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blogger360ncislarules · 1 year ago

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Chris Jericho is showing off a softer side to his acting skills as a loving family man in the new UPtv movie Country Hearts. The All Elite Wrestling star plays a rocker called Bones who gives up life on the road to spend more time at home and run a horse breeding business.

In the flick his daughters Tori (Lanie McAuley) and June (Katerina Maria) are torn between following their mom Darlene (Michelle Nolden) into the world of country music or helping dad with his new business venture. The movie debuts October 22, followed by a second film called Country Hearts Christmas which premieres on UPtv on November 19.

The role isn’t too far away from real life for wrestler Jericho, who is also the lead singer of the heavy metal band Fozzy. Here, he tells us what it was like stepping into a more wholesome role.

You’ve done movies and TV before, but Country Hearts feels like a departure for you. How did the role come about?

Chris Jericho: The one thing about acting and Hollywood is it comes in waves. I never really had the breakout role, but I’ve always had good ones. I think in the past couple of years I’ve probably had the most parts ever. The first one was called Terrifier 2, which last Halloween made $12 million on a $250,000 budget. I was in that. Then after that, I got Dark Match which I filmed in Edmonton. Then after that, this opportunity came along to be the lead in Country Hearts. I was thinking, “What kind of murder mystery is this? Am I the killer? What kind of vengeance is being bestowed on the villagers of the country.”

It ended up being nothing like that, but a dramatic part. It almost had a Hallmark Channel sort of vibe. This was an offer, which was rare in Hollywood. When I looked at the part, I realized it’s very dramatic, deep, and emotional. I thought it was great and something I’d been wanting to do. Being in a horror movie, that is what you would expect Chris Jericho to be in. But to be in a Christian-themed music drama where I play a father of daughters and have a wife. This project is really cool and something nobody would expect me to do. I’m always attracted to those opportunities.

UPtv

Tell me about Bones. There are some similarities with you on the road as a traveling rock star and wrestler. How much did you relate to him?

This is a cool character. I like who he is and where he came from. This was a great way to stretch my acting chops to prove I could do this. Not just as bodyguard number one performer. I can relate to Bones a thousand percent. Not just the fact he was a touring musician. He reinvented himself, which is something I know about. Here he is as an owner of a horse-breeding farm. The character has a connection to me, but at the same time, I’ve never ridden a horse in my life. If I did, it was maybe once or twice. I think those are the parts that make you a great actor. Take the things you can relate to and internalize them, putting your mind on to something new and learning about them.

I remember when I was taking acting lessons in 2005 or 2006. If someone asks you if you can skydive or something, you say yes and then figure it out before the shoot. When you’re talking about a horse farm and breeding champion racehorses, you learn. When you deliver this dialogue, which is kind of like delivering the mid-chlorian dialogue in Star Wars, you better figure it out and learn these words and make it seem like you know what you’re talking about. The other good thing is Bones is learning too. Bones isn’t quite sure what the hell he is doing. So it was a great combination of subjects I knew and subjects I had no idea about that you learn.

With a follow-up Country Hearts Christmas coming out next month, you had the chance to really dig into the character.

There is potential to do more, too. I’ve been doing showbiz for 30 years because wrestling is show business. You can tell when something is good. This is really good as you see it start to come together. We can do so much with this story. There are a lot of different layers. At first, I wasn’t sure what to think, but once we started filming, I thought I could play this character for a while. It’s a really cool movie. Sometimes things find you that you weren’t expecting. Hopefully, we can do more. We filmed both movies over the course of the month with two different directors and two different vibes. I felt like I was Michael J. Fox on the set of Back to the Future 2 where they did 3 at the same time. There was a lot here.

In AEW, you’re among the veterans helping develop a lot of new talent like Will Hobbs and Sammy Guevara. How rewarding is that for you?

Wrestling is storyline-based. When it came to losing to Hobbs for example, storyline-wise it was what was best for the story. Chris Jericho is an actor playing a role on a show. It’s like if Bones is supposed to lose the horse semen sample, which is one of the things that happens. The script says it’s what they want you to do. Wrestling is the same way. A lot of guys don’t see it this way, but I’ve always had. I have always treated it as show business. The characters and story are way more important than the match, even though the matches are important too. I enjoy this stage of my career, but I’ve enjoyed every stage of my career because I’m always about telling stories. Some stories you win, some stories you lose. Some stories are Empire Strikes Back where everyone loses, and you think it’s the end of the road until the heroes come back. I take everything in stride and treat things as a great storyline with ups and downs.

How was it to see Adam Copeland sign with AEW?

Adam is one of the all-time greats. I was surprised when he showed up. I never thought we would see it, but I don’t think people thought they’d see me wrestling outside of WWE either. To have him in AEW is great. An old friend too. Wrestling is a lot like the army in a sense you have ones you were in the trenches with and you go home and don’t see them for years and meet up again. Then it’s like no time has passed. That is what it has been like with Adam. Plus, having a guy with so much experience. Such skill.

It’s easy now to say at 52, but age is just a number. I think both of us are in the best shape of our lives and know more on the experience level. We can still work at the highest of levels. Who is putting a number on anything? The Rolling Stones just put out one of their best songs in 30 years, and Mick Jagger is 80. It’s all about how you are perceived and how you can deliver. If you can do that, you can still entertain people.

AEW

You’ve gotten to know AEW owner Tony Khan well over the years. The company has faced its share of challenges in 2023. How do you think he has handled things, specifically on social media? One thing you can’t deny is he is a passionate guy.

Tony is a passionate guy. Nobody is going to tell him what to do, and nobody should. He also comes from a generation of people who were involved in social media. He was on the message boards. Jon Moxley became a fan from videotapes. I became a fan from watching cable wrestling on the low-level UHF channels or wrestling magazines. To me magazines were life. Tony is always going to be involved in social media because that’s how he became a fan. That’s how it is. Whether you like it or not, that’s what it is. He has built a multi-million dollar pro wrestling company in a short period of time so there are going to be growing pains.

We all work together every week to put together the best show we can. We have long-term planning and a structure and things going on that are exciting. We worked through all the pros and cons, no pun intended. And things are going really well and will continue to do so. It’s pro wrestling. It’s never gonna be all great. There is always going to be the Wild West vibe because wrestling is that by design. It’s not hockey or football or a scripted movie like Country Hearts. You have to go with the flow. It’s unlike anything else. It’s hard to see from the outside looking in, but when you’re on the inside looking out, it’s business as usual. And business is going really well.

AEW

Who out of the AEW roster do you see breaking into movies or TV?

You never know. You would never know Batista (Dave Bautista) would be the best actor out of everyone. Nothing against The Rock, John Cena, or other WWE guys. Who knows? You can throw in Darby Allin and MJF, who play great characters. Guys like that. I think Jon Moxley does great in a movie. Any top guy who captivates people at the highest level would be good actors. I’ve been acting for more than 30 years since October 2, 1990, when I started acting because that’s what I got into wrestling.

It’s all about playing a character and morphing and evolving in the role to keep people engaged. That’s any movie or TV show. I’m watching The Righteous Gemstones right now and Danny McBride is a great actor. All are great actors and characters. You may see Danny and not see him as a leading man because he doesn’t look like Brad Pitt, but he is excellent. It’s the same in wrestling. Acting being on this movie set is different from where wrestling is live and has that instant gratification. I haven’t even seen Country Hearts yet. I hope I was good. We’ll see.

I’ll give your performance five stars Chris!

Thank you. I can’t wait to be up for an Emmy.

#up tv

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hawksugarbaby · 4 years ago

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Deku x reader- Minecraft millionaire

Fluff

A/N: I use Xbox so these are Xbox controlls but feel free to change them as you see fit

Izuku sat on his bed flicking his eye's from the facetime with you to the screen in front of him continuously holding the right trigger on his controller and chewing his lip. "Wait what level do you find diamonds?" he asked glancing at his coordinates in the corner and you jumped around the world trying to escape a creeper "Fuck i'm gonna die! i'm gonna die! please NO!" you yelped and decided it was time to dig a hole in the ground and block it off. "Sorry, what did you ask?" you look at the phone propped up against your laptop and chuckle at Izuku's face scrunched up in concentration "uh, what level do you find diamonds" he repeated not taking his eye off the screen filled with grey stone blocks and dot's of black for coal. "12 to 14, usually 13 is like the best place"

You answered uncovering the hole you had dug in just as a creeper passed over you and fell into your 3 by 1 grave. "NOOO!" you screeched as the green mob flashed white and you tried to jump out of the inescapable hole for a final moments peace but to no avail. The unmistakable sound of a muffled explosion and the respawn screen, lighting your face up red and you let out a fake cry. "Did you die?" he asked despite the obvious answer. "Yeahh" you answered with a heavy sigh and respawned at home, grabbing a spare wooden sword and jumping over to the spot of your death. If nothing else you'd get a lot of dirt?

Izuku muttered about hitting his head off every block and you snickered "I mean at least you learned your lesson about digging straight down" he huffed and flailed his arms creating a cold air around him "it wasn't my fault no one told me I shouldn't dig straight down!" he had a point, yes, but still you had presumed that even he would know such a basic rule "I know, I know" you say nearing the site of the explosion and start sprinting ignoring the band of mobs chasing you.

"HOW IS MY STUFF STILL HERE. IT WAS LITERALLY NEXT TO ME?!" you yelped in surprise but ran around the area gathering your stuff and spammed the Y button, automatically gearing up and switched your sword to your hotbar along with your enchanted pickaxe and cooked chicken.

"Maybe the minecraft gods granted you... something?" Izuku laughed and popped out of his mine running to his furnace and dropping in a stack of Iron. "(y/n) I hear you need some cobblestone" Izuku said running to your house across from his and down the basement to your storage area. You groaned begrudgingly trying to fend off an army of spiders who had made it a personal goal of theirs to off you. "Izuku please don't contribute to the cobble chest. I'm begging you. I don't need more cobble" you whined sprinting away with 5x more Xp than you originally had. "Do you have lapiz?" you asked raking through his chests to find the blue material.

Izuku opened the chest almost full with cobble and finished it off with 12 more stacks, leaving one or himself. The green achievement bar popped up at the bottom of the screen "Chestful of cobblestone" and you clicked your tongue pushing your hands together like a prayer in front of your mouth "IZUKU. I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I'M GOING TO BURN YOUR COBBLE. STOP GIVING ME COBBLE, THAT GOES FOR ALL THE REST OF THE BOYS TOO!" your shouting could be heard throughout the dorm and some of the other minecraft players snickered to themselves.

Anytime, they had a stack or so of cobble, they would put it in one of your chests and it became a running joke for them to go "Hey (y/n) I heard you needed more cobble" and shove it in the chest despite your begging them not to. You had 3 chests of cobble but never got the achievement because you had burned the first 2 chestfulls before they could finish it off.

"Yes I have lapiz just give me a sec" he answered after your threat and jumped over to you. Meeting in front of your pumpkin farm you were jumping on. "If you fall you're gonna trample your crops" he said and you shrugged "that's what I have a diamond hoe for duh" you say in a bragging way as if having a diamond hoe of all things really just showed your wealth. You jumped off the pumpkin successfully not landing on your crops and spun around in front of Izuku as he threw lapiz at you "Is this what it's like to be a stripper" you chuckled and Izuku snorted at your joke. "Okay that's enough" you say, stopping him from throwing anymore and bouncing off to your enchantment table.

"I can't believe you had 4 extra diamonds and you made an enchantment table and a hoe" he sighed grabbing all the iron from his furnace and spinning to the crafting table to make a new pickaxe and a bucket for milk. He was determined to make a cake just as much as getting diamonds but there was a lack of cows due to bakugo's anger issues when he was in the server. "What would you even have done with them!?" "I COULD HAVE BOOTS (y/n)!" he shouted back and you purse your lips. He could have had boots...

"Okay well I'm sorry I'm rich and have full diamonds" you shrug and he looked up from his controller looking straight forward pinching the bridge of his nose "your a bitch" he laughed and started back down his mineshaft complaining about the steps hitting his head again. "You love me really" you chuckle and he rolls his eyes with a smile "yeah I know" you glance at the facetime and smile, 8 hours, 29 minutes 43 seconds you'd been on a call just playing minecraft in the server you ran for "the lads" as it had been dubbed.

"OOH IZUKU I JUST GOT FORTUNE 3 ON MY DIAMOND PICKAXE!" you exclaim, celebrating by jumping up and down. "Sweet! You're gonna have endless coal!" he laughed and you punched the air excitedly "so much Xp!" "we have an Xp farm" he retaliated and you pouted "Let me be exited" you whined and he awed "sorryyy" he said dragging it out for effect and you huffed "better be."

Izuku's inventory quickly filled with cobble, coal, and iron again, the occasional redstone for Xp and fuck gold, gold sucks. He stumbled into a cave, a platform of stone and on each side was a pool of lava. But Izuku's eyes lit up and he gasped "OH MY GOD!" he shouted digging through the wall to get to the prize. "WHAT!" you shouted back, busy breeding the chickens and throwing eggs in the overcrowded pen. "Sorry but some of you guys have gotta go" you muttered brandishing your iron sword, specifically named "the chicken killer" since you didn't want to waste your diamond sword on chickens. "DIAMONDS!" he shouted back building a platform around the edge of the lave he could walk on and building under the diamonds for safety.

"OH OH MY GOD WAIT THERE AND I'LL MINE THEM FOR YOU!" you say abandoning the chickens and jumping over to his house again. "wait why. This is my moment I've literally never found diamonds and you're gonna take them from me" he asked looking at the phone, your face twisted with concentration. "Because I have fortune 3 and I can make 8 diamonds like 24" you said. "can I mine these ones and tell you when I find more instead I want to mine my own first diamonds." you stopped at the entrance jumping up and down in frustration "okay fine"

As Izuku ventured further into the cave earning probably half a new chest worth of cobble he shouted for you. "I found more diamonds." you immediately sprang into life holding the left stick to go down quicker. "Okay yeah this is really inconvenient" you agreed about bumping your head on the way down and landed at his shaft. "Uhh which way am I going" you asked. "Left" he said. You followed the trail of torches and Izuku's name tag that got bigger the closer you were eventually running into the same square as him. "Move back I can't see" you instructed and he scooted backwards.

You swung the enchanted pickaxe collecting the aqua gems and throwing them at izuku. "That's like 20 something," you said, shrugging at the phone and running off back home. "That was 28" he said running after you to finally make his full iron armor and tools "I have 33 in total" he grabbed sticks from his unorganised chests that you despised and for the first time, made diamond armor in minecraft.

"Oh my god he's wearing BLUE! It doesn't match your colour scheme" you cried shielding your eyes and looking away. "Sorry (y/n) let me just dye my diamonds green real quick" he said, throwing an emerald at you and you feigned shock. "A MIRACLE. TRULY"

"Okay I wanna enchant it" he said following you to the enchantment table. "We do have those enchanted books if you want something specific?" you said but he shook his head "nah i'm doing it old fashioned" he said standing at the enchantment table and taking his time going through, enchanting each item with its purple iridescence.

"What did you get?" you asked, jumping around him excitedly and he hovered over each item. "Respiration on the helmet, projectile protection and unbreaking, wait I got unbreaking as well?" he asked looking at you through the facetime "it does that sometimes" you shrugged and he raised his eyebrows and hummed with the newfound knowledge. "Those on chestplate, protection on the jeans-" "leggings" "whatever, and feather falling on the boots" he said putting all his armor back on and going over his tools "efficiency on the pickaxe, efficiency on the axe, unbreaking on the hoe, unbreaking on the shovel, and fire aspect on the sword" he said stabbing a chicken that immediately went up in flames. "Roast chicken for life!" you cheered.

"Okay you have your full diamond now come to the nether" you said standing in the swirling portal and Izuku whined. "Literally what for!" he asked standing next to you despite his disinterest and the loading screen popped up. "For that Xp, gotta get that nether quartz" you said jumping to a clump of nether quartz and letting the green spheres fall on you watching the bar go up. "(y/n) What's the bridge for?" he asked walking over to the bridge ignoring the magma slime jumping toward you.

"What bri- AGH FUCK NO NO YOU CUBE FUCKING BITCH THINK YOU CAN JUMP ON ME LIKE I'M SOME WHORE WHO DO YOU THINK I AM" (A real thing i've said playing minecraft with my friends) he turned around just as the magma divided into 4 then each of those into another 4 until there were none. "Don't go on that bridge you will absolutely die" you warned and he backed up onto the bridge anyway. You were surprised he even made it halfway before a ghast needed to tell him his place and shoot him right into the neon orange below. "YOUR FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT"

Bonus content

Kaminari, bakugo, and kirishima all joined the call loading up minecraft not expecting to get an earful of your abuse to Izuku who was crying into his controller "I FUCKING TOLD YOU NOT TO GO ON THE BRIDGE BECAUSE A GHAST WOULD KNOCK YOU OFF BUT WHAT DID YOU DO. GO ON THE BRIDGE. I LITERALLY JUST GOT YOU THOSE DIAMONDS ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME YOU BROCCOLI. I WASTED MY FORTUNE BUFF ON YOU."

You loved him really. But you would never be taking him to the nether again.

A/n: What is your relationship with Izuku here? That's for you to decide. Also these are all things that have happened to me while in minecraft with my friends.

#bnha #mha fanfiction #my hero academia #bnha fanfiction #boku no hero academia #mha #mha deku #bnha deku #izuku midoria x reader #midoriya x reader #izuku x reader

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 4 years ago

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Eccentricity [Chapter 10: Stay, I Need To Be Myself]

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the fluffy times while they lasted. 😉

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “Where Were You When The Sky Opened Up” by The Dangerous Summer.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual references (not graphic), angstttttttttt.

Word Count: 6k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @youngpastafanmug @simonedk

Uninvited

“Hey, it’s our song!” Joe turned up the radio as he steered his Subaru down the Lees’ cobblestone driveway and into a parking spot facing the woods. We’d been back from Chicago for a full week now, and—with the notable exceptions of classes and the early morning hours when Joe soundlessly crept out of my bedroom window—were very rarely apart.

“And I would do anything for love

I’d run right into hell and back

I would do anything for love

I’d never lie to you and that's a fact.”

“Uh, this is not our song,” I objected, the soles of my shoes propped against the dashboard. “I was not consulted. A couple’s official song cannot be a unilateral decision.”

“But I'll never forget the way you feel right now

Oh no, no way

And I would do anything for love

Oh I would do anything for love

I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that

No, I won’t do that.”

“Oh okay, what are you, the relationship police? Alright, Chief Baby Swan, let’s hear your brilliant suggestion. Wait, let me guess. Something by The Killers. Vampire Weekend. My Bloody Valentine. Is there a band called Chipotle Veggie Bowl?”

“Never Gonna Give You Up?” I suggested.

He laughed, dragging me over the center console and into his lap. “Oh, you are the worst!”

I straddled him in the driver’s seat, cupped his face in my palms, giggled as I touched my lips to his, soft and cool and lithe and inviting. When I broke the kiss, Joe pulled me back in, knotting his fingers through my hair. The way my thighs fit perfectly around him; that sharp, instinctual, now so familiar ache of longing. “I want you,” I breathed.

He pretended to be scandalized. “Right now? At this exact moment? In my parents’ driveway?”

“Yeah,” I confessed.

He grinned, unbuckling his belt. “Okay.”

“Really?!”

“Yes. I’ve lost all sense of decency. I’m an animal. You’ve absolutely ruined me.” His hands travelled beneath my U Chicago sweatshirt and tore it over my head. Yes, he had converted me to Chicago apparel. It was very embarrassing. Let’s move on.

“I’m sorry,” I moaned softly. I lied. I wasn’t sorry at all.

“I think we might need to get our own place.”

“Why?”

“Because I love the way you ruin me. And I want you to do it...” He went on, kissing me after each word: “All. The. Fucking. Time.”

I yanked off his Cubs t-shirt in one vicious tug. “We’re okay out here?” I didn’t really care; I should have, I was aware of that. But I didn’t. The Lees, most likely, would not call my dad to report us for public indecency. I could imagine Scarlett’s voice in my head, warm with approval: Get it, girl.

“Totally. And we’re far enough away from the house, Rami shouldn’t be able to hear us.” Joe nipped lightly down the side of my neck: carefully, always so carefully.

“He’d only get your side of things anyway.”

“Well yeah, that’s what I’m worried about! Your thoughts wouldn’t be so intrusive. I don’t care if he knows I’m a fantastic lay.”

“Oh, are you?” I teased, grinding my hips against him. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Joe smiled as he unbuttoned my jeans, deliciously slowly. “Well let me...just...refresh your...memory...”

I kissed him, roughly and deeply, arching into him, biting his lower lip. Yes, yes, yes...

Joe pulled away, still smiling but blinking and dazed. “Wow, all the sudden I feel...like...really calm.”

“Thanks...?” A week of almost constant sex might do that to a person. Sure, maybe, what did I know? My lips found his again. My hand skated down his bare stomach and into the waistband of his boxers. Joe began to help me peel off my jeans; then he stopped.

“Wait wait wait, I know this feeling.” Joe lifted me off of him and pushed me back into the passenger’s seat, gently but stubbornly. I tried not to be offended.

“What—?”

“Shhh.” He grabbed the headrest of my seat and twisted around to peer out of the rear windshield. I followed his gaze. There was a new car in the driveway, parked up by the front porch: an anonymous black Honda Civic. The plate said California. It was probably a rental. “Oh fuck,” Joe whispered. His eyes were enormous, glassy, horrified.

“What is it?”

“Stay here.” He threw on his Cubs t-shirt, zipped his pants, fastened his belt. “Stay down, stay quiet. And no matter what happens do not get out of this car, do you understand me?”

“Joe, why—?”

“Do you understand me?” His voice was low but severe, so incredibly unlike him; his dark eyes were flinty. Just like that night with the apples in Mercy’s kitchen, that night when Ben almost...

“I understand,” I heard myself reply.

“Good.” Joe climbed out of the Subaru—smoothing his shirt and then his tousled hair—and rushed over to intercept the unsolicited guest. I peeked around my headrest to watch, my right palm braced against the center console, that feverish lust that had been rushing through my bloodstream gradually weakening, perishing, vanishing like seawater baked from the sand under a rising sun.

The stranger stepped out of the Honda Civic, and although I knew his face, it took me a moment to place him. It was like—I could only imagine, having never been myself—a child stumbling into their movie heroines and beloved stuffed animals come to life during their first trip to Disneyland, amazed and yet somehow gut-twistingly uneasy as they gawked up at that grotesquely inflated cartoon face, that mask of lipstick and rouge that didn’t quite match their recollections, that dreamlike mirage plucked from pages or screens and impelled into a physical form that suddenly swallowed up space and gravity and oxygen. I had seen this stranger before in the massive painting that adorned Gwilym Lee’s upstairs office.

Cato.

He was very tall and very beautiful, classically beautiful, Ben-level beautiful. Joe often jokingly referred to him as Idris Elba within the Lee household, and a mid-thirties version of Idris Elba was just about right. He wore an immaculately tailored grey suit and aviator sunglasses, which he removed to greet Joe, folding and then sliding them smoothly into the front pocket of his suit jacket. His face was solemn and observant; he had a closely-trimmed beard without a fleck of silver. He extended a hand, which Joe shook.

“Hey, Cato!” I heard Joe say, muffled through the walls of the Subaru. I couldn’t make out Cato’s replies; his voice sounded deep, rumbling, extremely level. “So nice of you to stop by! I didn’t know you were in town. Yeah, everyone’s doing great. Even Ben. Hahaha, yeah, you know how he is. You know exactly how he is. But it’s all good. Well look, I’m just gonna go run a friend home and then I’ll be back in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes and we can all chat. Okay? Awesome. Feel free to head inside, I’m sure Mercy would be thrilled to play hostess. There’s sweet tea in the fridge and a hummingbird cake on the counter and...oh, something else too...some weird type of cookies she baked this morning. Help yourself. I’ll be back before you can say ‘tyrannical vampire murder cult.’”

“Tyrannical vampire murder cult,” it looked like Cato replied without a hint of a smile. But he wasn’t paying attention to Joe anymore. His eyes had found the Subaru, and then me; he was staring with that intense, seeking bewilderment that reminded me of Rami and Lucy and Ben when I’d first met them, when they were still trying to puzzle out why my mind (and my mind alone) was a night-draped, silent ocean of the unknown.

He's trying to read me, I realized. He’s trying to read me and he can’t.

Joe was jogging back to the Subaru now. At last, Cato turned away from me and headed into the house. The carved pumpkins from Weber’s Farm still lined the front porch: Scarlett’s Thunderbird, Archer’s Vantage, Rami’s swooping bat, Lucy’s moon and stars, Joe’s moustached jack-o-lantern, my (but actually Gwil’s) snapshot under the sea, Ben’s miniature Lee residence complete with the winding cobblestone driveway. Joe swept into the driver’s seat, adjusted his rearview mirror, and spun out of the parking spot.

“Goddammit,” he hissed as we barreled down the driveway.

“Why is Cato here?”

“I have no idea.” Joe looked straight ahead as he drove, preoccupied, consumed with possibilities. His fingers drummed the steering wheel. “We have to pay dues to them, all the covens do. Gwil cuts a check. But that’s not until around the New Year. That’s almost always when Cato stops by. Collects the payment, interrogates us in a way that masquerades as conversation, hangs around town for a few days, reports back whatever we’re up to...which usually isn’t much. Holidays with the extended family, gotta love it. I don’t know why he would be here now.” Joe shook his head. “Maybe something to do with Ben. It would have to be Ben. There’s no other reason.”

“And you don’t want him to know about me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“But...Cato isn’t all that dangerous,” I said, not understanding. “Is he?”

“Not alone, no. But the people he works for are.” Joe sighed, glancing over at me as he drove, serious and sorry and sad. “There’s a lot of violence in my world. A lot of darkness. I’ve tried to protect you from that as much as possible. And maybe I’ve done too good a job, maybe it’s too easy for you to forget what we really are. Most vampires aren’t like Gwil’s coven. They’re not like me. They kill easily and unrepentantly. And I don’t want any of them knowing that you exist, that you’re a weakness of ours. I want them to know as little about you as physically possible.”

“A weakness,” I repeated. I didn’t like that.

He smiled faintly. “It’s a compliment to be somebody’s weakness, Baby Swan.”

“I guess so.” The towering pine trees whipped by in a verdant blur. The sky above was thick and grey and churning. “You’ll be okay, right? Ben will be okay?”

Joe seemed to find that amusing, ridiculous even. “You don’t need to worry about us.”

“But I still do.”

“We’ll work it out, whatever it is. Cato is a reasonable guy. And Ben is definitely capable of...well. Advocating for himself.”

Capable of unparalleled carnage, he means. The memory of the first day I’d met Ben hit me like a hurled stone, illuminated my mind like a pulsing neon sign: the coiled tension in his muscles, that mindless, animalistic hatred in his eyes. Yes, he must be quite the monster when he wants to be. But he didn’t want to be anymore. I knew that completely, unquestioningly.

Joe pulled into Charlie’s driveway. The police car was gone; my 1999 Honda Accord and Charlie’s Toyota Corolla rested idly side by side. My dad would be working late tonight, until eight or nine at least. A pang of loneliness struck in my gut, just beneath the ribs; I had grown so accustomed to the absence of solitude, of quiet. The silence suddenly felt so loud.

“Don’t let it ruin your night,” Joe said as I got out of the Subaru. His words were affectionate; but his voice was still distracted, distant. “Don’t let it bother you. Everything will be fine, I promise. And as soon as Cato’s gone, everything will go back to the way it should be.”

“Okay,” I replied, not feeling very comforted at all. I don’t like the way he pushed me off him when he saw the car. The way he’s barely looked at me since. The way he called me a weakness.

Joe was already checking his mirrors, preparing to leave.

“Hey. Mob guy.” I leaned into the rolled-down window. “I love you.”

And the grin lit up Joe’s face like the sun. He crawled across the passenger’s seat, drew me into him by the collar of my brand new U Chicago hoodie, kissed me until that wild, interrupted desire was flaring up again in my arteries and nerve endings and everywhere else. The thunderous clouds in my skull split open. Everything’s still okay. It really is. “I love you to death. And then back again.” He retreated and shifted the Subaru into reverse. “I’ll see you soon. But maybe not too soon, I might be tied up with this family thing for a while. Don’t wait up tonight.”

“No problem. I’ll just call one of my other monster boyfriends to keep me company. The werewolf should be free. It’s not a full moon, is it?”

“No bestiality,” Joe retorted sternly. “That’s illegal, ma’am.”

I smiled and waved as the Subaru swerved out of the driveway and disappeared. Everything’s okay, I told myself, standing in the front yard under darkening skies. Everything will be okay.

And I kept telling myself that, again and again like Hail Marys, until I was dozing off in my bed alone six hours later.

Hit It And Quit It

I dreamed of the beach at La Push—my toes wriggling beneath the cold sand, the ricocheting cries of seagulls, the primordial growl of the frothing waves—and woke up with the ghost of saltwater in my sinuses. I grabbed my iPhone off the nightstand. Two new texts: one from Archer—Hey would it be distasteful or hilarious to dress up as Dracula for the Lee Halloween party? Asking for a friend.—and one from Jessica asking if she could copy my Marine Botany homework. Absolutely nothing from Joe.

When was the last time I didn’t have a text from Joe waiting for me in the morning? I struggled to remember, my mind still foggy with snippets of dreams. A week? Two weeks? A month? It felt like forever.

I tapped out a text to Joe with my clumsy, just-waking-up thumbs: I am resolved. No more nights with my werewolf boyfriend. Dude scratched the hell out of me and then barked at the mailman. Had to drop him off at the SPCA for neutering. See you soon! xxxx

I tried not to obsessively check my phone as I showered, got dressed, gathered my textbooks and notepads and pens. And yet still, I noticed: Joe didn’t text me back.

The rain poured from a grey sky all through my drive to Calawah University, Marine Botany class with Jessica, our frantic dash across campus beneath her hot pink umbrella to Forks And Spoons. My human friends had custody of me during lunchtime today. Angela was studying for a Computer Science quiz, Eric working on an article for the Calawah Chatterbox, Mike histrionically lamenting a sprained ankle coming just on the cusp of basketball season. Jessica bought me a chocolate chip muffin as thanks for texting her a picture of our Marine Botany homework this morning. Ah, the sweet taste of academic dishonesty.

I was relieved—more than I would have liked to admit—that all five Lees were at their usual lunch table, looking worn and tired but normal enough. Ben was hiding behind a pair of sunglasses and his black U Chicago hoodie that Joe and I had bought for him last weekend, sipping steaming tea out of a mug that he gripped with both hands. Scarlett flipped moodily through an astrophysics textbook. Rami repeatedly tapped the tabletop with a pen while Lucy knitted a lavender sweater, never raising her eyes from the jumble of yarn in her lap. They all murmured to each other in low, furtive voices, their mouths barely moving. Joe gave me a wave and a drawn smile; but only after I waved first.

Angela was now scolding Jessica for her lack of moral integrity.

Jess rolled her eyes, gnawing on a chicken finger that was burned black around the edges. “I’m here ostensibly to become an anthropologist and in actuality to find a hot rich husband, not to learn how to identify like sixty different types of algae.”

“Then why even take Marine Botany?” Angela asked, confounded.

“Calawah University forces every student to take at least two science classes, even if you’re a humanities major. Because they’re fucking fascists.”

“Oh, fascists, a big word for you!” I congratulated Jessica, patting her shoulder before returning my attention to my homemade veggie quesadilla and leftover slice of Mercy’s hummingbird cake. I was getting so good at this eating respectable meals thing. Joe would be proud.

Angela chuckled. “How’s that finding a husband thing going, by the way?”

“Awfully,” Jessica sighed. “I had this really promising flirtationship going with a frat boy in my Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class. Ellsworth Jonathan Griffin, gorgeous blue eyes, blond man bun, his dad is a partner at a corporate law firm in Los Angeles. That’s the stuff dreams are made of. But I’m pretty sure he dropped out because I haven’t seen him in a few days. Also he would bring Absolut vodka to class in an Aquafina bottle.”

“You can probably do better,” I said.

“Well we can’t all end up with Lee boys, now can we?” Jess snapped irritably.

When it was time to depart for our afternoon classes, I met Joe in the doorway of Forks And Spoons, linked my fingers around the back of his neck, tugged at his dark, auburn-tinted hair.

“You okay, mob guy? You seem a little...” Exhausted? Edgy? Sad? “...Distracted.”

“I’m good. I’m great.” He kissed me briefly, fleetingly. No big deal; after all, we were in public. Right? “Are you cool to hang out later?”

“Absolutely. Can we go to La Push if it stops raining? I know it’ll be cold, but I woke up with the beach on my mind and haven’t been able get it out all day.”

“You got it. Can I meet you there? I have to take care of a few things first. Have to, uh, hunt.”

I stared up at him, feeling my stomach drop, feeling rapidly and jarringly off-kilter. Joe rarely mentioned hunting around me...not in a serious way, at least. It was one of those things that knocked me out of the fantasy of how compatible we were, how possible. It was a reminder of all those interminable differences that lived in the hushed space between us. “Okay.”

“I’ll...I’ll explain everything then. At La Push.”

“Okay,” I said again, very uncleverly. What’s going on here? What exactly did Cato say?

Joe smirked; finally a flash of playfulness, that contagious light he was built of. He smoothed my hair with one feather-light stroke of his hand, touched his lips to my forehead. “Don’t be late to Chemistry. I can’t have you failing out.”

“Of course not. How would I be able to get my Marine Biology PhD from U Chicago?”

But Joe didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile; he just left.

Ben was hunched over our table in Professor Belvin’s classroom, his arms encircling his notebook, the pen in his hand scribbling frenziedly. The window was wide open; the rain outside had weakened to a docile drizzle. He was still wearing his sunglasses. He didn’t acknowledge me at all.

“Rough night?” I asked, sliding into the seat beside him.

“Yeah.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“I definitely do not.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him. Ben glanced up, his thick eyebrows raised; they peaked just above the rims of his opaque sunglasses. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry.”

For a long time, Ben just looked at me; maybe wanting to say something, maybe just feeling that decorum necessitated it. “You shouldn’t be,” he replied at last. And he spent the rest of class paying no attention whatsoever to Professor Belvin’s lecture on the Pauli exclusion principle and instead scrawling untidy Welsh phrases into the formerly pristine pages of his notebook.

It was just after 5 p.m. when I arrived at La Push, the tires of my 1999 Honda Accord crunching over the gravel of the small parking area, the wind whipping ferociously. Joe had gotten there first; he was sitting on a rock down by the water with his back to me, peering out over the Pacific Ocean, tossing pebbles and shells into the waves. We had an hour of daylight left. The sky was obscure, grey, dim. Fine droplets of rain like mist sailed through the biting autumn air and clung to my skin.

When Joe spotted me, he leapt off the rock and watched me approach with his hands in the pockets of his North Face jacket. He wasn’t wearing anything Chicago-related today, which was highly unusual. I waited for him to touch me, to hold me, to tell me that everything was okay and always would be...at least for the next ten to fifteen years. He didn’t. “Hey,” he said instead.

“Hi.”

Joe nodded down the beach. “Let’s walk.”

I have never been especially good at mundane, monotonous rambling. That’s a Scorpio thing. And yet monotonous rambling is exactly what I did: I prattled on about my classes, Charlie’s bowling league, Renee’s new life in Florida with Paul, the ocean, the weather, anything to fill that space between us that all at once felt so enormously significant. I was vaguely aware that I was afraid to stop talking; I didn’t want Joe to have the chance to say whatever was on his mind.

Finally, Joe stopped walking. He took my hand, ran his thumb over the faint scar from when I accidentally cut myself in Mercy’s kitchen. His shoes sank into the wet sand, left imprints there like fingerprints. He turned to face me, pained, grave, and oh god, far worse: guilty.

“What?” I asked, terror swelling in my lungs, my bones, some inborn warning of impending ruin.

Joe gazed out over the crashing sea, then came back to me, like a dislocated joint popping back into place. “I am so sorry.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I...” He spoke slowly, haltingly. “I thought that this was something that was doable. But I was wrong.”

“What...?” And then a possibility occurred to me, a glorious possibility. Of course. A grin erupted across my face. “This is a joke, right? You’re joking, you’re always joking, this is just—”

He shook his head. He wasn’t joking. I wrenched my hand out of his and stared up at him in furious disbelief.

“It’s not fair to you,” Joe said. “This thing, being with someone like me. I can’t give you a future. I can’t give you an uncomplicated existence. I mean, come on, you have to worry about getting murdered around my own family—”

“Do you have fucking amnesia?” I demanded, incredulous. “Joe, we just talked about this. We just made plans to move to Chicago after graduation, we agreed that it was what we both wanted. I don’t want a normal human boyfriend. I don’t want normal human in-laws. I want you, Joe, and Ben, and Mercy and Gwil, and Rami and Lucy and Scarlett, I want the whole ridiculous Lee family package and there’s nothing you could say to make me decide that this isn’t worth it.”

“Look—”

“No, something happened, right? Something happened with Cato, or Ben, or someone, something happened and now you think that you have to do this but I’m telling you that whatever it is we can figure it out, we can figure it out together, isn’t that what you promised me?” He said he wouldn’t leave. He promised me he wouldn’t leave. All those things...all those things he said...

“Listen.” And now his eyes were stony. He didn’t call me Baby Swan. Oh, this is bad. This is so bad. “It’s not fair to me either.”

“And that’s what this is really about,” I realized. My voice was abruptly fierce, caustic. All those other women; those beautiful, graceful, immortal women. How did I ever think I could compare?

“It’s not personal.”

“It’s the most personal thing there is, Joe, it’s pasts and futures and love—”

“It’s not though.” He smiled, just barely. “Maybe we thought it was, but it’s not.”

It hit me like a brick, like a bullet; I couldn’t catch my breath. I was drowning in thin air, like a sawfish, like a shark. “Well I’m glad you figured that out on your own fucking schedule.”

“This was my fault,” he said. “All of it. And I am so profoundly sorry for the pain I’ve caused you, and I take full responsibility for it. I hope you’re able to move on knowing that there’s nothing you could have done differently. These are just the realities of my world. You’re better off in your own. And you’re going to make someone very happy someday.”

It's all so empty, so excruciatingly generic. “You’re a monster,” I seethed at him, tears stinging in my eyes.

“Yes,” Joe agreed softly.

“I hate you.” I wasn’t sure if I meant that, but I still said it. Maybe I could will it into being true, like how people find God after a particularly grim diagnosis; there’s no harm in trying to make it real. There’s nothing left to lose.

“That would be more than fair, given the circumstances,” he said. “I won’t bother you again. I’ll ask you to do the same for me.”

“Sure.” Tears were streaming down my cheeks now; my breaths were ragged, hitching. I need to get out of here. I need to get away from him.

A shadow of concern crossed his face, the first one I had noticed since yesterday afternoon. “If you need someone to drive you home, I’d be happy to—”

“I’d literally rather die.” And I left Joseph Francis Mazzello standing on the beach with the twilight wind in his hair and the sun setting behind him like time slipping through an hourglass.

I fled to my Honda, turned the keys in the ignition, covered my face with my hands and wept in raw, heaving shudders as Hungry Like The Wolf played from the mixtape that Joe had left in my cassette player. I ejected the mixtape, rolled down my window, tossed it out onto the rain-slick gravel. I couldn’t stand the thought of going home. Charlie would be at work until late tonight; Joe would never set foot in the house again.

I have to go somewhere. I can’t just sit in that goddamn bedroom. I can’t be alone.

I wheeled my car onto the main road and drove until I came to an unceremonious mechanic’s garage with a fractured concrete floor and cracks like spider legs across the windows. When I stepped out of my Honda, Archer raced over to meet me, beaming and wiping his hands clean with an oil rag.

“Hey, you know you’re not allowed to come here unless you bring Taco Bell with you...” Then he saw me, he really saw me. “Whoa, what—?”

And Archer caught me as I collapsed into his arms, sobs ripping through my throat like fangs.

Benjamin, 24 Hours Earlier

It was bad. Whatever this was, it was bad.

I knew because Rami could read Cato, and I could read Rami; the hazy wisps of color that unfurled from him were a hectic, wrestling electric blue: distress, grief, anxiety, denial. Cato’s own aura had always been rather unforthcoming—he tended towards deep, mellow greens and purples of congruence and contemplation—and forever tinted with an opalescent quality that spread like wildfire to the people around him, the people who were under his influence, that intangible calming and harmonizing effect, that irrational sense of wellbeing. Everyone in the room had that faint opalescence shimmering around them now, even Rami, whose unspoken turmoil remained a roiling rather than a storm. And I thought—not for the first time—that if Larkin was a spade that hollowed you out, scraped along the jagged snags of your split bones to empty you of any ambitions and loyalties that had come before, then Cato was the anesthetic that made the mangling go down smoother, the promise that you would someday still catch glimpses of innocence. Larkin was a purger, a purifier; Cato made you believe again.

There were pitchers of sweet tea and a heaping tray of butter pecan cookies on the living room coffee table. Cato sat on the neat white sofa, one leg crossed over the other, stoic, waiting. Rami stared vacantly from the loveseat; Lucy was beside him, her delicate bare feet tucked beneath her and her fingers laced through Rami’s, her brow knit into grooves of worry. Scarlett was next to me on the largest couch, her boots propped up on the edge of the coffee table, her hair in a long French braid, periodically cracking her knuckles. It was nearly the only sound. Mercy bustled around the room gifting everyone tall chilled glasses of sweet tea; Gwil stood by the virtual fireplace on the big-screen tv, his hands in his pockets, his lips pressed into a rigid line.

The front door opened, and Joe stepped inside, his car keys rattling in his fist. For as long as I’d known him, his color had so often been a bright and buttery yellow, his aura more visible and constant than anyone else’s. Lately, he was increasingly cloaked in the rosy pinks of love or the vivid, shifting, crimson reds of lust; and Rami and I bonded over our shared efforts to politely ignore that particular variety of thoughts.

Joe pointed to Cato. “What’s going on?”

“How long?” Cato asked him.

Joe feigned cluelessness. “Huh? What do you mean? Oh, car chick?! That’s nothing. She’s just a friend.”

Cato blinked. “Do you really think I just arrived in Forks today?”

It rolled through Joe like a wave: surrender, apprehension, dread. The realization that Cato had been watching us for days, weeks even, meticulously keeping just enough distance to stay out of Rami’s range of hearing. Joe’s now-opalescent aura dipped from cerise to an agitated mahogany. “Two months.”

“And she’s talented.” Cato’s voice was impatient, incredulous; How could you be this stupid? that voice said.

“No,” Joe flared, like shards of wood cracking in a fire. “No, she’s got nothing to do with you, with us. With our world. She’s got nothing to do with it.”

Cato circled the fingerprint of his index finger around the rim of his misted glass of sweet tea, meditative. “In one hundred and seventy years, I have never met someone who I couldn’t find if I wanted to. And yet the second I turned my back on that girl, she was gone. Vanished. The world was a blank map. How is that possible?”

No one said anything. Finally, Cato looked to Rami.

“You can’t hear her thoughts, can you?”

“No,” Rami admitted.

“And how many times has that happened in...how old are you now, the same as Ben? How many times in the past century have you met someone who made you feel normal, weak even? Who made you feel human again?”

“Never,” Rami conceded.

“You too, right?” Cato asked me. “You can’t see what she’s feeling. She’s nothing but white noise.”

I nodded reluctantly.

“She’s talented,” Cato said again, decisive.

“Oh god,” I choked out, burying my face in my hands. Now I knew what Rami had heard. I knew everything.

Joe shook his head almost violently. “No, that’s not fair. There’s no way of knowing if that would translate to life as a vampire or how it would manifest. There’s no way of knowing if she would survive the transition at all. And none of us are ever going to find out because she has nothing to do with our world.”

“She does,” Cato insisted. “Because you brought her into it.”

Scarlett shivered beside me, crossed her arms over her chest, clutched her leather jacket tighter. “You can’t be serious, Cato. You’re not a monster, you know she might not survive—”

“And that would stop Gwil. It would stop me, sure. When has it ever stopped Larkin?” Cato gestured to me. “With him? With me? With Akari or Araminta or Liesl or Rigel or all the ones who didn’t make it, who died screaming as they scorched from the inside out? It has never stopped him because he doesn’t care. He finds talented people. He covets them, covets them jealously, like jewels or money or lovers. And they either become one of his possessions or they become nothing at all.”

“No,” Joe whispered. “No, no, no...”

Rami was shrinking into the loveseat, overwhelmed by the emotions in the room that were dragging his aura into whirling greys, those desperate and dark thoughts; not even Cato could mute them entirely. Lucy tried to soothe him, laid the back of her fine-boned hand against his cheek. Mercy covered her gaping mouth. Gwil studied the floor, thunderstruck, absorbing it all.

“This is a courtesy that I’m doing you right now,” Cato told Joe, his large palms clasped together, his voice sorrowful and yet unyielding, almost pleading. “This is a warning. If he finds out about her, about what she can do...he’s going to want her. And he gets everything he wants.”

“He can’t find out,” Gwil said hoarsely.

“No,” I agreed. Death or a hundred-year sentence. Either way, a part of you dies. Either way, a part of you ends up in a box six feet underground and clawing for the sun.

“What can we do?” Scarlett asked Cato. “I mean...is there anything we can do?”

“You have to get rid of her. That’s her only chance. Get her out of your orbit, away from our world, away from where Larkin or anyone who serves him would ever cross her path. I won’t tell him about the girl. I’ll try to deflect his attention. If she’s already been spotted, I’ll tell him that she’s useless, just another one of Joe’s litany of casual liaisons. And that’s a risk I’ll take, I’ll do it out of respect for your coven, Dr. Lee, and for Ben. But there is absolutely nothing I can do for you if Larkin finds out for himself. I don’t think I’m the only one he has watching you.”

“Of course not,” I said bitterly. “I’m sure he has all sorts of eyes on me. The white whale. The one that got away.” This is my fault. It’s all my fucking fault.

“It’s not,” Rami murmured; and nobody else heard my side of it, but I think they understood.

Joe’s aura was now murky, sunless, almost black. It was a color I hadn’t thought he was capable of. His eyes were slick and bleary.

“Son?” Gwil prompted. Mercy was sobbing into a handkerchief patterned with roses. Mom, I ached instinctively, before pushing the thought away.

“I won’t do it,” Joe said. “You’re asking me to break her heart and I won’t do it.”

I begged: “Joe, you don’t understand—”

“No, you don’t understand! You don’t understand what this will do to her, what it’s going to do to her for the weeks and months and years that come after, she might never forget—”

“Do you want her to end up dead or in a hundred-year contract?” Cato shot back. “Do you want to see how much of that girl you care about so much is left after a century with Larkin?”

Everyone’s eyes fell on me. I could feel them, full of pity and horror. I’m what’s left. Someone gutted of everything but rage and bloodlust.

“No, of course not,” Joe said. Thanks a lot, brother.

Cato smirked without any humor at all. He had known. “Then the choice is easy.”

“Son,” Gwil said again.

Joe gazed back at him with huge, agonized eyes. His words were brittle, raspy, hollow. “Dad, I love her.”

“I know,” Gwil replied. His aura was a blue like cobalt: profound sympathy, compassion, mourning. “And that’s why you’ll do the right thing.”

Twenty minutes later, I was puffing on my vape pen as I paced back and forth across the wrap-around porch like a caged bear, watching the sun disappear behind the western hemlock trees that raked the clouds. Gwil, Rami, Lucy, and Scarlett were with Joe; Mercy was trying to convince Cato to stay the night in one of the guest bedrooms. I could hear her ludicrously gracious protestations through the walls. “We know it’s not your fault, dear, this...this...situation. We know you’re just the messenger. And you’ve been so important to Ben all these years, so kind. It’s really no trouble at all...here, let me at least wrap up some cake for you to take...”

The front door opened and closed. Scarlett appeared beside me, resting her forearms on the porch railing. She sighed, closed her eyes, said nothing.

“This is going to destroy him,” I told her.

Scarlett nodded, her face bathed in silvery moonlight, marvelous and yet forlorn. The aura that surrounded her was a deep, despondent indigo. It matched the sky. “Yeah.”

“And to think...” I exhaled heavily, nicotine-tinged vapor vanishing into the damp night air. Rain was coming; I could feel it in my bones. “I was just beginning to like it here.”

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somegirl29 · 4 years ago

Text

Sherlock X reader- a romance to killing it (second chapter)

Synopsis: Sherlock falls in love with a girl, but what he didn't know was that she was a murderer sent by moriarty to kill him

Author's notes: this is a continuation of the first fanfic I wrote

initially it was to have a single chapter but my friends insisted that I continue

there will probably be 2 more chapters after this

I made a pun for the title because I couldn't think of anything better

I may have a spelling mistake because I am Brazilian and my English is not very good

if you haven't read the first chapter here is the link: chapter 1

Feeling a little relieved, Sherlock can actually stop and think for the first time in the past few hours.

he couldn't tell if he was impressed, hurt or had admired the girl even more

sentiment was really something dangerous, that was the final proof he needed.

And he doesn't really understand who that girl who accompanied him for months was, and now he needed answers.

he needed the truth

‘’ Tea? ’'The girl returns to the room where he sat and holds out his cup‘' I can assure you that I didn’t put anything unusual this time ’’

he takes the cup and (y / n) sits next to him, both keep silent for long minutes without much courage to start the matter but they both knew that an hour would be necessary.

‘‘How?’ 'He asks and she stares at him without understanding what he meant ’’ I need to know how I didn’t notice you’re a murderer, this is the kind of thing I would never let go of , and you know ‘'

'' Aren't you the amazing detective Sherlock Holmes? Solve my incredible crime '' she smiles at him defiantly '' Watch it coldly as if it were a game''She explains '' You don't pay enough attention to anything that doesn't benefit your work, or rather, anything that you don't think it benefits, that's your biggest flaw ‘'

‘’ I didn’t notice the game starting for the first time in my life ’’ he completes

‘‘Exactly, I think from that you can gather the information in your mind palace and decipher how it all happened’’

‘’ I could ..’’ he starts ‘‘but I want you to tell me, this between us is not a game, at least not for me ’’

She takes a deep breath and gives up thinking about what words to use to explain everything in a sincere way but without hurting him using then in the wrong way. One thing she and sherlock were very much in common was not understanding human emotions very well and ending up saying things that hurt others accidentally.

‘‘Ok I’ll tell you the truth, since you seem serious about it. It all starts with that murder that you unveiled when we first met, the clue that I presented that you had not seen before was the key to everything, for this not to be a boring monologue and to kill me with boredom say your guesses ’’

'' You came up with a clue, a hair that went unnoticed, it makes me think that you already had it and implanted it at the crime scene ‘'

'‘Once I heard the phrase ‘ Perfect crimes don’t make suspects ’ I have a different point of view about it, I think perfect crimes are those where there’s a suspect but not the real one‘'

‘’ Who is the man who was arrested after all? ’'

‘'An incompetent, I got evidence of his other crimes, the real ones that were much worse’'

‘’ You threatened him to take up his crime, he would be arrested in any case but assuming that crime the penalty would be less ’'

‘'And in the meantime your attention was diverted, you began to doubt yourself and at the same time to be instigated about me that I treated you as someone with average intelligence unlike everyone who idolizes you as a genius’’

‘‘ I look so predictable with you saying it like that ’'

'' This is how most people who speak to you feel every day, my dear ''

‘'So that must be the defeat feeling of being a normal person’'

‘‘ Don’t worry you don’t match other ordinary beings, playing with you was fun ’'

'' So much fun that it made you fall in love with me '' he plays with the cup watching the liquid spin in the glass

she looks at him with pity

'‘I don’t want you to feel used’

‘‘ You called it a game yourself ’” he points out

‘'And it was, in the beginning’’

‘’ And when did it stop being a game? ’’

'' In the moment I started to see you as a human being and not as something that I should destroy, that afternoon when you were so bored that you almost overdosed and I finded you almost dead, in for a moment I thought I was only concerned with losing the fun that would be killing you, but then I realized it was more than that, sentiment is a funny thing isnt it ? ‘’ She laughs at herself

He sure remembered the overdose, they dated for two months, she had an appointment and he had no case to solve and John was working. She found him out on the floor when she got home and it was a matter of seconds before she called for help and he was put in an ambulance, he came very close to death that time.

He wondered if John had missed him in the past few hours, but he remembered that his best friend had finally made peace with his sister and went to visit her for the rest of the week.

Sherlock analyzes the place around him, it was a mansion decorated with dark furniture, everything had black and red colors, as windows were made of a material that made it almost impossible that you opened it from the outside by someone without the key and the door too, could be seeing dust everywhere and some cobwebs, it shouldn't come here very often.

‘'This is the house where I grew up‘

'' What? ‘'

‘'I saw that you were analyzing the place, everything is dirty and kind of old because I haven’t come here in the last five years‘

''And your family ?''

'' Dead '' she says without giving much importance

It was the first time they had talked about her past, and he wanted as much information as possible.

‘'If it isn’t too impolite, could you talk more about that?’’

"It is just a boring story, but if you insist on knowing I will tell you" he pays attention in detail to every word she says, it is rare that she talks about such things and it cannot be a missed opportunity "" at 17 I ran away I ended up meeting dangerous people, great criminals with incredible murderous skills '' she gets up from the sofa, placing the farm on a nearby table and starts walking around the room, standing still for a long time was something that bothered her '' I was tired of an ordinary life, I was about to go to college and just thinking about ending my days as a social ornament like my mother, or being an ordinary worker, made me anxious'' she takes a knife and analyzes it “With this knife I killed one of the men in that gang, it was a thoughtless and miscalculated act by a rebellious teenager, but it attracted their attention to me, and to my surprise they thought I had the skills, they trained me as a murderer and sent to kill other criminals ’’

'' What does this have to do with your family? ‘

'' Enemies found them and they were killed, the house and all my family's assets were given to me as an inheritance, I was practically rich, but it seemed like a futile and boring life and I, like you, run away from boredom, in some moment the group that trained me was dissolved and i followed the path of hired killer, but killing only big criminals, after a while you notice that these types of people have a lot of information about other dangerous people and with that information I had power, it was a matter of time before I met Moriarty ''

‘’ About Moriarty, what do you think about doing now? What's your plan ’’

‘'Killing Moriarty, getting a copy of his contacts if we have Moriarty’s data, we can serve terms in jail, and whoever comes along midway I’ll kill’’

‘'You talk about kill as if it were something common’’ (y / n) approaches him and looks him in the eye with an air of guilt

‘’ I’ve always believed that everyone I was sent to murder committed crimes as ruined as the ones who hired me committed, that’s until I met you and now I’ve started to question everything .. ’’

‘’ After your plan to kill Moriarty, what will happen? You are a murderer and I am a detective '' he stands up slightly by the wrist and looks into her eyes

‘‘ Mycroft ’’

''My brother? ’’

"Negotiate my freedom in exchange for all the information I have collected over the years and the information we are going to steal from Moriarty,we can also negotiate your freedom since at this hour they must have found a body in your house and due to his suspicious disappearance you may think that you killed him and ran away ‘'

‘'I hadn’t thought about that last part’'

"I kind of didn't give you much time to think today, it's a lot of information and you have emotional involvement, it's normal to be a little stunned, anyway the point I want to get to is ..." she holds his face affectionately and smiled '' even though part of a disguise solving crimes with you was one of the best things in my life, not everything was false, after the first crime the rest were not outlined by me, and maybe you still need my help ''

And he hugs her around the waist, pulling her closer and she kisses him deeply.

When they separate his foreheads lean against him and he says:

‘’ Your help will be helpful in getting my plan right ’’

‘'What plan?’'

‘’ The plan to keep you with me for the rest of my life ’'and upon hearing that she kisses you again

Perhaps that was the end of the life she had for all those years, but she would have him and a completely new life to explore.

And he would have a lifetime to discover everything about her that was now tired of games and disguises. She would never pretend again, at least not for him.

#Sherlock #Shelock holmes #sherlock holmes imagine #sherlock x oc #sherlock tv series #bbc sherlock #sherlock fanfic #Sherlock x reader #sherlock x you #sherlock x y/n #sherlock x reader angst #sherlock imagine #x reader

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mtvswatches · 5 years ago

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Wynonna Earp 3x04 No Cure For Crazy

Click here for previous recaps!

Stray thoughts

1) Did that… did that tree just fucking walk?

Is the tree possessed by Dolls or something? Why is a tree helping Wynonna and Doc?

And why is Peacemaker not working?

3) Okay, the trees are fucking bleeding and this dude just called it “a murder tree” and what the actual fuck!

4) So… the “fire” never really happened, it was just a Black Badge cover-up for the massacre. I really want to see where they go with this whole backstory they’ve given Nicole because so far? Not into it.

Nicole does make a good point of asking Waverly why she hasn’t talked to her mom yet to figure out who her parents are. She seemed quite intent on figuring it out last season, and here she has the perfect opportunity to have every answer she’s looking for, and she’s not taking it? Waverly is anything but a chicken, so I’d figured she would confront her mother head on but I guess she’s been conveniently written OOC so that the writers can keep this mystery going for a while. I hope they don’t stretch this for too long, though.

5) Why did Nicole randomly and carelessly throw the ring in the middle of the forest? Huh? That’s also kind of OOC? Wasn’t she talking about disposing of it carefully two minutes ago?

6) MORE OF THIS, PLEASE.

7) And more of this.

8) Okay, so Waverly IS going to see her mother, she just didn’t disclose that bit of information to Nicole, why? She just made this big speech about not keeping secrets from each other… or is it that she wasn’t planning on seeing her mom until Wynonna brought it up and basically set it all up for her?

And suuuure, Mama is doin’ just fine!

9) So, Wynonna couldn’t shoot Peacemaker because she ran out of bullets, which is a more logical explanation than what I was expecting. I don’t know why but I just assumed Peacemaker had magical ammo and it didn’t require reloading? Anywho, look at these two idiots flirting with each other and basically dry-humping…

10) SHIT. That was a low blow.

But how fucking adorable is it that he’d taken the time to buy - or build! - baby Alice a crib? My heart!

11) Why was their mother so intent on Waverly never finding out where she was or seeing her? And what’s going to happen when Waverly does…? There must be a reason. It seems she was trying to protect them.

12) Why are they giving me so much Doc/Wynonna in this episode? What’s going to happen? (Listen, I’ve grown up watching Joss Whedon shows, I’m conditioned to believe that happiness is followed by utter and complete destruction and mysery!)

13)

NICOLE: Can we talk? It’s about Nedley.

WYNONNA: Not again. How many more plungers do we need?

14) Wait, did I forget that Jeremy was gay or they haven’t mentioned it before? Because I’m all for it, and especially about the way it was casually brought up in conversation because it’s not Jeremy’s single defining characteristic.

15) I guess the mother-daughter reunion is happening sooner than expected, since Waverly was contacted as her last known emergency contact.

16) Jeremy is totally vibing with this Robin dude who found the murder tree and they’re making silly tree puns and it’s gay heaven, I love it.

17) Well, that couldn’t have gone any worse…

And yet, I can’t help but feel she means something else? I still feel she’s trying to protect Waverly.

Something happened when Waverly touched her, too, and then she kept saying “she’s unbound, she’s loose, kill the demon.” Waverly of course assumes her mom is referring to her as “the demon”, but I have a feeling she’s talking about an actual demon.

18) I really felt for Nedley when he admitted he’s tired of covering the supernatural shit up. Man, I hated him on the first episode of the show and now I’ve really grown to like him? And Wynonna suggested he should step aside and let Nicole take charge, and he’s actually considering it, and I’m here for Sheriff Haught.

19) Listen, I’m not usually into Gay, meet Gay, now get together because you’re the only two Gays so therefore you must be attracted to each other and date, but… I’m really liking the Jeremy/Robin interactions so far? They’re really cute!

20) And now they’re two gays who have zero idea about the woods lost in the forest and they found the stairway to heaven…

21) Mama Gibson is not messing around.

22) Ah, great, the idiots who let a dangerous convict escape have now locked Wynonna up. Marvelous.

23) Damn, Waverly keeps thinking her mother wants to kill her and that she called her a demon, but I just fucking know she’s talking about a literal demon that’s probably threatening Waverly’s life, that’s why she’s kept away from her.

24) Wait, what?

NEDLEY: Michelle didn’t go to prison because she burned down the barn. She went because her youngest daughter was in it.

Her youngest is Waverly? So did she try to set Waverly on fire? I have a hunch she’s possessed.

25) Oh, dang, Doc is hearing a baby’s cry in the woods. Of course, this is a trigger for him, he’s thinking of Alice, and he’s being lured into the woods.

26) Major Spike vibes in this scene…

27) Hm. Bulshar just tried to strike up a deal with Doc – he’ll give Doc reprieve from the knowledge of his miserable destiny if Doc does his bidding. And Doc was really contemplating accepting. Don’t be weak, Doc. Come on. There has to be a way.

28) So, this fucking corrupt guard suggests they should just off Wynonna and write it off as if Michelle murdered her own daughter when she was trying to escape. And of course, he’s a fucking revenant. It’s definitely going to be interesting to see how Wynonna gets out of this one while handcuffed and without Peacemaker…

I mean, she was fucking tasered and yet…

QUEEN.

29) Nedley, my heart. He’s so heartbroken over this.

NEDLEY: Well, I got a call to a situation at the Earp farm. By the time I got there, the barn was lit up like a torch. You... somehow you escaped. I mean, you were covered with soot, you were crying, but you were unharmed. WAVERLY: And my mother? NEDLEY: She was... locked in your daddy's patrol car. She set the fire. But she was no murderous sociopath. She was Michelle Gibson. Rodeo spitfire. The wild heart and loyal soul of Purgatory. Even the thugs and the dimwits drank to her. With her. They loved her. Look, she wasn't herself that night. She kept... she kept insisting that... that she was trying to vanquish a demon. WAVERLY: A demon she thought was... me. NEDLEY: Well, that would explain The occult nonsense that Ward saw plastered all over the barn before she lit the match. Did you believe it? That was Ward's interpretation. Look, your pop was my boss, so... And I know... I know I should've been braver. I should've defended her. But... I booked Michelle like I was told to. God, this just keeps getting worse. I've been trying to make up for it ever since. I kept watch over you. I tried to set Wynonna on the straight and narrow. That didn't work out. And when I became Sheriff, I pulled the report. I didn't want anyone seeing it.

30) Why would Wynonna let the revenant in on the fact that she got a kid? I mean, wasn’t the whole point of sending Alice away to protect her from the likes of him? I get that she used that bit of information to distract him, and yeah, she did this later…

…but maybe don’t go talking about your child out loud around the enemies?

31) Why is he coughing dirt? Is he going to get gay-buried before he can be allowed to actually gay?

32) Now Waverly is listening to her mom’s tapes with a psychiatrist or therapist or something, and yep, I’m still convinced she was possessed or something and the reason she was trying to stay away from Waverly is because she wanted to protect her. As she was talking to the therapist, she said “Shut up!” or something like that and she was clearly talking to someone else who was not there, like someone who might be in her own head or that only she can see. Someone or something that might be using her to kill her own daughter. The question is, who and why? Is it Bulshar manipulating her the same way he tried to manipulate Doc? Or is it something else altogether? And why is this something or someone so intent on killing Waves? What is she? What kind of role is she supposed to play in the grand scheme of things for this evil entity to want her dead so badly?

33) Okay, theory confirmed, Doc just heard a third, infernal voice on the tape.

34) Oh shit, is history going to repeat itself?!

Yep, there was an actual demon in serious need of a facial and makeover.

35) Bye bye Robin, I guess?

36) Who the fuck is Jolene and why is everyone acting like Stepford Wives? Is this some sort of Ted/Dawn scenario?! And why is it that, in a supernatural show, this is by far the creepiest thing I’ve seen?!

37) So, I’ve got a lot of questions. First of all, I want to know more about the murder trees. How do they come to be? Are they inhabited by serial killers? We saw the face in one of them, and they can actually walk and move around, but why do they bleed? Is it like their victim’s blood? Also, who the fuck is Jolene? I mean, I know she’s probably the demon that showed up in the barn, but what’s her deal? What does she want? I mean, she didn’t kill Waverly, and instead she’s feeding and glamouring the whole group… to do what? Where was Robin taken? Can we please not do the whole bury-your-gays trope? I expect better of this show. Will Doc accept Bulshar’s deal? Please don’t, Doc. And what is Waverly?! That’s the biggest question of all, so I’m guessing the answer will be delayed till the season finale.

That was yet another fun, exciting Wynonna Earp episode, setting up a lot of stuff for the season, I guess. And I want answers!

38) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi. Thanks!

#Wynonna Earp #Waverly Earp #Nicole Haught #Doc Holliday #Jeremy Chetri #Wynonna Earp 3x04 #WE RECAP #recap #No Cure For Crazy #mine #WE 3x04

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eternaleve · 5 years ago

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Watching A Broken Frame music videos for the first time!

Carrying on with my Depeche Mode video rewatch project with the vids for A Broken Frame (first post is found here https://eternaleve.tumblr.com/post/624649762286780416/ive-spent-the-course-of-covid-lockdown-cycling)

I looked through my vinyl and found I did not steal my mother’s Depeche Mode singles from this album (I only stole all her Elvis Costello and Joy Division and a bunch of Japan singles which I suspect she snuck to me in hopes of making me like them) but they are all mysteriously gone. My abusive stepdad recently moved out and I have thoughts about what property he took, but this just seems petty.

Anyway, let’s talk about A Broken Frame! Vince Clarke left the band to go and be the Paul McCartney of 80s electronic music, forming Yazoo and Erasure. Apparently he did not like success and touring and stuff, which is far because it’s a lot of pressure, so he’s out and Alan Wilder is in after responding to an ad in Melody Maker. Remember music journalism? He joined as a tour keyboardist and appears in the videos for the album, but didn’t contribute to the album.

A Broken Frame was released eleven months after Speak & Spell, which doesn’t seem to be enough time to me for a band to create another whole album's worth of material. It just seems that a band spends a few years perfecting their sound and a selection of songs, and then a record label says, ‘Great! Now do the same thing, but in a much shorter timeframe, under much more stress, and in snatched moments between being shuttled from gig venue to gig venue!’. I understand there’s a ~hype train~ that music acts have to follow, because bands can slip out of notice so fricking quickly, but the pressure does not seem set up to maintain the mental and emotional well-being of people. I’m sure nothing like that will happen in the history of this bad though!

This album cover is considered one of the world’s greatest photographs for a reason. It’s stark and beautiful and has echoes of socialist realism and is just a really striking image. I don’t know who has final say over art direction in the band but whoever does has a great eye for images. The picture is taken over by Duxford and as I’m from the Midlands I have been to Duxford on a hundred school trips (it has a big air centre with WW2 planes and things and bits of the Berlin Wall), so I’ve probably been past this field an uncountable number of times without even realising it.

See You (Jan 1982, No 6 UK charts)

I like how it looks like fuzzy felt. It feels very, very different from the singles art from the last album, I guess to indicate a clear difference in direction? Maybe? This is the first single for the band written by Martin Gore and starting his reign as songwriter.

All the music videos for this album were directed by Julien Temple and are Not Liked by the band. I generally quite like Julien Temple’s work and watched a lot of it as a teen (stepdad being hugely into the Pistols), so I am intrigued to say the least how these will turn out to be.

This does give me a bit of a nostalgia kick for an old-fashioned style train station. It’s pretty much what my home station used to look like before everything was privatised, bought out by Virgin, turned bright red and full of commuters. I like how the station sparks to the beat of the music and that someone okayed an actual spending budget for this time around.

YOU HAVE TO LEAVE THE STATION THE PHOTOBOOTH IS HAUNTED

Not going to lie, this looks 100% like my Dad’s first ever passport photo. I like the addition of the bowtie. It adds a real ‘First Communion’ vibe to the whole look. The nose stud… well, I had a nose stud at the exact same period of my life. Same age too, I think, only mine stayed around a lot longer when it definitely should not have done.

It was at that moment he knew he had made a grave mistake in confronting the ‘Telephone Box Killer’ on his own.

Insert a standard ‘Original Selfie’ joke here. The use of the photobooth gives a cute little through line in the video, as well as giving other band members a chance to be present. I remember using photobooths to take fun photos, before they started costing so much goddamned money and put them only in the most inconvenient places. I still have a bunch that I keep in my purse.

… And now everyone’s working an office job? To show the passage of time? Or because it’s now a bit with music, so we’re showing the use of keyboards through office equipment that sort of requires you to make similar hand movements?

Something, something, statement about technology? The photobooth theme was fine! It was cute! It said something about the regret and passage of time from teen to young adult romance! Why are there now a lot of calculators?

Just in case you forgot - the single’s out now. Wink, wink.

But let’s go back and check in with our corporate overlords. Bob, how are you doing on the spyware floor?

… is this Julien Temple? Is it a music video within a music video? Did he put himself in the video? Could this part not have been done by a member of the band? Like, y’know, that new one who was clearly added in partly through this video?

I like the main core storyline of the video - thinking about a past relationship and then happening to run into them again unexpectedly - but I can see why this is perhaps not well thought of. Next one!

The Meaning of Love (April 82, No 12 UK charts)

This reminds me a lot of the cover for the first Adrian Mole book which was published the same year. It does not match the first single at all or the album, but I guess the album art was yet to be done? Or maybe two different departments handled them, because I would have gone with a different single cover if I knew that one of the greatest photographs of all time was in the wings for the album.

Reader, my heart dropped. I knew we were in for some deeply 80s bullshit. And, like, not good 80s bullshit.

This is the lounge act in the cruiseship of my nightmares

Martin Gore there looking like 99% of the lesbians on the DIY punk scene.

What the fuck is going on?

What, and I must reiterate, the fuck is going on? Are those pies? Pie eyes? Pie eye glasses? What does it mean?

Now’s not the time for your science homework, it’s time to film a music video.

Great, I know what image will be repeating in my night terrors tonight. Martin Gore’s face earnestly singing at me from the depths of a paramecium.

THIS JUST GETS WORSE AND WORSE. THERE IS NO SITUATION ON THE FACE OF THE PLANET MADE BETTER WITH PUPPETS.

No, my night paralysis nightmare will be Dave Gahan’s face turning into a fucking pie over and over and over again.

Oh, I see, the Meaning of Love is that your wife will turn into a bitter harpy that won’t let you live your dream and also your life is ruined because she keeps letting the puppets sleep in the bed.

I guess the video has a sort of XTC vibe? It does remind me of the video of ‘Making Plans for Nigel’, which I do like, but also this video is fucking awful should be seen to be believed. I liked the band’s awkward choreography which was four men showing how much they did not want to be doing any of this.

Leave In Silence (August 82, No 18)

The font is nice. That’s about all there is to say for this. It doesn’t match the other two singles. I’m not saying everything has to be matchy-matchy, but it is nice to have visual similarity and consistency. This looks like the record label gave up on trying.

Okay, so we’ve got the album art sorted and starting out with a - I guess you could call it ‘low rural farming vocalisation’, and neither of these two things match the other singles or music videos, which have had a very poppy, teen girl, Smash Hits vibe.

This week on The Generation Game, you could win a stainless steel bowl, a cuddly toy, and the lead singer of Depeche Mode!

This video started with a group of people vocalising while pouring out grain and looking very plaguecore, now we’re all playing around on a conveyor belt because I think Julien Temple has run out of ideas and is being artsy and surreal and weird to cover that up.

Ladies and gentleman, I’m sad to say that ‘The Fanciest Little Cowboy’ competition will not be running this year due to a lack of other contestants. This is a very fancy Little Cowboy though.

…. I…. what?

I have seen many bad, bad, bad cursed images in my time, but this is going straight up to the top. What the fuck does this say about the song? The band? The image the record label is trying to project? This pointless weird imagery for the sake of being pointless and weird.

It’s okay, Jess. Bright Red Martin Gore can’t really hurt you. Only haunt you.

And now spacehoppers. Because of course spacehoppers!

The players from Pathologic show up to make a cameo appearance, matching nothing in the video, and seeming wildly out of place with everything else. Pick a theme or story, Julien! It is EITHER the Generation Game OR a terrifying children’s show OR guttural Soviet inspired plaguecore. You can pick one! Not all of them!

The Blue Man Group really had a rough start. The wheat is… just there. Because I guess Julien Temple couldn’t think of how to organically weave it an advertisement for the album. So there’s just a bundle of wheat for no good reason.

By this point, same, mate. That is the only reaction I am having.

These videos were… not great. I think ‘See You’ is the best and most cohesive - it tells a cute little story that ties in with the themes of the song and provides an emotional resonance. And then things just go off the bloody chain a bit. They get weird and experimental in a way that does not work in selling the band or the song. They seem pretty disconnected from what a music video should be and Julien Temple seemed to just run out of ideas by ‘Leave In Silence’. C- Mr Temple, must try harder.

And then onto Construction Time Again! ... well, when I get round to it. In a few days maybe.

#depeche mode #a broken frame #i'm making myself laugh at least #see you #leave in silence #the meaning of love

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head-and-heart · 7 years ago

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The 100 Highlights - “How We Get To Peace” (5x08)

Hey everyone! Sorry for the long wait for this highlight post. I was out of town visiting family for a week and didn’t get a chance to rewatch the episode until today. And, unfortunately, I am about to be swapped for the next ten days (at least) so you can probably expect the 5x09 highlight post to be pretty late, too.

... And the 5x10 recap.

But anyway - super excited to get into this episode! Hope you enjoy my thoughts. :)

Feel free to read up on the previous posts in this series here.

“I’ve seen the horrors we inflict on each other in the name of survival, colonel. God knows I’m as guilty as anyone, but we’re on the brink here - on the edge of an abyss I’ve stared into before - and I can tell you, having sacrificed the few to save the many more times than I care to admit, eventually, the few becomes the many. The ends don’t always justify the means and if you don’t know that by now, after everything you’ve been through, then you’re just as bad as Octavia, and we’re already lost.”

At first I was a bit thrown by Kane’s speech here because Charmaine’s move was, objectively, very politically savvy (and it seemed a little out of place, considering Kane was the one who implied that if Charmaine got rid of McCreary she wouldn’t have to be concerned about resistance anymore but whatever) but - in retrospect - I do see the value in it. It seems to reflect what Bellamy and Clarke do later in the episode to Kara Cooper (which was honestly SO fucked up guys, like, holy shit). And the line was well delivered too. Very dramatic.

I kind of like this Vincent guy. Hm. Seems too nice to be a cannibal/serial killer. Speaking of which, are we ever going to see him snap? Maybe in 5x11 ... and that’s when we’ll get Abby telling the story of what happened in The Dark Year. :o I’ve cracked the code fam

Echo suggesting that they kill Zeke made her more familiar to me. Her character arc seems pretty on track (based on this episode) with what I have already speculated and I expect that we’re going to see her facing some issues with her old methods soon (maybe next episode?). I did like how they have set up her character arc in this episode.

I’m really enjoying that they have Indra teaming up with our mains this season. It’s an interesting dynamic, to see her interacting with characters besides Octavia and Kane this season and I am really enjoying it.

LEMME TAKE A MOMENT TO TALK ABOUT ZEKE PUTTING HIS HAND IN FRONT OF RAVEN PROTECTIVELY K

Listen, I know that their relationship has no base to it and they barely know each other and their connection doesn’t even really make sense *realistically* but I really, really LOVE Raven and Zeke’s dynamic. Lindsey and Jordan have fantastic chemistry and they look so good together and Zeke and Raven’s personalities/intellect complement each other so well. Also, this is a television show so lack of development DOESN’T MATTER, especially considering Zeke hasn’t killed Raven’s family or ex boyfriend or anything which - if you ask me - is a definite bonus! I just loved that little detail of him looking out for her, despite being angry (and having every right to be) because he feels protective of her and can’t really explain why just yet.

Also, I am in no way delusional enough to believe that the writers intentionally paralleled Bellarke and Zaven in this episode but this moment was visually extremely reminiscent of Bellamy jumping in front of Clarke in 2x09 ... so that’s a plus.

Everything involving Raven and Abby in this episode was just the most gut-wrenching, fam. Raven’s concern over Abby being threatened by Diyoza and her determination to protect her and Abby lying was just ... a Lot. It shows how far gone Abby is and added some new stakes to her addiction. I think it was important to show how Abby and Raven’s relationship will be affected by this.

“Your mother would be proud, Monty.” I wonder if anyone has told Monty this before, and how much he probably needed to hear it. In all that had happened, I forgot that Kara Cooper and Monty come from the same station on the Ark, and that they have probably even known each other for a long time. I never would have guessed that I would love seeing them interact so much but their scenes in this episode were so cute? Cooper laughing at Monty’s jokes about getting lit was the scene I didn’t know I needed. Leave it to The 100 to humanize the Worst character in the episode they get killed

THE ORIGINAL MURDER TRIO IS BACK AND AT IT AGAIN

I have to admit, in a kind of sick way I liked that we had Monty, Clarke, and Bellamy back at their old shenanigans again? Like, this felt like an indirect callback to Mount Weather, where they all committed mass murder together. This time, they’re trying to prevent that from happening again. It’s weird to see how their old allegiances and perspectives have shifted from that moment - and yet, they all continue to cooperate with each other.

“What’s one more, right? We’re all murderers.” OOF MONTY I FELT THAT

“We’re talking about taking one life to save hundreds.” “Really? Then let’s kill Octavia.” I literally yelled DRAG HIM at my screen when he said this lmao. Monty had ALL the lines in this episode. Like, damn, I love that he is questioning Bellamy and Clarke’s decisions in this, how they just revert so easily back to their same old methods. It’s refreshing to see.

And also, he’s RIGHT. What Bellamy and Clarke are doing is so fucking twisted. They are literally killing someone in the most grotesque manner and framing them for something they didn’t even do all in order to avoid killing someone else - the person who forced her to commit the atrocities she has in the first place. Let’s face it: Cooper is easy to hate but the only reason she is the way she is is because of the system that Octavia created, the game Octavia forced her to play. And yet, they won’t kill Octavia, because of their own selfish wishes. It is absolutely fucked up and I am so glad that Monty called them out on their bullshit.

I really loved Murphy looking at Clarke’s drawing of him and Emori chained to the rocket from 4x08. It was a nice detail (and parallel to Season 4′s corresponding episode) and callback to include. Here’s hoping that we get to see *cough* other characters looking at pictures of themselves that Clarke has drawn. You know ... no one in particular.

“Tell me what we’re looking at.”

“I don’t think we’d see it the same way, but all right. That’s where the trading post will be. And next to it will be a farm, and a workshop, and a mill ... And a real medical center, for Abby. To the south, there’ll be homes dug out of the ground to preserve the trees, and at the center, there’ll be a well, a place for people to gather, talk, debate ideas.”

“And a school with a playground where kids can blow off steam and bitch about their teachers and kiss under the bleachers. My kid.”

LET ME TALK ABOUT THIS SCENE !!! I LOVED THIS SCENE.

I think this is the very first time (with the exception of Briller and the chickens) where any character has explicitly voiced their greatest wishes for the future, how it looks in their mind. And it’s so fucking tragic because you can just visualize it so clearly, but it feels so far away. That future doesn’t seem possible. It’s so melancholy and I love how Ian and Ivana delivered their lines in this scene.

Also, soft!Charmaine is EVERYTHING. Her line about the school and the teenagers “bitching” and making out and doing regular teenage thing was just so ... normal, it was honestly startling to think about. That’s the life that the hundred should have had - that they’ll never get now. I love the baby storyline so much (and I never thought I would like a pregnancy storyline but I do) because it humanizes Diyoza in so many ways.

The music in this scene was gorgeous and matched the tone so well, I honestly started tearing up a little bit don’t @ me. I have a really big feeling that this discussion will come up again - either because we’re going to see this vision completely destroyed, or because we’re going to see it come to fruition. With the space travel theory, I do kind of wonder if we might get an “epilogue” of sorts for the people who stay behind on Eden, where we see Kane and Diyoza’s vision has come true (and maybe they’ll both even be there). It would be like a farewell to the characters who remain on Earth. I think it would be beautiful. (But that’s all assuming that the space travel theory is correct.)

As mildly annoying as it was that Kane literally named Diyoza’s baby for her (wtf Kane???) I did appreciate the symbolic purpose of naming her child “Hope”, especially considering the episode title “Pandora’s Box”, in which hope (aka. Kane/Baby) was the last out of the bunker and then flew away with Eligius. It’s a nice follow up to that little piece of mythology.

In a way, Kane, Abby, and Charmaine are delivering Hope (literally and figuratively) to the people. Which is also why I believe that they may all remain behind in Eden at the end of this season as we see our mains (ie. Clarke, Bellamy, Raven, etc) take off into cryo sleep, officially saying goodbye to all of them forever. (Goddamn I’m already crying and the season finale hasn’t even aired yet? THe fuck)

Also side note to talk about how vindicating it was when Kane was judging Charmaine the entire episode about her damn notebook (”names of the people you killed?” stfu) and it turned out to just be a goddamn list of baby names and defense strategies. Sit the fuck down, Mark.

I present to you: the creepiest fucking shot this show has done. And yet, I really liked it? Showing Cooper’s reactions by shooting through her helmet was a really well done creative choice. It was so trippy and it made her death feel so visceral and real. It honestly kind of sickens me to watch this scene, tbh.

On another note, I cannot BELIEVE how many stomachs Jason has forced me to watch explode this season .. the audacity ...

Emori establishing healthy boundaries is ... EVERYTHING. It’s so important for the writers to have addressed the toxicity in their relationship in this way.

“Trouble in paradise?” I kind of love that McCreary says this to Memori because it is exactly what Murphy said to Clarke and Finn in 5x06 after the massacre. That’s some sweet kind of karma right there

Everything about Raven and Abby in this episode was absolutely devastating. Lindsey and Paige both killed this scene - the emotions were so real. Lindsey did such an amazing job portraying Raven’s hurt and rage - I could feel her emotions so viscerally.

“Don’t you talk to me about pain.” If anyone deserves that line, it is Raven. She has been through hell and back and has had to be so strong for so long. I really liked that line.

CLARKE SITTING ON BELLAMY’S BED IN HIS TENT. Man, I would LOVE to see how that scene went askskqisks

Also, Clarke comforting my poor baby just like old times ... *sigh*

Although I have some reservations with the dialogue in this scene, I do appreciate the sentiment. Despite everything that has happened, Bellamy and Clarke still have such an understanding of each other. They forgive so easily - it’s practically second nature at this point. While I hated how Jason Rothenberg-y Bellamy sounded when he called Clarke a “mama bear” it IS nice that he is acknowledging the role that Madi plays in Clarke’s life. I feel like he finally is starting to understand just how crucial she is to Clarke, and recognizing that he felt the same way about Octavia. It gives them something new to connect over. Also, I’ll never turn down Bellarke being soft with each other.

Plus, have you ever seen a softer smile than Clarke Griffin’s? Cause oh boy am I not over that. She looks so fucking bashful when she looks up at Bellamy I can’t deal gotDAMN

“The worms were already loaded in the rover, so. What was Cooper doing there?” Marie’s delivery in this episode was SO good. God, she’s so creepy and she’s Killing It.

“Careful, big brother, or I’ll think you helped her and we’d have enough prisoners to settle this in the ring.” LISTEN. I WANTED THE EVERLARK AU SO FREAKING BAD CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT NEW MEANING THE WORD “TOGETHER” WOULD HAVE HOLY SHIT

But also, Bellamy’s desperate looks/protests were A Lot in this scene. He really can’t fathom losing Clarke again. His and Clarke’s tragic looks towards each other just really fucking hurt - they’ve been here before. And last time, they didn’t see each other for six years.

“Keep Madi safe. Promise me.” “I promise.”

GOD. CLARKE LITERALLY JUST GAVE HIM FUCKING CUSTODY OF HER CHILD UMMMMM HOW ONE DOES FUNCTION??? She trusts him so much i’mma cry. Also, his called out promise. He sounds so wrecked, but he needs her to know that he will keep Madi safe, needs her to have that comfort, just in case he never sees her again. Don’t Touch Me.

“Did he hurt you?” Protective!Zeke is always a plus but I’d be lying if I said that this scene didn’t immediately remind me of Bellamy asking Clarke the same damn question in 1x10. God, these unintentional Blarke parallels are really coming for my life huh

“Have you ever loved someone so much that no matter what they do to you, or themselves, you take it?” “Mom or dad?” “Mom. Drank herself to death.” I loved that Raven has finally found someone she can open up to. Feels Good, feels Organic. But also this scene came for my LIFE it was so angsty and so good. Raven breaking down absolutely ENDED me (and Zeke comforting her ... someone call 911). I really loved how they made the parallel between Raven’s mom and Abby - it just made the previous scene all the more devastating. So often it feels like the writers on this show forget about these characters backstory and I’m so happy to get these little callbacks every once in awhile.

“The answer is yes.” The fact that Raven and Zeke have this new unexpected thing to relate about is A Lot. I felt this scene deep in my bones.

Plot twist: Abby dies because she is eaten by Vincent, and her withdrawal symptoms are just a red herring to keep us on our feet. ;)

“So much for The 100.” Hello, favourite line of this episode. Y’all have no idea (NO IDEA) how much it means to me to hear a reference to the heart of this show again, especially from Bellamy. He hasn’t forgotten, but it appears that Miller has. Wow. I felt that one.

“I can’t let you kill Clarke, O.” NO YOU CANNOT

“Here we go again. Pleading for the life of a traitor ... who you love.” DO I NEED TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THIS LINE HONESTLY Y’ALL ALREADY KNOW WHY IT ENDED ME

BELLAMY’S FUCKING FACE JOURNEY HOLY SHIT. THEY FOCUS ON HIS FACE FOR SO LONG AND YOU CAN JUST SEE - YOU CAN SEE - HIS INTERNAL STRUGGLE. GOD.

I totally overlooked this the first time I watched it but I love how Bellamy tells Octavia that HE made a deal with Diyoza. Clarke has already been sentenced to death and still, he’s protecting her. He won’t let Clarke get hurt for the deal she made - instead, he takes the blame. I just love him a lot fam.

Bob and Marie’s acting in that final scene was SO FREAKING GOOD. Both of them killed it. It was so devastating.

“My sister, my responsibility.” While I was predicting before that this line would happen if Bellamy had to kill Octavia, the fact that it came back in the same context (with Bellamy having to protect others from Octavia, rather than the other way around) was so perfect. I love when writers take old lines and give them new meanings and that’s exactly what they did with Bellamy’s old mantra. It was so powerful.

AND HE DID IT ALL FOR CLARKE. HE CHOSE FUCKING CLARKE. I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY???

So.

That was a wild ride.

Hope you enjoyed reading my take on 5x08 and my favourite parts! Looking forward to the next episode in a few days. See ya then!

#the 100 #the 100 highlights series #posts by moi

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it-was-so-human · 7 years ago

Text

Everybody's waiting for the next surprise

Her family was falling apart and Sansa can’t fix it and she can’t force pumpkins down their throats no matter how hard she tries. Jon and Sansa. ~2,200 words

Also on AO3

@jonxsansafanfiction Day 3 - Pumpkins!

Autumn was undeniably Sansa Stark’s season. There was just something about the crisp clean air and excitement that came with Halloween and the changing leaves.

(Leaves that were a perfect match for her auburn hair.)

((And autumn trees paired with a cute sweaters and killer boots? It made for a stellar Instagram post.))

But even though she was home now, it just didn’t feel right. October was supposed to be cold and instead it was currently a balmy 67 degrees which made little to no sense (expect for you know, climate change.)

At this rate, they would never have a chilly autumn. And who knows what winter would be like?

Sansa needed the kind of cold that you feel in your very bones to make everything feel real. Right.

She sighed deeply. The cold would make things feel right, even though nothing has been right in quite some time.

Sansa just wanted to be a little girl again, sniffing that her dad made wear her North Face parka over her sparkly princess costume while trick or treating. Tiara on her head, waddling down the sidewalk on a chilly autumn (early) evening.

She had transferred back north this year for her sophomore year. Going to college in the south was a bad idea. As cute as dressing up for tailgates sounded in theory, she was a northern girl and belonged up north. Besides, Michigan was in her blood, and she had basically broken faith with the Starks when she went elsewhere. That spot was where her parents went on their first date, around the corner was Robb’s fraternity, and that’s where Bran twisted his ankle after a football game.

She just belonged here. (Go Wolverines!)

And Jon was here too, a senior now and had been so very good about taking her under his wing. From well-timed coffee breaks to walking her home from the library at night to taking her to parties without acting ridiculously protective.

(Jon was… who Jon was… is complicated. His mother was her father’s childhood family friend. He had adored her. Lyanna had Jon very young and she died when Jon was still a toddler. Raised by his Uncle Mormont, a stern former army commander, it was natural Jon was drawn to the chaos and warmth of the Stark home. He was also conveniently her brother Robb’s best friend.

She remembered ugly whispers when she was young that Ned was Jon’s father. Ned had always treated Jon like a son and they did have similar coloring. And despite there being no truth to the gossip, Jon was always a point of contention between her parents. Maybe that’s why Sansa never really warmed to Jon, she was always Catelyn’s little shadow.

Besides, he would rather run around with Robb and Arya. He never had time for playing dress up with her. But now that they’re older, she can appreciate his brand of thoughtful seriousness.)

((And this lovely smile he would send her way every now and then that made her just feel.))

There was another reason it felt right coming back north. Since her father passed away last spring, she wanted to be closer to home. Closer to her family.

Her mother dealt with the grief over losing the love of her life by throwing herself into helping Robb succeed at the family business.

Robb who was overworked and looked like the weight of the world was on his shoulders at 24. Stressed and exhausted after taking over his father’s role.

But there was still Arya, Bran, and Rickon and they needed her and she wanted to be there for them. Her heart was aching to be there.

Halloween was their dad’s warm up for the holiday season. They were one of those families. Respected in the boardroom, Eddard Stark however was a family man first and foremost. What’s the point of so many kids if you don’t have matching holiday sweaters, her father would simply shrug.

Her parents went all out for the holidays. The Thanksgiving turkey was comically huge, the Christmas tree towering, the lights outside the house absolutely blinding, the Easter eggs intricately decorated.

She had planned to get the family to their favorite farm last weekend, they could pretend to get lost in the hay maze and mildly spooked by the middling haunted barn. Go to the orchard and pick apples and drink warm apple cider with a sprinkle of cinnamon and buy the boys apple cinnamon donuts and watch them get the powdered sugar all over their faces.

But the farm was closed because the world was against Sansa Stark, and when she finally found a suitable replacement pumpkin patch everyone was busy.

But now it was the weekend before Halloween and she just knew her plan was going to be great. This weekend, they were all hers. Her mom and Robb were going to be holed up in the offices of Stark Enterprises but they boys would be home and she was so sure she could convince Arya to hang out as well.

She readied herself for the hour-long drive home, a trunk packed with pumpkins and carving supplies and freshly baked Halloween-themed treats to eat while watching a silly scary movie (and she even used real milk and eggs and butter despite being a vegan herself because she loved her family and was a terrible phony but whatever).

The weather was barely nippy when she left her dorm, but she pulled on a soft rust-colored seater and grabbed a scarf anyways. She smiled in the mirror, feeling seasonally appropriate and ready. Her family would be together and she could already feel a warm glow go through her.

A warm glow that turned to bitter ash when she arrived at the Stark family home.

Arya was running around getting ready for a costume party and Bran shrugged her off claiming that he had to go to an academic decathlon practice.

When she finally smiled down at Rickon, he argued that he was too old for Halloween and was going to his friend’s house.

Keeping a smile on her face though it felt so very empty, Sansa tried to persuade her youngest brother that he and his friends could come over instead and they could all carve pumpkins together.

Arya made her way down the staircase, rolling her eyes at the scene, “Just let it go, Sansa. No one cares about your pumpkins.”

Sansa feels as if she’s been given a physical blow, but mages to nod, trying to hold back tears.

She knows that’s just how Arya is—once just your average sisterly rivalry, there relationship had only grown more tense and biting. (She wasn’t the best big sister growing up, but god she’s trying so hard now.)

Their Nanny, Old Nan, just gives Sansa a sad smile and pats her cheek, offering to make her a mug of hot chocolate (because no one ever remembers she gave up dairy two years ago.)

So Sansa leaves the house, her heart breaking a little bit more. Her family was falling apart and no matter how hard she tries she can’t put together the pieces and it was all her fault.

Because her father was dead because of her.

He died on his way from the airport. If I didn’t call asking for help… or if I didn’t date that asshole Baratheon boy… wasn’t seduced by his stupid fucking fake charm…. wasn’t such a child when Joffrey scared me that night... so much that dad needed to come pick me up.

She remembered how on that last phone call her father had promised her one day she would find someone brave and gentle and strong. But that felt like a lifetime ago.

Because ever since now mother is on the verge of a mental breakdown, and her older brother’s a workaholic, and Arya is cruel, and her sweet brother Bran has become unrecognizably cold, and Rickon who would always give her tight body crushing hugs only runs away from her.

And Sansa can’t fix it and she can’t force pumpkins down their throats no matter how hard she tries.

She didn’t want to go back to her dorm with all her supplies defeated, to be judged by her roommates who were annoyed the transfer girl would rather go home than take up their invite to go out.

So instead she pulls up to Jon’s apartment. He gave her a key, and he and his roommate Sam should be at some party or something so she can just hack a pumpkin in his living room.

She walks in, first dropping off the fresh vegetables she picked up for him in the fridge. (God that boy would go weeks without lettuce or a piece of broccoli if he could.)

Then she spreads newspapers on their table for her carving station. While Jon’s apartment is untidy because you know, boys, it’s definitely not unclean. It’s actually pretty cozy.

She knows she’s taking advantage of the kindness of a boy she barely acknowledged growing up, but she doesn’t know where to go.

And she just wants to stab her pumpkins.

It’s actually pretty cathartic, stabbing a pumpkin.

An hour later, she hears the door open—looking up to see Jon Snow walk in. His thick dark curls are mussed from the day, a heavy book bag hanging off a shoulder.

He doesn't seem surprised that she's in his apartment committing sever pumpkin-cide.

"Arya called and said you might be here." His voice is gentle and she hates that he probably feels sorry for her. She hates feeling like this.

She shrugs, continuing to whack at her pumpkin

Sansa's quite artistic, very handy at painting and knitting and most Pinterest-y crafts.

She really should be better at carving a fucking pumpkin. But she really isn’t.

“I brought you something,” he says coming to sit next to her, crossed legged on the floor. “A treat. You know, for Halloween.”

He hands her the Best Dessert in The World, a slice of vegan lemon cake. (Because Jon always remembers she gave up dairy two years ago.)

She tells him thanks, but continues to whack away at her sad pumpkin.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

No, no she doesn’t. But it’s so very hard to keep inside right this moment.

“They blame me.” She feels her face crumple as a sob escapes her followed by another.

“Sansa, no one blames you. They love you and your father loved you. It was an accident. You know this.”

He wraps his arm around her, and places a firm kiss to her forehead.

“No, they do. They do and they should.” She talks to a therapist but that reality was always there and she’s afraid it always will be because it’s true.

“No one blames you. I was there the night you called. Robb and Arya both threw fits because they wanted to come too. Were ready to kill your boyfriend themselves. How could they blame you?”

“Jon…” she whispers. “They’re mad and I can’t do anything right. I can’t fix it.”

“No, just the other day Robb was telling me how thoughtful you were to send him freshly baked cookies at work. That you cared enough to, even during your midterms. How happy it made him.”

She gives a small nod in response and he continues.

“And Arya wouldn’t have gone to Homecoming if you hadn’t found her that perfect dress.”

“I bet Gendry thought she looked beautiful,” she sighs.

“I bet he did. And I wouldn’t take Bran personally. He’s fourteen and there’s this cute girl named Meera on the decathlon team.”

She should be miffed that Jon Snow knows more about her siblings lives than she does, but she can’t find it in herself to be.

She only burrows closer to him and feels his cozy sweater against her cheek, relishing the warmth of his body.

He lost his mother when he was so very young, and she feels guilty at taking so much comfort from him when she still has so much. But he doesn’t seem to mind, and she’s very grateful.

“You’re the sweetest girl I know. No one else has ever made sure I eat my vegetables,” he teases before continuing. “And you’re adored, Sansa Stark. You don’t need to fix this. It’s just going to take time.”

There’s a comfort in his words, but she still feels like whining. Just a bit more. It feels too good, being held by him.

“It’s not even cold,” she grumbles.

“You’re going to be so mad when winter comes and you have to trudge to class in knee-deep snow,” he says, his hand drawing little comforting circles on her shoulder.

“But I look cuter when it’s cold,” she managed to sniff.

“Sansa Stark, you always look cute and you know it.”

Who Jon was… was complicated. He was boy who used to jump out dressed as a ghost to scare her, the sullen teen who grudgingly let her paint his nails, the boy who held her as she sobbed after her father funeral.

Jon was… he was... he was Jon and he was hers. He had always been there and she never wanted him not to be. He was brave and gentle and strong. It was complicated, but also so very simple.

“You think I’m cute?” She shouldn’t ask, it was indulgent and silly and he probably just thinks of her as some stupid kid sister or something and she’s making a fool out of herself but she really can’t help it.

He breathes deeply, shakes his head slightly before letting out a choked laugh.

“I think you’re beautiful.”

It’s so earnest and god she’s turning red and in her periphery she sees that his cheeks are also sporting a nice healthy blush as well.

And she can’t help but feel like she’s glowing a bit inside. But he seems so uncomfortable now so she decides to take him out of his misery.

She is sweet after all.

“And what about my pumpkin?” she asks, lifting it up and turning side to side, modeling it for him

He smiles, one of those Jon smiles, rolling up his sleeves.

“Your pumpkin, on the other hand, looks a bit sad. Hand me a cutter.”

#jonxsansaff halloweek #jonsa #actually jonsa #jonsa fanfiction #jon and sansa #please send help #this is a thing that exists #so you know #I still low key want to follow these two around every holiday

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web-apps-blog · 6 years ago

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Engineers Australia: Create

0SHARES000

Artificial intelligence will be able to do many things – destroying the world won’t be one of them, says Professor Toby Walsh.

In the 2013 movie Her, a lonely man called Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with his new operating system Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). Critically acclaimed, the movie won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and was nominated for Best Picture.However, the acclaim wasn’t limited to the arts community. According to one of Australia’s top artificial intelligence (AI) experts, Toby Walsh, the film resonated with his community too.“Unfortunately, if you ask AI researchers which AI movie they like, they complain that most of them paint such a dystopian picture of what AI’s going to do to the planet,” he said.“One that I like, and many of my colleagues have said they like as well, is the movie Her which is not a very dystopian picture at all, and gets something very right, which is that AI is the operating system of the future.”Walsh said the way we interact with computers has evolved from plugging wires into the front panel of the computer, to machine code programming, MS-DOS with its command line interface, and ultimately the graphical user interface we are all used to today.“The next layer is going to be this conversational one. You already see the beginnings of that in systems like Siri and Cortana,” he said. Toby Walsh with the collaborative industrial robot Baxter. (Photo: Grant Turner/UNSW) “As we move more to the Internet of Things, your house is full of devices that are connected to the internet that don’t have screens or keyboards. The front door, the light switch, the fridge, all of these are going to be networked together. There’s only one interface you can have with these, which is voice interface.“You’ll have this ongoing conversation that follows you around, and authenticates you on the biometrics of your voice. It will learn everything about you and your preferences. It will be very much like the movie. People will get quite attached to this person they’re having the conversation with all the time.”He said it’s hard to think of an area that artificial intelligence is not going to touch in some way.“It’s going to touch education, it’s going to touch healthcare, it’s going to touch pretty much every form of business you could imagine,” he said.“Anything cognitive that we do, you can imagine it touching. It’s hard to begin to think about what it won’t change.”Next moveWalsh said there are a lot of misconceptions out there about what artificial intelligence is able to do.“If you summed up all the things that you read in the newspapers, then you’d imagine it’s only a matter of moments before the machines are going to be taking over, which is far from the truth,” he said.“There are still a lot of significant hurdles to overcome before we can actually make machines as intelligent as us, and likely more intelligent than us. We recently saw the announcement of AlphaGo Zero, where they just gave it the rules of the game Go and it learned everything from scratch in just three days, then beat the program that beat Lee Sedol (World Go champion) 100-0.“That was pretty impressive. But we still build only narrow intelligence, programs that can do one task. We have made almost no progress on this idea of artificial general intelligence, programs that can match the breadth of abilities of the human brain.”He suspects it will be at least 50 years before we will get to machines that will be as intelligent as us and possibly longer.“I’m still hopeful it might happen in my lifetime, that would be a nice achievement. It’s not impossible but it could easily not happen for 100 years, or 200 years. One should always have a healthy respect for the human brain. It is the largest, most complex system we’ve seen in the universe by orders of magnitude, nothing approaches the complexity of the billions of neurons and the trillions of connections the human brain has, nothing!”The awakeningWalsh was born in southeastern England, just outside London, and confesses that as a boy he read too much science fiction.“From about the age of seven or eight I started to read about robots and intelligent machines,” he said.“Maybe I didn’t have any imagination, but it’s what I decided I wanted to do in life – try and build those things that I read about. The more I thought about the problem as I got older and could understand a bit more about it, I realised it was actually one of those challenging problems that wasn’t going to go away anytime soon, like how did the universe come into existence?”After studying maths and physics at Cambridge University, he did his PhD in artificial intelligence at the University of Edinburgh. There he met an Australian philosophy professor who invited him to Canberra to teach at a summer school each year for the next ten years or so.“I would come out for a couple of weeks or a month in the middle of December and January, and escape the British winter,” he said.“I learnt to love Australia in that time.”Eventually, he landed a permanent position at National ICT Australia (NICTA) now part of the CSIRO’s data innovation group, Data61, and the University of NSW where he is Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence. The cover of Toby Walsh’s new book. He is particularly interested in the interface between distributed optimisation, social choice, game theory and machine learning and believes now is probably the most exciting time to be an AI researcher.“I started as a postgraduate researcher at what was the tail end of the AI boom, the expert system boom,” he said.“It was actually already on the downswing at that point. Then it was what was called the AI winter. We’re definitely in spring, if not summer by now. It’s a very exciting time. You can’t open the newspaper and not read several AI stories.”Of course, this increasing interest opens the door to misinformation being spread about AI as well. So, last year Walsh decided he “had a duty” to write his own definitive guide to the field: It’s Alive! Artificial intelligence from the logic piano to killer robots.It’s Alive!One big question, which takes up a large chunk of Walsh’s book, is what will happen to human jobs in the future if many tasks can be performed better by machines?“We don’t really know the answer to this,” he said.“Lots of new jobs will be created by technology, that’s always been the case. Most of us used to work out in the fields, farming. Now just three per cent of the world’s population is involved in farming. Lots of jobs were created in office and factories that didn’t exist before the industrial revolution.”However, he acknowledged there is a chance it could be different this time around.“Previously when our brawn was replaced we still had a cognitive advantage over the machines,” he said.“If we don’t have a cognitive advantage over the machines, what is the edge that humans have? We have social intelligence, emotional intelligence that machines don’t have. We have creativity. Machines are not as adaptable as humans yet. It could be the case that we end up with fewer people employed than before. That is possible. One thing is absolutely certain, that there will be jobs displaced and new jobs will be created. And the new jobs will require different skills to the old jobs.”He said the caring professions, artistic professions and scientific professions should all survive, professions where there is no natural limit to the potential of the job, unlike say ploughing fields or assembling widgets, repetitive tasks that could be done by robots and then the humans are no longer needed in that role.Interestingly, he feels some ancient jobs will grow in stature while some newer jobs might be very short-lived.“One of the newest jobs on the planet is being an Uber driver. But Uber are already trialling autonomous taxis. The driver is the most expensive thing in the Uber. It’s clearly part of their business plan to get rid of them as quickly as possible. That’s probably one of the first jobs that’s going to completely disappear,” he said.“Whereas, one of the oldest jobs on the planet, with a very venerable history, is a carpenter, that is probably going to be one of the safest in the sense that hand carved objects are going to be increasingly valued. We’ll appreciate those things where we can see the touch of the human hand, and if we believe economists, their value will increase.“In fact, if you look at hipster culture today, you can already see the beginnings of that: craft beers, artisan cheese, and hand-baked bread. It seems to me that there might be some beautiful symmetry, where we’ll actually all end up doing the jobs that we used to do 500 years ago when we were craft people.” Toby Walsh with a Meccano robot he and his daughter assembled. This is where the choices he mentioned previously come into play again.“We need to think about how we might need to change education so that people are educated for whatever the new jobs are; whether we’re going to have more free time; whether income is going to be distributed well enough,” he said.“We seem to be suffering from an increase in inequality within society and technology may amplify that. That’s certainly a worrying trend.”Another area for discussion is how far we want AI to evolve. Do we want it to get to consciousness and what would the consequences of that be?“Supposing machines become intelligent, but not conscious, then we wouldn’t have to be troubled, if for example, we turn them off or we make them do the most terrible, repetitive, dangerous, or other activities that we wouldn’t ask a human to do,” he said.“So we could be saved from some difficult ethical quandaries. Whereas, if they are conscious, maybe they could be thought of as suffering in that respect, then maybe we’ll have to give them rights, so we’ll have to worry about these things. It could be useful if they’re not conscious.”Killer robotsWalsh said there are issues regarding the use of artificial intelligence where we should be concerned. Most notable is its use by the military.In 2015, he coordinated an open letter to the United Nations signed by more than 1000 leading researchers in artificial intelligence and robotics including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and Tesla CEO Elon Musk as well as other luminaries such as physicist Stephen Hawking and philosopher Noam Chomsky. The letter called for a universal ban on the use of lethal autonomous weapons.“Certainly today machines are not morally capable of following international humanitarian law,” he said.“Even if we could build machines that were able to make the right moral distinctions, there are lots of technical reasons in terms of industrialising warfare, changing the scale at which you can fight warfare that would suggest to me that it would be a very bad road to go down.”He said the world has agreed in the past to ban certain nuclear, chemical and biological weapons after seeing the horrific impact they can cause. And they also preemptively banned blinding lasers after realising the potential horror. Playing around in the UNSW robotics lab. His activism on the issue has seen him invited to the United Nations in both New York and Geneva to argue the case for a ban on autonomous weapons.“It’s very surreal to find oneself in such an auditorium having conversations with ambassadors,” he said.“It’s also gratifying how flat the world is. I had a meeting with the Under Secretary General, who’s the number two in the United Nations. He was asking my opinion about autonomous weapons. It’s been a very interesting ongoing journey, in fact.”It has also opened his eyes to the reality of international diplomacy and how difficult it can be to get things done.“Pleasingly they have gone from the issue first being raised less than five years ago, to three years of informal discussions, and now last year they voted unanimously to begin formal discussions, what’s called a group of governmental experts,” he said.“I’m told, for the United Nations, that is lightning speed. But this is very slow from a practical perspective as the technology is advancing very rapidly.”He said they warned a couple of years ago in their open letter that there would be an arms race. Now, the arms race has begun with prototype weapons being developed by militaries around the world in every sphere of the battle, in the air, on the sea, under the oceans, and on the land.“There’s plenty of money to be made out of selling the next type of weapon to people. There’s a lot of economic and military pressure. You can see why the military would be keen to have assistive technologies,” he said.And he acknowledged there are some arguments for autonomous weapons.“You can see, certainly from an operational point of view, there are some obvious attractions to getting soldiers out of the battlefield, and having weapons that follow orders very precisely, weapons with super-human speed and reflexes, weapons that will fight 24/7, weapons that you can risk on the riskiest of operations, that you don’t have to worry about evacuating from the battlefield when they’re damaged,” he said.“It’s not completely black and it’s not completely white. But I think the weight of evidence is strongly against having autonomous weapons.”However, it is ethical questions such as this that make working in the field so interesting.“It is like the famous Chinese curse, ‘May you live in interesting times’,” he said.“It’s a very interesting time, because we’re starting to realise if we do succeed, then we have to worry about exactly how we use the technology. How do we make sure it doesn’t get misused? It’s a morally neutral technology, it can be used for good or for bad. We have to make the right choices so that it gets used for good.”

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ngop3 · 8 years ago

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I’m going to start with a secret. Actually, you may learn a few secrets in this story, because I feel like I am misunderstood by many people. But let’s start with the first one.

Three months ago, when Barcelona made their incredible comeback against Paris St.-Germain in the Champions League, I was watching every moment from my couch. You might think from reading the newspapers that I was hoping my old club would lose.

But when my brother Neymar scored that beautiful free kick? I jumped up from my couch and was screaming at the television.

“Vamoooooooos!”

And when Sergi Roberto performed a miracle in the 95th minute?

Like every other Barca fan in the world, I was going absolutely crazy. Because the truth is that Barcelona is still in my blood.

Was I disrespected by the board of directors before I left the club last summer? Absolutely. That is simply how I feel, and you can never tell me any different. But you cannot play for a club for eight years, and achieve everything that we did, and not have that club in your heart forever. Managers, players and board members come and go. But Barca will never go away.

Before I went to Juventus, I made a final promise to the board at Barcelona. I said, “You’re going to miss me.”

I didn’t mean as a player. Barca have plenty of incredible players. What I meant was that they were going to miss my spirit. They were going to miss the care I had for the dressing room. They were going to miss the blood I spilled every time I put on the shirt.

When I had to play against Barca in the next round, it was a very weird feeling. Especially in the second leg at the Camp Nou, I felt like I was home again. Right before the match started, I went over to the Barca bench to say hello to my old friends, and they were saying, “Dani, come sit with us! We saved your seat!”

PHOTO BY JOAN VALLS/NURPHOTO/ZUMA PRESS

I was shaking everybody’s hand with my back to the referee. All of a sudden, I heard a whistle. I turned around and the referee had already started the match. I went sprinting back to the field, and I could hear my old manager, Luis Enrique, laughing his ass off.

It’s funny right? But that match was not a joke, especially not to me. People see me and they say, “Dani’s always joking. He’s always smiling. He’s not serious.”

I could hear my old manager, Luis Enrique, laughing his ass off.

Listen, I’ll tell you another secret. Before I go up against the best forwards in the world — Messi, Neymar, Cristiano — I study their strengths and weaknesses like an obsession, and then I plan how I am going to attack. My goal is to show the world that Dani Alves is on the same level. Maybe they will dribble past me once or twice. Sure, O.K. But I will attack them, too. I don’t want to be invisible. I want the stage. Even at 34 years old, after 34 trophies, I still feel I have to prove this every time.

But it goes even deeper than that.

Right before every match, I have same the routine. I stand in front of a mirror for five minutes and I block out everything. Then a movie begins to play in my mind. It is the movie of my life.

In the first scene, I’m 10 years old. I’m sleeping on a concrete bed at my family’s tiny home in Juazeiro, Brazil. The mattress over the bed is as thick as your little finger. The house smells of wet soil, and it is still dark outside. It’s five in the morning, and the sun has not risen, but I have to go help my father on our farm before school.

My brother and I walk out into the field, and our father is already out there working. He’s got a big, heavy tank on his back, and he’s spraying the fruits and plants with chemicals to kill the bacteria.

We’re probably too young to handle the toxins, but we help him anyway. This is just our way to survive. For hours, I compete with my brother to see who can be the hardest worker. Because the one who our father decides has helped him the most gets the rights to our only bicycle.

If I don’t win the bicycle, I have to walk the 12 miles from the farm to my school. The walk back from school is even worse, because the pickup football games in our neighborhood will start without me. So I run the 12 miles back and then just keep running right out onto the pitch.

But if I do win the bicycle? Then I can get the girls. I can pick up one of them on the road and offer them a ride to school. For 12 miles, I’m the man.

So I work my ass off.

I look at my father as I leave for school, and he’s still got the big tank on his back. He’s got a full day in the field ahead of him, and then at night he’s got a little bar that he runs to make extra money. He was a hell of a footballer when he was young, but he didn’t have the money to make it to a bigger city so he could be seen by scouts. He wants to make sure that I have that opportunity, even if it kills him.

The screen fades to black.

Now it’s Sunday, and we’re watching the football matches on our black-and-white TV. There’s steel wool wrapped around the antenna so we can pick up the signal from the city, far away. For us, this is the best day of the week. There’s a lot of joy in our house.

The screen fades to black.

Now my father is driving me to town in his old car so I can try out in front of some scouts. The car is a stick shift, and it only has two gears — slow and slower. I can smell the smoke.

My dad is a hustler. I gotta be a hustler, too.

The screen fades to black.

Now I’m 13, and I’m at this academy for young footballers in a bigger town, away from my family. There are 100 kids packed into a small dormitory. It’s kind of like a prison. The day before I left home, my father went into town and bought me a new football outfit. He doubled my wardrobe, because I only had one outfit to begin with.

After the first day of training, I hang the new kit on the line to dry. The next morning, it’s gone. Somebody has taken it. That’s when I realize that this is not the farm anymore. This is the real world, and the reason they call it the real world is because shit is real out here.

I go back to my room, and I’m starving. We train all day, and there’s not enough food at the camp. Somebody stole my clothes. I miss my family, and I’m definitely not the best player here. Out of 100, I’m maybe 51st in ability. So I make myself a promise.

I tell myself, “You are not going back to the farm until you make your father proud. You might be 51st in ability. But you are going to be No. 1 or 2 in drive. You are going to be a warrior. You are not going back home, no matter what.”

The screen fades to black.

Now I’m 18 years old, and I’m telling one of the only lies I’ve ever told in football.

I’m playing for Bahia in the Brazilian league when a big scout comes up to me and says, “Sevilla are interested in signing you.”

I say, “Sevilla! Amazing.”

The scout says, “Do you know where that is?”

I say, “Of course I know where Sevilla is. Sev-iiiillaaaaa. I love it.”

But I have no f******g idea where Sevilla is. It could be on the moon for all I know. But the way he says the name makes it sound important, so I lie.

A few days later, I start asking around, and I find out that Sevilla plays against Barcelona and Real Madrid. In Portuguese, we have an expression for this kind of moment.

I said to myself, “Agora.”

It’s like, Bang. Now. Let’s go.

The screen fades to black.

Now I’m in Sevilla, and I’m so malnourished that the coaches and other players are looking at me like I must play for the youth team. I am in the middle of the hardest six months of my life. I don’t speak the language. The manager isn’t playing me, and it’s the first time I really think about going home.

But then, for some reason, I think about the new outfit that my father bought me when I was 13. The one that got stolen. I think of him with the tank strapped to his back, spraying chemicals. And I decide that I’m going to stay and learn the language and try to make some friends, so that at least I can go back to Brazil with a new experience to share.

When the season begins, the manager instructs everyone, “At Sevilla, our defense does not go past the halfway line. Never.”

I play a few games, kicking the ball around, looking at that line. Just looking at it, like a dog who’s afraid to cross an invisible fence in his yard. Then, one game, for some reason, I just let go. I have to be me.

I say, “Agora.”

And I just go. Attack, attack, attack.

It works like magic. After that, the manager says, “O.K., Dani. New plan. At Sevilla, you attack.”

In just a few seasons, we go from being a relegation club to lifting the UEFA Cup twice.

The screen fades to black.

My phone is ringing. It’s my agent.

“Dani, Barcelona are interested in signing you.”

I do not have to lie this time. I know where Barcelona is.

PHOTO BY DAVID RAMOS/GETTY IMAGES

That is the movie that plays in my head when I stare in the mirror before every match. At the end, before I walk back to the dressing room, I always say the same thing to myself.

Shit, I came from nowhere.

I am here now.

It’s unreal, but I am here.

When I was 18, I moved across the ocean just for the opportunity to play for a club that played against Barcelona. So to have the honor of playing for Barca? It was incredible. I got to be a witness to true genius.

I remember during one training session, Messi was doing things with the ball at his feet that defied logic. Of course, that is what he did every day. Only this time, something was different.

Now, I need to remind you, this was an extremely intense training session. We were not messing around. Messi was dribbling through the defense and finishing like a killer.

And then as he’s running past me, I look down at his cleats, and I’m thinking to myself, Is this a joke?

He comes running past again, and I think, No, it’s impossible.

He comes running past again, and now I’m sure what I’m seeing.

His damn cleats are untied. Both of them.

I mean completely untied. This guy is playing against the best defenders in the world, just floating around the pitch, and he’s acting like it’s a Sunday in the park. That was the moment when I knew that I was never going to play with someone like him ever again in my life.

And then, of course, there’s Pep Guardiola.

PHOTO BY OTTO GREULE JR/GETTY IMAGES

If you turn the word computer backwards, it spells Steve Jobs.

If you turn the word football backwards, it spells Pep.

He is a genius. I’ll say it again. A genius.

Pep would tell you exactly how everything was going to happen in a match before it even happened. For example, the game against Real Madrid in 2010, when we won 5–0? Pep told us before the match, “Today, you’re going to play like the football is a ball of fire. It never stays at your feet. Not even a half second. If you do that, there will be no time for them to pressure us. We will win easily.”

The sensation when we left every one of his prematch talks was like we were already up three-nil. We were so empowered, so prepared, that it felt like we were already winning.

The funniest thing was if we came in at halftime and the game wasn’t going well. Pep would sit down and rub his forehead. You know how he rubs his head? You’ve seen it, right? Like he’s massaging his brain, searching for the genius to come to him.

He would do this right in front of us in the dressing room. Then, like magic, it would come to him.

Bang!

“I’ve got it!”

Then he would jump up and start barking out instructions, drawing maths and figures on the board.

“We will do this, this and this, and then this is how we will score.”

So we would go out, and we would do this, this and this. And that’s how we would score. It was crazy.

Pep was the first coach in my life who showed me how to play without the ball. And he wouldn’t just demand that his players change their game, he would sit us down and show us why we wanted us to change with statistics and video.

PHOTO BY DAVID RAMOS/GETTY IMAGES

Those Barca teams were pretty much unbeatable. We played by memory. We already knew what we were going to do. We didn’t have to think.

That is why, to this day, Barca is in my heart.

That is why, when we beat Barcelona in the Champions League quarterfinals, I walked up to my brother Neymar, and I gave him a hug. He was crying, and a part of me felt like crying, too.

I can imagine people reading this and asking why I am sharing these secrets.

Well, the truth is, I am 34 years old. I don’t know how much longer I will play. Maybe two or three years. And I feel as though people do not understand me, and my full story.

When I came to Juventus this season, it was like I was leaving home again. I did it when I was 13, going to the academy. I did it again at 18, going to Spain. And then I did it again at 33, going to Italy.

When I first arrived at Juve, it was like going to a completely new school. My whole life, I had loved to attack. And now I was coming to a place where they value defending above everything.

Once again, I was the dog in the yard. I was staring at the invisible fence.

Should I go?

But I did not go. At the beginning of the season, I wanted to make sure that the Juve players understood that I respected their philosophy, and their history. Once I made sure that I had their respect, I tried to show them my strengths, too.

One day, I looked at the halfway line, and I said to myself, Should I go?

… Bang. Agora.

Attack, attack, attack. (And, O.K., maybe defend a bit, too, or Buffon will be yelling at me.)

I sometimes think that life is a circle.

See, I cannot get away from these Argentinians.

At Barca, I had Messi.

At Juve, I have Dybala.

Genius follows me everywhere, I swear.

PHOTO BY DANIELE BADOLATO/LAPRESSE/ICON SPORTSWIRE

In training one day, I saw something in Dybala that I had seen before in Messi. It was not just the gift of pure talent. I have seen that many times in my life. It was the gift of pure talent combined with the will to conquer the world.

At Barca, we played by memory.

At Juve, it’s different. It’s our collective mentality that has carried us to the Champions League final. When the whistle blows, we simply find a way to win no matter what. Winning is not just a goal at Juve, it’s like an obsession. There are no excuses.

This Saturday, I have a chance to win my 35th trophy in 34 years on earth. It is a special opportunity for me, and it has nothing to do with proving to the Barcelona board that they made a mistake in letting me go.

I know that they will never admit that.

That’s not the point.

Do you remember what I told you about the moment at the academy in Brazil? When I said to myself that I would never go back to the farm until I made my father proud?

Well, my father is not a very emotional man. I never knew when I had actually made him truly proud. For most of my career, he was back home in Brazil. But in 2015, he was there in Berlin to see me win the Champions League final for the very first time in person. I remember after the trophy celebrations on the field, Barca had a special party for the families of the players. We got to hand over the trophy to the people who had helped us achieve our dreams. I remember when it was my turn I passed the trophy to my father, and we were both holding it, posing for a photo.

And he said something in Portuguese that is actually a dirty word, so I won’t translate it word for word.

But he basically said, “My son is the man now.”

And you know what? He was crying like a baby.

That was the greatest moment of my life.

On Saturday, I will have the chance to play for another Champions League trophy against a very familiar opponent. Like always, I will study Cristiano like an obsession.

Like always, I will go to the mirror before the match and play the same movie in my mind.

The screen will go black, and I will remember these things….

My concrete bed.

The smell of wet soil.

My father with the tank of chemicals on his back.

The 12 mile bike ride to school.

The new outfit.

The empty clothesline.

“Of course I know where Sevilla is.”

Shit, I came from nowhere.

I am here now.

It’s unreal, but I am here.

DANI ALVES

/ CONTRIBUTOR

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