#and the age and the motivations and the relationships and

[rauspberries]

What a Feeling

In which you decide to visit the firehouse for some help and end up walking out with a boyfriend... kind of. evan buckley x fem!reader, fake dating (kinda), season one evan buckley, why is this man touching me, start of something new WC: 1k+

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You, like many other people your age, spent a lot of time on the internet. You doomscrolled like no other, thumb flicking through videos that were less than two minutes long and yet somehow finding them the most interesting thing on the planet. 

Recently, you have seen quite a few videos of people going to firehouses for small reasons, like moving heavy furniture or just to take a look at the firehouse. It piqued your curiosity, how easily they had gone inside and talked to the firefighters and been able to get things done. Plus, the TV that sat on an empty cardboard box shook every time you stepped just a little bit too hard on the ground, your motivation never reaching the milestone of finally getting it mounted.

Today was your day off and you were itching to do something other than lay on the couch. You had already done your grocery shopping, throwing out everything old in your cabinets and fridge and replacing it with new stuff, along with laundry, cleaning those nasty spots and organizing everything that had cluttered on your tables. All that was left of clutter in your apartment was the nasty cardboard box that sat beneath the TV.

After staring at it in disdain, you nod to yourself. Today is the day. You would waltz into the firehouse just down the street and ask one of the firemen to mount your TV. If it went wrong, it would just be your penance for not having any men in your life that could do it for you.

Changing your pajama pants out for a nice pair of jeans, you make your way out of your apartment doors, a pep in your step. You paint your face with a facade of confidence as you make your way down the street, coming up with a script inside of your head on how exactly you’d do this. Do you just walk in and ask the first guy you see? Do you ask for a tour and then ask for them to come over and mount your TV?

You decide to shoot for the latter just as you step through the large, open garage doors. You marvel at the firetrucks you’ve only seen breezing past you on the highway, eyes as wide as a kindergarten on their first day as you take in the entirety of station 118. It’s huge and marvelous and it smells very, very clean.

The first firefighter you come across is a tall man with broad shoulders, formerly brunette hair a light grey color. He carries an authoritative aura about you that immediately has you willing to turn tail and sprint right out of the doors you entered. Before you can follow the urge that overcomes you, he is giving you a bright, friendly smile, his strides long as he steps towards you. “Hi, I’m Captain Nash. Can I help you?”

Your mouth opens and closes as nerves overtake you, but another voice interrupts you before you can actually gather the courage to speak.

“See, uh, there she is! My girlfriend!”

Another firefighter, donned in a t-shirt and slacks, is coming towards you, his face a mosaic of both obviously false joy and very real surprise. He’s younger than Captain Nash, with pretty blue eyes and a handsome face. A bright birthmark paints the skin along his left brow, but it does nothing to damage how good he looks. 

Realizing he’s looking towards you, you turn around to see if somebody has snuck up behind you, only to see absolutely nobody. Again, your mouth moves to ask a question, only for your words to be silenced by the pretty firefighter wrapping his arm around your shoulder and bringing your tense body into his side. He’s nothing but solid muscle as you instinctively settle your arm around his waist.

You’re still dazed as the man leans down towards your ear, breath brushing against your cheek and neck as he speaks quietly for no one else to hear. “They’re bothering me about a relationship. My name’s Evan Buckley, but they call me Buck. Please just run with it. I’ll be in debt to you forever.”

Despite the shock that is still running through your system, your empathy sinks in at the desperation in his voice, causing you to smile brightly at the firefighters keeping a close eye on you. Your introduction falls off your lips easily, like you’re at a networking event.

Surprise is painted across the faces of the other firefighters as they size you up, making you wish that you had done more than just change your pants and put on normal shoes when you left the house. You had heard that most, if not all, firefighters were attractive, ripped and polite, but you didn’t think it’d be like this.

They all introduce themselves to you, speaking their surprise at the idea that Buck had a girlfriend, that they thought he was allergic to commitment of any kind, that they were shocked that he hadn’t mentioned you when you were so damn beautiful. You flush at the compliment, murmuring a soft ‘thank you’ through the fuzz that is your brain.

All you can smell is Buck’s cologne as his hand drops to your hip, pulling you even closer as he grins at his coworkers, excusing both of you as he turns his body and urges you away with a slight nudge. The touch of his hand as he moves it to your lower back makes you tense up again, although it is not unwelcomed. It’s not very often that a handsome firefighter declares you his girlfriend on the first meeting and actually follows it up with being a gentleman.

As soon as you’re out of earshot, his hands immediately leave your skin, instead raising as he talks quickly. “Okay, first, I want to say I apologize. I should not have thrown the idea that you were my girlfriend on anyone when we are completely strangers. Second, I want to say thank you. They have not stopped nagging me about committing to people forever and then the lie that I had a girlfriend came up and you were there and you really, really saved me.”

He stops talking for a moment, eyes widening before he speaks again, tripping over his own words. “I don’t expect this to last. I’ll tell them we broke up in about a week. I don’t expect to see you again after this. I’m so sorry. What can I do to make it up to you?”

You look up at him with wide eyes, taken aback by the rush of words coming out of his mouth as you physically take a step back. You let everything that had happened settle in your brain before you smile, causing Buck’s face to go from apologetic to confused. 

“Can you mount a TV?”

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part two

this is my first x reader and my first post on this app, be gentle with me!!!

[angel-dustblgs]

Daily check in - Day 1

Hi guyss!! So I decided to start this series because I think it could help me with my commitment issues and get the motivation I need to actually change my life. I won't probably do it every single day because my schedule is extremely busy, but I'll try to stick to it and be true with myself and you here.

Workout: rest day, can't even take one though so I:

played handball in p.e (25 minutes)

did 100 jumping jacks, 10 burpees and 5 push ups

Steps: 13 200

Eating:

I really binged all day, had like 13 cookies, 200 grams of peanuts, a lot of chips and a lot of bread too, probs 650 cals over maintenance. This is exactly the reason why I'm starting the series, to get back on track and stop the bingeing.

Water:

2.25 liters

Sleep:

6 hours, bad quality

Studying:

2 hours of tutoring + revising for the final exam

Self care:

Winter depression be hitting HARD, really can't be bothered to take care of myself (should have washed my hair 3 days ago but here I am), takes me AGES to go and brush my teeth and do my skincare (did it tho!!)

Emotion of the day:

Happiness (got the best mark in physics and I really enjoyed class today, also I really loved all the food I had, even if I binge-ate it. Food truly makes me happy and I don't regret a single thing!)

Thoughts for tomorrow:

I wish to improve my relationship with food and not binge tomorrow (I've been binging everyday for the last week)

Be really active and raise my hand in physics and chemistry

Healthy and really high protein meals + strength workouts, hitting arms again probably

[yuridovewing]

me when the sandfire and tigerdove dont hold up nearly as well as the fantasized versions of them in my head

[ivycova]

I'm totally agree about this point you make:

One of the things I don't like about the time compression in TROP is that it speeds up this gradual 'relapse' so much that it's hard to trace it as the development of the character, vs. a brief dalliance with the idea of Doing Good followed by a "fine then" tantrum, but! TROP Sauron is still very much informed by what Tolkien said about 2nd Age Sauron and his motives and I do love it for that.

It's like an incredible cliff, abyss between these two character's arc (Halbrand/Sauron). Of course it causes this irrationation, this contradiction that makes you think, empathize with him, and look for a way out for him, ways to repent or justify him somehow.

I understand that we are only on the second season. And yet i miss this transitional moment. That big "why?" In his motivation for such a great shift.

I mean I'm not stupid, I can imagine it, and we, like audience do it for him and for the show. But there is difference between leaving some mystery in the story and leave the audience with the fulfilled hunger for the explanation of such a great disaster, that provoke his character to go basically to hell.

Why did he decide to give up everything and return to the path of complete cruelty and evil again? Why did he completely cut himself off from the possibility of redemption for him?

I'm sorry, but his disappointment at Galadriel's rejection doesn't seem as obvious in season 2. His coldness and focus on other goals, however interesting, almost blurs the connection he had with Galadriel at the beginning of the show. Despite the fact that i love they doomed couple.

The fact that the changes happened so quickly in a sense devalues the arc of the events of the entire first season.

No matter how many times i rewatch the series, I can't get rid of the feelings, that his main motivation in all his relationships is his personal interests and absolutely any means to achieve them. Classic villains.

I mean if it's not about love, that he switched so brutally, then why? If he manipulate Galadriel all the time, then why her rejection is so crucial to him to provoke critical mind shift into the darkness? Then why doubt it in a second season? Pride all alone? But it's not enough, he always was and stay prideful.

And if the showrunners continue to explore the dynamics of Sauron's character development the same way in the coming seasons, it will inevitably make him boring.

'this monstrous St Michael'

I doubt the TROP writers and showrunners meant anything in particular by setting Halbrand up as St Michael the Archangel in this shot beyond "looks cool :)", but bear with me okay because I was talking to @wyrd-syster about Les Miserables recently and it reminded me of something.

So first of all the St Michael comparison is because St Michael is very commonly portrayed in art as a figure in armour, standing over a conquered Satan in the form of a dragon or serpent, holding a long lance. e.g. this is Raphael's Saint Michael Vanquishing Satan (1516):

TROP Sauron is really not St Michael (the closest in Tolkien would be Manwë or Eönwë I suppose; the Ainur don't really correlate directly to angels). But at this point he thinks he is, or at least thinks he should be.

Which is what brings me back to Les Miserables. Here's Javert:

Javert was at that moment in seventh heaven. Without being fully aware of it, yet with a confused intuition of his own indispensible status and of his success, he personified—he, Javert—justice, enlightenment, and truth in their heavenly function of crushing evil. He had behind him and around him, at infinite depth, authority, reason, precedent, the conscience of the law, the vengeance of the law, all the stars in the firmament; he protected order, he called forth the thunder of the law, he avenged society, he came to the aid of the absolute; he stood erect in a blaze of glory; there was in his victory a trace of defiance and of combat; standing tall, arrogant, resplendent, he displayed, out in the open, for all the world to see, the superhuman bestiality of a bloodthirsty archangel, the fearful shadow of the act he was performing made visible in his clenched fist with the dull flashing of the social sword; happy and outraged, he held crime, vice, revolt, perdition, hell, pinned beneath his heel; he shone, he exterminated, he smiled … and there was an incontestable grandeur in this monstrous Saint Michael. Javert, though horrifying, had nothing of the ignoble about him. Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, a sense of duty, are things that, when they go wrong, can become hideous, but that, even hideous, remain grand; their majesty, peculiar to the human conscience, persists even in horror.

Overall I think Galadriel is more of a Javert figure in s1 of TROP than Sauron is; she's the one whose fixation on justice has become something so all-consuming it leaves no room for weakness or redemption. (Whether Sauron is in any sense repentant is a whole other question, but her answer to even the suggestion of it is isn't "you're lying" but to tell him it wouldn't matter anyway: "no penance could ever erase the evil you have done.") But this particular Javert moment is very much Sauron.

From Morgoth's Ring:

And Letters:

One of the things I don't like about the time compression in TROP is that it speeds up this gradual 'relapse' so much that it's hard to trace it as the development of the character, vs. a brief dalliance with the idea of Doing Good followed by a "fine then" tantrum, but! TROP Sauron is still very much informed by what Tolkien said about 2nd Age Sauron and his motives and I do love it for that.

and: I especially love, when Tolkien talks about Sauron's corruption by Morgoth, the idea that this was part of the corruption; that it wasn't just Morgoth running Evil Bootcamp, but that Morgoth flattered him and praised him and fed into his pride so much so that anything 'good' he believed he was doing was misdirected from the start, because Mairon the Admirable couldn't conceive of any good outcome or plans that didn't feature him as the most special perfect talented brilliant centre of everything.

[perfectquote]

I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you’ve been doing. It’s a hundred years since we’ve met- it may be another hundred years before we meet again.

Edith Wharton // The Age of Innocence

[thoughtkick]

I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you’ve been doing. It’s a hundred years since we’ve met- it may be another hundred years before we meet again.

Edith Wharton // The Age of Innocence

[hawkogurl]

[surqrised]

I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you’ve been doing. It’s a hundred years since we’ve met- it may be another hundred years before we meet again.

Edith Wharton // The Age of Innocence

[quotefeeling]

I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you’ve been doing. It’s a hundred years since we’ve met- it may be another hundred years before we meet again.

Edith Wharton // The Age of Innocence

[stay-close]

I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you’ve been doing. It’s a hundred years since we’ve met- it may be another hundred years before we meet again.

Edith Wharton // The Age of Innocence

[thehopefulquotes]

I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you’ve been doing. It’s a hundred years since we’ve met- it may be another hundred years before we meet again.

Edith Wharton // The Age of Innocence

[resqectable]

I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you’ve been doing. It’s a hundred years since we’ve met- it may be another hundred years before we meet again.

Edith Wharton // The Age of Innocence

[perfeqt]

I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you’ve been doing. It’s a hundred years since we’ve met- it may be another hundred years before we meet again.

Edith Wharton // The Age of Innocence

[cuubism]

hello friends. despite my 9 million existing dreamling wips i'm feeling the need to branch out a bit for the sake of my mental variety. what pairing other than dreamling should i write a little something for? could be romantic or platonic

other way of phrasing i guess: any pairings you really want to see more fics for in the fandom?

[thespilledquotes]

I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you’ve been doing. It’s a hundred years since we’ve met- it may be another hundred years before we meet again.

Edith Wharton // The Age of Innocence

[nightlyquotes]

I swear I only want to hear about you, to know what you’ve been doing. It’s a hundred years since we’ve met- it may be another hundred years before we meet again.

Edith Wharton // The Age of Innocence