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monstrousvoice · 2 years

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~Request Rules!~

Please keep these rules in mind when interacting with my blog and making any sort of requests! I truly appreciate it, and would like to remind everyone that this is an 18+ blog that is a safe space for people of all kinds! No hate, bigotry, or cruelty of any kind will be tolerated. Be respectful to everyone, no matter how you view their headcanons or ideas about certain characters. Everyone has their own opinions and they may not always align with yours.

I will reiterate again however, THIS IS AN 18+ BLOG - NO MINORS ALLOWED. If I find out you are a minor, you will be blocked.

Also, a general rule of thumb for me is, if you leave comments on what you like about my writing, or what your fav fic is, it’s extremely helpful for me. It makes me feel like people actually like and enjoy my stuff and I’m not just screaming into an empty void. It makes me feel productive, which in turn makes me want to write more. You want more content from me? Tell me what you like about my stuff and I’ll write practically anything you ask for.

~Fanfic Requests!~

~ Full length fics or headcanons of characters are accepted - these can be for canon characters, OCs, or Reader Inserts. Pronouns can be anything, but please do specify if you want something specific! If nothing is specified, I will default to either my personal character head canons for canon characters or go gender neutral for OCs and Readers.

~ If a request does not interest me, or is something I find offensive for any reason, I have a right to refuse writing it. I do not have to give you any reason for why I won’t write it, nor do I have to justify why I won’t write it. Be respectful of responses - typically I am willing to still try writing something depending on the request itself. If you do not respect me or my decision, this option is revoked, and I will ignore any hateful or pushy messages you send in an effort to convince me otherwise.

~ My blog and everything I write is completely self-indulgent. This is a reason why I may refuse requests. I take your requests as suggestions for ideas and scenarios, but ultimately I write what I want to write. If for whatever reason, you are “disappointed” in how your request turned out, be aware that I do not make any money from this and these are not commissions. Any rude behavior will again, not be tolerated. If you truly would like something different than what I wrote, you are free to request again, specifying what you would like done. This conveniently leads to my next point:

~ Specify what you would like written in a request! I am not a mind reader. If you have a specific scene or idea you would like me to flesh out, the more details, the better. An example of a “poor” request-

“Write Character X Shy!Character, please.”

There is not much for me to go off here. Is this for a full fic? Headcanons? What gender/pronouns? What is the scenario you want? Is it their first meeting, or are they in the middle of having sex and one of them is acting super shy? These are all variables that are missing. An example of a “good” request-

“Hello! Can I please request a fic with Character-A X Character-B where they are having their first kiss, and B is really shy about it? Could it be after they had a really nice dinner together or something similar? Thank you!”

This is a lot more information for me. I can make a full story out of this prompt and you won’t be left with a half-baked concoction missing all the important stuff you wanted to read about.

~ A List of what I am comfortable writing vs. what I am NOT comfortable writing~

Yes List:

~ Fluff

Anything goes here, really. I have yet to come across a fluff prompt I am not comfortable writing.

~ Angst *A NOTE - For angst, I tend to write happy endings, or as happy as I can make it. If you want no happy ending, be sure to specify!*

Character Death

Grieving and Loss

Betrayal

Cheating

Pregnancy or anything regarding pregnancy with a few limitations (See ‘No’ List for more details)

Insecurities of any kind - whether it be mental or physical

Torture, Kidnapping, and Gore scenarios with a few limitations (Again, see ‘No’ List for more details)

~ Smut

Pretty much anything goes in this category too. I have a wide range of kinks and I am always willing to write about them or ones that I may not have but find interesting.

BDSM

Daddy/Mommy Kink

Master and Slave/Pet Play

Oviposition

Consensual Non-Con

Predator & Prey

Breeding and Pregnancy

And these are just a couple I am willing to write. If you’re unsure if I am willing to write it because it’s not on this page anywhere, you can always send me an ask to see what my thoughts are!

No List:

~ Angst

PREGANACY LIMITS - Abortion or Miscarriage - These are two incredibly heavy topics that I personally have no experience in. As a result I feel I am not only unprepared to write such topics, but that it would also be disrespectful to people who have gone through either of these situations.

Self-Harm or suicidal scenarios - I am not willing to share my history with those I don’t know, but this topic is a rather personal one for me. I will not write it. Do not ask me to.

TORTURE, KIDNAPPING, OR GORE LIMITS - Extreme Torture or Gore - While I am comfortable writing scenarios where Character-A gets kidnapped and maybe beaten up a little, going into extreme detail about being tortured with extremely gruesome imagery is not something I typically enjoy writing. There are exceptions to this, so feel free to send in an ask to see if it’s something I am willing to write. Depending on the scenario, I may be interested.

~ Smut

Non-consensual sex/rape - I will not write this in a sexual way. If you would like to request an angst scenario regarding the aftermath of this, then I may be willing to write it, but it’s not likely. I will never write it in a sexual way without clear consent being established either at the beginning or end of the story.

Watersports/Piss

Scat/Poop

Incest*

Pedophilia*

*If you are someone who wants to participate in or believes there is nothing morally wrong with Incest or Pedophilia, I not-so-kindly ask you to leave my blog and not come back. If you try interacting with me I will report and block you, as well as warn other creators in the fandom of you.

~Fandoms and Characters I write for!~

~Cult of the Lamb

The Lamb

Narinder

Shamura

Heket

Leshy

Kallamar*

Kudaai

Claunek

Helob

Sozo*

Kallamar - This is a character that I do not feel comfortable writing in a romantic or sexual sense. I love the way his character was written, I love how much I absolutely despise him, but that's all. If you have a request for him interacting with his siblings, or being a foil to another character, I can write such a thing. Not in a romantic or sexual sense however.

Sozo - I love Sozo and I will accept any requests for him! I am just not very confident in how I portray him, as his character is rather difficult to get a grip on.

~Final Notes~

Thank you for taking the time to read all that and taking it into consideration next time you grace my inbox. If you have any questions that this list did not answer then please feel free to send in an ask for clarification! I understand that questions come from a place of curiosity and unless you are blatantly ignoring my boundaries and rules, I am happy to explain my reasoning and discuss them with others. Thank you!~

#Rules #Request Rules

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yourgenderisfake · 3 years

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A Confession

Preface: I debated writing this for a long time. I debated posting it anywhere even more so. But I wanted to share my experience in case it was a helpful perspective for anyone else. Ultimately, that’s all this is – my perspective – but this is the internet, after all, so I’m expecting some people to willfully misinterpret this in bad faith. While I won’t be able to stop that, just acknowledge that this is a difficult conversation to have.

I haven’t used this Tumblr account regularly in over two years. To be honest, I almost forgot about it until I saw a screenshot of one of my older posts circulating on radfem twitter, which compelled me to finally sit down and write this.

It took a lot of soul searching and reflection to come to this conclusion, but after five years, I no longer identify as a radfem or align with radical feminism.

The last two years have irreparably changed people in countless ways. Whether it’s depression from the pandemic and mass death, (fear of) getting and spreading a novel infectious disease, losses of loved ones and friends, the subsequent economic fallout of lockdowns, and the grinding tolls of capitalism amid all these horrors – there’s not a single person on the planet who hasn’t been affected by covid.

It was the economic fallout and the tolls of capitalism that hit me particularly hard. I got laid off in March 2020 and didn’t find another job until this past May. I was unemployed for a while, but I couldn’t afford to live on unemployment payments alone, even while getting that bonus $300-$600 from the feds. I blew through nearly all my savings on rent, bills, and other living expenses.

As if my significant financial loss wasn’t bad enough, I began to feel extremely depressed and suicidal as a result of losing my job. I woke up each day feeling stuck, applying to any jobs I was remotely qualified for, even those I was underqualified for. I went through multiple rounds of interviews for a few different jobs and they either ghosted me or rejected me. It was hard not to take it personally. I distanced myself from college friends and former colleagues because I felt like such a disappointment for not pursuing a job in my field. But at the end of the day, I was still privileged enough to have money saved up.

More than anything, what I needed was a distraction. I needed to get out of my head. I live in a neighborhood that has a very high aging population, and at the start of the pandemic, I signed up to get involved in mutual aid efforts. Every week, I made grocery runs for a few of my neighbors and delivered them food, supplies, and other things.

It was certainly depressing work. A lot of people in my building died, and I grieved for them, although I didn’t really know many of them. Many lived alone in rent-controlled apartments and it pained me to think of them being alone during such a horrible time. But at the end of the day, knowing that I wasn’t wasting my time feeling sorry for myself, knowing that someone who was at high risk of getting sick with covid could still count on having their needs met, was enough for me. It was revitalizing. I got to meet some of the community organizers that I never knew were doing this incredible work. I felt grateful just to be a part of it because it was genuinely important work.

As I got involved in more community-focused efforts, one of the first things I noticed was that I worked alongside a decent amount of trans people. Initially, I reacted with caution. But after a few weeks, something clicked in me. I asked myself why I judged these people so harshly when (a) I barely even know them and (b) we’re mostly ideologically aligned and (c) the same goal unites us – to support the most vulnerable members of our community when others won’t bother.

After five years of only engaging with other lesbians and radfems, I had to recalibrate and decide whether radical feminism was still a force for good in my life. I thought for months. I wrote down all of my thoughts. At some point, I realized that radical feminism stopped being helpful and started being harmful. Some parts of it weren’t ever helpful for me, ever, at all.

In order to track the path I followed, I had to go back to the very beginning. I fell into radical feminism when I was 19. I was a sensitive, traumatized young woman (technically I identified as agender but who really cares). Freshman year, I was sexually assaulted at a party by a guy I vaguely knew from one class, who’d later start wearing nail polish and earrings and using they/them pronouns. I felt a confusing yet subtle rage as someone who I and others perceived as a “white cishet man” for the longest time suddenly claimed a queer identity similar to mine. That’s around the time I started trawling radfem blogs and finding myself covertly agreeing with everything. Eventually, I stopped lurking and made my own side blog.

It also didn’t help that as my thoughts got intrusively more terfy, many of my own friends started to ID as nonbinary or trans. Most of them were lesbians or bi women, but some were straight, as far as I knew. Not all of them pursued medical transition, but some did. By the end of college, I could count on one hand how many cis-IDed woman friends I had left.

Like many other women, I turned to radical feminism in an attempt to cope with trauma from male violence and grieve my female/lesbian friendships. Radfem spaces and rhetoric helped me understand what happened and why it all happened. It gave me the language to define my experiences and I'll be forever grateful for that. It was also important for me to come to terms with the fact that I’m always going to be classified as female; I learned to accept that and become comfortable moving through the world as a woman, no matter how I view myself.

However, as I got deeper into radical feminism, I built a filter bubble that constantly exposed me to accounts of male violence. It prolonged my own trauma response and made it harder to heal. Men are without a doubt dangerous, but I don't think it was healthy for me to feed into a fear that made it difficult to leave my apartment or interact with men on any level. The sense of constantly feeling under attack as a lesbian made me pull away from people who cared about me.

Seeing myself as someone who was “rescued” from a cult wasn't helpful or accurate, either. I found myself in radfem communities that fell into the same traps they harangue queer/trans communities for having: there was a clear figurehead(s) instead of a community dynamic. The need to have perfectly aligned beliefs outweighed the need to foster consciousness about different experiences and take coordinated action based on that, even if the feelings and motives around it are varied. Again, this resulted in me pulling away from some of my closest IRL friends. I viewed them as brainwashed simply for saying things like “trans women are women.”

I also don't think it was good to constantly engage in discussions about how insane or stupid trans and/or dysphoric people are. I developed the sense that trans people are somehow my enemies and they are actively trying to hurt me as a lesbian. I participated in an authoritarian approach to other dysphoric people pursuing transition or identifying as something other than their birth sex. I believed they were misguided and in need of saving from themselves. In hindsight, it was wrong of me to police others’ identities or assume I knew how to define their lives better than them.

It’s important to note the timeline of my peak radfem stage: 2017-2018, the peak of #MeToo. It felt for a second there that radfems might be on the precipice of some kind of big gender reckoning. In hindsight, it was a smokescreen. There was no momentum or structure to build an actual movement or anything, at least not in the way the trans community has clearly outlined its goals and strategies. We were headed nowhere.

I saw prominent radfems pissing away any credibility with unproductive discourse (i.e. arguing over gender-neutral pregnancy terms in the middle of the biggest global reckoning against anti-black racism in history), acting unnecessarily cruel and hurtful towards young trans people, particularly FTMs, aligning with right-wing racists over and over again, and generally having extremely narrow perspectives that don’t allow for multiple truths to exist simultaneously.

Being involved in community mutual aid efforts showed me what true solidarity looks like. It’s showing up for people who aren’t exactly like me on the premise that everyone deserves a good quality of life. I wasn’t just going to refuse to give someone their groceries because they were a Trump supporter – even if I disagree with them, they deserve to have food security, as everyone else should. No matter who they were, even if our beliefs were radically different, every person deserves to be safe, happy, and healthy in their life.

Considering that principle, I realized that negging trans people online isn’t activism. Insulting and mocking dysphoric people for transitioning isn’t activism. Nitpicking over language, slurs, and identity labels isn’t activism. Policing people’s experiences other than your own isn’t activism. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’s just harassment.

I still have a lot of complicated feelings on gender identity, but honestly, it’s simply exhausting to direct my energy toward thinking about how mostly like-minded people are out to get me. Instead, I’ve found that I’d rather put that energy towards building bridges: now I actively engage in friendships with trans people, gradually make space for critical conversation, and accept that some points of ideological contention aren’t worth sacrificing so much of my community.

My trans teammates in mutual aid – mostly trans women and nonbinary folks – are wonderful, intelligent, and caring people who always kept their fingers on the pulse when it came to the community we served. I never would’ve gotten to know this if I always kept my distance as I did initially. And when I listened to them describe their personal experiences with gender, I didn’t feel as if my identity as a GNC lesbian was compromised, like I was always reactively afraid of, because it wasn’t my experience to define. I felt ashamed that I’d been closing myself off from years’ worth of friendships with an entire part of my community because I was so convinced that trans people were out to get me.

I know what some folks may be thinking while reading this: “Maybe you just buckled under the weight of reality. Maybe you’re backpedaling because you can’t stomach the truth of misogyny. Maybe you’re just too selfish to face the facts and stand up for women. You just want trans approval. You’re not a REAL feminist.”

Trust me, I’ve thought all those things enough myself, and I’ve reached a place where I know that’s not true. I can – and do – still actively support women everywhere in my life without identifying as a radfem. I took what was helpful from radical feminism, adopted it into my own life, and am trying to leave the rest behind. I think that questioning and reevaluating your beliefs, especially in times when your life has irrevocably changed, is a good thing that people should always do (and not just with radical feminism either).

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I know that I’m not above blame for everything I’ve shared above. I'm not going to say I felt duped or brainwashed; I'm a grown woman. No matter how fucked up mentally I might have been at some points, I made my own decisions. I am responsible for what I’ve done and said, who I surround myself with, and how I respond to things. I said and did a lot of things I regret, which isn't anyone's fault other than my own.

I won’t be deleting this account, but I will be retiring it. I’ll leave this essay up in case anyone else questioning their politics finds it helpful, or if anyone has questions or wants to chat. At this point, I’d rather build bridges than burn them. The biggest lesson I’ve learned from this: if the revolution isn’t tomorrow, always choose friendship and happiness at the end of the day.

#my post #ex radfem #confession #exrf #exradfem #ex gender critical #terf #gender critical

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fill-me-with-your-memes-daddy · 3 years

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Watching the Rise of the Titans movie and I'll be documenting all of my thoughts/reactions here. [Spoiler Warning]

So instead of reblogging every new update, I'm just going to have this post up on my phone as I watch and type my reactions in a bullet list format.

Nari's human disguise is so cute. As someone who does have a cottagecore aesthetic, I want to cosplay her so bad

Are Skrael and/or Belroc non-binary coded? Regardless, I'm also obsessed and I want to fuck Skrael and be Belroc.

STEVE CARING ABOUT JIM BEING HURT YESSSS!!! My god his redemption has probably been one of the greatest there is because he doesn't just suddenly go from being a bully to a completely good person. You can see the gradual shift in learning better throughout the shows which is awesome.

IN NEW YOOOOOOORRRRRRRK!!!!!! CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!

The mugshot montage reminded me of season 1 of trollhunters when toby and Jim were arrested at the museum.

STRICKLER PUT A RING ON IT??? HE'S THE ONLY DILF IVE EVER ACTUALLY AGREED WAS HOT WYM I CAN'T HAVE HIM??? well I'm still really happy about his arc over the series probably one of my favorite character growths.

Eli my guy got his growth spurt!!! As an 18 year old who is still 5'0", I'm happy but envious for him

So I went into this movie without watching any trailers or promo, but I doubt anything could have prepared me for the existence of mpreg. In fact, I wasn't going to document my reactions until I saw that.

NAMURA!!!!!!!!! MY BELOVED!!!!!! I CAN STILL THIRST FOR YOU WITHOUT GUILT

The coach teacher just called the kids zoomers so I have to dock one point from my final rating just because of that. Unforgivable

Those husky animation models suck lmao

Oh fuck the titans got power ranger zords!!

God why did they include the mpreg??? This movie would have been perfect without it.... After that plot point being revisited only one time I'm already beyond done with it

Like it's bringing me back to the v*ltron days where they're was a suspiciously high amount of klance omegaverse and mpreg fics and art created and it physically hurts because Steve and Keith's voice actor is the same person meaning this is especially cursed to me since I was unfortunately in the v*ltron fandom and remember all of that

But like on another note, how old are these characters again??? I haven't checked any wikis because of spoilers but is Steve an adult??? I know aja might be technically a lot older than 18 because alien but is whatever age she is equivalent to an adult as far as emotionally and physically in Akaridion development??? IS THIS A TEEN (M)PREGNANCY IN A KIDS SHOW????

Like bruh I saw a singular post on here before going into the movie that was like "rott spoilers without context" and there was a pregnant belly but I was absolutely not expecting the actual context of it. I'll find the post after I finish and edit this post to tag the creator right here: @makoden

This entire post is just gonna be me ranting about mpreg huh

Anyway I love the whole roundtable allusion to the legends of king arthur (not the toa version but the one he's based off)

THERE'S 3 TO 5 BABIES????? I need to take a break bruh this is just too much

Alright I've taken a 30 minute break got some food and did some things i love (decompressed by tactile stimming with some owl plushies and watched some videos on my favorite owl, Garu. He lives in Japan with his owner and is a domesticated eagle owl who basically just acts like a sky cat. If anyone else needs some eye bleach, here is their YouTube channel)

Blinky and ARRRGHHH!!! saying their "if one of us doesn't make it" talk my god one of them is going to die I can see it and I will be utterly crushed. Jim can't lose another father figure and Toby can't lose his wingman again I will riot if this happens

On a similar but unrelated to the movie note, can we just talk about how toa started with Jim having 0 dads and (if strickler and blinky live to the end) will end with 2 dads? Like I just really feel happy for him that he has two dads who actually figured out how to put the past behind them to not have any infighting between them so that both of them are healthy father figures. Jim has already been through literal hell and back losing his actual humanity in the process so if he loses one of them, I'm going to be really pissed because at this point, this is just Jim torture porn. Y'all know how as SpongeBob SquarePants went on, the show just became Squidward torture porn? It's starting to feel that way for toa and I really hope they cut the shit by the ending

Jlaire is such a good ship but like I feel like it's too perfect they never disagree with each other

YESSSSSSS Someone finally doesn't treat toby like a fat waste of space who messes stuff up!!! I think out of all the characters that would have been most deserving of a rewrite, it's Toby. Sometimes I just feel he's only comic relief and any heartfelt moments he's had in the series was also born of stupidity (ie his flour baby project being unharmed was seen by him as divine intervention from his parents but was actually just Eli and Steve behind the scenes).

Ohhhhh yesssssss Archie's father!!! I was hoping I'd see him again because we got so little of him last

Ooooooooooh Asian trollmarket!!!!!

Oh never mind slavery trollmarket

Bruh titanic camelot

I feel like we're not seeing enough of the villains because I completely forgot about the power ranger zord things

NAMORA NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MY LAST CRUSHHHH

STRICKLER NO NOT YOU TOO PLEASE

WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE ONLY TWO CHARACTERS I SIMP FOR ON THIS SHOW DIED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF EACH OTHER

THAT WHOLE ASS RANT I WROTE IS COMING TRUE FUCK THIS MOVIE THIS SERIES IS JUST JIM TORTURE PORN

WAIT JIM'S SPERM DONOR INFO?

Oh thank God I don't want to know anything about that person

For the record, I call that man Jim's sperm donor because he has no business being called a father to him. All he did was donate some swimmers to the creation of him and give him abandonment issues

Oh another blind troll elder???? This fucker is just if vendel was a bad guy

Bruh I was grieving

PACIFIC RIM WITH GUN ROBOT VEX AND THE BELROCZORD? I've never seen that movie but I know the reference

Bruh Blinky doesn't read horoscopes? Does he realize conspiracy theories are just the manly version of horoscopes?

NO DON'T KILL VEX STOP KO-ING FOUND FAMILY MEMBERS

Oh thank God he's okay

NO NOT ARCHIE AND CHARLEMAGNE OH MY GOD

oh never mind they're just gonna coup de tat I believe in them :))

But I want to see him again

But I'm glad to see vex

Yay they're in arcadia!

But yeah I wondered why the trolls and Merlin didn't keep the whole "daylight doesn't hurt trolls" feature from the eternal night but now Guillermo del Toro I see you were playing the long con in that just to kill my girl Namora :(((

Oooooh I love the animation of the Narizord over Chihuahua!! It looks very good and realistic (if only they could have put some of that into those huskies from before smh)

Bruh the character designs of the arcane order are so good I want to be them

Nari making sure the Skraelzord doesn't crush the bus

DAMN DOUBLE HOMICIDE

Bruh I'm just glad we finally have an answer on why arcadia had everything going on as opposed to literally anywhere else!! I always found that as a weird coincidence for plot convince.

BRUH WERE BACK TO THE MPREG IM SO JEALOUS I FORGOT ABOUT THAT EVEN THOUGH IT WAS BECAUSE I WAS GRIEVING THE LOSS OF MY LOVELIES.

Oh that's real convenient that the ninth configuration meant all of them. Way to not decide which character gets more attention. Though it probably was a smart way to not have any infighting in the fandom between each character's stan group.

Bruh I just realized where is Barbera did they just ditch her on the Camelot ship???

And where are the other trolls that migrated at the end of trollhunters s3? They said something about new jersey but obviously Jim and the other main characters got on Camelot instead.... This feels like a plot hole

And we never learned the process of how changelings are made and bonded to humans and stuff. We just know it's super painful but I'm curious ffs!!!!

THE DONT THINK BECOME HERO SPEECH ALL SAID TOGETHER!!!

BRUH THEY REALLY HAD TO SHOW HIM GIVING BIRTH??????? WAS THAT AN ABSOLUTE MUST??????

Plus the main audience for this series is little children (the rating for the movie is literally TV-Y7) so even though my adult ass is not in the target audience, I STILL DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD MPREG AND ANAL BIRTH WOULD BE AN IMPORTANT THING TO 7 YEAR OLDS???? THIS IS A LITERAL FETISH HIDDEN IN KIDS CONTENT ITS ELSAGATE ALL OVER AGAIN Y'ALL 😭😭😭😭😭

Though it's probably hypocritical of me to think fetishes don't belong in kids tv when I've openly admitted to thirsting for strickler and namora

HUZZAH

NEW AMULET WAZ GOOD????

STAB THAT BITCH JIM

WAIT NO I SAID STAB NOT GET STABBED

Alright good job just missed the directions at first but you fixed it

SEVEN KIDS?????????

T O B Y ????????????

W A I T NO

N O

IS HE ACTUALLY

OH MY GOD THERE'S HOPE

NO THERE ISN'T

F U C K THIS SHIT THEY REALLY JUST HAD HIM TO BE BULLIED THEN KILLED

Y'ALL IM ACTUALLY CRYING THIS NEVER HAPPENS

I NEVER ACTUALLY GET SO EMOTIONAL OVER MEDIA THAT I CRY IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE AT THE END OF VOLTRON BUT AHHHHHHHH

W A I T

HE'S GONNA BE BROUGHT BACK?????

HOLD UP THEY'RE JUST GONNA BRING ALL THOSE DEAD PEOPLE BACK??????

WAIT IS HE

BLINKY CALLED HIM A SON

HOLD ON IS THIS GOING TO BE A CLIFFHANGER???????????

BRUH THEY REALLY JUST CAN'T END THE SERIES WITHOUT CLIFFHANGERS like there's always an open ending

TROLLHUNTER TOBY????? You know what forget the whole rants I had on how toby was written they just redeemed it all

And that's all! I'd rate it a 6.5/10 because it's definitely the weakest of all the sequels but still had amazing animation and some good plot points. It's just really hard to look over the bad stuff enough to rate it any higher.

#tales of arcadia #rise of the titans #trollhunters #rott #rise of the titans spoilers #rott spoilers #toa #3 below #athena's own original post!#jim lake jr #claire nuñez #toby domzalski

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4ragon · 3 years

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oh, do you have any thoughts on the dynamic between Phoenix and Iris??

Oh do I??????

The answer, of course, is yes. I have a lot of thoughts about Phoenix and Iris.

Goddddddd like. Okay. For real? What Iris did to Phoenix is awful. Objectively awful. And I understand that she loved him, I genuinely believe they loved each other, and that they had a big hand in shaping each other into the people they became. But she lied to him, and almost allowed him to be killed, and no matter what happens, no matter what trust they’re going to be able to rebuild, that hurt is always going to be there.

Like. Let’s take a step back and look back at their college days. Phoenix met a beautiful young woman who wooed him immediately. And he was smitten. It was absolutely puppy love, sure, but Phoenix still doesn’t really half-ass that kind of stuff. Maybe it was a silly, idealized version of a relationship, but that didn’t make his feelings any less real.

And those feelings were based entirely on lies.

Like, no matter how Iris felt by the end of their relationship, Iris was A) lying about her identity, and B) trying to stop her sister from murdering him. There were other things she could’ve done to protect him, but in the end, she remained loyal to her sister, enough that she didn’t warn Phoenix of the danger. Whether or not she would’ve turned on Dahlia had she made her intentions clear on that day, the fact of the matter is that Iris knew her sister was capable of doing something horrible and still couldn’t bring herself to give Phoenix any warning beforehand.

Plus, again, Phoenix didn’t really know anything about her. She was lying about her name, her interests. I do believe she let her genuine personality shine through, since Dahlia’s mask always seemed eerily similar to Iris’s real personality, but still, she could never have been 100% honest with Phoenix. She couldn’t really let herself be honest with him. She’d never be able to put her all into that relationship. After all, her main goal was to keep him from getting murdered, not to have a fulfilling relationship with him. She started the relationship not because she had feelings for him, but because she didn’t want her sister to kill him in cold blood. The feelings were incidental, and also twisted with guilt and loss and the fact that she knew it wasn’t real.

And then Dahlia realizes that Iris was falling for Phoenix, and the rest is history. Dahlia went to prison and hung for her crimes, Phoenix moved on, believing that Dahlia had never loved him, even though he felt in his heart there was something wrong with that statement, and Iris returned to the mountaintop to grieve for a life she never got and would never have.

I wrote this before, but I’ll say it again here: I truly believe they loved each other, and I truly believe they’ll always care for each other, but I don’t know if I can see Phoenix being able to fully trust her after all of that. Phoenix believed in her when he asked Miles to defend her (a move which had me screaming bloody murder at my computer screen but whatever), but her being a kindhearted person does not nullify the fact that she absolutely hurt Phoenix deeply with what she and Dahlia did.

And I think Iris having to fool Phoenix for so long also hurt her a lot. I think there’s still a lot of guilt in her as to how the whole shebang played out. She clearly struggles with her own self worth, and I feel like she could easily be eaten away by that guilt. But she’s a kind, gentle person, and I think she would want to do her best to actually earn back Phoenix’s trust if given the chance.

And hey, if there was anyone out there willing to at least forgive her, I think it would be Phoenix. We do see him visiting her post-game, after all. He’s a person who loves way too hard, and we’ve seen him forgive plenty of people who’ve hurt him in the past, big or small. I think they still care about each other immensely, and I think Phoenix would want to see her out of prison and thriving, learning to live her own life. And I think Iris does need to go out and live her own life, learn to be her own person after being Dahlia’s shadow for most of her life.

I don’t know, I do love the idea of them becoming friends someday after T&T. I do think it would take a lot of work and forgiveness, and they’d both need to deal with a lot of the trauma between them, but again, Phoenix is the kind of guy that I think would be willing to rebuild that bridge. They’re both kind people, and I think they’d want each other to be happy.

#ace attorney #spoilers #ace attorney iris #phoenix wright #big spoilers actually #j #i'm going to start tagging these as meta #meta

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obsessivelollipoplalala · 3 years

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Submission

Hey there, long time no see!

I've been dipping in and out of Tumblr the last couple of weeks and have been keeping up with all your interesting discussions with anons (sorry, stalkerish I know, but I find it both insightful and entertaining.) I couldn't help but notice @just-a-poor-boy-queen posted about our good old friend on Instagram spouting her usual bullshit, only this time she apparently has proof that her claims are real from Lying Ass Jerkoff , sorry, Lesley Ann Jones' latest book. According to her, as you already know, she claims that Lesley denounces Jim and Freddie's relationship and Jim apparently confessed to her that he never loved Freddie, that he used him for fame, etc. etc.

Which is...very interesting. Because LAJ's biography, Bohemian Rhapsody, claims the exact opposite.

While I was out in town today, I visited my local bookstore and unintentionally stumbled across the book in the biography section. My first instinct was to ignore it - I know for a fact it's trash - but curiosity got the better of me and I ended up having a flip through.

First off, the amount of stuff she gets wrong is hilarious. Some of them were minute errors, others the average Queen fan could tell you is fake. I'm pretty sure she talked about Freddie taking Princess Diana out in drag and the party with the midgets carrying bowls of cocaine on their heads, which we know never happened. There was also a picture of Freddie and Mary (one where Freddie is leaning on Mary while she's smoking a cigarette,) that was captioned "the happy couple relaxing together," which made me laugh out loud because it was allegedly taken in 1975 when Freddie was dating David behind Mary's back. Relationship goals, ammirite?

And don't get me started on the Barbara stuff, I stg, LAJ seems low-key obsessed with her.

Anyway, I ended up skipping to the end where she talks about Jim; she does indeed claim that she stayed with him in Carlow (not sure what year,) and that she interviewed him while she was there. This is what she had to say:

On Jim's motivation for writing M&M: (Jones) "Jim Hutton later explained that it was anger, not money, that prompted him to write his memoir. He wanted the world to know the truth, and could see no other way."

(Jones) "There is no doubt that Jim, the bereft lover, embarked upon his selective 1994 biography with the intention of creating a tender tribute to an adored partner. This was blurred by a co-writer who dwelled more on sensational aspects of the relationship, as well as on intimate details of Freddie's final days."

(Jones) "Given Jim's Catholic background, and the fact that his mother was still alive when he published, it must have taken immense courage to write the book."

About the GL boys being erased by Jim Beach: (Jim) "I think Jim Beach was angry that my book ruined the myth of Freddie. All it did was return him to his original status of a human being. It told the truth. Beach wanted fans to believe that sweet Mary Austin was the love of Freddie's life, and what a great, tragic, romantic tale it all was."

(Jones) "Jim was consequently banished from the Queen camp." (She goes on to explain it's likely because everyone was grieving, but I don't buy it.)

(Jones) "Freddie's will raised countless questions, some of which would never be resolved." (I thought this was interesting, given that I've seen speculation that Freddie might have been influenced over what to put in his will before.)

On Dave Clark: (Jones) "The press reported that Dave Clark had said he was the only person in the bedroom when Freddie died. 'He was not the only person in the room,' Jim stated. 'But it was quoted all over the place.' The error must have been perturbed the sensitive and caring Clark, for on his birthday, Jim received a beautiful card from him. 'The inscription he wrote inside read "you were there.' " (Jim goes on to recount the exact same version of events written in Mercury & Me about Freddie's death. He speaks highly of Clark, saying he was brilliant when Freddie was ill and would sit with him for hours. Jim seems more angry at the press spreading lies than at Dave himself. I've seen people argue that Dave was the one spreading the rumours to the paper or he did nothing to refute them, but who knows, perhaps he was a victim of the tabloids too.)

Phoebe testifying to Jim's character: (Phoebe) "Those concerned have to live with themselves. Mary once said of Jim that he had 'a very vivid imagination.' I knew Jim a very long time, and never knew him to be anything other than totally honest. Jim's conscience, like mine, will always be clear." (Given how Phoebe now makes a point of saying that Jim "exaggerated" stuff in his book, I find this a tad hypocritical. Still, I appreciate him sticking up for Jim and saying that those who are trying to change Freddie's legacy will have to live with that on their conscience. Also, fuck you Mary, if you did say that about Jim.)

On Jim's love for Freddie: (Jones) "There are still times when I can be pottering around in the garden, and Freddie's facial expression when he died will come into my mind," he told me in Ireland, "I can blank out what happened consciously but not subconsciously. It is impossible to forget. I learned so much from him, not least a positive outlook. Freddie's attitude was always, 'But you can, don't you see? You can do it. Put your mind to it, you'll see what you can do' That was one of the loveliest things about him."

(Jones) "During the time I spent with Jim in picturesque County Carlow, there was no doubt that the love Jim claimed to have felt for Freddie was genuine. He was a warm and decent man who was content with his lot. He was eternally grateful, he told me, for having experienced the superstar lifestyle through Freddie."

(Jones) "Jim would never truly recover from the loss."

I took screenshots of all the quotes above, which I'm happy to submit if anyone is interested. I would love to have seen what else she said about Jim, but taking pictures of book pages in the middle of a shop isn't the best look, so I kept it brief.

So, overall, Lesley seems to have a very high opinion of Jim, and believed the love between he and Freddie was genuine. Which is quite surprising, given that she downplays all of Freddie's other relationships with men in favour of promoting his fictional "romance" with Miss Valentin. Of course, this could all be complete bullshit and she never met Jim at all, but if she is telling the truth for once in her life, then she's one of few biographers who was very much supportive of Jimercury.

As one of the anons correctly stated, we have two possible scenarios.

A) If crazy lady is telling the truth, and Jones does make all these negative claims about Jim in her new book, then she was either lying in Bohemian Rhapsody or she's lying now in her latest cash cow. In this scenario, she's a liar either way. But tell us something we don't know.

B) Crazy Lady is pretending to have read the book, or read it and was angry there was nothing bad about Jim, and is fabricating quotes to suit her anti-Jim agenda, knowing her thick-as-bricks followers will just take her word for it and not bother looking for evidence. This is the most likely scenario.

I know most people with a brain know not to trust the word of either of these women, but I thought it would be fun to dismantle some of Insta lady's claims regardless, in case there was anyone out there having doubts.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

-------------

Hi there! It's good to see you again.

This...is a lot to think about lol. Since LAJ is such a liar, it's hard to believe she really sat down with Jim, or that most of what she said was from primary sources. However, it is strange that she spoke so highly of Jim given...everything else she's ever said lol. The quotes above do fit with what other people have said about Jim and Garden Lodge as a whole, though. It's very strange because it's either she decided to be factual with this, or lie about getting these quotes but decide to stick up for Jim, anyway. Weird, weird, weird.

It's really hard to know who's lying in the new book, LAJ or the hater lady. They're both so unreliable. It does seem too convenient that what LAJ supposedly says lines up with the hater lady rhetoric, but idk. Apparently LAJ blocked the hater lady on twitter, too lmao. So maybe it's the hater lady who's lying? But I can believe LAJ suddenly changing her tune, too.

I don't know. Thank you for sharing this information. I have more questions than answers now lol but still

#submission #queen #long post

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vidavalor · 3 years

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Can we talk about how Sam is as useless at this as Bucky is, really, and it’s massively sweet?

Yeah, I’m writing about Sam because we all love us some brainwashed, century-old assassin endless array of hurt/comfort here but this idea that Sam, because he’s a therapist and not always a crying, nightmare-sweat-drenched mess, is Captain Got It All Together is not truth... because this poor broken-hearted kitten absolutely does not and it makes him so much more of a better-realized, fuller character...

I’m not trying to wade any ship wars here or any fandom strife over the Bucky slant to fic/sometimes erasure of Sam here... I love both of these characters equally and ship them but my point here is that I think that because Bucky’s trauma is more well-documented and, for lack of a better word, “flashier”, that some people might think Sam looks perfectly well-adjusted. By comparison, he probably is but this other, quieter story happening with Sam is necessary reading here if you’ve been sleeping on the complexities of one Sam Wilson that aren’t the ones the show is focusing on more explicitly relating to his lived experience as a Black man in America. (They’re not completely separate either but not only this part of his life.) What do I mean, exactly?

Been wondering how these two are falling in love but can mainly just get it from Bucky’s POV because Sam is awesome and Bucky is sad and need love? Not sure what Sam is getting out of his relationship with Bucky? Not totally sure you ship it but leaning that way? Yeah, pull up a seat because this thing I wrote after Ep 5 here (so spoilers through that) is basically an old-school ship manifesto at this point but comes at SamBucky/WinterFalcon from Sam’s side, rather than Bucky’s. (I have nothing *against* Bucky. I just think you’re missing half the goodness of this show and half the surprisingly tender romance of all of this if you are not focusing on Sam as much as Bucky.) If this interests you, then read on, being forewarned that it’s a little long...

So... Sam Wilson is a sweet, kind, warm-hearted, empathetic, drop-dead gorgeous superhero soldier flying military veteran therapist... whom the canon suggests is Bucky Barnes-level obsessed with his dead former partner (in some sense of the word), Riley. You thought it was just Bucky with the angsty past love? Oh no... oh, no no no....

Consider that Sam’s been back in Delacroix twice now in TFATWS and not once has his sister-- who adores him and who knows everyone in town-- suggested that she call up any one of the at least ten decent single people she has to know who live in the area to take her f*cking *dreamboat* of a brother out. Forget the show putting Sam in like twelve pieces of canon and not throwing a single human (not named Bucky) at him and what that implies-- we all know that Sarah wouldn’t care what kind of human her brother was attracted to and yet she and the entire community of Delacroix can’t seem to find this guy a date. He’s sweet and hot and an Avenger but our Sam’s a monk, you guys... More to the point... they don’t even try. They know better than to try anymore... which says a lot.

Going back awhile now, when Sam met Steve, he was still this equally dreamy and he didn’t even have any Avengers-related problems getting in the way of his potential dating life. He had a normal job working for the VA in DC. Yet, he clearly was seeing exactly no one and while I am willing to admit that pretty much any human would drop everything and follow Steve Rogers around the world, it’s clear that Sam wasn’t seeing anyone at the time because his life was able to be dropped in a second and he also had that file with Riley’s photo at the ready, man. At. the. ready...

He responded to the opportunity to follow Steve with no less need when it came to his own post-trauma-of-war identity as Bucky does. This isn’t to say that Sam is *as* lost as Bucky because it would be hard to out-do the once-brainwashed assassin who has been alive for a hundred years but Sam saw all sorts of hell. He’s a therapist for veterans because he’s had to get beyond *his own* PTSD and he’s really aware of how that is a journey that doesn’t exactly ever end. It gets significantly better and he knows how well it can-- that’s why he can tell Bucky that there is hope of that-- but it is very clear that Sam Wilson is still suffering his own kind of PTSD and his own grief for the death of a guy who likely couldn’t love him the way he needed him to.

I know we don’t know a ton about exactly what Sam and Riley were but I think there is enough to infer that they probably actually weren’t a couple. For one thing, Sarah never mentions him and even if the show wanted to be vague about things, they could phrase it like “it’s been forever since you brought back someone to the house, haven’t met any of them since Riley” or something. There are ways to infer that they were a thing and the nature of it, if the show wanted to do that but all they have suggested so far is that Sam was in love with Riley. We know he and Riley were friends and worked on the Falcon suit project together but what we are getting out of what they are giving to us is that Sam loved him but it’s not clear that they were even a couple. I’d even say the picture of them that he shows Steve and Natasha is supposed to evoke that they weren’t a couple-- it’s of Sam looking at Riley, smiling like he’s the moon and the stars, while Riley is smiling but just a bit and he’s looking at the camera, not at Sam.

In other words, remember Miller’s analogies from school? Sam is to Riley as Bucky is to Steve. I just offended every person reading this who thinks that Steve and Bucky weren’t an unrequited thing *ducks* but I feel like we’re supposed to take from what they give us that Sam knows a little something about being mad for a guy who thinks you are his best buddy but doesn’t look at you in a romantic or sexual way and you feel like you’re dying over it. Sam gets Bucky because Sam *is* Bucky when it comes to this.

If Sam and Riley were just the best of friends, Sam still would have mourned him greatly but it would not necessarily have impacted his love life the way it seems like it might have. I’m not necessarily saying there was no one but this is a man who even when it felt like Steve Rogers-- whom Sam obviously found attractive-- seemed like he was making Sam question whether or not he was coming onto him or just super-nice and making a new fellow veteran friend... even when that was happening, Sam’s response was that he didn’t hate it or anything and he was willing to help Steve with what he needed in this friendly, advice-giving sort of way and maybe they had a thing, who knows, but it was clear that Sam-- a guy who has to be hit on *all the time*-- wasn’t really used to the idea of there being someone in his life. So, he wasn’t letting anyone into his life. He would have had the chance, no doubt. He was choosing not to. Why would you choose not to? If you were grieving the loss of a man you couldn’t get over and you thought that you weren’t ever going to love anyone like that and maybe having someone wasn’t going to happen for you.

Like, imagine Sam’s surprise when The Winter Soldier turns up, nearly kills them all, disappears and they go on the run and he starts hearing Steve’s confessional stories about the guy who was his best friend and in love with him and Steve has literally never said those words aloud because they’re from the *1940s* and he’s felt guilty all this time for hurting him. Steve’s the kind of guy who would feel guilty for not being in love with someone who was in love with him. That’s when Sam, who thought he had more in common with Steve, realizes he’s actually *Bucky Barnes* in this story. He’s the damn Winter Soldier in the Steve-and-Bucky version of him and Riley.

That is how Bucky evolves from “the kind of guy you have to stop” in Sam’s mind to the guy he’s hanging out with in every fight and snarking over the car seats with. He’s like yeesh, I thought I had a few years of this ungodly pain and that was bad... this poor bastard’s been in love with a Riley who could and probably will live until he’s a hundred and thirty. Sam starts getting into this whole antagonist origin story of The Winter Soldier here because he realizes that one wrong move-- one case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time-- and he could have been captured during the war he was in. He could have been tortured like that, so easily, and he knows what it’s like to be tortured by love in that way.

Bucky, for his part, when he begins to get his mind back and more fully remember Steve and his past, takes one look at Sam and is thinking like... that poor SOB... oh, look, it’s 21st Century Me. So, you fell for Steve Rogers, huh? Welcome to the club. We meet every Tuesday at two to discuss being the pining best friend in love with a guy who, in all likelihood, is attracted to both of us but unless Tony Stark can shake loose a bit of the freak in The Star-Spangled Man With a Plan, we’re not getting anything but a most earnest and sincere friendship out of this (and if Stark can’t, no one can....)

Like, Bucky’s Steve love is pretty pure. He wants him to be happy. He’s hurt that Steve doesn’t love him the way he loves Steve but he does love him as his best friend as well and wants him to have what he wants out of life. If that’s going back in time to Peggy Carter (who wouldn’t, really?) and leaving him behind then, fine. He wishes he were still here but he’ll deal but he’s going to be keeping an eye out for the other guy left behind-- Steve’s new modern era best friend person. Bucky’s so gone over keeping Steve safe that he can’t even resent Sam’s presence-- he’s thrilled he exists. Someone good to look after Steve when Bucky couldn’t! Sam Wilson is heaven sent and must be protected at all costs! So frequently from some kid with webbed fingers, apparently!

Sam, meanwhile, is challenged by the dilemma that Bucky appears to think that they’re in the same boat while Sam, who for sure had a little crush on Steve as who doesn’t, has really come to realize that he is far, far more into the tragic one here. He’s so irritated about it. It would be simpler if he just fell for another blond soldier with red, white and blue blood who couldn’t love him. At least he’d just be completely hopeless then but the brainwashed one? The one that thinks he’s horrid but is so good that he can’t even bring himself to be that jealous of Sam when he clearly thinks Sam is sleeping with the guy he’s loved for years?

Oh, Sam’s gone on that one...

Bucky’s still a mess then so it’s harmless enough to just pretend he’s not writing himself into touch-starved Bucky fanfic in his own mind here but when Bucky keeps saving him in different fights? When he catches him looking once or twice. When the bickering is really flirting and Sam knows he means it that way, too? When the poor guy just gets his mind back, they all reunite and go to one battle and then the two of them disappear and miss *five years* of their lives? When then, soon after, Steve is gone, too?

When it begins to feel like *they* are now the story and meant to go through the rest of these things together? I mean, when everyone else is all on about the fate and destiny of it all-- Stark’s big sacrifice being the one way to save everyone, Doctor Strange going on about all the possibilities of the universe on a saving the world level but it so personal to the people Sam and Bucky know, Steve choosing to go back in time because he can and be with the woman he loved and never got to have...

...standing there in the funerals and aftermaths of all of this together, by virtue of being Steve’s Friends Who Aren’t Really Part of This Gang Exactly... are Sam and Bucky. What are the odds that they are supposed to be the rest of one another’s story? Sam was wondering it. He for sure hadn’t felt like this since Riley... he might not have really ever felt it at all before.

Can we just admit that while there’s been some guys in the past-- and it could be rephrased as ‘some people’, as while Sam is written to suggest he’s at least into men, he could be into people who don’t identify as men as well-- but there’s not been someone who has been able to love him the way he’s loved them.

He’s from the South and Black and the show taps into the racism he’s been through as a result. Not obviously in Delacroix, where he feels safe and seen, where people care about him and don’t care that he is not straight, but in other parts. He’s been in the military, where homophobia is still pretty rampant and it’s a culture of a lot of heterosexual machismo. (Hell, the show even has a kind of walking, talking example of a guy everyone knows was the epitome of that kind of culture, even if he’s been broken by that world, too-- John Walker.) It’s not even really clear if Sam is out and, if he is, to whom. He seems to be the kind of person to want to be himself as much as possible and Sarah likely knows because they are close but I’m not so sure that a lot of Sam’s military buddies actually did. He really strikes me as the guy who gets along with everybody and whom everybody loves-- but whom few people actually *know* because he keeps himself (all of himself, not just his sexuality) private from others...

...which is also a hell of a lot like one Bucky Barnes.

Guaranteed they became such fast friends not just from being sort of left with one another in the aftermath of Steve and their attraction but because Sam was amazed to find that Bucky was actually pretty funny and Sam just kept talking to him because while he has-- or had, anyways, before he ran off with Steve-- a ton of people he’d consider friends, he doesn’t really have anyone he’d consider to be a close friend and hasn’t since Riley. Bucky, just still stunned to be free of mind control and that there was another human being talking to him instead of looking at him as a weapon to program to kill, was eager to listen to and absolutely thrilled when he could find something sarcastic to say to make Sam laugh that surprised laugh and light up.

These two damaged couple of guys spent most of this show and the months before it just terrified by how much love they were feeling for one another and were very happy to let any conflict they could get in the way of it-- any excuse to claim they weren’t feeling totally seen and run for the hills back into their own trauma.

It’s not just Bucky doing this. He might have been the one not returning the texts at the start, the one who seemed to be withdrawing more, while Sam was texting him still to check in on him but how quickly that began to flip around by Episode 5.

Suddenly, the brave one is Bucky. It was Sam for the first few episodes-- he was stil trying and so hard, despite not getting what he needed in return and Bucky still sending signals that he wanted him but was happy to still revel in being too damaged and scared to try harder. By Episode 5, though? Bucky’s not only learned to trust himself again, it is proven to be what he was afraid of: not being able to protect and love Sam the way he wanted to and that Sam would leave him. Triggered by the shield as a metaphor for not caring about Bucky, not having a reason to still pursue him, Bucky thought he had successfully pushed Sam away and that Sam would really stop texting because to not do so would be to admit to one another that they wanted to be around one another and this wasn’t just about Steve/Captain America. By Episode 5, Bucky shows up in Delacroix not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but with eyes only for Sam and is every one of Sam’s favorite Bucky Barnes fantasies come to life.

It’s now Sam flipping out. Would you have expected the Sam of the first two episodes to be a babbling mess in the face of a flirty Bucky stretching and claiming it’s time for him to go get a hotel room? To try to be playing it cool but winding up asking him to stay forever and telling him he likes his tight t-shirts in the middle there? To get so nervous that he suddenly is babbling about six toes and flirting with Sarah, showing how jealous he was of Bucky just... smiling and being this guy Steve had said was under there but that Sam had only had small glimpses of so far? If he was gone for the broken Winter Soldier... he’s wrecked by a single smile from this Bucky.

This is the same guy who spent the first few episodes confident to a point of near-cockiness, loving flirting with and teasing Bucky, the one that seemed more well-adjusted and in control of himself. Overall, he is but there’s something there when Bucky shows up and White Wolfs Sam into a sputtering mess who is sending him little glances, as if they’ve switched bodies from the first few episodes. It shows *just how much* Sam is comfortable with Bucky and how rare it is for him because he would react differently to Bucky’s more overt flirting of Episode 5 if how he is with Bucky was his default in life. Instead, we see that some of it is posturing-- it’s the Sam equivalent of lifting heavy things and using power tools. His is the humor (what’s a better aphrodisiac than making the Winter Soldier laugh or flirt back or blush?) and the bicker-caring. We even see where it comes from, in a way. Sam is a soldier-- he knows how to help other traumatized soldiers and when we saw him in his VA group session when we met him, we saw him using that kind of machismo world and its language to communicate with the soldiers in the group. The difference for him with them versus him with Bucky is that he’s also flirting with Bucky. The buddy cop thing is intentional-- it’s Sam’s strategy, it’s been Bucky’s choice to respond to it and they’re playacting it as how they talk because it’s been easier than admitting that they are completely gone on another and just want all the soft things.

Up until recently anyway and now Sam’s reeling from a man he’s fallen in love with showing up and loving him back. Don’t think for a second that Bucky doesn’t know enough by now to know that it’d totally undo Sam but the surprise of it to the audience only really exists if you don’t think Sam and Bucky have anything in common besides their now-gone mutual friend. In reality, they’re endgame.

#tfatws #sam wilson #sambucky #bucky barnes #thefalconandthewintersoldier #marvel #bucky #buckysam #winterfalcon

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collecting-stories · 4 years

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Invisible Strings - John B Routledge

Request: Hi welcome back!!! I hope you are doing well ❤️ I am literally so obsessed with Folklore I would die for anything John B/Folklore. Maybe invisible string or peace?❤️

A/N: Okay so I had this finished and then re-wrote it this afternoon so hopefully it’s good...god I actually haven’t written Outer Banks in like a month.

The TS Anthology Series | Outer Banks Masterlist

✰...one single thread of gold tied me to you✰

_ . ◦ ⭐︎:*.☾.*:⭐︎◦∙._

“I always forget that this is still here.” You mused, running your fingers over the carved part of the baseboard.

John B looked over from the box he was packing, old dishware that had been given to his mom and dad when they were first married, stashed away in the house for a time that never came. It would go to the thrift shop tomorrow morning along with other, now useless items that littered the small house. On Monday you would call the realty office on the island and inquire about putting the place up for sale. John B had seen an apartment for rent, beach side, closer to Figure Eight, nicer than the Chateau and he’d suggested it as a starter apartment, something small that you both could afford.

“Where was it going to go?” He teased, walking over to you. He pressed his legs against your back and you leaned your head to look up at him.

“You could’ve painted over it.”

❖

The year that you turned ten your mom got re-married and your step-father decided to relocate the family to Tennessee where his new job would be. You cried for days over the prospect of leaving the Outer Banks but it wasn’t your decision, all you could do in the end was pack your belongings and move. In what little defiance you were awarded as a ten-year-old you climbed underneath the bed and carved your name into the baseboard. You thought about including some ominous request, perhaps a clumsily drawn ‘help me’ but decided against it at the last moment. Your mom was much more excited to be moving into what she claimed was a nice, big, house in Tennessee with your soon to be ‘new dad’. A step-up from the shoebox shack that you’d been getting by in. 

The house was sold almost immediately to a man and his young son, downsizing after his wife left them with next to nothing. Two bedrooms was all he needed and the view of the marsh was better than he expected to get in his financial state. His son was unbothered either way, sure they were moving but that only meant they were in a new house. He would still go to the same school and see the same people. Though he rode his bike passed his old house often that first year, wishing he could walk up the front steps and go through the door and everything would be the same.

The carving remained unseen until he was thirteen. His best friend JJ was trying to flip off the bed when he fell against it, pushing it away from the wall. His head landed next to the baseboard. While most kids might’ve cried from the possible concussion JJ just rolled onto his stomach to get a better look at the wall and the writing engraved in it.

“Look.” He reached up to smack John B’s arm and pointed at the name carved into the wood, “you got a ghost.”

“It’s not a ghost you moron,” John B laughed once he’d seen the carving for himself, “probably the girl who used to live here.” He’d lived with pink walls, stenciled with butterflies for a year and a half before Big John finally caved and spent some of his money on paint instead of alcohol.

After that John B found an odd sense of comfort in the carving. Sometimes he did his homework laying on the ground with your name staring back at him. A sort of imaginary friend he was too old to have. And when Big John disappeared at sea John B pulled the blankets off the bed and laid with his head at the baseboard, crying alone in his room while his uncle watched TV, oblivious to his nephew’s heartache.

That same year, while they were still combing the shoreline for any sign of Big John’s boat, you and your mom arrived back in North Carolina. You were 16 and she was heartbroken, disillusioned with love and taking every opportunity to caution you against it too. You ignored most of her bitterness, concerned only with the new house and the new life that you were expected to settle into. The cottage style home was so close to the Outer Banks that you could see the island in the distance on the other side of the bay. Your mom talked about fresh starts and got a job working for the Department of Child Services. 

It was the year you heard John B Routledge’s name for the first time. She’d come in from work every day that summer and curse about the delinquent teen. It was her greatest source of reassurance that you didn’t hang around wayward teenagers who, though still grieving the loss of their father, unsure of their place in the world now that they were alone, were expected to move on from that. 

“Placing him with a family is going to be hell. No one is going to want to put out the effort for two years...I’m sure he’ll skip town the second he turns 18.” She would bitch over a bottle of white wine. 

“He could stay here?” It was a pointless suggestion. Your mother would likely strangle him in his sleep if he lived with you. 

“Absolutely not! I’m not a charity.” She had taken up social work only so her psychology degree wouldn’t be wasted but you thought maybe some people did belong behind a desk, in a cubicle, somewhere. Certainly not caring for children.

Either way you weren’t too bothered to listen to those stories. You liked the thought of John B Routledge. He was like some character in a book, too good to be true. His story sounded sad but he didn’t. His life wasn’t a boring repetition of school and work and friends you didn’t particularly like. He was above all that. Like a Jesse Tuck, young forever, stuck on some magical island that you could see but never be a part of again.

After graduation that all changed, just as life was starting to change. You got a job working in a beach front surf shop on the island. It was your first big strike out into the unknown and your mom was less than thrilled that you would be living in the Outer Banks until college started in the fall. But you’d saved enough to rent space and someone had listed a room available online. The ad boasted lots of outdoor area and featured a picture of a hammock and a VW bus behind it.

“How do you know that it’s not some ploy to traffic young women and take them overseas or down to Mexico?” Your mom had pestered you as you dragged your suitcase out of the house to meet the Uber that would take you to the ferry. Away from boring hopefully. At least for a summer.

“I‘ll let you know if I end up overseas.”

“This isn’t funny!”

“You’re being ridiculous mom, I already texted with the kid who owns the house, he’s like my age.” You replied. Someone named John had texted you after you emailed about the room. He seemed nice, he was funny, no red flags had gone up in your mind. The name hadn’t even occurred to you. It’d been a few months since you’d heard any mention of your mother’s tormentor.

It was JJ’s idea to lease the room. The two needed extra money and working the docks or waiting tables or mowing lawns hadn’t cut it. JJ had two jobs to support his half of the rent and John B was working all kinds of hours when JJ suggested that they split it three ways.

“Get a renter in here, it’s perfect.”

“Yeah okay,” John B agreed because he wanted to keep his dad’s house and that seemed like the most logical way to go about it.

You weren’t what he was expecting when you arrived. Having never rented before he’d spent more time making sure you could afford payments than he had finding out any details about you at all. But you stepped out of the car regardless and the immediate sense of nostalgia hit you like a wave. You didn’t mention that you used to live here and John B was too focused on getting through the tour of the shack that he didn’t even register the name you gave him.

“This’ll be your room.”

And just like that you were in each other’s space. Like two timelines fusing together, one of you had swerved and tangled your lives into a mess of summer and shameless flirting and parties on the beach. You realized early on that this John was your infamous John B Routledge, teenage outlaw, sadder in real life than you ever gave him the range for. You liked talking to him late at night when JJ was already passed out or lingering close to him at parties. Everyone, his friends and your new, adopted friends, knew that there was something there but none of them realized how deep it ran. Even you didn’t.

It wasn’t until August of that summer, when John B was out and you were left in the Chateau by yourself, that you had wandered into his bedroom and pushed the bed away from the wall. There on the baseboard was the first of a million signs, the first place in your parallel timelines where your stories overlapped. The bed had knicked the wall enough times that the writing almost blended in with the other scratches but you could see your name clearly when you knelt down.

“What’re you doing in my room?” John B’s voice caught you by surprise and you turned too quickly, falling over, killing whatever tension might’ve arose from finding you supposedly snooping in his space. He cracked a smile and went to offer you a hand up.

“Sorry, I-” you let him pull you to your feet, his skin warm against yours, “I wanted to see if it was still here.”

“What?” He looked rightfully confused.

“I...carved that.”

“That was you?”

And somehow it was just a question of who had vandalized his bedroom but who had been there when he was fourteen and got so angry at his dad that he had slammed the door and jammed the lock. When he was sixteen, crying for days because his dad was missing and no one could tell him anything. When he was eighteen and all his friends were graduating from high school but he had failed out so terribly that his only options were repeat or get a GED. When you pulled up outside for the first time that summer and something in him just seemed to make sense, like all those loose puzzle pieces had figured out their pattern.

❖

“What’s the matter?” John B asked, fitting the last box of donations into the Twinkie. You had followed him outside but you were just standing on the steps, staring out toward the jetty.

It’d been four years of moving you in and out of dorm rooms, returning each time to this house. Four years of navigating dating when you already lived together, kicking JJ out when he interrupted nights you were supposed to have alone, avoiding every visit your mom ever made after she realized that the boy you were living with was the same one who’d caused her so much trouble years earlier. It was every argument, every holiday, every movie marathon, every stupid party, every lazy sunday...You’d spent ten years in that house without a friend in the world and John B had spent another eight trying to keep his head above water only to realize that what you had both needed all along was each other.

“Let’s not sell.”

“You wanna live here?” John B asked, sounding a little more surprised than he should’ve been. The apartment was everything he knew he was supposed to want but really he just wanted to stay in the Chateau with you.

“We already live here.”

“Yeah but...Heyward said there are a lot of repairs that need to be done. Electrical stuff, plumbing, new water heater, new windows, the floor needs to be-”

“John B.” You stopped him short, walking the rest of the way down the steps to meet him in the yard.

“What?”

“Live in our house with me? Forever?” You asked, watching the smile that blossomed at your words.

“Okay.”

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alcalavicci · 4 years

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So there’s a really interesting interview with Deborah Pratt here. If you don’t want to pay for it, I’ll paste what I can below, but a few points first.

Deborah says she doesn’t know where Dean is, and says she misses him. I guess she hasn’t had contact with him since he left for NZ? And with Russ Tamblyn saying Dean’s hanging in there in answer to a recent Twitter question, that brings up more questions about his condition.

Deborah claims she came up with the idea of Quantum Leap, which I’ve never seen come up before. Also Don wanted to send Sam home?? I feel like she’s misremembering a lot of details/making herself seem better than she is.

“Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished… He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time tht his next leap will be the leap home…”

The premise of Quantum Leap succinctly and empathetically explained by a voice that spoke to viewers week to week, setting the scene at the opening of the episode. It is a voice that left an indelible print on the show, from its inception to its finale. This is the voice of its Head Writer. No, not Donald P. Bellisario, but a woman of color who was leaps ahead of her time – co-executive producer and uncredited co-creator, Deborah M. Pratt.

Deborah wrote or co-wrote 40 episodes of this sci-fi gem and her authorship of the show runs deep through its five seasons. Aside from the opening narration, Deborah is audible as the voice of Admiral Al Calavicci’s pocket computer, Ziggy. She also guest stars in the episode ‘A Portrait for Troian’ (S2, Ep11) as a grieving widow who hears the voice of her husband calling her.

Deeper still, Quantum Leap was a family affair. It was co-created with her husband at the time, Bellisario, and their daughter, also named Troian, appears as a little girl in ‘Another Mother’ (S2, Ep13, who can not only see Al, but also sees Sam as he really is, rather than as her recently divorced mom.

Prior to helming Quantum Leap, Deborah rose through the ranks as an actress, racing the screen in Happy Days, CHiPS, The Dean Martin Show and many more, and was also a writer on shows such as Airwolf and Magnum P.I. She is a five-time Emmy nominee, Golden Globe nominee and winner of countless other awards. She went on to produce CBS comedy cop show, Tequila and Bonetti, and then to co-create and produce the TV series adaptation of Sandra Bullock tech thriller, The Net. But Quantum Leap was Deborah’s brainchild – one which is emblazoned on the hearts of its faithful fans.

Deborah has since moved into directing, including on hit show Grey’s Anatomy (2020), but was generous with her time when spoke in late 2020 to leap back into the past.

It does seem that you were really ahead of your time as a female head writer and a showrunner in the ’90s, especially in science fiction TV. Was it hard for you to progress and to get Quantum Leap made?

“Usually women were relegated to comedy, very rarely was it drama or heavy drama. It’s changed, finally, with people like Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton, Scandal). But yes, I was a true pioneer, even though I don’t have a ‘created by’ credit, it was a ‘co-created by’ show – with Don. I brought him the original concept, and we were married, and he said ‘Let me just run with this. I can get it made.’ And to his credit, he understands how to tell a story to the audience. He simplified it in a way that you could welcome Quantum Leap into the world. But it was still a tough show to sell.

“I think we went back three times to pitch it to the network. It was complicated to explain. Brandon Tartikoff [the executive] said ‘It’s a great idea – It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen on TV. Let me think about it.’ Then he asked us to come back, ‘I want you to pitch it to me like I’m six years old, then pitch it to me like I’m 80 years old’ and finally he took it. Then even after the show first aired, they decided to introduce that opening where I tell the story. That was created to explain every week to a new viewer what was going on and it worked really well.”

On rewatch now, the best part of three decades later, the show feels groundbreaking in terms of the subjects you cover. Did you feel like you were pushing the envelope?

“I feel we got to do so much on that show. I remember when I did ‘Black on White on Fire’ [S3, Ep7], the networks in the South in the United States wouldn’t air it because it was a black/white relationship. Even though there is no scene where you see a black person and a white person being intimate.

You saw Sam, who was white, and the girl who was white, but because he was playing someone who was black, it was an issue. They wouldn’t air the show in the South. This was around 1992.

“It was challenging for sure. I think we pushed the limits.

“The beauty of the show too, was that it was about hope, which I see so little of on television today. Everything’s so dark, so mean, so vicious, bloody – how many people can you kill? How mean can you make your lead characters and antiheroes. I think it’s why I didn’t work as much afterwards. A) I was a woman, and B) a black woman. There weren’t any black female executive producers that I knew of in drama. I got to do The Net because it had a female lead, but that was almost ten years after Quantum Leap was created. Any show I brought in that had a black lead was never bought, or a female lead, was never bought.

“I remember I wrote a big action piece – like an Indiana Jones, but female-driven, feature film – and pitched it and the studio executive said, ‘Yeah, yeah, but when did the guy come and rescue her?’ And I said, ‘She doesn’t – she rescues him.’ The look on his face. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”

The show darted around TV schedules, but the fans remained with it, and still to this day hold it dear to their hearts. Was that palpable at the time, or has that grown since?

“I think near the end of the first season, Harriet Margulies [Production Assistant on the show] found a chat room after an episode where people from across the country talked about it and it became the ‘watercooler.’ We were the first television show that had a chat room as a watercooler. Before that, it was literally you going into your office and standing around the watercooler and talking about movies or TV shows you were watching. Suddenly, it was online. So we started to go into the chat room and talk to people about what they liked and what they didn’t. Not necessarily telling them who we were, but that fan base is what kept us on the air because the network didn’t know what to do with us. There was no show like it, so they couldn’t like pair us with anybody.

“In the five years we were on, I think they moved the show six times and the fans still found it, they followed it, they watched it. That’s how we knew we had something unique and special. To this day, I’ll go into a meeting with a young executive who’ll go, ‘I have to tell you, I loved Quantum Leap. I used to watch it with my mom and dad’.”

Scott Bakula was such a great hero and heartthrob as Dr. Sam. What was he like to work with?

“He was so approachable, you know, in the sense that he had this great, easy acting style. He took chances and he was likeable – in a way that he could be a man’s man and a woman’s man at the same time. He’s really a brilliant actor. I am saddened by the fact that he has not had the opportunity to do movies in the way that could really have lifted his career. He’s had an incredibly successful television career. He’s a good actor. He’s a kind man. I’ve always admired him and felt like when we were working together, I had a friend that I loved to write for because he was always so giving and willing and wanting to take chances as an actor. So it was fun to go down to the trailer and say, ‘Guess what? You’re going to be pregnant this week’.

He does everything in the show from sing and dance to baseball, football, hopping over car bonnets to fights and martial arts. Did you know he had such a wide skill set from the outset, or did you write the challenges for him to rise to?

“I think we had conversations with him about that. I also knew that he had been on Broadway doing musicals. I knew he could sing and dance. When I wrote ‘Sea Bride’ [S2, Ep20], I wrote a tango number – that was unique for him. When Don knew that he could play the guitar… We asked Scott, ‘What do you want to do?’ And he said he wanted to do a musical and I think that’s how the ‘Catch a Falling Star’ episode [S2, Ep10] came about, which involves a performance of ‘Man of LaMancha’.”

Admiral Al Calavicci – he’s so much more than wisecracking and surface jokes or flirtation. There’s so much depth to his character. Was that fleshed out early on with an end to end journey for him in mind, or did his character evolve through the seasons?

“It was a little bit of both. Dean Stockwell had been on Broadway at five-years-old and had been a major child movie star. I remember when we wrote the show where Sam had the chance to save Al – ‘The Leap B4, Ep1] – he was so good in that. I’ll never forget how beautiful that was. And then in the very, very end, I love the fact that Sam did change history and Al ended up wih his beautiful wife with five kids.

“I remember once asking Dean, ‘Do you want us to write more drama for you? Big dramatic moments?’ And he said, ‘I want you to look at me right now. I want you to tell me what you see.’ And I said, ‘Well, your performance, the pain, fear and loss and all that, because you’re such an incredible actor.’ And he said ‘For me to perform that, I have to be it and live it. So don’t do too many.’

“He had that depth of acting talent. He is so good – Dean, wherever you are, I love you. I miss you.”

The episodes that follow later in the seasons involving celebrities – Sam as Elvis, Dr. Ruth, or Lee Harvey Oswald, was that kind of a direction that you always foresaw? It feels like a sea change as the show progressed.

“The stories were designed, for the most part, to be so, so simple in that they were everyday stories. They weren’t change-the-world stories. I think the biggest one was Lee Harvey Oswald, and maybe the one involving Marilyn Monroe – those were with people that could have had a ripple effect.

“But there were other little kisses with history in the show, but they were very hard to do. They ran into a child version of Donald Trump in a taxi cab, [‘It’s A Wonderful Leap’ – S4, Ep18], then they ran into a little boy who is supposed to be Michael Jackson – Sam teaches him to moonwalk [‘Camikazi Kid’ – S1, Ep8]. The first time I did a kiss with history was ‘Star-Crossed’ [S1, Ep3] – Sam meets up with the woman that left him at the altar and they’re at the Watergate Hotel. That was fun stuff.”

Sam managed to awkwardly kiss lots of ladies in that sense of ‘Oh God, they’re going to kiss me and I’ve got to be this person, what am I supposed to do.’

“We never, ever really discussed what happened to Sam. We didn’t want him to be encumbered by a relationship. But I didn’t get to kiss him. My husband wouldn’t leave the set on the episode I was in!”

Your move into directing – from your TV drama Cora Unashamed back in 2000, to Grey’s Anatomy just last year. Is that something you wanted to do sooner? Were there barriers prohibiting you?

“I was supposed to direct on Quantum Leap four times. Every time it was coming up, something would happen. The only women who directed on the show were two black women – Debi Allen [Fame, Everybody Hate Chris, Jane the Virgin] and the other was a woman named Anita Addison. They each did two shows.

I said, ‘If I’m not doing this, I want black women.’ There were no other black women. And it was a fight. I tried to get black women directors on the show, but I could never get them past.

Then when I went to do The Net, the studio blocked it. I give huge amounts of credit for executive producing to Shonda Rhimes and what she has been able to do. She did what I thought I was going to be able to do. She’s so talented and I’m such a fan of her and her shows. I’m looking forward to what she’s going to do on Netflix. And it was an honour to do Grey’s Anatomy because I’m a fan of the show and I’m really grateful to have that opportunity.”

Has there been progress in terms of female directors and filmmakers being given opportunities?

“It’s very hard for women because there aren’t a lot of women executives at the studios. There are more now. And so there is an evolution that’s happening, but it still feels slow. There were shows run by people I gave opportunities to back in the day, but when I said, “hey, I want to direct on your show,” the response was, “oh, there’s too much machismo. There’s too many male hormones around here. They’ll eat you alive.” And I went, “no, they won’t, you’ll protect me. How about if I do my job?” And that was only last year. But there are more opportunities. There are more women making decisions, but we have to do more because women’s stories and women’s voices are more than half the population – we need to hear those stories. The historic ones as well as the contemporary ones.”

Is there a leap that was your favourite overall? That you feel made you made your mark with?

“’The Color of Truth’ [S1, Ep7] touched so many people and it opened a dialogue. I remember we got a letter from a teacher who said she brought the VHS in and she played it to her class, up until Jesse [Sam as an ageing black chauffeur in ’50s Deep South] goes and sits down at the counter in the restaurant. Then she stopped it and asked the students what they thought happened next. They thought that he just ordered lunch. And then she played the rest and that hostility and the animosity he endures and the fact that he had to get up and leave really incensed these children. They had never heard of or experienced racism. They didn’t want to believe that it really happened. This is how history gets buried and why television is so powerful and important. It opened a conversation that she could not have necessarily had in her classroom, according to her, had she not brought that show in to share with her students.

“We had another letter that was very moving, and I want to say it might’ve been ‘The Leap Home’ [S2, Ep1-2]. There was a couple who wrote and said they had a child that was on a cancer ward and every Thursday the whole ward would watch Quantum Leap. Their child was dying and they had kind of given up and it was just time to help that child transition out of this world. They watched the show and she said, ‘We realized we gave up hope. When we watched the show, we realized we didn’t have to give up hope and we wanted to write to you. It’s now six months later and the crisis has passed. The cancer is in remission. Our child is up and going back to school. And we just want to thank you for reminding us that hope has its own power’.”

Its power and poignancy has never diminished. Though the final episode, ‘Mirror Image’ (S5, Ep22), with the caption saying Sam doesn’t get to go home, does leave a sucker punch.

“That was our last fight. Don was going to send him home. And I said, ‘You can’t, you can’t send him home. If you ever, ever, which we’ve not ever been able to get Universal to let us do it, want to do a movie… If you want to keep the story going, you have to leave Sam out there in the hearts of people, leaving people thinking he could leap into their lives’. And at first Don said, ‘No, no, we need to bring him home’. And I said, ‘Do not bring him home. Or you will end the show. If you leave the hope out there, that Sam is out there and he could leap into your life and make a difference’. You keep the show alive in the hearts and the minds of the fans. And I think I was right.”

The ending was poetic for me as a viewer, but your point about Sam still being out there – Is there a leap back to the future for Quantum Leap?

“I started writing a project called Time Child about Sammy Jo Fuller. I actually wrote a trilogy in Season 5 where Sam leapt back three times into the same family and the second time he leapt he ended up in bed with this character and conceived a child. Then the third time he leapt in, he met her at 10 years old – a girl named Sammy Jo Fuller. So in my vision, Sammy Jo Fuller grows up. I actually have Al say, ‘Sammy is in the future with me. We’re trying to bring you home.’ That was my set-up way back in 1993, in Season 5, to say someday, Sammy Jo being his daughter might take over….

“This was the ’90s. Women heroes didn’t exist really – other than comic books – Wonder Woman was there, Super Girl was there. But I set it up in the show that Sammy Jo was going to bring him home. Sadly, I have not been able to get Don and the studio to give me the green light for Time Child. It might happen someday.”

Right now, it feels like we need more shows that offer hope. Is there a place for a reboot on streaming platforms?

“Universal keep saying they want to bring it back. They’re not going to give it up to Netflix because they have [US streaming service] Peacock now and still have NBC. I personally think it should be on a full blown network. The hard part would be that it would have to be recast if there was a female version using my character Sammy Jo Fuller. Or if they just redid the show, it would be interesting in the sense that there was such an innocence about the show. I still believe that there is an audience out there that wants it, that longs for looking at the past through the eyes of somebody in the present. But who would that person be if you did the show now, what are those eyes like?

“We’re living in the time of COVID and suddenly you go back in time. How do you warn people that this is going to happen? How do you warn people about 9/11? How do you warn people about things in the future?

“I mean, one of the beauties of that innocence too, and I thought that was a great gift from Don to the concept, was that Sam’s memory as Swiss cheese – he didn’t remember things and that made it a lot easier, and Al was not allowed to tell him what was happening in the present. There’s a lot of detail woven into the mythology that allowed it to be innocent and in the moment of time travel. You didn’t have to drag the future back with you.”

Do you have an actress in mind to play Sammy Jo in a reboot?

“Oh my gosh, Jennifer Garner. I always felt she would be a great female Sam. She’s an ‘every woman.’ She’s funny. She does great drama. When I think of a female Sam or even Sammy Jo, I think Jennifer – in a heartbeat. She’s so great in Alias. That show just never stopped. You couldn’t take a breath. If I had to go younger, somebody that would have that kind of believable humour that you think could actually rescue you – maybe Jennifer Lawrence. She’s pretty formidable in that sense.”

“To bring Quantum Leap back. If they’re thinking about it, now’s the time to happen. Tell people to write to Universal! Write for the attention of Pearlena Igbokwe – if anyone can bring it back, she can do it. Write! Write to Pearlena – she’s the one that’ll make it happen. That’s how we stayed on the air for five and a half years. Fans unite and write!”

#quantum leap #article

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homebody-nobody · 4 years

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touch me someone

HIIIII it’s your favorite fic writer back from the dead with TWO whole fics real close together maybe I’ll finally become a consistent publisher?!? we can dream. Anyway. JJ and Kiara are my new Bellamy and Clarke I guess so enjoy this VERY angsty smutty hurt/comforty poetic nonsense the idea for which would not leave my brain til I wrote it. Please for the love of god read this bc I actually kind of love it and need validation or concrit or literally any feedback at all bc my none of my irl friends like this show so pls interact/comment

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ao3

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He pulls away from her, and his eyes are wide but dry as his chest heaves. He looks wild, uncaged and raw, the moonlight turning his blond hair white and his blue eyes into pools of silver. Tragedy and shock have destroyed him, the chains he’d wrapped around his brash, heedless, unending want twisted into shards by an explosion of hurt and grief. He has always been the victim, the boy left behind in empty rooms with nothing but loss and bloody fragments, told to piece himself back together. Finally, they’ve taken the last thing. When he told John B they had nothing to lose, they still had each other. And now, he doesn’t even have that.

But she’s still here.

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Touch me someone

I’m too young to feel so

numb, numb, numb, numb

You could be the one to

Make me feel somethin, somethin.

The Phantom went down around 8:30 PM. Or maybe 10:30. Kiara doesn’t remember. She only knows that the hours between then and now have felt like a lifetime and also no time at all. Like she’ll turn and John B will be there, behind her shoulder, laughing at something JJ said, Sarah hanging off his arm; but also like the world is dark and will be dark and has been dark forever. Like the sun will never rise after this. Like the storm took the light and heat from the world just like it took her best friend.

Later, she’ll learn that John B’s official time of death is listed as 8:34 PM, when they stopped trying to establish radio contact with him and Sarah. Later, she’ll watch news stories about the manhunt for Rafe Cameron and the scandal of Ward Cameron’s property being left to his second wife, rather than his remaining daughter. Later, she’ll get an email from an internet cafe in Bermuda and her whole world will flip upside down one more time.

But now, she is laying in her four-poster bed, watching the ceiling fan lazily trawl the same, tired circle, listening to the pull-chain tap not-quite-silently against the glass fixture. Now, her hair still damp from the shower that her mother made her take, eyes stinging from sharp wind and tears not yet shed, the inside of her mouth shredded and sore from the hours she spent chewing on her lips, the world is too quiet, too peaceful. The crickets outside sing soft and gentle, just like they have every night her whole life, and the texture of her comforter, the quiet harmony of the night, the soft click and whoosh of the fan -- it all feels so chokingly familiar, like spiralling back down to earth after spending weeks dipping in and out of orbit.

She wants to scream until her throat is raw, sob and fight and unleash herself on every single adult that hurt John B, that brushed him off or refused to help or wouldn’t listen to him. She wants to gut Ward Cameron for ripping everything away from John B, first his father, and then the gold that was his by right. The gold that was theirs. She wants to rip off Rafe’s skin piece by piece until he’s in shreds at her feet. She wants to eviscerate his father with the same gaff hook he used to rip apart those two mainlanders and ruin John B’s life. She’s so full of hurt and grief and anger that her fists keep clenching white-knuckled in her blankets and she wants to bring down the sky itself. But at the same time, she’s haunted by that same emptiness that followed her after Sarah’s childish betrayal, like she’s watching it all from the outside.

She can’t sleep. She won’t. Sleep is just an escape, a place to forget, and she’ll have to wake up and remember what happened all over again, remember the rush of hope and the hours of adrenaline and apprehension that ended in a tragedy none of them could have ever predicted. What child foretells death?

Rolling over, she presses her face into her pillow, smothering herself until her lungs force her to turn her head for air. She opens her eyes, no less heavier than they were hours ago. Her throat tightens like tears are about to well up, to spill over and stain her sheets, but they don’t come. Itchy and claustrophobic, she throws back the sheets and paces over the smooth boards of her room, bare feet making soft noises over the lacquered wood. She has to get out, to make sure that she didn’t dream up the whole goddamn thing.

She dresses quickly, throwing on denim cutoffs and an old drug rug that cycled its way through at least two of the boys’ wardrobes before landing in hers. She doesn’t know where she’s going, doesn’t know what she needs, but she throws her wallet, her charger, a flashlight, and her water bottle in her beat up backpack, and, on second thought, a toothbrush and some deodorant. She picks up her keds and tiptoes down the stairs, avoiding the creaky eighth stair.

The key rack is empty, and, chastising herself for believing her parents would leave the car keys out after everything she’d pulled in the last few days, she rocks on her heels, assessing her options. The most prudent one is probably just to go back to bed, given the usual risks of going out at night as a teenage girl, the massive punishment that looms in her future, and, now, the lack of a vehicle. But the thought of returning to her stale room, skin crawling and mind racing at a standstill, makes the decision for her. She slips out the back door, making sure to catch the screen door before it slams, and digs out her bike from next to the garage. The tires could use air and the gears are misaligned, but it still rides, and it’ll get her… somewhere else.

Her original intention is to go to Pope’s house, mostly because it’s closest, but then she thinks about how she kissed him earlier that afternoon -- and God, was that just this afternoon? There’d be implications, now. Showing up in the middle of the night, throwing pebbles at his window -- it would mean something. So she stands up on the pedals and pushes past his street, floating like jetsam through the night.

She ends up heading for the chateau, which is where she was going all along. After her family moved to the outskirts of figure eight just before high school, it was the only place that felt like home anymore. She cruises deep into the cut, where even the smell of the air changes, from freshly mowed grass and chlorinated in-ground pools to gasoline and oil, rotting seaweed and the salt marsh.

The little house sits in the reeds, ramshackle and welcoming as ever, tired and reaching under the moon. It’s empty and forlorn, alone on the edge of the edge, out past the main cluster of the cut, pushed past the tideline, separated from the rest of the flotsam by a freak wave. The Routledge boys never fit in, even with the outcasts, and they made their home like they knew it. Skidding to a stop in the gravel driveway, the sting of tiny rocks against her bare ankles is the only thing she’s really felt in hours. Her heart picks up, skipping over itself as her memory stumbles over all the years seeping out of the wind-weathered boards and the sinking foundation.

Again, it feels like this would be a moment for tears, like the sight of John B’s house, the memory of Big John’s booming laugh and all the bonfire-scented nights on that sagging porch should mean enough to make something in her crack, to finally shatter the glass walls of shock and let the grief come pouring in. But it doesn’t. She just stares up at the chateau, one part of her aching for the ease of a found family she’ll never get back, the other dreading the fate of the little house.

The breeze changes directions as she stares up at the rickety shutters and holey screens, bringing with it the tinny sound of music played out of a cell phone in a solo cup, a noise she knows well. Her stomach drops to the hard-packed dirt, crashing there with her bicycle and sending up a cloud of dust. Maybe John B survived. Maybe he made it back to shore, and he’s laying low, doing that stupid, chivalrous thing he does, trying to protect them by not letting them know. Maybe he’s out by the shed in that old metal lawn chair, Sarah in his lap, exhausted and defeated and alive. But as she gets closer, the moonlight glints off tawny waves crusted with sweat and salt, and the momentary, wild hope crashes and ebbs away from the shore.

JJ hears her, of course, sitting up in the hammock and turning toward the sound of her flat-soled sneakers slapping the dirt. “Hey,” he says, his expressive face, for once, inscrutable.

“Hey,” she says, slightly out of breath from the sprint. “I thought you were…” she trails off, because he knows. Because he’s the only one in the whole world who can look at her and understand the cathedral dreams and vaulted memories crashing down in her chest.

“I’m not,” he says, an answer that belies more than either of them knows. JJ gets this look, when he’s seconds away from doing something particularly concerning (and usually criminal). Manic energy lights up in his blue eyes, burning anywhere from mischief to stubborn determination to full-tilt rage. The well-developed muscles in his shoulders and arms refuse to relax, and his hands get so fidgety they lose the coordination it takes to flip the zippo lighter between long, practiced fingers. His face fights with itself, half already spitting with well-steeped anger, the other tired, and broken, and grieving.

“I noticed,” she responds. She drops her bag on one of the metal folding chairs, dooming it to a coating of flaky, faded paint. Crossing the grass, hoping her broad strides will disguise the rattling breath in her chest, the shake in her hands, she moves to sit next to him in the hammock, and he shifts his weight to allow her.

There’s no verbal communication, no squabble about personal space or indignant demands she find her own seat. There never is, not with her boys. The Pogues. It seems so silly now, hiding behind that name for themselves, a name she’d never really belonged to, anyway. He’s holding a lit joint in one hand, a bottle dangling from the other, and he offers her one while swigging from the other. The old favorites of a Maybank in crisis. She takes it.

He falls back next to her, sending the hammock swinging as he gazes up at the stars. Sarah had known the most about constellations, of the five of them, but JJ knows a fair amount, too, some of the only memories of his mother the nights when she would hold him under the stars, tracing the designs across the sky, her hand wrapped around his tiny one. His eyes keep drifting off the sky and landing on Kiara, eyes distant, bathed in moonlight.

“He’s not dead,” JJ says, surprising himself as much as her. He sits up, and she follows. He stares at his feet for a while, and she thinks about putting her arms around him. “I --” he picks his head up to look at her and stops, voice stolen by the hope in her eyes. “I’d feel it,” he finishes lamely, and watches the spark die.

“The first stage of grief is denial,” she says, and it’s supposed to be at least slightly lighthearted, but it falls cruelly to the crabgrass.

“You sound like Pope,” he counters, and there’s too much weight to that name to throw it around for long. They’re both thinking of Kiara kissing him, and the memory is pleasant to neither.

She doesn’t really know why she did that. Maybe it’s because he’s everything she’s supposed to want, intelligence and ambition and ingenuity, everything she tells herself is important in a guy. Maybe because he’s in love with her. Maybe because she’s definitely in love with one of her best friends, and he’s the one who makes sense. She takes another hit and hands the blunt back to JJ.

“I’d know,” he repeats, and she knows it’s not her he’s trying to convince. He lays back in the hammock, putting the blunt between his lips and dragging deep before tilting his head back and blowing the smoke into the tumultuous night. She looks back over her shoulder, watching his jaw and the movement of his throat as he exhales. Laying back next to him, she tries not to think about the warmth of his skin against hers, the strength of the body pressed to her side. It’s only JJ, the same reckless, stupid asshole who carried that damn pistol everywhere all summer and has a talent for getting into trouble. He’s not giving her butterflies with his proximity, and she’s not thinking about reaching down and lacing her fingers through his.

Eventually, JJ flicks the roach into the darkness and stands as quickly as he can without tipping Kiara out of the hammock. She starts, not realizing she was dozing on his shoulder until it’s gone. “It’s late,” he says.

She stands as well, tucking her hands into the pocket of her sweatshirt as he kicks at the dirt. “I don’t --” she starts, and the hesitation makes him stop his nervous movement, meeting her eyes. “I don’t want to go home.” He opens his mouth to say something, but she interrupts him. “I can’t go home.”

“Okay,” he says, after a second. He doesn’t want to be alone, either. She nods, and walks past him, picking up her bag. He follows her up to the house, and they stop at the foot of the stairs to the porch, staring at the buzzing light. JJ takes a stuttering inhale Kiara pretends not to hear, and he goes up the stairs first, wrapping a shaking hand the handle to the screen door. He pauses before going in, frozen, and it isn’t until she lays her hand on his shoulder that he summons the courage to push the door open.

They knew the place was going to be tossed, but it still hurts Kiara and kills JJ, to see the overturned table and scattered papers, the couch cushions scattered on the floor and the coffee table flipped. He tries to shuffle backwards, to run from the sharp, fresh grief and the deep, familiar ache of loss and violation, but Kie is in the way, and when he turns to escape she catches him, her arms around his shoulders, his clutched around her waist. “I can’t --” he chokes, his face pressed to her neck, “It’s not --” his breath speeds up, his shoulders shaking. “They --”

“I know,” she says, swallowing down tears, herself, in that same small voice from the night in the hot tub. She knew JJ was broken, on that deep, fundamental level that, intellectually, she could conceptualize, but she could never feel. But that night, seeing the bruises on his ribs, damning as fingerprints, the ghost of his pain, the whisper of breath knocked out and the brush of betrayal, turned her chest inside out. This feels the same way, watching him lose the last shred of some semblance of home to the same kind of mindless anger and selfish authority that claimed the first one. “I know.”

But she’s still here. “Kie…” he breathes. She opens her mouth to reassure him again, but then his hands are on her face and he’s kissing her, deep and rough and desperate. She bursts into flame underneath him, paralysis broken, stupefaction overcome, as the glass walls she’s been watching through crack and shatter at her feet. JJ’s hands wrap around the back of her neck and spread across the small of her back, pushing her up against the door, and she twists her hands into his shaggy, sun-streaked hair. Every desperate question is met with his touch, and she chases it, even as he pulls away in horrified shock.

“Fuck,” he gasps. “Fuck, Kie, I’m so sorry --” He tries to shove himself away from her at the instant she curls her fists in his shirt, and it almost rips as she pulls and he slams back into her. Teeth clash and noses bump and it’s not perfect or soft or loving, but passion born from desperation and terror of what it would mean to stop. Putting his hands on the door on either side of her face, he pushes himself off of her, even as she tries to yank him back. “What are we doing?” he asks, in a voice that won’t like the answer.

“JJ,” she gasps, pushing her fingers back up to tangle in blond, salt-sticky waves. “Shut up.” Pulling his mouth back down on top of hers, she gasps into him as his hands come down and frame her ribs, one of his arms sliding around her waist and the other pushing back up into her hair.

“Don’t you think --” he tries, even as he leans over her, their breathing ragged, his knuckles white in her impossibly soft curls. His forehead is pushed to hers and he can’t pull away any farther, sucked into her gravitational field, helpless to it.

“I don’t want to think,” she insists. “I want this, I need this,” This momentary pause is already too long, and if he stops kissing her, stops touching her, the tears she’s been holding back will crash over her and they won’t stop. The dark room is loud with heavy breathing as she catches the scent of him, salt and sweat and smoke. “I need you.”

His grip falters and the momentary relaxation has her pressing herself against him. “Are you sure?” he asks, and this is a choice, now. This isn’t something that either of them can pawn off as a mistake made in the heat of a desperate moment. He wants this, has wanted it, ever since he met her, but he won’t be a decision half-made, won’t take advantage of vulnerability only to become a regret. He’s giving her a way out, knows her pragmatic nature and her anxious need for well-thought plans. He wants her to think, even if she’s desperate not to.

He’s right, when he almost never is, but she knows that if she waits too long or lets in the doubt that expects her, she will break. “JJ,” she gasps, “Please.” His name, she knows, he can’t resist, not when paired with urgent pleading, and in this way, she makes her choice. He surrenders to her.

They fall onto the creaky pullout, still set up from JJ’s most recent stay, not minding the sheets and blankets wrought asunder by the angry police search. He can’t let go of her, his hands pushing up her sweatshirt, dragging over her sides and up her thighs, tangling in her hair like he’s drinking her in with his touch, intoxicated with the smell of peach in her hair and the taste of sweat on her skin. Kiara lets herself get lost in him, ride the wave of desire pushing through her, moans and gasps when he hits the right spots and closes her eyes as he lifts her shirt over her head and attaches his lips to her neck, his hands finally coming up to cover her tits, and the long careful fingers she’d spent so many afternoons watching prove adept at twisting and pinching her nipples and leaving her begging for him.

She almost rips his t-shirt off, pulling his bare chest against her own and letting the feeling of skin on skin light her up, setting fireworks off behind her eyelids. Wrapping one hand around the arm holding him up, she can feel his teeth on her neck, and she knows he’s leaving marks, and, for once, it doesn’t feel like she’s being claimed. She knows what it is -- proof this is happening, that they’re alive and feeling and crashing together again and again. She sinks her nails into his bicep as his fingers skim below the waistband of her shorts, and feels him smirk against her lips.

“Yeah?” he asks, and the teasing in his voice is tortuous and reminiscent of his old, humorous self, just enough to make her sad for a moment, and when she nods quickly in return, it’s a bid to forget that sadness. His fingers flick open the button of her shorts and as his fingers dip lower, the only thing she can think about, the only thing she can feel, is his touch, his all-consuming presence, radiating heat. The bastard takes his time, her only gratification the press of him against her hip, hot and hard. He teases her through her underwear, and she can’t say she doesn’t enjoy it, arcing into his touch, shocks of pleasure building in incredible anticipation, but he’s going too slow, and he’s wearing too many clothes, still, and the intense want gnawing at her has too much potential to turn into grief.

“Would you just --” she grunts against his mouth, cut off on a moan as he presses his fingers against her clit. “Fucking -- ah,” he works slow, hard, circles, enjoying himself as she tries to form sentences with his hands on her. “Fuck me already!” Because even this can’t be easy, not between the two of them. Because she’ll always be fighting with him, even with her bare chest pressed against his and his hand down her pants.

JJ grins, scraping his teeth over her ear. “What,” he says, still teasing, still bittersweet, as he finally pushes his hand into her underwear, “aren’t you enjoying this?” Slowly, much too slowly, his fingers part the lips of her cunt, pressing down over her clit before finding the wetness further down. JJ practically growls as his middle finger dips between her folds and he finds her soaked, dropping his forehead against the forearm braced above her head. “Fuck, Kie,” he moans, and he can’t disguise the wasted crack in his voice. “God, you’re so fucking wet.” He’s already drunk on her, every new sensation dragging him deeper.

“Your fault,” she stutters as he puts his hands, lean and strong and practiced, to good use, dragging slick fingertips back up to her clit and teasing small circles, rough, calloused skin creating delicious friction. And this -- this is what she was so desperate for, to feel only his touch and the way he pushes her higher, closer to an edge far away from the bleak grief of their every day world. He moans, too, as he dips his middle finger into her and she keens into his mouth, and she’s not thinking anymore, only chasing heat and skin and pleasure, the rest of the night foggy and distant, moonlit and blurred.

She doesn’t even know how much time passes before he’s kissing his way down her body, only that he’s fucked her so well with his hands he has three fingers inside her and she’s asking for more. He pulls his hand away and she lets out an embarrassingly high-pitched noise at the loss of contact, only to end on a gasp when she opens her eyes to see that he has his fingers curled around the waistband of her shorts and his face is hovering near her hips, pupils blown wide as he looks up at her. He asks her something, but blood rushes in her ears as her heart pounds and her chest heaves and it isn’t until his tongue darts out to wet his lips that she realizes what he’s saying.

“Fuck, yes, please,” she whines, and it feels like less than instant before her shorts are on the floor and his head is between her legs, his tongue on her clit, and she screams, pushing her hands into his hair as his mouth launches her higher and keeps her there, wave upon wave crashing over her until her legs are shaking, and when she feels the pull deep in her stomach and he takes half a second to breathe, she has enough presence of mind to yank him back up, slamming his lips down onto hers, tasting herself there.

“Inside me,” she gasps, ragged and raw and scraping. “Now.”

“But you haven’t --” he breathes, and she reaches down, shoving past the waistband of the shorts he’s still wearing, her hand on his cock stopping him dead.

“Now,” she repeats. And then, leans up to kiss him, slightly softer than before, as if in apology for being so rough, but more as a distraction as her hands unbutton his shorts and shove them down his thighs, her hands finding him again and stroking his cock until he’s gasping into her mouth. “Unless,” she says between short kisses, trying to keep her tone light, even as her cunt aches for him. “You changed your mind?”

He scrambles out of his shorts and boxers so fast it’s almost funny, but the laugh falls out of her chest as he braces his forearms on either side of her face, pushing her hair back from her forehead and looking at her so carefully it almost hurts. “I don’t have a condom,” he says, uncharacteristic worry trembling in his voice.

“I’m clean,” she says, her hands reaching up to tangle in his hair once more, to ground her, and disguise their shaking. “You?”

He nods. “What about --”

“I have an IUD,” she says, more grateful than ever for her liberal mother and her own presence of mind.

He licks his lips again, eyes dropping to her mouth before flicking back up to her eyes. “Last chance,” he says, like she’s going to change her mind and push him off of her, run off into the night and leave him here, disgraced and embarrassed. “Still sure?” he asks, like he’s expecting her to say no. She nods without hesitation, caught in his blue eyes, turned cobalt in the half-light. He kisses her one more time, and it’s laden with years of things he hasn’t said, and she surges up with urgency, not ready for the tenderness in his touch. JJ tries to slow her down again, to revel in the moment of bare skin and vulnerability, no matter how guarded it may be, but she reaches down, wrapping her hand around his dick, guiding him closer to her, and he’s falling into her touch, into her orbit, helpless.

She draws him inside her, his forehead dropping to her shoulder with a forsaken, heavy breath. It’s too soft, this moment before he moves, too easy to break, every sense on fire. The air is too close to her skin, too tight around her arms, like she could rip the fabric of it with the barest movement. She wants to be lost in him again, to feel separate, far away and floating above herself, not so torturously in her body, JJ trembling and present above her. “JJ,” she says, opening her eyes to find his, a split-second mistake, the next word hitching on its way out of her chest. “Move.”

He does, mercifully lowering his face to press against her neck, the eye contact too substantial, too burdensome to hold. The bubble surrounding them expands as he works her up to that blissful edge with ease, his mouth letting out a stream of filthy words about how good she feels surrounding him. Closing her eyes, she tilts her head back, letting her hands have free reign over his back, his shoulders, his arms and up into his hair, every place she wants to touch him when she watches his ridiculous muscles ripple under his young, tan skin. He shifts his weight, hooking her knee over his hip so his cock hits exactly the right spot with every thrust, and she cries out, racing higher.

She should have expected that JJ likes to run his mouth -- she only catches parts of what he’s saying, things like ‘so fucking hot’ and ‘sound so fucking good’ and ‘so fucking wet for me’ and as her moans increase in pitch and volume, he growls “c’mon, Kie, cum for me,” and she falls apart. He fucks her through the aftermath and she barely knows what noises are coming out of her mouth, her nails digging angry welts in his back. Just when she thinks she can’t take anymore, he tenses and spills inside her on a half-broken sigh.

Her vision sharpens as he rolls off of her, collapsing on the squeaky bedsprings, and the house is too quiet all of a sudden, the air once again too close. Her breath slows, the sweat cooling on her skin in the soft breeze pushing through the wooden walls, the still-open front door. Neither of them says anything, and Kiara can feel him looking at her, his blown out smile too loud in the fallout. She sits up, almost flinching at the light touch of his fingers on his spine when he picks up a strand of her hair. “I’m gonna pee,” she says, finding her underwear and pulling them on, and then, after half a moment, pulling his discarded t-shirt over her head.

Her head echoes as she steps over the scattered mess to get to the bathroom, like she’s walking through a tunnel. Her legs ache and tremble, and she wraps her arms around herself, numb and falling. She fights tears as she washes her hands. The bathroom is, as always, a deplorable mess, products everywhere and hair all over the sink. Her green bikini top is still on the floor from when she’d forgotten it just the other day, and that girl feels impossibly far from the one staring at herself in the mirror, wearing her best friend’s shirt while he’s naked in the next room. There’d be shame, and guilt, too, if the smell of John B’s deodorant didn’t choke her with overwhelming loss. Bracing her hands on either side of the sink, she can’t hold it back anymore, and sobs spill out of her, harsh and echoing in the small space.

JJ is behind her an instant, half-dressed in basketball shorts and drawing her into his arms, tucking her close to him, her tears hot on his skin. “He’s gone,” she whimpers. “He’s really gone.” He doesn’t say anything, just guides her back to the pullout and straightens the blankets enough for her to fall in. She curls up on her side, crying so hard she can’t breathe, and he climbs in across from her, pushing one arm under her neck and using the other to pull her against him, his lips pressed to her forehead.

Tears leak out of his own eyes, silent and soft to her earth-shattering grief. “It’s gonna be okay,” he reassures her, fighting the quiver in his own voice, his chin shaking with the effort of it. He stares into the empty darkness above her head, every jerk of her prone body another crack in his breaking heart. “He’s coming back,” he says, more to himself than her. “He’s coming back to us.”

When she finally quiets down, the betrayal of dawn is beginning to lighten the sky, the moon fading, and the idea of this night being over feels impossible. For a short while, they breathe each other in, her forehead pressed to his collarbones, his hand trailing up and down her spine. Her head aches and her eyelids fall heavy over gritty, exhausted eyes, but she still fights sleep, stubbornly resisting another day, the beginning of a life without John B and Sarah. “I can’t stay here,” she says, finally, pushing back from him. “I should go home.”

He reaches up to catch her chin as she watches her hands curled close to his chest, reluctant to go. “Kie,” he murmurs, lifting her gaze to meet his. He moves forward to kiss her, and she flattens her palms against his skin, stopping him even as her eyes fall to his lips.

“JJ,” she says, an exhale more than his name. “We -- I mean, I --”

“Shit,” he sighs, and it almost sounds like a laugh, formed from expectations he wished hadn’t come true. “Okay.” His eyes flutter close, and she watches him draw back into himself, close all the doors, like he wants to turn off the lights and pretend he’s not even here. But then, he looks at her again, gently smoothing a curl behind her ear. “It’s just --” he starts, and inhales again, wetting his lips as he struggles to keep his eyes on her deep brown ones. “Can we go back to normal tomorrow?” Her eyebrows push together a fraction of an inch, and he focuses on the wrinkle there, a thousand times easier than holding her gaze. “Please,” he says when she inhales to say something. “I don’t want to be alone.”

It’s the first time either of them have been completely honest all night, and the most he’s said in hours. “Yeah,” she says, agreeing without thinking. Making it about him instead of admitting to herself that she wants to stay, that she doesn’t want to be alone either. “Yeah, okay.” She allows herself to be kissed, to be held and kept softly. JJ twists his fingers in her curls, skims his lips over her hairline before pressing his forehead against hers.

He tucks his hand against the side of her neck, his fingers spanning from her ear to the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “It’s gonna be alright,” he promises, and they both pretend he’s saying it to her. She’s seen JJ cheerful and stubborn, breaking and angry, seen him a thousand different ways. But never like this, kind and soft, quiet in the grey, grieving dawn. Eventually, she falls asleep under his touch and reassuring whispers.

The morning is just as sticky and unforgiving as every other that summer, and she wakes up damp and sticky with sweat. JJ is stretched out on his stomach, arms tucked under his head, mouth slack and hair falling over his eyes. Her head still hurts, and now so do her back and thighs, and she stretches her hand out across the rumpled sheets, tracing the red lines she’d left down his back. He blinks awake, closing his mouth and freezing when he feels her touch on his skin.

“Hey,” she murmurs.

“Hey,” he replies.

She waits for him to say something, but he just watches her, his clear blue eyes unflinching. She bites her lip. “I should get home,” she says, keeping her eyes on the knuckle tracing over his back, his gaze too heavy to hold.

“Yeah,” he says, “okay.” Neither of them move. The world waits on a hair trigger, and JJ’s more familiar with this kind of silence than she is. She wants him to break it first, to be the impulsive hothead he always is, to make the choice for both of them. But he doesn’t, and the moment crumbles, and she sits up and goes in search of her clothes.

He doesn’t say anything until she stoops to pick up her bag, sweatshirt in hand, ready to shove it into the biggest pocket. “Kie,” he says, and she stops dead, looking up at him. She doesn’t know what she wants him to say, but she deflates anyway when he just asks “my shirt?”

She’d forgotten she was wearing it. Pulling it off, she feels his hungry eyes trace up her bare chest as she untangles the drug rug before pulling it down and arranging it around her hips. She tosses him the shirt, and he holds her gaze as he flips it right side out and tugs it on. They stand on either side of the disheveled living room, daring the other person to say something, move, do anything first. He knows what he wants, what he can’t have, what he’s convinced himself he never will. She remembers the line she drew, the boundary she’d very clearly set. He chooses to respect it while she waits for him to break the rules.

Birds sing in the unflinching morning, and a breeze stirs the hair around her face. She slings her backpack over her shoulder. The sun blazes as gulls call and waves lap against the dock. He tilts his chin back, like he always does just before a fight. She turns to go.

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atc74 · 4 years

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Soul to Souls - Fourteen

Warnings: Doctor’s visit, a bit of domestic fluff, angst, loss, grief, overprotective!Dean, sex (fem receiving oral, p in v), cliffhanger

This chapter may contain content that could be triggering to some readers - please see the chapter tags.

Summary: Since she was four years old, Annaleigh has seen the same boy in her dreams. For twenty-five years, she grows to love the boy that has now turned into a man. Dean Winchester just lost the only family he has ever known. The guilt drives him to work harder than ever before. He works to forget the pain, until he meets Annaleigh and she turns his world upside down. What she learns changes both of their lives forever, but what will he do when he discovers the truth? Will he accept it or run back to the only life he has ever known?

Pairing: Dean x OC Annaleigh

Word Count: 3950 (a long one, I KNOW!)

Beta’d by: @amanda-teaches, @katehuntington, thank you both for being my guides! Dividers and cover art by the amazingly talented @talesmaniac89.

A/N: This was my very first series I ever wrote four years ago in September 2016 and I am so happy and proud to bring this back home. Thank you to everyone that is enjoying the story so far. There is so much more to come!

Like Dean’s scent? Buy it here from @scentsfromthebunker!

Soul to Souls Master List

“Wait...what? Excuse me? Did you say ‘babies’? As in plural?” Anna looked from the doctor to Dean and back again with a look of shock on her face. Anna had seen the visions of their twins, but it still took her by surprise to discover it was actually happening, inside of her.

“Well, yes,” Dr. Ryan chuckled lightly. “Here we have Baby A on the left. And right here, we have Baby B, but if you look closer you can see Baby C nestled on the right. Baby B seems to be measuring smaller than it’s siblings, but I assure you that is completely normal for multiple births. Congratulations, Mom and Dad; you’re having triplets! But, they are not identical. I see three separate sacs. All that means is that your babies will be fraternal triplets.” She moved the wand again and they could hear the second heartbeat, followed by the third.

Anna turned her face towards Dean and saw a single tear fall from his eye. He stood up from his chair and grabbed her face firmly with both hands kissing her full on the mouth right in front of the doctor. “I love you, Red,” he whispered against her lips.

“I love you, too, Dean,” she echoed. What about the vision I saw? I only saw two babies, not three. What does this mean? She quickly threw up a silent prayer to God, hoping He would answer this time.

“Okay, you two. I am showing gestation at seven weeks and 3 days. Does that sound about right? That gives us a due date of May 3. Spring babies!” Dr. Ryan proclaimed as she wheeled the machine away. “I am going to let you two have a few minutes. Get cleaned up and dressed and the nurse will be back with some information for you to take home.” She patted Dean gently on the back as she left the room.

Anna reached for the towel to start cleaning the gel from her belly, but Dean beat her to it. For a rough and tumble hunter, she already knew him to be surprisingly tender and gentle. He reached for her clothes as Anna removed the robe, turning to place it back on the table. She quickly put on her underpants and jeans and grabbed her shirt, pulling it over her head. She felt Dean’s arms wrap around her from behind, and he placed his hands over her belly.

“You are gonna be an amazing mom, Red. I can’t wait to see you growing with our babies, and I can’t wait to meet them. They are going to be so in love with you, just like I am. ” Dean sniffed, placing his chin on her shoulder.

Turning in his arms, she saw his eyes well up. “Babe, please don’t cry.”

“You know, my entire life, I’ve only experienced pain, and loss, and then you came along. I think these are the first happy tears I’ve ever cried,” he admitted. “I’m the luckiest man in the whole world.

“Dean, I’m already the luckiest girl in the whole world. I have you. Now we have three babies on the way. It couldn’t get any better than this.” She leaned her head into his and they just stood there in their own little world until the knock at the door brought them back.

A few weeks after that first appointment, Dean made the decision to give up hunting, and only provide research and support for other hunters now. He had started picking up shifts at the garage in town so he could be home for Annaleigh during the pregnancy, and their children once they were born. The decision had all but solidified for Dean the minute she took the first test back in Sioux Falls.

Dean had always had overprotective tendencies when it came to his family, especially his brother, but now he had gone all mother hen on his girlfriend. He made sure she ate right, took all her vitamins, and he even enrolled her in a prenatal yoga class.

With Dean being home every night, they fell into a very domestic routine. They were always cooking and cleaning, and the sex couldn’t have been more amazing. Annaleigh was exhausted most of the time, but the doctor said that was normal.

A few weeks later, Dean left for the garage earlier than usual. Anna took her time getting out of bed and ready, throwing on a pair of light blue leggings and a navy sweater, quickly coming to the realization that carrying triplets meant her figure was growing faster than she could have imagined and nothing really fit anymore. She really needed to get some maternity clothes, sooner rather than later.

Anna was walking to her studio for her first appointment of the day with Alyssa, who had pulled a few muscles in her back during some...extracurricular activity. Since she was a close friend, Anna didn’t mind opening a little earlier for her. Alyssa was just getting out of her car as Anna unlocked the door. Anna set her keys down and was suddenly overtaken with an excruciating pain that felt as if she were being split in half.

She dropped to her knees in the small kitchenette just as Alyssa walked through the open door. “Annaleigh?! What happened?” She was on her knees next to her in an instant.

“I don’t know...a cramp, maybe?” Anna whimpered as another one ran through her middle. She rolled to her side and clutched her abdomen and heard Alyssa gasp.

“Anna, don’t move okay? I am calling for an ambulance, then I am calling Dean.” Alyssa’s voice was shaking and Anna knew there was something terribly wrong; she could feel it.

“Alyssa, what aren’t you telling me?” Anna asked, fear now evident in her voice.

“Honey, you’re bleeding.” Alyssa was crying as she placed the calls, holding tight to her friend’s hand.

Doctor Ryan was all the things a good physician should be in a situation such as this; she was kind and empathetic, but Anna could tell immediately it was not going to be good news as her doctor walked into the hospital room. Dean was seated next to her on the bed, and she reached for his hand the minute they saw her face.

“Annaleigh, Dean, I am so sorry; one of your fetuses has spontaneously aborted,” Doctor Ryan began with a tear in her eye.

“Doc, what does that mean?” Dean practically whispered, squeezing Annaleigh’s hand.

“It means that one of your babies has died. At your first ultrasound, I mentioned that one of the babies was smaller than the other two. They were growing much faster and Baby B just didn’t have enough room to grow and thrive. I know it doesn’t help, but that can happen with multiples. I am so sorry, I should have warned you of the possibility.

“In spite of your loss, the other two are doing extremely well, maybe even because of it. That being said, I am putting you on bed rest for a couple of weeks as a precaution and have you come back then for a follow up,” she explained before apologizing once more. She slipped out of the room, giving the grieving parents time alone.

Annaleigh felt Dean’s grip tighten on her hand, and she could feel his eyes on her. She lifted her head and met his eyes, tears falling freely. Anna released his hand and reached out for him with both arms, scooting over in the small bed. Dean’s large frame dwarfed hers as they clung to each other, grieving the loss of a child they hadn’t even known, but couldn’t have loved any less.

Carding her hand through his hair, she felt him rubbing small circles on her swollen middle as sobs left him. They comforted one another the best they could through their own pain. Thinking back to the visions she had seen, the loss of this child explained why Anna only saw two babies. Perhaps Dr. Ryan was right; maybe the loss of one child meant the survival of the other two.

Annaleigh was released from the hospital a couple of hours later with strict instructions to take it easy for the next two weeks until her follow up appointment. No working, no lifting, no chores of any kind. If she thought Dean couldn’t get more overprotective, she was terribly mistaken.

After they returned home and Anna fell asleep on the couch, Dean went to the grocery store. With a full refrigerator and cupboards, he meal prepped for the entire week while she slept. Less time in the kitchen meant more time with her after work.

He made arrangements for all her friends to come check on her throughout the day so that she never needed to be alone. While she was grateful for her friends coming by regularly, even if it was at Dean’s insistence, there came a point when she just wanted to be alone. Everyone had a breaking point and by the end of the first week, Annaleigh hit hers.

“Stop!” The shout pierced the otherwise peaceful evening Dean had planned.

Wide eyed and slightly taken aback, Dean gaped at her.

“Dean, I’m sorry. I love you and I appreciate you taking care of me, but stop,” Anna sighed heavily, tears filling her brilliant blue eyes. “I cannot take any more of your smothering!”

“Red, I’m sor-.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just stop. I’m not cold, I’m not hungry. I’m not a child and I don’t need babysitting! All I want is to be alone! Stop scheduling my friends to spend time with me, they have lives and jobs, and don’t need to be here all fucking day!”

“I’m just trying to take care of you the best I know how,” Dean stiffened, his voice cracking. He stood from the couch and headed for the stairs.

“Where are you going?” she demanded.

“You said you wanted to be alone, so I’m honoring your request and going to bed, in the guest room, so you can have some space from me,” Dean sniffed, not even turning to face her.

“Dean, baby, stop please and look at me,” she pleaded, urging him to turn around.

Steeling himself against the flood of emotions coming from both of them, Dean slowly turned to face her, wiping a hand down his face in an effort to clear the tears that he had shed in his failure to make her feel safe.

“I’m sorry for being ungrateful, please come sit with me,” she started. Once he returned to the sofa, she snuggled up to him. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I’m feeling frustrated because I can’t do anything, and I just need to be by myself sometimes. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you, but I need you to stop with all your worrying, and just be with me.”

“Red, I am here with you whenever I’m not working,” Dean argued, failing to see her point, when her face fell.

“No, Dean. Not just present, not taking care of me, but here with me. I’m not the only one that went through a loss, is going through a loss. We haven’t had the time to ourselves to grieve the loss of one of our babies, but I don’t want to do it alone, I want us to do it together,” Anna cried softly into his shirt.

Knowing she was right is what hurt the most. Dean shifted his body, pulling her into his arms, and, for the first time since they left the hospital, the two of them found solace in each other and grieved for the child they would never meet.

Two weeks later, Dean and Anna sat in Dr. Ryan’s office, listening intently as the doctor talked. Everything was looking normal and both babies were growing. Doctor Ryan, pleased with the test results, lifted the bed rest, but left some restrictions in place. Anna was instructed to cut back her hours at work and the doctor wanted to see her every two weeks instead of monthly, which would be typical for a single pregnancy.

Dean honored her wishes to be alone during the day, for the most part. He had stopped asking her friends to come over while he was at work; instead, Dean came home every day for lunch, and cut back on his own hours. He only worked every other Saturday now, and instead of hovering, he just spent time with her.

“Dean?” Anna murmured as they laid in bed one night a few weeks later, not having really discussed it since the night she blew up. “It’s okay, Baby. We are going to be okay.”

“I know, Honey. It’s just a lot to process. First, you tell me you had a vision of twin sons, then we find out it’s three, then th-this, and I can’t help but feel that maybe it really isn’t in the cards for us. What if the doctor is wrong? What if your visions aren’t real?” Dean’s voice was cracking, and she knew he was trying to keep it together for her. She pulled him closer to her.

“I don’t know either. But, I do know that we can get through it, together. Just...you have to talk to me, Dean. I know this put a lot on you, feeling like you have to take care of me all the time, but please don’t bottle it up like you have done your entire life, okay? Promise me that if you need to talk to me, you will. We are in this together, and I am not going anywhere. God has told me His plan for us and I have to have faith in that, just like I have faith in you, in us,” Annaleigh promised him as they held each other close.

Pretty soon it was Christmas and Anna could barely see her feet, even though she was only a little over halfway through her pregnancy. This, of course, made sex more challenging than it had been in the first few months, but with the hormones raging inside her, she was not going to let that stop them. Since Doctor Ryan had lifted her bed rest, she assured them intercourse would be fine, but cautioned them to be careful. Since then, they had pretty much stuck to the basics, but with Dean, even vanilla was incredible.

Anna had only one client one late December day, and it gave her plenty of time to contemplate what she was going to do for Dean when he got home from work. Or rather, what she was going to do to him. As soon as she was done for the day, she closed up shop and headed back to the house, feeling excited and already highly aroused.

She had recently been shopping online for sexy lingerie that didn’t leave her feeling fat. She was surprised to find several styles online that would accommodate her ever changing figure that were also incredibly sexy. The best part was they were delivered the day before. Dean was going to lose it and she couldn’t wait, feeling her panties getting wet just thinking about it.

She ran a nice warm bath with the lemon bubbles that Dean loved. She scrubbed, shaved, and lotioned from head to toe to make sure every inch was kissably soft. She left all the lights off on the main floor, leaving only a couple of candles and the fireplace to light the space. Anna placed a few beers in an ice bucket for Dean on the coffee table while she opted for sparkling water.

As she lay propped up on the couch cushions, trying to make herself comfortable and still look sexy, she looked around, pleased with the ambience of the room and dripping with anticipation for Dean to return home. She didn’t know how much longer she could wait before she took care of her own needs. Just a little bit longer. She was rewarded for her patience when she heard the rumble of the Impala just a few minutes later.

“Honey, I’m home,” Dean called out as he walked in the door.

“I’m on the couch, Babe,” she greeted him.

She could not see the kitchen door where she was, but she heard him drop his boots. The moment he hit the archway leading to the living room, she practically heard his jaw hit the floor. He let out a low growl as he slowly stalked toward her on the couch.

“My God, Red,” he whistled in appreciation. “You look so fucking sexy.” He reached down and grabbed her hands, pulling her upright so she was sitting, facing him as he dropped to his knees on the floor in front of her. His long fingers traced the peek-a-boo cups of the delicate lace on the black and sapphire blue babydoll negligee.

He placed one hand on each knee and gently spread her legs open, a low moan rumbling from his chest. “Crotchless panties? You naughty girl. Someone’s in a mood.” He wrapped his hands behind her knees and pulled them so her ass was on the edge of the couch, keeping her legs spread for him. Leaning down, he trailed his nose from her ample breasts, down to her navel, peppering her rounded belly with kisses. Dean stopped at the waistband of her barely there panties, inhaling her scent. “Smell so fucking good, Red.” He ran two long calloused fingers over her dripping folds without interference from the fabric.

Anna moaned as he traced her wet folds, opening even wider for him. “Dean.”

“You are soaked, Red. Is this all for me?” He leered at her, his eyes dark with want as he brought his fingers to his lips, licking her slick from them.

“This is always for you. Only for you. Because of you,” she murmured.

He licked one stripe up her center with the flat of his tongue, stopping just short of where she needed him. He continued this torture for minutes. She couldn’t take any more teasing and grabbed him by the head to lead his face to the sweet bundle of nerves that had been throbbing with desire for him all day. It did not take long for him to take over and dive in, taking her clit between his luscious lips and sucking until she lost it, free falling into the abyss of her orgasm. A string of filth fell out of her mouth followed by his name.

“You are the sexiest thing ever, you know that?” he panted against her skin as his lips sought out every inch from her center to her swollen breasts up to her neck. “I can’t get enough of you. There will never be enough of you, Annaleigh.”

He quickly shrugged off his clothes, letting his thick, hard cock spring free from its constraints. He eased his way back up her body, paying special attention to her overly sensitive breasts and nipples. He freed them from the lace cups, taking the firm nubs between the thumb and forefinger of each hand and rolling them just enough to set free a new flood of arousal down her thighs. The wanton moans escaping her mouth spurred Dean on and he took one in his mouth, running his tongue over it expertly with the just the right amount of pressure and suction. He was the only man who was able to make her cum from this alone and she did, as if on command.

“Damn, Red. You cumming with just some nipple play is fucking hot,” he moaned into her mouth before he continued kissing her.

“Babe, I just need to feel you inside me, so you better fuck me now before I do it myself,” Anna moaned, coming down from her second high.

“As much as I’d love to see that, I gotta feel that tight pussy, Red,” Dean groaned, stroking his length as he helped her up.

Although her belly was not too big yet, it still had became difficult for Dean to fuck her into the mattress or couch like he used to. Together, they had discovered a few new positions that they felt would work well for them. Dean held her hand as she turned around so that she was facing the back of the couch, with one leg on the armrest. He placed one foot on the couch and entered her from behind, agonizingly slow. He set a slow pace with his thrusting, heeding the advice of the doctor, and avoiding deep penetration.

Although his movements remained shallow, he picked up the pace as she held onto the back of the sofa. Anna could feel her third orgasm building again from deep within her core. “Faster, Dean, faster,” she pleaded with him. “Oh, Baby, you fill me up so good. Your cock feels so good, Dean,” she moaned.

“Cum with me, Red. I’m so close, I want to feel you cum so hard around me,” Dean grunted in her ear. As if she wasn’t sexy enough, hearing her get filthy turned him on even more. He pulled her up until her back was flush with his chest and lowered her leg, pushing them together. He could move faster, but it would prevent him from going too deep.

Anna reached down to her swollen clit, craving the additional friction. She threw her head back, meeting Dean’s strong shoulder. He reached around and covered her hand with his, helping her cross the finish line just before he did.

They collapsed, exhausted side by side on the couch, trying to regain control. “You are amazing, Dean. I love you so much,” Annaleigh confessed to him as she cupped his cheek, and he closed his eyes, leaning into her touch.

“I am so lucky to have you, Red. I couldn’t love anyone more,” he confirmed. With that, they dozed off, lazily tucked into one another.

Just into her third trimester, Annaleigh had three months of pregnancy remaining. Doctor appointments were every other week for the last trimester, but this week’s visit included another ultrasound. She and Dean had discussed it and, initially, they decided to let the genders of their babies be a surprise, but after encountering too many disagreements when planning the nursery, they made the choice to find out. Neither of them cared, as long as both babies were healthy.

Dean had dropped her off at the clinic a few minutes early, saying he had to run to the shop, but would be back for the ultrasound. He had been acting really weird lately, but she figured it was nerves and his protective nature kicking in again. With the most recent snowfall, he wouldn’t let her drive herself anymore, so she sat in the lobby, reading and waiting.

After about thirty minutes, the nurse finally called her name. Just as she was getting up from her chair, Dean came rushing through the doors. “Hi, Honey. Sorry I’m late. There was an accident on Main,” he explained, following her back to the exam room, his hand on the small of her back.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to have an exam today, just the ultrasound. She lifted her shirt as Dr. Ryan rubbed the cold gel over her swollen middle.

“Mom and Dad, there is a note here that you want to find out the genders finally?” Doc asked.

They both nodded, holding hands as she worked the wand over Anna’s belly.

Dr. Ryan continued. “Okay. Here is Baby A, and it looks like we have a healthy baby boy! Let’s take a look at Baby C…”

Did you like it? The nicest thing you can do for a writer is reblog their work and tell them, and others, how much you like it!

Yeah, go ahead, yell at me. It’s okay; I can take it. And I deserve it.

Soul to Souls tags: @emoryhemsworth @flamencodiva @iwantthedean @jensengirl83 @deanwanddamons @smol-and-grumpy @kbl1313 @waywardbeanie @whatareyousearchingfordean @princessmisery666 @shy-violet-soul @lastcallatrockysbar @winchesterxfamilybusiness @fangirlxwritesx67 @squirrelnotsam @michellethetvaddict @magssteenkamp @wonder-cole

#dean x annaleigh #dean x ofc #dean winchester x ofc #dean winchester fluff #dean winchester angst #dean winchester smut #tw: miscarriage

32 notes · View notes

reversecreek · 4 years

Note

lily for magda (thinking about figs feeling evil), tulip for cricket, marigold for ziggy, chrysanthemum for bradley, belladonna for nyla

lily : how does your muse view their mother ?

magda doesn’t know a lot abt her mum. she knows vague snippets n details bt they’re all very elusive. it’s kind of a tricky subject where her mum’s concerned bc when she was younger she’d come up w all these assumptions abt how her mum was n who she’d be if she were with her but the rational part of magda was like..... u don’t know any of this. ur literally making things up. it’s kind of hard for a kid to have that vital person missing from their life n to resist the urge to fill in the blanks with their own projections so the space feels less empty. it’s like having a tooth missing n ur tongue always going back to poke at the spot in ur gum. there’s a constant reminder of loss in that. magda knows her mum liked to sing bc her dad said once she’d always sing to her belly when she was pregnant. this is a lot of the reason why magda has always cared so much abt music bc she took this fact in her fist n grasped it tight n never let go n in a way grew parts of herself around it. it’s like............. i feel like her mum dying in childbirth gave her lots of issues when it comes to her identity n like. who she is n who she wants to be.......... bc of magda’s issues w her dad i feel like she got into this habit growing up of rly putting who her mum could have been on a pedestal n basing everything around that.... she’d be like I’m More Like Her (a belief which was only accelerated bc her dad would drunkenly say she looked so much like her) n cling onto that so she liked herself more bc the other option was her dad who she loves but he’s also an incredibly flawed person n they hv a complicated relationship...... i think as she’s gotten older she’s realised her mum cld very well have been that way too n putting people on pedestals isn’t the way to go about things but. idk. as a kid she was kind of obsessed w this idea of her n this idea that her mum being gone was the beginning n end of everything wrong in her life. for the most part now magda accepts she never knew her n sometimes even feels stupid for grieving her at all bc she never knew her to grieve in the first place but. there’s a tiny part of magda tht still hangs on to the comfort of what she could have had n it’s obvious by the fact she still keeps a photograph of her folded up in her pillow. she loves the mum she made up in her head n she wishes she got to meet her. there’s this sense tht maybe then she wouldn’t feel like this culmination of missing parts more than a person if she’d had that in her life. sighs n lks away holding my dyed black emo bang.....

tulip : how does your muse view people in general ?

cricket is like. the strangest little anomaly of a person FGHKSFGHSFKGH bc like. u would rly think that after everything he’s been thru he would just have this absolutely jaded view of people and life in general and i wouldn’t even......... blame him for it if he did like. i’d understand completely bc he’s experienced A Lot of bad stuff. n yet somehow he just.... idk. i think i wrote in a reply once this comparison of cricket n a cockroach in the sense that they have this incredibly reinforced exoskeleton n even if they’re stomped flat they can keep living n bounce back from it n that’s very him but it’s more specifically the hope inside him. he has this little candle lit that good things can still happen midst all of the terrible things n i genuinely can’t see it snuffing out at any point even tho sometimes he might want it to. sometimes i think he even gets into these frames of mind where it jst infuriates the fk out of him bc in his head he’s like why do u even think good shit can happen when u have sm overwhelming evidence to the contrary but then he’s also like. look u can dwell on the bad or u can notice the way the light falls thru the leaves in the trees and u can think to urself inside ur head as u listen to someone u love talking abt something that makes them happy ‘hey this feeling is nice n there’s a dozen others like it’. idk. against all odds he’s an optimist. he has tinnitus in his left ear n sometimes he pretends the ringing is angels trying to talk to him. he likes to search for the silver linings in things to make them bearable n that’s how he gets by. obviously he knows there’s evil in the world n that a lot of people can be shit bc he has firsthand experience w that but he also believes there are people to serve as the antithesis to that n he wants to focus on them bc like. why give bad stuff the time of day. not necessarily always a positive coping mechanism (if u bottle up bad feelings n thoughts they leak thru one way or another aka his overwhelming anxiety) but like.... i think there’s a lot of bravery in that n i respect him for it i won’t lie. he cld have become very bitter bt instead he’s like that quote that’s like 'the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it'. suddenly slaps his little anxious rump (supportive) (affectionate)

marigold : is your muse prone to jealousy ? how might they handle envious feelings ?

it’s hard to say w ziggy............... i feel like he doesn’t want to think he’s prone to jealousy bc he’s like i’m literally a god wdym i simply wld never give a fk bc i know i’m above all else................. but like. do u actually believe that ziggy. do u. FKGJHKSJGHFGSHFGKSHGKFHG. he’s good at convincing himself at least........... has me fooled too most of the time. bt. thinks abt this.............. i feel like he doesn’t tend to get jealous over ppl he hooks up w a lot of the time bt there’s definitely a few select ppl he might.......... n then he doesn’t rly know what that feeling is bc he’s so unused to feeling it so he’s like wtf why am i so fking pissed off over the thought of this person fking that person? like literally doesn’t even. connect the dots n make the logical conclusion bc it jst seems so bizarre n nonsensical to him. rly is awful at working out his own feelings like. he cld just suddenly explode one day n have to smash a bunch of shit in a junkyard n after his chest is heaving n he has all this broken stuff around him n he’s just like yo wtf was that man forreal lmfaoooooooooo..... like he just doesn’t even get how his own emotions work it’s tragic n it’s men for u. w anxious feelings he represses them a lot he doesn’t rly understand what they r or know how to recognise them........... i honestly feel like he has a lot of anxiety surrounding his mum esp w her dating n like some of the guys they’ve both had to deal w that she’s dated in the past.......... i doubt he processes that healthily or expresses it healthily either..... probably contributes to the tensions between him n his mum they hv a lot of underlying issues that come out in the form of bickering n petty disagreements...... probably a huge contributor to him acting out so terribly in high skl was just all this pent up worried energy with no means of making sense of itself or like. place to go. like shaking a coke bottle over n over n finally having to crack the lid n let it fizz on something. i also think he probably swallowed a lot of jealousy growing up whenever other kids had gd relationships w their fathers or parents in general probably ws kind of like lmfaooooo yo why don’t mine love me like that. in his head...... so ya. i think he copes w anxious feelings by acting out n also fucking if we’re being honest......... it helps him let off steam <3 king of clapping cheeks ig....

chrysanthemum : how does your muse express romantic love ? how do they feel about love as a concept ?

bradley is kind of hard to read romantically like from an outside perspective but slides on my thin rimmed spectacles n picks up my scalpel to delve right in to the nitty gritty of her brain... omg... that sounded... kind of scary actually but. it’s ok. basically settles in. bradley struggles to verbalise her feelings in this regard but also in a general sense honestly.... like she’s spent a lifetime having any vulnerable or negative feeling shut down....... her dad’s the type of personality where it’s like... u can’t win. even tho he’s narcissistic n thinks he’s a god if u compliment him or express affection he’ll act pleased but there’ll also be this register in his eyes where he thinks less of u for it. so this rly had a domino effect in bradley’s emotional expression in all grounds of life...... romance is probably the most frivolous concept to tony so bradley definitely internalised some of these views n wld feel stupid for ever taking anything seriously in that regard or rly investing herself..... she also just. idk. love has only ever left bite marks in bradley’s world so she’d kind of like ‘why wld i ever expose my tender spots n open myself up to someone just so they can sink their teeth in’. i will say tho that like. despite that she can in rare instances develop those feelings n it’s always like..... quite a struggle for her when she does. she doesn’t rly understand it or how to deal w it. she finds talking about it hard n she feels childish or weak in the eyes of whoever knows how she’s feeling. it takes a long time n a lot of work to earn it bt bradley in love is like. ur the only person on the planet who knows how gentle she can b. she’d literally like. touch the face of this one guy i wrote her being in love w when he was sad so gently it was shocking it ws like a love tht deep unlocked a whole other part of her she didn’t know existed. sex is a big part of her love expression jst like. a lot of it. so much. JHGSFKHGSFGKHFKGSHG let’s get it.......... she’s a ride or die n doesn’t do anything in halves. she has a nasty habit of pushing good things away n also wld probably do this to protect the other person bc her world is a never ending shit show with her father’s presence in every room even when he isn’t physically there. she wldn’t wna subject someone she loved to the danger of that bc she hates it enough herself so. idk. smiles w hand on hip. love isn’t something bradley thinks is on the menu fr her bc she’s only ever known it to be hard or mean n why bother trying when that’s the case. it feels like there’s always small print attached tht will hurt her in the end n nothing is free or genuine. very doomed outlook on love in general tbh.

belladonna : how does your muse respond to silence ? do they take comfort in soundlessness , or seek to fill the void with noise ?

nyla honestly doesn’t mind silence at all........ they always wake up rly early in the morning no matter what time they went to bed. it’s like someone programmed an oven timer into their brain n often when they wake up at 6am or something they’ll go on walks around irving tottering in their own little world which is quite a quiet experience in itself when the rest of the world’s asleep........... always off on impromptu adventures they came up w on the spot.......... sometimes they get lost in their own train of thought too so they just randomly fall silent bc they’re having a whole conversation w themselves inside their head or like. writing a whole children’s story abt an iguana in a trench coat floating in a hot air balloon smoking a little vintage pipe all the way to peru. honestly for every 1 thing nyla says there’s about 4987295749572592745 things they don’t say tht are x100 times stranger n more nonsensical they sort of let it all drift thru their head like an open sieve for the most part. having said tht i think in order to sleep at night they probably need some sort of white noise or smthn................. it’s handy living in a beach house bc they just leave the window open to let the ocean gush bt sometimes if they’ve snuck into like. mido’s bed fr the night or someone’s bed idk the sound of them breathing works too................. they used to always sleep w bob ross playing on loop n that was rly comforting to them esp bc he reminds them a lot of their dad w his calming voice n energy.............. sometimes they’d have taken smthn n they’d literally hallucinate it as their dad instead of bob ross n this happened so many times in a row fr a period of time tht when they finally watched it sober they were like wtf since when did they recast my dad in this show...... KJHFGSHFGKSHFKGH but also. frowns... bit sad considering.

#magda | memes #cricket | memes #ziggy | memes #bradley | memes #nyla | memes #death tw #grief tw #anxiety tw #fortyfivcs #drugs tw #abuse tw #i think thts all tws theyre like not covered in detail obviously bt still #i put under read more bc i wrote literal essays fr everything idk what happened to me....#also thank u fr the ask sexy :yum:

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don-quixotine · 4 years

Text

Chapter 6 of The Wall Between Us is up, fam

This is the one where shit hits the fan.

You can read from the start here or go below the cut for the entire chapter. Enjoy the tears >:)

Fic summary: Marinette is left to pick up the pieces after losing her chance with Adrien and having Master Fu give up his memories to protect the Miraculous Box. She struggles to find her ground as the new Guardian, and when it all becomes too much, finds unexpected support in Luka Couffaine. Simultaneously, Adrien is learning how to navigate his emotions and slowly begins to realize important truths about his feelings for Kagami, Marinette, and Ladybug. Will Marinette and Adrien be able to sort through their feelings and do what's best for the Miraculous team?

CHAPTER 6 If it weren’t for his reflexes and his sudden kick into survival mode, he would’ve gotten hit. Adrien tumbled down to the side just in time to evade an attack from Kagami’s Akuma. He ran as fast as he could, desperately looking for a place to hide. Seeing as the neighboring shops and alleyways were flooding with civilians who were witness to the Akuma, he had to settle for the crevice between two large vans to transform.

He swiftly opened the communication device on his baton and typed and S.O.S. message to Ladybug, as well as his plan to direct the Akuma to an empty field by the riverbank. She would know which one he meant. They made a point of leading all erratic Akumas to this spot. It was in an old industrial zone where immediate damage could be minimized.

Having wrote that, he snapped the baton, clicked it back into his belt and jumped back into action.

This one’s gonna give me nightmares, Chat Noir decided as he got a better look of the Akuma. It floated hauntingly slow, crying as it hit its victims. Its fixed crying expression got more accented every time it hit a new victim. It called itself “The Griever,” and its power was to hypnotize people and give them hallucinations of their most painful memories. Chat gulped as he merely missed one of the beam attacks. He felt the energy buzzing closely to his ear.

Don’t get hit, don’t get hit!

“Hey, you, Casper!” he shouted, claiming the Akuma’s attention and effectively preventing it from claiming new victims. “Aren’t you looking for this?” He flashed his ring at the monster.

The Griever growled and charged speedily at Chat, taking him by surprise.

“Ack!” He vaulted out of the way and started leading the Akuma to the riverbank. “Hurry up, Ladybug!” he pleaded to the winds.

-----

Unaware of the show Chat Noir was putting up for the rest of Paris to see, Luka and Marinette happily sat at a riverside park, sittung under a honey locust tree and quietly enjoying the afternoon nonethewiser to the mayhem a couple blocks west of them.

Luka’s head rested on Marinette’s lap. He sighed lazily at Marinette’s fingers, which combed softly through his hair.Marinette closed her eyes, gently placing her attention on the sound of the wind ruffling the feathery leaves of the honey locust and Luka’s steady breath.

The comfortable silence got abruptly interrupted by a sudden, constant string of wailing and crying. Both Luka and Marinette perked up as they witnessed the sight of Chat Noir frantically vaulting from rooftop to rooftop on the other side of the Seine, as a ghastly Akuma shrieked and charged after him.

The pair looked at the superhero with slightly hanging jaws and a moment of stupefaction.

“LADYBUG!” Chat Noir screamed to no one in particular, as he tried his best to outrun the Akuma.

Marinette suddenly jolted. “I, uh… I need to go to the restroom!” she said, quickly springing to her feet and rushing out of view before Luka could stop her. He couldn’t help but notice this was one of those circumstances where if he had just told her that he knew her secret, he could simply have said to not sweat it and that he’d wait for her on the Liberty.

Sadly, he hadn’t gotten around to gathering the necessary courage for that, so he was left to his luck, wondering how long it’d take for Marinette to come back.

“Ladybug, thank god!” Chat Noir exclaimed as Ladybug joined the site of the action. “Mind the beams,” he said. “If you get hit it will give you hallucinations of your worst memories. The Akuma is on the necklace.”

Ladybug made a face. “Yikes. Who hurt them?”

Chat knew the question was rhetorical, but he still felt guilty. He hoped it didn’t show.

“Lucky charm!”

“What in the world are we supposed to do with duct tape?” he complained, evidently frustrated.

For what it’s worth, Ladybug thought it was pretty straightforward.

“You distract it and I’ll charge at it. When it hits me, you destroy the necklace.”

“And the duct tape?”

“Summon your Cataclysm.”

After he did, she ripped a couple pieces and put one over Chat’s mouth and another on hers.

As she calculated, Ladybug got hit. Chat tried to focus on the task at hand instead of how much it pained him to see Ladybug cry. He managed to evade every hit from the Griever and used the fact it was ready to take Ladybug’s earrings to gingerly touch the necklace, suddenly reverting Kagami back to normal and with her, the rest of the grieving Parisians.

Ladybug released the Miraculous Cure, and everything was back to normal.

She was surprised to see Kagami on the sidewalk, still crying. It was rare for an Akuma victim to continue feeling the negative emotion that had landed them in trouble. In these cases, Chat and she stayed as long as they needed to calm down and reassure the victim.

“Hello, Kagami,” Ladybug said gently. “Can I sit with you?”

Kagami sniffed, not providing a particular answer.

“You want to talk about what’s making you so sad? Is there anything we can do to help?”

“M-my boyfriend broke up with me!” she cried. “He broke up with me even though I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Ladybug took a deep breath and gave Chat a look for some back up. She was used to dealing with Parisians in distress, but for once, she felt at a loss for words.

“I– We’re very sorry to hear that,” said Chat, softly.

Ladybug glared at him as if saying, Is that all you got?

“He-he said he doesn’t want to b-be with me because he-he doesn’t love me…”

Ladybug hissed in solidary pain. “It’s tough when people we really care about don’t–can’t feel the same we do.”

The words were as uncomfortable to her as they were for Chat. The topic was too close to the wounds in their own partnership.

“But,” she continued. “Uh… sometimes, these things happen for the best, even though we don’t realize them at first. I know it’s painful right now, but you’re a very strong girl, okay? And also, any boy you date should count himself lucky.”

Kagami sniffed, then nodded.

“Do you need us to take you anywhere?” Chat asked.

Kagami shook her head. “I… I need to be alone for a while. Thank you for rescuing me.”

She got up and left, giving the pair of superheroes no chance to insist on the offer.

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear back from her again soon,” said Ladybug.

“Yeah…”

“Anyway, I should go. My, uh… boyfriend is waiting for me,” Ladybug said.

“You got a boyfriend? Why hadn’t you told me?” Chat said surprised.

“Not now, Chat,” Ladybug said with a tired tone, sensing the drama that was about to bubble up. “We–.”

“That’s great, Ladybug!” he said, surprisingly genuine. The reaction caught Ladybug off guard. “I’m happy for you.”

Ladybug gave him a quizzical look. “Thanks…”

Their Miraculous beeped simultaneously and both let go a sigh, relieved to have an excuse to end the awkward interaction.

“Well, you can tell me more about him if you want next time we meet, Chat out!”

To say he practically scrambled to get out of the way was an understatement. Ladybug sighed, deciding not to stress about whether or not Chat Noir was actually happy for her or if he had just said that to save some face. It had been a pretty draining Akuma and at this point, she couldn’t find it in herself to care whether he’d make a fuzz out of this.

It was already dark when Marinette managed to go back to the picnic site, half expecting Luka to be gone by then. Imagine her guilty surprise when she found the poor boy still sitting on the same spot she left him.

“Hey!” Luka said happily.

“Luka! I’m so sorry, there was an Akuma and I got hit and–.”

“It’s okay,” he said with a chuckle. “You could’ve just texted me. But we can do that next time we get separated by an attack.”

“Right, hah,” Marinette agreed, then muttered to herself, “Why did I not think of that?”

------

The door groaned as Alya pushed it open, immediately greeted by a cold breeze and the smell of mold, dust, and old books.

The girls lingered at the door, unadmittedly a bit scared to enter. The small townhouse seemed like it hadn’t had inhabitants in a good while. Alya pointed her flashlight into the house; it had been a gloomy day in Paris and the weak, grey light did not do much for the interior other than make it look spookier.

“I thought Master Fu lived above his massage parlor,” Alya said, gathering courage to enter the house.

“He moved here after Hawkmoth found out he was the guardian,” Marinette said, tentatively stepping in. She reached for the light switch, finding that it rewarded her illuminating the small hall and revealing the layout of the house.

They stood at the beginning of a narrow hall which led to the kitchen. To the left, there was a door leading to a living and dining hall. Right of the hall were the wooden stairs that led to the upper floor. It was hardly decorated, but it was evident something had hung on the walls; the shadow of missing frames stained the otherwise creme-colored walls with a lighter shade.

“That’s super odd,” Alya said, also going in, closing the door behind herself. She did a quick sweep of the first floor, finding there was hardly any furniture: the kitchen had a plastic table with two chairs, a stove, and a small fridge which was unplugged. The living room was completely empty except for an old, wooden vitrine which displayed assorted utensils.

She turned on the tap on the kitchen sink, finding running water.

“Didn’t Master Fu leave almost a year ago?” Alya said, rejoining Marinette, who was inspecting the contents of the vitrine.

“Yes, why?”

“How come this house still has utilities, then?”

Marinette made a confused face.

“Somebody ought to be paying for them,” Alya explained.

“He left me a letter saying that I’d find everything I need here. Let’s check the upper floor.”

The stairs creaked as the girls climbed up to find a similar set up as they had found in the floor below: A narrow hall that led to a small bathroom and two rooms to the left of the hall.

They each found what Master Fu had meant: Each room was full to the brim with boxes upon boxes of books, documents, and all sorts of trinkets, no doubt related to his affairs as a Miraculous Guardian. Curious as she was, Alya got to work immediately, aggressively combing through each box and file, reading them thoroughly, and quickly developing a system to string the story together.

“You know, sometimes it amazes me that you never figured me out,” Marinette said with a bit of a smile as she lingered by the door. “I was winging it, at best. I’ll get onto the next room.”

Marinette took a bit longer to go through her boxes. She couldn’t help but be a bit overwhelmed sometimes, learning about Master Fu’s adventures or discovering some new piece of information about the Miraculous. It didn’t help that Alya would storm in excitedly every time she discovered something particularly interesting.

“Marinette!” she exclaimed incredulously from the other room, quickly rushing in holding a set of books. “Tell me you didn’t leave an entire grimoire set literally just chilling in this sketchy neighborhood for the good part of a year.”

Marinette widened her eyes, feeling her stomach drop and swearing under her breath. “Give ‘em to me,” she said. “I’ll take them.”

How was she supposed to know Fu had all this stuff lying around when he never got around actually telling her? Her resentment towards her mentor flared up but tried not to delve too long in it.

Hours passed, the girls making good progress on the boxes, when Alya came into Marinette’s room once again. “I found it,” she declared, holding a stack of papers. “It looks like he suspected he’d stop being the Guardian soon.” Alya placed her papers on a neat row in front of Marinette. “He left an automated billing account for the next five years and it looks like he owned this house. He left this sort of transposing document for you, but it comes into effect when you turn eighteen.”

Marinette felt her throat tangle in a knot. “Oh.”

“Do you need a moment?” Alya asked gently.

Marinette shook her head, swiftly wiping the tears that were pooling in her eyes. “No, please stay.”

The quiet was suddenly disturbed by Marinette’s buzzing phone. She muted it without looking at who had called.

“He meant for me to use this place,” Marinette said.

“It looks like it, yeah.”

Master Fu thought of everything, she thought, and brushed the cover of the book that she had been inspecting before Alya came in. It was a sort of instruction manual written by Fu, for her, that she hadn’t dare open yet. For the longest time she had thought Fu left her to her own devices, that he abandoned her to sort everything alone when in reality, he had left her a trail of hints. Memories and arrangements here and there that made Marinette feel as if he was still there, correcting her when she needed to, but also reminding her she was capable of doing this.

She sniffed, shook her head, and smiled. “Then in that case, we have a lot of work to do. Let’s get this place in order.”

------

Luka did not expect Marinette to be able to hang out with him that day. He didn’t need reminding that Marinette was a very busy person and he understood why. That didn’t mean he could help himself from feeling extremely disappointed when she didn’t even check her messages the entire day.

He had invited her to a picnic with his friends that came up spontaneously, but alas, she answered back around ten p.m., when he was already back.

“I’m so sorry, Luka!” she wrote, adding a sad emoticon.

“My parents hijacked me for the entire day, they have a big order to deliver tomorrow and they needed all hands on deck.”

Except he knew that wasn’t the truth. He had dropped by the bakery that day and her parents had told Luka Marinette left early that morning to help Alya with a project, but he suspected this had only been a cover for her to do something Ladybug-related.

“It’s okay, Mari. It wasn’t important or anything, just a picnic,” he wrote back, adding a smiling emoticon. “How was your day, though?”

Marinette only saw the first message, then responded to the second a good twenty minutes later.

“It was okay. Pretty boring, just making shortcakes the whole day. You?”

“It was okay, too. Just hung out with my friends.”

Marinette saw the message but replied nothing else.

She must be busy, Luka thought, forcing himself not to feel hurt. She’s just busy, she doesn’t mean to push you away.

And yet, he couldn’t help but to text her again. “Are we still on for the date on the weekend?”

He got a reply five minutes later. “Of course!” Marinette wrote with a beaming happy face. “I’m looking forward to it, I’m very excited.”

Luka smiled at the screen, excited to see she was typing again. “I have to go to bed now, though,” she added a yawning emoticon. “I’m completely dead. I’ll text you tomorrow!”

“Okay,” Luka wrote. “Good night!”

She didn’t see the last message. As he joined Juleka to watch T.V. he realized why: there had been an Akuma attack.

He sighed, for the first time ever feeling extremely irritated at the concept of Akumas.

-----

“Are we working on the hang out this weekend?” Alya asked casually as they took notes for one of Madame Bustier’s lessons. “I’m high-key super excited for it. I was thinking of using my allowance to make it look cute, you know?”

Marinette laughed. “You don’t have to do that, Alya.”

“I know,” she complained. “But it’s so cool that we can just chill there, I wanna make it cool.”

Marinette shook her head.

“At least let me buy some fairy lights and nice cushions.”

“If you must,” Marinette said, amused. “But I can’t work on it this weekend. I promised Luka I’d spend some time with him. I haven’t seen him this whole week,” she admitted guiltily as the bell rang marking the beginning of the weekend.

“Alright girl,” she said. “Tell me about how the date goes though!”

Marinette and Alya parted ways with Marinette hurrying to her house to get ready for her date with Luka, who had asked to meet in the ship.

She didn’t expect their date to be one of their regular hangouts at the ship, so she anticipated by wearing slightly nicer clothes than usual. Still, it took her by complete surprise when she arrived and found that Luka had set up a dinner table with a beautiful flower bouquet at the center. Not only that, but he had asked his mom to teach him how to bake a quiche for her.

“Oh my gosh, Luka!” she said, unable to fight off the blush that crept on her cheeks. “It’s so beautiful! You didn’t have to!”

He shrugged, blushing himself. “I thought to do something nice since we hadn’t seen each other in a while. Do you like it?”

“Yes!” she beamed as she took a seat.

It had not been ten minutes since Marinette arrived when some sort of commotion in the distance interrupted the quiet evening, no doubt because of an Akuma. Luka sighed, doing his best to hide his reaction. As he expected, Marinette excused herself to the bathroom, leaving him to eat dinner alone.

“Please let’s make this quick, Chat,” Ladybug said as she rushed into the scene to battle the Akuma that currently destroyed the eleventh Arrondisement.

“Caught you in a bad time, LB?” Chat Noir said with a bit of a smirk as he evaded the Akuma’s attacks.

“You have no idea,” Ladybug said with dread.

It was luckily one of the faster Akumas, and even though Ladybug’s train of thought was focused on rushing back to the Couffaine ship as fast as possible, Chat Noir’s unusual meek demeanor did not escape her attention. Suddenly, it dawned on her that they had been postponing their Guardian training sessions for almost a month now–with everything going on Marinette’s life, and also Chat Noir’s, she realized the last time she had seen him was for Kagami Tsurugi’s Akuma.

“Hey, you doing okay?” Ladybug said.

“Huh?”

“You seem a bit out of it.”

Chat Noir gave him a pressed smile and shrugged. “Nah, I’m fine… It’s okay, we’re about to detransform.”

“Chat…” Ladybug reached for his shoulder. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing important. I, uh, I broke up with my girlfriend last week.”

“Oh…” she said with a sad gasp. “Oh no, Chat. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he admitted with a pained smile. “I’m the one that broke it off, actually. But I still feel bad about it.”

Ladybug sighed and squeezed his shoulder. “Let’s recharge and we can talk about it.”

A macaron and a slice of cheese later, they reconvened in an indistinct rooftop, looking as the sun set, lighting up the Parisian landscape.

“So, what happened?”

“I just… I realized I don’t love her. I love someone else,” he said, looking down. “I couldn’t do that to her, lie to her like that.”

The silence that settled suddenly made him look up with panic. “It’s not you,” he hurried to say. “It wasn’t because of you. It’s this girl… This girl in my class. It just sucks in general,” he continued. “I– her… She’s with someone, this other girl. And apparently she had this huge crush on me before, but it went over my head because I’m an idiot and also because… well, because I was… Because I thought I was in love with you.”

She knew what he meant, and yet Ladybug couldn’t help but feel wounded by the way Chat Noir phrased it. She played it down, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“Oh…” she finally mumbled, then cleared her throat. “Well, if it’s any use to you, I think you did the right thing, even if you can’t be with the other girl.”

“I know,” Chat admitted sadly. “It just sucks that I couldn’t see it before.”

Ladybug swallowed the knot in her throat. “It gets better,” she said. “Trust me, I speak from experience.”

Chat looked up at her with an intrigued expression.

“I, uh, I had something similar happen to me,” she confessed, a light blush creeping under the mask. “Except I was the one crushing on the guy and he started going out with this girl before I ever gathered the courage to tell him how I felt. I never did anything about it because I was too scared he would turn me down. It’s hard to be honest sometimes, but you did the right thing, Chat.”

“Thanks, Bug.”

The bells of a nearby church roared, announcing the passing of the hour, suddenly bringing Ladybug back into context.

“Shoot! I need to run, Chat.”

“It’s okay,” he said, reassuring her with a smile. “We can meet for Guardian training after the Wednesday patrol, if you’re not busy.”

“Okay,” she said.

“Ladybug,” said Chat, preventing from taking off. “For what it’s worth, I think you should still tell the guy how you feel. Like you say, it’s better to just be honest.”

She gave him half a smile. “Thanks, Chat,” she said, then quickly swinging out of the picture.

Back at the ship, Marinette’s nerves were in a wreck as she came out of the bathroom to rejoin Luka, desperately trying to figure out what could she possibly use an excuse.

“Everything alright?” Luka said as she rejoined the table.

“Yeah…” It was evident she was trying to come up with an excuse. “I, uh… Alya called me. She had a fight with Nino. Sorry I took so long.”

“No problem,” Luka said, with a sunny disposition. “Well, the food’s cold now, but I can reheat it if you give me a second.”

“Oh, it’s okay, you don’t have to do that.”

“It’s no problem, Mari.”

Luka went into the ship and resurfaced a few minutes later with the food. He took a second serving so that Marinette wouldn’t be eating alone.

“Are you okay, Mari?” Luka said, noticing how fidgety she was, shifting uncomfortably in her seat and looking away into the rooftop along the Seine.

“Huh? Yeah, I’m fine,” she said smiling. “The quiche’s delicious, by the way.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

A silence of the uncomfortable kind settled between them, Luka noticed, making him uncomfortable as well. “And, uh, what have you been up to this week?”

“Oh, you know, the usual,” Marinette replied. “Just school, the bakery, and uh…”

“The macaron mafia,” Luka said with a bit of a smirk.

“Yeah,” she piped.

“How is that going?”

“It’s okay,” Marinette replied, giving no further explanation.

Luka felt desperation and frustration at both of them slowly starting to creep inside him. He wanted to tell her more than anything that he knew, and that she didn’t have to keep lying to him, that he understood. But then, on the other hand, he was scared that she might leave. What if she just didn’t want him to know? He didn’t want to throw their relationship away just because he couldn’t get used to her double life.

The air between them got fortunately lighter when Juleka and Rose came back from their date in the city and joined them at the table. Judging by the way Marinette’s disposition changed when the girls arrived, he couldn’t help but be a little uneasy.

That night after Marinette left, Luka found it hard to sleep. He stared at the roof of his room in complete contemplation. He knew that the only way out of this situation was to be honest with her and to tell her what he knew.

In his defense, he tried. He did try. But as he quickly came to realize shortly after they started dating, Marinette had very little free time. Actually, the times that they had hung out before they got together, which were also not too many when one really counted, were as much time as she could ever spend with him. This resulted in him coming with date after date where his end goal would be to confess to her, to only be interrupted by Akumas.

And so, he found himself in the most recent of his failed attempts, taking cover yet again in an alley next to a trash container after an Akuma interrupted one of their dates. This time he made a point of keeping track of the time so that he could come out when Marinette was ready.

As luck would have it, he heard someone land somewhere along the alley after the battle seemed to be over. His heart raced, feeling opportunity beckon him to come out. This was as good a moment as any. It was better this way, to hell with a meticulously planned conversation.

Luka poked his head ready to call Ladybug’s attention, when he found Chat Noir with his back facing him, transforming into none other than Adrien Agreste.

He had the sense to crouch back into his hiding place before shock seized him.

After what felt like minutes, his phone went off with notification after notification. He picked it up, noticing it had been an hour since the Akuma ended. It was Marinette. She was worried.

His hands trembled as he replied to her messages. “Hey Mari. I got hit by the Akuma and I ended up on the other side of the city. My phone died and I had to go into a store to charge it, sorry.”

“That’s okay, are you okay? Where are you? I can meet you in a bit.”

“Don’t worry. It’s way too far, I’m in the first Arrondisement. I’m sorry to ditch you, but can we raincheck? I feel a bit woozy after the Akuma.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to meet you? I can take a cab and take you home.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m okay. I just need some fresh air and a nap.” He added a smiley face for good measure.

“Alright,” Marinette replied. “Take care. I’ll text you tomorrow.”

He waited to see if she’d keep writing before he turned his phone off. He hugged his knees and let out the sob he had been holding in for the past hour.

He had so many questions, all rushing and battling for his attention. Did either of them know? No, it didn’t make sense. Adrien would have never dated Kagami if he knew, and though he wanted to think Marinette would still be with him if she knew Adrien’s secret, Luka knew that was wishful thinking. It just didn’t make sense. Unless… Unless they knew and them dating other people was just a facade to protect their identities. But Marinette wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t–she was a good person. Right? Marinette wouldn’t lie to him. And yet, as of late, that’s all she did.

------

Ladybug had to admit, she was very impressed with Chat Noir. She didn’t know what came over him, but in the last few months it felt as if he had gone through some sort of metamorphosis. It was not to say that Chat Noir had lost that, well, that Chat Noir flare but there was something different about him. He was always punctual to their meetings, was level-headed in Akuma battles, and took his training seriously. He showed Ladybug the notebook he kept with all his notes from his Guardian lessons with her, and to her surprised, were neatly organized and jotted down with a clean handwriting she could swear she had seen somewhere. Not only he had been quick to pick up everything Ladybug had to teach him, but he went above and beyond to expand on her knowledge, and this also applied to their hunt for Hawkmoth.

“I have something for you,” he confessed one of such nights where he had been showing her his progress on his studies, much to Ladybug’s satisfaction.

“Oh?” she said, with an intrigued smile.

Chat Noir reached into the rucksack he usually brought to Guardian training and produced a pair of cellphones. “Burner phones,” he explained. “They don’t have cellular data; we can only send messages and call each other. I thought it would be useful if we can communicate whenever we need to.”

“Oh, Chat…” she said gingerly picking the unassuming little brick.

“Is it too much? I thought since you’re okay with the whole identity thing you might be okay with the phones, but if it’s too much you can just say the word and I–”

“Chaton, not so fast,” she said giggling. “It’s okay. I think it’s a great idea. I, uh… was just going to say I can’t really pay \a phone plan. I don’t have that big of an allowance.”

“That’s not a problem,” he said brightly. “I already took care of that. All you need to do is keep it charged. They run with prepaid cards, for more anonymity. I’ll get new ones when we run out of the credit they already have.”

“Chat, no. I really wouldn’t feel–”

“I insist. It’s really not a problem.”

Ladybug arched a teasing eyebrow. “Are you rich or something?”

Chat Noir smirked at her. “Maybe.”

“Is that a hint? Are you really rich? One of those obnoxiously posh kids? Oh no. This makes so much sense. You must be one of those insufferable private school guys. Are you like a real-life Bruce Wayne?”

“No,” he said, laughing. “Besides Bruce Wayne has no powers. I happen to have two.”

“Two?”

“The ring and my devilishly good looks.”

“Ugh,” Ladybug groaned, nonetheless laughing.

“Wait, that’s not all I wanted to tell you,” said Chat. “I, uh… was thinking.”

Ladybug’s stomach dropped with anxious anticipation. “About what.”

“I think… I mean, I’m not ready. But, uh, I just concluded that I thought you should know. I… I think I’m okay with us knowing each other’s identity. Eventually. Just… not now. Also, I–I think I’m ready to see this place you told me Master Fu left for us.”

Ladybug beamed with happiness, unable to help herself from pulling Chat Noir into a hug. “Chat that’s great!”

She hugged him, effectively causing him to blush and lose a bit of his focus. He gently pried her off him after he returned the hug.

“It’s not an identity reveal but–”

“You don’t have to justify yourself, Chat. It’s okay. I understand. When do you want to go to the hide-out?”

“I mean, if you have time right now…”

“Of course!”

Ladybug led Chat Noir to the neighborhood where the hide out was. In the dead of the night, there weren’t people out in the street.

“This is the neighborhood?” Chat said.

“Yes, why?” Ladybug said producing the key to the house from her yoyo.

“No reason. It’s just this is one of the sketchier neighborhoods. You know this map I’m working on that I told you about” he explained. “You get more regular crime here than Akuma-related.”

“My ”support group“ said the same,” Ladybug said as she opened the door. She picked up a flashlight Alya and her usually left by the door.

“There’s no light?”

“I don’t want to call attention with us wearing the transformations. You never know who might be watching.”

“Good point.” He walked around the house using his night vision to make out where everything was. “Maybe I can get a few furniture pieces for this place,” he commented. “Like a proper table and some chairs, and some kitchen utensils in case we ever need the kitchen.”

Ladybug was glad for the darkness because it made it easier to hide away her flustering. As much as she tried to deny it to herself, Chat always caught her attention when he took the lead. She shook her head and expertly pushed away the feeling, aided by the thought of her boyfriend. Don't you even dare, you thankless heathen, she thought to herself and focused back on Chat's ranting.

“Maybe we can also get a safe in case you keep anything valuable here. And we have to change this lock. I don’t trust the locks in old buildings, we need a smart one and security cameras and–”

“Minou,” she said chuckling. “You’re literally just like my friend. I appreciate you’re exited to contribute, but where in the hell are we going to get the money for a freaking security system?”

“Leave it to me,” he said. Ladybug didn’t need to properly see to know he had his shit-eating grin on.

“I– Of course, I forgot you’re a rich kid.”

Chat laughed. “Sorry, I got carried away. But still, don’t you worry, LB. If you need anything for this place, just let me know.”

They went to the upper floor, the main attraction at least as far as Ladybug was concerned. She was pretty proud of the progress that Alya and her had made so far. They had managed to buy a few second-hand shelves for all the documents Master Fu had left and had a library of sorts.

Chat Noir went through some of the volumes until something caught his attention. It was a scanned copy with some notes on it, perhaps something Master Fu had been working on, but it was decidedly something he had seen before and had never connected the dots for. Not at least until then.

It was a page describing the powers of the Peacock Miraculous, and as any good encyclopedia, it had a picture of a brooch. The same brooch he had found in his father’s safe with the book–the grimoire, Chat would later learn that’s what it was.

A cold shiver ran through his spine.

Mayura was Hawkmoth’s sidekick. Natalie was his father’s assistant.

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bellemorte180 · 4 years

Text

The “How Caroline would have been in Season 1 of The Originals” breakdown that a few people asked me to do.

First go read the breakdown I wrote about how Caroline joined TO!. Caroline is not in the first half of TO because she is dealing with all the stuff in TVD that would eventually lead to her coming to TO!

Buckle up, cuz this is LONG and it only covers Season 1.

Most importantly.NO MAGIC BABY.

Klaus comes to NOLA because he learns his adoptive son Marcel is still alive. He sees Marcel running NOLA as a king and feels betrayed that Marcel let him believe that he has been dead for a century. Marcel is less than welcoming to Klaus, believing that Klaus left him to die back in the day. Klaus starts a war, edged on by the witches, who cannot practice magic.

Jane-Ann D. is still alive. (no baby, no need to do the spell that got her killed) Klaus makes a deal with them to take down Marcel. War breaks out. Sophie and Jane-Ann are trying to get Monique back through Davina by completing the Harvest. Plus, Klaus always had a thing for witches back in the TVD (remember Greta and Maddox?) so they develop an alliance.

The Davina storyline is pretty much the same. Hidden in the attic. Klaus daggers Elijah….

Rebekah comes to town to find Elijah just like in the show.

Hayley comes to town because she learned that her parents were part of the NOLA pack- that Tyler small storyline happens here but with Hayley instead. Klaus crushes her for the betrayal back in TVD that lead to 12 Hybrids being captive. He has Sophie and Jane-Ann curse Hayley to be a wolf every day except on the night of the full moon; like the rest of the pack.

Cami is a character, but Marcel is in love with her, so Klaus uses her as a pawn, toying with Marcel. Literally, I imagine Klaus keeping Cami as a prisoner or something; more or less with compulsion and not actually held captive in a dungeon. Not in the, forget me unless you see me way, but kill yourself if Marcel or Father Kiernan step out of line kind of compulsion. Cami does try and see the goodness in Klaus and developed a stock-holm syndrome type deal with him. This also leads Klaus to holding the human faction by the throat because Father Kiernan, Cami’s uncle, is head of it.

The whole romance drama between Rebekah and Marcel happens and that leads to them trying to overthrow Klaus and it all comes to head with Klaus taking back NOLA.

Now, this is where Caroline comes in.

Remember when Klaus goes to MF to see Katherine die? Yeah, instead it was because he learned that Caroline turned her humanity off. He goes and an emotionless Caroline comes back with him.

Caroline comes to town and really does not give two shits about anything. She kills who she wants and when she wants. She is a GIANT bitch to Rebekah (who Klaus has not forgiven for siding with Marcel). Elijah tries to get her emotions to turn back on, by telling her of his relationship with Celeste and that whole affair, Caroline does not care. Klaus actually enjoys Caroline this way and teaches her to embrace this part.

Caroline tries to seduce Klaus, but he says he won’t have sex with her again until her emotions are back on.

Cami is a prisoner of Klaus’s and Caroline likes to toy with her. Cami tries to psychoanalyze Caroline. Caroline does not give a shit and basically toys with Cami just to prove to her that Klaus can’t be fixed. Davina is helping Cami fight the compulsion that Klaus has her under.

All the while Klaus and emotionless Caroline are still having this dance of will they or wont they?-but with murder and chaos.

The Harvest takes place and Monique rises from the dead; continuing on with Sophie and Jane-Ann’s storyline.

Monique does not kill Sophie, but instead Jane-Anne; her mother. This sends Sophie into a depression. No. I don’t kill Sophie.

Then Genevieve comes to town.

Does Klaus have sex with Genevieve? Yes. But here is the kicker, Caroline doesn’t care. She actually then has sex with Genevieve herself, while Klaus watches. They use Genevieve as another layer for their twisted dance of whether or not they will give in to one another.

But Klaus wants Caroline’s emotions on first.

Now, the storyline that we learn about Rebekah and Marcel summoning Mikael and Klaus loses his shit in the graveyard? Still all happens with one change. Remember how I said Rebekah and Caroline hate each other- that comes to terms here. Elijah is the angel on Klaus’s shoulder telling him to spare his sister while Caroline is telling him to kill her. Emotionless remember.

Klaus doesn’t kill Rebekah but does set her free. Klaus then puts Marcel in The Garden; unable to forgive him for this betrayal.

Elijah asks Caroline why she would push Klaus towards killing his sister and she tells him that it’s because she doesn’t want to feel something for Klaus; thus her emotions turn back on. It would be easier if he hated her.

Ladies and gentlemen, Caroline is slowly starting to feel something….but it’s like dimmed.

The Francesca, werewolf, storyline is still going on in the background.

Elijah and Celeste are a bigger story here. I imagine that instead of him falling for Hayley, we dive more into this relationship throughout the series.

Caroline and Sophie bond over their shared pain. Sophie slowly becomes the first real friend Caroline starts making in NOLA outside of Klaus. Sophie starts practicing magic more than she had previously (remember prior to the Harvest, Sophie really didn’t use magic)

Shortly after this, Father Kieran dies much like in the show. Caroline is present for it and Cami believes that Caroline killed him. She didn’t actually do this, but Cami is convinced. They have the funeral and Caroline is with Klaus much like in the show. Elijah brings Cami to the funeral and she watches Klaus and Caroline, walk arm and arm down the street. Between believing that Caroline killed her uncle and her feelings for Klaus, Cami is enraged.

Cami goes to Davina and they both make a deal with Geneviève. Cami helps Genevieve retrieve the final white oak stake from Klaus’s possession, thinking that it will lead to only Caroline’s death.

Genevieve came back from the dead because Mama Original on The Other Side wants to kill her children. Surprise Surprise. Because remember, no magical baby. Genevieve preforms a ritual during the full moon, one written by Esther on the Other Side, to kill an Original.

During the ritual, Caroline is forced to watch as Klaus is slowly being killed. However, it’s not Marcel who saves the day in (he is in the Garden remember), but it’s actually Hayley. It’s a full moon, so she is in her human form. She hears that something is going down and saves Klaus by killing Genevieve and Monique and the third harvest witch. This also causes Celeste’s spirit to vanish. Elijah torn apart by Celest’s betrayal.

Hayley wants to make a deal to be human again, Klaus agrees to help the werewolves, but conveniently leaves her out of the deal.

Caroline’s emotions are turned on full force and when she realizes that it’s because she didn’t want Klaus to die. She has real feelings for him, which she knew about but with her grief she couldn’t focus on it. There is a scene where Caroline breaks down in Klaus’s arms over everything.

Davin is angry that the plot with Genevieve did not work, come up with plan B. She joins forces with Francesca. Making good on the deal he made with Hayley, Klaus agrees to create moonlight rings. Since Davina is a harvest witches and Sophie is still in the middle of a depressive episode, she do it; which backfires on him. Klaus is weakened by the moonlight rings.

Caroline is furious at what happened and blames Cami (it was her fault that they had the white oak stake in the first place). Caroline says that since Cami’s uncle is dead and Marcel is in the garden, Cami has been rendered useless and kills her. No, Cami coming back as a vampire….she just dies.

Which in turn angers Davina who built a friendship with Cami and wants Marcel out of the Garden.

Klaus is weakened by the moonlight rings. Caroline, who has full range of her emotions, calls Rebekah to tell her what happened. Caroline apologizes for being a giant bitch to her. While nothing is perfect, the two come to an understanding.

The season ends with the werewolves in power, Klaus weakened, Elijah mourning Celeste (again), Caroline finally grieving her mom and everything she has done, Sophie grieving over the loss of Monique and Jane-Ann, Davina pissed off because Marcel is in the Garden and Cami is dead, Hayley is still a werewolf full time, only human during the full moon, Marcel is in the Garden and Rebekah is still not in town.

#klaroline #how Caroline would have been in TO season 1.

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