#I LOVE Tim so much it’s so nice to see versions of him whenever he pops up

[fowlaroundtown]

Funfact everyone who puts their own spin of Timothy into their tmnt aus/ocs/adaptations/whatever is my best friend and personal hero

[vee-crytraps]

Kiss Me More {Themes/TW's Masterlist}

Pairings: Dick Grayson/Reader, Jason Todd/Reader, Tim Drake/Reader, Damian Wayne/Reader Trigger Warnings: 18+, light yandere, graphic descriptions of sex, Fan-non personalities, reverse harem, unhealthy relationships, unhealthy pining, teenage hormones, (legal) age differences, fem!reader, violence, drug use, polyandry. General Themes: Sex positivity, sexual curiosity, sexual promiscuity, sexy sex sex sex, struggling with growing up, struggling with Naughty Feelings, trying to become a person, general feeling of being misunderstood, possibility of light angst in future, family death (mentioned).

Chapters: 1 | GROAN (Jason/Reader 🔞) 2 | BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE 3 | EAU D'BEDROOM DANCING (Dick/Reader 🔞) 4 | ORNAMENT 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 5 | KRIMSON (Tim/Reader 🔞) 6 | TO YOU (Damian/Reader 🔞)

Reference:

Ages: Dick 29 | Jason 23 | Tim 20 | Damian 18 | Reader 18 DICK is the ‘no man will compare to your charming big brother’ type. He is your knight in shining armor, always eager to put you first. He believes no one will be able to take care of you the way that he can, but doesn't view other men as competition- preferring to show you that he’s better. He's your childhood friend, your 'boy-(in-the-room-) next-door'. Dick's love language is...kind of all of them? But he loves spending time with you, lounging about your room while you choose outfits and recount high school drama. JASON is one of your more estranged siblings. He gets off knowing that Bruce views you as an innocent, and that your involvement with him in particular is taboo in all sorts of ways. Part of him is getting over the fact that you really aren’t as delicate as you used to be, far from the annoying brat he believed too weak for their nightly family adventures. He wants to protect you but also feels like he’s missed too many formative years to really boss you around like an older brother. Whenever he tries, it always comes out a little awkward. He’s the care-free fun sibling, letting you get away with whatever you want while simultaneously encouraging it. He is a pleasure seeker and an enabler, but will also recite some poetry after he finishes boning you on his couch. TIM is like a best friend. This relationship is more casual than truly lusty or romantic, at least at the start. Even your intimacy is playful and spontaneous. There's no pressure to be anything but yourself, in and out of the bedroom. Tim mostly adores your curiosity, a trait which you both share. You often go down wikipedia rabbit holes together, or people watch at the park outside of WayneTech during his lunch breaks. You've also started a snapchat series of him falling asleep in strange places. DAMIAN is a total dominant personality, if somewhat socially awkward. In some ways, he believes you belong to him. He views you as a pet or a toy sometimes, wishing to take care of you in his own way. His role in your life is essentially a sexual and romantic version of how Bruce sees you. Damian dresses you, enjoys bathing you and would rather watch you get off than be able to get himself off. Like Bruce, it's as much of a control thing as it is a 'I don't know how to interact with people in a genuine way' thing. He doesn’t always know what to do with reciprocation as he’s never had it, but he doesn’t need it with you. Much like the relationship between a pet and it’s human, it’s one sided care. This is important because Damian cherishes pets over humans, so the fact that he cares for you like a dog means that you’re highly valued in his mind.

Lil Notes: Feel free to suggest/request little scenarios! If they don't inspire anything for Kiss Me More, they might make a nice little one shot! No guarantee that I can get around to them, but I will try my best! I'll be re-posting my work from Ao3 onto Tumblr slowly so I don't flood the tags.

[chamomileteainabuttercup]

beboots

How about Jangobi, with 4, 16, 36, 37?

Thanks for playing!  This one is a little bit of a challenge because, as I noted before, this is a ship I don’t really think about unless a particular gifset reappears on my dash and then I think about it for like fifteen minutes.  Getting it to work requires changing the plot quite a lot, of course, and I prefer to get the changes going from the very start of their interaction. 

4.  First impression of each other? Was it love at first sight?

Temuera Morrison has noted that at the beginning of the scene, his “hospitable Māori” impulse was to offer Obi-Wan a cup of tea, but since he wasn’t sure they have cups of tea in space he decided to just stick to the script.  

So in my version, he does offer him a cup of tea and Obi-Wan accepts and so they sit down with their tea and it’s all rather disarming.  Obi-Wan is still highly suspicious of Jango (which is only sensible) and Jango is still playing everything very close to the chest, but the mood is slightly softened by the sharing of tea - and if they’re feeling lavish, biscuits too.  Obi-Wan’s head is full of questions, like “What sort of man is this?  Ruthless bastard, or perhaps not totally ruthless, given the little boy?  Was he involved in an assassination attempt on a rather good friend of mine?  What can I find out about all this cloning business from him without letting him know how little I knew in the first place?” while Jango has two main questions, “How much does he know?” and “Am I going to have to do something about him?”  And he’d rather not have to do something about him, because he likes the look of him and this kind of cagey verbal game-playing is his idea of a bit of light fun.  Then again, he is a Jedi and they generally spell trouble - but there’s no reason not to enjoy being around him while the opportunity lasts. 

Oh, and while this conversation is going on, Boba is sitting on the floor nearby playing with his space Lego and every time Obi-Wan glances that way he’s looking daggers of suspicion at him.  Obi-Wan actually finds it rather amusing to be glared at like that by a cute little kid (he’s like an angry kitten) so he just smiles back and twinkles his eyes at him (Boba looks disgusted), and asks Jango how old his son is, and they agree that eleven’s a very nice age, before all the teen angst begins. 

Jango says calmly, “I’m not expecting to have much trouble with Boba,” and Obi-Wan replies, “Ha!  I wasn’t expecting to have this much trouble with Anakin,” so that gets them onto the difficulties and rewards of bringing up a bright and adventurous boy, whether as his dad or as a sort of older brother figure, and sharing stories about things Boba and Anakin have said and done, and before Obi-Wan knows it they’ve been chatting for an hour and he’s got completely side-tracked from finding out about clone skulduggery and has slipped into flirting with Jango fairly shamelessly.  Which doesn’t necessarily mean anything, Obi-Wan will flirt with more or less anything that can talk back, but he’s realising that there’s an awful lot of charisma about Jango and he’s beginning to feel fascinated. 

So no love at first sight, but in later years (because they do have later years together, Jango doesn’t lose his head) Obi-Wan likes to say, “You had me at ‘cuppa tea?’”

(but he really sealed the deal when he offered him a Tim Tam)

16.  Do they keep secrets? Lie? Cheat?

To start out, Jango is keeping all sorts of secrets and lies freely whenever he considers it necessary, or just convenient.  It’s only gradually, as he grows to like Obi-Wan personally more and more, that he begins to want to be honest with him.  For a while they have one of those “frenemies who encounter one another occasionally and engage in flirtatious banter and/or homoerotic combat” type relationships, but over the course of the Clone Wars as they meet again and again they get into situations where they need to trust and help each other, and Jango has cut ties with the Separatists because he prefers to be a free agent, and Obi-Wan begins to hope that if he had a strong enough personal reason, Jango might want to lay off the shady business and... and there he runs up against the fact that he shouldn’t be thinking in these terms, he can’t have that sort of relationship with Jango any more than he could with Satine, he just really really wants to.  And at least Jango doesn’t have a philosophical or ethical problem with violence. 

Obi-Wan isn’t actually celibate, he squares it with himself that his flirtations and anonymous hook-ups aren’t deep attachments or possessive relationships and therefore they are within the letter if not entirely the spirit of the rules, and the first few times it happens with Jango that justification works, but it starts to wear thin when he realises how much he misses him after he leaves.  When Jango, thinking he’ll surprise Obi-Wan when he unexpectedly sees him in a bar, walks in on one such hook-up, he’s angry and upset and Obi-Wan is rather shocked and thrilled to realise Jango considers this cheating, that he cares  enough to have hurt feelings about it.  He’d been thinking of himself as emotionally compromised without quite realising Jango couldn’t just take or leave him.  That’s really the “Oh” moment for Obi-Wan. 

So after a while they’re not keeping secrets from each other, but Obi-Wan is working very hard to keep the relationship a secret from the other Jedi, including his closest friends, and telling a lot of lies in the process (there is at least one comedy episode wherein Obi-Wan is trying to sneak away to see Jango and Anakin is trying to sneak away to see Padmé and each keeps getting in the other’s way without ever realising there is sneakiness on the other side). 

Not to mention keeping it a secret from all the clones.  Boy, is that a weird situation. 

36.  What’s their greatest strength as a couple? Their weakness?

They have excellent chemistry and both love sparking off each other, verbally and/or more physically.  They always find each other exciting and interesting.  Not so much a weakness as an obstacle is the fact that Boba still really doesn’t like Obi-Wan and doesn’t need a stepdad and thinks he has stupid hair (that part really stings).  He’s always been the apple of his father’s eye and never had to share his attention with anyone else he really cared about, so his dad actually falling in love with someone makes him feel insecure and jealous and grumpy.  Obi-Wan’s attempts to win him over are complicated by the fact that he can’t actually explain to anyone else why he’s trying so hard to be nice to snotty teen bounty hunting prodigy Boba Fett.  Boba really enjoys holding this over his head - but will never actually drop the blade because, as little as he likes his dad’s boyfriend, he is just grown-up enough to realise it would really hurt his dad if he spoiled things for them, and he doesn’t want to go that far.

37.  How much would they be willing to sacrifice for the other? Any lines they refuse to cross?

That’s the big problem, isn’t it?  Crossing lines.  Obi-Wan has a very strong moral, religious and cultural code, and he can’t sacrifice that without undoing his whole sense of identity.  He can be dangerously complacent about the rightness of the Jedi Order and the Republic it defends and persists in believing that if Jango only understood more about the Jedi he would accept that rightness.  From his perspective it often appears as if Jango doesn’t have a moral code at all. 

From Jango’s point of view, yes he does, but it’s very pragmatic and based more on principles of loyalty and personal integrity than on adherence to any laws or rules.  If he’s true to himself and to the small circle of people he cares about, that’s all that matters.  He cannot and will not compromise on his duty to Boba as a father, and that comes before even all those complicated issues of Mandalorian politics - but those issues will inevitably cause problems for them too, particularly given that even if he’s been able to get over his romantic feelings for Satine as his feelings for Jango grew, she’s still one of Obi-Wan’s oldest and dearest friends and he doesn’t want her to be overthrown.  And of course Jango is far from the only person who might want to overthrow her. 

Somehow all this is going to eventually involve a lightsaber/Darksaber duel between Maul and Jango in the Mandalorian throne room.  Holy shit that would be cool.  Fuck yeah!

uhhhh I don’t know whether or how any of this gets resolved but there’ll be ANGST and STURM UND DRANG and other German words for heavy shit.

[glorified-red]

Classify the boys as they types of fanfic writers you've encountered. :))))

Thank you so much for the request! Don't think I have to tell you how much it means to me to open up my Tumblr and see 10 asks sitting in my inbox.

The BatBoys as Fanfic Writers on Tumblr

word count: 1100~

warnings: none

Dick Grayson: The Popular One

Mostly known for his AU’s because he comes up with completely original AU’s no ones ever even considered writing about

Focuses more on plot rather than feelings, very dialogue heavy

Has done a coffee shop AU

Probably a mermaid AU if you dig deep enough

He likes to go into detail about minute things in his storyline that have nothing to do with the plot but it makes the read much more interesting

Longest taglist ever

Gets plenty of asks asking to be put on his taglist and he's always super sweet when answering them

Very, very interactive fanbase

Spends hours making headers just because it looks cool

Uses pretty dividers

His master list is so aesthetically pleasing you could stare at it for hours, probably even has a key

Dick doesn't like posting regularly, instead he likes to post whenever he has the time or feels like it

Makes up for lack of new content by reblogging things

Reblogs like a champ and WILL spam reblog

Leaves an insane amount of nice comments on every fic he reads

If he follows your blog you have his profile pic memorized because he likes to interact incredibly often 

Super bright pfp that's easily memorizable

Does not mind doing a face reveal

Huge following and very popular

Insane amount of mutuals and their biggest supporter 

Always does tag games and tags like twenty people

Super long bio

Jason Todd: The Realist

Has a “Dark Blog”

Jason likes to bring awareness to real world situations through his writing so it can get dark real quick on his blog

Makes sure to tag thoroughly and has plenty of warnings throughout his blog

Mood-boards Mood-boards Mood-boards Mood-boards

Probably doesn't use dividers but uses ----- or ~~~~

NSFW blog but super kinky that his summary/warnings can be a whole story in itself

Puts his own poetry up ONCE and his fanbase begged him for more because it was so good

Regularly has a poetry night where his fans can send some of their poetry in and Jason will give advice/react/add on etc

Has a horny night right after just to spite his followers

Jason has two separate blogs, one dark and one is a casual one for ‘normal’ fics so his fans can stay comfortable

Probably has a cheesy name for his dark blog like “After Hours” or “Dark Mode”

His profile picture is an aesthetic picture like smoke or a gun on his dark blog and the colors are just inverted on his light blog due to laziness

A good amount of followers but they’re all really interactive and act like a small family circle

Doesn't do tag games

He has like 3 mutuals he regularly talks to and one of them is an irl friend

Likes to remind his followers to drink water or go eat at random but then is the one to get snarky with them or bonk them on the head for getting too horny in his inbox

Writes about feelings a lot, goes very in depth to what his characters are feeling at any given moment, physically and mentally

Has his pronouns in his bio

Tim Drake: The Original Novelist

Very elaborate writer

Sucks at dialogue but makes up for it with his lore and descriptions

Does a ton of original work, has like ten original series’ in his master list with more than fifteen parts each

Makes his own worlds with his own lore but adds in the characters because he still wants to write for his fandom

Basically an author already

Uses words you have to google sometimes

Requests are closed and doesn't respond to feedback in his inbox but secretly rereads them

Tim’s master list is intricate with multiple links to other master lists

Pretty basic/boring headers/dividers to not distract from the links

Posts at random, can go a month or two without posting a fic and then posts nothing but fics for a week straight

Too scared to reblog things at first, barely ever likes things either

Uses the tags very often to scream into the void

Reblogs things that has nothing to do with the fandom he writes for that you'll get whiplash every time you open his blog from how random it can be

On the rare occasions Tim does comment or reblog, he’ll quote a specific line from the fic and scream about how good it was

His profile pic is a random ass photo he liked one day and refuses to change it even if it has nothing to do with his fandom

Refuses to do a face reveal but does post cosplay photos with his face blurred or a mask on

Decent following and only popular because of one original series that blew up

Tim had a few mutuals and hypes them up in private so he can tell them each and every moment he enjoyed in their fic

Does tag games but always says “I tag whoever wants to do this” because he never knows who to tag

His bio is literally just his masterlist because he has a separate bio in there

Damian Wayne: The Conversationist 

Mainly does headcanons but when he does sit down and write, its hella long and very well thought out

Loves writing body language and going into depth about the flaws of his characters

His writing is not fancy at first but its very immersive - one line in and you can easily picture everything, very good at imagery

Damian opens his askbox for headcanons from his followers and will disprove them with facts or add on with his version of canon 

Amazingly good at characterization as if he wrote the character himself 

No headers, he only uses titles

He doesn't even see the point in dividers until someone shows him then he decides to makes his own (insanely good btw)

Posts on a regular schedule to the point that you don't even need his notifs on, you can just open your phone on a certain and know Damian posted

Does not reblog things, its his own blog so why should he reblog other people's things? 

Strictly a writing blog so its very easy to scroll through and see nothing but fics

He has his pet as his profile picture

Not the biggest follower count but he doesn't care about it, he came to write nothing else

No mutuals, only people he knows of and interacts with but does not consider them mutuals

His bio is super simple, just “Writer of __ fandom”

Taglist ♡

@anothertimdrakestan

@bungunz

@red-hood-redemption​

[mochegato]

Hope on Board

Chapter 7 –  Polished, Public Appropriate First Date

Chapter 1     Chapter 6

“She will like whatever you do with her.  She’s pretty easy going.” Tim advised plopping down on the couch next to an upside Stephanie, poking her in her exposed side and receiving a warning kick to the head as a result.

Dick gave Tim a cynical look and ran his hands through his hair.  He groaned and ran to the mirror to fix his now messed up hair.  

“No cologne tonight?” Stephanie asked sniffing the air.

“No.  She asked if I would hold off on it for a few weeks until her stomach settles a bit more.”  He turned to look at Tim.  “And I want it to be special.  I want her to feel special.”  His anxiety apparent in his every fidget, hesitation, and tap of his foot.

“What, you don’t think making her feel constant nausea is special?” Stephanie asked with a smirk.

Dick threw his comb at her which she caught easily.  “No, I think I have to make up for making her feel like that.  She’s been miserable constantly.  I want her to feel good.”

“You think stuffy and pretentious is the way to go if she’s feeling miserable?” Stephanie asked curiously, trying to cock her head closer to right side up in order to see him better.

“It’ll be something nice for her.  This is going to work.  She’s going to love it,” he said more to reassure himself than convince the others. “She’ll get to dress up.  Get really nice food.  Everything she needs to feel better.”

“She told you she’s been miserable?” Damian asked suspiciously.  “Seems manipulative.  If she’s even really feeling sick at all.”  He batted away the pillow Stephanie threw at him without bothering to look up from his homework.

“She isn’t like that. And she’s pregnant you tiny gremlin, with your niece or nephew, if you remember.” Tim hissed.  “And she doesn’t need to latch onto anyone.  Give her ten years and she will be one of the leading names in fashion in the world.  Why do you think I partnered with her in the first place?  She doesn’t need Dick for money.”

“Enough.  I’m not discussing this tonight,” Dick thundered, scowling at Damian.  “She hasn’t said anything, but I can hear it in her voice whenever we talk and see it in her eyes whenever I see her.  She keeps saying she’s fine and plasters on this fake smile, like she doesn’t want me to worry.”

Damian scoffed, but refrained from continuing.  Tim spoke up instead.  “She didn’t fake the vomit before our meeting earlier today… or after.”

Dick’s head whipped over to him.  “She threw up in your office today?  Twice?”

“In the bathroom, but yeah.” Tim nodded in confirmation.  “I don’t think she expected Tam to see her or tell me about it.  She threw up then went into our meeting like nothing was wrong. As soon as the meeting was over and I’d returned to the office she rushed to the bathroom and Tam said was just heaving that time.”

Steph nodded. “Probably didn’t have anything in her stomach to throw up anymore.  Happens a lot.  I don’t know if it makes it better or worse.  They both really sucked.  It all really sucked actually.  The idea of eating made you unbelievably sick, but not eating made it worse.”  She righted herself on the couch, throwing her legs over Tim’s lap and leaning against the arm rest.  “And don’t even get me started on those bitches who don’t get any morning sickness.”

Dick hummed in consideration. His brow furrowed deeper the more he thought about it.  He really didn’t want her hiding things from him, which admittedly was rather hypocritical of him, but if she was suffering, he wanted to know.  “If it’s as bad as Tim says, maybe you should let her decide where you go instead.  There’s probably food she can’t eat or makes her feel sicker than others and there may be something that her body is craving.  And it may change from moment to moment.  It did for me.”

Dick gave her a small, understanding smile.  “Thanks, Steph.  I’ll think about it.  Now, wish me luck.”  He shot them a nervous smile and left to pick up Marinette for their first date.

<><><><><> 

“Are you sure you’re okay with this,” Marinette asked again.

Dick laughed and shook his head.  “I told you, it’s fine.  I like Batburger.  This is great.”  

“But you put so much effort into something nicer.  And you definitely dressed for something more elegant,” she moaned.

He pulled her into a side hug as he guided her to a place to sit in the park.  “I hate pretentious.  I’d rather just hang around and have fun… I mean, unless you like fancy restaurants, then…”

Marinette cut him off with a laugh.  “No. No, I don’t.  I mean every once in a while is fun and I love the outfits at big events obviously, but I’d rather just do something where we can relax and have fun.  Act like ourselves, not a polished, public appropriate version of ourselves.”

Dick smiled and motioned to a bench with a nice view of the park.  She nodded and sat sideways on the bench so she could talk to him better. “You mean polished, public appropriate like cursing repeatedly at the host’s son at the biggest social event of the year?” He smirked at her.

Marinette groaned and hid her head in her hands.  “Don’t remind me.  I can’t believe I did that.”

Dick laughed and wrapped his arms around her to pull her into a comforting hug.  “It’s fine.  Very justified… considering.”  Marinette made a noncommittal grunt and leaned into his chest, lowering her hands slightly.  “But I agree,” he started slowly, “occasionally is nice, but relaxed is better.  And galas especially are draining.  They’re so boring and annoying.  Maybe next time… we can go together?” he finished quietly. His heart was pounding in his chest as he asked.  Was he being too forward?  Was it too forward to ask the mother of your child to attend a family event?  That wasn’t too forward, right?  He didn’t want to scare her off on their first date.  

Marinette looked up at him in surprise.  “You…” She smiled at him for a few moments.  She turned back to her food and pulled out her batburger.  She looked back at him with a smirk.  “Pretty confident this date’s going to go well, huh?”

Dick blinked a few times. He chuckled and gave her a charming smile, pulling his burger out as well.  “I’m hopeful.”  

Marinette looked at the burger before she took a bite and shook her head.  “I can’t believe you have a restaurant themed after your heroes.”

“Vigilantes,” he corrected her.

“Vigilantes, right. Sorry.  I’m not used to that.  Paris and New York had heroes not vigilantes.”  She moaned happily as she took a bite of her burger.  “Oh my God.  I don’t know if it’s just the pregnancy, but this is the best thing ever.”

Dick laughed and took a bite of his food.  “That’s definitely the pregnancy.”

She hummed again as she rapidly ate her first small burger.  “I don’t care.  This is exactly what I needed.”

Dick watched her for a few moments before taking another bite himself.  “So, how was your day today?  I heard you had a meeting with Tim,” he asked in as casual tone as he could manage.

Marinette’s eyes lit up. She rapidly chewed the bite that was in her mouth before launching into a description.  “It was great!  We finalized the designs today, well as much as we can considering I’m just now seeing the fabrics they designed, which means I can start working on making the designs.  Tim had some really great suggestions and now we’re starting to plan for the show for fashion week.  Thankfully, a team at WE is handling all that so I can focus on the designs.  I have more than enough time for the show, but I’ll need to have options in my store for people to buy once the show is over and that will take time.”

She took another quick bite of her second child sized burger and started bouncing in her seat.  “I’m so excited to get my hands on the textiles. I’d only been briefed on what they were designed to do and felt samples before today.  Next week I’ll get to actually work with them.  Oh, and Tim introduced me to the man who did most of the designing for the textiles.  That was amazing.  I really liked speaking with him.  I’m really looking forward to working with him more.  He was so knowledgeable and had great suggestions and considered my suggestions.  It was really enlightening for both of us, I think.  He might go back and adjust his designs based on my suggestions.  It felt like a really good understanding and respect. I was so nervous about signing the contract considering I am so new and I’ve never done… well anything, and WE is so huge.  But I think this is going to be really great for both of us.”  

Dick felt his chest tighten slightly.  Not that he was jealous.  And there was no reason to be.  This was a work colleague.  It was important that she had a good relationship with her colleagues in order to succeed and he wanted her time at WE to be enjoyable.  But that did nothing to lessen the tightening in his chest. “So, who was the designer?”  Was that nonchalant?  That was totally nonchalant, right?  He was cool.  It was fine. The woman he liked and was carrying his baby was having enlightening, amazing conversations with another man. That was fine.  Good even.  That was ideal for her.  He absolutely did not want to punch the enlightened, amazing man in his amazing, enlightened jaw.

“Lucius Fox.  He’s the sweetest man and so smart.  I don’t know how he thinks of all the things he does but it’s amazing to watch.”

Dick let out the breath he had been holding and gave her a beaming smile.  “Yeah, Lucius is amazing.  We all love him.  He’s a close friend of the family.”

“I can see why.” She nodded taking another bite.

“Anything else happen?” he prompted casually.

She considered his question. “That’s pretty much everything.  I can go into more detail on things if you want me to, but yeah, pretty much.  How was your day?  You never told me what you do.”

“Oh, I… do security with Bruce… in my own division.” He gave her a disarming smile.  It was his standard lie, but for some reason it felt wrong to use it.

“You work at WE, too?” Her eyes lit up with excitement.  “Maybe I’ll bump into you next time!  Or maybe we can get lunch together.”

“We can try.  My hours are odd.” He winced internally.  The lie was going to be harder to maintain if she was going to be there frequently.  He looked up to continue deferring the possibility but got caught in her eyes.  They were so bright and hopeful.  He couldn’t let that fade away.  He was sure she would understand, but he didn’t want her to have to.  He could come into the building more often, make the lie more realistic.  He smiled back at her.  “But I can make sure I’m there for that.  I can pick you up and take you to WE.  I can walk you to Tim’s office and give you a kiss for good luck before you start your day.”

“That sounds like an incredibly lucky start to my day.” She snuggled closer to him and gazed up in his eyes.

“It will definitely make my day better.  Anytime I see you, it makes my day better, happier,” he said earnestly, running his fingers up her arm.

She beamed at him. “Yeah?”

He looked lovingly in her eyes as he traced along her cheeks and jaw, resting his hand gently around her throat.  “Yeah,” he whispered back.

She bit her lip and looked down, a blush settling on her cheeks.  She suddenly swallowed heavily and threaded her fingers through his. She moved their hands to her lap with a reassuring squeeze.  She breathed out slowly a few times before finally looking back up with a strained smile. Dick furrowed his brow.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” She diverted her eyes and took a small bite of her burger.  

He didn’t need to be a trained detective to read the signs she was giving out, the sudden shift from affectionate to slightly closed off.  From leaning into his touch to leaning away from him.  Her soft, warm smile turned tight and strained.  Her breathing had turned labored.  Her relaxed posture was rigid.  He would think he had done something and she was uncomfortable but she was still squeezing his hand.  “Marinette…” he urged her softly.

“Sorry,” she grumbled, looking down with a guilty look on her face.

“Morning sickness?”  She nodded, still not looking him in the eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It’s not going to last forever, just a few more weeks, and… I like you touching me.  It’s just the pressure on my neck triggered a reflex. In a few weeks it’ll be fine and I don’t want you to think you should stop,” she explained, the blush on her cheeks now from embarrassment.

Dick smiled roguishly at her. “You like me touching you, huh?” Marinette rolled her eyes but her deep blush betrayed her pleasure at his comment.  Dick brushed the bangs out of her eyes, and let his fingers linger in her hair, making sure not to put too much pressure on her.  “Marinette, it’s okay to tell me the truth.  I want to know.  It isn’t a burden you’re laying on me by being honest.  You aren’t just complaining.  You’re telling me the truth.  You’re letting me be part of this.  We’re in this together, aren’t we?”

“Yes, of course,” she answered automatically.

“Then I want the truth. You’re not going to scare me off. I’m not going anywhere.  I’m not going to be disappointed in you or the baby. I’m not going to get frustrated and pull away.  I’m here for the whole messy, miserable, chaotic, amazing, miraculous process.  I want to support you, both of you.  So if you’re so sick you’re throwing up before and after meetings,” he gave her a pointed look. “I want to help.  I can pick you up or bring you food or interrupt the meeting so it doesn’t go long.”

Marinette looked down guiltily and started fidgeting with her fingers.  “Tim knew about that, huh?”

“Tim knows everything that goes on at WE,” he confirmed.

Marinette let out a long, deep sigh.  “I didn’t want him to know.”

“Why not?”

“I… I can still do my job,” she insisted.  “I don’t want special treatment because I’m carrying his niece or nephew.  I want to get better and make sure this project is successful, not get coddled.”

Dick opened him mouth then shut it again.  “Tim would go soft on you.  So would Lucius,” Dick agreed.  “But only if they thought you were doing your best.  If they thought you were shirking or not putting your best effort in, they would let you know.  But they aren’t going to push you into the hospital.  They wouldn’t do that even if you weren’t pregnant.  Okay?”

Marinette gave him an unconvinced smile but nodded.  “Okay,” she agreed.

“Alright.  So, how are you feeling?”

She shrugged.  “Right now, pretty close to okay.”

“So… not good?”

“There is no good. There’s just less terrible.  And this is just the first week of it.  I’m scared I’m going to have to start taking medicine for it and I’d really prefer not to do that.  They say it’s safe but… I don’t want to take anything unless I absolutely have to.  Hey, do you think I can get another burger?”  Dick smiled and started to pull out his second burger for her before Marinette put her hand on his arm to stop him.  “Actually, ignore that.”

He shook his head at her again.  “Marinette, you can have my burger if you want another one.”

She looked at him self-consciously.  “I know. Thank you for that, but if I eat too much it’ll make me feel sick too.  It’s better to maybe come back another time or get something small on the way home.”

Dick nodded. “Okay, if you’re sure.”  She nodded and reached into her bag, pulling out the last item in it.  She giggled and held it up for Dick to see. “Hey, baby’s first toy!” He exclaimed excitedly.

She looked at him with soft eyes and nodded.  “Baby’s first toy,” she repeated dreamily.  

Dick reached out to rub her belly but stopped just short of touching her.  “Is it… is it okay for me to…” he nodded toward his hand and her belly.

Marinette pointedly eyed his arm that were already wound around her waist, but his gaze was so earnest, her teasing comment died on her lips.  “Yeah, yeah it’s okay,” she whispered softly instead.

He ran his hand over her belly reverently.  This was his first time running his hand over the baby.  Her belly was still flat, no external indication there was more developing beneath the surface.  He could feel her lithe muscles through her shirt.  But underneath the muscles was their baby.  Their baby.  Their baby was growing and developing.  And then one day in no time at all the baby would be there, in his arms, looking at him, trusting him, needing him to protect it. And he would do anything he had to in order to make sure his child was safe.

He looked back up at Marinette with a warm smile.  He tightened his arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him.  She cupped his cheek and stretched up to kiss him.

She hummed contentedly as she pulled away and laid her head on his shoulder.  He laid his head on hers and squeezed her again.  Marinette picked up the figurine to get a better look at it.  “It’s Nightwing!” She held up the small black and blue figurine for Dick to see.

Dick shook his head out of his stupor and sent her a sly smile.  “Yeah, I remember you saying he’s your favorite.”

“Oh my God.  I don’t even remember talking about him.  How embarrassing was I?”

“How embarrassing do you get?”

She stuck her tongue out at him and shoved a few fries in her mouth.  “Sorry can’t,” she motioned to her full mouth, “eating.”

Dick laughed and stole a fry from her.  Marinette gasped in mock outrage.  “You would steal a pregnant woman’s fries?  I think I need to call Nightwing to take you away.”  She winked at him.

“You’re right that was ungentlemanly of me.  Here take my fries in reparation.”  He pushed his fries over to her.

“I was kidding.  I’m not going to steal half your dinner.”

“It just means you have more for me to steal.” He smirked at her as he reached over her and past his fries to steal a few more of her fries.

She giggled and took one of his fries.  “Who’s your favorite?”

“Mine? Oh, um…” he had to think about that.  “Wonder Girl, I guess.”

“Oh I didn’t know we could include heroes.  That changes my answer.  Why is she your favorite?” She turned back to her fries missing the pout that settled on Dick’s face.

“She’s got really good moves in battle.  She uses just enough force, but not too much.  Like she is more concerned about hurting anyone unnecessarily.  But she’s really protective of her team and goes out of her way to help anyone who needs it.  Or maybe I just have a thing for black haired, blue eyed, kickass women.” He smirked at her.  He stared at her for a few moments and he knew he shouldn’t.  He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t stop himself.  “But let’s go back.  Who’s your favorite if you’re including heroes?”

“Chat Noir.”

“Wow no hesitation there at all.  That… that hurts.  I feel betrayed.  And why is he your favorite?”

“That I’m choosing a Parisian hero instead of a Gothamite?” She raised an eyebrow.  Dick mentally cursed himself.  She didn’t know he was Nightwing.  Of course she wouldn’t get the reference.  Marinette missed his grimace as she reached back to grab more fries to eat as she talked.  “He’s a really good guy.  Really sweet and kind.  I guess kind of like Wonder Girl.  He went out of his way to help everyone he came across, though I suppose all the Paris heroes did that.  He had amazing control over his powers and was so compassionate.  Always thinking of others before himself.  He saved me a few times.  Used to stop by my balcony to talk sometimes… eat some free pastries. He was a friend.  We kind of grew up together… I mean… as much as a hero can with a civilian.”

She gave him what she hoped was a convincing smile.  It wasn’t. Dick made a mental note to do some research on Chat Noir and see how close he was to Marinette.  He cringed again.  That sounded pretty creepy.  He couldn’t do that.  “I haven’t even met Nightwing,” Marinette continued oblivious to Dick’s inner turmoil, “so Chat wins by default.”  She looked at the figurine again and cocked her head to the side.  “I need to make some Miraculous team dolls for the baby.”

“Should I be jealous?” Dick raised his brow playfully.

“Over me or the Parisian hero dolls or the pastries?”  Her smile was coy but her eyes were sultry.

“How good were the pastries?” He leaned closer to her.

“Very.” She leaned in closer. “My parents make amazing pastries. So do I.”

“Maybe you can show me sometime.”

She nodded “I’d like to. I just need to know what you like.”

He traced her jaw with his finger. “I like you.”

She groaned and rolled her eyes, but moved closer to him with rosy cheeks. “You are so cheesy.”

He gave her a cheeky grin. “I haven’t even started yet.  I like your eyes.” He slowly kissed both of her eyes.  “I like your nose.” He kissed the tip of her nose.  “I like your cheeks.” He kissed both cheeks and brushed his thumbs over her cheeks after he kissed them.  “I like your ears.” He gently grazed his teeth over her ear’s shell.  His felt a warming in his chest when her breath hitched. “I like your jaw.” He laid small kisses along her jaw to the other side of her face.  “I like this spot right here a lot.” She sighed happily as he ghosted nose over a spot below her ear and kissed it.  “I like you.” He pulled her in for a passionate kiss.  She whimpered as his tongue slipped between her lips to meet hers.  She trailed her hands across his shoulders and up his neck slowly until she reached his hair.  She pulled gently to pull him closer.  His arms tightened around her waist, pulling her into his lap.

After a few moments she pulled away breathing hard and rested her head on his shoulder, focusing on the ground.  Dick waited for his breath to level back out and leaned close to her ear.  “And chocolate.  I like chocolate.”

She nodded slightly, still not looking at him and breathing deeply.  His brow furrowed in concern.  He gently rubbed her back.  “Marinette?” She hummed quietly and held up a finger to let him know to wait.  He gave her a nervous smile.  “That bad, huh?”

She chuckled lightly and took another deep breath before looking back up at him.  “Maybe we should hold off on tongues for a few weeks too.”

“Ah,” he nodded in understanding and cringed.  “Gag reflex.”

Marinette hummed and settled back against his shoulder again.  “And everything triggers it right now.  Breathing triggers it.  Thinking triggers it.  Ugh.  I can’t wait for this part to be over.”

Dick wrapped his arms tighter around her, but made sure to leave them light enough not to put too much pressure on her stomach.  “Sorry you have to go through this.  I promise to work on making my kissing less gag inducing.”

She giggled into his shoulder, enjoying the feeling of his chest shaking with laughter as well.  She pulled away just enough to look him in the eyes and rested her arms around his shoulders.  “Chocolate.  I can make that happen.”

Dick frowned at her.  “You just almost threw up again.  Maybe don’t push yourself.  I’m more worried about you than getting some pastries,” his voice was suddenly tender.

Marinette smiled up at him and ran her fingers along his cheek, settling her hand on his neck.  “I think it’s funny that you think I’m going to wait to start baking things for you or designing things for you.  I’ve already started making plans and coming up with ideas.”

“I’m not going to convince you to take it easy am I?”  She gave a resolute shake of her head.  Dick shook his head and gave a defeated sigh. “Then, I’m sure I’ll love whatever you come up with.” He leaned down to give her a chaste kiss.

Chapter 8

Tags:

@dickinette-february @demonicbusiness @ichigorose @iloontjeboontje @ladybug-182

[notepadsandtealeaves]

Damian Wayne x GN!Reader in: Beautiful (Finish What You Start)

12 Days of Batmas || Day 6—Baking Cookies

MINORS/AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT || 18+ ONLY ||

↞ previous: a most discerning customer || ugly sweaters

|| ao3 version || 12 days m.list | batboys tag | main blog ||

|| dick day 6 | jay day 6 | tim day 6 ||

“You’re beautiful like this, you know that?”

His father always told him to never be the one to start a fight, but always be the one to finish it.

↠ Requested By: Not a soul lol ↠ Reader Gender: Neutral ↠ Content Type: SFW fluff ((but my blog’s 18+ if minors want to consume my sfw stuff while still respecting my wishes of them staying out of this space, they can head over to my AO3)) ↠ CWs: None ↠ Betas? Nah, we don’t do that here. ↠ Total WC: 2.3k~

Headcanon || WC: 1.3k~

🌟 As we all well know, this man is not given to doing things by half measures, so naturally baking’s no exception.

🌟 Like Jay he is an excellent cook all the way around, although he won’t lie—he’d much rather pay someone else to cook his meals.

Cooking is fine at all—can even be fun and-or relaxing if he’s in the right mood—but there are only so many hours in the day.

Eating is obviously a necessity, but the preparation of meals is one of the few things he doesn’t mind entrusting (thoroughly vetted) professionals to tend to. He’d much rather spend what little free time he has with you.

🌟 Now if you wanted to cook with him, well he certainly wouldn’t be opposed. Domestic ish like that is his silent jam.

He honestly thinks that you (and the rest of his family/close friends) don’t know just how much he loves domesticity—or maybe he does know and is content for you all to live in the illusion lol. Yeah, knowing him that second one is probably closer to the truth.

He loves to get in the kitchen with you, and though we know he’s p. much hardwired to take the lead on most things, this is a task that he’s more than willing to share a bit more equally.

Ofc if you want to leave the lion’s share of the work to him he’s cool with that too. In all honesty he doesn’t care how things are divvied up as it’s not the ‘how’ that he’s interested in, but rather the ‘who’ and the ‘what’ (i.e. you and the time that you’re spending together).

Some days this sees one of you being the other’s sous chef, other times you’re both making separate dishes that’ll eventually come together to make a meal, and others still you’re just hanging back and watching the other work. Again, it’s your company that he’s really after—everything else is just details.

🌟 He also really likes to surprise you with homemade meals from time to time.

Your schedules don’t allow for you to share meals as often as either of you would like, unfortunately.

Besides having a personal chef on call (#richboytingz, amirite lol), you have standing reservations at p. much every restaurant in the city, and ofc takeout is always a thing—but even with all those options nothing comes close to having a meal prepared by a loved one.

The thought, care, and time that goes into the crafting of a dish… It all just hits different, ya know?

He knows how he feels whenever you make something for him, even if it’s just a mug of tea, and he wants to bestow those same feelings of love and immense cherishment onto you as well.

So yeah, expect to get a nice home cooked meal at least a few times a month, though if he can feasibly swing it he’ll definitely do it.

🌟 But this is all only tangentially related to the theme of the HC so let’s move on!

🌟 Baking with Damian is actually a surprisingly chill endeavor.

Aside from wanting to use scales, metric measurements (which honestly is the only system of measurements he recognizes as valid in general lol), and cookie scoops he isn’t too fussed about things.

I think part of this is due to the fact that he’s so naturally precise with everything he does, so there’s no need for any extra effort on his part. Plus cookies are like the lowest tier of desserts when it comes to preparation. There are only so many ways to make ‘em, after all, so as long as you’re following the recipe everything should be fine, ya know?

🌟 The above-mentioned facts mixed with his artistic abilities means that you get picture perfect creations every time—at least as far as the cookies he personally makes goes lol.

If you’re like me and have less than steady hands and-or no artistic abilities of your own don’t worry! He’s not here to judge, and even if he were these cookies were made by you, his most beloved partner, which makes them beautiful by default in his not-so-humble opinion.

Yes, he does make the rules, and no, he will not be taking questions (and certainly not criticism) at this time, or ever.

If you want pointers on decorating he’ll give them to you, naturally (Decorating Bootcamp 3: Oh Hell No!*), but if you want to keep things chill that’s totally fine too. So long as you’re enjoying yourself he’s down for whatever.

🌟 As far as preferences go…

He’s not a big fan of a lot of the traditional holiday flavor profiles so anything with mint or a copious amount of sugar is a no-go for him eating-wise. He’s more of a spice person like Jay so snickerdoodles are a go-to year round honestly.

He loathes the name tho—snickerdoodle. How absurd. He always feels like a fool whenever he has to order the damned things which is why he either leaves someone else to do his dirty work or just asks Alfie to make him some—and even then it’s via text lmao.

Dames: Pennyworth, could you perhaps make me a batch of those cookies I like?

Alfie: It would be no problem, Master Damian. But which cookies are you referring to?

Dames: You know, the spiced ones. With the cinnamon and sugar coating.

*Cue Alfred not responding and Dami getting more and more frustrated as he continues to describe the cookie in as much detail as possible until finally–*

Dames: Snickerdoodles. I would like a batch of snickerdoodles.

He legit dies inside a little bit every time he has to type/say the word lmao…

Anyways, he likes snickerdoodles, and up until he tried a molasses cookie he would’ve said that they were his favorite of all time.

He never would’ve thought that cloves and cookies would have such a delicious cross-section, but here we are lol. The mix of the heavily spiced cookie and the crisp, yet chewy texture from the sugar coating is the perfect combination. He’ll also eat these year round, but the smell of them really does give him fall/winter vibes.

((As an aside molasses cookies are THE SHIT. This is the recipe I use and they always come out great; plus you can make them as chewy or crispy as you want, just adjust the size of the ball and how much you flatten it. Pair it with a nice mug of Earl or Lady Grey or really any black or chai tea and you will ascend clean away from this plane, if only for a moment lol…))

🌟 As far as decorating goes, he prefers to take something sturdy like a shortbread (a.k.a. one of the most boring cookies in the world—his words, not mine, I love those things) and basically turn it into a canvas.

He’ll flood the top with royal icing and let it harden so that he has a nice blank workspace, and then he’ll paint some of the most elaborate scenes you’ve ever seen in such a small space onto them with edible inks. It’s super impressive, but what’s even more impressive is when he makes his 3D creations.

The beginning process is the same, but instead of painting he’ll do a light sketch before layering on more and more icing until he’s made something that you can’t even believe is a gd cookie. It’s always too pretty to eat which is good because that much royal icing is hell on the teeth and the taste leaves a lot to be desired lol….

🌟 ((Coming in again to drop a few links to some incredible cookie art. This is the type of shit I watch when I should be sleeping lol))

Celebrating Black Women’s Hairstyles by The Graceful Baker

The Queen of Hearts/Heartslabyul Inspired Cookies by Yuyu’s Sugar Art

Christmas Village Cookies by My little bakery

pokemon macaron and royal icing “Alolan Vulpix” by WHIP SUGAR icingcookies

Beautiful (Finish What You Start) || WC: 900~

You watch with rapt attention as Damian’s hand flows over the unconventional canvas. Firm, sure strokes follow along lines that exist only in his mind’s eye. His efforts are a skeletal display, merely a setup for something yet more amazing than what is already there.

He moves on to making his icing next, adjusting measurements and blending colors before divvying it all up into various bags. It’s an involved and somewhat long process, but he doesn’t seem to notice or mind, and you’re much the same. Though it’d probably be a boring thing for anyone else to observe, you can’t help but to be enraptured by the tedious actions because it’s him.

It’s him and he’s happy—content in a way that you don’t get to see outside of your personal interactions nearly enough.

Though his eyes are focused, his face is soft, far softer than the usual assured, but ultimately indifferent mien that he chooses to project most of the time. Even his voice seems lighter as he explains to you why royal icing is the superior decorating medium when it comes to cookies.

“–also has a higher tensile strength. An odd attribute to discuss when talking about icing, I know, but it’s actually quite important when you’re looking at things through the lens of a decorator. The more stretch the icing has, the better control you have over its thickness. If you want thinner, more delicate line work then–”

“You’re beautiful like this, you know that?”

It’s a thought gone verbal without any cognizance on your part, but it’s just as well. He really is breathtaking when he’s wrapped up in something he loves, be it his work as a Robin or his artistic endeavors, though you have to admit that there’s something especially striking about him in this exact moment. Maybe it’s the way his smile comes so readily or the gentleness in his eyes. Or could it be the way his hands—so large and scarred and strong, so damn strong, and capable of so damn much—soften themselves into something delicate enough to cradle porcelain?

It’s all of this, you’re sure, and a million other little things that only you are allowed to witness. You hold these moments close to your heart, guarding them like the precious and rare treasures that they are.

For his part, the beautiful boy before you stalls harder than a malfunctioning engine. In this moment he is the embodiment of the age old phrase concerning deer and headlights. And just like a prey creature he’s gone stock-still with the only movement coming in the form of his pretty green eyes, blown almost comically wide, blinking owlishly at you. Though his mouth is still parted around whatever it was he was about to say, no sound is coming out, and likewise his hands have frozen mid-motion on the bowl he’d been tending to. To top it all off his cheeks have darken with a blush that can just be seen through the dusk of his skin.

Beautiful. So very, very beautiful…

Even flustered as he is, he’s just as captivating as ever—maybe even more so for the rarity of it. It’s not often that you’re able to fluster him so, and you find yourself reveling in this small victory. Playful digits travel along the strong line of his jaw until they’re tucked under his chin, and you make a quip about catching flies as you urge his mouth to close with a curl of your fingers.

In typical Damian fashion he recovers swiftly and so fully that the tables are turned faster than you can ever hope to perceive it, let alone react. Before you even have time to process the change, your hand is being captured and your body bracketed in between his heavily muscled frame and the counter. His free arm secures itself around your middle to pull you in close—so close that you can feel his heartbeat, so close that your breaths become a shared thing taken in tandem.

“You think me beautiful, beloved?” The question is murmured against the curve of your ear at a volume meant solely for you.

Having absolutely no trust in your voice at this point, you give a shaky nod. He chuckles at this—a deep, rolling sound that you feel all the way down to the soles of your feet—before pulling back just enough to see you in full. You’re sure that your face is doing something wholly embarrassing, but you suppose that’s the point of all this. Turnabout is fair play, after all.

“Hmm, well that’s very kind of you to say, dear heart—I appreciate it, truly,” he tells you between a smattering of sweet, little kisses. He sprinkles them over the whole of your face before finally, finally settling on your lips. This kiss is deep and lingering, one that leaves you gasping for air even as you vow to forsake breathing forever if it means he’ll never stop–

But he does stop, much to your dismay and his amusement. Damian takes in your pout through impish eyes, telling you that he has to get back to work before his icing dries out–

“But worry not, beloved, I won’t leave you unattended for long. Give me, say… half an hour– Now, now,” he tuts when you cling to him with a whine, “none of that. You’re the one that started all of this, after all, but rest assured that I’ll be the one to finish it.”

He gives you one last parting kiss before releasing you altogether, leaving you to reevaluate your decisions on shaky legs. You’ve brought this on yourself, you know, but you aren’t even mad. And how can you be with such a delicious promise looming on the horizon?

Up Next:

🌟 Day 7: Old Cats, New Tricks, Same Old Bullshit || Decorating Your Home

“So you’re gonna try it again this year, huh?”

…so that happened…

© notepadsandtealeaves, 2021 || Please do not repost, translate, or otherwise alter or distribute my works without my express permission. And for the love of god keep it away from Youtube and TikTok lol…

[slipping-through-my-fingertips]

If Glee did a Taylor Swift Tribute Episode...

Just my opinions, feel free to add on to them. I know I have some fellow gleek swifties following me. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Obviously they have to do some of the hits but I think some people would have some out of the box picks.

*This post assumes all Taylor songs are available to choose from as of May 14th 2021 but focuses on Taylor’s first 6 albums (if you want more glee and Taylor I have fics with that; LOVER and FOLKLORE) and takes liberties with where this episode’s placement is in terms of canon. But since it’s all made up anyway who cares (but Blaine’s involved so I guess season 3 idk).*

Okay, trying to do a full plot here (completely inspired by @kurtdeservesbetter head canon posts. I hope this lives up to her fabulous posts). This will be my version of glee so everyone gets solos and Rachel can’t hog the spotlight. Also, this is about to be super long (both post wise and episode wise).

Let’s open the first episode with

...Ready For It because the New Directions are in their reputation era. Santana does the opening cough centerstage. Everyone in black and/or camo green outfits (can you just see Kurt in a dark green bedazzled snake jacket, Santana in a black leather dress, and Tina digging out some goth clothes for people to borrow?), snakes everywhere, but probably no Karyn (she just wouldn’t fit on the auditorium stage). Santana takes the first verse but we have Blaine step up for verse 2. (I just love their friendship in the Michael tribute, cute little badasses are BACK. Also him singing “Burton to this Taylor” is such a Klaine thing to do).

Everyone is still dressed in their rep outfits but we’re in the choir room now. Mr. Schue is talking about why Taylor had to disappear and clap back with rep, how rough the industry is for women and tries to uplift the ladies in the room and encourage them to not silence their voices (cue snarky comment from Santana about Rachel needing to be silent).

Then, Mr. Schue goes on about how you can only understand how Taylor got to her rep era by studying her earlier music. So we have a performance of Tim McGraw. Simple, front of the choir room performance, maybe Puck does guitar, and sitting on stools.

Everyone is surprised to find out how pumped Sam is for this assignment but he is all over it. “It's about time we did some country in this room.” Cue Sam and Quinn at her locker talking about their ‘date’ last night, Sam’s all cute and teasing and Quinn is not into it. She tells him it was fun but she was wrong, they shouldn’t do this again. In turn, he does a wonderful performance of Bye Bye Baby. He thought it was more but clearly he’s “a part of her past.”

Then, we’re in the empty choir room. Tina and Mike are there. (I love their cutesy duets) They sing Everything Has Changed and it’s utterly adorable. Can’t you hear Mike asking Tina if she’s “good to go” like Ed does? And while we’re on the subject of cute duets and RED, we flash to the courtyard to see Santana and Brittany. They turn Stay Stay Stay into a duet. “I’ve been loving you for quite some time,” “before you I only dated self-indulgent takers who took all their problems out on me,” “no one else is gonna love me when I’m mad, mad, mad,” and “it’s occurring to me that I’d like to hang out with you for my whole life” it’s perfect for them. Adorable ladies kisses are had.

Let’s toss in some boy drama for fun. Idk shit about football but somehow Puck is praised by their coach over Finn, which gets him all pissy, and Puck’s upset and jealous because Finn is back with Quinn now (this is why Quinn shut Sam now earlier, she changed her mind). Can we say duet of Bad Blood? “So if you’re coming my way...just don’t.”

After their dramatics, we have a Brittany solo in the choir room. It’s after school at this point (or whenever glee club is). Brittany does You’ll Always Find You Way Back Home.

When she finishes Mr. Schue tries to explain that it’s a Hannah Montana song. Britt injects that it’s confusing how she’s really Miley Cryus “like how can you be two people at once?”. Before Mr. Schue can continue, Kurt pipes up “you never specified that the songs had to be sung by Taylor Swift, just that they were her songs.” Mercedes adds, “yeah, Mr. Schue, Taylor wrote that song.” Mr. Schue concedes that he has once again been outwitted by Kurtcedes. The friends do their little hand shake thing.

With a sigh, Mr. Schue asks Mike if he’s ready to go and Mike asks to take things to the auditorium for some dancing room. Everyone’s on stage with him and it’s kind of a group number but Mike is the focus. It’s Shake It Off. All inspired by the music video. He’s tried to fit in elsewhere (i.e. football, with the smart kids, etc..) but he’s really himself in glee when he’s dancing.

Part 2 of Taylor Tribute Episodes

We begin with an ALL GIRL NUMBER of A Place In This World. Just because.

Glee is dismissed and we zoom in on Artie. He’s watching Tina with Mike and Brittany with Santana. Both Tina and Britt have broken his heart by this point. So, he’s rolling down the halls singing A Perfectly Good Heart. While Artie’s soloing, we cut to Rachel watching Finn and Quinn chatting. Artie’s song playing over this scene. Rachel is feeling similar to him at the moment.

She’s pretty sure Finn dumped her to be with Quinn again even though Kurt and Blaine told her they saw Quinn and Sam at the movies last night together making out in the back row. Fine, if that’s how he’s going to be, she doesn’t need him anyway. Cue Mr. Perfectly Fine. Uber dramatic solo performance walking around McKinley’s halls watching Finn and Quinn together ending in the auditorium alone. (see what I did there, both broken hearted peeps singing a song with Perfectly in it (this was not at all planned, actually, happy accident))

After some good old heartbreak, we have Kurt and Blaine on screen. Blaine walks into the auditorium to see Kurt sitting on the edge of the stage. “What’s all the fuss?” he asks from the door. Kurt had texted him “EMERGENCY.” The band starts to play and Kurt just starts singing, Enchanted. It’s time to profess their love for each other, just like they sing Perfect together in the car, this duet needs no audience. Blaine catches up and sings while walking towards his boyfriend. It’s very reminiscent of past New Directions competitions where they come in from the back and make their way to the stage. “Wondering if you knew I was enchanted to meet you?” Kurt and Blaine both know the answer to that question now but just a few months ago they were both wondering that exact thing.

They kiss before we cut to Kurt and Blaine walking hand in hand into the choir room where everyone else is already. Mr. Schue is praising the performances thus far and of course asks Rachel if she’s ready to solo (some practice for her completion solo). This causes an uproar from Mercedes and Santana. Another classic argument of how she gets too many solos. Mr. Schue tries to shut them both down but Santana tells Rachel to watch her back, and we get three very different reactions to this. 

All three girls storm out.

First, we visit Mercedes alone in the courtyard. This solo is all about being hurt over this great thing in her life (glee) and her being denied happiness within that club. Thus, Cold As You. (mostly to indulge myself because she’d blow us away with this song).

Next, Rachel in the auditorium. A huge bridge on stage (very Speak Now Tour of her), belting out Better Than Revenge. Santana’s dropped the last straw (the humiliation, name calling, Finn at one point and now solos,) it’s too much this time.

And finally, Santana walking around McKinley, showing us flashes of Rachel ‘outshining’ her and the rest of glee and Mr. Schue being unfair, while singing Look What You Made Me Do.

Tina walks out at the same time as Rachel, Mercedes, and Santana but no one seems to put two and two together. She feels just as underutilized as the latter two do. She ends up in an empty classroom and sings The Outside. “Nobody ever lets me in” and “on the outside looking in.”

Once the 3, err 4, divas have left the room, Finn sticks up for Rachel. Quinn, of course, has something to say about this along the lines of “you always defend her.” Finn, intimated by her ‘scary Quinn’ fumbles and blurts “because she’s my girlfriend” WHICH IS NOT TRUE AT THIS POINT. Quinn dumps him on the spot, cuts quickly to Blaine and Kurt sharing some ‘oh my god, can you believe this’ expressions, and vanishes from the room.

By this point, Rachel is long gone from the auditorium but the bridge is still there.

Here’s where we go way off script but imagine, Quinn has decided to just quit boys. They’ve all failed her anyway, she’s better off being alone. She walks up the bridge and thinks to herself “god Rachel’s so dramatic, where did this thing even come from” before it hits her “fuck, I’m as bad as Finn. I want her.” Then, she starts singing Clean to herself in the auditorium, likely tearing up throughout and ending with a good cry. (Because Dianna would DELIVER with Clean.)

While Quinn is having a sexuality crisis, the rest of glee is still happening. They’re discussing upcoming competition and debating solos and songs.

Kurt’s all: “Mr. Schue, if I may” and performs a lovely rendition of Call It What You Want. Those opening lines are too good. “My castle (ie McKinley) crumbled overnight, brought a knife to a gun fight (ie couldn’t fight off Dave Karofsky), “I’m doing better than I ever was ‘cause my baby’s fit like a daydream,” and “at least I did one thing right.” When he’s done, Blaine’s a mess in the back of the choir room, and Mr. Schue says: “not really what we’re looking for but very nice, Kurt” however, Kurt’s too busy sitting beside Blaine teasing him about blushing.  

Then, the missing girls return to the room having sung out their emotions. Quinn, having realized her feelings for Rachel, ends up soloing You Belong With Me to the New Directions in the choir room. Odd looks all around, no one knows what’s up with her and why does she keep glancing at Rachel? (Faberry just fit so well I had to add it, don’t know if I’m a shipper or not but it’s here now) (also thanks to @spicygemini for pointing out the obvious “Quinn would have ate YBWY”).

Mr. Schue wants to move the group to the audition to perform their final number of the Taylor Swift tribute well but Tina asks to sing first. He’s surprised but allows it, taking a seat with the rest of the New Directions.

Tina sings Beautiful Ghosts. “Watch from the dark, wait for my life to start” because New Directions is refusing to use her talents AGAIN. She’s singing this to Rachel and the girls who were in the Treble Tones. Because she absolutely SMASHES this number, the glee kids agree she gets solo for their next competition (and they deliver on that promise).

To conclude Part 2 of the Taylor tribute episode, we have a group performance of Long Live. “One day we will be remembered”, “all the years we stood there on the sidelines wishing for right now”, “for a moment a band of thrives in ripped up jeans got to rule the world” ie wining completions, “when they look at the pictures please tell them my name...”

[companionjones]

Santa Claus Is Going To High School With Ethan and Y/n

Fandoms: StarKid, Black Friday, Santa Claus Is Going To High School

Pairings: Ethan Green x Reader, Chris Kringle x Reader

Summary: In the beginning, you were just a loner in high school who had a huge crush on one Ethan Green. You’re a big fan of escapism, and a certain kids movie brings you lots of serotonin. The teenage version of Santa Claus is more attractive than one might think. What happens when you and Ethan get sucked into the kids movie you’ve grown to love, and Chris Kringle starts vying for your attention? Will Ethan actually get jealous?

Warnings: This is long, cursing, speaking of cursed, I AM SO SORRY I MADE THIS

*******

    Ethan Green would have rather been at home, smoking weed. Instead, he was at Lakeside Mall with some kid he was babysitting. He took the job because he needed the money for his jalopy that was in the shop. He didn’t mind the kid all that much. The boy, a nine-year-old named Tim, was nice enough. The only problem was that Tim wanted to see a very annoying-looking kids movie in theaters called Santa Claus Is Going To High School.

    “Thirty bucks for two tickets? Are you kiddin’?” Ethan griped as he stood outside of the Cineplex. “Fine. But I want a refund if the kid doesn’t like the movie.”

    The half-asleep cashier responded detachedly, “We don’t do refunds here, sir.”

    Ethan groaned, “Yeah, whatever,” and pulled the kid inside.

    In Theater 4, the previews were still playing. All the seats were empty save for one. Ethan recognized the girl in it. He knew her from the hallways at school. It was you.

    Silently, you were thankful no one else was in the theater with you. That way, you couldn’t be judged as a teenager seeing a kids movie...for the fifth time. Yes, you were kind of obsessed with Santa Claus Is Going To High School. So what? That was your business, no one else’s. Or, at least, it was until--

    “What the hell are you doing, seeing this movie alone?” Ethan Green, the last person in Hatchetfield you wanted to sit next to you in that moment, decided to take a seat.

    At a loss for words, you were trying too hard to think of something to say. “Ethan! I...Um...I--”

    He chucked, “Relax. I’m not gonna make fun of you or anything. Just because something isn’t my style, that doesn’t mean you can’t like it.”

    Completely in shock that someone your age wasn’t going to judge you, you just gaped at him.

    Ethan didn’t notice. “Plus, it kinda rocks that you’re here. I thought I was gonna have to watch this movie with just Tiny Tim here. But it doesn’t seem so bad now with you at my side.”

    You cursed yourself for giggling. It was always like that with Ethan. You two would get paired together on a school project or something, and he would casually flirt with you like it was nothing. You would fall for it, you two would get really close, then the project would be turned in. After that, whenever you would go up to Ethan in the halls, it would be like the two of you had never spoken before. You hated it, especially after you developed a huge crush on him.

    And it was all starting again.

    When the movie began, you watched out the corner of your eye as Ethan fought to stay awake. He lasted ten minutes into the movie. Honestly, you were exhausted, too. You were just getting out of a double shift of waiting on tables. You thought you could get through the movie before crashing at home. You fell asleep not three seconds after the leather-clad boy.

    Ethan was woken up by a school bell ringing. He found himself sitting in a desk. Disoriented, he looked to his right to find you staring at him in alarm.

    “What the hell...” Ethan was able to mumble before the teacher called out to him and you to not be late for your next classes.

    He and you stumbled out into the hallway.

    Once out there, you whispered to Ethan in distress, “We’re in the movie. We’re in the fucking movie!”

    “No. Fuck. No,” Ethan adamantly disagreed, “We’re dreaming. This is impossible. This can’t be real--” Ethan immediately went to help you up when you ran into one of the other students.

    The boy you ran into beat Ethan to it, however.

    “Oh my god...” you voiced, completely in shock, as the stranger helped you to your feet.

    Right in front of you, holding your hand was the reason you came back to watch the kids movie over and over again. There was your #1 comfort character, your biggest crush since Ethan.

    He smiled warmly at you. “Hi there. Sorry about bumping into you...Say, you must be new here. What’s your name? I’m Chris Kringle.”

    “I know,” you blurted. Upon seeing Chris’ slight confusion, you backtracked, “I mean...You’re all people talk about around here. You must be the most popular kid in school, and you’re almost as new as I am.”

    Chris responded charmingly, “Well, that just means that you have a chance at becoming just as popular as I am, and probably even more so because you seem like you’re at the top of the nice list.”

    You felt your moth fall open and cheeks heat up from the flattery.

    Ethan cleared his throat in an attempt to get Chris’ attention off of you. He didn’t particularly like that Chris Kringle thought it was appropriate to be that friendly with you upon only just meeting you. Chris was also yet to let go of your hand.

    He didn’t let go when Ethan got his attention, either.

    Ethan had also gotten your attention. “Um, I’m Y/n, and this is my friend, Ethan. This is our, uh, first day.”

    “Oh, well you two probably need some friends around here, huh? You’re both welcome to come sledding with us. We’re heading off now,” Chris cheerfully invited.

    Ethan answered, “Uh, we actually have something--”

    “We’d love to!” you interrupted.

    Chris beamed, “Great! Let’s go! Oh, and don’t worry, people always bring extra sleds.”

    “What the hell are you thinking, Y/n?” chastised Ethan. “If this isn’t a dream, which I don’t think it is anymore, ‘cause you seem pretty self aware to me, then we gotta figure a way outta here!”

    “I don’t think we can get out of this until the plot of the movie plays out to the end, which is this Friday at the championship game against South Heights. I think all we can do is wait it out.”

    Ethan blanched, “Friday?! But I left Tim alone in that theater!”

    “Haven’t you ever seen a movie like this?” you questioned, “Jumanji? Teen Beach Movie? I’m almost positive no time will have passed once we get out of this.”

    “So what? You just want to go sledding with Chris Kringle until the game on Friday?” Ethan questioned.

    Lamely, you answered, “...Yes.”

    Ethan was rendered defeated by your hopeful eyes. He huffed out, “Fine.”

    Happiness overtook your face. “Thank you!” you celebrated.

    Ethan avoided your gaze due to how adorable he thought that was. Then, a new idea caused him to smirk, “Wait, how do you know how the movie’s going to play out?”

    “I...might’ve seen the movie more than once,” you explained. It was your turn to avoid your friend’s gaze. “...Four times, not including this one.”

    Ethan’s eyebrows shot up, “Four times?! Why the hell do you like this movie that much?” Just then, he followed your gaze to Chris Kringle. It clicked in his head. “Oh...”

    Your gaze dropped to the ground. You bit your lip, embarrassed.

    Both you and Ethan followed Chis to a large hill where a bunch of students had gathered to go sledding. You were able to borrow two extra sleds from a couple of students. After the first few trips down the hell, you and Ethan finally got used to the fact that the two of you were sledding in a Christmas movie with Santa Claus. Or maybe, you two had finally given into the insanity.

    You were standing at the top of the hill, waiting your turn with Chris when he asked you, “So, what’s the deal with you and Ethan?”

    “Me and Ethan?” You were shocked that someone besides yourself could see you and the Green boy like that. “Oh, no. We’re just friends.”

    Chris wondered, “Is there a chance at something more?”

    “Definitely not. Sorry. I guess I fucked up my Christmas wish, huh Santa?” Fuck. You did not mean to say that.

    Kringle panicked, “Wait, you know I’m Santa?!”

    “I, uh--Yes. I do, but you didn’t tell me, so Father Christmas’ spell is still intact. Tell Jingle and Jangle that before they freak out.”

    “YOU CAN SEE MY ELVES TOO?!”

    “NO! No, I can’t!” you assured, trying not to stress out Chris anymore.

    He furrowed his brow, still breathing heavy. “Then, how’d you know I’m...”

    “I...just got that vibe from you?” you lied, cringing because you couldn’t think of a better explanation than that.

    Somehow, Chris bought that, but he still had another question. “Then, how’d you know about Jingle and Jangle?”

    “Well, I see you talking to them all the time.” That actually wasn’t that much of a lie. Chris was pretty bad at talking his elves on the downlow all throughout the movie.

    Chris bit his lip. “Oh. Um, you won’t tell anyone about my secret, will you?”

    He had stepped closer, and your heart had sped up in response. You gazed into his eyes, a smile tugging at your lips. “Of course I won’t, Chris.”

    “Are you two going to actually sled, or just stand up here talking?” Ethan asked as he approached you and Chris.

    Chris, oblivious to the pissed off look on Ethan’s face, laughed and answered, “Sled.” He hopped on his sled and flew down the hill.

    “What the hell was that for?” You angrily questioned Ethan.

    He played dumb. “What are you talking about?”

    “Interrupting us like that? We were...in the middle of something, Ethan.” You were glad you stopped yourself from saying ‘We were having a moment.’ That would’ve been embarrassing.

    Green argued, “Didn’t you say the plot of the movie’s supposed to play out?”

    “Yeah. So what?”

    He wondered, “Doesn’t Chris have a love interest somewhere?”

    “Her name is Noelle,” you answered.

    Ethan sighed, “Of course it is...Y/n,” he got your attention again. “Are you sure you want to get in the way of that?”

    Your mouth slammed shut and your jaw clenched.

    Chris got you to turn to him by shouting your name from the bottom of the hill. He motioned you to join him.

    Glancing between him and Ethan, you chose to ignore the latter for the moment. You sledded down the hill.

    You successfully steered clear of the leather-clad boy for the rest of the time you spent sledding.

    That annoyed Ethan, but he knew you couldn’t avoid him forever.

    When everybody headed back home late that night, you and Ethan didn’t have a home to return to. The two of you decided to head back to Northville High. You and Ethan got lucky. The window to the staff lounge was open. The two of you slid in, and the school was yours.

    “Okay, so we have to find a place that we can sleep in where nobody will accidentally find us tomorrow...” you thought out loud.

    Ethan was still hung up on your conversation earlier. “Are we not going to talk about--”

    “Can we just worry about where we’re sleeping tonight?” you urged.

    Ethan sighed, knowing that talking about it was also something you couldn’t avoid forever.

    Eventually, you and Ethan found the boiler room. Ethan agreed with you that it was secluded enough that no one would catch you. The two of you got lucky again when you found that there were enough sweaters and blankets in lost-and-found for makeshift beds.

    At one point, you asked Ethan, “You cold?”

    He was shivering. Ethan was probably the least prepared clothing-wise to spend hours sledding on a hill. He was feeling the effects of that then. Not that he’d ever tell you. “N-no. I’m g-g-g-good.”

    “Yeah, right.” You rolled your eyes before waling over to the boiler and turning it on.

    Ethan’s cheeks tinged in pink. “T-thanks.”

    “No problem, Ethan.” You approached your bed again and covered yourself in blankets. “You know, you’ve always had issues with asking for help.”

    “How the hell do you know that?” Ethan didn’t mean for that to sound as mean as it did.

    That didn’t seem to affect you though. “The school projects we worked on together,” you explained, “I always had to find all these covert ways to help you out ‘cause you wouldn’t let me do it directly.” A faint smile was playing at your lips, like you were remembering those things fondly.

    Ethan never noticed how much you’d helped him. He didn’t like to admit it, but he had a really tough time in school. As he thought about it, however, Ethan realized that when he did projects with you, the material he was learning didn’t seem as difficult as it normally was. You made things easier for Ethan to understand. That was really nice of you, he thought. He felt bad for never thanking you before for all you did. “...Thanks for turning on the boiler...” Ethan tried. He figured it was a start.

    “Any time, Green,” you smiled before turning away from him and settling into bed.

    The next morning, you and Ethan snuck into the halls when school started. Chris quickly found the both of you. He’d brought you both pumpkin spice hot chocolate.

    “Oh, wow,” you commented when Chris handed you the beverage. You were truly surprised and flattered. “Thank you so much, Chris! This is so nice!”

    He brushed it off. “It’s really no problem. I got them from the cafeteria. We’ve got pumpkin spice for days here at Northville High.”

    You actually giggled at that. Then, you promptly got lost in Chris’ eyes again. You would’ve been embarrassed if you were even paying attention.

    Well, apparently Ethan was. He scoffed, causing you to look at him, and he grumbled, “I guess I should leave you two to it. I...gotta get to class.” He practically stomped off.

    Your eyes followed Ethan as he went. You wondered what in the world was wrong with him.

    Chris got your notice again when he asked, “So, what’s your first period class? I’ll walk you to it.”

    “Um...what’s your first period class?” you asked quickly.

    He shrugged, “Statistics--”

    “No way! Me too!” you lied. “Let’s go,” you suggested before he could become suspicious.

    “So tonight, everyone figured we’d go ice skating. You wanna join us?” he offered, “Ethan can come too if he’d like.”

    “Uh...thanks! We’d love to go,” you smiled, cursing yourself in the back of your head for speaking for Ethan again. You bit your lip, knowing what you had to ask. You weren’t exactly looking forward to knowing the answer. “Is Noelle going to be there?”

    He furrowed his brow. “You know Noelle?”

    “Um, yeah,” you lied, “I’ve seen her...in the halls.”

    He believed it. “Oh.”

    “She’s um...pretty. Isn’t she?” You hated that you were talking up someone else to your crush, but you also knew that Chris was destined to end up with her.

    Chris’ eyes widened in slight realization. “Oh. I didn’t know you swung that way. Do you...like guys?”

    Huh. Santa’s an ally.

  �� “Um...” Shyly, you nodded. You felt your cheeks thinking about the implications of his question.

    He just smiled. “Good!”

    You spent the whole day following Chris to his classes. It was a dream. Chris kept freezing your desk with his powers and doodling little snowflakes and Christmas trees on it. It reminded you of Jack Frost in Rise of the Guardians. It was really cute too. The teacher had to tell you to quiet down several times because you were giggling too much.

    At the end of the school day, you ran into Ethan again.

    He’d spent the day mostly in the boiler room. He figured that he was spending enough time in regular school. He wasn’t about to spend more time in a fictional one.

    When he saw you again, and you awkwardly brought up that you had signed both you and him up to go ice skating, he said, “Whatever,” which meant he’d go. The main reason he agreed was because he preferred anything over the blank cement walls of the boiler room.

    He just didn’t consider one thing.

    “Ethan, do you know how to skate?” you wondered, skating over to the boy hugging the wall.

    “Psh, of course I do,” he lied shakily, tightening his grip on the solid, non-slippery surface. “I just, uh...like it better over here.”

    You laughed. “Come here.” You took his hand.

    Ethan panicked. “Whoa, whoa. What’re you doing?”

    “Relax. I’m not gonna let go of you,” you assured. “Just one foot after the other, like this.”

    Slowly, you started leading him around the rink.

    For a little while, Ethan felt like he was actually getting it. One bad step though, and he started to freak out again. “Whoa, whoa!” he shouted.

    “It’s alright, it’s alright!” you tried to say, but it was too late. You stayed true to your word, though. You didn’t let go of Ethan. You went down with him.

    He was mostly scared of the act of falling down, so after that part was over, he was mostly concerned with the pain in his backside.

    Ethan looked over to you to complain that you had let him fall, but he found you losing yourself in laughter. He forgot what he was going to say. Watching you, Ethan felt his heart speed up and a smile growing on his lips. Soon, both of you were laughing your asses off.

    Eventually, you and Ethan had gotten your shit together enough to stand up. The two of you went over to customer services at the rink to get ice packs for your fresh bruises.

    “Sorry, I guess I should’ve told you that I...uh...” Ethan trailed off.

    You finished for him, “You’ve never been ice skating before in your life?”

    “Yeah...” Ethan smiled because you started laughing again.

    “It’s fine,” you shrugged off. “I guess I should’ve asked you if you knew how to skate before volunteering you for something against your will...again.”

    Ethan was about to say he didn’t mind. He was about to say that the past couple days with you had been the most fun he’d had in a long time.

    But then, Chris approached the two of you. “There you guys are! I’ve been looking all over for you! Y/n, I was wondering if you’d like to skate, um...with me for a bit.”

    “Oh! Um...”

    There it was. Chris was going to come along, yet again, and sweep you off your feet. You were going to say yes to Santa Creep, and Ethan would be left alone for the rest of the--

    “Ethan and I are actually gonna head back home,” you replied to Chris, interrupting Ethan’s thoughts. “We’ve been skating for a while, and we’re both pretty tired. I’ll see you tomorrow though, okay?”

    Chris seemed a little disappointed by your words. Ethan tried not to become too happy from the look on Kringle’s face.

    “Oh...okay,” Chris replied, “I’ll see you tomorrow...”

    Back in the boiler room, Ethan was still stuck on what had occurred at the ice skating rink. “You know...you didn’t have to come back with me...”

    “Hmm?” You turned to Ethan and furrowed your brow.

    He went on, “You didn’t have to come back with me ‘cause I don’t know how to skate. I coulda come back by myself. You could’ve kept having fun at the rink...with Chris.” Ethan had to physically push those last two words out.

    “Nah, I didn’t really feel like it,” you answered with a shrug. “I’m probably not going to be skating for a while with these new bruises you gave me,” you teased, but your voice grew softer. “Plus, I wanted to spend more time with you.”

    Ethan’s heart stopped. He looked away from you in an attempt to hide the growing blush on his cheeks.

    “Goodnight, Ethan,” you bid before turning over in your makeshift bed, and laying down to rest.

    Ethan’s last thoughts as he fell asleep that night was how the four concrete walls of the boiler room didn’t seem that lifeless with you there.

    The following day was Friday. For the students of Northville High, it was the last day ‘til Winter Break, and the championship basketball game was that night. For you and Ethan, it was the last day of the movie. Santa Claus Is Going To High School was supposed to end after the big game against South Heights.

    You and Ethan ran into Chris in the cafeteria during breakfast. He had more pumpkin spice hot chocolate for the both of you. “Hey guys! I forgot to tell you last night, but since it’s the last day of school, there’s caroling in the halls today. Students who join don’t have to go to classes. Do you guys wanna carol with me?”

    To prevent yourself from immediately responding “Yes!” you bit your lip. You looked to Ethan. You didn’t want to speak for him again.

    He glanced to you, and it looked like he was about to reject the offer, but then he thought about it for a second. “You said it gets us out of classes?” Ethan asked.

    Chris nodded.

    Ethan sighed, “Yeah...okay.”

    A smile broke out across your face. You couldn’t help but hug Ethan. “This is going to be so fun!” You felt Ethan’s body stiffen, and to it to mean that he thought it was weird that you were hugging him. You quickly separated from him.

    You dismissed the pink painting his cheeks as you seeing things.

    The actual singing part of caroling was pretty boring. The group of students you were with would just stop at random places in the hallway for a song or two. People in nearby classrooms would come out to watch you guys and get a little time off from class.

    What made caroling so much fun though were Chris and Ethan. Between stops, the three of you would mess around in an effort to make each other laugh. Well, while you were trying to make both Ethan and Chris laugh, it had turned into a bit of competition between the two of them to get you to laugh. Personally, you didn’t notice any malice between the two of them, but you were too busy laughing to notice much anyway.

    Throughout the day, everyone held their own books that had in them all the carols everyone was singing. Chris stole your book, and you had to go through the whole song and dance (no pun intended) of trying to get it back. Chris easily dodged you every time you went for the book.

    At one point, you tripped over your feet while going for your book. Chris caught you before you fell, and for a second he just gazed at you with wide eyes. Then, something insane happened.

    Chris Kringle kissed you. The boy, the fictional character you’d had a crush on since his movie came out, liked you enough to actually kiss you. You were frozen to your spot.

    Kringle must’ve taken that as a negative reaction. He parted from you.

    “Y/n...”

    You heard a shocked voice behind you before you could say a word to Chris. You turned around and saw Ethan’s highly concerned face.

    Suddenly, the bell rang. It was signaling the end of the school day. The sound made you jump.

    “...I...I have to go, Y/n,” Chris told you. “Coach said he wants us in the gym as soon as the bell rings.”

    You were reminded of the championship basketball game. “Right. Go,” you encouraged.

    “Come to the game later. We can talk there,” he offered.

    “Okay,” you nodded.

    Chris left. You and Ethan were suddenly alone in the hallway.

    Ethan stated, “I can’t believe he just kissed you.”

    “I can’t believe he just kissed me either.” You exhaled for probably the first time since Chris’ lips were on yours. You couldn’t stop a small smile from forming.

    “You don’t want to kiss him again, do you?”

    The question made your smile vanish. You avoided Ethan’s gaze.

    “Y/n, you can’t want any of that. None of this is even real!”

    Your face started burning from embarrassment and anger, but you fought back anyway. “So what?” you shouted. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for something like this to happen?”

    Ethan clearly hadn’t expected your voice to raise as well.

    “Dammit, Ethan,” you really didn’t care anymore, “I’ve liked you for such a long time, but you never noticed me! The only reason you sat next to me in the theater was because I was the only person there. You had no other option. But Chris, he had all the options! And he chose me! Do you have any idea how that feels?”

    You had shocked Ethan into silence.

    “Look, I’m going to the gym to watch Chris practice. Come, don’t come, I don’t care.” It was true. You didn’t care. At that point, you didn’t care that the movie was supposed to play out a certain way. You left Ethan alone in the hallway and headed toward the gymnasium.

    It took Ethan about a minute to even move. So many thoughts were running though his head. He was right to be mad at you, right? The movie had to end a certain way, or else you and him ran the chance of never going home. But then, there was the revelation that you had just unloaded on Ethan. You liked him? Like, liked him, liked him? The more he thought about it, the more obvious your crush became to him, and worse he felt about how he treated you in the past.

    Ethan also started to realize that, maybe he liked you like that, too. Maybe he wasn’t just worried about the movie’s plot. Maybe he was so concerned about Chris’ behavior around you because he was jealous.

    And that brought Ethan back to how he had acted around you in the past. Had he really been so bad? Yes. He’d been so concerned about his bad boy image that he pushed you aside whenever the two of you were around other students. He couldn’t imagine doing that after all you two had gone through in that movie. Ethan didn’t want to be away from you at all anymore, and that included right in that moment as well.

    Ethan knew he was going to have to admit a lot of things to you to get a chance at getting you back. He only hoped it wasn’t too late. He glanced up at a clock in the hallway and realized he only had ten minutes ‘til the game started.

    Meanwhile, you were looking at the same time on a clock in a hallway outside the gym.

    “Y/n.” Chris came jogging up to you. “Thank you so much for meeting me here.”

    “Uh...Hey, Chris,” you swallowed, dread filling you. You’d had some time to think since your argument with Ethan. You were still very angry with the leather-clad boy, and you still cared about Chris a lot, but Ethan was right about one thing. The movie needed to play out a certain way. You had no choice but to get out of the way of that.

    Chris noticed your unease. “Are you alright, Y/n?”

    You took a deep breath, preparing to let Chris down easy. “Um, we need to talk, Chris--”

    “Wait,” he interrupted you, “I know what you’re going to say. Y/n, I’m sorry I kissed you. It was pretty naughty of me to get in the way of the movie.”

    You blinked. Completely disregarding that ‘naughty’ line, you asked, “How’d you know that?”

    At that, he just smiled, “I’m Santa Claus, remember? It’s also how I know it was your Christmas wish to start dating Ethan.”

    “Wait, you’ve known this whole time that we’re in a movie? Why didn’t you tell me?”

    He chuckled, seemingly embarrassed. “I was trying not to mess up the plot. Stay in character, you know? I guess I really fucked that up, kissing you.”

    “Wow, I never thought I’d hear Chris Kringle curse,” you laughed.

    “You just came out of no where, Y/n. Quite literally. I had no idea I’d...like you this much when I brought you here.”

    Eyes nearly popping out of your head, you almost yelled, “You brought us here?!”

    There was an echo. It was Ethan, who had just arrived on the scene. “Why the hell would you do that?” he frantically asked.

    Chris just smirked, “You two will find out soon enough.”

    The buzzer in the gym sounded, signaling the game was going to start soon.

    Chris turned to you. “Y/n, I want you to hang onto my jacket for me.” He handed you his letterman. “Don’t worry about the plot of the movie, I’ll take care of it. I’m...really going to miss you, Y/n. Ethan, you got very lucky with this gift. Be very nice to them.”

    He kissed you on the cheek and ran off before you could say something in return. You absentmindedly put on Chris’ letterman and turned to Ethan. Your plan was to try and explain away Chris’ leading last words to Ethan, but before you could:

    “I really like you, Y/n,” Ethan blurted.

    Your words got caught in your throat.

    Ethan quickly continued, “I’ve only really noticed how I feel in the past couple days in this movie, but I’d be lying if I said I haven’t liked you for a long time. I’m sorry for acting like such an asshole. I really don’t know how you continued to be nice to me after all that...”

    He continued to ramble on, but some twinkling above your head caught your eye. You smiled when you looked up and saw it. “Hey, Ethan?”

    Your voice immediately shut him up as he gazed at you.

    “Look up,” you quietly prompted.

    Hanging above the two of you was a beautiful little mistletoe.

    “I...uh...” Ethan swallowed. “Does this mean you’ll forgive me?”

    You smirked, “Well, I guess that depends on whether or not you’re a good kisser.”

    Ethan’s face broke out in a grin as well. He hooked an arm around your waist and pulled you close enough where your heads barely had to move at all to kiss.

    You were woken up in the movie theater by the kid Ethan was babysitting—Tim, as Ethan had called him—cheering because Chris Kringle had successfully used the ‘Santa Swap’ to win the championship game against South Heights. At least, you thought Ethan had called him Tim. Did Ethan only say that while you and him were trapped in the movie? Was any of that real at all?

    Dread filled you when you started to think that Ethan had never actually kissed you, it had been a dream. That dread doubled when you realized that you had fallen asleep on Ethan’s shoulder.

    You slowly started to raise your head because you had a feeling that Ethan had fallen asleep too, and you thought maybe you could save yourself some embarrassment.

    However, as soon as he could, and at the same time Chris kissed Noelle in the movie, Ethan kissed you too. “I just had the most amazing dream,” he whispered to you once you parted.

    Several thoughts raced through your head. Was it a dream? Is it possible for two people to have the same dream? Yet, you quickly realized that it didn’t matter because Ethan had just kissed you. He liked you! You finally got your Christmas wish.

    As you and Ethan walked out of the theater hand-in-hand, Ethan asked Tim, “So, nothing seemed weird about that movie, kid?”

    Tim shrugged it off. “Nope.”

    “Huh,” Ethan turned to you, you guessed probably to ask you how much you remembered, but Ethan gasped when he saw what you were wearing. “Holy shit.”

    Following Ethan’s eyeline, you spotted what had freaked him out so much. “Holy shit,” you repeated.

    You were still wearing Chris’ letterman.

*******

Author’s Note: Thank you so much for reading! Fill up that heart and reblog if you liked it! I would also really appreciate a comment, if you have the time. If you would like to read more, I have more fics over on my page. You should check it out. Have a nice day, night, or whatever time it is for you! <3 <3 <3

[funkymbtifiction]

Re: the recent request about "merging" and also your post a while back about reminding you to talk about 9s and their interactions with entertainment media (movies, etc.) - whenever you have time I would love to hear your thoughts on this! What exactly does "merging" mean? Is it a lack of emotional boundaries? Or a kind of easy identification with characters? Thank you! I hope you're having a good week so far!

9s merge into whatever is happening around them and get swallowed up by it, whether that is other people with louder personalities or the world in general. They have no real boundary against the outer world, and it consumes them. So naturally, 9s would get ‘swallowed up’ by entertainment and merge into it, partly because the brain doesn’t consciously discern between false and real realities in terms of what we “see” happening. 9s think they lack the inner resources to stop this from happening and put up a boundary, so they are ‘helpless’ against it until they realize that they totally can put up a boundary and block things from becoming ‘part of them’ but until that happens... they get swept along.

I have at least eight separate 9 friends that I interact with on a regular basis, so I have a lot of time to watch and think about them. And one thing in particular struck me as interesting -- I happen to love the remake of 3:10 to Yuma. I think it’s a great western, but two of my 9 friends hated it and love the original... so I decided to watch it for comparison. And midway through the original, it dawned on me that the original is the “9 version” and the remake is the “8 version.” The original has a rather pleasant, mild-mannered, congenial villain who even though he is a murderer is a pleasant villain to be around--and the remake’s villain is someone who stabs people in the face with forks and shoves them off cliffs. The original villain is someone you could pleasantly see spend a few years in prison and you wouldn’t mind them getting out again, and the remake villain would probably cut your throat in your sleep. Not only that, the movies themselves are 9ish vs. 8ish in their overall vibe -- slow moving and dreamy original, intense and visceral remake. So I laughed and thought, “Of course 9s would prefer the original, it’s so much more pleasant!” There’s nothing in it to upset them particularly or make them merge into anything they don’t like.

That caused me to start thinking about the other 9 feelers I know and their movie preferences... and how I was usually the one to engage them in stepping outside their movie comfort zone and consider watching something more intense. Some of them loved it, but others did not; and I noticed they had a lot of favorite shows and whatnot where the conflict was all very muted and/or easily resolved. Several episodes into the West Wing, I commented to one that “nothing much happens.” She practically beamed as she said, “I know! It calms me!!“ Another 9 loved old sitcoms because they’re funny. One 9 had a bad reaction to a movie where her favorite actor played a villain, because it made her feel like she was a bad person too for merging into him (as usual). It’s almost like the barriers come down and they are ‘part of’ the characters or the stories; in some instances, it feels for Fi-doms like things are happening TO THEM due to the self-insertion that happens instinctually with Fi-9.

I’ve also noticed as writers, they avoid spending too much time with villains or maybe do not want to create them in the first place. This puzzled me (tbh, I live for writing villains and anti-heroes) so I asked some questions and got a lot of similar answers -- they didn’t want to “spend that much time” with a villain (same for reading about them, or someone they “dislike”) or merge into them, they did not want to think about unpleasant, mean, cruel things (because it would be them doing it in their imagination), and they want to keep things overall mild-mannered and free of conflict. Internal conflict rather than external villains is a huge theme I’ve noticed, especially with FP + 9s. Jan Karon’s Mitford books are written from a 9 point of view (everything calm, peaceful, even-keeled), and most of the direct conflict comes from inside her 9 Father Tim -- who angsts about making minor changes in his life, procrastinates about asking out the beautiful woman next door for months, and sits calmly throughout an 8′s tantrum without moving or saying anything. Karon “leaves the room” for a lot of unpleasant scenes and conversations, leaving you to imagine what was said or done / the fall-out, I presume because she doesn’t want to “live them out.” I’ve seen other 9s avoid writing too much about a bad guy, decide to take him out of a draft, or struggle with writing something with a truly evil person in it. Another 9 friend wrote an entire novel where the only villain was internal angst.

This seems to be more common in feeler 9s than thinker 9s; an ISTP 9 I know has no trouble reading or writing about bad guys, although she doesn’t like certain kinds of intensity in entertainment and admitted it once took her hours and hours to get through an hour and a half long movie, because it was “too much” (too intense, everybody dies, nothing good or nice happens).

9s want to use movies and books and writing to “relax” and relation for them is of course PLEASANT. They want to be at inner peace and that means shutting out or avoiding anything that threatens to make them uncomfortable.

One 9w8 ISFP doesn’t mind watching unpleasant or dark things, but she gets mad about all of them. Her reaction to the 1979 version of Dracula surprised me until I thought about it from a 9w8 perspective. 8s are afraid of having their autonomy taken away from them -- and this Dracula does that to people. He charms them, bedazzles them, or puts them under an “allure” -- her Fi + 9w8 did not like that and it put her on the defense against him. The idea of being ‘violated’ by having her will removed made her hate him immediately and she took it a step further by also hating his 8w7 girlfriend. She “merged” and made it about her reaction to it, rather than just sitting and watching it platonicly.

9s want to avoid intensity at all costs (that’s how you can tell them apart from 7s) which intrigues me, because my 6w7 loves intensity in fiction -- it’s a way for me to safely experience a bunch of different intense feelings and situations all without leaving the comfort of my own couch. But I even notice my 9 fix merging into movies sometimes and blurring the distance between ‘me’ and ‘them.’ It seems to happen when the narrative is too dark and/or depressing -- for some reason, I merged a lot into Mad Men and it made me depressed, and I had a hard time watching Girl, Interrupted as well. So for me it’s sporadic and seems to be based on whether there is any ‘hope’ at the end of the tunnel or not.

[forthegothicheroine]

american psycho, the company of wolves, beauty and the beast (og disney), beauty and the beast (disney remake), tim burton's sleepy hollow, the over the garden wall miniseries, disney's legend of sleepy hollow (lmao i want it to be fall so bad), sofia coppola's marie antoinette, sofia coppola's the beguiled, the innocents, fire walk with me, crimson peak, coppocula

Hoo boy! Stuffing this big series of answers below the cut.

American Psycho:

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

Love it! I don't think the book would do it for me (I don't do well with graphic torture) but I thought the movie did a good job of showing us the kind of things he was doing, while also leaving enough ambiguity even before the twist at the end, and letting us sympathize with his depression (even if he can't name it) while also making him deeply unpleasant.

The Company of Wolves:

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

Do I like it as a big feminist statement? Honestly, not really- there's no sympathy for any women who aren't Rosalie or maybe her mother, and I think we are supposed to be conflicted over whether the choice she makes at the end is the right one. Do I like it as an exploration of an adolescent female id? Absolutely. Sex and violence and terror and quests are all on her mind and are all equally awful and thrilling, and Rosalie wants what's bad for her and isn't sure it's actually bad for her and the balance of power is always see-sawing and the whole thing feels like the most amazing dream.

Beauty and the Beast (original):

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

I thought the Beast was too mean when I was a little kid and forming my Disney opinions- I might actually like it more now. This is probably why I like the Cocteau version, even though what he does is basically still just as bad, because at least he's not a dick about it (and Panna a nevtor, which plays it all for gothic horror.)

Sleepy Hollow:

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

In retrospect, this one shows a lot of the problems that would later kill my love for Tim Burton, but it's still a lot of fun. The Hessian is genuinely scary, Johnny Depp is mugging a bit but it's not as bad as it would eventually get, and I want all the dresses.

Over the Garden Wall:

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

Pure distilled autumn in its aspects of both harvest and death, fun and fear. It's a world based on vintage Halloween postcards and fairytales that don't actually exist but feel like they do. I love every character, and that momentary flash where we see what the Beast looks like haunts my nightmares. My only caveat is that I do sometimes have to tell other people to keep watching after Schoolyard Follies, there will be a plot I promise!

Disney's Legend of Sleepy Hollow:

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

I think this is one of those where I never saw the whole thing, just the main song on one of those Best of Disney compilation videos. I'll at least give it credit for preserving the original story rather than making the Headless Horseman actually real (which I think most adaptations do because frankly the original story isn't long enough for feature length.)

Marie Antoinette:

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

This seems like one of those movies where you've supposed to get into the mood of the music and the visuals more so than the plot or characters? I can get into that.

The Beguiled:

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

I still don't know if I want to see this or not! The concept sounds cool and creepy, but I don't like the idea that these ladies are the good guys. Or maybe I'm wrong and nobody's supposed to be a good guy? Or maybe I should watch the grimier original since I unfortunately find young Clint Eastwood hot?

The Innocents:

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

I'm personally of the opinion that the ghosts in The Turn of the Screw were real (it's just that screaming at a child is not a good way to exorcise them), but the deliberate ambiguity/unreliability of this version is also creepy in its own way. It's a much darker ghost story that you'd get from most big studio films of the time, certainly.

Fire Walk With Me:

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

This really did a good job of portraying its protagonist as a real person rather than just an object of clinical observation or perverse whimsy (which I think Twin Peaks the Return fell into.) It's just so heartbreakingly sensitive and Sheryl Lee does such a good job of portraying Laura as both kind and mean, loving and hateful, and absolutely the victim of someone she should have been able to trust. And then the end, where Cooper is smiling gently at her and the angel has come back and she's laughing in relief? Oh my god.

Crimson Peak

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

I didn't love this as much as I thought I would (maybe because I was spoiled about what was up with the Sharpes, or maybe because I didn't like the implication that Edith should have gone with the nice boy best friend she didn't love) but I'd still say it's a good entry in the gothic romance genre. Stunning clothes and scenery, great actors, scary ghosts, an ending open enough for fanfiction. If I picked this up as an Avon Satanic Gothic at a thrift store, I'd definitely be happy!

Coppocula (Bram Stoker's Dracula)

never seen | want to see | the worst | bad | whatever | not my thing | good | great | favorite | masterpiece

Oof. I don't want to be a snob about this. I've definitely liked Dracula movies that were wackier or dumber than this (looking at you, 2004 BBC version!) This one just breaks my heart because there's so much talent on display and I just. fucking. hate it! That soundtrack deserved a better movie. That red dress deserved a better movie. All the characters deserved better writing. Whenever someone tells me they love this movie, I have to nod and say that it's certainly beautiful looking, because I don't want to be a terrible gatekeeper, and if it was an original vampire story it might well be a guilty pleasure of mine. I just fucking hate it. On the bright side, it did give us Vlad the Poker in the What We Do in the Shadows movie, a pitch-fucking-perfect parody of Gary Oldman's Dracula, and the Nadja/Gregor plot in the What We Do in the Shadows tv show, a pitch-fucking-perfect deconstruction of the reincarnated wife trope.

[rosesgonerogue]

I didn’t so much fall in love- It kicked me in the face Chapter Three

The Wayne Manor was exactly what Marinette had come to expect after years of knowing famous people. It was expertly decorated, but it had an almost somber feel to it - it matched Gotham’s general aesthetic. 

Also meeting expectations was the Wayne family itself. Marinette had done her homework, taking hours to research each member long before setting foot in Gotham. It was clear that they had been warned to behave, but chaos still bubbled beneath their calm facades, she could see it in their eyes. 

“Miss Dupain-Cheng, allow me to introduce you to Masters Bruce, Richard, Jason, Timothy, and Damian.” 

Marinette nodded to each in turn, her hand unconsciously tightening on Leo’s. She took a steadying breath. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and this is my son Leo. If you’re interested, I made some macarons for you, as I do for most meetings with my clients.” She set the box on the coffee table. “I would recommend eating them in the next day or so.” 

Tim looked like he was going to faint, and it was then that Marinette noticed the harsh bruise on his jaw - almost like he’d gotten kicked. Surely it had to be a coincidence, there was no way… 

Damian huffed, and the entire family seemed to stiffen. When he spoke, his words were sharp, acidic. “You’re meant to be a seamstress, not a baker. Besides, what kind of professional brings a child to a business meeting? Is his father too worthless to watch him?” 

Everyone in the room froze, and Marinette could feel the warmth drain out of her. She felt eerily similar to when Tikki used ice powers, in fact. There was no way for her to know, but when she spoke, Marinette’s words carried the weight of an avalanche. 

“You yourself are legally a child sitting in on a business meeting, Monsieur Wayne, and I did not object to it because I trust your father to parent you how he sees fit. I could explain to you that other than myself, my only options for Leo’s care are my parents, who are busy preparing for my mother’s surgery while running the most successful bakery in Paris, or my friends, who are all dealing with professional lives of their own. I could explain that, but I shouldn’t have to, because he is my son, and I will raise him as I see fit. And I’m a fashion designer, not a seamstress. This isn’t the seventeenth century.” She paused, staring the offender down. “Do you have any further objections, Monsieur Wayne?” 

A small part of her glowed in satisfaction when Damian ducked his head. “Do as you must.” She missed the way that Tim blinked owlishly, exchanging surprised looks with Dick.

Instead she straightened her jacket, murmuring a few comforting words to Leo before finally letting his hand go. “I prefer getting to know my clients before I actually begin, it helps me make the perfect piece. Does some-”

“I’ll be first,” Jason said, shoving Dick out of the way.

“Perfect. If you’ll come this way, Monsieur Todd, we can sit…”

*************

The satisfied look on Jason’s face was more than a little disconcerting to Tim. He didn’t really feel like hearing the woman who’d occupied his mind for the past day, so he turned his attention elsewhere. He still needed to come to terms with the fact that she had gone head to head with Damian and come out on top after all.

Leo was scrutinizing one of the paintings on the wall, a tiny version of MDC herself. He had the same dark hair, light freckles on pale skin, and wide blue eyes…

No. Please no. Tim glanced subtly at Bruce. Surely he wouldn’t try to adopt either parts. Marinette was an adult with two living parents, and Leo had Marinette, so they were safe, right? 

Regardless, that would be an issue for another time. Tim found himself crouching next to Leo. “That painting is of Monsieur Bruce’s parents,” he said in French. 

The child switched his soulful eyes to Tim’s face, his expression serious. “You know French.” 

“Yes, I really like languages, so I learned as many as I could,” Tim said, resisting the urge to ruffle the boy’s hair. “Your name is Leo, right?” 

“Yes, Monsieur.” 

“You can call me Tim. Are you enjoying Gotham so far?” 

Leo thought hard for a moment. “Maman and I had a lot of fun today, but yesterday was a little scary, the way it sometimes gets in Paris.” 

He desperately wanted to ask Leo more about the scary things in Paris, but it wasn’t fair to ask a child. Instead, Tim let the boy pull him around the parlor, asking questions about anything he found even remotely interesting. 

“And that is the trophy Dick, my oldest brother, got for gymnastics in seventh grade,” Tim explained, hefting the boy higher up so he could see the object in question more clearly. “That’s the ribbon Jason got for a creative writing contest, and Damian’s martial arts trophy. A couple of these belong to Bruce…” 

Leo stared at the glass case like it would afford him the answers to the universe before looking up to Tim’s face. “Where are your trophies?” 

“What?” 

“Everyone else has trophies. Where are yours?” 

“That’s… I mean, I have some, I just didn’t think they were very important,” Tim said with a shrug. 

“But families should be together,” Leo said with wide, unblinking eyes. “That’s why I wanted to come with Maman, even though it made your brother be mean to her.” 

Tim smiled, pushing down the barrage of emotions fighting within him. “You’re right, you’re absolutely right. Your Maman is a very smart lady.” 

“Maman is the smartest,” Leo said solemnly. 

“You must be right again,” Tim said conspiratorially. “She’s also the best at making clothes.” 

The boy’s face didn’t change in the least, there wasn’t a trace of a smile, but he slowly patted Tim’s cheek. “I like you.” 

“That’s high praise.” 

TIm golted, his cheeks flooding with color when he found himself next to Marinettte. She was smiling kindly when she said, “Thank you for watching Leo, that really wasn’t necessary. But I didn’t know you spoke French. That’s very impressive, Mr. Drake.”

“Call me Tim, please. And you’ve caught me, I have a deep love of languages. It’s helped in this position, though,” he said with a smile. “Business transactions are a lot easier when you don’t need a translator.” 

“I’ve also found that to be true,” Marinette said, lips quirked. “It’s finally your turn for your consultation. We can do it with or without Leo, whatever you would prefer.” 

“Leo and I are friends now, of course I would need his opinion!” Tim said, just barely noticing that he was still holding the child. “After all, I need his help making sure that I have the best suit at the entire Wayne Gala.” 

That actually coaxed a smile out of the boy, and the resemblance between him and his mother had never been stronger. Marinette looked surprised, but her eyes were warm. “A lot of designers despair over men’s fashion, you know. People lash out whenever you stray too far from the traditional designs, and no one can really reinvent the suit. While it doesn’t let us exercise as much creativity and freedom as women’s fashion, I actually love things like this. Men’s suits are all about attention to detail - how I can work to show your personality in an appropriate but memorable manner. Do you have any specific requests?” 

Against his will, Tim felt his face heat up, doubtlessly turning as red as his vigilante suit. “I fully admit that I was the one who originally commissioned you. I even had to fight Damian. And yet, I haven’t thought about the specifics of what I might want until now.” 

Thankfully, Marinette laughed. “You’d be surprised at how often that happens. That’s perfectly fine. I just didn’t want to leave out anything you desperately wanted. Do you have a specific color for your suit in mind?” 

“Black?” Tim asked helplessly. “I’ve followed your career for a long time, Mademoiselle, but that doesn’t mean that I know anything about fashion. I just know that your fashion seems… magical.” 

Marinette’s lips quirked upwards, a knowing sparkle in her eyes. “That’s an interesting comment. I have a proposal for you, Timothy Drake. If you have any pressing requests I will include them, but I want to keep yours a surprise.” 

Tim swallowed, completely unprepared to deal with the sparkle in her eyes. “I trust you.”

“The exterior is going to be a neutral color because you’re a business man who needs to keep up appearances. That means the most fun we’ll get to have is with the lining. Any opinions?” Marinette asked. “I only bring it up because it’s the most flexible part.” 

“I don’t know, I think all of my suit linings are black or gray,” Tim said, slightly distressed. 

Leo stared him down with serious eyes before saying, “Maman, the inside needs to be red. Ladybug red.” 

“Ladybug? You want me to look like a beetle?” Tim asked. 

Marinette smiled slightly at his comment, but her eyes were fixed on her son. “Are you sure, mon cher? Ladybug red?”

“That’s what he needs,” Leo confirmed. 

Thinking about his brothers’ laughter if he showed up in a polka-dot suit, Tim asked again, “Ladybugs? Are you sure, Leo?” 

“Oh, not the bug,” the fashion designer assured him, finally breaking eye contact with her son. “She tries to keep her existence quiet, but Ladybug is one of Paris’s heroes.” 

“She’s the best hero,” Leo said solemnly. “But you’re nice like she is. You need to have red like she does.” 

There was a strange look in Marinette’s eye that Tim couldn’t quite decipher, but she smiled nonetheless. “You should feel honored. Once someone back in Paris asked me to make something in Ladybug red, and Leo hid the fabric so I had to make it in a slightly different shade. He must really like you.” 

He wanted to say something, anything. Tim had never felt so… he didn’t even know how to describe it. He had spent his life building it into what he had wanted it to be, propping himself up with his accomplishments. He stood alone in his skyscraper, trying to catch up to Bruce and his brothers, but Marinette and Leo had violently dragged him down to the ground, standing outside with everyone. Maybe his family had never been as distant as he thought. 

Or maybe the caffeine withdrawal was finally getting to him.

Taglist: 

@ii-fox-demon @queen-in-a-flower-crown @novaloptr @saphiraazure2708 @iamabrownfox @smolplantmum @redhoodedtoad @loysydark @slytheringinger300 @finallyaniguana @brokenwordsarehard2 @abrx2002 @mystery-5-5 @zalladane @moonlightstar64  @marinettepotterandplagg @black-streak @purplesundaze @maribat-is-lifeblood

Note: 

Damian’s going to be a jerk in this. Beware. 

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 2, Episode 7, The Two Live Crew Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Dean: Hi, I’m Dean Devlin, Executive Producer and Director of this episode of Leverage.

Amy: Hi, I’m Amy Berg, Supervising Producer and Writer of this episode.

John: John Rogers, Executive Producer and Co-Writer of this episode. Hold on. [Opens bee.] There we go.

[Laughter]

Dean: The beer has been opened.

John: The Guiness has been opened. Amy Berg where did this episode come from?

Amy: Well, I mean, when you have a show about a team of con men sort of- one of the first episodes that you think of is- 

John: Yeah, it was like one of the first ones we broke- we talked about last season-

Amy: What happens when they go up against another team of con men? And obviously that's not something you really wanna, sort of, pull the trigger on during season one, so we sort of sat on it for a bit.

Dean: But we talked about it a lot in season one.

Amy: We did talk about it.

John: Yeah. But really you have to have your- part of the fun is having your characters and opposition- of people that make a difference, having the opposition of you need to know the characters really well.

Amy: You need to learn who our people are before we can bring in a new set of people.

John: Yeah, so it was a lot of fun putting together the different combinations and different variations on this- the evil team of evil Leverage.

Amy: Loves it.

John: Why the Gustav Klimt?

Amy: The Gustav Klimpt, now you're testing me and it's been a while, I believe this painting was called Higeia and it was technically destroyed by the Nazis in 1945. And it was sort of a choice to pick a painting that wasn't actually in existence, so we weren’t stepping on anybody's toes, saying that this was a stolen painting.

John: The likeless- the equivalent of likeness rights on paintings is an enormous pain in the ass so as a matter of fact, there's a statue of Lincoln in the park that's in the sequence later that we shot and then we had to get the rights to using that statute, even in the background.

Dean: Yeah.

John: Now that's very tricky stuff. Dean tell us about the fun of shooting this.

Dean: Well we wanted to try and keep perpetual motion and show two different attempts. Our team, which tries to do a low tech break in through basically just cutting through a wall through this cheapo office behind the high tech office, and then the daring team that actually chases the bullet head on.

John: Yeah. And there is our villain, Griffin.

Amy: Griffin Dunne.

John: Exactly.

Dean: I've wanted to work with Griffin my whole life. I remember seeing him in An American Werewolf Through London and just falling madly in love with this guy; I just thought he was amazing. And then when we went to do this episode, it was actually Tim Hutton who said, ‘What do you think about my pal Griffin Dunne playing this part?’ And it was just like a gift from heaven.

John: Oh yeah, we are all over that. And this is a lot of fun and we built a fake wall- And that is Tim's assistant, correct?

Amy: That’s that’s Elle, yeah.

John: That's Elle, Tim’s assistant, in her big screen debut with us tormenting her.

Amy: Indeed. And they're playing detectives Marlow and Archer who, as you know, is an homage to both Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald.

John: That's right.

Dean: And there's fun outtakes from that which will be in the gag reel.

Amy: Excellent. This should have a lot of gag reel footage.

John: It's also- to tell you what's weird is, Archer actually- 

Amy: Was the name of Tim Spades partner in [mumbles]?

John: That's right. That's what the original reference was. That’s also Ross Mcdonald.

Amy: But Ross Mcdonald was inspired by that character in order.

John: Really?

Amy: Yeah.

John: I didn't know that. There you go.

Dean: Fans of the show In Treatment should know that this actress, Noa Tishby, is actually the Executive Producer of In Treatment on HBO.

John: That's right Noa is an Israli actress, she was in Israel, she saw the original show, she dug in, got the rights herself, brought it to America, and wound up executive producing the American version.

Amy: By the way, that's Wil Wheaton.

[Laughter]

Amy: Which is so awesome. And who cast Will Wheaton in this episode, John Rogers?

John: Well I technically cast him, but I believe you had the idea of hiring Wil Wheaton because I'm the one who actually signed the papers.

Amy: Thank you, I appreciate the credit on that.

John: Yes.

Dean: And I was so happy because Wil Wheaton and I actually used to play on the same hockey team together.

Amy: That's right.

Dean: And this was back when he was on Star Trek. And I was dumb enough to allow him to play goalie at the time and-

[Laughter]

Dean: And [Unintelligible]’s son took a slapshot that cracked his helmet open and gave him 17 stitches across the forehead.

Amy: You helped break Wil Wheaton's face.

Dean: And the producers of Star Trek called me screaming at me and forbidding me to ever allowing him to play on the team again.

Amy: Nice. Dogs Playing Poker, by the way, totally public domain. That’s why we chose that one.

John: There you go, there's a lot of variations of that, too, that’s right. And this is actually our little slam is not a part of the subtle on a lot of the CBS crime shows; just the sort of horrible-

Amy: Yeah, the over the top-

John: When we created Leverage, one of the reasons we did it was because so many shows were chasing serial killers. I think it was Chris Downey who said, ‘You know what? Serial killers are covered. Let’s chase rich white dudes in suits.’

Amy: I think they're done.

John: There's only ever been 10 and they've been caught 100 times. And that was Apollo Robbins. This is a great- this is one of Dean's signature roundy-rounds. And I was saying the other day-

Dean: An amazing steadicam shot.

John: I was saying the other day, we've actually learned in the writers room how to assign dialogue to make this easier.

Amy: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John: So rather than rewriting on the fly-

Amy: -we write towards the circle track.

John: Cause you can actually see. It goes- it's like triple play: it goes to Beth to Aldis to Chris to Tim and then back around again.

Amy: I love Parker; there’s always- always something secret going on, whether its secret nazis or- 

John: Yeah well, we kind of establish it in The Day of the Hunter Job, Parker’s realm of knowledge outside of stealing is not good.

[Laughter]

John: Like, anything that doesn't involve stealing, she will believe it if the other team members tell her. Oh this is great. I remember we shot this day. Dean, tell us about this bit.

Dean: Well this was one where we actually went full circle because we came in, we rehearsed it one way and it felt really good, but then we started to feel like, ‘Gosh we're not doing enough.’ And so then we reblocked the entire scene so we could all do more and have more happen, and then we all paused and went, ‘You know, the first one was much better.’

[Laughter]

Dean: And that's what we went with.

John: Yup. What I think was part of what was driving that was because I was on set that day, ‘Do not touch the motion sensitive bomb.’

Amy: Thank you.

John: Was the fact that this was gonna be Gina's last episode, full day with the cast- And also, she really dug in on the fact that the character was going to die and it genuinely upset the cast. Like the cast was a little freaked out here; they got way- cause this is a very claustrophobic set, very claustrophobic scene. The way we usually shoot is we shoot longer takes. So we do the whole thing, like we’ve shot entire acts in one take at some point.

Dean: That's true.

Amy: Yeah. By the way, this bit with the pudding, I've known John for two years and this is the only time I've ever turned him on.

[Laughter]

Amy: I wrote this bit, and he read the act and he came in and he burst into my office and was like ’hahaha’.

John: Remember you didn’t use it you; had talked about it and-

Amy: That’s true. That’s true. I brought it up in dialogue, but I didn't actually employ it. They didn’t- Parker didn't actually use it.

John: I actually kicked in the door- the only time I’ve yelled at you- 

Amy: Yeah, he yelled at me.

John: I kicked in the door and said, ‘How do you come up with instant pudding in a motion sensitive bomb and not actually use it?’ And so we had- and Parker, we had Parker do it. There's a lot of great acting in here, there's a lot of Gina digging in on, sort of, Sophie's past catching up with her. Hardison-

Amy: But this is a scene where it’s really easy to overwrite it, because your instinct is sort of to write to the emotion of this scene like Sophie could die. But the point is to underwrite and let your actors find the emotion between the lines.

John: That beat right there with Chris and Gina.

Amy: Yes.

John: There's a very nice recurring thing we try to do, which is, whenever it becomes something about killing someone, they go to Eliot because Eliot- because Eliot used to do that. And there's a nice moment there. I was actually there- oh look at that look. I love that look. Where-

Amy: Emotion between the lines.

John: Where basically Eliot signs off on the fact that she's probably gonna die and Gina and Eliot worked that out and it's just a lovely moment. Ahhh this is great, now how did we do this?

Amy: Gina just knocks this out of the park.

Dean: So Gina was very pregnant at the time, so we had to do a double for the wide shots, for the running, and Gina for the closeups.

John: Yeah, and then this is a miniature.

Dean: That's right. Well, the building is the actual building we shot at, but the explosion is a miniature that we shot at our parking lot that we digitally composited on top of it. Now at the time, people didn't know what we were gonna do with Gina's character because Gina was pregnant. So when we did this scene and we aired this episode a lot of people were really upset at this point because they actually thought we had killed her off of the show. 

Amy and John: Yeah.

Dean: And early Twitters were very upset.

Amy: Were not favorable.

John: Were very angry.

[Laughter]

Dean: How could you kill her off the show? But then-

Amy: This was originally intended to be the midseason finale, which in that case, the fans would definitely think for sure she was gonna be gone for a while or forever. 

John: Yep.

Amy: But we ended up adding two episodes to the end of the midseason run, so we did get to see her again.

Dean: I don't know what it is exactly, but for me, Parker’s performance- or Beth’s performance as Parker in this section here is reminiscent of some of the great comedians. 

Amy: Yeah.

Dean: Because it's so subtle what she's doing. And a lot of this came out of Beth herself who said -

Amy: I rewrote this scene based on Beth's notes that you were so kind to give me, and it sort of- it made the scene like 10 times better. I don't even remember what it was originally, but-

John: She's trying to remember what her lines are to say as Parker and her eyes roll up like ‘what am I supposed to say’ and then she gets freaked out at seeing Gina dead and loses it.

John: And then she totally spirals out.

Amy: There's a lot going on in, like, 20 seconds; it's pretty funny.

John: And then Hardison having to go up and bail her out. And again, there's a lot of- there's a lot of stuff going on in the structure this year with Gina leaving, and just for that tempering and having us to accelerate that storyline- There's a lot of Hardison/Parker relationship stuff between the lines on all the shows, we just never made it an A plot, but you can actually see the relationship evolve over the course of the season, when you watch the entire season particularly, the second half. And of course Chris is wearing a bandana under his hat because that's when he had slammed his head onto the set.

Dean: In the previous episode.

John: Exactly.

Amy: Yeah, he’s got a giant scar on his forehead right now.

John: Beautiful cemetery up on a big hill in Portland, nice enough to let us shoot there. Beautiful, gorgeous location. And that's a nice bit of acting, too.

Dean: Yeah, just the little moment of him seeing her and then getting that shock of losing someone that he cares about.

John: Yeah, and just processing.

Amy: So far you've pointed out that your favorite moments are the ones where there's no dialogue, so I'm glad I could contribute to that.

[Laughter]

John: Well you wrote- no no, that’s right, I usually go back and write the stage directions, but you do a lot of the-

Amy: This- and so it begins, when John makes fun of me throughout the commentary.

John: I don't make fun of you, just when you take too much credit.

[Laughter]

Dean: This is the controversy.

Amy: I was taking no credit!

Dean: In this scene, the gravestone says Cathrine Klive, her actor name, and at the end Sophie Deveraux and a lot of people thought that was actually a mistake, but why don't you address that?

John: Well we were really- it comes up in the end. We really wanted- and this is sort of a meta structural thing - she wants to kill Sophie Deaveraux. She realizes Sophie Deveraux as an identity, as a life, is a dead end, and so she changes the tombstone so that she can eventually give up that identity. And it's interesting because what Sophie is- realized is that she's going down a dead end, and in theory she’s the current criminal and Nate is the honest man. Nate is also going down a dead end, but he's way too obsessive and blind to realize it.

Amy: Yeah.

John: And so by the end of the season, you’ll see Sophie is a lot more emotionally evolved than Nate is.

Amy: It's true. This is sort of the beginning of Nate’s spiral where-

John: Yeah, maybe the end of Sophie’s thing.

Amy: His priority shifts and, like, winning becomes more important than servicing the clients.

John: We just sort of tease in 206. Great scene between Griffin and- really that was kind of fun. Once we knew we had Griffin Dunne, a lot of these scenes became, ‘Alright, it's really just gonna be head to head.’

Amy: Yeah, yeah.

John: Yeah. It's just- we’re just gonna have the two of them- And the fact that they're friends was really helpful.

Amy: And this the promise of the premise when you do a crew vs crew episode. What you are promising to the audience is you're gonna have one-on-one faceoffs between the characters and their counterparts.

John: And this is part of the evolution of writing an episode, is when we were breaking this, we had a really hard time getting that up as fast as possible, and that's what you wound up- doing the inner cut break in at the opening. Because even though they weren't facing off at each other, we gave the audience the promise of the premise.

Amy: Yes.

John: And the beautiful Hyundai Genesis. A fine automobile.

Amy: A fine, fine vehicle.

Dean: Beautiful peel out.

John: It was nice. In a cemetery!

[Laughter]

John: There was a moment where I was talking to one of the actors, I looked down and realized I was standing on a civil war veteran’s grave. That was a little disturbing.

Amy: That’s classy Rogers.

Dean: I absolutely love the little makeup and hair choices of Gina in this scene, it's so 40’s noir.

John: Yes.

Amy: Yeah, yeah the hair.

John: The whole episode she's playing 40’s noir. And it was a really interesting look, and not one we can do a lot because of the characters she's played, but this was interesting; she's not playing a character ever in this episode except in the opening.

Dean: Right.

John: I kind of liked her in the cop outfit.

Amy: It's one of my favorite running gags in the entire series of the show. Parker just not entirely buying that Gina’s actually alive.

John: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Amy: ‘I'm not dead!’

John: Some part of her brain understands it, but the emotional center is so screwed up.

Amy: ‘I saw her in a coffin, ergo, she must be, in fact, dead.’

John: This is also great, is digging in on the fact that the whole ex-boyfriend/crew/guy who runs the crew she used to be with. And for a while, for like a minute and a half in the room, remember that character was Sophie's boyfriend for the whole first half of the season and this was gonna be the payoff, but we just never knew if we were gonna get the availability for that actor and we just couldn't risk it. And it also seemed a little dishonest she would hide that, so.

Dean: I love the Hardison line, ‘You saw other teams before us?’

[Laughter]

Amy: ‘No, just another Nate.’

John: ‘Just another Nate.’ That's- yes, this is a big family beat of looks back and forth. 

Amy: Lots of looks.

John: Now how did you- I remember you were very, Dean, very big into designing the other team’s headquarters.

Dean: Yeah, well I really wanted to feel like a mirror of our headquarters. But in a believable way in that they don't have permanent space so they’re in a small space. But I was trying to mirror even screen direction-wise that one team is looking left-right the other team is looking right-left so that we can really feel like these are absolute mirror images of each other.

John: Yeah even the looks left-right and right-left match.

Dean: That’s right.

John: Yeah, no it's interesting. And there's Apollo Robbins, who we haven't mentioned yet.

Amy: Apollo Robbins! Yes, he's our technical consultant on the show. He is a master thief. But not anymore, he's a good guy now. I feel like I should point that out.

John: Yes we should. You can't hire him to do crimes.

Amy: When I say consultant, I mean he's not actually a thief anymore.

John: This is also great; this is also the Mona Lisa scam. Why don’t you explain the Mona Lisa scam since you’re a research freak?

Amy: Oh great, now I’m-

John: 1911.

Amy: Yes, 1911 there was a con man, I don't remember his name, but someone says it I think in this scene, where he created six forgeries of the Mona Lisa, stole the original, and then sold the six fakes on the black market to individual buyers as though they were the original and got six times the profit.

John: Some con and heist shows will just do that plot and act like they came up with it. [Coughs] Asshole! [Cough]. 

[Laughter]

John: Rather than mention the fact that this is something that really happened, that you should honor. 

Amy: This is something that really happened, that I actually read about.

John: Also used the Doctor Who's: The City Of Death written by Douglas Adams.

Amy: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

John: There you go. This is something else we did a lot of, which was the process of elimination bit with the screens. Remember we did it in Hunter too? And it's just kind of fun because it’s kind of something from my physics background which is all about probability. And the fact that a series of educated guesses- it's kind of like our version of detective work.

Amy: Yeah.

John: You know, it's like crime detection, it's a lot of fun. And yeah, and now we're really seeing Nate start to spin out of control.

Amy: But this is what I would call dueling competence porn.

John: Yes it is.

Amy: This, and the third act where the teams are doing their jobs and doing them well.

John: Competence porn, by the way, is a term- I forget how it came about, but it's basically-

Amy: It's just a room bit.

John: It’s a room bit. It’s like, you know what? I just like watching people who are good at their jobs doing it, especially if they're entertaining. A lot of it was from 208 was watching Beth Riesgraf- in 208 there was an entire act that's a break in-

Amy: Oh yeah.

John: That’s Beth breaking into a vault. And when you're writing it, you're like, ‘Gosh, that feels thin,’ and then you're watching it and you're like, ‘I'm watching Parker break into a vault for 15 minutes and this is amazing!’

Amy: I could watch it for 40 minutes.

Dean: This is one of my favorite bullet time shots that we’ve done.

John: Yes, now this is- now remember this is all done not digitally- well we do it really. We freeze everyone in the background and the cameraman walks through it and we digitally speed it up. What is this space? This is the- 

Dean: This is an actual museum in Portland that we turned into our space.

John: Yup.

Amy: Wasn't there a naked sculpture that you guys put a leaf on?

John: Yes, up in the upper level.

Amy: That's my favorite story.

John: Yeah. And then- yes, this is 4-way; this is not as insane as the one in the season opener.

Amy: But it’s still insane.

John: But this is a 4-way through about 100 extras.

Amy: I don't think Dean understands that we’re making television.

[Laughter]

Dean: Well, you know, honestly you don't even attempt a shot like this without a steadicam operator like Gary Camp.

Amy: Gary Camp is amazing.

Dean: He's a serious feature film guy. I mean, that was all one shot.

John: Yeah. That's stunning. And then you bring it back to Parker- and this is also fun, is the fact that we make fun in the show. And this was- even when we did tap out and some people were like, ‘Oh, you're making fun of Lincoln, Nebraska,’ when we had Sophie make fun of the food. We’re not making fun of the locations, we’re making fun of the fact that Sophie’s a little princess.

Amy: Yeah.

John: She's not someone who does well with things that- and the van, the van, actually, over the course of the second season becomes a character.

Dean: I love that she's says about how it smells a little whiffy.

[Laughter]

Amy: Which is a callback in The Future Job as well.

John: Yes, this is hard work, it smells like hard work. Yeah, Hardison's affection for the van.

Amy: Respect the van!

John: Respect the van, yeah.

Dean: Now this is actually the first scene where we’ll see the teams start to go head to head.

John: Yeah. Split up, call out your jobs.

Amy: This is the promise of the premise act, as we call it. And it's the Van Gogh that they're after, the Cafe Terrace At Night, I believe it’s called.

Dean: And this is a very important moment because it really established who Nate and Sophie were to the rest of the team. Nate being the one that makes the plans, but Sophie being the one who keeps them safe. And that had never been exposited before, and by doing that, it really set it up.

John: Boom! And then the parallel structure over to Hardison's opposite number, Chaos, played by Wil Wheaton, just four vans down. 

Amy: Nice.

John: That was really inspired. They’re the most twin of the bunch. Oh, and this is amazing. This is amazing because that's all real time. That wallet never came off. This was this whole section we just gave to Apollo.

Amy: Yeah. He's like, what can you do? And he just basically-

John: And he took Beth aside and they came up with a bunch of- it’s like, you know what? We're just gonna run camera, you just do a bunch of you do you, man.

Amy: By the way, there was no one else we had in mind for Apollo. Even when I was like- when I came up with the concept, and then I also did the outline, I also called the character Apollo, hoping at some point we would actually cast him.

John: But was the Wil Wheaton character originally a girl?

Amy: In fact, she was.

John: Yes, that’s right.

[Laughter]

Amy: Yeah, it was- I believe it was a hot Latina- 

John: Yes.

Amy: -that he was going up against, and then at some point, you know, in the casting process I turned to you and I was like, ‘You know, we've been talking about Wil Wheaton for something. Is this not the prefect role or not?’

John: And Noa Tishby rocking the dress. Noa was actually in the Israeli army. So that was kinda cool as we were looking at a lot of different actresses and Dean had seen her tape.

Dean: Yeah.

John: And it was like, you know, I wanna try a different ethnicity. I wanna try a different look, and brought her in. And what's great is she looks like she can take a punch, you know, that's a tough chick. And she really did great in the fight scenes and was a really- we got really lucky in this episode.

Amy: Oh yeah.

John: You know, we usually have to cast one big role; we cast five. 

Dean: Right.

John: And they were all great.

Dean: Now this fight scene was-

John: Ok I'm gonna take credit for this one because nobody else is-

Amy: I wasn't gonna take credit for it.

John: No shadow on this, I had to explain this 9 times.

[Laughter]

Amy: Oh yeah, that’s right.

Dean: And this sequence was actually getting directed by Marc Roskin and you, John.

John: Yes, at two o’clock in the morning. But I will give Mark Franco big props for throwing the old 1970’s film look.

Amy: The film reel stuff.

Dean: I love it.

John: That is so great. The Shaw brothers look is that and this is the whole-

Dean: That's how they see- in their minds that's how they see fights, like the karate movies they grew up watching. 

John: Yes. And this is based on two things. 1) a great story about samurais- I love that look that Chris did. Great story about two samurai who faced each other, knew each other’s skills so well they fought the entire fight in their head and walked away. And Warren Ellis’ character the Midnighter from The Authority comic book who has sort of the same thing. He does fights backwards in his head. Ah look at that, oh he's a great physical actor, too, it was really- it was nice, cause we cast Apollo, he's never done acting before, he'd never done TV before. And it's the one gamble on the whole show and he was fantastic.

Dean: And he totally pulled it off.

Amy: But he's just so damn charming, it’s like you, sort of, just believed from the beginning that he could do it.

John: Yeah, he's very dangerous. 

[Laughter]

John: It's really- if he ever turned evil, we'd be in a lot of trouble.

Amy: Oh my gosh.

Dean: This next sequence, outside, while I had done the storyboards for it, Marc Roskin shot the hell out of it. And what we wanted to do was an homage to the great Western movies, you know, the Spaghetti Western.

John: Well this was the challenge, and we talked about this when we were writing it. It’s like, nobody does hacking in an interesting way. There's no way to do hacking in an interesting way.

Amy: Visually it’s- filming it is not effective.

John: So abandon trying to do it with the computers and just do the metaphor, which is two guys pitting each other’s intellects against each other, and make it text.

Amy: And it's much more interesting, look at each other than looking at screens.

John: Oh and that timing is great, look at this, it’s just fantastic.

Amy: This is so nerdgasmic.

[Laughter]

Dean: He even had that Spaghetti Western whistle.

Amy: Yeah. I remember the first cut it was only in there subtly and you were like, ‘Hey turn that up, man.’

Dean: Listen, I’m-

John: And look at the little holster move, too. 

Dean: I'm all for subtly, I just want a lot more of it.

[Laughter]

John: Oh no, Wil knocked it out of the park in this. Did you know that he had been doing a bunch of shows and people have come up and asked him to sign his autograph as this character?

Amy: As Chaos.

Dean: That's great.

John: Somebody came up with the anarchists cookbook and asked him to sign it as Chaos.

Dean: And I love that Sophie can’t use a computer.

[Laughter]

John: Utterly useless.

Dean: She just closes it.

John: Well Hardison’s taught Eliot- and the look to the swords. We had so much fun coming up with different props in the scenes. And this was at 2 o’clock in the morning fight fight fight, you win. Fight fight fight, you win. And just- cause they had to learn the routines and we were banging it out in three sizes at a time, it was great. Then we shot the bird. 

Amy: So many looks.

John: And this- you could run the entire Parker/Apollo scene without dialogue and you'd know exactly what's going on.

Amy and Dean: Yeah.

John: Actually-

Dean: She's a little bit the Harpo. You know what I mean.

Amy: She's the Harpo.

John: She's the Harpo, he's Groucho in that scene, it's very subtle.

Amy: Is that Chase? Was that Chase walking towards the camera? It looked a little like Chase.

John: No, no. And this is, again, one of the rules, one of the hard rules of doing these shows. These shows are very hard, is that it can't be a random obstacle. Whatever is your obstacle heading into the third or fourth act must either be a product of the villains plan which you've already set in motion, or something that the team has screwed up or succeeded too well. And not screwed up too often cause that means they suck. So-

Amy: You make it sound like we did something good on purpose. That’s awesome.

John: Yeah, every now and then. And this is just- I want-

Dean: We almost didn’t do this.

John: We almost didn't do, but this is the punchline to the bit, that they're so locked into each other-

Dean: I'm so glad we did it.

John: Yeah. I actually was ready to bail on it, you were like, ‘Yeah, you know what? Let's make time.’ And the little look, and he gives them a bunch-

Dean: A bunch of crazy idiots.

John: Yeah, exactly. Now this is great, Nate’s totally lost in the need to win at this point.

Amy: Oh yeah.

Dean: I love Parker saying that, ‘The people in this line of work are unstable; we can use that.’

John: Yes.

Dean: Completely not realizing that she's in that line of work.

John: Tapping the pad look at that and look at the look Chris- that's another thing. 

Amy: ‘I'm totally helping.’ That's it.

John: Gina gives a little smile which I missed the first time I saw this show.

Amy: There's a lot of little subtleties.

John: And again, second season, you start pairing up things differently. Chris and Gina found a nice rhythm for Sophie and Eliot this year that wasn't there first year, just in the pairings. And we wound up working; it was nice. And this is- yeah, she killed a guy with a mop.

Dean: I love Hardison's jealousy about Chaos, the whole ‘ugh.’

Amy: ‘Chaos.’

[Laughter]

John: Cause, you know, and it's a great thing of acting on Aldis’ part, you know he's beat him. You know that Chaos has beaten him a couple times. He's really- he’s not a pleasant loser, Hardison. And the nice little fist tap for the Kobayashi Maru.

Amy: Nice little knuckle bump, Parker. 

John: Yup. Well that was another one of the little subtle things, that Parker has plainly sat down and watched like all nine Star Trek movies with Hardison because it was just something he did on a Saturday, you know?

[Laughter]

Amy: Well she wants to see, you know, what normal people do.

John: Yeah, Hardison's probably a bad example of that.

Amy: I don't think that's right- the right choice.

John: There's not- you know-

Amy: I gotta say, I love Tim in this scene.

John: Yeah. He’s really mad.

Dean: This one, out of all the cutting back and forth, this was the trickiest because it had to match rhythm, intensity-

Amy: And dialogue.

Dean: -and dialogue.

John: That's right. 

Dean: This was really tricky.

John: Line by line. And that was the tricky bit, too. We had to give both of them the entire script for each one so they could know what they were doing to each other. I think- did Griffin come down the first day and watch Tim?

Dean: I actually think this was Griffin’s either first or second day on the show.

John: That's right. Tim came down to watch- yeah, so he would know what he had done physically. There's a parallel structure even with the team. This was a lot of fun. But this is one of those things that looks really elegant, but scripting, it's a little chimpy. It’s like, once you know what you're going to do, this wrote pretty easy.

Amy: Ok, yes, but I'm gonna go on record in saying that this is the best third act we've ever done in the history of Leverage. I just love it so much.

John: Well, you know what? Again, this is something you sorta learn. We- you know what? You learn how to write the show while you write the show. This is when we really where we realize you only need to do one thing an act. We so tried to buff all the people and, ‘Oh look, at the incredible plot twist’ like, you know what? They're fun characters, they're good characters, let them do one thing.

Dean: Yeah, it's fun to watch them do their thing.

John: One thing every act.

Dean: And I love how they all started to get pumped up for it. On both sides, they are gearing up for game day.

John: This is a great act break.

Amy: Nothing about that act I dont like. And I had very little to do with it.

John: This is easily- this is one of my favorite shows of the season. Of both seasons.

Amy: Mine too.

Dean: And beautifully photographed by our great cinematographer, Dave Connell.

John: That's right, because we were shooting parallel; we were shooting inside the museum and outside. You were outside running back and forth.

Dean: Very intense.

John: And this is a lot of fun. All the security guys were great. Portland once again gave us a great, great acting pool. 

Amy: Go Portland!

John: And then this was a lot of fun, was setting up the snarky dialogue and Aldis and Wil basically sat and sweated in their vans-

Amy: Yeah.

John: -for 6 hours. Cause Aldis is always going, ‘Nobody knows what it's like to work in the van’. That van is hot. So he was very glad to have a playmate.

Amy: Aldis had like one full day of shooting in the van and nowhere else.

John: Yeah, exactly.

Dean: I love the character Tim came up with here, that was great.

John: And Emily is actually the girl I went to prom with. That's where the name comes from.

Dean: Nice.

John: Yep.

Dean: Poor Emily.

John: Yeah I’m- hey!

[Laughter]

Amy: I said nothing. If you noticed, I stayed quiet and said nothing. I'm learning.

John: And Tim plays drunk, distracting guy an awful lot this season. This- and by the way, the security guard that talks him down is great, he's got a really great comedic beat. This, by the way, is a stunning sequence.

Dean and John: 10 millimeter lens.

Amy: 10 millimeter lens? 

John: Down in the basement.

Dean: And look at this steadicam move - down the stairs!

Amy: Running down the stairs.

John: This is a guy walking!

Dean: And then whipping around, that is-

Amy: This is inhuman.

John: It really is.

Dean: For steadicam artists, they will understand how difficult that shot is.

John: By the way, I like the fact that we just locked Beth into the air conditioning system.

[Laughter]

John: ‘Are we gonna build one? No, there's one downstairs! Should we put Beth Riesgraf in moving machinery? If she's up for it.’

Amy: Not sure why we had to put the lock it, but that's ok.

John: It's a good look. And oh yes, it-

Dean: I think this is my favorite of all the air duct scenes, this is my favorite air duct scene.

Amy: This is actually-

John: Well like Two Horse- all of Two Horse where she was bitching while having to do it.

Amy: Oh yeah.

John: This is also- we built the most complicated duct system on earth for this.

Dean: Talk about the bird, because you were there for this.

John: Oh yeah, I- we thought the bird would be CG, much like, we thought we’d be on a CG roof the series premiere, instead we wound up in Chicago 40 stories up. Dean went and found a bird- 

[Laughter]

John: -a North American Kestrel. He said it would be easier to shoot a real bird that was trained, and so if you go on my blog you see pictures of the bird, but that's the last thing we did that night, so at 2 am we had this bird in a box, which was really beautiful.

Dean: Yeah.

John: And- 

Amy: No birds were harmed in the making of this episode.

John: No birds were harmed. It was a really beautiful bird. But yeah, the trainer was hiding right off screen to summon the bird to get it to fly across.

Dean: This was actually one of the most difficult fight scenes we've ever shot, mainly because of the small space they were in.

John: How did you get the camera up there?

Dean: We literally locked it onto the ceiling and just let it run for the whole day. And then hoped we had good material.

John: Oh cool. That everybody would hit their marks.

Amy: She's so intense, I love it.

John: And the- him switching back over to Hebrew, this was a lot of fun. Oh and ‘now I’ve got the lasers.’

Amy: ‘No, now I’ve got the lasers!’

Dean: His arrogance was just awesome.

John: The two of them were fantastic.

Amy: He’s almost too good at it.

John: Big thanks to Derek, yet again, for building a great interface that lets the audience know exactly what’s going on.

Amy: Derek’s our graphics guy, he's amazing.

John: Does all our computer stuff. And our security guards, you know, somewhat oblivious, but good guys.

Dean: That's just the oldest gag in the world that I love.

Amy: It flickers only when they're not looking at it.

John: You know what it is, it’s the Abbott and Costello, it’s the candle on Dracula’s coffin.

[Laughter]

Dean: And I love that.

John: I love that reveal.

Dean: And he comes in dressed as, and named as, Nate Ford. I mean, that is just fabulous.

Amy: He's with the insurance company, what?

John: It is a great little, ‘Fuck you,’ from that character. 

Dean: And Tim’s look at him for doing it, it’s just awesome.

John: But this was the fun of the fourth- and this was really hard when we were plotting. It's like ok, in the fourth act they have to be good, but they have to look like they’re losing. And they have to look like they're losing so bad you come into the fifth act not knowing if they won, and then we have to somehow pull it out.

Amy: Yeah. This, by the way, the scene with the two of them talking with the bird cage, was one of the first images that popped into my head when we were breaking this episode. I just love this.

John: But this duct tape- cause here's the thing, we have to shoot this direction and you have to shoot them crawling off these directions. This thing was huge, a human sized hamster trail. Took up an entire ball room for that one shot. Great fight scene, and we had talked about this, and this is a lot steamier and sexier than originally pitched.

Amy: It's literally steamy.

John: Dean was all over- like ‘I'm going to fight. I'm gonna shoot the steamiest fight scene that we've ever had.’

Dean: I thought it would be interesting to do a fight scene as a love scene.

John: Yeah.

Dean: And so the fight is actually foreplay.

John: Yeah.

[Laughter]

John: And a dance. It’s really like a dance sequence. We used to always say fights are like dances because of the movement and everything, but you know, you took that very literally and everything, which was great.

Dean: Now, by the way, we've done lasers in several episodes before. 

Amy: Yeah.

Dean: These are the best lasers we ever did by far.

Amy: It's pretty cool.

John: Yeah, and having them move, that was the key. It's yet another example of something that you think will be really hard, actually turns out to be a little easier and way cooler.

Dean: And way cooler.

John: Yeah.

Dean: And again, kudos to the effects artists. If you look carefully, you can see the lasers reflecting in her pupils.

John: Reflecting in her eyes. I know, that’s sick. 

Amy: That's really hot.

John: That was really great. This is a big ‘they are screwed’ act out.

Amy: Oh my god, look at that!

Dean: That is so cool.

Amy: Why did I not notice that before?

John: And wet people fighting.

[Laughter]

John: You know what? We give you everything on Leverage.

Dean: Little sex, little violence. 

John: And it’s good.

Dean: And now we were able to take the hat off cause we were able to use the real scar on his forehead finally in the episode!

John: Also kinda cool, Kevin, our stunt coordinator, had them fighting in Israeli military style. That they were both- they had both sort of picked up- we always had Eliot kind of fight in that style, but the fact that that would be her training-

Dean: And I love that these two are standing next to Honest Abe.

[Laughter]

John: And that's a great entrance. She's really got-

Amy: ‘Oohhh.’

John: She's got 3 great entrances this year. 

Amy: Yeah, she does.

John: One I'm not gonna talk about. 

Amy: Cause you haven't seen it yet.

John: You haven’t seen it yet. But the Annie Croy entrance in the season opener was one of my favorite Gina bits, and then that.

Dean: Fabulous. Gina absolutely brought her A game this season.

John: And yup, this is our double just whipping through this.

Amy: That was me.

John: That was you? I forgot about that.

[Laughter]

Amy: It's a secret skill. I don’t like to talk about it.

John: And that's the thing, that was footage of the gymnast whipping through those maneuvers with Beth popping up. The special effects people had to put the lasers through those moves to coordinate with- you know, ordinarily, you build these shots incredibly carefully. It was like, ‘No, here's the footage. Make it work.’

Dean: I love this old school crank.

John: ‘Can't hack a classic.’

[Laughter]

Amy: More competence porn.

John: More competence porn. Hardison- the staff will tell you the first year we had Christmas together, I got them all wind up radios and flashlights. 

Amy: Yes.

John: I'm a big believer in emergency preparedness for the apocalypse.

Amy: He cares! He cares about us. 

John: You mock.

Amy: Wants us to live through the world ending.

John: Well, you know. I play a lot of Left 4 Dead. I want to make sure my crew’s ready.

Amy: Alright, cool.

Dean: I love that - Parker not quite good at acting yet.

John: No. This is key, Parker can't do a long con. She can maintain it for maybe 4-5 minutes before her inability to mimic humans breaks down. And there we go.

Amy: By the way, this episode totally screwed my- the way I do story telling now, because I'm thinking as the criminal all the time.

John: Yeah.

[Laughter]

Amy: Like, it's terrible. ‘How would I break into an auction house? Well to control the motion sensors-’

Dean: I love this beat right here.

John: Yeah.

Dean: Like, ‘Ahh, screw the fight.’

[Laughter]

John: Well he knows he's won by this point, so it's just really- 

Dean: And she's so turned on by the fact that he did, cause no one else has ever beaten her.

John: Yeah, that was a lot of fun, was the idea that people- it's, again, you respect someone who’s competent. And the hand- yeah the little look after the handcuff-

Amy: Wow.

John: He actually looks a little scared there.

Amy: I know, I know.

John: He's like, ‘I got you! Oh wait, what did I get?’

Amy: ‘Is it over?’

John: This is nice.

Dean: In the original longer version, they originally kissed and then fell out of frame.

John: I missed that! I missed the fact that they banged out a quickie during the middle of the con.

Amy: Uh, no.

John: Alright, fine. By the way, Christian loves the badge on the chain. Anytime he can have the badge on a chain, he’s the happiest man alive. And Hardison-

Dean: A little bit of improv-ing by Aldis Hodge here.

Amy: Indeed.

John: Aldis- and again, this pops up in the next episode, Hardison always goes a little too far. He's never able to quite control the- he’s never able to get out without pushing it too far.

Amy: Are you saying that's going to catch up to him at some point?

John: That will catch up to him. The very next episode matter of fact. And yeah, this was a lot of fun driving police cars around Portland at six o’clock in the morning.

Amy: I'm sure no one was alarmed.

Dean: Now young filmmakers, that little move there is to get on the other side of the line.

Amy: Oh yes.

John: What was that?

Dean: So we- after we established them coming out of the building the camera slowly tracks over to the other shoulder on both sides, so now we're on the opposite side of the line and all of their looks have now reversed from the previous scene.

John: You and your looks.

[Laughter]

Dean: But this allowed us to now do our car gag, because we couldn’t really blow up a car in this location.

John: At two o’clock in the morning.

Dean: So we had to whip-pan off of a look to a parked car, then later we blew up a model car and replaced it.

Amy: We did two miniature explosions.

John: I love this reveal. I love this look. It’s like, ahhh, it's like Christmas.

Dean: Bingo.

John: Yeah.

Amy: Always knew you were evil, Wil Wheaton.

Dean: And now the evil speech of evil.

Amy: The evil speech of evil!

John: The evil speech of evil! A crucial part of the- well, this isn't really an evil speech of evil. The evil speech of evil is usually when they are-

Amy: Yeah, it’s the evil griping of evil.

John: The evil speech of evil is just: define your behavior. He's straight up monologuing here.

Dean: This is a little bit more of the, ‘I would’ve gotten away if it weren’t for you meddling kids.’

John: Yes, exactly.

Amy: Are you saying this is a Scooby Doo?

John: In the original version of this, he pulls off the Wil Wheaton mask only to reveal he's still Wil Wheaton.

[Laughter]

John: But he wears a Wil Wheaton mask. You know what? We should've called Wil for this.

Amy: Oh my god, why didn’t we do that? Now we gotta record it again.

John: I know. Maybe- You know what? We’ll do one on iTunes with him.

Amy: We'll do a special one.

John: And we may be playing Dungeons and Dragons while we actually do the commentary. This is great now. This is tough. And talk about- we had a couple different endings for this episode in this particular scene.

Amy: Yes.

John: Go ahead.

Amy: I don't remember them, I just remember there were multiple endings. [Laughs]

John: We actually, for a couple different versions of the outline, had him lose. Had Nate and the guys lose.

Amy: Oh, that’s right.

John: And then our team conned them about the painting. And the moral was basically our team kinda sitting around, pissed off they lost, but they were still a family while the other team broke up. And it just didn't feel-

Dean: Wasn't satisfying.

John: It was one of those good writer beats- and that's why Dean’s actually a very valuable producing partner, because he's all heart. 

[Laughter]

John: Seriously man, he’s- and he’s, ‘I don't feel it.’

Amy: And we have none.

John: And we have none, because we’re writers and our blackened little hearts are shriveled away.

Amy: And our dark souls.

John: It's very easy when you're writing a con and heist show to get a little too clever for your own good.

Amy: It’s true.

John: And Dean’s a very good barometer on, ‘You know, do I really-? Am I gonna be happy with this?’ And you know, he’s right.

Dean: I like a little fromage.

Amy: Well what were the reasons-?

John: No, not fromage, but just, you know-

Amy: I think one of the reasons we were gonna have them losing was that this was gonna be episode three or four, and then we had the wild thought that we would bring the evil team back for episode seven.

John: Yes.

Amy: And sort of do, you know, ‘We lost the first one, but we won the second one.’

Dean: There's the recall of your Emily story.

John: Yes, that's right, the little go to the dance with. No it's- oh and that's great.

Dean: Again, that was Apollo who came up with that idea. 

John: Yeah, that they're picking-

Dean: A lockpicking race.

John: And also Beth tossing the lockpick into the air and catching it? After a week with Apollo, she’d really gotten disgustingly good. I think they're actually picking there.

Amy: Well Apollo has gone on record as saying Beth can actually be a professional pickpocket if she wanted to.

John: She's got soft hands.

Dean: And this is, again, one of those scenes where Christian shows you how good he is at comedy. How subtle he is when he realizes she may be the person who actually shot him.

Amy: Look at that look!

[Laughter]

John: Yeah. 

Amy: His eyes widen just like a millimeter, but-

John: Yeah. And that was an improv, I think. ‘Y’all nasty’. He's supposed to just look at it. 

Amy: That’s awesome.

John: And Griffin doing the Nate Ford, ‘I'm an honest man’ speech here, incredibly uncomfortably!

Dean: Well, we always want the villain to suffer and this is how he suffers.

John: He’s just sweating it out.

Amy: He's getting more satisfaction out of watching Griffin Dunne lose than he is from getting the painting back to the clients.

John: Which is something wrong.

Amy: Yes, that's not right.

John: Sophie's actually the moral center of this scene.

Amy: This is the episode where they, in a way, sort of switch roles. She becomes the honest thief, and he becomes-

John: They were a lovely couple. God, these actors were nice.

Dean: Just amazing local actors.

John: No, this was a lot of fun. And then, again, giving him just enough rope to hang himself with. And making sure that he's pissed off enough to come back in season three.

Dean: The other part of this scene I like is, it really shows how far Sophie has come, that she’s actually not just doing this, she’s actually, really- she’s drank the kool aid by now. She really believes in what they're doing. 

John: To a little bit more than Nate at this point.

Amy: Yeah.

John: Yeah. Which, you know, and that- we really took the, ‘You killed Sophie Deaveraux.’ And the funeral was a late addition; that wasn't in the first outline.

Dean: Yeah.

Amy: No, it wasn't. That was something that we added later. 

John: Yeah it was. 

Amy: But that was an element of knowing we were gonna lose Gina and trying to set up an awesome departure.

John: Yup. And that bomb thing wound up being really- Because originally- it was originally a sort of investigatory clue path and then when we lose Gina it's like, alright let's scare the audience a little here.

Dean: How did you come up with this bit of how they tracked-?

John: I think that was some geek bullshit I had in the notebook, I’m fairly sure. Whenever it’s some tiny minutiae of how phones work, it’s you know-

Amy: Good old GPS.

John: Yeah well, you know what? I think at the time there were some protests about the fact that you couldn't turn off the GPS tracking in your phone, and it was- they were talking about a lot in England you being able to do that, so that just kinda stuck.

Amy: Well I imagine all this would-

Dean: There's Chase!

Amy: See, yeah, there's Chase. I knew I saw him at some point.

John:  Is this-? Yeah, here we go. All these great local actors.

Dean: And I love the security guard; this woman is fabulous.

Amy: So much personality, only a few lines.

John: And again, this is one of those things where you are trying to come up with a really clever way to screw him and then you suddenly realize, no, it’s just a box full of paintings; there's nothing really subtle about this. You’re just going to jail forever.

Dean: But in a way, this is what makes it work. ‘This is the real one.’

John: We had a couple of different notes, too.

Amy: He lost by winning. Cause what he wanted was the paintings, and we gave him the paintings, but that’s what did him over in the end.

John: Another rule: the villain must be brought down by their own sin. 

Dean: Now this, for me, is my favorite scene for a number of reasons. 

John: It’s a good scene.

Dean: First of all, just the lighting. We got this at the perfect time of day.

John: Yeah, how'd we get the lighting Dean?

[Laughter]

Dean: We accidentally went over that day and somehow went into-

Amy: Oh accidentally?

John: Oh did the director somehow go over in the morning, so we just happened to be shooting at the magic hour?

Dean: It was odd how that worked out.

Amy: Oh interesting.

Dean: That we just happened to be in magic hour to shoot the romantic scene.

Amy: That is so funny.

John: What I love is the fact that you’d never work again as a director for boning your producer that bad, except you’re the producer?

[Laughter]

John: No, this scene is stunning.

Dean: They both knocked it out of the park on this day. And for me, it's weird to say it because I directed the episode, but this is the best almost-kiss I’d ever seen before. And it's really the way they did it.

John: Yeah. This was another one where it was like, set up the cameras, let the actors work.

Dean: This was also a callback to what happened in the episode at the school, because-

Amy: Fairy Godparents.

John: Yeah.

Dean: Cause in the Fairy Godparents that she had never really been honest. 

John: Exactly.

Dean: And here she realizes she doesn't know who she is anymore because she's been so many other people for so long.

Amy: She got dumped because she wasn't being truthful with her boyfriend, and she actually recited all the names of her aliases, and this is sort of the callback to her having to bury them in order to move on.

John: Yeah, she's more attached to fake people than real people and it’s caught up with her. And this is the moment where Sophie Deaveraux becomes a better human being than Nate Ford.

Dean: And that red coat was totally Gina.

John: That was Gina. That's right, she came in with that she and Nadine went hunting for that. This is a great almost kiss.

Dean: Ow! Ow!

John: This was an Italian over. This is- what's that terminology?

Dean: It’s a French over. Rather than being in the front of them, you're over their backs and then this walk away.

Amy: The Italian over is you're drinking wine while you’re doing it.

John: And this walkaway was fantastic with that light right there!

Amy: Through the trees! It's so pretty.

John: You knew what scene was good when we were shooting it because I was watching it on the monitor and I turned around and all the local PA’s were standing behind us watching the scene and two of the girls were crying.

Dean: Yeah. It was awesome.

John: You just really nailed it. And that was going to be the summer season ender, 207, and wound up being still a great send off for that character. And really one of the best episodes of the two years I gotta say.

Amy: Yup, it's one of my favorites for sure.

Dean: For me it's almost like the two part season finale of one, season one, done in one episode.

Amy: Yeah, exactly.

Dean: So thank you for watching.

John: Thank you for watching.

Amy: Thanks everybody!

[animemangasoul]

We Parted Ways A Long Time Ago

Summery: Lucius Fox is Tim's emergency contact number.

In which Bruce and Tim have drifted apart and Bruce doesn't realize it until it's a little too late

Chapter: 2/4

Bruce didn’t know for how long he’d been sitting in his office, slowly going through article after article about the Wayne Enterprise CEO.  

What had originally started off as a casual information gathering had slowly turned into an unhealthy obsession.

Scanning his eyes over the latest article, Bruce almost clenched his fists, brows furrowing as his eyes rested on the smiling image of his son. The article was talking about some kind of project meant to help low-income students around the poverty stricken areas of Gotham and while honest pride bloomed in his chest knowing that his son was carrying on the work he’d started long ago, any sense of joy he got from the praising words were promptly swallowed up by the man standing next to Tim.

Lucius Fox had an arm around Tim shoulders, smiling brightly at the cameras as he for all intent and purpose looked at home next to his son. The pride radiating off of the man torturously close to what Bruce had feeling not even a second ago.  

Breathing in deeply, he clicked out of it. Hesitating only slightly before typing both names in Google and clicking on images and....

Swallowing down the bile suddenly rising up his throat, Bruce carefully eyed the many stills of his son next to Lucius. From charity meetings, press conferences to less formal events such as a park outings with the rest of the Fox family or a dinner at that fancy restaurant Bruce vaguely remembers Tim raving on about; subtly needling him to take him there sometime. ‘Doesn’t this place look great Bruce! Wouldn’t it be nice to go there sometime?’    

They never did.  

Stomach lurching at the sight, he quickly skips through the restaurant pictures, fingers almost shaking... almost. Because... Tim looked so happy. Face open, eyes glowing and in every other captured moment he is invading someone’s space. Whether he’s leaning into Lucius calming touch or resting his head on Luke’s shoulder trying to get a glimpse of whatever he was doing on his phone or smiling amusedly at Tam.

There were so many tender, intimate moments between his Tim and Lucius family and it made Bruce grit his teeth.  

Fists finally clenching till crescent moons marred his skin.  

It... he didn’t understand. Tim didn’t like being touched. He was always so distant and withdrawn. Always stiffening at the slightest brush of skin. He was such a lone wolf. Everyone knew that, so why.... why did these ‘moments’ look so natural to him. It was as if Tim was relishing in the attention, practically soaking in the close proximity of the Fox family, and how could that be in character?

It didn’t make any sense.

Tim was....

Tim was....

But then he remembers Dick.  

Remembers how his oldest had always managed to draw out those special little smiles out of his younger. Remembers how Dick was allowed to hug Tim. Was allowed to wrap his arms around him and how Tim melted into the contact. Dick had called it hug therapy. Practically flinging himself on the shorter teen every time he saw him till Tim was naturally reciprocating the affection instead of freezing up.

Dick was the one to bring Tim out of his shell.  

And for the longest time he’d been the only one. Even Bruce, with all the years he’d had with Tim hadn’t managed to make his son comfortable enough to let down all his guards. Sure he saw glimpses of who Tim could have been whenever he was too sleep deprived to pretend he didn’t need anyone, but while those moments were precious, they occurred very rarely.  

But here Tim was, being basically Tim’s version of attached and it made something ache within Bruce that he couldn’t quiet put into words.

Was it so easy to win over his son?

Shutting off the screen abruptly he breathed deeply and closed his eyes.  

Leaning back, Bruce rubbed at his forehead, trying to banish the throbbing headache blooming at the back of his mind.

What time was it even?

Gaze drifting to the grandfather clock by the corner he sighed.  

Still a bit left to go before he could go get his son.

The itch prickling under his skin didn’t seem to get the memo though, because all Bruce wanted to do right now was drive over to that lonely apartment near crime alley and bring his son home.  

This wasn’t just about dinner.  

Sure, that’s what he told Tim. But Bruce knew one dinner wasn’t going to salvage what had been broken in their relationship. He needed to reopen the doors of communication and he couldn’t do that with only one measly dinner together.

The pitfall stretching wide and deep between them may have been partly Bruce’s fault, but Tim wasn’t without his fair sheer of blame either. If his son had just reached out to him. Sought his companionship like he used to. Talked to him, connected with him, Bruce was sure he would have welcomed him with open arms.

But Tim.... Tim had chosen to be swept away into the shadow of someone else’s family and Bruce just.... he didn’t understand.

Tim was his son. His son. Lucius didn’t have the right to.....

Sighing, he ran a couple of fingers through his hair. It didn’t matter now. Bruce was the parent. He was the only one who could fix this. Tim just needed someone to tell him that he still had a place here, beside him, and Bruce could do that.  

He’d done it for Jason and Damian and Dick. Cass hadn’t needed him to, but if she had, he would have done the same for her.

That’s why this dinner wasn’t just a dinner. If Bruce planned this just right, he was sure he could convince Tim to stay the night. He’d already asked Alfred to prepare Tim’s old bedroom for him and....

The way the old butler's eyes had lit up, face almost breaking into a smile, before nodding hastily and walking away. “Everything will be ready for when the young Master arrives,” he’d said in parting. “Make sure to inform him that I have prepared his favorite coffee cake. God knows that child needs to gain a bit of weight back.”

Alfred hadn’t made any such thing. But he would. For Tim.

Alfred most have missed him too.

Couldn’t his son see what he was doing? Didn’t he understand that just because everyone had been busy, it didn’t mean they didn’t care?

Rubbing a tired hand down his neck, Bruce finally let his eyes rest on the picture frames decorating his desk.  

The first one was of him and Dick when his oldest was just the tiniest little thing. The adoring smile his son was directing at him; arms wrapped around his neck as Bruce was in the process of swinging him around warmed his heart. He’d framed the picture the minute Alfred had handed him the envelop and it remained one of his much-cherished possessions, where it stood next to the picture frame of his parents.  

Next to the two was the one taken after Jason’s adoption and after that, well, at least twenty more that were taken in the span of the next couple of years were added to the mix.

All of them gifted to him by Tim.  

His son having captured so many precious moments between him and his children. Hell, there was even one of him and Steph. The girl explaining something excitedly and him smiling down at her; lips quirking up in amusement.

Running a finger over Damain’s adoring face, Bruce couldn’t help but smile at his youngest. How Tim had caught Damian off guard without the other noticing him Bruce would never know. But he would forever be grateful.  

As he silently observes each and every memory framed physically in front of him, his eyes slowly start to shift from side to side. A tiny frown pulling at his lips and then he’s leaning forward, picking up one frame after the other; pushing a few aside to get to those at the back but.... nothing. There isn’t one.

Tim isn’t in any of these.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

He was in two of them. But one was taken shakily by what appeared to be Cass’s phone as the girl pressed her cheek into Tim’s hair; both of them grinning up at the camera. And another of her and Tim yet again but this time his son was sleeping and Cass nestling into his side as she took the picture.

Both of these photos had been given to him by his daughter. She’d quietly stepped into his office weeks ago. Bruce could distinctly remember it now, now that he was trying to recall the details. She’d placed two new frames on his desk, kissed his forehead and left.

He hadn’t thought much of it.... but....

The fact that Tim wasn’t in any of these..... The fact that there were so many and Tim wasn’t in any of them.

Bruce was sure Dick had a couple of photos of him and Tim, right? He was sure. The oldest loved taking pictures of the three of them back in the day. He was constantly in need of capturing ‘cute’ things, so he had to have some.  

Yes, he most have. Tim and Dick might not be as close as they used to; mainly because his younger was always too busy and Dick had his hands full with Damian, but they were still close so Dick surely had endearing pictures of his son.

“I’ll ask him tomorrow,” he muttered to himself, leaning back and standing up. It wasn’t right that out of the twenty so photos on his desk only two contained Tim. It.....

Freezing as an idea struck him, Bruce sat back down and turned on the computer screen.

Six minutes later he’d printed out a picture of him and Tim. Both in business attires and sure Bruce was wearing his Brucie mask, staying in character for the media, but Tim was leaning into him for support in this picture; face almost mushed into his side as his son was fighting against sleep and..... his heart twitched at the innocence.

It was just after he’d come back, Bruce remembered. Before life swept him away.  

He’d gone to the company needing Tim’s help to reorganize his case files and he’d found his son half asleep across the floor.

He’d been so incredibly endeared, because, it had just struck him then that no matter what changed, certain things would remain the same. Certain things being Tim and his workaholic tendency.  

So he’d picked his kid up, helped him into his coat and lead him out the building. Of course they’d been met with flashes of cameras and shouted questions but his son had been none the wiser, leaning even closer to his body heat, muttering nonsense under his breath and shoving his face into his chest.

Bruce chest ached at the memory.

Reaching into the left drawer; eyes refusing to leave Tim’s face, he fumbled until his fingers wrapped around a pair of scissors.  

Cutting away the unnecessary corners he gently put the photo down before picking up a frame, staring at it for a second, eyes drinking in the picture of him sitting between Dick and Damian, both boys prattling on about something while he indulgently smiled at them.

Sighing, he pulled it out of the frame, carefully putting the picture to the side and inserting in the new one. Satisfied he put the photo next to the others.

It wasn’t exactly as informal and familial as the others. Hadn’t been taken with warmth and love but it showed warmth and love didn’t it?

That should be enough.

It was enough.

Standing up he looked at the picture one last time and then stepped past the desk and walked out the door.  

------------

“Where are you going father. Pennyworth says that dinner is in ninety minutes.”

Bruce paused at the entrance. Hand resting on the doorknob.

“I’m picking up Tim. He’s going to stay with us for a while.”

A pause and then.... “Why?” Bruce slowly turned around. He’d wanted to leave without creating any fuzz; knowing that he’s youngest would be the least happy about this new arrangement, but alas, there was no avoiding this conversation now.

“He’s sick and needs to rest. Spending some time here at the manor might do him some good.”

Damian crossed his arms; nose scrunching up in displeasure. “Can he not do that at his own apartment? Why most he come here?” Glaring petulantly, he clicked his tongue. “We don’t need a useless person taking up space father.” Bruce frowned.  

Sure Damian had mellowed out the past couple of months, but unfortunately Tim still managed to bring out his more.... childish side.  

Briefly Bruce contemplated telling him off.

Wasn’t this what Tim had been complaining about? His reason for not wanting to stay with them? But then again....

Shaking his head Bruce sighed. “The manor is big enough for all of us,” he said softly, giving his son a meaningful look. “There is no need to worry about space.”

Dick had told him how fragile Damain’s confidence was.

His son being afraid of facing rejection if he committed the slightest misbehavior. Bruce hadn’t seen it, but Dick knew his son so well and “Insults are the only way he knows how to express himself,” his oldest had said shrugging helplessly. “And it’s how he checks whether we lash out at him or not. And we can’t do that to him Bruce. We can’t take away the only form of self-expression he has. He's scared we’ll get tired of him or think he’s too damaged to fit in with our family so whenever he speaks out, we..... I’m just grateful he’s willing to open up to us.”

“What about the replacement,” Jason had asked. Lounging in the chair next to them, raising a thin brow of bemusement. “Cuz that’s who the kid always targets.”

“Tim is older,” Dick had answered. “He understands. We talked about it and he agreed with me that Damian needed to feel comfortable and accepted.”

Jason had snorted, popping out of his chair and walking away. “Sure he did,” he said, dragging out the words. “Sure he did.”

Shaking away the memories Bruce smiled down at his son; just a tiny flick of the corner of his mouth, but Damian immediately straightened out, his own lips quirking up in turn.  

Perhaps Jason had a point, perhaps not. But Bruce had come so far with Damian. Dick had come so far with Damian.  

He refused to be the one who stunted his son’s growth and he was sure Tim must have felt the same. His second youngest having always had a way of understanding others that most of the others lacked.

And Damian never meant much harm with what he said; most of his comment coming from his own insecurities, so Bruce hoped Tim would eventually be able to get over it too and begin to accept Damian for who he was and not for who Tim thought him to be.

“Your leg healed up?”

Startling back, Damian took a second to just stare up at him before nodding jerkily. “Yes father.”

“Good,” Bruce said, turning to face the door. “You can resume your nightly activities with me tonight.”

He doesn’t wait for the kid’s excited reply before he’s out the door and making his way down to the garage.  

He needed to get to Tim’s apartment

It was time to pick up his son and Bruce had to make sure the kid packed enough to stay over for at least a couple of days. If he planned it right, Tim would be settled in enough that he wouldn’t find the need to move out again and Dick or Jason could pick up the rest of his things afterwards.  

Tim just needed time to readjust to the manor and if Bruce played his cards right, Tim would be settled in before he even knew it and then.... Then they could be a family again.

It lightened his heart knowing that all his children would finally be under the same roof.

The end

@miss-choco-chips Bruce out here raising so many red flags. He is so possessive while ignoring Tim’s feelings and opinions. 

@throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen next chapter be here!!!!

[miss-choco-chips]

Young Just us college au

Rent a room, Dick said. It’ll be a nice experience. Don’t just buy a flat, that’s boring and lonely.

Tim had tried to tell his brother that maybe he prefered lonely to crazy, but Dick had insisted. And everyone knew just how difficult dealing with that could be, so he knew better than to resist.

At least, he had tried to comfort himself, he knew the people he’d be rooming with. They were all his friends, an odd assortment of assholes he’d picked up on school, summer camps, vacation trips, scientific events, even comic cons, and just… fell platonically in love with them.

Maybe, as Dick said, it would be fine.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

No, it wasn’t fine.

-Jay -he whispered into the phone, hoping he wouldn't be heard by the others on the other side of the door- Jay, they are crazy. I need extraction asap. We could fake my death and I can go to University somewhere else.

The older man laughed in the other end of the receiver, the sound of pages rustling indicating Tim had caught him during his daily grading paper sesion. That was the sound of crying students dying over carefully demolished arguments.

-They are all your friends, Timbo. If you fake your death, you’ll need to start over again and meet new people.

Tim hissed.

-Exactly, babybird. Also, this is day one of sharing a house, how bad can it possibly be?

-Jay, they left the kitchen lights on. It’s daytime! Why the hell do they need the lights on? Aren’t they aware of how big the bill is gonna be if they are like this?

-...Timmy, you… you are a billionaire. I think that should be the last of your concerns.

-That’s not the only thing. It’s so noisy, Jay. I choose the attic room hoping it’ll be nice and quiet. It’s not. I can hear everything. What do I do if some of them pair up? I’ll be stuck here listening to them having sex forever!

-...I don’t know where to begin.

-You can start by contacting B for me. He was right when he said it wasn’t a good idea for me to live with other people. But I can’t call him to help me out of this, because I think Dick blocked my number in his phone, and my emails don’t seem to be reaching him.

-He said it because you are the purest of his children, and he knew college was corruptive enough without adding dorm sharing to it; that was his version of helicopter parenting. But Timbo, it’s moving day. You’ve been there for less than five hours. And you already emailed B?

-The first thing Slobo did when he came in was to fart. In the middle of the living room. I can’t live with them, they are animals!

-They are your best friends, you’ve known them forever.

-But I never had to deal with them in a closed space for an unlimited amount of time!!! I’m trapped here.

-...

-...!

-...Are you hiding in a closet?

-...no. That would be stupid, in a three story house where I have my own/

-You are, ain’tcha?

-I am. Please help me?

Long sigh- I’ll meet you for coffee on the place near the Economics building so you have an excuse to be out for the evening while the others finish their moving. You’re done with your part, right?

-Yes! Thank you!

-You owe me.

-Next time Dick wants bonding time, I’ll sacrifice myself volunteering so you can run.

-And this is why you’re my favorite. Be there in ten.

-.-.-.-.-.-

-Tim? Tim! Here you are!

Blinking was a thing Tim suddenly remembered he needed to do, and he did it a few times as his eyes were dragged away from his book by a pair of hands on his cheeks.

-Kon? What are you doing in the library?

The other boy was panting slightly, flushed from what Tim guessed was a desperate run there.

-I was looking for you! You never came back after classes were done for the day, and you didn’t pick up your phone. We were very worried, dude. 

-I was just studying, chill.

-It’s almost midnight.

No, it couldn’t be.

-No, it isn’t.  I haven’t been here that long.

Serious and slightly worried, Conner thrusted his own phone in Tim’s face and… uh. Look at that. It was nearly midnight.

-Oh. Got distracted with research, sorry.

-It’s been barely two weeks, how much can you possibly need to study?

Unprompted, Kon started to help him pack his books and papers. He seemed utterly amazed by the almost illegible graphs and charts.

-No, this isn’t homework. I’m working on a thing for WE…

The rest of the way home was spent with Tim talking Conner’s ear off about shit he had absolutely no idea about, but didn’t complain, just holding Tim’s backpack with one hand while steering his sleep deprived friend back home with the other.

-.-.-.-.-.

-Bart? -Tim yawned, getting into the kitchen and raising a confused eyebrow at his friend- It’s… three am. What are you doing awake?

-Stress baking -the smaller boy replied, never stopping stirring the bowl- You?

-Papers and presentations.

-Classes or WE?

-Bit of both. What are you making?

-Cupcakes. Want some?

-They’ll go great with coffee, thanks.

They spent the next half hour waiting for the oven to do its magic talking about video games, classes and evil teachers.

-Your brother is the worst. TA. Ever. He always grades my papers and he’s a bitch about them.

-He relishes in the pain. It’s what keeps him young. I swear he never grew  past fifteen.

-It’s scary, and honestly so annoying. Like, I get pointing out mistakes, but he doesn’t need to be a passive aggressive ass about it.

-I’ll let him know what you think.

-Please don’t. I’m afraid of him, and the power he holds in his hands. The power to make me fail Creative Writing.

-Why are you even taking that class? Actually, what even is your major?

A shrug, and before Bart could open his mouth to reply, the timer let them know the cupcakes where done.

-You can have one before bedtime, dude. The circles under your eyes look like make up at this point. 

-You are one to talk, mister Stress Baking at Three in the Morning.

-But unlike you, I don’t have to be up at the ass of dawn. C’mon, have one of these and back up you go.

-Bite me.

-I’d rather bite this peanut butter miracle, but if you insist…

-No! Bart, get away from me!

-Then go to bed!

-Go to hell!

-I AM in hell! I have Jason Fucking Todd as my TA!

-IF YOU DON’T GO BACK TO BED RIGHT NOW, I’LL KICK YOU BOTH ALL THE WAY THERE! -Cassie’s voice echoed in the walls, and they both blanched at the reminder that her room was, in fact, in ground floor.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

A part of college Tim had never considered, let alone readied himself for, was the… party bit. 

-What do you mean, of course you’re coming -laughed Anita, clutches firm on Tim’s sleeve as she dragged him into hers and Cassie’s room.

-No, I have to study for…

-You don’t have any midterm or final this week. I know, because I checked. No papers due either. This is literally the perfect time for you to party. 

-I can’t, I…

-Suck at socializing? Yeah, cher, I’m aware. That’s why awesome me is taking you as my plus one for this party. No need to thank me, glad to be your social buffer whenever you need me.

Tim started to resist in earnest when they got into the room and he caught a glimpse of the clothing Anita had apparently chosen for him.

-There’s no way I’m fitting into those pants! Let me go!

-I’ve seen you squeezing your butt into the vent that one time when Kon threw the key to the coffee maker cabinet inside it. If you could get in there, these pants are a piece of cake.

-No!

-Don’t make me hurt you, Drake.

-Anita…!

-Ugh! -she stopped, dropping Tim on her bed and crossing her arms. She averted her eyes- My ex is gonna be at the party. I might have been exaggerating a bit when I said I was over him, but I already promised my friends I was gonna be there. I… could really use your help here. I know it’s not your scene, but Kon and Bart have midterms, Slobo would straight up punch my ex with his astounding lack of subtlety, Miguel is away dealing with family stuff, and the girls are awesome but not really what I need right now.

A pause.

-Okay, but I’m absolutely not putting on that crop top. And we better not end up wasted, I have a reputation to uphold.

Spoiler alert: he did put on the crop top. And they had to call Conner to walk them home after the third time Tim walked into a lamp post and Anita fell into the campus’ pond.

-.-.-.-.-

They were walking back home late on a Friday when they were approached by a group of stupid, drunk dudebros. Tim was already dreading the moments to come before they even spoke, just by the way they kept eyeing Cassie’s legs and Anita’s rack. Cissie herself was wearing loose pants and a sweater, so she was safe from their disgusting examination. Not that it kept her from crossing her arms and looking down at the assholes.

-Heyyyyy, ladies. Wanna go clubbing with us?

Tim shrugged- He’s talking to you, girls. I’m out. Have fun.

Cassie caught him by his hoodie before he could take a single step. He heard her warning clear as day and sighed, defeated.

-Yess, you can go -slurred Dudebro number two, waving him away- There’ three of us, and three of those pretty things. You can get lost. 

-See, Cass? Hear the gentlemen. You don’t need me here.

Anita kicked him in the shin.

-No. We just got our nails done. You either solve this peacefully, or take care of it if it turns dirty. Why do you even walk us home if not to protect us from creepers like these?

A loud ‘hey’ came from the dudebros, but Tim ignored them. Silently, he pointed at Cassie’s legs (he had seen her crushing a watermelon between them once), Cissie’s arms (a thing of beauty that made multiple lesbians all around campus cry) and Anita’s katana (that she wasn’t supposed to keep on her person around other students, but who was gonna enforce any rules on the girl with the giant knife?).

-Excuse me? You three should be protecting me. I’m a rich, sheltered boy.

Apparently done being ignored, the three idiots decided this was a good time to throw the first punch. Which Tim dodged, without breaking eye contact with Cassie. She raised her eyebrow, not moving an inch. Cissie was examining her nails. Anita’s eyes promised hell.

He sighed, turned around, caught the second coming punch, and used the hand under his palm to force the dudebro to his knees. A knee to the face and then he turned to the other two. 

Next time, Slobo was walking with them.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Flip side:  the attic room had its own bathroom. Significantly smaller than the ones on the other two floors, but hey, no sharing. 

The downside: apparently, the bathroom vents all connected with one another, and because of their aligning schedules, he often took showers at the same time Miguel did.

Flip side: Miguel had the singing voice of an angel, and the acoustic was fantastic. Showers were rarely boring now.

Downside again: Tim often forgot himself and sang along, but his voice… wasn’t as pretty.

Flip side again: at least, judging by Miguel’s smile, he found it adorable rather than pathetic.

Downside number three: Greta and Cissie’s room, by some unsolved mystery, also had connecting vents to the bathroom, and the archer girl was… less charitable about Tim’s inability to sing.

Flip side: Greta liked him better than most of their house mates, and she had more than enough dirt on Cissie to keep her from sharing the secret of Tim’s awful voice. 

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

-Hey, baby bird. Sorry I’m calling just now, it’s been a while.

-Hey Jay. Don’t worry, you’re busy grading papers.

-How do you know?

-Bart was crying in the tub this morning. Completely clothed and eating nachos with whipped cream, I might add.

-What is that boy even studying? I know he has Chem classes, Roy is his TA, and Kory saw him in the designer’s building. 

-That is an unsolved mystery for the ages. 

-Hey, speaking of your housemates, how’s it going?

Tim stopped on his way out of the kitchen, eyes growing fond as he examined the group on the living room. They were fighting over that night’s movie choice. He didn’t know why they tried, Greta was gonna win. Nobody could resist her and Miguel’s puppy eyes. 

-It’s… it’s been great, actually.

-Uh huh.

-But don’t tell Dick. He’ll be unbearably smug.

-Of course I won’t. You still have that time I crashed B’s favorite car on me.

-Oh, Oh fuck! -came Slobo’s voice- TIM, BRING THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER!

A loud crash. Tim winced, eyes leaving his friend in favor of the wall. If he didn’t see it, it wasn’t happening.

-TIM, BUD, WE NEED SOME HELP HERE!

-...what was that, Timbo?

-Nothing.

-TIM, TIM, THE TV IS ON FIRE!!! COME QUICKLY BEFORE IT REACHES THE XBOX OR SO HELP ME GOD I’M MURDERING EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM!

-...Tim?

-Don’t tell B.

-Gotcha. Going to save their lives?

-More like hiding in my room until they sort themselves out or die. Good luck on those papers.

-Good luck on surviving.

[spookyrobbins]

Okay, i can’t believe you managed to make a fucking bubblegum and x-ray hella sad. Kudos for that!

Now let’s do part 2 of the angst game with more random words.

1.) Moles/freckles

2.) Glasses

3.) Gauze-paws

4.) Polaroid

5.) Fending machine

6.) Ballpoint

7.) Softball

8.) Leather

9.) Clown

10.) Bailey

1.) Moles/freckles

callie was always fascinated with arizona's moles and freckles and used to trace them and count them and she honestly thought she could spend hours cataloging each one

there was one on her left knee that looked like the lyra constellation (a constellation that is partially based in the mythology of the muses) that was one of callie's particular favourites

i'll let you fill in the blanks :)

2.) Glasses

it started with glasses, oddly enough

arizona was in denial, but callie noticed; the colonel kept losing his glasses, he kept losing his glasses and he just seemed confused

arizona refused to even talk about it; he was the colonel, he was always fine

and then he asked how seattle was - arizona hadn't lived in seattle in three years

the next time they visited a few months later, he hesitated when he spoke to sofia, as if it took him a moment to place her

and still, arizona and barbara didn't want to see it bc he was fine most of the time, he had lived a hard life, he was getting older so a bit of confusion was normal and nothing callie said could change their minds

if callie could’ve done anything to stop the devastation that appeared in arizona’s face, she would’ve. but she could do nothing but watch as arizona’s face crumbled when her father turned to her after dinner one night and called her margaret, his beloved older sister, whom arizona did bear a striking resemblance

but maybe the worst moment came a few months after he was diagnosed, when arizona was speaking to him on the phone and he mentioned that he was going to give tim a call; arizona didn't know what to say but she didn't have the heart to tell him that tim was dead

and to think, it started with glasses

3.) Gauze-paws

arizona knew she shouldn't be jealous; they were just friends; mark was just helping his best friend bc she had chicken pox and she probably really wanted to scratch

it was stupid and childish to be jealous; after all, she was the one lying to her girlfriend - she totally had chickenpox, she and tim had it at the same time and spent a week on the couch, absolutely miserable, watching re-runs of MASH

but god if she didn't hate mark sloan just a bit, she just wished he wasn't around so much, like if he decided to leave seattle for a while or forever, arizona wouldn't exactly be mourning the loss

she really shouldn't have lied to callie, she just panicked and now mark sloan was cuddling with her girlfriend who looked unfairly cute with chicken pox and gauze paws

4.) Polaroid

callie loved taking pictures of arizona

arizona hated it when callie took photos of her, not because she was self-conscious, but because callie rarely told her she was doing it; arizona would just find polaroids of herself lying around (there had been a particularly dicey moment when cristina nearly found a more racy one if not for callie's quick thinking)

callie started to hate it too at some point; some point around when it seemed like arizona had disappeared in on herself, slipped into a deep, dark place and wasn't the arizona callie knew and all she had left of her arizona were the polaroids

callie couldn't remember the last time she felt so useless and pathetic as she flipped through old polaroids of arizona and a smile that callie hadn't seen in months; somehow it felt like she was looking at a ghost, even if arizona was only twenty feet away

5.) Fending machine

when she's wrapped up in planning a surgery, arizona frequently forgets to eat; for years, callie would remind her, just like arizona would make sure callie ate when she was working on her research

her favourite was this one kind of chocolate peanut butter granola bars that they only had in the cancer wing vending machines, which was on the clear opposite side from peds

it had been years since callie was around to take care of her and arizona had honestly forgot about the granola bars

but one day, she was down in the cancer wing for a patient and she happened to pass by the vending machines and it was so stupid it was a freaking granola bar, but she just felt alone? because nobody cared to make sure she was eating and bringing her the granola bars she liked and make sure that she wasn't so, so painfully alone all the time; but she had made her bed and now she had to lie in it, even if it felt like she couldn't breathe

6.) Ballpoint

arizona broke up with her and callie didn't want to be that girl who cried over stupid things just because they belonged to someone else

but then she found a ballpoint pen in the pocket of her labcoat and it was definitely arizona's; callie definitely didn't keep glitter pens in her lab coat and callie was just so angry because who did arizona think she was going around kissing her in elevators and smiling with her stupid dimples and yep, callie might be able to hate arizona just a little bit, she tossed the pen in the trash and steeled herself for having to go up to peds and maybe see arizona, honestly, her day couldn't get that much worse, not when it started with crying in her cereal

7.) Softball

arizona was cleaning out her junk closet when she found a picture of the hospital softball team, all goofy smiles and arms slung over shoulders and just happiness bled through the photo

as she traced over their faces with her finger, she desperately wished she could go back to that moment and warn them, tell them to hold onto this moment of happiness because henry would die a month later, teddy would leave and never return, mark and lexie would never get to be together, owen and cristina would fall to pieces, she and callie would tear each other apart, cristina would leave, derek would die and leave meredith broken with three small children; everything would change and very rarely for the better

8.) Leather

arizona locked herself in a supply closet, she knew she was being childish or jealous or insecure or whatever million words callie had thrown at her years ago, but god, it felt like her heart was being torn to shred for the hundredth time

but seeing penny wearing callie's leather jacket, the one that callie had been wearing all those years ago in that dirty bar bathroom, the one that arizona used to steal as a joke, the one that had always been arizona's favourite, it just felt like one more thing on top of everything else, just further proof that callie had moved on and arizona was just going to have to be okay with it

only she didn't know how to be okay anymore, she wasn't sure she could do that anymore, she'd just smile through the pain and it'd work because no one other than callie would know it wasn't a real smile, and even callie wouldn't notice because she didn't care anymore and arizona wished she didn't care. she wished she didn't automatically look for callie, didn't catch herself doing a million things that had become muscle memory because of callie

9.) Clown

"callie, what the fuck happened? why is sofia calling me in tears?"

"we took sofia to the circus and there were clowns and penny wanted to do something nice for sofia and she took her to get a balloon animal when I went to get food and she didn't know that sofia's afraid of clowns. that's all. it's fine, I'm dealing with it. you don't need to freak out about it."

"I don't need to freak out, seriously, callie? i think I'm perfectly entitled to freak out because my daughter called me in tears because you left her alone with your girlfriend who didn't know she is terrified of clowns. damn it, callie."

"it's fine."

"it's not. it's really, really not. sofia is terrified and I'm on the other side of the country and she is crying and she didn't feel like she could tell you because you'd be mad. it's really, really not fucking okay, callie."

10.) Bailey

bailey really thought out of everyone, callie and arizona would make it

they loved each other in such a special way; they loved each other even when they hated each other; they had special smiles and twinkling eyes; and bailey always grumbled about them but she sort of adored them in her own way

she wanted to shake them and tell them to hold on to each other

she wanted to yell at arizona to actually fight for something because she loved callie torres so damned much and you don't just give up on the love of your life, even if you think you're doing it for her happiness

she wanted to shake callie and tell her that arizona still loved her, but she was terrified because callie left and she was trying to protect callie and callie had to see that arizona watched her and waited for her and the way arizona's smile dimmed just a bit more each day

but she didn't and she would regret that as she sat in a courtroom watching a lawyer try to destroy arizona while callie did nothing

she would regret that when she saw a version of arizona robbins that was wholly unfamiliar to her when she came back from new york

she would regret that as she watched arizona finally try to move on with now that callie was really gone, but bailey could tell that her heart wasn't in it because her heart was in

she would regret that whenever she got a message from callie "just checking in"

but there wasn't much for her to do, so she would give tuck an extra hug because he was still here and she wouldn't have to give him up; and she'd tell ben how much she loved him because not everyone got to tell the love of their life they loved them

and she would say a silent prayer that callie and arizona someday find their way back together.

[notepadsandtealeaves]

Tim Drake x GN!Reader in: Old Peeps Roasting on an Open Fire~

12 Days of Batmas || Day 2—Cuddling by the Fire

MINORS/AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT || 18+ ONLY ||

↞ previous: you’re the reason why (we can’t have nice things) || playing in the snow

|| ao3 version | 12 days m.list | batboys tag | main blog ||

|| dames day 2 | dick day 2 | jay day 2 ||

“Old peeps roasting on an open fire, Timmy-boy screaming ‘Oh god nooooo~!’”

You probably won’t need the fire extinguisher this time. Probably.

↠ Requested By: Not a soul lol ↠ Reader Gender: Neutral ↠ Content Type: SFW fluff ((but my blog’s 18+ if minors want to consume my sfw stuff while still respecting my wishes of them staying out of this space, they can head over to my AO3)) ↠ CWs: There’s some implied intimacy in the ficlet. Nothing too racy, but you definitely can tell where things are heading lol… ↠ Betas? Nah, we don’t do that here. ↠ Total WC: 2.7k~

Headcanon || WC: 1.6k~

🌟 Tim is one of those people who doesn’t realize how touch starved he is until you’re nearby.

You don’t have to be actively be touching him or close enough to do so, hell you don’t even have to be in the same building. It’s like once he knows he’s gonna see you his skin is set aflame, his nerve endings flayed.

I know that sounds unpleasant, and it kinda is low-key, but he’s learned to love the burn.

His not getting to see you as often as either of you would like only compounds things so that by the time you’re actually slated to see each other he’s half insane with his desire to hold you.

🌟 If you’re a friend that has turned into more things are even worse lol.

Once he acknowledged his attraction to you dude spent so much energy on making sure that he never touched you in a way that could ever be mistaken for inappropriate.

Unfortunately this p. much led to him barely touching you at all for a long while as he just couldn’t for the life of him get his shit together.

It was a bit jarring for you both because despite the fact that he was never the overly feely type, casual touches had never posed any problems prior to his revelation. Needless to say things got weird/awkward quick, which, yanno, was the exact opposite of what he wanted lol.

Once he saw how the change was negatively affecting your relationship he pulled himself out of his head enough to start (mostly) functioning like a normal human being in your presence again.

🌟 Once you finally got together it was a complete 180 from your platonic days. Casual touches all day, errday.

And hugs.

So many damn hugs—from the front, the back, the side, from above, below, whatever. Any configuration that allowed him to wrap you up in his arms he would gladly take. He spent so much time denying himself, so you best believe that he’s gonna indulge now that he can (*insert obligatory—‘Only if you’re okay with it!!’—here*).

It was so damn cute to witness, but like grossly so. Catch Connor, Dames, and Jay making gagging noises whenever they caught you two being all lovey-dovey (it’s one of the few things this trio could ever come into agreement over lmao).

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Dick who is living for this do you hear me?? He’s been shipping the pair of you from jump, and he’s just so glad to see that his babies now know happiness—he’s not cryi– okay he’s totally crying, but that’s okay because he still cute and so are y’all…

🌟 Anyways!

🌟 Because of this all of your dates inevitably turn into cuddle sessions (which do oftentimes lead to more as he’s not at all shy about acting on his wants—again, providing you’re on the same page).

Are you complaining? Idk man, I don’t know your life like that, but I would think that you aren’t because this man has cuddling down to a science. He knows just how to position you both so that you’re always comfortable.

Limbs rarely grow numb and somehow you’re always able to see whatever screen you’re watching without straining yourself—it’s witchcraft, you just know it is.

He also always has the best snacks on deck. Lbr—homie would eat like a trash panda 24/7 if he could (hell, he kinda still does tbh).

He does have a diet that he mostly sticks to and an exercise regimen from hell, both of which he uses to justify the less-than-healthy dining habits. But dude’s such a hypocrite because he won’t let you eat yourself silly.

He’s not the type to control your diet or anything, you’re a grown ass adult, but he’s also not gonna just sit there and watch you give yourself a tummyache either, ya know? ‘Everything in moderation’, that’s what he always says—that and ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ lol.

🌟 As you progress in your relationship that near manic edge that had colored your early interactions is tempered, though he’s still big on skinship.

He always likes to be in some sort of physical contact with you if it’s at all possible. You don’t have to be laying on top of one another (though he’ll never complain if you do indeed want to use him as a body pillow), he revels in the slight brush of arms that are busy working at your respective tasks while you sit together, the press of your shoulder blades against his as you sit back to back reading, the hooking of ankles around one another as you share a meal…

🌟 As I said in a fic of mine, quality time is the most prominent of his love languages. I know that seems to go against what I’ve been saying thus far, but follow me around the room with this.

As precious as touch is to him, it’s time that he’s most obsessed with. It always seems to get away from him, and as of yet there’s no way for him to get it back or make more of it.

Time with you is even more fleeting, or at least that’s the way it seems. When he’s holding you his need for touch is sated, but how long will it last? When will he be pulled from your arms indefinitely—or god forbid, you be taken away from him somehow?

He’ll always fight to keep you both safe, but he knows he’s not infallible. So whether you grow old and gray together or he falls victim to Gotham tomorrow he’s gonna make sure that whatever time he has to give freely is offered up to you.

🌟 On top of all of that, Tim’s a v. busy guy, one that’s always having more things shoved onto his plate (if he doesn’t serve himself) than what he can feasibly get done with the hours allotted to him.

Somehow he always makes things work, but this usually means that he has to sacrifice in other areas. Because of this a lot of his previous relationships—both romantic and platonic—oftentimes suffered to the point of ending.

You’re one of the first people that has been able to put up with the madness that is his life for any extended amount of time.

🌟 Like the rest of Bruce’s misfit toys he has abandonment issues, so he figures it’s only a matter of time before his absences outweighs any charms you perceive him to have.

Though he refuses to ever think too long on you ever coming to harm, your leaving him is something he can picture with stunning clarity. In his mind it’s an inevitability, a set event that can only be delayed for so long.

He’s selfish enough to hold on to you until then, even though he knows you’d both be better off if he pushed you away sooner; the longer you’re together the more feelings there will be to get hurt.

He’s pretty sure this makes him some sort of emotional masochist, but whatever. He’s cool with it (he’s really not someone help this man).

🌟 You eventually get through to him, the specifics of which are a HC for another day.

Suffice it to say it involves you just being there—staying when others would leave, extending understanding and grace when he feels he doesn’t deserve any.

Above all else Tim both needs and craves some sort of stability and you give him that.

This’ll sometimes leave you at a deficit, but no one ever said that loving a Bat was an easy task. Your relationship will never be completely normal and you’ll have to make concessions that others with a more conventional partner would never even have to consider.

The good thing is that Tim, just like all his brothers, will always meet you halfway whenever he can, and if he can go the full hundred percent or beyond you know he will.

🌟 Anyways!

🌟 Because of how much he loves touching you, the colder it gets the happier he becomes.

A dip in the temperature provides him with the perfect excuse to keep you close while you’re out and about—he can’t have his little lovebird getting cold, now can he?

Expect lots of adjustments to your clothes and outwear. It’s one of the subtler ways that his love manifests itself; he wants to take care of you always, and if that means he’s gotta pull up your scarf every five minutes because it won’t stop slipping down then dammit that’s what he’s gonna do.

And if you turn that shit around on him?

DED.

His soul has left his body and his heart feels like it’s gonna pound straight through his ribcage and out of his body. Omg you’re so damn soft for him and he’s so soft for you! What the frick?!! Why are you so cute and amazing and ahhhHHhhHhhh~

…Yeah, his brain turns straight to mush, but like mush that’s running a mile a minute lmao

🌟 Being the homebody that he is means lots of nights spent in year round, but the low temperatures give the prospect even more appeal, to him at least.

If you like being out in the cold he’ll certainly oblige you, he’s pretty neutral when it comes to weather in general so long as it’s not too extreme and he doesn’t have to patrol in it).

Getting cozy with you under some blankets with a grip of snacks and something good to binge? Hells yeah. Chef kisses all around because that’s some prime date night material right there—hell, that’s the peak of existence tbh.

You wanna swap out the show/movie for a fireplace and just talk/chill/whatever? He’s down for that too! Your being together is the most important part of the equation, everything else are just rad ass bonuses.

🌟 So imagine, if you will…

Old Peeps Roasting on an Open Fire~ || WC: ~1.1k

“Old peeps roasting on an open fire, Timmy-boy screaming ‘Oh god nooooo~!’”

“Seriously babe, you too?” Tim sighs from across the room. He’s been prodding at the hearth’s glowing logs for the better part of several minutes in an attempt to make sure the fire won’t go out once it’s left to its own devices.

You reply comes in the form of a cheeky grin that morphs into a few air kisses. Though you can barely be seen with the way you’ve burritoed yourself in blankets, you know he can hear the exaggerated smacking of your lips.

For his part the man just snorts out a laugh, rolling his eyes as he turns his full attention back to the budding fire. “I’m never gonna live that one down, huh?”

“Probably not, no,” you agree, laughing a bit, “but I mean I played my own dumbass part so…”

It had been a nuanced combination of boredom, a several month old box of Peeps, ‘Why the fuck not?’-levels of curiosity, and some good ol’ fashioned crackhead energy that had led to the unfortunate event in question.

Roasting the little sugar-covered marshmallows shouldn’t have been any more precarious than roasting one without the added layer of sweetness, but then Tim had let his skewer get just a little too close to the flame. The resulting fire probably wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t tried to put it out by shaking the stick instead of blowing on it like a normal person. The confection’s center was gooey enough that it dislodged itself, flying far and fast thanks to the intensity of Tim’s waving, and landing in Connor’s open backpack. From there things only got worse as the Kryptonian had a roll of tissue as well as some other extremely flammable items in there and well…

The resulting fireball was a pretty shade of red at least.

In trying to make things better you’d only managed to make them worse as the blanket you threw over the flames was an acrylic blend that caught fire itself almost instantly. In the end Connor ‘It’s my turn with the singular brain cell we all apparently share’ Kent was the one to put out the blaze, though not before a tree (or several… and a sizeable patch of grass… and Con’s sleeping bag… and the stuff for the s’mores that was sitting on top of said sleeping bag… and half of the tent…) got scorched.

That had happened when you were all in your early teens, and had resulted in the lot of you being banned from camping without ‘proper supervision’ pretty much indefinitely. Even now, with you all being grown ass adults, the others like to teasingly threaten to come along whenever any of you mention spending any time in the great outdoors. So it had hardly come as a surprise that they’d all started it back up when you and Tim said you’d be spending the weekend up at the family cabin–

The cabin that is out on the lake, which is very much in the middle of the woods, which are very much flammable, and—“You two sure you don’t want to take Connor along? Ya know, just in case?”

Memes abounded, roastings were had, but what really took the cake was Bruce’s contribution. His text was succinct, only being long enough to tell you where all the fire extinguishers were, but really that was enough. In response the pair of you had sent him a picture once you’d gotten settled in.

It was a parody of one of those old school family photos from back in the day, with you sitting in a chair, fire extinguisher cradled in your arms like a newborn babe and Tim standing behind you tall and proud. You both have your best ‘It’s picture day and mama said these shits better look good or that’s my ass’ smiles on as you stare at some unseen point off to the side. He had left you on read for the better part of ten minutes before replying with ‘The three of you make for a beautiful family.’ It was as much an admission of amusement as the man ever gave, and so you counted it as a victory.

In the now your metal child sits beside the coffee table, well within reach should you for some reason need it—not that you anticipate actually having to use it, mind, but better safe than sorry…

Once the blaze is properly stoked you man joins you on the sofa with a sigh. He wastes no time settling himself amongst the mass of blankets, pillows, and snacks that share the space with you. That this ends with you mostly draped across his wiry frame is unsurprising, if very much wanted—he likes to keep you close after all.

The show that you’ve been binging is resumed with a few taps at the laptop that’s balanced precariously on your legs. Yes, you could just as easily avail yourselves to one of the cabin’s many televisions, but there’s something about having to squint down at the smaller screen that makes both of your chests tighten. There’s a nostalgia to be found in it, one that takes you back to a simpler time—when you were both just two kids that were hellbent on denying their feelings but drawn together all the same

It reminds you of every not-a-date date, every stolen glance and lingering hug and that first awkward press of lips against wind chapped lips…

“God, I love you so much.”

“You know I love you, right?”

Your declarations are spoken at nearly same time, a thing that leaves you both laughing as you verbally trip over each other for a few more sentences.

“Okay, wait, we gotta get this right,” you manage around a laugh. “On three, ‘kay? One, two, three–”

“I love you.”

The synchronicity displayed is only topped by the sincerity of the delivery.

You tilt your head back to look up at the man whom your heart beats for. The love that syrups behinds your eyes is reflected in kind, with so much purity and absolute truth it actually makes you ache. When he repeats the sentence it’s against your lips. He slurs it again over the breadth of your jaw, nipping and sucking until he can breathe it against the shell of your ear…

The show is soon forgotten, the laptop tucked away someplace safer, as you both find a much more pleasurable distraction in one another…

Up Next:

🌟 Day 3: mall madness || Getting Lost at the Mall

Tim’s more so of an online shopper. It’s fast, convenient, and he can buy things while he’s still thinking about it.

If he is at the point where he’s shopping in-store he’s probably panicking, to be honest lmao.

Well ‘panicking’ is too strong of a word. He knows what he’s going to get, he just has to go get it. Now. Because he needs it like yesterday and, well, I wouldn’t want to be the person standing between him and his prize is all I’m saying.

He’ll do the thing, but just don’t expect him to like it lol…

© notepadsandtealeaves, 2020 || Please do not repost, translate, or otherwise alter or distribute my works without my express permission. And for the love of god keep it away from Youtube and TikTok lol…