#honestly i wonder if laura will even DO a romance this time around after two campaigns of her characters being reduced to: | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

burr-ell · 2 years ago

Note

Honestly, imodna would be a good ship if the shippers/stans weren’t so damn insufferable. I also hate how they act like they are already canon and you can’t ship Imogen or Laudna with anyone else in the group. People got so mad when the conversation in the dust storm happened with Ashton and Laudna because people thought they were flirting. Or when on the first episode of 4 sided dive Marisha asked Robbie if Dorian’s crush was on Imogen, people got so mad at that! I also hate that they call them lesbians when THEY HAVE BOTH EXPRESSED HAVING FEELINGS FOR BOYS! Why can’t they be bi? Or Pan? I also hate how people read into Laura’s micro expressions/ movements, like last episode with the whole leaning shit “oh what was that lean Laura?!! Imogen wanted to kiss Laudna because look at Laura’s lean!” I dread the day that Imogen or Laudna fall in love with someone that’s not each other(especially if that person is a man.) because Marisha and Laura will harassed and hated because they didn’t give the people what they wanted.

oof. that's some frustration you really needed to vent, nonnie, and honestly i get it. full disclosure—my mutuals who are into imo/dna are all lovely, and none of them engage in this behavior. if imo/dna becomes canon, i'll be happy for (and potentially even happy with) fans like that. but enough shippers are doing things like this that it's becoming more and more of a source of frustration and friction as the campaign goes on.

i think a lot of fandom—in general, not just cr—still doesn't want to acknowledge that at the end of the day, they are looking at things like shippers, with a particular kind of confirmation bias. it doesn't make them necessarily wrong or right, but as easy as it can be to get swept up in it, i think it's important to take a step back every once in awhile and re-evaluate.

now admittedly, generally speaking, it takes a lot for me to get really invested in a ship; i usually only have one or two per fandom, even fandoms with tons of characters. i'm generally pretty passive about most ships if it's not the otp; like, vax/leth and pike/lan, for example, didn't need to be romantic endgame for me to enjoy CR1 (and honestly might have been more interesting to me if they hadn't), but perc/ahlia absolutely made the show for me and i honestly think them being together actively strengthens the narrative as a whole.

i say all that to say that for the most part, i very much consider myself to be along for the ride with respect to most relationships in most fandoms. if such-and-such pairing happens, great; if they don't, okay. and with CR in particular, it's such a long-form medium that i know going in that any romance is going to take a while, and most of them probably won't just reach out and grab me.

and as such, it absolutely baffles me to have seen shippers insisting, from the moment the characters first appeared in episode 1, that not only are imogen and laudna canon endgame, they're basically already together and just haven't admitted it yet. i feel this way about dor/ym and callow/moore as well—i saw a post making the rounds that claimed that all three of those ships are "not canon YET but let's be real" and like...why would you set yourself up for disappointment like that? because yeah! all three of those ships could be endgame! but they could also not be endgame. we're less than 40 episodes into a campaign that'll probably run well into the 100s.

i also fully agree with you re: the microexpressions and the cherrypicking, and i feel like a microcosm of this issue can be found in a conversation imogen has with orym early on—shippers latched onto the fact that imogen compares laudna's thoughts to music, something that finally brought her peace after the chaos of the world around her, and completely ignored the part immediately after where imogen says that the rest of the party also feels like that to her. i didn't even know that imogen said that about the whole party until i watched the episode, and to me it's an example of how shippers tend to warp canon interactions to suit a particular narrative in such a way that they become almost entirely divorced from their context.

and from the outside looking in, what confuses me about this sort of thing is like...didn't y'all already go through this? because if my understanding is correct, c2 ship discourse was full to the brim with beau/jes and wido/jest fans dissecting "laura's microexpressions" to prove that jester was for sure in love with our fave, really you guys we swear...and then not only was that not true, but jester also didn't even know about beau or caleb's feelings to acknowledge them at all, and from the actual words that came out of laura's mouth in various OOC moments like on TM, laura just...really really wanted to romance her husband's character in her dnd game and like, that's it. there was never going to be another romantic option for jester as long as fjord was on the table, and that was something that shippers always should have been taking into account.

laudna and imogen are canonically deeply important to each other. they love and appreciate each other very much. that love and appreciation could turn into a lovely romance with a great dynamic, and i certainly don't blame people for being invested in it. but it also could not be romantic endgame, and they remain friends or even get with other people. and as you said, fandom can and will turn nasty about their ships being sunk; we've already seen it happen. there's a certain smug, entitled undercurrent from that particular corner that i have very little patience with, and while i think there's something to be said for deciding to enjoy things in spite of the fandom and just be a cranky old curmudgeon shooing the wank out with a broom, i also understand the response of just "...aight, imma head out".

#the 'laura's microexpressions' thing is also why i really don't care for glasses!imogen #it's obviously not a bad thing in a vacuum but there's a tendency toward overriding specifically laura's choices and saying 'i know better'#such that even something as innocuous as glasses can be representative of a larger more frustrating problem #honestly i wonder if laura will even DO a romance this time around after two campaigns of her characters being reduced to:#a) the men in her life and then b) who she'll end up with #bc imogen has some strong vibes of like. arent u tired of being nice? don't u just wanna lose it?#like imogen reminds me very strongly of vex but specifically of the ways in which vex couldn't be unpleasant or unappealing #(mostly because vex puts up fronts to mask her flaws specifically from the party)#(while imogen is more trying to hide her actual powers and what they can do)#and i think some of that naturally comes from being a woman in geek culture on the internet as well as a woman in voice acting #but i feel like it might also come from her characters being constantly put under a microscope #and constantly told what they should and shouldn't do #and the second they make choices that make another better-liked character upset they're terrible people #like she's obviously a grown adult 40 year old woman but the constant scrutiny of your dnd choices has gotta wear on you a little bit #and yeah i didn't touch on this in the ask but. it has been 0 days since fandom did a bi-erasure #(the thing about having only 1 or 2 ships per fandom reminded me that out of all the dc comics ships i literally only care about dickkory)#(clois also has rights on account of dc can snort my taint and let two adults be happily married)#(i've had convos with friends who ship bbrae who are like 'but why would dickkory shippers dislike bbrae? they dont threaten you')#(idk man some of em just don't dig the vibe!)#cr discourse #cr wank #critical role #asks

34 notes · View notes

milkyway-writes · 4 years ago

Text

i’m not ready for that s.r.

pairing: Steve Rogers x black!Reader (anyone could read though)

summary: Even though Steve has been living in modern times for a couple of years now, he still finds himself not used to the present, especially when it comes to women. But when he meets you, an outspoken girl who completely embodies the kind of woman “he’s not ready for,” Steve is forced to reevaluate what he wants.

warnings: 18+, explicit language, dry humping, unprotected sex, sex in a hotel room, a small age gap (but not mentioned much), probably some typos and/or bad grammar, disregard for card games and 60′s music

word count: 2,828

author’s note: This is my first time writing a fic! So, tell me what you think and if you’d like more stuff from me.

After waking up in a world filled with people dressed in unfamiliar clothing, using confusing language, and carrying around these tiny devices they called “phones,” Steve experienced the expected amount of disassociation. He said things which earned him weird looks, struggled to understand modern references, and sometimes secretly wished he could just go back to his own time.

But if anything, Steve Rogers was determined.

He kept a notepad to track the new things he learned and reviewed them in his spare time. He made an effort to listen to the radio and watch popular TV shows. Steve even managed to tailor his wardrobe to a certain degree. Except for the khakis. The khakis were essential.

Despite his acclimation and newfound understanding of the 21st century, Steve still struggled with women. And in all honesty, he doesn’t even feel that open to dating. He’s completely content with simply working and living his life, romance not much of a priority of his.

But Natasha keeps pushing it.

“What about that girl from accounting?” she says, “Laura, Lisa…”

"Lillian,” Steve answers, “lip piercing, right?"

"Yeah, she's cute."

"Yeah, I'm not ready for that.”

•••••

So, when you show up with a total disregard for authority, a smile that could fool the devil, and a snarky attitude all complete with a cute little nose piercing, Steve doesn’t quite know what to do with you.

Your words are much bolder than any woman he knew from the 40’s. You behave with a certain level of confidence and self-assuredness that it’s impossible to believe that you’re only in your twenties. And you don’t shy away from showing men up, never one to hold your tongue. Steve notices that you don’t mind interrupting people. You seem to get a glint in your eye each time he clenches his jaw after you’ve cut him off.

Everything about you is overwhelming to Steve.

Any time he tries to correct you, you scoff, blowing air through your plump lips. Always rolling those brown eyes in annoyance. (It makes Steve want to scream.)

Nothing is ever easy with you. There is always a rebuttal, or some type of teasing remark, or simply a look that tells him “you can’t tell me what to do.” It enrages him. Steve doesn’t think he has ever met a person who could find a way to fight him on every single thing.

Now, as he looks at you standing with your hands on your hips, freshly-manicured nails on display, Steve wonders how he’ll ever manage to get through to you.

•••••

You hadn’t known much about Captain America before you’d agreed to work with him and Natasha when S.H.I.E.L.D. started falling apart.

You had been working for the agency for a while now, assisting in the capture of criminal individuals as a sort of immunity for your own crimes. Your skills were too valuable to waste, and honestly, they knew you’d escape any prison they put you in anyway. Despite this, you weren’t the most reliable.

You often took risks, and your youth raised a sort of concern amongst other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. No one trusted a girl whose main motivation to be an agent was to avoid prison. And because of this, Nick Fury did not bring you on for the Avengers Initiative right away. You needed time to grow, time to figure out your priorities.

For two years, you focused on your development, learning how to control your abilities and use them most effectively, and in the meantime, you only took on small missions. You were happy with this, so happy that when Fury began reaching out to you with the intent to bring you back on for more advanced missions, you promptly avoided them.

One quiet afternoon, you were feeling the soil of your succulent, trying to figure out if the plant needed watering when you got the call that Nick Fury was pronounced dead.

Immediately, your stomach dropped.

Your mind was racing as you rushed to the hospital, hoping that this was all some sick joke. A test. Something Fury had comprised to teach you a lesson.

Natasha noticed as you stood frozen at the door of the hospital room. Your heart ached seeing him lie there lifeless.

While you pretended that you didn’t care about him, Fury had always been important to you. He had given you a second chance when you didn’t even think you deserved it. He saw potential in you when others saw you as a delinquent. This grief, coupled with the knowledge that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been compromised, led you to agree to work with Natasha and her new friend, Steve Rogers.

•••••

Since the beginning, your presence had been an immediate concern to Steve. Along with your untamed attitude, he didn’t like the way you would make hasty decisions that left him wondering if you were still alive. He had to bite his tongue at your stubbornness. And each roll of your eyes pushed Steve further and further to the edge. After a while, he had had enough and pulled you to the side to express his disapproval.

You stare at him expectantly with your hands still on your hips, waiting to hear why he’s singled you out.

He lets out a breath, “these antics of yours have got to stop.”

You instantly laugh. Because he has to be kidding.

It takes everything in him to remain calm when you flash him a smile and saunter away, throwing a “oh loosen up, Captain,” over your shoulder.

He has to stop himself from watching your hips sway. He catches your wrist. “No. Not ‘loosen up.’ You need to be more responsible.”

“Well you need to understand that I’m not a soldier,” you yank your arm back. “I’ll follow your plan,” you offer, “but sometimes things don’t go as planned and we have to make adjustments,” you say, speaking slowly as if Steve’s a child.

He steps closer, now towering over your small frame. “Your ‘adjustments’ almost always result in dangerous situations.”

“Really?” You cock your head to the side, “Is that right?”

He narrows his eyes at you.

“So, this is coming from the man who jumped out of an elevator?” Your perfectly arched eyebrow raises tauntingly. “Right?”

You chuckle as he rolls his eyes. You don’t miss the hint of a smile in them.

•••••

You do eventually try to be more of a team player, sticking to the plan when you can. You figured you’d be working with them more often, so it was in your best interest to make yourself easy to work with. Your efforts don’t go unnoticed.

Steve is grateful that you don’t pull any surprises when the Winter Soldier makes his attack. The revelation that it was his best friend already enough to throw him off.

Surprisingly, when Steve decides to go after Bucky, you offer to join him and Sam. Your excuse being that you don’t trust two men to get the job done.

Honestly, you just didn’t want to go back to your life before. Working with Steve was exciting. He was exciting. The way he’d catch your eyes after you’d say something snarky made your stomach flip because there was a hint of a threat in them.

You enjoyed the way he wasn’t afraid to touch you. He liked to grab your arm and pull you to him when you didn’t listen. He’d once backed you up against a wall when he thought you weren’t telling him the full story pertaining to the mission. And while he was angry, you couldn’t help wondering what it’d be like to have him take you right then and there.

You had come to terms with the fact that you wanted Steve Rogers. You just didn’t know if he’d want someone like you. You were aware that he probably hadn’t encountered many women like you in his past life.

•••••

While your eye rolls and sassy comments do remain, Steve finds himself enjoying your presence despite himself. The struggle between the two of you slowly morphing into playful teasing, teetering the line between that and sexual tension.

“How’d you end up here anyway?” Steve asks as he lays down an ace of spades.

You grimace and tuck your king of hearts back into your hand in embarrassment. “We’re on a mission, silly.” You giggle, the diamond in your nose catching the light.

“Mhm very funny,” he says. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

You don’t say anything. The only sound coming from your breathing and the Solomon Burke song that’s playing through your phone speaker.

You hum along as you pretend to search your hand for a card to play.

Steve nudges your knee. You’re not sure if it’s because you haven’t answered him or because you still haven’t put down a card.

“You mean how’d I end up doing this? Working for S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

He nods.

“It’s a long story,” you manage to let out.

“We’ve got time.”

You sigh and place your cards down on the mattress knowing you were gonna lose anyway.

“A while back, I lost someone…someone very important to me,” you say, “and all I wanted was to hurt the people who took them from me.” You glance up to meet Steve’s eyes, “one thing led to another, and I sort of lost myself. I hurt people in ways I never intended to, caused the kind of pain that,” you search for the words, “that I had always been so afraid to feel.”

“I was so blinded by rage,” you shake your head, “I just completely forgot my morals.”

You feel the bed shift, and Steve reaches out for your hand.

“Long story short, Fury offered me a job. Said I could use my skills for good. And next thing you know I’m going on these crazy missions and catching ‘bad guys,’” you say using finger quotes.

You sigh, “you must think the absolute worst of me now, huh?”

Steve chuckles, “no, not at all.” He pauses and his eyebrows crease. “It actually makes me respect you more.”

You let out a laugh, “well then, sir, you are most definitely twisted.”

He shrugs, “maybe I am.”

You notice that he never let go of your hand, and for a second you swear you feel a flutter in your abdomen. Lightly, you slide your fingers up his arm, tracing the veins. He doesn’t move or protest. Instead, he brings his other hand to rest on your knee. You look up at him as his hand moves from your knee up your thigh, gripping you firmly where your shorts end.

Steve looks at you for approval, and when you nod, he pulls you in by your hips and leans in, letting his lips ghost over yours.

You haven’t felt like this in awhile, and it takes a lot of strength to hold back a whine. Steve continues to tease you, only letting his lips lightly touch yours while rubbing circles into your hips under your shirt. Impatiently, you link your hands together behind his head, and when you grasp the hair at the nape of his neck, Steve finally leans in, letting his lips press against yours.

Almost instantly, you climb onto his lap, straddling him. The playing cards from earlier are hastily pushed aside as Steve scoots back, bringing you with him.

His hands find your hips again as he sucks on your bottom lip. You softly grind into him, causing Steve to groan into your mouth. He works to control himself. He hadn’t expected it to feel this way with you. So desperate, so needing.

You can feel his hardness through the material of his sweatpants, making your arousal even more apparent.

Steve leans down to kiss your neck. The feeling of his tongue makes you buck your hips, searching for some type of friction. His hand travels up your side and comes to cup one of your breasts. He runs his thumb over your nipple, feeling it harden.

This must give him an idea as he moves to pull your shirt over your head. He grabs you again and takes your nipple in his mouth. You moan, continuing to grind onto him as his hands cup your ass. At this point, you’re sure that your arousal is leaking through your shorts.

Steve feels completely lost in you, your body setting him on fire and awaking something within him he doesn’t think he’s ever felt before.

He continues his assault on your breasts as you fight to control your arousal. You feel his cock twitch under you. “Please, Steve,” you say breathlessly.

“Please what?” He mumbles around your breasts.

“I need you.”

Those seem to be the words he needed as Steve promptly flips you over, roughly yanking your shorts down. He tosses his shirt off as you grab onto the waistband of his pants, urging him to take them off. He pushes you back on the bed, leaning over you. You feel his knee press into your cunt and let out a moan.

Steve grabs your face, kissing you sloppily, and trails his hand down your body. You nearly grind onto his hand as he places his thumb over your clit and rubs slow circles over it.

“You like that, honey?” He teases as he rubs you over your panties.

You nod, biting your lip.

He grabs your chin, “I said do you like it? Answer me.”

You cry out, “yes, Steve yes,” You whimper, “please I need more.”

He scoffs, “who would’ve thought to get you to act right, I’d just have to play with this pretty pussy?”

You let out a pitiful whine.

“Now you wanna be a good girl huh?”

You’re afraid you’re going to cum just from his words when he stops and drags your panties down so slowly that you want to scream. The smug look on Steve’s face makes your face burn. He’s enjoying this too much.

Once they’re off, Steve settles between your thighs, making you look him in the eyes before reaching his hand down and dragging the head of his cock from your folds to your clit. You moan as he gently taps it against your clit a few times and makes a comment about how wet you are. There’s a hint of a smirk on his face as he lines himself up at your entrance. Steve groans as he eases into you. You wrap your legs around his waist, encouraging him to go deeper.

He bottoms out, and you both moan. Steve begins to thrust, and you’re already so worked up that you know you won’t last long. He brings his hand down to rub your clit causing you to cry out.

His thrusts become more forceful. Your eyes close tightly, your sharp nails digging into his shoulders. He leans his forehead against yours, “I know you want it, sweetheart. I know you wanna cum.”

His words shock you but send a wave of pleasure straight to your core.

“Come on, honey, cum for me.” Steve says as he thrusts into you. Your walls spasm around his cock, causing him to groan into your neck. He never lets up on his thrusts though, continuing to slam into you as your first orgasm ripples through your body.

“You feel so good around my cock, baby,” he brings a hand up to lightly wrap around your neck.

You groan in response feeling your abdomen tighten once again.

You can tell Steve is close now, his thrusts becoming frantic and rushed. You clutch onto him as the sounds of slapping skin fill the room. Your name falling off of his lips repeatedly in your ear.

“Cum inside me, Steve,” you plead, “I wanna feel you.” He groans at your words, and you feel his hand tighten around your throat. You look at him, and his eyes are dark with lust, you feel yourself clench around his length. The look he’s giving you fills you with a primal need. You plead one more time, pushing Steve over the edge. His thrusts begin to slow, the feeling of him filling you up is enough to bring about another orgasm.

You find it difficult to keep your eyes open. Sleep begins to take you, and you drift off with Steve guiding you to lay your head on his chest.

With one hand caressing the side of your head, Steve stares up at the ceiling of the hotel room, Nina Simone’s voice floating out of your phone.

“It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for me,”

“And I’m feeling good.”

•••••

Initially, seeing a girl like you would have made Steve doubt himself.

But now, he knows he’s ready for you as he sits next to you holding your hand as you prepare to get your first tattoo.

#steve rogers x reader #steve rogers smut #steve rogers x reader angst #steve rogers x black!reader #black reader #steve rogers #captain america #marvel #marvel x reader #captain america x reader #enhanced!reader #steve rogers x enhanced!reader #captain america smut #chris evans

322 notes · View notes

flourgirl · 4 years ago

Text

Heart Skips a Beat

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Summary: You work at a coffee shop on campus and develop a crush on the cute astrophysics major who studies there everyday.

Word Count: 2.2k

Warnings: Pure fluff. One curse word.

A/N: There WILL be a sequel to Even If It’s a Lie! Until then, here’s a little something to hold you guys over :-)

“I saw you on a Sunday in a café And all you did was look my way And my heart started to race And my hands started to shake” -Nervous, Shawn Mendes

3 p.m. had quickly become your favorite time of the day. Sure, you had already been working for half of your shift by then, but it was worth it. Because despite how tired you were from a full day of lectures, like clockwork, the cutest guy you had ever seen walked into the café to order a caramel latte and do his homework.

You were a hopeless romantic. A homeschooled bookworm whose only experiences with romance were through the many YA novels you had read growing up. College was honestly your first experience with independence and having a social life outside of your mom, your cat, and your elderly neighbors, Brenda and Pat.

The first day he had come was at the beginning of the semester. You had just started working there to help cut the costs of tuition that your scholarships couldn’t cover. Even though you barely knew how to use the machines at that point, and it took you almost 20 minutes and one phone call to your shift manager to give him his order, he was still really nice to you about it.

By the end of the first week that he started hanging out here, you had memorized his order. For a stranger, there was a lot to like about him. He was super sweet and always dropped his spare change in the tip jar, a rare occurrence amongst struggling college students. He always greeted you by your name, which he only knew because of the tag on your uniform, but you didn’t care. You liked hearing him say it either way.

The more you learned about him, the bigger your crush grew. His name was Peter. Peter Parker, which matched him perfectly. He was an astrophysics major, and he was always busy. So what was he doing hanging out in the café where you worked? Sure, homework, but you had always preferred to go somewhere more quiet, like the library. Not some noisy little coffee shop in the middle of campus where everybody hung out after class.

In between making coffee orders for other customers, you would oftentimes steal glances at him. You thought about how soft his messy brown hair would feel between your fingers, or what it would be like to smell his fabric softener from closer than the width of the countertop that always separated the two of you.

But it was just a silly crush. When you thought about it, the two of you were virtually strangers. He had an entire life outside of the walls of the coffee shop, and he probably didn’t think about you other than when you were taking his order every day. Still, just when you thought about how weird it was to think about somebody you barely knew this much, Peter found ways to make you like him even more than you already did.

Every now and then, Peter wouldn’t show up, and you worried that maybe he had found another place to get coffee or came at another time because he didn’t want to see you anymore. You knew you were overthinking. There was no way that Peter was planning his entire schedule around you. You were just the coffee girl to him and nothing more.

Little did you know that on your days off, Peter was disappointed to find that someone else would be making his coffee that day. Sure, he started coming here to study because it was conveniently located across the street from the laboratory that he interned at, but it was more than that. He came to see you. To see your smile and the way your eyes lit up whenever he walked in. The way you still managed to look cute in the unflattering café uniform and how you didn’t even have to ask what his order was.

He had the biggest crush on you. The five minutes that he spent talking to you each day made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and he took comfort in the fact that maybe, just maybe, you felt the same way about him. But he didn't know what to say to you past small talk. He told Ned and MJ that he had been planning to ask you out for a while now, but every time he walked up to the register, he chickened out. You made him too nervous, and he knew that if he tried too hard, he’d start rambling about string theory or something and scare you away.

Peter thought about what kind of person you were outside of these four walls. Were you dating anybody? What was your favorite subject? Did you like pineapple on your pizza? He wondered if you even noticed that he was gone every time his “internship” at Stark Industries dragged him away for days at a time. Probably not. He thought about what it would be like to walk you to wherever you went after your shift ended, to make sure you got there safely, but he always had to rush off to somewhere else before you had finished working.

You had started experimenting with leaving little designs on top of his coffee instead of just haphazardly pouring the milk in. At first, they were just sad little blobs, but then you graduated to vaguely leaf-like blobs, and you could now make something that was shaped like a turnip on top of his lattes. You had been working up the courage to leave little hearts, but every time you did, you swirled them away and served it to him without any design at all.

Your friends would lovingly describe you as a klutz. You were constantly tripping over nothing or knocking things over. There was even that one time you almost broke your leg trying to climb one of the supermarket shelves to reach your favorite brand of maple syrup. But out of all of your clumsy mishaps, none of them lived up to what had just happened.

You had sworn you had looked both ways before crossing the street. But when the barrage of car horns and tires screeching interrupted your favorite song, you saw your life flash before your eyes. That was, until, you were flying through the air. Looking at your savior, you were both starstruck and shocked to see Spiderman holding you tightly as he swung from building to building.

It felt like forever before your feet touched the ground and he let go of your waist, but when he did, you were a little disappointed. How did he even know to drop you off at this specific coffee shop? It was insane, but you felt like you knew him. You just couldn’t place why or how before he saluted you and swung away without a word. “Thank you!” you screamed into the sky, knowing he definitely couldn’t hear you over the hustle and bustle of the city.

Peter’s heart was about to burst out of his chest. That was way too close of a call. What if you found out that it was him? What would you think? But he knew that if he hadn’t saved you, he would never forgive himself. Sure, you might get free tuition like that rumor people always talked about in middle school, but you’d also have a ton of hospital bills to pay because Spiderman was a selfish idiot and let you get hit by a taxi.

Your head was still spinning from what had just happened. You quickly changed into your uniform and started your shift, giddy with excitement to tell Peter who you had met today. As 3 p.m. came and went and there were no signs of Peter, you started to accept that the only person you’d get to tell about today was your mom. Go figure, you thought. You finally had something interesting to say to him and he doesn’t show up.

Eventually, after many disappointing coffee orders later, it was time for you to go home and curl up to a cup of tea and watch the latest episode of the Great British Bake-Off. It was ironic, but your favorite contestant this season was Peter, and every week was more and more tense as you worried whether or not he’d make it to the next episode. Sure, he was really good at technicals, but sometimes the flavors of his signature bakes were off. And when was stupid Laura going to get eliminated?

You were so caught up in worrying about who would be going to the finals that you didn’t even notice the guy walking through the doors just as you were leaving the café, knocking you onto the ground.

“OW!” you squeaked as you hit the tiled floor that your co-worker had just finished mopping.

“Shit, Y/N, I’m so sorry,” a familiar voice apologized from above you. You squinted up to see Peter’s brown eyes full of worry, and at that point, you couldn’t even tell that you were hurt anymore.

He held out his hand for you to take and pulled you up as if you weighed nothing. Still a bit dizzy, you stumbled, and he wrapped his hand around your waist to keep you from falling again. That same familiar feeling you felt earlier that day was rushing back to you.

“Hey, don’t worry. I’ve got you, Y/N,” he assured you, walking you over to a table to sit down.

You laid your head down on the table, both embarrassed and woozy from having your crush knock you flat on your face because you were too busy thinking about a televised baking competition to watch where you were going.

“You know we’re closed, right,” you groaned, lifting your head to see him staring attentively at you.

“Yeah, I know,” he answered, laughing nervously and running his hands through his hair. You wished that you were the one doing that instead.

“Oh. Well, you can if you really want to,” he said, leaving you confused as to what on earth he was talking about. It wasn’t until a few moments later that you were ready to curl up into a ball and hide forever. Did you say that you wanted to touch his hair OUT LOUD? TO HIS FACE?

Your cheeks turned crimson and you buried your face in your arms again. “Peter, I’m okay. You can go now.” If he didn’t leave now, you’d probably die of embarrassment right in front of him.

“Y/N,” he started, running his thumb across your arm. “I don’t want to go. I… I came here to see you.”

Your head shot up and you stared at him in disbelief. “You know I’m not the only one here who knows how to make a caramel latte, right?”

“Mhmm,” he hummed, nodding his head with a soft smile. Even in the dim lighting of the café at night, his eyes sparkled. “I hope this is okay for me to say, but… Y/N. I like you. I like you a lot, and I don’t even like caramel lattes but by the time I realized that I would never get used to the taste, you were already making them without me even having to ask you to.”

“Oh,” you replied, instantly feeling good as new. “I, uh...I like you too.”

You watched as the smile that never failed to brighten your day returned to Peter’s face. “So... Do you—would you, maybe, like to go out with me sometime?”

“Yes!” you replied enthusiastically. Checking your phone, you realized just how long you two had been sitting down. “But we should probably go. The doors were supposed to be locked thirty minutes ago.”

You grabbed his hand, pulling him out the front doors of the coffee shop before scrambling to lock them. When you turned around, you were standing face to face with the guy you’d been crushing on for months.

Right before Peter could lean in to kiss you, you remembered what you had been dying to tell him about all day. “I almost forgot. I met Spiderman today!”

Peter’s eyes widened. He had hoped you wouldn’t bring it up, but then again, he probably shouldn’t have come here in the hopes of seeing you tonight. Play it cool, Parker, he thought as the two of you walked towards the subway station.

“Oh. That’s really cool,” he said in a tone that was suspiciously underwhelmed. “How’d that happen?”

“Well, I was on the way to work and I guess I was listening to my music a little bit too loud,” you started. “And suddenly I hear all these cars honking at me and WHOOSH! I’m in Spiderman’s arms and he drops me off right in front of the coffee shop. I mean, how did he even know that that’s where I was supposed to be? It was incredible!”

Peter really liked listening to you talk. He liked the softness of your voice and how excited you sounded whenever you spoke to him. “Huh. Are you sure you have a crush on me and not on our friendly neighborhood Spiderboy?”

“Spiderman,” you corrected, intertwining your fingers with his. “And no. I like you and only you.”

Peter laughed, thinking about how mad you’d be when he finally let you in on his little secret. But for now, there was no Spiderman. It was just you and him, and that’s how he liked it.

#peter parker x reader #peter parker #peter parker fluff #peter parker imagine #peter parker oneshot #peter parker fanfiction #spiderman #mcu

190 notes · View notes

justalittlebluetiefling · 4 years ago

Note

Also not to keep going back to ships, but like traveler con had many fjorester moments, so I think Laura is trying to get some other moments in. Like in my personal opinion I think Jester does have strong emotions for Fjord, but I think Laura wants to give each ship its own moments. I also know it’s getting repetitive, but I’m gonna KEEP HOPING FOR A GOOD FJ MOMENT!!!!

No worries, I am always down to talk ships. I don’t even mind engaging in a little drama, but just not... negative drama? If that makes sense.

I’m not sure I think Laura is trying to spread the love between ships necessarily. I occasionally wonder if Jester has a crush on Caleb, but I’m honestly never sure. Sometimes it reads as crush to me, sometimes it reads as friendly. I just don’t think she’s saying “it’s this ship’s turn to have a moment”. She’s just having a nice moment with another character, whether it’s romantic or not, you know?

Also, I kind of think romance for her isn’t at the top of Jester’s mind right now. She’s messed up over what’s happening. Really messed up. She’s still dealing with the fallout from Travelercon. She’s dealing with Fjord being chased by Uk’otoa across the world. With Caleb’s past. With hoping Veth will stay. With the fact that Molly is alive and is probably not Molly anymore and they just covered up the death of a member of the Cerberus Assembly. I think she’s stressed and also doesn’t know what to do re:Fjord and romance, so she’s just not dealing with that right now.

Anyway. I’m gonna go off on something that seems like a weird tangent, but hear me out. Sorry I’m using your ask as a venting platform haha

VOX MACHINA SPOILERS BELOW

My first live episode was episode 13 of the Mighty Nein. I watched Vox Machina first. The fully completed campaign. I knew that Vax and Keyleth were canon going in, because I finally tried it after I saw a gifset of the two of them saying goodbye to each other in the last episode and I was like why are they crying over a d&d game I need to find out. So, I watched through the entire Vox Machina campaign knowing most of which ships were going to happen. But I was specifically looking for Vaxleth. It was a case of going in already shipping it.

So, there start to be little tiny hints that Vax is into Keyleth after Kraghammer. And they slowly get more obvious but everyone at the table still missed them. And then Vax confessed his love. Two episodes later, they held hands by the tree and Keyleth told him that she needed time in 35. And then NOTHING happens for like 7 episodes. They do the weird dancing around it thing, holding hands, being kind of awkward. And then they don’t spend the night alone in 42. Three episodes later, he reminds her that he loves her and she reiterates not being ready. Nine episodes after that, they make out for a while. TEN EPISODES AFTER THAT, they spend the night together again. Finally, one episode later, Keyleth admits she wants to give things a shot. It took thirty-one episodes between the first time Vax confessed his feelings to them actually being together as a couple.

It’s twelve episodes between the time that Percy kisses Vex before they fight Vorgual and the time he goes to her door to talk and she answers the door completely naked.

Okay I know it sounds like I’m rambling, but... here’s the point.

There were tiny moments for Vaxleth between all these big moments. But there were also tiny moments for every other ship. Grogleth. Vexleth. Is there a Percy x Keyleth ship? Percy and Keyleth had moments ALL the time. All of these other ships CONTINUED to have what you could consider moments after canon ships were established. We’re gonna see that happen this campaign, too.

I know that it feels like it’s been a long time since we had a big Fjorester moment, but it really hasn’t. It’s been 6 episodes. We’re good, ya’ll, I promise. It FEELS like a long time because we’re watching it live with at least one week between episodes. It was different, for me, when I was watching Vox Machina, because I was going through between 3 and 4 episodes a day. ALSO. It feels like a long time, because we Fjorester shippers were SO FED during Travelercon. We went from an arc where we had constant reassurance to one where they’re both freaking out and having a few conversations, but nothing that seems like ship progress.

The progress is there though! It’s just slow and steady. And in an improv game. There won’t always be time. But I still think they’re endgame. And I think we’re going to see a big Fjorester moment within the next month. I know the wait is torture, but I bet it’s worth it in the end.

#fjorester #jester lavorre #listen i'm character and ship tagging #but not show tagging #because i'm not trying to be anti anything okay?#cr spoilers #idk this isn't really spoilers but just in case #i hope this all makes sense!#tigerclaw177 #erin answers things

62 notes · View notes

normadeathmond · 4 years ago

Text

the spanish princess ep 3 thoughts

(now with pictures!)

this week was surprisingly silly for an episode named ‘grief’, and indulging in entertainingly dumb historical shenanigans is when this show is at it’s most enjoyable. comments, complaints and lots of poking fun inside.

- i am not the biggest fan of charlotte hope’s performance in this series, but i thought she did good here, showing catherine fighting her grief before putting on a brave face. i do think she would do better in the role if catherine wasn’t written as such a cardboard strong woman™ all the time.

- lmao i love wolsey and how low-key hammy phil cumbus is playing him, you can tell he’s having a whale of a time

- political genius maggie pole, everyone

- love that catherine’s seduction technique is to bring up wolsey, there rlly are three people in this marriage

- what even was that scene - catherine pressuring henry for sex, him calling blow jobs unnatural and then trying wank off to the sight of her neck (was that supposed to be a hint at him beheading his later wives)?? rip to whatever got left on the cutting floor to make room for that nonsense

- blah blah blah the scots are violent and barbaric, lather rinse repeat. i am always distracted by how there is not even one nursery maid in the whole of scotland

- i enjoy catherine dunking on the name barnaby, it deserves it. (surely one of them babies should be named henry after the king?)

- given that there’s a reference later on to thomas more being a great favourite of henry’s, why isn’t he hanging out in these council scenes? i’m sure he can still eyefuck maggie pole while also dispensing sound advice. and is howard just gone forever now? i was hoping he’d stick around as catherine’s begrudging ally

- his smug little face! perfection!

- ursula, possessor of this show’s singular brain cell: marrying for political power and monetary gain? sign me up!

- jokes aside, this was a good scene. i like that ursula isn’t portrayed as greedy, but instead someone who’s realistic about what she wants from life based on her family’s experiences so far, even if she is a little naïve to think money and titles will protect her absolutely. i also liked that maggie’s objections weren’t so much “but twu love!” as much as “but maybe find someone you can stand to be around for twenty years of marriage”

- catherine: i am a political genius also catherine: *can’t keep a straight face in public for two seconds*

- honestly catherine is a real shitty friend. i get that she’s struggling, but calling lina’s kids “ordinary children” like they don’t matter and her bitchy “you’re having a girl” last episode is such mean girl behaviour.

- the great scottish babysitter shortage of 1515 continues

- hahaha of course the one good scot™ is a raging anglophile

- also why is angus being written as such a literal angel? he’s going to have to turn into a prick at some point

- if catherine can hire lina some wet nurses do you think she can throw a few coins meg’s way for a nanny?

- please can all of catherine’s scenes just be her and wolsey cattily sniping at one another

- i really dislike how in order to make catherine seem smart everyone else has to be clueless - first advising maggie pole on how to petition the king like she’s new to court and then being the one to suggest mary pick her second husband. it’s a weak way to prop up an under-written heroine.

- my baby ;_; (georgie really is shining as an actress this season)

- this part was very cute, i like their squabbling childhood friends with secret deep romantic feelings dynamic. i thought we would get more of mary this episode though :(

- the court musician is the babysitter now? pay one female extra to hold the baby, i beg you

- sorry to my girl meg but this speech/sing-a-long was bad. this show is just not good at the rousing speeches.

- guess everyone’s going on a road trip to france! the whole royal fam taking a nice holiday to recently enemy territory seems totally believable!

- seasick wolsey is the highlight of this episode

- maggie: all creatures crave union, there’s nothing fanciful about it ♫ you and me baby ain’t nothing but mammals ♫

- ARE these two gonna fuck?? i genuinely thought it wouldn’t go beyond a lot of angsty longing looks because matthew graham compared their plotline to remains of the day and laura carmichael said something like “it’s the incredibly religious, pious people’s version of a steamy romance”, but uhhh their horny little convo in the coach is starting to make me wonder if thomas more’s cold bed isn’t going to get a little warmer in a few episodes

- also i was hoping more’s marriage would be portrayed as two pals who got married for convenience rather than his wife being painted as a prude who denies him sex

- this dress 😍 also, her face 😍

- i can’t tell if maggie is an impatient idiot or a genius who figured henry would give her everything she wanted out of spite if she said catherine told her he wouldn’t (i give this show too much credit, it’s definitely the former)

- i know groom of the king’s stool is an easy thing to dunk on for a modern audience but the royal arse wiper was a very trusted and intimate friend of the king who commanded a lot of royal favour, so maybe hop off your high horse maggie

- tudor sexpert maggie pole: don’t say yes yet, sweetie, u gotta check if you’re hot for him first ursula: please stop talking

- i hate myself for loving them

- i like that even though compton is an awkward, slightly creepy weirdo, his crush on maggie does seem 100% genuine. i assume he’s going to get entangled in the henry/anne hastings affair next ep and that’ll let maggie wriggle out of the betrothal somehow?

-not this show making me feel sorry for henry. i like that they’re giving him human feelings about the loss of his children and ruairi is giving a great performance.

- this was really the best french accent they could find? but mary attempting death by pillow fight was hilarious

- no one: bessie: your grace, I do believe charlie brandon is truly sex on legs

- lina seems absolutely terrified that she pissed off catherine, a very healthy friendship dynamic there!

- shouldn’t wolsey have a swankier outfit now that he’s an archbishop?

#the spanish princess #apparently i am a wolsey stan now #more of him and catherine going after each other like two drag queens in the interior illusions lounge thnx

19 notes · View notes

princessamericachavez · 5 years ago

Text

Fjorester moments episode 65

Can you believe I was already resigned to this being a small post with just cute little highlights for this week and then that last hour happened?!

I’m guilty of doubting Travis and Laura would feed me so well two weeks in a row.

Honestly, it’s been mostly Travis who’s been pushing for it the most lately and I for one LOVE this switch in the dynamic.

Okay, so let’s dive in (heh, get it?):

[As soon as danger shows up]

Jester: I cast bless.

Matt: On who?

Jester (immediately): On Fjord... Caduceus, and Yasha.

The last two she has to think about but Fjord? Fjord is a no-brainer. They are always each other’s first priority, after all.

FJORD AND JESTER BEING A POWER COUPLE AND NEARLY TAKING OUT A MONSTER ALL ON THEIR OWN BEFORE THE FIGHT EVEN STARS

Jester: *down and being attacked by a monster*

Fjord: *casts Charm Monster on the monster attacking her and the one attacking Beau*

Matt: Okay, so the first one’s save fails.

Travis immediately: Which one? The one attacking Jester?

LIKE, I SEE YOU. I SEE YOU TRYING TO BE SNEAKY AND MAKING SURE THAT WHATEVER HAPPENS THE EFFECTIVE ONE GOES TO HER BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT FJORD’S MAIN PRIORITY IS. I SEE YOU.

[After the fight]

BOTH OF THEM CHEERING BEAU UP TOGETHER

Fjord: *asks for a short rest*

Beau and Caleb: reluctantly agree

Jester: But we only got a certain amount of-

Fjord:

Jester: Okay, yeah.

Fjord:

SHE’S SO WEEK FOR HIM GUYSSS AND HE KNOWSSS IT

THIS IS LIKE THAT “NO YOU WON’T, YOU LOVE ME”

HE’S SO FREAKING SMUG ABOUT IT AND I LOVE IT

NO PLAYING DUMB ANYMORE FOR HIM NO SIR

[As they ride]

Yarnball: strays away from the group

Fjord: What is your fucking animal doing?!

Jester: On that! On that! On that!

Jester: *casts command to send Yarnball back to the group*

Fjord: Oh! Slick!

I LOVE THIS TREND OF JESTER DOING SOMETHING BADASS AND FJORD BEING OBVIOUSLY TURNED ON BY IT

Matt: The rain now in heavy sheets, sipping into every piece of armor and clothing you have.

Travis: who knows Fjord is riding with Jester, holding tightly to her in their fast pace

POWER COUPLE AGAIN TO GET RID OF THE SECOND WAVE OF BIRDS ATTACKING THEM

LOOK AT THOSE TWO POWERFUL BABES THEY ARE UNSTOPPABLE

[While bedding down next to the so-far ominous Melora giant tree]

Nott: Should I go scout while we are waiting?

Jester: No!

Nott: It’s a hundred feet! I can just turn invisible and go-

Fjord: She said no! Jeez.

WE LOVE ONE SUPPORTIVE BOYFRIEND WHO WON’T HAVE HIS GIRL DISRESPECTED OR IGNORED BECAUSE HER VOICE AND INPUT MEAN THE WORLD TO HIM AND HE ALWAYS LISTENS TO THEM AND WHY CAN’T YOU ALL SEE HOW GREAT SHE IS, LISTEN TO HER DAMMIT.

idk why that little detail was so heavy for me but I loved it. Nott can be rather pushy and accidentally barrel over anyone’s opinion that isn’t Caleb’s, and Jester is generally nice about it and let’s it go (except that time that the teasing got to her) so Fjord standing up for her firmly made my heart soar a little ngl

[THE TREE BIT]

Fjord: *ready to climb a 300 ft tall tree*

Jester: *obviously worried*

Jester: Climbing is good for strong people, right? Strong people climb well?

Fjord: Or people who, if they fall, have a good safety net.

THIS BIT WAS ALREADY NICE BUT GIVEN WHAT COMES NEXT IT’S SUCH NICE FORESHADOWING?

Like, listen, okay? Fjord is clearly talking about himself falling and saving himself, he probably had the thunderstep in mind already.

But Jester? Jester hears this and immediately sees herself as the safety net. So she stays down, ready to catch whoever might fall.

Later, though, Caduceus suggests she go up and she seems a little put off by it, because she clearly wants to but also wants to be there to protect her friends. Eventually, though, she follows up.

FJORD’S IMPRESSED FACE WHEN JESTER CATCHES UP TO HIM

MATT DESCRIBING THEIR CLIMB “GOING NECK TO NECK, EVEN GETTING A LITTLE COMPETITIVE” IS SUCH A WONDERFUL VISUAL

THIS TWO BEST FRIENDS, ON TOP OF THE WORLD, GOOFING AROUND WITH EACH OTHER, CLIMBING TOGETHER

And then

Of course

that natural one

and Fjord just leaps after her

Travis: I push off and dive down after her!

Matt:

Laura:

Everyone:

LISTEN THOUGH THE IMAGE OF BOTH OF THEM FALLING DOWN AND REACHING OUT FOR EACH OTHER MID-AIR IS OOF

IT’S SO ROMANTIC AND TRAGIC AND DRAMATIC

THIS MAN, THIS SAILOR WHO LESS THAN A YEAR AGO LIVED A FAIRLY ORDINARY LIFE, PLUMMETING DOWN AFTER THE GIRL SHE MET SO LONG AGO WHO HAS BECOME HIS SOURCE OF SUNLIGHT IN LIFE, WITHOUT AN INCH OF FEAR OR HESITATION, LASER FOCUSED ON REACHING HER IN TIME

And then that Feather Fall comes into play and slows them down just enough for them to hold on to each other, floating slowly in the air, breathing heavily.

And I legit thought that was it, that they would slowly float down and recover from the scare.

But nope. No. Fjord goes for his initial plan and thundersteps them back up.

And I kinda love that? Because, no, they are not giving up. They are going together and reaching their goal and they are doing it together because they always go with each other.

Jester: Fjord!

SHE LOOKS SO WORRIED. SO CONCERNED. BECAUSE HE JUST JUMPED AFTER HER AND HE COULD’VE DIED AND WHY DID HE DO THAT? WHAT WAS HE THINKING???

BUT FJORD JUST BRUSHES IT OFF

Fjord: Hang on, will ya?

AS IF HE HADN’T JUST DIVED 100 ft DOWN JUST TO SAVE HER

CASUAL

WHATEVER

JUST NORMAL FRIEND STUFF

Jester: You-

JESTER JUST KINDA STUMBLES OVER HER BREATH AND LIKE I DON’T BLAME HER OK?

I actually love that Jester was getting used to the idea that romance and love are not like in her novels, and maybe it’s fine and she will never find that dramatic over the top romance she dreamed off her whole life

—AND FJORD SWEEPS IN WITH EXACTLY THE BRAND OF ROMANTIC DUMBASS GESTURES THAT A GRAND HERO WOULD PULL

And Jester is tired and scared and feels like she can’t go on

Jester:

Jester: I’m just gonna stay here, Fjord! You keep going. It’s okay!

BUT FJORD IS NOT ABOUT TO LEAVE JESTER BEHIND

Fjord: You know, if you get up to me, I can help us get a little boost!

Jester: I can’t move! It’s okay, you just keep going!!

POOR BBY. BUT FJORD IS STILL NOT ABOUT TO LEAVE HER, SO THE NEXT TIME THEY ROLL HE WAITS FOR HER TO CATCH UP.

Fjord: You want a boost?

Jester:

Fjord: Okay, grab my hand.

Jester:

THUNDERSTEP

SO MUCH HAND HOLDING GUYS

AS SOON AS FJORD BROKE THE TOUCH BARRIER WITH THE KISS LAST EPISODE HE’S JUST GOING ALL IN FOR IT AND WE ARE GETTING SO MUCH AND IT’S JUST SO LOVELY

ALSO ALSO ISN’T IT SUCH A LOVELY PARALLEL THAT AT THE BEGINNING THEY WERE BEING PLAYFULLY COMPETITIVE BUT AS SOON AS JESTER IS HAVING TROUBLE FJORD’S FOCUS SWITCHES ENTIRELY AND HE SPENDS THE REST OF THE TIME ENCOURAGING HER AND HELPING HER?????

Thanks Matt for the last bit of description too! Fjord with his 11 STR throwing Jester up to safety is such a good detail!

That NAT 20 was True Love and you can’t convince me otherwise.

I ALSO LOVE HOW THE TABLES TURN LATER WHEN FJORD FREEZES WHEN STEALTHTING AROUND THE ROC

Fjord: you go ahead without me!

Jester: No, Fjord, you’re coming!

Fjord: I’ll just stay here

Jester: C’mon, Fjord, let’s go!

Fjord: Alright.

THEY REFUSE TO LEAVE EACH OTHER BEHIND YOU GUYS IM SO EMOTIONAL

ALSO

GUYS

MATT DESCRIBING THE WARM SENSATION FJORD GOT FROM SAVING JESTER VS HIS USUAL UK’OTOA SPELLS?

THE FACT THAT HE USED HIS VERY FIRST SPELLS POWERED BY A LOVING DEITY RATHER THAN UK’OTOA TO SAVE HER

IS JUST SO

POETIC CINEMA

I’M CRYING

Jester: *tries to pain Beau and Fjord*

THIS TWO DISASTERS IMMEDIATELY:

Jester: No, it’s candid, you guys! Pretend you don’t know I’m drawing you.

Fjord:

Jester: Yeah, that’s better. That’s good.

EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS EPISODE WAS WONDEREFUL. MY HEART FEELS SO FULL WITH LOVE. I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE FANART AND THE EVENTUAL TALK THESE TWO DESPERATELY NEED TO HAVE ALREADY.

I’m looking forward to so much next week! Fjord is out of spell slots (after saving and helping Jester) so I expect she’ll prioritize keeping him safe during the fight. So much angst potential! ALSO really looking forward to Jester thanking him for saving her, fingers cross for a cheek kiss to mirror his earlier one. Also, please Traveler, they need to TALK about all these things that they keep doing for each other.

#fjorester #fjord #jester lavorre #critical role #cr spoilers #sofia's nonsense

177 notes · View notes

spaceskam · 5 years ago

Note

3 Davenzi ; ik Davenzi angst is hard but like pls

okay i got extremely carried away. i apologize in advanced. anyway heres a ridiculously long davenzi flower shop auwarning: mentions of self-harm/suicidal ideation (which is really odd to say after i just said it was a flower shop au but here we are)

“Hi, welcome to Schreiber’s Flowers.”

David didn’t look up from his sketchbook even as he greeted whoever had walked through the door and made the bell ring throughout the small shop. It had been a slow day and, with 30 minutes left, he was ready to go ahead and close up shop. However, Laura would yell at him for the rest of his life if he closed early. What was the point of owning your own store if you can’t close whenever the hell you want?

“Mom’s like flowers, right?” The voice startled David and he looked up to see a boy standing quite close despite being on the other side of the counter. His bangs hung in front of his eyes as he leaned his elbows on the glass countertop, the tip of his tongue peeking out from his lips as he traced his teeth.

David thought of every slow-motion, heart-stopping, head-spinning scene in every romance movie or show or novel and how he’d always assumed they were stupid. And, honestly, they were stupid. Incredibly stupid. But suddenly this guy was in front of him and his body temperature rose and he almost forgot he had a job to do.

“Um, yeah, I’d say so,” David responded after an embarrassingly long time. The guy flashed a lopsided grin, sinking further onto the counter until he was gazing up at David through his hair. He was easily the cutest guy he’d seen all week. When he smiled, he definitely might be the cutest all year. Bless whoever sent him his way.

“It’s your job to say so.”

“Maybe,” David mused, crossing his arms as he leaned forward and gave the guy a little smirk. He smiled wider.

“I missed her call last week and didn’t call her back and she’s still mad at me. Got any special flowers for that occasion?” he asked. David bit down on his lip as he scanned his face, pretending like he actually thought about it.

“Depends on how much you wanna spend.”

“Not much.”

David smiled, “Okay.”

They spent the next twenty or so minutes walking around the shop, talking aimlessly about flowers. David was more than a little sure that the guy had no idea what he was talking about, but he nodded like he got it. He smiled sweetly and offered up comments that might pass for witty if David wanted to stretch enough to give him credit. He did.

The guy ended up settling on three yellow Asiatic lilies without much extra filler in an attempt to keep the price down. They still looked pretty and, after David wrapped them up, they were big enough to give the illusion that it might’ve been more expensive than they actually were. David leaned his elbows on the countertop and the guy mimicked. His heart thudded harder in his chest when he realized that the flowers were the main thing separating their arms from touching.

“You wanna write a note?” David asked. The guy grinned, nodding his head and his hair covering more of his face. David found it hard to take his eyes off of him when he dug beneath the register for a slip of paper and a pen. He slid it over to him, his stomach tightening when their knuckles grazed.

The guy sat there for a moment, leaning over it and not writing a damn thing before looking up at David with those painfully blue eyes, “What do I write?” David laughed.

“Something simple. Maybe a ‘please don’t disown me’ might work,” David suggested, the guy before him snorting. He really needed to get his name. Or his number. Both, preferably.

“You, sir, are a genius,” he said, pointing the pen at him before crouching back over the paper. Something in David’s chest bloomed, heat making its way through his veins and lighting every inch of him on fire. What the fuck was this. The guy’s eyes peeked up through his hair again, “You wouldn’t happen to have good handwriting, would you?”

David rolled his eyes as he took the pen from the guy’s hand, “You know, I should just say from it’s from the both of us since I’m doing all the work here.”

“Maybe so. What’s your name?” The guy’s tongue pressed to the back of his teeth and David felt lightheaded.

“David,” he answered, pausing to let his eyes skim over him once again, “and you?”

The guy pushed up on his toes, leaning closer, “Matteo.”

Matteo, Matteo, Matteo, Matteo, Matteo, Matteo. The name danced around his mind like it was playing a game, teasing him with the idea that he’d see him after he left the shop. David barely left the flower shop as it was and he lived above it so it wasn’t even like he had the excuse of walking home to seek him out. Instead, he had to wonder if he really should just ask for his number or if he should just let him walk away.

“Here you go,” David said as he tucked the note into the flowers. He had to let him walk away. That was his only real option.

David rung him up and tried to avoid staring at him anymore. That made it a fuckton harder to let him leave without asking to see him again. However, he knew that’s the way it had to be. David didn’t have much to offer. He lived with his sister, worked in his sister’s shop, was too scared to leave the house. He wasn’t inherently social or charming or anything special. He was virtually a hermit.

Matteo, on the other hand, had a smile to light the world and was charming and he carried himself with a confident swagger that screamed ‘I don’t give a fuck what you think about me’. He had books protruding out of his unzipped back that he’d dropped before the front desk, one of which being a biology textbook which meant he was in college and had dreams about life. His phone had buzzed multiple times since he’d walked in, saying he had friends and probably went out. Hell, he’d even been the one to ask for David’s name. He probably wanted someone just as outgoing.

He probably wasn’t even into guys.

“Thanks,” Matteo said as he eventually started heading towards the door, though he walked backward and basically forced David to hold his gaze with some sort of authority he couldn’t say no to, “David.”

Matteo stepped out of the flower shop with a grin, spinning around to the soft ding of the bell. David collapsed into his chair, his head thrown back as his body turned to mush. What gave him the right to say his name like that? It made his head spin. He’d heard the name David come out of a million different people, his own included, and yet none of them sounded so perfect. None of them had sounded like it was specially crafted to fit into someone mouth like it did with Matteo.

“David, are you okay down there? We do close at 5, you know!” Laura suddenly called from the stairway that led to their apartment, shaking him from his Matteo-induced daze. He glanced over at the clock, the big hand and the little hand forming an unmistakable 5:30.

Whoops.

David thought he’d died and gone to heaven when Matteo walked in the next day.

Caught off guard and more than a little flustered, David just barely croaked out a, “hey.” Matteo licked his lips and grinned as he walked confidently up to the counter again, leaning against it on his elbows.

“Hey yourself.”

David couldn’t think of what to say or do. He’d thought about this stupid guy since the moment he saw him the day prior. He could barely hold a conversation at dinner with Matteo on the brain and he couldn’t even think about the dreams he’d had without blushing. He had tried to push the thought of him away when he’d woken up, but it had only started to work whenever he got back from his lunch break.

That didn’t last long.

Matteo’s tongue prodded the inside of his cheek before swiping across his bottom lip, disappearing behind a large lopsided smile and a huffed laugh. Cue the dizziness.

“So, my mom really liked those flowers. Thanks,” he said. David blinked. “Any chance you know anything about the language of flowers?”

“Uh,” he paused, desperately trying to clear his head enough to have a conversation. He could feel his cheeks getting redder and redder by the minute and he wanted to burst of embarrassment. Matteo only seemed to smile through it. “A little.”

Matteo sunk down, his chin resting on his hands that pressed flat against the counter. He gazed up through his hair and David’s fingers twitched, desperate to push his bangs aside to get a real view of those eyes. He didn’t, obviously, deciding to just stare at them and only them, definitely not Matteo’s slightly pursed lips that were too perfect to be real.

“Teach me?”

Fuck.

Every day for the next two weeks, Matteo would turn up around thirty minutes before closing and would stay a little later each day. David was getting a little addicted to his company, spending every moment without him giddy for when he’d turn up next. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d had a friend, much less a friend that looked like that, and he was loving every minute of it.

While they had definitely drifted to talking about everything under the sun, they’d gone back to the topic of the language of flowers every once in a while. Matteo thought it was spectacularly funny that they had a whole section of flowers dedicated for rejection and David had done more research than he’d done in his life specifically to tell him more, to get him to laugh more. Aside from that, he’d seemed especially fascinated with the flowers that stood for love, unspoken love, absolute affection, devotion. He said it was sweet that they managed to say so much with so little. David had told him his favorite was the red tulip.

“It’s basically like saying, ‘believe me when I say I love’. It could be for any occasion. Like, if someone was going away forever, they could send that as a final sacrament of their love,” David had explained as they sat on the floor of the flower shop, the doors locked for the night and their backs against the front desk. Their shoulders were touching and it had David soaring.

“That’s really dramatic,” Matteo had teased, “I think you should be able to say that without a big ending. You should make sure the person you love knows that you love them every day of the week.” David remembered turning to face him and discovering their faces were just a few inches apart. Of all the times he’d thought about kissing him, that was the time he regretted the most that he didn’t. Next time I see him, he promised himself.

That was four days ago.

“Your little friend coming today?” Laura asked teasingly as David got ready for work, taking extra time to make sure his hair looked presentable. Matteo never really went out of his way to look put together, but he pulled off the sloppy look better than anyone in the whole world so David didn’t expect him to change that. But that didn’t mean he was going to try to do the same.

“Stop,” David groaned, but he couldn’t hide the smile on his face. He’d worked up the courage since he left the night before after spending nearly three hours laying the floor together and talk about anything and everything. Matteo had even opened up to him about his father leaving him and his mother a few years back without much of a warning, fucking off to Italy and only talking when Matteo called him first. David felt bad for him, but he felt special that he got to know something so personal.

That personal admission had prompted David to share something personal of his own‒his sketchbook. Matteo had flipped through it for an hour, trying his best to give artistic comments. He mainly stuck with waxing poetic on how talented he was.

Sometime during that, Matteo’s hand had grazed his own. It had made his whole body tense, head to toe, and he’d stared at him like he was choking him. In a way, he sort of was because he decided not to move his hand away. It was almost like it was intentional.

“When are you going to ask him out?” Laura asked, ignoring his pleas for her to drop it. The moment she’d discovered the reason he was staying late was because of a guy, she wouldn’t stop teasing him. David guessed it was his fault for being completely isolated for two years, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.

“I’m not.”

“David! He really likes you!” Laura said and David snorted in disbelief. Where the hell did she get that from? “Oh, so you’re telling me this guy goes out of his way to come spend hours of time with you every single day, but he doesn’t like you?”

“I don’t think he’s into guys.”

“David,” she said, coming up behind him in the mirror and resting her chin on his shoulder, “To me, it sounds like he’s more than into you. He’s probably thinking you aren’t into him. He’s been reaching out for two weeks. Reach out to him. Don’t let what your brain is saying keep you from him. You’re allowed to have someone and be loved, no matter what happened to you in the past.”

David mulled over her words as she smiled, patting him on the back and heading down to open up shop. He stared at himself in the mirror, wondering if maybe she was right. Maybe Matteo was just waiting for him to make a move. Maybe the hand touching, the handful of close-enough-to-be-kisses, and the constant hanging out was him saying he was interested. David had a hard fucking time understanding why someone like Matteo would be even kind of interested in him, but… maybe it was worth figuring out. And maybe, just maybe, if he wasn’t into him like that, he’d still come out of it with a friend.

So, today, for the first time in years, he was going to put himself on the line. For Matteo.

But then he didn’t show.

David stared at the door until well after they closed up, each minute that passed crushing his hopes a little more. That was it, it had to be a sign. The day that he was going to grow a pair and ask Matteo out, he didn’t show. He’d probably gotten tired of him, tired of talking to someone who didn’t have any stories outside of high school and the TV shows he watched. He bored him to death until he didn’t want to see him anymore. Go fucking figure.

That night, David didn’t sleep much. He was too busy trying to figure out if he’d done something wrong the night before or if he really was that boring. For hours, he ridiculed himself for waiting too long, for wasting time and ruining his chances. A guy like Matteo wasn’t just going to wait around forever, especially when David didn’t even fucking leave the house. He was pathetic.

The next morning, David didn’t bother making himself look nice. He let his hair look hardly tame and decided to just wear his sweats. It’s not like anyone would see it. Not anyone important that is.

David trudged down the steps and opened up shop with the same level of gravitas. It wasn’t until he unlocked the door and flipped around the sign that he noticed a note taped to the glass. He blinked in confusion a few times before deciding to grab it off the door. When he looked at it, he nearly stopped breathing.

Things came up, I promise to explain xx

Beneath the messy handwriting was a sloppily drawn flower, the petals colored in haphazardly with a red pen. Beside it read ‘tulip’ with an arrow pointing towards it. A red tulip.

David ran right back upstairs to fix his hair.

“So your mom’s going to be okay and everything, right?”

David watched as Matteo gave a tired smile and nodded. Apparently, something had gone wrong and his mother had ended up in the hospital. He said he managed to slip away for a bit around 3 in the morning which is when he’d left the note. Currently, he was just supposed to go home to take a shower before heading back, but he wanted to stop by to say he didn’t mean to leave him hanging. David’s hopes were higher than ever.

“Uh, yeah, yeah. They’re keeping her for observation,” Matteo said. His voice was soft and he was mostly avoiding eye contact. As special as David felt, he also hated to keep him away. He didn’t know exactly what was going on with his mom, but he wasn’t about to be the reason he wasn’t with her.

“Well, don’t let me keep you,” David insisted. He wanted to ask him out and he definitely planned to do so, but now was a bad time. Actually, now was the worst time. So he decided against it.

“You’re fine, seriously, I wanna be here. I can waste a few minutes if they’re for you,” Matteo said and as tired as he looked, he still came off ungodly charming. That familiar feeling that came with Matteo’s presence burst into his chest without much warning. David smiled, hoping his face wasn’t as red as it felt. “I really like talking to you.”

David smiled softly, “Me too.”

“Do you think… do you think I could get your number?” Matteo asked. It was the shyest he’d ever seen him in all the time he’d known him. He almost always had this air of confidence around him even when he said the dumbest shit in the world, but not today. Maybe he was tired or stressed, or maybe David actually had the power to make someone nervous.

It seemed unlikely.

“Y-yeah, absolutely!” he answered almost immediately and proceeded to mentally kick himself for sounding way too eager. Matteo’s smile subdued the embarrassment.

Matteo didn’t stay much longer, but he texted him the minute he walked out. David was satisfied.

Matteo: Do you want to come over tonight?

David stared at the phone for so long he was wondering if he should even reply. Granted, the message had been sent sometime between David going to sleep and waking up, but he still had seen it for a long time. Matteo probably thought he was ignoring him.

The two of them had been texting on and off for over a week every minute they weren’t together. He couldn’t leave his phone alone when it lit up with his name and he stayed up ridiculously late every night for him. A few nights, they’d called and talked until they both fell asleep on the phone. David felt like a teenager all over again and he was crushing like one. He didn’t want to admit how many doodles he had of Matteo in his sketchbook and even on the pages that weren’t of him, his name was written in the corners covered in hearts.

The only problem is that he had no idea how Matteo was feeling and he didn’t know how to take the proposition of going to his house.

“Laura,” David said as he stepped into the flower shop, “I need help.”

He hated asking her any of her opinions on the Matteo situation, but he was feeling desperate and he didn’t know anyone else. So he placed his phone in front of her and waited for her to tell him what to do.

“Oh my god! Say yes!” Laura pressured, “You finally have a good excuse to go somewhere!”

“But what does it mean?”

“Does it matter?”

Okay, valid point.

“But what if… What if he wants to, like, hook up? What do I say? He’s gonna notice that‒” David tried, subconsciously pulling his sleeves over the heels of his hands. Laura grabbed his hands gently, looking into his eyes.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but if he does and you do, then just tell him. There’s no harm done, not if he really likes you,” she promised. David took a deep breath as he tried to accept what she was saying.

There was a chance that Matteo really liked him. He was so tired of not taking risks. Matteo was the one to take.

David: sure what time?

“It’s not much, but…”

David let his eyes look around the small apartment, his fingers tapping against his leg anxiously. It exuded Matteo. It was vaguely cluttered, not messy, just lived in. It was homey and welcoming and it helped subdue his nerves. Well, helped a little. It was the first time he’d gone anywhere aside from the little grocery store next to the flower shop in over a year and it had to be where he was alone with a boy. That was the most stressful shit ever.

Nonetheless, he powered through and Matteo led him to his room. A few words were shared here and there before Matteo eventually just handed him a Switch controller and gave him something far less stressful to focus on. Turns out, hanging out with a friend can be fun.

“So, where’s your mom?” David asked after a few hours of going back and forth winning games of Mario Kart. Matteo licked his lips, his eyes on the floor. It took less than a few seconds for David to realize he fucked up and that he really should’ve noticed that Matteo had been smiling a lot less frequently in the last week. “Sorry, I shouldn’t‒”

“She’s in the hospital,” Matteo answered simply, reaching over to put his controller on the desk in the corner. David chewed on his bottom lip, too scared to say anything. He’d come to hang out and be enjoyable and he fucked it up by upsetting him. He was already upset and David had barely even noticed, too wrapped up in his stupid little crush and his own issues. How was he supposed to have a crush on someone when he couldn’t even pay enough attention to their feelings? “A psychiatric hospital.”

David nodded slowly, not knowing what to say that wouldn’t make it worse. He didn’t want to ask questions, he didn’t want to put himself where he didn’t belong. He just wanted to be there for Matteo.

“She was in and out of there my whole fucking childhood. I thought she was good now though, you know? Like, she hasn’t been bad since my dad left and, and I make sure she takes her medicine and goes to therapy. But I-I left her alone for too long, I think, and before I knew it, I was getting a call saying she’d fucking cut her wrists open. I should’ve been watching her,” Matteo said, his voice slowly becoming thick with tears. David felt sick. He was the reason Matteo hadn’t been home as much. He was the reason he felt so guilty. It being over something like this made him feel even worse.

David put his hand on his knee.

“It’s not your fault. Those things… they just happen. It’s no one’s fault. It’s not hers, it’s not yours. Sometimes things just get bad and all you can think is that… it needs to stop,” David said softly. He knew the feeling too well, too personally. He had spent so long pushing them away, but he knew even the slightest worrying change could make it all come back. He wondered if Matteo’s mom felt the same way.

“I know. Really, logically, I know, but… can’t help but feel like I pushed it somehow,” Matteo whispered, sniffling. David took a chance and moved his arm to wrap around his shoulders. In a second, Matteo’s head hit his shoulder.

“I wish I could make you feel better.”

They fell silent, Matteo’s hand reaching out to David’s spare one. His heart thudded in his chest for more than one reason as Matteo played with his hand, his sleeve riding up just enough to cause panic. However, he managed to stay calm for Matteo because he needed it and let him trace over his fingers and his palms as rogue tears slipped into the fabric of his sweater.

“You wanna make me feel better?” Matteo asked after a while. David let the sentence hang in the air for a moment, slightly scared of what was going to come next. Eventually, he decided it was worth it.

“I’d do anything.”

Before he could even close his mouth all the way after speaking, Matteo’s lips were on his own. David squeaked a noise of surprise, his hands shooting up as Matteo continued to kiss him. So much of him wanted to kiss back, to enjoy this moment, he couldn’t do it. Not when he understood.

“Stop,” David managed to say, very gently pushing him away even as he allowed their foreheads to rest against each other. Matteo’s eyes frantically searched his face, his lips folded between his teeth as tears brimmed his eyes again.

“I thought you said anything.”

“Not… not that. Not when you’re upset. I don’t wanna kiss you when you’re like this, I’d be taking advantage,” David whispered, trying to soothe him before he got the wrong idea. It seemed it was too late though

“Then get out,” Matteo decided, pushing him away. David blinked a few times and told himself not to take it personally.

“Matteo, I‒”

“I said get out.”

“Look, I understand you’re upset, but I think‒”

“What don’t you understand about get out?! Clearly, I shouldn’t have even asked you over, you don’t understand when to fucking leave! No wonder you stay holed up in the stupid fucking shop!” David couldn’t find any words. “Yeah, I fucking know that you never leave! What’s wrong with you anyway? Are you fucked up too?”

David’s mouth went dry, “I‒”

Matteo shook his head, pushing him away even more as he tacked on a, “No, don’t tell me, I really don’t care. Just get the fuck out of my house.”

David stood without another word and headed towards the door. He knew he was upset, he knew he didn’t really mean anything he’d said, but it still hurt. No matter how much he tried to make sure he didn’t take it to heart, it was too accurate to ignore. He was fucked up. Not even three years ago he’d been exactly where Matteo’s mom was and now it was hard to even step outside the house in fear he’d be right back where he was. That was as fucked up as it got, wasn’t it?

His hand had just reached for the door to the apartment when he was stopped.

“Wait,” Matteo called, much softer than it had been less than a minute prior. David reluctantly glanced over his shoulder to see Matteo standing in the hallway, looking weaker than he ever had. And to think he had originally thought Matteo had nothing but confidence. “What were you gonna say?” David furrowed his eyebrows.

“When?”

“I asked…” Matteo trailed off, his eyes shifting towards the floor and his socked foot rubbed over the other one. David gulped, taking his hand off the doorknob.

“Yeah, I’m fucked up too, we all are. You already pointed out I don’t leave the shop,” David said, admittedly sounding colder than he should’ve. He knew Matteo was just acting out. He hadn’t been on Matteo’s side of the equation, he didn’t know what it felt like to be raised by someone who couldn’t be trusted with their own life. He just didn’t know.

“Why?”

David sighed, “Because when I leave, I’m too aware of bad shit that happens in the world and when I become too aware of that then I… want to do something stupid again.” David regretted it as soon as it said it. He didn’t like to talk about what had happened. He barely liked to think about it. The whole situation was embarrassing. Who reacts to graduating high school by trying to kill themselves? He should’ve been happy for a new start, but he couldn’t be like that. He found too much negative in positive things.

Except for Matteo.

“No,” Matteo said, though his face was heavy with the meaning of David’s admission, “Why’d you leave for me?”

Just like that, some of the tension that had been building in his body since he’d gotten that stupid text began to drain. David leaned his back against the door, staring at Matteo who seemed more and more gutted by the minute.

“Because I really, really like you. I don’t think I’ve ever liked someone as much as I like you. When you asked me to come over, I was barely even scared to leave, I was more scared for you to find out that I’ve got issues,” David admitted. Matteo bit down his lip, nodding his head. After a few too many minutes of silence, he decided that he should go.

“Wait,” Matteo repeated just as he went to turn the knob. He sighed but waited anyway. “I’m sorry that I ruined our first kiss.”

David’s forehead hit the door.

“Please don’t walk out that door. I’m sorry.”

David was more than a little reluctant as he obeyed. He needed to cool down and clear his head, but he didn’t want to leave Matteo alone. That’s what everything seemed to point to. He didn’t want to be alone. That was a side of things David did understand, he understood it so goddamn well. He wasn’t about to do that Matteo.

Within the next hour, David found himself lying in bed with Matteo tightly wrapped up in his arms. Turns out cuddling is better medicine than laughter. He felt relaxed for the first time in a long time and he was forcing himself to let it happen. Too many times he’d let bad thoughts ruin good things. He wasn’t about to let it ruin things with Matteo.

Sure, they needed to talk. They needed to discuss a few important things and patch up a few hurtful things that had happened that night, but overall it felt like the start of something good. Things were going to go better. He could feel it.

A few days later, David found a real red tulip taped to the door of the flower shop even though they still had a couple weeks before they were officially in season. It came with a note.

Believe me when I say…

#i apologize for sort of skipping over david being trans #im cis and i didn't feel comfortable trying to write about his struggles with that #id get it wrong and nope #davenzi #davenzi au #david schreibner #david schreibner fic #matteo florenzi #matteo florenzi fic #druck #druck fic #flower shop au #request #5k word #davids pov

122 notes · View notes

lolgen792 · 5 years ago

Text

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Despite it being midterm season here at school and the fact that I just do not have time to succumb to a new obsession, I have made a way where once there was no way. I recently started rewatching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries and they have been so addicting to binge.

I love Lizzie’s personality, how she’s focused on her goals of finishing grad school in a subject that she’s passionate about – new media. I love her interpretations of her mother. Ashley Clements is an amazing actress. The way she acts as her mother is exactly how I would expect Mrs. Bennet from the books to speak and react. More recently, I’ve come across Lizzie’s impression of Catherine de Bourgh and I am utterly impressed. I literally laughed out loud so hard, she is just too darn good at impressions.

Lately, I’ve gone back to Tumblr looking at the Pride and Prejudice memes but also classic literature memes in general. I just think it’s so cool that there is a world of people who enjoy reading as much as you do and that after you read, you can go and essentially laugh at all the characters you just learned to love.

The themes of Jane Austen’s novel were groundbreaking at the time – marriage based on love, the value of money and its effect on happiness, and the way class distinctions were portrayed in Regency society. The translation of these themes to the Lizzie Bennet diaries is well done and the humor expressed by Lizzie mirrors Austen’s wit in her original work. There is something special about the journey you take with the characters of P&P. In Austen’s work, it’s from pride and prejudice based on class and a terrible first impression to a shared understanding, gratitude, and mutual love. In LBD, it’s Lizzie’s lovely obsession with her irritation of Darcy to a genuine respect and care for one another.

There is just something that literature does. It moves slowly and surely, warming the characters up to you that by the end of the novel, it is quite devastating to say goodbye.

Two household both alike in dignity, in fair Purrona

Several for Pride and Prejudice

If anything, literary web series have inspired my love of media and how technology can create connections through the stories that are being told. Isn’t it amazing how you can learn more about Pride and Prejudice, be along for the ship that is Darcy and Lizzie, and enjoy the costume theater and emotional portrayals of all the characters?

There is something wonderful in classic literature – whether it is commentary on society – but even more wonderful is the adaptation of the commentary to modern day times so viewers like myself can bring new life and joy to such a powerful story.

Classic novels are great stories but they are also reflections of the time they were written in. Jane Austen’s novels were a reflection of family life and societal expectations in the 18th century Regency era. Charles Dickens wrote about poverty in London during the Industrial Revolution.

For me, though I should be studying about religion and news media and writing papers, I am really grateful to get lost in a world that is not my own. To enjoy stepping into someone else’s story. I love the modern way of interacting with their stories through memes, and even the memes themselves can cause their own bouts of laughter.

Here’s a collection:

If you are looking for web series that won’t get you hooked in a Netflix kind of way, will educate you and make you laugh, look no further:

Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Lizzie’s personality is incredible, witty, and fun. Her interpretations using costume theater has been one of my favorite components. The actors are amazing in the series. The downside is you’re waiting until episode 60 to meet Darcy but he is well worth the wait. The ending is a little different from the books, and honestly, it is better. Set in modern times with an incredibly clever adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, I love the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

Carmilla

Carmilla is truly wonderful because of the romance between Laura and Carmilla. It’s binge-worthy. It’s hilarious and it’s the only web series I’ve seen with the supernatural done really well. If you’re looking for queer representation, Carmilla is the way to go.

The Cate Morland Chronicles

Before I rewatched LBD for the 3rd time, I stumbled across the Cate Morland Chronicles. It’s based on Austen’s Northanger Abbey, which I’ve never read but need to. This is the 2nd adaptation of Northanger I’ve seen – the first one being Northbound, which was fun and entertaining – but Chronicles has a twist. Cate is a self-professed and self-evident fangirl. She loves Marvel, Stars Wars, and Harry Potter. She’s all in for being a fan. She’s an aspiring journalist with a successful blog on being a fangirl, and what she’s really obsessed with is Udolpho. This series was nicely done in tying in the book in such a natural way – making Cate a fangirl was brilliant! She rants about not being taken seriously for the stories she loves. The romance builds over time and everyone’s characteristics are revealed over time.

Jules and Monty

Jules and Monty is about Juliet and Romeo. Home to various memes – all of which I love. It was created by two college sophomores – the main leads – and it’s so well done. It takes the original families are turns them into opposing fraternities. I highly recommend this one if you love Shakespeare’s original language and any stories of young love.

Nothing Much To Do

Nothing Much To Do is about a great group of friends in their last year of high school living out the Much Ado About Nothing. The main videos are about Beatrice and Benedick who vlog about how much they hate each other. We watch in anticipation as their countenance towards each other changes, all the while enjoying Hero, Dogberry, and Verges. Balthazar is a wonderful surprise with this talent in music. All around, it’s a fun web series to watch.

If you have nothing much to do, consider getting into a literary web series!

Signing off,

Gigi

Do you want any web series? If you do, send me some memes!

All memes found via Tumblr, Twitter, or Instagram. None are my own.

Literary Web Series “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

#cats #classicliterature #classicliteraturememes #lbd #literarywebseries #lizziebennetdiaries #memes

3 notes · View notes

darklingichor · 5 years ago

Text

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell Ramble Fest Part 5. *Spoilers*

Day 5: finished it. Okay, lots of things. Rowell's writing is absolutely addictive, I would have finished it faster if it weren't for my job and bills and stuff. Stupid responsiblites keeping me from reading.

I think I'll take each plot thread and follow it to the end.

With Levi, I sort of expected him to be Reagan’s brother, possibly twin (just by the way she reacted to the identical twin thing). Anyway, what college class allows you to read and test on The Outsiders? Can I borrow anyone’s time machine and go take it? I literally (and I actually mean literally) read that book twenty times in a row when I was fifteen. I wrung every bit of context, subtext, and not-even-in-the-text out of it. I felt like I knew Johnny and Ponyboy better than I knew some of my own family members. My best friend and I also took turns reading it out loud to each other (we did this with a lot of books, actually). I could have taken that test in about five minutes and would have been the easiest A I ever got!

Anyway, can I just say that I love the fact that Cath sees audio books as reading? Some people don’t and it annoys me to no end.

So I do like the Cath/Levi pairing, but what is it about romance in fiction? One half of the pairing doesn’t answer texts so the other half makes out with someone else? Does this happen in real life? I’m aro ace, this is completely foreign to me. I mean, I understand the concept of demiromantic and demisexual. Someone you feel connected with makes you want to do the romance or physical thing with them. But then you wouldn’t just kiss someone else because you didn’t hear from the special someone for a couple of hours, right? How does that connection happen in the brain? Not judging just wondering about something that makes no sense to me, personally.

It was sort of interesting how the relationship progressed. I get why she was so reluctant to really go there. Cath is the embodiment of fool me once, you will not get a twice.

I like that Levi really is a nice guy. Not a guy who plays nice and then expects something because of it. He legitimately felt horrible for the kiss with the other girl.

Also often, in the stuff I watched growing up, the love interest had to "look past" the geeky stuff that the main character liked. It is cool that Levi likes Cath for everything that she is, including the stuff that Wren tries to downplay. Same goes for Cath liking Levi. Niether one of them change to make themselves "better" for the other. That seems more real to me.

I like the slight struggle they had with Reagan being Levi's ex and how they all moved passed it. The only thing I can't figure out of I like is how once the relationship solidified, Cath's anxiety seems to have, if not disappeared, then greatly reduced.

I can't figure out if that's because she had more in the way of support in the form of Wren, Levi, and Reagan, more confidence because of the reactions she got to both forms of her writting, less stress because her dad had more support from her grandmother, and all of the other things that came together for her... Or the "Got boy now, what is mental illness?" Trope.

I would say it's the former because it would make sense, but we spend so much time in Cath's head and see her struggle and overcome, in the little daily battles that are always there even with changes made in the form of healthy coping mechinisms, medication or counseling. And suddenly it just drops away... I don't know, that bugged me.

Speaking of struggles

Arthur’s episode was handled really well, and I’m completely on Cath’s side. Family comes first. I don’t care if they are uncouncious, I wouldn’t be able to consentrate on a final if a close family member were in the hospital and I wasn’t there.

The part of my brain ruled by the anxiety goblin completely agrees with Cath wanting to leave the school. The part of me that is closer related to the turtle than it should be. “This is scary, uncomfortable, painful, ect. Time to hide.”

The more reasonable part sort of agrees with her when she said she didn’t choose the school, Wren did. Why stay at a school that you didn’t want to attend in the first place? I also understand the logic behind wanting to stay home to take care of her dad. Is ot the eighteen year old kid's job to take care of the parent? Not really, but what do you do when someone you love needs help?

The more rational part also says: You have a scholarship? Stay put, kid, loans blow!

During this whole thing? Wren is still a dick. The You and dad are crazy because you let yourselves be crazy argument...

"Got a broken leg? Walk it of wussy!"

Now, is that to say that Cath's way of letting her anxiety cope with her rather than the other way around is right?

No.

But it's a lot more complicated than "Just don't let it bother you." Bitch, if she could do that she wouldn't have anxiety now would she?

I don't know a lot about bipolar but I know enough to say with confidence, that just willing the chemicals in your brain to behave is not going to cut it.

So Wren's alcohol poisoning. Can I say that I loved how it was handled? The writing got around every tired thing that can happen coming out 0f a plot element like that.

Wren and Cath did reconcile, but Cath didn't cut her a lot of slack and was matter of fact about how stupid Wren's behavior had been. Her dad didn't do the whole "I'm just glad you're okay" thing, he laid down the law. One of my favorite lines from Arthur was when he told Wren that she had to go to AA meetings.

"I'm not an alcoholic."

"Good. It's not contagious. You're going to meetings.”

I honestly wouldn't mind a story from Wren's perective over the course of this year. It would be interesting to see her partying, her relationship with her boyfriend and her thought process while she let some of her personality blaze through while hiding others.

After she and Cath make up it becomes clear that she thought that she couldn't go to parties, make new friends, have new experiences and be close with her sister and still openly love nerdy things.

Professor Piper, writing, Laura, and Simon Snow.

I get the feeling that Professor Piper is suppose to be subverting the Mary Sue stereotype. When Cath first starts the class she is in awe of this teacher. Piper is wise, talented and compassionate. She's perfect. So when she first talks down fan ficton, I thought, well if the story were to follow the Mary Sue, Cath would "realize" her folly and abandon Carry On, Simon. I knew that wasn't going to happen.

The more she bad mouths fan fiction, the more she just... Acts like nothing touches her, I thought: She's the Mary Sue... But she's almost the villain (and almost is important here because she doesn't continue down that path). I mean, she can do whatever she wants with her students' grades? What university is this? Professors have to get their grades submitted by a deadline. She couldn't hold Cath's grade just cause she felt like it. She'd have to submit an incomplete and I'm pretty sure that it would have to be made up long before it actually was.

She calls fan fic "Stillborn" as if the only ultimate reason to write is to make a living off of it, that was bitchy. She likely would have been surprised that a good number of her students probably dabble in it, because I haven't met many people who write (post Harry Potter) who didn't read some fanfic, if not write it, and that's just one fandom Yes, it is a wonderful thing to make your living doing something you love, However, Cath is also right, you can write like some people knit or scrapbook. You can do something you love simply for the love of it.

Further more and most importantly, no writting is "stillborn" you put effort into it, it lives, if only for you.

Now, Cath is trying to not write her final project because she's scared, she's afraid that she doesn't have it in her to do with her own characters what she does so well with Baz and Simon. That doean't mean her reasoning isn't sound, it's just not sound for her.

Nick... I don't have a lot to say about Nick. I knew he was going to end up being a tool, and he was.

Same goes for the Laura thing. I agree with Cath, you don't get to walk out of being a parent and walk back in to be a fair weather friend.

Simon Snow. As a framing device first the "original" books and then Carry On, Simon was very effective. I had a hard time listening to many of them though because of the narration. Don't know why they had the narrator switch when we were in Cath's story.

Having read Carry On before Fangirl, it was interesting to see the differences between the stories. And it simaltiously gave and took away hope for the Anyway the Wind Blows.

That fantastic part where Wren tells Cath that she can't kill off Baz, that she'd always said that Baz deserved a happy ending because of everything canon and all the fics they'd written and read, had put him through.

I thought: That bodes well for Baz in the next one.

But Wren also says that Cath has to give him a happy ending because Gemma T. Leslie never will.

Then I thought: Well shit, that doesn't, does it?

And all of this means nothing, really. Carry On and Wayward Son exist outside both this book and the fictional series...

Gah! This universe is like a Russian nesting doll crossed with a rublix cube!

The little bits we get of Cath's final project were lovely, and yes, painful. Writing something personal is painful but, but cathartic a lot of the time.

I had a lot of emotions reading this book and while I like Carry On more, I think Fangirl is fantasic. Just from the two books I've read, Rainbow Rowell's speciality is to take expectations and expertly either defy them or bring them to fuition in a way that is more satisfying than what the reader might be expecting. This means I might break from my escapist reading trend a bit more often.

#book #books #fangirl #rainbow rowell #spoilers #eight #book blogging 2020

1 note · View note

baphometsss · 5 years ago

Text

more ian and mickey sims shenanigans

*bear in mind some of these screenshots were from the other day and the game crashed, so i had to reload and redo some stuff. so if it seems a bit inconsistent in places, that’s why

so, anyway. i let them ‘try for baby’ ONCE and

yep, one hit wonder baby is on the way

ian, as expected, was very excited

also i forgot how quickly sim pregnancy progresses like. mickey had a bump like 2 minutes later and his goof of a husband was talking to it and everything

also mick is very tired. he came home from work and immediately went to nap on the couch.

obviously with this being the sims he was in labour 0.2 seconds later and ian had a complete meltdown while mickey decided to empty the bin and clean dishes?? okay i guess

and apparently even ian’s sperm is determined to have an army of children bc GUESS WHO HAD FUCKING TWINS

twin girls, to be exact. they are called laura after mickey’s mother and leah bc that’s just a cute name

also mickey is still tired and napping on the couch during the day

look at these cuddlebugs

they decided to watch a romance movie and it got them in the mood apparently.

they made out on the couch for a while and then

GUYS THERE ARE KIDS IN THE ROOM

apparently it was good bc there were fireworks coming out of the bed and they were both still horny the next day

also ian sim exercises like a madman and even mickey is getting in on it now

cue MORE canoodling on the couch

then bella goth showed up out of nowhere and literally just stood outside the front door like a creeper for a few hours

it didn’t deter them though, they decided to continue their canoodling upstairs

at this rate they’re going to have another baby before these two have even aged up i s2g

honestly the babies don’t do much at this point but look at this cute scene of sleepy milkovich-gallaghers

if you’re wondering why ian isn’t there, he was working out again

anyway eventually it was time for the babies to become toddlers (which is like 2 days in game time lmao) and i just-- i have to laugh, really

ian looking at his kids like “YES. it is time !1!!!1 my dream of an army of gingers has finally begun !!!”

i looked at them both in the edit sim window and they don’t look like mickey at all lmao. they honestly look like baby versions of ian in s3 shfsjdfhkjs

they are cute as hell tho look at this shit

also leah constantly wants to play and mickey is just too soft to say no

then again ian is just as bad lmao

i wouldn’t fling your toddler in the air like that sir it seems a little dangerous

when you have to feed your noisy toddlers and eat leftovers bc your personal chef/husband woke up to run on the treadmill at 4am and then got so tired he had to go to bed at 8pm

seriously ian

what an asshole

also of note:

mickey made a friend at work and he keeps calling. i’m not letting mickey socialise outside of work with him bc he seems annoying. he kept trying to invite himself over the day they had the babies like ?? back off ronnie

i built them a swimming pool and ian was having fun swimming laps every day until he developed a conspiracy theory about it and stopped out of fear (the erratic trait is wild let me tell you)

laura seems to be the more serious, inquisitive child, whereas leah is just noisy and funny and loves to be played with

leah also decided to wonder off in the garden at night and mickey had to go and get her

ian has already scolded one of them (i forget which) for refusing to eat. he shoved her in the highchair and mickey made her a sandwich which she threw around

they seem to be adjusting to parenthood well but it remains to be seen how ian will cope with twin toddlers when mickey goes back to work

#ian mickey sims shenanigans

1 note · View note

pass-the-bechdel · 6 years ago

Text

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, once.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Seven (30.43% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Sixteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

Significantly flawed, and well-known in fandom for it. Unpopular opinion? I still think it’s better than the first Avengers film.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Natasha and Laura pass in a single-line trade. It’s sooo close to not counting.

Female characters:

Natasha Romanoff.

Wanda Maximoff.

Maria Hill.

Helen Cho.

Peggy Carter.

Laura Barton.

FRIDAY.

Male characters:

Tony Stark.

Steve Rogers.

JARVIS.

Thor.

Clint Barton.

Strucker.

Pietro Maximoff.

Bruce Banner.

Ultron.

Sam Wilson.

James Rhodes.

Ulysses Klaue.

Heimdall.

Nick Fury.

Erik Selvig.

Vision.

OTHER NOTES:

Everyone talking about Strucker like we already know who he is...

The “Shit!”/”Language!” gag was funnier before they hung a lantern on it. Not least because it takes almost a full minute before Tony harks back to it (fifty seconds, actually. I checked). If you’re gonna make a Thing out of it, you gotta follow up immediately, not after fifty seconds of cutting around to different character intros and action shots and a whole lot of other dialogue.

Urrgghh, ok, I’m going to break my standing rule about not discussing source material, because we gotta acknowledge the colossal wrongness of re-writing the Maximoff twins - canonically Jewish Romani - as willing volunteers in a Nazi science experiment. It gets worse the more you think about it. There are a few things about this movie which generated significant negative outcry, and this incredibly offensive decision is one of them.

Tony and Thor fighting over who has a better girlfriend does have a certain charm to it. If you’re gonna have a testosterone-off, it might as well be about how great your partner is.

I got a zero out of ten on this out-of-nowhere forced romance crap with Natasha and Bruce. We’ll come back to this later.

“I will be reinstituting Prima Nocta,” Tony declares, as he prepares to lift Thor’s hammer and thereby theoretically take charge of the Nine Realms. Primae noctis (believed to in fact be a myth) refers to a supposed Dark-Ages law that granted lords the ‘right’ to take the virginity of any newlywed peasant woman who lived on their land. So, this is a wonderful little rape joke from Tony (or, y’know, not so little, since primae noctis in reality would make Tony a serial rapist). Ha ha ha ha. Hilarious. Good one.

I’m really mad about the parts here that are total garbage, because mostly, the revels sequence has a nice low-key quality to it, good solid team dynamics.

I can’t fucking believe that they played the ‘and then Bruce falls with his face in Natasha’s cleavage!’ gag. I cannot believe it. Is this a disgusting frat-boy comedy from the nineties?

Honestly, Tony, just shut up and admit that you KNEW from the get-go that it was wrong to try and make Ultron happen (that is why you kept it secret from everyone else to begin with); don’t try to defend the decision now that you’ve got a ‘murderbot’ on your hands. Take responsibility for a bad choice instead of talking shit about how you had to and everyone else is just too short-sighted, damn it!

Andy Serkis is delightful.

The Iron Man/Hulk fight absolutely KILLS the momentum of this film. It goes for way the fuck too long (eight minutes) and has no narrative significance at all. Pro tip for action scenes: they should always be driving the story somewhere. You can pull off eighty minutes of action so long as your plot is advancing alongside/within it.

Also, Iron Man causes a huge amount of additional damage during this fight, in the service of the aforementioned pointless action. His efforts to minimise Hulk’s effects are extremely poor, and calling in his relief organisation to clean up after the fact does not negate that.

Gotta love that throwing a wife and kids at Hawkeye at the same time as we suddenly start pushing this Natasha/Bruce thing. That’s not transparent at all. I also understand this to be a major deviation from Clint’s identity in the comics, and very unpopular with fans for that reason, but regardless; reinventing him as a family man to reset the romantic blather after baiting fans with the possibility of Clint/Natasha in the first Avengers movie is such a shitty move. I was not invested in the ship myself and would have loved to have them reinforce the just-friends relationship between Hawkeye and Black Widow, because there are not enough platonic friendships between compatible men and women in fiction, but 'they’re not interested in each other because they’re busy with someone else!’ is a weak reinforcement indeed. Less forced romances, and definitely less token wifey who exists for no other Goddamn reason at all. This comes out of nowhere, and not in a clever-surprise kind of way.

“You still think you’re the only monster on the team?” Natasha says, after telling Bruce about her sterilisation. This earned a HUGE backlash, and for good reason - despite all arguments about how what Natasha meant was that her being raised to be an assassin makes her a monster, the direct implication of her words as they are phrased and as the discussion is structured is that her inability to have children makes her monstrous, and that’s deeply offensive. It’s also completely in keeping with a narrative which is often played out against women, in which their value as people is attributed directly to their ability to produce offspring, so it’s not even like this outrageous implication of monstrosity - the corruption of what it means to be female! - is that unusual. It’s awful, but not unusual. Add on the fact that 1) Natasha’s nightmare-flashes specifically foregrounded her sterilisation over all other details of her training, supporting the idea that she believes that it’s what makes her irredeemable (instead of, y’know, all the murdering and stuff), and 2) this is Joss Whedon’s work and he is OBSESSED with highlighting the womanhood of his female characters and treating it like their defining trait while also variously punishing them for it, and you’ve got every reason to interpret this terrible fucking line as exactly the heinous thing it (presumably, unwittingly) seems to be.

Steve ripping a log in half with his bare hands is the funniest thing in this whole movie.

Thor’s brief side-adventure with Erik Selvig is pretty out-of-place. He just...goes for a swim in a convenient magic pond that Selvig chances to know about. Seems normal.

Ultron is full of such boring, empty rhetoric. Reminds me of Loki in The Avengers, with all that sound-and-fury.

I love Paul Bettany.

Man, they sure do find Natasha instantly. It’s almost like making a damsel-in-distress of her who needs to be rescued by the team was completely meaningless...

Breaking my no-BTS rule (since I already have done for this movie at this point) because it’s well-known how Joss Whedon ordered Elizabeth Olsen not to show exertion or ‘ugly emotion’ on her face in this film, because God forbid she compromise her attractiveness by being human. Joss Whedon is not human; he’s fucking trash.

The final fight sure does just, y’know, get to a point where it ends. They really did not ratchet up the tension over the course of the Sokovia conflict, it just goes along until it stops (also, they say Sokovia is a country, but then they never call the city anything else, it’s just Sokovia. Is the city conveniently named after the country (very confusing), or is it a city-country, like The Vatican? I kinda assume it’s option three, which is that no one bothered to care because it’s just some fake European placeholder anyway and we’re not supposed to notice such a dumb oversight).

“I was born yesterday.” This is the best quip in this whole thinks-it-is-way-wittier-than-it-is movie.

Helen Cho deserved better than to be a prop rapidly dismissed and then just trotted past at the end for an ‘oh, she survived, btw’.

Back when I reviewed the first Avengers movie, I said that I considered that film to be heavily overrated, so maybe it’s not such a surprise that I actually like this one better. The two primary problems I had with that first film were the overly simplistic plot, and the fact that most of the characters were OOC compared to previous films, and this movie does do better on both scores, so I feel more engaged by it, and less annoyed. That said...this movie has still got a lot of problems, and those include iffy characterisation and a plot with various holes, nonsensical complications, and conveniently ignored or smoothed-down dynamics. When I say I like this movie better than the first one, I mean just that: I like this better. That does not mean I am here to sing its praises.

The tacked-on romance is part of the problem - for Clint as well as Natasha (but especially for Natasha). After Hawkeye was so heavily under-used in the first film (and his slightly-ambiguous relationship with Black Widow was the only human element that made him a character instead of a prop), Age of Ultron attempts to compensate by giving Clint a personal life, in the form of a magically-appearing heavily-pregnant wife and a pair of nameless children. The function of this family appears to be 1) to give Clint a reason to not be interested in Natasha, and 2) to ‘humanise’ him by giving him something to fight for and get home to, because we all know nothing legitimises a character quite like some otherwise-irrelevant dependents. Want a man to seem lovable and important? Give him a pregnant wife. That’s what women are for, anyway, right? To enhance a man’s story? In this case, to provide a man whose purpose in the story has been contested with insta-personality, because ‘he’s secretly a family man, ooh, twist!’ is way better than having to spend time on giving him something to do in the plot that is actually meaningful in some way. Great logic. Makes Hawkeye super dynamic, right?

Natasha, unsurprisingly, is hit much, much harder. As the only female avenger and one of only two prominent female characters in a cast which has seven-to-nine male characters of equal or greater importance/screen time (YMMV on whether or not you think Fury and Vision count for that list), the pressure is already on for Natasha to be served up a quality narrative, because if she doesn’t get one, well...she doesn’t have six-to-eight alternative characters to pull the weight for her gender. The best solve for this problem would be to avoid the ‘Token Woman’ cliche in the first place, but since we missed that boat...not having the personal story of your only primary female character revolve completely around her womanhood and her catering to heteronormative expectations of a love interest would have been a good choice. This weird, forced, chemistry-free thing with Bruce Banner? Was the worst thing they could have used to define Natasha’s presence in the film. It sticks out like a sore thumb every time they have an awkward interaction, and it leads in to that atrocious ‘monstrous infertility’ element (though that particular egregious mistake could have been included with or without a romantic blunder, it...probably wouldn’t be, and we’d all be the better off). Even the Hulk-whisperer part of the relationship - while not awful on its own with all the unnecessary romance and Unresolved Sexual Not-Tension removed - serves to highlight Natasha’s female-ness by making her the soft maternal figure for the team, because God forbid one of the other male members of the team be asked to ASMR-speak to the Hulk while delicately caressing his hand. If Natasha’s presence in the first Avengers film leaned too heavily on her gender identity as a defining trait (and it did), this movie doesn’t fix that problem at all: it doubles down on it.

The good news for most of the excess of male characters is, they by-and-large don’t feel as OOC as they did in the first film. The boorish romantic entanglement aside, Bruce Banner is still a naturalistic character highlight (all credit to Mark Ruffalo, who probably doesn’t know how to turn in a bad performance in the first place), and Thor’s dialogue is way less ridiculous this time ‘round, so he lands a lot closer to his personality from previous films simply by virtue of sounding like the same guy (unfortunately, the plot does not have the faintest idea what it wants to do with him as a character). Steve Rogers is still being written as if being Captain America is his character, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of his identity, albeit one which conveniently allows him to behave in a stereotypical self-righteously bland manner, thus avoiding the need for any nuance in his perspective or actions. This borderline fanfic-flamer ‘Captain America is my least favourite character so I’m going to write him as a boring stick-in-the-mud and then hopefully no one else will like him either!’ approach doesn’t grate quite as badly as it did in the first Avengers, and it can’t cancel out the innate level-headed charm of Chris Evans, so as disappointing as the bias is, it’s still a better balance here than it was last time. The one character who is not so flatteringly handled, however? Also happens to be the one who was arguably handled best last time, and unfortunately, he’s the one who is essentially treated as the ‘lead’.

The big problem for Tony Stark is that this movie is not interested in digging in to the pathos of any character, it’s all-flash-no-substance on that front, and Tony really, really needed a less heavy-handed slathering of ‘afraid of what might come (feat. messiah complex)’ to motivate his actions and reactions in this film, because without any exploration he’s basically just a billionaire kid playing with matches. If this were an Iron Man film (either the first or third one, anyway), we’d get into some tasty deconstruction of Tony’s mental state and confront his hubris, etc, and - crucially, most crucial of all, it’s a mainstay of all his past stories in the MCU - Tony would own up to his mistakes, listen to the advice of those around him, and take contrite steps toward fixing the problem not just in the direct sense of ‘beating the bad guy’, but also in the personal and emotional sense of working on his own flaws and making amends with the people he hurt along the way. This movie offers none of that. To begin with, Tony’s ‘I know best and I will not be taking any questions’ approach to creating Ultron feels like a significant step backwards in his character development so far (Iron Man 3 was specifically about addressing his PTSD and associated tumultuous emotions surrounding the fear of imminent alien invasion, so his reactionary and secretive behaviour in this film feels particularly out-of-touch with a mental reality Tony has been explicitly working on for the past couple of years); Tony is actively aware that it’s a bad call and thus hides it from the other Avengers until it’s too late, and then he’s bizarrely unrepentant about his mistake. Worst of all, he actually attempts to repeat that mistake, only worse, late in the film (the fact that his idiotic ‘mad scientist’ pep talk actually convinces Bruce to help him again is the weakest character moment for Bruce outside of the aforementioned romance crap). The plot rewards Tony’s second, far worse mistake, in the creation of Vision, who turns out to be ‘worthy of wielding Thor’s Hammer’ and whatnot and conveniently provides every necessary skill to defeat Ultron in a deus ex machina so overt you could use it as a textbook example, so even though Tony had absolutely no way of knowing that he’d get a good result this time and almost every reason to believe he’d just compound the existing problem, his reckless disregard for the literal safety of the planet is treated like a good thing because it happens to work out this time, and they just kinda sweep under the rug the fact that Tony is playing God (and being uncharacteristically stupid and selfish about it - in other films, Tony is normally only reckless with his own safety, and it’s when his actions spill out into unintended consequences for others that he realises the error of his ways and cues up a positive learning curve; it’s what makes him palatable). At the end of the film, once Ultron is gone and Tony has thrown some dispassionate wads of cash into ‘relief efforts’, he strolls and quips and eventually drives off into the sunset in his expensive car, with nary a mention of, I dunno, maybe a little guilty conscience? Maybe a hint of having learned a valuable lesson? The closest he gets is just suggesting that it might be time he retires from Avenging, but neither he nor anyone else lets on that there’s a need for serious self-reflection. The Tony Stark in this movie is the nightmarish male-fantasy version of the character, the playboy with the cool tech and no limits who does whatever he wants and then...literally rides off into the sunset in the end, no muss, no fuss. He’s kinda like a complete reversion to his original self, pre-Iron Man, frittering money around and designing weapons of mass destruction while convincing himself he’s bringing peace to the world one explosion at a time, but that Tony has no business here, seven years of character development down the track.

While we’re talking iffy characterisation, we should also segue into plot, and that’s something we can do easily enough by looking at our villain, Ultron. Calling Ultron an actual character feels...ambitious. He’s a CGI robot full of empty rhetoric and, you guessed it, more of those quips that this movie has in place of any meaningful dialogue. I’d call him self-fellating, but he ain’t got nothing to fellate, so instead he just blathers a lot in a manner that sounds vaguely poetically intelligent but is, upon a moment’s consideration, just vapid nonsense (much like Loki in the first Avengers, as noted above, but at least Loki had the benefit of a flesh-and-blood actor delivering his lines with conviction; James Spader does solid work as the voice of Ultron, but trying to make a CGI robot who spouts a school-kid’s attempt at edgy philosophy sound like a genuine menace is an uphill battle). Speaking of genuine menace, I assume the reason the film is called Age of Ultron is because A Couple of Days of Ultron Causing Disturbances in a Handful of Specific Locations was too much. For all the big talk (and there is..so much), Ultron doesn’t get up to all that much trouble, most notably in the sense that he apparently has his code all over the internet and yet he doesn’t bother stirring up a single ounce of chaos with that ungodly power. Why bother including this as an element of the character if it achieves zero story? Is it purely to make Ultron seem ~unstoppable~ because he keeps downloading into new robots? Because it didn’t really land, y’all. They try to play it like a big victory for the good guys when Vision burns Ultron out of the ‘net, but in context it’s meaningless because he didn’t do anything while he was there. Pretty much everything about Ultron was all talk, little to no action - even a whole bunch of the trouble he did cause happened off-screen, with Maria Hill just popping in to let us know that ‘there are reports of metal men stealing shit’. Cheers, cool. And you know, Ultron makes a song and dance about how he’s going to save the world by ‘ending the Avengers’, but then he...does not pursue that at all. He tries to make himself a pretty body, the Avengers thwart him, and then he enacts a doomsday machine to destroy all life on Earth. Like every other aspect of the character, the whole ‘end the Avengers’ schtick is just white noise, there’s no meaning in it. Ultron is just a same-old-same ‘What if Artificial Intelligence wants to WIPE US OUT?!’ cliche, and maybe that’s what he was in the comics too, I don’t know, but it’s the job of the film to tell that story in a dynamic way, and they had two and a half hours to do it. And yet.

There should be more to this than a nondescript placeholder villain concept and a series of action set pieces that just kinda happen until they stop. At least the first Avengers had some variety in each of its action sequences, using the location and the different skills and weapons of its antagonists, whereas this one is just ‘there are robots and the good guys punched and shot them until they were all broken, the end’. Even making the city fly in the end doesn’t actually make it interesting, not least because the characters spend most of their time running around the (weirdly, perfectly stable) streets not having to deal with any consequences of being up in the air anyway, and the doomsday device is too nebulous to ratchet up any real tension about figuring out how to deal with it. The conflicts with the Maximoff twins have at least some spark of life in them, but the characters themselves are treated to an over-simplified and very contrived narrative arc that uses what they do and what they know more as plot devices than as details of actual people’s lives, leading to a cheap death for Pietro so that Wanda will be distracted enough to abandon the big ol’ doomsday button, and it’s just all so convenient. There’s no heart in any of it, and it makes the moments that try to have heart all the more embarrassing and out-of-place (don’t even get me started on what a prescribed attempt at tugging the heart-strings it is to have Hawkeye name his magnificently well-timed newborn after Pietro, because DAMN). When I said I liked this movie better than the first Avengers, I meant just that: I like this better. That’s not to suggest that it is significantly better in any sense, because it isn’t, and I can’t even argue that this one has a better story, because honestly, it doesn’t. The first film made more sense, it was just less interesting to watch, and the things about it that were contrived were contrived in different ways. The first film was weaker and more irritating on character, and character is always the most important part of a story for me, so as annoyed as I am by the major character blunders in Age of Ultron, I’m still not as annoyed as I was after The Avengers. That is damning with the faintest of praise; this is just not a particularly good movie, it makes a poor use of its cast at the best of times, delivers a sub-par action extravaganza, and the script is not half as witty as it gleefully convinces itself that it is. It comes as no surprise, I’m sure, that I am very glad a certain writer/director departed the franchise after disappointing everyone with this outing. I say I like this better than the first Avengers, but gee, it’s a close call.

#Avengers: Age of Ultron #Marvel Cinematic Universe #Bechdel Test #female representation #MCU #Age of Ultron #Avengers

31 notes · View notes

katie-dub · 6 years ago

Text

Author Rec - Welllpthisishappening

Sometimes fic recs just don't go far enough, sometimes you come across an author that you feel could get you to read pretty much anything and love it and you just have to just recommend their entire body of work.* Laura @welllpthisishappening is one of those authors.

If you'd told me a few years ago that I would read - just read, not love - a 45 chapter fic about ice hockey I'd have laughed in your face. Full on cackled. The kind of total hysteria that takes you past the point of obnoxiously loud and into silent stomach-crunching laughter that actually hurts but you just can't stop. It's fair to say that I'm not the most sporty (or sports-loving) of people.

But such is Laura's talent.

Her way with words is damn near magical. She creates beautiful, layered plots faster than you can blink, writes banter like it's as natural to her as breathing and picks the perfect pop culture reference every time.

She's got a whole library of Captain Swan fic to devour and adore, but if you haven't yet read anything by her, here are my personal top three (honestly, it was super hard to narrow this down to a small number):

To Make The Season Bright

It’s just one weekend. At Christmas. In New York. With everyone there. With Killian there. It’s fine. Emma doesn’t mind – he’s always there and she wants him to be there and it’ll be good. Great, even. Festive. She’s looking forward to it.

Honestly.

She just hopes she doesn’t do something stupid. Like shout feelings in his face. That probably wouldn’t be very festive.

OK, story time - I was the worst pregnant lady. Some women glow when they're pregnant, I just glowered. Damn near constantly. My youngest was due right after Christmas and I was, quite simply, moody as fuck. Then this fic came along with its friends to lovers, mutual pining, and making out. At Christmas! It was like a little festive treat, a respite for my pregnancy-addled brain that was as comforting as being wrapped in a fleecy blanket with a great cup of coffee-hot chocolate hybrid and cinnamon rolls while being cuddled and having your hair stroked. I thank this fic entirely for giving me a break from obsessing about pregnancy, it was a god send. Even, now 14 months later, I break this fic out whenever I need a lift. It's literally open on my phone right now, I love it.

Wrap Around Your Dreams

Emma Swan is not a very good witch. She’s emotional and prone to immediate reactions and neither one of those things are currently helping her when the body count in Storybrooke is on the rise.

And there’s far too much blood at each crime scene and far too much magic and Emma has no idea where to look next. So she does the almost human thing; she starts making a list. Of clues and ideas and the absolute desperate hope that the killer isn’t what she’s certain it absolutely has to be.

The last thing she expects is for the notebook to start writing back.

The reason I was drawn to OUAT in the first place was because of the idea of taking magical characters and plonking them into our world. It's one of my favourite things - magic and myth clashing with the modern world. This fic is a totally unique twist on the fusing of those worlds, it's dark, compelling and still provides on the banter front. Totally wonderful.

Nights Were Mainly Made For Saying

It’s possible. Emma is certain. She’s going to fix this. She’s going to save him. By time traveling. Which is totally, absolutely possible.

She’s read about it. There’s a theory.

So, no one has ever actually done it yet, but that doesn’t mean she can’t or they can’t try and she just needs a little help. From Killian Jones. And his magic.

This is another creative use of the mundane and the magical but with time travel alongside the romance and all of that good stuff. It's like the best episodes of Doctor Who - dark and scary but also witty and light and touching. (And it actually totally makes sense.) This one will burrow its way into your soul and take up residence there and you'll be glad of it.

I realised that I picked out two dark fics from Laura, who is the absolute queen of the make out scene, and that I didn't choose any sports fic, which feels like a crime. But the truth is that she can turn her hand to anything, and whatever your favourite fic you will find something by her, and it will be gorgeous. And seriously, you should take a chance on the fics that don't immediately call to you if they're written by her. Just the other week I was like "I don't even know what March Madness is, but if Laura wrote a fic about it, it'll be amazing." And it was.

Her writing and honestly her whole being is a ray of sunshine. Go read something by her and tell her how fantastic it - and she - is, you won't regret it.

*(She's also absolutely a Good Human. 10/10, would recommend as a friend.)

#cs fic rec #cs author rec #fic list #cs ff #welllpthisishappening #I love you Laura #A lot

43 notes · View notes

queerdilf · 5 years ago

Note

Gods please - I too am in desperate need of attention and interaction - Tell me your favorite CR ship and why

Hhhhhh god this is hard! I’m gonna do a few bc I don’t have like a single CR ship, they shift constantly, so I’m gonna list the ones I have preference to!

Vaxleth- A lot of people think this came out of nowhere, and it sort of did, but I actually really loved watching this relationship grow. Vax making the first move, Keyleth letting herself grow and open up to him, watching them explore this new ground, and eventually their trip to Zephra as well as Vax’s goodbye had me in tears

Perc’ahlia- Look, Percy and Vex deserve literally everything, I knew they were going to get together from the start, they have so much love and support for one another, they’ve talked each other back from death, they lived their happily ever after and I love them both so much! One of the best moments for this ship was when Percy gives her the baroness title bc ***fuck that’s good***

Pikelan- Look, I don’t love Scanlan Shorthalt, but I was in it for the long haul with these two. Will they, won’t they games are always hard for me, but this one was honestly really cute (even tho Scanlan is a gross pervert and his jokes about sexual assault like aren’t funny). I do really love Pikelan and the best Pikelan moment for me was the night Scanlan proposes and Pike admits she read his letter

Pikeval- I’m such a slut for H/C hjkhsbkek Pike would have been so good for Percy, I don’t think it would have been the best the other way around, but I loved the idea of this AND THEN ASHLEY CONFIRMED PIKE HAD A CRUSH ON PERCY IN THE FINAL VM TALKS AND I DID DIE THATS MY FAVORITE PIKEVAL MOMENT HHH

Perc’ildan- Look, I think I just ship Percy with everyone bc it’s cute, but this was actually my first VM ship, like episode 6 or 7 I was on this shit. Percy and Vax I actually think would have made a very good pair and like visually Vax looks like Vex so it’s not too far off. Best Perc’ildan moment is any of them really, jakbcksn

Polymachina- I was very into VM ships and I literally couldn’t decide labfhkwndk (obviously the twins aren’t dating, but they do have the same date mates in the rest of VM) but they were just so loving and wonderful and jalkcbeosknd I love Vox Machina fuck off

Kimallura- THIS IS EVERYTHING HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT I LOVE KIMALLURA WITH ALL MY HEART AND SOUL BEST MOMENT IS WHEN THEY ALMOST DROWN

Widomauk- This one is the closest to my heart bc I could see it from little start, I was very into this idea to the point where I joined a discord where I met all my closest friends! I love the idea of dirty quiet boy meets pretty loud person and they’re both smitten and I just ☺️☺️ BEST WIDOMAUK MOMENT IS WHEN MOLLY SOCIALLY PINS CALEB TO A WALL NO CONTEST

Fjester- LAURA AND TRAVIS DESERVE THEIR ROMANCE THIS IS THE ONLY HET SHIP EVER BEST FJESTER MOMENT IS THE CONVERSATION WITH THE JELLYFISH

Beauyasha- I’m literally such a sucker for this since fucking the first episode hhhhh Beau love strong woman and Yasha want kiss Beau but needs time and charm hhhh Best Moment for me is probably when Beau and Yasha were on watch together and Yasha opens up and Zuella

Honorable mention:

Vaxmore- This May be sacrilege, but I was never as into Vaxmore as I was Vaxleth. I’m honestly not a huge fan of Vax in general, and I really think Gilmore could do better than him and I love Gilmore so much personally? Idk, I still freaked out when Vaxmore moments happened and I could see it developing and I liked it, but as soon as Vaxleth was on the table for me that always clicked more! So I like this ship a lot, just not as much as the other!

Kaysandra- is this the ship name? Idk, Kaylee and Cassandra deserve to fall in love and also I love the idea of Scanlan and Percy as in laws

Vexleth- Look, Key and Vex could have been so ***god damn good*** and I’m just bitter that they never kissed even one time ever

Beaujester- New Addition to the ranks, this FUCKING SLAPS THATS ALL THEYRE BEST FRIENDS AND LOVE EACH OTHER

Clayleb- CALEB NEEDS SOMEONE TO CARE ABOUT HIM ALSO I JUST LOVE TO SHIP TAL AND LIAM CHARACTERS

Shadowgast- Too new to be really into it yet, but Essek and Caleb both want hot wizard ass, they gon kiss at least once

Vaxmauk- ... Look, they’re both dead, they have to keep busy ***somehow***

3 notes · View notes

peepeethepissking · 6 years ago

Text

FILM NOIR REC LIST

THE MUST SEE’S—DETECTIVE NOIR:

[‘44] Laura: Follows a cop investigating the murder of a well loved socialite as he questions the people closest to her—notably an esteemed writer that helped advanced her career, and her fiancé, a fellow socialite with a poor reputation. The lead is very endearing and the film pulls off one of the most natural twists I’ve ever seen in a whodunit. My only real complaint is that the romance felt a little rushed, but it’s a small price to pay for an otherwise delightful movie.

[‘44] Murder, My Sweet: It’s unsurprising that this is a good film, because it’s based on a book by Raymond Chandler, one of the founding fathers of the hard-boiled detective genre that paved the way for film noir. Humphrey Bogart notably plays the same character, Philip Marlowe, in the Big Sleep. This is one of few films that I think really successfully utilizes an in-media-res frame. It follows Marlowe through two intertwined jobs—a search for a thug’s old girl and the truth behind a jewelry fence. I was surprised with how well it handled the two simultaneous storylines without letting them become too confusing.

[‘46] The Big Sleep: As the above film, this is based on a Raymond Chandler book. This is the only time Bogart depicts Philip Marlowe, and he’s considered one of the best depictions of Marlowe to ever hit the silver screen. This one doesn’t handle it’s plot quite as delicately as Murder, My Sweet, and I honestly ended the film with…a lot of confusion. But even so, it’s a very fun watch, and it feels like a true noir classic. It starts off with Marlowe getting a job from a sickly old colonel to poke around a gambling debt his daughter has acquired, and it follows Marlowe poking his nose in all kinds of businesses he’s not welcome in. [this notably has been recommended by kevin vibert himself!]

[‘47] Out of the Past: I’m not sure what it is, but this is by far my favorite noir I’ve seen, to date. Poor Jeff Bailey gets an unwelcome reminder of his dark past as an amoral P.I. one day after he’s reestablished himself as a small town mechanic. Cornered by an old client that’s much too powerful, he takes on one last job while trying to protect his new life, and his new love. It’s half flashback half real time, but it handles that quite well. My biggest complaint is that the ending is pretty far from what I had wanted, but it’s all for the sake of art, I suppose.

THE MUST SEE’S—TRADITIONAL NOIR:

[‘45] Mildred Pierce: This film starts with a murder, and then within the frame of an interrogation tells the story of Mildred Pierce’s life after divorcing her first husband. This film doesn’t quite feel like a noir—it’s brightly lit, it features a female lead and no real “fatale” character, the murder isn’t really the focus of the film—but when you look at the real “message” of the film it lines up with the traditional noir pretty neatly. It’s about the disillusionment of capitalism as a fix-all, it’s about how heartbreaking unconditional love can be, it’s about how hard life will always be for some people. It’s a very frustrating film to watch because of how poorly Mildred Pierce is treated, but it’s a very cathartic film to watch because of how transparently realistic it is.

[‘46] The Blue Dahlia: This one’s a real classic, but I personally can’t decide if it was outstanding or forgettable—which I’ll grant, to have that strong of a discrepancy, it must’ve done something right. It’s a trope that we haven’t seen otherwise on this list, the unreliable memory of a freshly grounded war veteran. You get the facts immediately, with an opening scene that shows one of the gang is just a little troubled from his time overseas. It’s a whodunit that follows a mostly ensemble cast after the ‘lead’ runs out on his wife, then finds out she’s been murdered. What really makes this film worth watching is the end scene, which of course only works at all because of the groundwork laid in the first hour of the film. It keeps you on the edge of your seet with an unreliable narrator kind of confession and then whips you around and wraps everything up with what really happened in like, ten minutes. It’s absolutely dizzying and a real explosion of an end.

[‘50] In a Lonely Place: Another delightful Bogart movie, because, well…I like Bogey, what can I say. This film doesn’t really feel like a noir until you get about halfway through, and everything starts to build up and gain tension. It has a very satisfying ending for a film that almost feels like it isn’t about anything. I’d say it’s especially worth watching because of Miss Jeff Donnell’s absolutely wonderful performance as the-best-friend’s-wife. As far as the plot, it follows a screenwriter that happens to be the last person to have seen a murder victim alive, and is therefore a suspect in the muddy case. It does a great job of making you doubt every character, and the truth of the murder is successfully withheld until the very end.

THE B-SIDES:

[‘47] Crossfire: This one’s split between being a police procedural and a veteran noir, but I think it follows the vets around more than the cops in the end, so I’m putting it here instead of under “detective.” Fair warning—this film deals with antisemitism, and the central murder is revealed to have been a hate crime (don’t worry, though—the overall message of the film is that we shouldn’t judge our fellow man before we get to know him). We follow Sgt Keeley while the police question him and try to find his best friend, the prime suspect in a recent murder. Played by Robert Mitchum, notably the lead in Out of the Past, Keeley is a breath of fresh air—as all of Mitchum’s characters seem to be. He’s charmingly a sort of father figure to the other soldiers, and you find yourself rooting for his friends simply because their his friends. This film has probably the weirdest setup for an arrest I’ve ever seen, and I doubt it would hold up in court, but it’s a classic noir ending, nonetheless.

[‘47] Dark Passage: This movie is just incredibly fun to watch, because it’s such a product of it’s time. It has some of the goofiest filming decisions I’ve ever seen in an A-Lister! The beginning is shot in first person, through the eyes of the lead. It feels like playing a dating sim, almost. It’s made very sincerely, though, which really carries it through the humor, and makes it very fun and strangely light hearted. It follows a man wrongly convicted of murder as he escapes prison and tries to find out who framed him, with the help of a local fanatic that followed his trial and believes he’s innocent. Bogart is delightful to see in such a strange role, and Lauren Bacall has an incredible performance that would’ve just felt insincere from anyone else.

[‘49] D.O.A.: This movie follows a guy as he tries to find the man that fatally poisoned him. It’s an interesting twist on the whodunit where the “murder victim” himself is the one trying to find out whodunit. It uses a flashback frame in order to start immediately with that “who’s been murdered?” – “Me!” twist, but beyond that shock value, the frame is really unnecessary. This one’s would’ve been much more fun to watch if the main character wasn’t such a dick to women. The answer to “who did it and why” was also…a lot more confusing than it had to be, which left the end feeling a bit muddled. As a side note—here DOA stands for “dead on arrival.”

[‘53] The Big Heat: Follows a cop as he investigates a suicide that should’ve been an open-and-closed case. The closer he gets to the truth, the more trouble he gets into—and before long, it seems he’s gotten himself wrapped up in a world of crime that infiltrates even the police station, and the men in charge will do anything to keep his nose out of it. This one’s really classic, and it conforms so well to the genre that it almost feels forgettable—but it’s the fact that it is so true to the genre that makes it worth watching.

NOTABLE ABSENCES:

[‘44] Double Indemnity: I watched this movie in three separate parts because I fell asleep each time I tried to finish it. It’s a kill-the-husband-so-we-can-be-together type of movie, and it’s also notably an insurance adjuster film instead of a detective film. This one’s a real classic that almost everyone says is a must see, but personally I thought all the tension was killed by the unnecessary flashback frame. If nothing else, this one is worth watching because it’s absolutely dedicated to the well known tropes of the noir, but for me that just wasn’t enough.

[‘46] Gilda: Gilda was almost a good movie. Glenn Ford did an incredible job acting against his typecast—this time portraying a charming crook that got his job running an illegal casino by counting the right man’s cards. The movie was just too unorganized, though. It’s a sort of 3 act show that just goes further downhill the longer it goes on. There’s a couple of song-and-dance scenes that feel all but thrown in simply because Rita Hayworth does indeed know how to sing and dance, and the end kind of blows up in its own face without a proper set-up. It’s cinematically a beautiful movie, but I was disappointed by how messy the plot ended up being for something with so much hype.

[‘58] Touch of Evil: Allegedly the last classic noir made in the true film noir era. I watched about a third of this film before calling it quits, which I will admit, is rare for me—I like to suffer through to the end just incase there’s that one scene that makes a movie worth it (see the Blue Dahlia, for example.) This film is about “marijuana, murder, and police corruption,” and it takes place in a California-Mexico border town—which is a big part of what made me quit out. It felt tired and cliché in way that was just a little too close to racist, and I found myself without a real reason to root for the main characters.

as I continue watching noirs, I will update this here to include new recommendations, my watch list, and an “honorable mentions” section

#the penumbra podcast #im sorry this is SO LONG but it really doesnt suit a read-more #feel free to drop in my inbox or dm with questions or conversation!

28 notes · View notes

night-filled-mountain · 6 years ago

Text

So the Labenda Swamp/Berleben episodes, while they had plenty of stand-out moments (KIRI! CALI! Shaving with a greatsword! Awkward hug!), weren’t exactly my favorites this campaign. Intra-party tension, lots of combat, lots of single-minded focus on their job (...their purely mercenary job for a crime boss, with no element of emotional investment or even a whiff of heroism). Basically, they had the generally grim atmosphere that you’d probably expect from a shitty swamp town. By the end of ep. 23, I was really craving some downtime for the group, some richer, softer interactions, juicy character development, and maybe an altruistic side quest that would help me really root for the Mighty Nein (much as I adore their shadiness).

...I cannot express how hard Hupperdook delivered on all of this. I loved this episode so much, you guys. SO MUCH.

Highlights:

There was so much goodness that I think I’m going to have to divide this up based on characters. Starting with...

CALEB

This episode was like the grand payoff for all of Caleb’s conflicts with the others about his inability to integrate with the group. Practically every little thing he did confirmed his affection for them and his determination to be kind and playful and fully present for them, to shed his sad-loner persona and become a team player:

-Magically lighting Beau’s firecracker for her with no hesitation, even though they’re both well aware of his issues with fire

-Encouraging Nott in her dance plans with Jester--i.e. encouraging her to enjoy herself with someone other than him, which feels incredibly healthy for both of them

-Hasting Jester to improve her piano-playing, and tossing gold in the “tipping hat” for her

-Having a civil (and hilarious) conversation with Fjord about the hazards of rooming with Molly in a party town--and actually inviting Fjord to share a room with him and Nott, which I kind of wish we got to see, although the way things actually turned out was equally satisfying

-Telling Yasha he was sorry she wouldn’t be going out with them because he counts on her as his social-anxiety buddy

-Gently checking up on Fjord re: his flirting anxiety (more on that later)

-Participating in the drinking contest--again, with no hesitation (and killing it!). This went against so many of Caleb’s usual scruples (not spending money frivolously, avoiding crowds and social interaction), not to mention making him extremely vulnerable, both physically and emotionally. He had to know that some of his closely guarded secrets might come out, and he had to extract a promise that they wouldn’t let him pass out in the gutter...but he went through with it anyway, trusting the group to take care of him. And they (specifically Jester) justified his trust.

-THE DRUNKEN SINGING. Counting and singing both seem to be compulsions for Caleb, especially in stressful situations (we’ve seen him sing a version of that “Mighty Nein” song on the battlefield, haven’t we?), but even after the heartbreak of the waltz scene, nothing can quite beat, “One of those things is true...aaand you are blue.”

-Speaking of which...

JESTER

-That waltz honestly might have been the saddest (and sweetest) scene of the entire campaign. In a situation that would normally be ripe for high comedy (the most awkward, inhibited member of the party gets super drunk and agrees to dance with Jester, trickery cleric and perpetual agent of chaos), we got a quiet slow dance and a line so poignant in context and delivery that I’m tearing up just thinking about it. The way Laura/Jester’s face instantly crumbled (even though Jester knows nothing of Caleb’s backstory). Her instantly softened tone, the complete lack of teasing. Caleb’s broken little “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m...I’m sorry.” His sudden reversion to Sad Loner Eternally Punishing Himself, as he walked away to seek out solitude in some filthy gutter. Jester’s determination to Not Let Him Do That, to keep her promise and get him into bed. “I’m sure Astrid loves you very much.”

...Yeah, I’m not sure how to do that scene justice other than crying about it.

Moving on to somewhat lighter tidbits...

-“I go over and give Caleb a kiss on the cheek.” 😊 (I need to make a whole separate post at some point about Caleb and touch.) (...About everyone and touch, for that matter.)

-Jester has never been drunk. I always kind of figured that her habit of ordering milk was just an in-joke about Laura’s pregnancy, like the pickles--but no, it’s a legitimate character detail stemming from her sheltered upbringing. I felt sorry for Jester and Laura when she was the odd tiefling out in the drinking contest, but in retrospect, it’s really good (for Caleb’s sake as well as their finances’) that they had a Sober Friend on deck.

-Her conversation with Caleb about “hidden skills” made me wonder, not for the first time, whether she’s actually had a lot of sexual experience as she often implies, or whether her childhood surrounded by courtesans (and her habit of spying on their clients) has simply made her feel qualified to speak on the subject. Passing the written exam but not the practicum, as it were.

-Her frantic (and mostly futile) attempts to get her teammates to say who they’re attracted to while under Zone of Truth were good fun, but her frantic attempts to get them to say whether they like her held a bit more weight, I think. Jester is, without a doubt, the best-liked member of the Mighty Nein--I don’t think there’s a single teammate who couldn’t have truthfully answered that question with a resounding “Yes”--but Jester, with her history of isolation, her social inexperience, her lingering fears of being left alone again, still feels insecure about whether her friendships are sincere. Give Jester hugs, is what I’m saying. Give her ALL the hugs.

-Jester’s concern for Kiri gets more adorable each episode. I especially like how emphatic she is about the fact that Kiri is a person, appearances notwithstanding (“She’s like you, she’s a little girl, not a pet”). Laura said in a Talks episode a while back that Jester thought of Kiri like a doll, but I definitely think her views have evolved. There was something especially touching about the music-box scene. Hupperdook seems to present several options for safe and wholesome environments in which they might leave Kiri, but I’m kind of rooting for Rissa and her father to take her in.

-Jester got to throw around her magic a lot in fun, non-combat ways this episode. Loved the Thaumaturgy cheers for Beau, and the Infernal whispers surrounding the blacksmith kids. But that Locate Object spell not only single-handedly saved their asses, financially speaking, but also changed the entire direction of their current adventure when it led them to that final scene, with the kids in the boarded-up shop.

-It was kind of amazing to see the different ways and specific moments in which each member of the Mighty Nein was affected by the kids’ story. For Jester, of course, it was when they said their parents were thrown in jail for “idol worship.” It is killing me (in a Very Good way) how we’re gradually finding the cracks in the Nein’s cynical, mercenary armor--the emotional buttons that can be pushed to lead them to propose (or support) an actual altruistic quest, despite their much-cherished self-identity as “a bunch of assholes.” Which, of course, leads me to...

FJORD

Holy cats, did this episode radically transform the way I see and feel about Fjord. I haven’t done such an intense 180 on a character since Beau’s one-on-one scene with Dairon back in the day. That was the scene that 100% hooked me on Beau. I went in feeling lukewarm and iffy about her, and came out finding her lovable, secretly vulnerable, and generally fascinating...and this episode had the exact same effect for me re: Fjord.

-His flustered reactions to flirtation have always seemed funny before, and they were funny in this episode too, up to a point...and then, as Travis played it up, it began to feel like something more. I love that it was Caleb, of all people, who sensed Fjord’s genuine discomfort and asked if he was okay. Whether that discomfort just stems from virginity/inexperience or from some kind of bad experience, it makes Fjord’s relationship with Jester--who defaults to flirting as a standard form of social interaction, because of her upbringing--a lot more interesting to me than it’s ever been before. Her offer of sex lessons would have felt like simple comedy in an earlier episode, but now it felt like a case of fundamental miscommunication, a clash between two people with very different backgrounds and worldviews when it comes to sex and romance...and I am All About It, I am so on board for that ride, it appeals to me so much more than Jester’s simple romance-novel-fantasy version of their relationship.

-In my notes on last week’s episode, I forgot to even mention Fjord confiding in Molly about the eyeball on his sword (and Molly’s poorly-timed and poorly-executed Charm Person spell), but Fjord and Molly’s relationship always intrigues me. In this week’s installment of their roommate shenanigans, we got Fjord’s rather jaw-dropping line “Half of me’s interested, the other half is terrified” (I could just hear the fics being written on the spot). My shipping compass is all over the place at this point. On the one hand, Fjord has low wisdom and an occasional tendency to jump on board with crazy scenarios just for the hell of it. On the other hand, I could swear sometimes, looking back over the whole campaign, that the only people in whom he’s shown anything like romantic interest are Caleb and Molly. (If you want to get all metaphorical-innuendo with this, they’re the only two teammates he’s almost allowed to hold/examine his sword...yet, in both cases, he decided to refuse/hold off.)

-Fjord coaching Beau on behavior and facial expressions never, ever gets old. And for once, instead of trying to help her be more courteous and less off-putting, he got to help her ramp up her intimidation to a whole new level (for a couple of teenage punks! 😂). Molly and Caleb doing good cop/bad cop last week was a delight, but Fjord and Beau pulled it off just as brilliantly. (Are we ever going to hear what became of those kids, as they spent a day frantically searching for the thieves the Mighty Nein had already found? ^_^)

-And finally...HOW ABOUT THAT BACKSTORY, THOUGH!?

No, it’s not the first backstory drop we’ve gotten for Fjord; in fact, it’s one of the briefest. We knew about the kids who made fun of him for his tusks and drove him to file them down. We knew about his sailor background, the shipwreck, his near-drowning experience, and that he presumably made a shady deal with his patron (whether he remembers it or not). We knew about his mentor, Vandren, whose fate is still up in the air. Yet somehow, none of that had anywhere near as much impact on me as that one little line, that achingly hesitant response to the question of whether he’d ever been in an orphanage: “Yes. I was. They’re terrible fucking places.”

I’ve actually thought a lot over the course of this campaign about why I’ve had more trouble connecting to Fjord than to the other characters, and I realized that a lot of it boiled down to the fact that he’s just never seemed to have the same vulnerability. Yes, his backstory was painful, even traumatic, but there was a certain macho romanticism to it--explosions, shipwrecks, a shady kraken-esque magical patron, even the fact that the loved one he lost was a surrogate father. It was all a little bit too “classic hero” for me to really feel it down to my bones...and honestly, that also applied to Fjord in general. He was always so smooth, so polished, so badass and confident and leader-like. I never heard the same raw desperation in his voice as I did in Caleb’s when he talked about his parents, or Nott’s when she talked about her goblin heritage, or Molly’s when he talked about rejecting his forgotten past, or Jester’s when she begged the Traveler to appear, or even Beau’s (downplayed as much as she could!) when she was seeking Dairon’s approval.

But with that one line about his childhood, regardless of the specifics, Fjord has joined the club for me. I’m all in. I’d die for him as soon as I would for any of the others. ...And this turned out waaay longer than I expected. 😳 Moving on!

-Everything about Fjord during that last scene (and actually, everything about that scene in general) was pure gold. Fjord was so soft toward those kids; he gave us the gentlest rendition of the line “I’m the one asking questions” that I’ve ever heard. His quiet, eloquent, persistent appeal to the others to join him in a dangerous, unpaid, purely altruistic rescue mission did such a number on my heart.

-Also? “I would really like the opportunity to leave this place better than we found it” was a direct quote from Molly when he talked about his circus days under Zone of Truth--and Molly definitely noticed. I love, love, love that the members of this chaotic-neutral trash group are learning to appeal directly to each other’s backgrounds, issues, and specific values, not just to get a rise out of each other, but to activate the compassion that every one of them has buried beneath a hundred layers of cynical self-interest.

-Of course, Fjord and Molly weren’t the only people having their buttons pushed in that discussion, and Fjord’s wasn’t the only big backstory drop this episode! Which brings me to...

BEAU

-Though I was initially disappointed that the gang didn’t set off a whole bunch of them in the streets of Hupperdook, I am now thrilled and terrified at the thought of all the firecrackers she still has in her possession.

-Everything about Beau and Jester’s friendship is pure as the driven snow, and Beau getting Jester a flower necklace was no exception.

-Beau: *tries to snatch Molly’s tip for a dancer out of midair; rolls a natural one* Dancer: *grabs the coin, kicks Beau in the face, and winks at her* Beau: “I wink back. You know, I kind of liked that. That was kinda hot.” Me: This is the most quintessentially Beau moment I have ever witnessed, and I love her more than air.

-Low-charisma Beau and Molly leaning on the bar, totally ignored, for 15 minutes, was beautiful...but Beau’s “Sorry to interrupt your incessant flirting, but can I please have a drink?” is everything I have ever wanted from Beau and Molly’s frenemyship. I feel so fulfilled.

-Beau’s brief involvement in Jester and Nott’s dance plans (“Yeah, I know, I’m your second choice” / Nott: “No, third” 😂). Beau gets a lot of flak for arrogance, but honestly, her self-deprecation game is almost as strong as Caleb’s, and it is both hilarious and kind of poignant every time.

-Her defense of Nott from the racist (species-ist?) firecracker salesman. “Hey, don’t ever apologize for who you are, man.” Also telling her that Caleb is “a good guy”--which, coming from the one person who (a.) knows Caleb’s full backstory and (b.) isn’t Nott, is kind of huge.

-BEAU BACKSTORY DROP. BEAU BACKSTORY DROP. I wanted it SO BADLY, and I got my wish!! There was nothing about it that I didn’t love, starting with the fact that she confided in Nott. Out of all the Mighty Nein members, they’re probably two of the people with the fewest interactions, but it makes sense that the weird Caleb/Beau/Nott bond formed during Caleb’s backstory drop continues to strengthen.

-“Are you evil? Are you a bad guy?” / “No. I don’t...I hope not. I think it differs from day to day, depending on what I’m doing. Do you think I’m a bad guy?” This said so much about Beau herself, and also Beau’s self-image--and how heavily it depends on how other people see her, despite how vehemently she’d like to claim otherwise.

-Beau’s story wasn’t shocking or even surprising--it basically just tied together a lot of the hints we’ve already gotten--but there were so many little touches that killed me:

Her painfully realistic reluctance to pronounce her father a bad person

The fact that he hired the monks to straight-up kidnap her like some kind of horrific “scared straight” stunt (which is a thing that real parents do to real children, and that’s all I’m going to say about that)

The pained sarcasm of her, “Sure. Great,” when Nott asked if she was okay...and the brief dropped eye contact when Nott asked, “Was it hard?”

The looong pause and deeep breath between, “He was hoping...” and, “...they were gonna beat my indiscretions out of me.”

“I think all of the things that my father saw in me that he hated, the monks saw as a potential advantage.” I’ve always known that Beau’s first scene with Dairon felt raw and emotional and Important, but this scene finally gave us the context to explain why.

And, more than anything, the way her voice broke and dissolved into pained laughter when she said, “In fact, he told me he never wanted to see me again.” ...If this guy is still alive, the Mighty Nein had damn well better hunt him down and give him the full Syldor Vessar or Howaardt Darrington treatment.

...I have to note that amid all those dark emotions, something about Beau’s deadpan delivery of “I worked at a library” sent me into hysterics. (Also, “That had to do with the job that I had before the job that I had--”)

In short: For her first big backstory drop, this was deeply satisfying, but there are still so many things we don’t know! Why was her childhood “meant for someone else”? What about “I came to hate the town I was in and the system my father was a part of”? That seems related to her previous confession to Caleb, that she watched her father give up everything for the Empire and get screwed over somehow. And what about her comment to Dairon ages ago about how her father’s money (for her upkeep) must not be coming in anymore? Is he dead? Missing? In prison? I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING.

Still not the end of the Beau moments, though:

-Beau getting Fjord out of awkward sexual propositions by pleading erectile dysfunction on his behalf. Best/worst anti-wingwoman ever. (Bonus: Fjord’s Very Southern, Very Offended, “She doesn’t know me like that.” 😂)

-She finally followed through with her long-ago threat to slap Caleb! (Caleb, luckily, was not in a state to care.)

-“I will fucking punch you if you try and kiss me.” Literally could not ask for more with Beau and Molly. Could. Not. Ask. For. More.

-Her anguished “NOOOO!” when Molly literally pulled the alcohol out of her body...and of course, ”Did you touch inside of me!?”

-Despite finally dropping backstory of her own, Beau is still #1 when it comes to digging out other people’s: “I mean, Nott’s over here trying to pull my heartstrings, but it seems like you should be the target. Do you have a thing with kids in orphanages?”

Speaking of heartstrings...

NOTT

-So happy to see more of her friendship with Jester (“Do we need choreography!?”), and an attempt to revive their Detective Duo dynamic.

-It’s been a while since we saw Nott deal with racism (species-ism?). Still as much of a gut punch as ever.

-I loved seeing her gratitude to Beau for taking care of Caleb, along with her determination to make sure Beau is doing it right. I’m still not sure how I feel about Nott’s whole “I am the parent” attitude, but she’s certainly a better ‘parent’ than most of the Mighty Nein have ever known.

-She did a fantastic job bringing out Beau’s backstory without overshadowing Beau, but she still got off some great lines in that scene: “So wait. Little townsgirl, her parents are wine-makers, now you’re a brutal assassin martial artist who can kill anything...what happened in between those two things?” and “You were bootlegging your old man’s hooch!?”

-“I never thought of you as an optimistic person, but that’s a very positive way of looking at it.” Okay...I may finally, finally be letting go of my cherished image of Scrappy Urchin Child Nott, and warming up to Maternal Nott. Watching her earnestly encourage her ever-growing collection of adopted children is kind of the best. (She was also great at “pulling Beau’s heartstrings” during the final scene, though I couldn’t help thinking that a lot of her “Don’t you think the children should be with their loving parents!?” rhetoric would’ve hit home for Caleb as well.)

-The drinking contest was a delight from start to finish, but Nott’s match was probably my second-favorite. (Nothing could beat “little Caleb” triumphing over his mild-mannered opponent.)

-It was a small moment, but it made me inordinately happy to see Nott and Molly profusely congratulating each other after the contest and then DANCING TOGETHER. They’ve barely exchanged a word since (1.) Molly wrenched deeply personal confessions out of Nott with Charm Person, (2.) They clashed in the aftermath of Scrollgate, and (3.) Nott offended Molly pretty seriously during his Zone of Truth backstory. Every single moment of Mighty Nein friendship/concern/camaraderie in this episode gave me so much life, but these two were a highlight.

And, speak of the devil...

MOLLY

It’s been quite some time since Molly got a big chance to shine. I’m mildly concerned about that, but that’s a matter for another post. (And it will probably get cleared up soon anyway--I think Tal just has a somewhat quieter play style, and takes a while to settle into his characters.) That said, the Molly moments we did get in this episode were absolute gems:

-Straight-up knight-in-shining-armoring Rissa with the punks who were harassing her. Nothing will ever be quite as gloriously creepy as blood maledicts.

-“Do I have masculine wiles!?” / “You have...pan wiles.” / “I’m into it.” (There’s this very specific voice Molly uses once in a while, this tone of pure childlike wonder, that sends my Molly love into overdrive. The lines that come to mind are, “Can I!?” back when Fjord joked that Molly could take the mirror from Pumat Sol’s shop, and “I won a strawberry!” back at the Harvest Close festival. I love that I can now add “Do I have masculine wiles!?” to the list.)

-Drawing alcohol out of Beau with his blood-hunter powers to ease her hangover

-“Whatever team you’re on, I don’t think I play for that one...It’s Team Fuck-Off, I’m well aware.”

-Throwing up on Fjord, and then tenderly bringing him to bed (...not that way)

-His “Say no more, I’m in” as soon as Fjord made it clear that the quest to break the kids’ parents out of jail was personal for him. In perfect accordance with his carnie past, Molly often walks this delicate line between “keep your head down, don’t make trouble” and “be the chaos you want to see in the world,” and I love that a friend’s Strong Feelings can single-handedly push him from one side to the other.

-I feel like there are probably more Molly moments I’m forgetting because I’m at the tail end of a post the size of Mt. Everest here, and I am most sincerely sorry.

BONUS

Yasha was barely there this episode, for obvious reasons, but I still desperately want art of her cuddling with Kiri!

IN CONCLUSION

This episode was amazing and I cannot wait for next week.

#critical role #c2e24 #caleb widogast #jester lavorre #fjord #beauregard #nott the brave #mollymauk tealeaf #yasha nydoorin #kiri #caleb #jester #beau #nott #mollymauk #molly #yasha #beau and caleb

317 notes · View notes