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alwaysachorusgirl · 4 years ago

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Playing Matchmaker

Pairing: Rafael Barba x Female Reader

Word Count: 2,028

Square: Blind Date

TW: none

Tagging: @thatesqcrush

A/N: Well, it took a massive re-write, but it’s done. This isn’t the story I originally started writing, but I’m okay with that. I like this version better. I like that it became more of an ensemble piece. And then there’s Janice. She’s named after Janice from the Muppets, and her personality is a combination of a few people that I know. She’s that friend who really cares and means well, but doesn’t always understand boundaries. And once I started writing her, it was hard to stop.

“Janice, can you please just knock it off already?”

You swallowed two ibuprofen tablets with a swig of your white chocolate mocha and rubbed your temples. As an SVU detective it was rare for you to have a Saturday off. You had agreed to meet your friend and neighbor Janice for coffee and breakfast. Everything had been fine until she had started sticking her nose into your love life, or lack thereof, and now you had a headache.

“But Y/N, Valentine’s Day is a few days away, and once again, you don’t have any plans. Come on, just let me set you up with someone. One more blind date isn’t going to kill you.”

“No, but I might kill you, “you shot back, glaring at your friend. “Look, I’m sorry, I know you mean well, it never works.”

“It might, if you ever gave one of them a chance,” She countered. “You’re the one who always bails after one drink.”

“I’m a detective, Janice, and a good judge of character. I can tell pretty quickly if a guy isn’t going to meet my standards. And besides, I hate Valentine’s Day. It’s not a real holiday, and it’s not worth me wasting my time and energy.”

“Damn, Y/N,” remarked Janice, “You’re too young to be that jaded and cynical.”

“I’m merely stating a fact, “you said with an exasperated sigh. “It’s not my fault if you can’t handle it.”

“What about your partner, that Italian guy? He’s cute.”

“Sonny?” You nearly spat out your drink. “He’s like my big brother. I think I’m technically an adopted Carisi sister, at this point.”

“Okay, so that’s a “no”. You mind if I ask him out?”

“Janice, no; he’s a good Catholic boy and I will not have you corrupting him.”

“Okay, okay, chill,” said Janice, sitting back and putting her hands up in defeat. “Oh! Wait! I know! What about that ADA you always hang out with? What’s his name…Raymond?”

“His name is Rafael, and he’s also a “no”. I don’t think he feels the same way about me, as I do him.”

“Aha! So, you do have your eye on someone!”

“Janice, please, just drop it already. I have a headache and I don’t want to talk about this right now. Can we please order food? I’m starving.”

******************

After breakfast, you bundled up and headed out into the February air. You knew that Janice was just trying to help, but sometimes she just didn’t understand the concept of boundaries. Your love life had been non-existent since you had caught your last boyfriend cheating red-handed. That had been two years ago. Rafael Barba had offered you his shoulder to cry on, knowing all too well the kind of pain and humiliation that you had been feeling. He’d gone from work colleague to one of your best friends after that, and at some point, you had developed romantic feelings for the handsome, Cuban ADA. But for the sake of your friendship and working relationship, you intended to keep that to yourself. It wasn’t worth taking the risk of losing him or making things weird between the two of you.

Your feelings for Rafael were also why all the blind dates never went anywhere. Some of your dates had been nice, others total douchebags, but they weren’t Rafael, and therefore, there was no point in the stringing them along. As long as you were comparing them up against the standard that was Rafael Barba, they could never measure up. You were fine with that.

**************************

Janice walked into the SVU squad room on Monday and breathed a sigh of relief when she didn’t see you. She wasn’t there to see you anyway. Instead she looked around and tried to find someone who looked like they worked with you.

“Excuse me, miss? You look a little lost. I’m Detective Amanda Rollins, Can I help you with something?”

Janice turned and smile at the blond woman with the Southern accent. She recognized the name right away.

“I think you can. I’m Janice Wilson. I’m a friend of Detective Y/F/N Y/L/N?”

“Oh, Y/N’s not here right now. I think she’ll back in about a half an hour?” Amanda paused. “What a minute…did you say Janice? Janice the Matchmaker?!”

“She’s mentioned me?” Janice’s eyes went wide.

“Oh honey,” said Amanda, “we know all about you. You’re kind of famous around here. Hey! Carisi! Finn! Get off your butts and get over here!”

“What?” Sonny called back from his desk, his mouth full of food. “It’s lunchtime, Rollins, I’m eating over here!”

“Yeah, Rollins, what’s the fuss?” Asked Finn, rising from his chair.

Amanda walked Janice a little further into the squad room.

“Guys, this is Janice, the Janice! You know, Y/N’s friend?”

“Wait, seriously? Janice the Matchmaker? Nice to finally put a face to the name,” said Finn, coming over and shaking Janice’s hand.

“Hey, we’ve met before. It was that one time at Y/N’s apartment, “said Sonny, finally putting down his sandwich and standing up. “You live down the hall. So, what brings you to SVU?”

Janice quickly filled them in the conversation from the coffee shop.

“So, the thing is, I’ve been getting it all wrong. If I had had known sooner about the ADA, I would have tried setting her up with him. I feel bad and I need to make this right with her. The problem is, I think she’s a little pissed at me, and she’s not going to listen to me. That’s where you guys come in. I have an idea, but I need your help.”

“Count me in, “said Amanda. “If anyone needs to get together, it’s Y/N and Barba.”

“I don’t know, Rollins, “said Sonny. “Isn’t this kind of going behind her back?”

“Carisi, have you seen the way they look at each other? Have you ever noticed how he’s less cranky when she’s around?”

“Yes, Rollins, I know, we all know! But she’s still my partner, and I gotta look out for her.” He looked at Janice. “If I agree to this, what exactly would I have to do?”

Janice motioned for everyone to come closer.

“Bring it in, folks, here’s the plan.”

*********************

When you came back from picking up warrants and getting lunch, everything appeared to be normal. Amanda and Finn were working at their desks. Sonny was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn’t exactly unusual. Any one of you could be called out on a case at any time. You took off your coat and sat down at your desk. You were just starting to dig into your lunch when Amanda got up and came over.

“Hey, you, just the person I wanted to see.” She flashed her best smile, and you immediately suspicious.

“Hi Amanda, what’s up?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if you had any plans for Valentine’s Day…”

“Amanda, you know that I don’t. What’s really going on?”

“Okay, so I know this guy. He also doesn’t have any plans for Valentine’s Day, and I think he might be a good fit for you.”

“Oh, dear God, are you seriously trying to set me up on a blind date?”

“Yes, I am. Look, I vouch for this guy. I wouldn’t try to set you up with someone that

I couldn’t vouch for, and he’s a nice guy. I think you’ll like him.”

“Fine,” you sighed, hanging your head in defeat. “But if this guy sets off even one red flag, I’m bailing.”

“That is totally fair,” agreed Amanda. “You would be disappointed, I promise.”

********************

Sonny walked into Rafael Barba’s office at 1 Hogan Place and hoped that he wouldn’t screw this up. He still couldn’t believe that he’s agreed to this, but Janice and Amanda had been so sure that this would work. He heard his phone ping in his coat pocket. He checked it and saw it was a text from Amanda. She had succeeded in getting you to agree to the blind date. Now he had to do his part. Rafael’s assistant, Carmen, was sitting at her desk.

“Hey, Carmen, he in?”

“Yes, but he’s prepping for court, so he’s in a mood. Don’t take up too much of his time, okay?”

“No problem, hopefully this won’t take long.” Sonny knocked the door and waited until he heard “Enter!”, before going in.

Rafael looked up and wasn’t thrilled to see the detective striding into his office.

“What do you want Carisi? I’m busy, and Y/N already came by earlier to pick up those warrants for Liv.”

“I’m actually here to ask you a question. What are you doing for Valentine’s Day?”

“The same thing I do every year, working,” replied Rafael, rolling his eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“I ask because I have this friend, and she is into you. I really think you’d like her, and she doesn’t have any plans for Valentine’s Day. So, I’m just trying to be a good friend and help her out…”

“You’re trying to set me up on a blind date with your friend? Are you kidding me right now?”

“No, no I most certainly am not. Come on, Barba, it’s one date. Trust me, you’re going to like her. She’s worth it.”

“Does this friend have a name?” asked Rafael, suddenly realizing that the detective wasn’t backing down without a fight.

“I can’t tell you that because it will ruin the surprise, but come on, what have you got to lose?”

**********************

And so, on Valentine’s Day, Rafael Barba found himself walking into a little French Bistro a few blocks away from Hogan Place. He still didn’t know his date’s name. All he had been told by Sonny was what she’d be wearing, that she was beautiful, and that he’d know her when he saw her. It was all a bit too vague for his tastes, but Sonny had insisted. So, the ADA had chosen the restaurant and made a reservation. He looked around, hoping to see someone that fit the description he’d been given. Instead, he saw you, sitting at the bar and nursing a glass of red wine. He made his way over to the bar, secretly wishing that he was meeting you instead of his date.

“Y/N? What are you doing here?”

“Rafael!” You said, looking up in surprise. You got up and hugged your friend. He was warm and it felt so good to be wrapped up in his arms. He smelled of coffee and his cologne and it was nothing short of intoxicating. You probably held onto to him for a bit too long, but he didn’t seem to mind.

“Believe it or not, Amanda set me up on a blind date,” you told him, finally pulling away and sitting back down.

“Really? This is going to sound weird, but Carisi set me up on a blind date.”

“He did what? He didn’t tell me about that. Is it just me, or does it feel like something’s up?”

“Yes,” Rafael nodded, “Something is definitely up. Y/N, what color would you say your dress is?”

You looked down at your dress, and then back up at Rafael, thoroughly confused.

“I like to think of it as a cranberry wine,” you replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Carisi said my date would be wearing a cranberry wine-colored wrap dress, is beautiful, and that I’d know her when I saw her.”

Your eyes went wide as your thought back to what Amanda had told you about your date.

“Amanda told me that my date has green eyes, dark hair, is well-dressed, and that I’d know him when I saw him…” You trailed off, gazing into Rafael’s eyes, realization dawning on you. “It’s you. I’m so glad it’s you.”

“I’m glad it’s you, too,” said Rafael, taking your hand in his. “So, want to you say to having dinner with me?”

“I say ‘Yes’, nothing would make me happier. Just let me text Amanda real quick.”

Y/N: I’m going to kill you!

A. Rollins: Lol, that’s fine. Just make sure you say ‘thank you’ to Janice. She’s the brains of the operation. We couldn’t have done it without her.

#thatesqcrush vday bingo #rafael barba x reader #rafael barba #svu #svu fanfiction #rafael barba imagines #fan fiction #raul esparza

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thatsbucknasty · 4 years ago

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she used to be mine (v) waitress au

summary: Inspired by the broadway musical. Y/N Beck is a pie baking force to be reckoned with. She’s pregnant with her lazy ass husband, Quentin Beck’s baby. As everything around her turns upside down, Doctor James Buchanan Barnes charms his way into her life.

pairing: Y/N x Bucky

I will put some warnings in the tags cause I don’t want to spoil everybody but I feel like there are sensitive topics in this one, so go ahead and check the tags!

chapter 5: you will still be mine

You’d think that having an unplanned pregnancy, an unemployed lazy husband and an exhausting job that underpays would be just enough to realize you’re having a bad year. But now, on top of that, said unemployed lazy husband’s truck broke down and I just can’t afford to fix it right now, he’s asking for money cause he already took it to the shop without consulting with me, and it’s not like I can just give him my savings.

He was out all night yesterday, drinking I assume. I have to tell him I’m pregnant. And also, I have to walk to work and to my doctor’s appointment later today, because I can only afford one bus ride per day and usually it would be the one back home from work cause Quentin would drive me in the morning. Life’s just fine and dandy isn’t it?

I’ve seen those videos where women will make a big deal showing their spouse the little pregnancy test and record their reaction. It usually involves tears and hugs and all things pretty, and I can’t help but feel like I’m never gonna have that kind of life. The one with balloons and cake and glitter for the gender reveal party and the baby shower. And I’ve never even wanted those things, but I’m pretty sure Quentin’s reaction will be the farthest from tears and hugs and all things pretty.

“Morning, Y/N, you’re late again. It’s the third time this month”. Sam looks angry at me from the counter, at least he’s back to his grumpy self but I feel bad nonetheless.

“I am so sorry Sam, I swear I’m not doing it on purpose, it’s just that I had to walk and you know 4th street’s closed and-

“Hey, calm down girl. I understand. I know y’all think I’m rude and moody all the time but I just like teasing ya... if you ever need help I can give you a ride in the morning”. Great, now even Sam is pitying me.

“And I know what you’re thinking. ‘He’s pitying me’”, he rolls his eyes at me, “but I care about you girls despite all of our bickering. I’m just offering my help cause we’re pals, aren’t we?” He offers me a cup of coffee and I decline but sit down on the stool.

“Why aren’t you drinking coffee Y/F/N?” Oh shit.

“I uh, I-” Shit, shit, shit.

“Y/N?, tell me what’s going on?”

“Fuck, Sam, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. We are pals, we are! But I didn’t want Nick to know cause I thought he might fire me. I’m pregnant”. I finally sigh and hide my face in my hands, trying hard not to cry in front of him. “God, this is embarrassing”.

“Hey! There’s nothing to be ashamed of here. I understand, actually a lot of things make sense now. The girls know, don’t they?” I hum my answer, my face still in my palms.

“Have you told Quentin yet?” I shake my head and look down at the orange juice he puts in front of me instead of the usual coffee, huh, he can be nice when he really wants to.

“You’re in a real conundrum, aren’t you?”

“Yes I am. He hasn’t been working for the past three months. He didn’t come home last night and we fight almost every day. I don’t know when I’ll start showing but my uniform barely fits and my feet are swollen from walking here. It’s just a matter of time until he notices. I can barely afford my doctor’s appointments. Oh! And I might have a tiny crush on him”.

“Your doctor? Wasn’t he married?”

“How did you- nevermind. Well, he’s getting a divorce, but I am married so nothing’s gonna happen either way”.

“Jesus, I wish I could do something to help you. My offer on the ride still stands, okay?”

“Thank you, Sammy. You’re very kind but knowing my husband, he would never allow it. He’d rather I walk with my swollen feet everyday and I don’t wanna fight with him. I’m just so tired”.

“Y/N, I know this ain’t my place but, why are you still with him?”

“I honestly don’t know anymore. I keep making up reasons when Nat tells me to ‘leave his ass’ but I can’t think of any more good ones”.

The diner was very quiet today, most Tuesdays it is because Al’s Pancake World has a discount. Sam swore he’d keep the secret about my little crush. I just don’t want Nat to have more material for insisting I should leave Quentin right now. And now I’m walking over to the doctor’s office.

The air tonight is so crisp and I appreciate how summer is about to end. Fall has always been my favorite time of the year. I can’t wait for the diner to smell like pumpkin pie every day. Speaking of pie, I brought Bucky some leftovers.

“Good evening, Y/N. Oh gosh, you brought pie?”

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

“I’m starting to think I should give you something back, you really didn’t have to”.

“Oh don’t worry about it, it’s just some leftover ‘Kick in the pants pie’, I know, the name’s a little too aggressive but I had a bad week, don’t judge”.

“No one’s judging here. But care to explain the name?”

“I just- I had a fight with my husband earlier, and whenever I wish I could do something that’s not very nice, I just make it into a pie, you know… to express my feelings in a non-violent way”.

“So you wish you could kick your husband’s crotch but you made a pie instead, got it”. It’s insane and we both laugh about it for a minute and he leans back into the exam table. This is nice, having a friend who I can openly talk about my issues with. Wait, are we friends?

“Do you and your husband fight a lot?”

“Um… why are you asking me this?”

“Oh, nothing, it’s just- stress is bad for the baby and, I don’t know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“It’s okay”, I lean into the exam table next to him, close to him, “we do, we fight a lot. He drives me nuts, and I’m a pain in his ass. That’s just us I guess”.

“I get it. I was a pain in Dot’s ass too”, he scoffs out a cynical laugh and looks at me, “guess she couldn’t deal with that anymore”.

“Can I ask what happened?”

“You can, but I wouldn’t know how to answer. She just got up and left one day. Said she got an internship in New York and we weren’t working anymore, so- she didn’t even give me a real reason, nor a chance to work things out”.

“I’m sorry, Bucky”.

“It’s fine. We always wanted different things. I was raised in a small town and when I went to Chicago for college I was miserable. But I met Dot and I thought life in a big city wouldn’t be so hard if I had her by my side. But then she wanted to do even bigger”.

“Like New York?”

“Yeah. I’m not cut out for that. I love this little town of yours, always did”.

“Oh, so you’ve been here before?”

“Yeah, my grandparents lived here and I would come visit for the holidays. You actually remind me of my grandma”.

“Gee, thanks?” He throws his head back laughing.

“No, I mean because she used to bake like, ten different pies for Thanksgiving. She loved baking. And she was also a little-” He eyes me sheepishly and makes a face.

“A little what, huh?” I smack his arm and try not to laugh at his stupid, cute antics.

“Well, a little strong willed?”

“That’s a euphemism for stubborn”.

“Yeah, it is”. He has the audacity to smirk at me and I can’t help but smile because he says it in a way that feels like a compliment.

Bucky finishes the examination and tells me he’d like to see me again in three weeks. He opens the door for me and we do a little dance of who gets out first. We laugh at each other’s clumsiness and I feel like a teenager. He smells nice, like always. I say goodbye and I find myself hoping the next three weeks go by quickly. I glance at my watch and notice the time. Fuck, has it really been two hours? My appointments usually last thirty minutes tops.

“Hi, Y/N”. Fuck, he’s here already?

“Jesus, Quentin, you startled me. What are you doing here? I thought you were supposed to see the game at Phil’s tonight”.

“Yeah? And I thought you were supposed to come home early, you said no extra shifts on Mondays”.

“I- I was-”

“Now don’t lie to me, cause I found your money! That’s right, I did! Why were you keeping money in the closet, huh? I took the money, paid Carl to fix the damn truck and drove over to Nick’s and you weren’t there. That angry redhead chick said you left early, so where, the fuck, were you?” He grabs an empty bottle of beer and throws it against the wall.

“Quentin. Stop it, you’re scaring me! Calm down!”.

“I won’t calm down until you tell me where you were!” He grabs another bottle and raises it above his head, aiming straight at me, I’m frightened and I don’t know what else to do but-

“I’m pregnant!”

Silence. Complete and utter silence. He lowers his arm along with the crystal bottle he’s holding. Tears cascade down my face silently and I can’t help them. I hate crying in front of Quentin but he truly scared me. He’s never been violent towards me. Sure he yells a lot but he never gets like this, and I’m sure he would’ve thrown that bottle at me if I hadn’t told the truth.

“Please say something”.

“You can’t be pregnant, Y/N, and if you are it isn’t mine”. He whispers and I don’t know if I heard him right. I’m at a loss for words for a few seconds.

“Why would you say such a thing? It is yours!”

“No it isn’t! I don’t want it!” He’s yelling again and his words break my heart. If I had the smallest belief that he actually cared for me, it’s gone.

“Quentin? Do you remember that night I went to the Stark’s party with you and we both got drunk? You were wearing your fancy blue shirt with the grey tie, and I had that red dress that you like. This baby is yours. And if you-”

“No, it isn’t! I said it isn’t, Y/N. I- I can’t do this with you, I can’t and I won’t!

“What are you talking about?!”

“You remember Alice? You met her at that party”.

“Right, mini skirt girl, I remember. What about her?”

“She and I-” He looks down at his feet and then back into my eyes and I see it.

“No”. My blood begins to boil. This bastard!

I feel a huge knot in my throat and I can’t breathe. All this time I’ve been grasping for something, anything. Clinging for this marriage to work. Feeling guilty about baking a stupid pie for my doctor, when he’s been sleeping with some girl who’s probably ten years younger than him?!

“No!” I grab the nearest object and throw it at him. And of course it’s a fucking pillow- “Get out! Out, I said! And don’t ever come back!” He’s backing down, opening the door and I yell at the top of my lungs, I don’t care if the neighbors hear me-

“That money you stole from me was for the doctor’s appointments and the hospital bills, I saved up all of that for this baby, your baby, alone! And you’re gonna pay me back! I kept a roof over your fucking head, paid for your fucking beers and you cheated on me? If you ever come near me or this baby I will kill you, you hear me?”

I grab his keys and put them on my apron’s pocket.

“And I’m keeping the stupid truck!”

He leaves, on foot, and just like that I’m a single mother.

“AH!”

What is this? The most terrifying pain strucks my pelvis and I feel a discharge in my underwear. No, no. Baby don’t do this. We are gonna be fine, you and I. I promise. Please. Don’t.

chapter 6: a soft place to land

a/n: pls reblog if you liked it c: and don’t kill me, I promise fluff is coming!

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dickgraysonisnothereforthis · 5 years ago

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I Didn’t Mistake Your Finger for the Moon, I Just Chose to Look at You Instead

Tim Drake x Reader Oneshot

The title comes from zen buddhism (maybe chinese? i’m sorry I don’t know), the idea is I am pointing my finger at the moon to show you the moon don’t look at my pointed finger, look where I’m pointing.

Heavily inspired by the play Frankie and Johnnie in the Claire de Lune

***

You can’t believe it’s only 8:30pm, just two hours into the night and you’re already bored out of your skull. Around you, the huge ballroom swirls with sparkling socialites keeping themselves busy by incessantly talking shit and guzzling Bruce Wayne’s alcohol. Everybody has their lips to someone’s ear and a glass in their hand, except for you, which is quite stupid on your part. But that’s why you’re at the bar.

Behind you, the positively charming laughs of the Wayne Gala’s guests dot the conversations that spill out through the room in concentric circles, rippling over each other in waves that ebb and flow right up until they reach you. Then they stop short, leaving you alone and trying to order a drink from a bartender who seems to be too busy to chat you up out of pity.

Not that you’d do anything with her, obviously. But still. Some attention would be nice.

Christ, you were so shit at knowing what to do with yourself at these parties. You’d think you’d have them figured out by now, but no such luck. Your funeral.

“Hey, have you seen Tim?”

You turn to face the speaker and your eyes fall on Dick Grayson, dressed gorgeous in a sharp suit complete with a dark blue bow tie. He looks incredible, but then again, he usually does. And miracle of miracles, the folks around you are now eyeing you up, trying to figure out if it’s worth skydiving into your conversation to get in a word with Bruce Wayne’s heir. Dick does that to people, has the sort of happy, positive demeanor that makes folks want desperately to talk to him, to be part of his group. You’ll probably never get used to it. Or to how beautiful he is.

“Yeah.” Yeah, you know where Tim is. You resist the urge to point across the ballroom, motioning with your chin instead. “He’s over there, schmoozing with some LexCorp folks.”

“Schmoozing? With LexCorp?” Dick’s face takes on a slightly disgusted hue in the light of the chandeliers.

You shrug. “Schmoozing, making thinly veiled threats, planting the seeds for some light corporate espionage, but not the sort anyone can prove. You know Tim.”

Dick chuckles at that. “I guess I do.” He takes a step away from you, then doubles back. “Are you all right, over here? You look a bit...”

“You can say lonely, Dick, it’s okay,” you say with a bit of bite, too many teeth in your voice, but he’s not wrong. “I’m fine, you don’t need to babysit me.”

His eyebrows raise. “Jeez, y/n, I didn’t mean--”

You cut him off. “No, it’s fine Dick, I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry.” You press a hand to the bridge of your nose and try to take deep breaths. Starting a fight with your boyfriend’s oldest brother is not exactly on your to-do list for the evening. “I am a bit lonely, but it’s cool, I get Tim back in...” you check your watch, a cheap analogue that clashes something awful with your cheesed-up attire. “Eight in a half minutes. Then he’s mine for at least an hour.”

Dick quirks his lips in a half-smile. “You guys time how long he spends doing W.E. business at these galas? That’s--”

“Adorable? Or just anal?” Try as you might, you can’t keep the cynicism from spreading thick over your tone.

“I was actually going to say very Tim,” he says back warmly. You grin at him, bad mood abandoning you for the moment. “It was his idea. Wouldn’t be much of a date if we didn’t spend any time together.”

Dick laughs again. “No, I suppose it wouldn’t.” Across the room, Tim turns away from the circle of business harpies and shoots you an apologetic smile. Dick must’ve clocked it as well. “Maybe Tim’ll turn knight-in-shining-armor and rescue you,” he suggests.

You wrinkle your nose. “I doubt it. As much as I don’t like it, the business stuff needs to get done.”

Dick eyes Tim’s back. “Yeah, something tells me you’d be the one doing the rescuing.” He clears his throat. “Well, I hate to be rude, but I gotta skip out on you.” Dick’s down-to-earth manner of speaking always surprises you, especially because he manages to get away with it at these swanky events. When you do it everyone seems to look at you sideways. “Need to go find Damian,” Dick explains further. “If he’s not antagonizing your boyfriend, he may be up to something worse.”

You nod in agreement. “Go get ‘em, Tiger.”

He sighs. “Yeah, wish me luck.” And then Dick makes his exit, leaving you with seven and a half minutes to wallow before Tim comes back.

You chide yourself a bit, picking up the Gin and Tonic that the bartender had just placed in front of you. Were you seriously going to wallow in self pity at a gala half of Gotham would kill to attend? With Tim Drake as your date? Hundreds of girls and quite a few boys probably daydream about being in your place, especially after he made the Forbes Thirty under Thirty list last month. Still, his spot on the list doesn’t change the fact that exactly no one at this party, striking Dick and the bartender, has said a single word to you.

You stifle a sigh. It isn’t your fault Gotham’s socialites always prove to be uninterested in Timothy Drake’s thoroughly middle-class girlfriend. They had found you just fascinating when the relationship was new and Tim’s move of dating so far below his class had actually made headlines. But, six months later, your novelty had worn clean off. God, you wished you had someone to talk to. You were feeling so small.

Swallowing a sip of G&T, you think back to your first gala at the Manor. The glitter and glamour of the evening had left you breathless, whereas now it’s making you sick. Some parts of the evening never seem to go stale, though. You still love playing dress up in gorgeous clothes and parading around with your boyfriend, who was also dressed up in gorgeous clothes. Tim usually bought your dresses for these events, since there was no way on the planet you could afford them. You’d gotten used to Tim being stupid rich early in your relationship, and it doesn’t bother you that you can never match him in the money department.

Occasionally, Tim likes to spoil you, although neither of you are too keen on outrageous gifts that are ultimately useless. He tends to avoid getting you things that are overpriced and unnecessary. (Cheap and unnecessary is where you operate. The two of you are currently having a competition over who could get the other the smallest, most useless gift for under two dollars. Your last gift to him had been a yellow plastic shovel that fits in the palm of your hand)

Tim doesn’t like buying expensive, frivolous things on principle, and you don’t like receiving them, also on principle. But if you’re going to attend these galas, you need an expensive dress point-blank, otherwise you’ll stick out like a sore thumb. And you want to attend, you want to be Tim’s girlfriend, public appearances and all. So Tim just has to buy you the dresses, which you secretly love because they’re gorgeous, and you have to accept them, because you can’t attend the gala without them. It’s a neat way for Tim to give you something expensive and make sure you’ll have a need for it. Plus, you know he loves seeing you wear the clothes he’s bought you.

Tonight, however, you’re not wearing one of Tim’s Vera Wang’s or Alexander McQueen’s. You’ve opted instead on something you’d bought yourself, a bridesmaid’s dress you’d worn to a friend’s wedding earlier this year. It just about fits in with everyone else’s attire, and besides, the dress was expensive. You wanted to wear it at least twice. A great plan, except it isn’t as beautiful as some of the other dresses in the room tonight. You’ve recognized more than one from a runway fashion account you follow on Instagram. Nice as your dress may be, it can’t compare with any of those, and every time you see an exceptionally beautiful gown you wonder what you were thinking, wearing a dress like this.

The negative buzzing in your ears dissipates as you catch Tim’s eye again. He’s got the same stupid look on his face he’d worn when he picked you up this evening. Like he’d been punched but he didn’t exactly mind.

“Are you sure you’re my date for tonight?” he’d whispered, after doing a cartoonish double-take at the door of your apartment, because he really is a good boyfriend. “I’m not sure other people will believe it.”

“Of course they will,” you’d scoffed, cheeks glowing at the compliment. “We look good together. You’re pretty stunning yourself.”

He’d look down at his own clothes with a worried expression. “Really?” Following your advice and urging, Tim had stepped out of his comfort zone tonight and was sporting a patterned tux. It’s a dark blue checked with thin black stripes, waistcoat and bow-tie to match. “I think I look like Al Capone.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you look very dapper.” You had taken his hand, then, smiling up at him and leading him out of your apartment. “Charming, even.”

“If Jason’s there he’ll make fun of me. Damian definitely will.”

“They were going to do that anyway. And besides, who cares? I think you look great.”

“I guess you’re the only one that matters.”

“Damn straight.”

He really does look incredible tonight, you think to yourself as you check him out from your position at the bar. Nothing short of beautiful, with the long lines of the tux sitting pretty on his sinuous, willowy limbs and gorgeous frame. His shoulders are holding strong under the fine material of his jacket, and presiding over everything are his sharp cheekbones and even sharper eyes. Which, you note in satisfaction, are now fixed on you as Tim extricates himself from the suits and makes his way to the bar.

“Is this seat taken?” he asks, plopping down next to you and casually hooking a foot around your ankle.

“Nope,” you smile happily, thrilled to be spending time with him again. “I was saving it for you, and as you can see, I had to really fight to keep it free.” You motion around yourself to the people ignoring you.

Tim winces. “I’m sorry, y/n, if I could do anything--”

“Stop, stop,” you wave him silent. “Don’t worry about it. You’re here now, it’s okay,” you reassure him.

“I don’t like that you end up spending so much time alone at these things,” he says, wrapping an arm around you. “If you even think I’m going to let you come to this thing by yourself,” you say, shaking your head. “Some of the other ones, maybe, but if I don’t make an appearance at The Wayne Gala, capital T, W, and G, the public will think I’m out of the picture.”

“Defending your territory, huh?” Tim grins sidelong at you. “Keeping the society pages off my back, more like.” You shift in your seat, sensing an opportunity. “But maybe I am defending my territory, hmm?” You give him an obvious once over, let lust show in your gaze. “Maybe you’re too pretty to let out of my sight.”

He flushes, color overrunning his cheeks and spilling down his neck and making him look even more edible. You let out a breath. “God, Tim, I could just...” you lean over, easily catching his lips with yours. Holding him there for a just a second, you run your tongue quick over his bottom lip and then pull back, spending a few moments just looking at him, with him looking back.

You wait for some of the sparkling energy to fade before you speak again. “It’s important to me that you know I’m here to support you as acting CEO.”

He laughs at that, spell broken. “I know sweetheart.” He turns from you to order a drink. “I’m very proud of you,” you say to his back. He rolls his eyes at you over his shoulder.

The bartender makes the drink inside of twenty seconds, because Tim Drake asked for it, and then your boyfriend spends a few more moments staring at you, taking the glass in his hand and eyeing you over the rim.

You meet his gaze. “What are you thinking?” He presses a finger to his ear. “Going off comms,” he murmurs, then surreptitiously fishes the device out of his ear and stows it in his pocket. If you hadn’t known what to look for you would swear he was just running his fingers through his hair and then brushing some lint off of his suit.

“If I’m honest, I’ve spent the last twenty minutes fantasizing about eating you out.”

...what?

It takes a moment for his words to connect to your brain. Then--

“Tim!” you squawk, eyes darting around to make sure no one had overheard you. “You can’t just say that to me in public!”

His eyes meet yours, he looks unimpressed. Tim never has any patience for your prudishness whenever he brings up sex with other people around. “What can I say? The LexCorp people were boring,” and now he’s the one looking you over, eyes slowly working up and down your form. You shiver under his attention. “That’s a very pretty dress you’re wearing, y/n, I think it would look great bunched up around your hips.”

God, confidence is such an irresistible look on him. Despite your better judgment, you decide to play along. Leaning closer, you let one hand ghost over his crotch, cupping him for half a moment as you say “and how do you think the dress will look on your bedroom floor?”

He gasps when you touch him, then smiles brilliantly, eyes shining. You really, really shouldn’t be encouraging him, but you can’t help it. You love him like this, you love the unrelenting force of his desire. You love how much he wants you.

With Tim, you’ve found that once the idea of sex gets into his head and he sees that you’re game, he’s like a dog with a bone, gnawing and gnawing at you. There’s no stopping him in pursuit to get you into his bed, or car, or the nearest supply closet. And you always find yourself indulging him, because the sex is usually good, but the man himself is even better. You delight in seeing Tim aroused, because as soon as that switch is flipped, the self-control that Tim rigidly keeps in place disappears, and he becomes hypnotically impulsive with his emotions. It took some time for him to get the barriers down, for him to let loose around you, but now he allows himself to be everything all at once. An aroused Tim is playful, awkward, confident, shy, ridiculous, and enthusiastic. You never know what you’re going to get with him, and sometimes he flits from one affect to the other between moments, leaving you breathless.

And you’re more than happy to provide an arena for Tim to let loose, because the only time your boyfriend allows himself to be anything less than perfect is when he’s in your arms. Control rules Tim’s life in the form of some probably unhealthy idolatrous god. As he’s explained to you several times, yes, he actually does need to be this tightly wound, because if he makes a mistake he’ll lose clout at WE. Or he’ll be too slow at night. People will die (he will die.) Insert answer here.

Which is all true, but it doesn’t mean Tim can’t take a fucking break once in a while. And that’s where you come in. Your boyfriend spends his whole life striving for perfection and punishing himself when he doesn’t reach it, but when he’s with you, he can be anything he wants.

And one of the wonderful things about sleeping with Tim is so often you get to see everything he wants. Once he’s finally lost control, once you’ve convinced him to put the walls down, he’s like a kid in a candy store. He can do anything, and so he usually does everything.

“Christ,” he breathes in your ear, head still in your fleeting touch, one arm coming to rest on your back. “I think you’ve given me a semi.”

“That,” you say in a sing-song voice, absolutely delighted, “sounds like a ‘you’ problem.” You turn and pretend to walk away, but Tim catches hold of your arm, reeling you back towards him. “You can’t leave now, y/n,” he pleads, eyes dancing. “People are going to look at my crotch and see I’ve got a hard-on, and I can’t endure Cass making fun of me again. C’mon, y/n,” he pouts at you. “I’m your damsel in distress. Save me from the bullies. Dance with me so no one will see.”

You roll your eyes, but come to stand in front of him nonetheless, letting him lead you to the center for the room with his hands on your waist. This isn’t the first time a gala has bored Tim to sexual frustration. “People will still be able to see your crotch,” you argue. “We’ll just dance really, really close together.” As if to prove his point, he suddenly jerks your hips to his, and you all but fall against him. “The song is too fast for this kind of slow-dancing,” you say into his neck, false protests muffled by his suit.

He leans back to make eye contact with you as the two of you start swaying. “That doesn’t matter. We’re young lovers, y/n,” he reminds you seriously. “They’ll forgive us.”

“Young lovers, hmm?” You’re struck again by his confidence tonight, how alluring it is. It’s rare that he’s this sure of himself, but he wears it so well when he is.

“That’s right.” The two of you are silent for a moment, and you contemplate leaning your head against his chest. “You really do look beautiful in that dress, y/n,” Tim says quietly, all joking gone from his tone.

Your cheeks heat at the compliment. “Thank you.” And then, because you’re immature, too, and because Tim isn’t the only one who can flash his sex drive in public, you impulsively say “I bet you can’t guess what I’m wearing underneath.”

This is probably a mistake, but what the hell. You want your boyfriend just as much as he wants you, maybe more.

Tim doesn’t even wait two full seconds before responding. “See, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I bet I can.” You weren’t expecting him to be so quick on the uptake, your mistake for thinking his boredom hadn’t already driven him to tackle this particular problem.

“It’s warm enough out that you’re not wearing any tights or pantyhose, so the suspender sets are out.”

“The suspender sets are out,” you repeat solemnly, already excited by this new game you’re playing. “Well, hang on, maybe I just wore a set without the suspenders.”

Tim is quick to shake his head. “No, you hate doing that, you’d rather just wear separate set altogether. It’s a set without the suspenders.”

You let out a low whistle. “Got me pegged there, detective.” You see an opportunity, and waggle your eyebrows. “Maybe I’ll have you pegged, later.”

He falters in the slow waltz he’s leading you through. “Really not helping with the semi here, y/n” he complains, and he’s right, you can feel it pressing lightly against you. You roll your eyes. “Fine, let’s go back to you guessing what lingerie I’m wearing.”

He nods, only half joking. Tim loves a puzzle. “Thank you. So none of the suspenders.”

“So none of the suspenders,” you repeat again, and offer him a winning smile when he glares at you over it.

Explanatory monologue in full swing, he says “You normally like to match your dress, but this one’s black, which isn’t very helpful.” All of a sudden his attention shifts and comes to rest on your face. “Are you going to tell me if I get it right, or will I just have to wait and see?”

“What would make it better for you, baby?” you ask, voice sultry as you slide your hips against his.

“I have absolutely no idea. Is it the red one?”

“Nope!”

“Damn. I love the red one.”

“I know you do, sweetheart.”

He pouts at you, but quickly perks up again. “Here, hang on, I’m going to risk exposing my erection so I can get a better view of your back,” and suddenly you’re spinning, once, twice, three times, before Tim pulls you back to his chest and dips you as the song ends. You’re panting a bit in surprise, and from your position suspended in his strong arms, you can feel one of his hands pawing around at your hip, smoothing over the fabric of your dress.

He pulls you upright as another song begins, a grimace on his handsome face. You reach up to brush some of his hair out of his eyes. “That was inconclusive,” he mutters.

You glance over his shoulder. “I think Bruce definitely got a good look at what’s going on down south.” Your boyfriend’s father is looking rather pointedly at the ground, a pained look on his face.

“I could barely see the lines of the set through your dress,” Tim complains, and then adds “Bruce’ll get over it. Or he won’t. Whatever,” he says dismissively. “Last week I walked in on Selina blowing him under his desk, so now we’re even. What’s way more important is that I couldn’t see anything, why couldn’t I see anything?”

“Aww, poor baby,” you tease.

“Shut up,” he mumbles, before brightening a bit. “I mean, it wasn’t a total loss. I did get a great view of your ass. It still looks fantastic, by the way.”

“Thanks for the update.”

He keeps going. “I didn’t see the lines, but I did get a good feel of your underwear at your hip.” He plants his tongue between his teeth, eyes closed in concentration as you sway delicately to the new song. “I didn’t feel a strap, so I can rule out some of the thongs.” You hum in agreement, arms coming up to wrap securely around his torso in an extended embrace. “It isn’t either of the black ones, or the nice blue one, is it?”

“No, sweetheart, it’s not.”

“Hn.” He shifts his arms, and you feel his slight hand flitting about at your hip again. He soon gives up, discouraged. “The material of your dress is too thick, I can’t feel anything through it.”

You decide to throw him a bone. “I’ll give you a hint: I’m actually wearing another color besides black, and the set matches it.”

Tim frowns, stepping back from you for a moment to look down at your feet. “Your shoes are black too, what are you talking about?”

You raise an eyebrow. “Do you want me to ruin it for you?”

“No, let me think,” Tim says, and goes silent, eyes shut. You study him as the actual detective comes out to play. His eyes snap open again, and you clock his gaze going for your throat and ears. No necklace, but you are wearing gold earrings. Tim ignores them and takes your hand in his, examining your rings. He knows you too well to ask whether the set is gold or silver, that isn’t your style. He’s getting much closer with the rings though, and then his sharp exhale is ghosting through your fingers and his eyes are meeting yours again. You give him a proud smile.

“Good solve, Timmy.” He kisses the pad of your index finger. “Nail polish, y/n?”

“Nail polish,” you confirm.

“Why?”

You pretend to think it over, letting your eyes go wide. “Well, I just thought it would look nice, you know? My hand right over the panties, maybe even inside them, if you wanted me to do any of the work on my own.”

His eyes just about bug out of his head at that, and then he shakes his smile back and forth, impressed. Your answering grin is knife sharp. “You’ve got me right where you want me, don’t you, y/n? What am I going to do with you?”

“Anything you want,” you whisper, winding your arms around his neck. “That’s sort of the point. We can get out of here right now.”

“You know I would love, love, to do that,” Tim says, running his hands down your back, “but there’s supposedly a deal going down at 9:30 that I kind of need to be there for.”

“Well, then,” you murmur, “you’ll just have to suffer for another twenty minutes.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” he says drily. The two of you sway in silence for a few minutes before he speaks again. “Hold on, y/n, something just occurred to me.”

“Yes, Tim?”

“Your nail polish is purple, but you don’t own any sets that color. What gives?”

You raise your eyebrows at him. He looks at you for a few moments before his face smooths out again. “You really have it in for me tonight, don’t you? It’s a new set?”

“It’s a new set,” you confirm.

“And I bet you look just stellar in purple,” he says to himself, a desperate edge to his voice.

“You know very well I look good in everything.” You glance downwards. “How are you doing there, Timmy?”

“Fuck off,” he says happily. “Is it lace?”

“Tim, sweetheart, of course it’s lace.”

Your boyfriend groans, then freezes in place. You look at him questioningly. “I’m running a cost/benefit analysis on me skipping out on this deal.”

“Give it to Tam,” you suggest.

“Give it to Tam,” he agrees. “Yeah, alright, let’s get the fuck out of here.”

You let out a delighted laugh, following him in the direction of his old bedroom in the manor. Behind you, you dimly hear the orchestra finish their song. There are a few moments of silence while you make your way to the exit, and then you hear a few forlorn notes on the piano that have you turning around and calling out “Tim!”

“Whoa, y/n, where are you--”

“Tim! Tim it’s Claire de Lune, they’re playing Claire de Lune, we have to stay!” You drag him back to the dance floor.

“But,” he tries to argue, “but y/n, we were going to--”

“Tim.” You stand your ground. “It’s Claire de Lune. Please?”

He mumbles under his breath but takes you back into his arms regardless, like the good boyfriend that he is. You adore the Claire de Lune, and he’s probably reasoned to himself that no amount of arguing or pleading could tear you from the melody spinning lazily through the room.

He’s still going to complain about it, though. “Claire de Lune, huh? I can’t believe I lived to see Twilight cock-blocking me again.”

You poke him in the side. “Some of us first heard Debussy at the Gotham Philharmonic and some of us read about him in Stephanie Meyers’ blockbuster paranormal romance and googled Claire de Lune on the family computer in their Dad’s office, okay? The important thing is we’re both here, and we can both appreciate it, so shut up.”

Tim shuts up. You smile at him, and let your eyes fall closed. The slow melody envelops you like mist and settles on your skin, resting easy in your inner ear. A small part of you anticipates the notes before the pianist actually plays them, and you find yourself nodding when they finally escape from her fingers. Her performance is perfect, she isn’t messing around trying to improve Debussy’s masterwork, just picking her way through it, measure by measure. You take deep, even breaths as a sense of calm permeates your system. Eyes still closed, you let the music relax you, content to wade dreamily in its cool comfort.

After about a minute, Tim clears his throat. “Y/n,” he says gently, “look.” You open your eyes and follow Tim’s pointed finger to one of the floor-length windows, gasping out loud when you see the stunning full moon. It sits in an overcast sky, fog and smog and clouds pressing against it like an embrace. The thin ropey clouds that drift across its slouched figure are reflecting its yellow light and giving it a warm, pearly corona, a halo. You stare at it openly for a few seconds, admiring the bone moon in its sky armchair.

Your attention drifts back to Tim’s finger, arm still hanging loosely in front of you, and then to the man himself. The ballroom lights are low enough that you can imagine the moonlight reflecting off of Tim, too, that he too is catching some of its cotton shine on his face. You’re awfully lucky to be with someone who takes the time to point out a particular moon among of a string of nights with particular moons, and you tell him so. Tim’s smile is quiet, but he presses his forehead to yours, where it stays for the rest of the song.

When it ends Tim leans back to smile at you again. You smile back, feeling filled up with the moon and the music and him. Catching his hand in your own, you start in the direction of the grand staircase that leads up to his old bedroom. Tim stops you by pulling on your arm lightly, before turning and walking towards the doors that will take you outside.

You look at him quizzically. “Can we go to your apartment?” he murmurs. “We’ve been in my world this whole night, now I want to be in yours.”

You smile softly before leaning up to kiss him, quick and light. He squeezes your hand as he leads you through the room, and then suddenly you’re outside, breathing cool, almost autumn air while you wait for Tim to get a car sorted out. You turn your eyes upward to meet the moon again, the ghost of Claire de Lune still drifting through your head.

Tim breaks your reverie by calling your name, and you follow him into the back of a car. After directing the driver to your apartment, Tim hands you an earbud. You put it in your left ear while Tim puts the other in his right, and together you listen to Claire de Lune again as the car makes it’s way through a Gotham that’s soft and shiny with moonlight. Three repetitions of Debussy later you’re standing in front of your apartment, Tim wrapping his arms around you as you fiddle with your keys, unlock your door, and lead him to your bedroom.

Later, after you’re spent twice over and Tim has made good on his fantasy of opening you up with his mouth, Tim shifts in the bed and slides himself around you, lips at your ear.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

You sigh happily. “Mmm.”

“I asked the orchestra to play Clair de Lune.”

You raise yourself up on your elbows at that, leaning over him with a meaningful look into his starry eyes. You’re sure there are stars in yours, too.

“Yeah?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

You lie back down. “Thank you.”

His hand comes up to stroke your hair. “Mmm.”

#tim drake x reader #batboy imagines #tim drake imagine #dc imagine #batboy x reader #kira writes #tim drake

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lightsandlostbells · 4 years ago

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wtFOCK season 3, episode 4 reaction

Kiss kiss fall in love? More like kiss kiss stay away from me.

I have to warn you. This is the episode where I lost it. I had to go back and edit so much unhappy capslock out of my notes.

Episode 4

Clip 1 - Het drama again

Zoë shows Milan a video of the shooting prank. Milan asks about romance on the trip, Robbe says there were too many people and too little privacy.

Senne and Zoë have tension because Zoë is pissed that Senne was partying? And that he was posting pictures of parties on IG when she wasn’t there? I mean … look, I’m never a William fan, but this seems like Zoë’s problem. If you can’t trust him to behave when you’re gone, you SHOULDN’T BE WITH HIM. And if you feel like you can trust him, this dude going to bars or whatever shouldn’t bother you. At least it seems to be portrayed as Zoë’s issues. Milan mentions that she’s jealous. He seems to like Senne, and I do find that dynamic cute so far.

I do appreciate that the Noorhelm drama this time is boring and not like “Senne was mad about how Zoë handled her sexual assault” levels of offensive.

That being said ... Robbe’s story. Where.

If you’ve been telling a very tight story so far, where Robbe’s personal journey has been steadily progressing clip by clip, then a clip like this wouldn’t be that bad. We absolutely have not been watching a tight story. Even with the next clip of Robbe doing some introspection, I’m like ... can we not make every scene count toward his story when there’s so much catching up to do? Ten seconds of Robbe looking vaguely troubled out of a two-minute clip that’s mainly about Zoë and Senne’s relationship does not count. A better writer would find some way to make Zoë/Senne parallel to Robbe/Sander, like how Noora talking about William and “if he loves you, he’ll choose you” in the first clip of episode 4 is relevant to Isak sitting there texting Even and Even choosing his plans with Sonja over Isak.

Clip 2 - Milan and Robbe talk gaydar

Robbe checking out Sander on Britt’s IG … finally, some cyberstalking. Did he take a screenshot of a pic of Sander? Lol.

Milan sits down and asks Robbe his opinion of a guy on Grindr, sexy or not? Robbe is lukewarm, giving neutral answers, Milan says he’s allowed to have an opinion on whether a guy is hot or not.

It feels SO WEIRD to have this clip so late, and I’m trying to like … recalibrate my brain so it’s not just because it’s later than usual. I don’t inherently hate if a remake changes up the order of clips. But the problem is that we’re now FOUR episodes in and it feels like Robbe’s sexuality crisis has just begun, I guess? Or rather, efficient storytelling would start out with this clear view of what Robbe’s issues are, rather than muddling into it a few episodes in.

Milan’s all, this guy says he’s not gay, but he likes to blow guys. This turns into a conversation about Milan’s gaydar and how to know if a guy is gay. In the original scene, the purpose of this conversation with Isak and Eskild was there as a way of Isak figuring out if Even was gay. That ... does not really fit this version, because this clip is so late in the season. Isak was getting Eskild’s wisdom right after meeting Even, when he had nothing but a BJ reference to go on. But Sander eyefucking Robbe while kissing Britt and leaning in to kiss Robbe should be pretty big clues to Robbe that Sander likes men, no? And that he likes Robbe specifically. Yeah, Robbe might be doubtful because Sander is still with Britt, but nothing new has happened since the almost kiss to make Robbe doubt! It would make way more sense if they’d adapted the opening clip of OG season 4, with Even texting Isak that he had plans with Sonja, into the clip prior to this one. If Robbe had texted Sander an invitation to hang out, or even just a “hey, what’s up?” and Sander wrote back “plans with Britt” then it would be an understandable transition for Robbe to have some doubt about Sander’s sexuality in this clip, like hey, maybe he’s not actually into me, after all.

The scene might make sense if you think about Robbe listening and applying Milan’s words to himself. Thinking about how there’s “something trapped in them that desperately wants to come out.” Wondering if it’s obvious to other people that Robbe is gay. It still doesn’t quite work and I actually doubt that was their intention (I think it was all about how to detect if Sander is into guys) but I am searching for any scraps of Robbe introspection, so.

OK, at least they had Robbe immediately look up Grindr (I laughed that he searched “grinder”). Good! Sexuality conflict! Why is it so late! Although it was probably more about trying to find Sander rather than a personal move on Robbe’s part.

This is a very gay song, btw (I Like Boys by Todrick Hall).

Clip 3 - Robbe and Yasmina talk het drama

Aaron talks to Robbe about sitting close to his teacher to see her boobs and the teacher saying she knows why he’s sitting there. I highly suspect this is just a dream Aaron had, unless the teacher said it in a pissed off way. Throw his ass in the back row, big-breasted teacher!

Robbe meets up with Yasmina. Yasmina wants to know the dirt from the seaside, Robbe fills her in. Soooo are they good friends, or what? He tells her about Aaron and Amber and they laugh and stuff. I mean it’s cute and all but like … where is this coming from? Did they become great friends in the S2 that I didn’t watch?

And that’s the whole clip … again, I ask what was the point?

To establish that Robbe and Yasmina are friends? Way to undermine the development and importance of that relationship by basically cutting through the buildup and hard work to the payoff. Sana and Isak meant more to people BECAUSE they started off prickly and grew to like each other and respect each other via their actions and words, right? That their conversations were more interesting because of their opposing views and resulting friction? That the friction was extremely relevant to the religion discussion?

Was the point to talk about Aaron/Amber and how Amber supposedly isn’t interested? We don’t need Yasmina’s commentary on that at all since we could see how Amber herself reacted to Aaron. Like if Yasmina was all, yeah, Amber couldn’t stop talking about Aaron, she says she doesn’t like him but I think she does, then I guess I could see the relevance of this conversation since it’s “new” information ... but it’s just the same shit we already know. And again: why spend so much time on a SIDE HET ROMANCE during a gay character’s season? Two of out three clips in this episode so far have been about side het romances!

This clip was just not needed at all except to set up Robbe and Yasmina so the impending religion conversation feels mildly less like two characters who have barely spoken on screen suddenly have an intense and somewhat personal talk. Something they could have done in earlier episodes instead of the other repetitive, unnecessary clips they’ve done this season.

Clip 4 - Dance chicks

At Noor’s dance performance, Robbe’s pals are drooling over the performers (and honestly being rather inappropriate and distracting). At least they got Robbe’s lack of interest right. Even though they have established this FIFTEEN THOUSAND TIMES with the lack of interest in Noor, like this clip almost doesn’t feel necessary at this point! If they’d had it earlier in the season, sure, but now it feels redundant. Like we really super mega get it by now that Robbe’s not into the girls.

The instructor thanks the performers at the end and Robbe says that he was “so gay.” Hey, except you know what? THERE IS NO BUILDUP TO THIS MOMENT. ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NONE. Except for the homophobic jokes from his friends in the previous seasons, but there’s nothing I can recall in this season. But more importantly, Isak’s similar comment was prompted by him taking the gay test in a preceding clip. Taking a quiz about generalizations of gay people, rooted in homophobia! Which Isak applies to the dance teacher! In order to distance himself from being gay! WE GOT NONE OF THAT HERE. For fuck’s sake.

There is no setup or reason why Robbe goes from being somewhat neutral about gay people with Milan asking him about the Grindr dude two clips ago - where Robbe is just kinda like, yeah OK, whatever, you think everyone’s gay, Milan (but he’s not overly grossed out or homophobic) - to this moment where he’s making a derogatory comment about a person he perceives as flamboyantly gay. This scene just happens because it did in OG. And the thing is, obviously you can attribute Robbe’s reasoning here to internalized homophobia. We know internalized homophobia exists and why he has it. But this is a scripted narrative, and any scripted narrative needs to have things happen for a reason rather than just because.

I remember complaining that Skam Italia had a bizarre take on this scene. But that’s nothing compared to the laziness on display here.

Jens is like WTF at Robbe’s “so gay” comment, it’s clear he’s not feeling it. I do like that Robbe gets defensive when Jens scoffs at him. They ask Robbe why he’s such a downer lately and if it’s because of his dad, or because of the Vlogs. Robbe blames the vlogs and yells and walks off, they’re confused.

Lol I just realized that I don’t think there was any followup to the prank from the seaside trip that had Robbe all pissed off. Nothing to show that the boys reconciled or that Robbe didn’t get over it right away.

I have a big problem with the way the boy squad is characterized so far, and it might be because they come across as more self-absorbed than other boy squads, as well as having a more superficial bond. I feel like so far they’re a rather cynical take on teenage boyhood. Again, not expecting them to be perfect or to be overly mature, but this show has to do a lot of work to make me believe they have the empathy or maturity to deal with Robbe’s situation kindly. (EDIT from the future: lol)

Clip 5 - Robbe and Yasmina talk religion

Oh shit, somehow I didn’t connect that dots that Aaron mentioning the teacher’s boobs would lead to THE boob teacher making an appearance! Unless there are multiple teachers with notable breasts at this school.

Another scene of Robbe not interested in breasts ... I mean, not to sound like a broken record, but this would have been good about three episodes ago.

The teacher is talking about religion and Darwininsm and creationism, which prompts Robbe to complain about how people still have religious beliefs in 2019.

Heavy fucking sigh. Have we gotten ANY religious moments from Robbe’s mom this season? Or from anyone else? Do the writers realize that Isak grilling Sana about religion was prompted by his OWN MOTHER’S religious beliefs and his fear of her judgment of his sexuality? No? Not surprised.

For real, Robbe just complains about religion out of nowhere … and like, obviously religious homophobia isn’t a rare thing, it exists. But it has not been established why Robbe in particular cares about the effects of religious homophobia, compared to say, the casual homophobia of his friends, or gay stereotypes, or gay bashing … we don’t know why religious homophobia has PERSONAL relevance in Robbe’s life. And yes, this is a concern for every gay person! But from a STORYTELLING perspective, there should be some focus as to what Robbe’s main fears are about being gay. Lack of acceptance from his peers? His family? Religion? Violence? Homophobic slurs?

I would say based on previous seasons, the most compelling basis for Robbe’s internalized homophobia would be the homophobic attitudes of his friend group. A revised take on the dance chicks scene might have been done with this in mind, but it wasn’t, and so it’s all just very muddled.

Anyway, Robbe goes on this tangent and asks Yasmina why she believes in God. The teacher voices what I thought and is like, why the fuck are you talking in class?

Again, there is NO BUILDUP to the involvement of religion at all. They have this shoehorned in friendship, I guess so he can ask her. He does bring up homosexuality at least, and how religion is so black and white.

Yasmina asks him what he believes. ONE THING they got right: they had Robbe challenge Yasmina on an intellectual level, and so Yasmina challenges him on an intellectual level right back. Because a lot of their dialogue is lifted right from OG, that’s why it works. LMAOOOO. Yasmina points out that homosexuality is an evolutionary “dead end” so therefore it can’t be genetic, so what is it? A disorder? A choice? I will also give some credit for her invoking the most anxiety-causing options to get under Robbe’s skin.

But the tone of their friendship does come across very different, because in the previous scene they seemed like good chums who had a rapport, and here it’s like Robbe lashed out at her for no reason, even less than Isak did with Sana, because Robbe just decided to torch his friendship with Yasmina out of the blue. I guess the answer is that Robbe is cranky so he decided to grill Yasmina over religion, but again, the fucking question is: why was he cranky? Two clips before this one they were on warm, friendly terms. In the last clip, he lashed out at his male friends, but that has nothing to do with religion. What the writers are asking us to do is basically just imagine all the stuff that’s happening in Robbe’s brain instead of doing their jobs and showing it to us. You don’t have to spoon feed us but you don’t also get to stick a few peas on a plate and wonder why we’re going hungry.

(REALLY. IT WAS NOT PROMPTED BY ANYTHING, NOT A TEXT FROM HIS MOM. WHICH IS WHY ISAK WAS UPSET AND LAUNCHED HIS INTERROGATION AT SANA.)

(CAUSE AND EFFECT, MOTHERFUCKER)

Clip 6 - Bowie playlist

Robbe is doing homework when Sander sends him a Bowie playlist. Robbe listens to Space Oddity and has a brief Moment. It’s very nice but wow, wouldn’t it be even better if Robbe fell for Sander listening to that? Say, in the last episode? Before they almost kissed? And before Robbe was suddenly declaring himself a Bowie expert to Noor?

Sander calls him, I like Robbe fixing his hair before he answers. It’s a video chat, gotta look his best! They have an actual conversation about Bowie and they flirt. Sander invites Robbe to the cafe later and Robbe is happy except then Britt is in the background and apparently she’s going with them, so it’s not a date after all, oh no. Robbe’s actor is good at subtly conveying his disappointment here.

Robbe hangs up and sticks his head against the bed (lol) and then goes back to Grindr. He immediately gets messages for horny sex and then gets rid of Grindr.

At first I was like, yay, this clip had a clear point and a sense of cause-and-effect, but now I’m like ... ehhhhh. Because the purpose of Robbe checking out Grindr is either A) so he can look for Sander or B) so he can check it out as a general way of exploring his sexuality (or both). The suggestion is that it has a lot to do with the former, because it was part of Milan’s advice as to how to find out if someone’s gay. But it’s a little weird here, because Robbe just saw that Britt was coming along to the cafe, so he should be discouraged about Sander. I mean, I think it’s still possible that he’s trying to figure out if Sander likes him because he’s getting mixed signals between the playlist and Britt, but it’s just a little off. And as for option B, I’m not sure why now of all times is the best time for that, like if you think about it, the sting of getting his hopes dashed should be the predominant emotion here, would he go straight to Grindr just to be like hmmm, maybe I’m into dudes?

And it bugs me because there is a super easy fix to this clip! Just have Sander send the Bowie playlist, Robbe listens to it, and as he’s daydreaming and smiling a bit, he gets out his phone and checks out Grindr, ready to search for Sander. But there are too many sex messages so he’s just like WTF and gets rid of it. Then Sander calls and they have this conversation that ends in Robbe being reminded that Britt is still in the picture. (Or he doesn’t need to get the sexy messages at all, I mean they’re kind of funny but I’m not sure they’re plot-necessary here.)

Noor texts him that they’ll meet up later. It’s not 100% clear but it sounds like she knew about meeting up with Sander and Britt, so that means Britt probably told her previously. Which is a little bit of different context from OG, because I was under the impression that Even asked Isak to hang out with them hoping that they’d be alone, and then somehow Sonja found out and made it into a group thing with Emma, making Even grumpy. With this it seems like it was planned as a group thing from the beginning, Britt knows they’re meeting up later.

Or wait, when Sander says he’ll give Robbe advice at the cafe later, does that mean Robbe already knows they’re meeting up? That would make sense because it’s what happened in OG (Even invited Isak in an earlier clip and then Isak found out Emma and Sonja were coming in a later one). They’re incorporating all kinds of OG elements in this episode so I wouldn’t be surprised. But I assumed that this was the invite because we didn’t see Sander talk to Robbe earlier this week? Shouldn’t we have seen that clip since it’s the first time they’ve interacted since they almost kissed? I checked the texts for this episode and I don’t see anything like Sander inviting Robbe, either? Did I just miss something? What is going on?

Clip 7 - Robbe is late to meet Noor

Later that day …. Robbe rides a bike. Very fast. The music is dramatic! This would not be out of place for an O Helga Natt scene

And yet it’s not OHN, it’s Noor? Noor seems annoyed. Because Robbe is late. OH NO THE TENSION WHATEVER WILL WE DO. WE CARE A TON ABOUT ROBBE AND NOOR.

Noor is super pissed at him and starts screaming and shoving at him. What the actual fuck? She complains that she thought he was dead or something and is mad he didn’t even send a message. She says fuck you and walks off. Robbe follows her on the bike.

I don’t know how popular this opinion is, but Noor did not come across as great here, like when I watched it I was baffled at her response. I say this as someone who is chronically early and also gets annoyed at lateness. She has every right to be annoyed that Robbe is late and that he didn’t message her to tell her he’d be late, and I get that there’s supposedly more to her reaction than just this one incident. But the screaming and especially the shoving at him is just WTF.

Also, she told him to meet him at 19:00, and the beginning of the clip is at 19:21 (I see what you did there) and Robbe arrives like a minute or two later. So he’s 20 minutes late, which is certainly annoying, especially because it’s dark and chilly outside, but IMO not a cause for “I thought you were dead or in an accident!” and the OTT reaction.

Clip 8 - Robbe and Noor fight

Sander and Britt are in the cafe, Robbe and Noor argue outside about him giving her mixed signals. Has ... he ...?

OK, I’d say I half-see her case, and I half-don’t. If Noor can somehow sense Robbe’s disinterest during their makeouts or lovey-dovey moments or w/e, then I can buy that. I think there are slight moments where he doesn’t seem into it. But Robbe has put so much more genuine effort into their relationship than Isak did. He hasn’t even turned Noor down for sex, really, they’ve just gotten interrupted every time, or she’s thrown up. He didn’t want to go to her dance performance except then he told her he would go approximately thirty seconds later. He went to her dance performance. He went to the seaside with her and kissed her and slept in the same bed with her. This is the first time he’s actually fucked up with her.

Noor sounds ridiculous right now. “Do you still love me?” Uhhhh what??? You’ve been dating for less than a month, really? Did he tell her he loved her at any point? I’m serious, is there some material I missed? Some nuance in the language that didn’t completely translate?

I get it, I’m watching insecure overdramatic teenagers! I’m just wondering if I’m supposed to be on Noor’s side here. They could have portrayed this less OTT and more fitting to Robbe’s actual offenses.

Anyway Robbe and Noor have a screaming fight in the street and he says he can’t breathe anymore because of her. I can buy that even if it’s dramatic because he’s feeling trapped by her due to his sexuality. She walks off, Sander and Britt come outside. Britt goes after Noor and hugs her, Sander sings Space Oddity to signify the crash and burn of Robbe/Noor. He has on a Pink Floyd shirt so at least his musical taste is more varied than Bowie.

Clip 9 - Robbe and Sander by themselves

Robbe and Sander drink alone at the bar, they don’t think the girls are coming back. Sander texts Britt and then tells Robbe they’re going to do something else. He shows him Britt’s text saying that Noor needs some time alone. I mean. this drastically changes the context of them going off together … it’s not because they want to be together, necessarily (although they do) but it’s by default now.

So they leave.

Yeah, I do not love what they did with this scene. It’s short and to the point but I want to point out a few things.

First, because again, there’s no need to break up most of these clips into such short, choppy scenes just because 15 or 20 minutes have passed in-universe. It might be exciting if you happen to be watching and following at the exact time these are being posted, but it also messed with the flow of the scenes and the build of emotions. Imagine if we cut off after Isak and Even left Emma and Sonja and then 10 minutes later we got them riding around on a bike. We’d missed that beautiful transition from the silent, empty room to Isak on the bike and then Head Over Heels kicking in. That’s one of my favorite moments in season 3 and it’s because of that transition. It’s because I was sitting there watching this uncomfortable scene and wishing Isak and Even could be alone and then they got to be alone and my stomach swooped! If you break up moments like those, there’s just not as much build. (Or imagine - horror of horrors - an O Helga Natt where Isak gets the text from Even and it cuts off after he runs out of the church and then resumes when he arrives at the school, so we don’t see his journey. You lose so much.)

Second, there is a curious lack of romantic/sexual tension in this scene. It’s there on Sander’s end, I think, or at least you can read it there due to his focus on Robbe and even some of his body language. Robbe, on the other hand, seems more upset that his girlfriend who he doesn’t even feel genuine attraction to has walked out on him rather than the fact that he is sitting next to the boy he’s crushing on, alone together, right before they share their first kiss later that evening. And it just makes me want to know why.

I don’t blame Robbe’s actor at all, because it’s the director’s job to tell him how to play the scene. But I rewatched this scene trying to be generous, and there is not a single shred of attraction or tension from Robbe toward Sander. He checks the cafe door when it opens, he asks Sander to text Britt, and when Sander suggests they leave, Robbe’s first instinct is to ask what if Noor comes back. He sits there moping into his beer the whole time. He doesn’t sneak looks at Sander. He doesn’t try to talk to Sander about anything except Noor and Britt. No banter, no discussion that’s focused on them, Robbe-and-Sander, you know, the main couple of this season (supposedly). It doesn’t even feel like he’s consciously trying not to look or interact with Sander because of the romantic tension. No, it genuinely feels like Robbe’s #1 thought right now is Noor. Does that make sense to you? It makes sense for him to be a little out of sorts due to the fight, but does it make sense that Robbe seems to have no perceptible reaction to being alone with the guy he likes? Does it make sense that they didn’t take this chance to throw in some romantic and sexual tension in order to pave the way for the kiss that is going to happen very shortly? Gotta say that I think this scene exemplifies my earlier complaints about how Noor was so prevalent early in the season and how Robbe/Noor was built up. Because once again, Robbe/Noor has taken precedence over the undeveloped Robbe/Sander pairing.

Finally, as I said above, the situation makes it so that Robbe and Sander are on their own by default, not by choice. Combined with the bizarre lack of tension, that makes this scene fall totally flat. There’s no sense that these two really really want to be alone together. There’s no joy in them running off together. Robbe actually seems reluctant to go off with Sander. And not even because he’s fearful of what might happen, ooooo things might get a little gayer than I can handle right now, but like he’d rather sit here and drink and think about his girlfriend.

It’s like they were concerned that Isak and Even were too mean to Emma and Sonja so they decided Robbe and Sander would only be alone because it was the girls’ decision to leave them, not the other way around. We even get that text from Britt so we know that Noor totes isn’t coming back and it’s OK for them to leave. I have no idea what their actual motivation was to construct the scenario this way, though. I would love to know. (The answer would probably annoy me so I’m better off not knowing.)

It’s little stuff like this that makes me want to sit down the writers/directors/whoever’s behind wtFOCK and have them watch scenes from Skam S3 and write an essay on the construction and execution of clips. Do some homework about timing, tension, narrative structure, and everything else that makes S3 work.

Clip 10 - Smooch time

It’s 21:21 so you know what’s happening. Also, bullshit! Why is this happening so fast. You haven’t earned this!!!!

Sander buys them booze. The Sander actor is very good, honestly. I like his screen presence. It is a testament to his abilities that this relationship is working for me at all, because it sure ain’t the writing. (Robbe’s actor is doing well, too, but the writing is dragging him down since he’s present for all this nonsense.)

This scene of Sander and Robbe drinking and riding bikes is genuinely good on its own and they have strong chemistry when they’re allowed to show it. They have easy banter and interaction, there’s a callback to the booking.com reference from when they met. Really, this part makes me sad, because I can see the potential here! If the writing was GOOD, if the story had a legit direction, if it was just better storytelling all around … this season could have been wonderful, they had the right guys to do Isak and Even’s story justice. Instead it’s like this one terrific moment in a sea of wtFOCK.

If they go in the pool I will roll my eyes. C’mon, guys, you DO NOT HAVE THE SYMBOLISM to do this scene. It had a meaning in Skam, in most of the remakes it’s just an arbitrary location.

Yep, it’s a pool.

Sander takes off all his clothes so he jumps in bare-assed, and Robbe laughs. Sander yells at Robbe to get in the pool so Robbe does a fucking striptease while Sander watches, more or less, and he’s about to get in the pool in his underwear, but Sander is like “all the way or no way” so Robbe takes off his underwear after a brief moment of hesitation and jumps in. So they’re naked in the pool. Cool cool cool.

Seeeeee, on the one hand this COULD be a moment of liberation, I could see it, taking off the clothes and jumping in as a representation of abandoning the stale hetero life or w/e. But I don’t think wtFOCK has built anything resembling a clear arc for Robbe, to the point where this act means anything, really. (Can you imagine Isak doing this in episode 4? I don’t know if it fits his character at that point, but I could at least be like, OK, this is part of his ~rebirth and I think we’ve built him up enough that this moment of liberation feels like a culmination of something.) I’m also not totally sold on the way they presented this, like we’ve got a closeted gay kid alone with his crush and the crush takes his all his clothes off and then Robbe takes all his clothes off with only the barest reluctance (but he’s not like … distressed or worried, just kinda like “aw, man!”) For some closeted gay kids? Sure, guess I could see it! But in the context of “this kid is struggling with his sexuality and he’s alone with the boy he likes and he’s supposed to be going through Some Shit”? Why doesn’t this have a bigger reaction in Robbe? Since they are drunk and not necessarily overthinking things in the moment, however, I will let this slide. Cynically I think this is mostly about trying to make wtFOCK Sexxxxy. I’m not a prude and I don’t have an objection in theory to a teenage couple skinny dipping together, but wtFOCK has a trend of taking a thing that happened in OG and going “How can we do this but more?” and these remakes know Evak is the big sell in fandom, so. They’re making it spicier. (EDIT from the future: Jumping ahead to later content on wtFOCK ... they very much are trying to make it Sexxxxy.)

Also, these guys just haven’t had a lot of buildup yet! And I can see like … rewriting this scene so the first kiss isn’t necessarily some epic release of a simmering tension and growing love, but more of a tentative, pivotal moment with a gay kid kissing a boy for the first time, and having the relationship grow from there. But wtFOCK isn’t doing that, it’s trying to do the Evak thing with the epic romance, and they haven’t earned it.

They go underwater for the breath-holding contest, Sander tries to kiss Robbe (Robbe’s eyes are pointedly closed so this feels like some unnecessary POV breakage) and Robbe shoves him back. He’s still in a good mood, though. They go back underwater and Robbe kisses Sander. Yay, I guess.

Lol, I don’t actually want to sound like a bitter asshole. The song choice is lovely! The cinematography is pretty good! And like I said, they have nice chemistry. It’s just that the storytelling has been so messy up to this point that I can’t get too invested. The very first clip I saw in real time for Skam season 3 was the pool scene - I had just discovered the show a few days prior, and I kept watching the clips on repeat. I could not get enough of this story. I really really needed those guys to kiss. Yeah, I recognize that at the time the story was brand new and this wasn’t the fourth iteration of the same pool scene and the sixth first kiss for this couple, and you really can’t recreate that feeling of not knowing what comes next in a remake like this. Still, I think that if the writing had just been better, I could have been happy and invested in this moment.

I also think that the pool scene in particularly has a tendency to get written in kind of a rote way in the remakes. Some of them have put their own spin on it - I had plenty of criticisms of Skam France’s S3 but I did enjoy their first kiss and I praised that they made up their own symbolism - but some of them have gotten so close to the original, the exact same banter, the interruption at the end, and it doesn’t feel natural for those versions of the characters. I’m not sure if the remake showrunners think that the original scene is something the fans want to see or if they’re being lazy or if they think the OG is just that good (which it is, lol). I don’t think any remake has been that faithful with their O Helga Natt clips, by comparison.

Anyway they get caught, yadda yadda.

Clip 11 - Morning after the pool smooch

Robbe gets up and sees Zoë looking at Senne, seemingly hungover, on the couch. She makes coffee to spite him since the coffeemaker is loud.

Zoë asks Robbe about last night and says Noor was at the door. Robbe doesn’t tell her what really happened. Apparently Noor looked like she felt bad. I don’t think I can handle more Robbe/Noor, guys. I appreciate that OG didn’t drag out Isak’s thing with Emma once he kissed Even, but I’m not confident this won’t happen here.

Zoë asks if he’s all right. Man, the most effective relationship this season is probably Zoë and Robbe? Which is fine! But like … boy squad ain’t great, Sander and Robbe aren’t well developed, they fucked up Yasmina and Robbe already, Milan and Robbe are way behind schedule…

What if the reveal were that Sander were in Robbe’s bed?

It’s not. Instead, Sander texts him as a cover of Space Oddity plays. Robbe has angst and blocks Sander on WhatsApp. Ohhhh my. Another thing I appreciated about OG? That Isak was all in after he kissed Even, and that the angst came from different places besides the typical gay coming out storyline of “kissed a boy, regretted it, went back in the closet temporarily.” Not that it’s unrealistic, just that it’s done so much.

I think we’re supposed to take away that Zoë saying Noor was there looking sad made Robbe reconsider what happened with Sander? Or just general internalized homophobia. I don’t think the latter is totally out of Robbe’s characterization based on what we’ve seen so far, although I wish there was clearer writing so it felt more like “Robbe has internalized homophobia that made him block Sander” and less like “????? internalized homophobia I guess.” Again, I’ll letting this slide because I can also rationalize it as him being a little drunk last night, and now that he’s sober he regrets his choice, even if I don’t think this is a great choice at this stage in the season.

Clip 12 - The heaviest of sighs

The subs helpfully gave a trigger warning for homophobic slurs so I knew this was going to be “good.”

Robbe is listening to music as he goes home. Sander comes up to him, smiling, wanting to know why Robbe blocked him. Robbe says to leave him alone, that Sander got him drunk and took advantage of him.

L M A O welp, this would soooo kill this ship for me if I were invested.

FIND SOMEONE ELSE, SANDER, YOU DESERVE BETTER

Oh, so Robbe also shoved him and called him a dirty f****t! What a great romance!

No, really - this is the EXACT THING I was so glad that Evak DID NOT DO. I’m not saying their romance has to be free of flaws, that there can never be fuckups, that Isak can’t ever hurt Even and vice versa. But this is such a common and ugly trope in gay media.

Robbe goes inside and slams his door, Milan asks what’s wrong, Robbe tells him to leave him alone. We get Milan’s POV and not Robbe’s at the end.

Anyway lmao. wtFOCK indeed.

Did you enjoy the cuddle scene in Skam, where a same-sex couple got to be tender and sweet and open with each other for almost seven minutes? A clip that felt refreshing and even revolutionary for its normalization of gay intimacy? Hahahaha, fuck you.

Okay, seriously though. It’s not a problem that we didn’t have the cuddle scene immediately after the pool scene. It’s not a problem that they want to change up this storyline and make it their own - though again I would ask the creative powers at wtFOCK why they’re making these particular choices. It’s not a problem if Robbe and Sander’s relationship has some extra bumps along the way to their happy ending.

WHAT EVEN PROMPTED THIS CHANGE IN ROBBE, like I get the answer is “internalized homophobia” but Robbe was BUCK NAKED WITH SANDER IN THE POOL so like. Can we please get SOME context for why he suddenly had a freakout? Can we please get some narrative structure with cause and effect? Can we get a fucking reason that Robbe went from 0 to 100? Because if it was just the blocking Sander on WhatsApp, that’s one thing, but accusing him of sexual assault and calling him slurs is so vastly beyond that. If we’re supposed to take away that Robbe feels bad about Noor, that still doesn’t explain the ugliness of his reaction, rather than just telling Sander that he has a girlfriend and it was a mistake or whatever.

I’m going to add that I understand that Robbe went through some additional homophobic shit from his friends in previous seasons - I remember Moyo saying crappy things to him in S1, and I watched a S2 scene where the same thing happens. So I can understand if Robbe’s internalized homophobia is very strong. But they’ve also cut out so much stuff in this season that added to Isak’s internalized homophobia (no mom’s religion making him anxious, no gay test, no gay generalizations from Emma...) If they want to rely on internalized homophobia from previous seasons, then we really need a reminder in this season, such as his friends making homophobic jokes, which I do not recall hearing so far. And they need to show what happened between the kiss to provoke such a homophobic reaction.

After Sander said that thing about not knowing if anyone would ever love him … why did they do this? I love me some pain in storytelling but this isn’t just angst, this is needlessly cruel.

There is, believe it or not, a middle ground between “conflictless fluff” and “cruel homophobia and assault allegations” where you can have some tension, even have Robbe have a freakout, without bringing in this kind of material. Robbe could have told Sander to stay away without accusing him of assault or calling him slurs. He could have said he wasn’t gay or that it was a mistake or even “I was drunk” without following it up with “and you took advantage of me.” All of these options might have stung for Sander and for any viewers who were hoping for morning-after cuddles, but they also create conflict without pushing it over the edge into OTT cruelty.

HOW I WOULD REWRITE THIS EPISODE:

Ahahahaha

So far this season is like a disconnected set of scenes from Skam S3 with bonus filler scenes and unnecessary clips about non-Robbe things. It’s getting hard to think about rewrites because the point, if you will, so often so unclear. It’s also hard because this episode squeezed in so many OG scenes that were missing from earlier in the season that it’s like, well, shouldn’t we have had this a few episodes ago? Should we just leave them out now?

Okay. Start by getting rid of the first clip in this episode that’s mostly about Zoë/Senne, bump up the Milan clip. We start with Robbe looking at pics of Sander on IG, Milan comes in and asks if there was any romance on the trip, then they get into the Grindr talk, etc. The Grindr talk makes more sense before Robbe almost kisses Sander, but like. We can’t do anything about that now. What might be better is if the whole “how do you know if a guy is gay?” thing takes a swerve into not just Robbe trying to figure out Sander, but to something uncomfortably close to Robbe’s own behavior (like IDK, referencing body language and how a guy will lean in closer, like Robbe did with Sander) and then Robbe gets cranky because he’s worried he’s too obviously gay to other people. After Milan leaves, he starts looking up stuff like “how to act straight” or “how not to seem gay” or whatever. That leads us into the next clip...

... the dance chicks scene. Now we’ve seen plenty of Robbe being disinterested in girls already, so this time we’re going to show him trying to be interested in girls instead. Like he’s watching his friends’ annoying horny reactions and he’s clearly trying to imitate them and join in, but we can see that he’s awkward and not totally feeling it. But he’s trying. Then after the performance, Robbe makes the comment about the dance instructor being so gay.

There is a problem, IMO, in that Robbe’s friend group has been shown to be more homophobic than the average boy squad (as seen in S1 and S2). And frankly I don’t really believe yet Jens is the type to shut down a homophobic comment. Like in S2 Moyo and Robbe straight up start calling each other f*gs and Jens is like chill, no one here is a f*g, but if there were, you should date each other. That’s his idea of intervention. So I’m not sure how to handle that.

I don’t love this idea, because I hate what they’re done with Moyo in particular, making him pointedly more homophobic (to be discussed in a future reaction) but Moyo and Aaron could perhaps laugh at Robbe’s comment and start riffing off it, while Robbe is sitting there pretending to laugh but looking increasingly uncomfortable, and Jens notices something is off with Robbe, and he tells the guys to knock it off, the guy is gay, so what? Big deal. Then aside from the other guys, he asks Robbe if something is wrong, and Robbe snaps at him or attributes it to family problems again.

I was going to also say that the setting for this clip doesn’t really allow for Sander to swoop in, like Even did to return the snapback, but actually maybe it could? Noor could have invited Britt and Sander to watch the show, right? So maybe when Robbe makes this gay joke and his friends are laughing, Sander comes up while Britt is talking to Noor and is like, hey guys, what’s up? Robbe’s friends are just like, oh nothing, did you see how gay that guy was? Then Sander is like, sorry, what’s the problem with being gay? He tells them off a little. Meanwhile Robbe is standing there awkward as fuck, not looking Sander in the eyes, while Sander is looking at him for backup, but Robbe just makes an excuse to bolt. Maybe he walks past Noor without saying anything, so she looks confused.

Now onto Robbe and Yasmina. Man, I truly hate saying this. But: If you are not going to incorporate other religious themes into this season, then you don’t need to redo the Isak-Sana friendship. Again! I don’t like suggesting this! But what actually is Robbe and Yasmina’s relationship bringing to this season when it’s portrayed like this?

They left out the weed blackmail, which is really just a plot device in OG, but it’s a plot device that sets up Sana and Isak’s thread. It also gets Isak to kosegruppa to meet Even, something which is irrelevant here.

Sana’s main tie to S3 is Isak’s mom. Isak’s mom is religious, that makes him anxious, and it’s a hurdle to coming out to her. Robbe’s mom is not religious, Robbe’s internalized homophobia doesn’t seem to have anything to do with religion specifically other than this one scene with him and Yasmina. It’s just a disconnected tangent. What’s more, what is Yasmina’s eventual advice going to do for him? Sana’s advice led Isak to come out to his mom.

I really like Yasmina. If there’s another way that her presence is relevant to the themes of this season, by all means let’s find it and include her. As it is, either make it that Robbe’s mom is religious and include the Robbe-Yasmina subplot, or don’t and leave it out.

I would love to see in-depth and meaningful friendships develop among all the characters in the Skam squads, just because I love all those kids. Jonas and Vilde? Even and girl Chris? Eva and Mahdi? I don’t care how random, let’s have them all! But there is a finite amount of time per season, and we can’t extend time for all possible relationships - just the ones that are most relevant to the story we are trying to tell.

I mentioned above a fix for the Bowie playlist clip that makes it have a little more sense to me. If you include Sander in the dance chicks clip like I said, you could have Robbe thinking about Sander again and wondering if he’s into men since he called out the boys’ homophobia. That’s how he ends up on Grindr. Then Sander sends him the Bowie playlist, Robbe listens, Sander calls and they talk, Robbe apologizes for bolting out of there the other day. Sander invites him to the cafe later, Robbe’s all :D until he realizes Britt is there and is coming too, then he’s :(

He’s late to meet Noor and Noor is upset, but not like ... screaming and shoving at him. She’s more snippy and passive-aggressive, she walks off. She says she’s upset because he ditched the dance performance without talking to her, and then he’s late to meet her, it seems like he just doesn’t care that much. They have a fight but it’s like a normal fight and not The End of the World. Just tone down Noor’s OTT anger and make it more natural.

I don’t have a preference in this version whether Noor and Britt leave the cafe and Sander and Robbe know they’re not coming back, or whether Noor and Britt just go to get some air and cry it out and Sander is like fuck it, let’s leave. The important thing for me is that Robbe sits there with Sander, painfully aware that they’re alone, and there’s lots of tension and awkwardness and his brain is clearly hyper-focused on the proximity of Sander’s knee to his own. They banter and flirt and then when Sander suggests they leave, Robbe acts like he wants to go.

Don’t do a pool scene for the first kiss. Give a shit, make it your own. Except IMO they have done so little to establish this relationship in terms of larger themes or symbolism that they have nothing to choose from.

Man, what if THIS episode was about going to the seaside, after they had been talking for several episodes, and they kissed in the sea when they were alone? That would be at least somewhat plausible? A take on the pool scene/underwater kiss that wasn’t the exact same.

You could do something related to graffiti, perhaps? Instead of breaking into a pool, they break into the tagging place or wherever. Or something else related to Sander’s artwork, because I know that this comes up in their version of O Helga Natt.

I’m not wild about adding this blip in Robbe and Sander’s relationship after the kiss, because of how much ground we need to cover the rest of the season (it messes with the pacing yet again) and also just because I like that Skam didn’t do this expected route. However, if they wanted to make Robbe try to shut out Sander again: the strongest case for his internalized homophobia seems to be his friends. So have him meet up with them again the day after kissing Sander. His friends bring up Sander and how weird he was at the dance performance about the gay instructor, like it’s just a joke! He took their comments way too seriously! Is Sander gay or something? And maybe Robbe tries to defend Sander - no, he’s a cool guy, really - and then his friends are like, pffft, what, do you have a crush on him? Robbe denies and everybody chills out, but Robbe seems troubled. Maybe this is when Jens finally gets a fucking clue and realizes something’s up with Robbe, and in the future there’s a scene where he shuts down gay jokes. For now, though, we do see how Robbe would feel compelled to go back in the closet. Sander texts him and Robbe blocks him.

Now we come to the worst part. So. Take out Robbe calling Sander a sexual predator and a homophobic slur and pushing him, that’s for sure. If he must reject Sander, do it in another way. “I’m not gay.” “I was drunk.” “It was a mistake.” “I have a girlfriend.” It’s not actually hard to do this clip without adding this ugly taint to their relationship.

Since I’m trying to think of rewrites without just copying Skam, here is a radical change on how to include a post-kiss freakout from Robbe earlier on so the pacing isn’t as odd. In previous recaps, I suggested Sander should be introduced earlier as a mysterious stranger that Robbe is trying to find. Well, maybe we can rework that. Robbe and the mysterious stranger share a kiss in episode 1. They’re hiding from the police or security or something after getting busted at a party or while tagging or w/e, and they’re both a little drunk and high on adrenaline, they’re smiling and laughing because they actually got away, and it just ... happens. The mysterious stranger can initiate it, but Robbe tentatively reciprocates before running away. Robbe freaks out and it’s after this that he starts heavily pursuing Noor. Because, you see, he’s not gay, he was just drunk, and it was all that other guy’s fault. But at least he doesn’t have to see that random guy again, right? No one will ever know. Just like no one will ever know if late at night when he can’t sleep, he does a Google search to see if he’s gay if he liked kissing a boy or if he can’t get it up with his girlfriend. Or if he goes on Grindr to see if he can find the mystery dude. It’s a bust and Robbe gives up and settles into dating Noor. Except in episode 2, OH SHIT, he’s introduced to Sander again via Noor, and it’s awkward and fuck, Sander has a girlfriend. Well, that’s good, right? Totally not a bummer. Anyway, Robbe tries to avoid Sander or tiptoe around him but they end up spending time together because they’re stuck at the seaside under the same roof. Maybe they directly address the issue by Robbe saying he’s not gay and Sander being like “me neither” (which technically is not a lie, lmao) and brushing it off as a mistake, or maybe they both pretend that it never happened. Maybe Robbe is more aggressive about it at first and Sander is like, whoa dude, chill out, I’m not going to tell anyone. Still, they get to know each other, there’s heaps of sexual/romantic tension, and in episode 4 (or 5 or whenever) they kiss again and it’s Epic.

This arc is definitely not the same as Isak’s or Evak’s and I absolutely won’t claim that it’s in the same league as what Julie Andem did, but I can see a narrative arc like this making some sense. Better than trying to do Isak’s arc half-assed.

It occurs to me just like … how little we know about any of these characters in terms of subtext or something? No hints about Sander’s background, really? Let’s get some clues in there.

I think something I miss about Skam was how kind it was. How all the characters were at heart, good people capable of the most generous love and empathy. And maybe we’ll get there with these characters in the end, but overall, so many of these people just don’t feel like that! There’s so much more ugliness and cruelty involved in this story, and it doesn’t feel like it’s done with good intentions, like to show the audience how to handle these situations and to heal.

There’s this weird attitude of defense where cruelty, tragedy, and negative events are defended in the name of realism and there’s a backlash to the backlash, acting like the critics just want fluffy plotless hand-holding and cuddling, a conflict-free season, or a story where no one makes mistakes. And it’s like people forget that in Skam season 3, the story was FULL of angst! We know Evak get their happy ending but like … from episode 1 all through O Helga Natt, the story is packed with conflict. People hurt each other. Even in episode 10, not everything is perfect. It is very possible to do angst and conflict without this ugliness. Like … I have to assume people weren’t here for episodes 5 and 6 of Skam S3, or for the hotel scene, or episode 9 up to OHN, because I can assure you, there was no lack of angst. There was just a lack of shock value gratuitousness.

As always, let me know if I missed something due to cultural or linguistic context.

#wtfock reactions

26 notes · View notes

pippki-writes · 4 years ago

Text

An Ill-Fitting Name: Snippet 10

NOTES:

Snippet 1; Snippets 2 & 3; Snippet 4; Snippet 5; Snippet 6; Snippet 7; Snippet 8; Snippet 9

Faoust belongs to @thebiggestnerd - she writes him, Isaiah and Detective Voros here are mine.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Isaiah has thought about texting Faoust many times. But no, he said he’d leave him alone. And besides, what the hell would he say? Where do you even begin?

Faoust thinks about texting Isaiah sometimes too, but like Isaiah, has no clue what to say either.

Both of them, sometimes, thinking about the other, phone in hand, pulling up their messages, beginning to type something, anything—but stopping short. Nothing is quite right. Delete the words that will never suffice, put the phone back down.

Serendipity finally strikes—both Isaiah and Faoust have their texts open at the same time, starting to type and then deleting something only to see the other one’s “...” typing dots show up.

Both stop, pause, to see what the other was going to type. A stalemate, as now neither is typing, dots frozen on the screen.

Isaiah waits to see if Faoust was going to say something. But shit. He knows Faoust saw him typing. He should just leave him alone. He puts the phone down for a second. No. Maybe he should say something. He picks the phone back up. He chews on his lip for a second, thinking.

Well it’s not like Isaiah has much else to do, is there? He feels...strangely nervous. Hell. He starts to type.

Isaiah: “sorry. I know you saw me typing. I wasn’t trying to bother you. Just. Thought about you. Should’ve kept it to myself, I know”

Whatever he’d originally been typing, of course, is not exactly any of that.

Faoust doesn't know what the fuck to say. He doesn't want to admit he'd been thinking about him too.

Faoust: "Interesting. Thanks."

Isaiah lays back on his bed, phone in one hand, nervously opening and closing his knife with the other. What do you say? What do you say when no words can convey the enormity of your own idiocy? That you only recognize looking back and so thoroughly disconnected from who you’d been? What a disaster. He’s surprised to note that he’s...feeling things, isn’t he? That’s a little new. Not sure what to do with that.

Isaiah: “almost could’ve gotten away with it if you hadn’t seen me typing. Oh well. I’ll...go back to leaving you alone”

Faoust: "To be fair, you saw me too. I don't know what to say to you"

Isaiah: “I was gonna be polite and not call you out on that. But yeah.”

Isaiah: “I don’t know what to say either”

Isaiah: “feels like there’s something to be said, but I’m too stupid to figure it out”

Faoust: "I'm not stupid and I still don't know what to say. I guess emotionally we're stupid"

Isaiah: “could be. I’ve just been thinking a lot on everything. And ..wow”

Isaiah: “what a disaster”

Isaiah: “I was a piece of shit...but I sure did ruin a good thing”

Faoust: "Yeah.Yeah you did."

Isaiah: “sorry is pretty insufficient to cover it”

Faoust: "it's a start"

Isaiah: “I’m sorry. You were a friend and I didn’t know what to do with that”

Faoust: "apparently try to kill me? Fuck with my head?"

Faoust: "That's not entirely fair of me. I was going to kill you for fucking with my head. That's not exactly rational behavior"

Isaiah sits up on the bed. He has thought about this a lot, the rough shape of what he wants to say next. The words are never exact as he’s turned them in his mind, but he wants to try to tell them anyway.

Isaiah: “ok, do you want to know what Asmodai was thinking? About you, specifically? Would that help?”

Isaiah: “not to excuse anything of what I did, of course, but to understand maybe?”

Faoust: "O..kayyy?"

Asmodai would rather have died than admit any of this—but in a way, he did, didn’t he? Isaiah, on the other hand, feels almost eager to pry Asmodai’s thoughts and feelings open, to offer them up for Faoust to know.

Isaiah: “he loved spending time with you. He loved going and murdering the shit out of people together. He loved fucking with you more than any of the endless parade of hookup app fucks he summoned up. You had power over him—without you around, these things weren’t as enjoyable. And that fucked him up. He couldn’t deal with that. He wanted you to suffer, because he suffered enjoying things less off on his own. It’s all very fucked up. I don’t know what to say.”

Isaiah: “and now I just know the ghosts of all these feelings, and I don’t feel that shit. But. I was thinking about you. I don’t know”

Faoust: "well that's very frustrating, I'm sure you understand"

Isaiah: “yeah. Sorry”

Faoust: "and what about you? What do you feel?"

Isaiah licks his lips. This is what he was dancing around, hesitant to admit of himself.

Isaiah: “I don’t feel like killing you, or making you suffer for whatever fucked up reasons, or any of that bullshit. But. Even though I’m not him, and I don’t feel that shit......it’s weird.....I think I might miss you”

Faoust sighs and rubs his temples.

Faoust: "I think I might miss you too"

Isaiah is easily up to a dozen victims. All have been reported missing.

Detective Voros looks at a map with dots for every home address of a missing person for the past six months. Nope. She switches to a map with last known locations instead, but still, no pattern emerges. She pulls up a list of each missing person by name, and the last known contact for each missing person. Who last saw them (alive, she can’t help but add cynically). And for every missing person in nearly the past month, the last contact was an officer of some kind. From her own agency. She closes her laptop and stares out into the night.

What.

The.

Fuck.

The first thing Detective Voros checks on the next missing person report that comes in is whether the person had contact with the police that day. Sure enough, the police are not the last person this guy had contact with, but there’s a field contact for the missing young man as a witness in an assault perhaps an hour earlier.

She wishes she hadn’t noticed this. Noticing it means eventually she’ll be compelled to do something about it. What seems most likely is that she’s looking for a suspect in the department. And this many missing people is far too many for them to be kept alive. Not. Fucking. Good.

She clicks the pen in her hand. The pattern here really only started this month. Who would be so reckless? There’s maybe one or two missing persons reported that don’t fit—detritus, she can’t help thinking, the sort of people no one cares much when they go missing, druggie dropout types, but all the others. They fit. She’s briefly grateful for the high missing person rate of this town, because it means no one higher up has started pressing hard on this yet.

Detective Voros stops clicking her pen as realization of a potential lead dawns on her.

God, ugh. She’s so fucking stupid.

The victim who wouldn’t talk.

Who someone probably had tried to kill.

It couldn’t be coincidence, could it?

Maybe it could. Maybe it could.

In her patrol car, she groans in great annoyance. Even though she’s made detective, short staffing regularly keeps her on patrol. Luckily? Unluckily? Tonight is a patrol night. The weather is unusually warm, and the citizens are up to no good. Before she can put herself on a self initiated follow up, she’s dispatched to a call.

On the one hand, Isaiah has already killed someone today. On the other hand, the weather is perfect to go out looking for trouble. It would be almost criminal to stay in his motel room as nice as it is. He goes for a walk.

Faoust texts Isaiah finally.

Faoust: "As much as it seems like a bad idea, I'll give you another shot"

Isaiah immediately texts back, because he is so far past the bullshit of playing games and hell, he hasn’t talked to anyone in ages really. He says nothing to his victims, these days.

Isaiah: “I defer to your judgment. Whatever you want to do, wherever you want to go, etc. was just out for a walk”

They meet for coffee. They catch up, though there isn’t much to tell of Isaiah’s life besides his return to killing. It’s so different from the theatricality of Asmodai, the way he murders now. Faoust wonders whether it would even work, them killing together again, as he has his sort of ritual compared to the quick, clean efficiency that Isaiah has now adopted. But Isaiah assures him, as much as Faoust once waited around for the deranged things he did as Asmodai, he wouldn’t mind waiting around for Faoust.

That covers the murder friends part, but what about the friends with benefits aspect of what they’d had before? Faoust tactfully asks about whether Isaiah is interested in that as well.

“I have been thinking about this too,” Isaiah says, picking lightly at the paper sleeve on his coffee cup. “Sex is for the living, and I’ve only just begun coming around on accepting that’s what I am. Living, I mean. And that I have to figure out what I want to do with...This fucked up life I’ve inherited from myself.” He stops and sighs. “There are a lot of mistakes Asmodai made that I’d like to avoid repeating. But fucking you was not one of those mistakes.”

Isaiah having killed so many people in the same town in such a short timespan is too reckless for the two of them to do any more of it that night. But spending some time reacquainting themselves with one another violently on top of the motel sheets? A perfect way for Faoust and Isaiah to spend the evening.

They don’t limit themselves to the sheets. There’s also the floor, the wall, the cheap plywood of the dresser. There is something almost feral about the two of them together.

“Do be rough with me, will you?” Isaiah says when they first got back to the motel room, hooking his fingers into the waistband of Faoust’s pants, pulling their hips together. “Think I’d like that.”

Faoust doesn’t think at all. His body moves on muscle memory, the familiar feeling of Asmo—no, Isaiah, he corrects himself at one point—beneath his hands. The same, and yet not the same. The same lips, crushed to his own. The same deliciously thick, fluffy hair to pull on. Isaiah is not as loud as Asmodai was, but there is a deep, deep satisfaction in his moans.

Isaiah was right.

He very much likes this.

Detective Voros manages to weasel the regular patrol officers into being the ones to take people down to the Magistrate’s Office. She merely dispenses her wisdom to the combatants—“THERE’S A FUCKING PANDEMIC ON, STOP FIGHTING INSIDE THE GODDAMN WAFFLE HOUSE”—and finally puts herself en route to a motel just outside of town for a follow up.

She pulls up in the parking lot and sits in her car for a moment, filling out one of the little contact cards, as it is her—hope? Expectation?—that the door will not be answered when she goes to knock.

Detective Voros nods at the card, gets out of the patrol car, and walks up to the room, hoping he might still be staying in the same room as before, if only so she doesn’t have to apologize to a stranger. She could check with the front desk but ugh, sounds like work. She sighs, and hates that she ever had two brain cells run into each other to have this thought of a lead to pursue, and knocks on the door firmly twice

“Mr. James?”

Faoust, just barely dressed and getting ready to leave, looks bewildered at Isaiah. Isaiah’s eyebrow goes up as he quietly scrambles out of bed, pulling on his shirt and pants. He makes a face as he debates whether to answer the door.

Detective Voros tucks the card into the doorframe as she speaks. “It's your favorite local law enforcement representative. I was hoping to talk to you for some leads on who it was that put you in the hospital. Think it might be connected to some other cases we’ve got, and, well, you’re our only hope Obi-Wan. Or however the fuck that quote goes.”

Isaiah sighs, sets his shoulders, and slowly goes over to the door, opening it a few feet and peering out. “Hm?”

The card flutters to the ground, and Detective Voros, who’d already started walking away, spins on her heels.

“Mr. James! The magical vanishing devil himself.” She looks at his incredibly messy hair. “Hope I didn’t wake you. Forgot, do you go by Asmodai or Isaiah? Which do you prefer?”

Isaiah feigns a yawn. “I prefer someone who visits at a reasonable time.”

“Hey, I prefer when victims tell me shit they know right from the get go, but I guess neither of us got what we wanted here.”

Isaiah leans against the doorframe, holding the door with his arm as Faoust listens from behind the door. “Hm.”

“Ennnnntywaaay, I was hoping perhaps some quality healing time might’ve helped your memory vis-a-vis that assault, or shall I reckon it, probable attempted murder, that put you in the hospital? Anything at all you remember about the bastard or bastards that fucked you up?”

Isaiah shakes his head sadly. “‘Fraid not officer. Too much head trauma, that’s what the doctors seem to think. The whole night is simply a blank.”

This is far from true. Isaiah remembers with startling clarity every awful minute, every painful blow. It would be real fucking nice if he couldn’t remember, actually. He’s gotten used to the twinge of pain deep in his bones, and mostly accepts and ignores it.

“Well that’s a real fucking inconvenience, Mr. James. Because I don’t believe you, and I wasn’t kidding, you might be the only lead I’ve got in a much bigger case. I’m not gonna stand here and argue with you. But if you find yourself magically remembering something that might help—“ she snatches the card off the ground and hands it to him “—call me, would you?”

Isaiah takes the card, pretends to look at it, and tucks it in his pocket. “Of course officer. I do wish I could help.”

Detective Voros presses her lips together. “Do you. Do you really. Hm. Whatever.” She goes back to her patrol car and sits in the parking lot.

Isaiah shuts the door and takes the card back out of his pocket.

“Is she gonna be a problem?” Faoust asks.

Isaiah holds the card in one hand and brushes it against the fingers of the other thoughtfully. “Not sure. Maybe. She, well, rightly I suppose, thinks I know more about my assault than I’ve told them. And now seems to think it’s connected to something else? It was her radio I stole, by the way.”

“Looks like we might have found an officer to kill.”

Isaiah nods. “Might have to, yeah.”

“Or we could go a more direct route. She still out there?”

Isaiah peeks out the window. “There’s a patrol car in the parking lot, so I’ll say yeah.”

“This is either a great idea or a terrible one. At any rate, I'll see you later yeah?”

Isaiah quirks his eyebrow. “Yeah, I hope so.”

Faoust opens the door and heads directly over to the patrol car. He slams his hand on the roof of the car, leaning down to put himself at her level.

“Evening officer.”

Detective Voros, to her credit, doesn’t even flinch. “Oh it’s you, solid citizen. Fuck, what was your name? Not fuck. Hm.” She looks from him back toward Isaiah’s room, and back to Faoust. “Made up with your friend I see?”

“Never had an issue with him.”

“Of course. My mistake. I’ve been breaking up Waffle House brawls all night.”

“Ok here's the thing. Stop asking questions. We both can tell you don't want the answers. I will give you one free question, then you fuck off.”

“Unfortunately for every goddamn one of us, I’ve kind of been promoted to a position where asking questions is my damn job. But gee, your cooperation would be fantastic if you know something about the case I’m working on.”

“I'm telling you now. For your sake and mine. If it comes back to him?” Faoust jabs a thumb towards the motel room. “You don't want anything to do with it. You're a cop. You're good at not doing your job properly. Make it go away.

“But I'm a man of my word. You get one question I'll answer truthfully. Then you go away and don't come back.”

Detective Voros rubs the side of her head. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

After a pause, she rests her hands on her duty belt, and against better judgment speaks. “I think you know shit too. People have been going missing for a while. None of them ever get found. Your friend there is the first missing person in a year to be found. And now we’re back to more missing people again. A dozen at least in under a month. And I don’t think these are missing persons cases. I think this is one big goddamn string of homicide investigations that we’re too stupid to realize. What I haven’t decided is whether your friend is protecting someone else, or is he just scared of whoever’s doing this, I don’t fucking know. But I can’t just ignore shit this big, and I can hardly come up with one fucking question to ask you to make it worthwhile.”

Faoust shrugs. “Then you lose your chance at any knowledge. And when I say it's better for you to ignore this? I mean it.”

“How the fuck—wait no!! That’s not my question.” Detective Voros practically growls, eyes narrowed at Faoust, thinking. “....give me a second.”

“I got all night.”

Detective Voros didn’t make detective because she was smart, or good at interviewing people. She made detective because of dumb luck, because of shit she tried not to look too closely into, and perhaps very specifically because of these two assholes. Maybe somewhere in the world there is a smart detective who would know exactly what to ask to get exactly the answer she needs, even if she doesn’t know exactly what she needs. But Detective Voros doesn’t know a fucking thing about how to be a detective. She doesn’t know what to ask to help herself, to help this case, to help stop what she suspects is a lot of murder. She sighs.

“What is it that he knows but won’t tell me?”

Faoust tilts his head from side to side, thinking. “Mmm. Ah. I'm the one who beat the shit out of him.”

“You’re fucking joking! HAH! Wait, wait so my intuition was correct! HAH,” she laughs again triumphantly.

“Yeah, we had a big fight. He tried to kill me, I told him it wasn't going to happen with a baseball bat. Then I decided to let him live.”

Detective Voros looks at Faoust closely. “Be level with me, do I need to go check that he’s still alive in there now?”

Faoust laughs. “No, we made up. I just fucked him.”

Detective Voros nods, and gets the feeling he’s telling the truth. “Good. Didn’t feel like getting out of this car again.” She sighs and stares off, thinking to herself. “So ...the mysterious would-be murderer...probably—“ she spares a side glance at Faoust “—isn’t who I’m looking for as the culprit in my case.”

“Probably not.” Faoust pats the top of her car. “I meant what I said! For your own safety, leave it alone.” He stands up straight and starts walking towards home.

Detective Voros sighs such an aggravated sigh it can be clearly heard all the way across the parking lot. She drives back into town, and decides not to think on this more right now, and gets dispatched to another Waffle House brouhaha for her troubles as soon as she clears from her follow up.

Isaiah realizes, at some point, that Faoust is the first person he’s ever slept with who knows his actual name.

- NEXT SNIPPET -

#an ill-fitting name #My writing #original story #collaborative fiction #original work #original writing #original fiction #magic fiction #Magic murderer #snippets #fictional murderer #Fictional incompetent police

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c-is-for-circinate · 6 years ago

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Ten episodes into Critical Role (starting with the second season, and NO SPOILERS PLEASE), and okay yeah, I get why people like the show.

There’s a lot to talk about and I’m sure most of it’s been said before, but I’m just in love with how nuanced and contradictory these characters are. And contradictory is exactly the right word, not just because of how they oppose each other (though goddamn that is fun), but how they oppose themselves, how every single character is this mess of characteristics that don’t match up on first glance, except they actually fit together to create such rich characters.

Like Fjord, okay, start with him--he’s not the leader because this group is too much of a disaster to have a leader, but he’s the most consistently calm, solid, reliable, and generally sensible person in the whole group. Which is not usually how you’d expect your party’s half-orc to behave, but that’s fine, that’s just messing with race expectations, that’s easy. What’s interesting about Fjord is that he’s so clearly the group’s token decent guy, the honest man. He has an eldritch nightmare and actually tells the others about it, which nobody else in that fucking crew except maybe Jester would. He’s a straightforward guy who seems like he was maybe actually normal once, again unique in this group, who also happens to be a warlock with very clearly eldritch powers he doesn’t understand. And he has no problem whatsoever with using and expanding those powers, or with killing, or with stealing and conning and enjoying any ill-gotten gains the group may collect. His objections to the team’s plans are almost always practical and logistical (the ‘this seems very complicated and also is likely to end in this very obvious disaster when this logical hole gives way under us’ sort), not moral. It consistently feels like, if he hadn’t had whatever disaster shipwreck eldritch sea-beast warlock pact experience set him off on this path, he out of the whole group would be obeying laws and being generally decent to the people around him and working a simple, honest job with some hard labor involved, and he’d be happy with it--but he’s on this boat now and he’s in completely, and he’s just as forthright with that loyalty as he is with everything else.

And Jester is flighty and silly and fun and describes a childhood that horrifies the entire rest of the group in blithe, carefree tones, and I love it so much because it makes so much sense. Sure, she was isolated, secluded, and hidden from the world for years--but it was important for her mom’s business, and her mom loved her, and it was normal, and it was fine. Because that’s normal to her. And she’s completely carefree about her childhood, just like she makes a carefree game out of slaughtering gnolls and being entirely willing to kill guards or other sentient people, with the same level of fun as she gets pulling minor pranks. She would happily and generously give away pastries or money or healing to anyone, and then turn right around and fuck up their entire day just because it’s funny, and not even see a conflict there. Except that every once in a while we get a glimpse of just how desperately lonely she’s been for so fucking long--and it only comes out when she’s talking to or about the Traveler. It’s never when she’s talking about home, or the brothel, or the room when she was locked in, because those things were normal and fine. What’s not fine is the idea that she might lose contact with the Traveler, or maybe her mother. And of course that’s it. Because everything that was normal and fine and happy and funny had to be okay, because it was life, and that’s just how it was, but the Traveler and maybe her mother were the things that made it all okay, and if she loses them, she loses everything.

And I haven’t even begun to figure out Nott yet, Nott who seems in many aspects like the most straightforward member of the whole crew--not in the Fjord way of directness and honesty, but in the easy, tropey, simple-to-classify way. The goblin rogue who loves picking pockets and collecting shiny things, quick and sly and easily intimidated, with quick fingers and a bit of a background in alchemy, it all makes sense. Nott makes sense. Except that if you take a step back and look around at context, Nott makes no fucking sense at all. I have no idea why she’s out here, adventuring with these losers, instead of back home with the other goblins. We have seen zero other goblins out and around populated places so far. Even her partnership with Caleb straddles the line between ‘oh, of course’--a couple of criminals who met in prison and helped each other escape and decided it was more practical to stick together? sure! makes sense for a goblin!--and ‘wait, what the fuck?’. Why was Nott in any sort of prison that Caleb would ever be in to begin with? If she was arrested by humans, why didn’t they just kill her outright, given the attitudes most humans we’ve seen seem to have to goblins? She is so friendly and ready to hang with the rest of the group, is so delighted to play with Jester, she’s such a social creature, so how did she ever end up playing sidekick with this socially awkward human disaster to begin with?

And right, speaking of Caleb, the man is a goddamn mess, even putting aside all of his stubbornness and his mysteries and the actual literal mess of him. He’s shy and awkward and anxious and scared around people, except for when he decides to very intensely threaten somebody with murder and disembowelment, just as a matter of course. He’s anxious about everything, but he’s okay with monster-hunting. And he’s fine with murder, so long as it isn’t done with fire, he’s one of the first to go in for robbing corpses, he straight up does not give a shit about the people he and Nott rob, he doesn’t trust or even particularly like the rest of the Nein, he doesn’t (appear to) care about other people at all--except that he would do anything for Nott, full stop. And he has strong feelings about parents and kids and families, and he gave Jester the money he swiped from the spider lair because he got angry at her for being an apparent spoiled rich girl and wanted to apologize, and because it seemed important to her an he cared. And all of these truths hang together around the central figure of this one guy with a fucked-up past he doesn’t have words for, who prefers books to people and doesn’t really know what he’s doing, in the world, in general, even at the fairly low level he thinks he does.

And of course Caleb keeps clashing with Beau, because Beau is simultaneously so self-invested and yet also somehow more interrogative of the whole world around her than anyone else in the group. Beau wants to know all of Caleb’s secrets. She wants to know everybody’s secrets, but she wants Caleb most of all, because he’s spent the most effort trying to keep them that way. And she’s so curious about her party members, so curious about things going on in the world--she asks more questions about random shit than anyone, she’s currently spearheading both the investigation into the Gentleman and, with Fjord, the Zadash revolutionary’s club, because she wants to know. Except Beau never gives off the impression of actually liking anybody or anything she discovers. (Fjord trying to give her lessons on complimenting somebody without making it sound like a backhanded insult was amazing.) She has ‘chip on my shoulder’ writ so large across her it might as well be in neon. She is Out For Herself; she hates the system but she’s not going to go looking for ways to take it down, not when she can drink and fight shit to get cash that she can spend to drink with. But she can’t stop asking questions. She Doesn’t Care, but she can’t stop trying to learn more. And right, the constant back and forth of ‘yes she cares’-’no she’s a self-interested bitch’ could feel wishy-washy, but instead it just feels right, because Beau is very young and very angry and very impulsive, and she is very bad at effectively caring for the things and people she cares about, and it is so clear that she’s been treated so badly and had so little power to fight back. And now she’s got the power to fight back so she lashes out and she hits things and she’s constantly mean, and she chokes out the little girl she got arrested to protect two days earlier because nobody ever taught Beau how people actually take care of other people, did they. She needs to know Caleb’s secrets because Caleb having stuff going on that he won’t talk about means that there are factors at play that can affect Beau’s life that she can’t control, can’t even know about. All I know about her parents so far is that they had enough money to pay a temple to take her away when she caused too much trouble for them. Which actually appears to say pretty much everything that needs to be said.

And fucking Mollymauk Tealeaf, the one goddamn spoiler I had for this show before I started it and I am simultaneously gutted over him from day one and grateful to be prepared because I do not think I would take losing him well as a surprise. Molly is so fucking good. He’s a good character, and he’s such a good person, except he would cheerfully deny it with a grin if anyone ever accused him of it. He is such a tremendous cynic. He has been all over and he believes that people in groups of any size are stupid, dangerous, probably corrupt, generally bigoted, probably lazy, and out for themselves at every turn. No horror anyone does can surprise him, and yet he’s blithe and easy about it all. Of course people are terrible, that’s just how people are, no sense getting depressed over it. He’ll just slide his way in with a smile and a deck of tarot cards and a bit of flash and dazzle, use people’s vices against them, maybe run just a bit of a con if it looks to be profitable, and slide right back out again. Except that by god, Molly cares every bit as much as Beau does and unlike her, he actually knows it. He was ready to go to the mat for any- and everyone in that circus, called it a family and held on to it as hard as he possibly could even as everyone in it bickered and hated each other and were ready to jump town and leave each other behind. He is so kind to people with less than he has. And he’s never forceful about it, he never pushes his care forward, he just makes a few gentle comments to Jester about expectations and disappointment that might help ease the crushing blow he so clearly sees coming her way, without actually calling her out or starting an argument. He just suggests to Nott that there exist people in the world that shouldn’t be robbed, not because they’ve no money worth stealing but because those people can’t afford to lose what little they have. At some point he took it upon himself to be the person who keeps an eye on everyone else in the party, whether to try to defuse an argument or pick someone up when they’re down or corner them and take them to task, quietly, out of earshot of all the others. It’s impossible not to get the sense that Molly is already more invested in this group working and staying together than anyone else here, and he takes that fact as a given, and he’s ready to put in the quiet background work to keep it in one piece. He’s already brushed off or buried whatever mourning he did for the broken circus family he so clearly loved so well, and it should be a contradiction, but mostly it just feels like Molly is too used to being ready for things to go south and people to leave, because life is just shit like that and you take what you can get. He treats love exactly the same way he treats money: a thing that’s hard to come by and well worth collecting if you possibly can, to be enjoyed and played with to the very fullest while you have it, because soon enough it’ll be gone again either way.

At any rate, I’m really enamoured of this show that has characters so nuanced by ten episodes in. (Granted, ten episodes clocks close to 40 hours, but shhhh. D&D time is different.) I chalk a ton of it up to, ‘oh, shit, this is why voice actors are the perfect people to put on D&D as a massive serial fiction adventure’. Every single person at the table makes a living out of putting nuance into characters with just their voice, so of course they know what they’re doing, and they’ve all played zillions of characters (their IMDB pages are so long, jfc) with plenty of nuance to begin with. They know how to do this shit.

The other thing, I think, is that everybody at the table feels safe with the idea that they’ll have enough time to draw these characters out all the way to the end. Everybody in this group has so many secrets, so many of the linking pieces that lay out and explain the layers and contradictions, and nobody is rushing to pull any of them out on the table right up at the start, because everybody there is totally secure in the idea that they’ll get 500-odd hours to tell this story and it doesn’t all have to happen yet. Character death is always a risk, but the only healer isn’t going to up and move to another state, and nobody is going to get married and have no time any more, and the DM’s manager at work isn’t going to suddenly start assigning Thursday night shifts and all of the sudden scheduling is a disaster for so long it never gets fixed. Nobody is going to decide they don’t care any more and just stop showing up. They’ve been at this together a long, long time, and also they’re making an actual show about it that they actually get paid for, and they can take as long to tell the story, and make it whatever story, that they want. It’s a really different kind of energy than any D&D game I ever managed to play, and even different from most shows that never know when the ‘cancel’ hammer might come down from the network.

It’s pretty cool. I like it a lot.

#critical role #yes I am blacklisting that tag #that I just used to tag my own post #NO SPOILERS I AM SERIOUS #driveby meta attack #just can't help myself with the wordspew sometimes #that final Farscape post is still a mess of a draft #so many thoughts #so little time

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joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh · 5 years ago

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Cardcaptor Sakura episode 25 was great! That fake Sakura caused exactly the type of dumb funny cute inconvenient mayhem I expected it to, tipping over book displays and knocking down children’s sandcastles and stuff, it was fun and Sakura’s worries about being seen as a bad girl are adorable. Stakes go considerably up though when in trying to find the doppelganger, Kero-chan actually teaches Sakura how to read fortunes with her Clow Cards, and she picks up on the fact that the card’s gonna attack her brother. Specifically it actually leads him to fall off of a cliff and break his leg. Which was definitely a surprise, I said I’d be fine if this show were completely harmless shenanigans from start to finish but I’m fine with this too, I think these higher stake moments still fit in and, though they’re no longer necessarily comfy, there’s still like a child friendliness to them that keeps it from being pessimistic or cynical. I like it. Also Kero-chan notes that Sakura’s magic’s getting stronger and also that the Clow Card catastrophe might not happen if Sakura gets all the Clow Cards, but if they end up in the wrong person’s hands something worse than the Earth going “boom” might happen, which is scary. Only brought that second part up because it ties nicely into the first part, but about that first part, I kinda want Touya to learn about Sakura’s magic powers and stuff. Because he actually realised nearly immediately that the doppelganger wasn’t Sakura, because of all the strange apparitions he knows to be in the forest and stuff, so he helps it out just fine, so I think since he has experience in the supernatural it’d be cool to see him react to Sakura using magic. Also Sakura has to figure out the doppelganger’s card name since it’s a special Clow Card, and it actually tries to help her since it felt bad about what it did to Touya, so between that and the fortune telling from earlier she’s able to figure out that it’s the Mirror Card. I figured it out as well, I am at least as smart as a Japanese 10 year old. Yay. So yeah, really great episode.

Episode 26 was also great! Sakura has a new maths teacher, Kaho Mizuki, but she’s shady and powerful and knows about Clow Cards and that Sakura’s a Cardcaptor and stuff, also that Syaoran has his little powers, and also she and Touya are familiar with each other. Between her knowing Touya and that Sakura’s a Cardcaptor, plus Touya constantly staring at Kero-chan recently, I feel like that thing I literally just wished for about Touya learning Sakura’s a magical girl might come true soon. That’d be super hype. Mizuki’s cool though, super pretty, it’ll be nice seeing an adult figure that knows about this magic stuff, since so far it’s all children and Kero-chan. Anyway our Clow Card this episode is Maze, a nice reality warping type that uh, makes mazes. At first it’s a really normal one with just, big green walls, and I thought “oh wow lots of green I bet the background artists had it easy this episode lol” but as if to call me out directly for even thinking that, the maze turns into some fuckin MC Escher infinite stairway bullshit, I loved it. Great episode, as usual.

Episode 27, unsurprisingly, was great! There’s another Clow Card at Mizuki’s shrine (she’s a shrine maiden, forgot to mention) and Sakura and Syaoran go to investigate. No Tomoyo or Meiling this time, what’s great though is that Kero-chan, in his infinite need to shit-talk, is all like “oh the brat’s not here because she’s still doing homework at this hour wow she’s slow and bad lol” and Sakura, absolute fucking champion nice girl, is like “Meiling-chan just transferred here and isn’t used to Japanese yet” like damn fuckin defend her, dunk on Kero-chan. Sakura’s great. Speaking of Sakura being great, she and Syaoran end up kind of confessing to the other that they both love Yukito, and that for both of them it was love at first sight. And not once does Sakura say like the “but you’re both boys” thing or pull any lines that are even remotely homophobic, cause like I’m watching Sailor Moon rn obviously and while S was ages ago, Usagi and that’s reaction to Haruka and Michiru’s relationship bugs me, so for this show to be so like, I guess just accepting, it’s great. Sakura brings up that there’s quite the age gap but says that they can’t help it because they’re in love, which I think is quite cute, you know like I don’t like relationships between 10 and 17 year olds but I’m not gonna throw shade at a 10 year old for experiencing emotions. Anyway then Sakura gets sent back in time by the Return card, and she can’t get back until the time in the past actually reaches the time in the present. I don’t know what sort of timeline implications that has, or implications on a visitor’s age, or anything like that, but actually it’s not important because Sakura basically hides the entire time and also she’s saved by Syaoran since the one other method to save someone is to use the Time card and seal Return. Neato. Cool seeing Syaoran finally use that cool overpowered card he got, but we learned it is super draining, especially in this specific case of freezing time back in time. Sakura hugs him since she’s so grateful and he goes red, maybe they’ll end up becoming a couple, I think that’d be cute. Anyway what Sakura witnessed in the past though is how Mizuki and Touya know each other. See, when Touya was in his 2nd year of middle school, so like 14 or 15 idk, he met her at a shrine he was at since he can see spirits and stuff, and like the next day she was a student teacher at his school, and eventually they became a couple, but she left to study overseas, and before she left she told him they’d both have someone new they love more by the time she comes back and sees him again. I like that it kinda parallels her first meeting with Sakura, with the “I’ll see you tomorrow” bit I mean. If that one anon ask I got was referring to this when they said there are some questionable relationships, I think I can take it, if I highball Touya at like 15 or 16 for when their relationship actually is, and then have Mizuki be 17 since you can be a student teacher at that age, then all’s good, also it’s fiction so who actually cares. Mostly I just don’t want Sakura the 10 year old dating Yukito the 17 year old. But yeah this episode was good and knowing Touya’s connection to Mizuki makes me want him to learn Sakura’s magic even more.

Episode 28 is gonna push me to run out of ways to say x episode is great, because this episode was also great. Remember when I popped off during the marathon episode because Maki the toy shop owner made an appearance? Yeah well this episode has her shop as a central plot point again, which is just great, makes this town feel so homely. Specifically they’re selling fake Clow Cards with no magical powers called Enchanted Cards, and they’re just total novelties, but actually, a real Clow Card gets mixed up in there, namely Shot, which Meiling buys so she can take a shot at Syaoran’s heart (haha) which actually doesn’t work out since it’s a seriously dangerous offensive card that about kills him. Sakura manages to save him by using Mirror to reflect the shot but like, damn, Syaoran got hit a couple of times I mean this is some of the most physical danger anyone’s been in apart from a couple of instances relating to large heights. Good on Sakura for pulling through and saving him. And a good episode as well.

Last for today, and finally bringing me up to date, is episode 29, which, say it with me now, was great! Everyone’s making cake, but it’s too sweet, so they try again, and again, and it’s still too sweet! And then Sakura and Syaoran chase the Sweet Clow Card around the room as it turns everything into chocolate and biscuits and cakes, all the while throwing salt at it, and they successfully capture what might be the most useless Clow Card yet. What a delightful show.

I had a ton of fun watching all of these today. End of post.

#cardcaptor sakura #1.12.19 #sailor moon

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derangedangel · 7 years ago

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Distraction (Part 1) - Theo Raeken

Summary: Based off the song Distraction by Kehlani. You’re stressed with all your college activities but Theo turns out to be the distraction you need to get through it. This will be a three part series.

Word Count: 2,555

Warnings: Cursing, mentions of sex

Author’s Note: I’m a little late with this song but I love it so much. Obviously it fit Theo. Also, I’m not one to endorse casual sex but do whatever floats your boat. Just make sure you wrap it up.

Masterlist

College. A way to get away from all the drama in Beacon Hills. You did the research and hadn’t heard about any “mysterious animal attacks” near your school. After the previous year you had, you wanted to be far away from all supernatural issues. You were human, so it shouldn’t be too hard get away from the werewolf drama. Of course, if the pack needed you, you would be there. With Ms. Monroe making an army of hunters, they needed all the help they could get. They seemed to have things pretty well handled when you left. It was almost like when Argent was hunting wolves. Except Monroe didn’t follow any particular code like he did.

It was the second week of school and you were already stressed. You had a plan for college which consisted of you getting as involved as possible and making straight A’s. During high school, you were pretty busy helping save the town and spending time with your boyfriend. The days of running for your life were over, and there was no boyfriend occupying your free time.

There was a pep rally on campus for the game on Saturday, and you and your roommate were watching all the players get called on stage.

“Who knew there were so many hot guys at this school,” Camila asked clapping her hands as the coach introduced another player. Her eyes were ogling the players on stage so she didn’t see you roll your eyes. “Where were all these guys when I toured the campus?”

“Probably hiding because they knew you were coming,” you replied laughing.

“Oh shut up,” she turned and smiled at you. “There’s gotta be one guy up there you find good-looking.”

“I’ll admit they look good, but I’m not here for that.”

“Then what the heck are you here for,” Camila asked, slightly confused by your response.

“To get an education. You know, the whole reason college was invited in the first place,” you nodded explaining to your friend.

“I guess,” she said turning to look back at the players. “You gotta have a little fun though.”

“I don’t need a guy to have fun, Cami. I’ve got plans. And getting distracted by some college boy isn’t going to help me achieve them.”

“Yeah, but you know what they say. All work and no play makes Y/N a dull girl.”

“What’s not fun about world domination,” you shrugged and giggled.

“And now,” you heard the coach announce on the microphone, “Our second-string players. First up, the freshman star all the way from Beacon Hills, Theo Raeken.”

“What,” you shouted with a baffled and somewhat irritated expression on your face.

Theo came jogging up on stage waving to the cheering crowd. It felt like slow motion to you. His brown hair bounced with each step he took. His bluish green eyes shined bring in the stadium lights.

“Oh, fuck,” you whispered under your breath, but Camila still heard you.

“What? What’s going on?”

“I know him,” you said very annoyed.

“You know him,” Camila said astonished. You nodded but she wanted you to clarify. “Him,” she asked again pointing.

“Yeah, we went to school together.”

“You’ve gotta give me more details girl. He’s smoking. Do you mean know him like ‘we had a few classes together but never spoke’ or ‘he actually acknowledged my presence and his gorgeous lips formed words that were only designed for me’?”

You raised your eyebrow at your over the top friend. “I wouldn’t say it exactly like that, but the second one. We were almost friends.”

“You were almost friends with that Greek God,” she asked a little too loudly for your liking. “What the hell happened?”

“I don’t want to get into too much detail, but he wasn’t the nicest guy back then. He was in the grade above me, but he had some…” you looked for the right words to say before you spoke, “family issues come up and he had to leave suddenly.” Your mouth turned up at the little joke you made that you knew Camila wouldn’t understand. “He came back the next year and finished. We graduated together but I had no idea he was going to college let alone go here of all places.”

“Well thank God for second chances because I’m gonna climb him like a tree,” Cami said readjusting her boobs in her top.

You shook your head at Camila and brought your attention back to the coach. The pep rally lasted five more minutes then you made your way over to the free snacks provided by the school. Cami walked off somewhere to flirt with one of the players. You said you would meet up in ten minutes to walk back to your dorm together.

“I had family issues huh,” a deep voice said from behind you. You didn’t need to turn around to recognize who said it. You sighed before you turned around regretting even coming out tonight.

Theo was smirking at the remark he was eavesdropping in on earlier. “What was I supposed to say? Your sister popped out of the ground like a jack-in-the-box and dragged you to hell? She would have reported me and had me admitted into the psych ward.”

“I doubt she would have cared since I’m a, oh what was it, a Greek God.”

You rolled your eyes. Theo was already cocky. The last thing you needed was your roommate’s comments stroking his ego. “Whatever, quarterback. Oh wait, second string quarterback. What are you doing here anyway,” you asked crossing your arms over your chest.

“The same thing you’re probably here for. To get an education.”

The line moved, so you took a few steps so you wouldn’t lose your place. “Oh bullshit. Why would you want an education?”

“Well some of us don’t have mommy and daddy to take care of them. It was either getting a full ride scholarship or keep living out of my truck. And I thought actually doing something with my life and having a place to live was better than being a sitting target for one of Monroe’s hunters.”

The scowl on your face slowly softened as Theo spoke. Even though he started off annoying with that mommy and daddy remark, you felt bad he had to live out of his truck. Killing Scott had put him on your permeant hate list, but he did help with the Ghost Riders and keeping Liam safe. And maybe karma had its way with Theo when he got dragged to hell by his sister. That may have been punishment enough.

“Fine. Just don’t get in my way here. I’m trying to make something of myself and I don’t need my supernatural past coming back to haunt me.”

Theo raised his hands up in defense. “I wouldn’t dream of it, babygirl.”

You looked at him disgusted. “And don’t call me babygirl.”

It had been a month since the pep rally and you tried to keep your distance from Theo. You didn’t even want to bring up his name, which is why the pack didn’t know he was at the same college as you.

“How do I look,” Camila asked stepping out of your shared bathroom in a red dress.

“You look great. Where are you going,” you asked looking up from your homework.

“Elliot is taking me out to a fancy restaurant.” Camila went over to her mirror to put on the finishing touches.

“Date number 3. Are things getting serious?”

“Oh God no. We’re just having fun. I mean, I do like him, but we’re young. I’m not trying to rush into anything,” she spoke as she sprayed her perfume in the air and walked into the cloud of smoke. “Don’t tell me you’re staying in here to study on a Saturday night.”

“I won’t then,” you said. You turned back around in your computer chair to face your desk.

“You’re not staying in here on another weekend.”

“Yes I am.”

“No. You. Are. Not,” she spoke emphasizing each word as she typed on her phone. “I just texted the girls and they’ll be here in 30 minutes to pick you up for the party.”

“Roommate say what now,” you asked turning back towards your friend.

“There’s a house party tonight. Molly, Candice, and Raven are going and so are you.”

“But I don’t want to go to a party. I’ve got so much crap on my plate. I’ve got a test next week, a paper to write, I’m working out the details for the project committee I’m on in my club, and I’m trying to get secure my spot as an RA next year. All that takes work.”

Camila’s head was down snoring then she suddenly jumped up shaking her head. “I fell asleep just listening to you. You’ve got too much going on and it’s not even midterms yet. You need a distraction from your boring, stressful life.”

“My life isn’t boring,” you responded defending yourself.

“Prove it,” Cami said crossing her arms over her chest.

“Ughhh, fine. I’ll go. I can be fun.” You got up from your chair and went to your closet to find something to wear to the party. Sweatpants and school t-shirt weren’t appropriate for any party.

An early 2000’s song roared through the speakers. You stuffed another chip in your mouth as you watched everybody dance. A couple came through the kitchen door holding hands. The guy pushed the girl against the wall watching her giggle. She ran her manicured figures in his black hair and stared into his eyes. You rolled your eyes and grabbed another chip from the bowl

Couples always annoyed you. You weren’t always so cynical, but being in love and having your heart ripped out of your chest will do that to you. Brett and you used to be that annoyingly cute. He was your whole world. It sounds pretty cliché, falling in love in high school, but Brett loved you to the moon and back. The two of you talked about going to college together and eventually getting married. You were young, but you knew Brett was it for you.

When Monroe killed Brett, it was like a piece of died with him. It was a year ago, but the pain still hurt. You swore one day you would get your revenge on Ms. Monroe. Scott would disapprove, but you didn’t care. Camila though you were weird for not being interested in any guys at school, but you just weren’t ready. You were focused on your studies and clubs. Guys would just take your attention away from that. You did miss getting affection and attention though. There was no rush for a relationship, but it would be nice to have someone around.

“Having fun,” a voice asked from behind you.

“Tons. This party is so much fun,” you answered sarcastically turning around to face Theo. Theo had grown a bit of beard since the last time you saw him. You would hate to admit it out loud, but he looked real good with facial hair. You began to wonder why he didn’t grow a beard sooner.

Theo smirked hearing your heartbeat quicken for just a moment. “I’m having a blast too,” he smiled coping your sarcasm. He popped a chip in his mouth and you admired the way light hit eyes making them twinkle. “Did your friends drag you here like mines?”

“Yeah, my roommate thinks I’m boring for spending Saturday night in our dorm doing homework.”

“You are boring for spending Saturday night in your dorm doing homework,” Theo smiled repeating you.

“Oh shut up,” you spoke smacking Theo on the arm.

Theo laughed before he spoke. “I see you on campus Y/N. Your nose is always stuck in some book or you’re speed walking to class.”

“Well I’ve got a lot going on.”

“I see that,” Theo nodded giving you a once over. “You have to learn to relax sometimes. Take a break. Don’t be so stressed all the time.”

“And how do you propose I do that,” you questioned staring into Theo’s gorgeous eyes.

“For starters you can dance with me,” Theo said stretching his hand out to yours.

You squinted at Theo questioningly not sure of what to do.

“It’s just a dance Y/N, I won’t bite.” You reluctantly grabbed Theo’s handing thinking what’s the worst that could happen. Theo led you to the living room and though the music was loud, you still heard him say “hard” in reference to him biting you.

Theo started moving to the beat pulling you closer to him. You stood there awkward. Just a month ago you wanted nothing to do with Theo Raeken, but now here you were next to him. Theo dipped down, his lips ghosting over your ear so you could hear him over the music. “It’s just a dance Y/N.”

Rolling your eyes, you began to dance with Theo. One dance wouldn’t hurt anything. Theo’s hand grabbed your hip as you swayed to the music. You felt his fingers on the skin in between your jeans and the bottom hem of your shirt. Your skin was on fire at his touch, but you just chalked it up to not being this close to a guy since Brett.

The beat changed a little and you turned around so your back was facing Theo. He wrapped his arm tighter around your waist and you pulled closer into him. You flipped your hair throwing over your shoulder and felt Theo’s warm breath fan against your neck.

One song turned into two and two songs turned into three. It had been a long time since you danced with a guy. A small part of you felt bad. Like you shouldn’t be dancing so close with Theo. Then you thought about how you sulked around for the last year over Brett. You were just dancing, not starting a relationship with him. And besides, everyone needed a bit of human contact every now and again.

You ran your hands through Theo’s hair watching as he bit his lip. Brett was your first and only. You never even thought about having sex with another guy until now.

“I just thought of another way you can help me relax,” you said in a low tone.

“And how’s that,” Theo asked tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear.

You placed your hands on Theo’s checks and pulled him in for a kiss. His soft, warm lips moved gently over yours. It was obvious he was just as attracted to you as you were to him.

You pulled back gazing into his eyes. You didn’t care that there was a room full of people around you watching you kiss the quarterback. “You were right. My life is stressful. I’ve got a lot going on. So maybe you could be my distraction from all that.”

“I’m listening,” Theo said gripping your hips as you kept moving to the music.

“This will be purely physical. No relationship. No strings attached. I can’t have anyone or anything take my attention away from school. But when things get to hectic and I need break-“

“I’ll be your distraction,” Theo finished for you.

“Exactly. So do we have an agreement?”

Theo smiled showing all his beautiful white teeth. “I’m down.”

#Theo Raeken x Reader #Theo Raeken Imagine #teen wolf imagine #teen wolf x reader #teen wolf fanfiction #teen wolf fan fiction

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artificialqueens · 8 years ago

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E.V.O.L - Chapter 5 (Trixya) - VicThirteen

A/N: Heeey! So this is kind of a sad one. Tbh this fic was supposed to be way angstier than it turned out, but we’re finding out as I write it how grossly romantic I am and how I just want people to be happy. Ew. Hope you enjoy.

Quick s/o to Evelyn just for being a good friend and encouraging me to write this <3

Chapter Five – Like a shooting star in the valley

She kissed back.

It took Trixie a couple of seconds to realize Katya was kissing back, cold fingers touching her round cheeks. The girl sighed in a mixture of relief and content, kissing Katya again, and again, pink lips parting slightly to fit a red one between them. It felt like this was happening inside her head. The silence was only broken by the wet sounds of their kisses, the poor lighting making the room feel warmer than it actually was. Trixie felt her heart racing in every part of her body. She wanted to look into those icy blue eyes again, so she placed her shaky hands on her legs to pull back, seeing Katya’s lips pout for a second at the sudden interruption.

When the artist opened her eyes, she breathed out a laugh, turning away, feeling a shyness that was new to her. “Uhm, Trixie…”

“I’m sorry” the younger girl hurried to explain herself. “I… I couldn’t help it. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, it’s okay” Katya said facing her with a gentle smile that wrinkled the corners of her eyes. “It’s just that… I kinda can’t deal with this right now, you know? This art show is number one to ten on my list of priorities. I have so much at stake” the nervous look was back on her face before she reached out to hold one of Trixie’s hands. “You’re wonderful. You’re beautiful, and talented, and, honestly, very hot. But this can’t happen right now.”

Trixie sighed and nodded. This was the cutest and most gentle way she’s ever been rejected. It was silent for a moment before Katya spoke again. “Besides” that childish guilty smile appeared on her face, “I am literally forbidden to have any sort of non-professional relations with my employees. You know, Ginger is actually my partner here, she owns a part of the studio. Our contract literally says that if I break the ethics code or whatever and it harms our business, she can kick me out. I thought it was a safe idea at the time” she shrugged. “I used to be a little messy, I don’t know if you’ve heard” Trixie laughed at her cynic tone and shook her head.

“Well, yeah. She’s certainly a lot to handle. It’s weird to think you two are that close. You’re an odd couple.”

“Oh she’s a great person actually. She’s helped me a lot” Katya widened her eyes when saying that, making Trixie understand the unsaid. “If it wasn’t for her, well…” She sighed and gave Trixie’s hand a little pat “you probably wouldn’t have this place to work today, let’s say that”.

Trixie’s heart fell a little at the sound of that. Katya looked at her fondly and sighed, giving a last squeeze to her hand before letting go and turning to her laptop. “So… I’m gonna try to perfect this. Although I’m sure it can’t look as good as you, Barbie in The Nutcracker.”

The dancer got up laughing, comically twirling and bowing. “Okay, I’m gonna take these shoes off cause it actually hurts” she walked to the door, smiling at Katya one more time before disappearing out of the room.

–

The studio looked like a whole new place once it was ready for the big day. All the messy work stations were replaced by the beautiful art pieces, meticulously placed around the huge shared room. It was all so clean and organized the place almost looked like a museum.

Katya’s “shadow dancer” was placed in an improvised room made of black curtain walls. Right next to it was a three-canvas panel she painted, starting with a silhouette surrounded by shadows, then it caught on fire on the second part, and ended surrounded by a blissful blue-cream-green aura. Trixie saw it as auto-biographic, the artist’s view of her own journey through an agitated life.

Trixie made sure to be the best assistant ever in that night. She helped Katya escape when she needed a smoke break, made sure Katya had eaten properly during the day, reassured her a thousand times that everything was great, but also stepped away when Alaska appeared. Trixie watched from a distance as the two talked and laughed, doing her best to stay focused on her job – that’s what Katya needed her to do.

She took the time to walk around and appreciate everybody’s work. Detox had found a way sculpt tiny women on lipsticks, and a bunch of tiny smiley faces out of colorful pills. “Fucking genius”, Trixie whispered to the sculptor that stood next to her creations and gave her a wink and a smile back.

Of course the press showed up. Tatianna made sure to call everyone. Even though they expected for more people to come, the house was pretty full. And of course every single person with a camera photographed Katya and Alaska together. A thousand times. Trixie took a mental note to shield herself from all the gossip and speculation that was gonna inevitably surface on the next day. She also hoped to, somehow, shield Katya from that too. She put all of her hopes into that one night, into her art. This was too important to be messed up by the media’s bullshit.

About an hour later, Trixie had made sure to treat everyone wonderfully and say great things about Katya’s work around the reporters and critics, she finally saw Alaska saying goodbye. The skinny blonde hugged and kissed Katya on her cheeks, strutting out the door like she was on the runway. There was something off about her that Trixie simply didn’t get. She waited until Katya was by herself again and approached her with a bottle of iced water.

“Thought you might need this.”

“My guardian angel!” Katya clutched the bottle next to her chest before taking a big gulp. “What do you think? Did we do well?” she looked around with hopeful eyes and smiled at Trixie.

“Yeah! You killed it! Everyone seems really happy with the whole thing! Besides, I made sure to let some people hear me talk about what a great artist and person you are. You’re welcome” Trixie fluttered her eyelashes and followed Katya when she started laughing.

They were very tired. It had been such a stressful and busy day, all they wanted was to go home. “Don’t let Ginger hear me”, Katya leaned in to Trixie’s shoulder, closing her eyes “but I don’t think this would have worked without you, Barbie. Thank you so much”. The taller girl put an arm around her and gave her a little reassuring squeeze. She wasn’t strong enough to stop her smile form spreading across her face. And she wasn’t bothered by the cloud of butterflies that danced inside of her.

–

In the morning, Trixie woke up earlier than she expected by her phone ringing. Squinting to the screen she was confused to see Ginger’s name. “Hello?”

“Trixie!” The manager’s raspy voice sounded alarmed. “Have you seen it yet?”

“What? I just woke up, what’s going on, Ginger?”

“Oh shit, okay” She breathed in and spoke angrier than Trixie had ever heard her. “These fucking vultures again. They crushed her, Trixie. It’s bad.”

“Huh? What are you-” she stopped herself when she realized what Ginger meant. Oh no. “The press? What did they say?”

“What didn’t they say? They read her style, then the fucking Alaska bullshit all over again, some dickhead made sure to have a whole throwback explaining every bad thing that ever involved Katya before.”

Trixie was wide awake and low key freaking out now. This was worse than she could have predicted. “But what about the exhibition? Her pieces? It was so good!”

“Oh honey, the two lines someone bothered to write about art have the word mediocre in them.” Fucking hell. “And, Trixie, someone mentioned you.”

“What?!”

“Okay, you need to catch up on this. Please have in mind they’re a piece of shit, okay? But I need your help right now. Katya won’t shut up about you, I think it would be good for her to see you.”

“Uhm… okay” Trixie answered, her head spinning with that much information at once. She was mentioned? Katya wanted to see her?

“I’m sending a few links to your e-mail. Text me your address, I’ll call a taxi to pick you up.”

“Alright, alright. I’m gonna change then. See you soon.”

Trixie quickly typed and sent the address, and ran to her closet, shoving the first pink dress she found over her head. She put her hair in a pony tail and brushed her teeth, then went to the front of the building to wait for the car. While she waited, she opened the first link Ginger had sent. It was some website dedicated to celebrity gossip. A full gallery of pictures showed Katya and Alaska talking and laughing together, followed by images of Alaska’s loving goodbye. The text was filled with things like “the popstar seems to still have a soft spot for the heartbreaker” and “Katya’s fashion sense mirrors her career: gone”.

The anger grew in Trixie with every line she read. After all the work Katya put into rehabilitating herself and creating her art, building a whole new path from scratch, there they were, treating her like a joke again. She could only imagine how Katya would be feeling right now. The thought made her stomach turn. Thank God Ginger was there.

Then she saw it. A “pop culture” session on a news website talked about how “Katya’s attempt to be ‘cool’ again” was “a total #fail”, then proceeded to say how she probably flirted her way into her own art show. “The new victim of Katya’s charm seems to be her own assistant, a barely legal blondie, who spent her every breath declaring her love for the retired actress.”

This was not how she imagined her media debut at all. They didn’t even bother to say her name. She was just a groupie, a young bimbo hanging around the adults. Trixie felt sick. When the taxi pulled over, she immediately climbed into the backseat and closed her eyes, her hands over her face. What the hell is happening right now?

–

Katya was sat on the floor of her bedroom’s balcony, legs dangling over the edge. Tens of cigarette butts surrounded her, along with a few bottles of beer and a joint. It wasn’t as bad of a relapse as one would expect of her, but she drank nonetheless. Ginger had come and gone to check on her a thousand times, now pacing and making phone calls downstairs.

She couldn’t be more of a failure right now. All of her work, worthless. Her sobriety, gone. Her career, over. She let everyone down, all of her friends. Ginger, Alaska, Trixie. Fuck, she even dragged that poor girl into this. Trixie helped her so much, she even inspired Katya’s favorite piece – her ballerina. But she disappointed her too.

She was always a meteor, burning too bright. A motherfucking shooting star. And now she was going down. Katya looked up to the peaceful neighborhood, pretty homes filled with pretty people and their pretty lives. She didn’t belong there. In fact, she didn’t belong anywhere. She reached for the half burned joint that was abandoned by her side and was about to light it, when she heard a knock on the door. When she looked, the tears that had fallen for hours came back to her puffed, red eyes.

Trixie walked in slowly, closing the door behind her. The sight of Katya in pieces on the floor made her heart break. When she noticed the bottles and what Katya was holding between her fingers, she knew what Ginger meant by it’s bad.

“Hey” she stepped closer and sat on the floor next to Katya, avoiding the cigarette butts. “Ginger thought I should come by… she said you were talking about me.”

“That fucking snitch” Katya joked, but her lips didn’t hold a smile. She sighed and looked at the girl, seeing her pretty face clear of make up for the first time. She was beautiful. She was crying again and that made her feel stupid, but she was too tired to try to hold it now. “I’m so sorry, Trixie.”

“Katya, no. Why are you apologizing to me? Hey” she wiggled closer to take Katya’s hands into hers, rubbing circles with her fingers to calm her a little. “What they’re doing to you… it’s horrible. It’s all kinds of wrong. You don’t deserve this, Katya.”

The older woman crawled into Trixie’s arms and held her, looking even smaller while she cried. “I’m done, Trixie. This is it, I have no back up plan. This was my only hope, I’m back to zero now.”

Trixie held her close and felt a warm tear roll down her cheek. “Don’t say that, please. You have no idea how good you are. Can I show you something?”

Katya pulled back to look into her bright blue eyes, recalling the last time she heard Trixie say those words. “What?”

“Okay, first, let’s get out of this floor, ok? Come on” she got up and helped Katya stand, pulling her by the hands to the bed inside. Trixie sat with her back against the headboard, inviting Katya to lay on her lap. While she stroke the woman’s curly hair, she tapped on her phone and began reading.

“The Zamo Studio is a collection of unique talents, and tonight’s event made it clear. It’s a great experience to watch these minds work their crafts to build such amazing pieces. Katya’s perspective of the world is showcased in her new take on the arts. She presents her journey, her heavens and her hell, in the form of colors, shape, light and shadow. It gives a heart some hope to see her talent finally flourish and set her soul free. She truly is a force to be reckoned – but of course I’ve always known this.”

“What’s this?” Katya whispered.

“This is Phi Phi O'Hara’s blog. And the girl has got a lot of hits, let me tell you.”

“Really?” Katya looked up, her puffy eyes surprised.

“Yeah. Her readers are almost all supporters too. A bunch of nice comments.”

“That’s nice” a small smile appeared on her face, and Trixie felt a drop of relief fall on her heart.

“Also, do you remember Miss Alyssa Edwards?”

“Do I remember? Working with her was the only thing that made those stupid teenage movies fun. Best choreographer in the world.”

“Well, seems like she’s your fan too, because she tweeted about how sorry she was for not being able to come by last night because of work, but she misses you and is really proud. Then she proceeded to virtually shout at every hater that tried to talk shit about you to her.”

“Oh my God” Katya finally let a laugh out, seating up. “She’s really something. I need to call her and say thanks.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and stared at Trixie, searching for something in her eyes. “How do you do this?”

“What?”

“You talked me down. Again. You just come in and do this thing and I feel better. How does this happen?”

Trixie blushed and looked away, knowing there was nothing to hide her flushed cheeks this time. She shrugged and smiled shyly, a word she didn’t want to think about fluttered in her mind. “You just have to remember that you are loved, okay? And it’s gonna be alright. The right people are rooting for you. Do what you do best and give these assholes your middle finger. You deserve better, Katya.”

Katya laughed weakly and sat closer to Trixie, only the gray tones left in her eyes. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this.”

“Don’t worry” the girl smiled and shook her head, the sweet smell of her hair dancing around Katya and making her blood pressure rise.

“Thank you, thank you, Trixie” she almost whispered, leaning closer, her hand running up to rest on Trixie’s jaw.

“Katya” the girl breathed shakily, seeing the woman with her eyes closed, their noses lightly touching, “no. Ginger is downstairs, she’s gonna kill you.”

“I don’t care.”

“I care” she saw Katya wasn’t backing down, but there were too many emotions being mixed in that moment. “Katya, what are you doing?” She took the hand that was cupping her face and held it down, looking into the gray eyes intently.

“I’m trying to feel something, Trixie. I’ve always felt like my heart was broken even if I’ve never fallen in love before. I don’t know what I’m doing with my life anymore. I don’t know why I like to be close to you. I’m not trying to figure it out right now. I’m just trying to fucking kiss you.”

Trixie felt the air evaporate from her lungs. “Katya, you can’t throw a word like love around like this. You wanna get in my pants? By all means, I’d be glad. But, please, don’t play me with these words, okay?”

“No, no, you don’t understand” Katya shook her head, frustrated at how she couldn’t get through Trixie’s wall. “It’s not like that.”

“Then how is it? What do you want from me, Katya?”

The cold fingers held Trixie’s face again, bright blue and gray eyes starring at each other.

“Everything. I want everything, Trixie.”

#trixya #trixie mattel #katya zamolodchikova #angst #cisgirl au #evol #victhirteen #ginger minj #tw swearing #tw alcohol #tw drugs #tw depression #rpdr fanfiction #submission #lesbian au

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btsboiz-blog · 8 years ago

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closer (mark tuan)

CLOSER

“getting closer, i’ll win you over”

Mark does everything in his power to find his soulmate, but all that could be taken away when an unlikely enemy from his past returns to ruin it.

genre; AU (superpowers), fluff, angst,

pairing: mark x reader x jaebum

word count: 1614

part 1/???

1 2 3

-ADMIN TERI

You sighed as you looked at the empty apartment, filled only with the luggage you were bringing with you to Korea. You held the key tight in your hand, remembering to return it to the lobby landlord before you left. You can’t remember the exact moment you realized you wanted a change, but you had a good feeling about this.

‘It’s time to travel the world, see something new!’ you told yourself after a nine-hour shift at the restaurant you worked. You looked around the apartment that was then full of knick-knacks and things you’d collected over the years - you were surprised it all fit in a couple bags. It was your twenty-second year when it hit you, it was time to leave Illinois and go somewhere else to get a new perspective. The first place that came to your mind was Korea.

Before you knew it, you were boarding the plane. You exhaled slowly, a tight smile creeping upon your lips as you pressed the play button on your music. ‘Everything would make more sense once you got to Korea,’ the voice in your head told you.

Mark had been alone for most of the twenty-three years he’d been alive. Sure, he’d had little girlfriends and flings here and there, but it was never anything serious, to his dismay. He wanted a girlfriend - a serious girlfriend. He was ready to settle down, but it never seemed like the woman he was with was ready for the same. He was ready for his soulmate.

“It’s not happening. Jackson.” Mark put his foot down after his best friend, Jackson, asked him to go to his party. “I always end up getting shit-faced drunk at your parties and then you draw on my face.”

“I promise we won’t do it this time! Come on, it will be fun, everyone’s gonna be there!” Jackson was practically begging on his knees.

“More reason not to go.” Mark knew he’d end up being forced to go, but it was worth fronting over.

Meanwhile, you were getting moved into your new apartment. It was pretty small, but it’s what working double shifts for the past two months got you. You only had a few more bags left, and that’s when you decided you earned yourself a coffee. You googled where the nearest café was and lucky for you, it was only down the block.

You waited for your coffee with 3 creams while sitting at a high-top table, watching the clouds slowly flood the sky and start to rain. “Y/N,” The barista called out, signaling that your coffee was done. You thanked her and grabbed the cup as you headed for the door.

It was like he came out of nowhere, you only looked away for two-point-five seconds to check the time before you ran into a man with black hair and a good build. You also noticed that he was wearing a white shirt - a white shirt that now had light brown coffee spilled all over it. You stood there, mouth agape, before pulling napkins out of your purse to hand to him. You were at a loss for words, honestly. You’d been in Korea for less than a day and you’d already made a fool out of yourself.

“I am so sorry, are you okay? I did not see you there, I will buy you a new shirt. I’m sorry!” Your hands were shaking as you handed him the last towel in your purse. You noticed that he wasn’t angry or even upset at all. He was actually laughing. The smile on his face brought one to yours as well.

“It’s cool, don’t worry about it.” He dabbed at the coffee on his shirt before giving up. It didn’t bother him much, anyway. “I come into this café all the time and I’ve never seen you before. I’d definitely remember you if you’d been here before. Did you just move here?”

You were a little caught off guard at how nice this man who you’d just met - and just spilled coffee on - was being to you. “I- yes, I just moved here. Today, actually. I’m Y/N.”

“I’m Jaebum.” He stuck his hand out for you to shake, and you did. “I, uh, don’t know if maybe this is to forward, but my buddy Jackson is having a party and I’d like you to come. With me, if I wasn’t clear.”

You’d already been asked on a date and it hasn’t even been a full 24 hours. “Sure, are you sure it’s okay, though?”

“For sure.” He handed you his phone for you to put your number in. “I’ll text you.”

You smoothed out the wrinkles from your dress as you took one last look in the mirror. You waved down a taxi and told the driver the address that Jaebum texted you. You were nervous, but also excited. You were ready for a new beginning.

Mark had been helping Jackson set up for the party hours before it started, and he was already exhausted. “I might leave soon,” he muttered as he took a sip of some dark ale.

Jackson put his drink down and shook Mark by the shoulders. “You are not leaving, do you hear me? The party’s just getting started! Word has it that Jaebum’s back from university for the summer. I even hear he’s bringing a date.”

Oh, isn’t that nice, Mark thought to himself. Jaebum, the biggest asshole he knew had a girlfriend before he did. “Cool.” And by that, Mark meant ‘not cool’. He and Jaebum left off on a rather negative note and he wasn’t too keen on seeing him again. “Even more reason for me to leave.”

“Don’t you wanna see what kind of grenade Jaebum got? Come on, at least catch up with him a little.” Jackson coarsed. When Mark rolled his eyes and sighed, Jackson knew he got his way.

The door in the kitchen then opened to a girl wearing a short blue dress and heels that looked a little small for her feet. Just as you entered the kitchen, Jackson was waved over by Yugyeom, another one of his friends. Mark turned to you and immediately felt a strange sense overcoming him. Like a sense of relief, or accomplishment, but he didn’t know what exactly that entailed. “Hi, this is Jackson’s party, right?”

Mark was too focused on staring at you to give you a straight answer. You looked familiar, but he knew for a fact that he didn’t know you. What was this? He thought to himself. You tried to read his facial expressions to get your answer, but nothing. “I guess I’m wrong?” You said, almost as if to repeat your question.

“No. No, I mean yeah. Yeah this is Jackson’s place.” Mark finally answered, and he felt like he’d made a huge fool of himself. Cool. Cutest chick at the party and he’d embarrassed himself just as she walked in.

“Are you Jackson?” You asked, slipping your phone into the small purse you had clutched to your side.

“No, I’m Mark. And you are?” He was getting slightly smoother as the time went on and he flashed a toothy smile at you, slowly leaning back on the counter behind him.

“Y/N,” You smiled back. Mark seemed sweet and you had to be lucky, or this had to be a miracle to have all these cute guys introducing themselves to you.

“I’m sorry if this is weird, or something, but are you new here? It’s just that I kind of know everyone in this area so I didn’t know if you just moved here or if- and I’m rambling. I’m sorry.”

You chuckled at Mark’s awkwardness which was slightly charming. “Don’t be sorry, I am new. I just got here this morning, actually.”

Mark smiled at your kindness. Meeting a nice girl was refreshing. “Why’d you move here of all places?”

You sighed, it was kind of a tough question. “I don’t know, really. Just, for the past couple months, I’d been feeling empty. Like I need some new scenery, or something new, or something. I can’t really explain it, I think I came here because I’m looking for something. I hope I find it soon.” You chuckled nervously.

Mark nodded, listening intently to your explanation. It made perfect sense to him. Inside, he hoped you found what you were looking for, also. Then the kitchen door opened once more and that’s when he walked in.

“Ah, Mark, I see you’ve met my friend!” The man called out to Mark. He came up behind you and put an arm around your shoulder. It was Jaebum.

“Oh. Oh, wait… Are you two a thing?” Mark’s eyebrows could have been furrowed forever by how confused he was. He hoped you two weren’t a thing, secretly, because he barely knew you and he already knew that you were too good for someone like Jaebum. You were too pretty a girl for too shitty a person as Jaebum.

“No! I-I just met him earlier, and he invited me to this party.” You explained yourself as you shimmied out of Jaebum’s arm. He was slightly disappointed, but quickly got over it when he saw the look of worry on Mark’s face.

“What, no ‘I missed you!’, old friend?” Jaebum smirked cynically to Mark as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m back!”

The last time Mark saw Jaebum, he was running off with Mark’s girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend, technically. Riding off into the sunset to a university that Mark didn’t get into because Jaebum set him up.

This was going to be a hell of a summer.

#got7 #got7 fic #kpop #kpop fic #got7 angst #mark tuan fic #mark fic #mark tuan got7 fic #mark tuan angst #got7 mark angst #got7 mark fic #mark angst #got7 imagine #kpop imagine #closer #kpop superhero #superhero au

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lightshade393 · 5 years ago

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Now we come to the Best Director category. Like quite a few categories that year, the Academy still seemed to be finding their feet. They divided up Best Director into two categories, one for Best Dramatic Picture and one for Best Comedy Picture, not unlike how the Golden Globes eventually ended up dividing some of their categories. I’m sure they soon realized that some years this wouldn’t have ended up feasible, for while there’s always a ton of great dramatic films each year, it’s much harder to find good comedies. It’s much harder to make someone laugh then make someone cry. I will stand by this no matter what anyone says.

The first picture nominated in the category was Sorrell and Son, directed by Herbert Brenon. Maddeningly, as much as I scoured the internet, I was unable to find a copy of it anywhere, though the Academy Film Archive is said to have a partially restored print. Someone tell them to get that out on a DVD and for download toot-sweet!

So that takes us to the other picture nominated that year: The Crowd. As finding a copy of this film on the net is an exercise in maddeningly ever getting closer to the edge of the abyss while you tear your hair out, I’ve included a link for it above. Now, I am all for paying money to watch films in a legal format and supporting good films that way, but that’s only if they’re actually available. But TCM, who runs this movie occasionally, has not done so, so I was forced to watch the pirated version. I feel no shame in telling you to do the same.

The Crowd is an All-American tale of a young man named John who moves to the big city with the intent of making it big. He wants to be a somebody that people will remember as his late father always wanted him to be. Rather hard in New York City, where there’s millions of people right along side you who want the same thing. Now, The Crowd managed to make this picture feel larger-then-life by filming right on the streets of NYC, sometimes covertly for crowd scenes. You get a sense of just how massive the place is as people stream about going from place to place. The camera has large, sweeping shots all over the place, as well as a lot of tracking shots, a style which would be lost for quite some time due to the limitations that sound pictures would soon present.

Now, just to get the elephant out of the room right away, there are a few moments in the picture where black actors are portrayed in the title cards to have the “black minstrel accent”, examples like ‘Did I hear you-all speakin’ ’bout havin’ yo’ bed made up?’ and ‘I detend to be a preacher man! Hallelujah!’ There’s also a moment you might cringe as the token black boy in John’s childhood town is nicknamed Whitey. So if you’re a bit sensitive to these things, which are somewhat common in this silent era, turn it off or fast-forward a bit. Remember, not everything in the past conforms to today’s standards. To be fair, in a nice bit of solidarity, Whitey is shown to be playing with the white children of the neighborhood without being ostracized or shown to be anymore comical then any of the other little boys, a scene that would begin to be lost as films progressed. Alright, with that out of the way, time to move onto the rest of the picture.

As usually happens in these kinds of pictures, he finds a nice girl named Mary, and they soon marry, with his best friend cynically saying it’ll last maybe a year. Despite her disapproving brothers and mother, and a few small squabbles, the two weather the storm together, and soon Mary is pregnant. They have a boy and then soon a little girl some time later. The picture skips ahead five years and everything is going along alright.

The family is at the beach on a picnic and their characters are laid out nicely for us: Mary is trying her best to make the picnic nice while John sits there lackadaisically playing a ukulele instead of contributing any help at all. When Mary asks him why he hasn’t gotten anywhere in his company, he protests it takes time. But based on what we’ve seen thus far between young John blowing off his studies to go on a date with Mary, then blowing off spending time with Mary’s family to get drunk with Bert, and this idea of letting his wife do all the work while he futzes around, it comes off more like he’s just lazy. She points out his best friend Bert has gotten somewhere and again he protests that rubbing elbows with the big bosses will get you anywhere. Well…yeah, and what’s wrong with that? A little hard work plus kissing up to the bosses never hurt anyone in my opinion.

But things seem to be turning around for the family as John, who keeps sending in slogan after slogan to contests that will select them as the new one for their brand finally wins a bit of money in the form of $500. ( That’s $7,345.99 in today’s money, people!) They happily pay off debts, buy a new dress for Mary, and buy new toys for their children. They excitedly tell them to come inside and that’s when tragedy strikes. In a masterful series of shots that hype up the tension by never showing us the actual moment of impact, their little girl is struck and badly injured by a truck.

The scene fades to a sad one as the little girl starts to slip away. Small wonder that John seems to lose it a little bit, hyperfixating on the idea that if it’s just quiet enough, she’ll get well. He goes all the way to running into the crowded streets of the city, battling against the crowd and futilely trying to get them and the fire trucks to be quiet. There’s a wonderful parallel here as the crowd which was once a source of inspiration and happiness has now turned cold and unfeeling, with a policeman flat-out telling him that the world isn’t going to stop just because his baby is sick.

The little girl dies, and in a scene full of pathos that never goes over the top, we see Mary and John in the throes of grief, both trying to be comforted by their family and failing. What happens next is best summed up by the title card: “The crowd laughs with you always… but it will cry with you for only a day.” John can’t focus on his work anymore and quits his job. This proves to be a dumb mistake as he then spends his time getting jobs and losing them just as quickly. This would be eerily prescient for the Americans watching this film, soon to be plunged into the Great Depression. By the time the story picks back up, they’ve moved to a small, dingy house, Mary is forced to take in sewing to make ends meet in addition to all her other work, and their poor firstborn son Junior is completely neglected.

Mary’s brothers sum it up nicely when they bitingly ask John if he plans to go on a vacation from life for the rest of his life. At this point, I started to lose my sympathies for John a bit. He just sits around in a daze, which is understandable, but in the meantime, his wife is holding the family together by taking on the lion’s share of the work. To contrast, while he’s throwing a fit and impulsively quitting his job, she’s busy making a feast for the company picnic while still in the throes of her own grief. As I’m sure all of you well know who have lost any beloved family member, life doesn’t stop just to let you spend your days grieving. Eventually, you have to get back out there and try.

Then comes the part in the picture where I wanted to smack him. Mary’s brothers say they’ll give him a job, but he refuses, saying it’s a “charity job.” This comes from a 2019 perspective, and I’m sure things were different ninety-one years ago, but this seems to me to stink with a bit of toxic masculinity. So it’s “charity” to take a job from relatives because of your stinking pride but sitting on your ass day after day moping is what…heroically supporting your family? Men have their pride, but they also have families that need to eat. Mary rightfully calls him out on this stupid line of thinking and slaps him, saying she almost wishes he were dead.

Junior follows his father as he walks around town depressed. He considers killing himself by jumping off a bridge but then reconsiders. After all, what’s the point? The shots here of the train and bridge are beautifully done. Junior, the poor little neglected son, finally breaks through to his father by telling him he believes in him. This finally snaps John back into action. He looks all over town for a job, eventually finding one as a clown wearing a sandwich board who juggles. It’s a contrast to the start of the picture when he made fun of just such a man with the same job when they were on a date.

But it appears to be too late, as when he returns, Mary seems set on departing with her brothers and taking Junior with her, even after he reveals he’s gotten a job. It’s a very tender scene, and at the end of it, Mary can’t do it. She stays with her husband and her brothers exasperatedly toss her luggage onto the porch when it becomes clear she’s not coming. The picture ends with the family attending a vaudeville show and seeing John’s winning slogan from earlier in the program. The shot fades out into a masterfully done tracking shot, pulling back from the little family we’ve followed until once again, they are lost in the crowd of people that make up the audience.

Now with such a good picture done about ordinary people, it is a bit of a headscratcher as to how it didn’t win a single award that year at the Oscars, though even I will admit the eventual winner was a smidge better. However, it makes a little more sense when you discover Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, hated the picture and vocally urged his fellow members at the Academy not to vote for it, which honestly might have caused it to lose in both categories that it was nominated in. Small wonder, with the country going into the Depression five months after the awards ceremony, that people didn’t want to see movies with downer endings. Honestly, by today’s standards, it seems pretty optimistic, but back then, it was a bit of a bummer to see the family still struggling.

King Vidor was actually forced to shoot anywhere between reportedly seven to nine alternate different endings so that theaters could choose which one they wanted to show. To quote IMDB, one of the alternate endings was “set in a mansion showing John and Mary by a glittering Christmas tree. John has become a success at writing ad slogans. Mary’s new dialogue title was to read: ‘Honest, Johnny, way down deep in my heart, I never lost faith in you for a minute.'” Overwhelmingly, the theaters still showed the original ending, which says something about how people viewed it despite the negativity the ending might have stirred up.

Best Director, Dramatic Picture 1929: King Vidor for The Crowd and Herbert Brenon for Sorrell and Son Now we come to the Best Director category. Like quite a few categories that year, the Academy still seemed to be finding their feet.

#1929 #Best Director #Sorrell & Son #The Crowd

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