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asterekmess · 4 years ago

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What did Scott McCall do to deserve a “true alpha” title exactly?

Well, to be entirely honest, that’s not how a True Alpha is supposed to work.

True Alpha (hereby referred to as TA) abilities aren’t something you ‘earn’ by doing something. If we take what Deaton and Morrell say at face value, that there’s literally no way to ‘earn’ becoming a True Alpha. No selfless act, no nothing.

It’s just something you are. Deaton describes it in “Currents” as “someone who rises purely on the strength of character, by virtue, by sheer force of will.’

Now, technically...those things don’t require you to do anything. Essentially, someone who believes they should be an Alpha strongly enough can become an Alpha. And the virtue part is weird, because it never says what virtue. There are a few.

The Seven Christian Virtues Are:

Chastity - “Purity”

Temperance - “Humanity/Compassion”

Charity - “Generosity/Sacrifice”

Diligence - “Persistence/Ethics”

Patience - “Forgiveness/Mercy”

Kindness - “Satisfaction/Compassion again”

Humility - “Bravery/Modesty”

Now, there are two ways of looking at this. Either a True Alpha must be “Virtuous,” as in, someone who has ALL seven virtues. OR, a True Alpha must fully embody ONE virtue”

Now, if it were the case of the first, that...doesn’t make much sense. Scott isn’t pure in like..any sense of the word? He’s not sexually pure (though that doesn’t actually exist, obviously) but he’s also not free of jealousy. And you can’t even say that just because he IS jealous doesn’t mean he’s not pure because he never acted on it, because HE DID. MULTIPLE TIMES. He tried to attack Jackson and Allison when they were talking in the car. He insisted on playing lacrosse when Lydia told him she’d introduce Allison to the other members of the team.

The same things happens when you look at any of the other virtues. It isn’t that he just has bad thoughts and then that’s it. It’s that he acts on those thoughts and insecurities and commits violence and acts against other people in the name of securing his superiority/power. He doesn’t show a lick of compassion with Derek’s Betas, outright telling Erica that he doesn’t care why she wanted the bite. Telling Boyd that he’d made a mistake in liking Derek and implying that being lonely was a stupid reason to want the bite. Even making the claim that Isaac had bloodlust even though Isaac hadn’t lost control since he’d been bitten when had to at least have been one day, and even though Isaac clearly didn’t lose control in front of any officers the entire time he was being interrogated about his father’s abuse and death, only losing it after the moon went up, and only to stop a hunter from killing him.

I won’t go on with every single virtue, but the evidence is there.

Now, let’s go one step further into the possible reasoning behind him being a TA. Maybe, you say, maybe Scott didn’t become a TA before S3 because of those previous things he did. When he went against the virtues, he couldn’t become a TA. But then in S3 he’s doing So Much Better, so then he gets to become a TA.

Except he doesn’t. Yes, in S3A he’s shown to be suddenly much wiser, because he apparently spent the summer reading and working on self-improvement. But it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t continue to do extremely immoral things throughout the season, right down to pettily helping Isaac and Allison play a prank on the Twins that would get them in major trouble and lying to the people around him so he could go have a secret meeting with Deucalion.

And this isn’t even me trying to diss Scott. The ENTIRE POINT of the Seven virtues is that NO ONE can be perfect. No one can embody all of these virtues at once. Humans are FLAWED. The problem here is that if we don’t make the Virtuous part required to become a TA then it’s just FAR too easy to do.

If “sheer force of will” is enough to become an Alpha, if occasionally doing immoral things doesn’t totally negate your ability to ‘rise up’ (even though Alphas aren’t better. They’re canonically just one branch. One option. Alpha, Beta, and Omega aren’t ever specified as one being better than the other. Hell, Scott’s an Omega until he Gets the Alpha eyes, since he never joins Derek’s pack, and he isn’t even weakened by it) then PETER HALE should’ve become an Alpha.

You don’t get a force of will stronger than Screaming into the woods about “I Will Always Be The Alpha.”

But Tali, you say, Peter killed someone and we all know that killing someone means you can’t become a TA.

Well, First, I’ll point out that Scott came up with that idea on his own. No one told him that. He just said it in the meeting with Morrell “But if I kill someone, I can’t become a True Alpha, right?”.

Now, maybe Deaton told him that, and he’s just repeating something that was said offscreen. After all, Morrell does respond with “Exactly.” So maybe that is a rule.

But see, if that’s a rule, then Deaton was sabatoging Scott in Season 2.

Remember? Deaton helped Scott switch out Gerard’s pills with mountain ash. They were Actively Murdering a Cancer Patient. If Deaton “believed” “From the moment” Scott was bitten that he would be a TA, then wouldn’t that mean that S2 was ENTIRELY him trying to take away the TA potential from Scott? If That plan had worked? Scott would never have been able to become an Alpha.

OH, you say, but Scott didn’t technically kill Gerard, even if the pills worked. It was Derek and the mountain ash. Scott never touched him.

BUT, if that’s the case, then AGAIN literally ANYONE who truly believes they should be able to become an Alpha should become a TA. When you twist the definitiion of ‘killing’ like that, Derek should’ve been able to be a TA before he killed Peter. TeCHniCAllY Derek didn’t kill Paige, Ennis’ bite did. He was saving her from the pain.

And so, you end up playing so many different games trying to make TA’s special and rare, only to make them IMPOSSIBLE to become, but that leaves you with two, maybe three choices. Either you Remove the TA idea altogether, you admit that anybody can become a TA and you give it to the other characters who match the criteria, or you turn the ONE character you want to give it to into a LITERAL SAINT.

And they didn’t even do that correctly, because Scott isn’t perfect in S3 or beyond. He ISN’T a saint, and he does admit that regularly, though it’s not with any amount of humility or wish to grow as a person.

So it’s no wonder that nobody likes the True Alpha concept. It doesn’t make any fucking sense.

#personal #rant #meta ramblings #anti-Scott McCall #sorry about all the anons lately #I just finally got the energy to answer the ones sitting in my inbox #Anonymous #go for it

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danielleslegacy · 5 years ago

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Mints || Spencer Reid x Reader

Request: yes / no

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Summary: Y/n and the team are taking a case where woman have been dying having eaten poisoned mints.

Word Count: 2,514

Warnings: Needles, Vomit, hospitals, death, extreme angst.

Pairing: Reader insert x Spencer Reid

All writing is my own, so please don’t steal this. Also, I would appreciate any feedback/comments/requests! xx

*GIF IS NOT MINE SO CREDIT GOES TO THE OWNER*

This case was a particularly hard one, the unsub had killed 3 women in 3 days, but we couldn’t figure out the cause. Spencer had figured out some kind of geographical profile, but without more information about the victims, there was nothing we could do. The women were all connected by coming in to the police station to report a petty crime a day before their death. The team theorized that the petty crimes were committed by the unsub, but other than that we couldn’t figure it out. The women were different ethnicities, age ranges and socioeconomic status’.

“You okay?” A voice calls, breaking me out of my thoughts as the team begins to discuss the profile for the latest serial killer. I turn my head and my eyes lock onto Spencer’s concerned face, we had been dating for a little over five months. I nod my head and turn back to the group, not really paying attention to the information that is being discussed. My feet begin to feel tingly beneath me, but I brush it off and just start to move my feet a little, trying to get the feeling back in them. But when that doesn’t work, I notice my head has started to spin too. My vision gets slightly blurry and I slowly bob down so that I’m closer to the ground, just in case I pass out.

“Y/n?” Director Hotchner calls out, “Do you need a moment?”

A hand rests on my shoulder as I shake my head, leaning my forehead down to the floor. “No it’s fine, keep going.”

The meeting continues, my forehead pressed to the floor and the hand that, I’m assuming belongs to Spencer, rubs small circles across my back in a reassuring way. Once the spinning slows down and I can feel my feet again I lift my head back up and try to pay attention to the conversation that is being had.

“So, what? It’s a poison that is killing these women?” Morgan’s voice says next, my brows furrow in an attempt to concentrate on his words.

“Poison?” I ask, everyone's eyes cast down to where I am sitting on the ground. “Where is the poison coming from?” My eyes snap up to meet Spencer’s searching for the answer.

“The M.E thinks that it was in some kind of mint, which is an odd choice,” Emily says, flipping through the reports in front of her. “You don’t look so good Y/n, you sure you’re okay?”

My face pales in realization, the mint I swallowed earlier begs to make a reappearance. The panic must be evident on my face, “You need to take me to the hospital right now.” Everyone gives me an odd look, and Spencer’s movements cease. “I had one of the mints from the front desk. The other women must have too. They were all the day before they died. I need to get to the hospital.”

The team springs into action, Hotch on the phone requesting an ambulance to pick me up. Spencer’s arm looping around my waist to try to pull me up off the ground, Derek jumping to the other side. I attempt to stand up on my feet but I can’t feel them again and my head goes more fuzzy than it had before, so I have to heavily lean on the men to even raise myself up.

“Ambulance will be here in two minutes, let’s get her outside,” Hotch announces, and everyone begins to take me outside, discussing my dizziness and the way I had been acting.

But I can hardly hear them trying to keep consciousness, I begin talking, “I took a mint from the front desk at approximately nine-thirty last night before I went back to the hotel, so if the other woman died within 24 hours, we have a few hours. It was a little red and white candy and it did taste a little funny.”

“Funny how?” Spencer asks, he knew that I was trying to give a statement while I was still conscious.

“Soapy,” I slightly slur, “ I was going to spit it out but I couldn’t find a garbage bin.”

“Who was at the desk?”

“A white man, around 35, He greeted me and offered me the mint,” I let out a gasp, “Spence he’s the unsub you have to g-.” But I can’t finish my sentence as the entirety of my stomach begins to empty, a trash can is thrust underneath me. Once I am finished the paramedic’s are in front of us with a stretcher, I’m pulled out of the boys arms and layed down.

“Spence,” I call out, tears spring to my eyes as panic reaches up my throat for the first time since we discovered I had been poisoned. My hand reaching up towards the sky hoping he would hear me, when his hand grips mine, and his hard rakes my hair out of my face I feel myself relax. “I’m really scared.”

He nods his head, concern laced in his features, “I know baby, but it’s going to be okay.”

Needles are stuck into my arm and people begin to rush around me, trying to get my vitals. “You have to catch him Spence.”

“Garcia is already looking through the surveillance cameras to try to find out who we’re looking for. You don’t even need to worry, just hold on Y/n,” He presses his lips to my forehead just as my stretcher is lifted into the ambulance. Our hands disconnect and the paramedics talk around me.

“Sir, are you coming with us?” One of them asks, to whom I assume is Spencer.

“Hotch?”

“We’ve got it here, keep her safe,” Hotch replies to him encouraging him to get into the ambulance with me, and I assume he does, but I couldn’t tell you. The panic in my chest and all of the voices and the spinning of my head and the numbness of my body make it hard to tell what is happening to me. People keep saying things like ‘focus on my voice’ or ‘breathe for me’ and all i can do is lie limp on the stretcher, paralysed. My eyes flick around rapidly but I can’t find Spencer at all and a part of me fears he didn’t come. I close my eyes and try to feel each part of my body, and I notice a heaviness in my left hand and I know that he's with me. With that knowledge I let darkness overcome me and I slip away, the last thing I hear is monitors blipping all around me, indicating my heart rate has slowed dramatically.

The smiling face of Spencer fades in from the darkness, and he lets out a laugh of pure joy. A smile comes to my face as I extend my hand out to meet his cheek.

“Hi Spence,” I say softly, “Where are we?” My eyes glance around the pitch blackness.

He says nothing in response and just gestures up towards where a screen is now suddenly playing the view of an operating room. People run around working quickly, trying to keep the person on the table alive. Words I don't fully understand are thrown around and tools that send shivers down my spine are thrusted into the person's body, trying to get the heart to restart. Someone in the room runs past the front of the table knocking the drape off of the person's face. It's me.

Panic claws its way at my chest and machines begin beeping crazily from the screen. Tears meet my eyes.

“What is happening Spence?” I ask turning back to where he had previously been standing only to be met with nothing. My breathing starts to deepen and my head starts spinning. My knees collapse from beneath me and I slam my fists into the ground, wanting nothing more than to be back into the real world, holding Spencer’s hand. Catching the guy that poisoned me.

It’s almost as if the ground swallows me up and spits me back out as I open my eyes again and find myself in a hospital room. The first sensation that comes to me is that my mouth is dry, like very dry. The next thing I notice is that I am freezing everywhere except my left hand. I cast my eyes down and I am met with my boyfriend's fluffy brown locks, his head rested on the edge of my hospital bed, his hand linked with mine.

I attempt to squeeze his hand to get his attention and before I can even think about what to say to him his head has snapped up, eyes locking with mine. A wide grin spread across his face and he leans up to press a soft kiss to my forehead.

“I missed you so much,” is all he says, before he presses the button to alert the nurse that you were awake. “Water?”

I nod my head gently, taking a sip of the cup that he had raised up for me. “Did you catch him yet?”

Spencer’s face changes then, his face conveys that this news is going to be hard to handle. “Louis Thompson, aged thirty seven, widow and a chemist. He laced the mints with some drug Aconite, a drug that paralyses the nerves, and muscles. He was found in the precinct bathroom after ingesting an unknown amount of the mints, dead on the scene.” I nod my head trying to make sense of the situation.

“How long has it been?”

“Your heart stopped on the way to the hospital, twice however paramedics were able to resuscitate you,” He says, eyes locked with yours, the only emotion that can be found is fear, however, i can tell that he's trying to only use facts when explaining this all to me to avoid letting his own tears fall, “Once in the emergency room your liver began to fail, however, the doctors on your case were quick to figure out the drug used, and they were able to appropriately assess the situation. Your heart stopped once again in the trauma room and they were once again able to restart it. They injected you with atropine and you stabilized quickly after that. That took a total of three hours and twenty-one minutes. That was almost seven hours ago.”

“Thank you,” I say, my hand gripping him even tighter.

“I was so scared Y/n, I couldn’t help you,” He says, eyes shining with tears. A nurse comes in, forcing Spencer and me to break apart while she assesses me and makes sure everything is okay.

“I’m going to call the team and let them know you’re awake, they are downstairs,” He says, a faint smile on his face as he exits the room, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

The nurse leaves soon after determining that I’m doing perfectly fine, telling me to take it easy and to press the button if I have any discomfort, and not even seconds later the rest of my team is parading in through the door, smiles on their faces, albeit a few tear stains.

“Can’t get rid of me that easily,” I say letting out a laugh, my own subtle way of letting them know that I’m fine. My eyes rake across the group's faces, locking eyes with each of them, their faces practically unmoving as they study me. “Guys come on, I’m alright.”

Suddenly, as if they had been broken out of a trance they gather around the sides of my bed.

“Glad to see you’re okay Agent L/n,” Hotch says, with a nod and a small smile.

“I was so worried,” JJ says, placing a reassuring hand onto my shoulder.

I give her a watery smile, tears rising to my eyes and pat her hand, turning my face around the group, “I was too, but I’m fine now. I promise,” I begin to search for Spencer, wanting the comfort he gives me, “Where did Spence go?”

Panic builds in my throat, making talking impossible. The machine still hooked up to my chest starts to beep rapidly, making the whole room aware of the fear that is taking a hold of me.

“Hey no, it's okay, I'll go find him, he probably just went to go get a coffee,” Morgan says reassuringly, tapping my leg and walking out of the hospital room.

Once he has completely left the room. “I need you to tell me the truth, how did Spencer handle it? Should I be worried?”

“He wasn’t calm,” JJ begins, “But he let us do our job. He stayed out of the way and tried to keep his mind busy the best he could, in the only way he could, he worked the case from the waiting room. Y/n, he was angry and scared, but he was still Spencer, I don’t think you need to worry. He didn’t go off the rails, he was here, waiting for you.”

I nod my head, fresh tears falling slowly down my cheeks, in the corner of my eyes I notice the boys on their way back, I quickly wipe my tears away, not wanting Spencer to see me upset.

“There are the boys,” I say, stretching my hand out towards Spencer, and as our hands link I bring my eyes up to meet his and notice that they’re bloodshot and rimmed in red. He had been crying. My heart drops in my chest and I force a smile up at him. I can tell her notices my red eyes too by the way his soften and his other hand reaches up to brush down my cheek softly.

“We really should be leaving, we will see you both soon,” Hotch announces, encouraging the other to follow his lead, each saying a swift goodbye and good luck on their way out the door.

Once they’re all gone I let out a sigh and close my eyes, relaxing my body into the hospital bed.

“I missed you,” Spencer says softly, taking a seat in the chair next to mine.

“Please kiss me Spence, “ I practically beg him, allowing my eyes to water. He leans over quickly pressing his lips to mine softly. His own tears mixing with mine along our cheeks. The kiss doesn’t progress any further, just remaining innocent, letting us be together.

He pulls away, wiping his thumbs underneath my eyes, ridding my face of tears, before doing the same to his own.

“I promise you Spence, I’m okay,” I smile, “When can I go home?”

“They want to observe you for a few more hours and then I can take you home,” He says, a faint smile on his lips, “Why don’t you get some rest? I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.”

I feel my head nod as the painkillers that I’m assuming they gave me begin to kick in and the world begins to slip away.

“I love you,” Are the last words I hear just as sleep overcomes me.

#criminal #criminal minds #criminal minds reid #dr spencer reid #maddy rambles #spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #doctor spencer reid #what the fuck is happening with tumblr #spence #spencer reid fanfiction #fanfiction

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stereksecretsanta · 5 years ago

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Merry Christmas, @bibliophile246!

Read on AO3

*****

i'm your afterparty

“Just two more hours.”

Derek shivered as Stiles’ lips brushed against the shell of his ear. He wanted to chase the hot breath that carried that whisper, but, as his husband had so courteously reminded him, he still had to suffer through two more hours of maintaining social decorum.

“I could have sworn we said 9:00 this year.”

Stiles smirked and adjusted Derek’s collar. “Nice try. Be good.”

Derek felt his face heat as Stiles winked and turned to saunter back to the bar. Dammit . He knew precisely how his choice of words would affect Derek. This was going to be a long two hours.

In theory, Derek generally looked forward to the annual Hale and Associates holiday gala. Every year, however, he was reminded yet again how exhausting he found the entire spectacle — rubbing elbows with corporate clients and pretending to remember details of their personal lives was far from his idea of a good time, even if the impressive decor and impeccable catering helped make the evening slightly more bearable. But the event was Laura’s passion project, and since it had quickly become the firm’s premier charitable event, Derek was committed to keeping up appearances for his sister’s sake.

And if Stiles used… intimacy to incentivize him, well — that was their business.

It was a game they had developed over the past few years, and the rules were simple: Derek’s enthusiastic participation in company events was rewarded, after the fact, in bed. Stiles never missed an opportunity to tease Derek to the very edge of frustration before retreating, which kept them both on their toes. It was a win-win arrangement, and Derek had no intention of breaking their streak and throwing in the towel early this year.

As he took another sip of his drink, he shot a glance at his watch. One hour and fifty-five minutes remained. Bring it on.

***

“That was the longest two hours of my life.”

Derek snorted as Stiles dropped his head against the Camaro’s steering wheel. “You’re the one who said we should stay until 10:00. I was just doing what you told me to.”

His breath caught as Stiles reached over to squeeze his knee. “Yes, you were. And you did great, babe.”

Now that they were alone, Derek allowed himself to enjoy the full weight of Stiles’ words. “Thank you,” he said softly, placing his hand over his husband’s. Stiles smiled and continued rubbing small circles over Derek’s kneecap.

“Besides, staying later means I get to gossip with Laura about her least favorite board members.”

“Mom was doing the same thing. I think it’s genetic,” Derek replied with a sigh, settling back into the passenger seat.

As Stiles drove them home, a companionable silence descended over the car. These quiet moments together were one of Derek’s favorite, unexpected things about their relationship. For as talkative as Stiles was, he was almost preternaturally aware of Derek’s moods and the time he needed to recover his energy after social engagements.

By the time Stiles parked outside their home, though, Derek’s excitement had picked up once again. He had been good for Stiles, and he knew he’d be rewarded perfectly for it.

After they both stepped inside, Stiles locked the door and turned to Derek. He gently cupped one hand around the back of Derek’s neck and gestured toward the bedroom. “Why don’t you go get ready? I’ll be right behind you in a few minutes.”

Though it sounded like a question, Derek knew it wasn’t a request. It was a command — one he had been waiting all evening to obey.

***

Of course, he knew Stiles wouldn’t indulge him immediately. He loved to tease, but he also knew that making Derek wait gave him time to clear his mind and fill it entirely with anticipation.

Derek disrobed methodically, making sure he sorted his laundry and returned his tie to its proper location, which he knew would please Stiles. He hadn’t specified a posture, so Derek was free to choose how he wanted to wait this time. After a moment of consideration, he opted to sit cross-legged on the floor facing the end of the bed, back straight, as he usually did when he felt too tired to kneel. Then, he prepared to wait.

He often lost track of time like this, skin tingling expectantly, thoughts floating through the day and looping back to Stiles — where they always began and ended.

It wasn’t until Derek had met Stiles (and, more specifically, they started this ) that he realized how much stress he was accustomed to shouldering. He enjoyed his work, but starting a serious relationship forced him to acknowledge how much of it he let spill over into what was supposed to be his personal life.

When Stiles first broached the idea of introducing domination and submission into their sex life, Derek was intrigued by the prospect of surrendering control to someone he trusted so deeply. Stiles cared for him in every aspect of their partnership, and their five years together made Derek feel freer than he ever had.

The creak of the bedroom door’s hinges pulled Derek from his reflection and back into the moment, where Stiles now stood next to him. Derek could see him in his peripheral vision, hands in his pockets, posture casual yet underscored by a quiet confidence that made Derek’s blood run hot. Though Stiles was completely clothed except for his jacket and shoes, sitting naked like this no longer made Derek feel exposed — under Stiles’ approving gaze, he simply felt adored.

Stiles moved to sit on the end of their bed and began rolling his shirtsleeves up past his elbows. After another beat of silence, he finally addressed Derek.

“Thank you for waiting so patiently for me, baby.”

“You’re welcome,” Derek responded dutifully.

“How are you feeling?” Stiles reached forward and lightly traced Derek’s cheek with the back of his hand. It took all of Derek’s willpower not to lean into his touch, but he knew that if he stayed still, Stiles would reward him.

“Good. A little tired. But excited,” Derek said, gaze fixed on his husband’s exposed forearms.

“Oh yeah? What are you excited about?” Stiles’ fingers moved to graze Derek’s collarbone, sending goosebumps down his chest and arms.

“Being rewarded for being good tonight.”

Stiles laughed fondly. “That’s what I thought. I’ll help you move onto the bed. I know you’re tired.” He steadied Derek as he stood up and guided him to the head of the bed, then scooted back and settled Derek against him between the vee of his legs. Draped chest-to-back like this, they felt impossibly close. Derek shivered as Stiles pressed a series of open-mouthed kisses against the back of his neck, his long and impossibly dexterous fingers absently skating over Derek’s nipples.

“You were great tonight, Derek,” Stiles murmured. “I love seeing you all dressed up and schmoozing with all the other big-name lawyers.”

Derek huffed out a small laugh. “Thank you. Thank you for going with me,” he said, distantly aware that his breath had settled into the same rhythm as Stiles’.

Stiles pressed another firm kiss into Derek’s skin. “Of course, baby. I had a good time. And I spent a lot of time thinking about this, too.” His hands began to wander further down Derek’s thighs, where he was already stirring with arousal.

Derek didn’t reply — it was all he could do to keep his breath steady, and Stiles hadn’t asked a direct question or given him a compliment. He was free to revel fully in the sensation of Stiles’ touch.

Stiles leaned his rested his forehead on Derek’s shoulder. “Was there anything in particular you’d like to do tonight? I want you to pick your reward. You deserve it. I have some ideas, too, so it’s okay if you’re not sure,” Stiles asked. He always sounded so calm when they did this — so thoughtful and in control, which never failed to put Derek at ease.

Derek appreciated his consideration, but he’d spent all night imagining what he wanted Stiles to do, at least to start. “Can we start with spanking, please?”

“Of course. Do you want the flogger, the paddle, or my hand?”

Derek paused for a moment before deciding. “Your hand, please.”

“Perfect. You can move now.”

Derek shifted and allowed Stiles to arrange him across his lap. “Comfortable?” he asked, smoothing a hand down Derek’s back.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Good. Let’s start with ten.”

“Because you made me stay at the gala until ten?” Derek turned toward Stiles, clearly struggling to maintain a straight face.

Stiles smirked. “You might get an extra one for that. And I want you to stay quiet this time, since you’re feeling sassy.”

“Okay,” Derek agreed, arching his back to display his ass. “I’m ready.” Staying silent would be a challenge, but the idea of successfully obeying Stiles’ command was intoxicating.

The first slap startled him, as it always did, no matter how many times he asked to be spanked. Stiles set an unhurried but consistent pace, and though Derek was initially hyper aware of every point of contact his skin had with Stiles’ clothing and the blanket beneath them, his thoughts soon melted into a single serene haze.

This was the feeling he’d been craving all night: the way his head felt like it was floating, but the physical sensation of being spanked sending sharp jolts of pleasure through his entire body. It was a state that sometimes felt paradoxical when he tried to explain it, but it made perfect sense when Stiles was touching him like this.

After the eleventh strike, Stiles ran his hands over Derek’s ass and allowed him to indulge in the pleasurable sting for a few more minutes. “Was that good, baby?” he asked eventually, carding his fingers through Derek’s hair.

“Very good. Thank you,” Derek said. He stifled a yawn as he stretched, flushing with pleasure as his now-hard length rubbed against Stiles’ thigh. Sometimes Stiles was stricter about Derek taking pleasure in such a way, but tonight, he knew he was focused on indulging Derek.

Stiles laughed as he helped Derek sit upright and gathered him into his arms. “Am I boring you, Derek?”

Derek glanced up at Stiles. “No. I promise. I’m just relaxed.”

Stiles hummed. “Good. I’m glad you’re relaxed. You were perfect for me — you stayed so still and quiet.”

Derek felt his entire body warm at Stiles’ praise. He always knew exactly when Derek needed affirmation, and he gave it generously.

“I’m a little tired, too,” Stiles continued. “How about we take care of this, then go to sleep?” Derek jumped as Stiles’s fingers skirted over his erection. He was certainly ready for release — but he wanted to bring Stiles with him.

“That sounds good,” Derek said. “Can I please touch you, too?” He plucked at Stiles’ unbuttoned collar, wordlessly imploring Stiles to take it off.

“If you insist,” Stiles teased. He gently shifted Derek and stood so he could discard his clothing and return to their bed, this time as exposed as Derek was.

“Much better,” Derek sighed, reaching for Stiles. As they caught each other in a deep, open-mouthed kiss, Stiles maneuvered himself so he was bracketed over Derek. Derek wrapped his arms around his husband, anchoring himself as Stiles reached down to take both of them in his hand.

Soon, Derek lost himself in the ebb and flow of their bodies, hands and tongues and backs moving in a tandem performance they’d spend half a decade perfecting. After a few more minutes, Derek heard the telltale hitch in Stiles’ breath and felt a bloom of warmth over his stomach as he came between them, with Derek’s climax following a few strokes behind.

Stiles slumped over Derek, nosing at his jaw as their breathing slowed. Before he let himself collapse into bed, he pressed a firm kiss to Derek’s forehead. “I’ll clean us up. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Derek nodded, closing his eyes and luxuriating in another full-body stretch. His day had been a marathon of contentious client meetings, terse emails, and frenzied gala preparation, but Stiles had pushed it all to the background. All that mattered was this feeling of satisfaction, both physical and emotional, that they had cultivated together.

Stiles quickly emerged from the bathroom and gently cleaned Derek’s skin with deft fingers before laying back down and guiding Derek’s head to his chest.

“Thanks,” Derek murmured, voice heavy with sleep. “That was worth staying until ten.”

His head bobbed as Stiles laughed. “Anything for you, Derek. Always.”

#bibliophile246 #stereksanta19 #*fics19 #*gifts19

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sage-nebula · 5 years ago

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I think my favorite thing about the final season of The Good Place so far is how, even though the characters think they’re the ones teaching and testing the four new humans, in reality, the original four humans are the ones facing their final tests with regards to their fatal flaws, to see if they can overcome them once and for all.

In order:

Eleanor’s fatal flaw was her selfishness. She prioritized her own happiness, ignored others, and lashed out at them when she felt that her own happiness / sense of self was threatened by them, either by them being better than her, or them leaving her. In this season, she has not only had to give up her relationship for Chidi for the sake of humanity, but she’s had to push him toward his ex-girlfriend and tell him that they’re soulmates, will presumably have to watch them be together, and will have to accept that. She backslid with torturing Chidi, but she realized her mistake by the end of the episode and has worked on correcting that. It’ll likely be something she’s working with / struggling with all season, because again, her selfishness was her fatal flaw, the biggest obstacle to her being a good person, and as such she has to pass a final test to prove, once and for all, that she has overcome it.

Jason’s fatal flaw was his impulsiveness. He always flew by the seat of his pants and did whatever would bring him the most desired emotional reward the quickest, whether this was by throwing a molotov cocktail into AcidCat’s boat or doing whippets in a safe. In this season, he has not only faced direct consequences related to jumping on his first emotional impulses (e.g. the fallout of rebooting Derek), but since Janet has broken up with him, he is in a situation where there isn’t a quick and easy way to get the emotional response that he wants. He wants to be with Janet, but refusing to accept the breakup would only make her angrier, which would make the situation worse. Realizing this and adhering to it---reining in those emotional impulses and not acting on them---is the final test that Jason is dealing with so far this season.

Tahani’s fatal flaw was her pride, which in her case manifested as an obsession with status. Tahani had a deep, powerful need to not only be at the top of the line for everything, but for everyone to know that she was at the top of the line for everything, and for everyone to admire her for being at the top of the line for everything. In this season, she has been faced with someone who is both fully aware that she was at the front of top of the line for everything, and who resented and, on some level, even hated her for it (which, by the by, is not too different from how she felt about Kamilah for the longest time; she’s now getting to see what it feels like to be on the other side of that velvet rope). Tahani’s challenge this season, as we’ve especially seen in the last episode, is going to be not only learning to not care about and be less obsessed with status, but also realizing once and for all that there are not only some things that can’t be solved with name-dropping and shows of status, but that at times such a thing actually makes situations worse, and that she needs to connect with people on a more personal level if she’s going ot help them.

Lastly, Chidi’s fatal flaw was his indecisiveness (and not his anxiety as so many think). No matter how trivial the situation, Chidi was never able to make a decisive choice while alive (or often in the afterlife), which not only made those around him miserable depending on the situation (e.g. wasting recess for the other kids, messing up a potential wedding for a good friend), but also made him miserable because he was never actually able to enjoy anything because he never committed to it. The interesting thing about Chidi, of course, is that he has had his memory erased, which means that he can’t be tested via the new humans like the others are. However, I believe this is because the show is setting Chidi up to have his final test at the end. Near the end of season one, Chidi was put into a position where he had at least three women who had expressed romantic interest in him: Eleanor, Tahani, and Vicky-pretending-to-be-Good-Eleanor. He never actually made a choice back then; instead, whenever the subject was brought up, he begged them not to make him choose, got a stomachache, and basically just demonstrated that the torture Michael had set up was working. While it’s not exactly the same situation, this season has also set up a love triangle for Chidi: There’s Eleanor, who is in love with him and who he was in love with before his memories were erased, and Simone, who he once had a relationship with (though neither of them remember it) and who he now believes is his soulmate. I think that the end of the season will have Chidi regain his memories, and thus have to make a choice between Eleanor and Simone, and that Chidi will pass his final test of overcoming his deepest flaw when he’s able to decisively choose one of them (whichever one that ends up being).

While these tests obviously don’t exist in-universe for the original four at this point, I absolutely think that the way their arcs are unfolding in season four is an intentional writing decision meant to show that, despite all the reboots, these characters truly have grown over the past three seasons and are finally achieving what they set out to, intentionally or otherwise. Each of them has worked hard at overcoming their fatal flaws, they’ve gotten better and stronger with it each time, and we’re going to finally see them overcome those flaws once and for all at the culmination of this season.

And I, for one, can’t wait to see how that all unfolds.

#the good place #eleanor shellstrop #jason mendoza #tahani al jamil #chidi anagonye #the good place spoilers #tgp spoilers #meta #i think that Janet's and Michael's arcs are wrapping up as well #but not only are theirs not as clear cut bc we haven't seen defining fatal flaws from them #BUT with all the suspicion surrounding them right now it's hard to say what's going on #personally i think Michael is still Our Michael and it's Janet who's been swapped #but until we have a clear answer either way i'm holding off on analyzing their arcs this season yet #the humans are much much more obvious as a result #anyway the big Cheleanor moment is going to be when Eleanor finally lets him go #and accepts it and is okay with it if being with Simone makes him happy #and she leaves but just as she's about to go Chidi shows up #because Eleanor was ready and willing to let him go #but he definitively chose her #that's my prediction for how it's going to end and i'm sticking to it

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sarcasticace · 6 years ago

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wait why is AME b2 so bad??

Under the cut because this gets long and kinda rant-y, sorry

- The writers should’ve never implemented double elimination. It helped this season feel different, which was something this book needed to be successful, but it only made it feel like the new characters left way too soon. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like we hardly got to know most of them. I get that it was so there was never an odd number of contestants, but they could’ve done something like… winner is exempt every other challenge or something.

- I am convinced the writers DID NOT know what to do with Ivy or Vince. Particularly Ivy. They kept switching between the 2D villain Adam-mancers love to petty hate to this really compelling (at least imo), complicated rival character. They should have stuck with the later AND they should have paired Ivy with MC at least once, leading to addressing her betrayal from last season: letting players forgive Ivy and move on (and rekindle their romance if players did that last season) or remain bitter towards her. But mostly pairing MC and Ivy in a challenge for the drama. It boggles my mind that both Ivy and MC are in the same season, but no one bothered to pair them up. I vaguely remember it was one of the reasons S10 didn’t tank. I might be remembering some details wrong, but in-universe, didn’t fans tune it to see that sweet MC/Ivy drama? Any good showrunner would have taken advantage and milked the hell out of it by doing whatever they can to put the two in the same room. I guess Carson being portrayed as incompetent subverted that, but Carson is a fictional character so that doesn’t count. If the writers weren’t going to fully take advantage of the Ivy/MC dynamic, they should have cut Ivy from the book entirely.

- The partners. This was such a brilliant idea, but omg did they fuck it up. Why did they ONLY pair MC with Slater, Vince, and Adam. I mean, of fucking course it’s Adam, but they should’ve made it so the contestants got new partners AFTER EVERY CHALLENGE. Not when Carson felt like it or something came up. And MC should never have been paired with Adam (or Mack and Derek for that matter). It should have been Ivy (for the above reason) and all the new characters especially if they were committed to the idea of double eliminations. That way players get to know the characters one-on-one before they’re gone. Obviously, Adam is gonna stick around till the end because he’s one of the LIs and he’s on the cover. Also because of the whole proposal setup. Making him one of MC’s partners is a waste of time when you have new characters that will be leaving way before him. Diamond scenes aren’t going anywhere. That’s where they’re putting LI character+romantic development nowadays. MC, Adam, Mack, and Derek seem to have formed a friends group. They interact the most and there are several entire chapters where those three (+Jen) are the only characters to appear. What’s the point? Just pull a Total Drama and bring back the old contestants in a season 10.2, but switch up the elimination order. Having said that, yes, we do get to interact a lot with Eden/Heath and Kiara, but not characters like Yvette and Rowan. Maybe it’s just me, but I felt like I knew more about Ryder, Lina, and Han in their short time than any of the new All-Stars. These are winners and VIPs of previous seasons. They should have something to offer! If the new characters mean nothing then why waste the assets. Take Yvette for example… she’s a mom and willing to use her kids to guilt people into not voting her off. Enough to make players dislike her, but besides that moments and a few single lines, she’s a throwaway characters. And to prove my point, PB didn’t even wait for AME2 to finish before recycling her character model for a minor patient character in Open Heart. I don’t care about PB reusing assets, but can they stop being THAT lazy for five minutes.

- There’s the fact that they didn’t do anything creative with partners outside of the ones involving the MC. Particularly the ones for the LIs. Vince, for example, didn’t get paired with Adam AT ALL despite their history. Just like with MC/Ivy, why would any showrunner worth their salt not want to capitalize on the drama between Adam and Vince? Same goes for the actual writers of this book. Why even have Adam around if not to spice things up with Vince?

- And since we’re on the topic of Vince… why did he not have that big of a role? I mean, on one hand, I kinda like that he’s just a diva and annoying. I’ll give B2 that much, they subverted my expectation of Vince being the main villain of this book, but in all honestly… they should’ve went with that route. It would’ve been exciting if MC would have to ally with Ivy in order to defeat a worse contestant. Then I was expecting Slater to be the secret big bad and Vince would be a red herring, but again… nope. Vince is just a diva and Slater plays rough. Those aren’t bad things, but they were also disappointing… much like the entire book. I know they didn’t want to copy what they did in the last book, but having this book’s finale just include your friends/LI rather than having it you vs. your rival is kinda lackluster imo.

- One last thing about Vince… he almost seriously injured Adam in one of the earlier chapters and it’s never brought up again. Ever! They could’ve included a scene later on, like B1 had with Zeke, where MC could decide whether to reveal they saw Vince mess with the controls and that’d sway the opinions of the jury house and affect whether or not they’d listen to him. But of course that’s not what happened. This is Choices so consequences are only every applied to the MC.

- This “dating Jen” drama should’ve been done in full back in B1, but only for players actually romancing Jen. No offence to the other LIs, but Jen was the most appealing. Having a forbidden romance with one of the producers? Narrowly avoiding getting caught and risking your chance of staying on the show? It’s way more interesting that Adam/Mackenzie all of a sudden falling for MC just because. We know PB has the coding power. They could’ve and should’ve done it If they’re gonna have multiple endings for RoD, of all books, then they should commit to a standard for their books and should’ve coded AME A LOT better. Hell, they should’ve just outlined the whole series better, but we ended up with… this.

- Also they need to do something with Mack’s backstory… her family is poor? She wants the prize money to put her sister through college. And yet she ONLY ever sabotaged Ryder then fell in love with MC and did nothing dirty for the rest of both seasons. If they weren’t gonna make Ivy a complicated rival character, they should’ve just cut Ivy all together and given that storyline to Mack. This is mostly a B1 complaint, but it follows through to B2 because they don’t commit with Ivy and don’t do much with Mack. They introduce her family, which was interesting, but idk she lost a lot of appeal for me in B1 when she fell head over heals for my MC for no reason. Mackenzie’s route had “slow burn” written all over it, but they neglected her. Either Mack should’ve been the rival LI or they should’ve cut her and made Adam fully customizable (like Hayden) then have Ivy fill the role of second female LI.

- Again with Mack… her complaining about cheating is really funny and kinda OOC. Like I mentioned before, she literally sabotaged Ryder because he was a jerk and she wanted to win. Did the writers forget about that? This was just one of several points that shows the writers did not care about their own story and characters.

- Also they needed to do something? … anything… with Derek. Poor man, he’s the only LI who gets how this show is played. He deserves better. I don’t talk about Derek much, but I honestly love this man. He’s just dull. He needs… anything. Give him anything. Like the only significant storyline they gave him, that I can remember, is his show-mance with Ivy and that was more Ivy’s storyline than his.

- And Bianca being friend-zoned despite PB bringing her back. Really? PB must know a lot of fans like her. At the very least a lot of tumblr fans. Idk why they wouldn’t want to capitalize on that. Did they really think it wasn’t a good idea to give her a few diamond scenes? Did neglecting her again make them more money? So instead of giving Bianca… literally anything, they give Slater, a completely new character, a couple of diamond scenes and let players be a little flirty with him.

- Having Eden/Heath and Kiara getting into an accident was a good twist, I was genuinely worried about them, but I gotta laugh that it took them both out of the competition. I mean, it makes sense. They were seriously injured. Realistically, they wouldn’t be able to compete, but their elimination brought the final 6 to MC, the LIs, Vince, and Ivy/Slater. Determinant 5 of 6 contestants are from S10 and one has been in 3 seasons, 2 of which he quit. That’s so dumb. Like… were there ANY in-universe fans who saw this and thought this show was rigged? I mean, more than fans normally would about reality shows?

- How did Mack, Adam, and Derek even get on this show? At first I thought MC was surrounded by celebrities. Bianca was a model, Han was an athlete, Ryder was a pop star, etc etc. I assumed everyone else were celebutantes or something and MC was the odd one out who got lucky when they stumbled across Whitney and Jen. But nah, Mack and Adam (and I think Derek too) are just college students who applied for the show to pay for tuition??? If they’re not famous or didn’t come from fame, why did Piper invite them to compete in the first place? What was so special about them that drew her attention. This is a minor complaint, but it’s just weird to see each of the LIs come from regular families like MC. Not that what we got was bad, but like… did they win a contest or something? What’s the deal? Idk if it’s in a diamond scene I didn’t pay for, but it really should be a free piece of characterization. It would’ve made me care more about the LIs and make them more memorable.

- Does anyone think the friendship/ally status does anything besides determine who votes for who at the end of the season? Why would they implement the friendship meter from ES if they don’t use it for alternate dialogue? Because they know most of the characters won’t be in the next book? Probably, but still. I can’t tell if Adam hating MC is any different then Adam being MC’s ally besides him voting for them at the end of S10, but even then, that doesn’t make sense because he has ample reason to not vote for Ivy. And yet he still votes for Ivy if he’s anything lower than ally. Again, mostly a b1 complaint.

- Someone had a great idea (I forget who, but please message me) that the LIs should be an auto vote and for the rest, whether or not they vote for your should be based on a percentage. The higher the relationship status, the higher the chance. Friends being 75%, neutral being 50% or lower, dislike/hate somewhere around 20 -15%. As an idea.

And that’s the major ones, I’m sure there are more other people can tack on.

#ask #anon #AntiAme #but also #America's Most Eligible #cause im bitter and i love this series

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ravewulf · 6 years ago

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Fight, Fuck, Love?

They fucked as much as they fought and were just as passionate about it.

Aka an alternate take on what Derek and Peter did offscreen from episode 2x11 through to the end of the series

My (slightly late) submission for @deterweek Day 5 - Free Choice. But hey, I finally posted something again after being inactive forever :D Not beta read so let me know if I made a mistake/said something confusing/if something could be phrased better/etc. Read it on AO3 or here under the Read More.

Things were different between him and Derek after he came back from the dead. Not that the others noticed. If they had they’d assume he had started it.

They’d be wrong.

It was as they got worked up in an argument that he sensed lust mixing with anger, fear, and frustration. But he never acted on it. After what his nephew had been through, he refused to be like that bitch.

(How he wished he could have drawn out her death. Made it as agonizing as what he had felt. What his family had felt.)

Derek had made the first move. Had flung him down, crawled on top of him and waited with a heated stare. Daring him to meet half way.

Peter remembered swearing under his breath before lifting his head to crash their mouths together in a kiss that was teeth, fire, and blood.

And then Derek had fucked him into the floor.

He wouldn’t have had it any other way.

It continued from there. Fight and fuck. A cat and mouse game for dominance where they both walked away satisfied regardless of who came out on top.

Coming at blows and cumming from getting blown. Banging into objects after being hit or thrown then banging each other against every surface they’d fought on. Swiping each other with claws and with tongues. Blood, sweat, cum, and spit.

It wasn’t until Cora came back that they stopped.

What a mistake that turned out to be.

Being an alpha had put a huge target on Derek’s back when he was still trying to get his feet under himself to stabilize their pack. Or what was left of it, anyway. He could’ve kicked himself for his own negligence in not monitoring his nephew as closely as he should’ve.

He took great pleasure in killing the Darach and made sure she could never come back.

Derek’s eyes were blue again, like his own, but couldn’t help but feel there was still potential there. Certainly more than the newly christened “True Alpha.” They didn’t see eye to eye on the matter but he’d hoped his sister might’ve been able to impart a bit of wisdom in her son when he sunk her claws into the back of his neck.

He also hoped his nephew had the sense not to mention what they did in the dark. Born werewolves having laxer taboos than humans didn’t change the fact that his sister had always been an interfering judgmental pain in his ass.

It was particularly important as he and Derek had spent quite a lot of time getting reacquainted with each other after dropping Cora off and he had no desire to stop. There was a lot less fighting this time around other than petty tit for tat arguments.

In fact, with the one exception of Stiles getting possessed (one of the few people he and Derek both considered to be as good as pack), things were going quite decently as far as he was concerned.

At least until that bitch came back and kidnapped his nephew.

He knew within hours of it happening and worked behind the scenes to get him back. It was infuriating to watch the “True Alpha” bumble his way through everything and claim all the credit but he’d get his comeuppance eventually. He’d make sure of it.

Getting Derek back to his proper age and losing $117 million of his savings in one go was a frustrating experience. He’d saved that specific amount in reference to Derek’s birthday. Sue him for being sentimental when he was younger.

Well, for what money he had left in his other accounts anyway.

Derek was in a touchy mood and it made it clear with a snarl. And yellow eyes. Yellow.

He was back to his normal age but his powers were fading.

They fucked to take the edge off their frustrations but were left uneasy.

He didn’t like giving out more of their funds to mercenaries when he’d just been robbed by one. Especially when could do a better job than Braeden at tracking Kate and wheedling inside information from her. It had been part of his role in the pack before but Derek insisted they have extra help.

He grudgingly let Derek have a couple weeks with Braeden to “train” to protect himself without his powers. If it kept him her on their side and helped his nephew get over Kate, then fine. But if she hurt him she’d go the same way as the others.

He did not take kindly to those that hurt his pack.

Everything in his world froze when Derek was stabbed by a berserker. He longed to stay by his nephew and lover’s side. Derek was insistent and Peter knew they couldn’t speak freely in front of the others. He reluctantly turned away to “help” Scott.

With Derek dying there wasn’t much to hold him back when his plan to force to Scott kill Kate went awry. He would teach the brat the necessity of killing to protect your pack from threats even if it meant becoming that threat himself.

Coming back from the dead worked the first time when he tested Derek. Who’s to say he couldn’t pull it off again?

He woke up in a cell in Eichen.

Not the afterlife but given who he was stuck with this wasn’t much better.

He did find out that Derek had survived too. Not that he’d saved him from this prison or come to visit as far as he knew. Maybe Derek thought he deserved it for working with Kate? He hadn’t told anyone he was double crossing her but he thought Derek would’ve known. Would’ve seen through to his motives.

Maybe he did deserve being here anyway. He couldn’t argue that he’d done quite enough damage already.

Months passed. More than six at the very least. Maybe nine? He couldn’t tell as they blurred together but finally, finally he saw an opportunity and took it.

To hell with McCall and his ragtag pack. They didn’t deserve his protection.

He fully intended to leave and find Derek, wherever he had got to. But then…

It was like being snapped out of a daydream as Stiles woke him and it took a few moments to clear his mind of the stifling fog of compliance that permeated the area.

Forgotten.

The Wild Hunt.

As dire as the situation was, it was a relief to know his nephew was away and safe from being taken by the ghost riders. More than that, he swelled with pride when Stiles said Derek had left almost immediately after Mexico to hunt down Kate before the trail went cold. He’d taught him well.

He only wished Derek had taken him along.

More than once he thought he saw Derek out of the corner of his eye. It was only someone who looked like Derek but he still checked every time.

Derek probably didn’t know he’d ever existed.

The only chance at fixing this was with Stiles’s friends recognizing something was wrong, to force them to remember. He could not hide that the prospect of what it would take to get out of this liminal space terrified him.

Although, taking a token of Stiles’ might protect him from being outright disintegrated as well as helping the others remember. There was no doubt, not after seeing Stiles get cell service in the middle of nowhere, that the boy’s powers had awoken.

Being burned alive was just as agonizing as it had been the first two times.

The bedside manner of the nurse tending to him could also use improvement.

But with the Hunt diverted and Stiles returned within short order, he turned to keeping his ear to the ground for news of Derek.

It wasn’t exactly difficult, not when the main topic in the supernatural gossip chain was a werewolf with the rare ability to transform into a real wolf tracking down a hunter who had decimated dozens of families.

What did take a bit of work was finding out that the FBI was looking for Derek thanks to Kate pinning the murders on him. His informant was able to pull a few strings and arrange an extraction plan in the event that Derek did fall into their hands.

Several months later they were having their own hunter problems in Beacon Hills. Some sort of fear monster was loose and Gerard was taking full advantage of the situation to recruit a sizable chunk of the town.

Predictably, Scott was resistant to even the most basic and least violent ways of neutralizing the hunters. According to the “True Alpha,” locking up werewolves for thinking he wasn’t an effective leader was fine but not humans who were actively committing genocide against the supernatural.

And on top of that they blew up his rare, and very expensive, Shelby 1000 Cobra Mustang. At least he had a spare given Malia hadn’t been interested. How she could be a Hale and not like muscle cars was beyond him. Derek certainly knew how to appreciate a good muscle car.

Speaking of his nephew, he showed up with Stiles just in time for the big fight. They had contradictory stories of how they got away from the FBI and neither story was completely true. No doubt he’d be hearing about whatever it was they got up to for the next few weeks. At the same time he couldn’t say he really minded.

He did mind the level of friendliness Derek was showing Scott. It didn’t ring as truthful though he suspected none of the others sensed it. He knew his nephew too well not to know something was up and filed that interesting bit of info away to revisit later. They had more immediate concerns.

Facing Anuk-ite was not pleasant. The less said about the experience, the better.

On the other hand, breaking out of a stone shell to beat up a hunter was a very nice highlight. Finding that Kate and Gerard had finished each other was also quite satisfying even if he hadn’t been able to get in his own parting shots.He didn’t hang around and chased down a few more hunters before they could all get away.

The others were still inside doing who knows what when Derek joined him outside in the shadows, leaning into his space. He could tell Anuke-ite had left its mark on him as well and pulled Derek into an embrace, leaning their foreheads together. Aside from generally being nice, it helped settle their nerves. Proof they were still here and with each other.

Derek kissed him but without the usual fiery passion. Instead of the fight-and-fuck they had started with, it was tender and slow. It held meaning that he wasn’t prepared to voice yet.

There was plenty that they needed to discuss with Monroe and her hunters on the loose, the lack of true leadership from the “True Alpha,” and most importantly about their relationship. They needed to talk, really talk, about the issues between them if they were going to take this further.

But it could all wait until morning. Right now there wasn’t anything more he wanted than to curl up with Derek and sleep.

And that’s exactly what they did.

#Deter #deterweek2k19 #Derek #Peter #fanfiction

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jordan202 · 8 years ago

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The Journey - Part Five

Thank you @jia911 for proofreading this! Links to previous chapters are HERE.

Timeline for Part 5:

This one covers 11x03 and 11x04. Owen is working on a project with Callie about War Veterans and reminiscing about his life prospects; Derek has decided to stay in DC so he and Amelia are butting heads about the leadership of the department.

The Journey – Part Five

“AMELIA SHEPHERD!”

Amelia swallowed hard, startled by the voice of command. She turned around and met Owen Hunt’s steel gaze fixated on her. He calmly strode in her direction with confidence and powerful authority but she could tell by his hardened jaw that he wasn’t at all as calm as he wanted to look.

That was Amelia’s fourth week as head of the Neurosurgery Department.

It was also the fourth time she was summoned by the Chief in that not so elegant manner.

Her first impulse was to reply what the hell is it this time?, but Amelia held the words instants before they could leave her mouth. After so much effort put into it, that filtering thing seemed to finally be working.

“Yes, chief?” She looked at the guy with forced serenity. Owen Hunt was really irritating her. Over the past week, he had alternated among treating her with cold distance, plainly ignoring her or, a few times when she least expected, paying her an encouraging compliment seconds before walking away with what seemed like contained anger.

Amelia had just recently gone back to working in a big hospital and therefore needed to adapt to many things. But if there was one thing she knew would never change over the years was how healthcare employees liked to gossip. And at Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, it was no different. Unwillingly, Amelia had learned that the chief was grumpier than ever and people attributed that to his ex-wife’s leaving.

“Please, follow me to my office.”

As he said those words, Owen turned his back and didn’t even look back to see if she was following his orders, as if not considering that to be possible. Amelia looked around in the UCI where she was getting an update on a patient from Maggie Pierce. A couple of people noticed the way the chief had spoken to the neurosurgeon but the minute Amelia gazed at them, they immediately looked away.

Feeling like a school kid who had just been reprimanded by the Principal, Amelia took a deep breath and lifted her chin to maintain her pride. Owen Hunt was so irritating! Her instinct was to simply stay where she was and ignore his command but she was trying really hard to be a responsible adult and therefore had to start acting like one. Ignoring a direct order from her boss wasn’t a good idea. Plus, she had no clue what the guy would do if she dared to defy him like that and she wasn’t exactly eager to find out.

Promising the universe that one day she would get back at him for it, Amelia walked to the chief’s office, taking deep breaths to control her temper. Technically, she had no reason to be mad because all he’d done was ask her to see him in his office and he’d even said please. But being willful and stubborn, Amelia knew very well how to recognize another one of her kind. Owen was just as strong headed. The only difference was that, at the moment, he had a position of power and was her boss, which unfortunately meant she reported to him.

Amelia didn’t want to admit the guy messed with her because she believed that would give him even more power. So she settled for walking into his office with a condescending attitude.

“You wanted to see me?” The neurosurgeon asked with fake meekness.

Owen had to hold his breath and force himself to calm down before looking at her. That woman was driving him crazy.

Not only was she giving him a headache at work, she was also insisting on haunting his thoughts in a very random manner. As much as Owen tried, it was hard to let go of some of the images he had created in his mind a while ago when Amelia Shepherd had had the terrible idea of talking to him about sex.

“Is it true what I just heard?” Owen asked carefully, not bothering to sit down. She was also standing and he noticed the insubordinate way she folded her arms in front of her body, as if she was bored. “Did you just perform an awake craniotomy on a two year old?” He asked, hoping to heavens she would deny it.

“Of course I did.”

Owen closed his eyes and took his right hand to his temple, feeling the start of a terrible headache. He was running out of resources to keep his cool and not jump on her adorable, delicate neck, unsure of what he’d enjoy more at the moment: exploring it with his lips or strangling her.

“How can you even…?” Owen stopped mid sentence, taking his time to exhale slowly or else he’d lose it completely. “Shepherd, are you freaking kidding me? On a two year old?

Owen knew that awake craniotomies, the kind of brain surgery where surgeons kept the patient alert and responsive were usually reserved for some kind of tumors that had unclear margins. Throughout surgery, the neurosurgeon could assess more easily if they were damaging a healthy portion of the brain by testing functions like vision, body movement and language skills. The procedure was usually reserved for people who could stay calm and functioning during it.

Which was not the case with a toddler.

“Well, it worked,” Amelia justified herself. “The baby had a medulloepithelioma and I had to make sure I had clean margins, otherwise the chance of recurrence would be huge!”

Owen knew that kind of tumor was very aggressive and usually affected young children. Surgery with tumor excision was the choice of treatment but it was usually done with the patient fully sedated and anaesthetized. Kids that young weren’t very reliable at keeping still and following commands, meaning the surgery could have been a complete disaster if the young patient had suddenly decided to freak out.

Seeing as he was having a hard time accepting it, Amelia worked harder on making her case.

“Look, that’s why I had the mom inside the OR the entire time, you see.” When Owen’s eyes grew wider with shock, she realized she was only making it worse. “Just listen to me,” Amelia raised a hand to silence him, noticing the chief was about to interrupt her. “I put some cartoons on and had the mom there to distract the little girl. The mom was really helpful asking the kid to move and giving me feedback and I think the surgery was only this much of a success because I chose that approach,” The neurosurgeon concluded, absolutely sure of what she was saying. “Now a two year old is on her way to radiotherapy with the actual chance of being cancer free and living a full life ahead of her. How awesome is that?”

Owen once again took a deep breath.

“I really hope you have amazing insurance, Shepherd, because if these parents decide to sue I will have a hard time having your back all by myself.” He said with an authoritative voice but Amelia noticed he seemed actually worried for her.

“They won’t sue me, they love me,” Amelia replied with a jovial smile. “Look, I am not stupid, okay?” She said with encouragement. “I explained everything to the family, gave them all the options and made them sign all the paperwork. They knew about the risks and they also knew this was their child’s best option to actually beat brain cancer. So, they agreed to the surgery. And it was a success,” Amelia gloated a little. “You’re welcome.”

She realized she’d gone too far when, at the sound of her last sassy words, Owen took two steps in her direction and added with cool formality.

“If you have any interest in keeping your job, next time you think of doing something crazy like this, you will inform me.” Owen then went back around his table and gazed at her from the other side of the desk. “You can go now.”

Amelia thought about talking back but the actual possibility of losing her job made the neurosurgeon think twice. With Derek changing his mind about DC and staying in the city, she already had a real threat of having to hand over the department. It wasn’t wise to butt heads with the chief, especially in a moment like this.

She had been doing such a good job at filtering her thoughts! Why did she have to relapse in a moment as important as that one? Knowing that the man was too irate to consider even listening to another word she had to say, Amelia settled for retreating, thinking she would most likely spend the entire day thinking of what to do next to make her situation at least a bit better.

Owen waited until the woman was finally gone to allow himself to sit down.

Amelia Shepherd was getting on his nerves in a way none of his other head of departments could. She had been there for barely a month and yet, had stirred up more trouble than everyone else combined.

And the biggest problem was that, even though Owen really tried, he just couldn’t find a concrete reason to stay mad at her.

After weeks of being there, Amelia had turned the entire neurosurgical wing upside down. She had forced the older neurosurgeons in the department to each log another morning in the practice downstairs. At first, it had made Owen insane with the amount of complaints he’d had to endure from Nelson, Morton and the others. But after a couple of weeks, he realized what Amelia had done was actually bringing more patients into the hospital, and therefore increasing the number of surgeries in her department. So even though Owen was having to deal with very angry neurosurgery attendings, whose egos were deeply hurt, he couldn’t hold it against Amelia because ultimately all she’d done was increase hospital profit, making her the newest favorite within the finance department.

Nurses complained that she stayed in the OR for much longer than her shifts, indirectly forcing them to stay until the surgeries were over too. Her commitment went beyond the walls of the operating room because whenever she wasn’t operating, Amelia was organizing schedules, updating data and coming up with ideas on how to improve her department. It wasn’t uncommon for Owen to arrive home and realize her car wasn’t there, which was impressive enough considering he spent nearly fifteen hours a day at the hospital. Just like her optimism, her energy never seemed to end and even when he arrived at the hospital very early in the morning for a meeting or some other bureaucratic appointment, he would find her looking fresher and younger than ever, no matter what time it was.

And then there was the fact that she openly stimulated residents to compete with each other and rewarded them with surgeries and procedures. Even though in real life residency was all about competition, attendings and supervisors liked to pretend it wasn’t so that, at the end of the day, they could tell themselves they were doing a good job educating and putting a hold on already very eager young doctors.

But Amelia obviously didn’t care one bit about being politically correct. With her unorthodox method of teaching, she had quickly climbed to the position of favorite attending, leading the positive feedback from residents. That made it extremely difficult for Owen to point out where she was going wrong. When the young doctors did care to complain, they would usually take it out on each other, saving only compliments for the amazing Dr. Shepherd. In result, Owen now had to deal with resident feuds more often than ever, at the same time Amelia Shepherd’s popularity skyrocketed.

On top of that, she was also a big success among patients. Owen had already noticed how empathetic and kind she was, but over the past weeks he’d made sure to watch her more closely, almost as if looking for fault to have something to use against her when she drove him mad, something that was happening quite often lately. Amelia was always kind and respectful with her patients and their families. Her good manners quickly added to her already good reputation, causing her to be one of the most sought after attendings by new patients who came to the hospital claiming they’d heard excellent references about the young neurosurgeon.

All in all, truth was that, even though she was turning his life upside down, she was also improving everything she dared to touch and transform. The reactions she inspired on his body were still driving Owen to the point of avoiding her presence but that didn’t mean he admired her any less. It just felt like, no matter how much he tried, Owen had too much of a sharp sense of justice to deny that Amelia Shepherd was too brilliant and competent. And that made it especially difficult to give her a lecture or control her insubordination. As much as Owen would thoroughly enjoy backing her into a corner and putting some sense into her head, he struggled to admit he actually enjoyed her willfulness and strong personality.

Amelia had a shinning light inside of her, a unique kind of fire that burned as intensely and passionately as could be. And the last thing Owen wanted was to put out something so authentic and so admirable as her creativity and resourcefulness. Because no matter how crazy she drove him and how much trouble she added to his workload, if there was one thing he was sure of was that she wasn’t was boring.

And right now, Owen could really use some unpredictability in his life.

Amelia walked around the corridor of the hospital, her head fuming with anger.

Who the hell did Derek think he was?

She should have known… The minute he’d decided to stay instead of going to DC, it was clear that she would have to put up with her brother’s narcissism. Unsurprisingly, Derek was having a hard time accepting that Amelia was the new head of department and that now, he reported to her. Her brother already had a big enough ego, but having to take orders from his little sister was visibly messing with his head, which only caused more friction between the two siblings.

Amelia felt frustrated but at the same time, she didn’t know what to do about it. Just minutes before, she’d walked into the cafeteria and seen Derek sharing a table with Owen Hunt. What he was trying to do was so obvious that it made her sick to her stomach. Derek and Owen weren’t just work acquaintances; Amelia knew they were also friends outside the hospital. It was one thing for her to be ahead of the department when her brother wasn’t there but now, after seeing the two together, Amelia realized it was far too likely that Owen would give Derek his old job back. Her brother had been in the position for over a decade and as he’d said it himself, he didn’t take steps back in his career. He might not have moved forward, but he surely wasn’t going to settle until he got his old position back.

Amelia knew it was unfair. For Derek, it was only a matter of ego and pride. For her, it was a one in a lifetime chance to prove herself. Derek had decided to turn down his big opportunity, it was his own fault that his career wasn’t moving forward whereas the only thing she was guilty of was being the little sister to such an egocentric guy.

Before exiting the room, suddenly losing her hunger, Amelia spotted Derek casually laughing at something Owen was saying. Even though her brother seemed to be in a good mood, the chief of surgery had his usual broody façade. Amelia wondered if he was capable of smiling, for she’d rarely ever seen him have any other facial expression that didn’t resemble a frown. In the first couple of times she’d been in his presence, Amelia’s instinct had been to assume he was a genuinely good person. She’d made a reading out of him and imagined he was probably closed off due to a lot of hurt, but deep inside, there was probably more good than bad to him. And yet, Amelia was starting to think she might have been wrong all along. Owen Hunt was focused, serious and competent at his job and he seemed to be fairly just regarding surgical and administrative concerns. But even though she’d often catch him saying a few words of encouragement to Maggie, the other new head of department, the chief of surgery hadn’t spoken to her in over a week, ever since he’d dismissed her in his office. The two year old patient had evolved remarkably well and was now on follow up for radiotherapy with a good prognosis. Owen hadn’t asked her about the patient but she assumed he probably knew about the outcome.

And after seeing how close the guy was to her brother and the camaraderie between the two men, Amelia supposed it wouldn’t take long before Owen Hunt called her again into his office, for the fifth and probably last time in the whole month she’d been there.

Owen paced back and forth outside the post op ward, trying to recover from the full day he’d just had. Over the past week, he’d been exhaustively drowning in work, doing everything in his power to gather a group of Army veterans who needed help. He’d been very excited about working alongside Callie and her new prosthetics lab, but at first, the orthopedic surgeon had rejected his idea.

Owen had felt horribly and before he could have controlled it, the intensity of the feelings he’d been avoiding for the past weeks caught up with him. He yelled at Callie and acted like an idiot, making a fool of himself and embarrassing her in front of a lot of people. When Owen finally got around to control his temper, he’d looked for her and explained what he was feeling.

As he’d gone on saying the words, Owen had started to figure out feelings he hadn’t been able to understand before. Talking about it had really helped to set his mind straight. After Cristina left, a feeling of loneliness had completely overtaken him. For the first time in a long while, Owen felt hopeless. That was an awful sensation and now he knew why he avoided it with all his heart.

It was hard to admit it with words, but Owen truly feared that he might end up exactly like how he’d told Callie: As a single guy, with no wife, no kids… no family. His heart wasn’t broken that Cristina had left. Owen was happy for her. She was pursuing her dreams and it was good that at least one of them could get to do it. But he felt stuck. Trapped in a place where it was hard to see light again. A familiar sensation of darkness assaulting him was more present than ever but now Owen knew better. He didn’t need another woman to distract him from it. He needed someone whose light was strong enough that she could once for all extinguish that dark feeling he had consuming him.

In the exact moment he thought about it, his eyes caught a glimpse of Amelia Shepherd slowly walking through the hall. If Owen weren’t so skeptical, perhaps he would have thought that seeing her there amidst the thoughts he was having wasn’t a coincidence. But right at that moment, he still had no idea the woman he was staring at would one day make his life better in every possible way.

Amelia looked exhausted dragging her feet with a heavy expression on her face at the same time she held a scrub cap in her hand.

Owen didn’t know why, but seeing her look so defeated bothered him very much. He’d seen Amelia Shepherd smiling, laughing and teasing several times before. That was the image Owen associated with her. The woman was always optimistic and good humored. Deep down, even though her impulsiveness and teasing remarks had driven him crazy, he really liked that she was so joyful and genuinely positive. So to see her looking so sad really got to him. Owen instantly tried to reject the feeling of protectiveness that started to assault him but before he could even realize what he was doing, he rushed to catch up with her.

“Hey,” He slowed his pace to walk beside the neurosurgeon.

She didn’t greet him back or give him a sermon about sneaking up on her. Instead, she settled for nodding briefly before looking ahead again. The indifferent reaction made Owen feel even more alarmed.

“You know,” He hesitated, unsure of how to ask her what was going on. Maybe if he shared some of what had happened to him, she would feel inspired to talk. “I just watched Jackson Avery and Callie Torres implant a prosthetic leg on a guy again. You’d love the work he did with the nerves.”

“I heard,” Amelia looked sideways at him again and gave a polite nod before looking away.

Owen frowned, intrigued by her reaction. In the few times they’d discussed surgeries, Amelia had always been overly excited about procedures. She was always hovering around the OR, watching colleagues, asking questions, learning different techniques. This time around, she didn’t look at all turned on with the subject.

“Do you have a minute?” He forced eye contact with her. “I’d like to see you in my office.”

Amelia stopped walking and took a deep breath, trying to stay in control of her emotions.

That was it. She knew this moment was coming. Once again, her egocentric big brother had pushed her around just to prove that he could. Not long before, Derek had bullied her inside an OR, affirming that he was better than her and she wouldn’t hold that leadership position for much longer. And judging by the events of that day and the way the chief of surgery was sternly looking at her, as if he felt sorry for her predicament, the neurosurgeon realized she was probably going to get fired. And the worst part was that Amelia was sure she didn’t deserve it.

“I just need to check on a post op, can you give me five minutes?” She felt her bottom lip trembling and turned around before Owen could see it. Amelia hoped to buy some time so she could gather some strength and make sure she took it professionally when he finally gave her the news.

“Sure,” He frowned, intrigued by her sudden leaving. “I’ll wait for you in my office.”

Owen did as told, telling himself he wasn’t as anxious as he seemed to be feeling. Having randomly bumped into her had actually been convenient, because there really was a delicate subject Owen needed to discuss with her. He just didn’t expect to find her looking so sad.

Or to feel so annoyingly affected by it.

At the same time Owen pondered about how he was going to notify her about the news, Amelia appeared at his door. She still looked fragile and somewhat vulnerable, but he decided to ignore it, because noticing those things made him feel emotions he wasn’t prepared to acknowledge.

“Everything okay with your patient?” Owen asked with a sympathetic smile.

“Yes,” Amelia replied with a dignified head nod, taking the seat in front of him he was pointing at. “It was just a aneurysm clip, no big deal.”

“Good,” Owen said with politeness. He liked that while she took on a lot of big cases like massive tumors and complicated procedures, she also seemed to stick to the basics on the every day routine. “I suspect you know why I called you here. You probably have heard rumors?”

“Yeah,” Amelia said, gathering all her strength to proudly keep her head up. At the same time she understood Owen’s decision to give her brother his old job back, probably thinking it was the best for the hospital, she was also very angry with him for the injustice of the situation.

The way they were both avoiding to acknowledge the elephant inside the room made Amelia lose her patience completely in a matter of seconds.

“You can just say it, Dr. Hunt. There’s no need to feel sorry for me. I get it.”

Owen frowned, wondering what the hell she was talking about. What did she get?

“That little girl you operated on last week?” Owen raised both eyebrows in question, hoping she would follow his line of thought. “The two year old?” As Amelia nodded affirmatively with her head, he proceeded. “Her grandfather was here to see me on Monday.”

“Oh,” Amelia replied with surprise. That wasn’t the subject she was expecting them to discuss. The neurosurgeon had discharged the patient from the PICU and sent her to a wardroom, where the toddler was allowed to have visitation from her family while recovering remarkably well.

“He is one of the associates at General Eletric’s Healthcare branch in the west coast,” Owen confided, noticing the confusion on her neurosurgeon’s face. “That’s a big, billion dollar multinational company that manufactures medical equipment.”

“I know what they are,” Amelia replied, still oblivious to the point of that conversation.

“The thing is, the guy has way too much money and resources at his disposal,” Owen explained. Amelia wondered if things were about to get ugly for the unconventional way she’d chosen to have the procedure done on the patient, and felt suddenly alarmed. “He told the family had been to four different hospitals in the past three weeks looking for a treatment plan for his granddaughter and they all rejected the idea of invasive surgery, insisting she was terminal. You were the only one willing to try to save her and give her a chance.”

“Well,” Amelia explained with genuine modesty. “I got the tumor out but the margins were very hard to dissect. She is going to radiotherapy and I hope it works but there are no guarantees. The tumor could still grow back.”

“He knows that,” Owen explained. “We talked about it and he is aware that she isn’t yet fully cured. But the man feels like you, of all people, were generous and invested enough to take a shot and because of that, he gets to hold his granddaughter in his arms with hope that she might be okay instead of grieving that she will be gone soon. He told me he is feeling so optimistic that he wants to give back.”

“What do you mean?” Amelia furrowed her brows, trying to make sense of what Owen was saying.

“The man donated this,” Owen grabbed a check from a folder and slid it across the table in her direction. Amelia was shocked to realize the number of digits on the tiny piece of paper, “plus two brand new last generation MRI machines to the Neurosurgery Department research.”

“What?” Amelia asked with disbelief, too baffled to believe it was actually true. “Are you serious?”

Owen couldn’t contain a chuckle at her startled expression.

“Yes,” He confirmed it, making sure she knew it was real. “According to him, more patients should have the same opportunity his granddaughter had and he wants you to use that money to help fund surgery for other kids who have the same condition but can’t afford the procedure or treatment.”

“Oh my God, that’s…” Amelia couldn’t find the words. She was deeply touched by the selfless gesture and honored for the recognition.

“Get ready for the line of patients you’re about to get in the following weeks,” Owen smiled with contentment, happy to see her so positively affected by the news.

Amelia was still in shock, trying to process the entire situation. What had just happened was amazing. That money could change the lives of so many families and she couldn’t wait to get started. The idea of being ahead of a project like that deeply moved her. She knew too well the agony that losing a child was and therefore felt more determinate than ever to help others avoid the same fate she’d had to endure. But in order to do that, the neurosurgeon would have to be at the hospital, working day after day.

“Wait,” Amelia frowned, confused. “Does this mean you’re not going to fire me?”

“Fire you?” Owen was taken aback by the unexpected suggestion. He had hoped she would be thrilled with the news, not shocked or alarmed like she seemed to be.

“Yeah,” Amelia looked at him accusingly. “I thought you’d called me here to tell me you’re giving my job back to my brother.”

Owen’s deep voice mixed with a heartfelt chuckle as he expressed his surprise. How could she even have thought that he would do such a thing?

“Your brother gave up the job because he had other plans. If he changed his mind, that’s on him, not on you,” The chief of surgery declared. Owen had always had a good sense of justice and that time, it was no different. “If I thought you weren’t living up to expectations, I might have considered it, but that’s not the case,” He added, pulling a tablet and showing her some statistics of his last meeting with the board and the financial department. The numbers didn’t lie and Amelia took in the information with genuine surprise. “After one month, your department profit rate has increased by eight per cent and complaints have dropped by fifteen per cent. No lawsuits or settlements in the period, which is great, even though it hasn’t truly been that long.” Owen explained. “But the truth is, you’re doing well, Shepherd. I have no reason to fire you.”

Amelia looked up from the screen with the charts and her eyes met his. Owen looked happy and relaxed, almost like someone who was eagerly giving a present and waiting for a reaction. Amelia was so taken aback that she felt a bit numb. She had walked into that office expecting to be fired and yet, she’d received the amazing news of a donation to help other patients and very encouraging information on her performance in her first month as head of department.

“Did you really think I was going to fire you?” Owen asked, intrigued. He noticed how she still wasn’t her usual confident and sassy self and unconsciously did his best to invoke that spirit back. “Now that I think about it, I should give you a raise,” He joked. “It’s the first week since you’ve been here that I didn’t have to call you into my office to give you a lecture or threaten to take away your privileges.”

Amelia smiled, feeling more comfortable after seeing he wasn’t taking her confusion too seriously. Owen Hunt surprised her every day. Just when she thought he would get rid of her, after dealing with her insubordination and impulsiveness for the past weeks, he had in fact overlooked it because he’d been able to identify her brilliance and superior results beyond all of that. And Owen seemed to be the kind of guy who judged people by their best, not their worst.

“I am sorry I am so difficult sometimes,” Amelia bit her bottom lip, feeling her emotions all messed up. Just earlier today, she had decided Owen was a prejudiced, annoying man who was too blind to see things through. But he had just proven that she had been the one who had rushed to assumptions. “I promise I am trying to get better.”

“Just let me know next time you come up with a crazy plan like awake surgery on a child, okay?” Owen didn’t try to contain the smile that was forming on his lips. The woman was crazy, completely unbalanced and impulsive.

And yet, there was something about her that inspired him. Owen was just as sure that despite being all of that, Amelia was also extremely competent, dedicated and considerate. She might not have the most traditional ways, but she genuinely worked hard to improve her department and at the end of the day, it was all he could really ask for.

“I will,” Amelia replied with a smile. Slowly, Owen identified the cheerful, energetic woman in her returning. Now he understood why Amelia had acted so defeated. She had really thought he was going to fire her and only because Derek had changed his mind about going away.

Just as the neurosurgeon walked to the door, Owen lifted his head and their eyes instantly met when she turned in his direction.

“But just as a curiosity…” Amelia smiled and Owen noticed the mischief on her voice and face. “If I’d come to you and suggested the awake craniotomy for that toddler, what would you have said?”

“I would have said no,” Owen replied with authority, despite his friendly expression.

“That would have cost you two MRI machines and a good couple of millions,” Amelia smiled wickedly, enjoying the provocation.

“You know I can still fire you, right?” Owen smugly bent on his chair, bring forward his chest at the same time he narrowed his eyes at her impertinence. But deep down, he was more amused than he would admit.

“Yeah, but you won’t,” Amelia smiled, delighting him with a vision of her dimples. The neurosurgeon met his gaze one more time before finally walking out the door. “Good night, Dr. Hunt.”

Owen playfully rolled his eyes, cursing the heavens for the day they’d made that utterly complex and yet fascinating woman walk into his hospital and turn everything upside down. She drove him crazy. And he had a feeling that was just the beginning.

“Night, Shepherd.”

Curiosity check: In this chapter, Owen has an impression of Amelia that was described with the exact same words in a MB fiction when he loses his memory. Just for continuity’s sake. haha. If you can guess which one, I will give you a cookie.

#omelia #owelia #owen hunt #amelia shepherd #thejourney #thejourneyfanfiction #omeliafics #omeliafanfic #amenff #omeliafanfics #greysanatomy #greysanatomyfanfic

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afoolsingenuity · 6 years ago

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Bite Sized Books // A Look At Some Kindle Unlimited Books I’ve Read Recently

This week's Bite Sized Books edition features two books I have mixed feelings about and both are Kindle Unlimited borrows. I still don’t know how I feel about Kindle Unlimited but I’m willing to try it for another month and see how things go.

Borrowed Souls (Soul Charmer #1) – Chelsea Mueller Published: 2nd May 2017 Source: Kindle Unlimited Genre: Urban Fantasy My Rating:

Callie Delgado always puts family first, and unfortunately her brother knows it. She’s emptied her savings, lost work, and spilled countless tears trying to keep him out of trouble, but now he’s in deeper than ever, and his debt is on Callie’s head. She’s given a choice: do some dirty work for the mob, or have her brother returned to her in tiny pieces.

Renting souls is big business for the religious population of Gem City. Those looking to take part in immoral—or even illegal—activity can borrow someone else’s soul, for a price, and sin without consequence. To save her brother, Callie needs a borrowed soul, but she doesn’t have anywhere near the money to pay for it. The slimy Soul Charmer is willing to barter, but accepting his offer will force Callie into a dangerous world of magic she isn’t ready for.

With the help of the guarded but undeniably attractive Derek—whose allegiance to the Charmer wavers as his connection to Callie grows—she’ll have to walk a tight line, avoid pissing off the bad guys, all while struggling to determine what her loyalty to her family’s really worth.

Losing her brother isn’t an option. Losing her soul? Maybe.

This was put on my radar by Danya and it was a decent read. I was interested to find out how the story was going to progress but it didn’t quite click for me. I think I went in with my expectations too high. I didn't love this as much I'd hoped.

It’s not all bad, it had its fun moments, I laughed along at parts but something about the characters and the story just didn’t work to make me love it. I don’t think it helped that I spent at least a third of the book being confused about the whole church element of the book. The church plays a major role in shaping the progression of the story. The church supports the renting of souls to prevent folks from truly sinning but instead allows them to keep their soul clean with their indiscretions… but it also makes committing crimes easier as souls muddy up the whole evidence thing (or something). It was weird and it wasn’t explained at the start so I sat there questioning if I missed something and I think that really threw me out of the book.

Callie was a fun character, though, and you want an MC who is easy to like with these things. It's easy to like a character when they're hard done by their family and stuck once more rescuing her brother doing some morally questionable and legally debatable things. My biggest problem was her entire family being selfish dicks I did not have time for and I didn’t get how Callie hadn’t cut them out already. I get blood’s thicker than water and all that but I just didn't get it and that made me not care as much about Callie’s struggles as they were all self-made.

Then there was Derek whose connection with Callie felt awfully rushed. It was like he was male and convenient to make the love interest. I'm not saying there wasn't some spark there but not enough for me to ship them before they even got it on. I am intrigued by his backstory though because there was definitely a lot more to him than you see in this book.

I think my biggest struggle was I spent so much time confused in the book. I didn't understand the dynamics of Gem City, why the church was so huge and who on earth Ford was. I didn't get enough set up. I don't want an info dump but some info would have helped me get into the story at the start instead of stumbling along blind questioning everything. The humour was perfect, definitely my kind of humour, but unfortunately, other things brought this one down a touch for me so I’ll be dithering over reading the next book.

Pestilence (The Four Horsemen #1) – Laura Thalassa

Published: 20th March 2018

Source: Kindle Unlimited

Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Paranormal

My Rating:

They came to earth—Pestilence, War, Famine, Death—four horsemen riding their screaming steeds, racing to the corners of the world. Four horsemen with the power to destroy all of humanity. They came to earth, and they came to end us all.

When Pestilence comes for Sara Burn’s town, one thing is certain: everyone she knows and loves is marked for death. Unless, of course, the angelic-looking horseman is stopped, which is exactly what Sara has in mind when she shoots the unholy beast off his steed.

Too bad no one told her Pestilence can’t be killed.

Now the horseman, very much alive and very pissed off, has taken her prisoner, and he’s eager to make her suffer. Only, the longer she’s with him, the more uncertain she is about his true feelings towards her … and hers towards him.

And now, well, Sara might still be able to save the world, but in order to do so, she'll have to sacrifice her heart in the process.

This book was ridiculous and I really enjoyed it. Like, I know I haven’t rated it all that high and there are complaints to be had, but I honestly really enjoyed reading and wanted to get to the end and see how it would all get resolved. I also don't want to claim it as amazing because I did question why I kept reading a few times, I'm not gonna lie. It was good and bad all rolled into one but I was fully committed to getting to the end because I wanted to know what would happen so even if it was bad it was the good kind of bad.

Let’s start off with the premise and it might explain why I needed to see how it was all going to work out. The basic premise is simple: this is the world after the four horsemen of the apocalypse have arrived. No, I do not know who all the four horsemen are either but isn’t that what Google is for? The first one to arrive is Pestilence, though (hence the book's title). The four horsemen arrived signalling the start of the apocalypse and made electricity go a bit wonky (but only sometimes) and meant the world didn't work as it used to. Currently, the other horsemen are resting up and it's just Pestilence riding around the globe spreading a new plague and killing folks off and that is where our story begins.

The characters were interesting. Our MC is Sara Burns (I seriously only learnt what her name was about a third of the way in if it was mentioned before I did not retain it). She is living in a world after the four horsemen arrived and she's struggling through. She worked at the fire station and she is the last of a small group of people in a town that's evacuated as the horseman was coming. She ends up being the unlucky person who gets to complete their plan of killing Pestilence and ending the whole plague/apocalypse thing. She does it and ends up getting taken prisoner and that's basically the story. Seriously, that’s all you need to know really, the rest is just filler.

Sara is obviously a reluctant prisoner but the more time she's stuck with cheery old Pestilence (because he is a bit of a miserable git) the more she grows to appreciate some of his complexities. And he is the absolute worst, at the start with the way he treated her I really wanted to take him down and teach him a thing or two about not being a dick (that’s my philosophy in life: don’t be a dick). Another factor which helps in Sara softening towards Pestilence is he is mighty easy on the eyes. Like, she is totally down for a bit of hate sex from the start because he is like that dudebro you hate but you can’t help lusting after every so often when you’re weak and up for making bad decisions. The longer they spend together the closer they grow. They both struggle with their gradually growing connection. I mean, Sara is liking the guy there to literally wipe out the human race, you can get her struggle. And Pestilence? Well, he is feeling some human hate because honestly, we can be total dicks. Sometimes I think we all need a lesson in not being dicks because otherwise why would the world be in the state it is? But whatever, the pair are struggling is my point and I could appreciate the struggle. I think because I just couldn't believe the resolution to this major central problem of them being opposite sides is what made me rate this lower. It was too clean and I was sat there thinking ‘really?’ because I expected it to be more dragged out. I know, the only time I want to be dragged out!

So yeah, like it wasn’t bad. Hell, I enjoyed it but I just couldn’t with the ending, I needed more. I don’t know, I’ll still read the next one (if I remember about it). It was a ridiculous and fun book. I adored the hate banter between Sara and Pestilence and the miscommunication was fun in this one because they both had such different perspectives. It was great in that way like the characters were on point! The story needed a touch more refining though. I mean, a book with a horse named Trixie Skillz is kind of awesome. And I mean Pestilence is a virgin hero and you know there aren’t enough of those out in the romance world! But, like, the other horsemen are barely even mentioned. And the whole electricity working and not working bothered me because there was no continuity. Little things niggled. So yeah, it was good and bad but I do recommend reading.

And there are my reviews, have you read either of these books? Do you find yourself enjoyed and disliking a book so you’re all kinds of confused about your feelings?

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yahoo-puck-daddy-blog · 6 years ago

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What We Learned: The Wild are going to be expensive, but will they be good?

The Wild have a large range of outcomes for 2018-19. (Photo by Jason Halstead /Getty Images)

Off the top of your head, where do you see the Minnesota Wild finishing in the Central this season?

They’re only technically in the same league as the division’s twin titans of Nashville and Winnipeg, which seem destined to finish 1-2 (you pick the order).

Of course, the Wild finished in that third spot last year; a distant third, mind you, with a 13-point gap between Winnipeg and themselves. And that came with some serious ups and downs; they were one of the worst possession teams in the league last year, and really only got to where they were because of an a PDO that was ninth-highest in the league.

And to be fair, they had a number of key players miss a pretty good amount of time. Jared Spurgeon only played 61 games. Zach Parise just 47. Nino Niederreiter checked in at only 63. Those are all very useful players and if they’re missing a quarter or close to half of a season, your on-ice results are going to suffer, especially if they miss a bunch of games at the same time.

But at the same time, Eric Staal scored 42 goals and 76 points. Jason Zucker cleared 30 in both goals and assists. Mikael Granlund had 67 points. Ryan Suter and Matt Dumba both hit 50 points from the blue line. Devan Dubnyk was once again top-notch at .918 in 60 appearances.

The problem for the Wild, then, is that the rest of the division seems to be improving, and it was pretty tightly packed around the middle of the Central to begin with. Nine points separated Minnesota from sixth-place Dallas, with Colorado and St. Louis between them. I would argue that all those teams improved this offseason, and Chicago should be (much) better if Corey Crawford is fully healthy, even if they’re not the Chicago of old.

Note that many of the Wild players I just listed as having enjoyed great seasons are, for the most part, outside their prime production years. Staal and Suter will turn 34 during next season. Spurgeon will turn 29. Dubnyk just turned 32. Other teams have aging producers as well, obviously, but these were some pretty outsized years from past-their-primes players, so it’ll be interesting to see what they can actually put together in 2018-19.

The real problem with the Wild, though, is the playoff format. The gap between Nashville/Winnipeg and the rest of that division is so significant in terms of on-paper quality (you can never guess when injury or quirky underperformance will rear their heads) that you’re better off finishing in the wild card spot in the division and taking your chances with the winner of the Pacific than finishing third and getting as brutally crumpled as the Wild did in the first round last year.

And with the new contract Matt Dumba signed over the weekend — five years with a $6 million AAV, the value of which I’ll get to in a minute here — this team is about $5.6 million south of the cap limit, and still have to re-sign Zucker, who has 111 points over the last two seasons. That scoring total ties him for 63rd in the league in that time, just ahead of Jordan Eberle and Sean Couturier, for instance, and likely means he’s going to be looking for a fat paycheck. That probably pushed Minnesota up around the absolute top of the league in terms of cap obligations.

(Also worth noting: There are few Bruce Boudreau stans in the hockey media bigger than me, but my man only has so much to work with, y’know?)

So this is a cap-limit team with a first-round-limit ceiling in the playoffs unless things go very heavily their way. This is, I guess, why the team brought in a new front office crew this summer; there’s a recognition that they’ve built a rather expensive team that probably reached its peak in terms of reasonable competition within the division, let alone the Western Conference or league writ large. And with so many of their top players (such as they are) on the wrong side of 30, one wonders how much longer this approach is going to be kept up.

Simply put, seventy-nine-point-something million dollars a year to get bounced in the early rounds of the playoffs again isn’t and shouldn’t be viewed as a tenable situation, but as I wrote repeatedly like four or five years, simply paying a lot of money to players who are above-average but certainly not stars in the league doesn’t make them worth their contracts. The Parise and Suter contracts don’t expire for seven more seasons and it’s a hell of a lot of money to spend on two guys whose impact on the ice is going to diminish.

The good news is there aren’t too many long-term commitments otherwise — Dumba and Niedereitter, both of whom are under 26, are the only other guys signed for more than the next three seasons — and the team does have some promising, youngish players to supplement the old guard. That Dumba contract is probably a little too much in terms of AAV, but he has 35 goals over the last three seasons and you gotta pay for guys like that, I guess.

Only 12 defensemen in the salary cap era besides Dumba have cleared 50 points in a season before the age of 24, so what are you gonna do? The term is fine, for sure, but Dumba doesn’t really move the needle in terms of underlying numbers; he’s still improving given his age, but paying a lot for that particular player seems more optimistic than rational. Because of those 13 defensemen, only eight repeated their 50-performances at least once before turning 28.

Nice to have young players who can make an impact, certainly, but the Wild fall into that classic trap of having a number of goodish, cheapish young guys and goodish, expensive old guys and very little in between, which doesn’t allow for a continuity of quality over years.

And with this team in particular, what even is that quality, really? Can you really afford to run out the clock with all these early-to-mid-20s and mid-30s players over the next three years if this is where you’re gonna get?

While anyone can get on a hot run and make a deep playoff push, the Wild don’t really have a realistic chance to do that unless they land outside their own division for the playoffs. Which is theoretically possible, but in actual practice you shouldn’t want to hope you finish seventh or eighth in the West to get a viable path to the Conference Final, where you’re likely to get clubbed anyway.

So the Wild, again, seem to be at a crossroads with the direction of their franchise, but none of their paths forward seem particularly favorable.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: They’re officially bringing back, well, a version of the original Mighty Ducks jersey, which should just be their actual jersey anyway. This one kinda stinks but what are you gonna do?

Arizona Coyotes: God if the Coyotes are worth $500 million, what’s Vegas worth now, a year after paying that same amount of money to be a team?

Boston Bruins: The cool thing about if the Bruins got Artemi Panarin? He would be the second-best left wing on the team.

Buffalo Sabres: Casey Mittelstadt looks like he could soon be a difference-maker at the NHL level, which is probably a little ahead of schedule to be honest.

Calgary Flames: The Flames love putting useful young depth players on waivers for no reason, but at least they didn’t lose Brett Kulak for nothing like they did Paul Byron.

Carolina Hurricanes: I would not recommend making a 19-year-old rookie your No. 1 center, no.

Chicago: Jonathan Toews wants a big bounce-back season for himself and his team. I want a million dollars. Nice to want things.

Colorado Avalanche: The Avs are probably going to avoid arbitration with Patrik Nemeth and that’s the only guy they need to re-sign at this point.

Columbus Blue Jackets: *Craig Finn voice* Don’t let Oliver Bjorkstrand explode!!!!

Dallas Stars: You can say what you want about the Stars but there really aren’t that many bad contracts on the books.

Detroit Red Wings: Wow the Red Wings might actually play talented kids instead of mediocre 29-year-olds in important situations. Signs and wonders.

Edmonton Oilers: Put Joe Gambardella in the NHL. Yes. Do it. Think about where he went to college and don’t be a coward!!!

Florida Panthers: Vinnie Viola is selling his mansion in New Jersey and I’m buying it.

Los Angeles Kings: A great mid-July pastime is to look at NHL signings and guess what percentage of them are AHL-quality goons. Here’s one now.

Minnesota Wild: The Wild have a new AHL head coach and it seems like when you’re hiring guys out of the Penguins coaching system you’re making a good decision.

Montreal Canadiens: This is brutal.

Nashville Predators: Yes. Thanks for asking.

New Jersey Devils: Only roster eight defensemen if you’re gonna play seven every night. Which, by the way, you should do that.

New York Islanders: Frankly, gang, I don’t know that they have much of a choice in the whole “should we tank?” discussion.

New York Rangers: When the richest and biggest-name teams in the league are openly saying they’re “rebuilding” that should be a good indication that it’s a perfectly okay thing for every team to do when needed.

Ottawa Senators: This is going really great.

Philadelphia Flyers: Man, that Forsberg-to-Nashville trade effectively got the Flyers Scottie Upshall, Ryan Parent, Scott Hartnell, and Kimmo Timonen plus a third-round pick? Good lord!

Pittsburgh Penguins: Okay, sure, Derek Grant. That’s someone.

San Jose Sharks: Chris Tierney? That’s even more someone.

St. Louis Blues: This is a take where I go, “Ahhhh, maybe?” Which kinda defeats the purpose of the take.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Really feels like everyone in Tampa is just sitting around going, “Well jeez hey when’s this Karlsson thing happening? Soon? Soon. Gotta be soon.”

Toronto Maple Leafs: Andreas Johnsson‘s one of those guys where it’s like, “Yeah he’s probably a real player.” He went point-a-game in his second AHL season and 1.5 a game in the playoffs. Granted, that’s on a stacked team, but he’s 23 and a guy who can score like that is probably a good bottom-six option at an absolute minimum.

Vancouver Canucks: I would not want to be in the business of extending Alex Edler, despite his long-term status with the org.

Vegas Golden Knights: It’s really too bad the Golden Knights didn’t have to change their name. That would have been so funny.

Washington Capitals: Yeah, no.

Winnipeg Jets: I’m gonna write more about Trouba this week but: yikes.

Gold Star Award

Maybe this makes me a kook in hockey circles but every NHL team should have as many jerseys as they want. Who cares as long as they’re cool or weird or whatever? I don’t like the Ducks’ new “classic-inspired” thirds but at least they’re trying something. More throwbacks would be a good thing.

Minus of the Weekend

This is some kinda take.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Week

User “Kshahdoo” loves this time of year.

STL gets Panarin (but only with extention) Toronto gets Parayko Columbus gets Nylander

Signoff

Help! Help!

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

#_uuid:47ac8521-b818-3623-9b54-36431b9dd47b #_revsp:21d636bb-8aa8-4731-9147-93a932d2b27a #_lmsid:a077000000CFoGyAAL #_author:Ryan Lambert

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lorrainecparker · 7 years ago

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This Art Of The Shot: “13 Reasons Why” Director of Photography Andrij Parekh

Andrij Parekh is an NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (MFA in 2001) trained cinematographer. It was there that he was nominated for the 1998 Eastman Excellence in Cinematography Award, apprenticed on “The Yards” (2000) with Harris Savides, and received the 2001 & 2003 ASC Heritage Awards.

When I researched the over twenty features Andrij shot I come across some of my personal favorites: “Blue Valentine” (Derek Cianfrance), “Half Nelson” (Director Ryan Fleck), and “The Zookeeper’s Wife” (Niki Caro). He’s had films play at Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, and Sundance.

Recently Andrij answered my question about his experience shooting “Tape 1 Side A”, and “Tape 1 Side B” of one of the year’s most talked about Netflix series “13 Reasons Why.” If you have yet to see the beautiful transitions and naturalistic lighting found in the visuals then it might be time to get your binge on.

“13 Reasons Why” is based on the best-selling books by Jay Asher. The story follows teenager Clay Jensen as he returns home from school to find a mysterious box with his name on it lying on his porch. He discovers cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker inside the mysterious box who tragically committed suicide two weeks earlier. On the tapes, Hannah explains she has thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Will Clay be one of them? If he listens, he’ll find out how he made the list. The series follows both Hannah and Clay through inventive dual narratives; one in the past and the other in the present. The transitions in time are executed wonderfully. Another interesting, though technical, aspect is the series was shot on Panasonic’s Varicam.

How did shooting 13 Reasons Why come to be for you? How does someone position themselves to shoot a Netflix show

Andrij: Thirteen Reasons Why came to me from my agent (Hillary Cook at the Murtha Skouras Agency)- through Tom McCarthy. Tom and I have been in filmmaking “concentric circles” for some time, and it was a wonderful opportunity to shoot a pilot (setting the look and tone of the show) and work with a great director. And after a number of years, we finally were able to work together. I’ve been shooting since I finished NYU grad school in 2001— and I guess having a resumé with depth doesn’t hurt in getting approval from a company like Netflix.

Which scene are you most proud of and why?

Andrij: That’s always a tricky question. Rather than a specific scene, I’m proud of the way the whole show looks- and particularly the acute but subtle differences between the “past”- Pre-Suicide and the “present” – Post Suicide. Tom and I wanted to engage the audience and keep them constantly looking for clues— allowing the show to sometimes be “ahead” of the audience. Making the difference between the present and past a lens/format choice – Anamorphic for the past, Spherical lenses for the present- gave the two time periods a different feel rather than a telegraphed “look”. It was that emotional difference that we were after.

Let’s talk shooting details: How many days? How long were the days? What size crew did you use?

Andrij: I think we had a total of 26 days- roughly 13 days for each episode. The crew was a full crew- probably 100+ people. It was ostensibly a schedule for a slightly lavish independent film! The days weren’t too heavy- and in fact, I think we had 7 AM starts for every day the first week- which meant that we were shooting less than 11 hours each day. I’m a strong believer in being prepared, working very intensely and diligently on set, and wrapping around 11 hours per day. It’s the only way to keep ourselves sane in this industry and to have a life outside of the set. It also keeps you fresh and rested.

What cameras and lenses did you use for 13 Reasons Why?

Andrij: We shot with the Panasonic Varicam, mainly because of Netflix’s 4K requirement, and it was a great find for me. Understanding that we had to shoot 4K, I tested the Alexa 65, the Sony F55 and the Varicam. The Alexa 65 was glorious- but the camera was just too big for the style of the show ( a lot of hand held and moving fast). I preferred the skin tones of the Varicam to the F55, and then I discovered the dual ISO feature of the Varicam- 800 and 5000 ISO. I tested both ISOs- and the 5000 was incredibly “clean,” with very little video artifacts or digital noise.

We used 800 ISO for most of the production, except for the night work, where we used 5000 ISO. I didn’t reduce the number of lighting units tremendously, but the added sensitivity (roughly 2.5 times that of ISO 800) made all the practicals bloom in a very beautiful way. It’s tough to achieve that halation at ISO 800. We were shooting with Anamorphic lenses at night (F2.8 max aperture) with an ND 6 or 1.2!

In terms of lenses, as mentioned before, we used a mixture of Spherical and Anamorphic lenses to separate the “past” from the “present”. Even though we shot two different formats (native 16:9 for the Spherical and 2:39 for the Anamorphic), the show’s aspect ratio was 16:9. We used Leica Summilux-C prime Spherical lenses, which are very “soft & creamy,” but quite sharp on the focal plane, mainly shooting the lenses wide open at F1.4. We lit a bit more contrasty in the present and allowed for a more romantic look for the past- where we used Hawk V-Lite 2:1s, which rendered the images rather softly and have enhanced anamorphic lens aberration.

What codec did you shoot and why?

Andrij: We used the V-Intra, as the RAW format required too much data storage and for the viewing format (Televisions, Personal Computers, and iPads) V-Intra was sufficient.

How did you approach this project?

Andrij: Tom and I did a lot of visual research, and we looked at the high-school films that we watched as adolescents and young adults— The Breakfast Club (John Hughes), Elephant (Gus Van Sant) “My So-Called Life” (TV)… The film that probably had the greatest influence on the film was a Norwegian Film called “Reprise” (Director Joachim Trier). We talked a lot about the process. For me, the most important thing to understand from a director is his/her taste. Taste is the one thing that affects my approach the greatest- and to try to align my personal aesthetic taste with that of the director’s is the thing I spend the most time on in prep.

What visuals hooked you into the final look?

Andrij: Again, it was “Reprise” that affected us the most- mainly, the shooting and editorial style, and the freedom in which it moves from flashback to present, often off of a character’s look or a sound cue.

How did you achieve the two different looks for the past and the present? Was it difficult mixing the two into a single sequence?

Andrij: I would say that it was as simple as changing the lens format, from Spherical to Anamorphic. Lighting was rather consistent throughout the two periods, but we may be lit with a bit less film for the present.

What did you learn from shooting 13 Reasons Why?

Andrij: That not always being able to shoot on Alexa or film is not necessarily the end of the world.

Since we now have so many different camera options how do you decide on a single brand or camera for a project?

Andrij: Again, part of this was dictated by not being able to use the Alexa because of Netflix’s 4K requirement- but it allowed us to test a number of formats, which then informed my choice. I think testing is key. I test before every project as much as I can, and approach shooting digital like shooting film- with the adage that you can improve it, but you can’t fix it later.

What are your go-to rigs to capture smooth shots?

Andrij: I love the Movi, mainly because I can operate.

How do you prep for scenes on 13 Reasons Why?

Andrij: Tom and I shot listed the film separately- then compared notes and made one master shot list. I like shot listing separately from the director, as it allows me to fully enter into the world of the film and imagine how it will look and edit. By then comparing notes, it’s truly a collaborative process.

The lighting and camera work felt very natural? Any tips you can share to shed light on achieving a similar look?

Andrij: I try and use single source lighting as much as possible, and like to light rooms, not faces. This simple approach makes my working style very fast- of course one needs to add a bit of bounced fill light once in awhile, but it also ensures that the director is not waiting for me and that we have made a huge amount of space and time for the actor and director on set. We used a lot of large HMI’s, with Bleached and unbleached Muslin as the diffusion. It cuts the amount of light, so the sources end up being rather large- 18Ks, M90s & M60s- and the organic nature of the muslin breaks the electronic feel of HMI a bit.

Who succeeds at filmmaking?

Andrij: The tireless, and those with a lot of patience. Emotional intelligence also helps, as well as a strong sense of story. Every decision has to come from the script, or at least be informed by it.

If you were not doing this work, what would you be doing for a living?

Andrij: Architecture. It also deals with space and light, and moving bodies through space and time,

Do you have a favorite type of work: Feature films, docs, commercials or music videos? Why?

Andrij: I like feature work the best because one can really dig one’s hands into story and character.

How can a shooter, who is usually on smaller shoots, apply the lessons they’ve learned to a larger production?

Andrij: Work simply. For me, the smaller the production the better- in the end, every movie is about a camera, a story, and actors. Everything else is peripheral. It’s easy to get caught up in gear or technical elements- but one can lose the essence of what we are trying to do, which is to tell a story that is gripping on an emotional level. And camera placement is key. So much comes from proper camera placement in terms of light and emotion.

How do you balance work and life?

Andrij: That’s tough. It’s all about choices and making sure that the cinematographer in me does not edge out the husband and father in me.

If there were one single piece of wisdom to impart on aspiring cameramen/women what would it be?

Andrij: Keep your overhead low. By making cinema, you are inevitably joining a circus- one that can take you all over the world. You need to be unencumbered and not bogged down by financial restraints, as the most important luxury is the ability to say “no” to the projects you don’t want to make because they don’t strike an emotional cord in you. If you are not engaged by the material, it’s hard to find the inspiration to shoot well.

What’s next for you?

Andrij: A summer in France with the family.

The post This Art Of The Shot: “13 Reasons Why” Director of Photography Andrij Parekh appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

First Found At: This Art Of The Shot: “13 Reasons Why” Director of Photography Andrij Parekh

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