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machiavelien · 4 years ago

Note

I'd love to see some fluff Spideychelle hurt/comfort with Peter signing MJ's cast after she hurts her ankle on an adventure! :)

Sorry this is so late nonny! I LOVE this prompt, especially as a switch-up on PeterMJ hurt/comfort scenes 🥺 Here’s some pre-FFH fluff for you my dear!

"Do you wanna sign it?"

Peter looks up, not realizing that MJ was talking to him until he notices that the rest of the AcaDec team has already left. They're the last two people in the classroom.

"Uh, sure?"

He'd been spending all of practice trying to think of an excuse to hang out with MJ afterwards, only to have her beat him to it. She swings her leg around to rest it across his lap and Peter gulps.

MJ had broken her ankle under mysterious circumstances--mysterious in that no one has dared to ask her about what happened, and she hasn't told anyone, at least as far as Peter knows.

"You okay there, Parker?"

He nods, trying not to think too much about her how her shorts are riding up her thighs as she wriggles to get more comfortable in this position.

"Yup, never better," he manages to say, taking the marker she's offering in her outstretched hand.

(Read the rest on AO3 or under the cut)

(continued)

Careful to avoid touching her bare skin, he cradles her leg awkwardly as he looks for an empty spot on her cast. He frowns when he sees Brad Davis' name next to some doodle that sounds like an inside joke.

But he forgets his annoyance when MJ starts wiggling her toes, the ones sticking out of the end of the plaster. They're cute, and it's strange to think anything of Michelle Jones' as cute, but it's true.

Peter blinks and turns back to the task at hand, beginning to scrawl his name on her cast in block letters. Thinking about MJ has been the distraction he's needed since everything that happened on Titan, and his imagined dates with her were a welcomed escape from his ever present nightmares.

But he's never considered what it'd be like to be this physically near her before, and he's not prepared.

She's so close that he can feel her breath exhaling softly against the side of his neck, and he can't help noticing that she smells really nice, like strawberries and cream shampoo.

Her face is calm, almost bored as she watches him from beneath her lashes, but he can hear her heartbeat quicken with every second longer that he takes. So he drags the blue marker across the surface of the cast slowly, prolonging this moment for as long as he can. Unfortunately his body is reacting faster than he'd like.

"How did you hurt your ankle?" he asks in a desperate bid to distract himself from how close her leg is from his crotch.

Licking her lips, MJ looks over her shoulder to make sure they're alone, and that makes Peter's ears suddenly feel hot.

"Promise you won't tell anyone?" she asks.

He nods, his arms still cradling her leg.

"I fractured my ankle fighting a bunch of mobsters, when I roundhouse kicked a thick-headed one with the wrong shoes on. Because the truth is…" She takes a deep breath and sighs loudly, "I'm Spider-Man."

Peter stares at her deadpan expression for a moment before chuckling softly and shaking his head. "Okay, you got me for a second there."

MJ doesn't respond and just keeps observing him, but she doesn't move her leg off him either.

"I do wish I had super healing, though," she muses, sitting back and breaking the tension. "It's going to suck having a cast for another few weeks. I bet Spider-Man can just walk off an injury like this in like, a day."

"More like an hour," Peter replies without thinking, shading in the P's of his name.

"Oh yeah? How would you know?"

"Uh... Ned and I have been tracking his fights, and how long it takes him to heal in between," he explains quickly, the lie rolling off his tongue with ease.

"How observant of you," MJ notes.

"But, um, if you need anything at all in the meantime, while you've still got the cast on," he starts, not sure of what he's offering exactly. "I mean, like getting stuff from school or, uh..."

"A piggyback ride?" she suggests, again completely deadpan.

He lets out a soft laugh. "Sure. Yeah. Anything you'd like, MJ."

A small but real smile breaks out on her face, a smile he's never seen before. It makes him feel a little dizzy, like he's just stood up too fast, and he decides that he's going to do everything he can to see that smile again.

"Does it hurt?" he asks when he feels her leg shift.

She shakes her head. "Nah. I just hope it heals in time for the science trip. I've never been to Europe before, and I don't want to be doing it on crutches."

"Oh, I didn't know you're going on that trip."

She nods. "Yeah, you?"

Peter hadn't been planning to--it's expensive, and Midtown's financial aid budget had gotten unexpectedly stretched thin when half the student body returned, so the flights would completely be out-of-pocket. But if MJ was going…

"Maybe," he replies, hoping he sounds aloof instead of uncertain. "Sounds pretty cool."

"The last stop on the itinerary is Paris,” she adds in a quieter voice. “Did you know the Catacombs there house the remains of over six million Parisians from the 18th Century? Cemeteries were running out of space, so some bodies weren’t buried properly and ended up spreading disease. So the solution was to chuck all those corpses into these quarries beneath the city."

"I did not know that. That definitely sounds way more romantic than the Eiffel Tower," jokes Peter, which makes her smile again, and his heart does a little jump as he high fives himself in his mind.

"Totally," she agrees. "But it takes a hundred and thirty steps to get down to the Catacombs, which I can't pull that off with this plaster boot."

"Well, like I said before, if you need a piggyback ride around Europe, I'm happy to, uh… be your steed?"

"You're so weird," she snorts, but she won't meet Peter's eyes this time, letting her bangs cover her face. He almost reaches over to brush her hair out of the way, catching himself before he forgets where they are.

So he lets his hand drop, but the back of it accidentally grazes the soft skin of her inner thigh, and her breath hitches almost imperceptibly. Their eyes meet at the same time, and he jerks his hand back.

"Sorry."

"It's okay."

The air between them shifts, the bubbly giggliness of before is heavier, charged with something else now. Goosebumps prickle along his skin, the soft hairs standing on end as he stares at MJ's fingers tugging at the cuffs of her shorts.

Then her phone vibrates, buzzing against the desk and breaking the spell.

Realizing how far down she's slouched into his lap, MJ sits up abruptly, and Peter mourns the sudden loss of the weight and warmth of her leg in his lap.

"My mom's here to pick me up," she explains, looping her backpack over one shoulder and reaching for her crutch. Peter helps her get up and she thanks him, teetering on one foot.

"I hope you can come on the trip," she says over her shoulder. "Y'know, in case I need a piggyback ride into some subterranean crypts."

"Yeah, I'll try," he nods, watching her leave. "Remember to wear boots in Europe. In case you have to run somewhere or fight off any mobsters again, ankle support is important."

"That's right," she nods, that little smile is playing on her lips again, and then she's gone.

That's when the gears begin turning in Peter's mind, and his fantasies about MJ settling into a step-by-step plan, starting with signing up for the school trip.

#peter x mj #spideychelle #petermj #peter parker x michelle jones #machi fic #machi art #requests #spiderman #spiderman far from home #spiderman homecoming #Michelle jones

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say-narry · 3 years ago

Text

Note: english isn’t my first language. Hope you all like it. Please, give me your opinion with a reblog, fav or a note in my askbox.

summary: She did a good work with H. Lambert and now, reader is the new Harry's stylish. Mr. Harry Styles need more than clothing creations from her.

Pairings: Harry Styles!famous x Reader!stylist

warnings: insinuations, dirt talk, explicit sex, old Harry's band members mention and more.

talk with me | masterlist

never have i ever

Guess who is the new stylish of the famous Harry Styles' band? It's me! After studying and specializing in fashion, my day of glory had arrived!

The pandemic had passed, Harry Styles was back on tour, and Harry Lambert had suffered a domestic accident where he fractured his ankle. I had been an intern at his agency and one thing led to another.

Everyone was very kind, nice despite being shy... Ah, Englishmen... Because I had joined the team, we decided to celebrate my admission and the return to tour at Harry's house.

I put on a black outfit with lace, it was my favorite kind of outfit because it fulfilled something sexy and comfortable, perfect for a more casual evening.

"But what's up, did you like the guys?" Sarah Jones asked close to my ear, she was already on her 3rd glass of drink in less than half an hour.

"Everyone is very nice and welcoming" I flashed a smile after repeating the action near her ear.

Sarah gave a thumbs up and turned the straw of the clear drink back to her mouth. Mitch was already high, he and Harry were dancing on a makeshift dance floor.

Harry was wearing a white printed shirt and dark bell-bottomed pants with some spikes on the side. His exotic style would give me a hard time, but I was up for the challenge.

I continued to sit in the armchair in her huge garden, hour I would go to the little bar and flirt with the muscular blond man making drinks.

"Stylist!" Harry shouted raising his arms, I cringed nervously. Not for the moment, but he was making me nervous.

"Boss!" I giggled and turned to him, also raising my arms entering his.

Harry's mansion was the opposite of what I had imagined, it was something more minimalist with the exception of the bright pink staircase, it was in shades of black, white and gray.

There was pleasant music in the background, everyone from the production was spread out in the garden with some armchairs in the colors I mentioned before.

"I wanted to say something about the outfit for tomorrow's show." Harry said scratching the back of his head next, if I trusted my super powers of distrust, he was lying and flirting with me.

I smiled dull and agreed "Anytime" I smiled drinking some of the juice I had picked up.

🎵🎵🎵🎵

"I think I could tighten up the cuffs a little more, what do you think?" Harry commented. We were in Harry's huge closet, he on a stool standing even taller than me as I examined the outfit.

It was a black and white striped suit with some gold details, it fit his body very well, Lambert and I had designed it and got it right.

"You need to see about the fit, because you stretch your arms out to play the guitar and do your little dances..." I commented unpretentiously, Harry stared at me with a sideways grin.

"You're absolutely right, (Y/N)..." He started to unbutton his suit, I arched my eyebrows feeling my cheeks heat up, I turned around putting away the tape measure that was around my neck. "I really like your outfit, especially the lace, it suits your skin tone." I heard Harry behind me and the sounds of the clothes being thrown onto the couch nearby.

"Thanks, it's my favorite kind of outfit." I commented closing the little box, I turned my body around and Harry was standing in front of me, wearing nothing but black boxer shorts and his tattoos showing.

He was totally gorgeous, his eyes sparkling, his body all designed and his fingers being adorned by rings was something that turned me on.

"It's become mine too..." Harry threw the words out before moving closer stealing a kiss.

Having the dream job and kissing Harry Styles? Was that a dream?

Because of our height difference, I lifted my body on my tiptoes and passed my arms around his neck, I felt his hands pulling me tighter against his body that emanated a pleasant warmth.

His fingers trailed down my spine, reaching the straps of my lacy cropedd, his lips still sucking mine with all the affection in the world, I pulled his gently leaving a few small bites.

"Come with me, babe" He pulled me through a door, which led directly into his huge gray room

Without delay, my body was lying on the huge soft king size bed and his body on top of mine. I could feel his covered member slapping against my thigh, Harry let out a few grunts that made me shiver.

"I've wanted you since the day Lambert introduced you..." Harry was distributing kisses down my neck, hourly running the tip of his tongue across it. I crossed my legs around his waist and felt him pressing his member between my legs. It was warm and wet.

Soon, Harry pulled, with a little difficulty, my white cropped top up, leaving my breasts showing. Shame was eating away at me, but his pupils had dilated, giving me the expression of a hunter.

Still staring at me, Harry ran the tip of his tongue over my nipple and then grabbed my left breast and sucked on it.

Fuck!

My body was almost on fire, I could feel my panties getting wet as I moved my legs. By the hour, I was stroking his curls, closing my eyes for his sucking and biting my lips.

"I won't be able to take much longer, babe," Harry commented leaving me with a kiss, soon his fingers were on the belt of my pants that had been thrown along with it on the floor of his room.

Harry's excitement was evident, but looking at his underwear made me long for him like never before. He stood in front of me, he ran to a cupboard behind him and came up with packets of condoms.

Yes, plural.

And with that, his boxer shorts were flying across the room, his cock bouncing with the tip facing up, it was glowing from the liquid of arousal. How I would like to suck him and taste him, but apparently his plans were to satisfy this desire.

I took off my white lace panties with a little difficulty since I was not thinking very well, considering that someone might miss us and he might be my boss somehow.

I held my panties up and soon Harry practically flew on top of me, his hot swollen tip was rubbing up and down my folds. We both let out guttural moans at the sensation.

"Oh God, (Y/N), you're soaking wet...all for me?" he whimpered, his hands digging into the mattress on either side of my head.

Before I could reason out a convenient response, Harry had put on a condom and was already partially inside my cavity.

It was surreal to feel his cock stretching inside me, a sensation I had never felt before. He was really good in bed, nothing compared to the college guys. He was gentle as he tried to go a little further, his throat let out delicious moans that I could listen to forever.

I moaned as he reached bottom, my legs again around his waist, begging him to go even deeper.

"All right, babe? You're fucking tight and hot!" He whispered, placing a kiss on each side of my cheeks.

"Yes!" I almost choked, "Please, H. It feels so good!"

Harry let out a small giggle, I felt his member pull out of me a little before entering again and again and again.

My moans became a little more audible as they blended with the sounds of our skins slapping against each other. With each thrust from Harry, his member was able to reach an undiscovered location that made my head spin and involuntary smiles formed on my lips.

It was all too splendid to be real. I forced myself to open my eyes and I just had the sight of heaven, Harry's mouth was ajar, his pink lips hung open in a perfect "O," shaggy curls framing his face. His bright eyes pierced yours with such love and admiration that it was almost irresistible.

For a small moment of courage, I put my hands on his face and pulled him into a kiss, Harry's lips were addictive. He reciprocated with more desire than I could imagine, his tongue filling my lips eagerly. His hips still bumped against mine, at times I squeezed him internally and felt Harry's arms waver.

With each thrust, which became faster and faster, my body's movements clamored harder and harder for him, making me pull him deeper inside me. His member kept slamming into that special place, eliciting the only moans of real pleasure from me. I wouldn't last long, and Harry knew it. Harry kept ripping compliments about me and my body "I want to have you all night, baby..." He would say so that only I could hear "So hot, so perfect, I want you so bad..."

I didn't know how to respond, so I just grabbed his hair tighter, pulling making him thrust harder against me, being fierce and relentless.

All my mind and body wanted was for this night to never end, and so did the sensations it caused.

I rolled over as hard as I could and it seemed that Harry had gone deeper, his moans became longer, he had picked up momentum by pulling the sheets off the bed and sinking his feet into it, I would be limp by tomorrow, but it would be worth it.

A trembling began to take over me, the butterflies in my stomach took a long walk there, my toes had curved, the liberating feeling was coming. My hands, which before scratched his back, went back to his scalp, which I pulled with each shock that passed through there.

I could feel Harry shivering too, my walls involuntarily tightened around his member, which made Harry face me and leave a hickey on my neck. "Come with me babe, I know you're almost there, let go..."

And that was all it took, I felt the euphoric feeling taking over my body quickly, the roller coaster descending, the chill in my stomach encompassing. I twisted my body on the bed, arching my spine and biting my lip. I shivered quickly and my legs fell open to my sides, Harry launched three more thrusts and lay over my body moaning into mine hearing a long delicious "Oooh". I could feel his cock thickening inside the condom and his hips working for the last few times.

🎵🎵🎵🎵

A month after our historic fuck, Harry and I had not exchanged another word. It had been a fuck, period. No one needed to know anything about it, nor did we need to prolong it.

I was sketching Harry's outfit for the next week, the tour was already in North America. I remember that the outfit that Harry had worn after that night, during the show, got me a notice in the newspapers and a call for Gucci. Yes, Gucci had called me, but I couldn't leave the team now, so they gave me the responsibility of designing the next suit that Harry would wear for their shoe promo, because according to them, I knew Harry from head to toe.

And I really did.

It was late at night, I was in my hotel room, until Mitch called me to a meeting in the private area.

There were the guys from the band, Jeff and Harry. I sat down next to Jeff and we started talking, I felt Harry looking at me while Mitch stroked his head that was lying on his shoulder.

I decided to just ignore it because it might be me. Jeff and I saw that we have some friends in common on Instagram, which sparked the conversation.

"I remember Natalie came out loaded when we played 'Never have I ever' , she was quiet of the group but had done things..." Jeff blinked putting away his laptop on a small table next to the couch.

"There you go, I think we should play!" Sarah pronounced and everyone nodded and I felt my hands sweat. I always got screwed in this game.

Jeff's assistant brought a bottle of Wiskey, we sat down on the rug in the room and Mitch picked up a bottle he had used.

Harry was on the opposite side from me, set up was me, Jeff on my right, Peter his assistant, Adam, Charlottie, Harry, Sarah and Mitch.

Peter had handed out cups and opened the huge bottle of whiskey.

I had taken only one which was from "I never had sex in college," until Mitch asked the crucial question.

"I've never had sex with anyone on the team!" He and Sarah toasted, drawing laughs from everyone, and Harry turned the liquid over in one gulp.

No, I wasn't going to throw it all away, not now and not ever. I crossed my legs and continued to hold the glass of liquid. I looked everywhere but at Harry, who was waiting for me to drink.

"Spin the bottle, Adam!" I suggested and the question mark in everyone's expression fell apart to form an exclamation point.

They knew now.

🎵🎵🎵🎵

The bottle game lasted three more rounds, Harry said he needed to rest and wished everyone a good night by shaking hands, except me.

Damned Aquarian.

I waited a bit and went after him as soon as he did, I ran to the elevator and up to the presidential suite. Harry was walking with his hands in the pockets of his black sweatpants and his jacket also black.

"Hazz..." I jogged down the long hallway and he even looked at me, swiping the card on his door opening it.

"What is it, (Y/N)?" A little breathless, I stopped at his door and he was staring at me now "After a month you decided to talk to me alone?"

Harry left the door open, and I entered the room and closed it. He had sat on the edge of the bed, his fingers intertwined and his legs spread.

"I thought it was all right!" I started in a mild tone, I didn't know how he would react. "You know Harry, I am a person who works for you, that was wrong!" I sighed moving closer "It was wrong for me and for you!"

His eyebrows frowned and he let out a sarcastic laugh "I know what's wrong or right, (Y/N), you don't have to tell me that." He shook his head scratching his chin "I could have sworn sneaking out after mind-blowing sex like that was a guy thing, but you've outdone yourself!"

My heart was beating fast, Harry had never been rude to anyone in front of me, I had been the first and it was scary.

"Was that right for you? I barely made the team and I'm already in your bed! Understand my side, Harry! I may have broken the contract or whatever!" I started pacing back and forth trying to explain myself.

"It was right yes, because after a while I felt something good besides some orgasm, I put all my emotions and feelings there because I thought you were different, you were the woman of my dreams! But I was very wrong, definitely!" Harry stood up and approached me "Do you really think I would let someone fire you for that? It was something concensual! I wanted you from the moment I saw you with Lambert! Everyone on my team knows my every quirk, they know I was and still am in love with you!" Harry shouted in his English accent, he wanted to kill me.

"You know what? Fuck you and your little story! If you wanted something, you'd fake it with me and not expose it to everyone on the team!" I roared in anger and walked out slamming the door to his room.

🎵🎵🎵🎵

I couldn't sleep a wink and it was after four o'clock in the morning. Harry's words were rattling around in my head, was he really feeling something for me? It hadn't been a one-night thing? But he should have said something! I am no guesser!

Already in bed, I decided to put on a podcast to go to sleep, but as soon as I unplugged my cell phone from the charger, Harry's name flashed on the screen in a call.

I rolled my eyes and rejected the call.

I plugged in my headphones and put on the Spotify podcast, but in less than 30 seconds it was interrupted.

I took a deep breath and accepted the call.

"What is it Harry?" I asked removing my headphones and placing the cell phone close to my face.

"Babe, I need you." I heard his mellifluous voice. "You weren't wrong, I couldn't have done that, but I swear, I swear..." he repeated emphasizing, which was normal since he probably started drinking again after I left his room "That I imagined you would flip that shot and I would kiss you in front of everyone like I've been dreaming about for the last thirty days..." Harry sobbed and I felt slightly guilty, he imagined it would be a movie scene...

"Harry..." I got out of bed and pulled on my robe "You should have sat down and talked to me, I'm not like them, I know how to talk and get a yes or no." I tied the robe around my waist, walked to the door and unlocked it.

In front of me was a teary-eyed Harry, his face flushed with a beak. "Forgive me! Can we talk?"

"Later." I pulled him into my room.

Within minutes, I had him pinned to me by jumping into his lap, Harry sat on the bed and pressed my waist against his.

"I'm going to tell everyone you're mine!" He growled slowly biting my neck and jaw.

My hands and his worked together, Harry sat in the middle of the bed right after putting on a condom, I sat naked on his lap feeling his cock slowly entering me, I loved him and wanted him too, I wished he would be fast and strong like last time.

"Faster, Hazz," I moaned, my eyes rolling back as my nails slid up Harry's arms and down the back of his neck and back.

His head was propped between my breasts as he kept up the effort to go deep, burying his cock in me in more violent strokes.

On an impulse, Harry laid me down on the bed, his right arm supporting his body while the other was pulling his member out of me, rubbing the swollen head against my slippery spot. He knew how to tease me very well.

"Oh, (Y/N)... I've dreamed every night of this pussy!" he murmured "Of my cock drowning in it, taking all your sanity, leaving you only pleasure!"

His hand landed on my thigh and he changed the angle of his thrusts, making a pornographic moan come from my lips.

He had done it again.

"Is this the spot, baby?" he asked, his voice deep as he concentrated on hitting that spot over and over again, the pleasure was overwhelming and all I could do was nod, encouraging Harry to continue.

"I love having you like this, love." Harry moaned, looking up into my face in complete pleasure with each thrust he launched.

His cock was reaching places inside me I never knew existed and points I never knew could cause so much pleasure.

Like last time, my body shook a little harder and more deliciously, as Harry said the word 'mine' with each thrust, ending our reconciliation sex.

Harry had his body on top of mine, my legs still entwined around his waist, my heart was pounding hard, my breathing ragged, and a giant fatigue falling over me.

"Babe?" Harry called out to me and I just shook my head with my eyes closed. "You'll need to have two glasses of wiskey."

He left a kiss on each of my breasts, I pulled his face to me giving him a lingering kiss, I opened my eyes and stared into his "I'll take a whole bottle if I have to."

I loved Harry's smile, but I loved Harry's post fuck smile even more.

talk with me | masterlist

#harry styles smut #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot

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trekkitkat · 2 years ago

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7, 15, 16, 20

7. A film you wish had a sequel.

Rise of the Guardians (2012) Gorgeous movie and it's overdue for a sequel.

15. A film everyone loves but you hate.

Avengers Endgame (2019) A lot of the Avengers movies actually irritate me. They started going down hill with Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War was really the breaking point. I really hate that they fractured the Avengers. They missed a lot of potential in there and just went for in-fighting and it sucks. Endgame was just full of plot holes and out of character and frustrating by how fractured and irreparable the team became. It has it's moments. The action scenes are awesome. But overall, not a fan.

16. A film you love but everyone hates.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) I like it. It's fun and outlandish. It's definitely not the best instalment but I find it enjoyable. Harrison Ford is always great to watch and Cate Blanchett as a crazy USSR scientist/soldier is glorious.

20. Old movies or contemporary movies.

Both. I love movies from every era.

#Thanks @feralgodmothers #Movie asks

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fanfoolishness · 5 years ago

Text

getting better all the time (SUF)

Steven confronts the Gems about a test they gave him years ago. Angst and anger and a little hope. One month after ‘I Am My Monster,’ Amethyst POV, 4150 words.

***

Things were… getting better. At least, Amethyst was pretty sure they were.

(They certainly couldn’t get any worse than Steven hunched and glowing on the floor, gasping those terrible things, crumpling, vanishing, swallowed up in a monster so massive he dwarfed the Diamonds —)

But that was over. They’d finally gotten through to him, finally gotten him to realize how much they all loved him. It had been a whole month. He was talking to a human therapist and spending time with the three of them again, and she could see glimmers of the old him coming back. That had to be better, right?

There were times she wasn’t exactly sure, though. Maybe it was normal when humans were stressed, those days where he snapped at them over every little thing and glowed pink and cried, or days when he slept so long Amethyst would have been jealous if it didn’t scare her a little bit. None of the days ended in Steven the monster (he’d looked so scared, somehow, even through the fangs and the roaring voice), so she told herself to stop worrying.

Then again, that’s what she’d told herself before this all happened. I knew. I knew something was wrong.

Like, this, just now, she wasn’t sure about. Steven had come down from his room at a normal time, sleeping in until mid-morning but not until three in the afternoon. He’d had a few jokes for them. He’d made breakfast with her, laughing when she did the old egg-in-the-eyes trick for him. He’d settled in on the couch with a cup of tea instead of bitter black coffee. He had even said yes when Pearl suggested they watch a movie together. He’d picked something silly, Crossroads Jones and the Lost Diadem, a goofy old movie about an archaeologist hunting treasure. Amethyst hadn’t seen it in years. Progress! It was good, right?

So why, an hour into the movie, was Steven sitting there with his hands tightening around his mug until it cracked?

Garnet was the first to notice, of course. Amethyst watched with concern as Garnet gently removed the mug from his hands, getting up and putting it carefully in the sink. “Steven, we don’t have to watch this movie if you don’t want to.”

“Of course I want to,” he said, but his voice sounded weird, and just as he spoke the picture shorted out. He jumped to his feet and turned the TV off, looking embarrassed.

Amethyst gave Pearl a worried look, then turned back to Steven. “You okay there, bud?” she asked.

“Yes, of c --” he started to say. Then an irritated look crossed his face as if he was remembering something. “No,” he said instead.

“Thank you for telling us. Would you like to talk about it?” Pearl asked carefully. Amethyst could tell she was thinking of the house meetings they’d been having, where they’d started trying to hammer out what they could change in their own behavior to help Steven.

One of the rules Steven had given them was Just don’t... corner me. I’ll try to talk more, but I need you guys to give me space sometimes too. Amethyst relaxed as Pearl tried to look casual instead of panicky.

Good job, P.

Steven exhaled heavily. They all stared at him, then realized they were staring at him, then all looked at each other instead. Garnet removed her visor, letting it vanish in a twinkle.

“So… ugh, this is hard,” said Steven. He closed his eyes for a moment. “One of the things I’ve been, um, talking about in therapy… Dr. B’s been trying to encourage me to talk about things when they bother me, instead of pretending I’m fine.”

“We want to listen, Steven,” said Garnet, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“Yeah, but… sometimes my problem is with you guys?” he said in a rush, not meeting their eyes. Amethyst watched him carefully, trying to figure out how a movie about a nerd hunting treasure had bothered him, and what it had to do with them.

“Dude, that’s okay. Sometimes we mess up. Sometimes we really mess up, and if we did, we want to fix it,” said Amethyst. “What did we do this time?”

Steven flinched. “You didn’t do anything today,” he said. “It’s just, the movie -- did that last scene remind you of anything?”

Pearl considered. “Well, the humans were in danger,” she said slowly. “Did that bother you? Like when we would go on missions and they would get too dangerous?” She sighed. “Sometimes I wonder what we were thinking, taking you to some of those places —“

“No, no, that’s not what I mean,” said Steven. “Not exactly. I mean, things were gonna get dangerous at some point no matter what. You guys couldn’t keep me away from Peridot and J— Homeworld stuff, that wasn’t your fault.”

“They were seeking treasure in the movie,” said Garnet, laying a hand over her mouth as she thought. “As you sought our approval. But we failed to give you what you needed —“

“Oh jeez, no,” said Steven, clearly annoyed. “No, it was —“

Amethyst exclaimed, “Oh yeah! They just almost got crushed by a giant rock in a cave! It’s like my room in that test we gave you! Oh man, did you get squished by that thing? I mean, it wasn’t supposed to actually hit you —“ She stopped, remembering that they hadn’t told him about the failsafes.

Steven gave her a pained smile. “Yeah. That’s what it reminded me of, that test. It -- uh, it didn’t go the way you guys thought it did.” He laughed, a nervous sound, and paced around the living room. His feet padded against the floor.

“What do you mean?” asked Pearl, tilting her head. “You did so well. You passed every obstacle --”

Steven shook his head. “You still won’t admit it.” His hands were fists. He slowly opened and closed them, again and again, staring at his palms. He opened his mouth. “I didn’t pass it. One of Garnet’s spikes came down on me. It would have broken some more of my bones, probably — um, I don’t remember if I told you guys, but we found that out at the hospital —“

“Your bones were broken?” Pearl yelped, thunderstruck.

“What? Seriously, what?” Amethyst squawked. “When?”

“Steven!” cried Garnet.

“I don’t know exactly,” said Steven, shrugging uncomfortably. He bit his lip. “I have some guesses? Like any time I actually had a bruise or a cut. I think my gem healed a lot of stuff right as it went down, but anything I actually remember hurting… I think it might have done really serious damage. There were x-rays… my bones have all these old fractures —“

“I’m so sorry,” gasped Garnet. She stopped leaning against the counter and stepped forward, raising her arms to give Steven a hug. He pulled away from her, shaking his head again.

“No, I mean, that stuff is bad, and we should probably talk about that too sometime, but that’s not what I was… it’s not why the mug cracked.” He waved a hand and kept pacing. “Can I just finish saying what I’m trying to say?” There was an edge in his voice, a hardness that made Amethyst wince.

“Sorry,” she said quickly.

“We’ll stop interrupting,” said Pearl, but there were big tears in her eyes. Amethyst nudged her and she wiped them away, trying to smile encouragingly at Steven.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say — you guys rigged the test. All of it. So it didn’t work at all. That stupid rock chasing the guy in the movie, t just reminded me of that.”

“But you seemed so happy afterward!” Pearl protested.

“Yeah, you were super proud!” Amethyst said, trying to figure out why Steven was so upset. Okay, so maybe he’d realized he couldn’t really mess up the test, but why did that matter?

Garnet looked as confused as Amethyst felt. “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “I saw you passing the test, and becoming more confident in your powers, like we hoped. And you did start becoming improving so much afterwards --”

Steven held up a hand. “Maybe that’s what it looked like? But not for the reason you think. I went over this with Dr. B a week or two ago, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell you guys but I think I have to, or it’s gonna keep bothering me.” He crossed his arms over his chest, sucking in deep breaths through his nose and letting them slowly out through his mouth. “It’s not just that it was rigged.”

“What do you mean?” asked Pearl.

“I sneaked out through the back of the test and made it outside into the temple. I overheard you guys --” He rubbed at his eyes. “You said you were bad at helping me. You said you didn’t know what I needed. That I couldn’t lose my confidence again. And Garnet said there wasn’t anyone like me, that there’s never been ‘anyone or anything like Steven.’”

“Oh, no, Steven, we never meant for you to hear that --” Pearl cried.

“Crap! We were bad at it!” Amethyst swore.

“And -- and I wanted to yell at you, all of you -- I was so mad you gave me another fake test, that you didn’t trust me for real -- that you wouldn’t actually ever let me fail at something --” He was pacing harder, footsteps louder on the wood floor, breathing heavily, a pink flush starting on his cheeks. “But you know what I thought? You know what I realized? I realized that there was something I could do right.”

He laughed a little, but there were tears starting in his eyes. “I realized that I had to take care of you. I couldn’t let you know that I knew. So I pretended -- I lied -- so you would all feel better.”

He sank back down onto the couch, burying his face in his hands, sniffling. “And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. Lying. Telling everyone I was fine. Pretending I never messed up. Because that way, no one would ever have to feel bad because of me.” He let out a long, shuddering sigh. “And we all know how that turned out.” He waved angrily out at the ocean.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Amethyst stared at the floor. She could see Steven marching out of the final test chamber, his little arms and shoulders stiff, his face frozen. And they’d all been so worried that they’d messed it up again, that they were never going to be able to help him be a Crystal Gem or use his powers, and they had to figure it out. They had to help him. What if Homeworld was coming? How could they protect Steven when it was just the three of them? They had to try and help him get stronger, they had to get him to stop beating himself up. They had to help him use Rose’s powers in case he had to protect himself. But they had no idea how to do it.

She remembered how tense she’d been, how they’d all watched him approach in silence. And he’d suddenly become so happy. The way he talked up each of their parts of the test! The grin on his face, the way his eyes lit up! And Amethyst remembered how proud she’d been. How proud they’d all been, folding him into a sweeping hug, grateful that they’d finally gotten it right.

Except he lied.

“We fucked up,” Amethyst mumbled.

“Amethyst! Language!” Pearl snapped, scandalized. Then her face softened. “Yes. You’re right.”

Garnet sat on the end of the couch, folding her hands together and gazing sadly at Steven. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, I didn’t want you to,” muttered Steven. “I mean… I wish I’d been honest. Maybe it wouldn’t have messed me up so much if I’d just said something. Or if you could admit I failed. Sometimes it was scary, feeling like I could never do anything wrong because I’d disappoint you.”

It echoed in Amethyst’s mind. You all think I’m some kind of angel, but I’m not that kid anymore! She swallowed.

“Steven,” said Pearl, reaching out and gently laying a hand on his shoulder. “You were a child. We should have realized you were upset.”

“We messed up, man. We didn’t know what we were doing,” said Amethyst, leaning against Steven’s other shoulder. He leaned his cheek against hers reluctantly. “Is that why you never wanna tell us when something bothers you?”

Steven snorted. “Well, there’s a lot of reasons, but I guess that’s one of them.” His voice softened. “Like I felt like I had to take care of you. Like I was only good if I could keep you guys from feeling bad.”

“Steven, our feelings are our own,” said Garnet. “They are not your responsibility. You don’t need to protect us anymore. We should have been protecting you all along. Even from ourselves.”

“You’re right. You should have. You didn’t!” he burst out, jumping back to his feet.

They fell back against the couch, staring at him. Crap. That was another one of the rules he’d asked them to follow. Please don’t stare at me if I’m freaking out. It just makes it worse.

Amethyst tried looking out the window, but out the window she could see the ocean, and the ocean was where he’d fought the Cluster, where he’d screamed and nearly poofed them, where he’d cried in the ocean air for an hour afterwards, inconsolable --

“Why did you even want me to live with you?” he shouted, and she forgot her effort not to stare at him when she realized he was flaring pink. It glowed through his skin and hair, but his eyes weren’t diamonds, they were still Steven’s, scared and upset. “You had no idea what to do with me! You were all messed up from Mom dying! Pearl, you almost killed me more than once, Amethyst, you hated yourself so much I think I learned how to do it from you, and Garnet, you made me feel so small all the time -- I love you guys but you have to admit, my childhood was fucked up!”

He stood alone in the middle of the living room, chest heaving, pink hands curled into fists, tears streaming down his face.

“We wanted you to live here because we love you, Steven,” said Pearl, her voice shaking. “We wanted to teach you about your heritage. And we wanted to protect you.”

“I -- I know you love me, that’s not --” His voice was strangled. His hands rose up, fingers twisting into his hair as he grimaced. “Sometimes things were just so hard!” His voice rang through the stillness, a burst of energy that rippled through them all and sent the coffee table shaking, but nothing cracked. He clapped a hand over his mouth, looking panicked, his shoulders heaving.

Amethyst fought back tears of her own. Don’t make it about you, she told herself firmly. You gotta help him! “Steven?”

“Yeah?” he whispered raggedly.

“You’re right. Things sucked sometimes. And you had to go through all of that, and that sucks, too. And you’re mad because sometimes we made things worse, right?”

He nodded, staring at her with wide eyes with his mouth clamped shut.

“This is really hard for you. That’s okay. But is it cool if I do one of your exercises with you?” she asked, getting to her feet. She hoped this was the right thing to do. Steven himself had suggested it a week or two ago, but she didn’t know if it applied now. Hopefully it did.

He laughed, and it was more like a sob. “I -- I guess. Yeah. Okay.”

She took his hands in her own, trying to remember what he’d told them. “Okay, you tell me if we’re doing it right. Deep breath in?”

He took a deep breath, following her lead, and nodded slightly through his tears.

“And deep breath out?”

“Yeah,” he said softly, dropping his head so that it leaned against her own. His hands trembled in hers.

“That feels pretty good, right?” she said, trying to keep her voice strong. “Let’s do it again. Deep breath in….”

She felt a hand on her shoulder, then another on the other side. Garnet and Pearl stood on either side of her and Steven, all of them taking slow, calming breaths.

Steven lifted his head up after a few minutes, his face blotchy but peach-colored again. “You guys aren’t… mad?”

“No, Steven, we aren’t angry,” said Garnet, wiping her eyes. “We wish we’d made different choices, but we’re not upset with you. You spoke a lot of truth. I know I can seem… distant, but I never wanted to be distant from you. I wanted to protect you. I’m sorry.”

“Steven, I’m sorry too,” wept Pearl. “I’m so sorry. I should never have let my pain affect you. I just… I didn’t know what to do after your mother died. It hurt so much to talk about her, and sometimes I made choices I regret because I felt so lost --” She kissed his cheek. “I love you so much, Steven. I wish I had known how to show you that.”

“I mean, I still knew,” he said, giving her a wavering smile. “And you haven’t done anything dangerous with me in years. Unless you count Steven Tag.”

“We did go a little all-in on that, didn’t we?” Pearl mused, her tears slowing. She wiped them from her eyes, gazing fondly at him.

“It was fun, though,” he admitted. “It’s not like everything was bad, you know? It just feels that way sometimes. Especially now that I’m finally trying to figure things out in my own head. All the bad stuff feels so big it kinda overpowers everything else right now.”

“We want to help you,” said Garnet. “Even if it’s difficult for us to hear. You deserve to be able to share your feelings with us.”

“Even if it hurts,” said Pearl.

“I’m sorry, Ste-man,” said Amethyst, flinging her arms around his waist. It was still hard to believe sometimes how tall he’d gotten. “I know I had my issues. I’m sorry I let them be yours, too.”

He ruffled her hair with one hand, sighing. “Thanks. All of you.”

“How are you?” asked Pearl.

Amethyst lifted her head up from his chest, gazing up at him. Steven looked exhausted now, wiped out the way she was starting to get used to after moments like this. Moments. Fights. Venting. She wasn’t sure what to call it.

“Tired,” he said. His eyes were puffy. “I’m sor--” Another deep breath. “I’m not supposed to keep apologizing,” he said quietly. “At least not for everything. Dr. B was very clear on that.” He considered. “I’m sorry for yelling. But I’m not sorry for telling you guys why I was upset.”

“Good,” said Amethyst. “Apologizing too much isn’t healthy.”

“Pfft, you never apologize,” he chuckled.

“Dude! Did I not just apologize two seconds ago?” Amethyst cried, pretending to be mortally offended with a hand over her chest in her best Pearl impression.

“Okay, okay,” said Steven. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, then looked around at each of them in turn. “Are you guys… How are you guys?”

“You said something that needed to be said,” said Garnet. “I’m disappointed in myself, and I regret how our mistakes have affected you. But those feelings are for me to worry about, not you, Steven.” She brandished a double thumbs up at him.

“I’m sorry you were carrying around that secret for so long,” said Pearl. “We were trying so hard, and I wish -- I wish we’d done things differently. And I wish you hadn’t overheard us.”

“I’m fine,” said Amethyst. She suspected she might go into the temple later and scream her head off at how badly they’d apparently messed Steven up with that one day, a day she used to be proud of. But that was for her to deal with, and Steven to find out about never. Though what if that was part of the problem? Argh.

She amended, “I mean, I’m super bummed that our test backfired and made you feel like you couldn’t talk to us. Of course I am. And it sucks that it hurt you bad enough that a stupid movie brings all of that back for you and makes you frea-- makes you so upset.” Her words weren’t coming out right. Why was it so hard to say exactly what she felt?

She gave up and tapped Steven square in the chest. “So what do you want to do now?”

“I guess we could see how the movie ends,” said Steven, wiping his eyes. “Might as well. We’ve made it this far and it can’t be any worse than the CPH reboot.”

“Would you like some cocoa? I can make some for you,” said Pearl cheerfully, though her smile was a little too wide to be entirely genuine.

“Sure,” said Steven. He shook himself free of them and flopped back on the couch, turning the TV back on. The static was gone, the picture crisp and clear.

The movie wasn’t complicated. It was loud and ridiculous and there were too many silly stunts that humans definitely couldn’t perform on their own. It was exactly the sort of thing that was her favorite, and yet she couldn’t focus on it.

She just kept glancing up at Steven out of the corner of her eye, watching him sipping his cocoa, watching him to see if he’d really said what he needed to say. But every time she did so she fought multiple versions of him, images of younger Steven telling them, again and again, not to worry about him; images of the Steven of a month ago, glowing pink, taller than Garnet, insisting shrilly he was fine, he was fine, everything was fine; images of Steven in the temple surrounded by star-shaped balloons, his smile so wide and happy and fake.

They’d really hurt him.

More than once.

And she didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to fix things that had happened years ago, how to make up for all her flaws and Pearl’s and Garnet’s and Rose’s. All she knew was that Steven was heading into human adulthood with -- what did humans call it -- scars, scars that ran through his brain like they apparently did through his bones, and she was part of the reason why.

So she curled up against him and poked him in the side to make him laugh and fetched him more cocoa when the mug ran low. He giggled when she poked him and laughed uproariously when Crossroads Jones ran into a pit of weasels. But the rest of the time he watched the movie with little shadows under his eyes, a puffiness that hadn’t been there earlier this morning.

The movie ended, credits rolling to bombastic music as bloopers played.

“That was… a movie,” said Garnet.

“It was incredibly historically inaccurate,” said Pearl. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“It’s an action movie, P, they’re not supposed to be like real history,” said Amethyst.

“It was all right,” said Steven. “Even with… you know.” He dropped his gaze. “Thanks for listening, guys.”

“How are you feeling these days? Overall?” asked Amethyst.

She wondered what he would say. Fine! Things are so much better! I’ll be back to normal in no time! She ached, thinking of him squashing everything down again, pretending for their sake and his own.

Steven shrugged, quirking his mouth to one side as he thought about his answer. “Some days are pretty good,” he said. “Sometimes I feel like my old self again. But some days are still so hard I -- I get scared it’s going to be like that day last month. Like I’m gonna explode again into something I can’t control.” He shivered. “But most days are like… this. With parts that suck. And parts that are pretty okay. I dunno.”

“You know what I think?” asked Amethyst.

“What?”

“You just told us things are less than good. You yelled at us about something we screwed up, and yeah, it sucked to hear it, but we got it out in the open. And you’re not pretending everything’s fine when it isn’t,” she said.

Pearl and Garnet smiled at him. He didn’t return the gesture, looking confused. “So?”

“I dunno, man. To me, that seems like you’re getting better, even when it doesn’t always look like it. And hopefully… we’re getting a little bit better at helping you.”

Steven raised his eyebrows, then smiled slightly. “Huh,” he said. “I guess that’s not so bad.”

“We love you so much, Steven.”

“All of us.”

“And don’t you forget it,” said Amethyst, hugging him tightly.

He sighed contentedly, hugging her back. “Love you guys.”

She sank against him in relief. Yeah. Things were getting a little better, all the time.

#suf #steven universe #steven universe future #amethyst su #steven universe fanfic #fanfoolishness' steven universe fic #fanfoolishness steven universe fic #it was an interesting challenge to show both steven and the gems improving #but there's still some problems in how they communicate #and that will always be true to some extent #but hopefully they can all keep getting better

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vanessakirbyfans · 4 years ago

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Defying expectations, challenging Hollywood’s norms and facing one’s own fear of failing emerged as central themes when Michelle Pfeiffer, Kate Winslet, Rashida Jones, Vanessa Kirby and Andra Day met virtually in December for The Envelope’s Actress Roundtable. Collectively, they represent four decades in film and more wild experiences than we can fit in one discussion — and they’re also behind some of the most complex characters in film right now.

Pfeiffer is eccentric, wealthy New York widow Frances Price in the quirky drama “French Exit,” which opens this week in limited release. When Price blows through most of her inheritance, she flees to Paris, where she attracts an odd assortment of friends. Winslet is rough-hewn paleontologist Mary Anning in “Ammonite,” a period drama that explores the hardships of a female pioneer in 19th century England’s patriarchal science world and the challenges she faced hiding her love for another woman.

Jones is Laura, the dutiful daughter of an eccentric father in the comedy-drama “On the Rocks.” Despite their complicated history, daughter and father embark on a covert mission to find out if her husband is cheating, but self-discovery may just be the biggest reveal. Kirby conveys anger, sorrow and grief following the death of her newborn baby as Martha in the emotionally wrenching “Pieces of a Woman.” And singer Day makes her film debut in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” a period drama streaming on Hulu later this month that chronicles Holiday’s battles with law enforcement, drugs and the crush of systemic racism.

Their conversation here has been edited for length and clarity.

Your films are built around narratives of complex women, many of whom face challenges that aren’t often explored on screen. “Pieces of a Woman” is a great example of a film that is so specifically female, it would have never made it to the screen in the past.

Vanessa Kirby: It definitely feels like a different time right now ... we want to represent women that we identify as being us and the weird parts of us. In the movie, my biggest intention was to make it not a sanitized, movie version of a birth. So [she] felt super sick and burped a lot. She was really nauseous ... things that we might think are unpalatable or not comfortable. That’s all the facets of being human, and particularly being a women. I’ve read so many scripts where it was a version of a woman that I don’t know. It was a film version as opposed to my sister or my best mates or me.

Kate Winslet: That’s what is great about now ... the world is making space for all of these stories. We’ve always tried to tell these stories, but the world is more receptive to hearing them now. That is a shift.... It’s such a moving, seismic time to be doing this job.

Michelle, your character Frances Price is the perfect example of an imperfect female protaganist. She is a mess, and fantastic, and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

Michelle Pfeiffer: I was just was so curious about this woman, and I thought she was so odd and not like a character that I had seen or that I had played. And then the dialogue is very stylized. So you have to give in to it but, at the same time, not too much. It was made up of these disparate tones of absurdism and melancholy, and it was funny, and it was tragic — these oddballs sort of living on the fringe of society and trying to make some sort of human connection, all of them, in some way.

Rashida, in “On the Rocks,” you play a reserved writer with a charming, flamboyant father. Your real father is Quincy Jones. What sort of parallels did you feel playing Laura?

Rashida Jones: I very much related to this idea of coming of age with a larger-than-life father who commands presence and changes the atmosphere of any room he walks into, and how that in itself can be something you have to untangle from. Because in order to be your own person, in order to find your life, in order to figure out who you are in the world, not relational to anybody else, you have to separate yourself from all that charm and the warm light of your father’s love. That part of it I very much related to. But Laura is unlike me in the sense that I’m pretty outspoken. This character, I think, has a lot of restraint. That was a challenge.

Andra, stepping into the shoes of Billie Holiday must have been a huge challenge, and this is your first film!

Andra Day: It was definitely terrifying. First of all, I’m a fan of hers. And I’ve always loved movies and had such a great respect for the craft of acting. My biggest terror was that I was going to suck. So I was like, “OK, I’m going to take two to three years off of music just to study and focus on acting.” I auditioned at the end of 2017, landed the role at the beginning of 2018, and then we shot at the end of 2019. So I had time to really live in her [shoes]. The film isn’t a sanitized version of Billie Holiday. She is raw. She is a fighter. She’s a hero, in all of her real humanness, even as a fractured figure. All of the emotional pain. It was the most challenging and rewarding thing I’ve done in my life — and the most terrifying.

Winslet: It never goes away.

Day: That’s actually my question. I mean, do you ever really, really shed all of it or let it go?

Winslet: Honestly, it does not go away. But I feel so excited for you, Andra, that in this moment you are connecting with other people, having these kinds of conversations, because we all learn on the job. All of these experiences that we are sharing are the things that will hold you up and buoy you through, and this is a time when we have to hold each other up. But it doesn’t get any easier. And I’m afraid you will always be terrified. I f—ing am.

Pfeiffer: When I first started acting, probably for the first 10 years, I literally on the first day would shake so terribly that I was sure you could see it on film. Fortunately, you couldn’t. I don’t shake any more, but I still have those jitters. I still think the first week of shooting I’m going to be fired and replaced.

Jones: Yeah. So congratulations on that, for a lifetime.

Day: This is a roundtable, but also a therapy session.

Let’s talk about the risks that jangle those nerves. Those of you who have been doing this a while have tackled a wide variety of characters and survived, and thrived. That’s unusual in Hollywood, especially for women.

Pfeiffer: Like all actors, you sort of choose the best of what is available to you, and go for as long as you can without working, until you need a paycheck. It’s also that thing where, depending on what your last role was, that’s how the industry sees you. It’s really up to you to try to find those things that shift it in the direction you want it to go. I did “Grease 2,” and that was one thing, and then was lucky enough a year later to get cast in “Scarface.” People were very upended, because nobody expected that turn. And then when I did “Married to the Mob,” that [was] another seismic shift, like, “Whoa, wait a minute; who’s that?” I remember when I met Marty Scorsese for the first time, he expected this dark-haired girl from New Jersey to walk in. That was one of the most flattering things anyone ever said about my work. It’s just looking for those opportunities, and sometimes they’re very small, but those small opportunities end up having the biggest impact on the direction that your career goes in.

Jones: I just want to interrupt and say how cool this is. Michelle, obviously, you’re an icon and a legend, but the fact that you did [those films] back to back; such different things, such different audiences, such different characters. To me, that is the success of the art form.

Pfeiffer: Well, thank you. I spent lots of time being unemployed and waiting and really stretching it out, but it is, for me, the most exciting thing about being an actor. And that’s why we’re always terrified, because we’re always trying to do something different.

Day: As music artists, people are always trying to put you in a box, like, “This is what you do,” and we’re constantly rebelling against that, because life’s not like that. I can’t be the same. This role changed me, and I wouldn’t have been the same [person] as three years ago anyway. As a fan of yours, [Michelle], it’s exciting not to know what you’re going to come out with next.

Kate, your recent leap into the unknown is playing Mary Anning.

Winslet: She was a woman of scientific brilliance who made pioneering discoveries in the fossil world. But she was an unsung hero, because she lived in the early 1800s, and the world of science and geology was, like so many worlds back then and still now, dominated by men. And those men would buy her finds and claim them as their own discoveries, actually put their names on them. But there was something incredibly stoic and accepting of her lot in life. Mary was self-taught. She was extremely working-class, actually impoverished, lived a very harsh life. I just loved her even though she is cantankerous at times and quite difficult.

Vanessa, in “Pieces of a Woman,” Martha is emotionally distant and hard to read even after going through significant trauma. Was that challenging?

Kirby: In her nature, [Martha] tries to never show anything she’s feeling. So I was really scared, because I thought, “Oh, my God, what if it looks like I’m feeling nothing or nothing’s going on?” I just had to trust that if I really felt it, and I really thought those thoughts [it would come through]. I’ve never given birth ... so a lot of women spoke to me about their experiences of miscarriage or stillbirth or losing children. I owe them everything, because they allowed me to sit with them and try and understand how it really felt. At the end of the shoot, I was like, “I hope it’s done them justice,” because it’s definitely something that’s not spoken about. There’s so much silence around it. I hope that the film will help start conversations that really need to start happening.

Andra, Billie had an exceptional life that was also quite brutal. How did you go about trying to convey that while still honoring her greatness?

Day: She is musically, my foremost inspiration. I already knew a lot about the government going after her. The early war on drugs, and the subsequent wars on drugs, were wholly entrenched in race. I was aware of that, but I didn’t know about how deeply they went after her, even up to her death. Yes, she was an addict and, yes, alcohol and drugs ... but they wanted her to die. And not just kill her, but to actually eradicate her legacy. It’s why I call her the godmother of civil rights, because she was doing it alone. Her singing “Strange Fruit” and the death of Emmett Till reinvigorated the civil rights movement. She was innately a fighter, a character with resilience and tenacity.

Kirby: Kate, can I ask what it was like being so young in “Titanic”? Did it like blow your mind after it came out and you realized that that many people were watching you in the cinema? Did you know at the time when you were making it —

Winslet: I didn’t. I was playing an American for the first time. And working with Leo, who I’d seen in "[What’s Eating] Gilbert Grape” and “Basketball Diaries.” So it was like, “Oh, my God, I’m Kate from Reading.” I was the overweight girl who would always be at the end of the line. And because my name was a W, sometimes I wouldn’t even get in the door of the audition because they’d run out of time before the Ws. And I was in “Titanic.” It’s mad.

Jones: How were you smart enough to know, even with all of that pressure and then getting hit with all of that fame, how did you know to back off and not take the big paychecks? You were so young. How did you know to shoot for longevity?

Winslet: The honest answer is I was scared of Hollywood. A big, scary place, where everyone had to be thin and look a certain way. And I knew that I did not look that way or feel like I fit there, so if I was ever going to belong, I had to earn my place. And to me, I hadn’t earned it. “Titanic” might have been a fluke. I had done “Heavenly Creatures.” I had done “Sense and Sensibility,” which I was nominated for an Academy Award for at the age of 19, but still I had this feeling of “maybe that was just luck.” When I became a mother at 25, all of that stuff evaporated completely. Then two years after she was born, I was asked to do “Eternal Sunshine [of the Spotless Mind].” I do believe that was a huge turning point in my career, because from then on people suddenly went, “Oh, she can do that?!”

Kate, what if anything did you learn from “Ammonite”?

Winslet: It really opened my eyes to wanting to take responsibility for this sort of shared voice that we have as women. To try harder to not be objectified.

Jones: But we take it for granted that things will be the way they’re supposed to be. And that’s what’s been cool about the last five years is there has been a complete and utter subversion of just having that existential moment of like, “Wait, what is it that I’m supposed to do? What are the societal norms? What are the professional norms that I’ve agreed upon that actually don’t feel comfortable?”

Kirby: I remember when I first started reading scripts, the character descriptions. The man, it would always be “articulate, intelligent, high-powered.” And then the woman would be “attractive, dark, beautiful hair, and all eyes look at her when she comes into the room.” It was so subtly objectifying. Often, the woman would be just ever so slightly moving the man’s story along, rather than necessarily having her own journey.

Day: I think we so often write this [young] generation off as like, “Oh, it’s the social media generation, and all they care about is selfies and dah, dah, dah.” But I think we can partly attribute this shift to them. I don’t think this generation wants the glossy, clean, the sanitized version of life. Also, with the internet and social media, everyone’s still connected; the globe is so much smaller now.

Rashida, you’ve not only acted, you’ve written, produced and directed. Do you think that kind of representation behind the camera is making a difference in what we are seeing?

Jones: The good news now is there definitely is an appetite, at least within Hollywood, for female content creators. And what’s nice is what all of you have been saying is the more women there are around, the more comfortable women feel advocating for themselves. If you don’t have that representation around, you’re less likely to speak up, because you don’t feel like you have any backup.

Day: One of the things we learned is that certain audiences would wince at [Billie] getting beat, but I was like, “If we don’t have that in there, then we’re continuing to retool her narrative, the thing that she’s been a victim of her entire life.” Suzan-Lori Parks cowrote this movie with Lee Daniels. Women’s stories have always been told through the lens of masculinity, through how they view us or how they want us to be. Most of our stories need to be told by women, written by women, done by women. Not to write men out of the picture, but for them to understand that it is a collaborative effort.

#Vanessa Kirby #Pieces of a Woman #Kate Winslet #Michelle Pfeiffer #Rashida Jones #Andra Day #Interview #Articles #Roundtable #Videos

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marvelslut16 · 5 years ago

Text

A helping hand

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x reader

Synopsis:(Y/N)’s younger sister is part of the party. so what happens when she witness’s Billy getting hit when she goes to pick Max up and then when he arrives bloody and bruised on her doorstep two days later? Will she help him and let him in on her life before Hawkins, or will her hatred for him make her turn him away? Takes place between seasons 2 and 3.

Word count: 2602

Warnings: First (and possibly only) time writing for Billy, so he’s pretty OOC. Swearing. Abuse. Neil being the grade a asshole that he is. Talk of domestic violence. Angst?

“Stay in the car, I’ll be back in a minute,” you turn around to face your little sister, Carol, who’s sitting in the back seat flipping through the pages of her seventeen magazine.

“Okay,” she glances up at you. “We’re supposed to be at the arcade in ten minutes, we can’t be late.”

She’s frantic that she’ll be late and upset Dustin. “Ah, young love,” you tease her as you step out of the car, catching the last seconds of her sticking her tongue out. Carol and Dustin had been friends their entire life, and she’s been in love with him for almost as long.

You make your way to the front door of the Hargrove house, you’re here to pick up Max and drop the two off at the arcade to meet up with the rest of the party. It was a cold and snowy January in Hawkins, so the kids obviously couldn’t ride their bikes or skateboards. As you get closer to the door, you swear you can hear the hushed tone of someone yelling at their kids. You ignore the uneasy feeling rising in your stomach and knock on the door.

Susan Hargrove answers the door with a fake smile plastered on her face. You’re about to greet her when you hear shouting coming from down the hall. “You’re just a worthless fucking faggot Billy,” you hear a male voice bellow, you make eye contact with Max over her mothers shoulder. She looks embarrassed, which makes a deep frown appear on your face. This must be normal. “You’re too busy staring at yourself in the mirror that you can’t drive your sister to the arcade, you make some girl come out of her way to get Maxine.” Billy and his father are now in your line of sight, but blocked from your sister's view because of your frame.

Before you can assure them that it’s no problem and that it was actually on the way Billy mumbles, “she’s not my sister.”

“We’ve already talked about this,” his father seethes. “You need to learn respect and responsibility.” As the last word leaves his lips the sound of flesh on flesh resonates in the air.

It takes you half a second to realize that Neil’s hand is in the air and Billy’s face is turned away from the door. The smack happened so fast that you almost missed it. A small gasp leaves your lips, reminding everyone that you just witnessed their dark secrets. Billy’s blue eyes snap to yours as they seem to glow in rage, but towards you and not his father. There’s also a sadness deep within those angry eyes, a sadness that only someone who can relate can see.

Max is frantically pulling on her red winter coat, trying to get out of the house as fast as humanly possible.

“I’ll have Max home by eight,” you give Susan a sad smile. “I have to go shopping, but then I’ll be at the arcade with the kids for the rest of the time. And really, it was no bother picking her up, Max and Carol get along great.”

“Bye mom,” Max mumbles as she pushes her way out the door and towards your car. Susan gives you one last sad smile, and your eye’s briefly flick to Billy who looks like he’s about to break something, before the front door closes.

As you walk away you can hear Neil’s voice pick back up, there’s a part of you that wants to cry for the poor broken boy on the other side of that door. But it’s Billy, the bully, the new king of Hawkins High. The Billy that goes around tormenting Steve, and the one that makes fun of the nerdy kids. No, you wouldn’t cry for him. He’s just as bad as his father.

Max and Carol talk and laugh the entire way to the arcade. Max pretending nothing happened, and Carol none the wiser to what goes on in the Hargrove house. Carol is impatient and practically jumps out to the car before it stops moving, five minutes late from when she promised Dustin she would be here. Max is slower, almost like she’s at war with herself on whether to say anything or not.

“Max,” you say as she slides a foot out the door. “If it’s ever too much and you need somewhere to stay for a night, our door is always open. No questions asked and no one has to know.”

“Thanks,” she says quietly before following your sister into the arcade.

When you drop Max off later that night Billy’s Camaro is nowhere to be seen.

At school the next morning you feel a tight grip around your wrist as you’re walking down the hall to first period. Before you can properly react you’re spun around and engulfed in the strong scent of cologne and cigarette smoke. You’re once again greeted by Billy’s angry blue eyes as he pulls you into a secluded corner.

“Let go of me,” you glare at him, yanking your wrist away from him. Taking a few steps back, wanting as much space between you and him as you could get. Billy looked angry, and you sure as hell didn’t want to be on the receiving side of that anger.

“I don’t want your pity and you best not say anything to anyone about what you saw yesterday (Y/L/N),” Billy threatens. Even though it’s the middle of January Billy still only has half of his shirt buttoned. His chest muscles visibly flexing with his erratic angry breathing.

“Why the hell would I say anything? Just so you can deny it before beating me to a pulp like you did to Steve? I’ll pass,” your eyes narrow at the bad boy. “And I sure as hell don’t fucking pity you. Yeah, you’re life sucks, Neil sucks. But you choose to be just like him. Abused or not, that’s no excuse to become the bully Hargrove. A bad life doesn’t give you the excuse to be a shit person. And you could try to be nicer to Max, while she may not be the one getting hit, living in a toxic home is just as terrible.”

Billy takes a step back, like you’ve burned him. His face holds a faint trace of sorrow, good. Maybe he’ll be knocked down a peg or two. Out of the corner of your eye you see Steve shoot you a weird look as his eyes land on you and his enemy.

“Harrington,” you call as Steve walks passed you and Billy. He stops and turns around, raising an eyebrow when his eyes flick to your company. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Studying for our calculus test,” he watches you intently as you step closer to him, still wondering why you were with Billy.

“The kids are coming over to watch the new Indiana Jones, do you want to join us? We can study after the movie, I love Harrison Ford too much to actually miss the movie,” you laugh softly. “Plus my parents left this morning, so I’m babysitting seven hormonal middle schoolers alone, please save me.”

“You’ll be fine,” Steve laughs at your over dramatic attitude.

“Half of them are dating each other, and then my sisters crush on Dustin, I can’t handle all that drama on my own,” you whine as you start to walk down the hall. “Plus it's free pizza, popcorn, and all the ice cream you can eat. And a new episode of Saturday Night Live when the kids fall asleep” You bat your eyelashes at your friend and co parent to the party.

“Fine,” he sighs reluctantly. “But Hargrove better not be there.”

“Like he’d ever show up,” you laugh as you run down the hall as the warning bell sounds.

Before you know it, it’s Saturday afternoon and you’re surrounded by kids. Susan dropped Max off first, and the poor woman couldn’t look you in the eyes. And that fact that Billy, who according to Max always takes her places, wasn’t the one dropping her off made you slightly worried.

You’re about twenty minutes into the movie and throwing popcorn at Steve when there’s a hesitant and irregular pounding on your front door. “Stay here,” you tell the kids. Steve follows a few steps behind you.

You’re greeted by Billy’s bruised face when you open the door. He has a bruised and swollen eye that pairs with his split lip. Dried blood on his chin and drops on his white shirt.

“Oh my God, Billy,” you breathe. Your body works without your brains help, and you gently grab his wrist and pull him into your house.

“I know you said the door was always open for Max,” his voice hoarse, almost like he was in a screaming match earlier. His right arm wrapped tightly around his torso. “Do ya think you can make an exception for me?” Max joins the three teens when she hears Billy’s voice, her face falls slightly at the sight of his condition.

“Steve, Max, why don’t you guys go back to the movie. Billy, let’s go get you cleaned up,” you grab his hand and gently pull him towards the stairs. Steve goes to protest, but Max pulls him away with her.

“What happened?” you ask after you shut the bedroom door behind you, running to the bathroom to get a wet washcloth. Billy remains silent as he watches your concentration face as you lightly dab at his split lip.

“I was working out too loudly, then I accidently spilled his beer,” Billy won’t look you in the eyes.

“We graduate in a few months and then you’ll be free,” you interject optimistically.

“You know I’ll never change, right?” Billy says as he thinks back to what you said to him school.

“I think you can,” you sigh, grabbing some aspirin. “You just choose not to.”

“What do you know?” he snaps, blue eyes murderous.

“More than you would think,” you deadpan, lifting his shirt to rest under his pecs. Boy was it hard not to just rip it off completely.

“If you wanted me shirtless you just had to ask sweetheart,” Billy winks and seductively licks his lips. You inhale sharply, trying to ignore the rush of heat you feel throughout your body. Sure he’s hot, bet he’s a manwhore and an asshole. Don’t fall for it. Instead of verbally responding, you push on his ribs without warning and it’s his turn to inhale. “Shit!”

“They don’t feel broken or fractured,” you stare at the splotchy blue and purple bruises forming over his rib cage.

“How would you know?” he asks through clenched teeth.

“I have years of practice,” you hand him the aspirin and wait to talk until he swallowed the tablets. Were you really going to tell him this? “My dad, my birth one, used to toss me around like a rag doll. Carol got lucky, he liked her so he would never hurt her. But when he was mad at something she did he would just take it out on me twice as hard. I had to clean myself up when my mom would shut down, and I’d have to fight through the pain to check to see if anything was broken. One night it was so bad that I was unconscious on our kitchen floor when my mom and Carol got home. That’s the day my mom decided to leave him.”

“How old were you?” Billy’s face a mix of sadness and anger.

“Younger than Carol and Max. We moved around a bit before finally landing in Hawkins,” you’re afraid to look in Billy’s eyes. Afraid to find that pity he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of. “I know you have a distaste for the town, I did too when I moved here my freshman year, but it’s the first place we stayed. It’s where my mom met my amazing stepdad, it’s home to some of us.”

“That’s why you offered Max a place to stay when it gets bad,” his voice softens as he stares at the side of your face.

“I had nowhere to go. Carol had nowhere to go,” you sigh. “I couldn’t let Max suffer through the same life we did.”

“I didn’t know,” he reaches forward and rest his fingers on top of yours.

“No one did, you’re the only one,” you pull your fingers away from his to wipe a single tear away. “Carol doesn’t even know, the doctors say she’s blocking out the memories, that it was so painful her brain refuses to remember it.”

“I want to be better,” he refuses to look you in the eye, opting to pick at the corner of your comforter instead.

“And you can be, one step at a time Billy,” you gently place your hand on his shoulder He finally looks up at you, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “It’s why I said you could change, be better. I’m nothing like my father, and I know you're strong enough to be better than yours.”

“Will you help me?” he sounds so vulnerable and defeated. So broken.

“Of course, as long as you’re actually trying.”

Thank you,” he lays down on your bed, pulling the sheets up over him.

“Do you like Saturday Night Live?” you ask as you walk to your door,

“I love it,” he gives you a lopsided smile you’ve never seen before.

“Cool. Get some sleep, and you can join Steve and me when it’s on tonight.”

“Anything for you sweetheart,” he shoots you a lazy wink.

“And Billy? You owe me big time,” you put on a fake scowl as you look into Billy’s tired blue eyes. “You made me miss shirtless Harrison Ford.”

He scoffs and rolls his eyes, but doesn’t say anything. He’s too caught up in the way the bed smells like your floral perfume, and the strawberry shampoo that you use. He takes a deep breath, deeply inhaling your scent, trying to memorize it. To memorize the smell of safety and home. His eyelids grow heavy and he drifts off to sleep, wondering what changing would mean for the two of you.

“Where is he?” Steve immediately jumps up from the couch when you walk back into the living room.

“Upstairs sleeping off some pain meds,” you send hi a warning look. “Now how much did I miss?”

“Harrison is making out with the blonde chick,” Lucas says through a mouthful of popcorn.

“Well that narrows it down,” you laugh lightly.

“They’re giving the stone back to the village,” Carol adds. You let out a long sigh as you realize you missed almost the entire movie. You give Max a small smile, hoping that it conveys to her that Billy is alright.

“When’s Hargrove leaving?” Steve asks annoyed.

“He’s actually gonna watch SNL with us tonight,” you meet Steve’s angry eyes. “He promised to help make french toast in the morning.” That may have been a lie, but Steve doesn't need to know that. But something tells you that you’ll be able to convince him to help.

“So when are we gonna order pizza?” Carol cuts in, wanting to cut the tension.

“In a little,” you promise, as you sit down to enjoy the last few moments of Harrison Ford.

An hour and a half later, when the pizza’s on it’s way, you go upstairs to wake up Billy. “Don’t let me down Billy,” you whisper to his sleeping form as you lean against your door frame.

Part 2: Too much

Forever tags: @crimson-knuckled-queen @rexorangecouny

#dacre montgomery #billy stranger things #billy x you #billy x y/n #billy x reader #billy hargove x reader #billy hargrove #billy hargrove x y/n #billy hargrove x you #stranger things #stranger things imagine #stranger things season 2 #stranger things season 3 #stranger things x reader

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ao3feed--bughead · 5 years ago

Link

by Toryb

The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and no one knows better than Betty Cooper, who turned her high school sweetheart into a blood sucking vampire. Ever since that night their relationship has felt fractured beyond repair. Every ten years something is thrown their way that seems impossible to overcome. She loves him, she does, but can love really weather any storm?

Words: 12413, Chapters: 1/2, Language: English

Fandoms: Riverdale (TV 2017)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M

Characters: Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper, Toni Topaz, Josie McCoy, Veronica Lodge, Archie Andrews

Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones

Additional Tags: Vampire!Jughead, Witch!Betty, Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, But Also just lots of angst, be prepared for angst, descriptions of biting and vampire feeding, lovers to enemies to strained friends with benefits to lovers again, Angst, A story in decades

#ao3feed #fanfic #bughead #bughead fanfiction #riverdale fanfiction #jughead x betty #betty x jughead

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thecomicsnexus · 5 years ago

Photo

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES #50-51 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 1992 BY KEVIN EASTMAN, PETER LAIRD, JIM LAWSON AND KEITH AIKEN

SYNOPSIS (FROM TURTLEPEDIA)

Splinter meditates in the woods of Northampton.

A Foot Ninja plants a bomb in Morph's Adult Novelties, a sex shop in New York City.

An old man gets back to his ragged apartment, above the sex shop, and begins to watch the world news, which is filled with depressing stories.

Casey Jones is packing his bags. As he picks up a photograph of himself with April and the Turtles, he focuses his view onto O'Neil and then throws the picture angrily against the wall, breaking the glass of the frame.

April is startled awake. She's seated at an airport waiting area.

The Turtles prepare to leave Casey's farm in Northampton, Massachusetts.

April boards her flight to Los Angeles.

Casey finishes packing, but before he leaves, he picks up the broken frame and retrieves the photo.

The old man in the apartment eats his dinner as he watches the news.

Everyone is feeling isolated, upset and unhappy.

Cut to New York City, where we see a gang of Foot Soldiers beneath a bridge. As one advances, he is quickly slain by a Foot Elite who appears out of nowhere. The Elite proceeds to kill all of the remaining Foot, hunting the last one who flees to the City's rooftops. The retreating Soldier slips on the ledge of building, but is saved by the Elite. As the underling pleads for his life, the Elite beheads him with his own blade.

Casey fires up his Chevy and heads out.

April's flight lifts off.

The TMNT stow away on the roof of a bus, making their way back to the Big Apple.

Splinter continues his meditation.

The old man continues to watch the television, growing more morose as the news of the world appears to get more grim.

The bomb in the sex shop explodes, sending shards of metal, stone, glass and humanity into the night sky.

Splinter continues to meditate.

The Turtles have taken up residence in a large, empty water tower on top of an old New York City building. The guys are restless and directionless without Splinter to guide them, upset by the news reports of escalating street violence between the fractured factions of the Foot Clan. Violence that the TMNT feel responsible for, as it was their actions that lead to the splintering of the Foot. Raph wants to take the fight to the Clan and finish what they began when Leo killed Oroku Saki, but Leonardo isn't sure that they need to continue fighting Splinter's blood feud with the Foot for the rest of their lives.

Casey is still driving out west in his Chevy and falling asleep at the wheel. As he startles himself awake, he remembers how he had tried to begin a relationship with April by holding her hand, but she said to him, "Oh, um... Casey... don't" and walked off. Jones felt bad about his advance and later returned to the farmhouse with flowers to patch things up, only to find that O'Neil had packed her things and left. This enraged Casey, and he picked up a dresser and threw it through a window. As Casey reflects on his recent past, he's once again startled to his senses when he almost has a head-on collision with a truck. Jones decides that he needs some coffee and food, and so he stops at a diner in Goat Head, Colorado. The place is deserted except for the waitress/cook named Gabrielle, who Casey hits it off with. Gabby asks Casey if he's headed out west to become a movie star, as she's seen her share of people passing through with that goal.

"Yep, good ol' Goat Head - gateway to broken dreams." Gabby remarks.

"Yeah," Casey replies, "I know about dreams."

April is in Los Angeles with her sister Robyn, hanging out in a night club. Robyn tries to get April to cheer up and they discuss Casey and the "guys" that April left behind in NYC. Robyn wonders why April has been so secretive about all of them and why she's so unhappy lately.

Back in NYC, the TMNT are investigating the porn shop that was destroyed by the Foot bombing. We see a shot of the old man who lived above the store, lying in critical condition in the hospital. Donatello surmises that they'll find no clues on this site, so they head to the bridge where the Foot Soldiers were slaughtered.

Casey finishes up his coffee and heads out of the diner when he's accosted by two thugs. The men attack Jones and eventually knock him out by smashing his skull with a gasoline can, and then they steal his car! Gabby rushes out and helps Casey inside.

The Turtles check out the bridge site and find no clues. Feeling vulnerable, they decide to head back to their base.

Robyn and April get back to Robyn's messy apartment. Robyn asks April what she wants to do and April says they should clean the apartment.

"Ha ha." Robyn states, "I meant something fun."

The sisters decide that they'll go to the beach and then embrace, happy to finally be spending some time together again.

The Turtles are running along the rooftops when they hear some noise in an alley. They cautiously investigate, only to find some boys kicking a garbage can around. The guys get antsy and are obviously on edge.

"This really sucks," Don gripes, "How long are we going to wander around hoping to run into the Foot when we don't even have a plan for what to do when it happens?"

"Plus 30 seconds ago, we were ready to jump all over some kids playing with garbage cans... what the Hell are we doing?" queries Mike.

"Let's face it guys," Raph quips, "We've been reduced to the neighborhood watch!"

REVIEW

It’s hard to review stories with more than 10 episodes on Tumblr, so I took advantage of the easy break in the second chapter (of thirteen) of City at War.

Issue #50 was exactly what you would expect from a 50th issue. Back in the day 50 issues were a milestone, these days big numbers are rare and unwanted, but for an indie comic means a lot.

Issue 51 is penciled by Jim Lawson, who is not Laird and Eastman, but his style is very iconic, even in 1992.

Now, where is this story going? Is the fall of the Soviet Union going to have a link to this gang war in New York? What was the deal with the old man? Well, let’s just say it is still an open investigation.

The other plots seem to happen in different times (April’s story is earlier than Casey’s on issue 51). I hope all these plots to be linked to the main story. But then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t.

In issue #50, Kevin Eastman hopes for an issue 100. Well, this volume ends with issue #62, so I am not sure at which point they decided to start a new volume.

I give these issues a score of 9.

#a c farley #kevin eastman #peter laird #mirage studios #comics #review #1992 #indie #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #modern age #city at war

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ao3feed-stucky · 5 years ago

Link

by IcedAquarius

Peter’s whole world had been turned upside down in a matter of weeks. First, he gets superpowers, then his Uncle Ben dies, and when Peter completes his end of year genetics project, he finds out he’s not actually a Parker. Thankfully he’s got a best friend and a whole summer to help figure everything out, But with crime rising in Queens he has a responsibility to do something more, even if he’s questioning who he is and where he came from.

Meanwhile Tony Stark is doing his best to keep the world afloat after Ultron; it isn’t easy. With the team fractured around the edges, him and his wife barely talking to each other, his anxiety attacks and PTSD worse now more than ever, and the ever-lingering guilt about his dead child, Tony’s one straw away from falling apart. But with the rumblings of international rules for superpowered individuals, conspiracies, and a new vigilante in New York, Tony’s not catching a break anytime soon.

This is a story of how secrets, miscommunication, and terror, tear a family apart – and how luck, love, and a whole lot of superheroes bring them back together.

Words: 4684, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M, Gen, M/M

Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Ned Leeds, Michelle Jones, May Parker (Spider-Man), The Avengers - Character, Way to many of them to write out, James Rhodes, Happy Hogan, Mary and Richard Parker

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Minor or Background Relationship(s), James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers

Additional Tags: Irondad, spiderson, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Kidnapping, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Spies, Hydra, HYDRA sucks, missing memories, Magic, timetravel, General Ross is BAD, The Avengers - Freeform, Pre-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Civil War era, Sokovia Accords, Civil War Team Iron Man, Not Team Captain America Bashing, lying, Secrets, Miscommunication, Seriously people talk things out, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Panic Attacks, powers, We stan Ned Leeds, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Michelle Jones has a secret, Thanos who?, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Yeah not in my house, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, happy endings, Strap in people this is going to be a long one, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Father-Son Relationship

#Bucky #AO3 works tagged 'James Barnes/Steve Rogers'#ao3feed #stucky #steve rogers #bucky barnes #c

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motherfucker-somewhat-limited · 5 years ago

Note

1: Name

Sarah

2: Age

3: Fears

Everything, I have anxiety

4: 3 things I love

Dogs, weird movies, sunsets over water

5: 4 turns on

Long hair, facial piercings, good sense of humor, back muscles

6: 4 turns off

Poor hygiene, rude to service workers, adults who are still obsessed with Disney to the point where they make it a personality trait, Trump supporters (or the equivalent in other countries)

7: My best friend

@wanderingwondererofthings

8: Sexual orientation

Bi? I think? IDK not straight tho

9: My best first date

I’ve only ever been on one date in my life and the dude ghosted me afterward which turned out to be a blessing bc it was not a good time in my life to try to start a relationship

10: How tall am I

5′2″

11: What do I miss

Mental stability

12: What time were I born

3:45 am or thereabouts

13: Favourite color

black

14: Do I have a crush

celebrity crushes but I don’t really count those

15: Favourite quote

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

16: Favourite place

bundled up under a heap of blankets by myself in a dark room with good snacks and a good book/movie

17: Favourite food

chocolate

18: Do I use sarcasm

do i

19: What am I listening to right now

my housemate doing laundry

20: First thing I notice in new person

what they’re wearing

21: Shoe size

womens 7

22: Eye color

brown

23: Hair color

brown

24: Favourite style of clothing

love that goth shit

25: Ever done a prank call?

not that i can remember

26: Meaning behind my URL

adam darski’s true form

27: Favourite movie

Ink (2009) dir. jamin winans

28: Favourite song

UHHHHHHHHHHH

29: Favourite band

Eluveitie

30: How I feel right now

like shit lol

31: Someone I love

My friends

32: My current relationship status

single

33: My relationship with my parents

it’s good and i’m very grateful

34: Favourite holiday

the day after halloween when all the candy goes on sale

35: Tattoos and piercing I have

none

36: Tattoos and piercings I want

seriously considering getting my eyebrow pierced soon. if I ever cut my hair short i’ll pierce my ears

37: The reason I joined Tumblr

to follow an art blog that made amazing JTHM fan art

38: Do I and my last ex hate each other?

what ex

39: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts?

yeah from my mom

40: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted?

yeah it was my mom

41: When did I last hold hands?

yesterday with my grandma

42: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?

takes me well over an hour to actually get up but then like 3o minutes tops

43: Have You shaved your legs in the past three days?

44: Where am I right now?

in my room

45: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me?

i’ve never been that drunk because i hate hangovers

46: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level?

reasonable level unless i’m at a concert

47: Do I live with my Mom and Dad?

not anymore

48: Am I excited for anything?

sexy eggman is coming to san francisco

49: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to?

50: How often do I wear a fake smile?

basically whenever i have to talk to strangers

51: When was the last time I hugged someone?

yesterday

52: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me?

my mom is allowed to kiss other people it’s okay

53: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not?

i don’t think so?

54: What is something I disliked about today?

i’m tired of being tired

55: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be?

my soulmate

56: What do I think about most?

spirals of existential dread

57: What’s my strangest talent?

I have no talents lol

58: Do I have any strange phobias?

going down stairs. i’m fine going up them but going down them freaks me out

59: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it?

depends on my mood and whether or not i’m ugly that day

60: What was the last lie I told?

“I’m okay”

61: Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online?

In person or don’t fucking talk to me

62: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens?

yes and yes

63: Do I believe in magic?

idk. i believe there’s things that happen that we can’t explain yet so maybe that’s magic

64: Do I believe in luck?

i believe in good chances

65: What’s the weather like right now?

dark

66: What was the last book I’ve read?

The Habitation of the Blessed by Catherynne Valente

67: Do I like the smell of gasoline?

yes as long as i don’t have a headache or stomachache

68: Do I have any nicknames?

just dumb shit my mom calls me

69: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had?

worst acute injury was the time i tripped onto an outdoor heater in kindergarten and burned the shit out of my hand. i also have a stress fracture in my spine that will never heal from gymnastics but that happened over a matter of years

70: Do I spend money or save it?

i try to save but i spend a little too much

71: Can I touch my nose with a tounge?

with a tongue? yes. with my tongue? no

72: Is there anything pink in 10 feet from me?

my fluffy pillow

73: Favourite animal?

take a wild fucking guess

74: What was I doing last night at 12 AM?

trying unsuccessfully to sleep

75: What do I think is Satan’s last name is?

Columbus

76: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it?

That Time of the Month by Harley Poe

77: How can you win my heart?

be a dog

78: What would I want to be written on my tombstone?

ceci n’est pas un corps

79: What is my favorite word?

sussuration or cathedral

80: My top 5 blogs on tumblr

this is the internet equivalent of the judgment of paris

81: If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say?

eat the rich

82: Do I have any relatives in jail?

not currently

83: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power?

shapeshifting bitch

84: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on?

i’ll say anything on the internet i don’t give a shit

85: What is my current desktop picture?

86: Had sex?

87: Bought condoms?

88: Gotten pregnant?

89: Failed a class?

yeah, fuck ochem

90: Kissed a boy?

91: Kissed a girl?

92: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain?

93: Had job?

i’ve got one right now

94: Left the house without my wallet?

yeah lol

95: Bullied someone on the internet?

96: Had sex in public?

97: Played on a sports team?

i ran track for a couple years as a kid

98: Smoked weed?

yup

99: Did drugs?

100: Smoked cigarettes?

ew no

101: Drank alcohol?

yuppers

102: Am I a vegetarian/vegan?

103: Been overweight?

104: Been underweight?

yes

105: Been to a wedding?

yes

106: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight?

only 5?

107: Watched TV for 5 hours straight?

only 5??

108: Been outside my home country?

yes

109: Gotten my heart broken?

yes but not romantically

110: Been to a professional sports game?

many

111: Broken a bone?

nope

112: Cut myself?

not on purpose

113: Been to prom?

yeah and it sucked and i wish i hadn’t gone

114: Been in airplane?

yes

115: Fly by helicopter?

no but I want to

116: What concerts have I been to?

a multitude

117: Had a crush on someone of the same sex?

yeah lol

118: Learned another language?

can I give this one a half a yes?

119: Wore make up?

yup

120: Lost my virginity before I was 18?

121: Had oral sex?

122: Dyed my hair?

yes

123: Voted in a presidential election?

yes

124: Rode in an ambulance?

125: Had a surgery?

do wisdom teeth count?

126: Met someone famous?

yup, holla atcha doug jones

127: Stalked someone on a social network?

no, i don’t care that much

128: Peed outside?

who hasn’t?

129: Been fishing?

130: Helped with charity?

i’ve donated some money

131: Been rejected by a crush?

yeah but a) I never actually asked him out, b) we were 12, and c) turns out he’s gay so like i’m not made about it

132: Broken a mirror?

133: What do I want for birthday?

a new laptop

134: How many kids do I want and what will be their names?

why would i want kids

135: Was I named after anyone?

my great uncle and great grandmother

136: Do I like my handwriting?

i have no opinion on it

137: What was my favourite toy as a child?

legos or something similar you can build with

138: Favourite Tv Show?

UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

139: Where do I want to live when older?

somewhere near the ocean

140: Play any musical instrument?

i wish

141: One of my scars, how did I get it?

i only have acne scars and those are pretty self-explanatory

142: Favourite pizza toping?

sausage, bell pepper, and onion

143: Am I afraid of the dark?

144: Am I afraid of heights?

sometimes

145: Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad?

no, i’m a good girl

146: Have I ever tried my hardest and then gotten disappointed in the end

yeah, FUCK OCHEM

147: What I’m really bad at

being a functioning human adult person

148: What my greatest achievments are

not killing myself in college

149: The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me

idk man i get upset by everything even when it’s not mean

150: What I’d do if I won in a lottery

pay off my friends’ and family’s debts, set aside a big chunk of money for grad school, maybe get my own place depending on how much is left

151: What do I like about myself

i have nice hair

152: My closest Tumblr friend

idk

153: Something I fantasise about

what don’t i fantasize about

154: Any thoughts on the paranormal?

hey demons come and get y’all juice

#asks

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drummingncise · 5 years ago

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ryker do you EVER think before you speak

alright.... so. back in 2014ish when i was still sort of active on my timelord bbc moriarty blog i decided to make a blog for the master, because why not, right? i was already playing one evil mastermind, another couldn't hurt.

so back then, when my url was masterofyourrace, alan cumming was the fc i picked out for a post-simm master. i think i was just coming off of a month-long grounding where all i had to occupy myself with was watching the last of the timelords eps on on-demand and felt pretty okay with the master's characterization. (i'd previously watched the utopia arc, dw) (though this could be wrong and might actually have been why i decided to make jim a fobwatched timelord named the spider)

and then uhhhhh. idk what happened. i lost muse, i guess? and i decided to delete the blog to use the email for another chara, probs an oc. i'd also put jim on hiatus bc i kind of lost muse for him too.

and that was the end of alan cumming master.

and then came august of last year. (wow, realised that this blog is a year old already, holy shit) i was two weeks shy of starting my second year of college (which didnt go well, thanks to depression and unchecked add), vaguely active on my sirius black blog and thinking "hey, i miss playing the master" because of an incredible fanfic i read, which is linked on my verses page under "v: you are not alone".

so what do i do? i rewatch all of simms episodes to regain muse, remember that i used alan c as a regeneration, and shit devolves from there.

i decide to move alan's place around on the master's timeline, make him an alt jacobi/pre-simm master (bc there are not that many resources for jacobi) and start watching the good wife, because i love alan c.

then, i find out that alan c is scottish, and i fall in love all over again. so i flesh him out a bit more.

alan c master is scottish. he starred in cabaret three times, and won a tony for the 98 production, just like alan c actually did. this is where the similarities stop.

for one, alan c is human and was in the spy kids movies and probably does not pine for his childhood best friend.

alan c master, however. he is helplessly in love with the doctor, is quickly heading into a war he does not want to be a part of, and hates everything about his home planet.

so he runs, so much like the doctor did. he steals a tardis, plays the emcee three times in cabaret, rouges his nips, and pines.

and then, i find out: alan c is going to be in an episode of doctor who with jodie as 13. i add that episode (s11 e8, the witchfinders) to his timeline.

the last time the master had seen the doctor, he was attempting to throw him into the eye of harmony after killing the two humans that got involved. (aka the 1996 movie.)

after regaining a body (through being a weird slime snake thing and hijacking another timelord's body. the previous inhabitant of the body's mind was completely gone, idk why.), he visits his daughter on gallifrey, picks up this awful 4:4 beat in his head, becomes a diplomatic emissary between the time lords and the daleks, because he's the worst of the time lords and he'd make an impressive dalek, and sustains several bumps and scrapes and maybe a few laser gun wounds.

now, he's only a little bit war-weary, suffering from the drums where he hadn't before (thanks to timey wimey shit ill never be able to explain coherently. basically it boils down to "the classic masters didnt mention the drums so they must not have had them, and also since it was heavily implied that the gallifreyan council put them in his head (during the war, after giving him a new set of regens) to use as a signal, he shouldn't have them until he goes through the war, so he doesnt.") and sees the doctor, full of hope, and sadness, and blonde and a woman and he realises once again just how madly in love with them he is. (the blonde reminds him too much of a young boy he used to run through fields with, a boy whose mother's photo album he stole and now keeps on his tardis, locked tightly and far away from any prying eyes)

(tangent: 13 is the only doctor that is shorter than any of the masters.)

so maybe he flirts with ryan sinclair to piss the doctor off, even though she doesn't realise who he is, and plays the part of king james 1 very, very well.

(another tangent: is 13 blonde and a woman because of rose? more at 11.)

and he decides "fuck the war" and picks up a human companion, parker james (my oc over @pjsuper), to travel with.

he hasn't yet watched his daughter die, hasn't yet lost his capacity for love and forgiveness, and just wants to see his friend again.

so getting to see 13 again in 17th century lancashire really helps his mood.

however, the war catches up to him. he manipulates it in his favor, before eventually getting killed and gifted a new set of regenerations in exchange for helping gallifrey win the war.

he doesn't hold up his end of the bargain, too pissed off at finally having the chance to die and stay dead forcefully ripped from him, at having this 4:4 beat constantly pounding and threatening to crack his skull open, at having to watch the life fade from his daughter's eyes as she lays in his arms, unable to regenerate.

the war scars him. he's lost so much he can't even fathom it.

so he fobwatches himself into a human, runs to the end of the universe, hopes that this will be it, that he'll never have to face the horrors of war again. only to be found by the doctor and his companion, one miss martha jones, and he's given a new life. one born out of anger and hurt and betrayal and loss, and he blames everything on gallifrey, and the doctor, and nothing will change his mind about it.

until "get out of the way," which fills him with hope once more. he gets sucked back into the war, trapped and tortured until he can escape, and regenerates into missy. (that trapped and tortured hc comes straight from ty over on the dw rp discord server, because i adore it and ty's master.)

with missy comes the kiss they've waited thousands of years to give, and "two hearts. and both of them yours" and a fractured friendship starting to finally heal, until it's brutally cut short by a knife in the back and a regeneration back into a man, who's fc is alan van sprang.

alan van sprang master i haven't gotten the chance to flesh out as well yet, but i want to.

#i know you dont think ever but im asking anyway #its 3:30 am and i really shouldnt be using my data but fuck my dad actually #because i couldnt stop thinking abt this ask even tho ryker is a hot mess who loves to torture me #i wrote all of this on my phone so its not in any way formatted the way i usually like to #but ill fix it when i have a stable wifi connection on monday #v: pre-war

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