#Why do I feel like I should apologise for all the Star Trek lol

[thymelessink]

Isn't that a bit too much, Q?

Q: I don’t understand the question.

(Although, I was asking myself whether the first one is too much, so here you have both versions)

[fatbottombucky]

Scattered Paper *Bucky Barnes x Reader*

Request by Anon: You know this moment in movies when someone nerdy drops their books or spills their coffee on their crush who's super popular? Could you maybe do this for Bucky x male reader?

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Male!Reader

Ratings: Teen [PG-13]

Warnings: Very clichè & you ALL asked for fluff tropes. So, here it is!

Authors Note: this is so cheesy, I love it. Mate, everyone needs to write tropes with Male readers it’s actually so much fun to write. I’m having a blast with it lol - Rosalie🍑

“He’s coming this way,” excitable whispers hushed through the science lab, “Shhhh, here he comes.”

You didn’t have to turn in your chair to know who the girls were fawning over, you’ve worked with the same girls for a year now, all openly expressing their desire for one male Avenger. You’ve listened to their coffee chats, their hushed whispers of lust, even was accidentally sent a very vivid, and graphic, email of said male.

James Barnes, Bucky, aka White Wolf; is the desire of every woman’s attention at the Avengers base. No matter what your type is, Bucky seemed to be able to wiggle his way onto your list of desired men to bed. He’s silent in the interesting way, not the creepy way. He’s intimidating but in the protective way, he’s also ruggedly handsome, but somehow adorable all at once. He’s incredibly strong; mind, soul and body wise. Very smart too, his intuition often plays a key element in why all his missions are successful.

So, maybe, it isn’t just the women Bucky has after him. There’s a few men that would “go there”, so to speak. You’ve heard the usual “what male avenger would you fuck, if you had to?” Question, you’ve never answered because that’s highly unprofessional.

You’d say Bucky, you’d always pick Bucky.

You’ve never had a conversation with the guy, crippling fear of embarrassing yourself in front of him. You’re just some guy that works in the labs, some nerd to him, probably. He’s the rough-tough Avenger, the one with a harden shell and steely look, the one that lost everything but given a second chance. He’s the unreachable boyfriend of your dreams, the guy you compare every potential suitor against- no wonder you’re single, no one can compete with James Barnes.

Unlike the women of your section, you don’t openly gawk at the bloke. You keep your staring to a minimum, well you try to, at least. You have been known to take the long route out of the compound, going up two levels and walking past the gym at exactly 5pm, and you happen to look to see Barnes working out; you just HAPPEN to do that. One time you did trip on nothing because he was working out with no shirt, but you played it off as a shoelace incident.

In other words, to you, Bucky is out of your league. An Adonis. You’re just some nerdy guy, glasses and all, sometimes you wear Star Trek shirts to work. You’re clumsy and your mind is a chaotic mess, you forget where you left your coffee even though you made it five minutes before. So, as you have done with all the Avengers, including Bucky, you’ve kept out of their way and off their radar.

Till, now that is.

“Y/N,” you spin in your chair and see Dr. Helen Cho walking towards you, stacks of papers and files in her arms; clearly struggling.

You stand up quickly, grabbing the stack and instantly regretting it. You aren’t weak, but your biggest muscle is your brain and that doesn’t win too many fights; luckily you aren’t in fights that often. You place the heavy stack down, playing it off as easy and that it definitely wasn’t heavy to you.

“I hate to be a pain, but there’s no way I’d be able to carry these to level 5, Banner and Stark need them. Do you mind?” You widen your eyes a little, trying to find some excuse, “please, you’re the only one here that has level 5 access too,” that was true but you never went up there, you hadn’t seen Tony since you were given the job and that was last year in April.

You nod and smile, “Sure, I’m not busy.” You sighed, scratching your neck out of awkwardness, she nods with a smile and leaves to her office.

Looking at the tower stack you heaved a sigh, grabbing the papers and files. You struggled to push open doors on your way to the elevator, often getting help from other staff members, quietly thanking them before going on your way. A few Agents, people that go out on the field when the Avengers can’t, watch and laugh at your struggle.

Lifting your left foot and resting it on the wall, resting the papers on your knee, you lean forward and press the elevator button. Praying it wouldn’t take too long because the strain on your leg, plus fingers was becoming uncomfortable and unbearable.

“Hey, Y/N?” You look over your shoulder to see Sharon Carter walking to you, you tried to wave but opted for just smiling when the stack almost fell, “need a hand?” The blonde raised an eyebrow at your tower of paper.

“Nope. I am fine, what’s up?” You tried to play it off and grinned, clearly needing some help but too stubborn and awkward to accept or ask for it.

Sharon chuckled, “hey, man, could you take these files to Rogers for me?” Waving the red file in her hand, a smirk settling on her face, “you’re going up anyway, right? It’d be a big help.” Before you can answer she’s placing the file on top, standing on her tippy toes and sliding it on like a jenga block.

You watch with a glare as she turns, smiling to herself and leaving down the crowded corridor. The elevator dings and you walk inside, grumbling to yourself about her rudeness as you click the button for level five, stating your name and code number to the AI. You place the paper pile down for the few seconds, stretching your fingers slightly, examining them for paper cuts.

The door opens and you quickly grab the stack walking out before the doors close, groaning at the fact you had picked up the stack in an odd manner. The stack was now blocking your view, you couldn’t see in front of you, you stand in the middle of the silent corridor debating on what to do. You decided to carry on, everyone will just have to move out of the way for you instead. You slowly began to walk, carefully listening for other people’s footsteps but hearing none.

You turn a corner, almost to your destination when you smack into something hard. Papers and files fall to the floor, papers scattering the ground, along with you. You fell backwards and landed on your butt, groaning at the sudden contact with the hardwood flooring.

“I’m so sorry,” a deep voice makes you look up in shock, “I wasn’t looking where I was going, I space out a lot,” he offers a hand out for you to grab, you stare at it for a few seconds before accepting it and he heaves you up; a little too aggressively because you almost fall forwards. “Wow! You’re really light!” He chuckles to himself, amused by your smallness.

You just smacked into James Barnes, an Avenger. Quickly repositioning your glasses, “I should be apologising, sorry. Agent Barnes, it’s my bad.” Instead of looking at him, you quickly avert your attention to the scattered paper and begin picking them up. Bucky kneels down with you, also picking up the paper, “you don’t need to help me, I’m sure you’ve got better things to do.”

He scoffs playfully, “Nah, it’s okay. I’d feel like a dick for walking away, plus it’s kinda my job to help cute guys in distress,” he drops a playful wink.

You choke silently on air, you can feel your face flushing and heat rising across your neck. The hairs on your arm standing on end, your fingers feel tingly and butterflies swarm in your stomach. If you breathed any heavier your glasses will start to steam up from the heat you’re producing, you feel way too flushed. Instead of answering you carry on picking up the papers, fingers fumbling around and your throat feeling dry.

As you reach for the last paper, so does Bucky and your hands brush one another. You pull back, a little shyly and Bucky picks the paper up and stands up, you slowly do the same and smile timidly at the man before you. He’s taller this close up, by almost a foot and he has a boyish grin on his face, one you hadn’t seen before.

“I’ll help you carry these,” he holds up a hand when you go to protest, “take it as a token of my apologies for bumping into you…” you nod once, “and that time when you tripped up outside the gym because of me.”

You widen your eyes in shock, Bucky chuckles loudly, “I didn’t-I wasn’t… shut up, man.” You click your tongue, trying to come up with a viable excuse, “I walk that way out, my shoelace was untied… it can happen,” your confident excuses turns into a mumbled confirmation of your not-so-sneaky way of appreciating him from afar.

“It’s fine,” Bucky smiles a little shyly, “I do the same, I never have any reason to go down to the labs, I only do that to see you.”

Your eyes fly up to Bucky, he’s fiddling with the papers in his hand and biting his bottom lip, you’ve never seen this side of him before. He looks vulnerable, a little nervous about his confession, it’s oddly endearing and adorable. Before you can speak he holds the papers, giving a little head tilt. You’re both walking towards Stark’s office, a little distance between you both.

It’s silent between you both, a few people walk past and greet Bucky and yourself, mostly Bucky. You end up at Tony’s office door where his assistant tells you he’s out, you both leave the papers on her desk and leave. You place your hands in your hoodie pockets, quickly glancing at Bucky who is slowly strolling beside you.

“So,” you begin and Bucky looks at you, snapping his attention to you, “I need to go back to work, you need to go save the world or something,” he nodded and let out a strained chuckle, “was you lying earlier?” Bucky frowns, “when you said that you come down to the lab… for me?”

Bucky lets out a small laugh, raising his left arm and scratching the back of his neck, sighing lightly and shaking his head. “I know it’s creepy but I didn’t know how to approach you and I heard from people you like guys too, but I just got nervous. I’d get the courage and go down, then chicken out and leave again,” you smile to yourself, “embarrassing, I know. I’m an Avenger but I can’t ask out a guy.”

“Well, I mean, you can try now.” You smile and Bucky has a small glimmer of hope in his eyes, he nods to himself and mutters something under his breath.

Bucky opens his mouth but, “Agent Barnes you’re needed on assignment. Flight deck 4, ten minutes.” Agent Romanoff’s voice coming through the tanoid.

Bucky shuts and squeezes his eyes closed for a second, muttering a small “fuck sake” to himself. You give a gentle smile, shrugging your shoulders at him. “I gotta go save the world or whatever,” he starts to walk backwards and looks a little defeated.

“Hey, if you’re back and not dead, we can go out this Saturday?” You ask.

A bright smile comes upon Bucky's face and he nods, “something to come back to.”

(A part of me wanted to write this with a high school AU, I might still do that because it’ll be hilarious and cute. But I decided to write it without the AU because it’s still adorable, I love this type of trope tho. Where the two people have been mutually pining after one another, then they bump into each other and then just as one is about to ask the other out something comes up!! I live for it. Hope you all liked this!! - Rosalie🍑)

[the-desolated-quill]

The God Complex - Doctor Who blog

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

Oh great! Another Toby Whithouse episode! They’re always good for a giggle!

I’ve always felt Whithouse was the obvious candidate to take over from Moffat as opposed to Chris Chibnall. Granted not everything he writes is amazing, but he always maintains a decent level of quality and he seems to have a good handle as to what makes Doctor Who such a unique show. I absolutely adored School Reunion and while The Vampires Of Venice was a tad flawed, it was still hugely entertaining due to its camp silliness. The God Complex is very much in the same vein as Vampires. Although problems do crop up toward the end, it’s still very enjoyable overall.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive at a hotel, only to discover it’s not a hotel at all. It’s a prison made to look like a hotel with other ‘guests’ trapped inside, their worst fears hidden behind every door and a hungry Minotaur roaming the corridors. Bit like a hotel I stayed at in Rome during a school trip.

Now of course the advertisements describe the rooms as containing their worst fears, but I do hope Whithouse didn’t actually intend this to be scary. Because if he did, he may have fallen short by a few... light-years. See the thing about fears that are personal to you is that only you find them scary. Everyone else just finds them either tame or just plain hilarious, especially if it’s something weird like a gym teacher or a man in a gorilla suit clutching some toilet roll, both of which appear in the episode and both of which are hysterically funny. So I’m assuming that Whithouse was going more for surreal rather than scary. And yeah, it works. It works really well. If Whithouse was going for surreal, this is definitely surreal. The hotel is a great setting and it does lend itself to some very weird imagery, like the dining room full of ventriloquist dummies. A lot of it feels very reminiscent of Stephen King. The most obvious is The Shining with perhaps a little bit of It thrown in for good measure. Not very original granted, but it’s executed very well. And I did like the Minotaur. Okay the design is a bit crap, but the use of fisheye lens and inventive camera angles help to make it somewhat threatening.

Let’s talk about the characters, starting with my favourite. Rita, played by Amara Karan. Having had to put up with obnoxious plot device in a mini-skirt Amy for what feels like two ice ages rather than series, you can imagine I was very excited when the Doctor offered to take Rita with him in the TARDIS when all this was over. A woman that’s not defined by her physical attractiveness or her importance to the Doctor and is actually a fully realised character in her own right? Whithouse, please, remind me what that’s like! It’s been such a long time!

Needless to say, I really liked Rita. She’s funny, really smart, she’s got a good head on her shoulders, and is able to keep her cool while everyone else is losing their’s. I particularly liked the exploration of her faith. She believes the hotel is actually Jahannam, the Muslim version of Hell, and I liked how she’s able to take it all in her stride. She’s confused as to why she’s been sent to ‘Jahannam’, believing she has lived a good and moral life, but remains steadfast that everything will be explained and that she will get out of this somehow. Plus it’s just nice to have a Muslim woman on Doctor Who. I certainly would love to see a Muslim woman become the Doctor’s companion. I was utterly heartbroken when she died, although I suppose I should have seen it coming. I thought Amara Karan gave a really good performance and would have  fit in really well with Matt Smith’s Doctor. I feel she would have provided a nice rational counterbalance for him. I especially liked her calm rejection of the Doctor’s all mighty saviour mentality.

I could have done without the stereotyping though. When Rita opens the door to her room, her worst fear is revealed to be her strict dad berating her for getting a B in mathematics.

Really Whithouse? 

In fact this episode contains a lot of stereotyping now that I’m thinking about it. I mean look at Howie. Bespectacled nerd with a stutter who blogs about conspiracy theories, likes Star Trek and is afraid of talking to girls. Joe doesn’t escape this either. He’s a gambler and we know this because he wears a horseshoe pin on his tie and dice cufflinks. It just feels really lazy on Whithouse’s part.

The other character I liked was Gibbis, played by David Walliams. Now this surprised me because David Walliams worked with Matt Lucas in the sketch show Little Britain, which I’ve always thought was about as funny as passing a kidney stone. They also worked together on the short lived mockumentary series Come Fly With Me, which was quite possibly one of the worst comedies I’ve ever sat through in my life. In fact I still vividly remember that Christmas. My family and I staring open-mouthed at the telly watching David Walliams and Matt Lucas in yellowface singing a really offensive, mock Chinese song about Martin Clunes. I actually consider it an insult to my backside that I had to sit through that deeply racist pile of dreck and to this day I still don’t know what possessed the BBC into thinking that was in any way appropriate. To cut a long story short, I don’t like Walliams or Lucas very much. What can I say? I have a thing against talentless hacks thinking casual racism is funny. It’s a quirk of mine. But yeah, I really liked Gibbis. It’s a great idea. A race of aliens that have survived by sucking up to their invaders and oppressors. It lends itself to some really funny moments (their national anthem is ‘Glory To... Insert Name Here.’ LOL), I liked how Gibbis’ cowardice is used to pit the characters against one another, and as much as I’m loath to admit it, I thought David Walliams did a good job in the role. Well I suppose even a broken clock is right twice a day (unless it’s digital of course).

As I said, I do mostly like the episode. It’s very surreal and engaging. Silly but entertainingly so. It’s just a shame the whole thing had to go a bit tits up at the end.

So the Doctor works out that the Minotaur isn’t actually feeding on fear, but on faith, and that the reason the TARDIS was drawn there was because of Amy’s faith in the Doctor. Okay, not a bad idea. It’s certainly a good way to explore their relationship and how Amy has never really grown up, as demonstrated when the Doctor talks to her and he sees her as young Amelia. The problem is the whole faith aspect isn’t done very well. For instance, I can see Amy having faith in the Doctor, Rita having faith in Allah and Joe having faith in luck, but Howie’s faith in conspiracy theories? That’s a bit of a stretch. And what about Rory? He’s repeatedly shown the fire exit because apparently he doesn’t have any faith in anything.

BOLLOCKS

Everyone has faith in something.

And then there’s the resolution. If Amy’s faith in the Doctor is so strong, would a two minute monologue really be enough to break it? It feels very similar to a moment in The Curse Of Fenric where the Seventh Doctor had to break his companion Ace’s faith in him, but the reason that worked was because it was genuinely shocking and uncomfortable to watch. He coldly attacked parts of Ace’s self esteem and made her feel like little more than a piece on a chessboard. Here it just feels a bit pathetic and half-arsed in comparison. Also you never get the sense that the Doctor and Amy’s relationship has actually changed once her faith has been ‘broken’. They’re still laughing and smiling like they normally do. With Seven and Ace, while he does apologise and explain why he did it, you get the sense that their once close relationship is slightly more fragile now going forward.

But one thing that puzzles me especially (and this is in no way Whithouse’s fault) is why is Amy’s faith in the Doctor so strong considering everything that’s happened. Would Amy’s faith really be that unshakeable after the Doctor failed to save her daughter? Or when he coldly left her alternative self to die in The Girl Who Waited? 

Which brings me to this. Remember in my previous review when I said I had a problem with how The Girl Who Waited was resolved, but it wouldn’t become apparent until now? Well this is it. Wouldn’t it make so much more sense if Amy and Rory left after that episode rather than this one? The God Complex is really jarring at the beginning because the three leads are getting along, but surely after what happened in the previous episode there would be some tension between them. Can they actually trust the Doctor after everything that’s happened? So I have a really hard time buying that Amy would still have faith in the Doctor. Or at least that her faith would be as strong as they’re claiming it is. I would much rather have seen Amy and Rory take some initiative and choose to leave the TARDIS of their own accord because of what the Doctor did rather than having them get unceremoniously dumped for the weakest and most patronising of reasons. He’s worried they’re going to get killed if they stay with him. Well big whoop! Get over yourself! Yes it’s dangerous travelling with him, but his companions are well aware of that. They want to travel through time and space because it’s cool, not because they’re too stupid to know better. If Amy and Rory want to take the risk, that’s their choice. By stripping them of that choice, the Doctor is basically treating Amy like the child he just encouraged her to grow up from and leave behind a few minutes ago.

The God Complex was never going to be special. I realise that. But it was still a decent enough story that was both imaginative and enjoyable to watch. It’s just such a shame that ending had to spoil it.