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seoafin · 2 years ago

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I need your thots on house husband geto,,how he cooks and cleans and all he asks from you is a kiss every now and then [ever since i read nitc all i've been thinking about is how he asks rip!mc for a kiss in exchange for anything]

ohhhhhhhhhhhh

"You don't cook at home?"

When Shoko had dragged you out to a girl's night with some of her old friends from medical school, citing that Satoru and Suguru had kept you cooped up in the apartment for themselves for too long, this was not a question you anticipated to be answering. At first you were overwhelmed. It was a large gathering. Ten became eight, and eight had dwindled to six and then four. Right on the verge of retiring for the night, conversation had shifted to the topic of boyfriends and relationship woes.

And now three pairs of eyes look to you. An amused chuckle escapes Shoko's lips, a lit cigarette neatly slotted between her lips.

You blink, embarrassment washing over you. "I—well." You stare down at your lap. "I'm not really that good at cooking...so my boyfriend...does all the cooking."

Suguru does the cooking. And the laundry. When Suguru's away, Satoru takes care of it. Satoru washes the dishes. Cleans. He sweeps and vacuums and tidies after the kids. You had tried to help, once, but Suguru had directed you away, and now the realization is quickly dawning on you that it may have been because you are simply incompetent at housework.

You may not be able to cook, but nobody is incompetent at cleaning!

Except…maybe you. You don’t know. You’ve never needed to clean. Nothing more than a perfunctory clean every once in a while when you lived alone. You weren’t a messy person. Shoko remarked often that your first apartment was cleaner than it had been when you had originally moved in.

"How sweet," Kuriyama sighs out. "My boyfriend can't even cut a vegetable! He cooks for you? Everyday?"

"U-usually," is your response while your mind races, trying to think back to the last time you had helped with anything around the house. Anything.

"The only thing my boyfriend can make is ramen. Not to mention he's super picky about his food!" Mori shakes her head. "He's so difficult! Honestly I think of dumping him everyday for being so incompetent!"

You stare at her.

Shoko clears her throat. "I'm sure it’s not only that—”

“I agree,” Kuriyama says, nodding, face fiercely determined. “It gets so tiring sometimes taking care of everything. Maybe it’s time to move on!” She leans in. “Your boyfriend wouldn’t happen to have any good looking friends?”

Out of all the reasons that constantly filled your head with why Satoru and Suguru would break up with you, you hadn’t expected your inability to do household chores to be one of them.

Incompetent.

Well, it would certainly be understandable. If anything, you think you would prefer them breaking up with you over something as mundane as not being able to do housework, instead of the many flaws to your character. It would settle easier. It would hurt less. Now you just had to prepare yours—

“Let’s call it a night!” Shoko interrupts, cigarette disposed, taking you to stand up by the arm. “I have to get her back before people start calling,” she says, interlacing your fingers.

Kuriyama sighs. “Just when we were getting to the best part, Shoko!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mori grins. “You should come to our next night out. You can invite your boyfriend too! We’ll make an exception!”

Shoko waves them off, pulling you outside the izakaya.

“I can’t cook either,” she says as the two of you wait for a taxi. You know that. But Shoko bakes. Cookies and cakes and occasionally other baked goods. You spent nights over at her apartment eating cupcakes until late in the morning, watching American dramas and horror movies. Delicious, mouth watering desserts.

“Who expects women to cook nowadays anyway?”

—

When the elevator parts to your apartment, you immediately go to Mimiko and Nanako’s room and check their pink laundry hamper. Empty. Then to Tsumiki’s room. Empty. Megumi’s room. Empty.

You’re seated on the floor of Megumi’s room when the door opens again.

“How was the—”

You push past Satoru to go into your shared room at the end of the hall to check your laundry hamper. Suguru is reading on the bed when you open the closet. Empty. You sit down, knees flush to your chest, dejected.

You don’t need to look behind you to know Satoru and Suguru are exchanging glances.

From your knees, you mumble. “Did you do the laundry?”

It’s Suguru that answers you. “We just finished a load.”

“Oh.”

You sit in silence.

At least, until Satoru gently yanks you up into his arms, and carries you to the bed. You immediately turn face down on your comforter, covering your face.

You think they must be having another one of their silent conversations. You squeeze your eyes shut. Tomorrow, you resolve, you’d wash the dishes after dinner.

You hear the door open yet again with Satoru’s departure, and Suguru softly says your name. You sigh, picking yourself up. You really can’t refuse Suguru when he says your name like that.

“Where are the kids?” You ask, even though you already know where they are. They’d be back early tomorrow morning, before school.

“Educational overnight field trip with Yaga,” Suguru replies, amused as your attempt to delay the inevitable. He plays along, lightly teasing. “It’s not like you to forget these things.”

You don’t meet his eyes. Suguru calmly waits you out until you lamely say: “I don’t help around the house.”

You can tell he’s taken aback. “Is that why you were looking for…dirty clothes?”

You’re embarrassed just thinking about it. “...”

“I like cooking,” he says. “I like cooking and watching you, Satoru, Megumi, and the girls enjoy what I make. And I definitely, don’t think it’s a burden. We order out a lot too, don’t we?” He continues. “As for the laundry, I grew up doing it with my mother. It reminds me of home.”

You reluctantly look up. There’s a soft smile on his lips. “I can wash the dishes.”

He chuckles, hand caressing your face. You nearly close your eyes and lean into it. “You don’t need to. You don’t need to do anything.”

You still want to. Try. It makes you feel better. Slightly. The knots in the pit of your stomach loosen. “Can I help you with lunch for the kids tomorrow…?”

He pretends to think about it. The fondness in his barely suppressed expression gives him away. "Maybe if you give me a kiss first."

"Suguru," you grumble.

He only replies with your name, face erupting into a full blown grin.

Your face warms as you lean close and cup his face with your hands, bringing your lips to his. He pulls you on to straddle his lap, wrapping an arm around your waist and breathes you in. His lips briefly part, and you feel his tongue run over your bottom lip.

You pull away, about to rest your face onto his shoulder, into his neck. His dark purple gaze draws you in. “We can take care of you,” he says, softly. Then he kisses you again, and this time you let him take you apart with his tongue. Against your lips: “We can take care of you.”

You draw apart, breathless. You pointedly stare at the wall behind him while you attempt to regain what’s left of your composure. Suguru laughs and presses a kiss to your collarbone, one hand sliding underneath your shirt onto bare skin, thumb lightly dragging over the scar of raised flesh on your side.

“Besides,” he murmurs, lips still attached to your neck. You can feel the slightest kiss of teeth. “Satoru makes more of a mess than the kids. It’s only right that he cleans up after himself.”

“Hey!” The sound erupts from behind the door.

You should’ve known.

—

[extra]

“I’m so sorry,” you bemoan.

Ten minutes prior, Nanako had run into the kitchen, brush in hand and horrified, ("Papa, something's burning!"), then she had looked at you, brightened in understanding, and called back into the hall: “Everything’s alright guys!”

Satoru looks over at the unrecognizable charred pieces of salmon on the stove top, face unreadable. Then he shrugs and drops a light kiss on your nose. “You tried.”

You hide your face in your hands.

You also pretend not to see Satoru discreetly handing Megumi a pack of bills as the kids shuffle out the door for school.

#rip!mc failwife stsg househusbands #what is a man nowadays if he can't cook and clean and do the laundry and the dishes #like c'mon now put 'em to work!!!!!#gojo satoru x reader #geto suguru x reader #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #m.jjk #poly au

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kenananamin · 11 months ago

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Nanami watching a reality show

a very short list of hcs about nanami kento watching a reality show bc i was watching jersey shore, the hills, and sister wives and wondered what he would think about those shows and reality shows in general lol enjoy!

always avoided watching them bc gojo gave him enough drama and he did not want more

passes you the control and tells you to put whatever you'd like since he was gonna finish his report and read his newspaper for a bit

you put on a reality show, and he doesn't do it but he feels like groaning just from hearing the cast speak

he's a quarter of the way in one section of the newspaper when he hears some of the juiciest comebacks he has ever heard in his life

he doesn't lift his head the whole way but he watches the tv for a bit under his eyebrows

the thing is, nanami is a lowkey chismoso aka nosy

he skims through the rest of the newspaper and closes it and leans back w you to watch. you ask if he wants to change it and get ready to pass him the remote but he stops you and says to keep watching it bc he's getting up in a bit to make lunch anyways

does not get up to make lunch, y'all end up ordering in and nanami asks who each person is 10 times before finally (kinda) remembering names and understanding the dynamics

he'll shake his head and quietly mumble, "damn, that so messy" or "why would anyone in their right mind do that?"

is very shocked at half the things they do or say, but tries to hold in his laughter when someone says something ridiculous

quickly has nicknames for the cast and has his favorites

strongly dislikes the instigator and sits on the edge of the couch when someone stands up to them... but also looks forward to what the instigator does next

watches 90 day fiancé w you and grunts about the episode length but quietly watches... and enjoys

watches 90 day fiancé the other way and enjoys the way americans complain

can only watch a bit everyday and compares reality shows to medication, can only do so much at a time

will later ask which shows you've watched and looks them up when he's alone

will give you updates on the casts after looking them up on social media. "did you know she got married? i think they'll cover that in the next season?"

takes mental notes of contradictions and reminds you of these contradictions during the reunions

feels himself getting irrationally upset at some of these people and has to remind himself it might be scripted

will eventually ask if you'd like to watch a more wholesome reality show to balance out the dramatic ones

later falls into the hole of survival shows

gets a bit sulky if you watch the shows without him

hates to admit that he wants to get back home and watch one of these shows

quietly asks if you'd like to have a weekly reality show day w him where you can relax all day (or most of it at least) and have snacks, order in and just watch watch and comment on these shows

these end up being one of his favorite moments of the week w you, snuggling and enjoying brain rotting television

extras about certain shows:

prays that angelina is removed from the shore house, that sammi and ron separate for their own good, and mike gets the help he needs (is happy when it all happens except for when angelina comes back in the family vacation spin-off)

lowkey wants to rewatch the hills after the ending leaves him wondering how scripted the entire show was (you go back to explain the drama behind that and how it was mtv poking fun at it all)

has given up on trying to learn the names of the kids in sister wives. knows their faces, not their names. feels like he has personal beef with kody. wants to catch up on all recent drama.

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angeliquexoxo · 12 days ago

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"What are they like?" - General Resident Headcanons

PART 2

More hcs of how the residents would act around the mansion!💕

All characters are written according to my au, I don't own any of the characters written here and they all belong to their rightful owners (⁠＾⁠∇⁠＾⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠♪

This post may contain mature content such as swearing, talks about trauma, and other stuff you may not too read!

BEN_Drowned

I imagine him having the body of a 15 year old, and the mind of a 21 college drop out who's actually really good in technology and social media. Basically someone who's a genius but decided to drop out because it's just not working out for him.

BEN is really annoying to deal with in the mansion. Not because of his ability to manipulate technology (can manifest in tvs and such), but him as a being. Like you would see on the internet, the boy is a troll. He enjoys witnessing the angry reactions he would get from others- which is why he likes to use Jeff as his go to target.

Since he's a spirit, he could phase through walls and such but since he's a techno-poltergeist, he prefers using electronics and gadgets.

BEN would spend his free time in his room or at the recreation room, either playing video games or watching some kind of anime. But if he's working, he would be stationed at the security office- BEN is the only one in the mansion who can keep track of what's happening in most of the cameras placed all around the mansion.

One of the messiest residents in the mansion. The security office is filled with tangled wires and a bunch of junk food wrappers (chips, sodas, candy, etc) His room is also very unkept. For some reason, he has a bunch of used tissues all along his desk which I won't be elaborating any further.

BEN is really easy-going, really playful too- but again, he's a smart spirit. He doesn't trust too many people in the mansion except for jeff because he knows what kind of fucked up shit they all did. He likes to perceive himself as a friendly guy but also shows to others that you shouldn't fuck with him.

Since he's at cyber security, a lot of people look at him when they need something ordered off online (whether it's on Amazon or on the Dark web) of course he'll do it, but in return you'll have to do something for him in return. It can be as harmless as pulling pranks but sometimes his favors are fucked up like killing of a victim he trolled because he told them to pull up to an address he gave them.

BEN is quite expressive, he's the one who reacts to things the most besides Nina I envision him to show off lot of emotions too. He doesn't know how to hide them well, you can easily tell just by looking at him (I think it's also because BEN is always seen so carefree and positive so it's a no brainer if you notice the shift in his emotions easily)

He acts like a moody teenager. Like I said, BEN is pretty laid back, uses vulgar and extensive vocabulary (would use slang words the most) when something upsets him, he will make it known. Honestly, he'll start to act like a petty and salty bitch when there's a minor inconvenience.

Eyeless Jack

Ej is the mansion's official doctor. He got the position and the proper title after the number of times he would give his housemates medical help after or even between missions. He's also the one apart of cleaning up after fights between residents.

He's knowledgeable to almost all things about medicine, especially info on anatomy and things relating to surgery. I could say he's one of the smarter residents when it comes to academics (he liked science, particularly the biology)

He keeps mostly to himself. He doesn't involve himself in any drama happening in the mansion, not because he's not into socializing with the other members of the mansion but rather because he's worried about harming those around him. Because Ej is a half-demon from a failed cult sacrifice, he now has to live with his craving of human organs and it's said for him to deal with because all he wanted to do is help those in need.

With his cannibalistic tendencies, he prefers having meal time ny himself. The only time he'll eat is when he's out hunting or alone and somewhere private in the mansion- like his room or a closed area in the infirmary.

He doesn't get stressed easily. He knows how to act when there's a crisis. He's used to working under pressure, with him being the most medical knowledge in the mansion and stuff. The only time he'll start acting out is when he's hungry. He can control his anger well when things start to piss him off, but if he's starving- that's a whole 'nother level of danger.

Ej likes to be clean and tidy. The practice of keeping things sterile grew on him and because of that he prefers keeping things neat and organised. However, with him needing to consume human insides- it's difficult for him to keep his stuff clean. You'll need to find a victim, get the good stuff, dispose of the body, etc. yeah it's not a fun process for him.

A really respectful resident. He doesn't use vulgar language except the occasional swear words he thinks there's no need to swear so there's that He gives respect to anyone as long as they're respectful to him in return.

Ej is on good terms with residents in the mansion, not because he's the one healing but because he's not as fucked as they are. Has good bonds with Jane and Hoodie, thinks Nina is a sweet for helping him out in the infirmary while the other residents are just okay for him.

Would spend his free time reading books don't ask me how it just fits him if not then he'll organize the infirmary.

Jeff the Killer

Surprising enough, not as foul mouth as you think he'd be Clockwork took number 1 Jeff still swears and such, but he's not bold enough to say what's on his mind- it really depends if he drank enough beer or not.

Also really gross, his room reeks of alcohol and rot. He has a bunch of dirty laundry and empty beer cans that he has yet to throw away. Jeff doesn't have the best hygiene either. He has a hard time brushing his teeth due to the cut on his cheeks. He would also wear the same white hoodie- never washes it unless he feels like a decent human being and decided to do his laundry.

Honestly, he's a bit of a pussy. It really depends on who he's dealing with. If he's with Cody or some resident who is really introverted, then he'll start acting like he's a tough guy a bully basically. But if Jeff is with people like Jane or even with Liu- he'll start shutting his mouth more. Though that doesn't mean he'll start throw some nasty comment at them.

He's pretty awkward around certain residents cough cough Nina cough cough only because he's not good in emotions, especially if it's something really touchy. He hates the proxies, mainly because he doesn't like being bossed around still follows their orders though. He's on good terms with BEN- sure you'll hear Jeff cursing BEN off but rest assured, all of them are said with love. Thinks Jane and Clockwork are bitches, but really Jeff is just a pussy when they're near him.

His relationship with Liu is interesting. They weren't really close when they were kids- Liu was more favored by their parents while Jeff was the problem child growing up. When they reunited, Jeff avoided Liu a lot, him seeing the stitches he had on his face struck a chord on his heart. He almost felt sorry for him that his until he cut his smile up again.

You might think he's an idiot, I mean, he is, but he has a brain, and he uses it for the most part. Since he's a senior resident, he knows the ropes of going on missions and the kind of stuff happening in the mansion. He may not be the smartest, but he's a pretty good fighter. Has an okay amount of strength and can fun pretty fast. He's trying to learn how to use firearms, a shotgun preferably, so there's that.

Has the strongest gut out of all of the residents. He can watch the most vile thing to ever exist and still have his lunch in his stomach. Jeff also doesn't hold a lot of sympathy, just because he's running this killer game since he was 13. He's often stationed for torturing victims when they need info because of this.

X-virus

He is also an intelligent resident. Very gifted to all things related to science, specially biochemistry and microbiology- since he's centered around diseases and different types of viruses. Cody has some good knowledge in medicine too. Because of this, he's known to be the 2nd unofficial doctor of the mansion.

Unfortunately, Cody gets very distracted easily. Has a hard time staying still, which is why he often fidgets with his goggles. Would end up getting carried away with whatever he's talking about, especially when it's about things he's really interested in.

A lot of people in the mansion found him annoying. Many residents see Cody as a very clumsy kid who's constantly trapped in his own little world.

Cody is in fact the newest resident in the mansion. He came in after Nina after about 5 years? Some members of the mansion still see him as fresh meat though.

Could be one of the most sadistic residents in the mansion. He's known to use whatever deadly sickness he made on his victims. He enjoys seeing how his test subjects victims react to his viruses. Sometimes, he will even snap photos of said victims and name the photo after the virus he used on them. Has at least 1 binder container said photos.

He doesn't have the best living(?) schedule. The boy just wakes up from his desk, conduct experiments on his viruses, studies the results and passes out. He would often forget to eat too, because of this he has a skinny build.

He gets really excited when he's involved in certain missions especially the ones where they go in groups mainly because he wants to show off his creations.

He's only close with members like Toby and Nina, the only reason why is because they are the only ones who can tolerate him and his interest in viruses. Jane, Helen, and Liu have neutral feelings towards him while Clockwork, Jeff, and Ben simply find him irritating.

Kagekao

Kage is an asshole. Because he's the only supernatural being who's not a big wuss, he simply thinks he's better than everyone. He likes to make the other residents stupid a lot. He doesn't think he's better than everyone though, he's very much aware of the flaws he has but in certain if not most situations- Kage has the upper hand.

Knows some secrets about the other residents. He's a very sneaky demon- he knows how to hide himself very well. Because of this, there are times where he would come across residents doing something they shouldn't or overheard private conversations.

Surprisingly a very easy guy to talk too. He doesn't go against most of the rules in the mansion and listens to the proxies. However, every time someone asks him to do something- whether it's a small favor or not, he wants something in return.

Very chill but because of his attitude a lot of people don't like hanging out with him. If you do hang out with him though, most of the time you guys are just gonna end up drunk.

Not a light weight, he's able to consume a lot of red wine in one sitting. He doesn't enjoy other drinks, wine is the only drink he'll only enjoy. If there's no wine then he'll simply leave.

He likes hanging out with Sully a lot. For him, Sully can match his energy very well. Kage enjoys hanging with Liu too. He doesn't interact with his other housemates but he enjoys making Jeff feel like an idiot.

He has the ability to shape shift and climb on walls and ceilings. He enjoys staying in high places like roof tops or beams of high ceilings. He doesn't shape shift too much mainly because he hates the feelings of turning himself into something that's not his usual body.

He prefers killing his victims off quickly than taking his time. He will slow his pace when his victim is attractive. Many times he would hold conversations with many women, sometimes having wine with them before offing them.

I'd think Kage would have good charisma levels. He knows how to make women blush and stutter which is why he chooses them as his go to victims. Despite making girls fall into their knees with simple words, he doesn't have the interest in dating anyone and no there hasn't been a time where he hooked up with any of the girls he had killed

Took some time to finish this post. Many things are happening in school, I have exams next week and we also have a school event where we need to make a costume for our representative :'>>>

But we'll have an academic break after this week so I'll probs post more?

Thank you all for the hearts and reposts on my last post 😭 hopefully y'all enjoyed this one too! 💕😘✨

#creepypasta #creepypasta au #creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta hcs #ben drowned #ben drowned headcanons #eyeless jack #eyeless jack headcanons #jeff the killer #jeff the killer headcanons #x virus #x-virus headcanons #kagekao #kagekao headcanons #slenderman mansion residents

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gabessquishytum · 10 months ago

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I've been watching ER lately (a medical drama show from the 90s/2000s) and one of the later story lines made me think of Dreamling <3

so!

Dream is an ER doctor in the states and Hob is a flight nurse. They meet on a plane to Vegas and spend the weekend together, eventually getting drunkenly married. While they both had a lot of fun, they plan to get it annulled when they get a chance.

Except because this is fanfiction, they can't get it annulled because they consummated the marriage (repeatedly and enthusiastically) and so they must either stay married or deal with a costly divorce <3

So they decide to give it a year (the sex is that good, ok, and they both think the other is cute) and see where it goes. At the sixth month mark, they finally meet each other's sons (with Calliope there, of course- Hob absolutely charms the pants off of her).

And then there's an accident with Hob's helicopter and Hob almost dies. And Dream realizes he's in love.

And then one of them gets pregnant and wouldn't you know it, Dream's sister Death also works in the hospital as an OBGYN. (she's... weirdly well liked by most of the parents she delivers for, despite her name).

They finally move in together when the year is up and Dream paints the nursery with Orpheus and Robyn (and promises that there'll be a new wedding for them to be in- he even has a new ring sitting in his pocket just waiting) <3 <3 <3

Omggg we love an accidental Vegas wedding!! Also i like to think that Dream could probably totally afford the divorce but he just really, really doesn't want another one because he's been divorced several times already and it's becoming a Thing.

And the sex is really that good.

So good that they start to forget all about things like condoms. Perhaps Hob happens to be trans and he's so manly and masculine that he and Dream both just forget that he still has the parts for making a baby (they may be doctors, but they are also himbos). Or perhaps mpreg is totally real. But either way, Hob has this terrible helicopter accident, is super traumatised, goes and has passionate and comforting sex with his husband... and 8 weeks later finds himself in Doctor Death's office, looking at the baby they made on the ultrasound. It's a lot to take in.

He ends up phoning Calliope and having a whole emotional breakdown to her, and she provides a much needed pep talk. With Calliope and Death supporting him, he's able to reveal the pregnancy to Dream and also announce that he's going to take a break from his career while he recovers from everything that's happened. He really wants more time with the kids and to actually make a go of this marriage with Dream (who he has totally fallen in love with, of course).

When they finally have their proper wedding, Calliope walks Dream down the aisle to where Hob is waiting with Robyn, Orpheus and the new baby. Death officiates the ceremony (and she does a much better job than the Elvis impersonator who married them the first time).

The sex is still mind-blowing. So good that Hob has promised if they ever divorce, he's taking Dream’s dick with him. He knows a really good urologist, from work 😉

#the sandman #dreamling #nsft #cw mpreg #cw pregnancy

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zorasthoughts · 6 months ago

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the reappearance of rachel price: my thoughts so far (spoilers)

my reading has been slow-going because i've also been busy with other life stuff, but i'm now at chapter twenty-one, and there's going to be a family dinner, which will probably involve some big drama, and secrets being revealed, so before i read that, i want to put down my thoughts and observations. buckle up everyone, this post is way longer than i anticipated

first of all, i love that holly used the surnames of the actors playing pip and ravi as surnames for two of the characters who are making the documentary in this book. a nice little easter egg that made me smile.

second of all, i can't believe i forgot to put duct tape on my predictions list!! (this is mainly a joke.) there's duct tape on the cover of as good as dead, and if you know, you know. then, when i read five survive, duct tape was mentioned, and gets used, but when i first read it, i was like, "omg, holly jackson duct tape universe". in chapter one, ramsey says something about taping down the wires, so i'm counting this as duct tape.

bel is a kleptomaniac. i don't know anything about kleptomania, but my guess is that in the case of bel, this is some kind of psychological compulsion: being able to take things from people because someone so significant disappeared from her life without her having any control/memory of it happening. my other guess is that it is a symptom of some undiagnosed medical condition (more on that later)

carter: this seems to be the person that bel is closest to, but there's a couple of years between the two, and being cousins isn't quite the same as friendship becoming family (unlike pip and cara or red and maddy)

when carter first comes on-scene in chapter three i thought she might have adhd (she was always moving somehow, never still. drumming fingers and jangling legs. p. 22) but that's been the only indication

charlie is suspicious as hell. firstly there's the fact that it is established how fundamental he is in bel's world, as a constant, as someone to trust. there have been adult characters in holly's other books that have been portrayed like that, only for it to be revealed that they're some kind of bad guy

also, charlie's comments about sherry's pregnancy during the family interview gave me the ick. is he just sexist, or is there some other reason that he'd be saying stuff like that to his sister-in-law?

jeff is also suspicious. getting up to leave the interview when charlie starts talking about his truck? and then the conversation between jeff and charlie later? something's going on, but i'm not sure what

also charlie's reasoning for the documentary is that he needs the money to pay for his father's medical care, but i wonder if there's some other reason

bel's teacher mr tripp: nothing to say about him, except that i'm suspicious (but i don't know what i suspect him of). it's a holly jackson novel, i'm suspicious of everyone

rachel coming back, and things not adding up delights and confounds me in equal measure. how does she know about bel's bracelet? why does she have that random baby sock?

who's the person that suggested the rachel price case to ramsey on twitter? it can't just be a random person, given that they only made this one comment

i like ash, but no strong feelings so far.

there are a lot of mentions of bel feeling left behind/having the feeling that people are going to leave her. it's understandable, given that she grew up under the shadow of always being known in relation rachel price. to everyone in her town, she's a curiosity, an object of discussion, rather than an actual person.

okay, let's talk about memory. in the family interview, ramsey brings up the point that in the time leading up to rachel's disappearance, she would become forgetful, and bel draws a connection to rachel on that score; bel is also forgetful. is this something genetic?

there's also the fact that bel observes minor differences between rachel's narratives/accounts of events, and even says something about being locked up for 15 years, when the tv news (right in front of rachel!!) said 16 years

most people (the police, charlie, etc.) attribute this to trauma, which would be understandable, but i then began to wonder if it is actually bel who is muddling facts. i'm pretty sure there's some kind of undiagnosed medical condition at work here, that seems to be affecting both rachel and bel but i don't know what that is

there's also the fact that bel's grandfather has vascular dementia. we've yet to see him interact with rachel, so i'm interested to see if her presence will trigger any memories (and reveal information). holly actually did this very sneakily in agggtm when pip and ravi go to the ivy house hotel and the old woman sees andie's photo and says that she had visited recently. we later learn that it was just someone who looked like andie (becca).

last thing, there's still not been any guns, but i think there could be in the future (holly has said that one of the benefits of setting her books in the us is easy access to guns). bonus points if it's during a scene where the documentary crew are also present because they're british (but hopefully none of them get hurt)

#wow this was so long #i am incapable of expressing my thoughts succinctly #very excited for the family dinner #i probably haven't even covered everything here that i wanted to but oh well #the reappearance of rachel price #the reappearance of rachel price spoilers #trorp #trorp spoilers #bel price #holly jackson

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swords-and-starlight · 16 days ago

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ok i think this is my first time ever watching a show while it’s coming out so i’m gonna write out my reactions as i watch the episode for the first time, even though i’m watching it from streaming (i don’t have cable rip) and i already got a bunch of spoilers.

obviously spoilers ahead

CARLOS!! first time we’re seeing him with his friends this season! and he looks so good!

Natacha looks so good in green, man. they seriously need to have her wear it more.

TK Marjan and Mateo look so good in that shot even if the person they’re being mean to is Paul :((

i really want to see them actually play a whole game of catan it would be so fun

i fs know those two boys are from paul’s past. i thought they might be people he lost but i feel like people who bullied him would make more sense in the context of the nightmare?

i know this is gonna turn out badly but i feel like this dinner is going surprising civilly for now

“LT” aww

why is the chore chart so big i don’t think we’ve ever seen it before

this is kinda making me miss clipboard Marj

paul is gonna crash and burn poor baby

wyatt is so cute omg but i miss gracie

i missed judd soooo much he’s the ultimate cutie pie

paullll why you doing this to yourself

PAUL CALL FOR HELP JESUS

tommy is so nice actually i would never facetime someone i didn’t like just to check in on them

love tk and nancy giving each other looks lmao they’re so siblings coded

gina torres is literally the cutest woman on this show (with the exception of sierra) i love her so much

tk and nancy “it’s convenient” “a little too convenient” omg this feels like one of those disney movies where the kids are trying to solve their parents kidnapping or something

why does tk know that??

nancy loml keep being a dramatic suspicious bitch please

“the enemy is behind the gate” so dramatic for no reason omggg what’s cassandra gonna do?

love paul and owen bonding time, i feel like we barely saw owen interact with the house on a personal level so far this season

genuinely how does judd afford that house by himself especially when grace was out, he didn’t have a job, and he was taking care of wyatt

TOMMY UP TO SHENANIGANS AGAIN oh i’ve missed you devious bitch tommy

i love that tommy has just fully embraced her work kids’s delusional ideas and judds the one trying to talk sense into her now

aww i know judd and tommy have been best friends forever but i know if sierra was here she would be going to grace :(

PAUL BABY WHAT ARE YOU DOING

rich people are so strange

i already love jenna hope nothing happens to her

nancy and tk sending each other looks again lmaooo

ofc the elevator broke down

damn poor augie

aww ok they’re better now

WHAT THE SHIT why is she bleeding from her eyes!?!

it’s really cute that wyatt takes all of 126 medic teams calls it feels like he’s trying to look out for them after they saved his life

paul’s gonna get hurt and mess up on this call isn’t he

oh nooo paul it’s so hard to see him cry

i feel like we need more people to die yk like how does tnt consistently bring people back from the dead? like the kid that was trapped underwater in a frozen lake for at least ten minutes and was expected to make a full recovery but tk who was in there for ten seconds was in a coma? but it was for the drama so whatever

tommy’s hair is my favorite part of every episode. is she even allowed to be whipping that horse tail around?

weed pen lmao

judd is such a nice probie

ok so i was kinda right about the kids in paul’s dream

aww paul he must have been so lonely growing up

i’m sorry i can’t take the weed pens

girl miss melody how did you think poisoning your mom and getting ur sister suspended would be better than just asking to live with your mom

episodes almost over :((( i don’t wanna wait till next week

tkmarjan friendship i’ve missed you!

im glad joe and marjan are still together! they were so cute

PAUL!! i love this entire scene with my whole heart

controversial but i really love it when people choose logic and their personal values over love. this show does that so well. like with marjan and salim, they were both in love but marjan couldn’t see herself building a life with someone so flaky and that’s a valid reason to break it off! with tommy and trevor, i think it makes sense that tommy can’t love someone who might contribute to a family breaking apart.

i know that tk and nancy are gossiping about all of tommy’s drama right now

TOMMY CALLING HER MOM!!!

idk if this is obvious yet but tommy is in fact my favorite 9-1-1 character

anyway that’s a wrap i loved this episode

#911 lone star #911 lone star season 5 #911ls #5x04 #reaction #tommy vega #paul strickland

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ionfusionpunk · 1 year ago

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hello, what’s this about awake craniotomies and clone chip removal? (I don’t follow you, I just saw your note in the reblogs and went “oooo this seems interesting!”)

Heyo! Of all the things I've commented on a post, I think this is exactly the one I expected to hear about the least lolol. I'm warning you, this is... a long post. It got away from me, I'm so sorry T-T (It's heckin long. I'm really sorry. I'll summarize at the top and you can read more beneath the break if you want.)

Long story short, I hyper fixated on this tiny little detail that really doesn't actually affect anything within the SW universe lmao.

TL;DR: The clones should be awake for their chip removal procedures with the exception of extenuating circumstances. Also, disclaimer, I'm not in the medical field, I just love research. If I get anything wrong, anyone is free to correct me :)

If you have any questions, please ask, I'm not very good at explaining things in way others understand at first. So it all makes sense to me, but you might not follow my leaps in logic 😅

Longer story: I was reading a fic this morning, and the clones involved got their chip removed. The text said something about 'waiting for them to wake up from the surgery', and it just kinda... idk, hit me that I have never ever read any fic where the clone doesn't have to wake up from being completely sedated for brain surgery.

Now, look. Write what you wanna write, like I said, it's not a big thing. But one of my neurodivergent quirks is that inaccuracy/misinformation/ignorance (willful or innocent) kinda bugs me? I like knowing that other people know things - know correct things. It brings me satisfaction and helps me sleep at night. So I kinda notice trends in what people seem to not/know.

My first thought when I realized the trend of complete sedation for brain surgery/chip removal led to me to draw two conclusions: a) As happens in fandom, most everyone just writes clones completely sedated for this procedure bc everyone else does. No biggie. It's easier, and again, doesn't really matter. b) Most everyone is working off misinformation pulled from inaccurate medical dramas and the assumptions made by the average fic writer. Again, not an issue. It's fiction. I just like... accuracy. So my brain took this and went ham.

Kay. So, there's this really cool thing about the brain that I'm starting to think isn't common knowledge? I'm kinda a nerd for weird medical things, and it's been a long time since my high school biology class where I first learned about this, so maybe it's just me. The brain doesn't have any pain receptors. None. Like, if you had just a living brain in the palm of your hand and you stabbed it or punched it or whatever, it wouldn't feel pain. Pressure maybe, since it still has touch receptors, but no pain whatsoever. The only pain receptors present around the vicinity of the brain are the ones around the brain.

This little fact led to a really cool and helpful medical advancement several years ago: this thing called awake craniotomies, or brain surgery where the patient is still conscious. The benefit is that it allows the surgical team to engage the patient and actively monitor cognitive function; this is a far step from waiting for the patient to wake up in order to determine if the surgeon done effed up and turned the patient into a vegetable - if they woke up at all, that is.

Originally this was practiced on epileptic patients bc, yanno, epilepsy. It's a really finicky condition, after all. Since then however we've managed to find other treatment options for epilepsy and other related conditions, so awake craniotomies (or conscious craniotomies as I call them, since it alliterates lol), so we've moved away from brain surgery there. Instead, awake craniotomies are now most often performed when removing or recessing a brain tumor. Again, it's a really finicky process, and the surgeon and their team really like being able to check on the patient during the whole process.

Before anyone freaks out about the pain receptors around the brain, there's an answer for that, too. A local anesthetic is used to completely numb the skull and scalp. Think of an epidural; it's the same idea.

Now, you may ask, how this all relates back to SW? Well, that's a great question lmaoooo. Now, in all of canon SW, there are only... seven (maybe eight) instances of a clone getting their chip removed. Tup, Fives, Rex, Hunter, Wrecker, Tech, and Omega (and Crosshair if his chip actually was removed like he said, I haven't watched TBBS2 yet). Actually, did Kix? I don't remember. Anyway.

I'm operating off the assumption that SW medical knowledge/tech is about equal to our own - i.e. that they still use many of the same procedures/practices/techniques for most things bar canonical exceptions. My friend in the server however pointed out that they weren't sure any clone medic could perform a complex brain surgery. Now, that's a fair point. The Kaminoans wouldn't care to teach the medics how to perform those surgeries on each other; they're products, they can be replaced, so what's the point?

But. Here are my counterpoints to that.

First. In the event of an emergency, it would only make sense that a clone medic be prepared to perform any sort of necessary procedure on a natborn officer or even their Jedi general/commander in the event they could not make it to a medical station or a proper surgeon in time. If there were natborn medics trained in complicated procedures and stationed on the ships, then there's always the chance there would be far more clone medics than them, and thus if they die, the clone medics would need to be able to step up in their place. So. Clone medics can probably perform brain surgery.

Second. With Fives, Rex, and CF99 (minus Crosshair), they remove their chips via surgical droid/machine. In fact, both Rex and CF99 do so on a GAR class ship. This shows that not only did the clones have access to the necessary technology, but it could also be easily operated. And not only that, but the only thing they needed was a program to locate and remove the chip. I think the importance of the program is that the machine itself can't perform a Level 5 Atomic Scan, so the program is needed to triangulate the position of the chip for the surgical machine itself.

Now. As to why an awake craniotomy is the way to go. Again, it allows the team to actively monitor cognitive function. Only in extenuating circumstances will the patient be completely sedated. This could be preference on the patient's part or due to certain circumstances.

Look at Tup, for example. His chip was rotting in his skull, and it's treated like a tumor (technically it is). Keeping him awake risked damage to himself and others. In light of this, it was safer for him to remain fully sedated. Additionally, he probably couldn't be revived completely either due to the already existent brain damage. This is an extenuating circumstance. Note however that there was still a qualified individual present for the surgery: the AZI droid maybe Nale Se, maybe Fives, I legit don't remember I'm so sorry). Now, there is another side to Tup's case: the Kaminoans. Nale Se wouldn't have cared for Tup's continued functionality; she only wanted his chip. She would have kept him sedated out of convenience, because the intent was always to have him decommissioned anyway.

Now for Fives. Fives learned about the chips. He had his removed. Who helped him? AZI. However, my theory here is that it isn't actually AZI performing the surgeries. I think he just... holds the programs for various surgeries and programs the surgical machine. We don't see anything of Fives' actual chip removal procedure, only the aftermath. I hypothesize that Fives was awake in the machine however, just properly anesthetized by AZI - who, as a medical assistant droid, would most likely be programmed as an anesthesiologist - and also observed by AZI. What I'm saying is that AZI probably was monitoring Fives' cognitive functions while he underwent an awake craniotomy to remove the chip in his head.

Rex. We know nothing about that procedure, just that it happened (unless we do, idk). Either another clone medic helped him and was there to monitor cognitive function, or Rex involved the help of another droid in order to be properly anesthetized for the process. Given the intense nature of the circumstances, he wouldn't have wanted to be fully sedated for the process in case he had to respond quickly to the chaos - which he did, leading ultimately to him and Ahsoka escaping with their lives. So, he wouldn't have been monitored (except maybe by a droid), but he definitely wouldn't have been fully sedated, either.

Then for CF99. For these procedures, we see Tech program the machine and then stand watch as they go in. They aren't sedated, with the technical exception of Wrecker (iirc, he was stunned unconscious). It's not just caution or paranoia that makes him observe, and not even just his knowledge of what's happening: it's procedure. He's there, as the only one who would know how to check, monitoring the cognitive function of his family.

Now, the conclusion, lol.

I mentioned my two hypotheses earlier about why fandom as a whole writes the clones being completely sedated. After going through all of this, I'm leaning more towards a simple abundance of misinformation. It's technically and tactically safer and more correct for the clones to be awake for their chip removals, and in fact seems to be subtly portrayed in canon (though it's really written in a way that can be interpreted either way).

The moral of this story is that TV medical dramas are shit and should never be taken at face value. Honestly. No one wakes up after CPR. They remain unconscious for a while. Defibrillation doesn't wake a person up, either. If you're hit hard enough to be knocked unconscious, you have a concussion. It takes seven minutes to kill a person by choking them, not seven seconds, but you can make them pass out in seven seconds if you apply pressure to the write spots on their neck in order to cut blood flow to the brain. Stuff like that. Oh, and yeah: awake craniotomies are a thing and are the safe way to remove a clone's chip.

#welcome to my ted talk #star wars #the clone wars #clone chip removal #awake craniotomies #info dump #meta #medical innaccuracies #fanfiction #misinformation #my interpretations of a very niche thing that everyone can absolutely ignore #asks #answers #asks and answers #asks are answered #now i'm rambling again oh stars please make me stop

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starzzach · 1 year ago

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hi [peeks out from writer's block] for @c2-eh

read part 1 here and part 3 here! (or don't)

Carlos has an accident. Charles almost has one, too.

—

Oh Carlos is so dead.

Well. Charles hopes he already isn't already. It wouldn't work very well for his revenge agenda. He had a good race himself – great, really. At least until it was red-flagged because Carlos had crashed on the inside of Turn 9. It didn't bother Charles at first, though a twinge of worry had snuck through when the yellow flag went down and the red flag had gone up.

No, he'd just rolled his eyes and asked Xavi to keep him updated. Xavi didn't, at all, so when he jumped out of the car and asked for Carlos and nobody gave him Carlos, he thinks he had a pretty standard reaction.

Really, they should be happy he didn't stomp his feet and throw a tantrum. Carlos was – well. Carlos was. He was a lot of things. He is a lot of things. Charles frowns. And asks for Carlos again.

"Down in medical," a newer, recent hire tells him. Clearly no one told him not to listen to the drivers. Good for Charles, anyway. "They're making sure he's properly okay. He was pretty banged up."

Okay, now might be time to be a little worried. "What?" he demands. "Why did you not tell me this before?"

Charles isn't as friendly with the engineers as Carlos is. He likes to think he's a nice person. He's certainly had his moments, but everyone has. Nobody really questions him at Ferrari – nobody really questions him at all, really, except Carlos.

Carlos is always quick to, infuriatingly, talk him back down to Earth. So. He really can't afford for anything to happen to Carlos.

They don't let him go, though. Fred tells him to stay in the garage, warning him not to leave, and so Charles stays put like a prize pony, waiting for the debris to be cleared and the track to be deemed safe. He's distracted and stressed and everyone knows it.

The race is uneventful. He crosses the line in third, right where he'd started. The podium celebration is quiet – there's still not much word on Carlos. So, naturally, it's the first thing he does.

They part for him, like a sea. The reporters stay away from him, the drivers stay away from him. Tomorrow, or maybe even this evening, they will spin a story about how Charles hates Carlos for possibly ruining his race and Ferrari simply cannot handle the petty teammate drama.

Carlos cares about all that much more than Charles does, but Charles is always the one who ends up defending them. He argues with the nurse for a minute or two, increasing in volume. "I need to see him!" he shouts, unsure of why he's being so adamant. Perhaps he's a little bit more worried for Carlos than he wants to admit.

Andrea materialises at his side. "Charles," he says very quietly, hand on his arm. He pulls him to the side, and the nurse looks considerably relieved, breathing in big gulps of air. His scent must be worse than he realises. "Charles, did you get darker fireproofs this weekend?"

"What? No, of course not."

"Then tell me..." Andrea looks worried, properly worried. "Tell me that's not blood on your thighs."

"What?" He glances down and it's like– it's like looking at it acknowledges the pain he's in– the pain he's been in. "Fuck, what the fuck?"

"You need to see medical, too–"

Charles tries to shrug him off, vision blurring. "No– no, I'm fine– I need to– Carlos–"

Andrea fights him, and it's easy, too, given the cramps in his stomach. Fuck, this really can't be happening. "Let medical give you the OK," he says sternly, but there's concern in there, too. "You can see Carlos after."

Charles isn't an idiot. They've been having sex – lots of it, and the intention had been pretty clear. Pregnancy isn't very encouraged in athletes, much less male omega athletes. The stress from the race probably didn't help. He should have expected the miscarriage, really.

Tears sting in his eyes. He's not the most optimistic person, and he would have expected this, if he knew at all. "Please," he says, hoarse. "Let me see him first."

The thing is – in Ferrari, everyone is soft for Charles, and Andrea is no better. Irritated, he agrees, making Charles vow he'll get himself checked out. The nurse who had been pretending not to eavesdrop wordlessly guides him to the room he's been looking for.

"Idiot," is the first thing he says, so so so relieved. There's an IV in Carlos' arm but he's awake and safe. "Idiot, idiot, idiot."

Carlos laughs. Charles feels drunk on the sound of it. "Happy to see you too. I lost the wheel. How was the race?"

Charles climbs into the bed, trying very hard not to wince. Carlos notices and grills him until he pouts, but they talk. They talk and Charles pours his heart out and kisses Carlos until he forgets his own name (it might be the concussion) and then very quietly tells him he might have had a miscarriage.

Not the best way to go about it, but Carlos holds his hand through the checkup two hours later and they tell him no miscarriage, just some common bleeding. The baby is fine. He's almost two months along. He's due in late March. Carlos cries. Charles might have too.

"Wow," Carlos whispers after the tech wipes the gel off, the palm of his hand coming to rest on Charles' belly, slightly squishier than normal. The tech says something about a printout. "There's our baby in there. Our tiny baby."

Then the irrationality hits him and he whacks him with a pillow. He's going to hate being pregnant, how could he–

Oh, Carlos is so dead.

#hahhahahaha #very much in tune with the laughs to not cry #hope u enjoy eva #zach writes #charlos abo #charles leclerc #carlos sainz jr #tw: mentions of possible miscarriage #this was meant to be soft and sweet and a marriage proposal #alas

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stxrvel · 1 year ago

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isn't it strange? (4)

series summary: you woke up from a long coma with no memory of a part of your life only to be told by your teammates that you're married to the man you hated seven years ago. even though that seemed to be the only problem, as time goes on you're realizing there's a lot more history and mystery behind the accident that left you in medical care for months. blackouts, more memory loss, mistrust and a strange man who seems to be connected to everything. every day it gets harder to trust anyone around you, but you won't stop until you can finally uncover the truth behind the accident.

chapter summary: when you thought you were having the time of your life, an unknown man appeared in you life to shake everything you know to the ground.

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

words: i don't know 😭

warnings: just curse words, and drama.

note: so it's finally here, and i can't believe it. i don't know if i'm proud of it, or if i'm feeling meh about it. i have mixed feelings. but what is actually important is that i managed to make it out alive and you guys have what you've been waiting for (hope so). also, i edited this in a rush in class, so sorry for any mistake. anyway, wish you all like this one, don't forget feedback is appreciated!! and let me know what you think about this part! 💜💜

masterlist | next | series masterlist

You kept your gaze on Bucky as Clint's eyes scanned your face. Your husband was standing in front of Dr. Cho with Tony Stark at his side, impassive. Interesting things they were talking about, so that not even the wind or your furtive glances could cause the black-haired man to avert his gaze. Surely it was something to do with you, with your state of health and such things, maybe. You had stopped paying attention a few days ago, even though it had barely been a week since you had woken up without remembering anything.

And you still couldn't do it, remember, though… You had never felt so good. Well, you couldn't know if you'd ever felt this way either. You probably had, but at that moment it was an unmatched feeling. To know everything that had happened and yet your body, your spirit and your whole being continued to fight to stay in this world. You didn't know what things delved deep into your mind, where not even your thoughts reached, where the true unconscious lay. Neither you nor the medicine knew. Whatever was going on, it was still a mystery.

And yet, even though all the circumstances had been surrounded by the suffering of others and hopeless tears, what you were trying to do since you were fully aware of the situation was to be extremely positive and to always be grateful. Ultimately, too many bad things had happened for you to get to that moment, but you couldn't just sit around mourning for a heart that would no longer return. Tears and screaming wouldn't bring you back to the past, no one could bring things back to the way they were, so why spend time on it? Instead, you could meet everything for the first time once again and create new memories with each of the exceptional people who surrounded you.

“What are you thinking about?” the voice of Clint echoed in the back of your head.

Bucky. Bucky was still with his serious face in front of Dr. Cho. You didn't know if his lack of expression was good or bad. Even in Tony's face you couldn't find any emotion.

“What I'd like to go into town on,” you replied crossing your arms without averting your gaze. “Maybe shopping or something.”

“Wouldn't you just like to go for a walk?”

You hummed thoughtfully, your mind split in two trying to continue the conversation with your partner normally while remaining fully focused on your husband.

“Maybe, but I like the idea of bringing things back that will allow me to remember the places I've been better.”

“Ah,” Clint nodded, you saw him out of the corner of your eye move his head to where you were looking. “You want to buy souvenirs.”

You nodded silently.

“When I walk into my room in this Complex it's too empty. I don't know if it was like this forever, but being in there makes me feel so lonely.”

“I think Bucky packed a lot of your things after the accident, when you wouldn't wake up. Even later he told you where they were stored in case you wanted to unpack them, but I don't think you ever did.”

“Yes, he told me something similar. But I don't want the old stuff, I want something new. I want different things. I don't want to think about who I was and the things I had because I'm never going to be able to remember what they meant to me. I have no choice but to tie new emotions to other memories.”

Clint didn't respond, but you felt his gaze on yours as the three people in front of you began to approach at a slow pace, with more words coming out of Dr. Cho's mouth. You were gnawing deep inside curious as to how much of what they were talking about because, even though it had to be, you didn't want to confirm that it was about you. And you doubted it because when the doctor gave you the progress of your studies she didn't take more than twenty seconds talking, but she always seemed to have more to tell the others.

Maybe it was just as well.

When Bucky finally looked at you, his eyes sparkled. Standing closer to your position, you could tell that his expression softened and there was no trace of any discomfort. Tony, next to him, couldn't relax as much as he would've liked.

The conversation died as soon as they reached your auditory space, as it did every time. Dr. Cho gave you a tight-lipped smile and bowed slightly before heading for the entrance to the Complex.

“Ah, my two favorite quacks,” Tony greeted, his jocular expression coming back to life as if it had been plucked from ice water.

“Stark,” Clint barely murmured.

You resigned yourself to silence, not looking away from the man's eyes that saw deep inside you. Somewhere, deep, deep, deep down in your soul, you felt something stir.

“Is Carol back yet?” Tony inquired into the air, surely to Clint who might be the only one too focused to answer him.

“Supposed to be,” the blond nodded, his head moving to watch the sky. “She gave notice at headquarters a little while ago that she was on her way.”

“With good news?”

Clint cocked his head to one side, silence taking hold for a few seconds.

“Something like that.”

“Well, I'll go find out,” Tony shook his shoulders, and as if on cue, Clint stretched out on the beach chair before rising. “You coming, Barnes?”

“No.”

When Clint moved far enough away, Bucky plopped down in the chair the blond had been occupying, just inches away from yours. In the middle of the green field outside the Complex, Tony barely sighed.

“Okay, I'll see you guys later.”

And without further ado, the pair departed in the direction of the interior of the facility.

“What were you guys talking about with Dr. Cho?” you couldn't help but ask.

Your gaze focused on Bucky's face, something you could almost never avoid. Automatically, wherever you were, your eyes always found the melodious face of the man who had married you. It was intriguing to acknowledge that you had no memory of him, but your body leaned toward him and your muscles demanded to be near him as if they could remember what your mind couldn't.

Surely it was so.

“Tony wanted to make sure we had the medical supplies we needed for any emergency.”

“It was too long a conversation for you to talk about just that.”

“We need many, many, supplements.”

You hummed a nod, unconvinced.

“What were you and Clint talking about?” the man took the direction of the conversation and turned to look at you, cocking an eyebrow.

“Ah, if you only knew,” you made an exaggerated version of the you-won't-believe-it expression as you spun around on the chair to face him. “Clint is a professional talker. He told me so much about his life that I could pass a best friend test right about now. I feel like I know his family personally because of so many things he told me.”

The man next to you let out a short laugh, causing you to slam your mouth shut. You watched his shoulders shift slightly, his body sinking into the gray cushions of the chair, his shoulders slack and his expression much calmer than before. You had spent almost every day since you woke up trying to wrest that expression and that sound from Bucky. Every moment of the day he looked so stressed and overwhelmed and so unwilling to hold on to life that you felt it was the least you could do. Besides, you also liked doing it… and listening to him.

You didn't know if it was because it was really that easy or just because it was you and you were a natural, but you found it very easy to cheer up his face with a comment or two. To be honest, you had never seen the others in the group make him laugh so you guessed it was more the latter.

“There was no need to drown me in sarcasm.”

“And you didn't have to lie to me.”

Bucky screwed up his face at incalculable speed.

“I didn't lie to you.”

“You weren't talking about medical supplements with Cho.”

Suddenly, a dejected expression graced Bucky's face. You were about to pull back and make some joke about anything when he finally spoke first:

“No, we didn't talk about supplements.”

You kept silent, staring at his tense figure on the chair.

“She was telling us that your studies today revealed nothing different from yesterday, so there is still no explanation as to why you lost all your memories, again.”

Bucky turned his head to look at you again, his eyes drooping and the shadows under them much more visible than before. His grim look sent shivers down your spine. You promptly decided you didn't like it.

“I'm sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“It's supposed to be my marital duty to take care of you and I can't find the reason why all this happened.”

“Bucky, it's not your fault.”

“Sometimes I can't help but feel like it is.”

Your heart howled in pain. You felt an itch mixed with burning become camp all over your chest, and the right words battled inside your head to get out of your mouth. Seeing Bucky like that was infuriating, because you couldn't help him, and you were well aware of it. Only once before, these days, had you heard him mention anything about it and it wasn't welcome. You hated seeing him like this but you hated more that you couldn't do much to change it.

“I'm fine right now, aren't I?” you tilted your head to look into his sparkling eyes.

He barely nodded, shaking his head imperceptibly, that had you been distracted you would have missed it.

“Then don't worry too much.”

Bucky didn't respond, but his gaze wandered over your face for several more seconds as time raced around you two. With the nicest weather you've had the last few days, you stayed with Bucky most of the afternoon in those chairs outside the Complex. No one showed up to call you.

-----

You were walking through the corridors of the Complex with Natasha when something strange happened.

It was a long walk to the other end of the building, passing through a countless amount of glass instead of walls. Tony must've been a lover of natural light.

Bucky had just said goodbye to you, and on your way into the Complex you ran into Natasha. You hadn't talked much to Bucky after you mentioned the exams, you had only told him that you wanted to go shopping one day, and he assured you that one of those days he would accompany you. You remained silent and thoughtful after that.

You wanted to spend more time finding out if what he had told you was the only thing bothering him inside his head or if there was something else… but then you found Natasha and decided it would be good to keep your mind off it for a while.

“So you guys only do that?”

Natasha nodded. She walked with her hands clasped behind her back, her back straight and her steps graceful. You'd expect nothing less from SHIELD's top agent. She had her red hair pulled back in a perfect braid, which you almost doubted she could have done herself when you couldn't even get one on one side. She seemed serene and calm walking beside you, despite having risked her life only a few hours before you met her. You didn't know if you could ever act so impassive after coming close to dying.

“Is that too little for you?”

“No!” you exclaimed quickly, fearful that you had offended her. “I was just saying that because I didn't think looking for documents could be so dangerous.”

“We're in a field where almost half the world hates us, and at least a quarter of those people can counter our power. Those people take advantage of any moment of weakness to strike.”

“But you're always prepared, aren't you?”

Natasha sighed, “Yes, we try.”

The eternal corridor was coming to an end. At the bottom you watched some people walking in their direction, and thought of the endless path that awaited them to the other end of the building.

“What about Carol? I heard she came back from a mission.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows and moved her head to look ahead. Her posture didn't alter, but she did take a few seconds to respond.

“Carol does recon missions too, only hers are more specific because she can do certain things we can't.”

“It must be great, don't you think?”

You turned to look at the redhead who was frowning.

“I don't mean missions, I mean having powers, can you imagine being able to fly? That must be amazing.”

“Yes, surely. Sadly those abilities are what also get us into trouble.”

You deflated your smile. Of course, you had left that part out. How many people because they wanted to do evil, surely tried to hurt them to keep them from getting in the way of their plans. Or they were trying to do worse things you didn't even want to name. People with macabre motivations, with the desires of the pit of evil. People who had no sense of morality and empathy.

Sure flying had its advantages, but it brought with it something of a curse.

You no longer knew if it would be so great to fly knowing you had arrows pointed at you.

“Don't be discouraged,” Natasha spoke again. “We've been fine so far. We're taking care of each other.”

You didn't know if Natasha had mumbled or if you had been so deep in thought that you heard her words as if you were underwater.

But suddenly, a huge smile planted itself on your face.

“A puppy!” you exclaimed in pure happiness.

The surroundings blurred in your mind as you watched that golden ball of fur run towards you as you knelt down to receive it in your arms. The puppy stirred in your lap for several seconds that seemed like a utopian eternity, until you heard a whistle and the puppy got up and ran after you.

You felt ecstatic. In the position you were in, you had never seen a dog in person, except for some images you saw on the internet. To have touched their amazingly silky soft golden hairs, felt the licks around your arms and had their weight on your legs seemed almost unreal; like a dream.

“Natasha,” you began, still distractedly watching the hallway you had just walked down and just where the little dog was running after several people, “that's the most beautiful little thing I've-”

As you turned your head, you felt like you had hit a concrete wall.

You automatically collided your gaze with that of an unfamiliar man. You wanted to turn around to tell Natasha that you had never seen anything more beautiful and that you were going to tell Bucky to get you one, but you couldn't move your head. It was like a magnet forcing you to keep your gaze on that man's, but there was nothing but the movements of your unconscious.

He was an older man with light eyes. His dark brown hair was neatly combed to the right and barely a few gray hairs stuck out on the sides. His expression was stoic, he seemed to have been polished that way since birth and he didn't alter it as he walked in the opposite direction from you. You barely noticed a few blue and red flashes from his clothes, because you couldn't take your eyes off his eyes. You were drawn to them in a… strange way.

And suddenly, rising in your chest, you felt anger. You didn't know if it was directed at the man or at the fact that you couldn't separate your gaze from his. You felt your brow furrow as time ran slower and slower. The man mimicked your expression, as if like you he felt under some kind of spell.

You followed his gaze as he walked, your body jerking in anger that moved to your temples. A headache was beginning to form.

You felt the hand of who must have been Natasha on one of your arms, but you were still watching the man. He was moving further away but you had to turn your body so as not to break the visual connection.

Until the man finally turned his head.

It was like your head was being pulled out of the water.

“Y/N, are you okay?”

Then you realized Natasha was shaking you. But you couldn't process too much when you barely noticed Tony, who was walking beside the man, give you a look over his shoulder with a contracted expression. Would he have felt the same?

You barely had a few seconds to think when it started.

A flash of white and you felt out of this world.

A quick image flashed through your mind.

Destruction, debris, darkness… and the man in the middle of it all staring at you in dismay. Lines of green energy coiled around his wrists that seemed to come from the strange necklace hanging from his neck.

You wanted to move and ask, to speak, to do something, but you couldn't even feel your body. You could only watch.

And then, other figures appeared next to him. Tony and Natasha. The unknown man was shaking his head, talking rapidly, but you couldn't hear him. He seemed to dedicate those angry words to someone behind you. Natasha seemed to want to approach the unknown man, but Tony was raising the blasters of his suit in her direction, in a threat.

You tried to absorb more of those vestiges as you felt it slipping from your mind.

Then, your view returned to the eternal hallway and a disgruntled Natasha holding you in her arms.

“Y/N?” was the first thing you heard come from his lips.

“Who was that man?”

You tried to get up, not knowing at what point you had fallen to the ground, despite Natasha trying to keep you lying down.

“Who?”

“The one in the red cloak,” you mumbled, anger still boiling inside you.

“He was… Stephen Strange.”

“He's not part of The Avengers,” it wasn't a question.

“No,” Natasha spoke softly, looking disgruntled at the tone of voice you were managing. “He's a sorcerer.”

Sorcerer, that made sense if he had been to blame for what had just happened. Because if it hadn't been him, then what the fuck had happened?

“And what's he doing here if he's not part of the group?”

“He's a friend of Tony's.”

Tony.

Tony and Natasha had been in that image too. An image the sorcerer had planted in your head… or a memory.

Was that a memory?

No, it couldn't be. That would imply that at some point… you were on a mission with the rest of the group. And that could only have happened if…

“Y/N?” Natasha spoke cautiously, barely raising a hand in your direction.

You watched her. Then your gaze drifted a little, behind her, where you could still see the bodies of the people who had passed you.

You didn't even think about it.

“Y/N!” Natasha exclaimed as you passed her, and tried to grab your arm but you shook it roughly.

Your footsteps echoed loudly through the hallway and their sound combined with Natasha's voice. From a distance, you could almost swear you saw Tony stagger as everyone continued walking as if nothing had happened. As if you hadn't just been through something. As if they really weren't aware of what had happened. As if that man in the red cape, Stephen Strange, didn't know what he had just done.

“Strange,” you exclaimed along the corridor, burning the man's head with your gaze.

No one stopped.

“Strange!”

You moved your feet much faster, feeling the opportunity slipping away from you. The men didn't slow or quicken their pace. They walked as if they had all the time in the world. As if they couldn't hear you.

“Tony,” you tried the mechanic and… Nothing.

Nothing. You got no response except a slight shake of the shoulders.

Then you started running. You weren't going to let them just disappear.

You heard Natasha's footsteps behind yours as she had tired of calling out to you without managing to stop you.

With every second you were getting closer, closer and closer to catching up with the two men who kept walking without flinching. And when you were just short of reaching the red cape, the world changed.

It was like passing through a door into another dimension. It was a dark place, similar to the one you had seen before. But everything was even more muted. What you had seen before looked like the height of the fight, the climax of whatever was happening. What you saw now looked like the after. What had happened after the great explosion of chaos.

There was barely a slight breeze guiding you to an indeterminate place, where you knew there should have been buildings and roads, but there was nothing but rubble. There was ash falling from the sky, as if it were the kind of snow that falls in the underworld. Maybe you were there, in hell. There was no other explanation for what you were seeing.

Until you saw a familiar red hair. Natasha was leaning against a rock, or a large piece of rubble, looking lost and unsettled. You had never seen such a puzzled expression on her before.

“Natasha?” you were surprised when you heard your voice. But the woman in front of you didn't move.

“What did we do?” you heard her mutter to herself, brow furrowed and eyes glistening in held back tears.

In the distance you heard some clanging sounds, like metal clashing harshly as it hit the ground. It sounded like someone was throwing things in the air.

“Will you stop it already?” you heard an angry female voice.

It didn't take you long to run into the figure of Carol Danvers.

“What the fuck do you think you're going to solve by destroying things?”

“I could've solved everything if you'd let me, goddamn it!”

“We wouldn't have done anything, Stark.”

You watched Carol's body move to your left, and turned to see the mechanic with half a suit destroyed and blood all over his face. You took an exhale of surprise, bringing your hands to your mouth.

“If you had let Strange-”

“No,” it was Natasha who interrupted, “It was too risky.”

“He would never have noticed!”

“Yes he would have noticed!” Natasha retorted, raising her voice. “And we'd surely all be dead.”

“There's no way you can know that would have been the case.”

“Just like there's no way you could have known that was going to work,” Carol stepped between Tony and Natasha, and the alluded to only took long strides away.

You watched as Natasha and Carol shared a forlorn look. You had seen that expression on Tony's face many times before when he was lost in thought. Was this the reason?

“… be all right?” Natasha's voice came to you again.

Carol didn't respond. She only watched her, helpless, tired….

And the image disappeared.

In the middle of nowhere, in the infinite darkness, you wondered what the fuck everything you had seen was about. You wondered if they were your memories or someone else's memories. You wondered if even all that had really happened or if it was a lie.

You see…

You heard a voice in the middle of nowhere.

You can't even trust your own friends….

Who's speaking?

I am the voice of your conscience… The voice of your reason… There's nothing closer to the truth than me…

What the fuck is going on?

Why don't you see for yourself?

And you had an image again. This time, one you did recognize.

It was the same hallway, it was the same people. It was you. On the floor. In Tony's arms.

It seemed to be what had happened after you entered that strange memory, where everything was loss.

But you couldn't hear anything. You could only see the three figures moving their mouths around you, sharing ideas, thoughts, plans… but you couldn't hear them.

And then another figure appeared.

Wanda Maximoff.

You had shared absolutely no time with her since you had awakened. You hadn't even seen her until now, but recognizing her had been so easy when red clouds spread from her hands.

Red clouds that were coming towards you.

What are they doing?

They are erasing your memories…

What? No. Impossible.

It's too dangerous for them for you to remember…

But why? What did I do to make them do that to me?

You wanted to shake yourself to remove Wanda's hands that were around your head. The red mist was spreading freely along your body, mocking you because you could do nothing but stare. You could do nothing but watch them betray you.

I won't remember any of this when I wake up.

Oh, no, you will. I'll take care of it.

Who are you, huh?

I already told you…

But-

A sharp pain shot through you, the voice disappeared and you could see your body jerking in Tony's arms. Wanda's red mist was shaking around your body, transforming into spikes and then into reddish liquid, as if battling against something. Maybe against your unconscious seeking to avoid losing the memories again.

Or maybe against the owner of the voice… who had promised you not to forget what had happened.

Even so, the pain was exasperating, and it was unpleasant to see from a distance your body shaking looking for a way out. Looking to escape from there. You hated seeing Tony's arms around your body now that you knew what he was doing. It used to give you some kind of sense of security, but you were sure it must have been an implanted feeling. There was no other explanation.

When it seemed like it was all ending, when Wanda's red clouds were beginning to disappear and gather in her hands, the panorama in front of your eyes began to dissipate.

But nothing could prevent Stephen Strange from raising his head, sighing, and his eyes meeting yours as if you were a solid person in front of him. You barely noticed how his face paled as you stepped into nothingness again.

----

i have no words. what are we thinking?

Taglist: @cjand10 @yallgotkik @ruffdog921 @coracal @its-just-kayy @pono-pura-vida @vampiresarezombies @kaz11283 @vicmc624

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes angst #bucky fic #bucky x you #bucky barnes #james bucky barnes #avengers #bucky fluff #marvel #calmly remember #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #winter soldier

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fizzingwizard · 5 months ago

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I just started House season 4. When it first aired, I was really sad about the departures of Foreman, Chase, and Cameron (the ducklings/cottages, depending which forum you got your House news on lol). Now it probably would be obvious to me that they were primed to come back, but as a teen I thought this was good-bye for realsies.

I also remember that from season 4 on, the quality of the show seemed less to me. Not like it tanked, but... Gotta say, I've already seen every episode I could clearly remember in the first three seasons. I can't remember a single episode in the latter ones, except for character plot points, like Thirteen's Huntington's, Kal Penn's (I forgot his character's name) suicide, Wilson's cancer, House driving his car into Cuddy's house and still getting his job back smh...

So I kinda expect from here on the medicine takes a back seat to character drama. I remember as a teen thinking that House was being reimagined as a soap for housewives, because it turned out a lot of housewives liked the show. I also remember thinking, "But if they already like it, why would you change it. Just because of stereotypes of what housewives like?? 'Oh no, housewives are watching us! We better become the kind of show housewives like'" what??? They are already watching! You don't need to change it! You've hooked your audience!

To be clear, I've never read anything where the writers admitted that so ehhh. But there really was a shift towards drama and focusing on character relationships. There had been plenty of drama before, but boy did it kick up after season three. In particular the show began to make more frequent references to House/Wilson, which was a popular ship along with House/Cuddy and House/Cameron, but not taken at all seriously because this was before 2010 and most Americans were still casually, if not outright, homophobic, and gay stuff was just not "done" on TV unless it was sad and everyone died or it was treated as a big joke. Wow TV changed a lot in ten years...

Anyway House/Wilson was a big joke. I'd say it wasn't as bad as some shows were with their token gay ship. Like it was better than Sherlock. *shrug* It would be hard to say whether the jokes were more homophobic because they were jokes, or progressive because they didn't offend the characters. But yeah House/Wilson fans were considered by other fans to be young horny women or old horny women not getting enough from their husbands. They weren't expected to be normal humans enjoying a dynamic on a show, and they definitely weren't expected to be men (gay or otherwise).

So the show ramped up the romance, the drama, and the confusing gay innuendos. Not saying it got bad. It just changed. I really can't remember any medical case at all that didn't directly affect a member of the main cast.

It'll be interesting to see if I feel the same way now that I'm starting season 4 again. But I gotta say, after watching the first couple episodes, it's so, so funny to me how bad the acting is when House starts the competition. The competition angle I think is very funny! But I guess what happens is you now have a huge cast and so everyone can only get one-liners that need to express everything about them, and their screen time is so low that if you're meant to be annoyed for just one scene, as far as the audience knows you're always this annoyed lol.

The one that gets me the most is Thirteen's introduction. First it's just like Olivia Wilde sitting with the contestants. Not that gorgeous women can't be doctors but like... that's Olivia Wilde. Just. Sitting there. buhahaha. And then she's in the OR and another contestant asks her name you know a totally normal question for one colleague to ask another. and in this very tired, put-upon sounding tone she replies "call me Thirteen" because that's her contestant number and she doesn't want to "get attached."

But can you imagine that in real life? "What's your name" "(sigh, not this question again) Just call me Thirteen" x'DDD Like maybe when you're in jr high and trying to be ~*special*~ you might do that, and a few years later realize how cringy it was and start going by Jessica again if you haven't already. This isn't about her using an unusual nickname though. I've had a few friends with unusual nicknames that they got by normally. It's about the personal tragedy and deep resistance to getting close that calling herself "Thirteen" among her colleagues is supposed to represent. IIRC, patients and non-diagnostics team members do call her by her real name. So this is nooot about nicknames. It's about the writers pitching ideas back and forth and someone suggesting with a straight face "What if there was a dying doctor who is really out of this world gorgeous and bisexual and distant because she's got Huntington's and only goes by Thirteen, you know, the unlucky number???" lol

#house md

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panlight · 1 year ago

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Hello I'm back again with another ask. One of the things that infuriates me most is that throughout the Twilight series we don't get to see Bella really hanging around with the Cullens. I want some bonding moments and just some fun interactions! So I guess we have to make up for it with fan works and headcanons.

How do you think watching movies/TV shows go with the Cullens? Does everyone have a favorite or genres they'd like the most?

Yeah it's part of the reason I never totally bought that she actually loved/knew them as individuals rather than just as "Edward's family" that she gets to be a part of. We just don't see any one-on-one or bonding moments with the supporting characters. They all get like one (1) chance to infodump their backstory and than that's it. Bella has no follow-ups, no curiosity. For example, when I read Esme's discussion with Bella at the baseball game I had a million questions! Esme had a baby?! Who was the father?! What happened to him?!? We find out that information in the guide eventually, but BELLA didn't seem anywhere NEAR as curious about it as I was. I understand it might have been too much for her to ask Esme about it right then, but she could have asked Edward, or followed up later, or at least wondered about it. She didn't. It was all just "oh Esme is motherly toward Edward and approves me, cool." I, as the reader, seemed more interested in getting to know this woman than Bella the character did.

They are so rich I'm sure they all have personal devices they could watch anything they want on, but most people also headcanon like a big TV in the living/family room where they all hang out sometimes and watch movies together or argue over the remote. I think Esme loves home & garden channel stuff but I could also see her into soap operas. All the kids are too to varying levels because of days they have to stay home from school because of the sun, they get sucked into whatever storyline is going on at the time. I think Jasper likes historical documentaries and gritty historical dramas but I don't think he's all that interested in his own era, he lived it, he's probably looking to other time periods for that sort of infotainment. Might be interested in war movies in general. Emmett likes FUN! movies, popcorn movies, action and adventure movies, comedies, etc. He's just here for a Good Time. He and Carlisle also always watch the latest vampire films/TV, Emmett because he thinks it's hilarious how humans get things wrong and Carlisle is curious how the human concept of vampires keeps evolving. I think he probably avoids medical dramas because he finds them unrealistic but generally goes along with what everyone else wants. Alice can foresee if she will like a movie or not before she watches it. Rosalie wants to watch whatever Edward refuses to watch and vice versa.

Bella would be like "oh we can watch whatever you like," and then all the Cullens (except Rose) would fall all over themselves to assure her that SHE is the guest and SHE can choose but she'd bite her lip and be anxious until Alice would just announce like "she chooses Pride and Prejudice!" or something and then Bella blushes prettily and Edward's eyes darken as he rhapsodizes about how beautiful yet forbidden the flush of blood in her cheeks is, then he hates himself for thinking of her blood at all, then for whatever reason they just go hang out in Edward's room leaving the rest of the family to watch the movie even though it was a whole Movie Night with Bella event and they sit there in silence for a bit surrounded by like 5 bowls of popcorn they can't eat and 8 types of soda they can't drink that Alice procured ~for Bella~ until Rosalie says "WHY do they keep coming over here for 'family time' and then just go make goo-goo eyes at each other in Edward's room?" and Esme or Carlisle diplomatically says something about young couples and Bella's shyness while Rosalie rolls her eyes.

#asks

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eemcintyre · 1 year ago

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"Stretch" (2014) review

Aka ✨ why this movie is one of the most underrated ones I've ever seen and why it is some of Patrick Wilson's best work ✨

"If you like stories about chance and coincidence, here's one you've never heard" gives me the chills every time 😮‍💨

Patrick Wilson is one of the most underappreciated actors of his time, like, not only do his other projects demonstrate that he has drama, romance, instruments, and singing down ✨, but here he is finally given a chance to flaunt his impeccable comedic timing, vocalizations, and expressions

Idk maybe I just love movies with narration (ex., "Heathers," "Jerry Maguire," "Amelie," "Eloise at Christmastime," "Megamind," "American Made," "The Outsiders," etc.)

But jokes aside, I will defend Patrick Wilson's narration throughout the movie no matter whAT ANYONE SAYS YOU CAN PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAD FINGIES; IT IS AT TURNS FUNNY AND RELATABLE AND PROFOUND AND WE GET TO KNOW THE MAIN CHARACTER BETTER 😤😤

It does start a bit slow, especially if you aren't as invested in Patrick Wilson as I am 🙃🫠 but if you stick with it and pay attention to the subtle comedic elements in the meantime 👌🏻

This movie is not afraid to be a bit irreverent, which is a modern and mainstream rarity

Stretch and Charlie are so cute together; I wish more of their interactions had been kept in the final cut because when I think of the quality content that we missed 😩💖

"Who gains weight in their neck?" "Sexy people." "Three months of Rosetta Stone- I HATE THE FUCKING FRENCH." "We was gettin' all romantic, watching Titan-tic..." and so, so many more

Honestly, Karl is an integral part of this film as well- he may seem overtly cartoonish to some, but again, we get to know the main character better through him, as his presence gives us a visual of Stretch's inner struggle; he contributes to the dark humor vibe, and Ed Helms was clearly having the time of his life (as was the entire cast)

Speaking of which, stellar casting all around, especially those who were cast against type; love when directors give that stuff a chance. Everyone was made for their role

Dark humor, satire of Hollywood, homage to 80s films

The Navstar scene. If you know you know

Same goes for the post-Candace club exit scene with the valet, the wannabe rapper, and the sex club exit scene (there's a man wearing only balloons. need I say more). I mean, the whole movie is basically the best part and I'm trying not to make this review me just naming every scene and going "yes. this is good" but these are some of the most standout parts

The soundtrack may be atrocious overall, but the exception is the song at the end (although I was disappointed when I read that it was originally supposed to be "Telephone Line" by ELO but they didn't have enough in the budget because that would have gone so hard) 😩💕

Speaking of the ending, why is it so incredibly pure and sweet to me that it would almost make me cry if I weren't medicated? 🥺 Something about the setting of the diner, exuding vintage charm and glowing in the sun the quiet morning after the previous night of chaos, and the serendipity of how Stretch and Charlie finally reveal how much they've obviously liked each other for a while, and after all of the danger and depravity, everything ends soft and gentle and alright 😊💖

This film is somehow so sleazy and wholesome at the same time- against the backdrop of drugs, sex clubs, threats of violence, and constant swearing, it's ultimately a story about overcoming cynicism and self-destruction, getting your "mojo" back, taking control of your life, and allowing for the possibility that things happen for a reason ✨ Honestly? 10/10

#patrick wilson #stretch 2014 #joe carnahan #chris pine #ed helms #jessica alba #brooklyn decker #action film #action movies #cult classic #cult film #cult movies #underrated movies #underrated #underappreciated

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lovecanbesostrange · 5 months ago

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The following comes from a place of love, this is not an anti-post or whatever hate-bullshit. No, quite the opposite. I have been a Jo Wilson defender, I have watched her develop and puzzled her story together, I saw (and still see) so much potential. But I'm at a point where I have to give up.

By now a part of me wishes she had adopted Luna and then taken all her money to fuck out off Grey-Sloan. Find another job in a small town, because she dreams up some cozy single-mom life there or find a private practice to work at for good enough pay with a reasonable schedule. Whatever.

The problem has always been that she was written for Alex first and foremost. She has been on this show since season 9. We are closing up S20 next week. Counting her medical storylines is a shitshow. They had no clue what do with her as an actual surgeon. Except telling us that she's good at it and then there was the fun period in time where she was like I-read-research-and-know-stuff.

Personal drama always mixes with patient stories, that's the whole concept. We learn about the character's flaws and strengths and personal history that way. But oh dear, is this not balanced out with Jo. They dropped the ball when they had so many good opportunities. And when Alex left (the only real option the writers had was to kill him and I understand why they didn't want to), everything got worse.

Of course Jo grew up, good for her. I don't exactly miss "I used to live in my car" every episode. But that is a thing that did happen and how did they not let Mika and Jo have scenes together? (What I wanted was for Jo to end up in the house and mention something about living there; they gave that joke to Bailey instead who only ever visited. Then again Bailey is also the one who took a street kid in, the one thing I hoped Alex/Jo would do, because that would have made sense. lol )

Shouldn't the whole switching-specialties story be exciting? How come it is absolutely not? Ugh. The absence of plastics and pediatrics has been felt so much. But she goes into OB, where we have a character, but oh wait she's on the other show and also barely works.

Watching your fav die is painful. But this feels worse. A slow, dragged out death of character, but the person is still there. (Don't get me wrong, in this age of tv, any actor willingly passing on a gig like this - the secure paycheck, working with people you know so well - is madness. I would cling to the job, no shade there.)

#Grey's Anatomy #Jo Wilson #really I love her so much but they dropped the ball again and again and again and again... I'm so done

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fatummortem · 9 months ago

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Hey everyone, I'm very sorry for going quiet for so long, I wasn't expecting it honestly & I'm sadly not back. Work, planning & adapting to family drama has kept me extremely busy over the last few months, unfortunately. Well to put it mildly. I am in my own apartment if I hadn't said, however the kiddo will be coming 6 months to a year ahead of schedule & arriving by the end of next month. \o/ That is the positive from everything going on.

If you want a more detailed thing about the gaslighting or bs that's been going on click the read more. If not. No harm. I do make jokes about my family trauma bullshit, to help myself deal with it. Fair warning.

So the least BS of everything is that I've currently turned into the only opener at work during the weekdays. If I'm not working I'm trying to plan things so everything is good for when Jynx, the kidddo, comes to live here. Except each time I rearrange my plan my mom finds some excuse to move the date up, while I'm getting reports my mom will not provide hair cuts, deoderant or medical attention. Well my mom said once they just gone to the docs but one times i just had to respond with 'You do realize I've been on the phone with her all morning right?'

Other than that I've felt I've been playing a chess game against a hacker, Where they transform a Pawn into a Queen in the middle of the board. Because whenever I get everything situated she just has to alter it and move up the bloody date while I keep my child's mental health up, figure out what i need to BUY and other sane things.

Then a few nights ago happened. My Mother, got into it over a day old dirty pan. Both sides from the sounds of it were way outta line arguing with each other. But once the pan was cleaned & dried, my child wanted ice cream. Because the pan was not put away, my mother in her infinite wisdom, thought it smart to reach around my child, try to wrestle it from her. So my child headbutted her and got a hit to the head for her trouble. To me the headbutt is self defense. Course i was at work, acting like an adult when this went down, got off with messages from both so I of course CALLED MY CHILD.

I ended up chatting with my kid calming her down, y'know because i'm a parent. At the same time I was helping a friend clean an area of his place, to help him with his mental health. we started at like 4:40pm and didn't finish until 10pm. So I was like "i ain't dealing with your shit.' I told her I'd try calling her after work. Because who wants that kind of conversation before work. Because y'know being calm is something I'd like to be so this doesn't blow up worse than it already is.

So I check my phone mid-day, when I'm finally able to take a break, apparently because I didn't respond and call her RIGHT THAT SECOND OR WHEN i AWOKE, my child would be put into jail if i didn't magically shit out a plan to move her (it's a thirty hour drive alright. I moved that fair away, yes i did). Course when i started getting things in order, the jail BS was put to the way side. But dear old mommy wanted an 'I'm sorry' because i didn't get her side of it from her panic attack inducing text messages while i was at work.

And I'm amazed & flabbergasted that I was informed my mom's arms are too short to reach around my child to wrestle her, that no the headbutt happened in a different time and MY CHILD TRIED TO BODY SLAM MY FATHER. See I still haven't gotten an answer on how the headbutt happened.

So once I was able to calm from my panic attack, the rage (i so raged and i so terribly hate raging), i sat here and tried to put my head around my 5 foot 86, POUNDS, XS wearing, 18 year old child trying to BODY SLAM my 5'9 broad shoulder, fuck if i know his poundage, slightly chunky 75 year old father I about died. She does have some Karate under her belt, when she WAS 14 YEARS OLD. She made it to yellow belt and got stuck there because she kept getting into it with my mom and they took the next belt from her and i was just 'DO THEY TEACH BODY SLAMMING FOR THAT?'

Needless to say I'm still working on getting things planned for Jynx to get here, EVEN THOUGH I WAS GOING TO BUY A BED TWO MONTHS FROM NOW. trying to figure out what the shit to buy & I have yet to respond to my mother's tale. mainly for the fact i'm so tempted to ask her if she appeared in the move 'Meet the Robinsons.'

#ooc #ooc update #tw gaslighting #tw assault #tw abuse

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invisibleicewands · 1 year ago

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A mum shouldn’t have to go to her child’s funeral’: Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen on making moving TV

f Best Interests – a drama about a mother who takes the NHS to court after doctors decide to allow her teenage daughter to die – feels too harrowing to countenance, you’re not alone: even the cast can’t bring themselves to watch it. “It was hard enough doing it on the day,” says Sharon Horgan of playing Nicci, the mother in question. Michael Sheen, who co-stars as her husband Andrew – a man devastated by his daughter’s illness but unwilling to back his wife’s appeal – is also avoiding it. “I’m more nervous than usual,” he admits. “I know it’s going to be a difficult watch.”

That’s an understatement. Best Interests begins with Nicci and Andrew on a train, giddily happy, slightly frisky and, as we soon realise, uncharacteristically carefree. Over the next four hours, we see their relationship falter under the pressure of caring for their younger daughter Marnie (Niamh Moriarty) who has muscular dystrophy, as consultants tell them her condition has progressed beyond all medical intervention – something that leads Nicci to mount a headline-grabbing, life-upending legal challenge. It’s little wonder Horgan had doubts about taking the role in the first place. “I was really nervous about how much this was going to fuck me up,” she says. It ended up being as crushing as she feared. “We spent a lot of time in terrible pain. You have to go to some really awful places to get yourself into that mindset and stay there. Sometimes you come home and go: ‘What kind of a weird job is this?’”

And yet – and this is the caveat that makes the show not simply a gruelling experience, but a life-affirming and thoroughly absorbing one – Best Interests is also very funny. There is droll banter about crisps in waiting rooms, there are silly jokes about knickers and, after the unthinkable finally happens, there is daft familial teasing. “People will be put through the wringer,” says Horgan. “But we want this to feel like a real family, and in real families – even when they are in the worst possible situation – people laugh.” That said, desolation is never far away: at one point, Andrew is reading The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole at Marnie’s bedside when an inadvertently pertinent passage prompts a flood of tears: at moments such as these, the show dances between comedy and tragedy in a remarkable way. Thankfully, it is not quite the slapstick affair it could have been. “I remember doing a very stupid dance at one point, I don’t know if that’s still in?” Sheen asks tentatively. I tell him it’s not ringing any bells. “That probably means it’s not there, so that’s good!”

Instead we have Sheen’s Andrew as a slouchy, goofy beta male, who enjoys 90s indie and the odd spliff, and is an expert teller of comfortingly lame dad jokes (such is the casual majesty of Sheen’s performance, he has already won the best actor award at French TV festival Series Mania). Horgan is equally brilliant as Nicci, a weary but awe-inspiringly on-it woman suffused with the actor’s trademark wincingly honest wit. While Sheen is a garlanded dramatic actor who was well established in theatre before becoming film-star famous in the 00s for his exceptional impersonations (Tony Blair, David Frost, Brian Clough, Kenneth Williams), Horgan is still best known for her pioneering TV comedy. From gritty sitcom Pulling to dramedy Catastrophe and recent hit Bad Sisters, she is now a giant of the genre; as a serious actor, however, her career is only just taking off. “If you’re known for comedy, people don’t generally throw a lot of dramas at you,” she says.

In 2021, she was a revelation in pandemic drama Together, written by her Pulling co-creator Dennis Kelly, yet Horgan feels Nicci is her “most dramatically led role” – another reason she’s not keen to watch it back. “I just don’t want to get all hypercritical on myself. I did it – there’s nothing I can do about it now!” Horgan says she has always wanted to do comedy and drama simultaneously, and is happy the genre binaries are melting away. “Back in the day I used to do a lot more sitcom-style shows, and now it blends a lot: a lot of dramas are really funny and a lot of comedies … aren’t,” she says, dissolving into laughter at her damning critique of the current comedy landscape. “What I mean is some of my favourite things, like The Bear, there’s not many laughs in it.”

I speak to Horgan and Sheen separately over Zoom – the former perched on her bed, the latter bearded and avuncular in a tartan shirt, sitting in his office in Margam Park near Port Talbot, where he’s about to direct BBC drama The Way. (So idyllic are his surroundings that he pauses to show me two gambolling baby deer from his window.) They may be miles apart, but the pair are very much on the same page when it comes to Best Interests. Instead of meticulously researching the kind of media circus court cases that inspired the drama (the 2017 case of Charlie Gard being perhaps the most famous example), they opted to come to the action unschooled, as they imagine Nicci and Andrew would have been. And while both were left awed by the parents with disabled children they met – “I just don’t know how I would have the strength in that situation,” says Horgan – they ended up drawing primarily on their own personal experiences.

Sheen found himself recalling his own family history while thinking about the cosmic horror of losing a child. “My grandmother’s son – my uncle – died of cancer while she was still alive. I always remember her saying a mother should not have to go to her child’s funeral. That just shouldn’t happen.” He was also reckoning with anxieties of his own. During the filming of the show, Sheen’s partner Anna Lundberg was pregnant with their second child and the due date was fast approaching. Then the pregnancy turned out to be “not completely straightforward”, Sheen says. “There were some fears about our unborn baby, and if there are any kinds of complications or worries that really weighs on you.” The stress filtered into his performance, especially when it came to the heartbreaking flashback scenes in which a six-month-old Marnie’s bewildered parents receive her diagnosis.

For Horgan, Nicci’s story was incredibly close to home. “My kid had meningitis when she was young,” she says (Horgan has two teenage daughters with her ex-husband, businessman Jeremy Rainbird). “While we thought we might lose her – as I was watching them trying to find a vein and get some antibiotics into her – I remember thinking: ‘I don’t care what happens – like, take off her limbs, whatever you need to do – just keep her alive.’”

In Best Interests, the story of Nicci, Andrew and Marnie (plus elder daughter Katie, played with mild insolence by Conversations With Friends’ Alison Oliver) doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In recent years, writer Jack Thorne – one of the most respected figures in British TV – has dedicated himself to making programmes about people with disabilities, partly because of his own struggles: he suffered from a debilitating long-term illness in his 20s, and was recently diagnosed with autism. In 2021 he made Help, which starred Jodie Comer as a carer looking after a man with early-onset Alzheimer’s (Stephen Graham) in the pandemic, and last year he created Then Barbara Met Alan, a one-off drama about the founders of the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network, a protest group fighting for disabled people’s rights.

According to Sheen and Horgan, Thorne’s advocacy for disabled people permeated the entire shoot. The cast was populated by actors with disabilities: Moriarty, who has a form of cerebral palsy called spastic diplegia, is joined by Lenny Rush, the Bafta-winning breakout star of Am I Being Unreasonable? who has dwarfism, and Mat Fraser, an actor and activist with thalidomide-induced phocomelia. Behind the scenes, things were just as inclusive. “Our set photographer was hearing-impaired, the person shadowing our director was a wheelchair user – there was an enormous amount of diversity,” says Horgan. “It just felt like this is the world we live in and unfortunately TV and film doesn’t usually represent that.” There was an attitude of presumed equality. Sheen remembers coming to do a scene and “in the script there was no mention of a physical disability and then the actor who did it had a physical disability and it was not a thing. That was so refreshing.”

The show wears its politics lightly, though. Even the Christian pressure group Nicci turns to in desperation is portrayed with relative ambivalence – after all, says Sheen, “you don’t want to wink at the audience about how you feel about the characters”. Thorne is too clever a writer for obvious didacticism, and while you might come away feeling conflicted – or even disgusted – by the legal process that has lawyers brutally picking holes in the parents and consultants in court, it’s hard to envisage what could replace it.

What you will be invariably left with, however, is a sense of the existential struggle those with disabled children face in a society unwilling to accommodate them. Sheen remembers Thorne talking about the attitude towards disabled people in the pandemic: “that somehow people with disabilities were slightly more dispensable and anyone dying through Covid who had disabilities, it wasn’t as big a deal as people who didn’t have them.” For Horgan, playing Nicci alerted her to a system that “sees disabled life as less important. Everything she gets for Marnie is a struggle, whether it’s equipment or a wheelchair or education. Her life is battling.”

It’s a sad, outrageous truth, which this excellent drama unflinchingly captures. Yet the show is also keen to emphasise that this is just one element of life with a disabled child. Despite its tragic ending, the real beauty – and, for me, lasting impression – of Best Interests is the way it evokes the overwhelming joy that comes with parenting any child, whatever the difficulties. The worst of times, yes – but also the best.

#Michael Sheen #Best Interests #Movie

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