#and they will always laugh at me /alienate me for not delivering like they will take any opportunity for it not to mention

[sol91]

Alone

LOG ENTRY: SOL 90

It occurred to me today that someday someone from earth might actually listen to these logs, so I figure I should record a needlessly expository one to get everyone up to speed.

My name is Lena Luthor.

It's been 90 martian days since I landed here with the rest of the crew. That's what, 92 earth days? Mars spins just a little on the slow side.

On sol 6 a dust storm was going to knock over the rocket we brought to take us home, so the rest of the crew went home and left me behind to die. Well, they thought I was already dead and left. To be honest, not their fault at all.

So I'm alone here on mars, no way home, no way to communicate, only enough food for a year, and everyone thinks I'm dead. Which sounds miserable but luckily I do have this disco music to listen to, courtesy of Commander Lewis.

And, if I can get these potatoes to grow in martian soil, which I definitely can, then I can survive long enough for the next mission to arrive.

Which should be in about 4 years.

Which does honestly sound like a long time to be alone. But I've been alone before. Most of the time, to be honest, it's how I do my best work.

I don't know, maybe I could have done things differently. Asked out that reporter when I had the chance. Not gone to fucking mars.

On the plus side, if I do make it home, she'll be so impressed she'll have to go out with me. I'm pretty sure the president is basically obligated to deliver a eulogy for every astronaut who kicks the bucket up here so everyone in the country must know my name by now. They'll probably show the satellite images and everything— actually, I wonder if they've figured out I'm alive by now. What else do all those NASA technicians even do all day?

Anyway, that's basically the situation. Feel free to keep watching these if you want to hear about my adventures cleaning solar panels and fixing the water reclaimer. Yeah, that'll sell movie tickets.

LOG ENTRY: SOL 91

Fuck. Oh god. Okay. Something just opened the airlock from the outside. There's no locks on it, because why the fuck would there be? There's not supposed to be anything else on this planet. I have like 30 seconds before that airlock opens and I have no idea what to do. Obviously there's no windows in the airlock for structural reasons, I guess the engineers back at NASA didn't consider the hab might be invaded by space aliens. Alright. If this is my last message I have some things I want to say. Commander Lewis your music is awful. Lex you can rot in hell. Kara I always thought you were hot.

Oh shit here we go—

Kara?

Kara Danvers stepped into the hab. She was wearing a button down shirt and khakis, no space helmet. "I've never held my breath that long, that was crazy." She said, panting slightly.

"Kara, what—" Lena began. But before she could finish forming a sentence, Kara was hugging her.

In the hierarchy of times you wanted to run into your crush, not having showered in 3 months in a room full of manure was pretty much bottom of the list. But right now, Lena didn't care. The hug lasted at least 30 seconds before Lena pulled back.

"Kara, what the fuck is going on? How are you here?"

"Oh! I'm Supergirl" Kara said simply.

"That… actually makes a lot of sense"

"I was at the office when I heard you were still alive and I just—" She shook her head. "NASA had some complicated plan to get you home, but I just thought, how far away can Mars really be?"

Lena laughed.

"You ready to go home?" Kara asked.

"Very." Lena was already crossing the room to don her spacesuit.

"Also, I was wondering" Kara said, more hesitant now. "Do you have plans for dinner tomorrow?"

Lena turned to look at Kara. "Do I have plans for dinner tomorrow?" She repeated, smiling. "Kara, I live on mars."

"I— right. Do you want to have dinner with me tomorrow?"

"I would love that."

"Great!" Said Kara, "It's a date! I promise it'll be—" "Don't you dare say it." interjected Lena. "—out of this world."

[marlynnofmany]

Reaching

Being the tall person at the grocery store is nothing compared to being the tall species on an alien planet. Everybody here was hip-height at best, and my ability to grab things that would normally require a stepstool was very appreciated. I wasn’t the only Big Alien come to visit, since the courier ship was about evenly split size-wise, but I was definitely enjoying it.

Especially since the cargo we were meant to pick up was stored (for some reason) on high shelves.

“That’s everything from this one,” I said to Mur as I grabbed a final dusty crate from head level, bending down to place it on the hoversled. “What’s next?” I straightened up and stretched my back, ready for more.

Mur consulted a list on the communicator he held with one tentacle. “That was the ‘blue alcove.’ Which one’s the ‘round alcove’?”

I rotated in place, looking for round things in the alien barn full of mismatched architecture and empty stalls. The owner had decided to retire and sell their old junk, which meant getting us to deliver it to somebody else’s farm. They were paying extra for us to load it onto the ship ourselves. This farmer was either elderly and infirm, or out of bothers to give. Not that it mattered much either way.

“I see it!” Paint said, pointing a scaly hand upward.

I followed her finger to see a curved opening halfway up the wall. “That’s more of an oval, but everything else is square, so I guess that’s it,” I agreed.

Paint tugged the hoversled over, while Mur sat on top of the boxes with his list. Then they both waited for me, because they certainly couldn’t reach any of it.

“We’re meant to take everything up here, right?” I asked, leaning in to grab a bundle of what looked like hammers strapped together. They were heavy, but not to the point where I was at risk of dropping them on anybody.

“Looks like yes,” Mur said. “Can you get all of it?”

“Mayyybe not,” I admitted. “This alcove is pretty deep.”

“Oh, there’s a ladder!” Paint said, darting away. I was busy straining to reach a roll of wire, so I didn’t see what caused the loud snap. But I did hear her make a disappointed sound.

Mur laughed. “There was a ladder. See any others over there?”

I pulled the wire down and set it on the cart, only then getting a view of Paint guiltily dropping the decrepit piece of wood that had recently been half a ladder. There were two or three pegs sticking out of it, though the rest had stayed with the other half, which appeared to be bolted to the wall.

I winced. “Are we going to have to pay damages for that?”

“Eh, maybe,” Mur said. “Pretty sure the old farmer mentioned a number of things that were destined for the fuel pile anyway. We can let Captain Sunlight ask.”

Paint called over, “I don’t see any others.”

A look back at the near wall showed bolts that might have held a different ladder in place once. “New question,” I said. “What do you see that looks strong enough for me to step on? Because I can just climb up there with a little boost.”

Mur grumbled something about species that were always looking for things to climb. Since this was entirely accurate, I ignored him. Then he said, “Well, I’d suggest stepping on the sled, but it’s full of goods, and the brakes aren’t what they should be.”

“Yeah, no use risking that,” I agreed. “And I don’t need much. I could probably get up there with a running start, but I’d rather not bruise anything today.”

Paint trotted back over. “What about those?” she suggested, pointing out a stack of metal tubs that were probably meant for animal food.

We took a look. Some were rusty and unreliable, and they were all heavy — we had to tip the stack on its side to sort through them. But we found one at the bottom that felt sturdy enough. I probably wouldn’t fall right through it. Probably.

It sure was heavy, though. I dragged it over, leaving a trail through the dirt and alien straw, hoping I wasn’t about to ruin another thing that we’d have to pay for.

I’d just gotten it into position when a new voice asked, “What is taking so long?”

Trrili stood in the doorway, a looming black-and-red menace with mandibles and pincher arms. She looked impatient. She also looked like a giant praying mantis, but she always looked like that.

While Paint explained that the items were hard to reach and the ladder was pursuing an exciting new career as kindling, Trrili stalked over on her many legs. Ignoring me completely, she reared back and easily reached into the back of the alcove. “All of these?” she asked.

“Ah, yup,” I said, stepping to the side.

She pulled back to land with her pincher arms holding a large curved thing that had loops dangling from the sides. “What even is this?” she asked as she dumped it onto the sled.

“Looks like a saddle,” I told her.

She was already back up there, rummaging around with only her hind feet on the ground. “What for?”

I said, “Riding animals, I imagine,” then went to stand uselessly with Paint. We watched as our larger coworker loaded up the rest of the items.

“Why would anyone want to ride an animal?” Trrili asked, placing a segment of pipe between the boxes.

“Not everyone has hovertech,” I said. “And it’s nice when your transportation can watch out for hazards. And appreciate neck scritches.”

Trrili declared the whole idea absurd and unnecessary, fit only for species that got too familiar with their prey. None of this was a surprise to me. I’d heard her opinions on pets before.

But Paint was curious about what it was like to be carried around by a large living thing. Was it frightening? What if the animal went the wrong way? What was the importance of “neck scritches?”

I set about explaining horses to her. I might not be able to reach as far as Trrili, but this was definitely something I could do.

~~~

The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come! And I am currently drafting a sequel!

[lilyfrogisnotneurotypical]

kiss it better

Dhawan! Master x Reader fluff 2.1k

warnings: kissing ig?, blood but nothing graphic y’all asked and i delivered. I woke up at 2 am and couldn’t go back to sleep so I wrote this for 3 hours. Never written fanfic before but enjoy ig. There’s probably multiple mistakes and it’s definitely ooc. Also if you know me irl, no you don’t go away.

He was acting weird. Well he was always acting weird, but it had been a different weird lately. The Master was fond of you, you knew that much, he remembered little things that you liked, such as how you took your tea, or which shoes you preferred for running during one of the many outings you went on while traveling with him. But this time it seemed he was being particularly gentle with you. 

“I can still walk you know.” 

“This keeps you from trying to run off before I can treat you.” The Master replies gruffly.

You had scraped your knees. That was it. You were running from yet another alien race the Master had pissed off and you had fallen briefly and scraped your knees, getting right back up to keep running and make it into the TARDIS. You were fine really, your knees stung and you’d have to clean them well, but it wasn’t anything life threatening. The way the Master was walking quickly to the med bay with you carried bridal style in his arms however, told you that he thought otherwise. 

With the TARDIS doors closed behind you he races to the console to pilot the ship away, likely to some random galaxy that  would be safe to float around in. After catching your breath you walk to join him, watching his movements as he pushes buttons and pulls levers. Once he turns to face you however, the grin that had been on his face drops, his eyes on your knees.

“You’re hurt.”

You hadn’t realized blood was slowly seeping out of your knees until you look down after hearing his words.

“Oh.” you say. “I fell while running, I must’ve scraped my knees then.”

Without warning, he closes the distance between the two of you, kneeling just slightly in order to pick you up from behind your back and under your knees. You weren’t expecting him to be that close to you, let alone touch you, let alone carry you like he was doing now. In your shock, it took you a moment to register what was happening.

“What are you doing?” You ask incredulously as he walks out of the console room down one of the many corridors.

“Taking you to the med bay. You’re hurt.” He replies simply.

“Not that badly, I can handle it myself, and I didn’t need to be carried!”

When he didn’t say anything after a beat, you try again, softer this time.

“I can still walk you know.” 

“This keeps you from trying to run off before I can treat you.” The Master replies gruffly.

You went quiet at that, knowing damn well he was right and you would never willingly let him take care of the injury for you. It was still strange though. When you had first started traveling with him he couldn’t care less if you were left behind on some random planet, let alone hurt. He had warmed up to you though, and a somewhat distant friendship is what you got used to, even if he would never call what the two of you shared friendship. So to go from nothing to distant, to then quite literally carrying you down a hallway in the span of probably a year or so (you couldn’t quite tell, time passage is weird in the TARDIS) it was safe to say you weren’t sure what to make of it. You weren’t complaining necessarily, the gentler treatment was nice especially because of the feelings you had developed for him while traveling, but you didn’t want to get your hopes up; he wouldn’t ever reciprocate the feelings, in fact he’d probably laugh and drop you back on Earth if he ever found out.

You realized you had zoned out when the Master walks into the brightly lit med bay and sets you down on one of the beds. He lays you down slowly, making sure you won’t be jostled any in the transfer to the bed. Once he’s satisfied you’ll be fine there, he turns to the cabinets, producing a vial of some clear liquid, wound dressings, and a soft looking black towel. Setting the equipment on the bedside table he begins to work, wetting the black towel with water from the sink and gently cleaning the blood that had made a crust on your knees. You watch him as he cleans your knees, his brow furrowed as he concentrates on the task, completely silent save for the sounds of his hands moving.

“Why are you doing this?” you ask quietly.

“Doing what love.” he replies, not ceasing the movement of his hands as he applies some kind of ointment to your knees.

“Helping me. I could’ve done it myself.”

“Can’t have my human breaking on me now can I? Your species needs constant care.”

Feeling brave you decide to confront him. “No you’re acting strange. What is it?”

He finally looks up at that, his brown eyes squarely meeting your own.

“I didn’t give you any pain meds so why are you acting delirious? Or is it the blood loss that’s making you this way?” 

“Don’t turn this on me! I’m perfectly fine that’s the thing, you’re the one acting weird! I could’ve handled this myself easily, so why are you treating me like i’ve had some life threatening injury?” you let out, thoroughly exasperated.

His eyes narrow, voice hard when he responds.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Like hell you don’t.”

He growled at that, leaving the supplies he was cleaning up to turn and face you.

“Watch your tone pet.”

“You won’t do anything about it. You just carried me to the med bay for some scraped knees, you won’t hurt me, now why do you care.”

He’s angry that much was certain. You aren’t afraid of him, not after traveling with him this long, but the anger radiating from his person does make you nervous.

“I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“You do though! You’ve been so much gentler with me these past few months, why? What’s wrong? Why are you acting so weird? Why won’t you answer me?!”

“Go to your room, you need rest. I’ll see you tomorrow.” he says, walking to the door.

“Why are you acting like this!”

“Because I love you!”

You can’t help but fall silent, eyes wide as you take in what he said. He has to be joking. This can’t be real, he would never say that, why would he say that, why-

Your silence seemed to be a sign to him because he looks at you with a mixture of anger and sadness, and something else you can’t pinpoint.

“Go to your room. Don’t follow me.”

And then he left. And then you burst into tears. You crumple on the floor, the emotion overwhelming you as you struggled to process it all. He has to be joking right? He can’t mean that, but- you really want him to. Half of yourself denies it, and the other half feeds into the fantasy. You don’t know what to do. The Master isn’t a man you’d expect to love someone. Or just be decent to someone really. So what does it mean that he’s said that?

Deciding lying on the floor crying will get you nowhere, you follow the Masters orders and go to your room, but not before going to the kitchen to get a glass of water. 

“This’ll cool me down.” you think while filling up an empty glass with water and ice. 

Sipping the water you walk to your room and open the door. Your room. You love this room, all its personality and coziness, and everything that makes it perfect for you. Setting down your cup on the coaster you keep next to your bed, you walk into the bathroom and splash water on your face to calm yourself. Looking in the mirror you decide to fix up a bit  in order to feel better. After changing into something more comfortable and brushing your hair you feel much more confident. Which meant you needed to confront the Master. 

You had walked out into the corridor before realizing you had no idea where he was. As you wonder how you were supposed to find him now, the TARDIS warbles at you. She talked to you sometimes. Never with words but somehow you always seemed to know what she meant. Like her pilot, she seemed quite fond of you, often leading you to the kitchen in the middle of the night, or making your trip to the condole room just a bit shorter. This time it seemed she was leading you to the Master. Thanking her quietly, you walk down the hallway, the TARDIS directing your passage. Eventually you turn a corner to see a single door.

This is it. No backing out now. You push open the door to find the library. You should’ve guessed honestly. The library was the Masters sanctuary, his safe place to go. You weren’t sure if he ever left it while he was on the ship. You don’t see him at first, but when you get to the couches you find him sitting at one with his head in his hands.

“I thought I told you not to follow me.”

“And I thought you knew I was terrible at following orders but here we are.”

He doesn’t respond to that, instead choosing to look up at you. His hair is messed up, likely from his hand running through it, and he’s put his glasses on, making him look as non-threatening as possible. You walk towards him, and when he doesn’t move or say anything, you sit next to him, being sure to leave some space between the two of you.

“Is it true?” you ask quietly. “Do you really-“

“If you’re only here to tease you can leave.” he says, standing up and walking to a bookshelf.

You turn in your seat.

“No that’s not it, I-“

“The high and mighty Master fell for a human, yes I know.”

“Will you just listen!”

“I can drop you off at home. You’ll never have to see me again.”

“You stupid time-lord.”

That catches his attention. Before he can say anything though, you speak first.

“I love you too. I have for a while now.”

“Don’t tease-“

“I’m not. I love you. Now please come sit down so I can talk to you.”

Your heart pounds in the quiet room and you hold your breath until the Master comes back around to the couch and sits down. His presence next to you is heavy now, and you shiver. 

“You love me.” he whispers into the silence.

“Yes. And i’m assuming it’s reciprocated. Well, I hope so at least.” you reply, still unsure any of this is real.

He turns and looks at you, a soft smile on his face.

“Would I lie to you?”

“Yeah actually you probably would.” you laugh, and when you look back at him he’s laughing too.

“Fair point. But i’m not lying about this. I swear it. I love you.”

You can’t help the grin on your face or the blush body betrays you with. The Master looks at you with such softness you have to remind yourself it’s real. His eyes flicker to your lips and he turns his body towards you.

“Love?”

“Yes?”

“Would it be alright if I kissed you?”

“Always.”

You have no time to prepare yourself before his lips touch yours and your whole world explodes. Colors flash behind your eyes and he takes your waist with his hand, pulling you closer to him. Your brain flickers neon as he titled his head slightly to get a better angle, lips moving softly against your own. He kisses you like it might be your last kiss, he kisses you like you’ll die if he doesn’t. Your own hands go to his chest and hair, raking your fingers through those gorgeous curls you always wanted to touch. If the noise that comes from the back of his throat is any indication, he seemed to like that.

He breaks the kiss to look into your eyes and laugh again, quietly this time, as if in disbelief.

“What is it?” you ask.

“You’re just so… you.”

His lips go to yours again, moving in such a way that the fireworks in your head spin. His hand travels up your back to play with your hair, the other hand stroking along your side. Putting the hand that had been in his hair on his cheek, you run your thumb against his hairline. He breaks the kiss to pepper feather light kisses down your neck and shoulder, producing a blissful sigh from you. When he moves back to your face he simply looks at you, eyes filled with what you know realize was love.

“Well someone was enthusiastic.” he teases, relishing in the light blush that dusts your face.

“You were the one who kissed me.”

“Really? I don’t know love, we might have to check your memory too, that doesn’t sound right.”

“Oh shut up.”

“Make me.”

[olsenmyolsen]

Chapter Twenty: Eavesdropping Before Breakfast

The Farmer's Daughter - (A WandaNat Story)

Masterlist . Tag list: @xenaizogie

Summary: Laura and Natasha talk while Wanda listens in before Natasha burns breakfast.

Word Count: 2.1K

Content: Soft Natasha, Soft Wanda, Girlfriends, Feelings, Laura Barton and Kids, Domestic moments. They're so cute!!!

The next morning, Wanda awoke to the bed feeling colder than usual.

She slowly rose her sleepy head off her pillow and moved her arm to where Natasha should've been. "Nat?" Wanda's groggy voice escaped her mouth as she turned around to look for the redhead. However, her search came up empty.

It wasn't until Wanda rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and the sound of a frying pan hitting the kitchen floor did she figure out where Natasha scurried off too.

"Nice going. Are you trying to wake everyone up?" Laura playfully scolded Natasha, who slapped her arm before picking up and wiping down the pan. "God, watching you hold a pan is worse than driving that god-awful bike for the first time," Laura commented as she watched Natasha react to the kitchenware like it was alien technology.

Now give Natasha a knife and a can of food, and she could deliver a meal.

Natasha rolled her eyes. "You know I don't cook." She set the pan down and grabbed some fresh eggs off the kitchen island. "Plus, I still have that bike, and I look pretty badass on it." Natasha smiled because she knew she looked good in it. "Also, just because you're a mom doesn't mean I forgot when you used to have a bike, too."

Laura sneered as she lifted up her mug of coffee to her lips.

"Does Wanda like the bike?"

Wandaheard as she quietly stopped in the middle of the stairs. She was intrigued. A little easedrop never hurt anyone. Right? Wanda pushed her hair behind her ears and sat down on the hardwood step, prepared to listen in.

"Yeah," Natasha responded before grabbing more ingredients for a special breakfast. "She loves it. Except..." Natasha chuckled slightly. "Except every time we go out with it, someone always brings it back home. It's like a running joke that we don't want." Laura hummed as she took another sip. "Have you met her friends?"

Natasha brought her eyes to Laura. "Oh, I see we're doing the I wanna know everything game." Laura set her mug down and gestured with her arms. "Duh! Natasha, I haven't seen you for a long time, and when I do, you bring someone with you. That's big!"

Natasha's face turned slightly red with a smile as she thought about Wanda and their conversation last night.

"You're right," Natasha said. "I have met her friends, by the way. They're pretty great."

Wanda would have to remember about drunk karaoke and show Laura all the videos.

"And they like you?" Laura said as if they wouldn't like Natasha making the redhead drop her mouth in offense. "Wow, Laura!" The mom shook her head. "Oh please, you know what I meant." Natasha cracked eggs into one pan and started a batter for French toast in another.

"Yes, they love me! Even her brother likes me! Mom, too!" Natasha said with pride. Wanda smiles on the staircase. Her Mother adored Natasha. "Wow!" Laura said before folding her arms on the kitchen island. "Take it the father doesn't know?"

Natasha shook her head. Laura nodded. "It's not like you guys are official yet." Natasha pulled her lips into her mouth and eyed Laura.

"Shut up!" Laura exclaimed when she saw Natasha's face. Natasha shrugged with a grin. "I asked her last night!"

Laura clapped her hands together and got up from the stool to hug Natasha. The redhead kept her hands on the spatula she was using. "Oh, Natasha is finally growing up!" Laura said as she playfully squeezed Natasha's cheeks. "Alright. Alright." Natasha rolled her eyes and focused on the food in front of her. Laura laughed and leaned back against the counter next to Natasha.

"Are you happy?" Laura questioned.

Natasha didn't waste a second before her eyes found Lauras. "I haven't been this happy in a long time." Laura could see and feel Natasha's raw honesty.

It was amazing to see.

Wanda smiled wide. She hadn't been this happy in a long time either.

"What are you doing?" Wanda wiped her head around to see Lila standing at the top of the steps, rubbing her tiny eyes. Wanda put her index finger to her mouth and gestured for Lila to quietly step down to her. Lila smiled and joined Wanda before brining her mouth near Wanda's ear and whispering. "What are you doing?" Wanda cupped her hand and whispered back to Lila. "Spying on Natasha and your mom."

There was no point in lying.

"Why?" Lila asked, and Wanda thought about the answer. "Because they were talking about me." Lila went wide-eyed and nodded. "Mom calls that gossip." Wanda held in her laughter. "Does your mom gossip a lot?" Wanda asked, a little curious. Lila shrugged. "Mainly with dad."

Wanda nodded before rising from the staircase. The sound of Laura and Natasha switching topics had happened.

"Well, let's go, kiddo. I think Auntie Natasha is making breakfast."

"Uh oh," Lila said, making Wanda laugh as they descended the stairs.

In the kitchen, Laura and Natasha turned their heads just as Wanda and Lila came into view. "Well, look who's up!" Laura said as she passed by Natasha with a smirk before picking up her child. "You never get up this early!" Laura questioned her daughter. "I heard a loud banging noise and talking."

Natasha smiled sheepishly at Wanda, who joined her at the stove. "Hi," Wanda whispered. "Hi," Natasha whispered back. "Did the pan wake you up, too?" Wanda shook her head. "Your absence did."

"Oh my gosh, you guys are a couple for two minutes, and it's so gross," Laura said while covering Lila's face, who couldn't stop laughing at her mother's silly actions. "Momma, stop!" Lila giggled, but Laura pulled her away. "Let's go wake up your brother and maybe think about ways to nicely tell Atunie Nat about how she doesn't have to cook for us."

"I heard that!" Natasha said while Wanda watched her with her bottom lip between her teeth. "You were supposed to!" Laura replied before she and Lila were up the stairs. Natasha rolled her eyes before turning to Wanda. "What?" The redhead asked with a soft tone in her voice. "You're just cute," Wanda replied. "Oh gosh, we are that gross couple." She added on but laughed as Natasha pulled her closer until their lips touched.

"Natasha?"

Natasha hummed as she slowly pulled away.

"What's burning?" Natasha's eyes became the size of plates as she turned around to see the wooden spatula had burn marks due to the stovetop. Natasha immediately threw it into the kitchen sink before running water over it.

Wanda watched how out of place Natasha looked and decided to take over the cooking duties.

"Oh god, should I throw it out?" Natasha held up the burnt spatula to Wanda, who laughed. "I think-" "Is something burning?" Laura called down from the top of the stairs.

"Don't worry, Laura, I got it!" Wanda yelled back. Covering for Natasha. Laura trusted Wanda a hell of a lot more than Natasha when it came to food.

Or not burning down houses.

Natasha stood beside her girlfriend with the wooden spatula in her hand, still waiting for an answer. "Wash it off and give it to me. I'll handle it."

Natasha didn't look too sure, but Wanda seemed very nonchalant about it as her attention moved to the French toast and eggs.

So Natasha did as she was told.

A minute later, Wanda added sausage to a griddle she somehow conjured up when Natasha looked away.

Natasha knew she herself was terrible at cooking, but watching how Wanda glided in a kitchen she had never used before and how easy it looked made Natasha feel like she would never truly understand the joys of making your own food unless it was an orange packet of noodles. Or a peanut butter sandwich.

And yes, Wanda helped her mother make pies and cakes or the occasional traditional Sokovian meal. But Natasha had truly never seen Wanda more in her element.

Other than the bedroom. ;)

"What's with the look?" Wanda asked without even turning around to Natasha. That freaked out the former soldier. Natasha straightened up and leaned over the kitchen island. "I'm looking atthe magic happening before my eyes." Wanda rolled her green ones. "Magic, huh?" She asked as she looked over her shoulder at the redhead.

Natasha nodded. "You're so natural it's like you're on autopilot," Wanda raised an eyebrow but smiled as she lifted the burnt spatula and pointed it at Natasha. "You're bordering on the line of a "joke" I don't think you want to make." Natasha looked at Wanda, confused, before it clicked. "Oh my gosh, no, I would never say that!" Wanda laughed loudly as she moved some sausages onto a plate.

"What would you never say?" Laura asked as she and the two kids entered the kitchen. Lila immediately ran to Wanda's side—Cooper to Natasha.

"Natasha thinks I belong in the kitchen!" Wanda spoke without much of a tease to her voice. Laura quickly flicked the back of Natasha's head as Lila spun her head around with shock all over it. "Auntie Nat!" Natasha was flummoxed and couldn't pick up her mouth quick enough. Wanda really sold her down the river, even if this isn't what she meant.

But Wanda knew it and winked at her girlfriend.

Laura quietly chuckled to herself as Cooper shook his head.

"I did not say that-" "She also brunt your spatula." Wanda raised it up to Laura. "Oh my gosh! Wanda, stop!" Natasha whined at the consistent betrayal. "I didn't say those things!"

"Did you burn the spatula?" Laura asked curiously as Natasha threw her head down. "Wanda!!!" Natasha was exhausted, and the day hadn't even started yet.

"Okay. Okay." Wanda said as she clicked off the stove and let Lila scramble some leftover eggs. "Natasha just complimented me on how well I do in a kitchen environment. I bake pies and cakes back home." Wanda explained. "And yes, Natasha accidentally burnt the spatula."

Laura looked between the two women. "Keep the spatula." She then pointed at Natasha. "How about you step away before you burn anything else and start preparing the table." Natasha hung her shoulders in defeat before grabbing Cooper to help her.

Laura meanwhile moved towards Wanda and Lila. "Helping with the eggs, sweetie?" She asked her daughter, who nodded. "Wanda was saying maybe we could make a cake later." Wanda looked at Laura. "It was just a thought. We don't have to." She was giving Laura a chance to say no, but Laura smiled at Wanda and Lila. "I think you and Wanda will have a great time doing that." She pinched her daughter's cheeks, making the small child giggle.

Wanda then helped Lila move some food to another plate for the table before they started working on the French toast.

Lila happily carried the plates and bowls of food over before grabbing out the fruit with the help of Natasha.

Laura looked over Wanda as she moved closer. "You heard, didn't you." Wanda turned her head. "Heard what?" Laura smirked and turned back to make sure Natasha wasn't listening. Her eyes went back to Wanda's. "She's never been this way about anyone else. I'm sure you know that."

Wanda nodded lightly. "We've talked." Laura nodded as well. "Clint and I are the closest thing she's got to a real family anymore. So I'm obliged to say this, Wanda." She smiles at the younger woman. "Before having kids, I was also in a branch of the military, so If anything happens to Natasha's heart, you won't be dealing with Clint."

Wanda stared directly into Laura's eyes. She had never been threatened like this before, but she nodded weakly. "I-I understand. But trust me..." She swallowed heavily. "I have no intention of hurting her. I care for her too much. She's my girlfriend. I-" Wanda stopped herself, but Laura could see how she had fallen.

"I know. But like I told you, it's an obligation." Laura then smiled and helped Wanda with the remainder of breakfast as if nothing had changed.

As Wanda sat at the dining room table next to Natasha she grabbed her girlfriend's hand and held it. Natasha squeezed it back with a smile before they got caught up talking to the kids about the plans for today.

First on the agenda was Lila giving Wanda some pigtails.

Hours later Natasha can't help but think that this is the hardest she's ever smiled.

The redhead knew she was in love and that she wasn't as scared about the future with Wanda as she had been in previous days.

But now Natasha knew she had to tell one person.

Erik Lehnsherr.

dividers by @/benkeibear

[fillinforlater]

Spaceship: Horizon - Season Finale: How did we get here?

Male Reader x Miyawaki Sakura & Choi Yena

Length: 2480 words

Tags: a lot of what the fucks, a lot of fucks, sudden sex, sex as a reward, threesome, friendly rivalry, blowjobs, forced deepthroat, 69, pussy eating, face sitting, snowballing, cowgirl, overstimulation, very numb, very exhausted, very confusing, commander!Sakura / dorky!Yena / puzzled!You

TW: Kinda forced with a lot of plot point coming together. Feel free to back read ;)

Inspiration: A lot of ppl wanted Kkura, other wanted Yena, and I wanted to finish one of my many plans I had for this season finale. This series is super old, hell, I don't even remember all the things I set up and names lol.

Credit: @midnightdancingsol for the late edit. Really saved some stuff, tbh. You're the best.

(A/N: FInally, we are! Season two wrapped up after HUGE holes in between lmao. A lot my newer reader might not even know this series exists lmao. This was always supposed to be my flagship, but yeah, I guess others are more well-liked. Enjoy this season finale, it (probably) won't be the last!)

“Hm! Look, he is waking up, Commander!”

“Stop calling me that, Yena! These titles are absurd.”

The ceiling above you is familiar. The cushions below you are familiar. The two do not evoke positive memories, unlike the two familiar voices that argue for a brief period of time, before they stop. 

Two pairs of eyes look down on you. They sparkle in excitement and thrill—at seeing you, perhaps?

“Sakura? Yena?” you call out the two names you associate with those orbs and reach for where you assume their bodies are. Texture—an arm, a hand. This is reality and not some weird lucid dream. You have experienced enough of those in the past to be cautious, but luckily, both Sakura and Yena are real.

“Welcome back!” Yena shouts. She wraps an arm around your nape and her following hug leaves you breathless for a second, her sizable breasts for another. 

“Back?” you respond, mildly confused, although it is nothing new to you that this girl says random shit again and again without explaining herself.

“Aw, Commander, look at him! He is a literal war hero and doesn’t even know it.”

Yena giggles, thus Sakura gives her a quick slap on the butt. It was certainly not a kind slap, but the idol does not look angry at all. The excitement and amusement do not disappear from her. It’s all absurd. It would all make more sense if you died and went to heaven. No more aliens that want you to record porn, just the weird, dorky, sexy guide from the spaceship and your favorite idol. Sounds like heaven, alright.

“War hero? Damn, I can’t even remember the battle I fought, but it explains why I’m dead.”

Sakura shakes her head.

“Yena, please, this poor guy is completely lost. Enlighten him about everything he asks for. We got the time.”

Yena suddenly straightens her posture. Like a news anchor delivering important, serious information, she tries to stare at you, but her attempt fails. Her laughter echoes off the walls and through the large room. She repeatedly slaps her thigh in loud amusement. Sakura looks pissed.

“Yena! Get your act together!”

“But how would you tell him? It sounds so weird when I try to put it into words!”

“Weird?” you say confusedly. “Nothing can be weird to me now. We are on a fucking spaceship with aliens that can shapeshift and want to film us have sex.”

Yena laughs again. “Oh boy, about that!”

Sakura, visibly at the end of her patience, plants an angry hand on the younger girl's mouth. She glares at her, then at you, and says with a bit of resignation:

“All of the things you just said—they changed. A lot.”

“Huh? How so?” you say while giving looks to both of the girls and their banter. If they weren’t so cute, you’d cringe at their behavior.

“A couple of weeks ago,” Sakura begins as she still suffocates a teary-eyed Yena with the palm of her hand, “we found ways to communicate with other parts of the spaceship. It is absolutely gigantic, we still have no idea how big it actually—Yena, stop it now, please—is. A couple hundred kilometers in each direction, probably. At first we thought it was a trap, that these intelligent creatures would not allow us to meet up in secret and share information. But then, we found the reason: all of them were watching your videos. Every single one of them.”

“What do you me—please, no!”

Your fingers dig into your hair. It feels sweaty, greasy, and definitely unwashed, the new stress is not helping either. Your pornography spread further than you would have imagined. If these aliens saw it, then other people saw it too. The size of this ship makes you imagine that potentially millions of humans could have seen you naked and get it going with dozens of women. Well, there goes your reputation, even if you ever return to Earth.

“Listen to her, she is not finished,” Yena says with a large grin on her ducky facial features. She places a caring hand on your shoulder, while Sakura places a not-so-caring-but-rather-threatening-hand on hers. 

“Don’t interrupt me, please.”

“I won’t, Commander.”

“I said you—never mind. Anyways, these aliens were addicted to the porn, the sex. Something about it made them lose focus. They became sloppy and made mistakes that left holes for us to not only be able to communicate with more and more people, we also made plans to get more information about this place and how we could use this addiction to our advantage.”

“Maybe you noticed it too,” Yena barges in. “Some aliens—especially your Worker—must have been very affected by it. Being irrational, less caring, all that kinda stuff.”

You nod. He certainly was affected. Uncontrollable, maniacal, not paying attention, getting desperate for more material, Worker became a junkie for your fucking porn. 

Your mind spins at the thought. Where the hell is this leading up to?

“Just a couple of days ago,” Sakura continues with intensity, her eyes wide open, “we were able to throw away all our strategies and battle plans. The aliens started to evaporate. At first we thought it was a trick by them and that they figured it out, but then we got reports that they probably died due to an overdose of your porn. We knew their deaths, or rather obliteration, was inevitable. And so we watched them evaporate, one by one, and we took control of their positions. We found all kinds of young people held as cattle, tortured as slaves or being forcefully fed food. Not all of the experiments were cruel of course, but I think everyone is delighted that this shit is over.”

Sakura takes a deep breath and pinches her forehead. Her rambling wasn’t all that coherent, but she got the point across to you, which is—

“So… we won?”

Your question lingers in the air for a bit. The smell of sweat and some fine perfume reaches your nose for the first time since you woke up from your slumber. The mattress below you feels wet, your legs are still kind of numb. 

Oh, it must have been them who gave you the drug. They wanted you to film the ultimate video to finish the aliens off. The pieces of the puzzle are slowly coming together, but the picture couldn’t look any more bizarre. 

“Yes!” Yena exclaims and lunges herself at you. Her entire body presses onto yours, from thighs, to tummy, to titties. Yena doesn’t seem to care that you’re all sweaty. She looks genuinely happy.  It feels great, this feeling of victory, of freedom, Yena pushes it all onto you. 

“After we live streamed your holy-moly-crazy-orgy to the last remaining aliens, they all evaporated.”

“It sounds so stupid,” you giggle and shake your head, “but I guess I’m glad. I bet there are still so many insane things that happened. No need to tell me now, to be honest, I’m not sure I understood the things you already told me. But can I at least know why you didn’t tell me about it?”

“So it didn’t look forced,” Sakura says with the attempt of a wink, “We had no clue if you would have been able to perform under pressure if you knew what was at stake. We also like to keep these top secret issues in a small circle.”

“Damn, you all sound like the CIA.”

Yena rubs her cheek on yours as she gives another hearty laugh. 

“Our guerilla group really developed into a whole organization. It’s gotten even worse during the three days you were asleep.”

“Wait, what?” you groan defeated. Another three days of life missed for something you can’t grasp yet. And what the hell do they mean by organization? The questions don’t stop coming.

“Don’t worry!” Sakura flails her arms as she shifts closer to you as well, “We used the Helper system to keep you hydrated.”

“Wait, how? I don’t—”

“We have some smart people among us,” Yena says, her lips pouty, for some reason, “They were able to hack into the system, which is why we can communicate and use the Helpers to our benefit. Communication, water, food, hell, even teleportation. These things are amazing.”

“I—”

You stare at the ceiling. It’s the same, it’s been the same, it has not changed.

Your eyes open to the possibility that this is all fake, a dream to make you feel better. It’s a simple explanation for the absurdity tenfolding with every word the girls say. But can it be true? A dream this realistic and detailed, with all the right changes? 

Wait, maybe you really died a war hero and this was your reward. Like in those old, ancient stories—your brain is coming full circles. Damn this drug, damn this fucked up spaceship.

“—cannot understand, but I guess it’s fine.”

Silence, then the two girls giggle.

“Yes, it’s basically long story short,” Yena blurts out, “You fucked, fucked up things happened, the Aliens are fucked and we won. Everything is fine.”

Take a deep breath through your nostrils. The air still feels real, the wetness on your skin too, but most importantly, Sakura still smells as good as she did back then. You’re not dead, thank God, and apparently a porn star war hero, thank God? 

“Okay, whatever,” you respond and force your upper body into a sitting posture, “Can I please take a shower now? I smell of sweat and… other, more obscene bodily fluids.”

“Not so fast,” Sakura responds and sits down on your legs. Fuck, they are still numb, you can’t even fiddle them out underneath her light body.

“Let me in on it too, Commander!” Yena shouts and climbs next to you. She begins to pull at your shirt, while Sakura wiggles out your pants from under your butt. 

“What the—hey stop! We don’t need to film anything anymore, right?” you fight back with words, while your body surrenders immediately.

“You are right,” Sakura says as your cock springs free, already semi-hard, “No cameras. This is just for you, your reward.”

It might not be the first time that your favorite idol has taken your cock into her mouth, but there is something absolutely incredible about this time. She, the Sakura, is literally some Commander that gives a guinea pig porn star head for winning a war against shapeshifting aliens—oh yeah, and there is Yena, rubbing her now exposed breasts on your arm as her ducky lips suck your neck. It’s impossible to let that sink in.

You moan out in pleasure. It’s a miracle that your cock still works after what happened during the last session. Then again, it is Sakura who uses her skilled tongue and lips to make you hard and throbbing. 

Judging from Yena’s annoyed hums on your ear as she nibbles on it with great care, she feels neglected. Suddenly, one of her tits is in your mouth so you lazily suck on the hard nipple. Sakura hisses from in between your legs, your cock still in the warmth of her mouth. She stops sucking and jerks you off to properly address Yena.

“What are you doing? This is his reward, not yours! You can’t use him like your plaything.”

“Oh stop it, Commander! I know you want to ride his cock badly and cum on it like the needy bitch you always were while we watched the vi—”

“Fine, shut up!”

Through their bickering, they don’t seem to realize the mess of moans and whimpers you have become. Yena’s soft breast firmly placed in your mouth leaves your mind numb yet blissful, while Sakura’s hand goes up and down your cock at high speed. It’s like she is electrically charging you, to the point where you might explode. Why the fuck does a foreign hand feel so much better on your length than your own?

“Gimme some of that too,” Yena says and leaps at your crotch. At one moment, her chest was all you could see, the next moment it’s her pink pussy, hovering above your face. 

Lips on your tip make you beg for mercy, but the two don’t have any. Sakura pushes down on the back of Yena’s head and you unexpectedly penetrate her face deeply. Your entire cock disappears in her mouth and she slobbers all over it. A mix of saliva and lipstick covers your sweaty legs.. 

“Ye-Yena, K-Kura, I can’t—”

“You don’t like it?” Sakura asks, her tone missing seriousness entirely.

“No, I—fuck!”

Throw your head back as Yena moves. The warmth of her throat is gone and back again as soon as Sakura allows it. The idol is thrusting her friend—or are they just rivals—onto your shaft ferociously. Because of Yena’s firmly placed knees next to your shoulders, you are unable to stop them. All there is is your climax. Resign to it.

“Fuck, I c-can’t, hmpf!”

As the two girls work together to suck out your semen, Yena bluntly drops her cunt onto your lips, its scent a bewitching perfume to make you forget the pain of your overstimulated dick. She tastes delicious, her nectar drips into your groaning, gasping mouth. 

“My turn, finally!”

Yena pulls her stuffed mouth away, but your twitching, probably completely red cock doesn’t stay cold for long as Sakura lifts herself up and after a long hum goes down on your length, it bottoms out with ease, and your mind shuts off.

“So good!” Sakura screams and starts to ride you with no regards to your exhaustion or obvious overstimulation. Her body, flawless skin, flawless proportions, flawless everything, is uncontrollably fast yet she still finds a way to make it a show. Somehow, she is able to lift one of Yena’s legs high to give you a view of what is to come (granted, through Yena’s slick and suffocation, your eyesight is a bit dazed) and then pulls the cum-stuffed duck into a messy kiss. 

It’s not snowballing, it’s an avalanche. Cum drips from their loosely connected lips and tumbles down Sakura’s curves. Weird sucking and licking sounds fill the room as Yena tries to drink your whiteness before Sakura can steal it. The two girls fight and Yena continues to ride your face to not be outdone by the eager Sakura. You feel the remaining snow drip down on your tense torso, but they are eager to lick it off of you. 

This drags on for minutes, until their mix of pants, teases, giggles and actual words are only feral moans. In the confines of Sakura’s cavern, you survived the overstimulation and are ready for another release and possible death if the horny idol doesn’t stop afterwards. Luckily, she seems close as well. Yena also starts to rub her own clit frantically, more and more of her juice covers your features. 

The moment you all cum is surprisingly silent. There is a gasp here and there, wet smooches from fucking and face riding, but other than that, you all succumb to your release rather quietly. Sakura fucks your rod and it’s erupting seed deep into her cunt, while you make sure to open up for Yena to dump her fresh nectar into you. 

Wait a minute. Whose reward was this supposed to be again?

(A/N2: maybe mine? 😉😳)

[randomfoggytiger]

The Poetic Unreality of The Unnatural and Hollywood A.D.

April 2002:

The zombies of “Hollywood A.D.,” first seen in Federman’s movie, have the final word after they are brought to life by the inadvertent contact of the plastic Lazarus Bowl and the fake tree on the soundstage that Mulder and Scully have just left. Duchovny likens this dreamlike, illogical coda to similarly illogical scenes in “The Unnatural” — images of Dales’ memories turning out to be pictures on his television set; the same boy both delivering liquor to the older Dales and hanging out at Roswell Grays’ baseball games; the alien Exley bleeding red blood when he should bleed green. “It’s a non-linear sense of how images reveal a story,” he said. “In ‘The Unnatural’ you can see that in the moment when Exley bleeds, and in “Hollywood A.D.’ it’s the final moment when a piece of plastic makes zombies dance on a soundstage. These scenes makes poetic sense. It’s like when you’re talking about a poem and you go, ‘What does this poem mean?’ Well, a poem is. It doesn’t mean. That’s really what I feel like about the best images. 

...I had the feeling for some reason people didn’t get the last image of Hollywood A.D. They just thought it was fun. But to me it was really the whole reversal of the episode. If I were to literalize it, it would be to say, ‘Here we are on this Hollywood soundstage and we have the mass-produced plastic replica of a ceramic bowl that may or may not have the voice of Jesus on it, and this plastic bowl, even this far removed from the source, has the power to raise the dead. And more so, it has the power to raise dead people who aren’t even there and make them dance and show us what life is really all about. Mulder talked about this earlier in the bathtub scene, where he says, “Why is it that dead people are always attacking the living?’ I say, ‘They’re hungry first’ and if we stayed with them longer, they would get drunk and make love and dance. It was an imagistic reversal of the whole show but because it wasn’t literalized, maybe it wasn’t successful. For me it was the big circle of what it’s all about. It’s non-existent dead people laughing, dancing, sexy, making love. I feel very comfortable creating an image that is poetic. I think directing is the same as poetry.”

[star-writr]

Kitchen Kisses

Yet another 10th doctor x reader. Am I ashamed? Yes. Will I stop obsessing over this man any time soon? Absolutely not. Requests are open. Sorry if this is short, I wrote it in a hurry. Reader is gn and as always this is also on my Ao3. Idk if I should start making a masterlist. Enjoy!!

Cooking wasn't easy for you.

Every time you even came remotely close to a stove, it seemed ready to explode. Even so, you could manage on your own most times. You could warm up milk and boil pasta with (almost) no problems. Plus, you could always count on delivery.

You couldn't count on someone to deliver you a pizza, however, on a spaceship like the TARDIS. You also couldn't count on your culinary skills anymore, because you ended up being continuously distracted by the Doctor. He had the tendency to often look over your shoulder and suddenly ask if whatever you'd been cooking was ready, or if you needed anything, or if that fire in the corner was normal (it never was).

Nevertheless, you never gave up. Alien food couldn't always be healthy for you, you thought, referring to all the snacks the Doctor got for you in your travels; plus, you really wanted to impress him. "One of these days you're going to crawl to me begging for a recipe", you jokingly bragged, making him smirk; "yeah, sure, one of these days", he replied sarcastically, getting your cheeks all red.

It had been a rough day, full of adventures and trouble, and you had been left with a headache and too little to keep your hands busy with. You'd decided to scurry over to the kitchen to attempt (and probably fail) at making an omelette. You played some music on your cellphone and got to work.

Step one: crack the egg. Done. Step two: heat the pan. Also done. Step three: add the oil. You almost burned yourself, but nevertheless you got it done.

You looked around before going onto step four. It was odd. The Doctor wasn't around to distract you, the music was relaxing, nothing was on fire. It almost seemed impossible. Nonetheless, it wasn't over yet.

Step four: add the egg. You poured the liquid into the fizzing oil very carefully. Success! In your head you cheered, a smile making its way onto your lips.

Suddenly, you felt yourself being hugged, and audibly gasped. Realizing it was only the Doctor (who else but him smelled like candle wax and argan oil?) you sighed, relieved. "You scared me."

"Sorry. Whatcha making?" he asked, peeking at what was cooking in the pan. "Egg?"

"Yeah. I'm making an omelette. Wanna share?"

"If it survives the process," he laughed. You giggled with him. "What's that music?"

"Just my playlist. It was supposed to help me stay focused."

"Why are you using the past tense?"

"Because now you're here to distract me, aren't you?"

The Doctor smiled. "Not at all!" he chuckled. "Why do you think that?"

You raised an eyebrow. "Because you always distract me."

"You mean you can't focus when I'm around?"

"Yes." You realized what it sounded like as soon as the Time Lord stared at you with his satisfied smirk plastered onto his face. "Wait. No. No, I didn't mean that. Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I said exactly what you wanted to hear."

"Well, maybe you did say exactly what I wanted to hear."

There was silence for a couple seconds. His arms were still around you. He was so warm.

His lips were also warm. They made their way over to yours, erasing every inch of space left between the two of you. Your breaths slowed down. Time didn't stop, it went on and on and on, and the seconds you shared with your bodies pressed together like that didn't feel like years to you, but maybe to the Time Lord they did. You were broken apart by the sound of the oil fizzing a little too loud. With his arms still around your waist, the Doctor turned off the stove.

"Better get back to your cooking", he whispered, testing the waters.

You smiled. "Why would I do that now? I'm busy."

"Busy?"

"Indeed. Very busy kissing your stupid face until you say sorry for startling me earlier."

The Doctor gave you one of his best smiles. "Well, then, let's get down to business. But I'm not saying sorry if that means you'll stop kissing me. You know that, right?"

"You dumbo. C'mere", you murmured, kissing him again.

[averagewriter-inthedark]

Unlikely Trio 🕶️ | MIB Headcanon

Being an Agent of MIB and partners w/ K & J would look like: 

You three are an unlikely trio that somehow works. By this we're talking there's never a moment of peace when on the job because not only do y'all draw chaos, but you and J are constantly messing around to annoy K. "Drink your coffee, you two," he'd grumble at the dinner every morning, "We got work to do." "Whatever you say, boss man." "Yeah, don't wanna get your panties in a twist this early." 

Both you and J were recruited at the same time. Which thinking back was confusing considering J was a NYPD detective and you were a private investigator but somehow crossed paths the night J was chasing a suspect. That's when they brought you in as a witness and from there you both met K and the rest was history.

Going on late night patrols around the city together. You and J taking turns in the passenger seat since K didn't let either of you two drive. That means whoever is in the front is in charge of the aux cord despite K's protests. "Turn that crap off." "K, this is a classic--I thought you were a man of taste." "Y/I, remember this man is a fossil. He prefers the 1800s--." "Watch yourself, stretch.:

You and J are the jokesters, always having a laugh and making light of situations. Whereas you and K share deep, serious conversations and know when to be professional. When you three are together, there is a sense of balance. 

At functions you and J are the lives of the party--playing bartender, DJ, and keeping the dance floor occupied. Sometimes force K to dance with you whenever an old school song plays. "C'mon, old man, don't leave me hanging." And you can expect J taking pics on the sidelines as proof K can let loose every once in a while. 

On rare nights where all of you are off, you force J & K out of their apartments to hang out like normal people. You'll go to a diner or bar, maybe see a movie or go bowling. But when y'all do go bowling, it's intense since you three are MIB reigning league champions as a team so going head-to-head with each other brings on y'alls competitive side. and of course there is a bet in store for whoever wins & loses. "Winner gets the weak off from writing up the reports--that's the losers' job." "I'm down with that. Hope you boys are ready to take on more work." "Don't be full of yourself, sport. That's how you choke when it comes time to deliver."

God forbid you get hurt on the job. The men are in shambles and losing their minds. For example, if you're in the back seat bleeding out while K hauls ass to the hospital you best believe him and J are screaming at each other which then has you--who's on the brink of death--having to snap them out of the behavior. "Will you two shut the fuck up! It's no one's fault so stop blaming each other and focus on keeping me alive before I bleed out in this car!" Next thing K is pressing the red button to go at hyperspeed.

K never understands pop culture references you and J often say, leading to one of you explaining to him the meaning. Especially when on a job and the alien you're dealing with says something you both understand but K is clueless. "What's a TikTok?" "You don't want to know. Trust me, it's better if you remain ignorant."

When the shit with Boris happens, both you and J are racing against time to save him. He'd become a father figure to you guys besides being your mentor so there's no way in hell you were going to let him down. Traveling to 1969 and having to work with his younger self was quite the experience. Not to mention the reveal that you and J met him as children yet have no recollection.

When y'all return and the world is back to normal, you three are closer than ever. You nearly shed tears seeing the old man you grew to love as a father sitting at the countertop with his pie and coffee. Then when he realized you and J knew the truth, you leaned over to kiss his cheek, making him go red. "Thanks for everything, K." 

[vanyzvat]

My... Kinda controversial takes on Alien Stage Round 7 (+ Some silly theories)

(I was disappointed ☹️ Don't get me wrong, the visual storytelling, and just visuals overall were gorgeous! The song was amazing as always, too. But it just... Didn't feel like a satisfying Round at all.)

(By the way if you are genuinely angered by my take, just block me, do not interact with me)

I'm not generally a fan of stories that build up an insanely intricate world, with insanely intricate character arcs, get your hopes up, get you attached to said characters and get you rooting for them, and then the story just... Never delivers??? There's no satisfying conclusion for the characters, they just?? Die?? Like... Really? 😐

Like... What's even gonna be next?

Hyuna is back on that stage, everything she has built was for nothing,

Mizi and her are probably going to be put against one another by force.

And what are they even supposed to do? Surrender and die? Of course not, they're going to fight, and I assume Hyuna is going to die (Which would be a completely pointless death, in my honest opinion), and then Mizi is gonna have to "carry on her legacy" or some bullcrap like that 💀

Or, Mizi dies (Which would also be another pointless death), and then Hyuna is put back on the show by force, and has to fight Luka. Which I honestly feel isn't that far fetched of a theory?

The fact that Till never gave a single flying fuck about Ivan, while he died trying to keep him alive, only to just become a bad memory to Till while he continues thinking of Mizi who he has idolized to hell and back, never once getting to realize just how much she has changed since the last time he saw her.

Till died delusional. He never got to meet the real Mizi, he never got to see how this place has truly affected her. And Mizi, on the other hand, saw Till die, never once learning just how deep his borderline obsession with her was.

Alien Stage is brilliant, but seeing the direction it has taken with the latest round, it no longer feels fit for me personally.

I would've preferred an alternative ending, in which Till is able to turn things around at the sight of Mizi, and instead, Luka gets to be the one who's afraid.

I feel that would've been more satisfying than just having Luka win because... Idk because Till just had to die I guess lmaooo??

This might just be me being pessimistic, but I can't really,,, think of a way for this series to wrap up in a way that's satisfying and not just sad for the sake of being sad? Unless they truly somehow bring Till (And maybe Ivan) back like some people have been theorizing, which... I honestly doubt will happen.

The idea that Till was heavily drugged during Round 6-7, and that he was actually just being used as a pawn to bring out the rebels during Round 7, with said alleged drugs being what will somehow keep him alive does sound cool in theory, but I feel that's just the Fandom being optimistic like with the "Ivan is alive" theories.

I feel Hyuna will be forced to have the long lost ROUND 4 with Luka, after having to battle Mizi.

I truly, truly hope that you are all by some miracle right about Till (And maybe Ivan, but I genuinely doubt it) being alive, and that somehow, Alien Stage will manage to subvert my expectations.

Hopefully, when the series concludes I'll be able to look back on this and laugh due to how wrong I was, and I'll say that Alien Stage is truly peak

[by-speaker]

Colleagues (ENG. VER.)

Prompts by @raven-cincaide-words

When you work for death you don't have many colleagues, in fact you don't have colleagues at all. Missa was used to travelling between dimensions, it was a dark and lonely place, the only light coming from the souls and the light from the portals. 

So you can understand the reaper's surprise when a man with wings followed by a flock of crows crossed one of the portals. The man was blond, with cold blue eyes wrapped in a green yakuta and a green bucket hat with white stripes. 

Missa froze at the end of the corridor, watching curiously as this man, this mortal looked around, this was strange, very strange. He was a stranger in the world of the non-living. 

Philza froze, he had never seen such a beautiful being, his black hair was dark, it almost looked like a void, as if it was the blackest black created by man. His eyes were purple, but they seemed to contain galaxies, they were so captivating that Phil could swear they moved like a portable galaxy. The man was ethereal and beautiful. 

‘Who are you?’ Death said, pointing his scythe at the man, ‘What are you doing here, mortal?’ 

Philza lowered the scythe with his fingertips, ‘I am Philza, Philza Minecraft, the Angel of Death.’ 

Missa was very surprised, he didn't know his boss had found an angel, but he wasn't surprised she hadn't mentioned it, they were both a bit scatterbrained and their conversations didn't always make sense. 

‘Ah, very well,’ Missa said trying to think what to do with the immortal in his realm, ’The lady sent you?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘How nice…’ 

They were both silent, both standing in the dark not quite sure what to do, until a crow broke through the silence. 

‘Missa!’ The voice of the goddess came from the crow, ‘I forgot to tell you, I need you to train Phil to help you in your work in the dimensions he lives in, I want to take some of the workload off of you. Thank you, I love you both, bye — bye.’ 

 They both looked at each other, trying not to laugh at the goddess's carelessness, in the end succumbing to laughter. 

Missa gave a small mouse to the crow that had delivered the message, as a silent ‘thank you’ to the corvid. And then he motioned for Phil to follow him. 

‘Well,’ said death reaching for his next soul, ’if you're going to work with me let's start with the basics, first we'll go to a multiplayer world to take a soul, then I'll teach you how to return it to its body if the server allows it, if not let's transfer it to the soul bank, got it?’ 

Philza nodded, mentally taking note of everything, though he was still processing that he would be working side by side with someone as peculiar as Missa. He had imagined the realm of death as a place full of solemn secrets and prohibitions, but it seemed that, at least with Missa, everything was much more… every day. And that made it all the more intriguing.

‘So… a soul bank,’ Philza murmured, smirking. ‘Sounds like something pretty serious.’

Missa looked at him with a mixture of amusement and some pride. ‘It's an efficient system. We have souls from all dimensions, and when one needs to return, it's searched the bank and given access back.’ He paused, shooting her a quick glance. ‘Don't think you can touch it yet. That takes a lot of practice.’

‘Got it, boss,’ Philza replied with a playful grin, following him into the shadows.

Missa led him through a vast dark space, the floor beneath his feet looked like polished ebony, and occasionally, small lights-perhaps souls-crossed the space, twinkling like shooting stars. Philza felt strangely comfortable, as if this alien and sinister world was no longer so intimidating now that he had Missa as his guide.

‘First, let's practice on a simple world,’ Missa explained as they approached a portal that glowed with a silvery hue. ‘It's a peaceful server, but there are still accidents. So, every now and then, we pick up some clueless soul.’

Philza nodded. ‘Sounds perfect. And you… Have you always done this alone?’

The question made Missa look at him with a softer expression. ‘Yes, for the most part. Sometimes the goddess comes along and helps, but… it's a lonely job. I guess I'm used to not having colleagues.’ He shrugged, as if that was simply part of his existence.

Philza nodded silently, feeling an unexpected empathy for Missa's loneliness. ‘Well,’ he said, smiling as she prepared to step through the portal, ’I guess you have a colleague now.’

The two shared a knowing smile before darkness enveloped them and their first training in the strange and mysterious world of mortals and souls began.

[hauntingcryptids]

Breakfast And An Alien Attack

Simm!Doctor x Reader

Summary - A strange man fell into the Reader’s backyard asking for hyperspecific food and help with an upcoming alien attack. What other choice does the Reader have but to help this stranger?

Warnings - none that I think of, canon typical antics

Word Count - 2,149

A/n - Gender Neutral Reader. No use of Y/n. Not Requested. Canon Divergent. Grumpy!Reader x Sunshine!Simm!Doctor. Proofread but not beta read. I hope that you enjoy :)

Also, I have some Tennant!Master x Reader and Tennant!Master x Reader x Simm!Doctor fics that I am working on and I thought that it would be cool to write a solo Simm!Doctor x Reader. I hope that you enjoy :)

--------------------------------------------------------------

If you had not witnessed what had happened yourself, you would have sworn that the man currently dusting off his trousers in your back garden had just climbed over your fence in an attempt to break into your home. Strangely, though, that is not what you saw. Instead you, after getting some shopping delivered, observed a man in a Victorian-looking outfit fall from the sky and land far too close to the cherry tree your father had planted to lighten up the place when you had moved in. The man then jumped up onto his feet like falling from the sky happened every day. 

You had been observing the man just over the sill of your kitchen window for the past couple of minutes, unsure of what to do. The man fell from the sky and looked completely unharmed, there weren’t any protocols to follow that you were taught in school about how to deal with a situation like this one. 

You ducked under the sill when the stranger looked your way, just in case he was here for ulterior motives. When you peeked back out through your window, the unbelievable man seemed to be talking to a couple of birds that landed on the edge of a water basin. When you were young, the birds would always stop by that basin mid-journey, but since you have moved in, no birds stopped by even though you restored the basin to how it looked in your youth, built birdhouses around your back garden and left piles of bird seed throughout your yard. You couldn’t help but let out a huff of jealousy that this stranger could convince the birds to talk to him, let alone show up, when you have had no luck in that department for months.

The man laughed at whatever the birds had chirped. Then he gestured to you and seemed to tell a joke that had the birds roaring with laughter, if birds could roar with laughter. You stood up to your full height, rolling your shoulder contemptuously, then leaned against your window sill annoyed with the stranger’s easy way with the birds. The man seemed to fully notice you now that you weren’t trying to hide, so he waved a genuine wave in your direction but his smile was sad as if he hated himself for having scared you before. You found yourself waving back but quickly stopped when the man’s smile appeared to lighten. 

The man said farewell to the birds and strode over to the backdoor of your house. He knocked in the “Shave and a Haircut” rhythm before holding his hands behind his back and looking up at your house. He probably meant no harm, you assumed, but there was no way that this man was normal. He literally fell from the sky and he didn’t even have a scratch on him. 

You walked over to your kitchen door, briefly stopping to arm yourself with a newly purchased knife first. Then you opened the door slowly after taking a tentative breath. If the stranger did try something, at least you had a weapon behind your back.

“Hello! I am kind of in a hurry, which is not ideal given the circumstances, but can you help me? I think you are just who I need!” You tightened your grip on the knife.

“Oh! God! Oh god, no. Not in a creepy way! I don’t want to hurt you.” The man held his hands up defensively and laughed awkwardly. 

“I promise.” The man softly uttered the promise. He looked at you with soft, hopeful hazel eyes that seemed hard to hide secrets. You considered him and everything that happened since he fell from the sky for a moment. Then you found yourself caving to the man’s hopeful demeanour.

“What do you need?” The stranger’s face instantly broke into a soft smile.

“Firstly, just something to eat and drink.” The man still held his hands up in a defensive gesture. The man looked apologetic, confused, broken and just lost, definitely not the type to hurt you. So even though it was probably incredibly stupid, you let the unbelievable man into your home. 

After some trial and error, the strange man finally found food that he found acceptable and didn’t make him sick. He made an American-style breakfast, with gigantic waffles, fried eggs(more over medium than sunny side up), and crispy bacon. You don’t know how he made the majority of the food, given the fact that you didn’t own a waffle maker straight out of a continental hotel breakfast bar or any bacon in your kitchen, but you turned your back on the stranger once and he had said items. Finally, once everything was cooked and plated, he drenched his entire plate in soy sauce. You had heard of people dipping their eggs in soy sauce, and in theory, it sounded good. However, this man’s plate practically turned into soup due to the amount of soy sauce he had poured onto his food. The man made you food, as well, while he was making his own but you made sure to make your desired alterations. You weren’t in the mood to eat waffles swimming in soy sauce.

As the man shovelled food into his face like he hadn’t eaten in days, you tentatively placed a corner of your waffle in your mouth. It was buttery and warm, you could almost taste the love put into the dish. You looked at the man again. There was something different about him, but you couldn’t tell what it was, other than the obvious. There was something bigger, deeper, than the obvious, though. Whatever made this stranger different excited you and you hadn’t felt excited in a long time. The exciting man was unexpected, however, and you didn’t know if you were ready for someone as exciting as this man in your life right now. You reassured yourself that the man would only be in your life for this meal and this meal alone, but maybe you could allow yourself to open up to him slightly.

You placed the knife you had been holding behind your back, and in your lap while the stranger was in your home, onto the table. Close enough for you to grab if you needed but you were starting to believe what the man stuffing his face before you was saying. He just needed help and wasn’t going to hurt you.

“Thank you. I promise that you won’t regret that.” He looked up, alerted by the noise of the knife hitting the table, and he smiled his soft at you.

“Don’t mention it.” You mumbled into your food. There was a moment of silence, except for the sounds of eating, until the man cleaned his face with a napkin and spoke up.

“If you don’t mind me asking, whose house is this?” 

“Mine.”

“Well, yes, but …” The man looked around your kitchen and then back to you, trying to politely insinuate that you couldn’t afford your home. ‘Trying’ being the operative word because the man was definitely failing at being polite. You sighed, why not unload your baggage onto a stranger?

“It was my great aunt’s. I spent a lot of time here when I was young and when she passed I inherited it. Given the state of the world right now I’m not going to turn down the opportunity to own a home that I can actually afford.”

“It’s a bit of a fixer-upper, though.” You glared at the man fiercely. He asked and you answered, why did he have to criticise your family and way of living in the process?

“I don’t mean to be rude, I just mean that I can help.” The man quickly tried to correct your interpretation of his statement, but you remained reserved. He was a stranger after all. Best not to get too comfortable.

“I don’t need your help.”

“But -” You cut the man off before he could make another inappropriate comment about the state of your home.

“I don’t know you.”

“But we could get to know each other.” The man leaned forward over the table, he had a hopeful smile ghosting over his lips. You retreated backwards into your seat, though, away from the man’s hopefulness. His personality excited you, yes, but what if you were hurt by him like you were hurt by others in the past? You didn’t want to feel that disappointment again. For some reason, you wanted to be held in high regard by this man but the fear that he was simply using you, like other people had, kept haunting your mind. So, you broke eye contact with the man and peered over to the vintage clock on your wall.

“I thought you said that you were in an emergency?” You mumbled passive-aggressively, but the man didn’t seem to notice or care about the sudden change in your demeanour. He seemed more grateful that you reminded him of his true reason for interrupting your day.

“Right! Do you have the time? My own watch doesn’t seem to be working properly.” The man tapped the face of his watch a couple of times and even from your seat across the table you could hear the small crunch of broken glass and gears. You showed him the time on your phone out of convenience.

“Oh god!” The man exclaimed, but then another thought visibly popped into his brain and took over.

“Why do I keep saying that? ‘Oh god?’ Is that from my future or past? Or is that just me? I don’t think that’s me.” The man looked to you like you might have the answer he was desperate for, but you had no idea what he was talking about. This was just another strange occurrence from the strange man.

“Who are you?” You asked exasperatedly. How could someone like him be real and in your kitchen and want your help? In your mind, he could do so much better than you.

“The Doctor?”

“Doctor Who?” A knowing smile crept across the man’s face. 

“Just The Doctor, love.”

“‘Just The Doctor?’ Who calls themself ‘The Doctor’?” You retorted, mimicking his Manchester accent.

“Me. I’m The Doctor.” His face shifted as if he just realised something. “Hm, apparently I’m confident in this regeneration.” This man was unbelievable.

“How do you exist?” You asked. You were hitting the threshold of where you were beginning to feel out of your depth. 

“Easily. It’s called breathing.” The man smiled at you widely, showing off the roundness of the apples of his cheeks. All you could do was sigh, overwhelmed.

“You are completely ridiculous”

“Ridiculous? Ridiculous. Interesting. Fun! I’m ridiculous!” The man’s face rapidly shifted from offended to curious to ecstatic within moments.

“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

“Oh, well, I’m taking it as one.” After taking one final bite of food, the man jumped up from the table and bounded out your door. The man was so much, in a good way, but you weren’t prepared for something like this to happen today. You leaned back into your chair again and sighed deeply with your eyes closed, revelling in the stillness in your kitchen without the stranger in it with you. You frowned. Then you opened your eyes and looked at the aftermath of breakfast. You realised that you missed that man. No, you hadn’t known each other for that long, but ‘The Doctor’ whoever he was brightened your day, even if you wished to deny that fact.

“Well, come on.” The man suddenly popped his head through the door, the expectation that you would simply follow him, and curiosity that you hadn’t done just that, was etched deeply into his face.

“What?” You barked back. The man rolled his eyes and sighed. The act seemed to fit his style. You would have to tell him in future.

“I am freshly regenerated, there is going to be an alien attack in 15 minutes, and I would like your help, again. So, will you help me?” The man confidently strode back into your kitchen as he spoke. Then he held his hand out for you to take, that soft, hopeful smile of his was back and as effervescent as it was before. He was completely ridiculous, but your life had been missing ridiculousness for a long time. Maybe, just maybe, he would be good for you.

“You better not get me killed, you ridiculous man.” You placed your hand into The Doctor’s palm. The Doctor’s smile then grew into a joyous one as he rubbed his thumb against the back of your hand softly.

“I’d never let that happen. I promise. Now let’s get going.” Before you could respond, The Doctor ran out of your kitchen, pulling you out of your chair and along behind him toward an apparent alien attack.

[harringtonstilinski]

Always The Babysitter - Chapter Twenty-Three: E Pluribrus Unum (Bonus Scene)

Author: @harringtonstilinski​ Characters: Steve Harrington x Olivia Henderson(OC) Word Count: 3,169 Warnings: angst, mentions of blood, steve getting his ass kicked, steve and robin being drugged, italics is steve hearing liv's commentary, tiniest bit of foreshadowing 👀 ?, non-canon hallucinations (not mentioned in story after this), Smut: no | yes; A/N: Hi, friends! Y'all voted for a bonus scene, and I'm here to deliver! Main focus is Steve and Robin's scenes. If you like this bonus scene, please do not hesitate to reblog and give some feedback, whether it be in the reblogs, comments, or my inbox. As always, read at your own risk and enjoy 😊

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Steve’s Pov

As soon as Liv, Dustin and Erica were out of sight, Robin and I were flung through the air to the wall next to us at the door being shoved open. Once we got our bearings, we raised our hands, Russian guards standing in front of us with their guns drawn. Ahh, crap.

They hauled us to our feet, essentially dragging us to separate rooms. My only thought as they kept asking me questions and punching me when I gave them my answers was that I was super glad Liv wasn’t here to hear or witness this. She’d be losing her shit.

As they punched me in the face, yet again, I groaned in pain, again thankful that Liv wasn’t here to try and kick the shit out of these Russian assholes. After we confessed our love to each other, my need to protect her increased tenfold. I’m sure her need increased, as well.

Feeling blood dripping from my mouth, I groaned, “That one stung,” before gasping for air.

What I’m guessing is the main head honcho for these buttwipes asked, “Who do you work for?”

“For the millionth time, I work at Scoops Ahoy!” Bringing my head up, I breathed out, “Scoops Ahoy,” doing my best to gear up for the next hit to the face… that didn’t happen. That hit went to my stomach, a pained groan coming from my throat before I yelled out, “What the hell?! ”

Bending over, I said, “Look at my outfit! Look at my outfit! My girlfriend might think it’s hot, but look at it! You think I just wear this?! Think I’m a spy in a sailor’s uniform?” Another punch to the stomach.

I can hear Olivia now saying, “You assholes! I’m gonna kill you!” or “I’ll take his place!” while struggling against another guard.

With a stone face, the head honcho asked with an uninterested tone, “How did you get in?”

Gasping for breath, I was bent over as I grunted, “I already told you,” before sitting up to say, “I told you before.” I gasped for air again, hearing Liv’s voice in my head saying, “Lie again,” before repeating my words from earlier. “My delivery didn’t come, and my friends and I, we thought that it was left at the loading dock, so we went into the room, and it tuuurrrrned into an elevator, and then…”

“You have to be a better liar, Steven,” her voice said.

“And then we dropped and then next thing we know, I open my eyes and we’re in this… wonderful facility.”

“Oh my god. Shut up, Steve.”

“But I swear to God, nobody knows about us, nobody saw us. You could just let us go, alright? And I’m not gonna tell anybody about this, okay? Shit happens, life goes on. And uhh… ice-ice cream. Ice cream, okay? You guys know what ice cream is.”

“They’re Russians, not aliens from space, Steven!”

“Everybody loves ice cream. I don’t know if you have Russian ice cream or if that’s considered gelato-”

“That’s Italians, Steve!”

“I don’t know what’s what, but whatever you guys want, seriously. USS Butterscotch, I mean, you gotta try it. It’s out of this world, I’m telling ya!”

Head honcho and the guy that was repeatedly hitting me just started… laughing? So, I joined in, as well. More nervously, of course.

“I like this guy!” Head honcho said. “USS… Butterscotch.” He laughed again, it turning into a chuckle as he bent down a little, resting his hands on his knees.

All I could do was look at him nervously, scared for what was to come next as the room fell quiet.

“Who do you work for?” he enunciated.

Well, shit. “Oh, come on,” I all but whined, eyeing the other guard. “No, no!  No, seriously!”

Black was the very next thing that I saw as that douchebag hit me in the face… yet again.

~~~

I don’t remember much else after literally being knocked out, but what I do remember next was waking up to Robin’s voice calling out for help. 

“Hey,” I said, groggily. “Would you stop yelling?”

I could feel her relief from just hearing my voice as she said, “Steve! Oh, my god!” before panting out my name. She was leaning back as I was leaning forward as she asked, “Are-are you okay?”

“My ears are ringing, I can barely breathe, my eye feels like it’s about to pop out of my skull, and Liv’s voice is running through my head, but ya’know, apart from that, I’m doing pretty good.”

“Well, the good news is that they’re calling you a doctor,” Robin said.

“Jesus, you two are idiots.”

I looked around the room, which looked liked a… ya’know, a doctors room. “Is this his place of work? I love the vibe.” Robin chuckled as I added, “Charming.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. So, okay,” she said. “Do you see that table over there to your right?”

I turned my head to the left. Don’t ask why. 

“Babe. Your other left.”

“No, your other right,” Robin said.

Turning my head to my correct right, she added, “Yeah, okay. Do you see those scissors?”

“Uh-huh,” I confirmed.

“Yeah, well, I think that if we move at the same time, we could get over there, and then maybe I could kick the table and knock them into your lap.”

Picking up what she was putting down, I said, “And I could cut the binds.”

“Yeah, and we could get out of here.”

“Gotcha. Okay, yeah, we can do that.”

“Yeah.”

“Those morons. They left scissors in here?” I asked, turning my head side to side.

“Yeah, morons,” Robin added.

“Total morons,” I added to my own statement, adding with determination, “Okay.”

“Okay, so, on the count of three, we’re gonna hop.”

“O-okay, good, hop on three. I gotcha.”

“Alright. One.. two.. three.”

We both hopped towards the table, a little happy that this plan was actually working. Robin and I counted to three again, our excitement building at the fact that we were almost to the table… and I was almost to the point where I could hug and kiss my girl again.

Counting to three again, we hopped for a third time… only for our fucking luck to bite us in the ass because we ended up falling, our heads towards the table, our feet towards the door.

Robin and I both groaned at our heads and arms hitting the ground before I heard her crying.

“A bunch of fucking geniuses.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t cry. Robin.” Instead of hearing her cry, I heard her… laughing? “Are you laughing?”

She laughed harder before saying, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. It’s just… I can’t believe I’m gonna die in a secret Russian base with Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington. It’s just too trippy, man.”

“We’re not gonna die,” I reassured. “We’re gonna get out of here, okay? Liv wouldn’t let us die anyway. She’d kill every single Russian down here before they could kill us. Just– you gotta let me just think for a second.”

It was quiet for a moment, my thoughts running through my brain before Robin asked, “Do you remember, uhm, Mrs. Click’s sophomore History class?”

I lifted my head, shaking it a little before asking with an annoyingly curious tone, “What?”

“Mrs. Clickity-Clackity,” she said. “That’s what us band dweebs called her.”

Sighing, I pressed my forehead into the floor, remembering when I was an asshole to everyone, the guilt eating at me in this moment.

“It was first period, Tuesdays and Thursdays, so you were always late.”

Even though we weren’t as close during that time, Liv had ended up scolding me more than a few times for always being late. “Goodness, Harrington. Don’t you own a fucking watch?”

“And you always had the same breakfast. Bacon, egg and cheese on a sesame bagel.”

“I know we’re not close anymore, but you could still bring me a freaking sausage McMuffin!” Since Liv scolded me the last time, every Tuesday and Thursday she’d find a Sausage McMuffin in her locker. 

“I sat behind you, two days a week for a year,” Robin said. “Mister Funny. Mister Cool. The King of Hawkins High himself. Liv being your Queen.”

“Ugh! Don’t bring that up!”

“Do you even remember me from that class?”

“No.”

I didn’t know what to say because… well, I didn’t remember her. I didn’t care about anyone else or anything during high school. Other than the girls I’d bang, being in basketball and on the swim team, or being with Nancy… or being friends with Liv again.

Robin’s chuckle brought me out of my thoughts before she said, “Of course you don’t. You were a real asshole, ya’know that?”

Feeling incredibly bad, I said sadly, “Yeah, I know.”

“The biggest asshole, babe.”

“But it didn’t even matter,” Robin continued. “It didn’t even matter that you were an ass. I was still… obsessed with you.”

I could hear Liv’s scoff as she said, “Everyone was.”

“Even though all of us losers pretend to be above it all, we still just wanna be popular… accepted, normal.”

“If it makes you feel any better, having those things isn’t all that great,” I said, sniffling. “Seriously. Liv can tell you that… even though she… didn’t grow up the same as me.” Taking a deep breath, I sighed it back out as I said, “It just baffles me. Everything that people tell you is important, everything that people say you should care about, it’s all just…” I lightly chuckled before adding, “...bullshit. But I guess you gotta mess up to figure things out, right?”

“I hope so. I feel like my whole life has been… one big error.”

We both chuckled, a smile crossing my face for the first time since yesterday. 

“Yep,” I agreed, a small smile on my face. 

“At least it can’t get any more messed up than this,” Robin said.

“Ya’know, I wish I’d known you in Click’s class,” I said. 

“Yeah?”

“Really. I do.”

“Olivia humbled you,” Robin whispered.

“Yeah. She did.” I smiled a little, thinking of my girlfriend and how grateful I am of her. How happy I am that she gave me a thump on my head when I needed it most. “Maybe you both could’ve helped me pass the class. Maybe instead of being here, Liv and I’d be on our way to college right now.”

“And I would have no idea that there were evil Russians beneath our feet, and I would happily be slinging ice cream with some other schmuck.”

We chuckled, I guess because we’ve accepted our fate.

“Gotta say, though,” I said. “I liked being your schmuck.”

“Uhm, hello?!”

I chuckled lightly at hearing Liv’s commentary in my head. “So did Liv. It was fun while it lasted.”

“It was.”

Our come to Jesus meeting was over at the sound of the buzzer and door opening. We looked up, seeing the Head Honcho walk in with three other people… and then he chuckled.

“Where were you two going?” he asked, brows raised and arms out to his side for a moment.

“Ugh! Just go somewhere, asswipe. You’re kind of annoying.”

He clicked his tongue before the two guards lifted us up, setting the chairs back on their feet. I could see it now; Head Honcho holding Liv back, struggling to get out of his arms. “Don’t you fucking touch them, Russian bastard!”

Head Honcho bent in front of me again as I felt Robin’s head leaning on my neck as he asked, “Try telling the truth this time, yes?”

“He is, you ignorant freak!”

“It will make your visit with Dr. Zharkov less painful,” he continued, stroking the side of my face.

Again, I could see Olivia struggling in my mind, yelling at the doctor. “Don’t fucking touch him, you sick bastard! I’ll fucking kill you!”

Touching a sore on my chin, I winced, once again, seeing Liv in my mind struggling against the guard, her hair all around her face as she cried in sadness and anger. Head Honcho chuckled again before nodding once to the doctor.

I turned my head to watch him walk around me, a big ass needle in his hand, with blue liquid inside of a small vile. Fear started showing through as I looked at it, saying, “Wait a sec, wait. Hold on. Okay! Wait, wait, wait! What is that thing?”

The ‘doctor’ was standing next to me with the needle gun thing as he said, “It will help you talk.” He grabbed my hair and tilted my head to the side.

“Did you even clean that thing?!” I yelled, before screaming at the needle being punctured into my neck, the liquid seeping into my veins.

~~~

After they had done the same thing to Robin, Head Honcho and his pack of bastards left the room, leaving Robin and I by ourselves for a moment. What was weird was that I couldn’t still see Liv, but not hear her in my mind anymore, my brain feeling more fuzzy than ever, almost like I’d smoked a joint.

Robin moved her head against mine a few times, as I just stared at a spot on the wall, seeing Liv every now and again as she paced in front of me. “I’m gonna kill them. I’m gonna fucking kill them.”

“Honestly, I don’t really feel anything,” I said. “Do you?”

“Really, Steven?”

“I mean, I… I feel fine,” Robin replied. “I feel normal.”

“Yeah, I feel-I feel fine,” I agreed, before slurring, “I kinda feel good,” before we both chuckled.

I wish I could say I actually  felt Liv’s hands on my cheeks, but in my mind… I did. “Steve. You’re high as a fucking kite. Keep your mouth closed. Don’t say anything.”

“Wanna know a secret?” Robin asked.

“What?” I asked.

“I like it, too! And I’ve been seeing and hearing Liv!”

“Me, too!” I said, laughing.

“I feel good.”

“Morons! They messed up the drug.”

“Oh… my god.”

“They messed it up!”

As Robin leaned her head back, I tilted mine forward. “Morons,” she said.

Robin and I looked at the door as I loudly said, “Morons!”

“Hey, morons!”

“Moron! Mor–” she said at the same time I said, “Hey!”

“Whoa-oh!” I was still smiling and laughing, closing my eyes for a moment. 

“Oh, no. There’s definitely something wrong with us.”

Amused, I said, “Somethin’s wrong.”

“Ya’think! Fucking idiots.”

That damn door buzzer sounded again, but I kind of didn’t care because of how good I felt as the Head Honcho and the Doc walked into the room. What did grab my attention was watching Head Honcho walking around Robin and I on her side just for him to stop and stand in front of me.

I turned my head after looking at him for a moment, watching the Doc mess with his bag at the table. Whatever he sets down makes Robin chuckle a little as he grabs a freaking medical bone saw from his bag.

“Would now be a good time to tell you that I don’t like doctors?” Robin asked.

The image of Olivia hastily walking around to Robin flashed in my mind, her hushed voice saying, “Robin, if you don’t shut the fuck up, I’ll send you to the Upside Down for a full-ass week!”

“Let’s try this again, yes?” Head Honcho said.

I licked the inside of my tongue, feeling to see if it was still there as I nodded and murmured out something while nodding my head. 

Without missing a beat, he asked, “Who do you work for?”

“Scoops,” I said, looking at a random spot as Robin chuckled, my own joining. “Scoops Ahoy.”

Robin’s giggles were quiet as he asked, “How did you find us?”

I looked up at him, saying without missing a beat, “Totally by accident,” before lightly laughing… again.

He said something in Russian as I looked down for a moment, picking my head back up at the sound of something being open and closed, the Doc making his way back to us. “What is that shiny little toy?”

“Where are you going with that, Doc?” Robin asked.

Even in my high as a kite state, fear jumped through my body as he brought the clipper looking things to my fingers, grabbing onto my fingernail. “Whoa, whoa, hey, hey. Wait! No! Wait! Wait!”

“There was a code! There was a code! We heard a code!” Robin shouted as I jumped and tried to get away from the Doc.

“Code,” Honcho said, walking around to Robin. “What code?”

“The week is long. The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west. Blah, blah, blah. You broadcast that stupid spy shit all over town, and we picked it up on our Cerebro, and we cracked it in a day. A day! You think you’re so smart, but a couple of kids who scoop ice cream for a living cracked your code in a day, and now, people know you’re here.”

“Who knows we’re here, suchka?”

“Uh, well Dustin and Olivia know,” I said, looking off into space.

“Shut. The fuck. Up.”

“Hey, Steve?” Robin said.

“Yeah, Dustin and Olivia, the Henderson’s, they know.”

“Steve!”

“Dustin and Olivia Henderson,” Honcho said, walking around to stand in front of me. “Is this your small, curly-haired friend? As well as your short, curly-haired girlfriend?”

“Oh, curly-haired. Great hair. Small. Kinda like a ‘fro, yeah,” I said. “Where are they?”

“Oh, they’re long gone, you big asshole.” Little did I know. “And they’re probably calling Hopper, and Hopper’s calling the US Calvary. They’re gonna come in here, commando-style, guns a-blazin’, and kick your sorry asses back to Russia. You’re gonna be two pieces of toast.” With the drugs in my system, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah,” I said, matter-of-factly, before Robin and I laughed, Honcho joining in.

It all stopped at the sound of an alarm going off, all of our heads turning to the door. At the sound of Russian’s yelling, I turned back to Honcho and shrugged my shoulders, as if I were telling him told ya so.

Honcho left the room, telling the Doc to stay put… I guess. I don’t know. I don’t speak Russian. A couple of minutes went by before the door slammed opened, Dustin charging through with a zapping device, putting it against the Doc’s chest.

Olivia and Erica walked in after him, my eyes following all of them before landing on Liv’s, seeing her stand between Dustin and Erica, her eyes on the doc that fell to the ground. She turned to face me, seeing my eye bruised and swollen.

“Hey! Henderson!” I said, excitedly. “That’s… crazy, I was just talking about you.”

Sighing, Liv undid the bonds that were around my arms, hands and legs before putting her hand on my cheek. “What happened to you?”

“Oh, my god,” Robin said.

“Get ready to run!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Posted on April 4, 2024

[gerogerigaogaigar]

Alright here are ten more albums. These ones are just my personal picks. Some that you prolly don't know and some you definitely do. I think you should listen to all of them because I like them a lot and if you don't like them then I promise I will cry a little.

Lemon Demon - Spirit Phone

Okay so I know that half of you just checked out because this is a 'meme album' and you simply will not take me seriously no matter what but honestly if that's you then go fuck yourself. Anyway Neil Cicierega is an internet fixture. He has brought us animutation, The Ultimate Showdown Of Ultimate Destiny, Mouth Sounds, Potter Puppet Pals, Brodyquest, Ariel Needs Legs, and probably a lot of other things I'm forgetting. So it isn't really a surprise that his first full album under the Lemon Demon moniker in a decade went down as a piece of weird internet errata as well. The thing is, Spirit Phone is a fucking masterpiece.

The subject matter is the occult, conspiracy theories, urban legends, aliens, cryptids, and conservatives. Nothing too weird, but the way he tackles these subjects is. Let's take Cabinet Man for example, it plays on the urban legend of the haunted arcade cabinet Polybius. But Cabinet Man is told from the point of view of the machine itself. It's about a man who turns himself into an arcade cabinet and about his life as an arcade cabinet. The very next track, No Eyed Girl, is a doo wop styled love song written to a lovecraftian horror. And yes this is all very Quirky™ but Cicierega never wink at the camera, he never lets on that this is a joke. Just like unironically here's a song about sexualizing (even if he insists it isn't sexual) eating mummies. Why not? The frenetic pacing always keeps you off balance too so there is no way to get used to the weirdness other than to let yourself be subsumed by it.

"But wait!" I hear you saying "what was that thing about conservatism? What does that have to do with the occult?" I'm glad you asked because I think the funniest thing this album does is deliver three songs in a row that have nothing to do with the rest of the album's main themes. As Your Father I Expressly Forbid It, I Earned My Life, and Reaganomics all satirize American boomer conservatism. I think putting them there after all the conspiracy theory stuff is brilliant. The paranoid, surreal attitudes of the first half of the album contrasted against the equally paranoid and surreal attitudes of conservatives. Finally I just want to mention my number one favorite thing about this album and it's that I Earned My Life is written in the style of Paul Simon's Graceland. That makes me laugh. What an effortless takedown of a legendary artist and album.

Ween - The Mollusk

Ween are a pretty weird band. And my standards for what counts as weird are pretty high. So the fact that their least weird album is this nautically themed psychedelic hellscape isn't saying much. The Mollusk sounds how low tide smells. The album is like the rhyme of the ancient mariner but the albatross is replaced by hundreds of barnacles. It is a decaying mess, but it's also jaunty and fun. Purely stupid nonsense like Waving My Dick In The Wind and Dancing In The Show Tonight are placed side by side with the intense and horror tinged Golden Eel and Mutilated Lips.

Musically Ween are uncharacteristically cohesive. Sure they run the gamut of genres from intense proggy numbers to punk and alternative rock and some showtunesy stuff, but it's all mastered as wet as possible. By the way y'all know when I say a sound is wet I mean heavily processed as opposed to dry which is raw unprocessed audio right? There is copious reverb, chorus and especially phasing on every song until they all sound like waves crashing against a rock.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about The Mollusk is that it is, I think at least, the only Ween album to contain a straight cover. Cold Blows The Wind is just a folk song that Gener and Deaner just play dead straight. That is very unusual for a band that prefers to vaguely mock artists or styles rather than just do them. Of course that track is immediately followed by a song called Pink Eye On My Leg so don't take these guys seriously for too long.

Atom And His Package - A Society Of People Named Elihu

There is no other album that feels more like an inside joke among high schoolers that you aren't privy to the context for. Adam Goren repeatedly name drops his friends and talks about things very specific to his life. The album is a mess of unfettered id where no concept is dwelt on for very long and no hesitation is given before launching into something completely unrelated. The very first track contemplates a hypothetical Punk Rock Academy before losing track of itself and barreling full throttle into an interpolation of Eddie Money's Take Me Home Tonight. This kind of thing happens a lot. Me And My Black Metal friends interpolated Dexys Midnight Runners' hit Come On Eileen for no apparent reason other than that is what started going through Goren's head at the time. This album has three different birthday songs on it, the first of which has the refrain "Happy Birthday Ralph, I love you, even though you are fucking disgusting." Who is Ralph? You aren't asking the right questions.

Oh yeah and this album is entirely just a guy singing over a drum machine and keyboard. But it's also kind of a punk rock album. Atom And His Package don't sound super punk at first glance, but he has the ethos. And structurally, well there's a little more punk rock in here than you might expect. I'll stand by A Society Of People Named Elihu as a punk rock album because it's funny and I think that is what Adam Goren would want.

TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

There's a lot of art rock out there that I'm totally in love with. But TV On The Radio are on a different level. They are extremely catchy, but also different than anything else around them. They exist somewhere in between 00s post punk revival and, uh honestly I don't know. I thought something would come to me as I was typing this. There is nothing to compare the unique use of drums and percussion to create both rhythmic and textural elements while the bass guitar makes up the majority of the melody. The members of the band all harmonize beautifully on vocals and when you break the songs down you find just a few instruments being layered into a looping, spiraling current of sound. A Method and Dirtywhirl especially sound like they are physically spiralling. They use looped percussion and bass, repetitive singsong vocals, and thrumming rhythms to create a completely unique sonic landscape that is both overwhelming and extremely addictive. It is too easy for me to finish this album and then put it back on again because there is nothing else that scratches the itch this album gives me.

Between The Buried And Me - Colors

I don't usually like to be this absolute, but Colors is my favorite metal album. Between The Buried And Me are consistently amazing but Colors is the best showcase of their range and fluidity with which they traverse various styles. At a base level Colors is a progressive metalcore album, a genre which has probably just turned a few people off of listening. But if you aren't usually into metalcore don't fear there is a lot more going on here than bad screaming and bad chugging. No BTBAM weave together intense thrash like riffing, high speed guitar solos, intense screaming, melodic jazzy solos, chromatic breakdowns, catchy clean vocal segments and frequent tempo changes with an artistry and ease that makes it hard to notice when the style does an abrupt change. Every linking segment is so natural that the tech death screams in Sun Of Nothing will transition to the melodic refrain without any sense of tonal dissonance. Even when you hit the end of Ants Of The Sky and hear them go into a full bluegrass hoedown it is just completely natural. No other album makes 10+ minute songs go by so fast. There are so many hour long metal albums out there that drag on for the sake of length alone and Colors just shits in their faces and proves that you can go on for an hour and keep an audience completely engaged the whole time.

They Might Be Giants - Lincoln

They Might Be Giants are a never ending supply of witty turns of phrase. Some are seemingly nonsequiturs like "tour the world in a heavy metal band / but they run out of gas the plane can never land" others are clever "which one of us is the one we can't trust / you say that I think it's you but I don't agree with that" and others seem like nonsense but probably mean something deeper if you just stop and think about it "how sleepless is the egg knowing that which throws the stone foresees the bone, the bone, our only home is bone". They will get at some wild themes lyrically while still maintaining an upbeat sound. That weird tonal gap is what makes songs like I've Got A Match and They'll Need A Crane into more than just songs about bad relationships. It helps obfuscate the actually bleakness of Lie Still Little Bottle, a song about being addicted to uppers. And it leaves you wondering about the seemingly pure goofy songs like Shoehorn With Teeth and Cowtown. Also you might be interested to know that Where Your Eyes Don't Go is a favorite song of local Tumblr Celebrity™ Neil Gaiman. So there's your seal of approval if you needed one.

Macintosh Plus - Floral Shoppe

Vaporwave is such a beautiful genre. It is a musical consomme where other songs are melted down until there is nothing left but the essence of the original piece. A distinctly recognizable flavor, but rendered into broth. The idea of taking a song and picking out very specific bits and then slowing them down repeating them over and over until you have turned the ten second sample into a five minute song is incredible.

Floral Shoppe is not the first, and maybe not even the best vaporwave record, but it is the blueprint that a lot of artists would seek to imitate. The track リサフランク420 / 現代のコンピュー (Lisa Frank 420 / modern computing) made some waves for having a very overt and recognizable sample and leading to people joking that the genre was just "Diana Ross slowed down". And derogatory as that sounds it is also true. The song is seven minutes of just the chorus of Diana Ross' It's Your Move looped, slowed down, and otherwise abused until it just isn't the same song anymore. What Floral Shoppe did was bring the idea of the transformative property of context to a wider audience. The question of authorship is essential to vaporwave. Most vaporwave artists will use one off monikers for albums. In fact Macintosh Plus is a one off project under the larger Vektroid umbrella. Vektroid herself is one of the most prolific and significant vaporwave artists out there and honestly I don't even think Floral Shoppe is her best work, but it is the most important.

But is it good? That's the real question. The philosophical implications of art are nice and all but is it good to listen to? Yeah it's extremely enjoyable. Listening to Floral Shoppe is like living in a slightly fucked up betamac tape that is playing commercials for new shopping malls. It captures a sense of nostalgia, but also warps it into a surreal dreamscape. Parts stutter, they loop just before the part of the song you know plays, they are repeated over and over until you feel like something is wrong. The nostalgia is recontextualized as something artificial. Like it is reminding you that the way you feel about the past is manufactured. Your memories are already corrupted by capitalism and if you could see through the matrix you would hear the broken mechanisms underneath.

The Field - From Here We Go Sublime

The Field is hard to pin down. While basically a tech-house project it is also quite a bit unlike other tech-house/minimal/ambient techno projects. I was enthralled the first time I ever put on this record. There's something ethereal about the heavily altered vocal samples. Every sound rendered distant and breathy. This is the sound of the sun glaring off of fresh snow in the winter. This is the sound that plays when you transcend your human body to become a being of pure energy. If the obelisk from 2001 A Space Odyssey was a DJ this is what it would play. It is impossible to not feel subsumed by this music, to want to just close your eyes and imagine you are floating. From Here We Go Sublime is one of the prettiest albums I have ever heard and I think even people who aren't into techno might be able to appreciate it.

The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free

Look me in the eye. I'm serious look at me. Mike Skinner is a good rapper. No I'm not joking. No I don't like this album "ironically". A Grand Don't Come For Free is one of my top ten hip hop albums of all time. Right up there with Nas and J-Dilla and Kanye and shit. Skinner's flow is unconventional and, at first glance, very bad. But what he is doing is incorporating a very casual conversational style into his rapping to help communicate the personalities and moods of the characters in the story.

Oh yeah by the way this is a concept album. It's about Mike, his two friends Dan and Scott, and his new girlfriend Simone. Mike loses 1000 pounds, gets really paranoid that one of his friends stole it, and then let's that paranoia ruin all of his interpersonal relationships. The album starts by setting up the list money and various aspects of Mike's life like his new romance and gambling addiction to set up the very everyman vibes. As Mike rambles through awkward small talk, bad decisions, bad relationships, and the slow burn out of his empathy he becomes actually really relatable. Every time Mike does something that is frustrating and stupid it just kinda endears him to me. I want to see this idiot do better. Even on Get Out Of My House where he is trying to explain to Simone that he wasn't at her place while she was hungover because he was picking up his epilepsy medication and is, by any reasonable account in the right, he sucks so hard at making his point that he still comes off as the asshole. This is punctuated by guest rapper C-Mone actually rapping much better than Mike on her verses. In fact how well a character is rapping is very much tied to how confident they are at the moment with Mike being more noticeably on beat on Not Addicted and Such A Twat and sounding really off on Get Out Of My House and It Was Supposed To Be So Easy.

The beats are not just straightforward things for Skinner to rap weird style over though. The beats often contain weird syncopation and odd rhythms that make it feel like rather than not being able to stay on beat the vocals and the beat are just circling around each other. Always in sync but never knowing each other's exact location. The way these two elements come together creates the backbone for A Grand Don't Come For Free's atmosphere of disorientation and lack of control. Mike's story is ultimately about him trying to latch onto any part of his life that he thinks he can control and constantly having those things slip away from him. He finds the £1000 in the back of his broken TV by the way.

The Mountain Goats - Beat The Champ

I got into The Mountain Goats way back when Moral Orel was airing it's infamous third season back in 08. I listened to John Darnielle's entire discography even the very rough first couple of tapes. And after all that I was pretty sure that this was my new favorite band and that no album anyone released were ever gonna top All Hail West Texas, Tallahassee, or The Sunset Tree. Fast forward seven years and I see he's working on a new album. It's gonna be about wrestling. I figure it will be pretty good, because Mountain Goats albums basically bottom out at pretty good. So the album releases, I listen to it, and instantly I know that I have forever been changed. I don't know how many times one man can keep doing this to me, but by God was I changed. I'm kinda into wrestling now as a direct result of this album.

The beauty of Darnielle's writing is that he can tease the meaning out of literally anything. Mountain Goats song don't have grand concepts. Beat The Champ's songs can be summed up easily. "Retired wrestler drives to the next show" "a biography of a wrestler that Darnielle liked as a kid" "a biography of a different wrestler that Darnielle liked as a kid" "a guy who takes his gimmick too seriously". But this isn't what the songs are about. They are about feeling tired of routine and being resigned to the fact that this will be the rest of your life. They are about how the world looks through the eyes of a child. They are about finding fulfillment in life even once you have passed your prime. They are about shutting out your emotions until you become a toxic person. These songs aren't about wrestling, but also they are. Beat The Champ made me think about how difficult pro wrestling is. You need a hyperapecific skill set that includes acting, athletics, acrobatic, and improv. And then if you are the absolute best at all those things hing and end up being the best wrestler ever? Well no one really respects pro wrestling so you get fuck all for it. The strange place these people occupy and the emotions that come with it are the perfect vessel for analyzing human experience at large. Wrestling, John Darnielle posits, is a microcosm for all life. We all play parts, we do heel turns now and then, we all fear being unmasked. Wrestlers deal with literal manifestations of human fear and Beat The Champ taps into that to create an album that both comments on human anxieties in a very real way and to humanize the people behind the kayfabe.

[wannab-urs]

The Spreadsheet Digest - Vol 22

Good lord y'all I am never doing a 2 week edition of the Spreadsheet ever again this is actually insane. Like this is the longest post I have ever made. There's like 35 fics on here :)

Anyway as always you can find the spreadsheet here and the masterlist of my recs (that is currently unupdated lol oops) here.

Recs below the Pedro!

Joel

Mothman Fever a one shot by @beskarandblasters

You meet a really hot guy at the Mothman Festival and almost hook up with him, then you meet him again at the Mothman Stakeout except this time he's not just Joel... he's MOTHMAN!!! This fic is so good. It's funny and hot and amazing. Lil element of sex pollen in there and ya know, my favorite, monsterfucking. Also the shirts reader wears had me hollerin'.

Deliver Me From Nowhere a series by @atinylittlepain

Joel got his sheep ranch in a sleepy Colorado town and decided to slow his life down finally. Delores comes speeding into it, literally, in desperate need of help. As of right now there's a prologue and chapter one out, but I've got a little insight into the full story, and just trust me. This fic is worth your time. It's soft, gentle, and sweet, but do not forget that Joel Miller is capable of so much violence. And he's a protector, a caretaker. I love the way the town feels like a character and the way Joel can't help but help her, and AGH. This fic, man.

No closer could I be to god a one shot by @proxima-writes

Okay so this is set in Jackson... you're the town preacher's wife and you are hooking up with Joel Miller. This fic is super hot. I fucking love infidelity fics and I love when there's a lil blaspemy and sacrilege in a fic and this is just such a good fucking example of that. And the ending is so good.

Guard Dog a one shot by @romana-after-dark

TW Dub con, but it's Joel not reader. Raider!Joel fucks with the wrong girl. Reader fucks Joel at gun point and like there's a gun blow job in there and he's so submissive and he's also obviously pretty into it? And then he's obviously very into it. This is was so unreasonably hot. Just like... oh my god? Joel on his knees and whimpering and begging to cum? Good dog…

Jizz Fingers a Joel (and others) series by @gasolinerainbowpuddles

This is probably my favorite crackfic ever. A splorgimum (alien boy) from another planet can shape shift into anything you want and has various other special space boi powers that make hooking up with him a really good time. This so funny, like you will probably cackle out loud and have to find a way to explain what you're laughing at, but ummmm it's also pretty hot. And I refuse to be ashamed of wanting to fuck amorphous blob boy turned HBO Joel Miller. I mean have you seen what those Jizz Fingers can do?

Not so tough now, is she a one shot by @walkintotheriveranddisappear

Your cute lil raider group gets taken over by Joel's much scarier one. He needs to show your group that you are no longer in charge, and he chooses to ruin any authority you could possibly have by fucking you in front of them. TW NONCON. This is depraved and hot and terrifying. I loved the different ways the men in the group reacted too, from boldly participating to obvious disgust. Really shines a light on the spectrum of human depravity oof.

Oblivion a one shot by @thesummerpetrichor

Your boyfriend's dad is a sweet older man who you go visit sometimes, bake him things, talk about photography... Your boyfriend cheats on you. So you cheat back and let the guy take pictures. He sends those pictures to your boyfriend's dad... and suddenly sweet old man Mr. Miller is not so sweet anymore. TW Dub con, you totally wanted Joel but this is not how you wanted him. This is really hot and a little scary and just FUCK Yes. This is so fucking good

Pillow Queen a one shot by @beskarandblasters

You watch a porn video while Joel is sleeping beside you. He wakes up while you’re watching it. You tell him you want to try that position and he calls you a pillow queen. You prove him wrong. One thing I love more than almost anything else is proving a man wrong lmao. This is so fucking hot it's unreal. That got rode within an inch of his life lmao

All I did was what I had to do a series by @corazondebeskar-reads

I'm not 100% sure why I read this because if someone pissed even in my general direction in real life I'd literally cut their dick off and feed it to them... anyway that is not how I feel about it in fic apparently. Your raider!Joel's little pet or whatever and a new recruit thinks he can make a pass at you. Joel pisses in your mouth right in front of him and then shoots the fucker in the dick. Then he makes it up to you with some overstimulation :)

truth or dare a one shot by @joelscruff

Mean scary neighbor Joel, fuck yes!!! Your friends dare you to "see how far you can get" with your neighbor Joel during a game of truth or dare. You go over there and end up locked in his garage. There's elements of TW DUBCON here, but also he does give you a brief opportunity to leave. This is brutal. He's rough and a little gross about it and it is so hoooottttttttt!!!! And then there's this bit with a flashlight.... anyway I also would ditch these friends since you literally disappear for god knows how long and they don't even bat an eyelash like???

Something wretched about this a series by @covetyou

This is gonna be a series, but so far I've only seen chapter one,,,, Wherein Joel is a drug dealer and you need pain meds for your dad who is very ill. He can't work so you don't have ration cards, but you need ration cards to buy pain meds so he can work to get ration cards. Viscious cycle. Thankfully, Joel is accepting other methods of payment. The main kink in this one is pussy spanking and is so delicious oh my god. Reader is shocked by how much she likes it, honestly I think Joel is shocked by how much she likes it.

Joel + Veracruz

A Lesson in Blackmailing a one shot by @gasolinerainbowpuddles  

No reader in this one! Just Joel domming comandante Veracruz and Veracruz liking it way more than he probably should. Joel is so fucking mean and Veracruz is a brat but he ends up just being a pathetic mess jacking himself off in an alley and I love every second of this.

Dave

Notes on Tutoring a series by @honestly-shite

Dave is your new music tutor and you are down real bad for him even though he's a major fucking asshole. You end up fucking him and then a lot of shit goes down and literally any other summary I can think of is full of spoilers. But this fic, y'all. Oh my god. The way Dave is characterized is so frustrating and so so good. It's perfect. Every detail that is slowly revealed about him is so perfect. The instrument(s) he plays, the music he likes, his background, where he's from, what went down before you met, all of it, is so perfect. The ending may possibly make you mad? But I liked it. I thought it made perfect sense for these two characters.

The Princess and the Duke a series by @theywhowriteandknowthings

Originally just Murder Daddy Kinktober Day 3 prompt "Daddy please" and then followed up with Kintober Day 4 prompt "Risk of getting caught," this is now a series so I'm reccing it as such. And FUCK it is hot. Dave is very much still Murder Daddy but he's so soft and sweet for reader... I mean he's still a scary and dominate motherfucker, but it's hot and the fucking tenderness and vulnerability he shows with reader has me fucking reeling dude.

Din

Taungsdays, am I right? a one shot by @theywhowriteandknowthings

You and Din get attacked by some sort of horny tentacle monster alien thing and it gives you both the fuck of your life, basically. The horny tentacle monster basically wants to fuck you both but also wants to you and Din to fuck. If you like tentacles and/or sex pollen and a lil m!receiving assplay, this fic is so for you. Also even though you didn't exactly consent to getting railed by a tentacle monster, you and Din love each other and are pretty sexually adventurous so it's a good time for everyone involved lol.

Bleed for me a series by @saradika

Din is the mand'alor and a vampire and you are his chosen one, the one he will keep to feed and fuck and whatever else... but you have a secret reason for even volunteering to be chosen in the first place... I'm obsessed with the world building, with the suspense, with the characterization. I'm in love with this fic UGH. It's so fucking good. Din is so hot and scary and perfect in every way. Reader is such a badass too like... girl that is a terrifying situation you have put yourself in. The plot twist is everything. I love thissss

A Place of Safety a series by The_InvisibleWoman (AO3)

Okay so you're a bounty and Din picks you up and he goes to take you in, actually does take you in, but something is just fucking off about the whole thing. And then there's a lil grogu situation, reclaiming the bounty and all that. He decides to try to find her somewhere safe to live and in the process he falls for you and you fall for him and it is so fucking sweet and beautiful and perfect and I love it so much. There are currently 34 chapters and it's ongoing and I am ravenous for this fic fr.

Whispers in the Dark a series by @kewwrites

TW NONCON!!! This is the darkest Din fic I've ever read. It's fucked up on so many levels, man. Read the warnings and be fucking careful because it's got probably 99% of all the triggers possible. Kew, baby, are you okay? That being said, I loved it. It didn't feel like it was glorifying Din's behavior or justifying it or anything. It was just a beautiful and painful representation of what a broken man is capable of and what it can mean for a person to be wrapped up in that with him. If you can handle it, you should read it. This one will stick with you

Frankie

A Fond Farewell a series by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin

Angela has written something so beautiful and so painful. It's real, raw, and it fucking hurts. If you're looking for angst this is the fic for you lol. I really loved Frankie in this. I also really really adored Santi's character. This fic is gorgeous. It's one of those things where shit keeps getting in the way of something that should be easy and it makes you want to scream and cry and throw shit. It's also largely based on real events, which just makes it hurt a little more because Ang is my soul mate :')

Slumber a one shot by @write-and-buried

A filthy, lovely, consensual somno fic with a bit of squirting. Frankie is feral and he is so hot in this oh my god. I loved every single second of this fic. Frankie is so in love with you it's adorable and maybe a little gross. Which is just very Frankie. I've read this three times in 2 weeks.

Frankie + Tommy

Group Therapy a one shot by @beskarandblasters

we're pretending therapists don't have a code of ethics because holy shit this is hot. Frankie goes to therapy for his trauma and meets Tommy Miller (who says he looks just like his brother Joel). Frankie and Tommy both have their eyes set on one of the group's therapists. They ask you to go for a drink at the American Legion next door and it's not long at all before you've found a back room and then you fuck them both... Frankie is so soft and adorable through almost the whole thing and then he's fucking you and goes feral and it is so hot dude

Javi P

Drenched a one shot by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin

Me and Ang had some brainrot about Javi P wherein we discussed the fact that we would let this man do things we have never let any man do before. This resulted in a beautifully wet fic where you get covered in spit and cum. And it is so hot.

Carmen: Darlin' Darlin' a series by @thesummerpetrichor

You're the ambassador's daughter and you get dragged to this weekend get away thing for the DEA and Javier Peña is there. What follows is flirting and teasing and getting fucked in public and it is amazing. I love the reader character so much. Fiesty little mean ass bitch that she is, she's just like me. This whole thing reeks of daddy issues, and again I say, she's just like me. This fic is so hot.

Video Games a one shot by @thesummerpetrichor

Yes, I did in fact read the whole masterlist, don't look at me. DADS BEST FRIEND JAVI P???? I have never read a dbf!javi, I'm pretty sure. This is so angsty and hot and perfect. The way they dance around each other for literal years (yeah I'm pretty sure that's grooming, but I don't think it was intentional... moving on) and then finally they just crash together and it is so hot. The way he talks you through it and he's so tender and soft and perfect fuck. It's like the Javi from those scenes with Helena or Elisa where that asshole exterior is gone and that overwhelming tenderness you know he has in him comes out and just UGH. Perfection.

Off to the races a one shot by @thesummerpetrichor

I told you. The whole masterlist. Anyway. In this one, you're a sociology student doing research at the embassy and you're relegated to the DEA offices where you go about making Javier's life a living hell. Eventually he caves and fucks you over his desk. And then it becomes a whole toxic thing that is just so perfectly Javi and I love it so much and also the smut is ungodly hot.

Murder Daddy Kinktober Day 5: Who Does This Belong To? a one shot by @theywhowriteandknowthings

dude... Javi kissed another girl and you want to remind him who he belongs to so you tie him up, get him all worked up, make him confess his sins, and then untie him and leave the apartment, where he is left to pathetically jack himself off and be ashamed of himself. FUCK this is so hot. I love bratty whimpering pathetic Javi.

Dieter

Candy a one shot by @secretelephanttattoo

Dieter takes you to a closed down carnival and you suck his dick in the house of mirrors and it is delicious. I'd like to go on random adventures with Dieter... *sigh*

Crumbs, sloppy seconds, and backwash a one shot by @chloeangelic

Dieter is not so great at the whole monogamy thing, and you know this. You're actually into this, which means you've gotten yourself into a toxic cycle of encouraging the behavior and then regretting it. I love how desperately they need each other and how much you can tell they care for each other. I really fucking love the ending. I love how it’s a bit toxic, but there’s little hints in there that Dieter is trying to be what she wants. AHHH I can't believe this is her first Dieter. 

Unwind a one shot by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin

You have a terrible day and you start your period and it's just awful. Dieter takes care of you and it is the sweetest most lovely thing. So fluffy and perfect and wonderful ughhhh I love him so much.

Ghost in the sheets a one shot by @proxima-writes

As a lover of shitty paranormal investigation shows, this was fucking incredible. Dieter is such an annoying little shit in his somehow endearing way and I love him. I loved all the ghosty bits and the flirting and the bickering and AGH. I don't think I'd be down to fuck in a haunted attic irl, but maybe Dieter could convince me lol.

Max Phillips

Lust for a vampire a one shot by @idolatrybarbie

You're a bartender at a vampire themed strip club and after your shift the whole vampire thing gets a little too real. Max is so hot and he fucking turns you and it's so good FUCK. I love the freakiness of the location he takes you to also, really adds to the vibe.

A Real Challenge a one shot by @gasolinerainbowpuddles

Oh my god? Max making you wear a plug to work and then making you push it out and then fucking you in a conference room and then making you fucking leave the office in a very embarrassing way that I won't spoil. I'm panting.

Oberyn AND Max Phillips

a court of fangs and foxgloves a one shot by @psychedelic-ink

Oberyn is the lord of a vampire court and you were turned in order to serve him, but you left, uncomfortable with the bond formed when a vampire lord turns you. You regret this decision and come crawling back and Oberyn makes your life hell about it. He isn't exactly ready to forgive you, but instead of killing you for being an insolent little shit he fucks you and his other little pet Max about it. Well actually he fucks Max and Max fucks you... semantics. This is hot.

Maxwell Lord

Working Overtime a oneshot by @gasolinerainbowpuddles 

Dismantling internalized homophobia one rim job at a time! Maxwell doesn't think he'll like getting his lil ass ate out but oh boy is he wrong. And his jizz covered desk is pretty clear evidence of that.

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I'm not even gonna rec my own fics because this is unreasonably long lmao.

[grigori77]

2024 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 1)

30. BOY KILLS WORLD – Turns out this was a REALLY GREAT YEAR for action cinema, and the first genre entry here is EXACTLY what you’d expect from the true master of anarchic movie mayhem, Sam Raimi, here producing the feature debut of ambitious young German visual effects artist-turned writer-director Moritz Mohr. The newcomer’s crazy PERFECTLY compliments our veteran’s crazy, because this is like if The Raid movies had been made by Don Coscarelli (see John Dies At the End for reference) – basically a geeky love letter to classic 90s 16-bit beat-‘em-up video games, it follows the bizarre misadventures of Bill Skarsgard’s “the Boy”, a traumatised deaf-mute orphan raised and trained to become a lethal living weapon by a mysterious (and genuinely WEIRD) jungle shaman (The Raid’s own Yayan Ruhian) in order to avenge his family’s brutal murder at the hands of the Van Der Kroys, the bloodthirsty organised crime family holding their dystopian city under a cruel thumb of violent oppression. The film has been described as a “fever dream”, and honestly that’s a pretty accurate assessment – this is a COMPLETELY FUCKING MENTAL film, frequently spiralling off on surreal flights of fancy as its already pretty bonkers plot starts to unravel in truly WEIRD directions, but thankfully this adds to the unique charm a lot more than it ever threatens to alienate the viewer, sticking to JUST the right side of satirical parody while delivering a consistently winning line in jet black comedy. Besides, the MAIN attraction here is EXACTLY what most viewers come to this kind of film for, and Mohr EASILY delivers in this venue – the action sequences are INCREDIBLE, flawlessly executed even as they frequently become as downright INSANE as every other aspect of the film, and without pulling ANY punches to deliver some of the year’s most gratuitously GRAPHIC blood-and-guts. Skarsgard is, like always, thoroughly BRILLIANT throughout, effortlessly proving what an incredibly expressive physical actor he can be since he never speaks a word throughout the entire film … but that doesn’t mean the Boy doesn’t get his point across just fine, the film delivering a pretty ingenious conceit by having him speak to us through his “inner monologue”, using the announcer voice from his favourite arcade game when he was a child (voice actor extraordinaire H. Jon Benjamin, star of Archer, Bob’s Burgers and Dr Katz, Professional Therapist). Then there’s the top-notch supporting cast, featuring the likes of Michelle Dockery, Stranger Things’ Brett Gelman, Sharlto Copley and Famke Jansen as the uniformly despicable Van Der Kroys, Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day and its sequel) as their lethal enforcer June 27, and Andrew Koji (Warrior, Snake Eyes, Bullet Train) as Basho, the affable oddball resistance fighter the Boy befriends and enlists into his crusade along with Benny (the Old Spice Man himself, Isaiah Mustafa), a mighty warrior with a thick beard and moustache who provides some of the film’s biggest belly-laughs (for reasons it’s best for you to find out for yourselves, trust me). Relentlessly ridiculous, unflinchingly messy and frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious, this was definitely one of the year’s most unapologetically ODD films, but also definitely one of the most FUN too, as well as a spectacular showcase for the talents of a VERY fresh new filmmaking talent who is doubtless destined for great things in the future. Just be forewarned, it definitely AIN’T one for the faint-of-heart or weak-of-stomach …

29. CARRY-ON – Arriving just in time for Christmas, this fast-paced suspense thriller from Netflix is genuinely the closest in a very long time indeed I’ve seen a film get to challenging Die Hard as the DEFINITIVE festive action flick, and for once it doesn’t feel like it was really even TRYING to. For the most part the latest from pulpy Spanish action cinema director Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan, The Shallows, Black Adam) seems more intent on following the tried and tested formula he’s mostly reserved for his regular collaborations with Liam Neeson (particularly Non-Stop and The Commuter), although he definitely seems to have made something that feels a good deal more vital and worthy of our serious attention this time round. Taron Egerton’s back on the unassuming action hero track as Ethan Kopek, a young TSA officer at LAX who dreams of being a proper police officer and has grown disenchanted with his his current lot in life even though he’s in a loving relationship with his girlfriend Nora (Descendants’ Sofia Carson), who’s pregnant with their first child. Looking to show willing in order to secure a promotion so he can support his new family and move on to better opportunities, he talks his boss Phil (Breaking Bad’s own “Big Jim”, Dean Norris) into giving him a trial run with a good deal more responsibility manning a baggage-scanner on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately this is the day a group of domestic terrorists have chosen to smuggle a dangerous package onboard one of the flights, and Ethan’s now in their crosshairs as the man they need to extort into letting them get it through customs without being stopped … as taut, knuckle-whitening edge-of-seat thrillers go, this is a genuine doozy, ramping up the tension with Collet-Serra’s trademark skill while simultaneously doing a bang-up job of establishing just what a likeable, stand-up guy Ethan in so we’re fully invested in everything he does and goes through as he searches for any loophole he can exploit in order to squeeze out of this terrifying dilemma. Egerton handles his substantial share of the narrative’s heavy lifting pretty effortlessly, once again showing us what a winningly charming talent he is, while he’s ably supported by Carson, Norris, Theo Rossi (Sons of Anarchy), Logan Marshall-Green and, in particular, Danielle Deadwyler (Station Eleven, The Harder They Fall) as Elena Cole, a tough LAPD detective whose current investigation leads her into a collision course with the day’s events. The standout turn here, however, definitely comes from Jason Bateman, who oozes subtle menace and sharp-witted guile as Traveller, the cold-blooded mercenary looking to force Ethan to comply with his demands no matter how much blood he has to shed to get there. Their fraught exchanges are the particularly vital life’s blood of the film, Egerton and Bateman’s dynamite chemistry providing particularly powerful fuel to keep this razor sharp thriller barrelling along at a spectacular clip. Ultimately, as far as festive thrillers go Die Hard may still rule the roost, but this is definitely the strongest contender I’ve come across in quite some time. Looks like I got an extra little Xmas flick to enjoy during the Holidays now ...

28. LAND OF BAD – Remember back in 2020 when I heaped praise on the harrowing deep sea horror thriller Underwater, the first proper studio movie from up-and-coming writer-director William Eubank, after he’d become one of my one-to-watch rising stars with his first two definitively INDIE sci-fi movies Love and The Signal? I’m sure my regulars will … anyway, he’s shed those more outlandish genre trappings for his fourth feature, but none of his winning auteur flair, robust atmospherics and deft skill at crafting meaty action sequences, this time turning his already deeply assured artistic hand to cranking out a good old fashioned action flick, and the results are as impressive as previous showings. This one definitely has the strongest star power to date, with the new Netflix Witcher himself, Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games), putting in a solid action hero showing as Sgt. “Playboy” Kinney, a young US Air Force TACP officer who finds himself attached to a small Delta Force team braving Philippines jungle to rescue a captive CIA asset from an imbedded terrorist cell; Russell Crowe, meanwhile, chews the scenery as Capt. Eddie “Reaper” Grimm, the grizzled, OCD-riddled drone pilot assigned to provide overwatch and air support throughout the operation. Needless to say, when things go badly wrong and Kinney finds himself alone in the bush with angry hostiles hot on his heels, Grimm becomes his only hope for making it out alive … this is a typically big, loud and dumb action-fest that wears its trope-heavy heart on its Star Spangled sleeve, but Eubank and The Signal’s co-writer David Frigerio keep things compelling and make it EASY for us to invest in the story’s well-rounded characters, while the cast are all in fine form, the two EXTREMELY capable leads ably supported by Heroes’ Milo Ventimiglia, American Gods’ Ricky Whittle and Hemsworth’s brother Luke (Westworld) as the Delta troopers, and Chika Ikogwe (Heartbreak High, The Tourist) as Grimm’s steadfast co-pilot Staff Sgt. Nia Branson. Of course, at the end of the day we don’t watch these kinds of movies for complex plots, Oscar-worthy performances or Shakespeare-level scripts – this is all about thrilling escapist action, big explosions and maybe even some deftly-executed, stylistic cinematographic eye candy, and Eubank and co DEFINITELY deliver on ALL these fronts, crafting a persistently white-knuckle rollercoaster ride that’s guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat. Subtle it ain’t, but this movie does EXACTLY what it promises to, and does it with STYLE.

27. THE IRON CLAW – Acclaimed indie filmmaker Sean Durkin has been making waves ever since 2011 with his complex psychological drama Martha Marcy May Marlene and long-gestating 2020 follow-up The Nest, but his third feature is finally propelling him into BIG TIME star-power recognition with an unflinching and emotionally devastating exploration of the haunting true story of the Von Erich family, who rose to stardom in the late 70s to ALMOST become the dominant sporting dynasty in American pro-wrestling, if not for a persistent family “curse” which kept them from every truly reaching that coveted top spot. Rocked by a string of accidents and harrowing deaths, it’s a compelling tale of tragedy and heartbreak which writer-director Durkin turned into one of the year’s most powerful pieces of worthy Award-bait (only to be unfairly and comprehensively SNUBBED across the board, particularly by the Academy). The story unfolds predominantly from the point-of-view of Kevin Von Erich (Zac Efron), the (sort of) eldest son of the family’s brutally overbearing never-quite-made-it veteran wrestler patriarch Fritz (Mindhunter’s Holt McCallany), whose dream is to be the greatest pro-wrestler of all time, only for his dad to continually pass him over for his brothers David (Trust’s Harris Dickinson), Kerry (The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White) and Mike (Superior and Two Sentence Horror Stories’ Stanley Simons) while he tries to fulfil his own dream of creating a wrestling-based media empire … only for compounded tragedy to knock the Von Erichs off their newfound pedestal just as they’ve mounted it. Durkin has crafted a potent biopic of significant raw power, turning one of the darkest chapters of the dawn of modern pro-wrestling into two of the most heartbreaking hours I’ve spent at the cinema in a good long while, largely reining in any artistic flair and indulgence to instead let the challenging story and well-realised characters do the heavy lifting, and the uniformly EXCEPTIONAL cast definitely rise to the occasion. All four of the young actors playing the Von Erich sons are amazing here, particularly White, while Maura Tierney and Lily James help to keep the film from getting TOO overwhelmed by burgeoning testosterone as the boys’ gentle, devout mother Doris and Kevin’s opinionated young wife Pam; in the end, though, the film is soundly dominated by the two-handed lead fireworks from Efron and McCallany – Zac has NEVER been better than he is here, going above-and-beyond by COMPLETELY transforming himself physically while also acting his socks off in what must have been an extremely draining performance, while it’s nice to FINALLY see Holt get a role that can REALLY get his amazing talents the recognition they’ve long deserved, sinking his teeth into a complex portrayal of a man who never quite made it for himself and is now determined to live that dream vicariously through his own children, no matter the cost to their wellbeing. This is, ultimately, a very tough watch, but it’s still an incredibly well-made film that rewards those who are strong enough to tough it out, albeit one which is guaranteed to jerk a whole lot of tears out of viewers before the end credits roll.

26. GLADIATOR II – There is NO WAY this should have worked. Ridley Scott’s seminal Millennial comeback masterpiece, the film that single-handedly revitalised the decades-dead sword & sandals subgenre of historical epic cinema, told a perfectly complete standalone story and came to a pretty definitively FINAL climax, so the thought of even TRYING to make a sequel seemed like anathema. But it was also a truly INSANE financial and critical hit, so the studios were DETERMINED to make the idea work, no matter the cost. Amazingly, Scott was entirely onboard with the idea, and if ANYONE could come up with a way to make it work … even so, it languished in Development Hell for SO LONG that it started to look like we’d probably end up being spared the ordeal after all. Until NOW … so, does the finished product actually DELIVER on what Scott and co have been promising all these years? Well … SORT OF … for the most part, at least, it manages to pull it off well enough to justify its existence, and in fact in several places even does its sky-high predecessor proud. Explaining how they actually made it work doesn’t exactly dump any major spoilers our way, the identity of the hero this time round’s been a pretty open secret for YEARS – Paul Mescal (Aftersun, All of Us Strangers) takes over from original actor Spencer Treat Clark in the role of Lucius, the now grown son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and grandson of the great Caesar Marcus Aurelius, who returns to Rome after years spent in hiding from lethal political machinations as an enslaved gladiator after being taken as a prisoner of war in Africa. Bought by ambitious former slave-turned would-be usurper Macrinus (Denzel Washington), he quickly makes a name for himself as the people’s champion, “Hanno”, in the Colosseum and becomes a pawn in a desperate plot to depose the tyrannical twin emperors, Geta (Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn) and Caracalla (Fear Street and The White Lotus’ Fred Hechinger), once his mother realises he’s alive. Typically for a Ridley Scott film, this is a massively opulent and visually stunning piece of work, every penny of the almost indecent budget right there on the screen for all to see, and once again he’s done as much of it as he can for real with expansive sets and insanely over-the-top stunt-packed action sequences (this time introducing the added complication of WATER to proceedings in the film’s two most impressive set-pieces, the opening battle and the standout arena match), while the cast is, yet again, comprehensively STACKED. Mescal may be a little too internalised to really stand up to comparisons with Russell Crowe, but he definitely LOOKS the part, and acquits himself admirably through this physically demanding role; ultimately we have a lot more fun with the supporting players, with Quinn and Hechinger chewing the scenery with gusto while Nielsen and Pedro Pascal (as her husband, General Acacius, a celebrated hero) deliver the requisite dose of highbrow stately gravitas alongside Tim McInnerny, Game of Thrones’ Rory McCann and a returning Derek Jacoby. The film is thoroughly stolen, however, by Washington, who’s clearly having the time of his life getting to overact as one of the most enjoyably theatrical villains I’ve had the pleasure of watching on the big screen in quite some time. Ultimately the finished film proves to be a bit less than the sum of its parts, particularly suffering in terms of a sometimes muddled, occasionally even nonsensical plot, but as overblown spectacles go it’s nonetheless huge fun, clearly giving up on even TRYING to equal the worthy heft of the original by instead opting to become a far more unapologetically camp and intentionally melodramatic popcorn extravaganza. The result may very much be a guilty pleasure, but there’s no denying that it’s still THE BEST thing we’ve seen from Ridley Scott since The Martian. And as far as I’m concerned that makes it a ROUSING success.

25. DOUBLE BLIND – Every year there’s at least a handful of under-the-radar indies that really impress me enough that I’m willing to really champion them, and it’s particularly gratifying whenever I find one which blows critics and other audience members away as much as myself. Such it is with the feature debut of Irish director Ian Hunt-Duffy, a sneaky psychological horror thriller which earned itself a coveted 100% Fresh Score from Rotten Tomatoes with its mixture of slowburn creepiness, burgeoning stress-driven paranoid terror and some particularly twisted mind-bending body horror. Millie Brady (The Last Kingdom, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies) makes for a compellingly believable rough-around-the-edges every-girl heroine as Claire, a down-on-her-luck young woman who enrols in a double blind trial for an experimental drug to keep from becoming homeless, only to become increasingly miserable as the compound she’s been injected with causes chronic insomnia in herself and her fellow test subjects. Then one of them suddenly dies in the most horrible way when her exhausted body finally succumbs to long-prevented sleep, and it quickly becomes clear that every one of them is now living on a dangerously short amount of borrowed time, while the pharmaceutical company they’ve been hired by is suddenly refusing to let them out of quarantine … Brady’s ably supported by a small but perfectly cast collection of talent, with Akshay Kumar (Pandora, Homeland) and Diarmuid Noyes (Borgia) particularly impressing as fellow sleep-deprived lab rats and Pollyanna McIntosh (The Walking Dead) as the trial’s put-upon overseer, Dr Burke, while Hunt-Duffy wrangles his potent cast through the increasingly nightmarish twists and turns of the harrowing script, crafted with similarly assured skill by fellow newcomer screenwriter Darach McGarrigle. Altogether this is an incredible debut for a couple of clear one-to-watch talents, and a nifty little uncut gem which deserves sleeper hit status going forward. Definitely well worth chasing down and giving a chance.

24. THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE – Once again Hollywood is making it ABUNDANTLY clear they just DON’T LIKE Guy Ritchie any more, and I have NO IDEA WHY … despite 2020’s The Gentleman becoming a modest box office hit and signifying what many considered a triumphant return to form for the man who brought us the likes of Snatch, RocknRolla and the Sherlock Holmes movies (although personally I never thought he actually really fell off, despite what Swept Away and Aladdin might have made us think), his subsequent releases all got largely BURIED online – granted, some of it was down to COVID, but even after everything started to get back to normal the inexplicably disrespectful treatment continued, with Wrath of Man and The Covenant, both impressively well-executed and evocative cinematic features in their own rights, getting released straight to streaming in many countries with frustratingly little fanfare to drum up the attention they clearly deserved. At least this one made it into more theatres, but with a lacklustre advertising campaign and stiff competition from much more high profile fare it sank like a stone, almost like Lionsgate didn’t even WANT IT to succeed. Even worse, for some unbelievably stupid reason it didn’t even RELEASE in the UK, meaning I had to wait until it subsequently hit Amazon before finally getting to check it out. The most frustrating part, though, was that the critics CLEARLY feel the same as I do about the film we actually received – this is a TOP DRAWER piece of work, further proof that Ritchie never actually LOST a step, another genuine belter of a flick which takes a brilliant premise and crafts an offbeat and deliciously entertaining cinematic caper that deserved to be seen by a really big audience on a proper big screen. Taken from Winston Churchill’s declassified WWII files, it follows the true life exploits of special forces commando Gus March-Phillips (Henry Cavill) as he put together a covert team in order to execute a top secret raid on a German U-boat outfitting operation in the hopes of crippling the subs long enough to help bring the

Americans into the War. The only problem? March-Phillips was a disgraced loose-cannon, a fiercely independent troublemaker with a reputation for going off-mission and a major problem with authority figures … he was also the original inspiration for James Bond, then mid-ranking SOE-officer Ian Fleming using him as the basis for the mercurial protagonist of his best-selling spy novels (and the rest, of course, is history). Needless to say, it looks like this will be the closest Cavill’s ever gonna get to actually playing Bond, and he really sank his teeth into the opportunity, clearly having the time of his life investing the character with his trademark twinkle and roguish charm (as well as an amusing appreciation for fine men’s fashions); he’s the ironclad backbone of the film, driving the action and story with typical aplomb, and is ably supported by a winningly motley collection of misanthropes, the gang of miscreants March-Phillips put together to execute Operation Postmaster brought to life in pitch-perfect performances from Alan Ritchson (Reacher), Alex Pettyfer, Eiza Gonzalez, Henry Golding and more, while there’s an enjoyably NASTY turn from Inglourious Basterds’ Til Schweiger as the film’s dastardly big bad, SS Commandant Heinrich Luhr, and Ritchie regular Cary Elwes brings his classic stiff-upper-lip to bear as the operation’s top CO, Brigadier Colin Gubbins, while an all-but-unrecognisable Rory Kinnear portrays a suitably gruff Winston Churchill. Ultimately, Ritchie delivers an enjoyably fiendish heist movie masquerading as a war flick, the plot snaking with crafty glee through a series of expertly executed set-pieces and ingenious little twists before finally landing a brilliantly cathartic climax which pays fitting respect to the real life heroes that inspired the film, along with one of the greatest espionage thriller franchises OF ALL TIME. That alone should have won this movie some respect, at least enough to raise its profile, and it’s a criminal shame it’s been treated with SUCH glaring disrespect. Here’s hoping it earns the cult classic status it deserves, that might redress SOME of the balance …

23. LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL – Australian writer-director duo Colin and Cameron Cairnes exploded onto the indie horror scene with their delirious jet black comedy horror 100 Bloody Acres back in 2012, which proved to be one of the most enjoyably OUT THERE horror flicks I’ve EVER SEEN come out of Aussie cinema, and they continued the trend with similarly ingenious but more serious prank-show slasher Scare Campaign. Their long awaited Hollywood debut definitely plays itself dead straight, presenting a faux-documentary presentation of a long-lost episode of fictional 1970s chat show Night Owls (together with “recently unearthed” B-roll footage of backstage events) in which struggling TV host Jack Delroy (The Suicide Squad’s David Dastmalchian) attempts to put his long-time second-place show (always outshone by The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson) at the top of the ratings board by capping his annual Halloween Special with a live interview with a demon supposedly inhabiting the teenage sole survivor of the bloody massacre of a Satanic cult. This is EASILY one of the scariest films I saw this past year, a skin-crawling, spine-chilling piece of thoroughly queasy-making atmospheric horror that uses its period setting to perfect effect to not only give the unfolding events a convincing flavour but also pay off some particularly interesting era-specific themes and conceits. Even before the horror elements start to come to the fore the film is shot through with a palpable sense of lingering dread, building to a genuinely terrifying climactic unleashing of nightmarish proportions to rival the very classic genre mainstays, like The Exorcist and The Omen, that it’s clearly paying loving homage to. There are quality turns from a very game cast, particularly Ian Bliss (The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions) as one of the night’s guests, Carmichael Haig, a stage magician-turned professional sceptic, and Ingrid Torelli (Five Bedrooms) as Lilly, the supremely creepy overly-cheerful and polite vessel of demonic possession, but the film is definitely dominated by its lead, Dastmalchian turning in yet another astounding performance of perfectly pitched charismatic charm that hides an intriguingly affecting reserve of wounded vulnerability, powering the film’s horrifying events through to their genuinely shocking conclusion. Did I mention there’s also an enjoyably quirky turn from Michael Ironside as the documentary narrator? That’s just the icing on the cake for a truly perfect slice of horror cinema which, in a purely critical rundown, would land close to the top of my cinematic list for the year. As it is, this WAS one hell of a genre gem …

22. THE FALL GUY – Stuntman-turned-director David Leitch’s latest film (following well-deserved previous successes co-helming the first John Wick film before striking out on his own for Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Hobbs & Shaw and Bullet Train) is not only a genuinely EXTRAORDINARY big screen adaptation of one of the classic old school action adventure TV shows I grew up watching (alongside Knight Rider, The A-Team and Airwolf), but also raises one of the great unanswered questions of cinema – why isn’t there an Academy Award for stunts? Anyway … turns out that Ken, in last-year’s runaway hit Barbie, wasn’t the ONLY role that Ryan Gosling was born to play – he’s equally perfect for the role of Colt Seavers, the seasoned “unsung hero” who makes all those action hero movie stars look so awesome, at least until an on-set accident left him with a near career-ending back injury which forced him into semi-retirement. He’s brought back into the game, however, when the action movie star he used to double for, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), disappears midway through the production of the debut directorial feature of his former lover, camera-operator Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). On paper he’s here to fill in for Ryder, but he’s really been brought in to find the missing star before the studio gets wise and shuts down production, but as he delves into what turns out to be a pretty tangled mystery it becomes clear that Colt might not really be the right man for the job … unfortunately he’s all they got … Gosling may be a master of understated performance, but as I’ve learned over the years (particularly from the criminally underappreciated The Nice Guys) he’s ALSO a master of comedic acting, and he’s really firing on all cylinders for this one, frequently damn near stealing the show from a high class cast who are nonetheless all equal to the task. Blunt is, as always, as flawlessly charming as she is STUNNINGLY beautiful, while Taylor-Johnson is clearly really enjoying playing a supreme douchebag of a preening self-promoting prima donna, Ted Lasso’s Hannah Waddington frequently walks off with her scenes as supremely oily producer Gail Meyer, and Everything Everywhere All At Once’s Stephanie Hsu and the great Winston Duke both hold their own admirably as Ryder’s put-upon personal assistant Alma and Colt’s long-suffering best friend, stunt coordinator Dan Tucker. Needless to say, Leitch has long since proven that he is a MASTER of on-screen mayhem, effortlessly ushering in some of the very best action sequences we saw in the cinema this past year, but he also once again proves he’s ALSO a master of big screen comedy, bringing the pitch perfect screenplay from Drew Pearce (who previously wrote Hobbs & Shaw, as well as Iron Man 3 and his own directorial debut Hotel Artemis) to effervescent primary-coloured life as a gleefully anarchic and thoroughly irreverent celebration of action cinema excess and the gruelling hard work that it takes to actually make it all possible, all done with barely ANY digital trickery at all. All round, then, this was some of the most fun I had at the cinema in 2024, and once again, it really does raise that all-time great question – WHY ISN’T THERE an Oscar for stunt work? Gods know this one would definitely have been a shoe-in come the Awards season …

21. DON’T MOVE – You may not know the names of co-directing duo Adam Schindler and Brian Netto (to date I only really know them from little-seen but admittedly pretty impressive straight-to-demand found-footage horror Delivery), but you should definitely make a note of them for future reference given just how beautifully this short but VERY SWEET high-concept suspense thriller from Netflix and producer Sam Raimi executes its fiendishly simplistic premise. Kelsey Asbille (Wind River, Fargo, Yellowstone) shines incredibly brightly in a beautifully nuanced and physically demanding turn as Iris, a young woman who’s having a hard time getting over the tragic loss of her young son, only to find herself stalked through isolated woodlands by serial killer Richard (American Horror Story’s Finn Wittrock, equal parts charming and chilling throughout), who knows he only has to wear her down after injecting her with a dose of a drug that will inexorably rob her of control of all her bodily functions. Her only hope is to get away from him long enough to wait out the drug’s effects, or otherwise find help, but as he dogs her trail her situation goes from bad to worse to truly desperate indeed … this is one of the most anxiety-inducing thrillers I’ve seen in a VERY LONG TIME INDEED, the directors and screenwriters TJ Cimfel and David White (Intruders, VHS: Viral) wringing every ounce of suspense out of each twist and turn the deliriously harrowing narrative drags us through, as well as throwing some skilfully executed rug-pulls on us as they build up to a fraught but deeply cathartic climax. The results are one of the biggest surprises that Netflix managed to spring on me this past year, which is very impressive indeed for what was such a seemingly low-profile release in their 2024 roster, which ultimately just makes this one of those hidden gems that it’s well worth your time to dig up ...

[lunatic-pudge]

Duke Nukem General (and Relationship) Headcanons

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Hey, gang, I'm deviating from Postal and TF2 for a sec and giving a little bit of attention to Duke Nukem. Seeing so much Dude x Duke fanart has started to make me grow a thing for Duke. I'm still learning about the franchise and the character so my interpretation of him might be a little OOC. These are general headcanons and some relationship stuff. Gott work on my Duke Nukem skills. If you enjoy these and want more, feel free to hit up my comments (or ask box) and I'll gladly deliver. And, as always, I'm dutifully working on my Postal and TF2 requests. I'm gonna have some posted before the month is over. And if you wanna request Postal or TF2 stuff, you are always more than welcome to! I enjoy getting asks. :D

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-Duke is such a goofy guy to me. This macho guy that' jacked, kills aliens, saves the world, and is "totally straight". Yeah, I'm starting this off by saying that I aggressively refuse to believe that this man is only into women. This man is RADIATING pansexual energy. Originally, I was gonna say he's bi, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that he really wouldn't care about gender.

-But that also extends to, he does not understand these things. The type of person to be like, "What's a nonbinary?" and even when you explain it to him, he still doesn't really get it but goes along with it. (This might also just be me craving himbo Duke) He's the hero we need in these bleak times, frfr

-He's such an interesting guy. Like Dude, Duke has a very extensive knowledge on weapons, even alien weaponry, and is very adaptable when switching weapons out. Even though this man is a himbo to me, he's way more smarter than what you'd expect. Having military knowledge and even knowing about differing types of aliens (and how to kill them obviously). Sometimes it's scary with how much he knows about these things

-Autism be damned, my boy knows how to work a grill. It's a shocker that this man is actually talented in the culinary department. It's impressive. Duke can make even the nastiest of things edible. If you have food allergies or sensitivities, it'll take a bit for him but he'll learns to cater to your dietary needs. He's very big on spicy and savory foods. Not really a sweets person. Tending to avoid sweets and only having them as a rare treat (he's got a physique to hold up here). He's not someone who's gonna tell you what foods you need to eat but will encourage you to stay on a more healthier diet. He's very health conscious

-Very big on working out and staying in shape. He would like it of you joined in with him on it but is understandable if you are unable to. I can also see him just flat out using you as a weight. Doesn't matter what your size is, you WILL be picked up by him.

-His love language is definitely physical touch and gift giving. Man is loaded with cash and won't hesitate to spoil you. Taking you out on lavish dates and getting you anything that little heart of yours desires. He also loves having you cuddled up in his side. Duke's a big guy, if you ask, he will carry you around. And since he's very into physical affection, expect some PDA from this guy as well. He'll usually have an arm wrapped around your waist and won't hesitate to give you a big ol' smooch or even a hug.

-Again, Duke is a goofy guy, he's always finding ways to tease you or to get you to laugh. He's a good guy with a good heart. He wants what's best for you and can be rather overprotective at times. He doesn't like people trying to hit on his partner. He know he has nothing to worry about, just finds it annoying that someone thinks they can take you away from him. Good luck trying to keep him from kicking some ass though. He can be hard to convince to turn the other cheek and ignore the offender