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linkspooky · 2 years

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Hmm. Buffy the Vampire Slayer?

I sadly didn’t grow up with cable, so I’ve never watched it. But I do remember watching one episode at one of my friends’ house as a kid.

I forgot what it’s called, but it was were everybody in town became silent due to these two creepy looking guys. I especially remember that one funny scene with the presentation, but also how creepy and scary it was with the creepy men.

But yeah. I suppose I’m asking is… if the show is worth a watch, and if you have any episodes you personally love?

has Buffy the Vampire Slayer is actually one of my top two forever fandoms, that is fandoms that not only I will be forever invested in and rewatch on regular basises, but also fandoms that have had the most impact in not only the stories I read nowadays, but also the stories I want to write.

Not only is the show worth a watch, I think it's an example of the strength of long-form storytelling, and how even a very schlocky show about vampires can be about very powerful themes.

Also, if you like redemption arcs, and are disappointed in MHA because of the slow progress of the redemption arcs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is all about redemption arcs and has some of the most well-written and touching ones in all of fictions. Also it pretty much invented enemies to lovers, and I mean actual enemies to lovers, not like "they sort of dislike each other."

So, without any further ado my top five episodes.

5. Lie to Me - Season 2 Episode 7

Season one has a solid arc for Buffy and the cast as a whole, and even as a standalone is a good commentary on the story of the chosen-one, but I think Season 2 onwards is when Buffy goes from being a neat show about vampire slayers to a work of fiction that has actual things to say, and commentary on not only other stories in the fantasy genre but also real life too.

Lie to me is basically the introduction of that complexity in Buffy's life, that has only ever been hinted at beforehand. Buffy is a pretty morally righteous hero, for the most part with a few exceptions the vampires she faces are souless monsters, demons possessing corpses. Lie to Me is the first time Buffy faces a human antagonist, and not just a human one but someone who shares a lot of flaws with Buffy as well. I think the best way to make a character arc is to start with an incorrect belief they hold about the world and then go out of your way to correct it. Buffy starts from believing she is the hero of the story, and the people she fights on a regular basis are monsters.

Lie to Me turns that on its head, not only is the antagonist Buffy's childhood friend, someone who has sympathetic reasons but is still willing to kill people enmasse to get what he wants the same way that vampires do, he also has flaws in common with Buffy. The same way that Owen wants the world to be more like a movie with simple logic, and he's playing a villain to make things easier for himself, Buffy is playing a hero. Owen isn't the only liar, Angel hides his worst deed from Buffy because he was scared of Buffy disliking him for it. Buffy's very much lying to herself about the kind of person that Angel is, because she wants to believe the more romantic image of him as a repentant vampire boyfriend then the legitimate bad things he has done.

It's a story that criticizes people for lying to themselves, and shows what can happen when you are caught up in irresponsible lies, and yet at the same time it sympathizes with people. It doesn't say people rely on stories because they're selfish or stupid, at least not all the way, the final speech is Buffy asking Giles to lie to her, because her life is genuinely hard and messy and complicated and she wants the simplicity of a story to reassure her everything will be alright.

4. I Only Have Eyes For You - Season 2 Episode 19

I Only Have Eyes For You is amazing because it not only tells a complicated and tragic tale of victimhood, but also it shows one of Buffy’s most major flaws, and also plays with the expectation of the audience as well. This is an episode I watch with friends and talk the entire time through, because I want to know what their initial reactions are and how those reactions are turned on its head by the end of the episode.

Basically, the whole point of this episode is the twist, we are first presented with what looks to be an unsympathetic and toxic victim. A boy who kills his lover because they no longer want to be with them, someone who is framed as abusive and having done an unforgivable thing. Until you look at the context of the situation, the boy in question was seventeen, and his lover was an adult woman who was dating him. It plays with audience expectations because like, if it had been a teenage girl dating an adult man, then it would be obvious who the victim was and who the perpetrator.

If it had been a teenage girl dating an adult man... oh. This is also an episode where we explore how Buffy has a hard time seeing herself as a victim, because of her issues of guilt and self blame. Giles tells Buffy they should help the spirit that is suffering in this episode because it is in pain, and it needs forgiveness as a tool for healing and Buffy suggests that some people should never be forgiven and they should just leave it alone. Which is not really a heroic or even kind notion. That has nothing to do with the crime they committed and everything to do with Buffy’s inability to forgive herself.

It’s an episode that goes really dark places, especially with parallels to real life relationship abuse, and yet it has something to say about the characters and those issues. It’s also ultimately about the healing power of forgiveness over punishment.

3. Fool for Love - Season 5 episode 7

Season five is really the turning point where the show is about more than just the real life issues teenagers have to deal with growing up, but starts focusing on high concept themes like death, love, the interplay between the two, or even just what it would be like to live a life that’s more than a hundred years and the effect that would have on a person.

Spike is my favorite character of all time, in anything, ever yet it’s funny that his focus episode is only third on the list, but that’s because also later episodes build on this one and have more to say. Fool for Love is just, very targeted in its messages and what it’s about in relationship to Spile’s character. Spike is sympathetic and engaging as a character not because he has a sympathetic backstory, in fact he’s a frilly victorian poet boy, turned murderer because he thought it would give him love or something more meaningful to live for. He’s not a moral person, he’s a-moral, all of his actions are framed selfishly around what he thinks will get him love, and he’s not even always a good boyfriend he’s godawful to harmony on several occasions.

Yet Spike is interesting because he’s a monster with human feelings, who wants the things every person wants, which is to be loved and love in return, and yet he feels like as a vampire he can only deal in death and violence and this also relates to Buffy. The episode is about more than Spike’s personal story though,i it’s about Buffy’s relationship to her own mortality, that despite Buffy being a literal superhero she might not die by a big bad, or even die saving the world, she can just slip up in one fight and be stabbed by a random mook. It’s about the life that Buffy leads, where no matter how strong she is, people will just relentlessly come and come for her no matter what, and that’s also relatable because how many people have expressed something like “I always feel like I just have to get through the week and things will get better only for the next week to be harder.”

It is about a life that is both empty and full of violence for both Buffy and Spike, and yet somehow both of them are still searching for love within that life. The biggest scene of change for Spike at the end of the episode is after a whole episode of peacocking around, after trying to insist to Buffy that his vampire idenitty as a killer is the real him, that Buffy is attracted to him as a killer because she has a death wish, his last real action in the episode is to put the gun down and try to comfort Buffy as Spike the sensitive poet, because no matter how hard he tries to bury that identity it’s who he is inside and people grow close to one another when they can show that vulnerability around each other.

2. Once More With Feeling - Season 6 episode 7

Not only the best musical episode ever, but actually a really good standalone forty five minute musical, but besides being an amazing production in general it's the themes of this episode that make me love it.

It is more or less Season 6's version of Lie to Me, where once again we are demosntrating that the stories people tell each other to comfort themselves can actively be harmful as well. Buffy suffers under having to put on an act and pretend everything is okay when she's not happy her friends brought her back from the dead. Spike suffers from being a much more selfless version of himself than he really is, because he's trying too hard to be the ideal boyfriend and supporting character to Buffy when he's still in love with her and wants a relationship. Tara suffers because Willow quite literally controls her mind to make her forget a fight, so they can both play-act a much happier version of their relationship.

Once More with Feeling is about both the collective desire of how everyone wants life to be more positive, more meaningful like in a musical, how they want life to be more like a song, but also how that very human desire can be harmful because it comes at the cost of denying the reality and not dealing with it. Every single song has a much darker subtext that is revealed over the course of the show.

Also, for an episode that's really dark, and is about not only Buffy's suicidal ideation but how genuinely hard life is to live, and how meaningless it can seem at times, it ends on such a beautiful message that even if say Life is pointless, nihilism is correct, there's nothing greater waiting for us, Spike still tells Buffy to keep living because "Life is just living" the only way you can survive in the world is by trying to live in it, simply because we don't know what comes after this and this life is all we got.

1. Conversations with Dead People Season 7 Episode 7

As a lover of drama, as a lover of Spike, a lover of Spuffy and romance it's funny to me that my favorite episode is an episode Spike is barely in, and nothing really happens except for all of the characters sitting down and talking, but the thing about Buffy is that all the characters are so interesting that you can have an episode like this where everyone finally sits down to talk through their issues.

It's not only an episode where a lot of characters have the conversations they've been putting off for forever, Dawn and her feelings about her dead mother, Buffy and her feelings about both the Slayer and her relationships with Angel and Spike, Willow and her mourning of Tara and her suicidal ideation that hasn't quite gone away.

It's also demonstrative of the kind of people all three of these characters that get focus are, it informs you a lot about their characters, and takes the time to do the kind of character work that Buffy is known for. It's also not just about mortality, but also about the people you are in the privacy of your own head, or when no one else is around. Like, the conversations that they all have are literally with dead people. Willow is talking with someone she believes to be a ghost, Buffy is going to stake the vampire at the end of her conversation, Dawn is dealing with what she thinks is the ghost of Joyce. These conversations are revealing specifically because all three women are pretty much alone, and so they can be their true unfiltered selves.

It's almost the exact opposite of lie to me, because dead men tell no tales, so all three of them are allowed to be much more honest than they usually are, and that makes their emotional responses so much more visceral and telling of what they really think. It drags up the subtext and makes it text. It acknowledges what we have known was already there about the characters, but also after dragging those issues up to the surface it helps them move on in a much more conciliatory way. Buffy after admitting for the first time her issues is comforted by the vampire trying to murder her, "I'm not here to Judge you, just kill you." Willow ignores the first's taunts that she should just kill herself to be with Tara. Dawn chooses not to believe in what is maybe ghost JOyce's warning that Buffy will abandon her. THe characters are confronted with their most negative thoughts and their worst flaws, but they also choose to think more positively about things in the aftermath of these confrontations and so that healthy and honest conversation becomes a starting point in healing for all three of them.

#buffy the vampire slayer #buffy sumers #dawn summers #william pratt #spike #willow rosenberg #idk what to tag this #there's not really a big buffy meta community #buffy the vampire slayer meta #buffy meta #buffy the vampire slayer analysis #buffy the vampire slayer theory #metasks #also this is a very generic list #because i picked most of the seventh episodes #which are like the special ones #it's like saying my favorite rock band is the beetles #but hey listen #sometimes things are widely acclaimed because they are good

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cluescorner · 2 years

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I didn’t wind up liking this one as much (Spoilers for Jeht World Quest 2)

NGL, not a fan of how the ending of the 2nd Jeht World Quest was just...us going through the Tanit camp and killing everyone regardless of what happened. Like, it gives me the vibe of if we had all that time with those Fatuus on the GAA and then after we got to know them and like them as a breath of fresh air from every fatuus being an evil motherfucker with no personality beyond being an evil mother fucker we were asked to FUCKING KILL ALL OF THEM LIKE THEY ARE NO DIFFERENT FROM THE NPCs WE FIGHT ON THE DAILY. Babel was a corrupt asshole and deserved what was coming to her. But LITERALLY EVERYONE BESIDES OURSELVES AND JEHT?? LITERALLY EVERYBODY?? Why are these guys being punished more than the guys at the akademiya? The heads of the Akademiya did all their bullshit, much of which I would say is worse than anything the average Tanit camp member did, but the narrative decides they get to live. Why does Azar, chief motherfucker of all time, get to live, but none of the Tanit do? Why couldn’t we just tell everyone in the Tanit camp who wasn’t one of the top people involved with their bullshit to go repent, like we apparently let happen with the motherfuckers at the Akademiya? I don’t get it. And I do believe that we killed them, considering that nobody respawns there and the place is a fucking ghost town now. Any and all NPCs that were unnamed and stationary are gone. What did ‘spear-holder #2′ do that was so awful?

Also, I super don’t like how basically the moral of this story was that the racist, pro-slavery glass bottle was actually right. Clearly these desert people can’t be trusted and Liloupaur was completely right to hate all of them from the off. It could have been a situation where like some of the Tanit camp were very much in the cult of Mother Babel and some of them were cool people who were like ‘listen man, we just want to survive and living in the desert is kinda difficult if you aren’t in a camp and this was the only one we had access to.’ Liloupaur’s bullshit would have been shown to be incorrect because the vast majority of eremites are just people trying to make it through, just because her hatred of someone was correct in one case or even a few cases doesn’t mean that her broad generalizations about the eremites were correct. But no. Instead we got ‘Hey actually every one of these people is evil and they need to be fucking purged from existence. They’re all conspiring with one another and the randos that we passed by daily are just as bad as Mother Babel herself. Let’s do exactly what Liloupaur did with Gurabad and kill everyone, leave not a soul alive save for ourselves and Jeht. Condemn the average person the same way we condemn the actual bad actors.’ And I don’t like that. I did not enjoy that storytelling decision.

I also just...why does Jeht never have anything good happen to her? Like, why can’t she have a buddy that isn’t me? Why did they make it a point to be like ‘Jeht is perpetually suffering and has effectively been outcasted from all of the eremite camps in the desert, leaving her alone and othered by the only people who hadn’t already othered her.’ Like, that’s not fun. Why can’t Jeht have something fun for a change? Somebody in her life who doesn’t wind up leaving her or betraying her or getting killed? I get that that’s supposed to be us, but the game is not gonna let us do that! This isn’t even me saying this because I love Jeht and I want nice things for her, I just think a character who never has anything truly good happen to them is a recipe for disaster. Because that character risks becoming an object of pity rather than...an actual character. Thankfully Jeht hasn’t fallen into that trap yet, but I’ve seen it happen before and it never ends well.

Overall, I do like this world quest. I think it does cool things for Jeht’s development and the worldbuilding of the desert itself. If Jeht wasn’t already my favorite Sumeru NPC (maybe even favorite Sumeru character in general), then this world quest solidified that. But to me this world quest reflects the Sumeru Archon Quest: Really good decision making throughout, then one or two things that I actively hate. For the Archon quest it was how they handled Dottore’s segments and how they handled Scaramouche going to our side (I refuse to call how his story was handled a ‘redemption’, at least right now); for this world quest it was the fact that I wasn’t allowed to defend the Tanit from Liloupaur’s bullshit and, eventually, that Liloupaur’s bullshit was actually shown to be the right way to handle the situation + the fact that Jeht literally gets nothing nice.

TLDR; The ending of this world quest was not fun from a storytelling perspective (especially when you put it in the context of Liloupaur’s earlier statements about the Tanit/all eremites), I don’t like the fact that Jeht suffers so much with nothing good to offset the bad, and while I like the majority of this world quest there are a few things in it that keep me from saying I loved it.

#I'm honestly not gonna tag this one #I'm just screaming into the void #CW: Cursing #Again I actually like the majority of stuff about this quest #But I feel like I would have enjoyed it a lot more if maybe the racist bottle of pro-slavery bullshit wasn't proven to have a point #and also if I got to take Jeht on a date #or at least let her have something nice

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dinklebat · 3 years

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Jeff the Killer ( x Reader) Headcanons

(my first time doing one of these. if y’all like it, I’ll do more otherwise it’ll be back to your regularly schedules weird stock photos and incorrect quotes)

the basics

- cis male (he/him) demiromantic pansexual

- this man is so damn cocky

- like think “I’m so humble”, “everybody loves me” vibes, especially the former (please listen to it it’s just so good)

- but he’s not cocky without merit

- even ignoring the supernatural buffs he receives, this man is extremely strong

- honestly? easily the strongest pasta who is still human-adjacent

- probably could kill with his bare hands but his knives are his babies

- huge knife collection, some bought, some gifted, but mostly stolen

- actually…kinda soft about his knives. he can tell you about every nick and stain in them. also pretty good at reading the history of a knife he’s never seen based on its scarring

- speaking of scars, man is covered in them

- his supernatural buff means he heals pretty quickly, but he rarely puts in effort into making sure injuries won’t leave a scar

- he just thinks they’re neat

- super tall and lanky, but he takes off that dumb hoodie and wow he’s buffer than you thought

- the smile scar heals really quickly because of his ability, so he constantly reopens it (pissing off EJ and the doctor gang immensely)

interactions with others

- he’s easily best friends with Ben and Toby. the three of them tend to have the highest chaotic energy and love doing pranks on the more stick in the mud mansion members like Jane and Masky

- he’s definitely closest with Ben though. they joined the mansion at the same time and just…always kinda stuck together.

- he doesn’t get along as well with Liu/Sully, Jane, Nina, EJ, and Masky

- skipping Jane because she’s obvious lol

- anyways, as mentioned previously, in my universe , Nina and Jeff dated previously. it was not an amicable breakup, to say the least, and when the two are together they are EXTREMELY passive aggressive…or just straight up fighting

- as for Liu, Jeff kind of wants to be close with him again, but Liu and Sully aren’t ready for that. when Jeff starts confronting Liu, he begins to panic and Sully typically fronts instead (I’ve always seen him as a protector alter tbh but idk if he has a canon description).

- Sully and Jeff hate each other. period.

- also in my universe Liu and EJ are dating…so EJ shares similar sentiments with Sully. plus, Jeff’s refusal to take EJ’s medical advice doesn’t help.

- masky’s relationship with him is the funniest to me. Masky absolutely HATES Jeff, but Jeff just…doesn’t care about him in any way.

- adding onto that, for some unknown reason, Jeff is the Operator’s favorite and the only one allowed to treat the boss so casually. which of course only pisses off Masky more

s/o

- i think he would work best with a high energy s/o

- I can see a calm one too, acting as a foil, but I feel like another rat bastard would be his soulmate

- ✨enemies to lovers✨

- the two of you are both high energy beings of chaos, of course you butt heads

- the agression slowly becomes aggressive flirting and then it’s just- please make out already you’re embarrassing yourselves!

- only problem is this usually is pretty slow burn tbh

- man can’t recognize romantic attraction from aesthetic attraction until he’s in way too deep

- as for physical appearance…I think Jeff would care the least compared to every other pasta

- I know it’s ironic because he’s probably the most vain

- but I love the idea of him being fascinated by every “flaw“ someone might perceive in the same way he‘s fascinated by nicks and stains on his knives

- they tell a story

- anyways, once you do start dating, the aggressive flirting isn’t going to stop

- it might get more light hearted though

- he’ll also be super protective of you like:

Jeff: haha, Y/N is an idiot

someone else: yeah, they are

Jeff, ready to throw hands: WHAT DID YOU SAY ABOUT THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

- also heads up, this man is trash with implied boundaries (aka he will steal everything you own )

#creepypasta #creepypasta headcanons #jeff the killer #jeff the killer x reader #jeff the killer x you #jeff the killer headcanons #creepypasta x reader

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fruitcoops · 4 years

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I was watching this video w Megan Rapinoe & Sue Bird (tumblr won’t let me link but it’s from 2 days ago on GQ- they ask each other questions but it’s like quiz style?) and didn’t know if you would want to do something similar for coops? Some of the stuff they said/how they acted reminded me of coops’ dynamic

Anon, this video was the perfect way to spend an evening. Both these women are my role models and they’re unbelievably cute together--go check out the video here if you have the chance! Their dynamic is a lot like how I imagine Coops, too! Sweater Weather credit goes to @lumosinlove!

“Hey, Lions, we’re back!” Sirius waved at the camera and tapped a short stack on notecards on his thighs. “I’m Captain Sirius Black of the Gryffindor Lions and I’m here with my fiancé, Remus Lupin, to do another couple game.”

“The response to our last few interviews was incredible and we had a great time,” Remus continued. “Miss Marlene McKinnon was kind enough to drag us back in here to answer even more questions!”

“Do you want to go first?”

“Sure.” Remus cleared his throat and pulled the first card. “What are my parents’ first names?”

“Hope and Lyall.”

“Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. What’s my hidden talent?”

“You can sing.”

“Does that count? I feel like most people know that now.”

“Hmm.” Sirius thought for a moment, drumming his fingers on his knees. “You can cook really well.”

“Thank you, baby. What’s my favorite accessory?”

Sirius brightened. “Your watch!”

“Yes!” Remus held it up to the camera—it was simple and elegant, with a leather band and a small face. He wore it with the clock against the inside of his wrist, just above his pulse point. “What is my dream travel destination or vacation?”

“Oh, that’s tough.” Sirius bit his lip in thought. “Seattle? Paris?”

“I do want to go to Seattle, but I’ve always wanted to go to Montreal,” Remus said. “You’ve seen my hometown, but I’ve never been to yours.”

Sirius frowned. “Really?”

“Really. What am I most afraid of?”

“I think…I think you’re most afraid of not being useful,” Sirius said after a moment. “For six years, your job was all about helping people, and it’s not now.”

Remus raised his eyebrows at the camera. “I was going to say the dentist’s office. Goddamn.”

“Sorry,” Sirius laughed. “Yeah, you don’t like medical facilities.”

“I mean, you weren’t wrong about the useful thing,” Remus said. “You still get a point for that. What’s my favorite music, song, or artist to listen to before a game?”

“You don’t have one.”

“That was quick. Half a bonus point for speed. When was our first date and what did we do?”

“Our first official date was just after All-Stars and we went to Sid’s, but we had been together for about three months at that point and just hung out at each other’s houses.”

Remus grinned. “Do you remember what day it was?”

“January 28th.” Sirius gave him a look. “I know for a fact you don’t know what day it was.”

“January 28th.”

“You only know that because I just said it!” Sirius smacked him playfully with his cards. “Next question.”

“What’s my favorite movie and TV show?”

“Jurassic Park and Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

He whistled the first part of the theme song as Sirius did the hand motions. “What’s my shoe size?”

“Oh, god,” Sirius muttered, staring down at the floor. “Eleven? Eleven and a half? You have smaller feet than I do, but not by much.”

“I’m a size ten.”

“Are you really?”

Remus pulled one sneaker off and handed it to him with a laugh. “Check for yourself. Oh, I’d love to know the answer to this one. How do you know when I’m mad at you?”

Sirius tossed his shoe back with a snort. “You make faces.”

Remus seemed surprised. “Do I?”

“Yeah. You’ve got a very expressive face and the second you’re pissed, it’s written all over it. It’s like—” Sirius pursed his lips and scrunched his nose slightly. “I can’t really do it, but anytime I see that I’m like, ‘oh, shit, what did I do?’ Also, you stop calling me baby.”

“That’s what I was going to say. What’s my favorite city to play in?”

“Not Florida.”

“Not fucking Florida,” Remus agreed with a grin.

“Gryffindor for sure.”

“Where was I born?” He gave Sirius a teasing look. “Do you know this time, or should I get my mom on the line?”

Sirius stuck his tongue out. “Madison, Wisconsin.”

Remus glanced at the camera. “We got asked this question in an interview a few months ago and he had to call my mom afterward because he forgot.”

“She made fun of me the whole time,” Sirius pouted.

“What is my favorite food? Oh, you’ll get this one for sure.” Sirius hesitated and Remus’ eyes widened. “Really?”

“I’m a little torn. It’s either my grilled cheese or your dad’s turkey-cranberry thing. Actually, I don’t think you know what your favorite food is.”

Remus nodded slowly. “That’s a really good point. My first thought was grilled cheese, but my dad makes the best postgame sandwiches. I’ll give you that. What’s my favorite hobby?”

“Reading.”

“What did I want to be when I was a kid?”

“A librarian, until you started playing hockey.”

Remus leaned over and high-fived him. “You’re on a roll, baby. What was my jersey number in college?”

“Number six.”

“The transition was so fucking easy,” Remus laughed. “Coach literally came up to me a month before practices started and went ‘hey, what was your old number?’ and I told him, and he looked down at his clipboard and went, ‘cool.’. I got my jersey two weeks later.”

“Is this your last question?”

“It is, indeed. What’s my full birth name?”

“Remus Jehosephat Lupin.”

“That is incorrect.”

“Close enough. It’s Remus John Lupin, which I find endlessly funny.”

“Why is it funny?” Marlene asked off-screen. Remus hid his face behind his notecards as Sirius laughed.

“Because it’s such a basic middle name! I love Hope and Lyall with my entire heart and they’re wonderful people, but they named their sons Remus and Julian and then I think they got stuck. Like, you’ve got these two very uncommon first names and they sort of went ‘fuck it. John and Michael. We’re done.’ It’s just so funny.”

“Whereas your parents went the extra mile and gave you and Reg goddamn supervillain names,” Remus snorted. “The drama of it all, my god.”

“Alright, alright, my turn.” Sirius leaned his elbows on his knees. “What is my favorite color?”

“Blue.”

“How do I like my coffee?”

Remus hissed between his teeth. “Ah, shit, you always make the coffee. With a lot of sugar, right? It’s black with sugar?”

“It can’t be black if it has sugar in it,” Sirius laughed. “But yes, I do put sugar in my coffee. What are three things I never leave the house without?”

“Keys, wallet, phone.”

“My favorite TV show?”

“Why are you going through these so fast? Uh, Avatar.”

“Did I ever have a job that wasn’t playing hockey?”

“Nope.” Remus frowned. “Were you allowed to get a job as a kid?”

“I was not. What’s my favorite ice cream flavor?”

“Cookies and cream.”

Sirius made a buzzer noise. “Incorrect.”

“Is it chocolate?”

“Yep. You get half a point for that. What’s the first meal I ever cooked for you?”

Remus gave him a look. “You don’t remember what you cooked for me, do you?”

“Refresh my memory?”

“No way!” He punched him lightly on the arm. “I’m not falling for my own tricks. Next question.”

“It’s kind of a repeat from earlier. How do you know when I’m mad at you?”

Remus fiddled with the edges of his cards. “You act all weird and Captain-y, and then you get quiet. Just cranky vibes all around.”

“Cranky vibes,” Sirius laughed. “Good to know. What are my favorite movie-watching snacks?”

“Popcorn and…Sweet Tarts?”

“Yes!” Sirius gave him a high-five. “Do you know what I like on my popcorn?”

“Butter and enough salt to kill a Victorian child.”

“Bonus point! What is—oh, shit!” He nearly fumbled the cards onto the floor. “What is my favorite movie of all time?”

“Indiana Jones.”

“Which one?”

“The one with Marian, because she reminds you of me.” Remus looked over at the camera. “I really don’t like snakes.”

“What is the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning?”

“Oh, I think this requires a demonstration. C’mere.”

“Does it really?” Sirius sighed as he laid down next to him.

“For sure.” Remus cuddled into his side and laid his head on his shoulder. “Alright, the key to a true Sirius Black wake-up is getting all four limbs wrapped around the other person like you’re trying to suffocate them with affection.”

“Okay—”

“And then,” Remus continued with a grin. “I go, ‘honey, wake up’—”

“You absolutely do not.”

“In my head, that’s what I say. It’s very sweet. To answer the question, the first thing Sirius does is this.” He buried his face in Sirius’ chest and groaned loudly, then dissolved into snickering as Sirius’ chest began to shake with suppressed laughter. “Stop it, you’re ruining the demonstration!”

“You forgot the part where I have to peel you off me with pliers and grease,” Sirius teased as they stood up, dusting themselves off. The camera crew applauded and they both bowed. “Alright, where were we? What am I most scared of?”

“Losing your friends and family,” Remus said. “Also, spiders and most bugs.”

“You forgot one.”

“Which one? The dish soap bubbles?”

“Losing you.”

A vibrant blush tinted Remus’ cheeks and ears, and he floundered for words. “Oh.”

“You still get the points, though,” Sirius said mildly. “What city do I like playing in the most?”

Remus paused for a moment longer, then shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Uh, Gryffindor. You like the crowd.”

“I do.” Sirius smiled at the camera. “To all the fans out there: you are incredible and there is nothing like skating out with everybody roaring so loud the windows shake. Who is my biggest hockey influence?”

“Now, or when you were younger?”

“Now.”

“It’s Dumo, right?”

Sirius nodded. “On and off the ice. What’s my proudest career moment?”

“Hmm, I wonder,” Remus said sarcastically. “Could it possibly be winning the Stanley Cup?”

“Just maybe,” Sirius laughed. “What’s my most famous celly, and which one’s my favorite?”

Remus grinned. “Lightning McQueen.”

“I hate it when you call it that.” Despite his words, Sirius was smiling. “It’s supposed to be cool!”

“Can you elaborate?” Marlene asked.

“I mean, most people who have seen him play know what I’m talking about,” Remus said, gesturing to the camera. “But Sirius’ famous celly is a double fist pump, and I call it the Lightning McQueen because it’s like ka-chow! It’s also his favorite one, though he dances when we’re skating alone or with a couple of the guys.”

“Shhh, they aren’t supposed to know that!” Sirius covered Remus’ mouth with his notecard. “This is the very last one. What is my biggest pet peeve?”

“When I leave my socks laying around the house.”

“Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner! That drives me fucking bonkers. Marley, who won?”

“It wasn’t a competition,” she said off-screen. “Just a Q & A.”

“Who got the most right?” Remus asked.

“You two are hopeless,” she muttered. There were a few beats of silence. “Remus won, with sixteen and a half out of seventeen. Sirius, you had fifteen and a half.”

“No.” Sirius groaned and dropped his head into his hands as Remus whooped.

“Hell yes!”

“My bonus points let you win.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe this.”

Remus faced the camera with a victorious smile. “Thanks for joining us to witness my landslide victory—”

“It was one point.”

“And make sure to like and subscribe for more Lion Pride content! See you around, Lions.” They both mock-saluted, and the video ended.

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smhalltheurlsaretaken · 4 years

Note

Hey! I literally love your last post so much but I'm confused about the rebels bit (never watched it). How does Rebels criticize the jedi? Thanks!

Aw, thank you! (Lol, this is such an old ask I don’t remember what that post was, but here goes).

Well in s2 Ahsoka, Kanan (a survivor from Order 66) and Ezra (his Padawan) all go to an old Jedi Temple to talk to Yoda about Vader and his Inquisitors (Darksiders who hunt the few remaining Jedi and kidnap Force sensitive kids). Yoda is only there spiritually and the three of them get different visions. Ahsoka sees Anakin as Vader, and Kanan has to fight several enemies and eventually admit he can't protect his Padawan from the world, only guide him (which prompts the vision to finally make him a Jedi Knight, as he survived Order 66 as a Padawan.)

And Ezra... Ugh. Ezra had a previous encounter with Yoda, in which he got his lightsaber crystal. Basically Yoda asked him why he wanted to be a Jedi, and Ezra had to do some self-examination and eventually realized that helping and protecting people made him feel alive, which greatly pleased Yoda who told him he might become a Jedi after all. That's a really great exchange and I love the character development Ezra gets, as he starts by saying he wants never to feel powerless and eventually realizes that's not the right answer.

But in this second encounter, as Ezra asks how they can defeat the Inquisitors, Yoda basically says that fighting is rarely the right path. And to illustrate that, he says that line about the Jedi being arrogant and joining the war swiftly "in their arrogance," which really bothers me. He also says they were "consumed by the Dark Side", which is why they're now gone. In all fairness, he also mentions that they were motivated by fear, which is partially true.

Now, I write analyses and I try to be intellectually honest about them, because ignoring contradicting stuff weakens your argument instead of helping you. Except this time, I really can't accept this quote. I have an excuse, Lucas wasn't involved in Rebels so it's not the highest canon in my opinion (the 6 movies + TCW are, here are the quotes justifying my position), and I feel like that assertion is out of character for Yoda, ignoring his ST ghost appearances, and also plainly factually incorrect.

I understand that Ezra really needed to be taught not to always seek to fight. At this point, he's still an emotional kid who occasionally struggles with the Dark Side. Not fighting is important to a Jedi's path, so I can understand Yoda's intention. But the example he uses? According to Lucas, the Jedi were drafted in the war. That's not jumping into a conflict out of arrogance, that's literally being dragged there against your will. And sure, there’s Geonosis, but how exactly is rescuing a bunch of your people that’s getting slaughtered by a Sith Lord the same thing as arrogantly jumping into a fight? Like, what’s the option here? Not go, and let an innocent Senator and a bunch of Jedi be murdered?

It's like Rebels!Yoda isn't acknowledging that the war was fake and that a Sith Lord engineered it as the perfect trap (which is recurring problem in Rebels; at one point Ezra, Kanan and Rex have to fight an old Separatist tactical droid and Ezra "solves" the Clone Wars by pointing out that nobody won except the Empire, so really they were on the same side all along, and he gets praised for doing what "a bunch of Jedi, senators and Clones couldn't do," ie getting both sides to talk to each other – except wtf??? setting aside that the Jedi and Rex were aware of the war being fake by the end of it, and that the Separatists were openly led by a Sith Lord and attempted to commit genocide several times in TCW and did commit mass murder, and reduced like several worlds to slavery or starvation and were backed by the worst big corporations you could imagine, the war would NOT have ended if the two sides had tried talking it out. 1) The Senate made it illegal 2) the big corporations arranged for terrorist attacks on both sides the one time they tried to negotiate so the war would drag on and they'd get more money out of it 3) Sidious. Was. Controlling. Everything. What. The. Heck. Would. Have. Been. Accomplished. By. Negotiating.) Plus the question of whether or not the Jedi should even fight is like... constantly raised by the Jedi during TCW, so I really can’t see it as “oh wow we didn’t even take the time to think and we got killed because of it, we really sucked.”

Seriously, there’s this S6 quote:

MACE: Are you sure we are taking the right path? YODA: The right path, no. The only path, yes. Designed by the Dark Lord of the Sith, this web is. For now, play his game, we must.

Like yeah, totally rushing in and being eager to fight lol. Nothing to do with being boxed in and having no alternatives.

So yeah that's bothers me and I don't think it jibes with the rest of canon. I don't remember Yoda telling Luke (who, in the beginning, is as eager to fight as Ezra is) that the Jedi "disappeared" because of some fault of their own, or because of an eagerness to fight. (Seriously, pussyfooting around the fact that the Jedi were slaughtered grates me.) The OT never, ever, ever implies that the destruction of the Jedi Order was their fault - and unless you assume that the OT is “pro-Jedi propaganda” (*laughs in dumb youtube comments*) then I don’t see Rebels weaving it into its narrative as legitimate.

Again, choosing alternatives to fighting is a great lesson on a personal level, but it doesn't work on the scale of the Rebels/Empire conflict - or the Jedi/Sith one. Ezra should often choose not to fight because of what it'll do to his soul. The Rebels should not stop fighting because there is no cohabitation with something as evil as the Empire. Imo Yoda is always presented as wise enough to know the difference.

The last thing that makes me think it's out of character is Yoda's spiritual journey in TCW s6. He gets all of his flaws thrown into his face and has to conquer them – he has to face his literal Dark Side and he wins. And yet at no point during that arc is he ever made to conquer his ‘Jedi arrogance’ or whatever. He has to face his worst fear (first vision, all the Jedi dying), let go of his attachments (second vision, him having to accept that he can’t live in a perfect world where everything is beautiful and no one is dead), and reaffirm who he is as a Jedi (third vision, refusing to give up on Anakin and trying to save him rather than to kill Sidious) but at no point is he ever made to recognize that wow, the Jedi are the worst for fighting.

I’d argue that the very purpose of the visions showing him Order 66 and Anakin falling are to make him accept that these things are completely beyond his control - and as such, not his fault. He doesn’t get to fix things, because the fate of the Order is not in their own hands. It is, in fact, in Anakin’s (from a thematical/narrative standpoint). Yoda has a hard time with it (actually he almost shuts down when he first sees everybody dead and his first reaction is to say that he failed them, so I can’t accept Yoda blaming his grandkids for dying) but he accepts it in the end, when he tells Mace and Obi-Wan he’s not certain one ever wins a war, but they might still find ‘victory for all time’ (referring to balance aka Sidious’ death in RotJ).

So anyway that’s my beef with Rebels!Yoda. Not hate on Rebels though, there are many parts of it that I really, really love - but some of them kinda infuriate me, and this is one of them.

#ask #anonymous #yoda #yoda appreciation #in defense of the jedi #long post #meta #more like me ranting #my meta

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contradictions-of-iron-and-lace · 4 years

Text

So on my old blog, I would occasionally give my unsolicited thoughts and opinions on shows or movies (usually ones that either had a lot of hype or were just straight up bad). I just watched "365 Dni" aka "365 Days" because I had a couple hours to kill so be prepared for mental spewage because it's my blog and I do what I want.

Wait I thought this was a romantic thriller. They're talking about human trafficking. This is already gross.

Michele Morrone is very good looking though and I've been obsessed with his face for the last few weeks.

This whole conversation about these girls getting trafficked is gross.

Yes. Let's be extra pervy during a pervy business meeting and check out the girl on the beach with our binoculars.

Hold up. Why did they get shot?

I don't know what's going on. Freaking Italian mob, man.

This song about being addicted to someone that's playing while people are bleeding out on the ground seems tonally inappropriate.

So far we've seen Italy, San Francisco, and Warsaw. I didn't know we were globetrotting.

And we switched from Italian to Polish to English. Sure.

Yeah. Michele Morrone could get it. Also he survived being shot.

Is that the same girl from the beach? Probably. Why not.

They do a lot of spinning shots and it's making me dizzy.

So far this is a very expensive foreign Lifetime movie.

Yes. Because everyone takes boob shots in the back of their Uber while sober.

Homegirl's boyfriend looks like they picked him out of a burly henchman catalogue.

Yup. Michele Morrone is stupid hot. Even just sitting down he's hot.

Oh good. We've transitioned from potential human trafficking to cocaine.

Well damn. This is fairly explicit for a "mainstream" film.

Cool. I share a name with the female lead.

Still don't know the male lead's name yet.

Everybody in this movie is either stupid hot or stupid ugly. There is no middle ground.

Yes, Michele. Creeping up on this girl on a darkly lit path saying "Are you lost, little girl?" is definitely going to win you all the points.

I don't understand why writers insist on putting powerful women with schlubby dudes. It's tired and cliched and inevitably leads to annoying arguments.

Yes. Let's wander around Sicily at night all alone. That's totally safe.

And my point is proven.

I hope if I ever get kidnapped and holed up in some random ass castle in Sicily my makeup looks as good as Laura's.

So this just turned into a horror movie.

Called it about Laura being the girl on the beach.

Yeah, that's not creepy at all, dude. Let's obsess over a girl we might have hallucinated for five years and then kidnap her and give her a year to fall in love with you. Solid plan.

This is literally making my skin crawl.

Ah yes. "I won't do anything without your permission" he says as he literally grabs and sexually assaults her.

So basically this is trying to be "erotic thriller, Beauty and the Beast style".

Her pulling a gun on him has been the best thing so far.

I'm so confuuuuuused.

That's nothing new though. I live in a state of perpetual confusion.

Why the hell is there a man chained to a rock in this dude's basement.

I have many concerns.

Also his name is Massimo so that's good to know.

Besides the man chained in his basement his house is pretty cool.

Just kidding the man is no longer chained in the basement since he now has a bullet in his head.

I'm only 30 minutes in and this has been a wild ride.

"I'm not a bag of potatoes you can move without my permission!" is very Polish and as somebody who's family is Polish I'm living for it.

I'm going to need him to stop laying hands on her.

Whoever chose the music made some odd choices.

He keeps watching her sleep and it's creepy.

And there he goes grabbing her again.

I do like that she's giving him a lot of attitude and isn't putting up with his shit but you know that's going to change 🙄

Yes. Go spend all his money, honey.

He is disrespectful as hell.

I don't care how hot he is, he's creepy and abusive and I don't like it.

"I am not the monster you think I am." You would be incorrect, my dude.

Like, she went on vacation with her boyfriend and friends, and I can't for the life of me figure out why they aren't looking for her unless they explained it and I missed it.

Pierogi. The most romantic of Polish foods.

"I do business." He's a drug trafficker, honey. Run away. Run far, far away.

Honestly I would turn this off if I wasn't so far in it already.

I feel like I have to see this trainwreck through to the end.

"I would like you to show me how to be gentle for you" would be more appealing if HE LITERALLY HAD NOT KIDNAPPED, ABUSED, AND ASSAULTED HER.

Ew. Did he sneak in her bed while she slept?

One good dinner and now she's all "let's gently touch him in bed and take a shower in front of him" 🙄

Why is this bathroom set up like a communal shower? It's weird.

Although to be fair if he hopped in the shower with me I'd check him out too 🤷

They tied her to the seat in the plane. What the hell.

I'm so uncomfortable.

Ugh. Why. Why is this a thing.

So far this has been creepier than 50 Shades and 50 Shades is creepy as hell.

Hold on. I thought they were at a hotel. Why does he have a giant ass portrait of himself hanging up in his room?

I. Am. Uncomfortable.

Oh man. He has a nice butt.

Don't get distracted by the pretty man, Laura.

Onscreen Laura too.

He asked her to teach him how to be gentle, then handcuffs her to the bed and makes her watch while he hooks up with another woman.

Yup. Doing a great job there, Massimo.

Cool I'm back to being confused.

She can't walk in her heels and I'm dying laughing. Same, girl, same.

"What are you wearing?" "A couple thousand euro of yours." GET HIM.

Now we've entered the Scarface phase of the movie because there was just a copious amount of cocaine snorted.

Where did he pull two guns from??

So I don't know how long she's been with him at this point. I feel like that's something that needs to be clarified.

And she fell off the boat.

Of course she did.

Oh man. Why's he gotta be so cute with his fluffy curls and stubble and tattoos?

Also I'm pretty sure he only owns like two shirts because he's walked around shirtless for most of this movie.

We are now in the part of the movie where we've screamed awful things at each other and now we're going to bone it out.

All over the boat. Like every surface of the boat they have now banged on.

If y'all were dissatisfied with the raunchiness of the 50 Shades series, this is the movie for you because it far surpasses that.

Of course they're going to a ball. They always do in these rich people movies.

Makeover montage because why not.

Oh no. He's hot in a tux.

It always cracks me up in movies when people just automatically know how to ballroom dance like professionals without any training.

Every time I think this movie can't get more cliched, it does.

Why do I do this to myself? Why do I subject myself to bad movies?

I take it back. I know why I did it this time. The reason is 6'2" and looks damn good in a button up shirt.

"I thought you were kidnapped!" She was. You were a good friend for thinking that.

The switching between languages is giving me whiplash. It's very jarring going from Italian to Polish to English to Polish to Italian.

Her friend seeing through her bullshit is giving me life.

Also loving the fact that she's acknowledging she has Stockholm Syndrome. But because it's a movie it won't change anything.

Another makeover montage? So soon?

Also her friend keeps calling Massimo Mozzarella and it's hilarious.

That wig looks like it's about to crawl off her head.

Of course the ex shows up.

Honestly just knee him in the nuts and be done with it.

Why does Massimo think it's okay to break into her apartment and wait in the dark for her?

I don't know who thought using a blue light for her apartment was a good idea but it just looks like they're in a giant tanning booth.

"I don't need 365 days... Because I love you." GIRL NO.

I mean it was inevitable but it's still gross.

Yup. That's normal. Let's marry our kidnapper.

I want to snatch that wig off her head.

"What are your intentions with our daughter?" You don't want to know what his intentions are with your daughter, sir.

I will say that I love all her clothes in this movie.

Also she's pregnant. Calling it right now.

Called it.

Also good to know they've only known each other two months and they're going to get married and have a baby 👀

Her best friend is my favorite character and is the only likeable person in this whole movie.

Plot twist. Shocker.

This is so dramatic.

I will give them credit for the ending because that was unexpected.

In summary, this movie is trash and while the "love" scenes are pretty hot, it's not worth the time or effort that I clearly put into this.

#laura's unsolicited thoughts and opinions #i just kept watching this with increasing horror #365 dni #365 days

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gingersnapwolves · 4 years

Note

Idea: Wen Ning and Jiang Yanli bond when Yunmeng Trio are hiding out with WN/WQ in Yiling after Lotus Pier. After the SSC, JYL, who grew attached to WN and is *very aware* that she and her siblings owe WN & WQ for what they did, looks for WN. JYL (figuratively) busts open the labor camps before WN dies.

Yes! Love this for them! Given that Jiang Cheng was basically wallowing in bed (no judgment tbh) and Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian were in the library the whole time, it makes sense that Wen Ning and Jiang Yanli would have bonded. Wen Ning was most likely the one in charge of making sure they got food and everything. It would be so sweet!

Imagine JYL rolling up to The Unclean Realm after WWX is found and is like “okay, I’m glad you’re both okay, where did Wen Ning and Wen Qing wind up?” and Jiang Cheng tells her that Wen Qing was imprisoned at the Yiling Supervisory Office but Wen Ning was missing ... so she starts looking for him back then ...

Nie Mingjue is like “hm all Wens should die actually” and JYL is like “*sweet smile* let me explain to you about how you are incorrect”

et c, et c, I love the idea of her running into Wen Qing in Lanling instead of Wei Wuxian, only I would really want them to get to Wen Ning before he’s killed so I might have to fiddle with the timing but imagine her unleashing a second tongue lashing on Jin Zixun that day and he’s like “what the fuck, how does this keep happening to me”

Wen Ning wouldn’t *quite* break Wei Wuxian’s trust about the golden core thing but hey if he drops some hints here and there and Jiang Yanli picks up on them, that’s not his fault, right? Then once that’s out in the open WWX can get the therapy he desperately needs

Jin sect gets wrecked, happy endings for everybody else <3 <3 <3

#asks #fic stuff #ningli #the untamed #Anonymous

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liesyousoldme · 5 years

Note

9 or 12? (Or both💓)

“I seriously don’t thinkI’ve ever been this hard before, in my life.” & “Touch me.”

college aged reddie accidental phone sex - continued under the cut

“Okay, I got 26.4, too, do you want to try it or should I?”

Eddie shrugged, even though Richie couldn’t see it throughthe phone. His laptop was open on his lap, MyMathLab staring back at him on oneof the last problems of the night’s homework.

“I think I did the last wrong one,” Eddie replied. They always took turns entering their answers so if they messed up, only one of them would get it incorrect. It was absolutely saving their math grades.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Richie said. Eddie waited a moment forRichie to enter their answer and see if they’d gotten the problem correct.After a moment, Richie yelled indignantly. “It’s doing the fucking thing again!It says the correct answer is 26.4, my answer exactly matches, and it’s sayingI got it wrong!”

Eddie sighed. This happened at least twice on each homeworkassignment. Technology was such bullshit. “Let me try.”

The computer told him he got the correct answer. When hetold Richie, he began cursing. Eddie laughed. “Calm down, dude, last one. I’llgo first so you don’t lower any more of your precious score.”

“Don’t make fun of me for wanting good grades, Edward,”Richie said haughtily. “Some of us are trying to keep our scholarships.”

“Some of us?” Eddie asked incredulously. “Both of us are onscholarships, dumbass. And making a B on one homework assignment out of thethirty we have this semester is not going to do much damage. Homework is 10% ofour –“

“Eds, I gotta be honest, I stopped listening,” Richieinterrupted. “Let’s finish so I can go jack off.”

“Richie!” Eddie felt his cheeks heating up. He hated that,hated that even after almost 15 years of friendship Richie could still make himas red as a tomato. It hadn’t always been that way. When they were in theirearly teens, Eddie had mostly felt slight disgust at Richie’s sexual comments. Asmuch as he wanted to, he didn’t see anything appealing about girls or boobs orvaginas and the fact that they seemed to be Richie’s favorite topic was generallyan annoyance.

That had changed when Richie had made his first commentabout fucking Bill’s dad instead of Eddie’s mom, which was how he’d decided to tell his friends he wasbisexual. They’d been 16. Eddie still wasn’t interested in girls, but at leastby that age he knew why. From that point on the blush appeared any time Richiementioned sex, mostly because Eddie had begun to picture what Richie might looklike; he never imagined another person with Richie, more just a blurry blob ofa human (for his own sanity). Unless Richie had specified someone – not so muchEddie’s mom or Bill’s dad, his two favorites, more like one of the Losers orsomeone from school – he managed to keep his fantasizing brain under control with the mental images.But when he did specify someone, Eddie didn’t blush. Didn’t feel the awkwardtingly sensation is his hands, didn’t feel his stomach swoop. He felt that sameannoyance from when he was young.

It became clear quickly that this feeling was jealousy.Because as much as Richie called Eddie cute cute cute and pinched his cheeks,Richie had never made that kind of comment about him. He hated how aware he wasthat he was the only person in the Losers Club that Richie hadn’t joked abouthaving sex with. Which – as much as he tried not to think about it – was stupidbecause he was so far up Richie’s ass in love with him that it wasn’t even funny.He shouldn’t want Richie to joke about having sex with Eddie when Eddieactually wanted to have sex with Richie. But he felt singled out in the worstway. Was he that childish to Richie? Too cute cute cute, too much like a kid? Didhe still imagine Eddie walking around in short shorts and a fanny pack? He knewRichie didn’t actually think he was cute – it was just a bit, like a hundredothers he had, but sometimes he wondered if Richie found him unattractive, tothe point that he wouldn’t even joke about sex with Eddie.

What Eddie hated most was how often he thought about it. Hehated that he knew all of the comments Richie had made to their friends overthe years, hated that he knew which of Richie’s comments would make him blushand which would make him jealous. He wanted to just see Richie as a friend,because then it wouldn’t matter and Eddie’s brain could think about normalthings, like their shared freshman algebra course or remembering which hallwaythe tutoring center was on.

“Did you get 9.8?”

Eddie blinked. As he’d been sitting in silence,contemplating Richie and his sex jokes, Richie had actually been doing theirhomework.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, glancing at his scratch paper.

“Did you even do it?” Richie asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Eddie repeated.

Richie snorted. “What have you been doing the last fiveminutes, watching porn?”

Eddie shut his eyes tightly. How could he have forgotten?The only type of sex joke Richie did direct at him. He cleared his throat. “No,I’m not watching porn.”

Even he could tell he sounded oddly defensive. He wasn’tlying! He wasn’t watching porn!

“That…” Richie paused, laughter in his voice. “That didn’tsound convincing, Eds.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Deflecting?”

“No!” Eddie exclaimed, feeling his cheeks get even hotter.He rested his forehead in his palm.

“Are you sure?” Richie asked, almost sounding… curious. “Becauseyou’re definitely acting like you do when you’re lying. You’re a bad liar andyou should stop trying. Were you seriously watching porn while we’re doing ourhomework?”

“I wasn’t!” Eddie claimed. “You would’ve been able to hearit over the phone!”

Richie paused like he was mulling it over. Eddie pushed hislaptop off his lap, scooting back on his bed until his back was against thewall. When Richie spoke again, he sounded teasing. “So if you weren’t watchingsex then you must have been thinking about it.”

Eddie choked. “I – no! I wasn’t!”

“Oh my god, you were!” Richie crowed. He was laughing andEddie wanted to crawl under his covers and never come back out. “What were youthinkin’ about, then? What gets little Eds going?”

Eddie no longer wanted to crawl under his covers to hide. Hewanted to die. Little Eds. He would die and then he would haunt Richie’s stupidass.

“Why have we never had this conversation before? What kindof best friend am I that I don’t even know what gets my best friend off?”

“The normal kind,” Eddie said, his eyes still squeezed shut.

“No, this is important information. What do you search forwhen you visit PornHub? Do you have a favorite category?”

“Oh my god,” Eddie muttered, wondering if it were possibleto be even more embarrassed than he was right then.

“Do you like just some classic anal? Or are you a kinky guy,going for like, spanking and bondage and shit?”

Eddie was wrong. He could be more embarrassed. Richie continued talking as though Eddie wasn’t melting from the heat that was spreading from his cheeks down his chest.

“Nah, I think you’re a classic kinda guy. I don’t wanna callyou vanilla, Eds, but. Yeah, vanilla. The real question is whether you’re a topor a bottom.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Eddie choked out. He hated the wayhis stomach clenched as Richie spoke. He could still hear the laughter in hisvoice. He’s making fun of you, he reminded his dick.

“No, you’re definitely a bottom,” Richie decided, saying itas though he were absolutely sure. Eddie’s jaw dropped.

“Richie!”

“What? Are you saying you’re not?” Richie asked,incredulous.

“I – I’m not saying anything, asshole!”

Richie laughed. “So that’s a yes, then.”

“This is not a normal conversation,” Eddie stated, sure he’dnever been as red as he was in his life. “Like, is this something you’vethought about? Do you talk to Bill about whether he’s a bottom?”

“No of course not, Bill’s straight,” Richie said, as thoughit were obvious. “But he’d totally be a top.”

Eddie didn’t say anything.

“Is that the kind of guy you’re into, though?” Richie asked,and Eddie had to muffle a gasp. He’s still making fun of you, he told hisdick. “You wanna get fucked by Big Bill?”

“No,” Eddie answered, disgust in his voice. “He’s basicallymy brother, that’s gross.”

“Well if not Bill…” Richie trailed off. Eddie wasn’t surewhere he was going with this, but he didn’t like it. “Maybe Mike’s more yourtype. Or Ben? Do you like ‘em broad and muscular, Eds?”

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie said. “No, I don’t want to fuck them,either.”

“I’m not saying them specifically,” Richie said. “I’m sayingit as a type, you know? So is it? Is that your type? I can picture it.”

Maybe Eddie was already dead, and this was Hell. “Pleasestop picturing me having sex.”

“I – yeah,” Richie conceded, almost sounding embarrassed. Hepicked right up again, though, so Eddie hardly noticed. “Come on, Eds, yougotta help me out here!”

“I really don’t,” Eddie retorted.

“Fine,” Richie said, and Eddie huffed out a breath of relief.“Let’s talk about what I like.”

HE’S STILL MAKING FUN OF YOU, his mind yelled at his dick.

“I mean, I’m mostly a top but I don’t mind bottoming. I likea really nice ass, you know? Pretty eyes and a nice ass, those are myrequirements. I love a real cutie,” Richie said casually.

Eddie’s dick had stopped listening to him entirely. Cutie?Cutie?

“Now you gotta tell me one,” Richie told him. “It’s onlyfair.”

Eddie bit his lip. What was a safe answer? “Tall. I liketall guys.”

“Hmm.” Richie’s voice was curious again. “Muscles?”

“Uh,” Eddie stared up at the ceiling, wondering when thiswas going to end. “No. More – um, you know. Lanky.”

He would swear he heard a sharp intake of breath on theother end of the phone. Oh god. Was that too much? Of course it was, everybodycalled Richie lanky all the time. Beverly was constantly sending him carepackages and telling him to eat more because he was too lanky.

“Do you, uh,” the laughter was gone from Richie’s voice, buthe still sounded conversational. “What about hair? You into blondes? Redheads?”

Eddie knew he couldn’t answer. What was he supposed to say? I like dark hair with curls like a birds nest, Rich, know anyone like that? He turned it around onRichie. “No, it’s your turn. Do you like tall guys?”

Richie took a moment to answer. His tone was serious when he spoke. “No, I like shorter guys.”

Eddie was hardening with each word Richie spoke. Richie was just talking about sex - in a vague way! - and it was already getting him going. This was –this was awful and terrible and wonderful and he wanted it to stop, to end, tokeep going forever.

“Oh,” he answered, wincing at the breathlessness in hisvoice.

“Yeah, uh,” Richie’s voice was lower, Eddie was sure of it.He bit his lip. “I like ‘em smaller, ‘cause then I can – I like to… You know, Ilike – I like a guy under me that I can – uh – like, cover every inch ofhim.”

Eddie pressed the heel of his hand against his dick, bitingback a whine. He could hear the nervousness in Richie’s voice, but there wassomething else, too, something Eddie thought might be lust. He wanted to push,to say something that Richie wouldn’t be able to misinterpret, to make hisfeelings known, but he couldn’t think of what to say. His mouth was dry, hecouldn’t speak even if he knew the right words.

Luckily, Richie had always been the talker. “Do you likethat? ‘Cause you like tall guys, do you like ‘em –“

“Yeah,” Eddie interrupted, knowing how desperate he sounded.He squeezed himself through his shorts. “I like – I want somebody on top of me,you’re right, I’m – I’m a bottom, I want –“

“Fuck,” Richie groaned. Eddie cut himself off with awhimper. Richie sounded even better than he’d imagined. “I seriously don’tthink I’ve been this hard before, in my life.”

“Oh,” Eddie choked out, reaching inside his underwear andsighing when he wrapped his hand around himself. His cock twitched in his handwhen he heard a gasp through the phone. “Are you…”

“Yeah,” Richie answered. “I – fuck, Eds, I want you so bad,I’ve always –“

“Rich,” Eddie whined, squeezing at the base so he wouldn’tcome.

“What about you? You’re touching yourself?”

“Yeah,” he breathed, slowly moving his hand again, looseninghis grip and stroking slowly. “I’m – um, pretending it’s you.”

“Oh my god,” Richie mumbled lowly. “You – you’re thinkin’about my hands?”

“Mhm,” he murmured, beginning to move his hand faster. “Alwaysdo, always wish it was you, always want you to…”

“Want me to what?” Richie asked. Eddie choked on a gasp.

“Touch me,” he answered after a moment.

“Really?” Richie’s voice was awed and breathless.

“Yeah,” he said, thumbing over the head and crying out. “Always,Rich, wanted you so long –“

He listened as Richie began to moan louder, louder, and then a sharp cry before he letout a low sigh. He’d just made his best friend come.

“Oh my god,” Eddie groaned, feeling his stomach tighten ashe stroked himself faster, letting the phone go and holding it to his ear withhis shoulder. He reached down with his free hand and pressed a finger to the skin behindhis balls, coming with a gasp.

He stroked himself through it, hearing Richie’s heavybreathing as he came back down.

“Hold fuck,” Richie muttered when their panting hadsubsided.

“Yeah,” Eddie agreed, glancing down at his now messy shirtwith a frown. Then, unable to help it, he asked, “Did you mean it? When yousaid you – that you always…”

“Of course I did,” he said softly. Eddie opened his mouth toanswer but Richie kept going. “You were my fucking gay awakening, are youkidding?”

“I – what?”

Richie huffed out a laugh. “I’ve been jerking it to you foryears, Eds.”

The blush was back. “Um. Me too.”

“Can’t see why, but I’ll take it,” Richie said. “Not every day somebody hotas fuck admits something like that.”

He blushed even harder. He figured, if Richie kept sayingthings like that, maybe blushing all the time wasn’t so bad after all.

#reddie #reddie fic #my fic #Anonymous

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gunmetal-ring · 3 years

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I know I'm preaching to the choir here but I rly simply don't understand the Carol hate

"Everybody's lost somebody but nobody else goes on these crazy revenge/trauma arcs that gets ppl hurt and/or killed" a) incorrect (Rick had about a hundred of them, michonne had one, Daryl had one or two maybe, rosita had one for a half second, I'm sure more that I'm not thinking of but whatever)

And b) uh... Carol has like objectively lost more/endured more trauma than most if not all of the characters imo

1) abusive marriage, physically/emotionally and most likely sexually/financially, ending only 2 months after the apocalypse by walkers. I'm not going to delve in the complicated abuse dynamics but this is like. Wow.

2) her daughter died days before she was found, in a barn of death, a few hundred feet from where Carol cried herself to sleep every night

3) she adopted lizzie and Mika, promising to their dying father that she'd care for them, only to later find one dead by the other's hand - and I'm sure ppl blamed Carol for training them on weapons and teaching them to kill anyway - which then forced Carol to execute her. (Keep in mind - that's 3 children in, like, 2 years)

4) (ignoring the trauma of being banished from her family, ignoring the trauma of being forced to basically murder an entire community to protect Alexandria, ignoring the trauma of being forced to murder saviors that she never wanted to kill, ignoring the trauma of connecting with yet ANOTHER child and finding out he was torn to pieces just outside his home)

5) adopting a son, raising him in a community she's helping to lead and thrive, and then finding his head, snapping and growling and glassy-eyed, sitting on a pike

6) the subsequent destruction of the kingdom, the home she'd built with her now-dead son, the divorce (regardless of shipper goggles, the end of a marriage is always enormously painful), and then being forced to play nice with the woman who murdered her son, who is basically getting off scot-free, and who is basically controlling her entire life (hmm... someone else hurting Carol and her child... with no repercussions... telling her what she can and can't do... horrific consequences if she steps out of line... sound familiar?)

I don't rly know where I'm going w this but it just irritates me when people are like frothing at the mouth abt how much they hate Carol like it's one thing to not find her interesting or compelling or likeable (personally cannot relate lol) but it's another thing to have this vicious personal loathing for her

(especially since most of the haters love Daryl but that's another rant 👀)

#op #twd #rambling bc im bored at work lol

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what-is-your-plan-today · 4 years

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Leave No One Behind Ch2: The Red Sea Diving Resort

Part 1

Co-Written with @icanfeelastormbrewing

Episode Summary: Ari and his team arrive at their Resort and begin making plans for the first mission.

Episode Warnings: Bad Language words. Allusions to death and serious injury.

Episode Pairings: Ari Levinson x OFC Hannah Horowitz

Song for Episode: Night Fever by the Bee Gees

A/N: This is a long Chapter so we have split it into two Parts. P2 will be up tomorrow. J Again, we’re not historians, nor do we know Sudan in any detail…so if anything in here is factually incorrect, we mean no offence. Take it as slight creative license.

As always we live for re-blogs and comments

Series Master List // Main Masterlist

And that sweet city woman, She moves through the light, Controlling my mind and my soul

“What the fuck is he wearing Cracker?” Max asked Hannah as he nodded over her shoulder. Frowning, she turned to see Ari had walked in, briefcase in hand, dressed in a dark brown velvet suit and a white and gold striped shirt with a large, open necked collar.

Hannah snorted “He looks like John Travolta.”

“Walking like him too…” Sammy mumbled.

“Night fever, night fever…we know how to do it…” Jake sang softly, and the rest of the group all started to chuckle, hastily turning away as Ari walked towards the table and dropped the briefcase down on it.

Ari greeted Ethan with a nod of his head and looked around the room. His team was already gathered standing around the oval metal table, chatting idly.

Max and Jake were sniggering about something and Ari could clearly see Sammy was trying to keep a straight face, hands in his trousers pockets and looking at his feet while bouncing on them. Did he want to know? Probably not.

And then he noticed Hannah. She was chatting with Rachel who was admiring the brown leather knee high boots she was wearing. Ari heard Rachel comment something about her loving chunky heels as Hannah twisted her left foot so that Rachel could have a better look at the boots.

But Ari wasn’t interested in the boots, well, ok he was, but his gaze then travelled upwards, following her black tights clad legs and thighs, until his eyes mid-thigh met the hem of the skirt of her maroon pleated chord pinafore. Luckily for him, when his eyes continued past up her waist and the long sleeved polka dot blouse she was wearing, and he could take in the delicate features of her face, she was still engaged in some sort of fashion conversation with Rachel.

She was stunning, but what was new there? He had to admit to himself he had felt his chest fill with warmth when he had been running through the fake passports Ethan had given him the previous evening. He had opened hers first, sitting on his bed in the privacy of his hotel room, tumbler of Scotch in hand. His eyes scanning Hannah's passport photo over and over again. Those big round blue eyes looking directly at him.

Firefly, he had muttered running his thumb over the photo before gulping his drink.

Thus, Ari knew which would be the one on top at the deck of passports he was now pulling from his briefcase. He was going over the questions he would be asking each one of them in his head when he heard Max asking him something.

“You got chills Ari?”

“What?” Ari frowned, his head turning to Max and in the corner of his eye he noticed that Hannah turned to watch, biting her lip as behind her Sammy laughed and hastily started coughing to cover it up.

“Are they multiplying?” Jake chipped in.

“Are you losing control?” Max continued

“Coz the power, you’re supplying…it’s electrifying!” the two men sang together as Ari looked at the pair of them rolling his eyes, a smirk playing on his face. Behind him Ethan groaned.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up…” Ari’s mouth curled into a crooked smile. “I’m Guy Thomas…he wears this shit…its fashion. And besides, Max, you’ve no room to talk!”

Hannah snorted and turned to look at Max, taking his outfit in in more detail. Because they were all in Zurich at the NATCOR HQ under the guise of a simple Mossad business meeting, Ari had instructed the team to come dressed as they felt their Alter Egos would dress for work. Sammy and Jake were both dressed in suits and ties, Max was in a suit with an open collar pinstriped shirt.

“He has a point…” Hannah conceded “You’re like the Kenickie to his Danny…”

“Grease was based in the 50s.” Max narrowed his eyes at her.

“Yeah, which is when that shirt was in fashion.” Jake said, slapping Max on the shoulder. Hannah and Ari snorted before they were cut off by an angry noise from behind them.

“Save the outfit discussions for later.” Ethan snapped “You lot are going to get yourselves killed for fucks sake.”

“Ethan, Ethan…” Ari turned to him, his voice soothing “Just, calm down…we’ve not even started the meeting yet.”

“Exactly, and we’re already behind schedule so if you don’t mind…” He nodded his head in the direction of the table and everyone, suitably chastised, took a seat.

Ethan and Ari ran the group through the plans regarding the next few months and how the deployment was going to work. They were to fly out on the 4th January, from Zurich, where Ari and Rachel would meet with the Sudanese Government and get the paper work and everything signed for the lease on the diving resort. Whilst they were there Max, Hannah, Jake and Sammy were to pair off and head to 2 different places to pick up 2 different cars which would be ready and waiting with supplies from 2 in country contacts. Once the explanations were finished, Ari then picked up the false passports.

“So you’ve all had enough time to read over your covers.” Ari said, flipping through the pile of passports, selecting one “Remember, the point of being undercover is you keep it simple. So you should have memorised the basics, your name, date of birth, parents names, address, hometown that type of thing. Everything else you can make up on the spot but nothing too elaborate. Don’t take it too far from the actual truth because whatever you tell one person you need to remember to tell another.”

He paused and cleared his throat. “Ok, let’s see how you fare under questioning.” he looked at Hannah “Firefly, you first… Name?”

“Rosa-Maria Gomez” Hannah repeated back, without so much as batting an eyelid, her Spanish accent flawless.

“Where are you from?”

“Valencia.”

“What did you do?”

“Bar manager at a local hotel.”

“Which hotel?”

“Sidi Saler”

“How long for?”

“Just over 10 years. Travelled for a year or so after University, settled back home when I was 19. Never looked back.”

There wasn’t so much as a hint of hesitation when she spoke. Ari smiled at her and tossed the fake passport down in front of her. “Good job.” he said and with a faint smile she reached for the passport.

Next he put Rachel through her paces, picking her up on the slight hesitation she had over her address and then Jake’s mistake over his elementary school name. He then turned to Sammy.

“Sammy…name. Where are you from? “

“I'm Liam Anderson. Australia.” Sammy said, picking up his passport

“First girlfriend.”

“Mary”

“Tell me about her.” Ari said, stopping at the head of the table.

“Mary Rose. Took my virginity and broke my heart.”

At that, Ari saw Hannah, who was sat at the far end of the table next to Sammy shift slightly. Despite himself he glanced at her and she caught his eye before she looked down at the table. Ari turned back to Sammy who was still speaking.

“We met at the University of Queensland in Brisbane. I was 19. Later died in a car accident.”

“It's good. Good work, Sammy.” Ari turned to Max “You're up.”

There was a pause as Max stared straight ahead before he glanced at the passport.

“I still think this is a stupid name for someone from Malta.” Max protested “Why Malta?”

Rachel gave a little chuckle as Ari looked at him, rolling his eyes as his hands fell to his hips.

“Max, when you learn a second language, that's where you can be from. Till then you're from Malta. No one knows what people from Malta speak.”

“What do people speak in Malta?” Rachel asked.

“Maltese” Hannah supplied and sniggers rang round the table.

“See, no one knows, that's the point.” Ari said with a smile before he looked pointedly at Max “Name”

“Hello, everybody, my name's Irving Wilmington.” Max said in a ridiculously, fake European accent which made everyone start to laugh “And I'm from Malta-“

“You think this is funny?” Ethan’s angry voice cut across the laughter and everyone looked up at the man as he strode around the table. “Just for the record, there's not one person in this group that I would have chosen for this type of mission. You're all too reckless.” Hannah looked at Max who raised his eyebrows as if to say, he has a point…which to be fair, he kinda did.

“I've gone against every instinct I know.” Ethan continued as Ari looked down at the floor “broken every risk management rule I believe in, including sending two women to a Muslim country.” Ethan said, looking directly at Hannah then Rachel “So let's be very clear. This mission has no backup. There's no exfil plan for you. You're going in without guns, or any other weapon. If this goes wrong, you'll all be hanging from cranes in Khartoum.”

With that Ethan left the room and there was a moment of silence.

“Can’t wait…” Jake said, leaning back in his chair.

*****

Of course, nothing every runs completely smoothly. Jake was stopped by the Sudanese Immigration, simply to be released once he had paid the ‘bribe’ the officials wanted. Ari spotted him joining the others in the queue for cabs as he and Rachel departed in the car to the Tourism Board.

Then, they met with their contact in the Sudanese Government, Colonel Madibbo and embarked on the anticipated haggling over the price. The man looked Ari in the face and told him that the lease was five hundred thousand, to which Ari replied simply that they had agreed Two-Fifty. After a little bit of negotiation, Ari moved up to three-fifty, informing the Colonel it was their best offer, but then loaded told the man that could write it down as two-fifty and then take the rest and do something beneficial for the people of Sudan.

“You may not speak Arabic, Mr. Thomas. But you do speak the local language.” Madibbo laughed, and Ari simply glanced at Rachel before smiling back, fully understanding that the “local language” meant he’d given the man a bung, and that the extra hundred thou was going straight into the Colonel’s own back pocket.

Bent bastard.

A few hours later everything was sorted, they’d been given everything they needed and Ari and Rachel walked out of the building, climbed in the arranged car and were dropped off on the main high-street where they headed to the inconspicuous Café that had been allocated as a meeting spot. Remaining in character, Ari and Rachel, or Guy and Angela, greeted their team loudly, as if it was the first time they had seen each other for a while, and then they all settled down at a table outside on the packed market square, and Ari briefed them as if he was briefing resort staff. They all listened, picked up on his cues and after a quick coffee each they all stood up to leave.

As they were leaving the Café, Max tossed one of the jeep’s keys at Ari, who caught them with a swift movement of his hand. Once they reached the spot where the vehicles were parked Ari opened the driver's door to one of them and turned to see his team had stopped and were looking at the trucks as if deciding who was going to ride in each one of the trucks.

"Ride with me?" Max turned to ask Hannah waving the other set of keys in the air.

"Yup. I call shotgun!" she said as a reply as she walked round to open the passenger side door.

"Right, I'll be on the back seat." Jake quipped as she pulled the seat forward and gestured for him to get in the back.

Ari shook his head, hands on his hips, as he looked at Sam and Rachel through his shades before opening the back door of their jeep for Sam to jump in, tossing his backpack on the floor of the car as Rachel went to the side of the passenger seat.

"Guess the three musketeers have decided for all of us." Ari said as he jumped up in the truck, a trace of bitterness in his voice which wasn't undetected by Sammy.

"Oh my. The great Ari Levinson scorned by part of his team." Sam said, amused and Rachel chuckled.

"You're hilarious Sammy." Ari deadpanned as he fixed the rear view mirror for the third time in the last couple of minutes before he set off.

"Maybe you should keep an eye on Jake." he spoke again a minute later, turning to look at Sam as if trying to make sure he understood what he was implying. Sam examined him for a few moments before speaking

"Yeah, maybe. And maybe you should keep an eye on the road and stop looking through the mirror." Sam deadpanned turning his head slowly to the side window.

***** A few hours later, they had a quick pit stop to stretch legs and changed drivers. Ari was keen to make as good time as possible so it was only for a few moments, Max taking a well needed pee at the side of the truck, groaning in relief. Hannah shook her head, before she climbed in the back of the jeep. They set off again, and their gentle chatter struck up once more.

"So..." Jake said, turning to glance over his shoulder at Hannah, one eye sort of remaining on the road. "I've been dying to ask. Your nicknames..." "What about them?" She asked, turning her head to face him from where she had been looking out of the window. "Why does Ari call you Firefly when the rest of the team seems to call you Cracker?"

Max snorted and looked at Hannah who was grinning. "Ok so the cracker thing came from a mission." She said, thinking fondly back "it was the first one we all actually ran together...me, Max, Sammy, Ari...Andy..." she trailed off for a moment before she continued "we were sat round the fire one night and Andy had a pack of those little savoury fish cracker things. We started playing a game as to how many each of us could fit in our mouths. Max insisted he would win...but who in fact did win Maxwell?" "You..." Max sighed "by 2 crackers" "So Andy started calling me crackers which became cracker and it stuck..." she shrugged. "Well, with everyone but Ari that is..." "Yeah, so explain the Firefly thing..." Jake pushed. "The first time I met Ari was when he came over one evening with Sammy. It was just before Sammy moved out." Hannah said "I was 17 and we were sat out in the garden at the back. It wasn't a huge garden, communal like, shared with 3 other houses but I loved it because there was a colony of lightning bugs, or fireflies that frequented it. It was a few months later Sammy was being an ass-hat about something and I flipped out at him and threw a mug at his head. It missed and smashed against the wall but Ari found it hilarious. Told I was just like those little fireflies I admired so much. Such an ordinary, unassuming thing on the outside with a hell of a surprise packed away underneath..." Jake paused and then started laughing "Now that's a back handed compliment if ever I did hear one." Hannah grinned "I know. When I asked him what he meant by ordinary you should have seen his face. He was all flustered and stammering and worried he'd offended me. Lasted all of 2 minutes until I cracked up laughing and told him I understood." "Well, fireflies are pretty awesome..." Jake smiled "A symbol of light in the dark, hope, warmth" "Yup, all things Ari said to me when he was back pedalling over the whole ordinary thing" Hannah smiled with a shrug "either way, it stuck."

My little firefly…

“Tell him what you call Ari.” Max said and Hannah snorted.

“El Lobo hambriento” She replied after a moment’s pause “Or Lobo for short.”

“And that means…” Jake looked at her again for a second.

“Spanish for the hungry wolf…” Hannah said “It came from when he used to eat my Mama out of house and home whenever he came round with Sammy. And over time it got shortened to Lobo…just wolf…”

Jake laughed “Well, he is kinda hairy…but you know, that should be my nickname given that I am actually a Wolf.”

“By name…” Max teased “You look like more of a poodle.”

Hannah laughed and leaned forward, so that her head poked between the front to seats in the car “You can be Loop.” “Loop?” Jake frowned.

“Short for Lupin…Latin for Wolf, or there or thereabouts anyway. Or it could just mean you’re a total fruit loop, take your pick…”

Jake gave a huge guffaw of laughter and looked at her “Does that make you Little Red Riding Hood?”

Hannah snorted as Max shook his head, looking out at the window “That’s the shittest chat up line I’ve ever heard” he spoke, turning back to Jake.

“Can’t blame a man for trying” Jake winked.

After a total of six hours and a couple more stops to stretch and freshen up, if that was even possible in the middle of the desert, they arrived in the resort. But they couldn't properly see it until they got out of the trucks, the windows being partly covered by dust as they had taken shortcuts over sand dunes to save quite a few hours more off the travel time should they have opted to use the main roads.

When they finally got out of the car they took some clumsy steps on the sand after being into the confined space of car for that many hours. Jake lit a cigarette and as he looked at Ari he couldn't help but make a howling noise to Hannah who started laughing immediately. As if on cue, Max started howling too and the three of them were caught in a fit of hysteric laughter, Max bending his body for balance and Hannah leaning on Jake's arm.

Ari, Sam and Rachel stood there watching the three of them, dumbfounded. Ari shared a glance with Sam before he shot his sister a look and she pulled herself together still trying holding back laughter. Ari sighed before he took a few more steps towards the main entrance of the resort and the rest of the team followed suit.

They all stopped still, looking at the ram-shackled building in front of them, the words Red Sea Diving Resort were descripted in fading red paint above the large, archway shaped door. Hannah removed her shades, looking at it, and she let out a loud breath from where she stood at the end of the line they seemed to have formed, next to Max.

“It sure doesn't look like the brochure.” she said, and everyone turned to look at her, Max giving a small huff of laughter. After a second or so, Ari moved to the trucks to retrieve their luggage and the rest of them followed suit before they headed towards the entrance. Ari wrestled with the wooden trellised screen doors before he gave one a harsh push and it fell forward off its hinges, crashing to the floor sending up a cloud of dust and sand. He turned to look at them all, giving a shrug before he headed inside. They all followed and Hannah cast her eyes around as they hit the main room. All the window screens were shut, leaving it quite dark despite the bright late afternoon sunshine outside. Chairs and tables were piled haphazardly around the edges of the main room of the resort, various other pieces of furniture dotted around.

“It needs a little TLC.” Ari said, turning to the team.

“Nice.” Rachel chuckled.

“Oh, yeah?” Sammy snorted, pushing the shaded lenses on his glasses up as he looked around with a laugh. “What a dump.”

Hannah watched as Jake moved to open one of the sets of doors which led out onto the beach and instantly the place was flooded with light. She glanced at Max who smiled and they followed him out onto the beach.

“This is paradise!” Jake sighed. Max looked at him, incredulously, but Hannah had to admit, outside it was beautiful. A secluded cove of The Red Sea right was in front of them, the sun bouncing off the blue water, waves softly lapping at the shore.

Max pushed his glasses back up his nose and headed away to his right, Hannah following as they walked round the side of the resort and up a small boardwalk which led to a small pier of sorts.

“Well, hello, gorgeous…” she heard Max say. Hannah turned to see him examining a spear gun which was leaned up against the glass windows in front of him. She rolled her eyes.

“Your obsession with sniping weapons is worrying.” she arched an eyebrow.

He turned to face her with a grin before he tucked his shades into his shirt and picked up the fishing spear, holding it like a gun, checking down the sight target. The two of them stepped further round and Hannah frowned as Max stopped under a wooden shelter of sorts and the pair of them spotted the large, silver fish hanging from the structure. It had been beheaded, the head laying on a grill, and Max turned to look at her.

“This fish is fresh.” he frowned.

“Don’t eat it…” Hannah said instantly, teasing him about his obsession with food.

“Don’t eat…it’s fucking raw.” he rolled his eyes at her.

“Never had sushi?” she shot back.

“Don’t care for it much…” he mused before they both exchanged a glance, the seriousness of the fact that the fish, was indeed newly caught sinking in as Max turned to call back to the resort.

“Hey, yo, this fish is fresh!”

Ari who had been walking along the shore, heard Max’s call, along with Rachel’s which informed everyone she had found a newspaper from this week .He stopped and glanced back into the resort before he opened the door into one of the bedroom huts. Taking a glance round he threw open the wooden window screens, turning his face away as the sand and dust from outside blew into his face. It was then a familiar smell hit his nose and he glanced down to his left and saw that there were cigarette butts in an ashtray. One was still smoking slightly.

And then, someone jumped up from behind a pile of furniture in the corner of the room and shot out of the door. Ari turned and sprinted after him, yelling for him to stop and calling to the team. They all joined him, sprinting around the corner where Ari stopped at the sight of a group of what they could only assume were locals.

“Hello. My name...” Ari began, before he whipped off his sunglasses, figuring they might trust him more if they could see him eye to eye “My name's Guy Thomas. I'm the new owner of this hotel.”

The locals didn’t speak, and Hannah noticed that the woman at the front, adorned in bright yellow local dress was glancing at Max nervously.

“Max, lower that thing…” she said softly, as he had the spear gun raised.

Ari turned to face him and nodded, gesturing with his hands “Come on.”

“Sorry.” Max said gently, as he slowly lowered his weapon.

“Abu Hamid.” the man at the front of the group spoke to them.

“Hello.” Ari greeted him kindly.

“What the hell's going on?” Sammy spoke gently through his smile.

“I think we just met the local staff.” Ari said softly, looking round at everyone.

Part 2

#leave no one behind #ari levinson x ofc #ari levinson #red sea diving resort #red sea diving resort fan fic

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seduceme-lovestruck-thearcana · 4 years

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@megatraven

This is my thoughts about Aphrodite and MCs relationship and some more thoughts from AFK and such.

I love Aphrodite and MCs relationship honestly. And everythint about them in general. The bad and the good. Sometimes I just think about it late at night and realize like she’s very special. And it’s,,not even just because she’s her daughter in law but bc MC is clearly a VERY important person in Aphrodites life. Does Aphrodite mess up and accidentally send MC into dangerous situations? Yes. But then she makes up for it.

She literally was abouta THROW HANDS with Ares when he attacked Alex but I also think it’s bc of what he did to MC. He basically almost sexually assaulted her (kinda?? Almost kissed her and that’s definitely sexual assault right?), gave her a burn scar (Like one of your posts, I think the heat that he would make would probably scar), and literally tried to kill MC AND HER CHILD!! HER GOLDEN HEART!! AND A WOMAN SHES SO PROUD OF AND CLEARLY IS VERY CLOSE TO HER HEART!! And she’s like “okay. No. This isn’t okay. NEVER,” and she sends him away. It’d be kinda funny if she somehow sent him to hell bc honestly Ares deserves it.

And then I think about Phoebios and Deimos (is that how you spell their names???) and how they were going to kill MC. Like it wasn’t a joke between them. And they may not pay too much attention to their mom (that’s the kinda vibe I’m getting from them), but I think it’s clear that MC is very close to her and Aphrodite loves her so much. You don’t just get invited to Aphrodites dinner everyday...but they didn’t care. They almost killed her and I’m like,,did Aphrodite ever find out? Did she ever know that her OWN KIDS, kids she tries to love so hard with EVERYTHING in her, completely threw her wants and feelings out the window and was ready to take someone else away from her. And she sent them away even if she clearly wanted to see them again. She was like “no. This isn’t okay. This isn’t how you show love. You can’t make the same mistake you made with Ares.” And like,,hMMMM. SADNESS IS GREAT.

And we know Aphrodite didnt know Zeus was stalking MC. Her reaction was honestly kinda sweet to me?? Like,,she snapped. YOU CAN TELL WHEN APHRODITE SNAPS!! I just like to imagine she kept her tone straight and emotions in check when she’s on the phone with Alex, but I just imagine as soon as she hangs up, she calling EVERYBODY. Well, Hades at least. She’s like “yo this shit IS NOT OKAY,” and she goes at Zeus with everything. Even if it’s in the shadows, she👏went👏HARD👏. And since we saw Alex start a fight with Zeus and Hera stopped it from happening, I always wonder what would happen if Hera didn’t intervene ya know?? Like maybe Hera was taking a few minutes more and so Alex and Zeus were GOING AT IT. And I just,,imagine Hades and Aphrodite in shock at first. Zeus is a hot head but I think no one was expecting that from him.

And I just love to imagine Aphrodite losing it. You think she was angry when Ares was going after Alex? Well, she’s now LIVID. It would just be so interesting and so funny to see Aphrodite GO OFF on Zeus. She’s the goddess of love and like we’ve talked about before, I bet she knew Zeus did love Hera, even if it wasn’t in a healthy way and not a good way at all, so she knew he was in a bit of pain but like,,she also sees Alex and MCs love. Love that’s just started, LOVE THAT IS HEALTHY! Love that is so PURE, and she can’t help but intervene and go against the king she has followed for years and YEARS.

And then when everything happens, I like to imagine Aphrodite and MC talking. Like talking. MC is asking why Aphrodite wasn’t there for 10 years (and maybe asking why Hades wasn’t either), saying how it affected her, and just having an emotional time together bc if you can’t be emotional with the goddes of love then who can you be emotional around?? And JUST UGH!! Imagining Aphrodite and MC getting a healthy relationship again and Aphrodite willing to fight someone for MC makes me so happy. I love her and MCs relationship and how Aphrodite realizes her mistakes and grows from becoming closer to MC again.

Anyways yeah I love them and hope you’re awake to share my sadness but also love for Aphrodite and her growth :’))).

Sorry if there’s any weird parts or incorrect spellings. I’m tired lol.

#afk #astoria fates kiss #alex cyprin #astoria fates kiss alex #my writing #lovestruck #I love her and MC and im SAD BUT ALSO HAPPY >:))))

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tanadrin · 5 years

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@bpd-anon:

I think I agree on some points and disagree on others but mostly I would love an expansion of this part: "I don’t think he actually understands fantasy as a set of generic conventions as well as he thinks he does." Can you explain the parts that he is misunderstanding and what true understanding looks like?

For some context, I have never seen GOT. I read the first book and it's tied for my favorite book ever but then college and its stress hit and I mostly stopped reading (same reason Blindsight is another favorite book ever but I haven't read Echopraxia). I mostly read science fiction books and I haven't even read the all-important LOTR (mainly because I hear there isn't any moral greyness, sounds boring).

Martin has said things like this:

“I admire Tolkien greatly. His books had enormous influence on me. And the trope that he sort of established—the idea of the Dark Lord and his Evil Minions—in the hands of lesser writers over the years and decades has not served the genre well. It has been beaten to death. The battle of good and evil is a great subject for any book and certainly for a fantasy book, but I think ultimately the battle between good and evil is weighed within the individual human heart and not necessarily between an army of people dressed in white and an army of people dressed in black. When I look at the world, I see that most real living breathing human beings are grey.”

“Ruling is hard. This was maybe my answer to Tolkien, whom, as much as I admire him, I do quibble with. Lord of the Rings had a very medieval philosophy: that if the king was a good man, the land would prosper. We look at real history and it’s not that simple. Tolkien can say that Aragorn became king and reigned for a hundred years, and he was wise and good. But Tolkien doesn’t ask the question: What was Aragorn’s tax policy? Did he maintain a standing army? What did he do in times of flood and famine? And what about all these orcs? By the end of the war, Sauron is gone but all of the orcs aren’t gone – they’re in the mountains. Did Aragorn pursue a policy of systematic genocide and kill them? Even the little baby orcs, in their little orc cradles?”

“By the time I got to Mines of Moria I decided this was the greatest book I’d ever read… And then Gandalf dies! I can’t explain the impact that had on me at 13. You can’t kill Gandalf… Tolkien just broke that rule, and I’ll love him forever for it. The minute you kill Gandalf, the suspense of everything that follows is 1,000 times greater. Because now anybody could die. Of course, it’s had a profound effect on my own willingness to kill characters at the drop of a hat.”

Taken together, Martin is one of the people I’m thinking most of when I say things like “nobody reads Tolkien, only their caricatures of Tolkien.” About the only thing I can say for him is that he’s right on Tolkien being about an external battle of Good versus Evil a lot of the time; though for my part, Martin’s world doesn’t come off so much as Gray versus Gray as Evil versus Evil, and a lot of what he seems to take for “moral ambiguity” to me is perfectly unambiguous: they’re all (or mostly) villains, doing villainy things to each other. Sometimes for quite human reasons; but the best villains have comprehensible motivations beyond pure evil. Doesn’t make them not villains.

First of all, he’s simply nakedly incorrect that Tolkien never considered the difficulties of rule, or never looked at the practical aspects of his worldbuilding. They don’t come in much for emphasis, but they’re absolutely there (most notably in the scenes set in Minas Tirith, in the run-up to the Battle of the Pelennor Fields), and indeed the moral nature of the Orcs, and therefore the correct stance to take toward them, was of deep concern to him, and subject to a lot of later revision as he struggled with the idea of what we would now refer to as an Always Chaotic Evil fantasy race.

Tolkien certainly critically interrogates the morality and moral authority of rulership. In the Silmarillion, he has plenty of figures who cut heroic profiles but make bad (or at least ambiguous) kings, with much resulting conflict; and indeed, that ambivalence is something he’s in part borrowing from his medieval sources! To say that the medievals had a totally black-and-white view of kingship is to betray a lack of familiarity with actual medieval writers, who even (especially?) in the Early Middle Ages are adept at portraying leaders with powerful qualities that turn against them in the wrong situation. Beorhtnoth, the heroes of Njal’s Saga, and Beowulf would have all been extremely familiar to Tolkien, and are good examples I think. Tolkien absolutely understood that people come in shades of gray, and there are various admixtures of light and dark in almost all his characters. Even Frodo for Chrissakes puts on the Ring at the end--and Gollum redeems him. Like, come on! That’s one of the most memorable parts of the main trilogy! But from Galadriel right down to the Sackville-Bagginses, Tolkien is intensely conscious of the moral complexity of everybody in his stories, he just doesn’t need them to say “fuck” in order to express that.

What Martin seems to have confused for Tolkien is, like, the semi-mythic style of Arthurian romance (which... is still not always super black and white?), which is only a small part of the generic conventions Tolkien is drawing on. Tolkien is much more steeped in the conventions of the realist novel, with its penchant for psychological complexity, even as he’s borrowing the setpieces of older literature. I think that’s important because it’s what marks Tolkien out as a fundamentally modern writer, despite his sources; yet people skate over this and like to pretend he was some kind of reverse Connecticut Yankee who stumbled out of the 13th century with medieval sensibilities intact. Which is... weird.

The quote about Gandalf is especially telling. Gandalf’s death happens for extremely clear structural reasons: it provides a climax to Book II (if you’ve never read LOTR: each volume is divided into two “books”; the three-volume split was a post-writing publication decision, LOTR was originally written as a single continuous unit, and the “books” are like mega-chapters), much like, but stronger than, the Flight to the Ford at the end of Book I; it sets up the sojurn in Lorien (recovering from the trauma of the loss of their nominal leader); it helps the narrative transition from the low-stakes, bucolic setting of everything west of the Misty Mountains to the high-stakes dangers of the rest of the story; and it serves the conclusion of the story because without Gandalf’s sacrifice (plus many other events), the Ring never would have made it to Mount Doom. Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but Gandalf comes back, in a way that feels sensible within the world Tolkien has built, and which sets up further development of both the main plot and the the themes Tolkien is concerned with.

If Martin had written Lord of the Rings, Gandalf would have died to a random Orc arrow, would never have come back, and the Ring wouldn’t have made it to Mount Doom at all. And you’d be left feeling like Gandalf dies for basically no reason--and you’d be right. The suspense in Lord of the Rings doesn’t come from wondering who will die (the only major named characters who die permanently are Boromir and Gollum; both similarly serve important thematic and plot functions when they do, but by Martin’s standard, Tolkien isn’t even trying), or wondering how things will turn out--does anyone ever doubt that the good guys will win?--it comes from seeing how they get there, from wanting to experience the emotional and narrative beats of the story, wanting to see the narrative logic being brought to its conclusion. It’s why it’s a good story even if you know the ending! And all of Tolkien’s work is like that: a well-constructed narrative that is perennially satisfying is far better than a one-off surprise that can never be repeated. That’s a mistake a lot of modern media is making right now, which the rise of undue emphasis on spoilers isn’t doing anything to reduce.

More generally: there’s nothing wrong with high fantasy externalizing the conflict between good and evil. That is in fact one of its functions, as a kind of moral metaphor or moral proving ground in the same way that, say, science fiction often serves as moral and philosophical proving ground for ideas around technology or exploration or the alien. It’s not obligatory, but to cite that as an insufficiency of any work in the genre is to fail to understand the genre. Tolkien specifically provides some arch moral figures (Morgoth, Sauron, Manwe, Aragorn), but he also provides some much more mixed ones: Denethor, Saruman, Grima Wormtongue, Boromir, Gollum, etc. (also Thorin, Feanor and his sons, and in fact just like a huge chunk of the cast of the Silmarillion in general), and gives his characters plenty of opportunity to reflect that, even in a conflict with a literal evil spirit, there is room for ambiguity (cf. Sam’s meditation on the Haradrim in Ithilien). And the sum total of the effect in Tolkien’s work is that it actually feels like something is at stake. I don’t feel like that in Martin’s world. I feel like if the Night King were just to destroy all of Westeros that would make as much sense and be about as satisfying as any other outcome, because there’s nothing that feels especially worth preserving there.

In discarding everything about both the moral and narrative structure of high fantasy, Martin’s world leaves nothing for one to hang one’s hat on, nothing to use as a fixed point of reference when it comes to orienting yourself in it; he is writing a critique against many things, perhaps, but not an argument for anything. The result leaves me quite cold.

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grandtheftstarship · 5 years

Text

Adorkable (Pavel Chekov x Young!Fem!Reader)

Summary: [y/n] boards the Enterprise as a new recruit and meets a flustered Pavel Chekov.

Word Count: 2000+ Warnings: reader is like, 15, though it’s probably not possible but that doesn’t really matter; fluffy af :) also cursing but that’s a given Posted: Tumblr, Wattpad Requested: No

A/n: Sorry if the Russian is incorrect, I used Google translate. I also left some un-translated because some of my favorite Chekov fics made me look it up myself and it made me smile. It’s also more fun that way :)

Today was the day. Today was the day you were finally going to be boarding the Enterprise and working as a full-time ensign, as well as training to be a backup engineer. You were so excited you could barely sleep, and once you woke up the next morning you already had so much energy you had no idea what to do with yourself.

After stress-eating several bowls of [your favorite cereal] and pacing so long you could've worn holes in your floor, it was time to leave your home in San Francisco. You smoothed out your new gold uniform, making sure it wasn't riding up and tugged on your boots. Deeming yourself acceptable, you grabbed your things and left.

After reveling in the beauty of the massive starship, you boarded successfully and started looking for your quarters. You had to admit you were a little self-conscious. The Enterprise had already been flying for five months and everybody seemed to know each other already. You clutched your backpack straps, keeping your head down as you navigated through the crowd of officers.

Chekov stood awkwardly by Sulu who was talking with someone he had never met. He scanned the crowd, seeing the same usual faces... Except for one. Her [hair length] [hair color] hair shielded her face for a moment until she suddenly looked up and scanned the room. Butterflies exploded in his chest, sending his heart pumping at a furious pace as he caught a glimpse of her features. He was unable to move, unable to breathe, as the same four words echoed in his mind.

You're in love.

She suddenly made eye contact and her face burst into pink and she hastily looked away, causing his own face to redden as he averted his eyes. Unfortunately, Sulu noticed.

"Hey, it was nice talking to you, but I gotta go," he waved goodbye to the person he was talking with and dragged Chekov to the side.

"Who are you looking at?" he smirked.

"N-no one," Chekov tried desperately to get his heartbeat to calm down. "It's nothing."

"Okay, I know that you know that I'm 'batting for the other team'," Sulu made quotes with his fingers. "But I really want to know who you're looking at. Is it someone I know?"

Chekov shook his head. "I've never seen her before." Sulu sighed.

"What color uniform does she have?" he asked.

"Gold," Chekov gulped. "Like us."

"Excellent," Sulu snickered. "Easier to find."

" о боже, помоги мне, " Chekov muttered. (Oh god, help me)

You scurried down a random hall, gripping your PADD with a map of the Enterprise in one hand and the other randomly twirling the hem of your dress.

What just happened?

That boy was outrageously attractive and he was staring at you. You tried your best to brush it off and continue to find your quarters. The captain had requested that you meet him on the bridge so he could let you know what you were supposed to do and you really did not want to show up with your face a blushing mess and your backpack.

When you finally found it, you tossed your backpack down, splashed water on your face, and you were back out the door. Your heart raced and your palms were sweaty as you entered the turbolift.

"Bridge, please," you said, trying to sound confident. The lift went faster than you expected and before you knew it the doors hissed open to reveal the busy space.

Quickly remembering protocol, you called; "Permission to enter the bridge, sir?"

The captain turned around, immediately grinning.

"Ah, Ensign [y/l/n]! So glad you made it aboard," ha pat you on the shoulder. "Let me introduce you to some people."

Does he do this with all the crew?

"Bones, this is Ensign [y/l/n], the fifteen-year-old Ensign I told you about!" Kirk led you over to a tired looking man arguing with a Vulcan. They both looked up when you approached.

"Dammit Jim, since when are we letting fifteen-year-olds join the crew?" Bones grumbled. "Chekov's seventeen and I'm already fed up."

"This is our Cheif Medical Officer, Bones McCoy," Jim introduced.

"The name's Leonard," he muttered, sticking his hand out to shake. You gladly shook it.

"And this here is the First Officer, Commander Spock."

"Pleased to meet you, Ensign," he greeted. "I understand that you have taken the record of youngest Starfleet officer, am I correct?"

"I understand that you have taken the record of youngest Starfleet officer, am I correct?"

Chekov tensed.

That was my record.

He stood up suddenly to approach the person who had taken his prized possession but stopped in his tracks.

дерьмо. (Shit)

It was her. It was the girl from before. Before he could go back to his seat unnoticed, the captain called him over.

"Keep cool," Chekov muttered, getting desperate to calm his reddening face. He tried not to look her way, in fear he would freeze up like the last time he beheld her.

"Ensign [your full name], this is Ensign Pavel Chekov," Kirk introduced.

He finally allowed himself to look at her, which was an immediate mistake. Her smile launched butterflies in his stomach and, if it was possible, his eyes reflected hearts.

"Hi! It's nice to meet you Pavel!" she beamed at him, and held out her hand. Chekov shook his head slightly and reached out to shake her hand.

" Это хорошо для - I mean, Its good to meet you," He stuttered awkwardly, muttering, "Я испортил это." (I messed it up)

"You too!"

"Chekov, sorry to tell you this but this Ensign has beaten your record for 'youngest crew member'," Kirk said with a grin. "I'm lucky to have the two youngest members of Starfleet aboard my ship!"

"Wait, how old are you, if you don't mind me asking?" she cocked her head a bit as she looked up at him.

О боже, почему она такая красивая.

"I-umm," he struggled.

"He's seventeen," Kirk winked at him.

"Wow! Seventeen! That's amazing!"

Oh god, that smile.

"Ты великолепен (you’re wonderful)- I mean, you're amazing," they both turned red. "I- I mean that you're amazing for getting in at fifteen."

"Thank you," she smiled sheepishly.

"Chekov why don't you escort Ensign [last name] to her quarters," Kirk instructed slyly.

Sulu didn't tell him, did he?

дерьмо.(Shit)

"O-of course Keptin," Chekov stuttered. He was gonna kill Sulu.

"Thank you," Kirk clapped her on the back and started walking away. "Have fun you two, but not too much fun."

They both stood there awkwardly.

"Um- ladies first," Chekov said when the turbolift opened.

"Thanks," she said softly. The lift was silent before you started speaking.

"So, you're the navigator?" She asked him.

"да- I mean, yes," Chekov cursed himself. "I am also shadowing the Cheif Engineer."

"Hey me too!" she said, smiling. "I actually have to go down there next... Do you wanna come with?"

"S-Sure," Chekov gave a small smile. "I would love too."

"Great!"

There were a couple moments of silence.

"Are you-" she started.

"How did-" Chekov interrupted.

"Sorry!" they both said at the same time.

"You first," she giggled as the turbolift opened.

"No, ladies first," he insisted, smiling as he let you out of the turbolift first.

"Okay fine then," she sighed. "Are you from Russia? I mean of course you are- I mean-"

"It's okay," Chekov chuckled. "I am from Russia. I was born there in 2241."

"I see," she nodded. "I was born in [birthplace], 2244."

"You're fifteen, yes?" Chekov asked.

"Yeah, but I'm turning sixteen in a few weeks," she replied. "Anyway, your turn. What were you going to say?"

"Oh, uh," Chekov rubbed the back of his neck. "I was going to ask how your parents let you join Starfleet so young. Mine barely let me go to America."

"Well it took a lot of convincing by me and my teachers, but once I skipped to the ninth grade when I was ten, my parents agreed to enroll me," she explained.

"That is amazing," Chekov blushed at his words. "Well, we are in engineering. This is where I leave you."

"I'll see you later?" she cocked her head to the side again, making Chekov's insides turn to mush.

"да- I mean, yes," he stuttered. "I can meet you for dinner?"

"Its a date then!" and she disappeared into engineering.

Your face was so hot you were sure it would explode. Grateful for the door that now separated you from Chekov, you started towards the Cheif Engineer's office.

Once you got there, he shook your hand and started explaining a whole bunch of things that he was going to teach you later and started showing you around the basic parts of engineering. You couldn't focus. All you could think of was Pavel and how flustered he looked when you looked him in the eye. Four words bounced around your mind for the duration of Scotty's tour.

You're in love.

"Well, that seems to be it. Your first day down here will be in a few days. You'll know the exact date later," he concluded, handing you your PADD back. "Can't wait to work with you, [l/n]."

"You too Mr. Scott," you smiled at him before moving away. Your thoughts went back to your dinner "date" with Pavel, and your cheeks flushed. Unsure when dinner was, you looked on the map on your PADD.

~спустя два дня~

(two days later)

You waited patiently for your new best friend on the ship by the turbolift. You were both going to shadow Scotty for the day, and you were anxious and excited to work next to him.

"[Y/n]!" He called as he jogged up to you.

"Hey Pavel!" you greeted cheerfully, getting into the turbolift. "Ready to be a shadow?"

"You bet!" he replied stepping in after you.

The ride was short but sweet, and before you knew it you were standing in front of Scotty.

"Okay, here are the rules," he said. "No running near the warp core, don't mess with the tools, and don't be making out while I'm not looking."

Both your faces erupted into blushing messes.

"Alright, off we go," Scotty waved over his shoulder as he walked away. You hurried after him.

Forty minutes in, you were bored to death. You could tell Pavel was too, judging by his slouching shoulders and sagging eyelids. Scotty barely did anything; signing reports, checking in on his underlings, etcetera, etcetera.

"Hey," he whispered. "I have an idea."

"I'm down for anything. Just end my suffering," you whispered back. He nodded.

"Mister Scott?" Chekov called.

"What is it, lad?" Scotty replied, looking slightly irritated.

"Can [y/n] and I take a break?" he asked, flashing his puppy eyes.

"Oh- alright. Just don't tell the captain," he warned though laughter twinkled in his eyes.

"Yay!" you and Pavel cheered. He grabbed your hand and started running in the other direction.

"Thanks, Mister Scott!" he called over his shoulder.

"No prob- Hey! No running...." he trailed off at the sounds of your laughter before chuckling to himself. "Kids these days."

"So, what are we doing?" you giggled, trying not to think of how perfectly Pavel's hand fit into yours.

"Jefferies Tube C," he huffed, still running. "The gravity control doesn't work there."

"So in other words," you smiled. "It's fun."

"Precisely," Chekov slowed to a stop, still gripping your hand. "Here's the entrance."

You climbed up the ladder first, praying you remembered to wear booty shorts under your uniform. You barely got the latch open before you felt your feet lift off the ladder rung.

"Whoa!" You yelped, gripping the latch as your feet rose higher, tipping you upside down.

"It's okay," Pavel chuckled, pushing himself lightly into the tube. "Here, grab my hand."

You blushed as you gripped his hand with one of yours and let go of the handle.

"You can do it," he encouraged. You nodded, slowly letting go of his hand. Before you knew it, you were flipping around and laughing your head off.

"Now you've got it!" He laughed.

You smiled at him, head full of bliss and heart fluttering.

"Thank you."

"You're always welcome."

~две недели спустя~

(two weeks later)

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Chekov grumbled as Sulu thrust a pink rose in his hand.

"You'll do great!" Sulu enthused, leading his friend into the dining hall. "There she is!"

Spending two weeks with his best-friend/ love of his life had been amazing and fun. But he couldn't wait anymore. He had to know.

Pavel's heart raced in his chest as he looked at her standing there. The mess hall was not the place he wanted to do this. He pushed the thornless stem of the rose into his waistband and quickly walked over to her.

"Hey, Pavel-"

"Follow me," he said, putting his hand on the small of her back as he led her out of the busy room.

"Pavel- where are we going?" she asked, struggling to keep up with him.

"It's a surprise," he said, tilting his head down at her small form and grinning. His cheeks turned pink at the sight of hers doing the same.

Once he found the room he was looking for, anxiety spiked through him.

I am really going to do this.

"Wow! Is this the astronomy room?" you gasped, looking around in wonder at the galaxy in front of you.

"Y-yes it is," Pavel stuttered. "[Y/n] I... Uh."

"What is it Pav?" you asked, cocking your head. His grip of the rose stem tightened.

"I-I just-" without thinking, he thrust the rose out in front of him and squeezed his eyes shut.

She's going to reject me. He thought desperately.

Oh God, she's going to reject me.

Instead of being slapped or hearing footsteps run from the room as he expected, he felt a hand cover his on the rose and soft lips touch his. His eyes fluttered open, but seeing hers tightly shut he closed them again. She pulled away.

"S-sorry-"

"No!" he interrupted, giving a soft laugh. "That's what I hoped would happen."

She beamed.

"Will you go on a date with me?" he asked sheepishly.

"Of course," she nodded. "Pasha."

With that, Pavel attacked her lips once again.

#CUTEEEEE #Star trek #star trek reader inserts #star trek x reader #star trek aos reader inserts #pavel chekov #pavel chekov x reader #pavel chekov aos #pavel chekov reader insert #pavel chekov x femreader #star trek imagines #pavel chekov imagines #why is he so cutteeee

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 6 years

Text

I've got 99 problems and the Russo brothers are at least 80 of them (Infinity War spoilers behind the cut, obviously, and also discussion of That Podcast Interview if anyone would rather avoid it)

so the thing is I didn't actually listen to the podcast because I don't hate myself that much and I haven't seen a full transcript, but I got the gist and obviously it was total bullshit. obviously. (Tom is getting too old?? Loki isn't an interesting character anymore???) also obviously, the best thing for my mental health would be to take them at their word, because this whole Schrodinger's Loki thing is not great for my brain, but if I accept he's gone for good and then Avengers 4 does something really great with him, it'll be a wonderful surprise

but I am having a real hard time with that, because at this point my level of okayness with Loki's death mostly seems to depend on me being able to hope that he'll be back, which again is NOT GREAT because it means stuff like that podcast interview, and anything similar that happens during the next YEAR, and probably Avengers 4 itself, can all trigger mood spirals where I realize "wait, fuck, I'm not okay with this"

BUT THE THING IS, I honestly don't think there's any Word of God that would actually convince me of anything before the movie comes out? like, they were pretty definitive in that interview (and apparently kind of insulting to reinforce it, which uh, seems...unprofessional? although again I'm hearing all of this secondhand), but with something like this, I genuinely would not believe them if they said the sky was blue. because...quite often the sky is not blue! in fact the sky is frequently a lot of different colors that are not blue! and it is probably all of those colors simultaneously at different points around the globe! but the general statement "the sky is blue" is still not actually a lie because it doesn't specify anything like "always" or "entirely" or "right now in this exact location"!

so again, it seems pretty definitive to say Loki's permanently dead for real and he's not coming back. except, you know...these movies are based on comics in which characters can come back from death in ways that can technically be handwaved as not actually coming back from the dead? like. he was sorta dead for a few minutes and is already back but nobody knows it, so any discussion presupposing he's for real dead is incorrect to begin with. or that very specific version of him is dead and not coming back but there was time-travel stuff and an extremely similar version of him never died to begin with. or that specific version of him is dead but time-travel stuff is going to unwind things back to the first Avengers movie (because set photos) and that version of Loki is still alive, which...would be shitty but better than nothing. or that version of Loki is dead but he's going to come back as Kid Loki (also not ideal but better than nothing). or that body is permanently dead but he transferred his consciousness to something and he's going to reconstruct his body through, idk, the Reality Stone or something. there are in fact MULTIPLE possibilities that still leave room for "nope he's not coming back" to be technically true.

and then of course there's also the possibility that they're just straight-up, flat-out lying. like, lying in interviews is a little different from releasing misleading trailers or generally being misleading in pre-release interviews, and I really don't know if Marvel people have explicitly lied in pre-release interviews (I’m pretty sure there were some actual straight-up lies tossed around during the Secret Empire clusterfuck, I’m just not sure if that attitude extends to the films), but...they're happy to mislead everyone. and Infinity War is kind of unprecedented in the MCU, in that we literally can't have fully honest postmortem interviews until Avengers 4 comes out because IT'S A TWO-PART STORY. so effectively, even while doing postmortem stuff for Infinity War, we're still leaning into pre-release Avengers 4 stuff, which means...misleading audiences and maybe lying. and maybe lying harder than ever before because it's such a weird situation.

which puts me back to the whole Schrodinger's Loki thing, because...okay. there’s a lot about Loki’s death scene that was fucking weird, to the point that it’s either deliberate foreshadowing or it was an attempt at dramatic irony (combined with bad writing tbh) that was more just about rubbing salt in the wounds of Loki fans. the Russos’ recent comments have not changed this. but they’ve additionally complicated the situation, because just like with Loki’s death scene, the exact same statements could have wildly different meanings and intentions.

like--maybe they said what they said because they’re irritated because Loki’s death was suppose to be ~edgy~ and ~shocking~ and generally horrible but in, like, a heartwrenchingly tragic (and unmistakably final) way rather than a cheap and dumb way, and now people are not only going “hey, that was cheap and dumb” but also “that was really weird, and I bet he’s actually coming back, because he’s done it before and also that was really weird,” and it’s turned into...kind of a weird resentment toward Loki in general, his status as a fan favorite (how dare we love someone other than the title characters, I guess?), his fans, and even Tom Hiddleston himself for playing the character in such a way that he became so loved? so that resentment came out in the interview, the basic meaning of which was “ugh, dumb fans expecting happy fun times like Ragnarok and not understanding the obvious meaning of our deep and tragic art or daring to say our writing is bad instead of being moved, of course he’s dead for reals, he wasn’t an important part of this movie anyway, Loki sucks and so does Tom and so do you for liking Loki more than the actual main characters, so there”

which is unprofessional and shitty and...totally possible; I think @mykingdomforapen pointed out that the AtLA creators kind of went this direction with Zuko/Katara shippers. BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, if--just as a wild for instance--Loki’s death scene really does Mean Something, and he’s going to play a significant part in Avengers 4 and also properly come back to life, and it’s supposed to be a huge amazing surprise for audiences because nobody would expect the non-ashed people to come back, except it turns out that people are already predicting it because this is how fandom works now, sorry, and the Russos and Kevin Feige are basically panicking all “shit wait this was supposed to be a surprise, this was supposed to be huge, we gotta throw everybody off the scent, UHHHHH YEAH WE TOTES KILLED HIM BECAUSE HE’S BORING AND TOM’S GETTING OLD, THAT MAKES SENSE RIGHT, shit do you think they bought it”--

well. again. the exact same statements could have wildly different intentions. and it does sound kind of tin-hatty, admittedly, but at the same time, they won’t even reveal the fucking name of the movie because that’s a spoiler, so obviously they’re keeping Avengers 4 stuff even closer to the vest than Infinity War was. at this point they want us to know basically nothing. and I was thinking, well, what exactly would they say that might be effective in the hypothetical scenario where they still want to keep their secrets despite people already being on the right track, and I really couldn’t come up with anything? because anything like “well we don’t want to give anything away! ;) spoilers!!” would at least confirm it’s a possibility and they might not want to admit even that much.

I don’t know. like I said, this whole Schrodinger’s Loki situation is crazy-making and not very healthy, and the best thing I can do for myself is make peace with canon as it currently exists and go hard on the fix-it AUs while knowing they’re AUs, and not have any expectations one way or another for Avengers 4, but that’s uh...a tiny bit harder to actually do than to say. >_<

#infinity war spoilers #avengers: infinity war #marvel cinematic universe #loki

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