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mermaidsirennikita · 1 year ago

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Sorry but i need to hear more about Adam Driver Face and Adam Driver Body in romance novels and possibly how this pertains to Forget Me Not by Julie Soto.

Lol this is a hot take so I'm gonna publish it

I know that for some reason being attracted to Adam Driver is Controversial, and indeed a lot of Reylo fic authors flipping into romance is Controversial... It shouldn't be. Aside from Big Deal Ship Writers flipping into romance writers being a tale as old as time, ESPECIALLY post-Twilight (lots of authors who've been successful for quite a while now are former Twific authors--EL James is just, unfortunately, the biggest name), the concept of an Adam Driver-shaped man as a romance hero is so... obviously something that fits.

Because I'm gonna tell you right fucking now, lol--while Henry Cavill is the dude everyone and their mom fancasts for every. white. romance hero. ever (and plenty of romance heroes who aren't white but everyone just ignores that) I would argue that a lot of authors had Adam Driver-shaped guys in mind. Not Adam Driver, necessarily. I imagine a lot of writers do not have actors in mind at all when the y write (I don't). But someone who is closer to Adam Driver than Henry Cavill.

Why? Because romance heroes, at the end of the day, are often not men who jive with the concept of typical actors, ESPECIALLY not today (because white actors today have become incredibly homogenous in terms of looks, and additionally currently trend more towards a very youthful, softer look, which is fine but is not what romance heroes have been in the past and honestly... even post-cinnamon roll, largely are in the present). A lot of romance heroes in books that aren't like, pumped out with zero thought (because there are those) are not described as like, the most beautiful guy in the room. There's a reason why we love the scarred hero, right? Romance heroes owe their roots more to men like Mr. Rochester--guys who are often NOT conventionally hot, but ARE incredibly compelling.

Like, of course you have your Sebastian St. Vincents, the guys who are incandescently hot (Sebastian St. Vincent has Jude Law Face and Jude Law Body, LOOK AT WHEN THE BOOK WAS WRITTEN AND KNOW IT IN YOUR HEART). But many more heroes, especially in again, well-written romances, are more like Derek Craven, who's described as having a fuckton of presence, a fuckton of sexuality, but as often being "almost handsome", with snaggle teeth and a general "coarseness".

Which makes sense, right? Because, to this day, and I'm not saying this is a good thing, m/f romance heroes are meant to contrast to their heroines. And their heroines are often, if not hyperfeminine, then still the feminine presence in the room. Even in books like Knockout where the heroine is not this small delicate flower--in some ways, it's often even more important for the hero to contrast to her. Because a heroine like Imogen wants a man who supports and accepts her, but also makes her feel like she is something to be cherished and protected. Tommy being someone who can pick her up and gather her in his arms appeals to her. And I think that is something that every woman, regardless of her size or her preference in men's appearances, can relate to.

Also, a lot of romance authors are trickling down from older generations of romance authors. While those authors did not have an Adam Driver lol, they did have this preference towards the massive guy who Isn't Handsome But He's Got Somethin'. And so, the romance authors who grew up on that still want that. I know that the fetishized Big Hero has been a hot topic as of late... If I'm being real, I don't think he's going anywhere. There will be more space for heroes who are not like that, but it's a personal preference thing, and a lot of authors (and readers) do like to read about that. I don't know that that's a bad.... thing.

So when you look at actors today who fit that--this big guy with a big body that nonetheless doesn't seem immediately like a gym body (though it is, lol, I think he's just perhaps better at building muscle from... working out... versus steroids.... because the roles he takes do not require roid-level muscle, for one thing) and a face that seems like it could take a beating and he wouldn't go "not my face"--there are very few aside from Adam Driver. Like, in reality, Geralt should have a nose that's broken 58 different ways, but aside from magic, he's Henry Cavill and Henry Cavill isn't gonna get his face legit fucked up. Because Adam Driver is not "pretty" in any way, I think he reads as a different type of masculine to those that appreciate his appearance, and that kind of masculine translates to romance heroes very easily. And Adam Driver Body just is Big Man Romance Hero Body, because, sorry, he's got a very good body and even if you don't like his face I think that's just. A fact lol. If you don't like tall broad fit guys that's fine, but he's clearly a very fit, physical person and he's a very physical actor which makes this more noticeable.

But I would say that ALL OF THIS comes across in a larger way because very fewer actors right now look like him. Not just in his unconventional (I mean is it tho... or are we just so used to homogeny in actors that it seemed unconventional today... I'm gonna tell y'all right now, everyone and their mom was into Alan Rickman when I was growing up, and I GET IT... it's the same motherfucking look lol) face, but in his general appearance. He seems BIGGER because he's actually an actor who's broad and 6'3"; a lot of taller actors are slimmer, on that very obvious 'roid muscle which doesn't translate in the same sense, or are NOT. ACTUALLY. THAT TALL LOL. and lie about their height. So he seems bigger in contrast.

But then there's the Adam Driver Vibe, which, especially post-Reylo, is something I think appeals to romance writers even more and that is what you see in Forget Me Not (a book written by a Reylo fic writer, which I enjoyed quite a bit). The hero in that book is such a good example of an Adam Driver-coded hero. And let's be clear, I have no idea what the man is like in his real life. He barely talks to the press, and by God I hope he keeps it that way. But because he doesn't talk to the press, people assume quiet; because when he does, he seems to be a pretty nice guy and seems to get along with his costars just fine, people assume nice; they assume things based on him being with the same woman since college, etc. Romance people package this into a hero type that has been around for a long time, but they can now plaster onto the Adam Driver Vibe. The guy who is kinda quiet and gruff but actually sweet, who will fix your car without a word while thinking that you're kind of a FUCKING IDIOT for not getting your car fixed earlier, but it's only because he actually loves you and just doesn't want you to get hurt, and he's not an asshole about it, he just tenses so that you can see the corded muscles in his forearms and speaks in a tight voice about how you REALLY need to TAKE THIS INTO THE SHOP more OFTEN.

But why would you, because he's competent and does man stuff more? (Even though Adam Driver, as far as I know, lives in a very nice home in Brooklyn and loves traveling to Italy which is why he does as many movies in Italy as possible, people think of him as very 'salt of the Earth homegrown' because Midwest and because we don't see him acting like a Typical Actor in interviews, and this sticks onto his romance descendants as well). It's the sense of competence that people want, and you see that a lot in Forget Me Not. Quiet, so we can assume from the quietness that he's yearning and longing (which he is). Competent, annoyed but only because he cares too much.

And, of course, he can throw the heroine around in bed, which is something I think people project onto Adam Driver because a lot of the bigness is really connected to this concept in the first place... But also because he has done a good amount of sex scenes, unlike a LOT of actors of his caliber in this day and age, and for that matter a lot of PRETTIER actors around his gen, because actors like Chris Evans and Hemsworth got locked into Marvel contracts early and don't do sex. Adam Driver was fuckin' in House of Gucci and that was pretty recent lol. I think that the fact that you do see him in this context makes a difference. Also, while not every sex scene... not many sex scenes... in Girls were hot, he did do a lot of that shit, and though I hate Lena Dunham with all my soul, I would theorize that the fact that you not only saw him be sexual (in a simulated way) with a woman who was not thin by any means onscreen, picking her up and shit, made an impression. As did that scene where he bench-pressed Shiri Appleby, would recommend... tracking that down... if you have not...

Like, there are a lot of Adam Driver-coded heroes out there, and not all of them are Reylo heroes. I do not see Sworn to the Shadow God by Ruby Dixon a Reylo book (for one thing, the heroine is Latina). But the hero??? So Adam Driver-coded. He's big, his face is like, Kinda Weirdly Too Much But Also Hot, he's kinda quiet and awkward but by God he means well and he will make the heroine come 75 times if he's got anything to say about it. There are heroes who were written Before the Days of Adam Driver who still read more as that motherfucker than any other actor today (THE HERO FROM THE RAVEN PRINCE IS NOT HENRY CAVILL WITH SCARS SHUT UP).

It's not just a look, it is a vibe, and it is entirely this thing that everyone has made up and projected onto that man lol. Which is a lot easier to do with him than ANY other actor, because Adam Driver. Does not talk. Which--so many actors should just not talk. (But, and this is a petty thing so I'll say it--a lot of his peers do need to sell themselves based off personality and he generally doesn't because he's a legit good actor sorry sorry sorry.) However, him not talking kind of makes him the perfect romance hero projection figure. The less we know about him, the more we can Imagine. I know Henry Cavill has a thing for girls who are way too young for him, right? I don't know fuck all about Adam Driver's romantic life aside from him being married to Joanne a long time.

In conclusion, it's a whole deal not even just the body and the face, and it's not surprising to me that it's something that a lot of romance writers and readers have latched on to.

#romance novel blogging

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rindecisions · 2 years ago

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Stranger Tales: 18

A poll based Stranger Things fanfiction

Read all of it on AO3

Steve and Eddie’s eyes lingered on each other for a little too long. Eddie almost took a step toward him, but just nodded and got in his van. After watching Eddie quickly drive off, Steve shook his head and got in the car with Robin. He stared at the steering wheel for a few seconds before putting the keys in the ignition.

“Everything alright?” Robin asked tentatively.

“Yeah,” Steve said unconvincingly, and started the car.

Robin knew something was up, but figured she didn’t know him well enough to pry and assumed if he wanted to talk about it, he would. The drive home was quiet, with the only sound coming from the faint radio. They said a simple goodbye when Steve dropped her off in front of her house.

That night, Steve had a hard time sleeping. The only thing on his mind was that he might be into men. That, and flashes of Eddie on stage. Part of him wondered what would have happened if they’d spoken again when he was out of his makeup. Would he still feel that pull toward him? Maybe having genuine confirmation that Eddie was a man would change his mind about the whole thing. He still wasn’t entirely convinced that he liked men. It’s not like he’d ever been attracted to one before…

Shit… He might have. He did have a habit of staring at lips when they were in kissing range, regardless of gender, and his heart raced like a motherfucker every time. Fuck! Do I want to kiss Tommy, too? Billy? Jonathan?! He grabbed his pillow and covered a shout. How was any of this possible, and how had he never noticed?

---

Eddie peeled into his driveway and grabbed what he needed from his van, aka his guitar, before heading inside. Wayne was working, so the place was empty. He carefully hung his guitar on its stand and fell onto his bed. There was no way Steve was gazing at him, glaring sure, but not gazing. He couldn’t have been. If he was, that would mean Eddie had a shot with him, and that wasn’t allowed. There was no reality where Steve Harrington would date the town freak. Said town freak being a man only reduced the already zero odds.

Steve was not staring at him. Eddie was determined to believe that down to his very core. If he was convinced otherwise, he was likely to do something dumb. He always did something dumb, so it was inevitable that if he thought he had any chance with Steve, he would blow it in a second. So, it was better for him to just come to terms with him having no chance. That way, if he does have a chance, which he doesn’t, then he won’t blow it. Either way, he had no chance. None…

But what if he did? No! Eddie, you have absolutely no chance with Steve! He’s far too good for you and you know it! Plus, he’s straight, so that automatically rules you out! Eddie sighed and rolled onto his stomach, breathing the best he could through his messy blankets. They had a scent, a fairly strong one, but Eddie couldn’t place its source. He found it comforting, nonetheless.

The bottom line was that regardless of if he had a chance or not, which he didn't, everything relied on Steve making the first move, which he won't. Hence, he'll never have a chance even if he did, which he doesn't. This particular train of thought was giving Eddie a headache.

More fics by Rindecision

#Poll #Stranger Things #LGBTQ #Fanfiction #Vote #Fanfic #Choose your own adventure #Polls #CYOA #Steve’s bisexual awakening #Eddie Munson #Steve Harrington #Robin Buckley #gif #rindecision #rindecision gif

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nikadd · 7 months ago

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i mean. not trying to argue here, considering that this is my post and also 3am where i am, but multiple things could be true at the same time. he's obviously attracted to both eddie and tommy, but he's known eddie for a longer time so he's more familiar, while tommy's presence throws a wrench into said familiarity.

i dont think it's necessarily one or the other, i just think it was kinda silly to include the gym scene just for the potential of eddie inviting buck to the game. he, like, canonically didnt know that amazon prime would deliver the ball so soon, lmao. so it was just very similar to him showing off in front of eddie in s2e1. like they could have had tommy be over at their gym as well for that scene if they really wanted to emphasize that, but they didnt. partially, i admit, to surprise the audience with the whole bucktommy thing, but also i do think that denying that buck was at least partially doing this for eddie's benefit would be strange.

buck has said that eddie would always invite buck to the basketball pickup games, so why did he need to do the whole thing in the gym to be invited there if he was already technically invited? before, the basketball games meant just something he wasnt interested in - he isnt into basketball and he can hang out with eddie whenever he wants to, but now his place in his friend's life is threatened - the entire conversation abt eddie and tommy "clicking" showed that. so maybe because he wanted to be invited personally, yeah. maybe because he felt jealous that tommy was singled out on the calendar.

and i dont disagree, it is the only time when tommy is there, but the entire basketball game buck is chasing after eddie, only running into tommy a few times. the camera is basically almost always focused on eddie and tommy broing out together and buck being upset abt it, with a couple moments of eddie making faces or joking abt being better than buck at it. they could have easily tried to go for a moment of buck trying to block tommy for like a flirty competition vibe but i haven't seen that there.

and i think buck hurting eddie was def a part of it, and i dont think it negates his feelings for him, ESPECIALLY since he doesn't understand them. again, i think he was a very confused bisexual man this entire episode, not knowing what exactly is going on with himself. like, i don't think he was looking to hurt him, but he did want some kind of interruption to the vibe of the game he wasnt meshing with, and he's always been the kind of guy to just kinda bullhead himself into things, which is why maddie said that there are other ways to get somebody's attention. and, at the very least, SHE meant eddie.

like, i do think that buck is attracted to tommy, i just dont think he knew he was until tommy kissed him AND i think he's yet to process his attraction to eddie EVEN IF he processes his bisexuality first. like, yeah, he asked for a tour of the harbor station bc he wanted to get to know tommy better, and i do think that is coming from a side of attraction, even if he doesn't know it yet, he still ends up bringing up eddie before eddie even shows up on the scene. and then, the scene in the kitchen is also largely about eddie, with even tommy being surprised that it was allegedly his attention that buck wanted.

to kinda look at it from a different point of view - in my personal experience - sometimes when you're jealous and horny and queer-but-dont-know-it-yet, you become kinda obsessed with the person you're jealous of, especially because you start assessing everything that's supposedly so great about them. jealousy is a strong feeling, and buck is familiar with it, so he could tell That about himself. but then tommy was very charismatic and hot and responsive to buck's attention, and so he kinda zeroed in on tommy in the end and put the eddie thing on a bit of a backburner, because, again, a hot man is kissing me? instantly forgetting everything else happening.

so, the thing abt "attention" i think is twofold. i think he was definitely looking for eddie's attention because he was jealous, AND he was looking for tommy's attention because he was fascinated (before he could admit to himself that that is attraction). even in the conversation when tommy says "my attention?" and buck goes "... i guess so" it feels like he's just realizing something there, like right in the middle of that conversation.

i will say, i do think that tommy was flirting with buck even back at the tour, but buck immediately started talking about eddie, so tommy didn't really continue with that until the conversation at buck's place, so it would have been interesting to see what the basketball game had looked like if tommy had more overtly flirted with buck earlier or even had kissed him.

ultimately i do like buck/tommy, they ARE cute, and im very interested to see what they are gonna do with this relationship later on, but i still do think buck has some things to realize abt his feelings for eddie. basically it's a very fun episode, and the next episode also adds to it, and i think it wouldn't be a complete analysis to only focus on tommy just because buck says that in the end.

there’s just no way the scene in the gym was for tommy’s benefit… like buck is just not aware abt his feelings for eddie yet and it’s so delicious

#it's valeriia talking #srb #im not trying to like argue against bucktommy or whatever im just not new to this lol i guess #911 abc #buddie #bucktommy #buck buckley #eddie diaz #tommy kinard

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supercalime · 7 months ago

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hellooo, fellow bucktommy shipper (and casual b*ddie enjoyer, if it weren't for the horrors...) here! i really liked your take on b*ddie st*ns and how they are now making super wild assumptions based on some latest interviews.

you know one thing that irks me? somehow nobody seems to talk about is the fact that in canon, buck isn't written to be in love with eddie at all. like, can we please talk about this??? because I'm all for Death Of The Author. OS can talk about ships all he wants but in the end, only the canon narrative matters to me personally. i've watched long-form content with endgame couples being set up in the pilot episodes who become canon many seasons later (bones, castle, grey's anatomy, the mentalist, etc.), and the entire point of such couples is to establish that, yes, they have been having romantic feelings all this time since day one. they do so very very obviously. there is zero subtlety or room for questioning.

one of the most common tropes is to give one or both characters (of the endgame couple) another love interest so that the endgame couple can be full of jealousy and pettiness every time that other love interest is mentioned or shown. having another love interests always endangers the original closeness of the endgame couple, and then the breakup propels the endgame couple forward in their relationship. the love interest is always used for comparisons, to make it abundantly clear that everybody else is lacking in some way. at no point in 911 did they do so with buck and eddie??? these dudes go through various romantic relationships, and never ever has it been any issue to the b*ddie dynamic. never was it talked about. never were hints dropped that one of them is jealous. even now, with bucktommy, eddie shows not a single ounce of jealously. on the other side, look at how they showed us buck being obviously jealous because eddie monopolized tommy's time even though buck wanted tommy time himself! buck couldn't stand the jealousy even a little bit, and he ended up literally hurting his bestie because of it. but whenever eddie is involved romantically and sexually with someone, there are zero signs that buck is bothered or threatened or jealous. they both seem super chill? they do not question at any point that them dating other people might hurt their relationship? logically, that must mean buck's never wanted to be romantically or sexually involved with eddie (and vice versa). at it's core, b*ddie has been written as a friendship. to this day, we have no canon proof for anything else.

i would not hate b*ddie to happen or anything. i do enjoy b*ddie fics (those that aren't super misogynist ♥). and i think it could be a great couple if done well! but as you said, even when buck thought eddie was hot... well, so what? that's literally just an objective observation. RG is handsome based on societal standards. chim and hen also immediately acknowledged that eddie was hot in 2x01, and both of them are Not At All romantically or sexually attracted to eddie either. nobody is questioning chim's or hen's sexuality based on the comments they made about eddie being hot. because nothing about this equals real romantic feelings or the desire to be in a relationship. the fandom understands that logic just fine with chim and hen. why not with buck, though? also, we have yet to see a reversed moment for eddie staring at buck and finding him hot. they had no problem to show eddie Immediately having a crush on ana flores when he first met her. this shows that eddie feels sexual attraction just fine. he was, however, never shown in canon to feel it for buck.

also interesting: even though buck found eddie hot when they first met, it did not trigger buck to seriously question his sexuality at any point in the past like, 5 years or so. in all those years of canon b*ddie friendship, the show has never used the plethora of opportunities to propel b*ddie into romantic or sexual territory. the show could have! but the show never did, so i refuse to let b*ddie st*ns or OS retcon this. if it's not in the canon material, it isn't canon. with tommy, it took only a couple of weeks and a handful of interactions for buck to reach a point of clarity about his sexuality. the most logical deduction imo is that buck simply clocked that eddie's hot (like everybody else, duh, he isn't special in that regard), and it's never meant anything deep.

my only real probem with this entire situation is how hardcore b*ddie st*ns are now using this as a justification to harass others even more (especially bucktommy shippers). i'd love to enjoy canon bucktommy and fanon b*ddie in peace! but the hate that b*ddie st*ns are spreading everywhere again (like with every new season and newly introduced love interest) is so overwhelming.

sorry for the long ass rant btw oopsie. feel free to ignore this. i just wanted to let it out and it seemed like you would understand. anyway, thanks for reading in case you got this far!

I’d never ignore a sensible take, anon! (I feel bad that you had to go anon but I understand. We know the drill by now, some stans are scary lol)

But like, ALL OF THIS!!!

Discourse like this is what takes away the enjoyment of media for me. It sucks that fandom experience can have two very extreme opposing sides, specially when it comes to two “competing” ships. You can kinda tell by how bucktommy shippers behave (I’m not trying to flex at all because I am one. A good majority of us has zero problem with b*ddie endgame even though we prefer the other. We like what we are getting and are happy to see this storyline play out) compared to b*ddie shippers (of course not all of them, I’m talking about the entitled ones. That clog comment sections, bother actors, go to the other ships tag to complain about it and say how their preferred ship is better, etc).

Im not immune to bad takes and bad fan behavior. Ive surely acted like these stans in other fandoms and i do regret it, so i hate seeing it happen again and again, no matter where i go.

Not to quote mean girls, but I wish we could all get along…

All that being said, whichever ship “wins”, it’s no one’s call but the writers and producers of the show. Someone told me that Tim writes for himself and doesn’t take outside factors (at least to an extent cause it’s impossible to not know the fan reaction) into consideration when it comes to where he wants the story to go.

#don’t apologize anon #im not a popular blog so getting a nice ask is always fun to read and respond to :)#lety rambles #ask #911 #bucktommy #tevan #firefly #firepilot #911 abc

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buttdawg · 3 years ago

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Plane Ride from Hell

I watched the new episode of “Dark Side of the Ring” to see what everyone was talking about, and yeah, it’s pretty messed up. Some stray observations:

I felt bad for Teri Runnels, because it was clear that she was going through the same kind of sexual harassment as the flight attendants, only it lasted a lot longer than a single plane ride. She kept saying “Don’t sell it” as her response to these kinds of thing. I get the feeling that this used to be sound advice for dealing with locker room pranks, but it mutated into this code-of-honor for excusing everything, up to and including wrestlers exposing themselves.

It occurred to me later that this might be why Curt Hennig became such a notorious prankster. The stories I’ve heard over the years suggest that lots of wrestlers would do terrible things to each other in the name of “ribbing”, and Curt Hennig took it to a whole other level. I’m wondering if maybe that was his defense mechanism for that sort of toxic culture. Maybe he decided there was no fighting it, so he made it his business to excel at it. I mean, who’d want to rib Curt Hennig? He’d just escalate it to an absurd degree. So it sounds like your only defenses are to “play dead” or “get them before they get you.”

But it’s kind of funny how everyone told Teri “don’t sell it”, but no one said it to Brock Lesnar that day. It just exposes the hypocrisy of the whole thing. If Brock exposes himself to Teri, she’s just supposed to live with it, but if Hennig messes with Brock, then Brock can just start a fight on an airplane.

I was at the grocery, and this four-year-old was just screaming “The Hokey Pokey”. I could literally hear him from halfway across the store. And yeah, “don’t sell it” is pretty good advice there, because it’s not that big a deal, and what are you going to do? It’s not worth getting upset about it. Tommy Dreamer seems to think that reasoning applies to Ric Flair strutting around nude in a charter plane. That’s pretty messed up.

There are people trotting out the defense that it was a “different time”. Okay, but they were calling it the “Plane Ride from Hell” during 2002. People got fired over it during 2002. Everyone knew it was fucked up, even then. There’s only a renewed sense of outrage because this Dark Side of the Ring episode is finally shedding some light on what really happened, and they’re not sugar coating it. I mean, yeah, people are probably more sensitive about this kind of thing than they were 19 years ago, but it was a scandal at the time. WWE did everything they could to cover it up, because they knew how bad it would be for their PR.

I’d even go so far to suggest that this might be why they didn’t fire more people after the plane landed. If they fired a lot of wrestlers all at once, it would attract more interest to the story, and there would be loads of ex-employees willing and able to tell their side of it. That seems to have been the general reaction from WWE’s management. Vince was upset about the whole incident, but only because of the embarrassment it would be for his company.

In particular, I find myself focusing on Jim Ross. I mean, it doesn’t sound like he did anything wrong on the PRFH, but his retelling of events sounds like he wants to have been an impartial, helpless observer, while at the same time he claims ownership of the whole fiasco. He’d explain his job description like he’s in charge of “the boys”, but then he’d also say things like “I can’t watch everyone every minute”. It sounds like he had a role in hiring the charter plane, but no one seemed to know how it had an open bar, or who approved the second and third cart of liquor after the first one ran out. JR claimed that he was the one who had to fire Hennig and Scott Hall, but he’s also quick to say that he only did it because Vince McMahon told him to. So there’s this sense that he’s just a middleman, executing orders from higher up. “I’m responsible, but if you don’t like how I handled things, it’s someone else’s fault.”

I just don’t get how all the wrestlers act like this was totally normal behavior for a bunch of drunk wrestlers stuck on a plane for 14 hours. Someone said that you had to wear sunglasses and a hat while you slept, so that you at least had a chance to wake up before someone tried to shave off your eyebrows. Ric Flair’s “helicopter” bit was so well known among the talent that they had a name for it. Ross said that if this had happened on a commercial plane, they would have had law enforcement waiting on them when they landed in the U.S. And yet, it sounds like there was zero plan in place for how to deal with the wrestlers if they got too rowdy.

I mean, it’s 19 years later, so maybe it’s obvious in hindsight, but it sounds like it would have been pretty obvious back then, too. So I can’t tell if Jim Ross was too naive to do his job, or he lacked the tools to do it properly. They asked Ross pointblank why Ric Flair wasn’t punished for cornering a flight attendant while he was naked, and Ross said he didn’t know. He suggested that Ric was a “made man” by that point, which doesn’t pass the smell test.

This isn’t an old vs. new issue. Ric Flair was 53 when the Plane Ride from Hell Happened. Brock was in his 20′s when he flashed Teri Runnels backstage. Dustin Rhodes was 32 during the Plane Ride from Hell. He’s 52 now, and he’s wrestling for AEW to this day. Darby Allin is a rapist and he’s working for AEW now, and he’s 28. Somehow, these guys get conferred an immunity from any consequences of their bad behavior. It might have something to do with star power or favoritism, but a lot of times it seems purely arbitrary. Tommy Dreamer was 30 during the Plane Ride From Hell, and he’s 50 now. He was never a “made man”, but he seems to find nothing inappropriate about Ric Flair’s behavior that day, then or now.

I don’t know what the solution to any of this is, but I do find it ironic how the episode opened with JR explaining that the charter plane was hired to be “talent friendly”. They were having a great year financially, and they were on a lucrative European tour, and morale was high, and I guess WWE wanted to do something nice for their wrestlers. But as the episode wore on, it became clear that WWE management seemed all-too-willing to bend over backwards for their talent. They let their guys bring syringes on board for crying out loud. Curt Hennig was drugging people’s drinks. No one was imposing any rules on the talent, and no one was in any position to enforce the rules. And when a few people actually did get fired, the guy who did it felt guilty about doing it.

Leniency and permissiveness can be just as dangerous as strict, draconian micromanagement. If you let your employees get away with anything, they’ll start getting away with everything, and the bad actors will start to make life miserable for the others. Without realizing it, WWE was basically punishing Teri Runnels for just existing on this plane. She can’t retaliate, and she can’t complain to management, so her only choice is “don’t sell it.”

I’ve always heard what a tyrant Vince McMahon can be, on and off screen, but really, I’ve come to notice how his greatest flaw is his indecision. Given two choices, he’ll refuse to make up his mind until the last possible moment. He books DQ finishes and no-contests rather than pick a winner. He hires a small army of writers to script his shows only to tear up their work right before they go on the air. He was on the Plane Ride From Hell. His wife was on board with him. It’s bizarre to me how we never hear what he was doing during the whole incident. But the answer is apparently “nothing”, and that probably explains a lot about why his employees felt so little pressure to behave themselves.

#wwe #plane ride from hell #afterword: i really think it's silly how they kept talking about michael hays' ponytail #like i get it #if i woke up and half my beard was gone i'd be upset #but everyone acts like that's the worst thing that happened on that flight and no #it's not even close #maybe vice only brought it up to make that point #or they just wanted to make sure everyone knew this was the same plane ride story #i kept waiting for them to talk about steve regal urinating on a flight attendant #but that was a different flight #when he was in wcw

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sarcastically-defensive17 · 4 years ago

Text

Forget me? Forget us. - B. Hargrove

Inspired by ‘Forget me too’ by MGK and Halsey. I love this song and it has been stuck in my head all day and I couldn’t think of anything but a toxic relationship with billy. This isn’t a happy story, but it is a sad reality of some relationships. Some people are so bad for each other yet their love is too intense. “I love you so much that I hate you” describes this perfectly.

Gif is not mine, nor are the lyrics used within the song or Billy Hargrove. Hope you enjoy!

Let me know if you want to join the Billy taglist, or my general tag list!

Original story by sarcastically-defensive17

TW: This story contains an intense description of a very toxic relationship. In no way do I condone this kind of relationship and I recommend seeking help if you are in a relationship like this and you fear for your safety or that of another.

Billy was dangerous. So was Y/N. She was cold, he was burning hot. They were powerful separate, a raging storm together.

They were made to love one another, but not made to be in love with one another. They were furious, passionate, loving, angry, fearful, high on possibility.

They were inseparable, but couldn’t bare to be with one another.

They were purely paradoxical, and they loved every heart aching second of it.

They had broken up once again, their love blowing up in a fury of broken objects and obscenities. One of their distant friends from high school decided to throw a party, despite her status as post-high school adults. Billy was in attendance, obviously.

Y/N had yet to show up. Her absence elated him, and disappointed him. He loved her. He loved her so much that he couldn’t stand to be around her, for he was too scared to lose it.

Their love was temporary, yet the temporary was permanent.

They were always going to fall apart. They were always going to become one again. They would fall apart soon after. It was a viscous cycle of heartbreak and hopeless love.

He waited for her, drink in hand, clad in tight jeans and a white tank top. His staple denim jacket was missing.

Another woman - Bethany, Billy thought her name was - stood awfully close to him, her bony hand resting on his arm as she spoke. He had no idea what she was saying, he had zoned out almost as soon as she approached him. He had little care to listen to her prattle on. His mind was waiting for one person.

Bethany kept chattering and Billy fought the urge to roll his eyes. He was showing zero interest, yet the woman would not shut up.

Well, she hadn’t, until a hand grabbed her hair and yanked her entire body backwards, until she fell flat on her behind.

Y/N stood behind her, Billy’s jacket draped over her shoulders and a look of pure fury in her eyes.

I saw you walk in the room and I tried my best Not to panic while I'm lookin' for the back door,

I smelled the perfume and it's obvious, i'm gonna stay and put my key in the bag more.

She wasn’t directing it towards Bethany, no. She was locked and loaded right on Billy.

Flight or fight kicked in, and Billy panicked, but only for a minute.

She looked divine. Wearing his jacket, marks on her neck from their last positive encounter on show for everybody to see.

She smelled like perfection, her chocolate scented perfume drawing him in, filling his senses with her.

She drove him crazy, made him more furious than he could comprehend. They would fight, they would love, they would fall apart.

Her hand connected with his face, yet he wasn’t angry. No. He connected his lips with hers, feeling her fingers slide through his hair. All eyes were on them, yet everybody had seen this scene before.

They were possessive, they were horrible to one another and others, but god help anybody who messed with their relationship. Only they could crumble the walls that they build.

She pulled back from him, smirking, watching as he bit his lip with temptation.

“Missed me baby?” She winked at him, allowing his body to pull hers along as he grabbed her hand and started leading her outside.

She may be the reason that his small apartment had a broken window and multiple holes in the wall, but he sure as hell didn’t hesitate to follow her to wherever she led.

The alcohol wore off by the time he woke, his head pounding and his vision spinning.

Her leg was stung over his own, both of them as bare as the day they were born. He rose carefully, moving her body from his as gently as he could.

However, in his efforts to make it out without waking her, he dropped his belt, and the clatter of the buckle on the hardwood floor caused her to snap awake.

It escalated quickly.

You want me to forget you? Okay, forget me too.

You tell me you hate me, baby, yeah, I bet you do

“You’re such a fucking asshole, Hargrove!” She shoved at his shoulder, trying to get past him so she could get to the bathroom. He was blocking her way.

“Oh, of course. I’m the asshole.” He snarled, a smile on his face. You’re the one who starts screaming at me, but I’m the one in the wrong!”

“You’re in the wrong because you ducking broke up with me, then tried to skip out before I woke up.” Her hands were in her hair, grasping at the roots. “You’re so fucking selfish. I’m waiting around constantly for you, but I make you wait one fucking time and you’re throwing a tantrum!”

“You left me waiting for an hour, Y/N! What, were you out with Tommy? What about Stevie? You always had a soft spot for him.” They were malicious. They knew how to hurt one another and they both knew it.

“God, you’re such a joke.” She laughed in his face, shoving her shoulder against his so she could grab her stuff from the bathroom. “Sometimes I wish I could forget I ever fucking met you, Billy.”

“You wouldn’t survive without me holding your hand, princess.” He snarled, perfect lips turning up to show perfect teeth.

They connected once again, pulling at one another, crashing into the wall, the door frame, the bed.

“I hate your fucking guts,” she growled, pulling his shirt over his head.

“I know you do, baby.” He flipped them over so his body was covering her own and connecting his lips to hers once again.

I've wasted so much time waitin' around for your phone calls every night

She would sit by the phone every night, waiting for his call. She would excuse some night, knowing if his terrible home life, but when he got his own place, he rarely called, rarely picked up the phone.

She spent so many days, so many nights, waiting up on him.

She got her own back at him.

He was taking her to see a new movie, planning to meet her at the arcade next to the theatre at 6 o’clock. He had to drop the bratty step-sister off, so he figured two birds.

He waited there until an hour later, the movie already beginning. He was seething. He hated being stood up, and she knew it.

Y/N arrived at the theatre 15 minutes later, but there was no Billy in sight, nor his sleek camaro.

She drove to his apartment, furious yet also proud. She gave him a taste of his own medicine, and she couldn’t wait to see how frustrated he was. She hated hurting him, but he hurt her just as bad.

We'd both be better off alone.

Still think I'd get you on the phone with one last breath in me.

I'd die before I let you leave

He had already downed five beers by the time she got there. It was rare for her to see him sober, and it was rare for him to see her while he was sober.

It escalated as soon as she walked in the door, slamming the heavy wood behind her.

“I was waiting for you and you didn’t bother to fucking show up!” He took a drag of his cigarette, blowing the smoke in her direction. She hated when he smoked, she despised the smell of nicotine on his breath but found the sight of him smoking to be incredibly attractive.

She fell for his bad boy side, and found home in his caring heart and troubled personality. It was a broken home but she couldn’t bare to leave.

The argument grew more and more, she threw a phone book at him, sending it through the window in his living room.

“I’m done. I’m sick of the bullshit, Y/N. We’re fucking better off alone!” He slammed his hand on the table, silencing her shouts of obscenities at him.

She laughed, slumping down onto the beat up couch. They had been saving money every paycheck to get him some new furniture. Y/N had also been putting money away to get her own apartment, despite Billy’s offer for her to live with him.

Such a volatile and temporary relationship couldn’t withstand constantly being in the presence of one another.

“We would die before we ever give up on one another, Billy.”

Tell me why you do the things that make me hate you,

It's an emotional kaleidoscope when I face you,

Permanent calligraphy, I just tattooed your name on me forever, fuck

Y/N and Billy love each other intensely, but they also know exactly how to make the other hate them.

It was a horrible cycle, yet nobody could make them happier than the person they hated the most.

Even if they wanted to forget one another, they could never forget the love they shared.

Tag List: @snookiebrookie (because you’re always so kind)

Let me know if you want to join the billy taglist!

#billy hargrove angst #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove #forget me too #mgk #Halsey #billy gif #angst angst angst #toxic relationships #stranger things

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tigerdrop · 4 years ago

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hey i just wanna say the long posts genuinely make my day. also can you talk more about gordon freeman character because the way you write him makes me quake in my gay little boots

i would love to talk about gordon freeman. thank u for the opportunity

the first thing i need to communicate about gordon is that this dude sucks. and i say this in the fondest way possible. he is a bitch from the moment he drops into the world until the moment he goes out. if you dont believe me, give it another watch! gordons mouthy and rude for no real reason, at least so far as “being a regular dude on his way into work” goes, and this dude goes around calling his coworkers names with zero provocation. (of course, we all know that the reason is because its a funny guy improv stream that borrows a bit from freemans mind, but im talkin from a character sense.)

but my argument isnt just that gordon freeman sucks. its that he sucks in a very specific way that i find insanely endearing. i love this dude. i love to hate him. hes awful in a very mundane sense - weve all known a guy like this, at least if youve spent too much time online - and its cathartic to watch him suffer because of it.

gordons a smart guy. as written, hes gotta be - hes a recent MIT grad, on his way to work at a top-secret research facility to do weird shit with crystals and theoretical physics. but the thing about smart guys is that theyre often......selectively intelligent. we can see this in the way that he has a hard time navigating his surroundings, and needs the science crew to guide him through it and keep him alive.

this is one of those things that is a natural consequence of somebody going through the game for the first time, but that i am interpreting as “gordon is kind of stupid sometimes”. its uncharitable but its not like he doesnt deserve it. he likes to boss around the crew as if he knows what hes doing, when he often very much does not, and is fond of demeaning their intelligence. hes real bad about this with tommy in particular, treating him like hes a kid whos playing at being a scientist when tommy is actually a decade older than him. all i am saying is that gordon ought to stay humble. hes awful cocky when he perceives himself as better than others.

which, i think, tracks with how cocky he gets when he gives up on the whole “well-meaning citizen” thing and just unloads bullets into people. he puts up a front of being a Nice Guy, you know, just some dude caught in a bad situation who doesnt like seeing his companions obliterate every NPC they come across, but that doesnt stop him from cackling like a fucking madman and mowing down aliens (and soldiers) every once in awhile. when he stops seeing himself as helpless and starts seeing himself as the one in control, the gloves come off. he gets mean. and i think thats very sexy of him

this, among other things, is why i am insistent that gordon freeman is a control freak. he desperately wants to be in control of the situation at all times, shepherding around the science crew primarily by bitching at them, but its of limited success. its futile. sisyphean. tommy, coomer, bubby, and benrey exist almost to torment him with exactly the thing that would make him suffer the most: a gaggle of people running around causing problems for him, but he cant go anywhere without them b/c hes reliant on them to make it out alive.

its perpetual suffering, and its cathartic to watch. and funny, too. and if youre a little weirdo like me, its very, very enjoyable. how twisted up he gets when nobodys listening to him! how sweaty and frazzled he must look. its cute, and it also makes me want to reach through the screen and shake him and tell him to just be a little nicer. he wants control but he doesnt know how to attain it, he doesnt know how to play nice like a real leader. i think its a neat contrast to gordon freeman as we know him in HL2, where he literally is the leader of the resistance and has to live up to it. this is gordon freeman but if he was moe through helplessness.

“helpless” is, i think, a great way to describe him. a core bit of imagery in half life is this sense of railroadedness and helplessness, with gordon freeman being put into play like a chess piece and having no choice but to move forward. and this iteration of gordon leans into that by being totally dependent on the science crew in order to make progress and Not Die. and hes also subject to the whims of benrey, local eldritch weirdo who has basically made it his life mission to fuck with gordon.

gordons anxieties dont help with that. if he wasnt so fun to stress out and fuck with, the science crew probably wouldnt do it so much! too bad for him that they like fucking with him so much that he was driven into a panic attack (multiple times, even, depending on your interpretation). hes got that real neurotic mindset. always worrying about shit that could go wrong, and attempting to exert control over his surroundings in an effort to control the anxiety.

IMO the real way to nail the Neurotic Gordon Freeman Experience is to combine the ever-present anxiety with his pervasive sense of self-loathing. he openly states that he has no friends and nobody seems to like him, and to that, i really gotta say, i wonder why. he doesnt really seem to factor in that hes kind of a bitch, and has way too high an estimation of his own intelligence relative to everybody elses. its really one of the worst ways to be: aware that people dont like you, but unaware of exactly why. if he was like, 10% nicer, he probably wouldnt have had half as many issues getting through black mesa, but also, its funny to see him squawking his way through the game. so, you know.

its stuff like that that makes me headcanon him as a dude with low self-esteem in general. convinced that hes not likable, not attractive, out of his element......impostor syndrome, except that theres some truth to it. this is a guy who truly does not realize how good he has it: he really is just an average shitty dude, and yet, somehow, benrey took a shine to him. some poor motherfucker out there actually likes him and wants to suck his dick. thats dedication

also, i keep bringing up “repression” when i talk about gordon. and hopefully, what ive been talking about helps explain why. he has a strong desire to be a regular dude, not just murdering his way through black mesa, but if hes pushed hard enough he leans into it. gets bossy. picks up a cigar off a dead soldier and takes a long drag, before smacking forzen around with a pistol and ordering him around. gordon freeman is a regular, kind of anxious guy who likes competitive swimming and streaming on justin.tv and making anime references, and he is also a guy who takes a filthy pleasure in making a trained soldier his bitch. and i didnt make up any of this shit - this is purestrain canon, baby. this is a guy with problems

to me, this screams the kind of guy who represses a lot of shit b/c he doesnt feel like its morally decent. you run into this guy a lot online: the wokeboy, the online leftist, the guy who spends too much time on social media websites. (like reddit. i think he would actively use reddit and he would never get any appreciable amount of karma but he never stops posting. its sisyphean! cathartic.) from the way he talks about “bootboys”, i think it tracks. he knows about imperialism, he knows about feminism, but at the end of the day hes your average american white dude who struggles with internalizing it.

a lot of those dudes struggle with sex and gender issues. (dont we all.) when youre trying to be a Good Person(tm), you spend a lot of time thinking about your own relationship to sex and kink and all that shit. and i maintain that a too-online dude who buries a lot of his control freak tendencies would also try to bury a lot of weird sexual shit in an attempt to seem Normal and Well-Adjusted and not like a little freak. i justify this by the sheer number of times gordon blurts out weird sex shit as a joke. there are only two outcomes to making that many piss jokes: either youre secretly a piss guy, or you lathe-of-heaven yourself into becoming one. i will stand by this

ive talked a lot about why this dude sucks. now, let me talk to you about what makes gordon so much fun to write. first things first: hes funny! a subjective evaluation, yeah, but both in- and out-of-character, hes aiming to be funny. and being the straight man to everybody else plays into that whole “helplessness” thing.

secondly: underneath it all, there is a good dude under there. gordon worries when his companions get hurt, he tries to clean them off and patch them up, and hes got his lil leftist heart in the right place. you could even read a lot of his bossy, bitchy demeanor as him wanting to make sure everyone gets out okay and doesnt hurt themselves. when it comes to animals and anti-imperialist sentiment, gordons a pretty good guy.

hes the kind of guy who would probably see a dog on the street and get excited and play with it, but would get really prickly about the correct way to put dishes in the dishwasher. control freak tendencies.

finally, subjecting such a miserable, tormented guy to even more psychological anguish is really, really fun. you feel a little bad for him, but he kind of deserves it. so many problems he goes through are purely of his own making, and if gordon would just relax and quit trying to hard to maintain control - of himself, of the people around him - and own up to having Problems and Issues, he would be a happier guy. but thats why its fun to bend him until he breaks. being a little control freak myself, putting gordon freeman thru psychosexual torment is cathartic.

when it comes to writing his thought processes, the fact that he is canonically some kind of psychotic (yes, i am boldly claiming this. suck me) and i am also canonically some kind of psychotic makes it easier to write what i think his thought processes are. i just give him my brain issues of “getting lost in thought” and “overthinking fucking everything”. a touch of paranoia helps. even if i dont explicitly label him as schizophrenic please know that i am writing him as a paranoid little nutcase at all times because, uh, you write what you know.

paranoid. anxious. of the mindset that everyones out to get him (which isnt helpful when everyone is out to get him). repressed and deeply Not Normal but trying so very fucking hard to be normal and well-adjusted. a control freak with sadistic tendencies who also really, really likes getting bullied by his best frenemy. a hapless little nerd who sounds really cute when his voice starts to break from nerves. and, most importantly, a dumb jock. do not ever forget this.

thats gordon freeman, babey. hope that helps

#asky #careposting

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avengemebuckyy · 4 years ago

Text

Be Careful

Summary:

You tell Bucky to be careful with your heart. Too late he realizes you should have been careful with his.

or:

You’re awkward,odd, and not the most conventionally attractive yet you’re the only woman that Bucky sees

Warnings: manipulation

Authors note: Back from the dead lmao. This is probably trash but I just needed to force myself to finish something it order to try to get back in the groove! Feedback is more than greatly appreciated, it’s what keeps me writing tbh...

PS. You ain’t shit in this lmao

---

You weren’t the most eye-catching. You didn’t look like the girls Bucky used to chase after in his younger years, or the girls on the internet he’d find himself staring at once he’d discovered Instagram, endlessly scrolling through picture after picture, lost in a sea of beautiful bodies and faces. You didn’t look like the tall slim blonde agent he’d always make a point to hold open the door for, or his neighbor’s daughter in Wakanda, who had had dark skin so smooth and a face so perfect he’d never managed to say more than two words to her.

You were slightly awkward, with a slightly odd sense of humor, always cracking jokes that sometimes no one laughed at but you. But you didn’t care, you would laugh at them all the same. You wore baggy clothes, and not the fashionable baggy kind either. Your favorite outfit was baggy camo print cargo pants and an old grey band t-shirt, logo so faded it was almost impossible to decipher.

At first Bucky didn’t pay you much attention. He wasn’t rude, but he treated you with the same gruff stoicism he treated everyone with. Well everyone besides Sam, Steve, and Natasha. Besides he only saw you rarely, you were a high level agent thanks to your skill, but you didn’t work closely with the team very often. Until you did.

One mission with Clint was all it took to have your name thrust forward when Fury was looking to fill a coordinator position. Suddenly you were everywhere. Coordinating their positions on missions, even going on missions with different members of the team. You fit in well with the team, your corny jokes and generally happy disposition make you easy to like. Your apartment was five minutes away, thanks to Tony, so you would often eat breakfast with the team and stay at the Tower well into the night, often crashing in a room designated for you, also thanks to Tony.

You were like a deceptively shallow river Bucky would think after. One minute he was wading through your shallows, next moment he was being taken under by your currents, realizing too late that he was in deeper than he thought possible.

It started slowly, you would make an effort to make conversation with Bucky, never seeming off put by his non answers. Bucky found himself coming to you with numerous questions on how to work social media, you would give such long winded explanations he wouldn’t have to embarrass himself with asking questions. Soon he found himself seeking you out for more than explanations. Funny thing is you were the one who introduced him to Instagram, to the beautiful women on the app but eventually he found himself unable to see any woman but you.

Bucky found himself sitting with you at lunch, looking out the window in the mornings waiting to catch sight of your army green jacket. He’d sit with you in the afternoons as you did your paperwork, steal glances at you ,your forehead always shiny by midday with an almost ever-present patch of acne, eyebrows scrunched together as you filled out mission reports. He loved those quiet moments the most. Bucky wasn’t good with words, not anymore. But he would help carry the 10 pound boxes of paperwork, always bring an extra pen in case yours ran out of ink, and constantly would bring you your favorite Starbucks order. He secretly hoped that you would read the affection behind his actions.

You didn’t usually go to Stark’s parties, you’d rather go to bars and clubs with your friends.

“The crowd at Stark’s parties just aren’t my crowd,” you’d explained with a shrug, toeing the floor with your scuffed sneakers. Bucky had nodded in understanding. They usually weren’t his crowd either, but he’d always go to support Steve, who was pretty much expected to show face.

But for some reason you show up to this party. Four months into your blossoming friendship (and Bucky’s crush). Bucky wasn’t prepared for what you were wearing. When he heard the agents whispering about your unexpected appearance at the party he half expected to see you in jeans and a t- shirt. Or even your cargo pants. At the sound of your name Bucky zeros into the muttered conversation.

“Did you see her?”

“Yeah, damn.”

“Was not expecting that. Or her to even show up. Who knew?”

“She’s kinda hot, not gonna lie. In a weird way”

Bucky turns his head scanning the crowd, heart rate already picking up, fully expecting to see your sweat-pant clad form. He sees you alright. But not in sweatpants. A red dress barely covers your figure. Hemline way above the halfway mark of your thighs and twin slits in the skirt reaching up to your hips. A draping halter neck ties at your neck and completely exposes your back and gives a generous view of your tits. He catches flashes of the curve of your ass as you walk.

In hindsight the dress was totally in line with your character. You didn’t dress the way you did because you were ashamed of your body but rather because you didn’t give a fuck. Your hair is pinned up, one perfect curl escaping your updo and kissing your neck. Bucky feels his heart stop. He spies numerous heads turning as you languidly weave through the crowd in dangerously thin stilettos. You cozy up to one of your agent friends and the two of you drink, giggle, and dance. Bucky can’t take his eyes off of you.

When you head to the balcony he follows.

“Hey,” you say when you spy his shadow darkening the entrance to the balcony.

“Hey,” he gruffs, in a tone he fears is too quiet. But looking at the curve of your exposed back suddenly has his voice dying in his throat. You turn back to looking at the city skyline. Bucky steps forward next to you. Close. Closer than he’s ever been to you, painfully aware of your arms brushing. He can’t fully feel your skin through the long sleeve button down he’s wearing but the touch sets him on fire all the same.

“Needed some air. “ He eventually grumbles. Trying not to stare at your profile. You look at him then, wearing a sly expression he had never seen on you.

“I’m sure you did,”

After that it doesn’t take long for Bucky to gather up the courage after that. Maybe it’s the way you had looked at him on the balcony or the way both male and female agents were sniffing around you at the party. All the same about a week later Bucky finds himself heading to your office in the afternoon as usual, but this time holding a bouquet of flowers.

Afterwards Bucky falls in love with you hard and fast. He finds himself doting on you, taking you out, bringing you flowers and other tokens of his affection. He hears the whispers, it’s almost impossible not to with his super soldier hearing.

“How’d she’d get him,”

“What an odd couple,”

“The Winter Soldier’s with cargo pants?”

But he still holds your hand in public all the same. Stops in the middle of training recruits to kiss you whenever you happen to cut across the gym all the same. Keeps a picture of you in his wallet all the same.

Bucky has never felt this amount of care and comfort from a person since...ever, even before, in his other life. You put his boots by the heater in the winter when he sleeps over so his feet won’t freeze when he walks to the compound. You listen to him, even when he’s angry, raging at nothing, or when he’s sad and sullen, taking minute long pauses in between sentences. Or even when he wants to do nothing but sit in silence and hold you. You especially listen when his words come fast, tinged with self hatred. You reassure him, holding him like he’s fine china. After many late night musings you give him with the best present he’s ever gotten, an impossibly soft kitten who’s uncharacteristically loud purr always grounds him. Bucky finds himself able to open up with you in a way he can’t with anyone else, even Steve. Bucky’s not good with words anymore, but with you he’s amazing. He can’t stop singing your praises, lavishing you with sweet words and adoration.

In hindsight it was a warning.

“Sweetheart, your wallet must be screamin’ for mercy, with you buying this cake nearly everyday,” Bucky says pinching off a piece of the lemon pound cake which is almost always at the corner of your desk. He recognizes the cake from a bakery across the street, and knows its nearly four dollars a slice. You stretch cracking your back, nipples poking through your shirt. Your ever present band shirt had breathed its last breath, and this new shirt is thinner and cropped, and hugs your body closer.

“Not really, I don’t buy it, Tommy hooks me up” you say, shooting him a smile and then returning back to your paperwork.

“Tommy?” Bucky says, and unbidden hot jealousy sears through his chest at the mention of your coworker “He’s always buying you these?”

“Yeah,” you answer, not looking up, and Bucky tells himself to remain calm, unbothered.

He doesn’t.

Later after the subsequent fight and make up Bucky holds you as the two of you sit on his bed.

“I’m sorry,” He says again.

“It’s alright,” you say and somehow your simple words draw the truth out of him.

“I’m just...I- I’m afraid of losing you.”

“I’m afraid of losing you too,” you confess, then pause “Bucky, please be careful with me,”

Your relationship was easy, comforting. The two of you almost never fought, and never grew tired of being with each other. One blissful year turned into two and then five. It was like a dream and Bucky never wanted to wake up.

But reality eventually did.

How closely you guarded your phone should have tipped him off. How you’d constantly declined calls while the two of you were together. The way you almost always got ‘too drunk’ on girls night and would end up crashing at your friend’s place.

The first time it’s sixth months into your relationship on a lazy Saturday. The two of you had ordered pizza and planned to cuddle on the couch and have a movie marathon. You were in the bathroom when your phone had vibrated. Knowing that you would get a notification when the pizza arrived Bucky had looked at your phone. Bucky had felt surprised to see the name Dominos instead of an unsaved number pop up on your screen. Your phone didn’t show the preview of the text like his did. Your phone was still unlocked since you had headed to the bathroom but a few seconds ago, so Bucky tapped to open the text.

Dominos: [Can’t wait to see you again, beautiful]

Bucky’s blood had run cold. He froze, only unfreezing when he realized you were standing next to him.

“We aren’t exclusive!” you had defended.

“What the hell do you mean?” Bucky had growled. At that your face had crumbled, eyes filling with tears.

“You never asked me to be your girl.” you had looked away “We never talked about what we are,”

“Whaddya think we’ve been doing these past months?!” Bucky had yelled back,

“ I don't know. I don’t assume Bucky. Because guys always seem to want to date me, treat me like their girlfriend and then turn around and throw it in my face that they never said I was.” your voice breaks and so does Bucky's anger. He hadn’t been very verbal with you so far. It’s true he never asked you to be his girl, or even verbally on a date. He just thought you both knew. Guilt fills him at the sight of your tear stained face.

“I’m sorry I was just preparing for the inevitable,” you say and turn away. Bucky grabs your arm and pulls you towards him.

“Well, let me make it clear. I want you to be my girl. I want you to be mine and mine alone.”

Your expression is unfathomable as you wind your arms around his neck.

“I am yours.”

That night you stand in front of Bucky and wordlessly slip out of your sweatpants and t shirt, rendering him speechless. With reverence Bucky’s hands trace your frame and his mouth follows. That night he worships you.

Later, you wrap your arms around him and whisper

“I love you,”

And Bucky knows that he’s done for.

“I love you too sweetheart.” he says, and later still when you’ve fallen asleep Bucky lies awake, stroking the soft contours of your back. He’s done for. And he knows it.

“I’ll be careful,” he whispers.

Reality had tried to wake Bucky gently. Through warning signs that should have been loud and clear especially to an ex assassin. But Bucky had accepted your half baked truths and excuses. He was too far gone off of the drug that was your love to heed the warning signs until reality slapped him- no choked him, awake.

His awakening came in the form of the sight of you on your kitchen counter, a man kneeling in between your spread thighs. The flowers he had bought you on his way back from his mission that had ended early drop to the floor. Bucky freezes. But at the sight of Tommy’s face, cheeks slick with you he loses it. Next thing he realizes that he has his hands around your coworkers throat. But your hand on his shoulder drains the fight out of him, and as Tommy scrambles out of the apartment Bucky crumples to the floor and sobs.

“Why?” He asks and he realizes he’s not just asking about now, but about all the times he’s caught you cheating but didn’t have the strength to leave you.

“Baby” you say and gather him into your arms. He wants to pull away, thrash, yell, but he doesn’t. He just melts into your touch. You make him weak. And at night when he thinks about your excuses and half truths he hates himself for it.

“Why do you keep doing this to me?” he says, sobs wracking his frame “Five years-did they mean nothing to you?”

“I’m sorry,” you say “I love you,”

At this Bucky pulls away, standing. “Don’t fucking lie to me.” he hisses.

“I’m not,” you say standing “I might lie all the time but I’m not lying about this.” your eyes go soft at the corners, and start to water.

“No. I love you. I adore you. I’d give you anything-everything and you treat me like shit” Bucky spits, there’s a pain in his chest, his heart is breaking “And I just fucking take it, because you make me so fucking weak- and I hate it” another sob ribs from his chest. A part of him thinks that this is his punishment. For all of the terrible things he’s done. Cursed to be in love with someone who will never truly love him back. He looks at you, your hair is in disarray, baggy t shirt, those fucking cargo pants around your ankles. He gives a bitter laugh “Who woulda thought that you would’ve been the one to make me weak.”

“Why? Because I’m not pretty?” hurt flashes across your face then your eyes go hard. Usually Bucky would have been quick to refute any self deprecating words, reassuring you how beautiful he found you, how gorgeous you were. But now he just lifts his chin and looks back at you with the same hard eyes.

“Well I know I’m not pretty.” you shrug, face going strangely expressionless “But you still fell for me all the same. More fool you.” you say, and after a moment continue. “We should break up.”

At this Bucky shatters. Because he knows deep down that even after all of this he still would have taken you back. He still wants to grovel at your feet and plead to try to fix your relationship. But instead he decides to finally choose himself and turns and walks out of the door and out of your life.

Year later he still finds himself looking at your picture in his wallet, the one remnant of you he has left, that he can’t bear to get rid of. On lonely nights where he can’t sleep and can’t stand the coldness of his bed he’ll trace the curve of your smile and wish that you had cared enough to have been careful with him.

Tags:@stephie-senpai@ayeputita@pixierox101@iamwarrenspeace@ dreamgirljere @ufffg@pietrotheavenger @trinityjadec@abbytagg@wastedsummerss@turdblossommm@jimmyisfab@sev7en@hottrashformarvel @superbuckytrash@waidewilson@abbytagg @awkwardfangirl2014 @desir-ae

Bucky only @chamongangae@callmebucky-doll

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky imagine #Bucky Barnes #marvel angst #marvel reader insert #marvel imagine #bucky x reader

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jackiesarch · 4 years ago

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Tagged by the lovely @amistrio to do this meme - it was long as hell but it was fun! Thank you!

Not tagging anyone because I know it’s done the rounds now, but if you see this and want to take a shot at this monster, please do!

Disagreements:

Who is more likely to raise their voice?

They both make a conscious effort not to yell when they’re angry, but when they do end up having a nasty, explosive argument, Tommy’s the one that gets loud.

Who threatens to leave but never actually does?

Neither of them. They don’t play with those kinds of threats just over disagreements. If they ever really wanted to leave one another, they’d talk about it endlessly.

Who actually keeps their word and leaves?

Same as above — they don’t make those threats or take those actions lightly.

Who trashes the house?

Neither of them. Tommy once punched the bathroom mirror after one of their more serious arguments, but Maura had left the house to clear her head, and the only thing he ended up with was a cut up hand and a lot of shame.

Do either of them get physical?

Never.

How often do they argue/disagree?

Not very often! They have the occasional disagreement or petty argument like any couple, but they’re not prone to fighting. Their relationship is very happy and very solid.

Who is the first to apologise?

Almost always, Tommy. Mostly because Tommy is more likely to get angry than Maura in the first place, but also because he hates how he feels after he’s said something mean or acted childishly. He hates feeling like he’s hurt the person he loves.

Sex:

Who is on top?

A good chunk of the time, it’s Maura. Tommy says it’s because he likes to watch her and that’s the best way to do it, but Maura secretly suspects he’s just a little lazy.

She doesn’t mind.

Who is on the bottom?

Evidently, mostly Tommy. They switch it up often enough, but it’s safe to say that Maura regularly has Tommy flat on his back.

Who has the strangest desires?

They’re both pretty normal, to be honest — if anything, Tommy might be a little more spicy in terms of desires. He’s the medium salsa, and Maura is the mild.

That doesn’t mean they won’t try anything new, though! As long as they talk about it first and don’t bring it into the bedroom with zero warning, they’re both up for spicing things up.

Any kinks?

Maura is really into being edged, whenever they actually have the time to draw things out that long. Tommy is more than happy to help her out.

Who’s dominant in bed?

Tommy, generally. Maura spends most of her professional life in a leadership role — she doesn’t need to bring it to bed, too. She likes letting him take control.

Is head ever in the equation?

It is! I wouldn’t say it’s an ‘every single time they have sex’ kind of thing, but it’s not rare by any means.

If so, who is better at performing it?

I’m not saying Maura is very gifted with her mouth, but—that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Ever had sex in public?

They never have — not fully publicly, at least. The thought of being caught is terrifying to Maura. Sex is their alone, intimate time. They don’t want to share it with anyone else.

Who moans the most?

Tommy is a surprisingly vocal guy, and that’s that on that.

Who leaves the most marks?

Tommy. He’s very cautious about it when they first start dating — he doesn’t want to hurt her, he doesn’t want to embarrass her — but honestly? Maura likes it. Something about waking up and seeing marks on her hips where his hands were the night before gets her.

Who’s the more experienced of the two?

Tommy. Maura hadn’t had many partners before the outbreak, and after? Well, putting it bluntly, she only ever had herself. Tommy is the first person she’s slept with in a very long time.

Do they ‘fuck’ or ‘make love’?

There’s a time and a place for both! It really depends on the circumstances.

Rough or soft?

Again, a time and a place for both — but more often than not, soft.

...still, a girl could stand to be a little manhandled every now and then.

How long do they usually last?

Honestly, this is another one where the circumstances are important. Sometimes when you’re desperate and tired of holding out, things don’t last as long as you’d like them to!

For the most part, they’re pretty average in that respect. They’re not superhuman, but it’s not over right away either.

Is protection used?

It is not easy to find suitable protection in a post-apocalyptic wasteland — so no. They make it work.

Does it ever get boring?

Not really! They change things up often enough that it doesn’t just become routine.

Where is the strangest place they’ve have sex?

God, if Maxine knew this, she would torment Maura about it until the end of time as payback for all the teasing about The Table Incident, but...

In the back room of the empty clinic after hours. One time!

Family:

Do they plan on having children/or have children?

Hoo boy. That’s a tough one — one of the very few things they have heated arguments over, actually.

Maura wants a baby. Tommy is adamantly opposed to it — not because he doesn’t want kids, but because Maura is forty-five and childbirth is dangerous and he saw what happened when Max had Emma. He will not lose Maura. It’s just not worth it to him, as much as he genuinely wishes that they could have kids.

He wishes that things were different. He really does. He loves her and it makes him physically ache to say no because he wants it — and that’s exactly what he tells her after their last big fight about it. It takes Maura a very long time to accept she’s not getting her white picket fence American dream, but she makes peace with it eventually. All the more reason for her to be the greatest aunt in all of Wyoming.

If so, how many children do they want/have?

Maura would have been happy with just the one. Tommy, despite saying no to having any, will admit to imagining a couple babies with Maura’s pretty green eyes running around Jackson.

No Outbreak AU is kind and gives them two little girls — Maggie and Zoe.

Affection:

Who likes to cuddle?

Both of them! They’re a very affectionate couple and like to be close, so they can always be found snuggling in one form or another when they’re in bed or on the couch.

Who gets naughty in the most inappropriate of places?

Tommy Miller has been found guilty of this on at least the first seven counts of the indictment against him. Seriously — he’s absolutely pulled the “getting up behind her and helping her with her stance” ruse when watching Maura practice her shooting, just so he can tease her. He’s incorrigible.

Who struggles to keep their hands to themselves?

Awful, awful Tommy. He’s tactile! He likes to touch! He can’t help it that he thinks his wife is the prettiest lady he’s ever seen!

How long can they cuddle until one becomes uncomfortable?

Depends! If they’re cuddling while they’re sleeping, could be all night, or at least until one of them wakes and rolls over or something. If they’re awake and on the couch, usually Maura makes it about an hour before some part of her goes numb and she has to get up or shift herself around.

Who gives the most kisses?

They are a pretty even split, to be honest. They like to give each other little smooches throughout the day. Lately, though, Tommy’s been shrugging off work to sneak down to the clinic for a kiss or two, so the rankings are in limbo.

What is their favourite non-sexual activity?

Cooking together! They don’t always get to do it, especially when Maura has to stay late at work to tend to the sick or the injured, but they both enjoy it. Dancing around each other in the kitchen, stealing bites of food and easy kisses—it’s their exact brand of casual intimacy.

Where is their favourite place to cuddle?

Bed is comfier and easier to navigate, but they’ll hole up on the couch, too. Basically anywhere at home where they can be alone and private.

How often do they get time to themselves?

Not as often as they’d like. They both have important work to do in Jackson and they don’t always get to be the nine-to-five kind of folks. They sometimes wish they could toss away their responsibilities and just spend a week together with no interruptions.

Sleeping:

Who snores?

Tommy. He does not believe this fact.

If both do, who snores the loudest?

Even if Maura did snore, she’s pretty sure Tommy could snore loud enough for the both of them. She’s worried he might attract clickers to town.

Do they share a bed or sleep separately?

Always share a bed. They’d rather sleep next to each other, even if it means both of them sleeping on the floor when there’s only a twin bed.

If they sleep together, do they cozy up together or lay far apart?

They tend to cozy up. They like to be close and it would feel strange to them to lay far enough apart that they aren’t at least touching a little.

What do they wear to bed? If they’re together?

If they’ve been up to some terrible, horrible, no good, very bad spicy acts, they both sleep naked. Otherwise, Tommy usually sleeps in sweats and Maura in one of his too-big shirts and her underwear.

Are either of them insomniacs?

They both have the odd night where they can’t sleep, but they’re by no means regular insomniacs. Usually it’s just a one-off thing, or a couple nights in a row max.

Can sleeping pills be found by the bedside?

Sleeping pills are hard to find in general — but you probably won’t ever find them on Maura and Tommy’s bedside table.

Do they wrap their limbs around each other or just lay side by side?

Maura likes to tangle her legs with Tommy’s and lay her head in the spot where his shoulder meets his torso. She’s not quite an octopus, but she likes to be curled around him, and he doesn’t mind.

Who wakes up with bed hair?

Both of them. Maura sleeps with her hair in a bun and always wakes up with it tangled and all over the place. Tommy just needs a haircut — he wakes up looking like every member of an 80s hair metal band rolled into one every single morning.

Who wakes up first?

Usually Maura. She likes to get to work early to get everything ready before people actually start showing up. Tommy’s up pretty early, too, but almost always wakes up to Maura halfway through her morning routine.

Who prepares breakfast in bed for the other?

Neither, because Maura hates crumbs in the sheets and she will not let either herself or Tommy eat in bed.

She doesn’t want tiny toast crumbs making her legs uncomfortable at night!

What’s their favourite sleeping position?

Maura’s a side sleeper — she prefers her right side but she’ll sleep on her left too! Tommy used to sleep only on his back, but once he and Maura started sharing a bed he got used to sleeping on his side, too, just so he could snuggle her better.

Do they set an alarm each night?

Never — their internal clocks are better alarms than any beat up bedside clock they could scrounge up.

Can a television be found in their bedroom?

A tiny one, but it’s not like there’s much on. Tommy managed to hook up an old DVD player and every time one of them is out they keep an eye open for movies to add to their little collection. It’s the perfect treatment for a collective bad day — losing their thoughts to some pre-outbreak piece of fluff while they lay together quietly.

Who has nightmares?

Tommy, more often than not. Maura has nightmares every now and then, but Tommy’s bad memories seem to plague him during the night more than hers do.

Who has ridiculous dreams?

Maura. She’s been a really vivid dreamer her whole life, and it’s only gotten more crazy with time. Everything tends to be a mishmash of her unconscious thoughts and elaborate colours.

Who sprawls out and takes up most of the bed?

Plot twist: it’s actually Lucky. Good luck finding space on your bed with a seventy pound golden retriever taking up all your leg room.

Who makes the bed?

Maura, typically. She likes when it’s neat and tidy, and it’s another thing to add to the routine she’s established to keep herself sane.

What time is bed time?

It really varies. As much as they try to be home from work/patrol/their various duties at a reasonable hour every night, there are times where Maura may not get home until late evening or times when Tommy might find his way up the porch well after midnight. If they can, they try to give themselves a deadline of midnight for being in bed and ready to sleep.

Any routines/rituals before bed?

The usual stuff – brushing teeth, getting into sleep clothes, maybe washing their faces if they have the energy. Almost always they lay with each other for a little bit and talk about their days or whatever else is on their mind. It’s a little break at the end of the day for them to decompress with each other before they try to get some shut-eye.

Who’s the grumpiest when they wake up?

Tommy. Maura’s always been a morning person and wake ups have never been hard for her. Tommy, on the other hand — just because he’s out of bed doesn’t mean he’s happy about it. He often takes an hour or two to warm up to the waking world.

Work:

Who is the busiest?

It varies. Maura has a lot of cuts and bruises and broken bones to patch up, but Tommy is in charge of more than he realizes at times, I think. A group of scavengers returning home with nasty injuries might keep Maura busy enough that she’s dead tired by the time she walks through the front door, but Tommy’s hands might be full for eight hours straight if there’s even a minor problem with the dam. It all depends on the day.

Who rakes in the highest income?

Economy is a construct and the only income they receive is payment in the form of the satisfaction they did a ~good job~.

Are any of them unemployed?

Both are very employed and very happy to both keep busy and be useful.

Who takes the most sick days?

No rest for the wicked. Maura doesn’t really have sick days — she only ever stays home when she physically can’t get into the clinic, and even then she complains about it. Tommy has more latitude in that respect, but he’s come to dislike being idle, so sick days are reserved for actual physical or mental sickness.

Who is more likely to turn up late to work?

Neither of them, really. Before the outbreak, it probably would have been Tommy, but the world is a very different place and he’s sort of fallen into Maura’s early morning routine. If either of them are late, it’s usually the fault of one of two culprits: 1) a crisis has emerged from the woodwork that must be dealt with immediately, or 2) their early morning shenanigans have gone on longer than they planned...

Who sucks up to their boss?

Jackson really doesn’t have that level of organization in terms of the workforce, if that makes sense? Everyone just kind of…mutually agrees to do the duties they’ve either been assigned or have decided to do. No one is really ever anyone’s boss.

What are their jobs?

Maura is Jackson’s de facto doctor. Before the outbreak, she was a paramedic, and those skills aren’t easy to come by. She takes care of everything medical (with lots of help, of course), from patching up cuts and scrapes to pulling babies out of people.

Tommy…doesn’t really have a title? @tommymillers is my resident canon expert and her take is that Tommy is a community leader of sorts – he takes care of overseeing the town. He’s the customer care specialist. He’s the Kelly Kapoor of Jackson.

Who stresses the most?

Maura worries a lot, but she does well under pressure. @tommymillers and I were discussion Mr. Miller yesterday, and I agree with her idea that Tommy probably doesn’t handle pressure or stress very well – so I think where Maura may worry every now and then but be calm and collected when the pressure at work ramps up, Tommy is chill until disaster strikes.

That didn’t really answer the question, but I think they both stress for different reasons and at different levels.

Do they enjoy or despise their careers/occupations?

Maura loves her job. She loved it before the outbreak, and while it’s slightly more stressful and lot more improvised afterwards, she still loves it. She just genuinely enjoys helping people and being useful and learning new things about the human body.

Tommy does like his job. It makes him feel like he’s doing something important and worthwhile with his life when historically he hasn’t always had that satisfaction. I think he probably has trouble actually settling down and making this his life, so to speak, but he does enjoy it. Even when it’s difficult.

Are they financially stable?

If money were a thing people still cared about, they’d be doing really well for themselves. Thankfully, it’s not, so they don’t really have to worry about making their next mortgage payment.

Home:

Who does the washing?

Maura washes, Tommy hangs everything to dry. They try to split the household chores as evenly as possible, just to be fair.

Who takes out the trash?

Tommy takes care of it, usually, if only because Maura has the garbage at the clinic to deal with.

Who does the ironing?

Who cares if your clothes have creases when there are real life zombies just outside the city limits?

Who does the cooking?

They are very good about sharing cooking, because they like to do it together. Maura never has more fun with a chore than she does when she’s cooking dinner with Tommy. They’re both decent cooks and they enjoy the time they get to spend together making something they get to eat together.

Who is more likely to burn the house down just trying?

Neither of them! They both know their way around a kitchen well enough to not kill anyone in the process of making dinner. Capable kids!

Who is messier?

Tommy’s not quite Maura’s level of clean freak. He often leaves things lying around and doesn’t really understand her need to make the bed every morning. He’s no slob, but sometimes his inner frat boy peeks through the curtains and tells him to leave his underwear in the kitchen.

Who leaves the toilet roll empty?

Is there toilet paper in the apocalypse? I’m sure there’d be an alternative. No Outbreak AU is not kind to Maura, in any event, because Tommy is the worst about refilling the roll. She almost always does it herself.

Who leaves their dirty clothes on the floor?

Mr. Underwear-In-The-Kitchen Miller. If it’s not boxers in the kitchen, it’s socks in the living room or shirts in the hallway. He just…disrobes and forgets. It’s kind of remarkable.

Who forgets to flush the toilet?

Sorry, Tommy. I’m ratting you out.

Who is the prankster around the house?

Tommy is, and he often pays dearly for it because a grumpy Maura is not a Maura to be trifled with. Just ask Max. It doesn’t happen often, but scaring her when she’s getting out of the shower is a good way to getting a one-way ticket to Sleeping On The Couch-Ville.

Who loses the car keys when it comes time to go somewhere?

Can’t lose what you don’t have!

In No Outbreak AU, it’s probably Maura’s fault. She’s neat and tidy, but she’s also a busy lady and sometimes things disappear on her!

Who mows the lawn?

Tommy’s your resident lawn mower. He doesn’t mind the exercise, and Maura doesn’t mind watching him work up a sweat.

Who answers the telephone?

Thankfully, there’s no phones to answer these days.

In No Outbreak AU, it’s Maura. Tommy gets into the habit of having full conversations with telemarketers. Maura’s afraid they’re going to call back looking to chat.

Who does the vacuuming?

Tommy is a very good vacuumer! He gets into it, dances a little, sings to himself. It’s a very good workout for him.

Who does the groceries?

No Outbreak AU Maura has to because Tommy will absolutely come home with cinnamon rolls and donuts and forego any kind of food with nutritional value. Thankfully, that’s not something she has to be worried about in canon.

Who takes the longest to shower?

Maura’s a shower hog in No Outbreak AU and she will absolutely suck the hot water dry just for the relaxation of it. There are shower time limits in canon, though, so she doesn’t have as much time as she normally would like.

Tommy lets her have an extra long shower the first time she comes to Jackson. I think he saw the inner shower demon in her the moment they locked eyes.

Who spends the most time in the bathroom?

As the above would suggest, AU Maura is awful for her bathroom hogging. In canon, it’s probably also Maura. She spends more time washing her face and brushing her hair in the mornings than Tommy does (although he does care very much about brushing out his ponytail).

Miscellaneous:

Is money a problem?

Not when it doesn’t exist!

How many cars do they own?

Do horses count as cars? Because they’ve got a few.

Do they own their home or do they rent?

Their home ownership is acknowledged by the highest law recognized in post-apocalyptic America: Finders Keepers.

Do they live in the city or in the country?

Jackson’s like…a town, right? It’s not New York, but the population is more than two. I’d say it’s closer to country than city.

Do they enjoy their surroundings?

Maura actually loves it. She grew up in Kansas and as much as she loved it there, she loves seeing what the rest of the country has to offer. It’s part of why she chose to do her schooling in Texas. Home is now a place that doesn’t resemble the place she grew up in, but it’s still pretty. Tommy doesn’t mind it either, but he wishes it was just a touch warmer. Especially in the winter.

What’s their song?

Song they’d dance to or sing to each other like the dorks they are? Breathless by William Prince. Song I listen to when I think about their hopeless asses? Blood Bank by Bon Iver.

What do they do when they’re away from each other?

Try to keep busy. Maura is the first to slip into longing and misery when Tommy’s away for an extended period of time. Tommy lasts a little longer, but he eventually misses her hard. They both find the best thing to do is to keep themselves busy, whether it’s work or hobbies or even just cleaning up around the house. Tommy often takes it a step further though: when he’s missing Maura, he tends to bolt and go for unnecessarily lengthy walks. Dangerous coping mechanism.

Where did they first meet?

A couple hours outside of Jackson in a place that Tommy and his crew thought was abandoned. She’d just escaped from the group of hunters that was keeping her captive and she was holed up in the house that Tommy and a couple others had just wandered into looking for supplies. It was a ‘guns drawn instantly’ type of situation for a second, before Tommy realized she was far too skinny and far to scared to be any kind of threat.

It took her a minute to explain what had happened and where she’d come from, but once she did? Once they found out she had medical training and was hungry and starving and entirely alone? It was pretty much a group consensus that she would be coming back to Jackson with them.

Who spends the most money when out shopping?

Not really applicable these days, but in No Outbreak AU, they’re probably pretty evenly matched. Maura is pretty frugal because she grew up without a lot, and Tommy hasn’t exactly been made of money as an adult. They both splurge from time to time, but they’re good about saving.

Who finds it amusing when the other trips over?

Maura’s more likely to snort, but she’s also the one that’s crouched down next to Tommy to see if he needs stitches for the nasty cut he’s probably managed to give himself.

Any mental issues?

Listen – they both have varying degrees of PTSD. I think most survivors have some level of it. Maura never struggled with anything other than maybe mild perfectionism pre-outbreak, and Tommy never had any mental health concerns before everything happened, but trauma has a way of burrowing into the deep and dark parts of your brain and smothering whatever good is left there. I think Maura and Tommy both suffer from their own personal brands of guilt, too – guilt about what happened to the people they loved and not being able to save them. They both struggle with keeping it at bay, but they have each other, and they each understand exactly how brutal it can be.

Who’s terrified of bugs?

Neither of them is really terrified of all bugs. Maura doesn’t like spiders, but she doesn’t have anything against butterflies or caterpillars or even centipedes and bees. Tommy doesn’t want bugs crawling all over him, but he’d rather take them outside and set them free than kill them. It’s safe to say they have a peaceful existence with bugs that aren’t spiders – but those eight legged bastards (Maura’s words, not mine) better be ready for war.

Who kills the spiders around the house?

Maura is terrified of spiders (and snakes), so Tommy is the resident spider killer.

“Sorry, little buddy,” Tommy says to the spider whenever his services are required. “Nothin’ personal, but my wife’s ordered a hit on you, and I can’t have her orderin’ a hit on me, now, can I?”

Their favourite place?

There’s this secluded corner in Jackson with a little clearing that’s perfect for campfires. Tommy took Maura there on their first real “date”. Snuck a half empty bottle of wine out there with some blankets and pillows and curled up next to her in front of a little campfire. They talked for hours about everything – stuff from before the outbreak, stuff from after, even day-to-day stuff.

Who pays the bills?

Ain’t no bills to pay, baby! The only kind of debt in this world is the kind you incur when someone does you a big favor!

Do they have any fears for their future?

Of course. Everyone did before the world collapsed, and they especially do afterwards. Maura and Tommy both carry the fear that one of them will get infected somehow, that one of them will die and the other will be left all alone. They’ve both lost people, and the thought of having to go through that kind of pain again is terrifying for them both to say the least.

Who’s more likely to surprise the other with a fancy dinner?

Maura may be the hopeless romantic, but Tommy’s the type to try to surprise her with something sweet. He’s a good man with a good heart and while he may not say it every single waking hour, he loves Maura more than he knows what to do with. She works so hard and endures so much and he’s the kind of guy who’d want to surprise her with candles and fancy food and a little romancing.

Who’s the tallest?

Tommy. Maura’s little compared to him. She’s the perfect size for resting her head comfortably on his shoulder – his little puzzle piece!

Who’s more likely to just randomly hop into the shower with the other?

Tommy, because he thinks he’s smooth and charming. Mostly he just gets water all over the bathroom floor, but Maura would be remiss if she said she didn’t like the way their skin slips together when he wraps his arms tight around her from behind.

Who wanders around in their underwear?

Maura! My number one culprit!

They’re both guilty of it, especially in No Outbreak AU, but Maura sleeps in her underwear in canon and Tommy in sweats, so she just barely beats him for the title. In No Outbreak AU, pants are honestly a rarity when they aren’t expecting company — and sometimes even if they are.

Who sings the loudest when singing along to the radio?

Tommy’s the local virtuoso, and he has an enthusiasm about him that is contagious — he’s the big mouth that starts the singalong, but most people can’t help but join in on the fun once he gets going.

What do they tease each other about?

Maura pokes fun at Tommy’s little ponytail constantly. It’s harmless – she thinks it’s cute, really – but she never misses a chance to tease him. He likes to joke about her being a beaver because every single one of her pen caps is full bite marks. She also can’t say ‘espresso’ properly. Never hears the end of that one.

Who is more likely to cringe at the other’s fashion sense at times?

They don’t have a lot of clothing to choose from, but...

Listen, Maura is very nice and very polite but sometimes even she cannot help but make a face at Tommy Miller and his Double Denim sense of style.

Do they have mutual friends?

They do! They both know pretty much everyone in town on at least a vaguely friendly level, so really almost all their friends are mutual friends.

Who crushed first?

Maura. I’ve mentioned it before, but Maura is an awful hopeless romantic, and she regularly says that she knew she would end up with Tommy pretty much from the moment she met him.

And honestly? Tommy wasn’t that far behind.

Any alcohol or substance related problems?

None.

Who is more likely to stumble home, drunk, at 3 am?

They both worry, so it’s very unlikely either of them would stay out that late drinking and then stumble home wasted, and honestly? If one of them is out having a good time, the other is usually right there with them.

In No Outbreak AU, probably Tommy — though I don’t get the impression he’d do it incredibly often.

Who swears the most?

Their swearing is typically situational, and really, the both of them swear just about as often as the average person. Maura tries her best to keep it PG while she’s working, but outside of that? She’s human — they both are — and they act like humans always have.

#tommy miller #maura foster #my ocs #my writing #this was so fucking long #holy shit #macy thank you for pushing me not to give up i love you #nsftumblr

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