#as they have been doing every episode but each time i really am just... newly awed by their talent and my adoration for them grows <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[secriden]

This line. God, this line! It has been eating me up inside for 2 days now, because let's not forget, this line isn't about love, it's about trust. And that has implications that make me want to scream.

It's a direct reference to this moment earlier in the episode:

At the start of this discussion, Style and Fadel still have a kind of playful air about their conversation:

Style: Oh? Not even me? Fadel: You're at 80% at best. I feel like you're hiding something from me in the 20%.

In this exchange, though, there's a sense that Fadel is issuing a challenge, like there's something specific which Style can do to gain Fadel's full trust. And while Style knows there are things he cannot (yet) reveal to Fadel, I think a part of him is determined to be as honest as he can be, which is why he issues a challenge of his own by asking for more specificity:

Style: What do I have to do to gain your complete trust?

Part of this question is a simultaneously inquisitive and deflective - What (and why) do you think I'm hiding (something) from you? - but there's also a moment after Style finishes speaking where he stills and goes quiet that feels... genuine, weighty. Or, as @airenyah has pointed out in her meta on Style in episode 4, the "grounded[ness]" in Style's demeanour is a signal that Style means what he's saying in the moment. Maybe about his own desire to be worthy of Fadel's trust, maybe about how he genuinely does want this relationship to be real in whatever way that matters to Fadel.

I think Fadel sensed that too, because the moment looses all the lightheartedness it had before. Fadel pauses, and then gets a look on his face that just... breaks my heart. There's a sombreness there, like he knows he's going to have to say something that makes him sad. Fadel looks away, and then down, before he seems to steel himself and says:

Fadel: It'll never happen. No matter how much you love someone, I just don't believe that you can completely lay yourself bare in front of them.

Fadel says this like it's fact. Like what he's expressing is something foundational and true and irrefutable. It's not even about his doubt in Style's honesty, because this statement has no qualifiers or conditions put on it to connect it to Style. Rather this is what Fadel fundamentally believes about relationships and trust: he finds the very concept of being fully known and still accepted an impossibility.

Sure, maybe this is because of the falling out (or betrayal or disappearance) associated with the former lover; but I also think it might be because Fadel is acutely aware not only that he's hiding a rather big and dark secret (not to mince words, but: actual literal premeditated murder), but also about what it implies about Fadel. Because being able to kill another human, coldly and clinically and without remorse, takes a certain type of person. Because, yes, Fadel has lived through an absolutely harrowing and traumatising event (his parents' murder), but it's also undeniable that it changed him. Because there's something about Fadel that twisted dark and which he never quite got back. There's an anger, a hurt that colours every moment of his life; that enables him to look a man in the eyes, smile politely, and pull a trigger.

And at this point in their relationship, Fadel's understanding of Style is that he's... well, kind of innocent. Especially in comparison to Fadel and Bison, and even Kant.

Style, who easily reveals facts about his life which Fadel already knows (winning a car tuning competition), making Fadel doubt his own instincts about Style hiding secrets. Style, who also reveals the things Fadel doesn't know, like the tender and secret pain of a mother lost to cancer (which, now that I think about it, Fadel may also know) and his worries about a father who "lost his bearings for a bit" (which he probably doesn't). Style, who tries to comfort Fadel in his own loss by offering a safe space and a sympathetic ear.

Style, who doesn't just see Fadel for his tragedy, but is asking to be given the chance to accept all of Fadel as a person. Style, who not only wants but has the capacity, to be the only person Fadel needs to rely on. Style who, despite the sea of differences between them, understands Fadel on a level that is so very foundational.

I'm going to slightly segue and mention something that may not resonate with everyone, but really hit me in the gut this episode: because I lost my father when I was 16 after he battled cancer for 2 painful years. And this revelation about Style has totally shifted and coloured everything Style has done in a new light for me. Because not only does this totally explain Style's sometimes almost stubbornly childish demeanour (it's common in adults who've had to 'grow up' too early), but also why Style shows seemingly random flashes of insight and maturity when they are most crucial. Notably, Style has this almost instinctive sense of when he needs to back off a sore point with Fadel that I couldn't quite put my finger on until this episode.

I've seen a few jokes about Style's awkward subject change, but I've actually got a friend who I hold very dear to my heart who was one of the only people to give me a sense of normalcy and comfort when my dad was on his last few days and then at his funeral. And part of that was the instinctive way she would know when I needed to just. Not be a grieving daughter for a few minutes. To get a small respite from the overwhelming hopelessness and sense of impending loss. To get a moment to breathe and gather my strength, because knowing I was never going to see my dad again, or hear his voice, or hold his hand was tearing me apart back then. Sometimes she'd talk to me about college drama, sometimes she'd introduce a new kpop video to me, sometimes she'd just ask me what I wanted to eat and take me to go have a meal with her. And sometimes there really just isn't anything else to say other than "I'm sorry." Nothing you say - nothing you can say - is going to ever, ever make this grief go away, and in most cases, it was better when people (especially those who couldn't really understand) didn't try.

And I think if you look at Fadel very closely, there's a moment of genuine surprise (Fadel wasn't expecting the subject change at all) and then... something that looks like fondness mixed with exhausted relief. Because I don't think Fadel was ready to talk about his parents yet. This was honesty he wasn't ready to give Style, mostly prompted because Style himself had willingly been so vulnerable that a part of Fadel wanted to reciprocate. But further down that path lies not only his darkest memories, but also the connection to the part of his life he is not willing to share with Style yet. So this subject change is a relief, it's a blessing, but it's also Style knowing when he shouldn't push any further with Fadel's fragile heart.

Which brings me back to how well the episode's theme of trust (both deserved and undeserved) was woven in this episode. This is true on multiple levels and characters but I'm not even going to attempt to touch Kant in this post because... Lord, that is beyond me at the moment. Someone else needs to do that, pretty please, so I can reblog it and scream.

It starts, somewhat unexpectedly, with Fadel asking for entrance into the intimate spaces of Style's life.

So, this episode was not about Fadel's fear of his own feelings, desires, or even affection for Style - that appears to be fully addressed in episode 4. I think that's why we see Fadel be so physically affectionate and indulgent of Style in this episode. He's come to terms with his lust for Style's body (hence his comfort in initiating sex), he's accepted Style as his boyfriend and so can enjoy Style's playful teasing (still reluctantly, but Fadel is still an introvert even if he's mostly enjoying Style's rambunctious nature), and give into Style's (and Bison's and Kant's) cajoling with relatively little fuss.

He's even comfortable toying with the edges of revealing his darker and more sinister side by reminding Style implicitly about how violent Fadel has the potential to be. Recall that Fadel knows Style knows some of his capacity for violence; he just doesn't know how very thoroughly Style is aware of the full scale of this truth. It does help that Style evidences no actual fear and, in fact, looks positively euphoric. Like, buddy, pal, dearest one... please control yourself.

And yet something very, very telling is the way the show makes it a point to depict Fadel very deliberately getting drunk during the double date. Even before the date has started, Fadel looks to be about half a beer in and we see him constantly drinking, drinking, drinking during the whole date. From the conversation about trust he has with Style while Kant and Bison are being off key and adorable about it, to after Kant leaves and Bison gets worried. And we've seen Fadel cope with emotional and mental distress with alcohol before, so we know that Fadel is internally fighting some kind of very intense battle even as he is also very clearly enjoying moments with Style on this date (most notably when they're dancing by the bowling lanes and when Style asks him to go home with him).

So here's my take: rather than being about love, this is about Fadel fighting to hold onto his own philosophy on relationships and trust. Because as much as I do believe Fadel believes he's telling the truth when he tells Style that 100% trust is "impossible", I think it's clear that's not what he wants.

What he wants is to finish this last job so that the only thing he can't be honest about with Style will finally stop being a factor in his life. What he wants is to fully and completely reciprocate the openness Style seems to be giving Fadel. What he wants is to switch off his brain and let his heart lead for once, to stop fighting a battle he has no desire to win anymore, only he can't. Trust (not love) is Fadel's final frontier, and one which he can't quite give up in spite of himself.

Which is why I think Fadel intentionally gets himself drunk here. Because he wants to let his guard down around Style. He wants to open himself fully, he wants to "lay himself bare" for Style, he wants Style to know the full truth and accept him anyway - and he gets so close, but can't quite get there - because he doesn't know that Style already has.

When Style says this, Fadel thinks it's empty words, not knowing that Style has long passed the bar Fadel thinks is insurmountable. And just like Style was able to offer safety and reassurance to the vulnerability Fadel was showing in episode 4, Style instinctively gets to the core of Fadel's darkest fears again:

Style: One day, I'll be your 100%.

This isn't (just) a promise that Style will wear Fadel's stubbornness down, or that Style will be worthy of Fadel's 100% (which, already, has me in tears, ngl). Beyond that, this is Style promising Fadel isn't ruined for this; that it isn't too late, that whatever hurts and wounds Fadel has can be made whole again. That the kind of honest and all-encompassing and unconditional trust which Fadel says is impossible can, in fact, be his. That Fadel still has the capacity to trust and be trusted the way he so desperately, painfully longs for.

I know a lot of people have said Style in this episode is writing cheques he has no ability to honour, but I think it's more layered than that. Because in a very significant and profound way, Style is wholly deserving of Fadel's trust. Because in all the ways that Fadel has ever known he should want, Style actually IS worthy of his trust. Style knows the truth Fadel is hiding, knows what this man is capable of, knows the danger of being in his arms, knows the likely nonexistent future Fadel has to offer him -- and wants him anyway. Style is a man who would stare into Fadel’s darkness and reach out first. Strip away the complication of Kant being blackmailed and dragging Style into his mission, and Style is literally perfect for Fadel. He is exactly what Fadel wants (and possibly has wanted for a very long time). He is, in fact, exactly what Fadel needs to ever experience anything beyond the shadow of a life he's had so far.

But oh, the cruel narrative means that Style is also, simultaneously, painfully undeserving of Fadel's trust; and this is something Style is very much aware of. I think that's why he's trying so very hard to be worthy in all the other ways he can be. Style's awareness of what Fadel is hiding enables Style to (counterintuitively) be completely honest about his feelings for and about Fadel even as he cannot reveal his motivations. So he gives Fadel as much honesty as he can: offers the vulnerability of his own pain and hurts; the comfort of his true understanding and acceptance.

And just as Fadel's vulnerability in the abandoned factory was met with Style choosing a form of physical connection that prioritised Fadel's pleasure (it's made very clear that Style is jerking Fadel off and that all his focus in that moment was on Fadel, not his own pleasure), so too is this moment met with Style very intentionally choosing to worship Fadel's body with all the tenderness and genuine emotional weight that Style wanted Fadel to have in their first time in the storeroom.

Because, crucially, this was Style giving Fadel the chance to lay himself at least physically bare. This is the closest either of them can get to full honesty with the secrets they both are keeping. It's why Style tries so very hard to show the care and adoration and genuine feelings he has for Fadel. Why he makes sure that the vulnerability of Fadel getting himself as drunk and as relaxed and as trusting as Fadel can allow himself to be is tied only to gentleness and tenderness and pleasure.

Because Style actually knows that Fadel can't (and shouldn't) trust him in the way Fadel truly wishes to.

And as much as I believe that Style genuinely means this from the bottom of his heart, the horrifying full truth is that it is Style that has the metaphorical knife hovering over Fadel's chest. He is the one with the capacity to actually give Fadel a new scar that would truly matter. He is, in fact, the only one Fadel wants to fully trust -- and this, along with Style's compromised heart, makes it so that the circumstances will doom them both.

[gamerdog1]

Chainsaw Man Season 1 Review

Its that time of year again: the time where the hardcore anime fans gear up for a new batch of seasonal shows. This winter, a bunch of popular anime, including Vinland Saga, Tokyo Revengers, and Bungou Stray Dogs are releasing new seasons, to the raucous applause of most of the anime fandom community.

I say 'most', of course, excluding myself. Where am I in this, you may ask? Always behind the curve, picking up the hits years after they've had their debut, like a reverse hipster. What's old is new again for folks like me, who are still trying to watch all the 'old' series, nevermind keep up with new releases. There's merit in this method, though: given enough time, the shiny glow of newness fades, and we can experience the series without rose-colored glasses.

In my never-ending quest to understand why popular media got popular, I stumbled upon Chainsaw Man, a rather recent hit that was practically unavoidable last year. In a sea of generic anime girl snore-fests, it grabbed my attention pretty quickly for its sheer ferocity and love for bloodshed. After being assigned it in a monthly show exchange, I figured it was about time I'd given it a chance. After 12 episodes, though, I feel like my time could've better been spent elsewhere.

Chainsaw Man (2022) is an adaptation of the manga by the same name, written by Tatsuki Fujimoto. The series follows Denji, a homeless teen who is saddled with a ridiculous debt to the yakuza after his father dies. After surviving an assassination attempt, he fuses with the Chainsaw Devil, and gains its powers of, well, chainsaws. Now, he must work together with an elite team of public service agents to hunt down other devils, to keep a newly found comfy life.

One would be foolish to assume this wasn't a shonen series. With a teen protagonist, superpowers, monsters, and an overarching storyline about growing up, Chainsaw Man seems like your standard action/fantasy show. What makes it different, though, is its copious amounts of gore. Most 'shonen' series are marketed towards kids and teens, and because of this, are limited in how far they can go with their violent content. Chainsaw Man, it seems, got a free pass from it's producers to show whatever it wants, and really runs with it.

Most of the series revolves around Denji and his team hunting devils, monsters which personify common fears, and gain power from the fear of them. From hulking furry masses like the Bat Devil, to thousand-eyed pushovers like the Tomato Devil, Denji and his team take them down in a brilliant display of blades, sharp teeth, and blood spray. Violence is the life blood of this series, the thing that keeps its main characters alive, and what keeps viewers like me paying attention.

Each confrontation is intense, as the human-looking heroes face off against monsters that dwarf them in comparison. The series establishes early on in every fight just what the opposing devil can do, and how that poses a threat to Denji and his team, making it feel like there's little hope in their survival. This, combined with the constant reminders from Denji's superiors of how many previous hunters have died on the job, gives each fight a sense of stakes to it. Characters can (and eventually do) die, so each fight, even those early on, are tense.

The music, as well, its pretty damn good. I'd already heard the opening track, KICK BACK this summer, and play it a lot while doing chores, but the opening animation that goes with it is really interesting. Look closely, and you'll see shot-for-shot references to famous films, like The Big Lebowski and Pulp Fiction. Each episode also has a unique ending theme, something unique to this series that made me sit and watch each episode all the way through. Most endings are abstract, mostly just the main characters standing around or posing, but all are experimental, including one that is mostly rotoscoped. They were all a joy to watch, a happy surprise at the end of each episode.

Unfortunately, nice music, dynamic fight scenes and a few gallons of blood tossed around can't distract from the many sins of this anime, ones that made it a very uncomfortable viewing experience. When I started this series, I was optimistic about it, and wanted to learn more about its world and characters. But by the second episode, it became difficult to ignore the less savory aspects of this series, which only worsened with each subsequent episode.

Denji, the show's protagonist, is a teenager who had his youth stolen from him by the Yakuza, when they forced him to take up his father's debt. Once he is freed from it, however, his true nature is revealed, one which makes it challenging for viewers like me to like him. This series, it seems, has broken new ground with its protagonist, since I doubt any self-respecting shonen would have a main character (who we are meant to like and care about) be as unabashedly horny as this one.

That's not to say that having a character who likes sex is a bad thing. People, fictional or not, are allowed to like whoever they want, however they want (with consent of course :)). Denji, though, takes the trope of 'sex obsessed teenager' to the extremes, proudly declaring that the only reason he hunts devils is to have sex with his boss. It gets to the point where one of his teammates accuses him of not taking the job seriously, and Denji has the audacity to claim he is. Meanwhile, Denji is lured into a trap by a female character, all because she offered to let him touch her breasts. These, as well as the countless other instances of Denji staring at women's chests instead of their eyes, or whining about how he wants to 'cop a feel', made him a character that was infuriating to watch get his way.

To make matters worse, it seems like nearly every woman in the series is infatuated with him enough to not only let him do these things to them, but outright encourage them. Halfway through the series, Denji and his teammates join up with another trio of devil hunters to investigate an apartment complex. Before entering, one of the female hunters declares that whoever kills the devil inside will get a kiss from her, and when Denji declines, she whispers that she'll do it "with tongue". Around the same point in the show, Denji's boss Makima explains to him about the Gun Devil, the most powerful and most feared devil ever. When he shows apprehension about taking on such a fearsome foe, Makima offers to do whatever he wants if he kills it, heavily implying that she'll sleep with him.

Never in my life have I watched a show where adult women proposition a teenager, something which I was proud to say until today. I wish I could say that it had its purpose in the overall story, but the show hardly has anything to say about it, almost as if it had no problems with it in general. Denji is sixteen, and the hunters that offer to kiss or sleep with him are easily in their 20's, maybe even early 30's, making every 'romantic' or 'sexy' moment in this show a fur-raising experience that took me a bit to recover from. If it was once, and to make a point about the transition to adulthood, or how its morally wrong, I'd understand, but this is absurd. Whoever thought that a scene where the main character's co-worker drunkenly kidnaps him, then coaxes him into have sex with her is okay, should be fired, and have their hard drives searched by the FBI.

I wanted to like this show. Really, I did, especially after all the hype it has, and all the lovely fanart of it I see on my social media feeds. But after having to sit through all 12 episodes of this, I think I'm tapping out. Sure, the fights are great, especially the final one between Denji and Katana Man, where they fight on a subway. The sharp teeth, blades, and constant blood spray were so thrilling, they almost made me forget about the sexual assault stuff. Keyword 'almost'.

Chainsaw Man isn't just a shonen series about the tumultuous journey from teenager to adult: its an action series with cool monster designs, a feral hero, and more blood than a used tampon. But also, its a series where the main character demands sexual favors, and is rewarded with them by adult women time and time again. This series was a mixed bag, one that had me either glued to the screen or wanting to shut it off, with hardly any in between. The main character should've been anyone else (honestly I'd prefer to be following Power, she's way more interesting), and as the series went on, I felt myself wishing for characters to just die already, so I wouldn't have to put up with them anymore. Here's hoping in season 2 that I get my wish.

[morganas-pendragons]

Mend | The Master Chief

I had more ideas for the fourth part (I'm not too thrilled with this one), which will be called Coalesce, but I am really enjoying writing for this version of John and may even open requests for him in May!

This will contain spoilers for Episodes 3 & 4. Enjoy! Reblogs and comments mean more to me than likes do. It means you're interested and engaging. Let me know if you want to be tagged in this series or/and in all future Halo fics! 

tag: @world-dominating-kitty​ - @ageless-aislynn​ - @lialacleaf​ - @shondlenoodle​ - @pinheadbanger​ - @all-the-things-i-done​ - @sashayazie​ - 

if you want to really hurt while you read this, listen to the 8-hour version of one song from the ODST soundtrack. Have fun! Also points to the person who catches the reference from my current favorite TV show!

***

You take it out yourself. You've grown accustomed to dealing with pain alone by now, by dealing with things like this entirely by yourself, and you refuse to place the burden of your newly returning memories on someone as innocent as Cortana.

You refuse to taint her. She's so young. You refuse to be the reason she loses that innocence.

You grimace as the pellet falls, droplets of scarlet following it, and you bend down to retrieve both your discarded shirt and the pellet itself to turn it over in your hands.

Damn her. Damn Halsey.

And it's like everything coming back to you at once. What you are greeted with is too much far too much for one person to be able to deal with at once, and you collapse on the bathroom floor in complete surrender to the memories of your life you've been forced to forget.

He's there. He's in all of them. Even if he is lingering in the background of the beloved forest where you spent so much of your childhood, he is ever-present and always looking after you.

"What's your name?" You're both young, young enough that the world hasn't broken you yet, but he's your neighbor and you're too lonely on a planet like this one to not have at least one friend.

"John. And yours?"

"Y/N."

The two of you were best friends, having grown up so close to one another on Eridanus 2. You were not particularly a fan of the outdoors as a child. Most of your days were preferred with your dog and a book you could write your daydreams in. Those were better. Much less boring!

However, having a friend like John, you were forced into the early morning sunlight atop the canopy of the trees nearly every morning to go to the cliff. You could get used to mornings like this if it meant you got to spend more time with John.

Your John. Barely seven years old, and one of the best friends you would ever know.

The cliff, the cliff-- the same cliff that marked the day you'd been taken for the Spartan 2 program.

"Soles-S, can you hear me?"

Little known to you, you've been writhing on the floor of the bathroom long enough for Cortana to take notice. She didn't know what else to do. She didn't know how to get your attention and save you from immersing yourself too deeply.

"No-No, JOHN!"

The entire base could hear you screaming. You are thrashing and kicking at your captors, eyes pleading and blurry with tears as Doctor Halsey and your least favorite person on the planet - the Sargeant who had trained the Spartans, Franklin Mendez - took the boy you've come to love and began to drag him away from you. The crash of thunder and pouring rain doesn't do much to hide the very obvious pain both of you are feeling.

John just hid his much better.

John knew he couldn't do anything. He didn't stop Soren from leaving, he can't stop you from whatever is going to happen now. Sierra-117 goes limp in his captors' embrace.

The last thing he remembered is the lightning illuminating the pure, abject terror on your face before you were both lost to each other.

"Master Chief!"

John hasn't realized he stopped moving, let alone stopped breathing. He had been thinking too much about your face over the last few days. While Halsey had outright refused to even tell him about you, let alone where you'd gone, there had been something familiar about you that made his chest ache to the point where he'd had to go seeking it himself.

Between the returning memories from the artifact and the records that were sealed to most people - but not him, perks of having a ridiculously high-security clearance - due to ONI wanting to keep everything close to their chest, he'd learned enough. He would learn more in time.

"Cortana," His tongue was thick and heavy in his mouth as he knelt down beside you. "What happened?"

He's having a hard time concentrating. You weren't just a dream. You were here, and real, and currently immersed in something so painful that your cheeks were wet. You were crying. Why?

"The two of you are from the same planet. Eridanus 2," Cortana explains. "You grew up in the same forest and were best friends as children before-"

"Before what?"

"Before you were taken into the Spartan 2 program. You two," Cortana motions between you both. "Were best friends. Halsey didn't like that. She-"

John grinds his teeth so hard that his ears rang with the force of the sound, and hazel eyes flicker between the hesitant AI and you before he asks, "She what?"

Cortana has to take a minute to consider her words carefully before she replies. She's been spending most of her living time getting to learn the ins and outs of humans. Even Spartans. Spartans are humans too, but Doctor Halsey seems to think of them only as a means to an end.

"Halsey took matters into her own hands. She led Y/N to believe that her memories had been totally wiped, morphing her into a weapon capable of following even the simplest orders. She is the only Spartan 2 headhunter. She is the pride of the Headhunters, while you are the pride of the UNSC. The two of you have quite the reputation.. but to get that, she had to sacrifice your relationship. Years of it." Sad blue eyes flicker down to your now still form where John has somehow subconsciously begun to run his fingers through your hair. It's such a tender expression of intimacy.. and yet he doesn't seem the slightest bit hesitant about it. "So she did the same to you. Kept the core of what makes you a Spartan, but took away the one thing she hated. Your love."

Your love. The pellet took away your ability to love.

"Well," He bends down to scoop your limp form into his arms, careful to rest your head in the crook of his neck as he stands to his feet. "That won't happen again."

I refuse to not feel anything anymore.

***

It takes a lot a lot of convincing for Halsey to let you come. She hasn't quite realized yet that you are.. not you... but you don't allow that to phase you as you slowly wake and find yourself laying inside the belly of a Pelican.

There's a seven-foot hulking mass of Mjolnir armor across the aisle, and you can tell he's watching you even through the gold of his visor. You slowly bring yourself to sit up at the waist and move to lift your hands toward the seal that releases your helmet.

An image appears in the corner of your HUD. You pause mid-movement and smile softly as Cortana's image flickers to life. She looks absolutely thrilled to see you. "Hello, 343." The AI said softly. "Otherwise known as Y/N. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

Your name. That is your own name being spoken from her mouth and it might be the best possible thing you have ever heard. It sounds... right. Like it belongs to you.

"Likewise, Cortana." You reply.

"Before we can continue, there are some things I need you to know. There is a chip placed into the central port part of your helmet where your previous AI, Artemis, was held. I am your AI now in a different capacity than I am for The Master Chief. Doctor Halsey is not currently aware of what has occurred and remains in the dark about it." Artemis wasn't nearly as sentient as Cortana was, but you had enjoyed your time with her. "Speaking of. Master Chief, wouldn't you like to say hello?"

John hasn't said a word since they'd brought you onto the Pelican. It had taken far too much effort to convince Halsey to let you come. She believed you were meant to be in solitude, to live only for the orders that came and went.

That wasn't what was really bothering him though. It was what he'd found out through your file.

[continued: Only Spartan-IIs who had survived two or more specially assigned training missions would be evaluated for induction into the Headhunters.]

He'd had to do some digging, but what he'd discovered had rattled him to his core. The mission that ONI had sent you on was when you were only a teenager, barely seventeen, to infiltrate a Covenant carrier for intel. The UNSC and ONI were lacking in crucial information needed to establish files about the Covenant.

That came through you. Your mission, your pain, your torture. All of which had come through your time as a prisoner at the hands of a Sangheili Terrorist. The only reason you’d been made a Headhunter was because you eventually escaped - because God forbid they waste valuable resources to try to rescue you - and lived to tell about it. 

Why did they let you endure such heartache? Such pain? No one deserves that. Spartans are-

That's just the thing. Spartans should be able to compartmentalize. Mission first. Pain second.

Maybe that was why you'd forgotten about it. It was just too great of a traumatic experience to bear, and your brain had locked it up. Cortana had told him that was called having repressed memories. That was common for soldiers.

At least he knows the two of you have that in common even after all of that time apart.

"Cortana?"

"Go ahead, Master Chief."

"Can you establish a private line connected between the comms of our helmets so I can talk without other ears?"

It took her a minute to realize what he was asking, but she consents with a gentle hum and sets to work on what he's asked of her. You are blown away at the capacity she's been programmed with to work. Logistical and tactical appraisal for the Master Chief. Hm. It made sense.

"Connection established," Cortana says softly. "You're able to talk freely."

Your breath catches in your throat as you're left to look at each other through your HUD. His eyes are a startling green, soft and vulnerable and inviting as he meets your gaze. "I remember the first time I saw you again after all these years. I couldn't figure out why it hurt to look at you. It was just.. familiar."

"John-"

"And then I took the pellet out, and then I saw this couple on the train I was on. Just wanted to get out of the confines of the base. I saw it and I realized something. Something I haven't felt since we were teenagers. I want that." He continues, and your breath catches in your chest as it hits you. You're both feeling this. The pain of being apart for so long, the ache of wanting something better - something to share together that you have been deprived of since that night - and it's not just you who knows a very simple truth. "Y/N-"

"I want you." You say softly, and then you're moving across the floor to kneel in front of him and reach your hands out to remove his helmet. "And I think you want me too, and it terrifies you."

He doesn't have time to reply. Just as your fingers touch the seal that disengages to release the Mjolnir helmet, the door to the cockpit of the Pelican begins to open.

Neither of you has ever flown backward so fast.

"We're about to touch down on Eridanus 2."

***

Most of the walk through the forest is silent. You can hear Halsey and Adun rattling on about useless information that means absolutely nothing when you and John are returning to the source of your memories.

It's familiar. All of it. You can see child-like forms flashing in front of your eyes - memories of you and John - all over the place. It's like watching your childhood replay in front of your eyes for the very first time. For you, it is.

John is too engrossed in what he's seeing to realize you're nudging his fingers with your own, and the two of you lift your heads to meet each other.

Spartans have their own silent code. Just the body language is enough for them to read. For John, the way you're standing there beside him is enough for him to go "She's here, and she's not going anywhere." which somehow makes this entire situation much less anxiety-inducing.

The two of you eventually piece enough together to figure out where John's father buried what you originally assumed was the artifact, but it turns out to be an entire container filled to the brim with drawings. John’s drawings. 

Another memory you’d forgotten seeing as how there’s one of you right on top of the stack. That happens to be one of the ones Halsey notices first before John’s attention is drawn to the house. 

If he wants real answers, he’s going to find them in there. 

  “Master Chief,” 117 turns around to face you, hazel eyes gentle despite the anger simmering behind them, and you finally remove your helmet to meet his eyes with your own. Whatever weight has settled onto your shoulders with all that’s aspired recently dissipates just by being near him. There’s something about John that just makes you feel... weightless. Like you can both carry the burden of the other's pain and you just hadn’t realized how desperate you were for it until now. “I’m right behind you.” 

  “I’ve got your back, Jonny!” John can barely hear your voice from the cliff on the other side of the forest, but he knows you’re telling the truth. It’s him and you and you and him. Always. “Always and forever!” 

No one has lived in the house in decades. There are nearly no memories you can draw out from possible times spent here since so much of your relationship with John took place outside, but he’s clearly seeing things that you are not. 

On the other side of the room, Catherine Halsey holds her breath and waits for the inevitable fallout. You can tell just from the way she keeps looking at Adun that they’re both hiding something. 

That’s not on your priority list to care about right now. Right now, it’s John unveiling a truth he’s desperately seeking answers for. 

John doesn’t talk for most of it. You follow him throughout the house, from room to room as he walks through memories of his childhood with his mother and father until he hits the bedroom. 

That’s when you appear. Just as beautiful as you are now, but so much more carefree. You’re sitting on the table beside him as his mother removes both of your shoes that are caked in mud. 

Then you have your chin tucked into your hands as you watch him draw. It’s almost like you’re.. guarding him. 

What could she be guarding me against? 

You are everywhere. You’re there in his house, on his heels, following him down the hole to the second part of the Artifact. You are what gets him back through the danger wall after forcing him to part from it and you are what kept him safe. 

It’s because of you John is alive. That he made it past childhood. 

It’s because of Halsey that he became a Spartan. It is because of Halsey you were unwillingly cast into the Spartan 2 program solely because of your ability to do what he couldn’t. You were his perfect opposite. 

His perfect counterpart. And The Master Chief needed a partner who could counteract his flaws and weaknesses. 

The perfect Headhunter and her perfect Master Chief. 

But... that’s not who you two really are.. is it? 

  “John,” Halsey calls out. “Are you alright?” 

And when John pulls his helmet off, you are greeted with an expression that’s one part anger and one part fear. It breaks your heart. You silently slip your helmet back on and tune your comms into his own to talk to him through the comms that Cortana established for you. 

Out on the porch, he puts it back on. 

  “Tell me what you saw, John.” 

You’re suddenly thankful that Halsey can’t hear you, but you know you don’t have long until she figures out what’s going on. 

  “She was there with both of us. You..” He swallows the knot growing in his throat and curls his fingers into fists so tightly that he swears they’re probably turning white. “You were there too. Constantly keeping me out of danger like you knew that I had to make it to the future because I had a greater purpose. You kept me safe before I knew how to keep myself safe.” John’s hazel eyes meet yours through the HUD, and a soft sigh of relief passes through someone’s lips. You are not sure if it’s him or you. “Thank you.” 

  “Always.” 

  “She was there doing that stupid coin toss game with us both. She took me because I was ‘’special’’. But why would she take you?” He asks. It’s a good question. You really didn’t have a purpose to the extent that the other Spartans you’d met did. Unless Halsey had seen some kind of unfounded potential deep inside of you that was connected with John’s. “Why would she wants to ruin something so..” 

  “So what, John?” 

  “So good.” 

You snort. You can’t help it. For someone you feel as if you’ve known your entire life, he definitely does not know this version of you yet. “The version of me you knew as children burned away. Halsey saw to that when she left me to die in that Covenant carrier and then proceeded to repeatedly lock away my memories when I returned. She wanted you to be the shield that protected humanity, and I the sword. We are each other’s perfect counterparts.” A pause. “Spartans must be bonded to one another.. and nothing else.”

There’s this fire in his eyes when he looks at you after you’ve said that. It’s... oddly comforting. Like he’s trying to tell you that he refuses to let you endure such pain ever again. 

The ferocity in his eyes speaks volumes. Neither of you speaks after that, but you don’t need to. 

Halsey returns to where you both stand on the porch for a conversation with John. He immediately questions her on why she’d been here - in this house, a safe place for him as a child - and once again she’s attempting to block his completely logical questions by blaming it on his memories being muddled and out of sorts. 

You know better. She’s deflecting from telling him the truth, and it’s staring you straight in the face. 

  “You were so young when we met and so overwhelmed with grief. I took care of you.” There’s tenderness dripping from her voice. If you weren’t wearing your helmet, you would’ve promptly vomited at the sound of it. John was raised by this woman. She is the only maternal figure he’s known for years. It will be difficult for him to come to terms with the fact she’s spent his entire life lying to him and the other Spartans, indoctrinating them and taking away their ability to make their own choices. To be human. To love. And when the truth comes out about all of it... The UNSC will suffer the consequences when an uprising begins. 

No. I was the one who took care of him until you tore us apart. No one else could love John the way you could, and that’s why you took him from me. Took away all the things that made me and turned me into a mindless killing machine with one purpose. To follow orders. 

I won’t let you take John’s humanity away from him. Not again. 

That might be one of the most beautiful things about him. His fascination with the sight of slip-space, his quiet confession about his anxiety, and his worries about what you may find on Eridanus. How he’d lightly twisted his fingers around your own just for the human contact and how he looked at you through the HUD. 

All of these uniquely rare things that made him John are the most beautiful part about him. 

And that’s when you learn what that feels like again, to love John 117 the way you always have. Right there on the back porch of a broken, abandoned home on Eridanus 2 that is flooded with memories of a life you will never gain back. 

You know what you’re going to do from this point forward. 

Silver Team was five people, at one point. Nora-098 had been gone for a long time. 

It was time they gained a new fifth member. 

And you fully intended for it to be you. 

[nellie-elizabeth]

What We Do in the Shadows: The Wedding (4x06)

What did I just witness with my own two eyeballs!

Cons:

I... don't really have any? This episode honestly has everything a person could hope for? I feel a little bad, because this was probably my favorite episode of the season thus far, and it's the one that had the least Young Colin Robinson in it, so... there is that.

Pros:

Again I am at risk of this review just being a long list of funny jokes that I enjoyed, but I'll try and give you a sampling of what I liked so much about this episode.

The Baron! Makeovers with the Baron, a shopping montage, the gargoyle, both Nadja and Lazlo sneaking off for some time in the coat closet with him newly restored to his former glory... absolutely hilarious.

The long line of objections at the wedding, including Guillermo managing the line at the mic to ask people to stop checking about validating parking.

Nadja and Lazlo's songs at the reception about the wedding night, and Nandor the Relentless and his habits in the bedroom...

The djinn trying to get Nandor to stop using his wishes on trivial things like closing the coffin lid because he doesn't want to deal with Guillermo coming in to do it.

All of this stuff was making me smile the whole way through, just a joke every minute, each one funny and quippy and smart and ridiculous.

And Marwa! I've got to say, I have been a little let down by how little Marwa has had to do thus far, but now that she's had a little more room to shine, I can say I really like this character. She's a little bit more of a "straight" character to offset the chaos of most of the main cast, but she's also this very determined and strong-willed lady, whose natural kindness and strength of character keep getting interrupted/altered by the wishes that Nandor is using on altering her to suit him. I love the tension there, now that she's married to Nandor, from the things she might actually want as a character, and what she's been made to think she wants. I can't wait to see where they go with her.

And god, speaking of Nandor and this wishes... I lost my whole entire mind when Nandor wished that Marwa would like what Nandor liked, want what he wanted, and then at the wedding we see Marwa hugging Guillermo and hanging all over him, kissing him... do I think this is on purpose? I don't know. Did I notice the hell out of it? I sure did.

And that's just the beginning of all the Nandor/Guillermo moments. The two of them talking about watching movies together on a rainy afternoon, and Guillermo getting more and more stressed with the wedding planning, and then him saying he'll be right there by Nandor's side if he gets scared... Nandor saying "you're my best... man", and then the moment at the end where Nandor covers him up with a cloak as he sleeps? I mean, come on! I just love all of this for the comedic potential. Nandor is married now, he's got three extra wishes that the djinn gifted him as a wedding present, Guillermo's got his boyfriend who we're going to get to meet soon...

I just can't believe the show is gifting us with such a hilarious setup. Guillermo's living his best life and even though Nandor is a newlywed, he is about to be wracked with terrible jealousy and I am thrilled about it all.

So that's it! Bonus points go to the Guide for talking about her brief but intense love for Nandor, and then later Marwa, upon first meeting them. She's living her best life.

9.5/10

[skellebonez]

Happy Birthday Winter!

Hey @winterpower98 it's your birthday! I really hope you enjoy this, I know I had a ton of fun writing it for you! Actor AU is one of my favorite AUs you've made and coming back to play around with it again was a blast and a half!

Painter MK cackled, taking the brushes filled with bright pink paint into his fists.

“Yes, yes!” He exclaimed, brushing them against his cheeks and bringing another to run up the center of his face. “The art is-OW! OW, THE ART IS IN MY EYE!”

“Cut!” The director yelled, bringing the entire film production to a halt in an instant. “Xiaotian, what happened?”

The young actor dropped the paintbrushes into the hands of a stage worker to rushed over to help him, one hand covering his right eye as he tried to keep himself from laughing. “I think some of it splashed when I waved the brush at my face. I guess the art really IS-”

“Don’t say it,” Heshang said from the other side of the set, doing his best not to join his co-star in laughter.

“-seeping into my pores!”

The entire cast and crew groaned as Xiaotian cackled again, with a few added ows, before another stage hand came by with a bottle of water.

~3…2…1~

“Uh…” Xiaojiao pulled, attempting to pull the prop sword from above her head out of the wall only to be met with… a lot more resistance than should probably be there. “UH…? It’s stuck?”

She stood, attempting to pull it out normally only to be met with just as much resistance.

“It’s stuck!” She laughed, out, bracing a foot on the wall with no change.

“Let me try,” General Ironclad, or rather Red in the costume of General Ironclad for the episode, offered, attempting to do the same with the exact same result as his co-star. “What did you use to hold this in place? Cement!?”

“It should have only been stuck in with force!” A stage hand yelled as Xiaotian and Heshang joined in, both failing to pull the sword out from the false wall and Heshang nearly toppling over backwards with his additional costume pieces.

“Whoever stuck that in there needs to be moved to making sure the safety equipment stays connected!” Xiaotian offered, watching as even more people tried to remove the sword. “That is not coming out.”

~3…2…1~

Heshang held Mo in his arms, waltzing around the set as he waited for places to be called for with the shockingly content feline in his arms.

~3…2…1~

“You are selling beautiful vegetables today?” Pigsy said, leaning over the the display to give an awkward smile to the disguised Spider Queen.

Tang looked over the produce from where he knelt, looking back up at his companion with a concerned and confused look. “Are you… a-are-PFT-FUCK.”

Everyone on set burst into laughter as Tang did, both of his fellow actors holding back from laughing themselves.

“Why is it this line!?” Tang yelled in frustration as he continued laughing. “It’s not a hard line! I wrote this line! Why do I keep laughing at the last word!?”

“Maybe if Ganglie wasn’t making goo-goo eyes at me you’d keep straight face,” Zhi-Zhu Jing managed to get out through her laughter.

“That’d be the only thing straight about me.”

~3…2…1~

Dicky Cheung, or the actual Sun Wukong disguised as a human actor in full costume of himself, took a running leap and jumped onto the counter of Pigsy’s noodles, sliding to a perfect stop with a wink toward the camera.

~3…2…1~

“MK, there’s something I wanted to tell you…” Mei said, looking at MK with sparkles in her eyes before snickering. “Stop looking at me like that, it’s hard enough to keep a straight face during this scene!”

“Sorry!” Xiaotian yelled to the camera. “I can’t help it! How are Jin and Yin this wrong about these two in the show?”

“Himbos!” was the shouted answer from Tang at the other end of the set.

~3…2…1~

“One of the rare talents that no one knew the great Sun Wukong possessed…” Xiaojiao said ominously, camera panning over to Mr. Cheung in full costume. “Surprisingly good peach juggling!”

“Gotta keep myself occupied somehow!” The actor laughed out, catching two peaches in either hand while the last one was caught perfectly in his mouth to the applause of everyone watching.

~3…2…1~

“Thanks for the Key los-AH!”

Red flung his arms wildly, key flying into the air as Tie Shan rushed forward and caught him just before he face planted into the ground.

“Mine!” Mr. Cheung yelled as he caught the key mid air and rushed through the frame.

“YOU’RE NOT EVEN IN THIS EPISODE!”

~3…2…1~

“Thank you… for giving me all o-ooh, whoa!” Lui Er Mihou, or unbeknownst to nearly all Six-Eared Macaque in disguise much the same way as Sun Wukong was, yelped as the cable that was supposed to gently raise him and make him look like he was floating yoinked him as good 4 feet off the ground way too fast. “That’s too much power!”

“SORRY!” The line operator shouted, fiddling with the controls. “Someone loaded the weight setting for Xiaotian into your line instead of yours.”

“I already feel bad enough treating him like garbage and beating him up in this role, this is just rubbing salt in the wound,” Liu Er muttered, leaning back and swinging limply much to the amusement of everyone who couldn’t hear him before raising his voice. “When will my beloved friend Sun Wukong come to rescue me?”

“SPEAK MY NAME AND I SHALL APPEAR!”

Liu Er yelped in surprise as Mr. Cheung rushed in and grabbed him from beneath to hold him bridal style with a shit eating grin. He couldn't help the flush on his cheeks in response.

“HOW DO YOU KEEP SHOWING UP IN SHOTS WHEN YOU AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE YET!?” The director yelled with more than a little amusement in his voice despite the disruption.

~3…2…1~

“You!” DBK said, rounding on Red Son. “You have brought me nothing but failure! Time and time again! I keep telling you I… shit, I can’t remember the next line when you look that sad, I am so sorry.”

“Nothing but disappointment?” Red offered helpfully, immediately breaking out of his downcast somber gaze to the floor with a wide smile.

“It is scary how fast you get in and out of character sometimes, kid,” Niu Mowang laughed out, clearly resisting the urge to ruffle the younger actor’s hair lest he ruin the styling job that took far too long every time they got dressed.

~3…2…1~

The White Bone Spirit stood at the entrance to the Silken Web Cave, looking at the camera before far too much time passed from when she was supposed to say he line. She moon walked backwards out of the frame without changing her expression one bit as the other actors devolved into cackles.

~3…2…1~

“The Year of the Spider starts tonight!” Spider Queen proclaimed from her high vantage point before she muttered something under her breathe, narrowing her gaze and then looking off to the side. “Or next year ‘cause I don’t remember my line.”

~3…2…1~

Huntsman slowly lowered into frame, upside down and gripping the rigging holding him up like Spiderman.

~3…2…1~

“Oh yeah?” Sun Wukong said, appearing in frame as he walked down the wall MK was embedded in. He grabbed his staff, yanking it out of the wall and jumped down and smacked the wall with it.

… only for it to go through the wall once again and crack it. Or, rather, the false wall that was on a tilted angle to make it look like he was talking down it, rather than a heavily slanted floor.

“I’m sorry!” Mr. Cheung yelled, looking at the damage he caused. “I must have hit at weak spot!”

He hoped no one noticed that when MK offered to get the prop staff for this shot and put it into the wall… he grabbed the real one by accident.

~3…2…1~

Nui Mowang held the little bird that was Wukong’s transformation stand in for one of the final scenes, gently petting the little head with a big goofy smile on his face.

~END~

The entire cast sat around on various travel tables right outside the small Lunar New Year Festival set they had set up, various extras that had answered the open invitation for the shoot going about and getting the free food that was available at the functional stalls provided by the catering they had hired.

It was an odd sight to see Red Son and Spider Queen and Sun Wukong and everyone else sitting around together, but Liu Er Mihou being there outside of his Macaque costume broke the illusion a little bit.

It was the final day of shooting for the season 2 opening special to Monkie Kid, Revenge of the Spider Queen, and everyone was there. Even people who didn’t have to come in wanted to give a temporary farewell to Tie Shan, Nui Mowang, and Red before season 2 proper began shooting. There was still a chance they could bebcalled in for bit roles, the scripts weren’t entirely finished yet, but as far as anyone knew the Demon Bull Family wasn’t going to be returning properly any time soon.

Maybe in season 3, Tang had teased, holding the begun scripts for that in his little tablet away from prying eyes. And they were always welcome to help out in bit roles, background characters or voice over or to use their other talents to work other jobs that were needed around the set.

But even before then it would be a while.

And so that’s how Red found himself sandwiched between Long Xiaojiao and Qi Xiaotian, with the newly added member of their quartet in her full White Bone Spirit costume hanging over his shoulder to watch the compilation that Xiaojiao had expertly edited on her phone for them all.

“The director gave me permission to use whatever I wanted and I though that… maybe we could all have it for ourselves,” Xiaojiao offered, pulling up the wireless transfer option on her phone. “To watch when we miss each other being on set together. I know we’re going to probably be back together with Red Son eventually! But…”

“I’ll miss shooting with you too,” Red said smiling softly as he pulled out his own phone to accept the file. “Hopefully Mr. Tang isn’t just teasing us about season 3.”

[reaction2whatever]

My Agents of shield season 3 mumble jumble

I just finished the season 3 finale and boyyyyy am I emotional right about now. (Possibly because I binged 5 episodes all at once and thoughts are jumbled

Be prepared I'm sensing this is gonna be a long rant

Just like the season 2 rant Imma divide this into two parts and ramble it through each part

(sidenote: this is my first time watching this show so If you want to see my reactions to previous seasons you can find those thoughts here and please no spoilers. I started this account that I don't really use to stop Tumblr spoiling me based on the tags that I used lol)

Plot

Welp. Where do I even start

I think it is a pretty good season. Better than season 1, not as strong as season 2.

I also like the latter half of the season where they fight Hive more than the first half.

The reason behind my criticism of the first half of this season is that it is trying to do TOO many things all at the same time while simultaneously moving too slowly too.

Let's see. The first ten episodes of this season had the following main storylines:

-A massive amount of people are turning into Inhumans and they are creating chaos

-ATCU is targeting Inhumans, especially Lincoln

-A new "monster", later revealed as Andrew/Lush, is hunting Inhumans as well

-Fitz saving Simmons from an alien planet/ that FitzSimmons and Will love triangle

-Hunter and May trying to take down Ward for Bobbi

After having finished this season, I can see the way these stories intertwine with each other. It is pretty great. I think the writers did a very good job with how the mysteries thrown at viewers were all resolved.

But when watching it for the first time, I felt like new questions kept coming up and the main characters were all over the place following different plotlines. It was easy to be confused as to what's the point of everything and how does everything connect together?

Especially when it's trying to tell this many stories all at once, somehow this show slowed down the pace so suddenly to give Simmons a whole episode solely to talk about her time on an alien planet pining for one man and falling in love for another.

Like the pace was really fast and suddenly slowed down then picked up the pace again.

When season 2 was finished I was pretty excited about the potential of a lot of new inhuman capabilities in season 3, because fish is a common enough thing that a potentially huge amount of people could get powers overnight.

But I guess in season 3 we only get Andrew(who wasn't turned into an Inhuman because of fish oil), yoyo, joey, and some minor side characters. After Rosalind died and Hive was introduced, this spread of inhuman incidents' influence seemed to have hit the stop button and never surfaced again.

Wasn't this introduced as a massive global outbreak in the first episode? Why is it that the shield team has stopped showing up to newly turned Inhumans like they did for Joey? Why is it that Hive wasn't capable of finding hundreds of Inhumans to work for him under his sway?

At his peak, Hive had like 4 Inhumans under his sway(Daisy, multiplying woman, telekinesis guy, fire-throwing guy), and...honestly, I had to lol at that pathetic low number(I know Andrew killed some but like, they can do better with that number. There is no way anyone can stop the world from eating fish and this is a thing that can't be stopped. Every day there should be new Inhumans lol.

Would have been so cool to see more characters with inhuman powers/see a massive inhuman outbreak more.

The same could be said for Simmons' adventure on another planet and her reaction to it, soooo much potential for a whole other planet. The ATCU's philosophy and the debate of whether Inhumans should be cured could be expanded a lot more to talk about ethics, so a lot of potential there too.

Each thread of plotting could be expanded and explained more because each thread has a lot of potentials, but I guess they needed for the season to move forward quickly and I think it got a bit messy and rushed with the many characters and plotlines introduced.

The latter half of the season focuses a lot more on a singular threat Hive and I feel like I like the latter half more. I'm very sad that Bobbi and Hunter are gone for the latter half but I have to admit after sending these two away, the reduced number of the main cast also helped with the storytelling.

I know I wrote a lot of criticism above but honestly overall I still think this is a strong season and the plot is pretty awesome and I love this show but I've said that amazement enough in my episode to episode reactions lol so I'll shut up and talk about characters instead.

Characters

Daisy Johnson

oh boy do I love her. (Chloe Bennet is so good at acting like oh wow

First of all, I know (from the very kind @agents-of-fangirling in the comments) that Daisy Johnson is a comic book character and that's probably why they've changed her name.

But still, I think it's pretty symbolic.

Skye was a person trying to find meaning in her life. She was homeless, an orphan, who had never had stability in her life, who had no idea who she was or what's her heritage. Skye was very much struggling to balance between her birth family and her shield famly and why does she have powers. It's an orphan's name and it hints at her chaotic life.

After an entire journey in the span of two seasons, Skye had found her heritage, her power, and her parents. Now she was agent Daisy Johnson, her full name comes from her birth parents but very much an agent of shield and a superhero (Before sway. I'll talk about that later lol)

She had gotten over that rookie phase and she was more mature now.

I'm very glad that Daisy Johnson doesn't need anybody to baby her to go into the field and be GOOD at it. She wasn't stuck as a rookie and she's just grown to the point where I feel a sense of security when she's in the field.

Compare that to when in season 1 she can't fight at all and in season 2 she was training under May and fumbling over her powers, this season she'd really feel all grew up.

She leads the inhuman task force, she advocates for inhuman rights. She has accepted her Inhuman identity and knows who she is. She uses her power well and she fights well and she gets things done. She had really started to feel confident and capable. She's just an overall very enjoyable superhero and agent in this season.

(Maybe she didn't hack as much as she used to but I accept the trade between hacking scenes and super hot power/fighting scenes any day)

ALSO did I mention just how gorgeous she is?

AND THEN she got swayed

See, the writers of this show never let any character gets too comfortable with life.

I feel like part of the reason why Daisy after sway is pretty heartbreaking to watch is that she finally seemed happy and content with her life for a bit. She was a leader of a good team of Inhumans, she had a boyfriend who's a massive upgrade from Miles and Ward.

AND hive just went ahead and took all of that away from her.

I feel like that's like her worst nightmare coming true. She truly sees the team as her family. Not only did she personally hurt Fitz and Mack but she also had that vision. She knew someone is gonna die. She knew that time can't be changed.

I truly believed that if she killed someone on the team it will break her but...things are not much better.

She was in so much pain and so addicted to the feeling of hive that she begged hive to take her back, which at the moment is understandable, but she's gonna beat herself up for it for sure later on. hive having Ward's face definitely doesn't help one bit.

I feel like she was even relieved when she thought her helping hive will only result in her own death and not somebody else's.

It's easier on her conscious in a way

AND then Lincoln dies. Lincoln who is the only one that knew she begged Hive to take her back. Lincoln who only said he loves her when he was about to die.

My girl ended this season being suicidal, going through withdrawal, having to face the fact that she harmed the team, having to face the fact that May's ex-husband and probably the only therapist who can help her deal right now died for her, having to face the fact that her boyfriend exploded in space for her with hive who possess Ward's face and being hunted by shield.

I fear for her sanity because I would be on the floor bawling right now if I were her. Life is not treating her well.

I don't know why shield is after her when we end this season but for the love of God somebody please wrap her up in a soft blanket and give the girl some soup and also give her a ton of good therapy.

Phil Coulson

Coulson feels more like a person this season because he is selfish and I meant it in a good way

He was just good in season 1 and 2. He was that generic good boss character with some trauma with being brought back to life and...yeah that's about it

This season though, Coulson fell in love with Rosalind resulting in Rosalind bleeding out in his arms

He hunted down and killed Ward for personal reasons and I liked it because he's more like a human being with flaws lol.

There was one bit of wasted potential for Coulson and that's being an amputee.

I know he struggled a bit with ties and he mentioned phantom pain. But later on, he had cool gadgets on his hand and he just got some more capability being an amputee

I would love to see an episode where he lost his hand and show some real struggle with it because I feel like in this season his struggle as a disabled person got glossed over easily. His disability was even seen as cool with all the extra gadgets on his hand. idk I feel like there are a lot of potentials to be explored there

Melinda May

Man, I don't know why they keep on wasting May's potential

May's arc was basically hunting Ward with Hunter and then some emotional scenes/plots with Andrew/Lush

Other than that...May is basically used as a generic plot driver/field agent

I want her to have some solid arc. like Daisy's brainwashing arc or Simmons' alien planet arc

Give her something of substance please and don't let Andrew's wife confine her like it did in this season

Also I was kinda sad that Lash didn't get to say goodbye to her

Grant Ward/Hive

I hate his face so much

Like seriously, he better be gone for good. He's a pretty good villain for a solid three seasons now and it's time for him to be gone

I loved him as good guy Ward and I still think he's a pretty handsome guy

But uggh the way seeing his face makes me want to punch things

FitzSimmons

FitzSimmons this season got more mature and they finally got together like TOOK THEM LONG ENOUGH(I'm feeling like a proud mother

I am very proud of Fitz that he had gradually overcome his brain damage and he got more daring/courageous this season

I cannot imagine season 1 Fitz facing and successfully tricking a whole mob by himself but he did in this season for Simmons.

He was very much a heroic character in trying to save Simmons through space when he pulled her from the planet

He didn't hold it against Simmons for falling in love with Will and even though he was in love with Simmons he still tried his very best to save Will. That's heroic behavior and just pretty selfless overall. Not a lot of guys will do that.

I'm very glad that he got the girl in the end lol

I feel like Simmons this season had a good arc with the alien planet thing. I was very glad that she got her own episode.

I understand why she would fall for Will and I applaud the writers that they used creativity to introduce a love triangle to FitzSimmons.

I think the reason why FitzSimmons is appealing (at least for me) is that they seem to have this bubble around them, separating them from the outside world. They live in this scientific world where they are the only two who can understand each other and communicate with each other. When they talk to other people, they need to dial their sentences down, use plain language so that others could understand, chose their words carefully to explain. But they don't need to do that with each other

A perfect example comes to mind:

When Fitz was trapped in the hanger with primitive agents

Simmons: "Fitz, Professor idk's compiler theory?"

Fitz:"yes yes do that you saw me do it and you have a good memory"

After Simmons has saved Fitz, Coulson was like "wtf is that"

see, FitzSimmons has this deep understanding of each other and connection that seems so untouchable for anyone else. They don't need to say things carefully so the other will understand and their communication in science is unmatched

I don't think anybody could follow their train of thoughts outside of them, and that's a connection that's unbreakable

I had always thought a third wheeler in FitzSimmons is kinda impossible. The writers managed to use Will to introduce some logical and possible angst to FitzSimmons and I had to applaud them for effort lol

(SEE, it takes separation to an ALIEN planet to introduce plausible angst to FitzSimmons and that's saying something lol)

I hope FitzSimmons have a good vacation in Seychelles and do more than just snorkeling

Lincoln

Oh man I wish he was not dead I'm still emo thinking about it

Last season I said Lincoln felt like a love interest designed for Daisy and somehow that feeling hasn't really gone away this season

He was saved by Daisy, joined shield for Daisy, almost died trying out a vaccine for her, and eventually really died for her.

When his addiction to alcohol was first introduced I thought briefly that the writers wanted to introduce more depth/background to him. But after that sway of Daisy+Hive sway thing I feel like they purposefully introduced it to make Lincoln be the only one who would understand Daisy's addiction to hive

The rest of the team just thought she went to Hive to fight him. Lincoln was the only one who figured out that she was addicted.

I mean it's good that somebody on the team understands Daisy, but I also feel like this shift was a bit contradicting the image when Lincoln was first introduced. He was calm, collected, in control of his power back then. He accepted his inhuman identity perfectly and he was just overall pretty nice and kind. He was also very supportive of Daisy

This season, because the writers are putting this being hunted/addiction arc onto Lincoln, he has gotten more chaotic and his writing got a bit inconsistent

He didn't visit Daisy when she was at her lowest after Hive's sway, but sacrificed and died for Daisy in the end while saying he loves her. If he loves her I guess he'd done for her what Mack has done for her, right?

But all of these things aside, I just wished Lincoln could act more of an Inhuman medical expert for the team. He could have been very valuable but I guess he stayed as a supporting character

I'm gonna miss him. He was pretty handsome. I hope his death doesn't completely break Daisy even though it seems likely

Lance Hunter/Bobbi Morse

They are two of the best characters on this show and I cannot believe they just left like that

But I guess if they had to go, they went out as a couple and as heroes. So I guess spy's goodbye is a good goodbye.

They are like the definition of likable supporting characters who doesn't hog screen time while still being very enjoyable to the show

We never need to have long and deep scenes of them to know their characteristics and that's hard to achieve. I'm gonna miss both of them dearly for sure

Mack

Yay he definitely got more likable in this season! His shotgun axe was pretty awesome and mmm I hope his romance with yoyo works out well

Andrew/Lash

Andrew shouldn't have died

I don't really care about Lash had to die somehow but I do think Lash shouldn't have been Andrew

His character has so much potential

He's a therapist that shield could trust. Just how valuable is that??

This show has so many characters with trauma that's layered with shield secret and every single one of Andrew's therapy scenes is gold for characterization

If Andrew didn't die, he could have helped everyone on the team and I just feel like his connections to Daisy and Simmons and May were kinda abandoned and ruined

I will miss Andrew for sure

ANYWAYS, this is definitely too long of a thing and I had a blast today watching many episodes and finishing season 3.

Imma stop now lol.

[mandowh0re]

The One Where Everybody Finds Out

Summary: The team finds out about you and Loki.

A/N: So I literally took the entire episode of The One Where Everybody Finds Out from Friends and rewrote it for the Avengers. This may have been done before with either Loki or another character, and I've definitely seen it done with other Friends episodes. This is super long because I literally used every line of dialogue in every scene (except for Ross attempting to win the apartment) and then added or changed them enough to fit the characters. Some of this may be OOC but it was the best I could do with the situation they're all in. I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: Implied smut

Word Count: 6274

Tony as Ross, Natasha as Rachel and Phoebe, Wanda as Rachel and Phoebe, Peter as Phoebe, Loki as Chandler, reader as Monica, and Thor as Joey.

Happy Reading!

“Oh, hey you guys, look! They’re installing the new training grounds outside!”

There’s collective sounds of acknowledgement from the team as they all get up from their spots, walking over to where Wanda stood in front of the floor to ceiling windows. You can feel Loki standing a bit too close to your back, but luckily everyone is too distracted to notice.

“I’d say from the looks of it, Tony went all out.” Natasha states, looking at all the new fancy equipment that was being unloaded and installed.

“Ironically, it was actually Steve who went all out. I just paid for it.”

“Awh, I’ll miss sweating my tits off in that tiny gym.” Natasha says. You snicker.

“That’s repulsive.” Loki rolls his eyes and returns to his place on the couch.

Tony glares at Nat, “Hey, it’s not my fault that the AC is always broken.”

“Aren’t you a mechanic?” Bucky asks.

“Not an HVAC mechanic. There’s a big difference, tough guy.”

“I am excited for this new space! I will be able to call upon the lightning in training!” Thor booms.

“Yes, and kill everyone on the field.” Loki replies nonchalantly, never looking up from his book.

Thor rolls his eyes and everyone returns to their former spots. You sit back in your spot next to Loki, sitting criss cross on the couch and discreetly touching your knee to high thigh.

It’s the small touches you sneak when you think nobody is looking, that make your heart skip just a beat faster.

***

“Oh my gods, I love this setup! It's got something for everyone!” Tony is absolutely giddy with excitement, walking around the newly installed equipment that had been set up outside, “Isn’t it perfect? I never realized how little we were working with before!”

“Well that is because we really only ever trained by fighting hand to hand.” Natasha replies, inspecting part of the obstacle course.

Tony nods, putting his hands in his pockets. He watches as Peter easily climbs a wall that’s part of the course Nat is looking at.

“It’s amazing!” Wanda chirps, “Steve really outdid himself this time.”

“Speaking of Steve, he was supposed to meet us out here like ten minutes ago. I’m gonna go find him.” Tony says, pulling his phone out to try and get a hold of his boyfriend.

As the billionaire disappears into the compound, Nat walks up to Wanda.

“I never thought I’d say this, but I can’t wait to sweat my tits off out here.” She says, the comment matching the one she made a few days ago.

Wanda lets out a quiet cackle, watching as Nat walks towards some machinery across the yard that caught her eye.

Wanda walks towards the teenager and looks around, excited to have so much more to practice and train her magic with. While Loki was more than glad to train with her using his own magic, she always had to hold back with almost everyone else.

She watches as Peter jumps and climbs his way through the course, looking like he’s having the time of his life, when she sees a separate movement out of the corner of her eye. She looks up to see you and Loki standing in a window, facing each other and talking.

“Oh look! There’s Y/N and Loki. Hey!” She waves up at them, but they don’t see her.

Peter’s attention is now caught and he stops in his tracks, looking up at the same window.

“Hey!” Peter calls, waving his own hands.

Suddenly, you and Loki are stripping each other of clothes, and Peter makes a squaking sound, covering his eyes.

“Ah! Oh!” Wanda shouts, her eyes blowing wide as she sees the events unfold. She uses her magic to pull Peter back to her so she can shield his innocent eyes, “Ahh!”

“What?” Nat asks, jogging back up to the pair.

Wanda points to the window that harbored the offending scene, with the hand that isn’t currently shielding Peter’s eyes.

“Y/N and Loki! Y/N and Loki!”

Nat looks up to see what the other two are flipping out about, only to see Loki shove you up against the window, completely bare.

“Oh my god!” Nat’s voice goes up an octave.

“Oh!”

“Oh my god!”

“Y/N and Loki!” Wanda screams.

“Oh my god!”

“My eyes! My eyes!” Peter screams. Wanda turns them both away from the building.

“Peter! Wanda!” Nat steps in front of them, hands out to try and calm them.

“Oh!” Wanda yells again, screwing here eyes shut.

“Okay! It’s okay! It’s okay!” Nat tries to placate them.

Peter removes Wanda’s hand from his face, “No! They’re doing it!” He yells, turning to point at you and Loki before Nat quickly grabs his arm and turns him back to her.

“I know! I know! I know!”

“You know?” Peter yells back.

“You know?” Wanda echoes him.

“Yes! I know, and Thor knows, but Tony doesn’t know so you have to stop screaming!”

Out of nowhere, Tony walks up to the small group, “Hey, what’s going on?”

The three of them scream in surprise, Peter throwing his hands in the air and jumping, screaming the loudest.

“Hi! Hi!”

Concern etches itself on Tony’s face, “What? What?” He steps towards his kid, arms reaching out and eyes scanning for any injuries.

“Hi! Nothing!” Peter yells, jumping around Tony to make him look away from the compound. He really didn’t need to see his daughter being fucked against a window by the one person on the team he trusts least, “Oh, gods, we’re just so excited about all the new equipment!” Peter claps his hands.

Tony smiles, now realizing it’s all just Peter having a hyperactive episode, “Yeah, actually it looks really good-” He says as he turns back to look at everything, but is cut off when Wanda yells and copies Peter’s movements to pull Tony’s gaze back away from the building.

“It looks amazing!” She screams, clapping and jumping up and down next to Peter.

Nat steps around Tony too so he doesn’t have a reason to turn back around.

“Get in here! Come on!” Peter yells, motioning for his father figure to join their happy dance.

Tony smiles before letting out a happy squeal and jumping into the little group dance, all of them jumping and screaming, aside from Natasha who was smirking and biting her lip to keep from laughing.

***

“You mean whenever Y/N and Loki were like, you know, doing laundry. Or going grocery shopping, or- Oh!” Wanda gasps, “All that time Y/N spent on the phone with Margo back in her hometown?”

They sit on Wanda’s bed, coffee in hand. Peter was leaned against her headboard playing Among Us on his phone, sound blocking headphones in. He was traumatized from what he saw earlier in the day, and he didn’t feel like seeing or talking to anyone, so the girls let him hang with them while they gossiped.

Nat nods, “Uh huh. Doing it, doing it, phone doing it.”

Wanda gasps again, “Oh, I can’t believe it! I mean I think it’s great!” There’s a pause, “For him. She might be able to do better.”

There’s a knock at the door before it opens slightly to reveal Thor. He leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms.

“Hello, what are you all up to?”

“Thor! Come here!” Nat says, jumping up and pulling him into the room, closing the door behind him.

Thor moves to sit on the desk chair, which looks like a doll chair compared to him, “What?”

“Wanda and Peter just found out about Loki and Y/N.”

Thor’s brows furrow and his eyes get wide, “You mean how they’re friends and nothing more?” His eyes narrow at the ex-assassin.

Nat rolls her eyes, “No, no Thor. They know. We were outside checking out the new training grounds and we saw them doing it through the window. Actually we saw them doing it up against the window.”

Wanda joins in, “Okay, so now they know you know,” She points to Thor, “And they don’t know that Nat knows?”

The god looks like he’s thinking hard for a moment before he speaks, “... Yes. But, you know what? It doesn’t matter who knows what. Now, enough of us know, that we could just tell them we know!” He says excitedly, “Then all the lying and secrets will finally be over!”

Nat nods, and Wanda gets a smirk on her face.

“Or, we could not tell them we know, and have a little fun of our own!” The witch giggles.

“Wait, well what do you mean?” Nat asks, turning back to face Wanda.

“Well every time that they say they’re like, doing laundry, we’ll just give them a bunch of laundry to do!”

Nat’s mouth forms an ‘O’ in understanding, “Ohh,” She claps silently, “I would enjoy that.”

Thor looks horrified, “Oh no no no. No wait wait. You know what would be even more fun? Telling them.”

Nat looks at him, but she’s already hyped up, “Nah, I wanna do Wanda’s thing.”

“I can’t take anymore-”

“Oh you don’t have to do anything. Just don’t tell them that we know!” Wanda snaps.

“No! I can’t take any more secrets!” Thor whines, running a hand down his face, “I’ve got your secrets, I’ve got their secrets, I’ve got secrets of my own, you know.”

“You don’t have any secrets.” Nat narrows her eyes.

“Oh yeah? You don’t know about Squish, my stuffed octopus.” Thor throes back before his eyes go wide.

It’s silent between all of them for a few seconds before Wanda clears her throat, “So, um,” She veers the conversation back to the situation at hand, turning back to Nat, “How are we gonna mess with them?”

Thor groans and leans back in the chair.

“Well, you could use your position, you know, as the best friend. And then I would use, you know, the strongest tool at my disposal. My sexuality.”

There’s another knock at the door.

“Come in!” Wanda calls.

The door opens to reveal Loki. Peter blushes furiously when he looks up to see the other god, and looks back to down, gluing his eyes on his phone.

“Hello, children.”

Everyone in the room replies with hellos.

“Y/N cannot find her journal. Have any of you heathens seen it?”

There’s a string of denials, nobody having seen the black leather journal you tend to carry around.

Nat turns to Wanda and winks, noticing Peter is now looking at her, and stands up to head towards Loki.

“Uh, hello?” Loki says, watching Nat approach him.

“Hey,” She says, finally stepping in front of him, “Oh wow, that jacket looks great on you.”

Loki quirks a brow and glances down at his clothing, then back to Nat, “Um, thanks?”

“Yeah, the material looks so soft,” She says as she strokes his arm, “Oh hello muscles,” She purrs, squeezing his bicep, “Have you been working out?”

Loki looks incredibly puzzled, “Yes, but need I remind you I am also a god.”

Suddenly Nat is giggling. Since when-

“Are you ill?”

She finishes giggling and looks in his eyes, “Well, if you really want to know,” She looks down at her hands, “Um- Oh I can’t tell you this.”

Loki shifts his weight onto the other foot, glancing at the other three behind her, then focusing back on her.

“While I do not enjoy discussing emotions, I can tolerate you more than most humans. If you would like to discuss something on your mind, I would not object.”

“Well actually, you’re the one person I can’t tell this to, and the one person I want to the most.”

“What the Norns is going on?” He asks, growing increasingly disturbed by this interaction.

“I think it’s just, you know, that I haven’t been with someone in so long and, you know how sometimes you’re looking for something and you just don’t even see that it’s right there in front of you dressed in a black suit…”

Loki glances down at himself again and his brows fly up for a split second as he looks back up to Nat.

“Oh no, have I said too much?” She coos, placing a hand on her chest, “Well, it’s just something to think about. I know I will.” She giggles again and walks over to where she set her mug down, bending at the waist and making an ‘oop’ sound, picking it up and then walks out of the room and past Loki, shooting him a wink.

Loki raises a brow at Thor, who has his face in his hands. Wanda is biting her lip to stop from bursting into a fit of laughter, and Peter’s cheeks are dusted pink with his eyes wide in shock.

***

“You are so cute. How did you get to be so cute?” You ask, looking down at Loki. He’s sprawled on his bed with his arm around you, tracing his fingers along your spine.

“I am not cute. I am a god. Handsome or pretty will do.”

You giggle in response, “Okay now you’re even cuter.” You tease, leaning down to kiss him.

“You know, that seems to be a popular opinion today, I must say.”

“What?”

“Well, the weirdest thing happened earlier today. I think… I believe Natasha was coming onto me.”

You chuckle, “What are you talking about?”

“I’m telling you, I think Natasha thinks I’m alluring.”

You look up at the wall and quirk a brow, then look back at him, “It’s not possible.”

“Ow?” Loki says, lifting his hands in a motion akin to ‘what the hel’.

You chuckle, “I’m sorry, it’s just… I mean Nat just thinks of you in a charming, sexless kind of way.”

“Oh well you know I… I can’t hear that enough.”

“I’m sorry, I just think you misunderstood her.”

Loki sits up, “No, I did not misunderstand. Humans are simple creatures-”

You narrow your eyes.

“Except for you, my darling,” He tries to placate, “But she was all over me. She touched my bicep for crying out loud.”

You grab his arm, and smirk, “This bicep?”

“Well it’s not flexed right now.”

You snort and fall back onto the bed in a fit of giggles.

***

You walk out of the elevator into the common room, headed to the kitchenette for some water.

“Hey, Y/N. What are you doing right now? You wanna come see a movie with us?” Nat asks, flipping through her magazine.

You stutter in your movements, hoping nobody noticed, and continue getting your water, “Uh, you know what, I was actually gonna do some laundry.”

You were out on a jog when Loki had texted you a long paragraph about what he wanted to do to you when you got back. Needless to say, you cut your jog short, turned around, and came straight back. When you turned back around to face your friends, you glanced at Loki, who was sitting on the loveseat with a book in hand. The fucker had the audacity to smirk.

Nat and Wanda look at each other, sharing a knowing look.

“Loki, you wanna do it with me?”

He closes his book and sets it down next to him, standing off of the couch, “Sure, I’ll do it with you.”

Nat smirks and stands, “Okay great! Hold on a sec.” She says before running out of the room. She returns a few minutes later with a large hamper full of laundry, “Ugh, here you go,” She sets it down behind the couch, “You don’t mind do you? That would really help me out a lot. Thanks!”

“Uh…” You look at her, not really sure how to respond.

“Oh! I have some too!” Wanda says.

You finally come out of your stupor, “Wait! Why am I doing everyone’s laundry? Do your own!”

Wanda makes a pouty face, “Because you love us and we asked nicely?”

You look at her incredulously before rolling your eyes, “Fine.”

Nat looks at her watch, “Oh! Alright, honey, we’d better go if we wanna catch that movie.”

They grab their jackets and bags, saying goodbye as they leave.

“Bye, Loki! I miss you already.” Nat says as she passes him, pinching his butt before entering the elevator with Wanda.

Once the doors slide shut, Loki looks at you, “Okay, did you see that?” He says hysterically, “With the inappropriate and the pinching?”

You nod, “Actually I did.”

“Okay so now do you believe that she’s attracted to me?”

You blink a few times, pieces of the situation coming together. Suddenly, your heart drops to your stomach.

“Oh my gods!” You look at the elevator and step around the counter towards the common room where Loki stood, “Oh my gods, she knows about us!”

“You are serious??”

“Natasha knows and she’s just trying to freak us out!” You throw your hands in the air, water bottle still clutched, “That’s the only explanation for it!”

Loki leans his head forward and raises his brows, “Okay but what about my pinchable butt and my bulging biceps?” He throws out an arm and runs his opposite hand over the lean limb before recognition settles over his face, “She knows!”

***

The door to Thor’s room flies open, startling the god, and both you and Loki enter.

“Thor.” Loki snaps, walking up to him, you hot on his tail. It looks like he had been in the middle of a nap.

“Yeah?” He says, throwing Squish behind a pillow.

You roll your eyes and Loki runs a hand down his face.

“Natasha knows about us.” Loki says, motioning between you and him.

Thor looks at you before furrowing his brows, “Well I didn’t tell them!”

“Them?” You hiss, “Who’s them?”

Thor looks guilty as he looks between the two of you, “Uhh, Natasha… And Thor.”

“Thor…” You warn.

“... And Wanda and Peter.”

You and Loki look at each other in annoyment.

Thor stands from his bed, “I would have told you, but they made me promise not to tell!”

“Odin’s beard!” Loki bites.

“I’m sorry!” Thor apologizes, and he does look sorry, “But hey! It’s over now, right? Cause you can tell them you know they know, and I can go back to knowing absolutely nothing!”

An idea pops into your mind, “Unless-”

“No, not ‘unless’! Look, this must end now!”

You ignore Thor’s small outburst, “Oh man, they think they are so slick messing with us! But see they don’t know that we know that they know. So…”

Thor looks confused as all hell by now, but realization dawns on Loki, “Ah, yes. The pranksters become the victims!”

Thor rolls his eyes, making an irritated noise, and flops back onto his bed.

***

Natasha, Wanda, and Peter are all hanging out in the common room playing Mario Kart when Natasha’s phone rings.

She pauses the game, putting the controller down and grabbing her phone, noticing the caller ID.

“It’s Loki!” She yelps, and suddenly she has both Peter’s and Wanda’s undivided attention.

They had filled Peter in on their plan, and he was more than happy to help prank you and Loki after what he had been inadvertently forced to see.

“Answer it!” Peter says, scooting closer.

“On speaker!” Wanda adds.

Natasha slides the green button and answers the call, putting it on speaker, “Hello, you.” She says in a sultry tone.

“Hello, Natasha. I have been thinking about you all day.” Loki’s voice fills the room.

Natasha almost chokes, and the other two snap their gaze to the phone, “Huh?”

“Well you know, that thing you said before. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued.”

“Really?” She asks, completely caught off guard.

“Yes, listen, why don’t you come to my room tonight and I’ll let you feel my muscles. Or maybe more.”

Natasha’s mouth falls open, as do the others’, and she grasps for some sort of answer.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that. Okay bye.” She hits end and her hands fly to her hair.

“Oh my god!” Wanda squeaks.

“He wants you to go over and feel his muscles and more!” Peter adds.

“Are you kidding?” Natasha says, trying to wrap the situation around her head, “I cannot believe he would to that to-” She cuts off mid sentence as a thought forms in her head. She turns slowly to face Thor, who had been munching on a slice of pizza while watching the Mario Kart tournament, “Thor…” Natasha says, “Do they know that we know?”

He looks at her with a guilty expression, and it’s quiet for a second too long before he answers, “No…”

“Thor…” This time his name is spoken in a warning tone.

He nods slowly, “They know you know.”

Natasha makes a noise of frustration, “I knew it! Oh, I cannot believe those two!”

“They thought that they could mess with us? They’re trying to mess with us?” Wanda guffaws, “They don’t know that we know they know we know.”

Thor groans behind them.

“And Thor you can’t say anything!” Peter turns and tells him.

He throws his hands in the air, “Couldn’t if I wanted to!”

***

Wanda, Nat, and Peter had ended their video game and moved to the couch to talk amongst themselves. You and Loki are standing in the doorway.

“Look at them, they’re panicked!” You whisper.

“Oh, yes. They’re definitely going to crack.” Loki whispers back.

You nod, “Oh yeah.”

Nat turns to look over her shoulder at the two of you and then looks back at her partners in crime.

“Alright, alright, if he wants a date, he’s gonna get a date.” She says, tucking back a strand of hair, “Alright, I’m gonna go.” She adjusts her jacket.

“Good luck!” Peter whispers.

Wanda is giving a subtle thumbs up, “Be sexy.”

Nat rolls her eyes, “Please.” She stands and walks towards Loki with a sexy smirk, swaying her hips back and forth.

He sees her coming and he pushes you away, standing to his full height and pocketing his hands.

You and Nat exchange a fleeting look before her focus is back on Loki.

“So, Loki, I’d love to come by tonight.”

The god’s smug smirk falls for a moment, before he forces it back, “Really?”

“Oh absolutely, should we say around seven?”

Loki tilts his head up slightly, trying to keep his composure, “Yes.”

Nat nods, “Good. I’m really looking forward to you and me having sexual intercourse.” She winks and walks back to her spot on the couch.

Loki gives you a desperate look and you hold your hands up, trying to calm him down.

***

The three troublemakers plus Thor are in Nat’s room. She’s wearing a black, form fitting dress that reaches her mid thigh, with knee high leather boots. Her red hair is straightened and the top layer of her hair is pulled back into a braid in the back of her head. Her makeup is mostly natural, with a subtle green tint on her lids. A modest amount of glitter dusted her cheekbones.

Wanda claps several times, “Showtime!”

“Okay, Peter, pick out a perfume. Over on my dresser. And Thor, can you go grab me a bottle of wine and some glasses?”

Thor huffs but does as he’s asked, leaving the room to fetch the items.

Peter walks up to her with a small bottle filled with purple liquid, “I like this one!”

Nat smiles at him, “One of my favorites,” She stretches her arms out and closes her eyes, “Hit me.”

Peter sprays a cloud of the scent in front of her, and she spins through it.

Thor returns a few minutes later with a bottle of sweet red and two crystal glasses.

~Meanwhile~

You straighten out Loki’s collar and smooth out his jacket.

“Alright, you’ll be great. You just make her think that you want to have sex with her, it’ll totally freak her out.” You spray breath freshener into his mouth and he recoils, not expecting the intrusive taste.

“Okay listen, how far am I going to have to go with her?”

“Relax! She’s gonna give in way before you do!”

“How do you know??” He asks, and he briefly asks himself how he even got caught up in this mess.

“Because you’re on my team, and my team always wins.”

He scrunches his face at you, “At this?” He makes a general motion with his hands.

You roll your eyes, “Just go get some!” You grab his face and give him a quick kiss before smacking his butt, “Go!”

You run to his bathroom and hide inside, listening to the events in the room unfold.

~

Peter, Wanda, and Natasha are all outside of Loki’s room.

Wanda hands the wine and glasses to Natasha, “Okay, Nat. Now we’re gonna try to listen from right here. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Oh wait!” Wanda reaches out and unzips the zipper on Nat’s chest, letting her breasts spill out a little more.

“Oh, good idea!” Peter says.

“Oh, hang on,” Wanda goes to try and pull it down a little more but Nat steps back.

“Don’t give away the farm!”

Wanda’s hands snap back to herself, and her and Peter hide against the wall as Nat knocks on the door.

It immediately opens, and Loki is there waiting.

“Natasha.”

“Loki.”

“Come on in.” He purrs.

“I was going to.” Nat giggles, and slides past him through the door. He follows her in and closes the door behind him. As soon as it shuts, Wanda and Peter shuffle to the door and press their ears to it.

Nat holds up the bottle in her hand, “I brought some wine. Would you like some?”

“Of course.”

Silence settles over the two as Nat sets the items on Loki’s heavy wooden dresser.

“So, here we are,” She says, pouring a glass of wine, “Nervous?”

“Me? Never. You?”

Her answer is immediate, “No. I want this to happen.” She hands him a glass.

“So do I.” He takes it.

They clink glasses and both down the alcohol like it’s water and they’d been stranded without any for days.

When they finish, they set the glasses down and Loki takes a step back, “I’m going to put on some music.”

He cuts on a song that Nat doesn’t believe she’s heard before. It’s definitely a classical song.

“Maybe I’ll dance for you.” Nat licks her lips, and starts to sway and move her body. She hopes the alcohol kicks in soon.

Loki raises a brow as she gets closer to him. He swallows harshly when she bumps her hips against him.

“You look ravishing.” He chokes out.

“Thanks,” She’s still moving herself to the music, “You know, when you say things like that, it makes me want to rip that… Suit right off.”

“Well, why don’t we move this to the bed.”

“Really?” Nat stops her dancing, the statement coming out of left field.

“Oh! Do you not want to?” Loki asks.

“No, no. I just, you know, first I want to take off all of my clothes and have you rub lotion on me.”

Loki can feel his heart sinking because he can tell that the woman isn’t going down without a fight. And for once, he doesn’t want a fight.

“Well, that would be nice.” He says instead, “I’ll go get the lotion.” He makes a bee line for his bathroom.

He opens the door and slams it behind him.

“This is getting completely out of hand. Alright? She wants me to put lotion on her!” He hisses quietly.

“She’s bluffing!” You hiss back.

Loki throws his hands up, exasperated, “Look, she’s not backing down. She did this!” He copies the hip bump that Nat had done to him earlier.

~

“He is not backing down. He went to get lotion.” Nat says.

She had gone and opened the door to talk to Wanda and Peter when Loki disappeared into the bathroom.

Wanda and Peter look at each other and Wanda wrings her hands.

Thor walks down the hallway and sees them gathered at the door.

“Oh man, aren’t you guys finished yet?” He whines, crossing his arms.

Wanda rolls her eyes, “Thor, look, just look at it this way: The sooner Natasha breaks Loki, the sooner this is all over and out in the open.”

Thor’s eyes light up, “Oh, I like that,” He looks at Nat and an idea comes to him, “Oh! Show your breasts. He’s afraid of looking at anyone else’s but Y/N’s.” He reaches out and pulls on the zipper in a quick motion, causing Natasha’s boobs to nearly fall out of the dress.

The girls gasp and Peter covers his eyes.

“Wow, you didn’t break it.” Nat says, inspecting the zipper and adjusting her breasts.

“Not my first time.” Thor says, cheekily.

~

“You go back out there,” You say, grabbing a bottle of lotion off the shelf, “And you seduce her ‘til she cracks!”

“Okay, give me a moment.” He takes the bottle from you and looks around the small space, “Did you reorganize in here?”

You shrug and push him out of the bathroom.

He stumbles slightly from the force and sees Nat closing the bedroom door.

“Oh, you’re leaving?”

She turns and looks at him, pushing her chest out, “Uh, not without you, lover.” She walks towards him, making sure to show her chest off as she sways her body, “So… These are my boobs.”

Loki glances down at them before locking his eyes on Nat’s.

“They’re very nice.”

They look at each other, exchanging forced sexual glances.

“Well, come here.” He tells her, “I’m very happy we will be having sex.”

Natasha chuckles nervously, “You should be. I’m very bendy.” She steps closer, “I’m gonna kiss you now.”

“Not if I kiss you first.”

She takes a last step forward and grabs one of his hips. He touches one of hers, then switches hands to touch the other. His heart is beating in his throat.

Natasha reaches out and grabs his other hip, jerking him forward. He tries to place a hand on her breast but can’t make himself go through with it, so he settles for her shoulder, and Nat makes a choked sound.

“Well I suppose there’s nothing left for us to do but kiss.”

Nat nods, “Here it comes. Our first kiss.”

Loki quickly glances at the door that you’re hiding behind before looking back to Nat. They’re faces get closer and closer, both desperately hoping that the other will break before their lips connect.

But neither does.

It’s awkward and barely a kiss, but after about two seconds, Loki rips himself away and pushes Nat away from him.

“Alright alright alright. Okay, you win! You win!” He yells, hands up in surrender.

“Hah!”

“I cannot have sex with you.”

“And why not?” Nat pushes.

“Because I’m in love with Y/N.” He admits, running a hand through his hair.

Nat’s heart stops and she can barely string words together, “You’re- You’re what?”

The bathroom door opens and you step out, at the same time the bedroom door swings open to reveal Wanda, Peter, and Thor.

“I love her. That’s right! I love her. I love her!” He repeats himself, pointing to you.

You feel butterflies grow in your belly and warmth blooms in your chest. You don’t care that you just lost this little game. Loki just proclaimed his love for you to a whole group of people. That’s not something he likes; letting others know his feelings.

You walk over to him, sporting a smile so wide that your cheeks hurt. He takes a step towards you and places his hands on your waist, looking into your eyes.

“I love you, Y/N.”

You let out a wet chuckle, “I love you too, Loki.”

He dips down and captures your lips in a searing kiss, pulling your body flush to his.

“I just… I thought you guys were doing it. I didn’t know you were in love!” Nat exclaims.

You turn and smile at your friend, hugging your boyfriend close. Loki chuckles and hugs you back.

“Awh, guys.” Peter says, a large smile on his face as well.

Loki smiles at the boy then looks to Nat, “And hats off to Natasha. Quite the competitor.” He reaches a hand out and the two shake hands, “And may I say your breasts are still out.”

“God.” She mumbles and quickly zips the dress back up.

“All right!” Thor booms, his face filled with joy, “So that’s it! It’s over! Everybody knows!”

“Yeah, well actually, not everybody,” You reply, “And we’d appreciate it if nobody told dad.”

Thor’s face falls and Peter grabs his arm to try and placate him.

***

Tony is watching Peter mess around on the obstacle course.

Peter lands at the end with a backflip and turns to make sure Tony is watching.

The older man holds a thumbs up, “You’re doing great, buddy!”

Movement catches his eye and he looks up to the window of your room. It takes his brain one too many seconds to realize what he’s seeing because he doesn’t want to believe it.

“No… No!” He yells, standing and taking a few steps forward.

Peter turns to look at what Tony is flipping out over and his blood runs cold, “Shit.” He whispers.

“Get off of my daughter!” Tony screams before he takes off towards the entrance to the compound and Peter takes off after him.

Tony runs down the hallway screaming.

“Loki! Loki!” He reaches your room and tries to open it, but it’s locked. He bangs on it several times, “Loki! I saw what you were doing through the window! I saw what you were doing to my daughter, now get out here!”

You and Loki jump up and quickly fix yourselves.

“Well, listen, we had a good run. What was it? Four? Five months? I mean, that’s more than most humans have in a lifetime, so goodbye, take care, goodbye then.” Loki finishes his ramblings with a chaste kiss to your lips before walking to your balcony.

You quickly catch his wrist, “What are you doing?”

“Oh I’m going on the lam.”

You roll your eyes and pull him back towards you, “Come on, Loki, come on. I can handle my dad.”

You drag him with you and open the door to reveal Tony, who is as red as Thor’s cape.

“Hey dad, what’s up?”

He looks at you and then Loki, and storms into the room towards him.

Loki takes several steps back and you run to place yourself between them.

“Dad!” You place your hands on his chest.

“What the hell are you doing!” He yells.

Suddenly almost the entire team is running up to your bedroom door where Peter was already waiting.

“Hey, what’s-what’s going on?” Natasha interjects.

“Well I think… I think… Stark knows about Y/N and I.”

“Brother,” Thor makes a throat cut motion, “He is right there.”

Loki rolls his eyes.

“You are an semi-immortal god that wiped out half of Manhattan and causes trouble everywhere he goes, and this is my daughter. Loki and my daughter, I-I cannot believe this!”

“Look Stark, we are not just fooling around. I love her. Alright? I’m in love with her.”

Tony takes a few breaths and moves his gaze to you.

You step forward and grab his hand, “I’m sorry that you had to find out this way… I’m sorry but it’s true, I love him too.” You reach your other arm back to pull Loki into your side.

He looks at you with unsure eyes, then looks up at Loki and back to you. Then out of nowhere, his demeanor completely changes.

“Loki and my daughter! I cannot believe this!” He says with a more happy tone, bringing them both into a hug, surprise etching Loki’s face. He pulls away and looks at everyone in the doorway, “You guys probably wanna get some hugs in too, huh? Big news!” He says the last part with jazz hands.

Everyone on the team who wasn’t aware files in for hugs and congrats, but the other four stay in the doorway.

Peter smiles, “Awh, no we’re okay, we’ve actually known for a while.”

The smile on Tony’s face vanishes.

“What? What? You guys knew?” He stalks closer and Peter jumps behind Natasha, “You all knew and you didn’t tell me?” His voice became raised again.

“W-Well, Tony, we were worried about you, okay? We didn’t know how you were gonna react.” Wanda explains.

Tony looks between the four of them before the weary smile appears again.

“You were worried about me?” He chuckles, “You didn’t know how I was gonna react?” He pulls all of them into a tight hug.

When he lets them go Thor speaks up, “Okay. What do you say we all, uh, clear out of here and let these two lovebirds get back down to business.”

Tony’s smile vanishes yet again and he turns to glare at the god.

“Hey, hey, hey. I’m just talking here. He is the one sleeping with your daughter.” He points to Loki.

Peter facepalms and Nat drags Thor away, Peter following suit. Peter collects Tony and nods to you and Loki. Everyone files back out of the room and the door closes once more.

After everyone left, there were a few seconds of silence before the two of you burst into hysterical fits of laughter.

***

Permanent Taglist: @a-place-to-blog-marvel-stuff @yes-iamironman-blog @paradoxicalblueberry @the-regal-warrior @transparentparadiseglitterzombie @marvelgem @propertyofmarvel @avngrsinitiative @my-leg-is-not-a-chew-toy @lyricalstella @just-the-daydreamer @hufflely-puffly

[carriagelamp]

Art of Aardman

I found myself a cheap copy of the Shaun the Sheep movie, so I was rewatching a bunch of Aardman films earlier this month and decided to hunt down some books too. For anyone that doesn’t know, Aardman is a British stop-motion studio that does fantastic work like Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Chicken Run, Early Man… tons of cool stuff. They’re always quirky and funny and warm-hearted. This was just a very nice art book for anyone that’s a fan of Aardman stop motion and wants to see a bit extra; it shows some cool concept art and blows up the neat details in Aardman work, especially in their intricate stuff like The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists!

Asterix and the Picts (Asterix and the Chariot Race, and How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion)

I decided to try a couple of the new Asterix comics that were done by the new team, just to see if they stand up to the old ones (that and How Obelix Fell Into The Magic Potion cause I’d never read that one before). They were pretty decent! Asterix and the Picts was my favourite of the two though I wouldn’t say either are going to contest for my favourite Asterix comic... but still! The art looks good and the stories felt like what I would expect, they made for a pleasant couple evenings of reading especially since it’s been so long since I’ve read a new Asterix comic. If you’ve never read Asterix it’s one of the biggest name French comic series in North America, as far as I know and very worth the read. It’s about a single Gaulish village that’s holding out against the invading Romans through sheer force of will, slapstick hijinks, and a magical super-strength potion brewed by their druid. Lots of fantastic visuals and cute wordplay, even in the English translations.

Bear

I found out about this bastion of Canadian literature via tumblr post that was losing its collective mind over the fact that some bizarre bear-based erotica novella somehow won the most prestigious literary prize available in Canada. Since I too found this hilarious and unspeakably bizarre I had to give it a read, obviously. And yes, the flat surface level summary is... a librarian moves out into rural Ontario and falls in love with a literal for-real not-supernatural-not-a-joke bear. And I have to say… it is actually worthy of an award, which I was not expecting given that I was there for a laugh. It has beautiful writing, and the subtextual story is pretty interesting… it kind of makes me think of The Haunting of Hill House actually in terms of themes. (Womanhood, personhood, independence, autonomy partially achieved through escaping the male gaze by claiming non-human lovers... listen if I were still in university I would right a paper comparing the two novels).

I dunno man, it’s fucking weird. Actually a well-written book, but sure is about a woman falling in love with a literal bear. Give it a read if you want something bonkers but like… high-brow bonkers.

Hunger Pangs: True Love Bites

Best book I have read in like… a while. A long while. I am not a fast reader, and I consumed 90% of this book over a weekend. It’s not at all like Terry Pratchett, but at the same time it scratched an itch for me that I haven’t had satisfied since Pratchett’s death. A very clever, hilariously funny poly romance between a disabled werewolf, an anxious vampire lord, and an incredibly powerful woman, with heaps of social satire, political commentary, and sinister undertones. The whole thing reads a bit like fanfiction and I say that in the most flattering way possible -- it is so easy to jump right in and be immediately taken over by the characters and the world and the plot, you never feel like you’re fighting to engage even though the world-building is fascinating and expansive. It welcomes you in right away, it was the book equivalent of a quilt and a hug which is something I sorely needed with all this pandemic bullshit. If you read any of the books on this list, go read that one while I sit here in pain waiting for the sequel.

Kid Paddle

I watched the cartoon of Kid Paddle as a kid and was thinking about it recently, so I decided to hunt down some of the original comics online. They’re fun and weird, with a cute art style and fantastic monsters designs. (My favourites are always about Kid either daydreaming or playing games that involve Midam’s weird warty troll creatures. It’s like a cross between Calvin and Hobbes and Foxtrot with the fun sort of quirks that I love in Belgian comics. Unfortunately, unlike Asterix, I’ve only come across these ones in French, but if you can read French it’s totally worth popping over to The Internet Archive and reading the ones they have available.

The Last Firehawk: The Golden Temple

The lastest Firehawk book. Despite being written for quite young readers, I did enjoy the early books in this series quite a bit. They’re about a young owl and squirrel who found an egg for a magical species that was believed to be extinct. With the newly hatched firehawk, the three of them head off on a mission to find an ancient firehawk magic that could save the entire forest. Very basic adventure story but a good intro to the tropes for children. Unfortunately the quality really feels like it drops with each subsequent book; this will probably be the last one I bother reading.

Lumberjanes: The Moon Is Up

I honestly think I enjoy these Lumberjanes novels even more than the comics just because it really gives time to delve into each story and examine how the camper are really thinking and feeling about everything. (Also I’m always weak for novelizations of anything.) The Moon Is Up is a book that focuses more on Jo, and takes place during the camp’s much anticipated Galaxy Wars, a competition between cabins that goes over several days. While the campers prepare for these challenges though, they also run into a strange little creature with a penchant for cheese and theft. Roanoke cabin needs to keep ahead in Galaxy Wars and somehow deal with the fearsome Moon Pirates that a closing in...

Lumberjanes v4 (Out Of Time)

One of the Lumberjanes comics, a cool, girl-focused, queer comic series. Honestly, this is just a fun series that I never got as into as I should have. My advice is honestly to skip book one because it gets better as it continues, and I’ve really been enjoying the later books now that I’ve given it another go. It follows five campers at Miss Qiunzella Thiskwin Penniquiqul Thistle Crumpet’s Camp for Hardcore Lady Types (Jo, April, Molly, Mal, and Ripley) as they handle all sorts of challenges, from friendship to crushes, camp activities to supernatural horrors, getting badges to not being brutally killed. Great if you liked the vibe of Gravity Falls but want it to be queer-er.

Mooncakes

Another queer graphic novel, but unfortunately not a very good one. It really looked appealing and I had high hopes, but the book itself really didn’t hold up… I actually couldn’t even finish it, the plot was just too… non-existent. The art is fairly mediocre once you actually look at it, especially backgrounds, and it feels very… placid. Not much conflict or excitement or even a very compelling reason to keep reading. If you just want a soft queer supernatural you may get more mileage out of it than me, but it didn’t really do it for me. There’s better queer graphic novels out there.

New Boy In Town

One of the worst books I have ever read. My girlfriend had ordered a very different book online but through a frankly stupendous error was sent this 1980s pulp romance instead. Absolutely nauseating on levels I couldn’t even begin to enumerate here. Naturally we read the whole thing out loud. Probably took us 10 times longer to finish than it warranted because I had to stop every two sentences to lose my mind. If you like bad decisions, baffling hetero courting rituals, built-in cultural Christianity without actually calling it that, and gold panning then boy howdy is this the book for you.

(seriously, you better have patience for gold-panning if you attempt this one, because I sure learn that I don’t)

Piggies

This was a picture book I enjoyed as a kid and had a reason to reread recently. Honestly it’s just very cute and simple, and the art is completely mesmerizing. Wonderful if you know a young child that would enjoy a simple goofy boardbook.

Shaun the Sheep: Tales From Mossy Bottom

Related to my Aardman fascination earlier this month. I tried reading a varieties of Shaun the Sheep books — most of which are mediocre at best — but the Tales From Mossy Bottom Farm series is genuinely good. Just chapter books, of course, but the illustrations match the series’ concept art and each story feels like it could have jumped directly out of an episode. They’re just cute and feel-good! Kinda like Footrot Flats but more for kids, and from the sheep’s perspective moreso than the dog’s.

[omegasamwilson]

I literally had a panic attack when I watched Ayo take off Bucky's arm. I was born without my left arm and see a lot of myself in Bucky. I have a prosthetic and had to stop the episode and watch it later. And it really hurt me to see your completely disregard that and say I have no right to be upset. It really pisses me off. I'm fully acknowledging that Bucky did a terrible thing, and he needed to be stopped. But she didn't have to remove his arm. He wouldn't have hurt her. To see you refer to his arm in the tags as a weapon further hurt me. It's not a fucking weapon, it's his fucking arm. You're trying to twist this into a race issue when it's about fucking ableism. I'm brown not black so I don't know if you'll accept my concerns with your post

Hi, one, I apologize for what is sure to be a very long and very frustrated statement. But I’m dealing with a lot of shit rn (actually related to race and ableism specifically) but I wanted to respond because my ADHD ass will forget otherwise.

Okay. One, you say “he wouldn’t have hurt her.”

We, the audience, knows that. Ayo did not. What she knows is that the man before her was an assassin and sniper, even before he was captured and forced to kill by HYDRA. He was a WWII sniper and seemed to be quite skilled (I’m going to assume that’s one of the reasons HYDRA tried to experiment on him and picked him to he the winter soldier.) In any case, this newly reformed (and at the time, just barely reformed. As in, he was healed a month, maybe two months before the events of infinity war. So he’s been healed for a whopping seven months.) This newly reformed assassin, who had been the victim of either chemical or otherwise mental subjugation freed a terrorist from prison.

Not only did he free a terrorist from prison, he freed a terrorist that was obsessed with HYDRA. If any terrorist knew a back door to unlock the winter soldier again, it would be Baron Zemo, who knew each and every one of HYDRA’s secrets.

While Shuri is definitely brilliant, it’s entirely possible that HYDRA buried a safety within their “asset” just in case he was able to break his programming. It’s entirely possible that it was so well buried amongst the labyrinth that is the brain that even Shuri couldn’t find it. After all, Shuri isn’t a neuroscientist, and the brain is largely regarded as the final frontier. So it’s entirely possible that she missed buried programming.

So, we have a person that got rid of HYDRA’s programming seven months ago that just freed one of the only people on the planet that could have the information that could potentially reactivate the winter soldier. And THEN, we have a video of this man “acting” as the winter soldier in madripoor. This was uploaded on the internet and I’m assuming that Ayo saw it.

What proof does Ayo have that he won’t hurt her? That she won’t weaponize his arm and hurt her? What proof does she have that he’s not under Zemo’s control, that Zemo can’t control him in a second. The only thing she knows are that Bucky Barnes freed a terrorist that had access to all of HYDRA’s information, the terrorist appeared to control the winter soldier in madripoor, and it is entirely possible that there is buried programming designed to deactivate the winter soldier.

She deactivates it, realizes he’s fully in control of himself and says, “bast damn you, James.” As in, “fuck you for freeing a terrorist and acting like it isn’t a big deal. You are clearly acting on your own accord in this.”

And yes, it’s different being Black vs. being Brown. It isn’t to say that racism and ableism don’t intersect with Brown folks because obviously it does.

But l specifically asked for Black opinions bc of the demonization of Black folks, especially the trope of “big scary Black women” or “big scary Black men.”

It’s ironic I see this today when I have a story that is so relevant and anger inducing.

I work with white parents of Black children, usually through adoption since I work primarily with lgbt parents, but I do have some cis het white parents raising Black biological kids. One of the parents and friends got into it today because her autistic Black child got into it with their sibling (also disabled). The sibling intentionally triggered their older sibling and punched them and it escalated to the point where the bigger sibling finally reacted and shoved the younger sibling. It broke the younger kid’s glasses. The youngest is legally blind and needs very expensive and specific prescription classes to even have 20/40 vision.

The mom called the police on her child and the kid was arrested and charged. She is 15. Mom described the kid as aggressive and awful and terrible and all sorts of names. A ww called the police on her Black 15 year old child having a meltdown. And she played into stereotypes that Black people, Black women, are aggressive/scary/angry. A ww could’ve gotten her child killed for having a meltdown because she broke a white child’s disability aid.)

A ww couldve gotten her child killed because she played into anti-Black stereotypes. That white people need protection from them. Even when the white child was initially the aggressor in the scenario.

Sure, it’s different, but it plays to the same stereotypes. Poor white disabled person needs protection from the aggressive scary Black person, and we’re just going to assume that the Black person was being unnecessarily aggressive because it plays into all of the stereotypes about Black people. No, there’s no way that this Black person was making a decision based on a series of evidence that could point to them genuinely being harmed.

(By the way, in the scenario of the two kids, I think they both needed help and support, and that the police shouldn’t have been called period.)

Nope, it’s just an aggressive Black person being ableist.

The same systems that have everyone seeing Bucky as a cute little uwu cinnamon roll in need of protection are what caused everyone to see Ayo as an aggressive ableist Black woman. White people usually get the benefit of the doubt. The best intentions are believed even when the evidence clearly says otherwise.

The evidence Ayo had indicated that she had no idea whether the winter soldier could’ve been reactivated and whether or not Bucky could’ve been under zemo’s control. She had no idea. None. She made a decision based off that information. And the fact that Bucky didn’t react strongly indicated that he was acting on his own accord.

Mayhaps, Ayo might even have been trying to trigger the winter soldier. I just thought of this but it makes sense. That the WS would react very defensively and even potentially deadly to that level of fighting, even if his previous orders were different.

In any case, this situation isn’t comparable to every day disabled people because our disability aids to not double as weapons. Most people can’t do more harm with a prosthetic limb than they can with a regular limb. Bucky can. Bucky’s arm is also a weapon and that fact complicates matters considerably. If bucky’s arm were simply a regular arm with typical strength, it’d be a no brainer situation. But it’s not. We don’t know the wakanda enhancements of his arms, but we know in the comics, he could kill with a single punch using his arm. He uses his arm tactically to map his surroundings. He uses his arm to send off EMPs that can disabled weaponry. It even has a retractable blade for close combat. It is a disability aid that it also a weapon. It was designed to be a weapon. The normal conversations around disability aids don’t fit it because no one today has a disability aid that could kill someone in seconds and even cause larger scale damage with a targeted EMP.

And finally, I want to say this, I am truly sorry that you had a panic attack while watching the episode. That is never fair and it’s never fun to be triggered by television shows.

I do hope this helped to better explain and clarify my perspective.

[inkandpen22]

Permanent Chaos (1/?)

Pairing: MGK x Female!Reader

Warnings: Swearing 

Word Count: 2.8k

Part Summary: Y/N is a newly famous actress from a popular TV show and she’s willing to do everything in her power to maintain her perfect image as “America’s Sweetheart.” 

Masterlist

The limelight is a hard place to be under. It’s draining to constantly be on display. Day in and day out I feel as though I’m always looking into a mirror. However, a mirror is replaced by people’s eyes. I see myself through other’s eyes. Being sat on a slippery plastic stool while being watched by millions of Americans before they head off to work is an excellent way to start my day. Perhaps if I keep telling myself that I’ll eventually believe it. Savannah glances down at her cards then continues with the interview.

“Let’s go back to a year ago, if someone approached you and said “you’ll be the most sought after girl in America,” would you had believed them?”

I shake my head “not all.”

If only she knew how absent I am in the current moment. I’ve answered similar questions a million times these past few months. All the exact same questions within the same routine.

“Now, being as famous as you are, how do you cope with your newfound fame?”

There it is, famous. A better-sounding word than popular. After all, adult life is nothing like high school… right?

“I don’t particularly like the word “famous.” When people say “you’re famous!” What they really mean is “a lot of people know you!” At least people think they do.”

She studies me, intrigued by my honest answer, perhaps too honest. “You’re saying America doesn’t know the “real” you? Including your fans?”

I shrug, I can only imagine Nicole’s face right now. My usual bubbly and charmingly excited personality didn’t wake up with me at three this morning.

“I believe they know whatever version of me they’ve created. For some, I’m that girl from the cover of that one magazine they saw in line at the grocery store. For others, I may just a name without a face. That’s the thing about being so-called “famous.” I’ll never have the chance to meet every single person who has ever read an article about me or has seen paparazzi videos. They’ll only see those tainted versions of me. They’ll never have the opportunity to know me personally and make a valid judgment for themselves.”

Savannah hums, her eyebrows scrunched up. “How do you feel about that?”

I sigh, the words settling within me. “It’s disappointing.”

If only they all knew the truth, the reality of it all.

______________________________________________________

After the interview for the show, I fly straight back to Los Angeles from New York. My schedule has been worse, but I never miss the chance to complain to my manager. Thankfully, Nicole is a mother of tween girls and a ten-year-old boy so she knows how to take my childish whining. Once we’re landed in LAX I countdown the minutes until I can return to my bed.

“I don’t understand why you insist on wearing heels on the plane,” Nicole nags me.

“Because you never know who you’re gonna meet! Best to dress nicely just in case!”

It’s been a rule of mine since I first discovered my style and began to wear makeup, never go out in public without looking and feeling confident. I’ve learned that people can sense when others don’t feel confident and take advantage of that.

“I doubt your Mom would like it,” she nags.

“Well she’s not in California is she?” I fire back but snicker slightly.

My momma’s absence was bitter-sweet, in the beginning, now it’s all sweet. When we have our luggage, Nicole leads me through the airport to where the car is picking us up.

“You may want to put on your sunglasses now. We’re about to cross the line,” she warns.

I grab my glasses out of my purse like she instructed and slide them on. She was right, as soon as we cross over that taped line it’s a free-for-all for the paparazzi.

“Y/N!” “Y/N!”

“HEY! SHOW US A SMILE!”

The yelling doesn’t bother me as it used to in the past. Now, it’s the clicking. The clicking from their cameras. A constant *click* *click* *click*, from each of the thirty cameras. Nicole attempts to create a path for me by walking ahead.

“HOW WAS YOUR TRIP TO NEW YORK?”

“Good, thank you” I reply politely with a smile toward the tile floor.

I try to manage a balance when it comes to paparazzi. They have their job and so do I. Following me, taking pictures or videotaping me is their job. As long as they respect me, I will respect them. Nicole says it’s good for my image. My image wasn’t the first reason I was nice toward them, I was being myself. Nowadays, I’m hardly myself. I have my name, Y/N Voss, but it no longer feels like my name. The paparazzi are not used to getting easy responses out of people because there’s a long pause before the next question.

“WHEN DOES FILMING START BACK UP FOR THE SHOW?”

The question comes from a different voice but that doesn’t keep me from answering.

“In two days!” I gleam, looking forward to returning to set.

“CAN YOU GIVE ANY INFO ABOUT THE NEW SEASON?”

I chuckle a little but think it over. I agreed in my contract not to give out spoilers but there is a little info I was told I can let out. Plus, I’ve only seen the script for the first episode so I don’t know too much.

“I can say that Hollyn will have a bump start this season but no worries,” I answer vaguely but with interest.

Nicole and I manage to reach outside and she guides me down the sidewalk to where the car is supposed to pick us up.

“RUMOR HAS IT YOU’RE DATING SOMEONE! CARE TO COMMENT?”

“I’m very much single,” I laugh, finding the topic humorous. “Not enough hours in the day to share them!”

There are always rumors that I’m dating someone though none of it’s true.

“YOU LOOK GREAT TODAY Y/N!”

“YOU ALWAYS DO!”

“Thanks, boys!” I give my appreciation. 

The driver gets out of the front and pops the trunk. Nicole informs me to get in the car and let her worry about our things along with the driver.

“WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE SUMMER?”

I open my door but pause to answer the last question. “Work, of course, but I also want to have some fun.”

“HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!”

“SEE YA LATER Y/N!”

They all hurry to get some last shots and I grant them a couple of seconds.

“You too! See you guys later!” I wave goodbye then climb into the car.

Nicole gets in a minute later and gives the driver the address. “You did great back there,” she compliments.

“Eh, it was nothing. I was only answering their questions.” I remove my glasses and get settled in as best as I can for the hour drive home.

She pulls out her binder full of scheduling material for me.

“Yes, but you were willing and kind. The public and media appreciate that! You’re becoming America’s Sweetheart!”

I would never admit it to Nicole but that title she keeps pushing makes me anxious every time I hear it. None of this was planned, it was thrown at me. Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m grateful for what I have but geez! When everyone is telling you a whole country adores you, how are you supposed to handle that? Especially at eighteen. It was no more than a year ago I was back in South Carolina and just another girl in high school. Now, I’m supposed to be “America’s Sweetheart.” I’ll play the part but it doesn’t make the job any less intimidating.

__________________________________________________________

My best friends/co-stars, Sam and Penelope, meet up with me for dinner to celebrate my first night back in town after the press tour. The three of us have been dividing our time around the country working on various projects between filming the show. Any time we can all get together is a gift.

Ever since I’ve known Sam Merka, girls flung themselves at him. Even I’ll say it, he’s a good-looking guy. If Grant Gustin had a younger brother, it would be Sam. I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, we’re just friends. A sibling sort of bond. Since he’s eight years older than me, he likes a big brother.

Though Penelope is older too, one can’t tell since I tend to act more mature. I’m jealous of her sun-kissed long blonde hair and dark brown eyebrows. We all kinda got thrown into our friendship. Having to play life-long friends an hour after meeting for the first time was, to say the least interesting. Five years later, and we are like three peas in a pond. A mini family to have each other’s back in the big city.

For dinner, we agreed on The Nice Guy, an Italian place in West Hollywood. The most important aspect of the place is the amount of privacy it grants. The interior is a lounge, super lowkey, with booths, couches, and coffee tables but there are no photos allowed. Since no photos can be taken that means the three of us and others can enjoy ourselves in peace. Sam called dibs on being designated driver as per usual as the “bodyguard” for us girls. The paparazzi tend to hang out around the restaurant because it’s a well-known spot for celebrities.

“Maybe we can slip past them,” Sam says optimistically as we exit the car.

He meets me around the front and Penelope joins us after getting out of the backseat.

“HEY! HEY! HEY!”

From in front of the restaurant, a ripple of cameras begin to take notice of us.

“IT’S THE KIDS FROM THE SEASONS OF LIFE!”

“Yep, we really snuck past them!” I tease Sam playfully.

He huffs, annoyed with the situation. Sam loves his job but hates the lack of privacy aspect. He isn’t a fan of crowds either which I can understand. However, he’s great at masking it behind his charming smile. It’s what we were trained to do. Yet, Sam is better at managing a crowd mentally overall than I am. He understands how they affect me sometimes. The swarm of photographers rushes up to us. Sam leads the way toward the restaurant door. Penelope remains close, keeping a hand on my forearm to stay together. The cluster follows us down the sidewalk to the building.

“SAM! SAM! HEARD ABOUT THE GQ PHOTOSHOOT! CONGRATS ON GETTING THE COVER MAN!”

Sam chuckles next to me, “thanks, dude!”

“PENELOPE! RUMOR HAS IT YOU’LL BE SWITCHING OVER TO THE BIG SCREEN!”

“Exactly, it’s a rumor!” She replies a matter-of-factly.

The *click* *click* *click* and the flashing lights in the dead of night never fail to overwhelm me. Though, Nicole has told me I never appear overwhelmed when I interact with them. I force on the brave and confident face. I’m not me when I’m in front of cameras or important people, I’m Y/N Voss. I’m two very different people.

While I’m lost in thought, I get stuck when one photographer gets too close to my face with his camera and blinds me for a second. Sam and Penelope don’t notice my absence amongst the chaos until another photographer barks at the other to back off. Then, I feel Sam’s hand slip into mine and he protectively escorts me toward the door with determination.

“ANYTHING YOU TWO WANT TO SHARE ABOUT HOLLYN AND ELLIOT FOR NEXT SEASON?”

Hollyn and Elliot are Sam and my’s characters from The Seasons of Life, the show we star in together. Our characters have been on again off again for the past two seasons. According to the last season’s finale, the two are currently together, but of course, the season ended on a cliffhanger so their relationship isn’t very stable.

“Sorry guys, can’t share anything!” Sam answers, sounding a tad irritable.

“ANYTHING IN REAL LIFE? YOU TWO WERE BOTH IN NEW YORK THIS WEEKEND!”

“That’s true, but we never have the chance to meet up!” I reply nicely.

Press events for last season have come to an end and work officially begins in no time! Downtime for me is filming and it couldn’t come at a better time. I’ve missed being home in Los Angeles. Living out of a suitcase and sleeping each night on a plane isn’t the best way to live, at least for me. We finally reach the doors and I thank the heavens.

“Oh my gosh! There’s no way!” I hear what sounds like girls squealing and I slow down to see where it’s coming from. My hand slips from Sam’s as he goes on. When he’s determined to get away from the paparazzi, he can ignore the voices. Yet, when he notices that I do not follow he finally stops.

“Excuse me!” A girl calls amongst the clicking and shouting.

The paparazzi move aside a tad and create a path for me to see two young teens jumping up and down. They must be around fourteen I’m guessing, younger than me at least. I approach them to see what’s the matter. I can hardly see anything with all the bright lights.

“Hi! How are you?” I greet but once I get closer and cover my eyes with the flashing lights, I recognize them. “Sarah! Emma! How are you two?”

These two have been some of my biggest supports. They run a Youtube channel and create content about their reactions to episodes of the series. Somehow they manage to make appearances at any events relating to the show. I’ve met them numerous times at events, so have other members of the cast. Besides being two of the sweets girls in the world, they’ve created a fan page for me on Instagram and Twitter.

“Good, good!” Emma replies eagerly.

“It’s been so long since we last saw you!” Sarah adds.

“It really has! When was the last time we saw each other? During the press tour?”

They nod in unison as though they’ve rehearsed it.

“Well, group hug!” I hold out my arms and they gladly accept.

“Can we get a picture?” Emma practically begs, bouncing on her heels.

“Of course!” I take Emma’s phone and hold it out to the crowd of paparazzi. “Could one of you take our picture by chance?”

Many of the guys offer and I select a random one in front of me.

“Squeeze in tight!” I tell the girls as I stand between them and we wrap our arms around each other.

“One, two, three!” The man takes a couple of shots and hands, Emma, back her phone.

“Thank you!” The three of us say together.

We all hover over her phone to check out the pictures.

“So cute!” I awe at the photos.

“Y/N...” Sam places his hand on my back to usher me along.

“Oh, my-” Emma covers her mouth.

“Sam!” Sarah’s jaw is to the sidewalk.

“Hey girls!” he charmingly smiles.

He’s had the chance to meet them a few times while on the press tour and at other various events. I was there to introduce them which was one of the most entertaining moments of my life. I thought the girls were going to faint!

“Can we ask a quick question? It’s for our channel!” Sarah nervously bites her lower lip.

“Yeah, yeah, anything for you guys!” I answer without hesitation.

Sam wraps his arm around my waist while we’re talking to the girls and I don’t think much of it but the cameras begin to go nuts. The men behind them don’t say a word since we’re occupied but there they go *click* *click* click*.

“Is there any hope of you two getting together IRL?” Emma questions intently without hesitation.

I press my lips together with amusement and turn my head to Sam. He has the same look of pondering the question. He squints his eyes at me and then the two of us turn to the girls.

“Just friends,” we answer in unison.

“Best friends!” Sam adds playfully.

“Best friends forever ever!” I one-up him.

The two girls laugh with us, but it’s clear they’re a little disappointed.

“Well, I still bet on you two,” Sarah confidently points out.

Sam and I get a kick out of it. Our viewers want us together too.

“We better get going, our moms are waiting,” Emma informs us.

“Okay, quick hug!” I order and the four of us group hug.

We say our goodbyes and when the girls disappear the men behind the cameras start yelling.

“YOU’RE GREAT Y/N!”

“HOW DID YOU KNOW THEM?”

“Their names are Emma and Sarah. They run a popular Youtube channel, Twitter, and Instagram accounts for the show. Super sweet girls those two!”

“DO YOU KNOW ALL YOUR FANS?”

“I try to! I know a good amount!” I grin proudly.

Sam guides me into the restaurant and his hand never leaves my back. All of it is platonic of course, nothing more. As I told the paparazzi before, there isn’t enough time in my life for me to share any with someone.

 ________________________________________

Masterlist

Tags:  @canyoubuymetoast

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

Hold On Tight, Learn To Behave (Ao3)

[Wenzhou one-shot set post-canon, after episode 36 but before the bonus - NSFW and a quick warning as well for some blood/rough sex]

@evilteddybear requested: I’d love WKX and ZZS to have a conversation on all they’ve hidden from one another by the end of the series. WKX lied about his death, then ZZS, then WKX again. Talking isn’t dramatic enough for TV so they never reach true honesty. They love each other but also hurt each other. And I am not sure that WKX ever realizes that hurting himself hurts ZZS too.

and an Anon requested: I would love to see something set post-canon where ZZS's body is like a live-wire where instead of it being hard (lol) to get off, he manages it really really easy bc suddenly everything has come back and it’s A LOT. I just wanna see WKX fuck several orgasms out of ZZS (literally or in other ways) and ZZS being a mess about it bc holy shit he can FEEL again.

(special thanks/shoutout to @omgpurplefattie for suggesting that these two prompts go well together, you gave me the idea to combine them!)

--

“Lao Wen!”

Zhou Zishu sits up sharply, tongue still locked to the roof of his mouth from shouting his lover’s name, and he raises trembling hands to scrub tiredly at his face.

“Ah-Xu?” Wen Kexing’s voice is sleep-ragged at his side and Zhou Zishu does his best to slow his breathing, to try to stop his heart from pounding in his chest. He tries to stop seeing his zhiji dead right in front of his eyes, but if it’s not the sight of him falling off a cliff then it’s that of him lying dead and still in a burning shed, and if it’s not either of those two haunting memories then it’s the most recent, that of opening his eyes to find Wen Kexing fading right in front of him, hand in hand as his qi drained out of him like water through a sieve. A sob manages to escape his throat despite his best efforts and Wen Kexing is on him in an instant.

“Ah-Xu!” he gasps as he sits up and wraps long arms around him, hugging Zhou Zishu close to his chest. “What is it? What happened?”

Zhou Zishu knows even as he does it that it’s petty, but he pushes Wen Kexing away. Not as strongly as he has in the past, perhaps, but he does it, an elbow to his lover’s side that makes him wince and loosen his grip though he still doesn’t let go entirely.

Zhou Zishu’s hands curl into tight fists in the blankets still covering their laps and he tries to forget about Wen Kexing’s hands, ice cold and limp in his grip as Zhou Zishu had scrambled to find some way to pass his qi back. His arms remember the weight of Wen Kexing’s corpse, the way it had felt to gather his lifeless body close to his chest and bury his face in that silver-white hair, the only outward sign of the strain Wen Kexing had forced himself through just to make Zhou Zishu immortal - with no regard for his own life, or for how empty Zhou Zishu would find the world without his zhiji at his side.

And mourning these incidents feels so strange when the man himself is not only alive and perfectly fine at his side, but at fault for each and every one. It’s this thought that sends him staggering from their bed to shove his feet into his shoes.

“Ah-Xu wait, where are you going? It’s the middle of the night,” Wen Kexing points out like he doesn’t already know it. It doesn’t take Zhou Zishu long to find his outer robes to shrug on over the layer he sleeps in and he doesn’t even bother tying them shut before he stalks from the room and out into the rest of the sprawling armory around them.

He hears Wen Kexing curse and tumble out of bed behind him but he doesn’t stop to wait for him, he just starts wandering in an attempt to soothe the itching under his skin. In the aftermath of everything, after Zhou Zishu had found a way to pass their refined qi back and forth, after Wen Kexing had remained unconscious for over a month recovering from nearly fizzling out into nothing, they’ve been too happy about being reunited in the past few days since he woke for Zhou Zishu to find space to comfortably fit the fact that he’s angry as well. It hardly feels fair to say anything now, and he’s been forcing himself not to give a voice to the ugly thing in his chest mainly because he feels that he knows what Wen Kexing will say. That he lived, that they’re here now, that they finally have as long as they want to be together so why spoil it with unhappy things?

And Zhou Zishu is trying, but it’s so hard. He shoves it all away in his waking hours but then it comes back to haunt him in his sleep and he has to watch his zhiji die over and over again, every single fucking night.

Zhou Zishu comes to a stop at random and begins idly running his hand over the books on the closest shelf, searching for something he hasn’t read yet, or even just something he read so casually first as to be able to enjoy it a second time. Anything for a distraction, anything to try to get rid of the sourness of the bile rising in his throat from the remembered panic of opening his eyes, his senses fully restored, only for the first thing he felt properly since the application of the Nails to be his lover’s dead body. Well, nearly-dead, but it had certainly felt close enough to his newly awakened senses.

Wen Kexing finds him as he’s still brushing dust off of the contents of one of the cubbyholes in the shelf.

“Ah-Xu,” he calls, quiet in the gloom of the sparse few lanterns and the moonlight filtered through vents in the mountainside high above their heads, reflected and magnified by a neatly hidden collection of mirrors far above their heads. “There isn’t light enough to read by tonight. What are you doing?”

“Go back to bed.”

“Ah-Xu -”

Zhou Zishu moves without conscious thought when Wen Kexing reaches for him, fingers just catching on his sleeve before Zhou Zishu whips around to grab him and pin him to the shelves, a furious glare in his damp eyes. The blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scuffle isn’t nearly enough to wind either one of them, but they’re both breathing hard anyway into the scant space between them. Perhaps Zhou Zishu shouldn’t be surprised to find that it only takes the span of a single breath for Wen Kexing’s concerned gaze to go steely, rising to meet the fury he must find in Zhou Zishu’s glare.

“Go ahead,” Wen Kexing challenges with a haughty jerk of his chin. “What is it?”

It’s easier like this, with Wen Kexing seemingly angry right back at him. This is not his Lao Wen, this is the Chief of Ghost Valley - fitting, when he feels less like Ah-Xu and more like the leader of the Window of Heaven, full of a cold sense of merciless righteousness that usually ends with blood on his hands.

“I’m tired of dreaming about all the times you ripped my fucking heart out,” Zhou Zishu finally manages to spit and when Wen Kexing bares his teeth at him in a parody of a smile it’s almost a shock to see his teeth gleaming white rather than stained pink with someone else’s blood.

“Is that so? The feeling is mutual.”

“How many times would you have continued to make me watch you die if we hadn’t trapped ourselves in here?”

“You trapped us here with your avalanche trick, and I would have kept doing it as many times as necessary to keep you alive!” Wen Kexing is practically snarling, though he doesn’t fight against Zhou Zishu’s hold keeping him pinned to the shelf.

“You didn’t have to follow me here!”

Wen Kexing does fight back a bit then, just a savage jerk of one arm that frees it from Zhou Zishu’s grip so he can reach up to curl his fingers into a fist in the front of his robes for the purpose of jostling him, as if shaking him will help him understand as he shouts, “After all this anger over my plans to save you, you have the nerve to also be angry that I didn’t stay put when you left me behind to go die anyway?!”

Zhou Zishu is the one to bare his teeth next, but Wen Kexing takes advantage of his moment of trying to formulate a reply to flip their positions so quickly Zhou Zishu nearly becomes dizzy even before his back is slammed against the shelf and Wen Kexing’s forearm presses against his throat.

“After everything we’ve done, everything we had just lost, you left me,” Wen Kexing says next, no longer shouting but the faint glitter of tears in his eyes and clumping his lashes together is somehow more cutting than if he were. “If you die I die, how dare you take my choices away from me!”

“Your choices?!” Zhou Zishu bites back, finding his metaphorical feet again even as he has to go up on his toes a bit to accommodate the way Wen Kexing is pressing him higher with the arm on his throat. “Your choices are why I was dying so quickly in the first place! I was going to be healed, Da Wu was going to fix everything but your plan that included everyone but me forced my hand! Why would I continue living without you after watching you die? How could you not have known I would try to follow you even after Ye-qianbei stopped me from jumping with you?!”

“How could you throw your life away so quickly?!”

“There is no me without you!”

Zhou Zishu’s shout rings off the stone around them. Wen Kexing slowly releases the pressure on his throat as the reverb of it fades into nothing but silence again broken only by their breaths, too fast and out of sync. But they’re both here. They’re both breathing. They’re glaring daggers at each other, but they’re both here.

“A day without you, a week, a year, an eternity? I don’t want any of it,” Zhou Zishu continues eventually, voice low and fervent. “Of course I tried to follow you. What else would you expect me to do?”

“And then at the last, you turned around and abandoned me. Are you really such a hypocrite, Ah-Xu?”

Zhou Zishu doesn’t refute that, though he can’t quite help but grind his teeth and curl his hand still holding one of Wen Kexing’s wrists a little tighter.

He is, abruptly, exhausted. Perhaps it’s the sleepless nights of relieving Wen Kexing’s ‘deaths’ from every angle. Perhaps it’s the stress of having kept all of this tucked close to his chest since the moment Wen Kexing returned during the second heroes’ conference. Perhaps it’s the way the fight leaves Wen Kexing’s eyes as quickly as it had appeared. Perhaps it’s none of these things, or all of them, but whatever the reason, the thought of somehow keeping score for the next however many years they live, of holding onto resentments and bitterness and playing a constant game of who-owes-whom makes him so tired.

Zhou Zishu tips his head back to rest against the shelf at his back, baring his throat (perhaps unwisely, when Wen Kexing is still so angry at him) and closing his eyes against the sight of the filtered moonlight overhead.

“We can’t keep living like this,” he mutters and he feels Wen Kexing’s body go stiff against his where they’re pressed together practically from chest to ankle.

“Like what? Don’t tell me you regret this already, Ah-Xu. It’s not even spring yet, you have to at least wait for the thaw before you can decide to leave me behind again.”

“Lao Wen!” he protests sharply with a jostle of Wen Kexing’s arm in his grip. “Like this, angry with each other for things that we’ve done because we don’t know how to live for each other. This is getting us nowhere.”

Wen Kexing takes a long, slow breath in and Zhou Zishu is about to drop his head again to look at him when he’s abruptly stopped in his tracks by the feeling of teeth on his neck, too sharp and insistent to be comfortable. He gasps and can’t help but jerk a bit in Wen Kexing’s grip, a frisson of heat slinking down his spine and out towards his fingertips as he follows it with a soothing but possessive pass of the flat of his tongue, hot and wet against his skin.

“Lao Wen?” he manages to gasp around the too-intense pressure of Wen Kexing’s teeth around a different section of his throat, more sensitive than the last - so sensitive his knees nearly threaten to buckle, though that may also be because Wen Kexing chooses that moment to dart a clever hand between the drape of his robes to grab him through his trousers. There’s nothing gentle in the gesture, it’s hard and possessive. Painful.

They haven’t been intimate since Wen Kexing had finally regained consciousness. Between adjusting to their new reality, Wen Kexing finally having an opportunity to begin grieving for Gu Xiang, and Zhou Zishu working to build them something of a permanent living space in the armory, and with an as-of-yet undefined eternity stretching on before them, they’d just...settled. Tried to relax and let time pass as it would now that it’s no longer their master.

Zhou Zishu realizes belatedly that he should have anticipated that it would feel different with the return of his senses, but he is somehow still blindsided by the shock of it, crystal clear and overwhelming. He can feel Wen Kexing’s too-quick exhales against his freshly bruised skin, hot and damp in the chill of their new home. His hand is painfully tight between his legs and Zhou Zishu gasps again as his grip tightens even further, bucking his hips back to try to escape Wen Kexing’s groping but there’s nowhere for him to go. He bites down again and Zhou Zishu swears he can feel every single one of his teeth - no longer just the muted sensation of more pointed pressure than his hands could provide, now he can feel his skin protesting the sharp crush of capillaries, red bruises blooming like aching flowers under his lover’s mouth.

“If you want to be angry then be angry,” Wen Kexing growls into the point of his collarbone, and the bite he leaves there has Zhou Zishu’s back arching without his permission though he at least manages to keep a pathetic whimper locked in his throat. “You’re not getting rid of me so easily.”

Under such an onslaught, it doesn’t take long at all for Zhou Zishu to find his temper again. Wen Kexing is harsh and cruel with him, offering no reprieves or mercy as he takes what he wants. Zhou Zishu has absolutely no qualms about giving him the same in return, digging in with his nails until he pierces his skin, and only then does he scratch up his back and leave bloody furrows in his wake. He bites whatever part of Wen Kexing he can get his mouth on, and finally when Wen Kexing is ever-so-slightly distracted with gathering all of Zhou Zishu’s hair into one hand to yank on it, Zhou Zishu manages to get his ankle hooked behind Wen Kexing’s to kick his leg out from under him. Paired with a shove of the hand he has bunched up in the front of Wen Kexing’s robes, it’s a perfect move to unbalance him and send the pair of them tumbling to the hard ground.

Zhou Zishu doesn’t bother feeling guilty for cushioning his own fall with Wen Kexing’s body, he just sets about continuing what they’d started with a sort of hunger that startles even him, but that Wen Kexing seems to take in stride. He had started this, after all, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that he’s prepared to see it through to the end no matter how rough it should get.

It’s a messy thing, quick and aggressive with absolutely none of the finesse they’ve managed to find together in all the times they’ve done this before. By the time they’ve finished, Wen Kexing’s bared torso is a mess of blood and come - from both of them. Zhou Zishu brushes the back of his hand against the swollen curve of his bottom lip without any regard for the flare of aching, burning pain he finds there where Wen Kexing has bitten him bloody.

“You got hard,” Wen Kexing finally mumbles through bright red lips. Zhou Zishu can see that his teeth are pink as he speaks and he wonders if it should worry him that that feels right. What he had actually said filters through the haze a moment after and he huffs a humorless laugh as he shakes his head a bit and leans back on his heels where he’s straddling Wen Kexing. The motion grinds his ass down against his softening cock and Wen Kexing hisses a little, shuffles his feet like he’s going to try to get away though he settles again after a moment, allowing the overstimulating pressure.

“Philanthropist Wen so kindly traded his life so that I could have all my senses restored,” Zhou Zishu retorts as he crosses his arms over his chest and grinds himself down more purposefully into Wen Kexing’s lap until the man’s back arches and his hands fly down to grip his hips tight enough to bruise there too.

“A fair trade,” Wen Kexing mumbles, still staring at him in bleary wonder. Well, not at him. At his cock, which hasn’t even managed to go entirely soft. How can it, when he can finally feel Wen Kexing’s hands on him properly? When every place their bodies are touching feels like the spark of a struck match?

“And if I hadn’t found a way to pass the qi back to you such a ‘gift’ would be absolutely wasted on me living here alone!”

“You’re still angry after that?”

Zhou Zishu doesn’t even deign to respond to that with words, rather he just grinds his hips again and Wen Kexing chokes on some sort of wounded noise that ends with a whimper. His teeth are no longer bloody though he certainly looks worse for wear, his lips still red even where Zhou Zishu hadn’t split his bottom lip straight down the middle with a particularly vicious bite. There are bruises already blooming dark and possessive all over his chest and shoulders, the imprints of Zhou Zishu’s teeth stark on the pale canvas of his skin. His silver hair is a tangled mess underneath him, his robes equally dishevelled where they had been shoved aside to give Zhou Zishu room to work. As he watches, Wen Kexing releases his hip to drag one elegant hand up his own stomach, his long fingers smearing through the mix of blood and spend to swirl them together before he continues his dragging touch. He smears the mix up his own chest and then pops his fingers in his mouth as he looks up again to meet Zhou Zishu’s gaze.

“In that case, you can have me like that again, if you’d like,” Wen Kexing mumbles as he withdraws his fingers, seemingly uncaring of the mess he’s making of himself as he reaches down to scoop more of their come onto his fingers. Zhou Zishu reaches out to stop him with a hand tight around his wrist.

“Hurting you isn’t going to make me less angry about what you did.”

“Nor I, but it’s nice to get the energy out anyway.”

Zhou Zishu licks at a trickle of blood he can feel beginning to weep from his own split lip and Wen Kexing tracks the movement as if mesmerized by the briefest glimpse of his tongue. Zhou Zishu releases his wrist then and he expects Wen Kexing to return to his task of licking his fingers clean, but instead he drops his hand down again, this time to press his whole palm to the mess on his abs. Before Zhou Zishu can wonder what his fascination with it is, Wen Kexing is wrapping his slicked hand around his cock - and he goes properly hard again so quickly his head spins.

“Oh,” Wen Kexing says softly, eyes wide, as he strokes him just once and Zhou Zishu can’t help but shudder with a punched out little noise that he’s too late to stop. He squeezes his eyes shut and leans forward until he can rest his weight on one hand pressed to the floor next to Wen Kexing’s shoulder, his lips parted as he suddenly struggles to catch his breath. “Oh Ah-Xu, our first time when you can feel me properly shouldn’t have hurt you so much.”

“It’s only fitting that it should be too much,” Zhou Zishu manages to grind out. He opens his eyes to find Wen Kexing looking anxiously back and forth between them, his eyebrows drawn up in open concern, so different from the furious hunger of just a few minutes ago. “Too much - and not enough. Try again.”

“Mn?”

“Hurt me again.”

“Ah-Xu -”

Zhou Zishu catches Wen Kexing’s chin in his free hand, harsh and unforgiving. “Again, Lao Wen. You think I’ve been waiting for you to wake up all this time just for you to be afraid to touch me? Make me forget what it was like to feel you dead in my arms.”

That seems to do the trick. Wen Kexing’s eyes flash and Zhou Zishu isn’t even startled to find their positions reversed; the only concession for the stone floor that Wen Kexing gives him is a hand behind his head to keep him from hitting it too hard as he’s thrown down on his back - other than that he’s just as harsh as he was before. They’re already ragged and bloodied, it doesn’t take nearly as much effort the second time for Zhou Zishu to lose himself in the ache of Wen Kexing pressing on his new bruises, biting even fresher ones next to them.

He gasps and exhales a moan that echoes off the stone around them as Wen Kexing bites his neck hard enough to draw blood there too at the same moment he slides two spit- and come-slick fingers inside his body with absolutely no mercy. It hurts, but his Lao Wen and so he doesn’t complain. He’ll never complain as long as it’s Wen Kexing who’s the one bearing down on him, pressing into him, working him as expertly as ever even though so much internal attention isn’t necessary now that he can finally get hard again. It doesn’t seem to matter what he needs or doesn't - his entire being belongs to the man on top of him and he knows that Wen Kexing enjoys reminding him of that.

The only reason the second round lasts anywhere close to the same length of time as the first is because this time Wen Kexing forces him to wait every time he trembles close to the edge of orgasm, until by the time he finally allows it Zhou Zishu is so overstimulated it hurts as much as it pleasures.

“Enough,” Wen Kexing pants when he’s finished and they’re now both sporting the same messes on their chests. “Enough Ah-Xu, no more angry sex tonight. Alright?”

“Fine,” Zhou Zishu pants as he stares unseeingly up at the ceiling. “Tomorrow, then.”

“No.” Zhou Zishu closes his eyes as Wen Kexing starts stroking his cheek with his hand that’s still relatively clean, but he frowns when he feels the now-familiar sensation of shared qi flood through his meridians.

“What are you doing?”

“We’ll heal faster if we share it.”

Zhou Zishu darts his hand up to grab Wen Kexing’s wrist to force his hand away from his face and he opens his eyes with an effort to meet Wen Kexing’s confused gaze.

“Leave it.”

“Ah-Xu?”

“Penance.”

Wen Kexing blinks at him for a long moment and then the last of the fight truly drains out of him as he hangs his head, his hair sliding over one shoulder to hang between them and the rest of the room. In the moonlight backlighting it it almost seems to glow and Zhou Zishu’s breath hitches in his chest as he looks at it, this reminder of how much Wen Kexing had tried to give up. For him. He had never asked so many people to want to die for him. All he had ever wanted was the people he cared about to live, why were they all so determined to leave him behind anyway?

“Come back to bed,” Wen Kexing says and Zhou Zishu can hear the tears thick in his voice though he can’t see his face. “Please.”

Maneuvering up off the floor and righting their robes at least enough to make the chilly walk more bearable takes a surprisingly long time, but thankfully Wen Kexing had kept track of where he was going as he had followed Zhou Zishu through the armory and so he just has to follow behind him as they return quickly enough to their ‘bedroom’, for lack of anything better to call it. As they walk, his own anger ebbs back out of him, as it always does, to be replaced with a soul-deep grief. His anger is really only a poor cover for that lurking sorrow anyway, and it consumes too much energy to maintain the front for too long. By the time Wen Kexing is helping him out of his outer robes and nudging him in the direction of their bed he feels so weighed down by the ghosts of his mistakes that all he can do is obey and sit heavily on the edge of it.

“ ‘Penance’,” Wen Kexing muses with dark humor as he returns Zhou Zishu’s robes to their spot and begins to strip out of his own. “Are we not already paying penance having to spend the rest of our lives in the cold? Away from Chengling and Four Seasons Manor? It’s a price I’m willing to pay a thousand times over in order to live this life with you, but it is still a sacrifice. Don’t you think that’s penance enough?”

Zhou Zishu doesn’t even bother looking up from his hands between his knees as Wen Kexing talks to him, only raising his eyes with a sharp inhale through his nose when the other man comes to kneel in front of him, though he can still only stand to look around the vicinity of his chin.

“Ah-Xu. What are you punishing yourself for?”

“You have to ask?”

“I do. We’ve already forgiven each other for the lies we told, you don’t fool me. What are you really angry about?”

“I’m not trying to fool you, I am angry that you lied to me.”

“And you have lied to me. We’re even as far as I’m concerned, and I think it would be useless to keep score from here on out. What are petty disagreements to immortal lovers, hm?”

Zhou Zishu finally lifts his gaze the rest of the way with an effort to look Wen Kexing in the eyes. They still manage to shine somehow even in the dim light of the candles guttering in the corners of the room, and Zhou Zishu can’t quite resist reaching out to hold his face with both hands. Hands that can now feel how soft his skin is, how warm. He strokes his thumb slowly along the plush curve of his bitten bottom lip and the softness of it, the easy give of it beneath his touch, have him aching to bite him again. Again and again and again until he no longer feels quite so hungry for him, so desperate.

“Ah-Xu,” Wen Kexing murmurs seemingly for no reason other than to call for him. Zhou Zishu lets his thumb move with his lips as he does so, the drag of the warm, damp skin against his fingertip a concrete reminder that he hasn’t lost Wen Kexing. He’s here, alive and breathing and determined to live for the rest of their forever at his side.

“I want to stop seeing you dead,” he confesses, much less angrily this time than the first as he allows his grief and fear to take their rightful place at center stage. “I want to but I can’t. You were so cold, Lao Wen, the first thing I felt was you so cold-“

Wen Kexing’s brows knit together as he turns his head just enough to press ardent kisses to his palm, his long fingers curling around Zhou Zishu’s wrist to hold his hand still for it.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes and Zhou Zishu’s breath hitches in his throat. “I’m sorry, Ah-Xu.”

Zhou Zishu coaxes Wen Kexing into turning his head forward again with a press of his palm to his cheek only to meet him more than halfway in a kiss that’s messy and clumsy and perfect in every way he needs it to be. Wen Kexing surges up to deepen it, to loom over him and then press him back insistently with his whole body as he climbs onto the bed first to straddle him and then to lay him down, kissing kissing kissing all the while.

Even in what Zhou Zishu has come to think of as his ‘first’ life - his life before Wen Kexing - he doesn’t think anyone’s touch ever affected him as much as Wen Kexing’s does now. His hands, though they’re cool simply by virtue of where they live, feel like branding irons as they skim down his chest and arms, dragging his dishevelled sleeping robe off in their wake. He shivers in the chill of the cave as the cold air meets his flushed skin and even that, somehow, adds to the overwhelming flood of sensations from Wen Kexing’s hands alone.

“I’ll make you forget it all,” Wen Kexing promises as he drags those burning hands up to grip the sides of his neck, press his thumbs under his jaw to coax him into tipping his head back so he can kiss the bruises he’d left. “I’ll make you forget everything but me right here with you like this. Alright?”

“Alright,” Zhou Zishu breathes, at a loss for anything else to say. Why shouldn’t he agree? It’s impossible for him to forget it all but he’d like to try, and Wen Kexing has made so many impossible things happen already. Maybe this one is in his power as well.

He lets himself get lost in the way each kiss and caress feels brand new, and so quickly it could almost be embarrassing he feels his cock growing stiff again, his entire body reacting to each brush of fingertips or soft hair or lips against his skin like it’s the first time he’s ever felt such a thing. It’s the first time he’s ever properly felt Wen Kexing, at least, and he can’t help but think that that’s good enough; his first time feeling his zhiji’s touch the way it’s meant to be felt. If this is what he’s felt every time Zhou Zishu touches him then it’s no wonder Wen Kexing has so often begged and coaxed him to go just once more, to kiss for just a little longer, not to separate yet if they don’t have to. Not that Zhou Zishu hadn’t understood the desire to be close before, of course he has, but this really elevates things to a new height he had been incapable of even imagining.

Zhou Zishu sees stars the moment Wen Kexing leans in to take him into his mouth. He doesn’t come but it’s an extremely close thing, and there’s no stopping himself from whimpering and shifting restlessly as he tries to chase the pleasure Wen Kexing is offering him. He’s stopped by Wen Kexing’s wide hands heavy on his hips pressing him down into the bed and keeping him still so he can focus on working himself down the length of him painfully slowly. There have been times, usually in the afterglow of particularly good orgasms, when Wen Kexing has told him that if he could use all his best tricks then Zhou Zishu wouldn’t stand a chance against him, and Zhou Zishu has always scoffed, never believed such assertions could be anything but empty bragging. He should really know by now that Wen Kexing doesn’t brag without reason - if he says he can kill someone then he will. If he claims he can exact a fitting revenge against the world that wronged him, then he will. And now Zhou Zishu knows intimately that when Wen Kexing has said that he knows precisely how he wants to rip Zhou Zishu apart, he has meant every word.

He feels like he’s being slowly flayed apart, seen and known at every level of his being solely so that Wen Kexing can understand best how to destroy all of his defenses. Not that he should be surprised, of course - this is hardly the first time Zhou Zishu had thought he was fine only to suddenly find that his walls have been smashed to rubble and Wen Kexing is standing too close to him in the aftermath of it, smirking at him and leaning in to say something filthy in his ear to make him blush and snap at him even as he tries to pull him closer.

Zhou Zishu comes for the third time that night with his hands in Wen Kexing’s hair and his legs wrapped haphazardly around his ribcage, head thrown back and throat tight around a strangled moan that ends on something that sounds suspiciously like a sob.

Wen Kexing gives him absolutely no time to recover. He keeps his mouth on him until it turns genuinely unbearable and then he’s back, kissing him like he’ll die if he doesn’t taste every inch of his mouth at that very moment and slamming home inside of him between one breath and the next. Zhou Zishu doesn’t bother trying to restrain the pained noise that escapes him at the intrusion but Wen Kexing ignores it, instead just setting up a punishing rhythm that leaves Zhou Zishu no time at all to try to come down from his third orgasm before arousal builds in him again.

Wen Kexing is an absolute monster, and Zhou Zishu loves him so much it’s a physical ache in his chest. And there, at last, is the root of his anger. Wen Kexing makes him hurt so much, it’s only natural for him to want to protect himself from it, to put distance between them with frustration and bluster, to keep the unbearable ache of such consuming love from taking him over completely. It’s been necessary, until now, to maintain that distance even after they were in agreement that they were all either of them needs in this world. The fact then had been that Zhou Zishu was going to die and leave Wen Kexing behind to mourn him, a fact they had frequently done their best to ignore but at least Zhou Zishu had never managed it, and he was fairly sure Wen Kexing never had either. He’d spent so much time expressing concern for Zhou Zishu and his injuries, it stands to reason that he’d spent even more time thinking about them than talking about them, and any time the barest whisper of a possible cure had reached their ears Wen Kexing had always pounced on it like a street cat, vicious and single-minded as he’d dug in with his claws to drag out any information he possibly could.

Zhou Zishu’s fourth orgasm of the night leaves him feeling hollow and satisfied, finally, even as Wen Kexing spills inside of him, fills him up. As they share hot, too-heavy breaths in the aftermath, as Wen Kexing presses wet kisses to his lips and cheeks and jaw, as Wen Kexing settles his weight over him and slides a hand up into his hair to cradle him and hold him close, Zhou Zishu releases the anger that’s nothing but a smokescreen for the ache of loving too fiercely for his heart to contain it all.

“I love you,” he says into the intimate silence but for the rhythms of their living and breathing and the soft rustle of skin and cloth rubbing together as Wen Kexing readjusts his legs and attempts to get comfortable on top of him. “That’s what I’m angry about. I love you.”

“Reasonable,” Wen Kexing mumbles muzzily into his shoulder with a lazy kiss. “Will you elaborate or am I meant to just understand why loving me should make you so upset?”

“You expect me to believe that you don’t love me so much it somehow becomes other emotions as well just so your heart can contain it all?”

Wen Kexing is silent for a few long moments as their breathing slows in tandem, fingertips tracing slow, gentle circles around the ball of his shoulder as he turns his head a bit and shifts a few times until he’s settled even more comfortably.

“Ah..Perhaps I do understand, then,” he finally murmurs, and Zhou Zishu can hear a faint smile in his voice. “Is that what you’re seeking penance for? Loving me?”

“Maybe. Or maybe for everything else I’ve done before you. Maybe I have to pay for it to deserve being able to keep you until we get tired of this life and decide we’d like to end it.”

“Ah-Xu,” Wen Kexing tuts and he’s definitely smiling now. “You’ve said it yourself that if a man sets aside his weapons he’ll become good. I don’t believe you need to punish yourself like this. You don’t need to find a replacement for the pain of the Nails just because you’ve survived your torment.”

Zhou Zishu’s breath catches in his chest and he tips his head enough to try to look down at Wen Kexing. One of his eyes is visible at this angle and Zhou Zishu is unsurprised to find his gaze full of a quiet understanding.

“That’s...hm. Alright. I suppose it’s useless to argue that, I’m sure you already know exactly how to win against me.”

“Of course I do,” Wen Kexing replies with a tired chuckle. “But there’s also no point in arguing it simply because I’m right, and as I said before - what use is there in keeping score? Time and debts and the measure of good and evil are nothing to us anymore. We’ll do as much good as we can from here, and when we’re ready we’ll re-enter the world and continue to do good there until we die together. The past doesn’t concern us anymore.”

Zhou Zishu hums softly and finally finds the energy to raise one hand to begin combing his fingers through the snarled mess of Wen Kexing’s hair, keeping his touch light even when he encounters snags and knots. Wen Kexing melts into him as he works and when he starts breathing deeply, the rhythm regular, Zhou Zishu doesn’t bother resisting the desire to turn his head and press a long, slow kiss to his forehead. He lifts his free hand to curl his fingers around Wen Kexing’s wrist and, as has become a habit that’s as natural as breathing, he lets their energy circulate together, fitting himself easily into the familiar paths of his love’s qi and speeding up the healing process as much as he can, for both of their sakes, as the love of his life sleeps comfortably in his arms.

[love-fireflysong]

Like the extremely bored and stupid moron I am, instead of sleeping last night I decided to stay up until like 5 am watching the bonus content for the wheel of time tv show. And boy oh boy was it worth it!

There was trivia for every episode about the scenes and how it referenced or deviated from the source material just a little. Interviews with Brandon Sanderson, Harriet McDougal (Robert Jordan's editor/widow), and Rafe Judkins. Plus a video explaining all the work they put into the winternight battle at emonds field. They had an absolutely gorgoues map of the over world with little descriptions about each place. And I watched the first four origins animations which were beautifully done (didn't watch or do anything related to the newly released ep 5, wanted to hold off until I watch it later tonight).

But man that second origins episode. It's about the fall of manetheren and about half way through it I just about screamed! I had to pause the video so I could run and grab my copy of eye of the world to confirm what I really heard. Cause aside from narration, there was only one spoken line in the entire video, and it was from king aemon. The line?

Carai an Caldazar! Carai an Ellisande! Al Ellisande!

They could have used anything, even the 'English' translation but instead they went with the original old tongue. The very war cry of last king of manetheren that was mentioned all of once in the first book, and then never again (as far as I'm aware of course, never read the last 4 books and it's been nearly ten years since I read the others).

I may not agree with all of the changes they've decided to make in the show, but damn if it isnt clearly a labour of love for all involved holy shit.

(and as a bonus, here's a bit of trivia from the first episode that nearly had me losing my shit)

'This is the first scene in the first chapter (An Empty Road) of book one in The Wheel of Time series. The horse "Bela" is an iconic part of the story. Many who read the books believe she is an omnipotent being with Creator-like tendencies. In the Two Rivers, wool and tabac (tobacco) are the main exports. Their tabac is known all over as the best in the world.'

[sweetestlamb]

Lighting Up Your World

Episode 17 

Summary: Gang-tae and Mun-yeong continue their road trip, finding themselves and helping others along the way. 

Author's note: Here is part 1 of the weekend fic updates! I tried my best to make these interesting and multilayered channeling my inner Jo Yong. The focus is on MY/GT and their healing but I also wanted them to heal others too on this journey so we do meet an OC. If I had time this could be something that continues each weekend, but work and life starts again very soon so I won’t make any promises but I had a really fun time writing this and trying to plot out the story so it felt familiar to IOTNBO with conflicts and resolutions, only they all happen within the chapter lol. Without further ado, here’s episode 17 ;) *Play “Lighting up Your World* 

The mood shifts drastically after Sang-tae's departure, they're both sulky and a bit flabbergasted by his sudden decision to leave, this was their first trip as a newly fledged family, it felt monumental, like a rite of passage of sorts; but by the morning they've accepted his choice and set sights on their next location. Gang-tae lays in disbelief thinking about how much his brother has changed, how much their relationship itself, has shifted.

Thanks in part to her, his eyes land on her sleeping form, gorgeous in the low lighting of the camping van.

She had crashed into their lives like a bulldozer, hell bent on having him, but only as an object- something to capture and conquer. Somewhere along the way, despite their unconventional start; love had blossomed. It wasn't an easy start and it took time to nurture but he couldn't imagine his life without her now, their little family.

I love you Moon Gang-tae.

She loved him. Meant it with every fiber of her being, it was detectable in her eyes, swirled in the pools of her captivating eyes. If that wasn't enough her actions proclaimed her love, never turning her back on him despite his sometimes despicable behavior and words that cut her. Running back to defend him from the one person she despised the most, uncaring of her own fate. He hadn't known he could experience love like this, all-consuming devotion. Not until she entered his life.

A smile blooms on his face, it all started with a stab. He knew others wouldn't understand- Jae-su's disbelieving face flashed in his memory- but it made perfect sense for them, she who was so jagged and broken when he met her and him so complacent and selfless, saving others even at his own detriment.

I met your mother after she stabbed me in the hand. Then months later she stabbed me in my other hand.

His chuckles fill the tight space of the van, until he hears a hoarse voice, "What are laughing at?"

With a small jump he turns to face her, adorable baffled look on her face, and he sits up to better see her.

"I was thinking about us."

She looks at him deeply, searching his eyes before continuing, "And that made you laugh? Were you thinking of good things?"

"Well... I was thinking about how we met and how we would tell that story to our future son who looks like me." He responds sheepishly, heart singing at the soft look that forms on her face, that happens often now, her blushing every time he mentions their future. He makes sure to do it often, for both of them. After wrongly viewing their relationship as ill-fated, it seems more important than ever to say the words out loud, breathe them into the world and give them life. Mun-yeong and Gang-tae are destined. 

He can’t help but imagine her round with his, no their child, swollen belly protruding from her slim frame, as she demands his attention and curses him for her condition. It would be as beautiful as it was terrifying. 

All in due time. 

After a few seconds of sustained eye contact she finally snaps out of her daze, craftily switching the subject to escape her own unease, “How are you really feeling about Oppa leaving? Do you want to end the trip and follow him?” 

For a moment, he wonders who is the person and what have they done to his Mun-yeong? The woman he first met lacked empathy for others, disregarded their feelings and trampled all over their boundaries; she was a new person, reborn. No, unpeeled, showing another layer to her personality. Considerate and caring with him and with Sang-tae, even putting them first at the expense of her own desires. 

Swiftly removing the blanket covering his torso, he strides toward her on the elevated bed, reaching out to caress her head, she is aptly watching his every move head subconsciously leaning into his tender hold. 

With his eyes firmly locked on her own he replies, “I...am happy. I am happy that he knows what he wants to do, he finally has a dream of his own. A dream just for him. And...I don’t want to go back. When I told you I loved you, that was my promise to keep moving forward, no matter what.” 

Being here, with you, that is my dream. That he leaves unsaid. 

He basks in the warmth of her smile, beaming on him, shiny solely for him. His own personal sun. 

“You’re so cheesy now.” She teases him playfully rolling her eyes, and he chuckles before shrugging, he’s never had a chance to be cheesy, probably has all that cheesiness packed up inside ready to come out, she is going to get it all. 

Curling his hands around her small face, he draws her closer before pressing a kiss to her forehead, watching her eyelids flutter close as she sighs gently. His lips are soft on her smooth skin, nothing more than a peck, a silent thank you for being here with him. For staying. 

Then he finally announces, “I know our next destination. While you were sleeping I found another spot for us.” Before she can question him he states, “It’s a surprise.” 

Her groan of annoyance is music to his ears, as he rushes to the front of the van, ready for their adventure. 

The sunlight brilliantly twinkles on the rippling waves of the water as he pulls up to their destination, a lake sequestered away and roughly hidden by trees and foliage, there is a quaint wooden dock leading to the watery oasis but not much less. He hums in contentment gazing at it, it is almost too peaceful to be true but they of all people deserve some peace after the hell they have been through. 

Mun-yeong stumbles out of the tiny bathroom of the van, peering out the window at the view, she stares at him bewildered, “A lake?” Why did you take us to a lake?” 

He shakes his head at her question, “To swim. Why else do people go to a lake?” He can hear his brother’s voice replaying in his mind, Why ask such an obvious question? 

With a glare she humphs crossing her arms in a symbol that he can read all too well- I’m not doing it- before stomping away, “I’m not swimming.” He watches her back as she defiantly strides back into the small compartment. 

He makes them a quick late breakfast of rice and grilled meat, scooping out a hefty amount for his grumpy girlfriend who has yet to leave the camping van. He had nagged and pleaded at the door, eager to get outside and see the lake, it was tempting especially on such a scorching day. But she had ignored all his calls, even childishly responded “I can’t hear you.” Before he had stomped away in the opposite direction, fondly irritated at her behavior. 

The van door creaks open as she finally decides to exit, he pointedly does not look up, not wanting to seem too eager at her arrival after she spitefully ignored him. He pushes the food in her general direction, not making eye contact. So she sits down on the unoccupied chair to his left, he is unprepared for the breadth of naked skin he sees when she does. 

With his fixed gaze on the food in his lap, the edges of his peripheral vision catch her bare legs, heeled sandals encase her foot but there is no material in sight on her legs. Just bare smooth, inviting skin. 

He gulps, reaching for his water. 

Drawing in a deep breath to reinforce himself, he slowly begins to raise his head, eyes traveling from her ankles to her smooth thighs, similarly naked before he stops on her torso. She is wrapped in a bathing suit, tight fitting and devastatingly distracting. The devilish suit is black and partially mesh, with her skin peeking through the stomach but solid across her breast and lower region. 

His tongue feels like sandpaper in his mouth, despite his desperate swallows of water to re-hydrate his heated body. Grabbing his food, he stuffs his face with rice and meat hoping that will prevent him from begging her to let him take her back into the van and peel that suit off her and.... 

“I am still not swimming, but I figure I can get a nice tan at least.” She offers as away of explanation, he nods robotically, eyes still trained on the ground. Before a white bottle is forced into his vision, he jumps back in his seat, eyes finally landed on her body completely. 

Unbelievable. 

The glimpse he saw does nothing to prepare him for the entire picture, she looks amazing in the suit as if it was made specifically for her body, knowing her taste and monetary capabilities; the idea isn’t too far-fetched and he curses whoever gave this weapon to her. Atop the bridge of her nose sits her glossy black sunglasses, the same ones she wore when he saw her outside, a beautiful black storm cloud under falling cherry blossoms. Her hair is pulled back into a high messy bun, two braids on her side that disappear into the bun, wisps of hair that escaped the bun frame her face beautifully. In short, she looks like the cover of a high-end fashion magazine and he is at a lost for words. 

His musings are prematurely interrupted by her waving something in his face, a thin container, “--Are you listening to me? Take off your shirt.” 

He shakes his head, almost dropping his bowl in shock. 

Only seconds away from taking another gulp of water before her request. He doesn’t miss the smirk that curls on her lips, he knew she did that on purpose. 

“What? What are you talking about?” He shakily asks, pulling his thin white t-shirt protectively around himself. 

She tilts her glasses down ensuring that he can see her eyes before dramatically rolling them, “You act like it’s something I haven’t seen before.”

“We’re outside though!”

“So what?” She fires back, looking at him, exasperation farrowing her eyebrows.

He breathes hard, their eyes locked in a heated battle, before he sighs accepting his fate, admitting to himself that he is not as opposed to the idea has he’s acting. Guilt settles in his stomach as he remembers the excitement that coursed though him as he realized that without his hyung, he would be alone with Mun-yeong.  All by themselves, at given times no one around for miles. No one to hear their screams. The idea of being alone and unencumbered with her was thrilling. 

In one fluid motion, he stands up and grabs the end of his shirt, carefully lifting it up and over his head. Standing in nothing but his slippers and dark blue swim trunks, the only pair he packed, unlike her who probably had endless suits of different styles and colors. In that way they were vastly different, he was practical and minimal whereas she was extravagant and larger than life. 

Her eyes burned on his skin as she stood up as well, carelessly tossing her food on the table, before curling her finger at him in a seductively beckoning call, “Come closer.” Her voice was smoked honey, as if in a trance he found himself obeying, stepping forward a half step, “Closer” and closer he went until he stood directly in front of her. 

She audaciously looked him up and down, tongue peeking out to swipe across the span of her pink mouth. 

Then with anticipation thick in his throat he watched her hands grow closer to his body, creeping closer and closer to his skin and then they were finally on him. 

He jolted at the cold. Jumping away from her hands. 

“What’s wrong with you? I told you I was going to put sunscreen on you.” Her eyes narrow and he feels a blush cover his cheeks, at his red face she lets out a long drawn ahhhhhhhhhh before speaking, “Why did you think I wanted you to take your shirt off? Were you expecting me to do something else?” She lifts one perfectly threaded eyebrow at the suggestive inquiry while simultaneously moving back into his orbit to rub the sticky white cream into his stomach. 

He lets himself enjoy her touch, deliberate ministrations into his skin, her face close enough for him to kiss and only a thread of control keeps him contained. Her hand strokes across his abs, fingers purposefully creeping into the crevices of his body before she trails her manicured finger down to his trunks, so close to where he wants her hand, panting now with anticipation, half hard just from her hand on his skin. 

Then she stops. 

Pats him on the shoulder with a clipped, “All done.” Impish look clouding her face, he glares at her departing back, the pep in her step; she knows exactly what she just did to him. The wink over her shoulder reinforcing his speculation. 

Damn, she-devil. 

When she begins to rubs the same sticky cream into her legs, slowly and wantonly, peering at him whilst she does it, his only solution is to run and dive straight into the water, welcoming the cool blanket that soothes the raging heat in his loins. 

He swims alone for a few minutes, propelling himself back and forth in the shallow water, before he eventually feels the twinges of boredom creeping in, this was meant to be their adventure, he didn’t want to swim alone, imagining wet kisses and wandering hands under the guise of the water.  All new experiences that he only wanted to share with her. 

With those thoughts in mind, he silently vacates the water, footsteps light as he tiptoes to Mun-yeong, glowy and alluring from her spot on the lounge chair she  pulled seemingly out of thin air. Sunglasses still shielding her eyes he waves his arm to see if they attract her attention, she lays motionless still, breathing steady and unhurried. 

Perfect. 

Now, knowing that she will not notice his approach, he creeps forward putting on his best imitation of a spy, avoiding twigs and leaves, anything that will alert to his presence. After a measured and timed approach, he looms over her, taking a moment to bask in her tranquil beauty. She is a goddess in that bathing suit and he wants to remember her face in this moment, in a few seconds she will be ravenous in his arms, clawing and thrashing. It is the perfect juxtaposition of her personality. A beautiful disaster. 

Before he can second guess himself- maybe she was right and he did have a death wish- he grabs her, lifting her out of the lounge chair and wrapping her securely in his arms. 

“YAH!” Her reaction is expeditious, nails scrapping across his arms as she tries to break free from his strong hold, he winces at the sharp burst of pain shaking her slightly to dislodge her, but her efforts do not hinder his mission. He laughs at her screams and threats, “Put me down! Gang-tae, I will kill you!” Gaining speed as he reaches the end of the dock, with a bounding leap he flies through the air, weightless, until they crash through the surface of the water. Water splashes onto the dock from their impact and his nose burns with the sudden influx of water, before he scrambles to the top, taking her now suspiciously limp body with him. 

The sight that greets him when they burst to the surface, makes his body go numb with regret. 

Her face is ashen, almost grey in hue, wet hair plastered to her skull. But what stands out most are her eyes, usually brimming with love and light for him, now sunken and packed with an emotion he never wanted to put there; fear. 

He can feel how rapidly she is breathing, her body shaking like a leave under his hold as he keeps her afloat, the air wheezes out through her colorless lips as she begins to convulse in his arms, he is paralyzed under her visible distress. 

She begins to keen, “Please, please, get me out. I need to get out!” The sorrowful plead that shatters into a scream breaks his heart into a million pieces, and with only a small hiccup he responds to her cries. Kicking his legs powerfully, swimming as quickly as he ever has in his life, arms protectively wrapped around her shuttering form until the reaches the bank. 

It takes a moment to for her to recognize that they are now on land but once she does she leaps from his arms, whipping around and racing to the camping van without another word. 

He is left shell-shocked. 

Standing alone, wracking his brain to figure out what caused such a visceral reaction and not coming up with an adequate answer. Then he realizes that is not important, all that mattered now was reaching her and comforting her, those eyes would haunt him forever otherwise. 

Dashing to her rapidly retreating form, he catches her arm, twirling her around to face him. 

The fragments of his heart, shatter into even smaller pieces. 

Twin trails of tear stream down her face, dripping off her chin before disappearing into the ground. 

“Mun-yeong...” He vocalizes her voice like an apology. 

She breaks the connection between their arms, turning once more to walk away and he can’t stand to see her walk away from him, not again, never again. 

Softly capturing her hand again, he begs, “Please, tell me what I did wrong?” 

Struggling to speak through her choked throat she replies, “I can’t right now. I just need to be alone for a bit, I’m not running away.”

Those words again. 

He wants to hold on tighter, recalling how she had run away after uttering those words before, viciously slamming all her doors shut and pushing him out. She reads his face like a children’s book. 

“I promise, I’m not running away, this time. So let me go, for now.”

Trusting her words, he releases her hand. Heart sinking as she climbs the stairs and disappears into the camping van. If the sun continues to shine, he is unaware, the dark clouds of shame and regret hanging over his forlorn head. 

“When I was young, I had dreams of my mom drowning in a lake.” 

His head buzzes at the confession, so intensely focused on the food sizzling on the grill he had missed her reappearance. Lowering the tongs to give her his full undivided attention as she bares another layer of Ko Mun-yeong. 

“My dad... I thought he drowned my mother in a lake. And every night I would have dreams about her screaming for my help. Sometimes when I have those sleep terrors, I can see her above me, her body is dripping wet. I....” She takes a pause, sitting down in a chair further away from him and he almost cries at that small amount of distance she is placing between them. 

But she is also wearing his flannel shirt, dwarfing her small stature, her fingers clutching it as if needing protection. 

Following a deep breath she presses on, “I haven’t been in water since. I’m....scared. I’m sorry that I’m already ruining this trip--”

He doesn’t allow those words to settle in the air for a second before he’s out of his seat and crouching before her, he begs for permission with his eyes, and watches as she ruminates before nodding, with a sigh of relief he gathers her cold hands in his own, warming them instantly. 

“You didn’t ruin anything. I didn’t know, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I made you cry. I never want to make you cry, I told you I would protect you and I let you down. I am so sorry, please forgive me.” Tears pool in his eyes, as he presses his lips to her hands a kiss following each word of apology, anguish flooding his system. 

Silence fills the space between them as he continues to kiss sweet sorries into her skin before she wrangles her hands away, placing them softly on his downward chin, lifting his head until their eyes meet. 

Her dark orbs are now swirled with pain, love and something inexplicable. 

“I should be asking you to forgive me, I don’t want her on this trip. This is just for us, she can’t ruin this.” Her voice trembles despite the force that she exclaims her wish. 

He smiles grimly, “We can’t run from her. You once told me that trauma should be faced head on. You were right, we can’t be expected to be perfect yet. We’re only human, you didn’t do anything wrong. Thank you for coming back and letting me in.” 

I love you.  He thinks it hard enough for her to hear it. 

A sad smile slides across her face, “You’re so adamant these days, I can’t shake you. If I tried to run, you would probably chase me down.” 

He doesn’t verbally reply to her assumption, letting the resolve in his eyes speak volume instead, she has always been able to read him like a book, this time will be no different. 

She appears so delicate and fragile, he doesn’t even attempt to stop himself from crouching up and pressing a kiss to her lips. She moans at the barely-there touch, hands tightening on his face as she drags him closer, deepening the kiss with a languorous swipe of her tongue. He crawls into her space, tilting his face to transform the kiss from deep to dirty, mouths opening to prod and swallow each other. Her teeth graze across his bottom lip before, pulling it and releasing it with a filthy, pop. His dick jumps at the stinging sensation. 

Reluctantly he pulls away from the delicious kiss, worry for her overriding his sex drive, she hadn’t eaten since this afternoon, locked herself away since the lake incident and skipping lunch. It was more important that she get sustenance right now. 

She groans at his sudden withdrawal, blindly chasing after his mouth. He laughs at the adorable image. 

He presses a piece of grilled beef to her mouth instead, chuckling as she opens her eyes in doe-like surprise. He keeps that comparison to himself, she wouldn’t take kindly to him comparing her to self-proclaimed arch nemesis right now. 

“Eat this. My mouth doesn’t have any nutritional value.” 

Her face twists as if she is about to argue, but the booming growl of her stomach pierces the air and she blushes before opening her mouth and consuming the succulent piece of meat. 

Dinner passes by in a flurry of meat and rice, as they take turns feeding each other and she teases him to retrieve meat from her mouth. They talk about the future and all the places they want to go, he hasn’t smiled this much in his entire life. As he packs up their dishes and chopsticks, he sees her stretching, pulling her body taut from the motion. He wonders if she’s wearing anything under his flannel shirt, her bare thighs taunting him for a second time today. 

“I’m sleepy.” 

Like a Pavlovian whistle, his body reacts to the innocuous declaration. Images of their previous night together flood his minds, slamming her into the bedroom wall as he sucked wet kisses into her neck, her legs wrapped around his waist as she sensuously grinded into his erection, her head thrown back in rapture as they imitated sex through their clothes, both hungry as they ripped through the clothes, his eyes rolling back as he slammed into her tight pussy, her nails scratching welts on his back. The sweat on their bodies mingling and drenching her luxurious sheets. 

The soft click of the van door closing slaps him from the memory and it takes a moment to realize that he is now alone. 

He presses down on his erection, hard, embarrassed at how aroused just a memory of her can make him. 

Inhaling the crisp night air, he marches into the battlefield. 

The camping can is dark upon his entrance, the only illumination provided by the stray moonlight that filters in through the tiny windows, after his quick and efficient appraisal of the confined area, he realizes that she is nowhere to be found.  Strange. 

Scratching his head he wonders to his bed mat, pausing for a moment before making the decision to remove his shirt, confidence dominating the usual stream of shyness that floods his bloodstream. He lays down on his bed roll, comically similar to Mun-yeong as she had beckoned him to join her on the bed. He had been a fool then, to refuse such a desirable offer, but he wouldn’t be making the same mistakes ever again.  

The soft patter of her footsteps approaching causes his heart to skip a precious beat. Then it stops completely when she enters his line of vision. 

Temptation. 

That is the word that blares like a siren in his head as he takes her in, her hair is down in soft waves around her face, face washed clean and flawless in the light, and finally he looks at the short silk slip that contours to her every bump and curve. Spaghetti thin straps exposing edible shoulders, as the silk ends dangerously high on her thigh, lace dancing around the ends. 

Jaw permanently on the ground, he watches in dismay as she barely glances at him, wondering eyes fleeting across his abs almost too fast to catch, as she climbs the stairs to her bed, her ascent making the slip creep obscenely up her thigh almost giving him a wonderful glimpse at her ass. 

Pushing past the frog in his throat he croaks out, “Where are you going? I thought we would sleep down here together.” 

She absently arranges her sheets, moving them out of the way, putting her body on clear display for his starving eyes. With eyes that glow in the dark she calmly replies, “Why did you think that? It was your idea to sleep separated in the first place remember?”

Yes, he remembered. When Sang-tae was still on this trip with them, she had offered for Sang-tae to take the bunk bed and they sleep side by side. But he had declined anxiously, knowing that he would not be able to keep his hands to himself if they were sleeping in such close proximity, terrified at losing control so close to his brother. 

She seemed to take a malicious glee from throwing his words back in his face. 

“But that was before.” He whined, “I thought you were sleepy.”

He tried to subtly infuse meaning into the word hoping to remind of their last rendezvous. 

She didn’t bite. 

“I am sleepy, that’s why I’m going to sleep. Good night Gang-tae.” With a quick wave, she rolled over, facing away from him as he glared daggers into her back. 

Fuck. 

He couldn’t see the smirk that overtook her face at his obvious frustration. 

Time ticked by, or it would have if they had a clock in the van. Instead he marked time with the sounds of crickets chirping in the forest. 

Chirp. 

Chirp. 

Chirp. 

Finally he sat up, tossing the blankets from his body as he gazed at Mun-yeong’s still form, the moonlight provided enough radiance to see her perfectly in the dark. He couldn’t resist the pale glow her skin, clearing his throat he called out quietly, “Mun-yeong? Mun-yeong-ssi? Are you awake? Mun-yeong?”

His calls went unanswered. 

He sighed. 

Then he picked up a shoe throwing it at the wall of the camping van, the sound deafening in the silence. She jolted up, with quicker reflexes than you would expect from someone who was deeply sleeping. “What was that?” She turned to him, shock on her face. 

Twisting the truth slightly he replied, “Um.. I don’t know. Sounds like something ran into the van. Probably an animal. But now that you’re awake I was wondering if you’re cold?”

There was a pregnant pause and he vaguely heard her whisper under her breath, “Ran into the van, my ass” before she spoke loud enough with the intention of him hearing, “No, I’m not cold. If you’re cold you should use Sang-tae’s blanket he left it for you.”

He rolled his eyes at her helpful suggestions, that was the last thing he wanted. So he pressed on, “I’m using that blanket too, but I’m still cold.” He gathered the blankets as he approached her bed, resembling a child fleeing to their parents room after a bad dream. 

“What do you want me to do about that?” She asked, still turned away from him and that made it effortless to ascend the stairs and slide into the bed with her. His body’s weight sinking into the bed, announced his presence and she looked at him in surprise. 

“What are you doing?”

“I’m cold.”

“I told you to deal with that on your own.”

“No, I want you to help me deal with it.” He pulled her into his arms, crushing her face into his naked chest. Minutely moaning at the smooth feel of her nightgown on his skin. 

With a huff of dramatic annoyance, she pushed him away, turning her back to him again before saying, “Fine you can stay. Please go to sleep, just go to sleep.” 

Their night at the guest house surfaces in his mind, her pleas for him as he coldly rejected her once again and begged her to sleep, suppressing his desire to take her right there and then. Karma was indeed, a dish that was best served cold. 

He now knows exactly what she’s doing and why. She is serving him a taste of his own medicine, showing him how he made her feel in those moments when he wasn’t quite ready to let her in, but wasn’t man enough to voice that to her either, so he lashed out and hurt her unnecessarily. 

Gathering his courage, he swallows his pride, “I’m sorry.”

Silence is his only reply. 

Then with a small move, she presses back into his chest, their bodies melding from shoulder to toe. 

He wraps his arms around her, humming at finally having her back in his arms. He holds his breath, waiting for the seduction to continue but she simply lays in his arms, contently playing with his fingers while he’s so hard he could hammer nails with his cock. 

With a casual grip he begins to play with her fingers too, moving their hands up until they are treacherously close to her breasts, ensuring that every swipe of his thumb on her hand also collides with her nipples. Her breath hitches when he catches her erect nipple, but she doesn’t stop him. 

Then he begins to undulate his hips, thrusting his boxer-clad cock into the silk of her slip, groaning at the intoxicating sensation before his control snaps like a rubber band and he surges forward, pulling her close and grinding into her with dark intentions. 

She hisses at his cock’s hard crash into her ass, “Aiish you sly fox, is this why you came here?” 

In lieu of responding to her obvious inquiry, he pushes his hand down the front of her gown, squeezing her breasts in his hand, harshly pinching the tight nipples until she moaned and squirmed in his hands. He pumped his thick length into her back, haphazardly catching her ass and the crease of her thighs with each rough thrust. With a punishing squeeze to her chest, he retracts his hands only to push his boxers down his hips, cock bouncing out in excitement, ready to play. 

His eyes roll back at the feel of her silken gown on his hot engorged skin, precum wetting the material obscenely, as the game ends and she is as enraptured as he is, humping back into him, vigorously. Ripping her panties off from under her nightgown, he tries to plunge a finger into her moist center, but his elbow knocks into the bed railing and he groans at the hindrance. She is a panting mess in his arms now, pressing back into his heavy thrusts, his cock catching on her wet folds, as they both moan in pleasure. 

“Can I try something?” Nerves prickly under his skin.

The question leaves his mouth before he can talk himself out of it. She stills at the sudden question but shakily replies, “Yes, just do it. Stop talking.” 

He laughs at her impatience, jubilant that she wants him with as much vigor as he wants her. Grabbing her around her waist, he hoists her up into a seated position before sitting up too, using that leverage to turn her upside down, before dragging her onto his body and he lays back down onto the bed. 

A perfect 69. 

She gasps at the sudden change in position, before looking back at him from over her shoulder, “I knew you were watching porn in the bathroom. Next time, come to my room we can do some hands on learning.” 

He swats her ass in retribution, “Now you’re the one talking too much.” 

She smirks pressing her lips together and he can’t help but joke, “Well you don’t need to close it completely, just put it to better use.” 

Eyes darkening from the proposition, she leans forward and swallows the head of his cock, wet mouth wrapping him in a squishy heaven. His hips subconsciously jerk forward, forcing more of his length in her mouth and she moans around the intrusion. 

Then he looks up at the feast before his eyes, her wet and open above him, primed to be devoured by his hungry mouth. He wastes no time in licking her folds, wiggling his tongue into the moist cavern and groaning as she moans at the sensation, vibrations tingling around his cock. They both set off to wreck each other, her tongue relentless as she slurps and licks every inch him, distracting him from wrecking her. At a particularly hard suck at his balls, he shoves two fingers into her, corkscrewing immediately and giving her little room for adjustment. 

He grabs her ass cheeks to pry her open further to his onslaught, twisting his fingers into her at the same time licking across her clit, pulling it into his mouth and humming at her addictive flavor. 

She pulls off his cock to shout, “Fuck.” Among other expletives and it’s good that he’s not a religious man because pure blasphemy falls from her sinful mouth. He misses the feel of her mouth around him, so he thrusts up wildly catching her mouth as he fucks into her, in perfect synchronization as he fucks into her with his fingers. 

She is a drooling mess above him, spit drowning his cock in a filthy river, he focuses on making her lose her mind as he feels his end growing near, tongue and fingers both hammering at her pussy, plunging, filling, worshiping. 

Her body twitches violently, drawn tight like a bow, before snapping its release and her juice rain down on his waiting face, bathed in her glory. 

His tongue never stops its lap at her until she keens in pain, “No more, it’s too much.” Reluctantly he pulls away, pretty swollen lips closing at his retreat, he kisses them one final time. 

Without warning, she leans forward and slides down his cock, pushing past her gag until he feels himself slide down her throat and two quick fucks into that constricting paradise is all it takes to shoot hot cum down her throat, his eyes roll in the back of his head. She swallows and swallows, until finally drawing off as the abundant cum dribbles on his naked thighs, some even pooling on the sheets. 

Collapsing to her side of the bed, it takes some effort to meet her eyes in their opposite positions, her head at his feet. But when he does, he sees all the love and fire he knows shines luminous in his own, he worries if this passion might just be too powerful for even them, might it burn them up leaving nothing but their ashes? 

What a way to go. 

He gathers her pliant body in his arms, moving her until she's sheltered in his arms, she will never have to sleep alone again, she has Gang-tae and Mang-tae. The doll now clutched tightly in her hand.

They drive for days before they come across a small town, pulling into a gas station to refill the van tank. They hadn’t yet emptied it since their first fill and he was working hard so they wouldn’t, loathing the idea of getting stranded on the side of the road with Mun-yeong. She would chew his head off. 

“Be careful.” He calls out to her as she wonders into the diner adjacent to the gas station, they’d she’d grown tired of rice and grilled meat and had decided to get some food at the nearest diner. He’d told her to go ahead and get them a table, while he refilled the camping van. 

He thinks about how far they’ve come on this journey, literally and emotionally. He has shared stories with her that he has never shared with another soul, not even Jae-su. Has experienced things he never thought he would be allowed to, this trip itself was a life long dream that he'd foolishly given up on but she showed him that it was okay to dream.

He didn't have to suppress his every whim or desire, was teaching him everyday that he was worthy of wanting and receiving.

With all those thoughts permeating his mind, he is completely caught off guard when he enters the diner and sees her menacingly looming over three young boys, a butter knife in her hand. "If you keep bothering her, your parents won't have children." Those are the words, he hears her utter, to children.

All who, trip over themselves fleeing from her screams of “A witch, a witch!” as they scamper back to their tables and said parents glare at the women dressed in black from head to toe, provoking their innocent children. 

She smiles at them, waving with the knife still prominently in her hand. He promptly snatches it from her grip, reprimand on the tip of his tongue before a small mouse-like voice cuts him off.

"Thank you lady. Are you a princess?" Appearing from behind the shadow of Mun-yeong's body, a thin child creeps out, twiddling her fingers as she gazes up at Mun-yeong like the stars are hung in her eyes. He's never seen a child look at her like that. 

"No. I'm not a princess. They weren't wrong, I'm a witch." She answers deadpan, twirling her fingers to add to the glamour.

She looks very much the part in a bellowing black dress with a full skirt and puffy sleeves, her hair pulled back in a severe ponytail with a black rose pin in the front. She towers above the young girl in shiny black leather pumps, that almost gleam under the fluorescent lights. Armor back on since the lake. 

He readies himself for the cries that her statement will evoke.

Flabbergasted when instead he hears, "Cool. You're the prettiest witch I ever saw."

Mun-Yeong preens at the compliment before turning to walk away, but the girl catches the material of her dress, rudely tugging it to get her attention.

The sharp eye at the hand on her dress is enough to make the girl immediately release it but Mun-Yeong peers down in question, "When I grow up will I be pretty like you?"

Without even a second to consider Mun-Yeong replies, "No. No one is pretty like me."

He watches the joy melt from the child's eye and opens his mouth to lessen the blow, take the sting off her too blunt words. But she beats him to it, "You shouldn't aspire for looks, you can't control that. Pick something you can control, like being strong so you can beat up your bullies." Her little shoulders perk back up and she beams at Mun-Yeong, his girlfriend's lip curl up at the side.

Before she walks into the diner, finding an empty table, he watches in shock as the young girl wordlessly trails after Mun-Yeong. The sight so familiar it knocks him in the heart. Just like flies to a fire, people like them were drawn to Mun-Yeong's light, the sparks that singed around her as she boldly did what you only dreamed of.

He joins them both at the table, and finally takes a good look at the little girl. She has a cute round face, rosy cheeks, her hair is pulled back in a disheveled ponytail, what stands out are her clothes, they are too put it kindly filthy. Tattered mess that hand off her thin frame and immediately the need to protect her overwhelms him.

"So what's your name brat?" Mun-yeong's deep voice breaks the silence.

"Min-jo."

He sends a warm smile in her direction, noting that her eyes haven't once left Mun-Yeong. Still he adds to the conversation, "Hi Min-jo, I'm Moon Gang-tae and this is my girlfriend Ko Mun-yeong. She writes children's books, maybe you've read one of her books before."

If her eyes were filled with adulation before, now it is tenfold as she jumps in her seat, "You write books? That's so cool! Do you like it? Are they fun? What are they about?"

Taking a sip of the water, the server brought them a few minutes ago with the menus, Mun-Yeong glances from the corner of her eye, before darkly whispering, "They're about chatty little brats who get eaten when they ask too many questions."

Min-jo's eyes widen in shock, little mouth falling into a perfect O, before her bell like giggles ring through the air, "You're so funny Ms. Witch!"

Mun-Yeong smiles back, a full face crinkling smile, at a child. Someone else's child. He is stunned into silence as he watches them converse, the kid ignoring Mun-Yeong's hint and asking her a million more questions. She even answers a few. He watches the miracle, stuffing noodles into his mouth, utterly charmed and bewildered.

When they've all finished their meals- he's still shocked at the amount of food such a small body was able to consume- he opens his wallet and places down the amount plus a hefty tip. He stands up and they follow his lead, Min-jo still trailing behind Mun-Yeong, before a voice stops her in her tracks.

"Oy! Where are you going? You know better than to bother the guests, get back here!" A woman in an apron waddles out, catching her by her arms preventing her from taking another step.

The woman bears no resemblance to the child, sharp where she is round so he wonders if that's her grandmother, before he asks the question aloud. Min-jo's head bends down until her face is completely hidden, "No. I'm an orphan I don't have anyone." Her voice is barely a whisper, lost in the wind as soon as it leaves her lips.

He watches Mun-Yeong tense at the word, eyes shifting back and forth between the two. Three orphans in one diner, the world's saddest story.

He wonders if that was what drew the girl to them in the first place. Destiny. Then he remembers what he overheard. Definitely destiny, Mun-yeong showed up when she needed someone to help her. 

If someone shows up when you need then, I call that destiny. 

Mun-yeong sniffs at the tears that are pooling in the child’s eyes, her own eyes dark pools that reveal nothing. 

"That's no excuse to feel bad for yourself, you can't control that either. Stop following me and learn how to be a leader, then one day when you're older you can make your own family. I did." Her words are matter of fact with no warmth yet he sees the hope they ignite on the child's face, her eyes large in wonder. Pride washes over him like a wave.

Mun-Yeong turns to leave, before promptly stopping and returning to the girl, bending down to meet her at eye level, "Tell those bullies that a witch gave this to you and if they tease you again it'll turn them into frogs." She unpins the black rose pin from her hair sliding it into the young girl's messy hair, her little hand comes up to touch it in wonder.

Tears swimming in her innocent eyes.

Without another word, Mun-Yeong leaves in a whirlwind of black cloth and witchy flair, and he watches Min-jo watch her, her seemingly cold words had been exactly the balm this child needed. He bids Min-jo farewell, bowing at the older woman who takes the young girl's hand, maybe not her biological grandmother but clearly she cares for her. He hopes they let each other know one day, their true feelings.

Love should be shared and acknowledged, unless what's the point of loving?

"You made her feel better."

She looks up at him from her place on the chair, passively, "I told her the truth."

He noticed a long time ago that she doesn't quite know how to respond to compliments, begs for them but once she receives them she quiets down as if taken back by their presence.

"You did really well Mun-Yeong, I'm so proud of you." Instinctively her head comes forward seeking his hand and he happily strokes his hand across her head, amazed by the woman he loves. He impulsively presses a kiss to her head as well, breathing in the floral aroma clinging to her hair.

That night as they lay together, no facades this time, she walks right over to him and slings into his arms, demanding that he stroke her head to help her fall asleep. He concedes happily. Too tired to try for anything more, he resolves to do it tomorrow. The thing that has been on his mind since he told her that he loved her.

He's going to ask her.

What's the point of having all this love and not showing her?

[lover-of-trash-and-people]

bittersweet netflix shadow and bone finale (s1 e8) rewatch; accoutrement: white wine with ice cubes in it (no YOU'RE a mom drink shh)

my wine's like fruity I love her

light and darkness title card we love to see it

Inej looking at Alina before she goes below deck to hide <3

okay that 'what can you really do on your own' was like not fun that shit hurted

okay but Jesper's 'not enough'? <3

oh no my baby Zoya's first inkling that Darkles does not really care

omg Helnik just appeared and I remembered how much heartbreak I have to face in this episode

gods I love Danielle as Nina so so much

'this can't be it' said she with her pleading smile with downturned eyebrows MA'AM I-

don't break my dumb little heart

I might hate Calahan's little accent but they're making me tear up

oh gods I literally cannot keep a hold on myself when Dani's accent bleeds through with full force, it's like she comes more alive or smth

'I will keep you warm' SIR WHAT-

I am surprised they showed a leaning in for a kiss so soon but I'm not mad about it

her little eyebrow twitch at 'what are waffles'

when that rando said 'i hunt slavers now' a dread settled into me because I knew what was about to go down

Matthias looking somberly at the stuffed wolf's head </3

I am so incredibly entranced by this exchange between Fedyor and Nina and what it represents, it's very interesting that they pushed up their storyline to match with the timeline

damn it's kind of jarring to be back in the Fold

'REMEMBER WHO'S DRIVING'??!!!! *you better stop* meme, *i am, disgusted* meme, *oh wow, oh wow* meme

Mal you fucking idiot you could never take the crows by surprise

the music rising as Kaz starts explaining his thought process, fucking perfection

haha Mal bitchass Inej caught you

'Because if he isn't with Kirigan's crew, he's with ours' WHEN I TELL YOU I SCREAMED

'And why would we destroy the Fold? It's the greatest weapon we've got' valid point at the moment but you know I don't necessarily agree with your methods

the use of the light tunnel in the show instead of Alina just being a super flashlight in the books is quite an interesting addition as well

is this an inappropriate time to point out how pretty Ben Barnes is

okay I kind of love the depiction of the shadow powers okay sue me

'they are traitors who tried to kill you' why are you suddenly making valid points despite having kind of committed low scale genocide

'i never said I was smart' YES MAL BE THE VOICE OF HIMBOS EVERYWHERE

Kaz's face going from 'can you believe this idiot' at Mal to 'fuck me I'm gonna do the same thing aren't I' at Inej

'For who would oppose us now?' *himbo romantic rival appears out of nowhere and shoots at him* god I love this show

him standing calmly in his ridiculous all black attire after nodding at his soldier to stop the himbo in his tracks, i fucking can't

could she summon light without the Darkling making her after he put the collar on her until the uhm moment in the books? idts but in the show she can hmm

'only because I'm not in the game' you tell him Jesper

not me snickering at 'you'll be seen not as a saviour, but as a heretic' LMFAO

'Shame. I'll have to give that speech again now.' THIS SHOW IS A FUCKING COMEDY AND YOU CAN'T PROVE ME WRONG

YES LET'S FUCKING GO SULI SOLIDARITY

Darkles casually whipping the Cut out like a shuriken or a throwing knife at Jesper because he shot at him lmao I can't

INEJ FUCKING GHAFA STABBED ONE THE OLDEST AND MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE IN THAT WORLD AND THAT IS VERY TELLING OF HER POWER

that moment where you actually think that affected him despite having read the books and watched the show

and then he has to go and fucking say 'it will take more than this' and I can't be help but be a little bit impressed at this old fool's resilience

throwback to when he said 'the king is a child' sir you make some valid points sometimes and it does make it difficult to hate you

I would just like to inform everyone that it is currently 6:09 am IST and I am sipping my second mug of wine while watching netflix sab for the second time instead of doing my three papers that are due tomorrow

I'm sorry but Inej jumping to check on Zoya after she gets knocked over by the volcra? first class display of solidarity and sisterhood as well as Inej's inherent kindness

Kaz jumping in front of a FUCKING VOLCRA AND STABBING IT WITH HIS CANE to save Inej, you best believe love is true, kids

god the volcra are so ugly and gross, they did such a good job with them

they kind of remind me of these creatures (I think they might have been called Hollows or smth) from the Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children movie

STAG VISION TIME

despite my dislike for the callous nature with which the stag plotline was handled, I kind of dig the stag vision scene

'It's just me and you now, Alina. And we're all we need, anyway.' I actually feel bad for this old fool simping for this wonderful gorgeous powerful woman despite lying to her and manipulating her and exploiting her power

okay 'I never needed you' *stabs the bone fragment out of his hand* beautiful power move I fucking love you so so much

alright ben looking like ✨ that✨ not only in physical pain but also emotional pain at what the Darkling clearly considers another betrayal from this girl he wants to give the world and maybe? loves? maybe? or at least has feelings for makes my fucking heart hurt while simultaneously soar at Alina taking back control and reclaiming her power as her own and stepping into her own

'how do you claim such power' okay could have had better dialogue there writers

the fucking score lifting as she says 'you cannot claim what was not given to you' good people my heart is full

one day I'll talk about my defense of the chosen one trope because god damn I kind of love it

hmm I wonder was that brief hesitation that we saw on Alina's face due to her thinking about the 'you chose to betray our people' comment or the 'i was trying to save us' comment because that will define some of her actions in the later seasons (hopefully god if we get some, I honestly don't know what with this stupid brownface debacle)

I'm not saying talking about brownface and pointing out that it is wrong (for further context, I am actually brown) and harmful is stupid btw I'm talking about the incidents involving brownface in question

I don't wanna talk about this anymore but I might feel like I need to and end up posting about it idk

goodness Ivan actually believing in this cause makes me so sad because he too has been victimized by the system that ostracizes Grisha and he has every right to feel the way that he does

Ben actually fighting in that ridiculously heavy cloak and kefta when he's about to turn 40 this year makes me super impressed because I as a 19 year old sometimes wake up with muscle pulls after weeks of inactivity it's weird idk

also I understand that this Mal Darkling fight is completely fanservice and serves nearly no purpose to the plot in general but like I? love it?

'I don't have to kill you Darkling. Your past will do it for me' YES HIMBO GO OFF YOU TELL THAT OLD MAN GODS THAT WAS SEXY AS FUCK

maybe it's because I know Darkles will survive and will come out of it more powerful but I can't get myself to feel bad for him at the moment

Inej and Mal tearing up at Alina's condition made me almost feel something despite it being super obvious she was gonna be fine and save their asses at the last moment

HER POWER

a solitary Kaz in spotted on the western side of the newly expanded fold in his signature all black emo boy look

okay but the crows with zoya and malina is such an adorable team? I literally love them so much?

INEJ'S FUCKING SMILE AT ALINA GIVING HER THE DAGGER AND KAZ LOOKING AT HER AGSGSGSHSJSJSK MY HEART CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE

SHE KNOWS JUST WHAT TO NAME IT WELL GIRLIE I KNOW IT TOO AND MY FUCKING HEART IS LITERALLY GONNA BURST

okay I know they had one interaction but Mal and Jesper would be besties in another universe

Kaz glaring at Jesper when he answers ''course not' to Alina's 'will you still be trying to kidnap me?' tell me one fucking adaptation that got the dynamics between characters this perfectly

okay why do I love that Alina kept the jewellery as maybe a small nod to she has the wits to, um, you know, I don't wanna say steal, but, um, yeah, steal it because she knew she would need money to survive on the run

oh Jessie I love you so much I wish you hadn't said those things on you ig story about the brownface

it's like every single celeb I grow attached to god's like nope that one is going to do or say something problematic (hey btw im not reassigning blame to god for stuff people have done out of their own free will, 'twas a joke)

AAAAAAAH them saying 'the deal is the deal' in the show even though they didn't have to but like they did and I love them for it

Inej literally not being able to not stare at Kaz's face and smile after this <3

'I didn't expect it to burn at all. But it can be destroyed in the end. Just like him' babe you're not wrong but like um just you wait

god Mal being on supportive boyfie mode is well, absolutely adorable, obviously, but I wish we got to see more of him as a person outside of his attachment to Alina

kaz my little demjin I wish you hadn't have had to suffer so much to meet the crows and find your calling

fastforwarding Zoya's arc is also an interesting choice to me

I wish the hug hadn't been done though, it didn't feel earned

maybe Alina awkwardly and half-heartedly (remember, at this point the alliance is fresh and they still don't entirely trust each other) reached for a hug and Zoya avoided her? and then the rest of Zoya's lines followed? that would have made more sense to me at least

I love Sujaya as well, she brought life into Zoya with whatever little screentime and scraps of writing she got

inej asking kaz 'what's your angle?' beep bop bleep morp I sense another incoming embarrassing love confession

'but we do need you' *stares at her face intensely* 'I need you' ah look at the clock, look's like it's time to screech and flap your arms like you're a volcra because you're incapable of containing your emotions

NO YOU CAN'T GO DIRECTLY FROM KANEJ PROGRESS TO HELNIK BREAKUP (TEMPORARY, MIND YOU)

helnik my loves you don't deserve this I'm so sorry for both of you

Matthias fucking smiling ruefully while he says 'this was... just a cruel joke all along' THIS IS NOT FUCKING OKAY

omg hellgate

AAAAAAAAH NINA IS ON THE SAME FRAME AS THE OG CROWS I CAN'T HANDLE THIS

CAMERA PAN FROM KAZ SAYING 'JUST HOW THIS ALL STARTED... WE'RE GONNA NEED A HEARTRENDED' TO NINA OVERHEARING HIM AND LOOKING OVER?????!!!!!! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING THIS TO ME?!

Nina genuinely being curious as to the status of the sun saint because she obviously still cares

Also, 'But she is a Saint' okay Kaz trying to earn brownie points you have succeeded

DID THAT SAILOR JUST SAY 'GOED MORGEN FENTOMEN' TO MALINA BECAUSE I AM NOT OKAY WITH THEM JUST THROWING THAT IN MY FACE ALL OF A SUDDEN

gods I know I'll probably see them again but my heart is full of sorrow as my eyes drink in the sight of my crows for the last time for a while

I know people were annoyed at the meadow flashbacks but guess what? as a darklina, I loved them

'now that the Darkling is dead' could have phrased that a little differently my dudes that line needed to hold more weight

am I glad that they showed Darkles in this state with his nichevo'ya as a tasty little cliffhanger despite not being entirely true to the source material? maybe but only because Ben Barnes saying 'follow' and the nichevo'ya doing exactly so sent a chill down my spine

well, that's it for now, I'll have to move on I guess, get back to my real life which I'm obviously not ready to do

thank you to whoever actually read these things

I probably should have just made reactions or commentary videos instead but I'm lazy

my tumblr will probably go into inactivity once more as I emerge from my stint in the grishaverse

it was quite short (less than 2 months), considering the length of my other obsessions but it was definitely more intense than the other ones

[frenchfriesoverguys]

House of the Witch (2017)

I am a newly made horror fan, so I’ve been slowly watching some of the movies on Netflix and came across this one. Okay, I am going to be brutally honest here. If you are looking for a scary film to watch, this is not it. If you are looking for a good movie to watch, this is not it. However, if you are looking for an interesting movie to watch, this kind of works. The premise is fine; a bunch of college-aged teens get trapped in a house haunted by a witch together. 

The rest of this post contains spoilers.

This type of film could have been pulled off much better. Most ‘bottle-episode’ horror movies focus on character development or character studies on how each person reacts differently to being in the situation based on their past. This film did a unique thing where they didn’t do or have any of that. Instead you have an hour and a half of just non-scary jump scares and unrealistic gory imagery. 

Typically in B-horror films, the main issue is the actors poor skills. I actually think that in this movie, they are the best thing about it. You don’t root for everybody at first, namely Taylor (Arden Belle) and Brody (Jesse Pepe). Both die early on but by the time Taylor dies you do feel bad for her. She is let out of the house by the witch, only to be drowned in the bog outside. The audience never learns anything more about her. Same with Brody. If the film never said their names, no one would notice. 

Honestly, you only really notice two names; Lana (Emily Bader) and Rachel (Michelle Randolph). Both the audience only notices because Shane (Darren Mann) shouts their names every other scene. I didn’t even know his name until I looked it up for this post. You learn the most about Lana and Shane, leading me to believe that if there were ‘final girls’ in this movie, it would have been them. None of the dialogue really reveals anything about anyone else. Mann takes on the character that is competent and able to move them throughout the house while everyone else is crying/freaking out. 

The last five minutes of the movie are probably the best. However, instead of just hearing how each of the group members figured out she was taking parts of them to rebuild her body, it would have been more bone chilling to watch it after the reveal. I’m just glad no one survived.

[just-a-fangirl13]

What is happening in 5x03??

I’m not going to pretend I have any idea whats going on here but I have a THEORY! (Can you tell I want to be a theoretical astrophysicist?)

I might be going straight up CRAZY but here we are......

[possible spoilers for 5x03 (I seriously doubt im right but I really do hope this is whats happening here)]

My theory is the whole thing is a dream sequence. Not just the MacRiley moment but the WHOLE EPISODE and its all in Mac’s head....Stick with me here.

Firstly here are the promos incase you missed them.

1. MacRiley scene

2. Mac, Desi, Bozer and Riley at Mac's place

3. Team Phoenix on the mission.

My first reaction on seeing the MacRiley snippet...THIS IS A DREAM..right?! If you look closely the way its been edited with the rainbow-glare shining in and out makes it seem magical and almost surreal.

So the question is WHO THE HELL IS DREAMING? Again my first thought was Riley, because we know she has feelings for Mac but that little factoid about the moon and eclipses lasting for 7 minutes doesn't strike me as something Riley would know.(I am a space nerd and even I didn't know the size of the moon is 400 times smaller than the sun) Which makes me think its Mac’s dream. We’ll get back to this in a sec.

The second promo absolutely crushed my soul. Mac here is complaining about how Desi has time for Rlley but doesnt have time to go out on a date with him. UM WAT THE HECK?! WHERE DID THIS COME FROM?? Mac and Desi showed no ounce of interest in each other in episode 1 and 2 and now suddenly he wants to date her?

Also note here Bozer is encouraging Mac to ask Desi out *sort of*. He knows about RIley’s feelings. He would never in a million years talk Mac back into that relationship because he is his bestfriend and he saw the toll the whole Codex situation took on him.

[We didn't get a single Riley look either.. that would be possible only because Mac has no idea she has feelings]

Now the third promo is just the team going on the mission. Nothing too complex here (or is there????)

Okay so why do I think this WHOLE EPISODE IS A DREAM?

Well firstly, the very title of the episode has the word Eclipse in it. Why would they do that if it was only going to be a one minute scene? Eclipse has to have some sort of deeper relevance here. Sure you could just argue that they gave us a tiny snippet of the whole scene and again you could be right. Maybe they didn't want to give away too much?

But we know Mac and Riley are not undercover or on a mission. They seem to be having a catch up picnic thing that suddenly leads to a kiss (that totally got cut out before we could see it *cruel cruel world*) Like I said before the whole vibe of that scene seems dreamy. Also note Mac is doing most of the sharing here. Which does make me think its him dreaming, like an inner monologue but Riley’s there too.

Secondly, Mac complaining about Desi not spending enough time with him doesnt sound like him at alll. It would be something he has thought or just a weird dream thing.(Dreams can get weird and out of control too!)

Every single person in the Mac and Desi promo is behaving weirdly.

Thirdly, add Roman to all of this. There’s no way the dude survived. Its more likely he’s a part of Mac’s nightmare. A symbol of everything Codex took from him, coming back to wreck things.

Fourthly add the press release photos of Desi, Bozer and Russ to all this and things seem to be getting even more confusing. The photos would fit into a dream sequence though. Things cutting in and moving around without making sense.

So what’s the significance of the whole thing? Well what I think is happening here is Mac is conflicted and grieving all at the same time. The first part is him asking Desi out and you can see the awkwardness on both their faces which also reminds me of the first time he asked her out. Its almost as if he’s replaying the scene in his head. 

Bozer here might be a part of Mac’s consciousness‍ that wants him to fix things with Desi. I really do think theres a part of Mac that did love her at some point.

The significance of Russ being kidnapped might have something to do with their newly formed friendship. The two of them really seem like they are on the same page and Mac obviously cares about him.

The promo scenes with Russ have this weird blurry effect around them. It could just be to show Russ is confused so maybe I really am overthinking this.

We know Mac and Desi are forced to talk about their relationship. This might be Mac having a conversation with Desi in his own head. Maybe even him coming to realise that he and Desi are never going to work, that clinging to Desi and that sense of familiarity is bad for both of them. 

The second half of the dream or even the part before Mac just wakes up might be the part where he realises that he can have true peace with Riley, aka the picnic scene. (This could be in the beginning but if it really signifies what I think it might him waking up before the kiss would seem fitting)

[They have used the dreamworld before to show Mac coming to terms with not being able to save everyone and the loss of his mother...idk if they will do it again or not but they have done it once before]

An eclipse is supposed to represent growth and major change. Change of day into night. Him having feelings for Riley that have always been there but suddenly showing up might be the metaphor behind this whole episode.

As all us MacRIley fans have suspected before, Mac had feelings for Riley but he didn't deal with it. Kissing Riley in his dream sequence or almost doing it might be the trigger he needs. 

[SIDE NOTE: Some one tweeted that Lucas Till said this episode was going to blow our minds..I cant find the interview so I cant confirm this happened. He said what the writers are doing with this season blew his mind so take it with a grain of salt....]

THIS IS A VERY OPTIMISTIC THEORY AND I REALLY AM SORRY IF THINGS DONT WORK OUT THIS WAY BUT I REALLY HOPE I’M RIGHT!!