All that I wanted to hold you so close
Oh, how could I face the faceless days If I should lose you now?
So close to reaching that famous happy end Almost believing this one's not pretend Let’s go on dreaming though we know we are So close, so close, and still So far...
If Only - Descendants
🏳️‍🌈🌈
A million thoughts in my head Should I let my heart keep listening? Cause up 'til now, I've walked the line Nothing lost but something missing I can't decide what's wrong, what's right Which way should I go?
Every step, every word With every hour I'm feeling in To something new, something brave To someone I've never been
Will you still be with me When the magic's all run out?
If only I knew what my heart was telling me Don't know what I'm feeling Is this just a dream? If only I could read the signs in front of me I could find the way to who I'm meant to be
Wherever You Are - Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin 
🏳️‍🌈- out of context could be interpreted as romantic, esp since the credits version is a duet (🌈 💕) but the original context is friendship so honestly it’s very 💜💚
I'm out here in the dark, all alone and wide awake Come and find me I'm empty and I'm cold, and my heart's about to break Come and find me
I need you to come here and find me Cause without you, I'm totally lost I've hung a wish on every star It hasn't done much good so far I can only dream of you
But when the morning comes and the sun begins to rise, I will lose you Because it’s just a dream, when I open up my eyes, I will lose you
I used to believe in forever, But forever is too good to be true I've hung a wish on every star It hasn't done much good so far
I don't know what else to do Except to try to dream of you And wonder, if you're dreaming too Wherever you are
I Won’t Say (I’m In Love) - Hercules
🏳️‍🌈 🌈 💕
If there's a prize for rotten judgment, I guess I've already won that
Who d'you think you're kiddin'? He's the earth and heaven to ya Try to keep it hidden Honey, we can see right through ya Girl, you can't conceal it We know how you feel And who you're thinking of
I thought my heart had learned its lesson It feels so good when you start out My head is screaming "Get a grip, girl!" Unless you're dying to cry your heart out
You keep on denying Who you are and how you're feeling Baby, we're not buying Hon, we saw you hit the ceiling
This scene won't play I won't say I'm in love
At least out loud, I won't say I'm in love
Endless Night - The Lion King Broadway Production 
🏳️‍🌈🤍 🖤 
Where has the starlight gone? Dark is the day How can I find my way home? Home is an empty dream, lost to the night Father, I feel so alone
When will the dawning break, oh, endless night Sleepless I dream of the day
I know that the night must end And that the sun will rise I know that the clouds must clear And that the sun will shine
Set Yourself Free - Tangled: The Series 
🏳️‍🌈🤍
There's much more inside of you than anyone can see And now the choice is yours Life waits beyond the doors So step on through, the time has come And only you can set yourself free!
No one else can tell you what to do Or who to be! No one gets to say if you will stay or go
Look inside your heart and find the key... And set yourself free!
Bound up by your worries Trapped by your mistakes Forced to play a role you never chose Why not test your limits? You've got what it takes Let it out and follow where it goes
No more letting someone else define you to a "T" You know that you are strong You've known it all along So seize the day, let down your hair You’ll find a way to set yourself free!
So look to the horizon Open up your wings! Fly away to find your destiny... And set yourself free!
Speechless - Aladdin 2019 Remake 
🏳️‍🌈 ALL OF US ALL OF US
Here comes a wave meant to wash me away A tide that is taking me under
Cause I'll breathe when they try to suffocate me! Don't you underestimate me! Cause I know that I won't go speechless!
Written in stone, every rule, every word Centuries old and unbending "Stay in your place, better seen and not heard," Well, now that story is ending
Try to lock me in this cage! I won't just lay me down and die! I will take these broken wings And watch me burn across the sky!
I’m Still Here (Jim’s Theme) - Treasure Planet
🏳️‍🌈❤️🤍
I am a question to the world Not an answer to be heard Or a moment that's held in your arms
You don't know me And I'll never be what you want me to be
And what do you think you'd understand I'm a boy - No, I'm a man You can't take me and throw me away And how can you learn what's never shown Yeah, you stand here on your own They don't know me, cause I’m not here 
And I want to tell you who I am Can you help me be a man They can't break me As long as I know who I am
They can't tell me who to be 'Cause I'm not what they see Yeah, the world is still sleepin' While I keep on dreaming for me And their words are just whispers and lies That I'll never believe!
Crossing the Line - cover of Tangled: the Series 
🏳️‍🌈 🧡 tfw when u are DONE with that fuckin closet 
This has to stop now This thing where you think that you've been my friend And don't even hear how you condescend The way you've always done
How I've tried to jump that great divide! But I've never got the chances you were given You don't know how much I've been denied Well, I'm not being patient anymore
I'm crossing the line! And I'm done holding back So look out, clear the track, it's my turn! I'm taking what's mine Every drop, every smidge If I'm burning a bridge, let it burn! But I'm crossing the line...
Let it Go - Frozen 
🏳️‍🌈 listen. i do not have to explain this one. you all know exactly why it’s here. we were all tiny gays in 2013 losing our shit in the theater for no discernable reason why. we know
Couldn't keep it in, Heaven knows I tried
Don't let them in, don't let them see Be the good girl you always have to be Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know Well, now they know!
Let it go! Let it go! Turn away and slam the door! I don't care what they're going to say!
It's funny how some distance makes everything seem small And the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all!
No right, no wrong, no rules for me I'm free!
I'm never going back, the past is in the past!
Let it go! Let it go! And I'll rise like the break of dawn Let it go! Let it go! That perfect girl is gone!
This is Me - Camp Rock 
🏳️‍🌈 🧡 💕 🤍
I've always been the kind of girl that hid my face So afraid to tell the world what I've got to say But I have this dream right inside of me I'm gonna let it show it's time To let you know It's to let you know
Do you know what it's like to feel so in the dark? To dream about a life where you're the shining star
This is real, this is me I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, now Gonna let the light shine on me Now I've found who I am there's no way to hold it in No more hiding who I wanna be...
Breaking Free - High School Musical 
🏳️‍🌈 🖤
You know the world can see us In a way that's different than who we are Creating space between us 'Till we're separate hearts But your faith it gives me strength Strength to believe
Soarin, flyin There’s not a star in heaven that we can’t reach If we’re trying, yeah we’re breaking free  We’re running, climbin  To get to the place, to be all that we can be  Now’s the time, so we’re breaking free
True To Your Heart - Mulan 
🏳️‍🌈 🌈
Baby, I knew at once that you were meant for me Deep in my soul, I know that I'm your destiny Though you're unsure Why fight the tide Don't think so much Let your heart decide
True to your heart You must be true to your heart That's when the heavens'll part And, baby, shower you with my love Open your eyes Your heart can tell you no lies And when you're true to your heart I know it's gonna lead you straight to me
Someone ya know is on your side can set you free I can do that for you if you believe in me Why second guess what feels so right Just trust your heart And you'll see the light
Never Knew I Needed - The Princess and the Frog 
🏳️‍🌈 🌈 💕
For the way you changed my plans For being the perfect distraction For the way you took the idea that I have Of everything that I wanted to have And made me see there was something missing...
My accidental happily ever after The way you smile and how you comfort me with your laughter I must admit you were not a part of my book But now if you open it up and take a look You're the beginning and the end of every chapter
You're the best thing I never knew I needed So when you were here I had no idea You'd be the best thing I never knew I needed So now it's so clear I need you here always
Colors of the Wind - Pocahontas 
🏳️‍🌈 - colors.... rainbows.... yea
How can there be so much that you don't know? You don't know...
You think the only people who are people Are the people who look and think like you But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew
How high will the sycamore grow If you cut it down, then you'll never know And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon For whether we are white or copper skinned We need to sing with all the voices of the mountains We need to paint with all the colors of the wind...
I See the Light - Tangled 
🏳️‍🌈 🌈 - you would not BELIEVE how many of y’all requested this one
Now I'm here, blinking in the starlight Now I'm here, suddenly I see Standing here, it's all so clear I'm where I'm meant to be
Now she's here shining in the starlight Now she's here, suddenly I know If she's here it's crystal clear I'm where I'm meant to go
And at last I see the light And it's like the fog has lifted And at last I see the light And it's like the sky is new And it's warm and real and bright And the world has somehow shifted
All at once, everything looks different Now that I see you
Strangers Like Me - Tarzan 
🏳️‍🌈 🤍 🖤- that moment when u find another queer person and ur like “holy shit”
I can see there's so much to learn It's all so close and yet so far I see myself as people see me Oh, I just know there's something bigger out there
Come with me now to see my world Where there's beauty beyond your dreams Can you feel the things I feel Right now, with you Take my hand There's a world I need to know...
Why Should I Worry? - Oliver & Company 
🏳️‍🌈- we’re queer, we’re here, get used to it 
Why should I worry? Why should I care? I may not have a dime But I got street savoir-faire Why should I worry? Why should I care? It's just be-bopulation And I got street savoir-faire
Why should I worry? Why should I care? And even when I crossed that line I got street savoir-faire
Welcome - Brother Bear 
🏳️‍🌈 pride parade amirite
Everyone's invited This is how we live We are here for each other, happy to give All we have we share And all of us we care
There's a bond between us nobody can explain It's a celebration of life We see our friends again I'll be there for you I know you'll be there for me, too So come on!
This has to be the most beautiful The most peaceful place I've ever been to It's nothing like I've never seen before When I think how far I've come I can't believe it And yet I see it In them I see family I see the way we used to be...
The Great Divide - Tinkerbell and the Secret of the Wings
🏳️‍🌈
I'm on your side Let's take this ride And together we're facing the world Doing things nobody's done before And the great divide doesn’t seem so wide anymore
With You by My Side - Tangled: the Series 
💗 - tangled the series was so close to being canon polyam istg
Now; now more than ever We must stick together united
If we're destined to head in our own different ways Let's make the most of these sweet final days Why not go out in a glorious blaze
There's nothing I couldn't do Not with you by my side What in the world would I do Without you by my side...
Love Will Find a Way - The Lion King 2: Simba’s Pride
🏳️‍🌈 🌈
In a perfect world One we've never known We would never need to face the world alone They can have the world We'll create our own I may not be brave or strong or smart But somewhere in my secret heart
And if only they could feel it too The happiness I feel with you
Like dark turning into day Somehow we'll come through Now that I've found you Love will find a way I know love will find a way
Space Between - Descendants 2
🧡 never have i ever seen gays flock to a song faster
And you can find me in the space between Where two worlds come to meet I'll never be out of reach Cause you're a part of me so you can find me in the space between You'll never be alone No matter where you go We can meet in the space between
Even if we're worlds apart You're still in my heart It will always be you and me, yeah
If I Never Knew You - Pocahontas
🏳️‍🌈🌈
And if I never held you I would never have a clue How at last I'd find in you The missing part of me...
In this world so full of fear Full of rage and lies I can see the truth so clear In your eyes So dry your eyes
If I never knew you I'd be safe but half as real Never knowing I could feel A love so strong and true
I thought our love would be so beautiful  Somehow we'd make the whole world bright I never knew that fear and hate could be so strong All they'd leave us were these whispers in the night But still my heart is saying we were right
I’d Give Anything - Tangled: the Series 
🧡 rapunzel’s sad breakup song
So if you find that you're in darkness or despair Though you won't turn to me please know I'll be right there Name any sacrifice, I'll pay the price that's due Cause I'd give anything for you Yes, I'd give anything to relive everything we knew...
Someday - Hunchback of Notre Dame 
🏳️‍🌈
I used to believe In the days I was naïve That I'd live to see A day of justice dawn And though I will die Long before that morning comes I'll die while believing still It will come when I am gone
Someday, when we are wiser When the world's older, when we have learned I pray someday we may yet live To live and let live
Someday, these dreams will all be real Till then we'll wish upon the moon Change will come, one day Someday soon... 
No One Is Alone - Into the Woods 
🏳️‍🌈
Mother cannot guide you, now your on your own. Only me beside you, still you're not alone. No one is alone. Truly, no one is alone…
People make mistakes Holding to their own  Thinking they’re alone 
Someone is on your side, someone else is not  While we’re seeing our side, maybe we forgot  They are not alone, no one is alone...
I Am Moana (Song of the Ancestors) - Moana
🏳️‍🌈 🤍 - it’s about the self-acceptance binch
Sometimes, the world seems against you The journey may leave a scar But scars can heal and reveal just Where you are
The people you love will change you The things you have learned will guide you And nothing on Earth can silence The quiet voice still inside you
I've delivered us to where we are I have journeyed farther I am everything I've learned and more Still it calls me
And the call isn't out there at all, it's inside me! It's like the tide, always falling and rising I will carry you here in my heart, you remind me That come what may I know the way
Show Yourself - Frozen 2 
🏳️‍🌈 - this one was claimed immediately by the queer community and we all have a stake in it but i do want to point out that i got this from a LOT of 🤍 🖤 💜 💚
I have always been a fortress Cold secrets deep inside You have secrets too But you don't have to hide
I've never felt so certain All my life, I've been torn But I'm here for a reason Could it be the reason I was born? I have always been so different Normal rules did not apply Is this the day? Are you the way I finally find out why?
Oh, show yourself Let me see who you are... Come to me now Open your door Don't make me wait One moment more!
(Come, my darling, homeward bound) I am found!
Transformation / Beauty and the Beast (Reprise) - Beauty and the Beast Broadway Production 
🏳️‍🌈
We are home, we are where we shall be forever  Trust in me, for you know I won’t run away from today This is all that I need, and all that I need to say  Don’t you know how you’ve changed me? Strange how I finally see  I found home, you’re my home, stay with me... 
Finale / Let it Go - Frozen Broadway Production 
🏳️‍🌈 this makes me bawl so it gets finale
There’s so much I longed to say Then say it all, beginning with today It’s like a dream I thought could never be  Elsa, you’re free 
Here we stand in the light of day Let the sun shine on 
I take this warmth within and send it up above Goodbye to dark and fear, let’s fill this world with light and love And here surrounded by a family at least  We’re never going back, the past is in the past 
Let our true love go  Let it go!
67 notes · View notes
qwertyfingers · 4 years
Note
we know that bobby only watched ds9 and dean watched the tos movies for sure which implies he's seen tos as well (plus he calls jack spock). so what do you think everyone's favorite trek is? sam is without a doubt a tng fan first and foremost. i think out of all tos movies cas prefers the wrath of khan because he Feels Things when kirk and spock do the ta'al through the glass. charlie has definitely seen some trek (we've seen her llap), do you think she's into tos first and foremost? anyway let's talk about star trek nights in the bunker.
OKAY SO I HAVE. MANY MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT THIS. SORRY THIS IS SO LONG.
like. like of COURSE bobby only likes ds9 of course he does i could have told you this without the show becuase like. bobby is That Bitch. i think rufus will have watched TOS at least because leonard nimoy worked hard on linking jewish faith and practices into the vulcan lore and i think that would mean something to him. bobby will catch rufus smiling at him sometimes while they’re watching ds9 and ask him what all gruffly and rufus will smirk at him and say something about sisko with jake and bobby with dean and bobby will just cough and take a swig of whiskey and rufus will raise his eyebrows but let it slide. rufus definitely makes a comment once about dean&cas being like jake&nog that totally flies over dean’s head but bobby is all knowing eyebrow raise about.
i think cas and jack would really like discovery. while it has some issues with inconsistency, pacing, being a little dark, it also does better than the other TV treks at utilising the nature of film as a medium to instill a sense of wonder, at space and the world, and that’s something they’d really appreciate. i have my own issues with disco, but an obol for charon is as close to the central core of trek that disco ever gets. cas and jack also like that one in particular because they like listening to all the different languages being spoken. they all love michael (everyone loves michael). cas’ faves are stamets and reno because they’re mean and gay, jack’s fave is tilly because she’s excitable and bright and he latches onto that. dean likes reno because she’s got spunk. sam’s fave is airiam and he will never forgive them for killing her off. sam, cas and dean all feel an uncomfortable kinship with both ash and culber - they’ve both been the one with monster teeming under the surface, controleld by something not themself, but they’ve also all spent that time in hell/purgatory, separated from everyone they love.
thinking about episodes that would really get to them all, darmok is. THE ONE. i have a whole unfinished essay about darmok as the platonic ideal of star trek; the perfect distillation of everything trek is SUPPOSED to be about. it doens’t always get there but by god it tries! that speech michael gives in the disco s2 finale - “There's a whole galaxy of people out there who will reach for you. You have to let them. Find that person who seems farthest from you and reach for them.” - that’s what darmok is about!!! it’s all about a situation where real communication seems impossible, where everything we know about talking and learning has broken down. and picard says, okay, i will find another way. i can’t relate to you, you can’t relate to me, but by god i’m going to try. we all meet people we have trouble communicating with in our lives, and often, those people will not care about changing their own ways to accommodate us. for people with autism, adhd, psychosis, the list goes on, this is a very common occurrence. it’s exhausting and frustrating and alienating. darmok is all about crossing that barrier. about reaching for someone through a world of difficulty and learning how to talk. learning how to share something with someone who seems out of our reach. it’s beautiful, it’s heartwrenching, it means more to me than i can easily put into words! 
anyway i think the bunker fam would experience a lot of emotions watching it together. there’s defintiely a lot of hugging eachother, sam cries a lot and won’t look at anyone until after the episode ends. jack just asks a lot of questions and talks about his progress learning sign language with cas. dean snakes his hand into cas’ halfway through and doesn’t let go. doesn’t show the emotion on his face, but he clutches harder at the emotional beats. cas runs his fingers through jack’s hair and thinks a lot, and decides not to say anything unless dean talks first. its just a Lot for everyone. 
dean def makes them marathon all the TOS and TNG movies. it’s an experience everyone needs at least once. i think you’re right about cas and TWOK with the ta’al through the glass, but also ‘this simple feeling’ and the hand hold would make him feel crazy. bones being the one that spock entrusts with his katra DEF makes dean feel some type of way because as much as destiel is kirkspock-coded, dean IS bones, and seeing spock trust bones so completely despite how at odds they were when they first knew eachother would dig deep into dean’s psyche and make him more than a little bit nutso. the movies are way too long for jack so he mostly sits and plays animal crossing while they watch and looks at the screen when everyone else gasps or when something exciting is happening that holds his attention for a while. sam’s fave is nemesis precisely because it’s terrible and he loves how camp it is.
dean has definitely seen all of trek. i refuse to believe someone who watches as much tv and films as dean wouldn’t sit and watch the whole shebang. i think he’s probably seen TOS and the TOS movies more than the others because its easier than sitting through 7 seasons, but i think rather than that being his favourite he’d just have really strong opinions about the best episodes of each one? like if you asked him what his favourite is he’d say you can’t answer that because they’re all so different from eachother
VOY - bride of chaotica, non seqitur, macrocosm for the favourite episodes. seven, janeway and tuvok would be his favourite characters. he think toms a bit of a knob but also feels a kinship with him for the similar brand of bab dad-ism but he wouldn’t be able to put that into words. he’s also a fierce defender of threshold being a good episode (he’s right for that)
DS9 - our man bashir it’s our man bashir. he doesn’t dislike ds9 but its very plot heavy and he didn’t care for it when he was younger. rewatching it after living through multiple supernatural wars he’d probably appreciate it more. i know for a fact he cries every time there’s an episode about sisko being a good dad. jadzia and garak are his faves
TNG - he LOVES q. he also absolutely will not be caught dead referencing how much loves q after cas comes into his life because sam will do the little brotherly knowing eyebrow raise at him and he will die of embarrassment. he regularly references ‘there are four lights’ because he’s a fucking nerd. he has made cas watch elementary my dear data and fistful of datas a half dozen times each at LEAST. cas KNEW how dean was going to be about the cowboy hat he’s defintiely got into full cowboy getup at home just for watching movies and in cas’ head star trek is fully to blame.
TOS - oh there are so many good TOS eps to choose from. obv he loves most of the series becuase TOS has MANY banger eps, his favourites are probably like. mirror mirror, amok time (baby dean defintiely had some kind of crisis watching it for the first time; i know the rituals are intricate). i know deep in my bones that dean watched the conscience of the king (introduction of the tarsus iv massacre) once and then spent his entire teenage years writing fic about that in his head, whether he posted it or not. dean related too much to those experiences of shared hunger. city on the edge of forever is one of everyone’s faves for a reason (and i’m STILL mad we never got a closer take on that episode in spn it could have been so fun). 
ENT - he definitely thinks enterprise is stupid and he’s not wrong but he has also definitely watched it and been very repressed about the whole thing. mans was like oh i feel a kinship with malcolm reed the obviously repressed queer man. i will never examine this feeling ever again thank you <3 he also makes fun of archer for being obsessed with, of all sports, water polo. shran is his favourite character because he’s a little shit and makes him laugh, and t’pol, because t’pol is a badass and he’d appreciate that. i can’t remember the title of a single episode off the top of my head though lol.
i can see what you’re saying about sam being a TNG stan. i’m conflicted though, I feel like TNG’s generally the favourite of 1) obnoxious nerds who think knowing trivia facts makes them smart, 2) men desperately trying to seem masculine and 3) people who’ve watched it three times and have extremely complex thoughts on the personhood and rights of robots. i could see sam fitting into the third group, but people who are in it for the robot feelings are a coin flip between voyager and tng being the fave, and i just have a feeling that voyager would be his favourite. i know kid sam is getting gender envy watching voyager in shitty motels while dad and dean are out, trying to find the words for it. his first semester at stanford he talks a friend into giving him the janeway haircut and rides that high for months. sam’s favourite characters are seven and EMH. 
sam and dean have definitely had dozens of long drawn out debates about philosophical topics in star trek. do the holograms deserve rights and if so which ones. are the romulans and vulcans still meaningfully the same people. was spock right for trying to foment reunification by going undercover on romulus. can the borg be redeemed. etc etc.
i haven’t seen any of picard at all so i can’t comment. i also think sam and dean probably read a lot of the trek books? they’re pretty common to find in secondhand bookstores and cheap, would have been even cheaper back in the day. sam probably doesn’t care for them much, dean has a few solid faves though. i’ve only read the disco books so i can’t comment anything specifically (besides the fact that i think dean read dead endless and cried like a baby), but some of the TOS and DS9 books are gay as hell and i know dean was eyes emoji-ing that shit. 
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spookyseraphs · 4 years
Text
supernatural and the x-files (specifically destiel and msr) parallels
this was intended to convert my spn friends to txf and my txf friends to spn and then it got out of hand. i got tired of finding sources for everything, so you’ll just have to trust me, i’m an expert on both subjects.
cas=scully
cas/scully's faith in god vs dean/mulder being non-believers (but believing in the other) (spn) (txf)
cas being the healer, scully being a doctor (spn) (txf)
cas is supposed to guard the michael sword but falls in love vs scully sent to debunk the x-files but falls in love (spn) (txf) 
cas and scully are both immortal (spn) (txf) (also)
cas/scully's families hate dean/mulder (spn) (txf)
cas/scully coming to believe in humanity/the paranormal (spn) (txf)
i'm an angel vs i'm a medical doctor (spn doesn’t have a compilation)   (txf)
they’re not like... the best drivers
hello dean vs mulder it’s me (spn) (txf)
dean=mulder
dean/mulder's fucked up fathers (spn) (txf)
dean/mulder's eldest child syndrome and their unhealthy need to protect their younger sibling (spn) (txf)
dean/mulder being the best in their respective fields (hunting and criminal profiling) and being well known for it
dean/mulder and their porn habits (spn) (txf)
no one has ever hated themselves the way dean and mulder hate themselves (spn) (txf)
dean and mulder both have issues with fire (spn) (txf)
both die, get buried, and then come back
sunflower seeds vs pie
also they both hate nazis (spn) (txf)
yellow fever vs war of the coprophages  (spn) (txf)
ship parallels
blue and green eyes (hazel is close enough)
for some reason theres a pizza man parallel? (spn) (pt 2) (txf) (pt 2)
mulder/krycek vs dean/crowley (spn) (txf) (also)
cas/hannah vs scully/pendrell (poor hannah and pendrell never stood a chance... and died)
also cas/scully get laid ONE TIME (april/ed jerse) and they almost die because of it and then never do it again (spn) (txf)
vs dean/mulder having plenty of love interests/hookups
cas/scully have never done anything wrong ever
dean/mulder... sigh... i love them... but they've made some questionable decisions (i'm looking at you mulder: fucking the vampire THE EP AFTER SCULLY'S ABDUCTION AND WHILE WEARING HER CROSS and dean, kicking cas out and locking jack in the ma’lak box?? really guys?) (spn) (txf)
creators who think their relationship is platonic despite everyone with eyes saying otherwise (spn) (txf)
also the way that neither were ever written or intended to be romantic
the fandoms were split heavily between shippers and non shippers 
they also both had to have scenes changed because they were being played too romantic
a kiss was cut from the episode memento mori and gillovny were always trying to hold hands (x)
jackles forever wanting to cradle misha's face and the cut i love you from the crypt scene (x)
just... gillovny vs cockles in general, i am not a real person shipper, HOWEVER they are both messy (spn) (txf)
their first meetings? iconic. chemistry? immaculate. dean/mulder are super defensive but tbh cas/scully fell in love at first sight (spn) (txf)
they also had no concept of personal space pretty much immediately (spn) (txf)
they have a baby (that has magic powers) together that they lose twice (jack dies and becomes god, william/jackson is adopted and then as far as they know he dies) (spn) (txf)
cas/scully also have a kind of kid (claire/emily) that dean/mulder are willing to co-parent regardless of the fact that they definitely aren't theirs (spn) (txf)
we get an i love you that still doesn't get taken seriously or make them canon (stuck in the middle (with you) and triangle) (spn) (txf)
dean keeping cas's trenchcoat vs mulder keeping scully's cross (spn) (txf)
they go absolutely batshit when the other is in danger or dies/is dying (spn) (txf)
they're also known and used by their enemies as each other's weaknesses (spn) (txf)
msr being mistaken as a couple vs every angel and demon cracking jokes about destiel being a couple (spn) (txf)
skinner and sam just off to the side looking frustrated while msr and destiel are having a couples moment (spn) (txf)
eating each others food (spn) (txf)
appreciating each others interests (spn) (and this one) (txf)
parallels except the roles are swapped
dreamland/small potatoes vs casifer, i just think scully/dean should have realized IMMEDIATELY (spn) (txf)
mulders fight the future speech vs cas's confession (spn) (txf)
they should have kissed and didn't
it almost ambiguously canonizes them both
AND THE SECRET TAPES, the most famous msr kiss isn't an actual canon kiss, it's a blooper of gillian and david making out in front of the camera (two different times) and it wasn't scripted it was literally just them messing around (x)
this is me manifesting jackles dropping the tapes and those tapes having the same energy
they just really love each other (spn) (txf)
non ship/general parallels
leyla harrison vs becky rosen being fandom stand ins (spn) (txf)
they were supposed to end on season 5
Good but bad (absolutely iconic) sci-fi shows
they both had two finales which both sucked
they shared soooo many cast and crew and both filmed in vancouver
they're such similar shows, motw/story episodes, the funny and serious episodes, dealing with the paranormal, they're basically siblings
also siblings in the way that they handle racism, misogyny and consent/rape/bodily autonomy
the supernatural book series vs the movie made about mulder and scully (spn) (txf)
mystery spot vs monday (spn) (txf)
tall tales vs bad blood  (spn) (txf)
 the benders vs home (spn) (txf)
why did both shows use live bees??? (spn) (txf)
the fbi's most wanted and the fbi's most unwanted (also everyone involved looks cute as fbi agents) (spn) (look how cute!) (txf) (cuties!!)
the syndicate vs heaven and the cigarette smoking man vs god
the bunker vs the basement office
every single side character on both shows deserved better!!! most of them literally didn't need to die!!! and i'm still angry!!!
the poor brothers adam milligan and charlie scully existing and then being literally forgotten about until the last season
the fandoms living for things cut from the scripts (spn) (txf)
team free will vs mulder, scully, and skinner
these ones are shippy, but more my opinion than factual
both pairs just keep getting traumatic events dumped on them for absolutely no reason
cas/scully both have major exasperated why do i love this man vibes
absolutely most iconic and slowest slow burn romances of all time and are just the longest games of will they/won't they, baiting, and were never INTENDED to be slow burns
they're always willing to die/kill for each other, however they WILL NOT talk about their feelings under any circumstances
in the field where i died, mulder says that he and scully have been around each other in past lives but never romantically and according to chuck, every other universe's castiel just pulled dean out of hell and listened to his orders
SO in these other lives/universes they were always linked to each other but only in this life/universe do they fall in love
the last seasons really fuck up my favorite characters
dean should not be that shitty to jack OR cas for that matter
and mulder shouldn't have left scully and william (and dearest dana?? DANA?)
and, controversial opinion, but cas/scully could do so much better and deserve so much better but dean/mulder... it's the best they'll ever get
HOWEVER, i feel like their love is MORE powerful BECAUSE cas/scully could do better but they don't want better or normal they want dean/mulder and they will fight to the death for it, it's not the easy choice, it's just what they want
and i say this with all the love in the world for both dean and mulder, but cas could have just followed his orders and returned to heaven like every other version of himself did. scully could have easily found a normal man to settle down and have 2.5 kids with. dean was always going to be stuck in chuck's plans, and mulder absolutely could not just go find a wife to settle down with.
cas/scully put up with SO MUCH SHIT from dean/mulder, while being ALWAYS FAITHFUL to them, it was never the easy option to love these men and stay by their sides, it was hard and they worked for it!!!
they’re both the greatest love story ever told, they tied
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misterbitches · 3 years
Text
I ship muren and li cheng bc i only saw it through gifs then i watched this episode cos i was like im only starting this show if they kiss im waiting and they did and it was nice and i got so anxious that i was about to fucking vomit. I really like them together. The top/bottom shit is dumb and i hope if they must mention it they all build a bridge and get over it so they can switch cos who gives a shit. I didnt realize how large they all are like most “tall” men on tv are lying. But bc that kid is so thin and tall and the other one (idk the stepbrother) is huge too. Li cheng is shorter than them both but more ~manly~ but still short so why doesnt he take a DICK UP HIS BUTT XD since that’s all that fucking matters and there’s only 2 genders and 2 eays to have sex lmao so nothing else otherwise ur screwed
Hd a terrible past couple of weeks personally and because i keep seeing my peopl eget murdered and things ripped from us ^_____^ anyway here’s Some libertatrian communist dumb bitch discoars so i’ll tag it:
keep in mind these are my opinions’”” when i engage in discourse. I am not the end all be all and I don’t need you to agree. There’s some shit I am non-negotiable on but thsi is just exchanging of information. Any authoratative tone I take on comes from my beliefs, my life, my experiences, and what I choose to cultivate as a person and an artist. I dont have control over your feelings, you do. If it hurts you then either tell me the issue and be PRECISE about it, understand that context matters which is why i type so much in engagement, and do not fucking lie or misconstrue my words. Do not call me western ever in your life either. I am a black-american. I have adhd and bc i am a black woman if ur automatically thinking im brolic i am accepting money in my paypal for ur wellbeing to get me to shut the fuck up.Thanks.
The stepbrothers storyline is stupid and lazy writing. I really want to counter people that say it’s written well and that it’s interesting because it isn’t. Even if it was illicit and fucked we can write a story out about this. Let’s rethink what they could have done shall we:
- become stepbrothers at about 16 and their parents mismanage the relationship and they fail in trying to get an integrated family together (this is what happened in the #iconic transit girls and that was fuckin’ weird but hey dude guess what we watched it and it was weird but not unethical and we know one is like 19 and the other is 21 and a girl so it’s like wow you avoided so much and handled their stepsister story very…….um lightly given the end lmao but it was there and people had AGENCY)
-OR you realize that freak is obsessed with him and then he realizes it and is like “bitch i swear to god” and in typical shtity trope BL fashion they can find a way from obsession, to loss and independence when you lose your obsession, to “love” if they choose
- have the fucked up shit but make it clear what the issues are and you literally cannot write your way out of it so do not try
But why can’t fucked up things be shown? Also this is realistic.
0. Well according to you but no one said that they can’t. So that’s on your interpretation of critique (that is, again, not bullying or harassment.) They can, i just gave plenty of scenarios in which it is affective and not just annoying to witness, trope-y, and frankly ridiculous and offensive. Sorry! They don’t do it well. You can come up with alternatives too. See #2 btw.
1. No it isn’t doing a good job of reflecting life because life has consequences. The exaggeration in drama doesn’t mean the arc shouldn’t be there. Almost always things that aren’t heavy with the message or meant to be sobering in a deep way are COMPELLING. The realism is the basis for art because we are human. This is not the way real humans act.
Someone said Tharn Type was mature and I had to laugh because no, no one acts that way and is “in love” if they act that way that means they fucking hate each other and they’re immature and frankly it’s just not that interesting for many of us to watch because the dramatization of the “realism” is fucking bonkers. That was such poor writing it is unbelievable and someone has the audacityt o say it’s how real adults act. Fucking murder me if I’m with someone for 7 years and we break up over a miscommunication and for some reason I am not as horny as my always horny boyfriend. The fuck? What kind of lives do you lead? Either you are not an adult or you are an adult who needs therapy.
I also hear the “realistic” argument but then people try and temper it with “but also it’s fiction.” What do you think fiction is? Why do you think filmmaking exists? Number one, it’s propaganda in the sense that you want others to buy into your presentation and see what you see. That means that the creators are telling people and influencing them WITH ART BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT IT IS about their feelings around a situation. That’s why it is imperative to be responsible as a filmmaker and artist and underline the deepness of creepiness if that’s what they want. If they want to relay that rape sometimes ok and psychos are crazy so they get boy (??!?!?!? BITCH?) then they achieved it with no innovative information. We know people get raped bc we are human beings and many of us live with that fear. You know, being the target demo and all. And bc BL loves that trope it’s rape fantasy peddled to young people and women. Just like shitty wattpad fics or NYT best sellers. Hooray, what now? Or are you trying to purport that this isn’t glorified fanfiction? Which it literally is
2. This is the issue with these shows. No one is saying that fucked up shit cannot be shown. There’s a film about a woman who is raped and she falls in love with her rapist (because he was masked but i think we find out later that she knows. Binoche is in it.) I have no desire for that film—i think it’s by a man and i extra dont care—but I hear it’s sort of powerful for many. I heard it was a good film. But the act itself is always eschewed and the conflict comes from how fucking ridiculous it is especially finding out that she knows. The power imbalance adn the possibility. They may not have handled it in a way I would have cared for but it was there.
There’s simply no imagination because these people do not care that much and aren’t great writers and filmmakers because they simply do not have to be. Sorry.
The industry doesn’t rely on the best they rely on efficiency (this is everywhere.) You can tell by the camera angles, the editing, the camera itself (idk if it is multicam but the flatness is typical soap flatness without the glowboxes to soften their faces.) Simple constant lighting. Now the surroundings are mostly beautiful. But even to some of the costumes. And those edits are abysmal, some of that camera work.
So with all that said even with the couple I extremely enjoy I see its (H4) faults. Add into that a lazily thrown together “shocking” love and if they are trying to get us to feel a type of way about its sexiness they fail. This is why movies like 50sog, 365 days, etc aren’t enjoyable to people because it’s fucking strange situations that they dont want to entangle or make enjoyable to viewers across the board. They know what people will take. It’s just that bitch what are we here for if even the sexiness isn’t there for ur stupid story.
At least with that teenager and 30 yr old man in MODC (which i do not love but i like them in theory if it wasnt totally repulsive to me and also if it was developed in a way that was good TO ME) they had their, er, “sex appeal” i talk about this as well the main couple in MODC to me, visually, was a miss. Not bc whatshisface was small and stuff but bc he was so sickly and they needed that to propel the story but it was just not appealing given how the story progressed. A missed opportunity in tying the two together besides making him look waif-y and sickly only to have the “did ur mom die in a car crash? No, cancer” type of move in not another teen movie. But the opposite. And not funny. Wayne tho????? GORL. Eggs. Cracked.
fandoms have a very warped sense of harrassment and discourse.
Most fandoms have harassers who are “protecting” the cast and crew who don’t need their protection (or maybe the crew does since they probably dont get paid well but why the fuck would anyone care about that lol) but very few have the people who have concerns or massive critique about the show are not going to be “bullying.”
If people are saying “if you like xyz, u suck” then sure it may suck for you to see but who fucking cares. Either talk to the person or don’t be friends with them. That is not bullying or harrassment. Things that are shitty get criticized. Fuck, things that aren’t shitty don’t. Get away from this idea of cancel culture and people misunderstanding the story. We have the ability to.
Think beyond your noses of personal preference. You don’t have to convince people of what you believe. Discussing it is good but critique is not bullying, harrassment, or hate. Neither is fucking roasting shit because even this shit I like (manner of death lets say) deserves it. Art is meant to be critiqued and if you dont fucking like the bullshit people make then say it. They know stupid stories like this are scandalous and they don’t give a shit in how to present them.
And guess what? You won’t like everybody. Many people can’t stand me i’m sure. Oh well. I mean frankly I don’t like that and I feel very unsettled when I don’t feel understood. That’s ok! I have to temper it. Sometimes calm myself down. I won’t get anything and everything I want. And you won’t like every opinion and sometimes it’s like “man am i a dummy?” But the part of growing up is fucking maanging that and beng honest about “bashing and harrassment” and “bullying” and growing up. Yuo can like what you want the “let people like what they want thing” is so fucking juvenile and THAT is not the real world. Which is probably why so many people feel that way, they dont want to live in the real world. Unfortunately, you do.
Think beyond our noses of personal preference and what we feel emotionally in conjunction with others. You don’t have to convince people of what you believe. And you can say things that you believe to be true but it doesn’t make them so or maybe it isn’t received that way to people. And many times we learn new things in the discussions “oh shit i didn’t see it that way” right? Discussing it is good but critique is not bullying, harrassment, or hate. Neither is fucking roasting shit because even this shit I like (manner of death lets say) deserves it. Art is meant to be critiqued and if you dont fucking like the bullshit people make then say it. They know stupid stories like this are scandalous and they don’t give a shit in how to present them. Usually the “opposition” in these situations aren’t the popular beliefs that permeate through society. Trust me lmao
Antiblackness
Antiblackness is a thing. It permeates everywhere. It permeates in this genre and it permeates in fandom. Get it the fuck together. Also do not conflate cultural relativism with being repsectful. They are not barbarians, they are smart human beings either making work or deciding to. We all have diff cultures but we have fucking sense in what is respectful and not. And if we don’t we fucking learn. You cannot excuse things and say “oh culture” when you have 0 idea of that culture or actual people who are radical etc and are fighting against it. Additionally the word westerner is an ignorant term when referring to people in the US or UK who are black. Because we are not. We extend sympathy to other groups and empathy since we know so there is no inherent power imbalance between a black viewer and their subject. Don’t suggest that because it’s wrong and ahistorical and contextless.
FIRST the fallacy of representation as freedom makes people fucking complacent, individualistic, and doesn’t let them think critically. Consumption and discourse around consumption is not helping material conditions of the marginalized communities in your home, the black ones who are ignored, those intersectionalized in these communities. Groups talk about art and what it means for them outside of just what we see and because we also don’t have access to a bunch of Thai reviews or what movements or going on we are less likely to know if we don’t FUCKING SEARCH for it. Because art is constant...which leads me to....
Representation is difficult. It matters and it doesn’t.
Tthese shows are not meant to overturn the LGBTQ+ community.
There are queer filmmakers and artists in these countries. Deep illustrious film careers or even TV that is moving and deliberate. We can even see it with the dude from “your name engraved” in their short series he was in beforehand. BL is no wa pejorative because it is simply not “qu**r” storytelling whatever that means. But know it has always existed everywhere and there are also out artists or radical artists in all these countries who do no respect mediums that are cash-grabs and poorly made.
ex: As much as “Like in the Movies” sort of isnt for me and is a bit hamfisted you can tell how much love goes into that. Love of the characters, acting, and message. Yes it’s cringey to see some of the lines (like very tbh subtlety wasnt exactly their strong suit) and yea naming them after lenin and marx is just 0ihgoaudgijposkagjihou BUT GUESS WHAT? THEY FUCKING DID IT. THEY TRIED. And class was a large component as well bc u cant fuckin ignore it. The show is aware of the machinations in its world as a show but also in the philippines and for a fuckin reason. And duatarte? Loooooooool so like yea not so sure bl makes him love his ppl but the show isnt trying to do that
It’s not a transgressive genre and it has no reason to be. No ethical anything under the way we live it’s just trying your fucking best to be. That’s it. They serve societal ills and capital’s purposes. Which is fine but it is not revolutionary.
These countries in SEA or even SA do not have as big budget for even mainstream dramas—though things are changing and that’s bc REVENUE like revenue from kpop is fucking huge for SK and again so much about that is bc of what happened in their history from japanese imperialism to WWII to the US—so for “queer” stuff it is sort of now important to make that an export and it sure is one. Not only globally or to the west but a lot of these places make their money within asia (duh!) outside of their countries. OBVIOUSLY. so BL is a way to output and gain money. The thing is, it doesnt seem to be put back into the industry at all. For people in all these countries to make works that aren’t for mainstream or wont reach as many people there’s a difference between trying and just shoving shit in your face and going here it’s gay you like it right? But dont antagonize the inherent patriarchal nature of BL.
Another thing: did you guys know thailand was never colonized? You should look it up. There’s little hints of things in ITSAY to represent french influence still. Isnt that fascinating? Find out why. It’s certainly interesting that the representation, though damaging and dubious many times and also incorrect like any media, is huge in asia and this isnt a commodity here (the US) exactly. A lot of that has to do with colonial ideas of gender of which I am sure. But listen………lmao
Sometimes people dont give a shit. And it very much shows. Here is the thing once again. GOOD TRANSGRESSIVE WORK exists.
Een within the capitalist Bs paradigm or you can see people trying (I can sort of applaud parts of lovely writer) also queer media has always existed everywhere the reason you don’t know about it is because it gets takena nd commodified into a mainstream product. We hvae little incentive, particularly if we are not fans of cinema or art in gen, to search fror others when the output is right here. Being dictated by others and the state and who will give you money. No longer an effort of a cast and crew who want to convey things. But google [any country] independent cinema, radical cinema, queer radical cinema, or even retrospectives on the cinema and rethinking what is queer and radical in film. What if we took that, diluted it, got rid of the creators who put themselves through all the work, ignroe al the nuances and do……………….two actors who are conventionally attractive with no chemistry making out.
It’s the same here lets say daniel kaluuya winning the oscar for the film about the BPP. I heard it was okay and not too offensive but it still isnt’ enough. It still isn’t like hwood isn’t trash, nnati black, misogynistic towards BW and women, and all that other shit. It was pushy but it can’t be enough where we are. Black KKKlansmen i think won an oscar, by circumstance i fuckin hate these award shows they mean nothing, and i like the film a lot but he has his misogynoir still resting in his films even if it is poignant. And it was a film that honestly wasn’t really made for black people. And should all art be a response to direct trauma or trying to make ourselves palatable when we’re just human?
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and it’s importance (capitalism) but also sorta individual responsibility
Considering a lot of these actors are rich and then just dip that’s another problem. Mainstream isn’t what sustains marginalized art ever. It doesn’t change in the vast ways we think it does. What changes is the people of these groups pushing, fighting, forcing and then capitalism trying to make it work under capitalism. It will not. It cannot.
This is why artists and labels often don’t mix or you see people like Sonic Youth doing whatever they want and pissing off their label but making them give them money. Same with Nirvana. Vince Staples. The thing is they can fight and make good shit but what capitalism helps people….not care? They don’t respect the audience? We’re getting those returns on poor executed product placement, lighting, editing, framing, fucking acting. And you surewon’t see mixed black asians in these shows. WHY R U is the oNLY one i have seen it in and he just disappears (but that was pretty cool.) so who the fuck is this representing? And before you start: asian countries are not homogenous the way we believe them to be. There are marginalized communities outside of even mixed people that are harmed. So you can skrrt cause on that one: you’re wrong buddy. But it gives us the IDEA of a paradise which is what they NEED.With representation and visibility comes consequence and responsibility as artists. What it allows them to do is coast and not think complexly because why should they; it’s mostly the fantasies of some older woman who probably has money and much less interaction with the world. It’s bonkers. And what that allows even further is for them to say YOU ARE THE THING THAT YOU CONSUME and the THING THAT YOU CONSUME IS YOURS. It is not, it is not your identity, form a close bond but figure it the fuck out. Especially for adults who are hellbent on twisting their minds into pretzels and can’t acknowledge what’s just laziness in art and not giving a fucking shit. Truly.
There’s damage that has been done from Parasite as he was supported by CJE&M and the bullshit obsession america had and eveyrone’s poor interpretation of it if they are rich. BJH is a socialist and he is a filmmaker. He has made films that are outstanding and cost a lot of money. But now a fear for indie filmmakers is just not being able to raise that much or have that much attention. Getting funding that helps them instead of expecting the Next Big Thing that is a fad because capitalism is trash. Yes this funneling of money is absolutely harmful to us artists. Even buying in is strategic. Additionally, that film is probs one of the most radical films to have that wide release and accolade (unlike “Sorry to Bother You” which i have a lot of thoughts about. One being that asian exports are acceptable but black ones are not. This is an overall art critique and global media critique. Blackness is removed, not respected.) However, filmmaking isn’t green, it can’t be socialist, and it’s a lot of work. They used tons and tons and TONS of water to do a huge beautiful feat but we still know there is a cost. We have to figure that out because it shouldn’t be. It doesn’t go back into the crew’s pockets the way it should and the work becomes that of the director’s and actors solely. It’s fucking hard. We have to do our part but it doesn’t mean we are doing it perfectly. We just have to try to do better. So does BJH cos he needs to not be a misogynist but anyways i digress.
additionally and this is something some users fail to understand: people in the media sphere generally have fucking money. I went to film school that was international with super fucking rich kids. Taiwanese kids, kids from south asia, china, thailand. They had money. No not upper middle class money, not “rich” money, not some paltry 1m that’s chump change. Fucking money. Fucking RICH-RICH. MILLIONAIRES. BILLIONAIRES. WHICH IS DISGUSTING MIGHT I ADD. The domestic people didn’t have the money for school (in the UK) and i am in a massive amount of debt like every other black student that went there. You do not understand how much money is needed to survive so people who turn to these crew positions even casting etc need this fucking money usually. OKAY. A lot of the people that do well in these dumb shows or even on a larger scale HAVE MONEY. The reason these industries are small and struggling is because of lack of people and lack of resources to independent shit because oh gee it takes money to make things.
Why should I try? Well you don’t have to really if you have money or a name. Yet...
We can tell when like those Tik Tok shows or DCOMs dont give a shit (anymore.) You know how frustrated we get when content for young people is garbage? Well, see, BL is literally that under that system. Occasionally we will get something good now but there is virtually no need in any sector in the world at this point to truly figure out how to make it better and what to do to enhance artistic literacy, outreach, teaching people new things, getting people from these communities there and having true realistic says. Art and culture is IMPERATIVE TO WORLD LIBERATION but not when it is so stiffly trying to bend to capital’s idea of progressiveness. No. Neoliberalism. No.
That’s why in a way ITSAY is a huge feat; it takes from films etc and they clearly had money (the actors rae rich too which….lmaooooo j’aime pas) but it was a respected fucking script, acting was important, blocking, framing. There’s very little to critique as a visual medium for that because I understand what they are trying to do, their market is going to be mostly young girls, but they RESPECT THE FUCKING AUDIENCE. And guess what guys? You can make money from it!!!! WOAH! Since that may be the only goal which is disgusting and repulsive.
HOWEVER AND THIS IS WHAT IS SAD: itsay is an ex of a great show however knowing the actors backgrounds and the pseudo trouble it stirred when they weren’t supporting people protesting against the coup in the summer it really put a damper on my enjoyment. And this is how we can see that:
a) it’s honestly just a show and a good one but b) now what?
These kids (actors, who are like idk 19? 20?) are rich and not saying anything while countless actors, who were filming, did. Even tul who has $$$$ and the thing is the protesting against the coup legitimately attacks the rich. As it should. The protests going on were cries for help, against a dictatorship and fucking coup, asking people to get fucking help for covid, having kids be able to live. There’s a mini on VICE about this and it probably doesnt go too in depth but there’s a kid in there who talks about his friends getting into drugs and how he just wants to make music, have fun, skateboard. And it’s harrowing to see. This is a direct example of what these things do and don’t do. Yea we know a good show is here, we know growing up and slice of life, we know this is a bit of escapism and idealism but the idealism is reflected in the way these actors also choose to live their lives. So what progress? To who? For who? How is this helping me? What purpose does it serve? I say ITSAY serves its purpose as a piece and a glimpse into possibility of growing up but i do not say it antagonizes a broader issue that needs to be relevant in some sense but simply is not. It’s very singleminded and, well, it’s sort of like “besides my sexuality, what do i have to worry about?” But for real humans like....a lot. I do not respect their decision at all.
Why can’t we do our jobs and make something decent and respect our audience? No time, gotta make that sweet sweet sweet cash baybee. Look how progressive we are! Don’t look at history and material conditions. Thanks in advance, management.
History 4 does not have that respect. Many of these shows do not. Sometimes we hit good, sometimes we don’t. But in the end we cannot settle. And I won’t. If I am critiquing something I will not be shy and if I am meant to enjoy something as escapism then these shows NEED to highlight that and it’s rare sometimes (the best twins is a good reminder like that show is bad but man do i Brain Empty when i turn it on and i like that and there’s not much in it that makes me want to kill myself from annoyance but there are transphobic jokes i dont love however the whole show is a comedy about this dude’s crazy homophobic sister and she is constantly positioned as wrong and they talk about the aforementioned trans women as the actor was in drag. Interesting that they can manage that, huh?)
Oh btw.....taiwan has a very complicated history but ignore all the bad stuff it’s good now you can kinda sorta get married and stuff. KMT? You know how i learned that? I care about human beings and read about it lmao. I am not Taiwanese and look at that. So now I have historical and DIALECTICAL~**~*~****~*~*~ context so i can judge it as an artist, a black woman from america, and from the knowledge i have to pick up on their history to see if this fits into a broader picture besides the micro-one of sexuality on an individualized level. And this is kinda where it comes full circle: these shows are not you, you are not them, they do not exist in a vacuum because nothing does. The failure to critique now means continuing on as it has and it will still do so. History and time are not linear in the sense we think it is. Someitmes things are better, sometimes things feel more austere. We are not living under liberation though and these shows are not going to do so. So they are not US nor are they for a nebulous “us” of which the groups are all fractured and have diff opinions anyway (my opinion as a black american is going to vary from an asian woman’s say and that could really clash and i do not feel solidarity with all those in every community i am for several reasons.)
Final thots that have taken up my time and the only thing i actually wanted to write but got distracted:
Anyway my dissertation is that I ilke Muren and LiCheng a lot a lot and i like how cute they are and how truly dumb li cheng is. This is an example of mostly good writing, decent actors, nice chemistry, and sort of a calmness to them. And I super enjoy how Muren is pretty forward with LC in the sense that being together is like very important to truly be together. When he was like “no i didnt forget!” Or when LC asked him something in the office I forget it was 6 am and again i almost threw up and muren nodded and then LC leaned on him. Very cute. I want more of them tho i may have to skip that othre couple (the cameo the ones from MODC) but omfg the younger one HIS HAIR GREW SO MUCH HE LOOKS SO MATURE AND CUTE OMFGIJ0HUG9SAOGIJPKOAGJSIOHUAGIJP hahhaha the one good thing i will say about THEM.idk how old the actor is i figure he was young idk it makes me happy to see him he’s very cute. I hope he’s in something i can watch and not gag at. Is he hot? Who knows but he is a cutie!!
Anyway muren and lc have a good thing going it’s nice to watch ho\pe they dont fuck it up but im truly a sucker for some true finds 2 luvas i think some user on her\e was like i’m not a fan of friends ot lovers bc it doesn’t seem like they’re actually friends and maybe they were referring to this show idk. But it made me think and it was a very good observation. So i think they are friends and also luvrs <3
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