#THE MOVIE THAT CAME OUT LIKE FORTY YEARS AGO NOW????

[merlilica]

There are 4 movies on this list (depending on how you count them) that are not sequels, prequels, or remakes, and two of them are adaptations + 1 movie documentary.

Maybe while they wait for writers to get the money they deserve, the anti-strike people should watch some of the originals.

[alchemistc]

"Any plans for your days off, Buck?"

Buck knows his grin is a little feral, but he's kind of hoping that'll throw them off the trail. It's barely been a year, and in that time they've had three natural disasters, one copter crash, a boss intent on making Buck's life a living hell, and two almost break-ups.

It's too soon, to know for sure, except Athena and Bobby had known, and Hen and Karen had known even if they were too scared to admit it at first, and Chim and Maddie may have taken a little longer to get there but they'd known.

And Buck knows. He knows he's never felt like this about anyone before. Knows no one has ever had the ability to infuriate him and calm his fears quite like Tommy Kinard can. Knows they could have done this like they joked about six months ago and they wouldn't have regretted it.

Hen is making a face like she's trying to decide if she wants to know whatever head-tilt-cheek-bite sexual innuendo Buck's got in the barrel, because she only appreciates that about half of the time and Buck's praying she decides on no because he's a terrible fucking liar and he doesn't like keeping things from people. But it's sort of a secret, for the next 48 hours, and Buck also wants to bask in it, wants to enjoy keeping it to himself for just a little while.

"Our Buckaroo is all grown up and refusing to over share about his sex life, praise be," Chim chips in, and Buck tucks his chin to his chest and hopes his pink cheeks read as embarrassed.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, and around him lockers slam and voices drift over him. He's only got eyes for the text that just came through.

Bird's ready, suits are pressed, room is paid up. You wanna go to Adele, after? I think I know one of her people.

You know everyone, stop bragging, I'm already impressed

I'm always gonna try to impress you. You still at the station?

Yeah but not for long. I'll see you in like forty

"--right Buck?"

Buck blinks, hums, stares across at Chim.

"Please tell me you're not sexting at work right now."

"Technically, we are off the clock."

"I'll remind Clipboard Buck of that next time he shows up."

He's zipping up his bag when his phone buzzes again.

See you soon, baby.

He's pretty sure he's gonna get away with it - Hen and Chim are arguing about some reality show as they all trudge toward the open bay doors, and though he can hear their voices further back, Eddie and Bobby still seem to be deep in conversation.

Ravi comes out of left field, because of course he does, just finished inventory still clutched in his hand as he rounds the engine closest to Buck. "Hey, Buck, you and Tommy wanna catch that movie tomorrow night? I picked up a shift but I've got like twelve off in between."

Buck winces. Damn, so close. "Sorry, bud, we actually won't be in town."

Which he's realizing now is pretty uncharacteristic of the both of them, and Hen and Chim have clocked it, so he's gonna have to make a run for it, but he catches sight of raised brows and questioning expressions and he can't give them nothing.

"Tommy's taking me to Vegas, we might see Adele, okay bye!"

They absolutely let him make a break for it, let him scramble into the Jeep, let him send them all a quick wave before he peels out of his parking spot, and Buck spends the drive to Harbor viscously ignoring the steady buzzing from his phone.

---

Tommy snags the backpack from his shoulder before he's fully out the door, and tugs a belt loop to pull him close. Buck is pretty sure he'll never get over how much he likes being manhandled, just a bit.

"You wanna tell me why Chim and Hen both wished us a good flight?"

"Ravi ambushed me on my way out the door. Technically, they don't know anything about anything, except maybe Adele."

Tommy's fond smile makes Buck feel all warm and tingly inside, and he basks in the glow as Tommy nudges a knee between the open bow of Buck's legs.

Tommy's expression morphs, a bit, lips dropping as he tilts his head. "You having second thoughts? We don't have to-."

"No. No second thoughts."

"Evan, I know how close you are to your family. If you want to wait, make this something you can share with them, we can hold off."

He's so goddamn charmed by this man - by how he cares, by how well he knows Buck, by a million and one tiny things that Buck gleefully hoards his knowledge of like a dragon over his caverns of treasure.

"I kinda don't want to share you, for this." It's the first time since Tommy's brought it back up that Buck's been able to express exactly why the prospect makes him so giddy, but there it is. Possessive jealous Buck rears his ugly head again, only Tommy has always been a little charmed by that. At least when Buck expressed it in a healthy way.

"The moment they know, it's gonna be a spectacle," Tommy agrees, fingers curling over Buck's side.

"Exactly. So. Take me to Vegas and wife me up before one of them shows up trying to tag along."

He expects the dramatic eye roll, and Tommy's fingers digging into his sides. He doesn't expect the ear-ringing whistle echoing through the bay door to their left, or the smirk on Lucy Donato's face when she lets her looped thumb and pointer finger drop from her lips.

"We should definitely go before any of them remembers to hit her up for more details."

"Why would she -."

"Yeah she caught a look at the manifest and snooped until she found the rings."

"So you're actually worse at keeping a secret than I am."

"They're all gonna know before we land back home."

"Hen's gonna break like thirty bylaws trying to decorate a county owned chopper."

"Evan, seriously, we can still -."

Buck only knows one sure-fire way of stopping Tommy from spiraling too much - he uses the little bit of leverage he has plastered to the open door of his Jeep to catch Tommy's lips, and the resulting pleased hum shivers down his spine. Evan takes a moment to be pleased that Tommy hadn't shaved this morning like he'd threatened, and then he's tilting his head for a better angle and losing himself in it long enough that a few more wolf-whistles make their way across the tarmac -- Wendell and York, most likely, but when Buck finally breaks the kiss to dart a look over Tommy's shoulder, everyone has made themselves scarce.

"You gonna marry me or not, Kinard?"

It's a rare thing, but sometimes, when Buck makes him a little extra wild, Tommy does this growling thing that Buck always feels down to his toes. Tommy kisses him breathless again when Buck responds to this growl with a satisfied smirk.

---

"How much you wanna bet Hen convinces you to do a vow renewal within six months."

Buck's busy nipping at a spot of flesh just above Tommy's transverse abdominis, so it takes a second for his brain to catch up with the words.

"It's gonna be Maddie, and she's gonna rope you into it before you realize what's happening."

Tommy hums, pleased, not denying it, and runs a hand through Buck's hair, palm curling over his crown. It takes Buck a moment to figure out why it doesn't feel quite as familiar as it always does, and then he's reaching for it with a hand of his own, the tips of two fingers sliding along the smooth metal surface of Tommy's ring.

The smile he shoots up from the general area of Tommy's groin is all puppy-dog grin, and he basks in the soft, warm grin Tommy sends back. Buck tracks the crinkle of Tommy's eyes like a lifeline.

"I'm gonna lord it over everyone's head that we didn't get married because of, during, or after a health scare or a natural disaster."

"You asked me two days after we made up because of a flash flood we both thought we were gonna lose each other to, but okay."

Tommy's smile is soft. The fingers that slide around his scalp to brush reverently over his birthmark are even softer. "That time doesn't count, because we didn't follow through. You thought I was joking."

He had, honestly, at first, because they'd technically still been broken up at the time and the adrenaline and the terror at nearly losing one another had still been close. It'd taken him three days and Tommy angrily re-ringing his house key back onto Buck's keychain to realize Tommy maybe hadn't actually been joking about hopping in the chopper the next time they both had 24 off.

He's glad they'd taken the extra time, though. Glad they'd had time to drive halfway across the state in search of a ring shop they could be sure they wouldn't run into anyone at, glad they'd had the time to get new suits tailored, glad he'd had time to fuss over vows he'd still cried about while he was saying them, glad they'd done it without an Elvis impersonator standing just off to the side.

"You're stuck with me now," Buck tells him, and Buck knows Tommy's delighted bark of laughter will keep him warm for years.

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

hey so i saw the despicable me 4 trailer and i have a very specific beef with it that's making me insane

so, like, disclaimer, i havent watched any of the minion cinematic universe movies since despicable me 2 came out... holy fuck eleven years ago, jesus christ. but anyway i'm probably gonna get minute details wrong but like hold with me a second

so idr when despicable me 2 takes place in regards to the first film. from what i remember, agnes was having issues with not having a conventional nuclear family for mother's day so this implies it's the first mother's day that the girls have had in gru's household. i'm pretty sure that the first movie took place during the summer-ish, and iirc the second movie is also summer (fitting with my "roughly may" estimate) so we'll say like eight-ish months have passed since the first film. no big deal, right?

so then at the end of the film gru and kristen wiig get married but the timecard states that it's "147 dates later." i doubt they went on a date every single day leading up to the wedding but if we're assuming the date list also covers the engagement and wedding prep period, that's at the VERY VERY least one-hundred and forty-seven days after the events of the film. so with the timeskip at the beginning, that puts us at well over a year since the first film, thirteen months minimum

okay so the third film from my research doesn't state how long it takes after the wedding. so again, let's be generous and say that it's not too long after. i'm pretty sure the film itself takes place over a couple of days so we'll ignore its place in the continuity for now. that brings us to movie number four, which just got a trailer and just revealed a new player in the game

so gru and kristen wiig have a new biological child. this kid is old enough to move and emote, which puts him at 7-12 months old if he's able to crawl. let's again be generous and say it's seven months. assuming that human reproduction works the same as it does in our universe, and again being generous as hell and assuming that lucy may have been pregnant through the third film or right after the wedding, we have to add nine months to all this. so from the first film, we have ~8 month timeskip, then a 147-day minimum timeskip, then let's say 16 months to get to the baby being able to crawl. again, this is absolute bare minimum, and we still get to a conclusion of it's been roughly 29 months since the first film, or 2.5 years.

so okay. two-and-a-half years since the first film.

so then why the everloving fuck are the girls the same. fucking. AGE??

how have these motherfuckers not aged a fucking day??? they haven't grown a goddamn inch. it should have been, again, 2.5 years minimum, more likely 3-4 years if we're being realistic.

and to double check my work, i went on the despicable me wiki and found that they also put movie 4 at a three-year timeskip from the first movie, specifically putting margo at 10 in the first movie and 13 in the fourth, edith at 8-11, and agnes at 5-8; their main source is margo being stated to be 12 in the third movie, and her sisters' relative ages being provided by tweet, so even then this is, again, bare minimum on timeskip. and not only have these motherfuckers not changed style one fucking time, but they haven't changed height, weight, anything. agnes has hit eight years old and is the same height as the tiny-ass fucking minions. edith's hat still fits. margo should be in high school and she looks the same as she did three goddamn years ago

what kind of motherfucking witchcraft is the gru family using to keep themselves young??? they said gru stopped being evil but are we sure there isn't some vampire blood rituals happening in the minion basement

make them a new character model. please god

[toomanystoriessolittletime]

into you

Summary: After almost giving up the hope to become a big actor you get offered the leading role in a period drama, leaving you to spend three months in Scotland with your male co star Dieter Bravo and maybe falling in love with him.

Pairing: Dieter Bravo x fem. reader

Wordcount: 2.247

Rating: T

Warnings: fluff, falling in love, implied smut, kissing, really cheesy movie lines I made up, confessions of feelings, reader is in her late thirties, Dieter playing the piano

A/N: Another one for  @undercoverpena April showers challenge! What's better than a Pedro character in period clothing in the rain? Making out with him hehe

follow @toomanystoriessolittletime-fics and turn on notifications to get notified when I post new fics

You couldn’t sleep. 

The moon was shining hrough the window of your hotel room, an old castle in the middle of nowhere somewhere in Scotland. 

You had come here almost three months ago, having gotten the first big job of your career, the lead role in a period drama. The first lead role you ever got. The first big job you ever got. 

For years you dreamed of being a big movie star. 

Much like every young person who came to LA. 

Which had been almost twenty years ago. You had been about to quit trying for that one big role that would finally grant your your big success last year. 

By now well in your thirties (the forties getting closer and closer), not having any major success apart from some multi episode secondary character on some netflix shows in the latest years, you gave up hope that you would make it. 

Sometimes the residuals you got from playing Chandler Bing’s awkward girlfriend for two episodes almost twenty years ago on friends had been the only way to pay your rent.

You were looking into going back to school when your agent called you, talking you into going to this last audition. It had been as a favour to them that you agreed, the contracts between you and the agency already canceled towards the end of the month. 

They had always believed in you and you hated saying no to them because of that reason. 

Maybe it was you having nothing to lose that left you going into the audition and blowing them all away. Not that you thought you did until your agent called you not even twenty minutes after you went out of the audition, asking you to come back to read opposite the male lead. 

Still you didn’t let yourself getting your hopes up, walking back into the office building, back into the room you had been in before, now with an additional face smiling warmly at you. 

You didn’t know that in the next two hours your whole life would change. 

Not just because they offered you the job. 

No, It was the day you met Dieter Bravo.

Of course you knew who Dieter Bravo was. 

You had admired him since he starred in the high school drama series you definitely did not tape every episode from when you were in your teens. 

And there had been no posters of him in your room growing up, nope. 

But like almost every teen crush, it faded over the years. 

You grew up, and he did too. You knew he had won an Oscar some years back, you saw the movie in the cinema back then. 

He had made headlines after that, naming him the next big thing. 

But lately the only headlines you remembered of him had been of his drug escapades and dating life. 

So you had been a little reserved when you first met, hoping he would be professional enough throughout the audition. 

Hope you shouldn’t have had, because Dieter had turned out to be professional in every single way.

Now, after spending almost two months with him, playing opposite of him, acting that you were in love with him, you found yourself wishing he would be a little less professional. 

Groaning you sat yourself up in your bed, clicking the lamp on the bedside table on, reaching for your phone. 

2:43 am. 

Taking a deep breath and releasing a long sigh as you exhaled you let your head fall back. 

In twenty four hours you would be on a plane back to the states, already on your way to shoot your next movie, your career seemingly finally starting off now that you were starring in a movie with Dieter Bravo. 

You should be beyond happy. 

Everything you dreamed off finally seemed to come true. You had three jobs lined up that would pay more than you had made in the last ten years combined. 

Yet the thought of waking up every morning and not getting to spend the day with Dieter made it all bittersweet. 

You had spent a lot of time together since getting to Scotland to shoot this movie. Not only on set, but apart from it too. He had been here before, shooting another movie and invited you out some times, showing you around. You had dinner together almost every night be it in an restaurant he wanted to show you or in the hotel. You got to know the man behind the persona you learned he put on for the public for and over the last weeks you had found yourself falling for him. 

Your fingers cam up to brush over your lips, the lips he had kissed. 

More than once. 

In front of the camera. 

But before you went to bed tonight, he walked you to your room and he had kissed you good night. Without cameras rolling. Without people around. Just you and him. His warm hand on your cheek, your back pushed against your hotel room door as he towered over you, his other hand resting on the door behind you. 

You were out of breath when he parted from your lips, wishing you a good night, leaving you watching after him with your lips parted, your brain still trying to process that he had just kissed you, as he went down the hallway until he disappeared into his room. 

You were too giddy to sleep, getting an old sweatshirt on before you grabbed your hotel key and walked out of your room, hoping he was as sleepless as you were and downstairs where you had found him often during your stay. 

You could hear the faint sound of a piano as you entered the lobby, the night manager giving you a small smile as you walked past, following the sound. 

In the far back corner of the lobby was a piano where you found Dieter playing a melody you did not recognise. 

You had found him here before, in the beginning when you could not sleep because you were too nervous to fuck this big chance you got up. 

He told you that his art supplies hadn’t been shipped yet, and that he usually painted when he couldn’t sleep.

And so instead he played. 

And you listened, sitting next to him until you both almost fell asleep, before he walked you to your room, only to be up some hours later to shoot a movie where his character denied to be in love with your character, pushing your character away until a big dramatic scene where you would finally admit your feelings to each other. 

Sitting down on the seat next to him as he played now, you let your head fall against his shoulder, hearing him inhale as he continued to play. 

His lips brushed against your temple and you closed your eyes, just listening to his song. 

When he finished you looked up at him, his eyes were already on you, an unreadable expression on his face. 

„Couldn’t sleep?“ he asked. 

You hummed in agreement. 

„Too many thoughts in my head,“ you whispered and he nodded. One of his arms came to wrap around your back, pulling you closer against his side. 

„You wanna talk about those thoughts?“ he asked and you chuckled. 

„Don’t wanna fuck the big scene up tomorrow, well today,“ you said and he gave you a small smile. 

„If someone is gonna fuck up it’s me. You make me keep forgetting my lines,“ he winked and you felt your cheeks growing warm, remembering the many occasions Dieter had seemingly spaced out during some scenes, looking at you with an expression you couldn’t place. 

„What do you mean?“ You asked, and he sucked his bottom lip in, before he shrugged and there it was again, that expression in his face, his eyes big as he looked at you. 

„I can’t stop looking at you. You’re so talented and beautiful and kind and so damn intelligent. Sexy….,“ he winked „You just blow me away and it’s like my brain stops working when I look at you sometimes. I never really felt like this before…“ he whispered and you blinked at him. 

„What I am trying to say is, I like spending time with you. I like talking to you. I like kissing you, touching you,“ he grinned and you huffed. 

„Especially when it’s just the two of us. Last week when the director called cut when we were in bed….“ He closed his eyes, shaking his head. 

You had rushed off after finishing the scene with him, having to take care of the ache between your legs in the bathroom after spending almost six hours in bed with him, shooting numerous sex scenes.

„I wish we had been alone,“ he whispered his face getting closer to yours, his lips brushing over yours. 

„Dieter,“ you whispered, his hand coming up to cup your cheek, his lips pressing against yours and you shivered. 

„Yeah?“ He asked. 

„We are alone now,“ you whispered and he nodded, before he kissed you again, deeply. 

„Would you like to have sex with me?“ He whispered and your lips twitched into a grin which he mirrored before he kissed you again. 

„Take me to your room, Dieter,“ you said, giggling when you found yourself pulled in the direction of the elevators in the next moment. 

„This is madness,“ you shook your head, the rain coming down on you without mercy, drenching your many layers of clothes. 

„Why? Why is it madness that I have fallen for you?“ Dieter asked, in character, his white shirt clinging to his chest. 

You huffed a laugh, your character in denial about the feelings not only she had, but he had too. 

„Because we are both engaged. And not to each other. We have to end this. I have to….“ You shook your head, closing your eyes, before you looked up at him. Dieter having closed the distance between the two of you, but not close enough to touch. The raindrops where running down his nose, his hair clinging to his face. 

He looked like a wet dream straight out of a Jane Austen novel.

„All these times we spend in each others arms, they don’t mean anything to you?“ He asked. 

„It was a mistake. It shouldn’t have happened,“ you said, Dieter’s character seeing right through your lie. 

„Do you love me?“ He asked and you did not have to play the small smile that sneaked to your lips for only a moment before you fought it down. 

„It doesn’t matter,“ you said, turning away from him, but his hand wrapped around your wrist, stopping you before you could go. 

„It matters to me. ,“ he whispered, broken, and the tone of his voice made you want to cry. 

The rain continued to fall as you gave the camera time to capture both of your faces. 

„Of course I love you,“ you finally said, looking at him over your shoulder. 

„Then stay,“ he pleaded. You began to shake your head, when he pulled you against his chest, one of his hands on your cheek, brushing your hair that stuck to your face to the side, his eyes gazing deeply into yours. 

„Stay and allow yourself to be happy,“ he said, almost begging. 

„Stay here and let me love you,“ he let his forehead fall against yours and your eyes dropped close, pictures of the night he had spend with you filling your mind, the way his forehead had rested against yours as he filled you over and over and…

You opened your eyes and Dieter’s lip twitched for a second, having caught your unintended pause.

„What about our families?“ you asked, „What about my sister? She’s in your house getting ready to marry you today,“ you asked. 

„They will understand. They have to. And if they don’t, I’ll take you away where we can live our life without the judgement of others. You’ll never have to worry for money.I love you, please be with me,“ his nose brushed against yours. 

You felt his other hand on your lower back and you gasped. 

„Then take me away,“ you whispered, feeling his smile against your lips as he finally kissed you, your arms wrapping around his broad back, fingertips brushing over his drenched clothes as he deepened the kiss. 

The first thing you realised when Dieter parted from your lips was that the rain had stopped and that it was quiet around you. Too quiet. 

Looking at Dieter he gave you a sheepish smile before you looked around, finding the crew around you looking at the both of you, Dieter’s PA holding two robes in his arms, giving you a wide smile. 

„You gonna listen when I call cut now?“ The director teased with a wide grin and you let your head fall against Dieter’s chest, mortified, but he just chuckled, before he helped you get into the robe his PA had brought over. 

„We’ll meet in an hour for the wedding scene, do not be late,“ the director reminded everyone, giving you and Dieter a longer look, and you nodded. Dieter grabbed your hand, and you looked at him. 

„Can’t wait to marry you,“ he winked and kissed you again, before you both were rushed off from the set to get ready. 

And you did actually get married. 

Seven months later.

On a beach. 

In the rain. 

Without any interruptions. 

[valentiyne]

𝖻𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖽𝗌𝗂𝖽𝖾𝖽 ✘ 𝗍𝖺𝗌𝗆!𝗉𝖾𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝗉𝖺𝗋𝗄𝖾𝗋

TASM!Peter Parker x Fem!Reader

Summary: Uncovering the truth about your little affair with Spiderman to your obvious friend Peter. What could go wrong? (Let me know if I should do a part two!)

Warnings: Mild cursing & Peter being a dork

Word Count: 1.5k (not proofread)

Copyright © 2024 Valentiyne. All rights reserved. This original work is not allowed to be reposted on any platform in any format.

Peter Parker stuck to himself for a majority of his time at Empire State High. I met him in middle school but we didn't meet up until eighth grade, and when I was stuck next to him in Chemistry- I knew we'd be inseparable. He was a nerd, a 4.8 GPA and enrolled in almost every club the counselors would allow.

He was a nerd, but he was also my best friend. My best friend that I hadn't talked to in two years.

The hundredth refilled coffee of the night almost dropped me to my knees. I was beyond exhausted, and it didn't help that my phone was almost dead. It was my fourth double this week, and I knew no amount of Redbulls would keep me going. There were a few stray customers sitting around the counter, reading the daily bugle or staring up at the old television playing a recap of the morning news.

Ben, a man who I've come to learn as a night shift security guard always came in before close. His hair was black with a few stray greys, mid forties with no wife or kids. He ordered a cherry pie with a black coffee and sat in silence until it was time to close.

He left a hefty tip- so I didn't mind.

"How you doing, Cherry." His nickname rolled off his tongue as he reaches down to grab his sweater from the stool. He knew everything about Peter and I, he had been here to see it all.

I shrug, dropping my dirty rag in the sink with a sigh. "I'll be okay."

"You said that two years ago when I first asked you." He teased, earning a small smile from me.

"That's what I like to see," He drops a twenty on the counter and gives a soft wave, letting the bells from the front door do the talking as he left to work.

As I lock the front door, I drop my skateboard to the floor and kick my feet up to head home. The skateboard was a limited edition OSCORP branded drop. Peter had camped out for two days to get it for me before the beginning of sophomore year, and i've treasured it every since. The train left 7 minutes ago, and I knew it would be a good forty minutes before I was home.

My headphones flowed with my hair as I pushed myself faster down the sidewalk. Queen was almost dead this time of night, aside from a few people who roamed the streets- and of course the vigilante the daily bugle has named Spider Man.

I've learned of his existence from a newspaper Ben was reading, his red and blue suit depicting on the front cover. It was something out a movie- a man who flies through the air with webs?

Peter thought it was fascinating, of course he did. He was a boy who thought everything was fascinating- except for me.

It wasn't that big of a deal, he liked Gwen. She was everything I wasn't. She had an internship at Oscorp, she was involved in the community, she was smart- if not smarter than Peter. Thank you Linkedln!

He was head over heels for her. And I was head over heels for him.

As my skateboard glided over the concrete, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket a few times. Slipping it out, I glance down to my screen to see a couple of messages from my roommate.

Just as I went to open the messages, my skateboard halted and I was launched from the board- sideways ankle and chin first into the rough pavement. "Fuck!" I cry out, my shaky hands immediately reaching for my chin. Crimson blood littered my fingers and I groaned obnoxiously, leaning down to my now shattered phone to check and see if it was still salvageable.

It was not.

Groaning in pain, I managed to extend my ankle out and look at it. It was probably a sprain, nothing that wasn't too life threatening but I knew I wasn't going to be able to skate any further.

Speaking of skating... Where the hell is my board?

I glance around the dark sidewalk, squinting to correct my vision but it was no use. My board was gone. I leaned down in pain, clutching my ankle and letting the blood drip onto the pavement below me.

I was screwed.

Peter kept his promise he had made to her years ago. He made sure she got home safe every night she worked. He watched her step out of the diner with his heart in his throat as he dangled off the side of a building. He had overheard all the conversations she had at work, not in a creepy way- he just wanted to know if she talked about him to some of her regulars.

His side hurt from a beating he took a few hours ago, a fight he had to cut short because he didn't want to miss "watching" her go home. He could have easily taken the guy out, but his mind was so lost on what went wrong between him and her. He wanted to just sleep. But the city never slept, and neither did he.

He left Gwen's apartment early this morning, almost couldn't stand the feeling of not watching and keeping tabs on the girl. His girl. It took him almost an hour to put the suit on, feeling like he wasn't strong enough mentally anymore. He wanted to walk her home as Peter, not Spiderman.

He told himself: stay away from her. Keep her safe that way.

But watching her collide with the pavement, her face hitting the hard cement and the board he had bought her going flying- he knew he had to step in.

I wiped the last of my blood from my chin with the back of my hand when a voice suddenly spoke right behind me.

"Ahem, You-Uh... You okay Miss?"

I yelped, turning around to see no one was there. My eyes traveling down the dark street and sidewalks.

Am I going crazy?

I look back down to my hands that were now stained red when the voice spoke again,

"I'm up here.." My head slowly angled upward and I see it- well I see him.

Standing ontop of a street light infront of me, I see none other than Spider Man.

"Yeah-" I cut my sentance off, my mind suddenly wandering to the fact that I was speaking to the infamous vigilante.

His head turns, his eyes on his mask narrowing at me. His mannerisms were odd, almost...familiar?

I look around, avoiding his gaze. "I fell off my skateboard... i need to get up," I hoist myself onto my right foot.

"Whoa whoa whoa", The man suddenly jumps down from his crouch position above and puts his hands on my shoulders. As his masked hands touch my shoulder, he flinches slightly. "The board isn't important, you're hurt."

My head shakes quickly, almost scrambling to get back on my feet. "No No no, you don't understand. That board, someone... he gave it to me."

The man steps back now, his eyes widening as he looks down at me. He looks... confused?

"Who did?"

I mentally slap myself in the face. He wasn't a therapist, he was a hero. I take a deep breath, "An old friend...." The breath that I let out was shaky, almost like I was about to cry.

The man now puts his hands up in defense, letting me get up onto my feet with a wince. I stumbled a bit from the unevenness, but I eventually got myself steady.

"I sprained my ankle," I say, gritting my teeth.

He immediately kneels down beside me and I limped as he starts to examine my ankle. He moves it gently, taking care not to cause any more pain. "It's not too bad," he says, "But it could use some ice."

I gave up hope looking for the board, and I let out a frustrated groan. I was annoyed. It was the last thing I had of Peter's, and now it was gone too.

"Shouldn't you be stopping a heist?" I suddenly snap, turning around to see the man standing behind me awkwardly.

He looks down at me and leans his hand back to scratch his neck sheepishly. "I saw what happened so.. I uh.. I wanted to help."

I look up at him now, feeling comforted by his presence. His posture, his voice, and everything else about him. He was familiar, but I couldn't place a finger on it.

I can't help but wonder how many other people he's helped like this. It's hard to believe that someone so extraordinary could exist in real life.

Now I just needed to figure out how I was going to get home.

[cyb-by-lang]

Cascade

Someone a while ago asked me about what Kei's school life in Shell Game would've been like if she was a kid in 1-A as opposed to 1-C, so here's some noodlin'.

(Kei replaces Mineta's slot because I don't feel like dealing with him.)

The facet of being a UA student that bothered Kei the most (immediately) was the scrutiny. The celebrity. The total inability to fold herself and her flat expression and sleep deprivation back into the comforting anonymity of a world without widespread cell phone usage. Every other rando in Japan—arguably the world—knew the school’s reputation and its uniform. The more invested enthusiasts knew the names and faces of all the hero kids in each year and ranked them based on their apparent promise. Kei’s entire being retreated from the spotlight as though possessed by a cockroach. 

The runner-up of annoyances was being trapped in high school again. She’d done her time one life ago and resented that the experience just pigeonholed her into bilingual missions now. But explaining that to Sensei wasn’t on the table, so away she went. 

In the end, though, there was a small silver lining, as thin as cobweb. Unlike general education students, the two heroics-focused classes had occasional permission to use their Quirks to achieve their goals. Such as winning a sports contest between students, but still. It was something. 

“Gekkō. Your turn.” 

Kei jolted back to life like the engine of a forty-year-old car, covering her mouth with one hand as she yawned. Sure, Bakugō’s big boom ball throw had startled her awake, but she’d slept like total garbage last night. The stress from anticipating a new development in any mission made staying asleep an impossibility. 

So she’d kind of sleepwalked through the first few rounds of fitness tests. A lot of the other students’ Quirks didn’t help with their performances—exemplified by the invisible girl and the boy with electric powers—and so Kei didn’t meaningfully stand out. It helped that the students with physical Quirks usually really excelled at very specific tasks, but were dead average elsewhere. Kei barely needed to work to keep in the middle of the pack, only using her water manipulation for effect. 

And now everyone was looking at her. 

Dammit, Kei thought. She rolled to her feet with a little huff and made her way off the sideline with the air of a two-toed sloth dragged out for a quirky sports movie. 

“Do you need a reminder of what the rules are?” Aizawa asked, his voice as dead as Kei sort of wished she could be in this exact moment. 

“No, Aizawa-sensei,” Kei replied as she passed him. An instant later, she caught the tracker-equipped softball without looking, thought it had been thrown at her head. Not like it would have done any damage even if it made contact.

“Then quit wasting our time.” 

Kei didn’t even remember her placement during the UA entrance exam, but this still felt targeted. The numbers didn’t matter. She’d already known she was in, so the only consideration left was keeping the extent of her powers under wraps.  

It wasn’t like Kei didn’t get why Aizawa “Eraserhead” Shōta hated her presence in the class. Her enrollment in UA was basically anathema to the entire purpose of the program. Sensei and the principal couldn’t just cut the guy entirely out of the loop without causing Kei logistical problems when it came to doing her job. At the very least, an uninformed teacher might ask questions when Kei inevitably ran out of the classroom to deal with some crisis. Just because Aizawa looked like he wouldn’t care if his students fell down an open manhole cover, but that was the trouble with judging by appearances alone. 

I could take over the moment it leaves your hands.

Be my guest. 

Kei tossed the ball in the air, clapped her hands together, and summoned a blob of water that expanded in sync with her hands as she pulled them apart. When the falling softball landed amid the watermelon-sized sphere, it warped briefly into an image of Isobu’s curled-up shell before stabilizing. That was a telltale sign even to people without worthwhile chakra detection abilities—as long as they knew. 

So, basically Aizawa. Kei didn’t need to look in his direction to feel his glare.

There we are. Isobu’s power reached forward to engulf the brand new source of ammunition. 

Then the blob, the captive softball, and some simulacrum of Kei’s dreams shot off into the void. Only the thinnest possible thread of water connected Isobu’s new toy to Kei’s index fingers. Kei and the a couple of her classmates watched its erratic balloon-like course until, inevitably, the thread snapped. 

Eventually, there was a beep from Aizawa’s phone. “Five hundred and fifteen meters.” 

Kei rubbed at her eyes, already done with the entire affair. At least this data might be useful for Kei and Isobu’s future adventures in mass hydrokinesis. Perhaps Isobu’s range would be even larger if they added more of his chakra. Running those experiments would have to wait for another day, though. 

“Next,” said Aizawa. Going by the way a couple of students jumped, the next contestant was already on deck and suffering from stage fright. 

Kei wandered out of the chalk with barely any uptick in energy levels. She even yawned again. If the teacher wanted her out of the way faster, he could damn well throw her out.

But because this mission clearly wanted to establish the kind of pattern embodied by a combat deployment—boredom followed by intense spikes of activity, and then more boredom—Kei didn’t get a chance to nap. She found herself blinking away the drowsiness to the sound of Aizawa verbally ripping a kid to shreds. 

And it wasn’t Kei’s fault. Or even related to her. 

Novel.

While Kei had sat down and read brief profiles on all of her classmates on the Saturday before the term started, their names occasionally slipped her mind despite how painfully on-the-nose they could be. She’d get that data into her head later; for now, all Kei needed was a list of powers. 

Part of the reason Midoriya (today’s sacrifice) stuck out to her was how his name didn’t contain even a hint of his Quirk—just like hers didn’t. Because she didn’t have one. Going off the logic displayed by his classmates’ parents and their naming choices, Midoriya’s personal name should have had something to do with turning his own skeleton into dust. 

With his capture weapon and hair floating like the entire scene was underwater, Aizawa laid out everything wrong with the nervous kid’s approach to the ball toss. Given that the test in question was literally throwing a softball and this kid tended to hover around the middle of the pack, maybe he’d been planning to use his hyper-destructive Quirk to finally get an edge. Like any kid sitting through someone else getting shouted at by a teacher, Kei pretended not to hear the specifics.

It was still sort of difficult not to, even with her classmates trying to build a small reservoir of side chatter to insulate themselves.

There was a lot in Aizawa’s lecture about “basic competence” and paraphrased warnings about not breaking all the bones in his body. Because, well, someone who did that would probably need to be carried off a battlefield on a stretcher if not in a body bag.

“With your power,” Aizawa was saying, his voice as flat and cold as an executioner’s blade, “you can’t become a hero.” 

Midoriya’s expression said he knew damn well what was at stake now. If he couldn’t figure out how to throw a ball without laying himself out flat, he was screwed. 

The real question was if breaking bones was the prerequisite to accessing that monstrous strength, or just a shitty side effect of having no control? If it was the former, the first time the kid fell off a jungle gym or crashed his bike should have made the news along with a crater. 

While the other students consulted among themselves whether they’d ever heard of Eraserhead before—which disengaged Kei even further from the conversation in favor of naptime—Aizawa withdrew from the chalk circle to let Midoriya figure his shit out. He’d either fly or fucking die. 

Aizawa probably didn’t care which. At least, not out loud. Better that this catastrophic failure happened in school and not in the field with lives on the line.

Kei shaded her eyes and awaited some conclusive result.

Midoriya didn’t disappoint; one colossal BANG later, the softball was rocketing off into the distance with a smoke trail marking its trajectory. But unlike the utter travesty that characterized his entrance exam footage, the kid that turned to face the group did so with all limbs intact. He’d destroyed only one finger in the process of setting off his Quirk this time.

Kei frowned while the other students cheered. Aizawa, too, looked excited to find improvement so close on the heels of his first sharp criticism. 

Sure, Blasty McSplode had a problem with Midoriya’s (qualified and still bone-breaky) success and then needed to be wrestled into submission for being a loud jackass literally a foot in front of the teacher, but that wasn’t Kei’s problem. Or, at least, his attitude wasn’t an interesting problem for Kei to puzzle over. 

Midoriya’s, though… There’s something wrong here.

Hm?

I don’t think his Quirk requires him to destroy himself to use it. If it did, he should’ve figured out how to minimize the damage way before he got here. Kei pressed her curled fingers against her lower lip as she thought. Damn, I usually just shrug off questions like this… 

But this secret may affect your risk assessment process when dealing with all of these humans. 

Maybe. But hell if it’s not a personal question. “Hey, what’s the deal with your Quirk totally pulverizing your vulnerable teenage skeleton every time I’ve seen it used?” That’ll go over well. 

“Gekkō,” said Aizawa, interrupting Kei’s thoughts with more school nonsense. He’d apparently picked her out as a zoned-out straggler. “Finish your tests. Side-hops and grip test, go.”

Kei sighed internally and trotted off to a different part of the field.

[hooked-on-elvis]

ELVIS GEMS

Hey, friends! So, @buglass suggested a while ago for me to share some less known (or less mentioned) Elvis songs. I guess today I felt inspiration to. Note: This is my personal selection, based on my taste and vision - not necessarily meaning all the songs are not as appreciated as they should be or that they are technically and content-wise flawless. I just think they're great for different reasons, and that they should get more plays. Oh... song 5 in this list contains wisdom for life in the lyrics and it's something that's really meaningful today as we reach Elvis' 90th birthday. Hope you enjoy this short list!

"Blue Moon"

Album: "Elvis Presley" (1956) I don't think it's that unknown but when I see people talking about the ballads E recorded, this song is not much remembered. I love it very much!

"Fool, Fool, Fool"

Recorded during a studio radio session. KDAV Radio - Jan 6, 1955. First released first in the album: "The King of Rock 'n' Roll: The Complete 50's Masters" (1992). This song is great Rock and Roll. When the guitar solo comes (0:56), it's impossible not to move.

"Dark Moon" and "Tennessee Waltz"

Album: "Elvis: The Home Recordings" (1999) Although the poor audio quality, those are songs I, particularly, get the most intense feeling of what it would be like to jam and harmonize with Elvis among, probably, all of his home/jam sessions recordings. I love to sing along with those tracks. Plus, I can always visualize E with his friends gathered around the piano he's playing... it's a plus. In "Tennessee Waltz" they mess up with the lyrics, it's annoying and fun at the same time.

"Once Is Enough" ♥

Soundtrack: "Kissin' Cousins" (1964) That song came to me randomly right now on my Spotify playlist but it fits like a glove in the mood today. I think the lyrics is pure "words of wisdom" material, and the melody is fun. And hey, it's Elvis' birthday! In this song he sings: "What's the good of reaching 90 if you waste 89? You got one life so live it If you don't it's a crime." Elvis didn't live to reach his nineties we would be celebrating with him today, but he lived quite the life in just forty-two years walking on this earth. People tend to pity on him, thinking he had such a tragic life story but, the way I see it, Elvis lived more than many of us ever will get to do. This song represents quite well the way he did things in life... not waiting 'till tomorrow, just going for it. "As a lightning-bolt" ⚡ El, you're amazing for leaving so many precious life lessons for us. We couldn't thank you enough, King. By the way, there's great gems among the soundtracks from his movies... this is just one of my favorites.This song is really a gem. ♥

"You Better Run"

First released in the album "Elvis Presley: Amazing Grace" (1994) Traditional arranged by Elvis and recorded during an informal gospel session filmed for the documentary "Elvis On Tour" (1972) on March 31, 1972 at RCA's Studio C, Hollywood.  This gospel tune was never officially recorded by Elvis, but he did sing it in concert on a few occasions. "You Better Run" was sung in a medley with "Bosom of Abraham," that's why they're quite similar in melody. Note: I love the latter song, one of my favorites by E, so "You Better Run" as similar as it is, it's like an extension but not as well known as "Bosom of Abraham" because wasn't featured in the documentary.

The footage below is composed of random scenes from "Elvis On Tour." As mentioned, the footage in which Elvis harmonizes "You Better Run" with his close friend and musician Charlie Hodge, plus JD Sumner and The Stamps Quartet didn't make it to the final cut of the 1973 music documentary and (for what I know) wasn't even released yet as an outtake. As we know, director Baz Luhrmann is working to get never-seen-before footage from Elvis' two documentaries finally out, so maybe this footage will be released in the not-far-away future. Fingers crossed.

"Almost"

Album: "Let's Be Friends" (1970) I'll never get over how sweet this song and the scene from the movie "The Trouble With Girls" in which Walter Hale (Elvis) performs it playing the piano are. I think 1:50 is way too short for such a beautiful song, it actually pissed me off how quick it ends.

"Loving Arms"

Album: "Good Times" (1974). When this song gets to 1:47 it hits hard in the soul. I just feel like crying every time (how did he do that?) Great song!

"It's Easy for You"

Master released on the album "Moody Blue" (1977), but here's the X-rated take 1 because it's so fun! This version below is on "Way Down In The Jungle Room" (2016)

"Pledging My Love"

Album: "Moody Blue" (1977). The lyrics is just so precious! "Making you happy is my desire, dear... Keeping you is my goal."

I could go on but Tumblr has limitations of 10 videos per post, unfortunately. I think I'm gonna share more in a bit. For now, I'd love to see what are the songs you think fits this list.

[queenshelby]

Yes! Mr Murphy (Rewritten)

PART TWO: AFTERMATH

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Warning: Angst, Age Gap, Teacher x Student

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS STORY IS UNDERGOING A REWRITE. PART ONE IS HERE.

Just as you saw him again, the stranger you met at a bar and then slept with that very same night, the memories of your sexual encounter came back to you. It was a few weeks ago when you had the best sex of your life with a man more than twice your age and you could not get him out of your head ever since.

Until now, you knew nothing about him other than his first name and his address. He told you that this was a one-off encounter so you never bothered him again, respecting his privacy.

That night, you did not do much more than engage in some talk and incredibly passionate sex. This was pretty much it and, unlike you would usually do, you even lied to him. You lied to him about your age and then allowed him to take you home and literally fuck you senseless.

He was kinky and experienced but having a one night stand like this was out of character for you and, if you would have known that you would see him again, you would have handled things differently that night. You would not have slept with him.

You were now back with James who, as usual, was late for class. James, too, was taking this course and he had no idea about your sexual encounter with Cillian. When you slept with Cillian, you and James were taking a break so you never really cheated on him, but still, you felt rather guilty about it. In so far as he was concerned, you were miserable for two weeks when you broke up but this was far from the truth. You were not miserable at all after having met Cillian and now it was this mid forty-year-old man who consumed your thoughts every night and whenever you were intimate with your much younger boyfriend who, due to a lack of experience, could not compete with this stranger in the slightest.

Unlike you, James majored in literature and drama whereas you studied drama and took a major in dance. You shared some lectures with him and this course was one of them, making it even more awkward for you now that you knew who was teaching you.

***

“Cillian Murphy, huh?” you stammered almost silently before pulling up your hoodie. You looked like you had just rolled out of bed and you certainly did not want to be seen like this. Not by him. Not by the man who had been on your mind for days and nights on end.

“Yes. God, look at him! He looks incredible. Can you believe that he is 46 already?’ your friend Lorraine said, causing you to look over at him again. She was not wrong and if she would have known what you did, she would probably be angry with you as, seemingly, she took this class for a reason. She had a crush on him, as had many other girls in your course.

“He does look good” you acknowledged almost silently and, just as you did, you felt a set of warm arms wrap around you from behind.

“Jesus, are all you girls taking this class because of Thomas Fucking Shelby? That is so fucking sad” your boyfriend said loudly before kissing your cheek and Lorraine immediately began to cringe.

“Shh! Shut up James” she said while some of the other female students began to giggle. They sure thought the same way as Lorraine did about your new lecturer and when you pulled out your phone and popped his name into Google, you were not really surprised by the fact that he had such a large following amongst those young girls in your course.

He was rather famous and you were shocked to find out that he had been in several movies and TV shows to date.

“How did I miss that?” you asked yourself but the fact that you never really watch TV did not help your case. You also could not recall the last time you have been to the movies. It must have been six years ago at least, which is when you were a teenager.

Then, of course, there was his theatre work which you should probably have known now that you were studying drama at university, but your passion was not really in classical theatre. You were interested in contemporary work associated to ballet and musicals and took this class simply to further your general acting skills which meant that, being enrolled into Cillian’s class, was not that important to you.

“Do you think it is too late to change my enrolment?” you thus asked your friends who obviously did not know why you were asking that.

“Yes sweety. It is too late to change enrolments. The semester has already started” Lorraine confirmed nonetheless and you sighed deeply in response.

“Fuck” you spat and, just as Lorraine was about to ask you why you wanted to change your enrolment, the school bell rang and it was time for you to enter the lecture hall.

Your friends and several other girls immediately stormed to the front of the room which sat about thirty students at the most. James and yourself however went to the back of the room and the reasons for this were twofold.

For James, it was the fact that he was unprepared. He had not done any of the prescribed readings. And, for you, it was the fact that you did not want to be noticed. You hoped that Cillian would not see or recognise you while, yet, you knew that this was dumb as all of the teachers had a list of enrolments and, usually, teachers of the drama school were collecting some sort of information from their students on the first day.

***

After taking your seat, you absentmindedly glanced up at the clock at the front of the room. Class should have started by now and you wondered whether, perhaps, all of this was a just a bad dream. Maybe a new lecturer had been assigned to you? Or perhaps this rather well-known actor had gotten cold feet and decided that teaching was not for him.

But then, suddenly, you snapped out of your little world as the arts and drama’s school’s principal came walking through the door with Cillian and began the introduction. Her name was Miss Lens and, according to Miss Lens, it was a big deal for the school to have an actor like Cillian Murphy involved in this class.

She introduced Cillian as a veteran in acting on stage which was what this class was all about. It was an on-stage acting class and, since Cillian had performed in several theatrical plays over the years, he was well suited to be a lecturer for it.

“Cillian is here to help you with your on stage acting skills and he will be working with Professor O’Connell to get you up to speed before this years’ auditions for three major plays in Ireland and the UK” Miss Lens then said before running through some housekeeping matters which, ironically, involved a short mention of the school’s class conduct guidelines.

“Now, I will leave you with Mr Murphy, so behave!” Miss Lens then finally said to wrap things up and even Cillian had to laugh when she made this somewhat random statement. Behave? Really?

“Alright, Welcome to PRAC300” Cillian said after Miss Lens had left and before carrying on with a brief introduction of the unit and, after not so long, the first few questions came up, most of which related to some administerial matters.

During those questions, several young students addressed Cillian as Mr Murphy which, somehow, made him sound old and you could not help but laugh when you saw his face each and every time a student called him that.

“Right, listen up! Mr Murphy is my dad so, for god’s sake, please call me Cillian, alright?” was what he said after the fifth question or so, which made everyone laugh and lightened up the mood.

But the mood was not so light for much longer when, suddenly, James rose his arm and asked a question as well and this was when he saw you and you locked your eyes with his.

His chin dropped, his face turned pale and, if you would not have taken a seat so far back in the room, you probably would have heard his heart beat out of his chest by now. He was clearly shocked to see you and immediately became lost for words.

“Uhm, would you please excuse me for a minute” he then said abruptly after ignoring James’s question entirely. He felt sick to the stomach and, although the class had only just started, Cillian had to take a break.

He had to freshen up, clear his head and take a deep breath and this was exactly what he did. He went to the bathroom facilities and splashed his face with some cold water while telling himself to think.

In the end, Cillian determined that he had to get through this class and then assess the situation. He had to talk to you before making a decision and, with that in mind, he returned to the lecture room five minutes later and apologised to the students before carrying on with his class.

During class, you each had to fill in a two-page sheet with things that interest you and a blurb about what you expect to get out of this class. This two-page sheet had to be handed in before you leave for the day and, just as you tried to sneak past Cillian’s desk at the front of the room, he stopped you in your tracks.

“Y/N, hang on” he said quietly as you placed your form on top of the pile on his desk. “Can we talk?” he then whispered and you gave a him a quick but reluctant nod.

“Sure” you whispered back before telling Lorraine and James to go ahead.

“My office, in ten?” Cillian then asked and you nodded again.

“Yes, see you in ten” you whispered before quickly catching up with your friends.

“What was that about? What did he want?” Lorraine immediately asked as you finally caught up with them and you quickly came up with a little white lie.

“He just had a question about my form. I think he inadvertently gave me one rather than two pages to fill out” you explained to Lorraine before telling her and James that you would sit down and fill out the rest of the form now and then drop it to his office. “I will catch up with you later, okay?” you asked and they both nodded.

“Okay babe” James said before kissing you just as Cillian walked past, on the way to his office.

***

“May I come in?” you asked after knocking on Cillian’s office door about ten minutes later and he was quick to wave you inside.

“Yes, and close the door, please” he said and, before he could say anything else, you spoke up quickly.

“For the record, I did not know that you were going to teach this class. If I would have known then I would not have slept with you or, at least, enrolled into a different subject. In fact, I did not even know who you were so I am sorry that this has become awkward for us now” you began to say after having closed the door, but Cillian was quick to cut you off.

“I realised that you did not know about me at the time which I, admittedly, enjoyed for a change. But you do realise that this is a big fucking problem now, right? I did not know that you were attending this class and I wouldn’t have pursued you that night if I had known. So, I too, am sorry” Cillian said worryingly, causing you to laugh.

“You pursued me, huh? I thought it was the other way around” you winked, to which Cillian furrowed his eyebrows.

“Y/N, please. This is serious” he said, but you continued to give him a cheeky grin which was something he seemingly adored and was bothered by all at the same time. “And don’t look at me like this” he thus added, causing you to bite your lip seductively before bursting out in laughter.

“Seriously Cillian, you need to lighten up. None of this will be a problem. Just forget about the one-night stand and move on. As far as I am concerned, nothing ever happened between us” you told him, causing Cillian to shake his head in disbelieve.

“But something did happen between us Y/N and we cannot change that. We slept with each other and I cannot ignore the fact that we had sex when I am teaching you” he said, thinking that you must be out of your mind for thinking that the night you had shared did not matter now that he was your lecturer.

“Well, you will have to forget about it whether you like it or not, because I cannot change my enrolment now. I will lose my funding assistance if I do. Despite, my boyfriend is in the same class and, whilst we had broken up just before you and I slept with each other, I do not want him to know about our one-night stand” you explained, causing Cillian to roll his eyes.

“James McCabe. Yeah. I saw” Cillian chuckled before changing the topic.  “Will it not make things awkward for you though? I mean, if you think back and all…” Cillian asked and you interrupted him quickly.

“Well, the truth is that the sex with you was the best sex I ever had, so yeah, maybe it will be a little awkward at first but I can assure you that I will get over it. After all, it was just sex, right? You said so yourself” you argued and Cillian gave you a quick nod.

“Yes. It was just sex. Nothing more. So, we are good then you think?” Cillian asked and you confirmed that, indeed, he had nothing to worry about. You were mature enough to move on and so was he.

“Yes. We are good. Now, can I go? I have a date, with my boyfriend” you thus said, making it sound as though you no longer cared while watching Cillian cringe.

***

Later that same day, after Cillian had finished up reviewing the introductory papers of his new students, including yours, he met up with his best friend Dermont at a local pub.

As usual, it was buzzing and after they sat down together with a pint a beer, Dermont asked Cillian about his first day at the drama school which he knew was a position he took simply to get his mind of the divorce from Danielle. It was meant to be a break for him, something you to sink his teeth in to.

“My day was interesting” Cillian said and this comment itself rose several other questions.

“Interesting how?” Dermont wanted to know and, since he had known Cillian for over twenty years, he knew that something was not quite right. Something had happened and Cillian eventually opened up to him about his encounter with you.

“Remember Y/N, the woman we met at Temple Bar?” Cillian began to say and Dermont immediately cocked his eyebrows and interrupted him.

“The one you had a one-night stand with?” Dermont said before answering his very own question. “Of course, I fucking remember. You have been talking about this girl nonstop ever since and I keep telling you that you should have asked her for her number because, clearly, she fucked with your head” Dermont laughed but, instead of laughing himself, Cillian sighed with frustration.

“Well, it turns out that she is one of my students” he then blurted out causing Dermont to choke on his beer.

“Bullshit. No way” he said before breaking out in even more laughter than before.

“No, I am serious and I think that I should bring this up with the dean because it is highly inappropriate for me to be teaching this woman. We had sex so I should not be her lecturer. It is morally wrong” Cillian explained but Dermont did not entirely agree with his view.

“Did you talk to her about it?” he thus asked and Cillian confirmed that he did, indeed, speak with you about the situation.

“And what is her take on this?” Dermont then wanted to know.

“Well, she said that it won’t be an issue. She has a boyfriend who, in my opinion, is not suitable for her, but he is also one of my students and I need to be really careful about what I say about him” Cillian explained.

“He is not suitable because you would be more suitable?” Dermont teased in light of Cillian’s observation about James but Cillian sighed again and shook his head.

“No. Fuck. She is in her late twenties man. She is way too young for me. Despite, she is my fucking student now, so nothing will become of this” Cillian made sure to say, causing Dermont to rethink the issue on hand.

“I think that, if she is cool with you being her teacher and you are certain that you can act without bias and teach her without pursuing her, then you should just keep the one-night stand to yourself man. Don’t tell the dean about it because, in the end, this girl is the one who will suffer, not you” Dermont told his friend who gave it some more thought.

“Well, she wants to keep it a secret, so I suppose this could work” Cillian then said, causing Dermont to nod.

“Exactly and, keeping it a secret, is probably in her best interest, so you need to suck it up and deal with it man” Dermont then said just as Cillian spotted a familiar face in the crowd.

***

“Oh for fuck sake” you mumbled as you saw Cillian and Dermont who both had clearly spotted you as well but ignored you nonetheless.

“Look, our lecturer is here too. We should say hello” Lorraine said eagerly causing you to sigh.

“No we should not. We should leave him alone” you told her but both, Lorraine and your friend Nora insisted so, in the end, you excused yourself and told them both that you were heading home.

To be continued…

Please comment and engage. I love getting comments and predictions pretty please!

Tag List

@fastfan

@elenavampire21

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@allie131313

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@december16-1991

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@satellitelh​

[moranice-solvej]

Answer the Questions and Tag 5 Fanfic Authors

Thank you for the tag, @rifle-yes <3

1. How did you get into writing fanfiction?

Got introduced to fanfic through an old forum dedicated to a TV-show I was low-key obsessed with as a teen all the way back in 2008. Around the same time I started to get an urge to express myself in writing as I was an avid reader and always had a vivid imagination, so the sheer fact that people just wrote stories to celebrate their favorite stories captivated me.

Since then, there were many attemps to write fanfic and original works alike, very few completed, and only my obsession with Rogue One that started after watching the movie and reading the novelization had put me on the path of publishing my writing and finally being able to complete writing projects.

2. How many fandoms have you written in?

Started in a TV-fandom a long time ago, but never had anything I wanted to publish, so mentally I don't even count it. None of those scraps of written down ideas remain; I deleted them and never once looked back. That leaves Rogue One and technically Star Wars as my sole writing fandom. I dearly love many other shows and movies and games, but none of them make me want to write in their universes.

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

Technically 16 years. Yes, comprehending this number makes me terrified.

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I used to read tons of fic before I came back to writing in earnest. Now most of my free time goes into writing.

In addition to that I have ran into a loathesome problem of not being able to find stories that I'd love to read. The ceiling has gotten too high. Now that I can finally shape the kinds of stories I want to read to life, I crave more stories with such premises, themes, writing styles, and character archetypes, and these days I struggle to find them in fanfic and in original books for that matter. My gremlin brain simply cannot connect to the vast majority of tropes that dominate modern-day fandom and culture. :(

Thus, I'm firmly in the mode of be-the-change-you-want-to-be-in-the-world and producing stories for myself to satisfy that need. Even if it routinely takes me over a year, usually two to finish a single story with a monster wordcount and create something I can one day re-read with glee.

5. What is one way you’ve improved as a writer?

I am now able to move an idea from a general concept and a set of pivotal scenes to a fully-fleshed out story and actually finish it. This used to be my achilles heel for ages and it feels mightily gratifying to finally get rid of it.

6. What’s the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Origins of blood transfusions in human history. Plus a large variety of niche questions of when thing a or thing b was first invented. Most of the times the setting of my current writing project allows me to disregard our reality and wing it for the sake of the vibes or plot, but I still like to research what we as a species develop and when to try and create a somewhat believable ancient fictional world without modern technology.

7. What’s your favorite type of comment to receive on your work?

I have a soft spot for readers who pick on teeny-tiny details of my writing and show their appreciation for it. I end up with monstrous word counts because I'm an extremely context- and detail-oriented writer, and knowing that my passion for it is noticed and enjoyed brings me joy in return.

8. What’s the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

My current project centers around a warrior woman in her mid- to late forties who makes peace with her trauma of motherhood and loss, finds new friends and love and new home, defies her nation's traditions and becomes the force of change for her people that will bring them out of stubborn isolation and little by little shatter their callousness and mold it into empathy.

I am well aware that the sole audience of this story is myself and my best friend whom I'm lucky to have along for the ride, but it has took over my heart and it will not let go until I finally bring this epic saga to a close.

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

I am simply incapable of writing a traditional short story. Every one-shot I ever made was a stepping stone in a larger verse, and even so the smallest one is over 8k words. Anytime I try to write something small, I either need to put it down because it gets out of hand, or I need to finish it and by that time it grows into a monster.

My last attempt to write a short story within a story has spawned an epic saga that currently sits at roughly 380.000k words and will likely end up over 500.000k words when I'm finally done with it.

10. What is the easiest type?

Monster-sized epics. I think my creative brain cannot function in any other way but go-big-or-go-home.

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I've used MS Word for writing ever since I got my first laptop and keep at it. Started using Scrivener lately for establishing character sheets and writing down my notes.

For years now I write almost exclusively over the weekends, with occassional editing in the evenings after work. Between working, needing to keep my apartment clean and myself fed, and dedicating time to mastering my fourth language, I have no brain for creativity after I'm done with all these chores and I use whatever remains of my evening to read, or watch shows with my best friend, or do some gaming.

12. What is something you’ve been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

In the story I am currently writing, one of the secondary main characters is an ex-slave and a rape survivor. There is no shortage of hurt/comfort stories about a female character's experience with such kind of abuse, and in all my years of reading fic and books I often find that trauma stemming from it is either glossed over or healed through the power of true love. Even when a story follows a road to healing, it often ends in sunshine and rainbows after the all the travails. Well, for a long, long time now my gremlin brain wanted to explore what such trauma can do to a stoic male warrior, as well as to study how sometimes there is no easy healing from such ordeals, how deep these souls scars lie, and how they will keep poisoning the relationship he will pursue down the line and present major obstacles to both non-sexual and sexual intimacy with the woman he falls in love with. I'm a sucker for happy endings and I will not turn away from it, but this is going to be a scarred happy ending because those ghosts are never going to stay completely quiet in his soul.

I am daunted by the prospect of writing this spin-off like I've never been before, scared of not doing it justice, but something in me has latched onto this idea and really, really wants to at least try it.

13. What made you choose your username?

I needed something unique as a username and I have a habit of making up new names out of thin air for my writing. I liked this one and it had stuck. :)

If any writers who follow me would like to join in, you are welcome.

[mariacallous]

Forty-seven years ago today, everything changed. True believers might already know what it was: On May 25, 1977, Star Wars hit movie theaters and irrevocably altered nearly everything pertaining to the act of moviegoing. Lines around the block, overly excited nerds, an appetite for action figures. Star Wars taught Hollywood that certain genres—sci-fi, fantasy, anything that percolated in the offbeat TV shows, books, and comics of the 1950s and ’60s—had fans, and those fandoms would show up. Star Wars made a meager $1.6 million in the US in its opening weekend. But people kept coming back, and by the end of its initial run it had made more than $300 million. Hollywood’s Next Big Thing had arrived.

Common wisdom dictates that Jaws, which came out in 1975 and made some $260 million, was the first summer blockbuster. That’s true, but it was Star Wars that shifted the idea of what kind of film future popcorn flicks tried to be. In the years after its release, a trove of sci-fi and genre films landed in theaters: Blade Runner, Alien, E.T., the Mad Max sequel The Road Warrior. By the ’90s, the summer movie energy had shifted to action fare—Twister, Speed, Jurassic Park, Independence Day—but nerd stuff still ruled. For every Forrest Gump there was a Batman Returns or Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Then came a little juggernaut called Marvel. By the time Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies started clearing nine-figure opening weekends in the aughts, it was obvious that comic book heroes’ true superpowers involved making your money disappear. The Avengers opened in early May 2012 and nearly recouped its $200-million-plus production budget in three days. Suddenly, there were at least two superhero movies every year, if not every summer, and some new Star Wars flicks at the holidays.

The one-two punch of Covid-19 theater closures and streaming pretty much kneecapped this entire process. The summer of 2020 had virtually no blockbusters, and by the time moviegoers returned to multiplexes in 2021 and 2022, there had been a vibe shift. Movies like Black Widow and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness did well, but they weren’t events. Rushing to Fandango for tickets didn’t feel as urgent as it once did. Last summer, Barbenheimer was the buzziest thing in movies. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 made money, but they still got beat by Barbie’s might.

Overall, this year could be a wake-up call for studios that superhero fatigue has fully set in, says Chris Nashawaty, author of The Future Was Now, a new book out in July about how the movies of 1982—Blade Runner, E.T., Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, among others—ushered in the current blockbuster era. That epoch, he says, “was always going to be something that couldn’t last forever; I’m frankly surprised that it lasted as long as it did.”

Nashawaty says the success of Barbenheimer—both movies—indicates that audiences are hungry for smart films, but Hollywood’s risk aversion likely means studios will greenlight more projects based on toys and games like Monopoly rather than movies about physicists. “This is a real existential moment in Hollywood right now,” he adds, and studios need to be bold to stay relevant.

Summer 2024, which unofficially begins this weekend, promises a move away from the formula that has been in play for decades. There are only a handful of big popcorn-ready movies coming, and they’re decidedly less family-friendly than the blockbusters of yore. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, which dropped on Friday, is a teeth-chatteringly gritty prequel about a kidnapped woman (Anya Taylor-Joy playing the younger version of Charlize Theron’s character from Mad Max: Fury Road) who ends up in a war between two overlords and has to fight her way out. Deadpool & Wolverine is a Marvel movie, yes, but it’s apparently a paean to pegging and cocaine so hard-R that Ryan Reynolds won’t shut up about it.

The series of weird indies coming in the next few months—the thriller Cuckoo, Ti West’s latest horror flick MaXXXine, a new collab from Poor Things pals Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos called Kinds of Kindness—finally have some room to get into the summer movie conversation.

Make no mistake: I am typing these things with glee and admiration. Glossy family movies have their place, but they’ve grown awfully predictable. Safe—not necessarily in their plots, but in their substance. No matter how fun last year’s barn-burner The Super Mario Bros. Movie was, you can’t say anything about it was surprising, much less new. No one walked into the theater for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and walked out as gobsmacked as they were when they saw Star Wars, or even Speed.

This is not a “Hollywood is so homogenized” argument. Rather, it’s a reminder that Tinseltown wasn’t always this way. Its influence used to introduce people to the future. What’s happening now has the potential to mark a return to the kind of startlingly original movies that used to be hits. Between the pandemic, streaming, and the Hollywood strikes of last summer, a lot of old habits got broken, and there’s a sense that a renaissance is afoot.

This revitalization won’t come easy, if it comes at all. Summer 2024 still has its share of redos and sequels—a new Inside Out movie, reboots of ’90s summer staples The Crow and Twister. (The latter is the aptly-named Twisters; there are more tornadoes this time, apparently.) But even those movies at least feel like they’re grasping for the prefranchise days, even if they’re birthing franchises in the process.

Furiosa is currently projected to bring in more than $40 million at the US box office this weekend, a figure that would bring it close to Fury Road’s tally but may not convince Hollywood execs that it should bankroll more R-rated, original shockbusters. It would, presumably, best The Garfield Movie, which is also out this weekend and has the makings of a more surefire hit: well-known IP, animated, PG-rated. (For the record, though: Critics seem to think it sucks.) Early ticket sales for Deadpool & Wolverine are already breaking records for an R-rated movie. Should it dominate the conversation for a couple weeks while also raking in money, that embrace of a very not-Disney Disney movie—coupled with Furiosa and Hot Barbenheimer Summer—could signal a tipping point.

Look, nothing will ever completely derail Hollywood’s reliance on sure things. Video game adaptations remain poised to take the crown long held by superhero flicks. (Borderlands, starring Cate Blanchett, is coming to theaters this August.) But if this summer’s ever-sprawling slate turns up just enough weird hits, maybe we’ll once again know the feeling of walking out of Star Wars for the first time.

[xtrablak674]

Singing my life with his words...

I am not sure what I expected, but I didn't expect that.

Trailers, I think they serve a purpose, in my personal opinion they can skew expectations, generate false anticipation and quite frankly spoil the story. I stopped watching them a few years ago. I mostly pick my films based on familiarity, or subject material and sometimes, well a lot of times seeing stills or gif sets of the film on Tumblr.

Hey I am a visual artist, pulling out stills of a film that feature its visual aesthetics is like crack to me, I just can't get enough! Recently I added more queer films to my diet, and albeit tonights Friday Night Movie's theme wasn't solely left to the gays, All of Us Strangers had been stalking me for weeks all over the Tumblr-verse, so I gave in and added it to the list along with The Marvels and The Color Purple, two other '23 films that kept @'ing me.

Part of my process in choosing my films is traditionally picking a theme or genre and trying to watch films from different decades just to mix it up a bit. These films were all from last year, so they only other thing I could use to distinguish them was their release dates, this placed All of Us, in the middle, right after Marvel's latest block-bluster. #YesThatWasShade

Having peeped that this was categorized as romance and fantasy, I was curious what made it fantasy. Once again IMDB had mis-labeled a film, this wasn't fantastical but a psychological thriller! #LeSigh Maybe I was way too close to the subject material and Andrew Scott clearly being my contemporary wasn't helping the matter at all.

Some of the details were different, albeit after my moms death I was raised as a single-child. I came from a one-parent home, not two. We didn't live in a house but an apartment. We were clearly not middle-class but living below the poverty level. Even with all of these differences I felt exposed in a way that wasn't remotely comfortable. How had this whyte man found out about my story and was now telling it on a stage for all the world to see? #😳

Metastatic breast cancer was the cause of death listed on her death certificate, not a car accident. I wasn't left alone in her bed while she left me for a Christmas party, but I discovered her dead in her bed, the couch in the living room four days before my eleventh birthday. Nine years later I buried my father, who was found by his parents rotting in his Harlem apartment, a reverse to the film where the dad went first followed by the mom.

Like the film they were joined in a way by both dying at approximately forty-four years of age. I rued the moment I would be the same age because like my parents, I thought I'd never live past it, but just like Adam I ultimately ended up being older than my parents than when they died. If I met them now, I guess I would be the one dispensing words of wisdom.

Unlike Adam I wasn't lonely, I have lived alone for nearly thirty years, and have had moments of loneliness, but like so many things that a multiple-orphan and an individual with intersectional identities, I had developed coping methods that were born when I was separated from my siblings at eleven and for the first time had to suffer the world on my own, navigate bullying and nasty taunts from other children. I had learned to have a rich internal emotional life, being my own best friend, and creating adventures in the simplest of things. I had become my own best company.

But like Adam I longed for connection, I longed for resolution around my dead parents. But unlike Adam I am not dead. That's my big reveal/spoiler these many paragraphs in to this essay/journal entry. I think everyone we encountered in that film was dead. #HolySixSenseBatman Delving into how I understood this is immaterial to how it still felt. His parents wanted him to move-on, which could be misconstrued as moving on with his life, but could also have been acknowledging that he was indeed dead and accepting it. The nuance of interpretations of what exactly is going on in the film is masterful, and the director never quite gives us a definitive answer.

Adam felt he wasn't particularly successful with anything in his life, still feeling the scars of his childhood bullying, taunting and the trauma of losing his parents at such a young age. I have mirrored this feeling about my own life, with the only difference that I have been more successful than my parents because I made it to the upper-middle class. #yea But like Adam I have always felt I am just passing-the-time, existing and muddling through.

Curiously the last real relationship I had was nearly twenty years ago, and also interesting was the fact that like Adam, Karl was my junior and like Harry was damaged in many ways, clearly not visible to the world around him, because even my best friend at the time thought he was the boy next door, literally mirroring the movie by his perceptions.

Isn't this why we watch films? Don't we see ourselves in the characters on the screens and sometimes wish we were them or living the lives they were living? Or sometimes what we see on screen is too close to reality and art imitates life in a ghastly manor. But then that means the director/writer has done his job right? Making you feel the pains, indecisions and joy of fictional characters is what a good film is about. But is it exciting to see yourself realized in a way that you wish wasn't you?

All of Us Strangers is a psychological thriller, clearly with aspects of drama and romance. As the reviews say it is haunting and heartbreaking. It is also something else that I am tired of in queer cinema, albeit as realistic as it is, specifically to my own journey, it once again paints queer-life as sad, aloof and unfulfilled.

Having dealt with dysthymia my entire adult life I guess this is in some ways true, but as I explored in a previous entry, I really want our queer movies to be more aspirational. I am not saying Red White & Royal Blue syrupy, but some middle place where we can be not-partnered, not have kids and not be dying or dead and be content with our lives. Is this asking too much?

[Photo Courtesy of All of Us Strangers via IMDB]

[scooby-review]

The New Scooby Doo Movies Season 1 Episodes 1 - 4

No iteration of Scooby Doo lasts too long, with the longest running series being Mystery Incorporated, Be Cool Scooby-Doo and Scooby-Doo and Guess Who? all with fifty-two episodes. 

The New Scooby Doo Movies is no different, lasting a total of two seasons with a total of twenty four episodes, just one less than Where are You? 

This series makes two huge and notable changes from its predecessor. Firstly, the episodes are doubled, now forty two minutes in length. Secondly, every episode features a guest star, rotating through a slew of celebrities and fictional characters, this selection being bizarre to say the least. 

Airing in 1972, just two years after Where are You? the show followed a cycle of reruns of the original series! Cartoons like Scooby Doo are built on the image of reruns! They are easy to pick up, they are entirely episodic and need no introduction, one can simply understand the structure, the characters, and therefore, less episodes can be made, and they can be aired in any order. Despite this iteration adding an additional twenty four episodes to this possible cycle of reruns, as far as I can tell, CBS opted instead to air reruns of Where are You? instead, doing so until their contract ended and the franchise shifted networks, although I’m not certain on this - finding information about broadcasting habits in the 70s isn’t easy! 

Other than the two major changes, the show's formula remains the same, following the five original members of the gang solving mysteries!

1. Ghastly Ghost Town

At the time of writing this, I have pretty much finished watching season one, and I regret to report, I pretty much hate this iteration of the franchise. I’ll try my best to provide a nuanced look into the episodes, but this is a warning that I don’t love this series, for a myriad of reasons!

Ghastly Ghost Town follows the gang meeting The Three Stooges, aiding them in solving the mystery of who is scaring away customers at their ghost town theme park. 

Weirdly, this episode feels very different to the rest of this season, almost leaning on being a parody of what is to come despite being the first episode. 

For starters, the intro to this show is amazing, maybe even better than Where are Yous! It opens on such an eerie vibe that doesn’t even match all that well to the tone of the show, before growing into this more vibrant sounding and appearing intro! There’s two versions of it that are aired, this coming as a result of copyright disputes with certain celebrities or characters in the show, therefore, a version cutting out many characters is used when the show airs now. 

In fact, the aforementioned copyright issues came from the Addams estate, of course owning the Addams Family. This has led to the episode being scarcely available, most notably only on two region exclusive VHS tapes, which I couldn't find being sold anywhere. However, as of around a week ago, the entire series was dropped onto Max, where this episode is inexplicably present.

The three stooges were a vaudeville act, best known for their short films, composed of Moe Howard, Curly Howard and Larry Fine. Although some aspects of their slapstick style is still present here, the characters were heavily toned down for the show, with Moe’s character being changed drastically from a malicious bully to a pretty nice guy. By the time the episode aired, the actors were all either retired or had passed away. 

I don’t love the three stooges, the closest thing I’d seen to them before watching this was Scooby Doo Meets the Boo Brothers, who I honestly love, but I just didn’t care about these guys - I had no reason to. Also, I imagine for fans of the three stooges this couldn’t have been all that great either, given the characters toned down personalities. Yet, every episode acts like you know these people, sometimes they are shown throughout the episode to be unique and interesting, but here they feel like devices for gags, completely void of any interesting character or personality. 

Like I mentioned before, this episode almost feels like a parody of the show, a weird concept given it’s the first episode in this series, but it almost appears reflective on its past, making fun of how serious Where are You? felt. For example, in one scene early on Daphne grabs onto Fred’s arm, it’s a detail that feels like it’s commenting on the idea of them being romantically paired, something never even hinted at in Where are You, yet, I assume fans had already gravitated to the concept. It’s as if it’s making fun of itself, poking holes in the original’s formula but having nothing of substance to do or say, made all the more baffling by the fact that nothing like this happens again. It just feels different, something only emphasised by a later scene where we see the writers have given Fred a new character trait! He’s a misogynist now! It’s done in a “I hate my wife!” kind of way, he jokes about women talking lots, it’s very of its time and something now seen as a parody in on of itself, yet, we again don’t see this new character quirk return. Every other episode removes this from him, placing him back into a blank slate once more! 

As for this episode's villains… I think the best way to explain it is that I had to search who the monster was three quarters of the way through. Given the episode’s ghost town location, we see the villains of the Gunslinger and Geronimo, a cowboy and Native American respectively. This, of course, falls into every single stereotype you’d expect it to. Both villains are statues, amusements placed around the park that have seemingly come to life. 

I think the gunslinger is the more active villain here anyway, and therefore, the better one. This episode has a particular stand out scene where Scooby has a duel with him, and it rules, there’s a reason it appears in the intro! It’s perfectly crafted and one of the best scenes in the entire season!

The villain’s just don’t take an active role in the episode, and as we shall see in future episodes, this is not a one off occurrence. This, in my opinion only emphasises New Movies weakest element: that run time. Nothing of use is done with the extra time, it instead just highlights that many of these characters are frail, that Daphne and Fred really haven’t got much going on yet, and it grows egregious with how long scenes can drag on for and how little is done with the time it has. My hope was that the mysteries would be given actual depth, a chance to be the focal point, but no. I truly cannot explain what this extra time is spent doing, and in many episodes, segments are cut down or omitted completely in modern reruns. The pacing here is dreadful, these episodes are truly a drag to get through, and it dilutes any positive and interesting aspects. 

There’s a lot going on here, and yet, hardly any of it works, it’s a poor start and one of my least favourite episodes of the entire franchise let alone the show itself!

Also, there’s a scene where Scooby has the tiniest waist. That’s all! 

2. The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair

Growing up I had the Scooby-Doo meets Batman VHS tape, and I would watch it fairly frequently, and while I couldn’t remember much, I did remember enjoying it! Alongside the Harlem Globetrotters DVD, this is all the experience I’ve had with

This episode features Batman, Robin, The Penguin and Joker, the former pair aiding the gang in solving a mystery of a plane crash and clown toys stuffed with counterfeit money. 

Despite liking this one a whole lot more than the previous episode, it’s still just okay to me, it suffers from similar pacing issues that plagues this series, but it manages to still be entertaining a good chunk of the time. 

I think the best way I could describe this episode is convoluted, which is a whole lot better than boring, but if I was given a few more words, boring would eventually end up there. It sucks because this one could be great, but it’s padded to hell, it’s again a victim of the runtime. I think that without the long middle section of this episode, the gang attempt to thwart The Joker and Penguin, which I described in my notes as a “Scooby-Doo episode maker”, where they use a myriad of traps, all with the classic shows aesthetic. Like, it’s fine, but it’s too long without any substance, which could be said for the entire episode. So many aspects here I enjoy, but it’s all too long, every scene feels like it could be shaved in time, it’s so frustrating. 

The voice actors here are particularly fun, with Cassey Casem, the voice of Shaggy, voicing Robin, their voices just similar enough for you to tell, but Robin feels like he’s secretly Shaggy here, a more well put together Shaggy. I also really enjoyed Larry Storch as the Joker, who I felt had an air of Mason Verger to him. And in a similar vein, I really enjoyed Batman’s dialogue, he talks so matter of factly. 

A few particular moments are great in this one, such as where Fred chokes out this masked individual in a scrap-yard, Shaggy and Scooby nearly getting crushed to death and the way the episode transitions using the bat insignia. The final act is pretty enjoyable too, where I especially love the fake-out villains. 

Throughout the episode, we are led to believe that The Penguin and Joker are the villain’s, but no, it’s instead the hooded individual we see early on who’s been masterminding everything this whole time, being the sweet old lady we meet early on, Mrs Baker. I love this twist even if the actual design of the villain is whatever, the purple colour scheme is great, but they really have nothing else going for them. It’s not a great sign when different places list different costumes and villains for an episode, but this entire series sees this happening, with nobody entirely agreeing on who counts and who doesn’t. Generally, this comes down to the uninspired designs, and their lack of a presence within the episode. Take the previous episode for example, where some sources list a cactus costume we see as one of the villains, while others don’t, and in this episode it is disputed whether or not the Penguin and Joker’s disguises, The Living Skeletons, are separate villains or just alternate costumes they wear. Despite every episode having a villain, they aren’t always the monster’s we see in Where are You, instead they can be anything, but their designs are frequently dull, lacking much flair or character, a hooded individual is boring when done like this, we see this disguise for such a short period of time that it’s never something you’ll remember looking back on the episode. Focus now is shifted to the guest cast, which means an episode can be made or broken based on who appears, while the mystery is placed on the backburner. Although Where are You never truly put effort into making an interesting mystery, the difference is the length of time we spend in the mystery and the villain’s opposite them! Everything here feels so uninspired and drear, and although there are some seriously egregious examples later on, reused sounds such as the phantom's (Where are You, episode 3)  laugh are seen in this episode, and it removes any personality that the character’s could have had. 

Moving on to the living skeletons, they’re just fine. They act as disguises for the Joker and Penguin, they do their job fine being basic horror archetypes, and I enjoy the cheeky grins they both share.

This episode is notable for having the first female culprit also!

Overall, this is simply a fine episode, it could be good if it were shorter, but the guests here are enjoyable to watch, there’s a reason Scooby-Doo and Batman are still crossing over to this day, both in several movies and even more recently in a comic run. 

3. Wednesday is Missing

Despite this episode having what is one of the worst Scooby-Doo villains, I kind of like this one! 

Wednesday is Missing follows the gang becoming house sitters for the Adams Family while Morticia and Gomez go on their second honeymoon, an already tense situation that’s only exacerbated by Wednesday’s sudden disappearance. 

Much like the previous episode, the guest stars are what make it, the Scooby gang just fit so seamlessly into this world, it makes watching it a delight, seeing how they interact with different characters and aspects of the Addams Family’s life. I love this episode so much because it’s the characters entering the world of the Addams Family, they’re driving along and stop by their house, and for me, that’s so much more interesting than them driving into the fictional ghost town theme park the three stooges have. In fact, my favourite episodes in this show tend to be ones where the gang enter the world of the guest stars, or the guest stars join in on a mystery, effectively planting themselves into the world of Scooby-Doo. 

To skate past the worst of this episode, I hate the villain. He’s a giant vulture, piloted by a group of old housekeepers. The villain is so dull, and it’s so frustrating to have a villain like this in the episode that takes place inside the gothic house of the Addams Family. Alongside that, a little nitpick I have is that the Addams Family are described as being TV characters by Shaggy, which just opens a whole can of worms as to what that means and what the gang are doing here if that's the case. 

Mostly, I enjoy this episode because of the way the two worlds interact, it feels like a crossover more so than a guest starring episode, and therefore, it feels so special. I’m not the biggest Addams Family fan - I have vague memories of seeing the 1964 show on TV as a child, I’ve seen the first movie and a production of the musical - yet the styles blend perfectly, the character’s reactions write themselves. The house acts as a more fantastical Where are You setting, it’s a huge gothic manor house that oozes with style, every room unveils a new horror. 

The mystery doesn’t settle into the episode until just over halfway, and truthfully, the mystery is just a vehicle to get the gang searching through more of the house, to push them into new horrors that the family lives inside of every day. They surround themselves in the unusual and supernatural that the gang always attempts to explain. 

Every character here radiates with personality, everything so fully realised, it’s a shame there isn’t another episode with these characters! There’s a few guests who appear more than once, and I would have loved to see more of them! 

This episode is so fun because of the atmosphere it creates. Truthfully, it’s just as long and drawn out as the previous two episodes and I can’t confidently say it does much different other than appealing to my tastes better! Sure, I love the dynamic between the gang and Batman and Robin, but here we get to see the characters in the world of the Addams Family too - I think that aids in my enjoyment! 

4. The Frickert Fracas

I think this episode is one of the most tedious in the show, it’s a shame given how much I usually enjoy both a farm setting and a scarecrow as a villain! Yet here nothing flows, every second feels doubled, every scene too long with no substance to back it up. It’s not bad, it’s just dull, it pushed me into a state of boredom, which is maybe worse than some episodes in the series I outright disliked. 

We follow the gang as they drive guest star Jonathan Winters to his friend's farm, but on the way they find two people attempting to steal the formula to her secret rooster enlarging drug. 

I don’t love Jonathan Winters as the guest star, he’s playing a very specific style of character here, and that character is certainly one that is defined and clear, you always know how he will act. However, he talks so slowly and his dialogue never worked for me, but I think that comes down to personal taste. In real life, he was a jack of all trades, being a comedian, actor, author, TV host and artist, although he’s probably best known for his work as an actor. 

He’s mostly paired with Scooby and Shaggy here - often the single guests will be paired off with a set of characters for the majority of the episode - which is where I start to have a few problems. The scene in the barn stands out to me as especially egregious, it’s tedious and not that funny, with later reruns cutting out sections of the episode to streamline it. This is something that can be seen across several episodes!

The villain here is fine! Something I hoped going into these was that the extra length would be used to flesh out the mysteries, but these villains and mysteries almost always feel miles weaker than anything coming out of Where are You. Here we hardly see the villain until halfway through anyway, a common trope within these episodes, before that we usually sit through a series of gags and jokes surrounding the guest meeting the gang, an extended set up for the final twenty minutes. 

This scarecrow has a mostly brown and tan design, he has a jacket, a hat, the usual scarecrow attire, however, his face is a powder blue, it stands out starkly against everything else, and not in a positive way. As a design, the blue face just feels out of place, it clashes so poorly with all the other colours and it’s the only hint of blue in the design, it truly is just curious as to why this colour was used, because sure, it stands out, but in no way does it do so positively. 

I really have nothing else to add on this one! Very whatever episode.

Episodes Ranked:

Wednesday is Missing

The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair

The Frickert Fracas

Ghastly Ghost Town

Villains Ranked:

The Scarecrow

Gunslinger

Living Skeletons

Hooded Man

Vulture

Geronimo

Previous Review: Every Scooby Doo Where are You Episode Ranked

Next Review: New Scooby Doo Movies Season 1 Episodes 5 - 8

[rj-drive-in]

Just Five More Minutes Department:

There are voices inside your head and there are voices outside your head.

DOES HE KNOW I’M HERE? © 2024 by Rick Hutchins

“Come out with your hands up,” said Mick Jagger with a Great British sneer.

This has to be a dream, I thought.

Crouching behind the cartons at the back of the basement, I struggled to breathe quietly through my mouth. My eyes were gummy and it was hard to focus. I could hear him pull the hammer back on his gun.

“Nothing personal, kid,” he shouted. “I’m just a bounty hunter. Your mother sent me.”

This has to be a dream, I thought again. It’s like some old, stupid, forgotten movie.

But if it was a dream, I could wake myself up or take control of it. What do they call that? Directed dreaming? Lucid dreaming? It’s like waking up inside the dream. There was even a song. ‘Silent Lucidity’ or something.

“Whatsamatta witchoo, boy?” yelled Jagger.

Why couldn’t I focus? Why couldn’t I concentrate? It was like my skull was busted into a million pieces.

Carefully, I peeked around the cartons. It was dark, but I could see Jagger down by the stairs past the furnace. His gun looked like a six-shooter, but it was the size of a blunderbuss; I had a feeling it shot something worse than bullets. The stairs led up outside and sunlight streamed in through the open bulkhead. I was in my mother’s basement.

The inside stairs and the outside stairs were right next to each other. Jagger had them both blocked and there was no other way out.

But then I remembered the dumbwaiter. My mother’s house, you see, is very old. It was built as a shoe factory way back during the Civil War Era and they had used a dumbwaiter to move supplies between floors. The previous owners had explained that it was removed long ago when the building had been refurbished. But what if the workmen had been lazy? What if they had just boarded it up and wallpapered over it? What if it still worked after a hundred and forty years? And what if it went all the way to the cellar?

It was a longshot but it was my only chance.

“Gonna have to come looking for you in a minute,” drawled Jagger. “As soon as I have a cigarette.”

Concentrate! Concentrate! It seemed like my mind was drifting away….

Moving deeper back behind the cartons, I felt along the wall, which was made of rough, whitewashed stone. It was hard to see in the dim light, especially with my watery eyes.

But in a matter of seconds, I had located a wooden beam in the wall. Funny how I had never noticed that as a kid. And there seemed to be a gap between the beam and the wall, a line of deeper shadow from which a cool breeze, musty and dusty, drifted. I slid my hand into the gap and it seemed to part, to widen, to swallow me, like the entrance to the Kooky Kastle ride at Paragon Park used to forty years ago.

I found myself in a dark, cramped wooden box, breathing stale, age-old air. Within moments, my groping hands had located the pulley ropes and I was slowly winching myself upward. From somewhere above me, metal wheels squealed from disuse and I fervently hoped that Jagger didn’t hear.

When I got to the top, I was faced with a thin wooden panel; I pushed through and tumbled to the floor in my brother’s attic room. Hah! Jagger would never expect me to escape from the cellar through the attic.

Now I had to get out of the house and make it to my car. I ran down the attic stairs, through the television room and the dining room, and down the stairs to the first floor. The house was deserted. Where was everybody? It passed through my mind that I couldn’t remember how I had ended up in the basement, hiding, or what had happened before. As I went through the kitchen, I saw a note on the table in my mother’s handwriting. For some reason this triggered a vague memory of a time when my mother came to visit me in the hospital. But I couldn’t remember when; and I had no time to stop and think about it.

In the back hall, I heard a heavy step on the cellar stairs. “Is that you up there?” yelled Jagger. “Man, you’re more trouble than Keith Richards put together.”

Crashing through the screen door on the back porch, I stumbled down the stairs and ran around the driveway. My legs were stiff with fear; it was like I was running through molasses.

Then I saw my car, my good old brown 72 Impala, in the field across the dirt road. If I could just make it that far, I could get clean away. The car looked funny, though. Wasn’t I supposed to get it fixed? A headlight had gotten smashed, hadn’t it? Or a window broken? Or something? But it looked fine now.

The doors were locked. I could hear Jagger’s boots on the driveway. My fingers were numb and shaking as I tried to get the keys out of my pocket. It seemed to take forever to drag them out, find the right one and fumble it into the lock. Every second, I expected to feel Jagger’s hand on my shoulder, but then the door opened and I fell into the driver’s seat and slammed the key into the ignition.

The engine started with a mighty roar!

Jagger pressed his face up against my window, his fingers splayed across the glass. “It’s a case of mistaken identity!” he shouted.

I shifted, hit the gas and peeled out; Jagger spun away in a cloud of dust. In the rear view mirror, I could see him lying face down in the gravel. I had no sympathy for the devil.

At the end of the dirt road, the Chevy fishtailed onto Main Street and then it was the dead of night. As I floored the accelerator and headed South, I pulled the knob to turn on the headlights.

Nothing happened.

Damn it! I hate that!

It was pitch black outside, the streetlights were off, my headlights were broken, and now my windows were fogging up. I was driving blind. And there was definitely something wrong with my car; the steering wheel was loose and the seat was back too far and the dashboard was too high to see over. I stepped on the brake, but it was completely soft and went right to the floor. The car kept going.

This was just an accident waiting to happen.

Right then, I could see exactly how it would be; it was like I had seen it all before. The flashing lights of the police and ambulance, the sirens and the crackle of radios, the smell of gasoline, the broken glass strewn everywhere. And me, lying on my back in a pool of blood next to my smashed-up car.

No, thanks! I switched off the ignition and pumped the brake as hard as I could. The car rolled to a stop against the curb.

I popped open the door and stumbled out into the street. Any thought that all this was just a nightmare was dispelled by the smell of the cool night air, the clarity of the stars twinkling in the sky and the trees swishing and swaying in the breeze. For a moment, I thought I heard my mother calling me, but it was just the wind.

From down the street came the sound of bootheels on asphalt. “Ready or not, here I come,” shouted Jagger.

Turning and running blindly down a sidestreet, I found myself in a maze of suburban backroads. Suddenly, I recognized my sister’s house. The lights were on but nobody was home. I went in through the side door and searched the place; as there was only one floor, I determined quickly that it was empty.

But when I went down to check the cellar, I was in for a surprise.

The entire basement had been gutted to make room for a circular blue backyard swimming pool. A rippling effect told me that someone was swimming under the water and a glimpse of a shapely brown butt breaking the surface intrigued me.

As I approached, the swimmer stood up out of the water at the side of the pool. I recognized her immediately as Surya Bonaly, former French figure skating champion and now American professional. She was en deshabille, water sparkling on her chocolatey skin and running in rivulets down her breasts and black nipples.

“Er…hello,” I said.

She pointed over my shoulder, dripping water on the carpet. “L’idiot,” she said in her charming French accent. “You have led him right to me!”

I turned to see Jagger coming down the cellar stairs, brandishing his monster gun; but he wasn’t looking at me.

“Brown sugar,” he said. “I’ll bet you taste so good.”

“So! It was her you were after all the time!”

He shook his head. “What’s puzzling you is the nature of my game.”

Surya glared at him and he sneered back. Suddenly, I realized that my sister would never move her swimming pool into the basement; that’s where she kept her home entertainment system.

That meant I really was dreaming; and that meant I was in charge here.

Stepping forward, I gestured hypnotically like Mandrake the Magician and Jagger’s gun turned into a microphone.

“Go sing for Van Halen,” I said. “That’ll teach you.”

He disappeared with a look of horror on his face.

Nodding with satisfaction, I turned back to Surya and helped her climb daintily over the side of the pool; it was kind of like The Birth Of Venus, only without the modesty.

“Merci,” she said with a smile.

“De nada,” I replied. Then I made a dramatic sweeping gesture, and the whole scene changed~~~

*****

We were standing on the lawn of my dream house in an idyllic future. Somewhere in the country, surrounded by forest, the house was a wooden dome with large windows, spilling warm, golden light; it was at once old-fashioned and futuristic, like something out of an Arthur C Clarke novel. Parked in the driveway was the proverbial flying car.

In the Southern sky could be seen a beautiful artificial ring system, the lights of spacecraft coming and going from its surface.

From behind me came a mechanical voice. “Tea time, sir.”

It was Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet, holding a serving tray with a decanter and two teacups; and a book. I leaned in for a closer look. It was a hardcover edition of Foundation and Galaxia by Isaac Asimov, with a beautiful cover of Daneel and Bliss by Michael Whelan.

“An advance copy, sir,” said Robby. “The Good Doctor insisted.”

Smiling, I turned to Surya and put my arm around her, pulling her in close. Yeah, this was more like it. I took in the whole scene: Surya, Robby, the house, the book, the sky and woods. The breeze through the treetops was almost like somebody calling my name.

Now I never wanted to wake up.

[aut-with-tism]

Seeing her father for the first time in twelve years feels like a punch in the gut. All of the air has been knocked out of her, leaving her breathless as the room spins and her eyes prick with tears. This wasn’t meant to happen. None of this…it wasn’t supposed to be this way.

He looks older than she thought he would.

That’s her first intelligible thought. He looks…old. Greying and weary - she’d almost pity him, if she didn’t know better. Then again, she supposes, she must look older, too. She is older; twelve years older than when she saw him last.

Freshly eighteen. Freshly split lip seeping venom and dripping blood as she packed her bags with vigour. She was gone before he came home. And she never came back.

(She wishes he didn’t, either.)

He looks older than she thought he would and she’s grown up, but seeing him seems to send her back in time. Back to when she was a child - small and vulnerable; terrified. All alone in a house that was never a home. Never hers, at least.

That child fell victim to a vicious cycle. An ape cycle of monkey see, monkey do. Primal fear or something like that.

She grew to realise she was swaddled in violence the moment she was born. Raised to drunken promises, bonded to broken bones and a half-full stomach.

Hands that should’ve cradled her struck her, instead. The only skin to skin was palm against flesh, or her sister pulling her into her arms and wiping away the tears, snot and blood that dried on her face.

Daughter of destruction. Child of chemical imbalance.

It’s no big surprise she turned out this way.

That’s what she tells herself, at least. An excuse to feed her growing guilt instead of feeding herself; a hunger only satisfied by lies and self-neglect. She wasn’t born, she was created. Made into who she was. Shaped and scarred. Forged.

Like an animal fighting for dominance, for sport - for survival. She came out scathed but alive.

It once felt like a victory. Not anymore. Not as she watches her nephews approach her father carelessly - innocently - like lambs to the slaughter.

Throat dry and ashy, the words of warning lurk on the tip of her tongue, uncomfortably heavy in the silence. They die before they’re even born and the realisation that she can’t protect them washes over her in its place. Pebbling her skin and settling deep in her stomach. She hasn’t protected them from anything since they were mere infants - nine and three.

The victory was never hers; it was man’s. It was her father’s. He won all along. He won those eight years ago, when she walked out of their lives without the intent of ever returning, and he’s won again, now.

Trembling against the worn leather booth, her chest tightens watching the boys hug him.

Zach grins like he never has before. Wild and carefree.

He seems so young compared to those forty-six weeks back. She was even younger, once. She was younger than them both when her childhood was taken from her, lowered into the ground alongside her mother.

It’s not the same, though. They’re not the same.

They’re good kids. A lot braver than she ever was. (Whether that’s a blessing or a curse, she’s yet to know.)

The hairs on the back of her neck stand on edge, making her all too aware of Owen watching her from across the table. Observing them. Head tilted inquisitively, as though reading the situation as if it’s a book.

He reminds her of his raptors, in that way. Always alert, always learning. Testing the limits to try and figure out his place - his status - in what’s around him.

She’s scared for him to find that out.

The thought terrifies her. Sends her back to the park, clamping her eyes shut and trying so desperately not to make a noise as the Indominus breathed hot, rancid air down their necks. He had held her hand, then. And it terrifies her just how much she wants him to hold it again, now.

There was a time he didn’t let go of her for what must’ve been days. The two of them lost in their own world, in each other’s arms. His grip was gentle but firm. Something about it was so ironically him that she’d ended up laughing against his chest, before giggles turned into gasping sobs.

Not once did he let go.

Perhaps, she thinks, if he held her tight enough again, all of the broken pieces would stay in place long enough for her not to fall apart. Like fractured glass; one stone away from completely shattering. Splintered and wavering, but yet to collapse.

It’s too late for that, though. Too late for her. Her.

Feigning a smile that falters at the corners, she diverts her focus to the menu on the table in front of her. The defence she’s made - walls she’s built brick by brick - trembles just as she does. Threatening to cave in on itself and bury her with it.

The reigns of control are pulled further and further from her grasp. Shaking hands claw for them, but to no avail.

The key to a happy life is to accept you are never actually in control.

Simon’s words echo in her mind, leaving her to briefly wonder if he truly believed that. Did he remind himself of such as his helicopter fell, spiralling out of control and leading him to his death? Did he regret those words in his last moments? Did he do everything in his power to try and regain control, only to realise he couldn’t?

Was he just as scared as she is now?

Her top teeth find purchase in her lower lip, threatening to tear paper-like skin. The words on the paper blur into smudges as she blinks back her tears; vision clouded by the memory of billowing smoke and the distinct smell of fuel. Eyes burning.

Just like then, she doesn’t have time to linger on the thought of her friend’s death. Instead, her body seems to focus on the imminent threat that follows. Though she doesn’t actually see her dad sliding into the seat next to her, it’s as though her mind seems to know. Warning her of the threat.

Her flinch is involuntary, but doesn’t go unnoticed.

“Claire-Bear; look at my baby girl, all grown up. Gosh, you look just like your mother.” He speaks softly - fondly, almost - and it takes everything within her not to shudder at the foreign yet familiar sound of his voice.

It reminds her of when she was fourteen. She got a job at one of the restaurants in town the moment they’d hire her. Bussing tables, washing pots, cleaning up for cash in hand.

One night, during the close-down, she’d gone to take out the trash to find a stray dog in the back alley. Matted fur and tail tucked between its legs. She felt sorry for it, shaking violently as it backed itself further against the wall.

The dog bit her when she reached out to it.

She didn’t understand, back then. Couldn’t comprehend why the dog snapped when she was trying to be kind - could it not see that they were the same?

But she understands now. She’s the frightened dog trapped into a corner, teeth bared in a fearful and futile attempt to scare off its predator. She doesn’t want to bite. Yet she can’t be certain the gentleness offered to her is true, and it’s bite or be bitten.

They put down dogs who bite without even questioning what led them to do so.

She feels the same, in a sense.

People would say all sorts about her. Spread misinformation behind her back. They’d say she slept her way up to the top, then call her frigid. They’d whisper how heartless and cold she was, before labelling her as sensitive. She wasn’t put down, but she was let down time and time again.

“Tell us about her, Grandpa. Tell us about Grandma.” Gray begs, practically bouncing in his seat. Zach, too, seems eager, headphones secured on his neck as he glances up from his phone.

“Your grandmother was a special woman. Always thinking of the future. She wanted to make the world a better place - it’s why she was a teacher. She loved kids. Loved teaching. She’d always say that mistakes were just opportunities to learn,” He starts. She vaguely remembers that, spoken with relative softness over shattered glass and scraped knees. But then, her father’s voice overpowers it, telling her she never learns.

He wasn’t wrong.

Karen pipes up next; a genuine smile on her face that she hasn’t seen since they were kids, “Your grandma would also say a promise tomorrow is worth a lot less than trying today. She was right. She was always right. And she would’ve loved you boys.”

Gray beams at the statement, Zach a bit more apprehensive. Karen’s right, though - mom would’ve loved them.

She always wanted boys to dote on. That’s one of the few things she does remember, the memory vibrant in her mind.

Still, it’s strange to hear about someone who is practically a stranger. She was so young when they lost her. All of her memories feel like hand me downs, never seeming to sit right no matter how she grows and plays around with them. Karen…Karen was older, she had more time with her.

It feels wrong to envy her sister over something like this, but her jealousy can’t be buried. The opportunity for that was lost amongst the soil and flowers that covered their mother’s casket.

Under the table, she feels a foot brush against her leg. She doesn’t need to look to know it’s Owen.

He was like that when they were together. Always within reach, offering her constant comfort but giving her space. Simultaneously suffocating but never enough - she hates how much she craves his touch, hates how loved she felt.

Love was never like that, before him.

But now that he’s gone, it’s not the same. She yearns the feather-soft brush of his fingers across her skin and the way his hand always found the small of her back, rubbing circles through her clothes. She misses how he’d pull her into his lap and let her rest her forehead against his until her breathing evened out and the spots would stop clouding her vision.

They’ve spent more time apart than they did together. But she’s changed. She misses him, misses the person she was when she was with him.

She finally dares to look across at him, taking in his knitted brows and softened eyes. He looks so delicate. So fragile.

She’d break him if she had the chance. But he’d let her.

By the time their waiter comes to take their order, she still hasn’t read the menu. Her cheeks flush, realising no matter what she picks, it’ll be a waste. So, when Gray orders Mac and Cheese from the kids menu despite Zach telling him he’s too old for that, she decides to do the same.

(If Karen shoots her a look, she chooses not to notice. Instead, she focuses on the pride on Gray’s face when she tells him he made such a good choice that it influenced her.)

“So,” Owen coughs. It breaks the spell of tension, all of them looking up at him, “Any childhood stories you all want to share? Karen refused to tell me anything last time I asked, though I think that was because Claire was death-glaring her.”

She winces at the statement, knowing there is an element of truth behind it. Owen had inquired about their growing up together and Karen had been ready to spill, before she stopped her.

“That’s Claire for you. Girl’s always been feisty - stubborn - she gets that from me.”

Her father’s arm finds its way around her, fingers digging harshly into her ribs. A silent warning. She hides her grimace.

“She cut her own bangs when she was eight. We don’t know where she got the scissors from, but I was getting ready to take us both to school and she comes in, as if nothing happened, telling me we were gonna be late. I told her we weren’t going anywhere until she told me what happened. We didn’t go to school that day.” Her sister blabs, laughing at the memory.

Karen doesn’t know the truth. Doesn’t know about the scar running across her forehead, and how her hair was matted with blood. Cutting bangs was the easy way out.

“Did she never grow them out?” Zach quips, a smirk on his face.

It’s easy to let them tell stories when she sees the way the boys light up. Their disbelief of how unruly she was, how different of a person she used to be compared to who she is, now.

Even Owen shakes his head in disbelief.

“She used to throw these big ol’ tantrums when she was a kid. Flapping about and shaking her head - wouldn’t listen to a word I’d say. After Martha…I took them both to the beach. It was the middle of winter, you couldn’t even see the sand under the snow. When it was time to go home, she refused to get in the car. Started throwing a fit. So I told her if she didn’t get in the car, we’d drive off without her and she’d have to find her own way home.”

Her stomach flips, heart pounding against her chest. She remembers this. But she doesn’t want to.

“She didn’t listen. Stubborn ass still wouldn’t get in,” He laughs darkly, throwing back the rest of his drink.

He misses out the part where he left her there all night and the only reason he came back was because Karen begged him to, the next day. A part of her wonders if he misses it out purposely, or if he truly remembers it differently.

They remember a lot of things differently.

Swirling nausea continues to grow, especially when their food gets brought out. Everything is just too overwhelming. The smells, the sounds, the lights.

She wants to go. She wants to go home.

She wants to go back to the island a year ago - before everything happened. Before the Indominus, before her nephews came to visit. Back to Claire Dearing, operations manager who barely had time to breathe, let alone feel all that she’s feeling right now.

It was easier to let her work consume her than to let her past consume her.

Her chest heaves as she makes an excuse to leave the table, rushing out to the front of the restaurant. The cool air hits her instantly, making her wrap her arms around herself tightly as she walks down the block.

Snowflakes fall feebly, melting on the gritted road and barely settling on the parked cars either side of the street. She watches. She watches them dance to their death, cheeks flushed and fingers numb.

She’s never been one for the cold. But, she supposes, it’s beautiful in a sense. It makes everything slow down. Time seems to stop.

It takes a minute too long to collect herself and by the time she’s finally ready to turn around and face the music once more, Karen has come to find her. Her sister calls her name warily, shuffling towards her. Uncertain.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you dad was coming. I just…he’s our dad, Claire. Nothing can change that fact. And I know you wouldn’t have come if you’d have known, and I wanted this. Needed this. For Zach. After everything, he needs his family - all of his family - to be there for him.”

“Then why didn’t you invite Scott? He’s their dad, he’s their family, too.” She’s quick to turn it back, trying to hide the hurt in her voice.

It doesn’t work.

“Scott’s got them both for the weekend. It’s not the same, Claire. And, you know, Dad…he misses you. It hurts that you won’t let him be part of your life.”

Karen was many things, but she never thought she was a fool. Foolish, maybe. But never this naive.

“Please, Claire, come back inside. Sit down and finish eating, and when we’re done I can drop you off wherever you need if that’s what you want? Don’t do this to the boys, though. Don’t run out on them, again.” Her sister pleads. Hand offered out to her, lips drawn into a tight smile.

It would be so easy to walk away. But she’s taken the easy way out too many times. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. But…let me sit next to Owen. Please?”

[tctteredwings]

[ ben barnes, cis man, he/him ] — whoa! NATHAN YOUNG just stole my cab! not cool, but maybe they needed it more. they have lived in the city for 42 YEARS, working as a FREELANCE/FASHION PHOTOGRAPHER. that can’t be easy, especially at only 42 YEARS OLD. some people say they can be a little bit COCKY and SECRETIVE, but i know them to be FREETHINKING and RESPECTFUL whatever. i guess i’ll catch the next cab. hope they like the ride back to MANHATTAN!

IN A NUTSHELL; a desk full of empty coffee cups, denim jackets whatever the weather, a constantly buzzing cell phone, a playful smile and a wink, loves a candid photo, playing the beatles in the car, scuffed up chelsea boots.

tw: adultery

Name: Nathan Young Nicknames: Nate Age: Forty-two Date of birth: 5th November 1981 Birth place: Manhattan, New York Occupation: Freelance/Fashion Photographer Romantic/sexual orientation: Biromantic/bisexual

IMMEDIATE FAMILY.

Parents: Marc Young & Enid Young, née Carlisle. Siblings: ___ Young & ___ Young ( wc on main ). Children: Lyndsey Young ( 16 ) & Jessica Young ( 14 ). Ex-wife: Daphne Lark. Pets: One Doberman named Bernie.

ABOUT.

Nathan was born in Greenwich Village to Enid and Marc . They were big in the community, always doing charity work and volunteering. His father even ran for mayor at one point. He was expected to get involved, too, but he really wasn’t interested.

All he wanted was to take photos, so at 16 he got a part time job at Starbucks and bought all the equipment his parents refused to. The rest was history as they say.

Eventually drifted away from his parents, the relationship with his younger siblings also suffering as a result.

In his senior year he came out as bisexual and dated a guy from the hockey team for a little over six months, up until college pulled them apart anyway.

The New York Film Academy was his chosen college. He briefly dabbled in movies, but in the end decided to stick with photography, landing an internship at a major fashion magazine shadowing one of the photographers as soon as he graduated.

He worked his way up the ladder, starting with fetching coffee, basically doing everybody else's shit. It took a couple of years, but in the end he got where he wanted, finding himself being headhunted for Vogue, GQ and Vanity Fair.

At 24 he met his soon-to-be wife on a shoot where she was also working, she was pretty new, majorly awkward and he fell for her in a big way.

It was proper whirlwind romance, in the space of a year and a half they were married and had a child. Within a couple more years their family of three became four... and then there was the dogs, too. Three of them in total. Fluffy Pomeranian's his wife was obsessed with. They set up home in the Upper East Side and could haven’t have been happier.

Up until Nathan cheated on her anyway...

Flirty in nature he was always putting on the charm, just a way to get people to ‘fall in love with him’ for the benefit of the camera, but six years after he first got married, things went a little too far.

He confessed straight away and within a year they were divorced, his wife granted full custody of the children.

Deciding on a fresh start, he up and moved to California, setting up his own studio in the city a year later. He lived out there for going on five years.

His daughters, Lyndsey ( 16 ) and Jessica ( 14 ), he saw during the holidays for the most part while living in LA They'd come and stay with him for weeks on end, enjoying the sun, sand and sea.

He's now been back in New York for four years, eventually tiring of the new life he'd found and missing his home. With the girls getting older and a friendship forming between both him and his ex-wife, they now have equal custody and co-parent like a dream. The reasons for their divorce a decade ago are never discussed and they've both done their best to move on from it.

He’s still a flirt, something that will never change, but he’s been failing pretty dramatically at getting back on the dating scene ever since separating from his wife. His job is his life now, though, and a lot of his time is dedicated to that and spending time in the studio he'd doing up.

Despite his protests in the debate over whether to get a dog or not with his ex, he’s found he’s actually quite fond of them now. After spending six years having miniature breeds yapping at his heels, he chose to adopt a Doberman within a couple of months of moving to California and he'd travelled back to New York with him.

Nathan is a keen reader and considers himself a bookworm. It’s a little-known fact about him, but he adores the classics, and his favourite book is War and Peace. One day he hopes to write something himself, although knows it will probably only end up being a photography book or a pictorial of his early years taking photos.

TLDR; Nathan grew up in New York ( Greenwich Village to be exact ) and had a pretty good childhood. He clashed with his parents on what to do with his life and during his teens they had a pretty big falling out when he decided to follow his passion for photography. Working his way up the ladder, by his mid-twenties he was one of the most sought-after fashion photographers in the country —- that hasn't changed much. He got caught up in a whirlwind romance at the same time and was married by 25 shortly after his first daughter was born. Over time his flirty personality got him into trouble though and while working away he had a fleeting affair that led to the breakdown of his marriage. He hasn't really been the same since. Moved to LA for a while for work and when he moved back 4 years ago, made his daughters his top priority. He's still a flirt, but has toned it down a little.

[winterwitch-trash]

 The man out of time.

Author's Note: This must be my longest written work so far. Maybe it can get a part 2? The setting of this one-shot is after the end of the first Avengers movie and leads into the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I do not own the characters! Word Count: 1580 words Reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated!

Chapter Warnings: Fluff and allusions to smut (only because I'm too shy to go for actual smut!) Summary: Steven Rogers always felt lost. Going into that ice all those years ago cost him that one woman who saw the person behind the frail bones. Peggy Carter had seen Steve for what he really was. Not a scrawny, sickly man… But a hero. Someone who would die to protect those he cared about. She was his only connection to a time long gone. After losing her, he turned into a rather secluded man… A shell of his past self,  riddled with pain and grief. Peggy was gone… Bucky was gone... Even his fellow Howling Commandos were dead. Then a final showdown with Red Skull almost cost him his life. If it weren’t for the super soldier serum, Steve would be dead… Instead, he was thrust into a new world. He didn’t believe monsters were real, but seeing the Chitauri marching through that hole in the sky… It made him change his mind... All seemed pointless to him until he met her.

____________________________________________

The Battle in New York may have been finished, but the super soldier was still on edge. As if an even greater threat was still looming over the city. Steve was wandering around, trying to get accustomed to all changes that had  happened since the day he went into the ice. Even now, in the 21st century he felt like he didn’t belong here, having lost Bucky and the most important person to him. Peggy. The woman who stood by him when everyone mocked him and thought of him as a dancing monkey before he rescued the battalion of the army that was trapped in that HYDRA Bunker. Eventually he realized that he loved her, but fate was cruel. They were separated… However, he met someone else. A young woman who was similar to his first love, but oh so different… She was extremely shy around him, but slowly, whatever walls he built around him to protect himself from further heartbreak broke down. And Steve hadn’t even realize how she was able to make him see that there were good things in life too. Of course there were obstacles at the beginning, but the blonde slowly came out of his shell around her. And she had never felt more in love… Steve was her rock though thick and thin… Currently, the two were in Steve’s humble apartment, just enjoying each other’s company. A few loving kisses here and there along with sweet words being exchanged. The soldier was feeling even bolder by the second, with his advances becoming somewhat possessive, as if he was fearing that someone might steal her from him, even if he felt like he was betraying the one woman that loved him back in the forties, a time long lost. But then again, it was Peggy’s last wish for him to move on and find someone…

“Tell me about her…” She gently coaxed him, placing a kiss on his clavicle, her palms resting on his abdomen, while the pair of them was basking in the warmth of the fireplace. To that, Steve was slightly gobsmacked seeing it was the first time a woman asked him to talk about that period of his life. But it only made him want to open up to her, so he did exactly that. He told her how Peggy was the one person who saw the man behind the shield and how she supported him when no one else would. He also went on to say how she was able to stand her ground at a time that was hard for women in the army. And this only served to make her respect Agent Carter even more for everything she had accomplished. She had to fight every time in order to earn the respect of the men back then, and she had started SHIELD, the biggest organization with the noblest of purposes; erase all the evil caused by HYDRA.  

“She is truly a remarkable woman Steve…” The girl mused pressing herself even more to his side. “She truly was…” Steve trailed off, shifting just a little wanting to help her get more comfortable on his lap. He didn’t want t admit but it did him good to talk about Peggy. She would always be in his heart. But in this new world, he had someone he could come home to. Someone who would keep him grounded. That someone would be Rose. The woman who stood by his side when he woke up in this new century, the woman who fought by his side when Loki and the Chitauri charged through New York. And for this, Steve vowed to himself to never let her go. He hadn’t realized it, but he had been staring at her for the past five minutes, and only when she grinned up at him, he broke out of his trance. “…What?” She was curious as to what went through his mind at that moment, only for him to lean down and capture her lips once again, savouring the moment. Seeing him this confident in his movements caught her completely off guard; usually Steve was reserved. But right now all thoughts went out the window as she gave into his kiss completely, letting herself be consumed by his warmth. The two were so wrapped up into each other, that Rose didn’t realize that he was sweeping her into his arms so they could move to their own shared bedroom. With slow, careful movements, Steve laid her down, looping his fingers into the layers of the satin nightgown she wore, wordlessly asking for permission. Rose could feel her heart thundering as she gave him a warm smile as though she was granting him permission. Well, this was the man she loved… He could do anything he wished really. As for Steve, he was still a bit hesitant in his movements, like he was afraid that he would do something to dampen the mood. Yet her sweet words caused every doubt to vanish. “Don’t hold yourself back… I know you are trying to keep yourself in check out of fear of hurting me but… I know you won’t..” She whispered stroking his clean shaven face in a reassuring manner.

That’s all the affirmation Steve needed before resuming his actions, kissing her reverently, fingers once again looping around the layers of her nightgown, tugging at it, eventually leaving her exposed to his eyes. Rose, suddenly felt self conscious, her hands instinctively covering her bare form from him. One would call it embarrassment, one would call it foolishness (because Steve has been telling her time and time again that she was truly beautiful), but she couldn’t help feeling like this sometimes. The blonde Captain quickly picked up on her discomfort and kissed her forehead in a comforting manner. Somehow, this gesture brought peace to the girl who found it easier to let go of her doubts, and eventually exposed herself once again to her Captain who gazed at her lovingly, blue eyes conveying all the emotion that ran through his veins at that moment. “…You’re truly beautiful.. Don’t ever doubt it again..” He muttered, before surrendering to the throes of passion with her. Eventually, she started feeling bolder, softly kissing his muscled torso, before pulling up to peck his lips, allowing him to take control.

After that, the mood completely changed. From soft, explorative kisses, the couple went to gentle love making, with Steve bringing her over the edge again and again, until the first rays of the sun peeked into the small apartment. “….Who knew Captain America had it in him…” Rose whispered in a jesting manner, referring to the playful frolick between the sheets earlier. But of course, a super soldier’s stamina was unparalleled to that of a normal person. “Well, it did help that I had the most beautiful dame in my arms…” He mused kissing her forehead, watching as she snuggled up further into him, allowing sleep to overtake her. Moments later, Steve had quietly slipped out of bed, wearing nothing but boxers. This would be a lazy Sunday for them both hopefully, if Director Fury didn’t have an assignment for him. God, he hoped there was nothing. He wanted to spend the day with his girl, cooking with her, or watching a movie with her… Anything. About an hour later, Rose walked in, just as Steve was finishing their breakfast. She couldn’t help but smile at him, eyeing the waffles and the coffee that waited for them both. “Good morning Captain..” She greeted kissing him on the cheek before sitting down to enjoy Steve’s cooking. The blonde was about to greet her when he felt his phone vibrating. “You’ve got to be kidding me…” he mumbled when he noticed the name on the screen.

@bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky @world-of-aus Thoughts? (hopefully it doesn't suck too much?)