#as I improved the back and forth a very clear character began to pop out at me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

junicai · 4 years ago

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who taught you that?

| order no. | 4/21

| summary | Aria's Korean has improved greatly since stepping off the plane to Korea. But sometimes, the lingo still trips her up - in interesting ways.

| word count | 2.3k

| warnings | Sexual innuendos

| era | circa. January 2017

The cushions had been collected from throughout the dorm; blankets pulled from beds and from the top shelves of wardrobes to amass a large pile in the centre of the living room. The members stood around in varying degrees of formal clothing;

Some still in their clothes that they had worn for the promotion earlier on in the day, and others having stripped and changed into leggings and old shorts and faded t-shirts as soon as they had stepped foot into their home.

Aria had waited for the others to use the bathroom before she had slid in quietly afterwards, knowing that she took the longest in the shower and not wanting to use a large amount of the hot water.

Sure, the spray of water ran a little icy towards the end, but she'd read that it was good for your pores to turn the shower head cold at the end of a haircare routine anyway, so she wasn't complaining.

She'd shuffled her way out of the bathroom and into her room, where she immediately fluffed out the excess water still in her hair, leaving it damp and loose to dry on her shoulders, prior to tugging on a stolen sweatshirt and a pair of cotton shorts that had been retired to sleep status months ago.

The hoodie was warm, and Aria tugged it around her neck to fight the chill of her damp hair, shuffling out into the living room with a blanket fisted in her hand and a pillow tucked underneath her other arm.

"Do you want to just toss that onto the couch, there, and go dry your hair?" Doyoung paced over to Aria, hands taking the bedding from hers already.

"Oh, no, it's okay." Aria shook her head, moving to help him flatten out her blanket onto the carpet. They were building a blanket fort, of a kind.

The movie night had been Taeyong's idea - a bonding experience he said. Donghyuck had jumped at the idea of constructing a fortress of soft and fluffy bedding, and well. No one was going to turn him down.

"You'll catch a chill, go dry your hair." Doyoung reprimanded, gently but firmly tugging the edge of the blanket from her grip.

"My hair dryer is broken," Aria winced.

"Well why didn't you just say that?" He looked up at her briefly, shooing her towards his own room. "Go, you can use mine. I think Jaehyun's in there, maybe he can help."

Aria nodded, mollified, and made her way into Doyoung's room. She passed Taeil in the hallway, who patted her back lightly in greeting. The doorway was cracked open, so she knocked once before tentatively pushing it open.

There, as Doyoung had predicted, was Jaehyun, sitting on his bed and scrolling through something on his phone. He looked up when Aria knocked, and smiled, locking his phone and dropping it into his lap.

"Hey, Akari. What's up?" He asked.

"Uh," Aria wrung her hands in front of her. "Do you know where Doyoung oppa's hairdryer is? He told me I could use it because mine is broken," She trailed off.

"Yeah! Sure, give me a moment." Jaehyun pushed himself off the bed, crouching down in front of the storage unit beside Doyoung's bed and pulling open the bottom drawer. There, beneath several half empty bottles of varying brands of hair conditioner and toning shampoo was the hairdryer, which he pulled out with a flourish.

"There we go. Do you need help or?"

Aria shook her head. "Oh no, it's alright. I'll be out quickly, you can go join them in the living room."

"Yeah, no problem. Don't take too long though, or else I think Donghyuck will pick the movie again, and last time," Jaehyun grimaced. "That didn't end very well."

Aria could remember. Last time, Donghyuck had insisted on watching a new horror film that had recently come out in the cinemas; one that Aria never actually ended up watching in favor of burying her head in Yuta's shoulder, his hands covering her ears as the characters on the screen screamed blue murder.

Hilariously though, Donghyuck hadn't fared much better, despite the movie being his own choice, and the two maknaes ended up sharing a bed for the following three days - unable to sleep alone.

Aria agreed, and as soon as Jaehyun had left the bedroom she plugged in the hairdryer and began running her fingers through her hair to detangle any knots.

She pulled the device away from her head when the air grew too hot for her to handle, and spent a couple seconds trying to figure out how to turn down the heat. After giving up on the endeavor though, Aria just decided to get through it as quickly as possible.

She blew out every strand until it was only slightly damp and no longer dripping with water, and tugged her hair into two plaits on either side of her head.

The hairdryer was pushed back into the bottom drawer of the storage unit, and Aria closed the door into Doyoung's bedroom behind her as she left the room.

Entering back into the kitchen, she realized that Mark, Sicheng and Jaehyun had already claimed their spots on the floor and singular armchair respectively.

Looking over, Taeyong and Doyoung were leaning against the counter with Taeil; Donghyuck emerging from behind the wall to join them.

Aria padded over to the second group, wanting to grab a glass of water prior to settling down for the movie and becoming reluctant to move less she lose her comfortable position.

As she made her way across into the kitchen, she caught the tail end of Donghyuck's whining tirade, his hands clutching onto the back of Doyoung's sweatshirt.

"But hyung, I'm hungry." He pouted, pulling on the material.

"It's late, Hyuck, you'll feel sick if you eat this late."

Donghyuck's pout deepened. "But not if I eat something that isn't sugary."

"No."

"Please."

"No."

"Please!"

Doyoung sighed a long suffering sigh. "Fine."

Donghyuck cheered, squeezing Doyoung in a hug in thanks. "Thank you thank you!"

Doyoung grumbled something about raising him wrong with no manners at all, placated by Taeil's hand rubbing soothing circles on his shoulder.

Taeyong just turned away, hiding his grin into the glass of water he was sipping.

"Hm," Donghyuck pondered, fingers tapping his chin. "What to eat, what to find."

Aria's head popped into the conversation. "Do you want to eat ramen?"

Taeyong choked on his water.

"What!" Donghyuck whipped around, hand landing on his chest.

Aria stumbled back slightly, eyes wide and bewildered. "R-ramen? Ramen noodles? Do you, want to, eat them?" She turned to Taeil. "Am I saying that right?"

"Saying what right?"

"Do you want to eat ramen?" Aria sounded out each syllable carefully, thinking it was an issue with her pronunciation. She was still learning Korean - it has improved greatly, but there were still issues that arose occasionally.

"Don't say it again!"

"What? What am I saying!" Aria spun, looking at the four men who were staring back at her with wide eyes.

Taeyong cleared his throat, having recovered from his coughing fit. "It's just, uh, it's nothing."

Aria's face fell. "I thought my Korean was getting better though.."

Doyoung floundered slightly. "It is! Oh it's a million times better; it's not that, Aria. It's not that at all, it's just that - that - hyung, you explain."

Taeyong fixed Doyoung with an affronted look, "You explain!"

"I'll explain," Taeil held out placating hands. "You're scaring her."

It was true. Aria's head was whipping back and forth between the two, the confused crease between her eyebrows only growing deeper and deeper.

"Aria, the phrase that you used, is, generally used in such a context that would mean you'd like to take the other person home - for the night." Taeil slowly explained.

Aria nodded in tandem. "Like a sleepover?"

Donghyuck smacked his hand to his face, dragging it down. "You asked me if I wanted to sleep with you."

Aria's shriek brought yells from the other boys.

"What!"

"What is it!"

"Who's dead!"

The three boys in the living room received no response other than a red faced Aria bursting in, immediately burrowing herself beneath a mountain of blankets and a cackling Donghyuck following her.

"What's happened?" Mark questioned, wide eyed.

Doyoung entered, trailing a hand down his face with his eyes closed. "Nothing, Mark. Nothing at all."

Mark looked over at the mound of blankets that was currently Aria. "Uh, okay?"

As the conversation faded into background noise, Jaehyun shuffled over to Aria's blanketed form.

"Ari? Are you okay?"

"Fine!" She squeaked.

"Are you sure?"

Aria's head popped out from a gap in the blankets. Her cheeks were still flushed a bright red. "Mhm! Totally fine!"

Jaehyun regarded her suspiciously, looking her up and down. Aria's eyes begged him to drop it, pleading with him not here, not here please, don't bring it up here, and he conceded.

Sitting back onto the couch, he pushed himself into the arm slightly, making room for an extra person to sit beside him without saying a word, and Aria gratefully slid out from her blanket hideout and into his arms.

Jaehyun pulled one of the blankets from the floor up over the both of them as they shuffled about for a moment, finding a comfortable position.

Taeil, who had settled onto a mattress of sorts that had been constructed on the floor with Taeyong and Doyoung resting comfortably on either side, took a look around the room.

"Is everyone ready? Drinks, snacks?" He questioned, knowing the uproar that would occur should someone get up in the middle of the film.

After receiving the general consensus of yeses, he clicked onto the movie, and pressed play.

The opening scene of Train to Busan lit up the television screen, and Aria promptly pulled the blanket back up over her head. She could feel Jaehyun chuckle beside her, and a strong arm encircled her waist to pull her against him tighter.

Aria stayed that way throughout the entirety of the film. Midway through, Yuta's hand found it's way onto her knee, rubbing soothing circles into the skin and Aria's own hand slipped out from underneath the blanket to clasp his hand in her own.

For once, she was glad that Korean wasn't her native language, because it meant that when Yuta began speaking to her in soft, gentle tones, the Japanese drowned out the Korean and made it easier for her to pretend that there wasn't a zombie apocalypse happening on the screen right in front of her.

It felt like an eternity, with Jaehyun's arms tightening around her to warn her of a loud noise before it happened, and Yuta's soft murmurs trying to comfort her.

Eventually, the movie clicked off with a light snick and the living room was plunged into darkness. With the television no longer illuminating the room, the only light source came from the moonlight peeking through the gaps in the blinds; and slowly, the members began to stir.

Sicheng and Yuta stood up, the latter patting Aria's leg once, brushing dust from their legs and bending to snag the pillows they were lying against up to their chests.

Mark slowly rose from the floor, arms raising above his head and he rolled his neck with a crack that reverberated around the room.

Gradually, all the members bar two bid a goodnight and sleepily shuffled their way back to their own beds, bar Donghyuck, who followed Mark into his bed.

The movie might not have been his choice this evening, but that didn't change the fact that he was too prideful for his own good; and that meant watching the film in its entirety, even if it sacrificed two days of restful sleep.

Honestly, she fully expected to find Donghyuck in her own bed tomorrow, or be dragged into his.

Aria, still encircled in Jaehyun's arms, was reluctant to move. Here, she was warm, and comfortable, and her bed was most definitely cold, and she'd have to move around all her bedding to find a comfortable position.

Dithering over her options, she was taken by surprise when Jaehyun tightened his grip on her waist slightly, rolling over to position her more comfortably and safely away from the edge of the couch.

"Jae?" Aria whispered when he didn't let go. "Shouldn't we go to bed? It's pretty late."

"M'no." He mumbled. "I'm tired, let's just sleep here."

"Oh," Aria thought about it for a moment. Was this what her manager meant when she said that Aria would bond with the boys eventually?

"Yeah, yeah okay. Let's sleep here."

Aria ran a hand over Jaehyun's hair once, before snuggling back down into his warm embrace.

#*moonlight café #nct 24th member #nct #nct imagines #nct addition #nct female member #nct female addition #nct extra member #superm #nct 127 #nct scenarios #kpop #kpop addition #kpop!oc #nct female oc #wayv #nct additional member au

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vidavalor · 4 years ago

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SamBucky opinions & things...

I’m not going to say who people should ship as it’s everyone’s own opinions and it’s a tv show/film series so it’s not like this is the most important thing on the planet... That said, I’ve seen a few posts from Stucky people who say they actively want to understand what SamBucky shippers see in the pairing and since I’m gone on these two, here are some thoughts...

If you take a long view-- which the MCU is having you do now because these characters are outlasting Steve Rogers in its canon-- Steve & Bucky, while fun to play with and full of a lot of really great yearning/angsty possibilities back in the day, are really just the formative chapters of Sam & Bucky’s romance. If we got more Sam flashbacks in the story-- and I really hope we do in his canon in the wake of the end of TFATWS (S1?)/CA4-- a Sam & Riley story would be the equivalent to The First Avenger, in terms of it sets up some backstory that leads to where the story is going, as opposed to is the entire story itself.

A main factor for me in liking Sam & Bucky over Bucky & Steve is that Sam is a healthy, mature choice for Bucky-- a guy who has gone through a hell of a lot here and deserves all the good things-- whereas Steve, while not a bad man, is a regressive choice. It stems from the fact that Steve was never really comfortable with Bucky’s sexuality-- at least not when it mattered-- and that’s because Steve was not comfortable with his own... or much of anything about himself. This still wouldn’t matter so much in terms of who to ship Bucky with if it weren’t also for the fact that Bucky is perfect *for Sam*, who should get all the good things, and we’ll get into that a bit more below. Have to do Steve & Bucky first because chronology and also because that’s the other ship in question here, really. (Sorry, SteveSam people like if you are asking for stuff too and anyone cares, I don’t think I have enough for a whole meta post on why it’s kinda blah, if full of cute friendship moments, but I touch on it a bit further below.)

The entire plot of The First Avenger is about how Steve is obsessed with being Mr. America 1940-- and how he gets to that point is understandable. He was born with a ton of heart, a truly good man, but he’s small and sickly and he doesn’t love himself. He lacks confidence in himself because he holds himself up to a standard of masculinity put forth by a country on the brink of war-- and then, at war-- as physically strong and very, very straight.

While Steve is desperate to change how he looks, Bucky hides behind how he looks. Steve might look at Bucky and see a lot of what he wishes he was-- the good-looking soldier with a dame on each arm-- but at some point, he becomes aware of how Bucky is playacting. He’s not as he appears to be. He’s a man trying to survive a world that does not accept him and working to pass in that society, all the while with an eye to the World of Tomorrow. Not just the technology that grips his imagination but the idea that things could improve, things could change and he’ll fight for America because he, like Steve and later, Sam, believes in it but while Steve worships it, Bucky can love it while looking at it critically. It’s not built for men like him.

Steve never fully understands this because while Bucky is trying to show him some of the World of Tomorrow, he’s off making plans to get injected with super serum to fill in the gaps of what he feels he needs to become the man he is supposed to be.

The key difference between them is that Steve will do anything to be that man-- and that includes shoving any potential feelings he has for Bucky so deep that he won’t even acknowledge them (if he has them at all). Bucky, on the other hand, even in 1940, had more strength. He wasn’t as tormented by who he was. I’m sure he had some of it at some point but by the time we meet him in the movies, he’s fine with who he is, even if the country he serves and the society in which he lives is not. He could basically give af. He doesn’t think in the ‘40s that he’s going to live to see an America that will ever really accept him and he fights for it anyway because Mr. America is really, fundamentally, more Captain America than The OG Captain America.

Steve is not a bad man by any stretch of the imagination but it’s clear that, at some point, he began to understand that Bucky liked men and while he didn’t do anything horrible about it-- like have Bucky arrested or told anyone else, both of which could have destroyed Bucky’s life at that time-- he never completely approved of it, either. Guaranteed he told Bucky more than once that if he just stopped, if he just found the right woman, etc-- he didn’t mean any harm with it but he was happy to think the way of his era, whereas Bucky was born ahead of his time. Still, Steve is probably the only person that Bucky knew then who knew his secret and that he protected it earned even more of Bucky’s loyalty and devotion.

Now, consider what happened when Steve Rogers was pulled out of the ice and found himself living in the literal World of Tomorrow. It’s imperfect, for sure. It’s overwhelming for him, especially at first, but it’s a world that he has to feel the wrong guy from the ‘40s has lived to see. How many times did Steve wish Bucky could see this world? How much was he thinking of Bucky when he met the literal son of the creator of the World of Tomorrow in Tony Stark-- a man who would challenge everything Steve thought was true about what it was to be a man? How guilty did Steve feel when he would sometimes get a little closer to being more open about himself in this world of Tony’s, when he’d think of how there had been a man who loved him in their own time, who was his best friend and gave him an unconditional love, even when Steve didn’t love himself, and how Steve just couldn’t love him like that in return?

Then, Steve’s journey results in him meeting Sam Wilson. They have some things in common-- they both know war and what it’s like to feel like like they might sink to the floor through a mattress. They both know the solitude of the floor and have not seem to have figured out a way beyond that. They both are runners-- literally and figuratively-- as they try to outrun the men from their pasts that they left behind... the fellow soldiers that didn’t make it home and died before their eyes. Sam is a good listener and Steve is Captain America-- they are able to help one another. Steve needs some counseling and Sam needs to feel a connection to the country he’s feeling has left him behind but that he loves. So, naturally, this is of course when Bucky resurfaces in the story.

The Winter Soldier’s existence breaks Steve in half because, for the first time, Bucky isn’t the strong one of the two of them. Bucky is in trouble and Steve never saved him. Have you all considered that The Howlies should have known Bucky was missing because back then, you left no man behind and they should have hiked down the hill for his body? If it wasn’t there, they should have realized he was *missing* and not *dead*? But they never did. Because, as crushed as he was by the loss of his closest friend, some dark part of Steve let Bucky be dead from that fall and couldn’t face seeing it for real because he couldn’t look at the unseeing, dead eyes of the man who loved him and accepted him, even when Steve was unable to give Bucky the latter in return. It was guilt and then that guilt pops up right as Steve is in conflict with Tony and has just met Sam not that long before-- these relationships with men in the modern era that challenge Steve to be a better version of who he was and who pops up but Steve’s living, breathing, prowling, raging guilt in human form.

And, man, is it ever causing some serious havoc...

So, why is Sam ultimately better? The guy who advised Steve that sometimes you couldn’t save them all and Bucky might be gone now and just needed to be stopped?

Steve couldn’t give up on Bucky because he felt he owed him. He had been on his own journey and realized a lot about how he used to think and act and here was Bucky again and a chance to make it up to him in some way. What’s of note, though? Steve does not act like someone who got a long-lost love back. He’s still running for Peggy the moment he has a chance. He’s still not capable of looking at Bucky as anything beyond his oldest, closest friend. What he wants for Bucky, though, is the World of Tomorrow.

Suddenly, there’s a chance to give to Bucky the thing he’s been thinking all the time since he woke up-- that this is a world for Bucky Barnes. Steve, out of his sense of loyalty and his decades-long guilt, moves heaven and earth to give Bucky that chance and is grateful when T’Challa will help to bring Bucky back. The irony of all of this is that Bucky Barnes, the man who used to hide his true self beneath an exterior identity, is now a man completely trapped beneath The Winter Soldier and when Steve sees a glimmer of that, he *has* to save Bucky.

What Sam learns along the way is that he and Steve have some things in common, sure, but he has more in common with Bucky Barnes. Sam is a man who understands what it is to have PTSD and the struggle to overcome it. He used to think he was the Steve of this story-- the one who watched his old soldier friend fall to his death-- but he has quickly realized he’s actually the Bucky... the guy who loved a man who couldn’t love him back and who was lost to him, leaving him spinning. Sam knows what it is to have to act in a different way to try to be accepted by a society that doesn’t have your back, even if you love the country with your whole heart anyway. He knows what it’s like to be a veteran who was left behind and forgotten about, discounted and forced to find his own way. For sure, Bucky has enjoyed more privileges in his day (pre-Winter Soldier) by virtue of being white than Sam has but neither of them are ever going to be what Steve Rogers wanted to be. Neither of them are that outdated ideal of 1940s blue eyed blond Star-Spangled Man with a Plan kind of masculinity.

Sam is also something Steve still really isn’t, even in the modern era, which is a man who is comfortable with the fact that he is attracted to men. In this World of Steve and Bucky’s Tomorrow that is the present, that is something that is no longer needed to be kept as hidden as it once was. It is not an era of complete change, especially in places like the military and when it comes to celebrity-- the nexus of Captain America’s world, really-- but it is an absolutely revolutionary transformation from when Bucky was last in control of his mind in the 1940s.

Sam is a quieter guy, even if he’s cheerful and amiable on the surface. He keeps a lot to himself. He’s clearly not gotten seriously involved with anybody in awhile when we met him and hadn’t between then and TFATWS, either, despite being a smart, gorgeous, kind and empathetic Avenger. The one who has caught his eye is the once-brainwashed assassin who keeps showing up to save his life (often from an annoying teenager with webbed fingers, much to their chagrin). It’s Bucky that he’s stuck with and that’s not just because he feels like Steve would want him to. Both he and Bucky think that the other might just be caring because of Steve but they prove to one another that this isn’t the case-- that their instincts that they have something that might be independent of Steve is true. They’re both afraid. They’ve both been through a lot and do not trust easily so it’s a thrill when they realize they really can trust one another-- and that they actually do *see* one another there. They don’t just see Steve’s shadow. They understand what the other needs and get better at it the longer they are together because they are fundamentally more alike and better suited than either of them are with Steve.

TFATWS has Bucky telling Sam that he and Steve talked about giving Sam the shield and since Steve’s shield in the present was broken in the battle with Thanos in Endgame, it means that Bucky knew the plan in its entirety (which goes along with how he doesn’t seem surprised by it in Endgame as well.) It means Bucky knew that Steve was going to go back to the time they were from and find Peggy after he put the stones back and have that dance. It means that Bucky standing there while Sam spoke with Steve knew he would see Old Steve that day, knew the whole thing. Steve, being the fundamentally decent man he is, had to have offered for Bucky to come with him. He probably really wished he would because he would love to have his friend back then with him for the rest of their lives. It would be a way to do it all over-- to go back to where they began and this time, Steve would try to be more supportive. You know he would have tried to be different, even if he couldn’t feel any thing different than what he did. But Bucky...?

Bucky had to see a life of more hell in that. What was the plan there for him? He goes back with Steve, they put the stones away, they find Peggy and then what? The rest of Bucky’s life is him married to some friend of Peggy’s they set him up with? Stolen moments with some man, if he was lucky enough to meet one? A family made not from love-- not the kind of love, anyway, that Bucky would like to have? What was waiting for him back then? Nothing.

Because he’s been through sheer hell but, somehow, he’s been given something he never thought was possible then: the chance to not only see what the future might be like but to live in it, as a part of it.

For sure, Endgame!Bucky, who had just gotten his mind back not that long before The Snap and just came back from dust to fight a battle and go to a funeral and that’s about it, hasn’t the first clue what the first step he should take to sort himself out enough to figure out how to live again is... but even then, even in that place of nothing but vulnerability and pain, he’s hopeful. He’s strong enough to say that’s what he wants. He wants what Steve wants, in a way-- to live in the time he belongs in and be able to find a life for himself. He wants the love and the family he never got to experience and wouldn’t in the same way in the era he was born in. Staying in the present to work though his pain and figure it out-- to have that choice-- means more to Bucky than following Steve because while Bucky believes in Steve’s goodness and would follow that to the moon and back, Steve cannot give him what he once might have wanted, which is to look at him the way that Steve looks at Peggy. Bucky wants that. Steve might not understand not wanting to live in the 1940s entirely but he wants Bucky to have whatever he wants. He feels uncomfortable not being there to see it through-- hence, that kind of awkward hug before he travels back in time. There are things that Bucky wants and needs that Steve doesn’t fully appreciate but he can appreciate him needing to make the choice to live the way he wants to live and deserving the freedom to do just that.

Consider the rush for Bucky when he realizes that Steve’s snarky friend might have just looked at him when he thought he wasn’t looking, that maybe that heat between them isn’t one-sided. That they live *now* and while it’s not free of challenges, it’s paradise compared to the 1940s. That maybe, just maybe, he lived through all this hell because he’s supposed to be here now and maybe that also means he’s supposed to be with this man who not only understands him but who is everything that Bucky couldn’t have been in his day-- openly attracted to men? If you were Bucky, there’s no way you couldn’t be entertaining fantasies about being able to take Sam for a romantic walk by the water somewhere and no one calling the police if you were to kiss him at sunset...

Not to mention that if you’re Sam? Who is going to get your PTSD and understand when you get a little quiet more than the guy you met while he fell out of the sky and tried to murder you while brainwashed? Who is so annoying because he’s dryly funny and annoyingly hot and more good than anyone who has been through that amount of hell should have a right to be? Who is enough like you to be made for you but different enough that you’ll never be bored? Who makes you feel safer than you’ve ever felt-- safe enough to give over a lot of the trust you are hesitant to give much of anyone because you know he won’t abuse it? You have to be entertaining thoughts about spending a lifetime making him feel as safe and finding new ways to make him laugh...

Sam and Bucky are the ones that will protect one another’s hearts. Steve is a great guy whose arc with Bucky is about making up for hurting him and growing as a person as a result, not about Steve’s undying romantic and/or sexual love, IMO. Among other things, Sam is the first man Bucky has been able to consider building a life with and I’d wager it actually works in reverse for Sam, despite him being born much later than Bucky-- Riley could have been Sam’s lover but there is enough pining regret there that I think he saw Sam in the way that Steve saw Bucky. There’s enough there to suggest that Sam had not met someone he saw a future with until Bucky, which would also account for the occasional nervousness. They seem like opposites but, in many ways, they’re exactly alike and in the ways that they are not, they compliment one another. Sam and Bucky are each other’s chances at happiness and peace so if you’re still saying Bucky should be sobbing in Steve’s notebook waiting for him to come back from the woman he left him for... why are you wishing such hell on this poor guy? Bucky deserves the smiles and the lightness in his step and the sister and the nephews and the community cookouts and, most of all, *Sam*...

...and Sam deserves the sun, the moon and the stars and seems content having found his way to the shield and to Bucky so let them be happy for the hot minute they will be until their movie conflict. ;) Steve’s getting his dance-- Bucky and Sam deserve theirs, too.

#sambucky #stucky #captain america #bucky barnes #sam wilson #steve rogers #the falcon #tfatws #thewintersoldier #thewhitewolf #marvel #mcu

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that-spider-witch · 4 years ago

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On the topic of Book!Edward Hyde

Or rather: The topic of his existence (or lack thereof).

Browsing through the J&H tag, I’ve seen a lot of book readers be spiteful of every single adaptation of the character and its pop culture version because it misses the moral of the book: That Hyde and Jekyll were just one and the same, and that Jekyll was the one doing all the bullshit that went down and that Hyde was just a mask to keep his reputation intact.

Most of these rants go on to imply or outright accuse of any author doing the split personality take on the plot to have never actually read the original book, or that Edward Hyde never existing is something that the book leaves loud and clear, something irrefutably canon.

Having read the book too, I’m here to say: Yes and no. You could read the book and still get a “two character, one body” impression from it. Allow me to explain...

While the plot of “Jekyll is Good, Hyde is Bad” is truly bullshit and the very thing that the original novel rips into pieces, whether Hyde could be considered to have a will of his own is a little more ambiguous and it can actually be interpreted either way.

Note that I’m using the word “will” and not “personality”: Hyde is still Jekyll, they both have the same personality, but while Jekyll is a rational human being, Hyde is Jekyll but without the strings of societal norms, morals and impulse control holding him down.

Book readers who go by the take that Hyde never existed also claim that the book is very clear that the changes brought by the formula are just external: Jekyll is completely himself the whole time and “Hyde” is just a mask.

And this is true... At first. Depending on how you interpret Jekyll’s unrealiable narration, “Hyde” actually slowly develops something of a will of his own as Jekyll’s evil nature, given a body of its own by his dumb experiment, continues to develop.

Here’s a fragment of how Jekyll describes the experiment and the very first transformation:

“That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads. Had I approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the experiment while under the empire of generous or pious aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend. The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prisonhouse of my disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood within ran forth. At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde. Hence, although I had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had already learned to despair. The movement was thus wholly toward the worse.”

“Edward Hyde” (who at this point still doesn’t truly exist as his own being and it’s just a mask for Jekyll to use) is evil because Henry Jekyll himself is evil. But while Jekyll-as-Jekyll has good personality traits as well as bad, Jekyll-as-Hyde is just everything that Jeyll finds evil about himself and nothing else. This paragraph also states very clearly that Jekyll’s intentions were never good.

If this was the only instance in which anything along the lines of “two characters as well as two appearances” was mentioned, then yes, there would be no room for debate on the whole “Hyde is just a fake identity and nothing else” because there wouldn’t be evidence of the contrary. It would be clear text.

Except that Jekyll, unreliable narrator that he is or not, also gives us evidence to support the theory that Hyde, while still not being a completely separate split personality on his own right, does develop a certain awareness of himself and a will to act somewhat separate from Jekyll’s.

Of course, this all still falls on Jekyll’s own fault, and even if we consider Hyde as something of an alter, he’s still nothing but the scapegoat that Jekyll uses:

“The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience slumbered.”

Something all book readers will be familiar with is that Jekyll’s narration uses “I” when writing about most of Hyde’s actions, while also mentioning both Henry Jekyll and Hyde on third person. Jekyll tries to dissociate himself from his crimes this way.

But... Whether also done by Jekyll to still reflect guilt from himself or not, the text also refers to Hyde as having a nature of his own, albeit one irreversably connected to Henry Jekyll’s own hidden desires.

“Between these two, I now felt I had to choose. My two natures had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally shared between them. Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from pursuit. Jekyll had more than a father’s interest; Hyde had more than a son’s indifference. To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless. The bargain might appear unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales; for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had lost. Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.”

There’s a clear divide here, with Jekyll and Hyde having something of a different outlook on life, something that outright doesn’t make sense if we are to consider Edward Hyde as just Jekyll’s alias.

Something to note here is that the divide between the two personas is not of a moral nature, but something much more mundane and selfish: To Henry Jekyll, his social status is everything, and his main drive to keep transforming into Hyde again and again is to enjoy a life of sin without repercussions. To Hyde, said social status can go to hell for all he cares, but still keeps the ruse because his concealment is ultimately necessary for his continued existence, something that the narration will go back to later.

After this point of the book, which is when Jekyll goes to sleep and wakes up transformed on his other body the next morning, the doctor becomes scared and goes cold turkey for two months, having decided to stop being Hyde forever and return to a normal life. It doesn’t lastlonger than that: Hyde returns not because he takes control, but because Jekyll turns himself into Hyde on purpose once again, by his own free will.

“I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself upon his vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by the dangers that he runs through his brutish, physical insensibility; neither had I, long as I had considered my position, made enough allowance for the complete moral insensibility and insensate readiness to evil, which were the leading characters of Edward Hyde. Yet it was by these that I was punished. My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring. I was conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more unbridled, a more furious propensity to ill. It must have been this, I suppose, that stirred in my soul that tempest of impatience with which I listened to the civilities of my unhappy victim; I declare, at least, before God, no man morally sane could have been guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a provocation; and that I struck in no more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick child may break a plaything. But I had voluntarily stripped myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the worst of us continues to walk with some degree of steadiness among temptations; and in my case, to be tempted, however slightly, was to fall.“

Something fun to note here: Jekyll describes Hyde, and/or himself when he’s Hyde, as being comparable to a child. First by merely noting that Hyde’s body is younger than Jekyll’s, then by comparing him to a “son” and Jekyll as the “father”, and now comparing the murder of Danvers Carew to a child breaking a toy.

Speaking of the murder, Jekyll is 100% guilty of it: Even if Hyde was a completely different being with his own traits and goals, which he is not, Jekyll would still be responsable by virtue of willingly going through the transformation again like an idiot.

That being said, the text continues to give Hyde some semblance of personality:

“Hyde had a song upon his lips as he compounded the draught, and as he drank it, pledged the dead man. The pangs of transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll, with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God. The veil of self-indulgence was rent from head to foot.“

From this point on, everything goes to hell: Henry Jekyll is relieved that now that Hyde is a wanted murderer, he now has no choice but to stay as Jekyll and leave that sinful double life of his finally behind (”Jekyll is the Good half” my ass!). But, surprise surprise! He starts to transform unwillingly, and now he needs to constantly drink the potion to stay as Jekyll.

Fun fact: Do you remember which thoughts are the ones that trigger the first unwilling transformation after the murder?

“I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. These passed away, and left me faint; and then as in its turn faintness subsided, I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde.“

The thought that he, too, was just like any other man. Something that his Hyde half knows as a fact, but that Henry “I’m superior than all these lazy peasants around me because I’m rich... I mean, because I have active good-will” Jekyll considers undignified, and therefore, cruel or evil. O Sweet, sweet Victorian hypocresy.

And it is from here on out that the narration acknowledges Edward Hyde as being his own character somewhat, somehow, at least as part of Jekyll’s conciousness.

After the transformation and the visit to Lanyon:

“My reason wavered, but it did not fail me utterly. I have more than once observed that in my second character, my faculties seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic; thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment.”

“Then I remembered that of my original character, one part remained to me: I could write my own hand; and once I had conceived that kindling spark, the way that I must follow became lighted up from end to end.“

“He, I say—I cannot say, I. That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.“

“When I came to myself at Lanyon’s, the horror of my old friend perhaps affected me somewhat: I do not know; it was at least but a drop in the sea to the abhorrence with which I looked back upon these hours. A change had come over me. It was no longer the fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked me.“

It’s curious how Jekyll’s narration uses “I” when looking back at Carew’s murder, and yet it is just from here on out that he’s oh so repulsed by Hyde than he uses He/Him pronouns for him.

And, most of all, when he has locked himself up:

“The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with the sickliness of Jekyll. And certainly the hate that now divided them was equal on each side. With Jekyll, it was a thing of vital instinct. He had now seen the full deformity of that creature that shared with him some of the phenomena of consciousness, and was co-heir with him to death: and beyond these links of community, which in themselves made the most poignant part of his distress, he thought of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as of something not only hellish but inorganic. This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life. The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll was of a different order. His terror of the gallows drove him continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself regarded.”

And what immediately follows is my favorite part of the book:

“Hence the ape-like tricks that he would play me, scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books, burning the letters and destroying the portrait of my father; and indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would long ago have ruined himself in order to involve me in the ruin. But his love of life is wonderful; I go further: I, who sicken and freeze at the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion of this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut him off by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him.”

This petty behavior of supposedly destroying and vandalizing Jekyll’s stuff to spite him is mentioned yet again just a few sentences later,along with the following line:

“This, then, is the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think his own thoughts or see his own face (now how sadly altered!) in the glass. Nor must I delay too long to bring my writing to an end; for if my narrative has hitherto escaped destruction, it has been by a combination of great prudence and great good luck. Should the throes of change take me in the act of writing it, Hyde will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed after I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and circumscription to the moment will probably save it once again from the action of his ape-like spite.“

This assertion from Jekyll that, as far as he’s concerned, he will be already dead when he transforms for the last time, is what closes the book:

“And indeed the doom that is closing on us both has already changed and crushed him. Half an hour from now, when I shall again and forever reindue that hated personality, I know how I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or continue, with the most strained and fearstruck ecstasy of listening, to pace up and down this room (my last earthly refuge) and give ear to every sound of menace. Will Hyde die upon the scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the last moment? God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.“

If taken at face value, these lines actually paint Edward Hyde as being somewhat able to think his own thoughts and do his own actions, while still just being the childish, “ape-like” part of Henry Jekyll’s mind. Emphasis on childish, not evil, the evilness is all on Henry. Edward Hyde is still nothing but Henry Jekyll’s psychological scapegoat, and the one that Jekyll technically leaves behind to deal with the mess he himself created by “dying”.

I’m not trying to get more people to interpret the book this way nor am I saying that the ”Hyde is not real and Jekyll is a lying bitch” take is actually wrong, because it is not. I’m just pointing out the book could actually be interpreted differently by different readers, and they’d still have sentences in the book to back their interpretation on.

Now, if we could all stop hating and throwing shade on every content creator out there who “got the book wrong”, that’d be peachy.

#let people have fun. its not that hard.#the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde #edward hyde #henry jekyll #dr. jekyll and mr. hyde #literature #gothic lit #this came out longer than I thought it would be

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prep4goth · 4 years ago

Text

I wrote a little thing about Alex "Trash Goblin" Torini based off a prompt I saw online. It's finished, though the ending is rushed and I'm bad at grammar so. I wasn't creative enough to come up with a title lmao

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Fandom: They're Watching (2016)

Characters: Alex Torini

Content Warning: swearing, light depictions of violence/gore, mentions of trauma

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Alex began the day similarly to how he’d start each and everyday for the past several months; heart thumping wildly and a cry dying in his throat. The details of the nightmare were unclear. As his heart rate declined, the fucked up imagery would fade into obscured whisps. He can’t remember the last time he woke up in the comfort of his bed. Every morning without fail, Alex came to face down on his couch. Fortunately, it was the largest piece of furniture he owned. He could easily stretch out without even bumping the other end. Sometimes having short legs wasn’t a complete curse.

Alex, convinced that his bones were made up of 40% calcium and 60% lead, fought the urge to remain in his current position. He felt like a boulder sinking into his sofa. Rolling onto his back, something that should be elementary, required a tremendous amount of effort. His eyes focused on the ugly popcorn ceiling. There was a crack- water damage from his pissbags neighbors above him- that ran from the furthest corner to the fan. The longer he concentrated, the wider the crack appeared. While he envisioned the crack splitting open and dumping gallons of water on his head, the rational part of Alex’s brain demanded that his body move.

With an Earth shattering sigh, he dragged himself into a sitting position. Alex rubbed his sore eyes. He couldn’t massage away the dry heaviness that seemed to permanently settle behind his eyelids. What time did he pass out last night? A glance at his still opened laptop and half empty coffee mug told him it had been an unplanned slumber. He’d probably intended to only rest his tired eyes for a moment and slipped into unconsciousness. Just as he had done the previous night. And the night before that. And so on and so forth. His couch had transformed into his office/bedroom/dining area.

Alex’s left arm was stiff from being tucked under his skull; a makeshift pillow. The tips of his fingers buzzed. Though, whether or not it was from holding that particular position or the dog bite, Alex had no clue. He curled his fingers into a fist. He watched the muscles in his forearm tense. With a slight grimace, he noted the rippling of the angry, pink marks embedded into his skin. Alex dimly recalled the searing pain of canines sinking into his flesh. He remembered the clink of teeth against bone and the ungodly amount of blood. Alex flinched as if the memory had physically burned him. But no matter how violently he jerked his head, the gruesome images were still imprinted in his mind’s eye. Hand cramping, Alex slowly unfurled his fist. With his fingers fanning out, he shook his hand until the cramping dissipated. It made no difference what he did. Numbness spread from the pads of fingers to his wrist, but feeling would eventually creep back. It always did.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Alex mentally prepared himself for another day of pacing his cramped apartment, slowly deteriorating his vision via computer screen, and consuming unhealthy amounts of coffee. That last one, however, was only achievable by getting his ass off the couch. As sizable as the couch was, it was destroying his back. Alex braced his hands against his lower back as he hefted himself onto his feet. He twisted side to side, spine popping obscenely loud in the quiet apartment.

Alex scooped up his phone from the coffee table, thumb pressing the home button. Though, the screen remained black. Well, fuck me. I forgot to charge this bitch. He realized with a weak chuckle. Not that he really cared that his phone died in the middle of the night. He hardly used it aside from emailing clients and mindless mobile games. Alex reflected on how he unintentionally severed ties with most if not all his friends while he plugged his phone in to charge. Occasionally, a film buddy would reach out, but responding to pointless texts was rather taxing. His friends had eventually gotten the memo. They figured he was pretty much useless.

Once, Alex was convinced the flame of desire he had for creating would never flicker out. He was determined to make a name for himself in the film industry. Being a sound guy for some home improvement show made for middle aged and hobbieless parents was not the end goal, but a starting point. Fresh out of highschool and hardly scraping by, Alex thought it was an incredible gig to dip his feet in. The plan was to save up enough money to move out of his parent’s place and gain some behind-the-scenes experience. He’d graduate to bigger and better things; directing. Plans change and aspirations are grated into something more realistic. Alex had not minded flying from country to country, slinging a boom mike over his shoulder. The fact that his boss wasn’t pleasant, to say the least, or that he could only afford a shitty apartment with cracks in the foundation hardly phased him because at least he had Greg. That bastard was the only thing keeping Alex from jumping ship and enrolling in law school like Alex’s dad begged him to. Then they visited fucking Moldova.

Moldova was a pair of bloodshot eyes that tracked his every move and reeked of smoke. Alex could feel its glare sorching his back every time the memories began to fade. The smoke burnt his lungs, choking him with shame if he ever attempted to forget it. Meeting the accusing eyes meant addressing the unbridled guilt eating away at his stomach whenever he so much as breathed. The weight of its scrutinous gaze left Alex wondering why he was the one left to poorly recite the witch’s tale. According to the witch possessing Becky, Alex was destined to capture the chaos that unfolded that night. Why him, out of every other person, she failed to clarify.

The witch’s carnage was the last thing Alex filmed. Everytime he picked up a camera, his stomach churned. He feared he’d lift the camera to his face and see Becky’s warped grin on the other side. Wallace, unfortunately the only other person alive, had kindly kicked Alex to the curb. The footage would never see the light of day. People didn’t seem to question the show’s new host, or even Kate’s whereabouts. Greg and Sarah, nameless crew behind the cameras, hardly hurt Wallace’s pockets to replace with other nameless crew. That soulless, corporate prick didn’t even blink upon hearing that his own niece had met the business end of an axe.

There was no hazard’s pay, not even after a 300 hundred pound man nearly strangled Alex to death. Alex needed to find another source of income to keep his lights on. So, he started editing other people’s work. The majority of his clientele were grown men screaming at video games and indie artists. Humorously enough, Alex favored editing the least. He was equipped with basics, but found it skull- splittingly tedious. It required sitting in one place for too long and extreme focus- something Alex had to shut his mouth for more than five minutes to accomplish. After watching his closest friends die horribly, however, Alex found it was much easier to be silent. A chatter box to a complete mute in months. Now, Alex slipped into the monotonous mechanics without complaint. The simple repetitiveness of splicing clips and adjusting audio levels allowed him to drift through the week without thought. It was slightly pathetic. He willingly chose to rot his brain on a day to day basis for the convenience of not having to think.

Clearing his throat, Alex realized he’d been standing next to his charging phone for several minutes. He frequently caught himself falling down a rabbit hole of damaging thoughts. His forehead creased, fingers twitching against his phone. He ignored the throbbing pulse where the scar from the dog bite was. Powering his phone on, Alex didn’t expect anything exciting. Maybe an email asking for an update or a notification from one of his various games. He was unpleasantly caught off guard by the blinking ‘missed call’ icon. Upon further inspection, it was a missed call from Bernadette- an old friend Greg introduced Alex to.

Apparently, Greg had played gigs at some dive bar frequently enough to earn some “street cred”as he often bragged about. Bernadette, when she wasn’t lugging camera equipment around archaic buildings, was bussing tables at that very same dive bar. With similar senses of humor, which consisted of constantly taunting poor, outnumbered Greg, Alex and Bernadette were instant pals. They were too eerily similar for Alex to develop any feelings beyond platonic, despite Greg’s occasional teasing. Bernadette was the only person left in Alex’s life that was too damn stubborn to let go. Desperate for some form of human reaction, Alex craved reaching out. He tried almost daily. Alex had typed out several messages to Bernadette but erased every single one. Of all people, Bernadette deserved to know what happened; she was practically a sister to them. Except Alex had no clue how to tell her. Whether it was guilt or fear of her not believing him, his basic vocab always disintegrated. There were literally no words to express the dread and sorrow that hollowed out his chest. Better to not have a conversation period.

Tucked away in the dusty corner of Alex’s brain, was a locked chest of traumatic souvenirs. It was splitting at the seams, yet Alex continuously stapled the cracks closed. He ignored the splintering wood. Any day, the chest would finally collapse under the weight and Alex would be flooded with blood tinged memories. He concluded a conference with Bernadette over the phone would be the final straw that broke the camel’s back. Or, in this case, the very thing that protected Alex from the shitshow that was himself. Alex had spent months building that damn chest. He’d lost friends and proper vitamin D, but was still clinging onto a microscopic amount of sanity. He was alive at least. Breathing stuffy apartment air and with the diet of a broke college student, granted. But that was more than Greg and Sarah could say.

His phone screen dimmed as he internally battled himself. He needed to talk to Bernadette, yes, but he was terrified. There was no danger in listening to his voicemail. Alex inhaled sharply as if he were about to be held under water as he tapped the message icon. He tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder.

“What’s up, assclown! “ Bernadette’s recorded voice shouted into the receiver. Alex winced at her sharp volume, but chuckled regardless.

“I know you’ve been avoiding me since you got back from where-ever-the-fuck, but that ends today. No more hiding out in that closet you call an apartment- time to get rolling, babbbby!” Alex shifted his weight from one foot to the other. Hearing her voice was a breath of fresh air. That feeling of lonely claustrophobia pressing on his chest faded slightly. Though, he was nervous for where this was heading. He pressed his lips into an anxious line.

“I don’t know what all went down over there, but it’s been months, man. You can’t keep this agoraphobe act up forever. That goes for that sonova bitch, Greg too.” Her laugh was soft, but still audible. Alex felt that familiar pang of guilt in the pit of his stomach. God, she thought Greg was alive and avoiding her. Throat tightening around a baseball sized lump, Alex pressed his knuckles against his mouth. His knuckles were flushed hard enough that his teeth dug into his lower lip.

“Did you guys decide you’re bigshots now? Cause, newsflash- that’s utter bullshit.” Bernadette must have meant for her tone to sound teasing, but the hurt was evident in her voice

“I’ve left Greg a fuckton of messages, but he hasn’t even opened my texts. If I didn’t know better, I’d be worried. But regardless, I know you’re back from Europe, so no excuses. Remember that show I do, the fuckin, uh, ghost hunting crap? Well, we’re down a camera and I thought you’d might be interested. Last time we spoke- which was, like, a century ago- , you said you needed a job, so… Here ya go, bud. It’s better pay than whatever you’re probably doing right now. Even if you don’t need a job, the least you could do is call me and tell me yourself. Just so I at least know you’re still breathing.” There was a beat where Bernadette paused to inhale quietly. She was right, though. Their last conversation was brief and impersonal. He offered the simplest explationations; the shoot was canceled due to creative differences and Alex was out of a job. As for what he yarn he spun for Greg, Alex didn’t recall. Probably some bullshit timeline where Greg was backpacking through Europe.

Bernadette wrapped up her message with a final jab at Alex’s lack of communication skills. In a poor attempt to center his roaring thoughts, Alex rested his phone against his forehead. The guilt that was slowly swirling in his gut developed into a full on Tsunami. For a moment, he wondered if it was possible to drown in it. Alex no longer had the option. Bernadette deserved the truth, no matter how painful.

More than that, Alex needed to get the fuck out of this place. His apartment had lost its safe haven appeal and felt more like a cage closing in on him. Whether or not he was prepared to handle a camera again was a different story. He didn’t resent the aspect of working with people again either. At one point, Alex very nearly achieved his dreams. It was still camera work, but he was more than likely rusty from his months-long hiatus anyway. He would have stood in his living room all day if he tried to debate why he should or shouldn’t take the job. This meant, on the other hand, calling Bernadette back. And eventually, he’d have to tell her that Greg was dead. How the fuck was he supposed to do that? Alex had survived an encounter with an actual blood-hungry witch, but his heart shuddered at the thought of Bernadette labeling Alex a lying ass and cutting him off completely.

Finally, Alex worked up the nerve to press the ‘call back’ option. His eyes stung with unshed tears as his heart nearly beat out of his ribcage. Alex tightly squeezed his eyes shut. The third ring droned obnoxiously loud and Alex silently hoped she wouldn’t pick up. But when did Alex ever get what he wanted? There was a soft click, followed by Bernadette exclaiming that Alex was a fucker.

“Good to hear your voice too, Bernie.” He shot for humor, but the tremble in his voice betrayed his bravado. Bernadette either failed to notice or was feeling generous.

Before she had the chance to strike up small talk, Alex launched into action. “Is that job offer still on the table?”

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#they're watching #alex torini #Maddy's drabbles

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womenandfilm5 · 5 years ago

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I chose to watch “Eighth Grade” by Bo Burnham, and honestly, I found it to be incredibly heartbreaking. The overarching theme was navigating the awkwardness and challenges of adolescence, the prevalent desire to find a place to fit in. The themes of anxiety and depression are also explored, as the protagonist Kayla struggles with extreme social anxiety, and describes how she constantly feels, by saying “I feel like I always have that nervous feeling when you’re waiting in line for a roller coaster, but I always just have that nervous feeling, and I never have that good feeling after the ride, that relief”. There is also a clear critique of the religious manner adolescents both regard and constantly use social media. Within this film there is also a clear disdain for the often ineffective method of sex education in schools, and the way that children often have to navigate these confusing arenas themselves, often because they feel pressured or coerced to do things they are not ready for. . The film’s basic content was following the protagonist Kayla and her experiences in the last week of eighth grade, before she enters the high school. There is never any mention of other family members, besides her father, who appears to be attempting to raise her as a single father. He continues to try to bond with her, despite how she rebukes and shuts him out for so long, until towards the end of the movie. She is shown to have no friends, and struggles to take her own advice that she talks about in YouTube videos she makes. Kayla is often waxing about ways to gain confidence and improve your social life, but she genuinely struggles to follow her own words, and is unable to connect to people. She tries to fit in with a crowd of shallow, cruel girls, who treat her as less than a person, and the boy she is interested in does the same. He never shows an interest in her, until she starts to use sexualization as a currency, and mentions that she has nudes on her phone, to reel him in. After a trip to the high school for a class visit, she starts hanging out with a group of high schoolers, and attracts the attention of a pervy twelfth grader. He attempts to make Kayla take her shirt off after he isolates her from everyone else, and while she refuses and is able to leave the situation, she is clearly scared and confused. . The film’s form is a narrative structure encompassing about a weeks span, and this story line following Kayla is split up with inserted clips from her YouTube channel. These inserted clips from her channels align so that the viewer is either seeing the contrast between what Kayla advises people to do versus what she actually does, or so that we see a contrast between a younger, more naive Kayla, and the current-day overwhelmed, more cynical Kayla. There was a very interesting use of aesthetics and visual style, in the way there was a lot of the story told through the palpable discomfort in body language and facial expressions of Kayla, and the way she interacts with her physical environment. There are a lot of closeup shots of her face, and the way she contorts her mouth and unconsciously expresses her emotions. Her eyes also express a lot of what she is feeling, and when she is nervous the camera will also zoom in on her hands fluttering nervously, or other such movements to demonstrate this effect. This method is particularly influential and makes the viewer really feel the energy exuded by the characters on the screen, and you feel immersed in the emotions that Kayla feels. The dialogue between the characters is often peppered with conversational pauses, such as “like”, and “um”. These words are not meant to demonstrate a lack of intelligence in the characters, particularly in the protagonist, but are used to verbalize the uncertainty with which Kayla navigates her social interactions, and is constantly in fear of saying the wrong thing. Multiple times throughout the film we see Kayla practice what she is going to say before calling someone, or speaking to them in person. This culminates such that it is clear how tentative Kayla is to assert her presence, and it really makes you want to fight for her.

I chose to watch this film, because I love Bo Burnham as a comedian, and I have been listening to his music and Netflix comedy sketches for years, and I assumed that this film would be light-hearted as well. I was shocked by how heavy this film weighed on me, and how hard it hit me emotionally. One of my little sisters is currently in eighth grade, and she experiences extreme social anxiety, and it broke my heart a bit to really see this narrative through Kayla’s eyes, and then continuously relate it back to my sister’s experiences. I was shocked by the impacting nature of this film, and I learned that Bo Burnham suffers from crippling panic attacks, and chose to share his experiences through an eighth grader, because “anxiety makes me feel like a terrified thirteen-year old”. The film is thusly named, as it represents the anxiety and uncertainty of an eighth grader which Burnham experiences in his daily life. I found this to be profoundly self-aware, and a wonderful way to demonstrate such a powerful story of adolescent struggles and social navigation. This film was also made only two years ago, and explores Millennials’ relationship with their generationally different parents, such as Kayla’s father, a member of Generation X. There are clear depictions of the toxic nature of social media in this film, and it is made clear the concerns that older generations have, to their children being so attached to their phones. This film really makes the socio-political climate it was filmed in known, and touches on prominent themes of the current time period, such as technological concerns of the era, and the way it allows young children access to things far before they are ready.

A particularly poignant scene that really drew forth an emotional response in me was when Kayla approached Kennedy in school, after attending Kennedy’s party, where her mother forced her to invite Kayla. It took so much out of Kayla to even interact with the guests at the party, and for most of the time she was hiding in another room, while everyone else was gathered in the living room having fun. She rehearses what to say to Kennedy, and attempts to mirror both her language and image. We see Kayla wearing a Hollister shirt to try to blend into the “in-group”, she uses linguistic pauses to save herself time to think, such as “like”, and hunches over with her arms in front of her body, as a subconscious shield. Her body language is clearly very nervous, and the camera once again utilizes the technique of focusing in on her nervous, fluttering hands, arms protectively hiding her body, and her facial expressions of uncertainty. She is trying so hard in this scene, and is desperate to say, do, and be the version of herself that Kennedy will perceive as cool, but Kennedy only glances at her once or twice in this scene, implies disgust in her face and body language, and never once makes eye contact, or shows respect in her responses. Everything she responses is terse, and a one-word response, never anything to stimulate or keep the conversation going. This led me to draw connections to “Lemonade” by Beyonce, which is perhaps a strange comparison, but I kept thinking of the vast differences in confidence between Beyonce and Kayla. Beyonce is obviously a grown woman, but despite the adversity and discrimination she has undoubtedly faced in her life, almost all of the 13 chapters in her video display her oozing confidence. This is notable in the way she walks, makes eye contact, keeps her head high, shoulders back, hair kept in a manner that frames her face and doesn’t hide it, etc. She is a powerful, beautiful woman, who has come into her own, and she is aware of this fact. While this is obviously a drastically different situation, Kayla, an awkward, adolescent eighth grader demonstrates all of the exact opposite physical attributes as Beyonce does: she wears clothes to hide her body, tries to collapse into herself, and tries to never draw anyone’s attention to her.

When watching this film, I began to ask myself questions that many parents are also having to face in this day and age. How can you simultaneously restrict your child from the negative consequences of the internet, while still allowing them freedom? The philosopher Locke believed the parenting approach to children seeking knowledge should always reflect pure honesty, and I feel this applies to the issue of technology. Banning a child from a website, restricting their access to the internet, or taking their phone has proved time and time again to be ineffective. For those with a goal, there will always be a way to access the internet, and no matter how scrupulous the parent, there will be a way to circumnavigate their restrictions. As a person who grew up with technology, but also witnessed a huge technological boom while in my teens, I believe our generation has a unique perspective, as we are immersed in this culture of social media, but perhaps somewhat more aware of it’s toxicity and it’s prevalence than the generations that have come after us. I feel that an open-door policy with a child is always best, and allowing them to come to you with any questions and not face consequences is key. Being honest about how social media can impact your self-esteem, how so much of the images on these sites are faked, how there are predators online, how inappropriate ads sometimes pop up, etc is the best way to inform a child. Is this a possible method with every generation that begins, especially as it can be challenging to keep up with all the new forms of social media? How can anyone be sure of what their child is doing on the internet, without invading their privacy? Should children be restricted of information until an appropriate age (within reason of course)? – HB

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onestowatch · 6 years ago

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Yoste Weaves Together Dance, James Turrell, and a Poignant Narrative in the “Blue” Video [PREMIERE + Q&A]

If you were to combine the poignant lyricism of Bon Iver and the moving production of James Blake, you would arrive at Yoste. Over the course of a handful of releases, the Austrailian producer and singer has weaved together a discography that may be limited in terms of number but already feels grand in musical breadth. It is a testament to Yoste’s innate talent for infusing a profound sense of sentimentality within his lush, sweeping downtempo electronica soundscapes.

October saw the rising Australian producer release “Blue,” a track which we hailed as an impeccable addition to the world of emotive electronic music. Today, we here at Ones To Watch have the pleasure of premiering the visual accompaniment to “Blue.” We spoke to Yoste about finding his musical identity, the spellbinding music video for “Blue,” and the future of Yoste as a project.

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OTW: How did the Yoste project first start, and what is it like looking back from then to where you stand now?

Yoste: I was in and out of so many bands and projects throughout high school. I was trying to find a musical identity that fit. The idea for Yoste began to develop when I was traveling through Turkey for a month. Maybe it was the right time in my life or maybe it was the different environment, maybe all or none of the above, but I realized if I was going to make the kind of music I really wanted to that I'd have to learn to do it myself. The idea of Yoste as my solo project began there. A lot of people view their musical "persona" as just that, not really them but more a character they play. I think that's beginning to break down a lot, at least for me. So much of my identity is tied up with the project and being a musician that I think there's only a fine distinction now between who I am day to day and Yoste as a project. A lot has happened since I started a couple of years ago... more than ever recently, but I'm not looking back, just forward.

OTW: You instill a great deal of emotion into your distinctive brand of electronic music. Is there something specific you hope people take away from “Blue”?

Yoste: I'm not a great fan of specifics... that's probably why I didn't love law school. In all seriousness though, I don't mind giving general themes to songs most times, but beyond that, I'd really rather people mine the music and lyrics for their own meaning. Ultimately, I take David Lynch's view that the art is the thing. If what I was trying to say could be better said in a paragraph of text then I'd do that, but I think the music and lyrics alone are more powerful.

OTW: How did the concept for the music video of “Blue” originally come together?

Yoste: As with so many things, it was based on a back and forth of ideas between myself and the production company pixelframe via email. It was important to me that I wasn't the focus of the narrative, but more the narrator - a side character. I'm not sure that will always be the case, but it worked neatly in this case.

OTW: The music video for “Blue” utilizes a work of James Turell as its background. Was there a particular element that drew you to incorporate that work into your video?

Yoste: It's a stunning piece, and it was just an opportunity to mess around in a beautiful part of my home city for a night. The memory of making the video is actually more valuable to me than the end result, great as it is.

OTW: “Blue” not only synthesizes your work with Turell’s but also a tender bout of choreography. What drew you to incorporate so many moving parts?

Yoste: Dance is always such a brilliant way to say a lot without being too explicit. It's not just a bunch of shots of people crying in kitchens, slamming doors or sinking to the floor, not to disrespect those things, but they require a certain finesse to do well. Then again so does dance. I don't know why I went on that tangent - Dance is great basically, and the choreographers/dancers Sophie and Jack did an amazing job. In the past year, I've been sent or tagged in so many videos of people dancing emotively to my music and I absolutely adore it. Dance will continue to be a big part of the project's visuals I'm sure.

OTW: You’ve released a series of phenomenal singles, but we’ve yet to hear a full EP or album. Is this something we can expect in the future?

Yoste: Yes. My debut EP try to be okay will be out in February. I can't wait. As you might expect, it'll be a summary of the first couple of years of the project and everything that's happened... my ideal starting point. Beyond that, I'm already deep into the process of writing and producing my second EP. It's very focused on youth and reconciling some pretty heavy insights and struggles, as one might expect from someone in their early twenties. It's been an absolute pleasure to make on the whole. The vision has been so clear and I'm incredibly excited to finish it and get it out. In short, there will be a lot of new music next year. I'm in a really solid place creatively now.

OTW: If so, what can we expect thematically and sonically from a Yoste EP or album?

Yoste: I'm very much continuing to incorporate ambient textural elements and quirky sonic palettes into my music, but beginning to move towards a slightly more raw and upbeat side of pop as well. As my production and recording skills improve, I have the luxury and responsibility of learning which elements to deliberately keep raw in order to not polish out some of the emotion of the tracks. Themes will range from seemingly unconquerable apathy to intense emotion, feelings of inadequacy, feelings of comfort. There's a lot I want to say. I don't really mind that I don't have all the answers - that's a large part of what makes these things attractive. That's my view at least haha.

OTW: Any New Year’s resolutions for 2019?

Yoste: As I've said, I'm in a great place creatively, so I hope to keep that up. Beyond that, I expect to be playing live a lot more. I'm so excited to head on tour and meet some of the people connecting with the music face to face. I worry that the impact gets lost digitally.

OTW: Who are your Ones To Watch?

Yoste: I'm a bit worried that all my "ones to watch" are already being watched! These days I feel like an uncool dad. I'll often go to my friends or girlfriend and rave about some new artist I've discovered, only to have them tell me they've been listening to them for months... Having said that, I've recently listened to Leif Vollebekk and Heilaker and they're both lovely

#interview #yoste #blue #electronic #ambient #pop

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thegrumpypenguin · 6 years ago

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Snow leopard cubs on a warm day – look at those pink tongues!!!

Adorable Mylo

This will be the very last post I complete for 2018 and there is an excellent chance that I have saved the best for last. Over the past couple of years at the Toronto Zoo there has been quite a “Baby Boom,” and two years ago I decided there were enough new offspring to warrant their own calendar – and I continued that trend into 2018. There have been countless new and beautiful babies born in and around the Zoo since then – and in other Zoos and locations, too. Many of these have been of the family Felidae (or “cat”), which is likely my favourite taxonomical family of all. I have featured lynx babies “Cinders” and “Ashes;” the four gorgeous white lion lads; the clouded leopard sisters who survived against great odds; and the improbable five kittens born to first-time cheetah mom, Laini, shortly after she arrived in a swap with Parc Safari. Thirteen beautiful new kittens born in the space of barely a year. But, to my mind, the most beautiful of all were born last of all when Ena, another first-time mom, gave birth on May 18, 2017 during a month-long strike at the Toronto Zoo.

Keeper Jennifer and Mylo, first day in public

Three cubs were born on that day (two boys and a girl); however, their father, Kota, was a carrier of Bordetella bronchiseptica (aka “Kennel Cough”) and apparently passed the problem along to his cubs. On June 15, 2017 one of the boys sadly passed away after contracting the infection. The remaining two cubs were immediately given treatment and recovered wonderfully, although Mylo, the second boy, definitely progressed a little more slowly at first than his sister, Kita. In another blow to this little family, Kota had to be euthanized in October of 2017 after quickly going downhill due to age-related issues, although I have heard whispers of the “Kennel Cough” issue perhaps also taking hold of him at the end. However, all that aside, the remaining two cubs and their then seven-year-old mom, who had arrived from Japan a year earlier and was introduced to Kota after Tiga (the previous female) passed away, bonded together brilliantly and I was giddy with excitement when I learned of their impending public debut, set for August 25, 2017.

Kota (facing camera) and Ena

Kota had fathered two previous litters when he was introduced to Ena. I tried to visit them as often as I could after they were first put together; early on, they seemed to mostly be “putting up with” each other. As time went by, I began to see them sleeping together in the den, but Ena had a “safe place” on top of a hammock-like contraption that actually looked a lot like a howdah without an elephant. If Kota approached that area while she was sitting up in that hammock, she would hiss at him until he backed away. Then one day I came by and could only see Ena, at first, in that very hammock. It wasn’t until I moved a little closer that I noticed the second tail and realized that she had finally allowed Kota to come up and join her. That was when I knew they were going to get along just fine. They cuddled more closely in the den, followed each other around the exhibit, and spent long hours just lying close to each other, staring at the turs across the road. It came as no real surprise when I learned of Ena’s pregnancy in the early spring, but it was still an absolute delight!

Mylo (top) and Kita

Because they were born in May, and didn’t make their public debut until they were three months old, I spent a lot of their early days watching them pant and look for shade. They weren’t exactly lethargic, per se, but I knew they could be a lot more playful, given the right circumstances. Never the less, as I watched them through the late summer months and well into the fall, two things became readily apparent: 1) Ena was a terrific mother, often running up to the cubs and forcing them to play with her instead of the other way around; and 2) the Eurasia Keepers did an amazing job of socializing the little balls of fur, because they were extremely precocious, inquisitive, and engaged every time I got their attention (which was pretty much every time I visited them). I got to know which one was which very early and spent so much time with them that Ena herself used to look over when I’d show up, something she had not really done before. The aforementioned tur had already been one of my favourite attractions at the Zoo and I often headed to see them during the summer when the rest of the park was very busy; now there were days when I went directly to that corner of Eurasia and ventured nowhere else for hours.

(L-R) Kita, Mylo, Ena

Snow leopards, in general, may be the most beautiful cats in the world – they’re certainly at the top of any list of gorgeous felines. But even within that context, Ena is one of the most stunning snow leopards I have ever seen. There is such character and beauty in her face and I have spent many hours just looking at her, even after the cubs were born. The cubs were bound to be adorable in any event, but their lineage (Kota was pretty darned handsome himself) ensured that they would be heart-meltingly cute. But I didn’t only show up so often just because of their beauty. No, I wanted them to get to know me very well, to be calm around me, or even to react positively to my presence, as I was just biding my time until the heat had passed, the crowds had stopped showing up, the temperature dropped, and the first flakes started to fall. I knew that would be the best time to see them. And they didn’t disappoint, once that time arrived.

As the weather began to cool off, we began to play more. Eventually, the snow did fall, and I grabbed my camera and rushed over to the Zoo at even the sight of a few flakes for quite a while. We started to play Hide and Seek. Then they started to just flat-out stalk me, but I didn’t get a lot of shots of those times because I was having so much fun with them I simply forgot to do so. And then, right smack-dab in the middle of December, I remembered.

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I have many more videos of these guys – and others! – on my YouTube channel. Please check it out if you get the chance!

Ena, Kita, Mylo in a chain

I’ve gone to see them so many times since they first came on display, and I almost never failed to get the attention of at least one of the three. And Ena absolutely loves playing with her offspring! The photo here is a very typical scene: Ena will walk past one or both of the cubs nonchalantly, pretending to be minding her own business. But the giveaway is this: that giant, fluffy tail will be standing straight up in the air like a huge flag, and whether she is wiggling it or not, it taunts the cubs. Within seconds, one will take the bait and start to chase after her; more often than not, this will result in Ena jumping about 10 feet vertically (as if she’s been caught by surprise) before dashing away on the dead run, one or two slightly smaller versions of herself in tow. And even though I’ve seen it happen many times, it enchants me on every occasion, even to this day.

Kita just before she stalked me

As the cubs grew up, it seemed they lost interest in playing with me when I’d come to see them. But that wasn’t what happened at all, as it turned out: it was simply too darn hot all summer for them to have the energy to run around. When the temperature dropped again this fall, I went to see the family and found them lying together on a platform wrapped around a pole in the middle of the exhibit. I called out to Kita and, as you can see here, she opened her eyes and fixed them on me. Right after I took this photo, I shuffled my feet a little bit in the dead leaves and then ducked down behind some rocks, out of sight, for a second or two. When I popped back up, Kita was not where I left her… because she had jumped down to the plateau on her side of the fence and was inching toward me, ears pinned back to her head, eyes as big as frying pans. When I repeated my hiding trick, she came racing across the rocks and leapt onto the screen right in front of me, before jumping down to the ground and strutting back and forth, clearly begging for some skritches (she didn’t get them from me; I feel it’s important to make that clear at this point). She eventually went back up on the rocks and we repeated the game twice more. I don’t know how much longer these youngsters are going to be at the Toronto Zoo – they will want to breed Ena with a new partner as soon as possible – but for the rest of the time they are there, I am going to milk the opportunities as much as I possibly can.

Well, I am clearly going to end this post with a collage of photos of the family, but before I do I want to again thank all of you for buying my calendars or, at least, for reading along with these blogs. I bought a new kit and zoom lens at the end of last year and they have greatly improved my photos; every shot in the 2019 calendar (I am only making one version for next year) was taken with the new camera, with one exception: November. But you’ll have to wait until then to get that whole story.

So please join me again next year when I will continue to find things to tell you about the gorgeous animals of the Toronto Zoo, and fill the posts with photos you may not have seen before. Thanks again, have a great holiday season, and a Happy New Year!

2018 “ANOTHER BABY BOOM!” Calendar – December Story This will be the very last post I complete for 2018 and there is an excellent chance that I have saved the best for last.

#Animals #Baby #Calendar #Cats #December #Ena #Eurasia #Kita #Kota #Leopards #Mylo #Snow Leopards #Toronto #Zoo

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avengershumanresources · 7 years ago

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Dust to Dust (3)

Summary: Where did Hydra come from? An idea? A twisted dream? For an organization that spans centuries, it kept relatively quiet until contemporary times.The Super Soldier serum wasn’t dreamt up over night, but was the product of numerous experiments both unethical and violent over the course of the century. It was going to be the end of all conflicts between good and evil. Scientists died trying to determine the next level of the serum, only for it to be stolen by enemies. Back and forth until one side had the advantage.

Mabel Foster was everything the ideal woman should be in 1914. She was well brought-up, wealthy, educated and the heiress to a large fortune. When her father died in a much publicized U-boat attack by the Germans, Mabel made a decision that changed the course of history by enlisting in the French Army during WWI.

After an ambush gone bad, Mabel found herself captured by an early group of Hydra.100 years later she’s discovered in a desolate Hydra base and is taken by the Avengers for safe-keeping and questioning. Little do they realize that all of their destinies and pasts are directly connected through the nest that Hydra weaved.

Pairing: Bucky x OFC (Original Female Character)

Rating/Warnings: Mature- Graphic violence, torture, PTSD, smut

(Masterlist found HERE)

“The history books forgot about us, and the bible didn’t mention us...”

- Regina Spektor (Samson)

It’d been a week since Bucky had last seen Mabel.

Stark and the others had been pestering her nonstop ever since her doctor gave the group the all clear. They had thousands of questions; about the war, about her life, about the experiments Hydra inevitably conducted. Bucky was fairly certain the woman had probably run out of blood from all of the tests he watched Stark and Banner conducting in their lab.

He felt bad, knowing exactly what the poor woman was going through. The medical team had done the same thing to him the minute he’d woken up in Wakanda, and he was willing to wager Steve had gone through the same thing after he was found.

Bucky had been right in that the nightmares that would eventually find him. Every night since the woman had spoken to him, he’d seen flashes of him smashing a wooden door with his metal hand, a woman’s scream and a flowered country side.

The last few nights, however, he found that same female voice promising to save him in fast, desperate, French.

Usually by that point, he forced himself awake and stared at the sterile white ceiling above his bed, thinking through what the vague images meant. Though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, he was terrified of falling under that hazel gaze again. He wasn’t sure if it was guilt or fear of repercussions of his past, but he figured evasive action would be the best for the time being. At least until he pulled his mind back together.

Unfortunately, he only heard stories about the woman’s progress from Nat or Steve, as Bucky was too overwhelmed by the fact they’d crossed paths in their dysfunctional pasts. Though they tried to tell him how well she was improving, or chime up about some story she’d told, he tended to tune out the conversation. He tried his best to avoid the medical section of the compound, usually making an excuse to train or eat when Steve opted to visit her.

He hadn’t thought about what he was going to do once she was released from the medical bay; how he was going to continue disappearing when she joined them for meals or rec time.

But, Bucky figured he had a lot more time, considering how frail and sickly the woman had looked when he and Steve visited the week before. She’d be stuck in there for months, he reasoned. She needed nutrients, medical attention, not to mention all of the debriefings… Months. It had to be months.

Today was another one of those days where he’d slipped away to the kitchen while Steve met up with Stark and Banner. Steve insisted the night before that Bucky join them, but the brunette soldier shrugged and said that Clint needed help cleaning some of the weapons.

It was a weak excuse and both of the men knew it, but Steve wasn’t about to press Bucky about. Especially since it pertained to Hydra. The blonde super soldier was smarter than that to agitate his friend into such fragile territory.

Bucky took a large chunk out of an apple and looked up at a nearby clock in the kitchen to see how much longer until Steve returned. He’d been promised a sparring session and after taking it easy on Clint all week, he was anxious to really stretch his muscles.

“You’ve been avoiding her,” a female voice stated from his side. Bucky nearly choked on his piece of apple in surprise, not one to be snuck up on. After a small coughing fit, he whirled around and spied a familiar redhead, standing in the kitchen with her own apple in hand.

“I’ve been busy,” he corrected sharply, his tone more biting than he’d intended.

“I see,” Natasha kept her gaze on him and took a small bite out of her snack. “Rogers has been by every day. You must be a very important person around here to be so busy during our downtime.”

Bucky struggled to find a response, instead listening to the woman allow a light chuckle before parting the kitchen with the soft of click of heels disappearing into the distance.

Western Front- September 18th, 1917

“Shit!” Mabel dropped into the mud, clutching at her side in pain. She’d been certain the cut she’d received from the German guard the night before had been superficial, so she hadn’t bothered to mention it to her squad after the debriefing. She was sure she’d be able to snag a few more supplies before her next mission, but fate was a fickle bitch and she was back in the field in less than eight hours.

Tonight, her and Rogers were tasked with an infiltration mission of one of the German held research camps. Smaller numbers meant higher risks and since the duo were considered the best marksmen in the squad, they’d been chosen unanimously to take out a key leader and steal what they could information-wise.

Joseph had been a few paces ahead, counting the number of enemies surrounding the small camp. He glanced over his shoulder to say something to Mabel, when he saw his companion on the ground, rummaging through her uniform to check her wound.

“Jesus,” Joseph peered over Mabel’s side and allowed a low whistle at the brutal cut. “You’ve got an infection my friend.”

Mabel shot him a look that said ‘thanks for that’ and proceeded to stuff a few bandages from her med kit into the gaping wound.

“And we’ve got a mission,” she grunted, holding the mess of bandages down and tying it off around her waist. She shrugged her uniform jacket back on and stretched slightly to test her range of motion.

“You’re something else, Garnier,” Rogers chuckled. “We’ve got about a dozen armed enemies up ahead, two scientists and a ton of paperwork that I’d love to get my hands on.”

Mabel gave him a grin and hefted her gun over her shoulder.

“Then we can’t keep you waiting. I know how impatient you are Rogers,” she replied and started forward, despite the sharp pain that ached her body. Infection or not, they needed to retrieve these documents for the safety of civilians and soldiers alike.

“Did anyone tell you that the boat sinks in the end?” Bucky teased over Steve’s shoulder, swaggering into the rec room after a long run around the compound. The blonde hero was deeply engrossed in a dramatic re-telling of the Titanic tragedy that Wanda had begged him to watch for months.

Steve was about to retort when he saw his friend freeze. Curious, he followed Bucky’s eye line until he found him staring at the back of Mabel’s head.

After Steve heard her talk about her family business and the cousin she lost during the tragedy, the pair began talking extensively about the discoveries and advances in pop culture made since the sinking.

One thing led to another and Steve tracked Wanda down to borrow her copy of the worn DVD.

They’d been sitting there for a little over an hour, Mabel occasionally commenting on the historical accuracy of a costume or meal, while Steve became caught up in the movie’s romantic plotline.

Mabel mumbled something about the boiler room the on-screen lovers ran through before she looked up at what had caused Steve’s distraction.

“Bucky, did you want to watch it with us?” Steve offered lightly, sensing his friend’s hesitation. “It’s actually way better than how Wanda makes it sound-.” Before he could finish, Bucky stormed off toward the team’s residences without another word. Steve shot Mabel a look, but noticed the woman’s eyes were trailing Bucky out of the room.

There was clearly some unspoken ground between the pair that would need to be addressed eventually.

With a sigh and a shrug, Steve returned his attention to the movie just as the iceberg ripped through the side of the large ship. When he tried to ask her a question, Mabel stayed mostly silent the remainder of the film, only offering enough commentary to get to the point.

Occasionally, Steve noted, she would glance up toward the hallway with a disappointed frown before her hardened gaze returned to the television.

Western Front- September 19th, 1917

Just when the pair was at a safe distance from the raid, they decided to make camp for the night before returning to home base. It was well past midnight and the duo had taken the research camp completely by surprise. They’d blended with the surrounding woods and managed to take out all of the foot soldiers and the scientists.

Some of the research was lost in the fray, but the majority of it- information that detailed mass executions and weapons beyond comprehension- had been saved.

Rogers dropped into the damp soil and kicked a stray log into the small fire they’d made. He’d been working on organizing the research and storing it away for their journey the next day. Their commanders would want a thorough debriefing after they returned, considering this was one of the biggest hauls they’d managed since the war began.

The fire crackled into the silent night and Rogers realized he hadn’t seen Garnier in quite some time. The French soldier had been looking a little worse for wear when they’d settled down for camp, but he chalked it up to nothing a good bath in the river and a night of sleep couldn’t resolve.

After a few moments of deliberation, Joseph opted to look for his friend, just in case the Frenchman had run into trouble while at the river.

He was completely unprepared to find Garnier on the shore of the river, his uniform jacket discarded and the wound from earlier oozing violently over his undergarments.

“I’m sorry if I’d misspoken when we met,” Mabel carefully selected her words, unsure of how to address the sordid past the two briefly shared. “I hadn’t thought it through and I just…woke… up…” she trailed off when a pair of blue eyes bore into her miserably.

It’d taken some time, but Mabel finally found the metal-armed man under a tree at the cusp of the compound’s boundaries. He’d been there for quite some time, according to the information that Steve drew from the mechanical voice that watched the building.

Some things would take more time than others to get used to, but Mabel was doing pretty well for herself. Considering anyone else would have had a meltdown. She’d learned long ago to try and roll with the punches.

And not look up anyone specific from her past in the war. Not yet anyway.

“Do you remember what year it was that you escaped?” he finally questioned after a wave of silence crash over them. Mabel took a small step forward and sat under the tree’s shade a well. She made a mental note to keep a comfortable distance between them after seeing his rigid body language at her movement.

“You remember,” she noted quietly. She knew it’d be a matter of time, the man who had met her a week prior had long escaped the control of those wicked scientists and madmen. His eyes were clearer, and he just looked healthier than when she’d last seen him.

Though, to be fair, the last time she’d seen him; he was being prepped for a memory wipe and she was being sedated after biting a guard’s arm.

“There’s not a lot of details there,” he admitted, his attention falling toward the field in front of them. “They were very thorough on the wipes. But I remember you running and being ordered to find you."

Mabel nodded, the memory of the morning she’d made her escape still fresh in her mind. It’d barely even been a few weeks that had passed for her, the chill of the pod still crept over her from time to time.

“1954. I’d gotten to a village outside of Paris, I was days ahead of you,” she explained, picking at a few strand of grass that poked out by her shoes. “Got my hands on some brown hair dye-,” she idly picked up a strand of her hair and sighed. “I wasn’t Pierre, I wasn’t Mabel, I wasn’t anyone for a moment, but the Soldat d’Hiver had no problem tracking me down. Perhaps it was my mistake for underestimating the weapons they were creating.”

The name made her companion tense. He picked up a small pebble and tossed it a few hundred feet away.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he finally voiced, his tone meeker than Mabel had heard.

“Of course not,” she replied, her eyes trailing to the horizon. “We were equally valuable assets at the time. They needed- they needed their pet project and their soldier to be unstoppable. I tried to talk you out of it, and I thought for a second that I’d gotten to you.”

She gave a bitter laugh and threw aside a ripped piece of grass.

She could feel the man move and his attention shift to her.

“You told me your name,” she explained. “It was like you knew you had to follow orders, and yet your conscious was still trying to break through. I wish I’d known the extent of their…” she struggled to find the right word.

“Brainwashing,” Bucky supplied and she nodded.

“They had serums and potions and spells and doctors who could say a word to trigger violence,” Mabel was picking at her hands with her nails, the anxiety of the memories finally settling in her stomach. Perhaps this was why they didn’t let her go unattended for too long? Finally, her nails found blood. They were waiting for her to snap.

But instead of hesitation, Mabel finally found a glimpse of warmth in the man’s gaze.

“How bad was it?” he voiced, looking away for the sake of Mabel’s dignity. She leaned up against the tree, just at an angle to him and picked at the dirt; an attempt to save her skin from being covered in cuts.

“I still remember you, don’t I?” she tried to joke but the words fell to the ground flatly. “They had their experiments and their tests. Sometimes there were others, sometimes there wasn’t. I lived, and they didn’t. Until you came along- the soldier with the missing arm. You screamed most of the surgery and when you woke, I tried to talk to you.”

Bucky didn’t move and waited for her to continue.

“You saw the blood and started to shout again,” she allowed a small smile at the memory. The man had been screaming profanities at the doctors and scientists that had captured them. It was one of the few flashes of his humanity she knew.

He’d promised to get them out of there while they were both being sedated by doctors. “You promised to find me again. It was very chivalrous.”

“Didn’t keep my promise though,” he grumbled, running a hand through messy brunette hair.

“I didn’t keep mine either, not that you’d remember,” she looked at her hand and saw that the cut she’d made had already healed up; before the blood had even dried on her fingertips. “I don’t even remember much, to be honest.”

That got his full attention.

“They wiped you?” Mabel could feel him study her expression before she spoke.

“Had to make sure it was safe for you,” she mumbled. “It happened twice, but I got my bearings back. I think. I know who I am. Or who I was.”

“So who are you?” James asked up, a hint of amusement in his tone at the question. Mabel turned and looked him square in the eye; a smirk playing on her normally masked face.

“I’m Mabel Florence Foster,” she replied. “Millionaire, heiress, socialite, and the best damn sniper in Europe.”

Laughter erupted from her companion, an unsettlingly, but surprisingly joyous noise. He actually threw his head back at the comment.

“We’ll see about that darling,” he stood up and dusted off his pants, offering a hand to help her up. “Might be a little shaky after your nap.”

And for the first time in a hundred years, Mabel Foster laughed.

Western Front- September 19th, 1917

“Kid,” Joseph shook the French officer awake. His eyes rolled over and he murmured something in English. It took Rogers a minute to realize the younger man was trying to assure him that he was fine.

“Just- Sleep…” Garnier whispered, his eyes fluttering shut. Joseph went to shake his shoulder again and realized how hot the man’s skin was.

This wasn’t good, he noted that the infection had spread viciously up his friend’s abdomen. The angry looking flesh oozing pus and blood and clots; Garnier stood a snowball’s chance in hell.

“We need to get you cleaned up,” Rogers decided, trying to think through what his wife would do in the situation. She always stressed that a wound needed a clean work space, otherwise everything would get mucked up by blood and dirt.

He helped his friend toward the river, the other man still rambling between French and English. He called out for someone named Jonah and his mother before begging a ‘Pierre’ to forgive him.

“Come on Garnier,” Rogers urged, trying to pull the soldier’s top shirt off. The man reacted quickly, considering his dizzied state. He clutched at the shirt, whispering that he couldn’t remove it. “You’re going to die if we don’t get that wound cleaned up.”

“I’m going to die anyway,” the soldier murmured sourly. He seemed to hesitant a moment, his hazel gaze watching Joseph in the calm river. “Can you make me a promise?”

“Of course,” Joseph knelt by his friend, trying not to notice the blood that was flowing freely into the water around them.

“Tell my family about me,” his voice cracked at the simple sentence.

“You’re going to get through this,” Joseph assured his friend with a gentle nudge. He dug through Garnier’s uniform jacket for extra bandages and hefted the man back to the river bank.

“No,” Garnier insisted. “Tell them that Mabel fought for them. That I didn’t run away.”

Joseph paused at this, his hands covered in the soldier’s fresh blood.

“Mabel?” he asked, pressing down on the wound. Since he was able to clean it, the irritation had already begun to die down slightly. “Who’s Mabel? Your fiancé?”

“My fiancé is Pierre Garnier,” the soldier’s voice dropped and Rogers could hear the slightest New York accent. “I’m Mabel. I’m Mabel Foster.”

“Of the Manhattan Fosters?” Rogers stared at his companion, his hands slipping and the Irishman letting out a small curse. “Shit, sorry."

“I lied to everyone,” Mabel lamented quietly, in the moonlight Joseph could see a small tear trailing down her cheek.

“You probably saved more lives than most of the men we’ve encountered combined,” Joseph pointed out, still processing that he was pressing into the side of a woman.

“Promise me you’ll tell my family,” she insisted again, trying to sit up. Joseph pushed her shoulder into the ground and shook his head.

“I’m not telling anyone anything, ‘cause you’re not gonna die and we’re gonna get the information back to base and move on,” he replied sternly. “All right?”

“Fine,” she breathed, her head falling back and her eyes shutting.

“Oh no you don’t,” Joseph splashed some water on her face and her eyes snapped open. “You don’t get to sleep until I get to sleep.” He knew she’d lost a lot of blood and if she fell asleep, half of his battle would be lost. “Tell me why in the hell you thought it’d be a good idea to sneak out here instead of sewing socks or making blankets."

Mabel cracked a grin at the comment, her eyes staring up at the star-filled sky.

“’m terrible at sewing,” she replied. “Better at shooting, or so Papa always said.”

PART 4

#MCU #Marvel #Bucky Barnes #original female character #OFC #ww1 #ww2 #james bucky barnes #ao3 #porcelainstorm #Hydra #Winter Soldier

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midwesttiltking-blog · 7 years ago

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08-Baseball, But Better

This chapter Is about trying to take a girl on a date in the zombie apocalypse. Hope you like it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Are you sure you should be drinking this early?” Kevin pat Darrin on the back who was hunched over the bar his face barely above his glass.

Darrin turned to look at Kevin his eyes were still red and his face had lost most of its color “I think I’ll just stay here for the day”

The bartender smirked as he began to draw another beer for Darrin. He was a large man with facial tattoos and a nose piercing his head shaved clean. When he set the drink down he leaned and whispered “I’ve got a few other things that could make you feel better too, if you need.”

Moon grabbed Kevin and pulled him away from the conversation “Well...This bar is kinda creepy so we’re going to go wander around the city a bit. Right Kevin?”

Kevin noticed many of the patrons were watching as the walked out of the bar. All of them males, long beards, bandanas, sunglasses and leather jackets, “yeah...let’s get the fuck outta this place”

They made their way back into the sunlight and city streets. The city was contained to just a few roads. It probably was host to a few thousand people before the outbreak. Only a few builds had been destroyed unlike many of the town's Matt had liberated which often boasted burnt ashes of government building, banks and mansions. Kevin and Moon explored the city streets not finding much to do. To their surprise despite the city being in pretty good physical condition many of the people there were living in squalor. The city streets were almost completely empty, and those that did cross their path looked as though they had not eaten or bathed in days. They stopped and sat on a park bench. Kevin fiddled through his backpack and pulled out an old off brand MP3 player and some earbuds. He placed one in his ear and offered the Moon. She smiled and placed it in her ear. Kevin scrolled through the artists, for a moment then finally landed on one and hit play. They kicked back and looked up into the sky for a few minutes in silence.

“Say Anything huh?” Moon slowly turned her head towards Kevin.

“Yeah they are my favorite band”

“Oh yeah? You love those sappy love songs, or just the angsty vibe of ...Is a real boy?”

“I love everything about them. I always thought Max and I were kinda the same, and if someone like him could find love after all the emotional struggles he went through when he was younger, maybe I could too.”

Moon giggled a little “Yeah you just gotta have the perfect voice and the perfect bod first before you can find your Sherri”

Kevin shrugged “Ok ok, maybe we’re not super similar, but you know what I mean.”

Moon turned back to the sky “Yeah I get it you are a Cusack boy”

Kevin smiled “Are you Molly Ringwald girl?”

Moon put her hand on Kevin’s back prompting them to stand up together “Hm, I don’t know. But I’m sure there is a guy out there writing shitty pop-punk songs accusing me of being his Molly”

Kevin nervously pressed the conversation on “Oh yeah? Did your last boyfriend write music?”

Moon responded almost automatically “No”

“What was he like”

Moon shivered involuntarily “He was nothing more than a body”

“Oh...um, we don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to, I’m sorry for always asking you about it.”

Moon looked up at Kevin. Her eyes welled up, but she kept a smile on her face “Yeah, sounds good.” They continued walking through the city passing the MP3 player back and forth taking turns picking songs. They ended up at a diner which boasted having the best food that stayed dead. The menu was carved into a wall above the grill, notably it did not include prices, just money symbols. “Rabbit $, Deer $$, Pig $$$, Water, Beer $$”

Kevin chuckled at the simplicity “Hm, doesn’t look like this place has any specials or a seasonal menu, you sure we should eat here?”

The cook turned around exposing a scarred face and missing eye “yah can order something, or fuck off”

“Well take 2 orders of deer and waters” Moon took a place at the bar not intimidated by the chef.

The chef smirked and extended his arm putting a finger on the center of Moon’s chest “And how exactly do you propose to pay for this missy”

Moon grabbed his wrist and squeezed as she bent his arm away from her “Were good for the money, now I believe your job is serving us not harassing me.”

“You let this little bitch act like this? She’s gunna get killed out here” the chef turned to Kevin looking for someone to take his side.

Kevin had partially drawn his short sword “Look man, you are lucky you didn’t get killed when you touched her so maybe you should start cooking if you plan to make a sale here.”

The two waited in silence as their food was prepared. Kevin pulled out an old flip phone and began typing a text message trying to be quiet about it. He passed it over to moon beneath the bar.

“This guy is a dick, lets just go somewhere else”

She shook her head and began typing back “No, we’re not backing down. But you are probably gunna have to fight him to prove you are more macho than him”

Kevin laughed aloud a bit prompting the cook turned around. He slammed two waters on the counter with a grumpy stare. Kevin quickly hid the phone in his jacket. The cook grunted as he scanned over both of them, then turned back to the grill. “You are outsiders huh?” he paused and cracked his neck “Bet you got a lot of nice stuff on you” He spun around thrusting a knife forward. Kevin barely dodged it. About to fall off the bar stool he reach out and grabbed the man’s arm, accidentally pulling the cook over the bar counter. The two of them tumbled to the ground wrestling for control of the knife. Kevin push the knife clear of his head, then let go with one of his hands and began elbowing his assailant in the head. The cook let go of the knife and grabbed Kevin, pulling him to his feet. He lifted Kevin off the ground and tossed him crashing into a booth. Kevin braced the attack and attempted to draw his sword but the hilt was stuck under the tabletop. Rolling over onto the floor he dodged a plate which was hurled towards his head. Kevin struggled to get out from under the table, before he could clear it the cook stepped on his right hand. Kevin cried out for a second in pain then he bent over wedging his sword’s sheath into the man’s stomach. He flipped forward shoving the man backward while simultaneously drawing his blade. Kevin stumbled to his feet using a bar stool to prop himself up. The cook reached over the counter, and pulled out a shotgun. Kevin took a deep breath and audibly exhaled. *TWACK* The back side of moon’s blade smashed against the chef’s head. He lost his balance falling over onto a table. Silverware and coffee cups shattered as the body spilled to the ground.

Kevin sighed as he put his sword away “I would have paid him too”

“Well I’m still hungry” Moon gestured her head toward the grill.

Kevin pulled up his sleeves and dusted off his clothes “Ok ok, give me a minute.” He search through the building finding a few things not listed on the menu. He finished the dish able to serve the meat seasons with garlic powder and a side of lettuce, with a dessert of half a chocolate bar. The two took their food to go. Before leaving Kevin dug in his pack to find a few old dollar bills. In very teenage angst fashion, He had drawn the anarchy A over the president’s faces. He left $60 laying on top of the unconscious body and lightly patted him on the face “See you could have all the useless money you want and we wouldn’t have beat the shit out of you.”

The pair ended up at an abandoned movie theater and decided to take refuge there to avoid another run in with a less than friendly member of the city. They sat side by side towards the back eating their food. Kevin sat with his legs on top of the seat in front of him while Moon kept to her space respecting the potential viewers in front of her. A piece of meat fell from Moon’s plate and almost immediately a rat scurried out to procure it. Before he could make it back to his hiding place beneath the seats a throwing knife pinned him to the ground.

Moon nudged Kevin her face half smiling “Well if you are still hungry, I found some more meat”

Kevin pretended to gag then brushed the body away with his foot “Nah, I’m good… you know, the projector here is probably digital, I bet I could rig it up to play something. What do you want to see?”

Moon sat for a minute pondering, “Hm, it doesn’t have to be a drama, but just something you really connect with emotionally”

Kevin took off to the upstairs and made his way to the video room. Sure enough it was a digital projector. He opened his backpack and poured out a few electrical devices. He cut off the plug for the projector and stripped the cables, then tapped them to a laptop battery. After a few seconds the projector powered on. He took out a tablet and scrolled through a movie folder. Eventually he settled on the first Gurren Lagann movie. With his chest puffed out Kevin proudly walked back into the theater signing the opening theme song of the movie.

Taking his seat next to moon he placed a smartphone between them with the speakers facing up.“I don’t have enough electricity for the sound system...So this will have to do”

“Meh good enough for me.”

Kevin very energetically watched the film explaining to Moon the parts which had been left out from the original anime, and the cool new scenes that were improved in the movie. He echoed all of his favorite lines from the film, sometimes even standing up and pointing to the sky copying the pose of the characters on screen. As the film came to a close, the scene which Kevin dreaded began.

He sat back with his arms crossed. “Bitch” he whispered under his breath

Moon turned to look at him “What?”

“She’s a bitch”

“Yoko?”

“Yeah she comes between Kamina and Simon and causes him to die”

Moon threw her arms up “How is that her fault? What did she do, have boobs, and that ruined their friendship?! Maybe if men could control their desire to want to fuck every woman they see this wouldn’t have happened.”

“You don’t get it”

Moon very frustratingly rubbed her forehead “No. You don’t get it. Look, Simon does nothing, he just sits there and watches. How can that be Yoko’s fault?”

Kevin crossed his arms and turned back to the screen. Moon got up and began to walk out. Before she left the theater she stopped and looked at Kevin for a minute. Kevin noticed and adjusted himself to be facing away from her. “Just leave. I don’t want to talk to you” She sighed as she walked out of the theater, rubbing her eyes.

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