#obviously the premise is way more important
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I've never been a Spones shipper until Beyond. Which compared to your epic observations makes it kinda silly. But it was a big moment for me where I was like whoaman, okay. I can see it now... and for that reason I decided I didn't totally hate Beyond.
Also for the fact, things in other universes can be fun without feeling like they have to be just right. But I come from Marvel!Comics where you name it and there's been a mix of these people in that universe.
I think I'm in the minority in loving Star Trek: Beyond as by far the best of the three AOS movies, but it clearly had the best characterization and most character growth, particularly in the spirit of TOS.
My favorite line from Beyond, though, was in the second trailer, and apparently got cut at some point, probably because someone thought it was a bit dark for a "hero" movie. Movie dialogue taken from Paramount+: Uhura: If he [Jim Kirk] made it off that ship, he will come for us. Krall: I am counting on it.
But that same scene in the second trailer?
That is a hell of a statement, particularly from a senior officer of the flagship of an organization founded on peace-keeping and scientific exploration.
These aren't the well-intentioned but cocky children we saw in the first two movies.
These aren't carbon-copies of the Original Series characters.
These aren't perfect heroes.
And I love that, for entirely different reasons than I love TOS.
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God that au reblog I did was so.
*acearospec poly person voice* Cool monogamous romance story idea you've got there, now what if I make it also about 6 other guys
#like obviously it is a given that they are all there and their reactions matter. as with the premise they all live together on a boat. but.#im really. AND WHAT IF ALL THESE OTHER PEOPLE WERE JUST AS IMPORTANT AND INVOLVED.#my eternal refrain.#my posts#the way that the ones who got two paragraphs were the women......#i am never more consistent then when it comes to fandom engagement.
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Hey, so do you ever stop to think about how the premise of Lord of the Rings being an in-universe book written by some of the characters who lived through that story means that they decided what parts and perspectives to use to tell that story...?
And when our authors weren't there to experience the events themselves, they have to rely on what they're told about them by the characters who were there, right...?
Okay so stop and think about the Glittering Caves.
We never actually go to the caves in the narrative. Tolkien LOVES describing nature and natural beauty, but we don't actually see the caves described "by him" the way we do other places. Obviously Gimli's words are Tolkien's, yes; but we only see the caves filtered through his words about them, after the fact.
When Gimli and Ăomer and the other Rohirrim take refuge there, the narrative doesn't follow them. Obviously from a narrative standpoint this is to keep the focus narrow, and not to interrupt the battle-sequence with a long ode to the beauty of the caves, and to create tension in the reader who doesn't know if these characters are okay or not. Which all makes sense!
But think about it in terms of the book that was written in Middle-earth by the folk living there. Why DON'T we get to have a direct experience of those caves? Gimli obviously related several other parts of the story that none of the Hobbits were there to witness to them, and which were written into the books as Direct Events Happening In The Narrative (think of the Paths of the Dead scene, for one of the more visceral moments!). So why not the Glittering Caves?
Was it because they wanted to keep that narrative focus and tension, and so they didn't include his perspective on that part of the battle? Perhaps, that's certainly a possibility to consider.
But also consider: when we do hear about the Glittering Caves, what we hear is Gimli telling Legolas about the Glittering Caves. THAT is the part of that event that is considered of importance to include in the book: not Gimli's actual experience when he was in them, but rather the part where he relates that experience TO Legolas.
And I kind of just THOUGHT about that today.
And went HUH.
#i mean that's pretty neat right?#the story could very easily have included gimli and eomer in the caves#and probably tolkien could have done some really beautiful stuff with language and tension and contrast#balancing the beauty of the caves with the fear and bloodshed of the battle outside#and it would probably be an incredibly lovely sequence tbh#then the gimli/legolas discussion about the caves could be easily glossed-over on the way to isengard#with the narrative just telling us that gimli told legolas about the caves and he was moved by gimli's words yadda yadda#since we would have already experienced the wonders he was talking about for ourselves and thus wouldn't need him to go on at length#and then they make their bargain to go to aglarond and fangorn together tra la lally resume normal service here#that would have also been a perfectly fine and lovely way to write that part of the story#BUT#that is not how the story was written#and i just find it really interesting and lovely that THAT is what was considered the important part about gimli's discovery of aglarond#lotr meta#gimli#legolas#aglarond#glittering caves#lord of the rings#lotr
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Lost the post but it was so good and I'd love to get your take on it!
Price getting videos of you playing from home while he's deployed, and you aren't exactly quiet. Well, the boys hear it and it leads to them watching it at some point (with your permission of course!). I thoroughly believe Price loves showing off what's his and is comfortable in your relationship to consider sharing you with his team, maybe even in more ways than 1?
Maybe Price and reader record themselves a separate time to show the boys? I don't know I'm frothing at the mouth thinking of Price showing you off!
I am slowly making my way through these asks!! Thank y'all so much for being patient. As soon as I clear out my list, I'll turn the ask button back on.
This premise is so hot! Hope this is sort of what you were looking for?
Show and Tell
Price opened your video in the middle of Ghostâs briefing presentation. Luckily, only the task force was in attendance, but as he played the clip, your lust-filled moans echoed throughout the small conference room, unmistakable. All eyes turned to him, and Ghost halted mid-speech.
âUh, sorryâŚâ Price muttered, quickly swiping away.Â
âFuck, Cap. I know you showed us her photo, but she is damn fine,â Gaz chuckled, leaning over his commanderâs shoulder to try and look at the screen.
âEyes front, Sergeant.â
âOnly seems fair to share, mate,â Johnny quipped, a gleam shining in his eye.Â
Ghost put his hands on his hips,Â
âIf it was important enough to interrupt my presentation, maybe itâs important enough to share with the class⌠sir.â
Price sighed and sent off a quick text. He was asking you for permission to share. It wasnât the first time that heâd asked you, but all the others had just been the odd picture here and there; a fancy neglige, or a holiday swimsuit⌠it was harmless. But, this was something else. To his surprise, you messaged back with an affirmative âYes!â and a winking emoji.Â
âFine.â
Ghost held his hand out and beckoned for the phone,
âCâmon. Weâll put her on the big screen.â
Reluctantly, and a little worried things had gotten fully out of hand, Price handed over the phone. Your enthusiastic response was the only thing propelling him forward at this point. He wasnât possessive, but he wasnât much of a sharing man.Â
But, then, there you were⌠in all of your beautiful glory. You were using your vibrator and sitting on the tile floor of your bathroom, burying a thick silicone dildo in your pussy to the hilt. Your moans echoed through the room again in spectacular 4k.Â
âMmm! Oh! Fuck⌠John, fuck me. Please! Yeah! Mmm. Just like that. Ungh!â
And then the video replayed on its loop. Every time, your shining lips would buzz with the whir of the vibrating wand, and your pink pussy would stretch to accommodate the toy that you were fucking yourself with, slicking it with your fluids and making it gleam. Your tits were bouncing as you rode it up and down, and your head was thrown back in beautiful abandon.Â
âAlright, thatâs enough,â Price decided.Â
Ghost handed him back the phone with a sly smile,Â
âHoly shit, Cap. Sheâs quite the little spitfire.â
Soapâs hand reached into his canvas pants and obviously adjusted himself, hardening like a stone. He let out a low, approving whistle.Â
âShe let you share that?â Gaz asked in disbelief.
âYeah,â Price nodded, not sure what to say.Â
âI want to see more,â Soap put a hand to his forehead in shock.
âWell, thatâs all,â Price shrugged, and then added, â...for now.â
The whole room shifted a bit. Everyone was on edge. The rest of the briefing went by as quick as a flash, but before everyone left the room, Price suggested,Â
âYou know, it would only be polite to send one back.â
Later that night, he got three enthusiastic notifications. In each one, his men were jacking off to her, complimenting her, talking about what a pretty pussy she had, thanking her for sharing with them. Unzipping his pants, Price decided to add one of his own.Â
As his hand worked him hard, he watched your video over and over again. He imagined how your tight little cunt felt around his cock, and how sweet you tasted. He imagined how you liked to whisper naughty things in his ear, talking to him about sucking him off in front of his task force, making them watch. Price knew you wanted to do more exhibitionism, and he encouraged you when he thought about how hot it would be to watch you discovering that pleasure.Â
His cock throbbed in his hands, and he whispered into the phone as he videoed himself,Â
âSuch a naughty girl, you were, showing yourself to my men. We put you on the projector. You looked incredible, missus. You always look incredible. Had all of us achinâ for you. Thought Soap was gonna come right there. UnghâŚâ
Price tightened his grip and thrust into his palm, rubbing his foreskin up and over his swollen head, slicking himself with his precome over and over and over until it became almost too much. He told you,
âSo, we decided to pay you back. For your gift. Hope you send us some more, baby. So fuckinâ hot. Mmm, fuck⌠my cock misses you, love. So bloody much. Fâ Fuck!â
Priceâs orgasm erupted from his body, coating his belly in white, creamy liquid. He just kept coming and coming, thinking about how you would look with all your pretty holes filled twice. Stuffed so full with no escape.Â
He sent off the files one by one, starting with his own, and he waited for your reply.Â
The next morning, he woke up to two messages. One was a text, and the other was a video. The text just said: Wish you all were here with a heart emoji. When he played the video, he realized what you meant.Â
You had lined up your toys, four of them, all in a row on the bed. Price pressed pause and went to go find the boys. He decided it might be better if they could all see your performance together. He set you up on the projector again, and his men filed in one by one, eager to see what youâd sent.Â
âShe said she wished we were all here, so I thought you lads might want to see what she sent.â
âFuck yeah, we do,â Soap sat front and center, wiping a hand down his face, eyes glued to the screen.Â
Ghost chuckled,Â
âYouâre a lucky man, sir.â
âThatâs the fuckinâ truth, innit?â Gaz agreed.Â
Once everyone was settled, Price pressed play.Â
You were wearing a little black bodysuit made of silk and lace, and he could see your dark nipples through the fabric. He knew which one it was. It was crotchless, and just the memory of fucking you in it made him hard.
You sat on the bed, the four toys spread out in front of you, and you picked up the first one gently. You grabbed some lube from off-camera and squirted it all over the toy and leaned forward, squatting over it, working it into your asshole in tight little thrusts, moaning ever so sweetly as you let it fill you up.Â
Then, once it was fully sheathed inside of you, you reached for the two toys in the middle, using the lube that was left on your hands to make them slip against each other. You used one to rub through your pink folds, teasing your hole with the head of it, and then â inch by inch â pushed it into your wet pussy. You took the second one and, with quite a bit of difficulty, tried to fit it in next to the first, stretching yourself out even more than you had in the first video, even with these much smaller toys.Â
Price couldnât believe his eyes. You were like some sort of sex goddess, showing off skills he didnât even know you possessed, and your screams of pleasure were making him drunk with pride and lust. He heard a zipper go down and watched as Gaz started fucking his own hand, right in front of him.Â
âSargeant,â Price admonished him, but Gaz just shrugged and kept jerking off his long dick,Â
âSorry, Cap. Canât help it.â
Another long moan from you drew Priceâs attention back to the screen. You were reaching behind you, wrapping your arm around your body, and fucking yourself in the ass with the largest toy, calling out to him,Â
âJohn⌠please. I need your cock⌠I need all of your cocks⌠ungh, fuck. Fill me with your come. Every hole. Please?â
Then, for your final performance, you used your free hand to feed the final toy into your throat, gagging on it and letting your drool run down your chin. Your legs were shivering, something that Price knew wasnât easy to achieve. You must be so damn horny. He smiled, palming himself over his jeans, so proud of you for bringing yourself such pleasure like that.Â
Ghost grunted, and Price looked over to see him hunched over, spilling his come onto the floor of the office.Â
The video ended, and in the silence, the captain heard the wet milking noises of his men fisting their erections, trying to come to your incredible performance.Â
Soap gasped breathlessly,Â
âHit play again, Capân. PleaseâŚâÂ
Price smiled, looking down at his team in all of their sex-addled joy, and pushed the replay button.
"Maybe we should all put in for some leave, hm?" Price suggested.
He was met with a very enthusiastic round of approving moans, and he felt the excitement rush across his skin like wildfire.
His pretty girl would have what she wanted, and he would make sure of it.
If you liked this story, you may also like one of my other fics: He Shows You Off! But, please heed the tags.
#call of duty fanfic#cod mw2#cod mwii#captain john price#cod#john price#captain price#captain price x reader#captain price x you#call of duty
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When attempting to critique the values of a long-running franchise like STAR TREK, it's important to draw a distinction between superficial issues and structural ones.
"Superficial" in this sense doesn't mean "minor" or "unimportant"; it simply means that an issue is not so intrinsic to the premise that the franchise would collapse (or would be radically different) were it changed or removed. For example, misogyny has been a pervasive problem across many generations of STAR TREK media, which have often been characterized by a particular type of leering-creep sexism that was distasteful at the time and has not improved with age. However, sexism and misogyny are not structural elements of the TREK premise; one can do a STAR TREK story where the female characters have agency and even pants without it becoming something fundamentally different from other TREK iterations (even TOS, although there are certainly specific TOS episodes that would collapse if you excised the sexism).
By contrast, the colonialism and imperialism are structural elements â STAR TREK is explicitly about colonizing "the final frontier" and about defending the borders, however defined, of an interstellar colonial power. Different iterations of STAR TREK may approach that premise in slightly different ways, emphasizing or deemphasizing certain specific aspects of it, but that is literally and specifically what the franchise is about. Moreover, because STAR TREK has always been heavily focused on Starfleet and has tended to shy away from depicting life outside of that regimented environment, there are definite limits to how far the series is able to depart from the basic narrative structure of TOS and TNG (a captain and crew on a Starfleet ship) without collapsing in on itself, as PICARD ended up demonstrating rather painfully.
This means that some of the things baked into the formula of STAR TREK are obviously in conflict with the franchise's self-image of progressive utopianism, but cannot really be removed or significantly altered, even if the writers were inclined to try (which they generally are not).
What I find intensely frustrating about most modern STAR TREK media, including TNG and its various successors, is not that it can't magically break its own formula, but that writer and fan attachment to the idea of TREK as the epitome of progressive science fiction has become a more and more intractable barrier to any kind of meaningful self-critique. It's a problem that's become increasingly acute with the recent batch of live-action shows, which routinely depict the Federation or Starfleet doing awful things (like the recent SNW storyline about Una being prosecuted for being a genetically engineered person in violation of Federation law) and then insist, often in the same breath, that it's a progressive utopia, best of all possible worlds.
This is one area where TOS (and to some extent the TOS cast movies) has a significant advantage over its successors. TOS professes to be a better world than ours, but it doesn't claim to be a perfect world (and indeed is very suspicious of any kind of purported utopia). The value TOS most consistently emphasizes is striving: working to be better, and making constructive choices. Although this can sometimes get very sticky and uncomfortable in its own right (for instance, Kirk often rails against what he sees as "stagnant" cultures), it doesn't presuppose the moral infallibility of the Federation, of Starfleet, or of the characters themselves. There's room for them to be wrong, so long as they're still willing to learn and grow.
The newer shows are less and less willing to allow for that, and, even more troublingly, sometimes take pains to undermine their predecessors' attempts along those lines. One appalling recent example is SNW's treatment of the Gorn, which presents the Gorn as intrinsically evil (and quite horrifying) in a way they're not in "Arena," the TOS episode where they were first introduced. The whole point of "Arena" is that while Kirk responds to the Gorn with outrage and anger, he eventually concedes that he may be wrong: There's a good chance that the Gorn are really the injured party, responding to what they reasonably see as an alien invasion, and while that may be an arguable point, sorting it out further should be the purview of diplomats rather than warships. By contrast, SNW presents the Gorn as so irredeemably awful as to make Kirk's (chronologically later) epiphany at best misguided: The SNW Gorn are brutal conquerors who lay eggs in their captives (a gruesome rape metaphor, and in presentation obviously inspired by ALIENS) when they aren't killing each other for sport, and even Gorn newborns are monsters to be feared. Not a lot of nuance there, and no space at all for the kind of detente found in TOS episodes like "The Devil in the Dark."
#teevee#star trek#star trek tos#star trek the next generation#star trek picard#strange new worlds#i find strange new worlds largely unwatchable#and this is a major reason why#along with their determination to no-homo spock
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I JUST FOUND OUT THAT JOKER AND SUPERMAN SWAPED BODIES?? (it's a very yaoi plot wtf) HOW IS IT POSSIBLE?? HOW DID BRUCE REACT??WHY DOES IT SEEM LIKE SUPERMAN AND JOKER HAVE A KIND OF UNCLASSIFIABLE TENSION BETWEEN THE PAST FEW YEARS?? đ (sorry, just wanted to know if you know which comic that happened in, you don't need to answer the rest, XOXO)
Hah. Yeah that is a thing that happened, in General Mills Presents: Justice League (2011) #9. Fortunately we do see how Bruce reacts, because Bruce swaps bodies with Lex Luthor. It's a fun little issue with some interesting tidbits:
Love how Bruce is like "Joker's got ADHD on steroids, my guy. He can handle your powers." But also, seeing as Joker had no issue with controlling Superman's body, he could've easily done more damage-- but he only chooses to do some ultimately harmless pranks.
Actually, there's been more Superjokes crumbs recently, most notably in Action Comics. In a story arc that has a magic spell turn everyone into a Bizarro version of themselves, Joker is obviously... the only truly sane one left, because he got reversed. Clark goes to him for help in order to stay lucid, to be able to fight Bizarro within his own mind. He dies over and over (a cheeky reference to Emperor Joker, methinks), and seemingly Bizarro has won, when Joker pretty much saves the whole planet by talking Clark back into sanity:
Action Comics (2016) #1063
Did I mention this is some of the most nuanced Joker writing I've seen in recent years? :)
It's all very sad, Clark even calls Bizarro Joker a "friend" afterwards.
I do agree there's a kind of tension between Superman and Joker, simply because they're both important people to Bruce. There's similar narrative tension between Joker and Dick, for instance. Or Joker and Selina. All of them play different roles in Bruce's life, but something Dick, Selina and Clark have in common is tethering Bruce to the light; keeping him sane, helping him walk the line between the best and the worst of himself. It's obviously interesting to put them in relation to Joker, who's... well, trying to make Bruce worse, but also representative of Bruce's darkness, a twisted mirror of him. This is why the premise of Injustice: Gods Among Us is so good, too-- it's literally the product of a Superbatjokes triangle. Bruce thinks Clark is so inherently good and infallible in that goodness, that it pisses Joker off and makes him jealous, so he goes out of his way to prove that Superman can be broken. So then Superman kills Joker, who Bruce cared about, even "loved" (to quote what Clark himself accuses him of). And Bruce can't get over it, despite having excused murders from loved ones before, being quite unreasonable in his treatment of Clark and arguably pushing him further into becoming the worst version of himself... when he could've tried to help. (It kinda sends me that Batman/Catwoman also had Selina kill Joker. But only when Bruce was dead because otherwise Bruce would've been mad. Do you see the pattern here, lol.)
Sorry, ended up rambling. But yeah, Clark and Joker have had some interesting interactions for sure!
#...my headcanon is that afterwards Clark went to Bruce's Cave#and asked âcan't the Joker be fixed?? just curious hahaâ#with Bruce going âNO. I need him to keep matching my freak. mind your own damn businessâ#asks#joker#clark kent#superman#batman#bruce wayne#superjokes#batjokes#long post
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𦾠WINTERHAWK RECS đš
@bl0ssomized asked for some winterhawk fic recs & i took that as my sign to finally sit down, go through my 500+ bookmarks and provide y'all with my fav fics <3 if you end up reading/enjoying any of these, PLEASE make sure to leave a comment on ao3, the authors deserve all the nice words in the world!!
about this list:
most of these fics are pretty popular in the fandom, so this list is more directed at new fans just joining the winterhawk paradise!! (there's a lot on here tho, so maybe you find one you haven't read yet)
mika/bee asked for little to no smut, so i'm not gonna rec any pwp works here (with a few exceptions). if you want smut recs, hmu tho, i got y'all
there's obviously still smut in many of these fics, but i tried to tell you if it's important/skippable or not. if you don't mind smut i obviously recommend reading it bc GOD these authors just know their shit, but i think nobody should miss out on the amazing long fics just bc they don't like smut :)
i put a "notes" section for every fic where i just yap about it and/or my feelings towards it for a bit bc i literally can't shut up about these two guys.
alright, i think that's all, let's go!! pls tell me if i messed up the links somwhere :)
50k+ wordsÂ
Lucky In Love by dr_girlfriendÂ
words: ~60kÂ
important tags: no powers AU, oh my god they were roommates!, friends to lovers, mutual piningÂ
notes: every time i give winterhawk recs to a new fan i start with lucky in love, bc even tho itâs an AU, it has soo many of the typical winterhawk tropes i love so much. PLUS: roomates. and lucky. and every chapter is titled âaw, [something], noâ and i find that way too funny to not mention. idk itâs just one of that fics that gives me the warmest & fuzziest of warm fuzzy feelings and i think everyone should read it.Â
smut: even tho it has the wonderful, wonderful tag ânot gonna tag every sex act just trust me thereâs plentyâ, thereâs actually not that many. in my opinion, the perfect amount for a 60k, 21 chapters winterhawk fic. itâs quite a slow-burn, so theyâre only in the later chapters anyway, and the build up to it is soOoo good. this is one of the fics where i know exactly where to find the smut scenes so feel free to hmu.Â
Like Real People Do by Kangofu_CB
words: ~67kÂ
important tags: âi actually just wanted to watch these two idiots fall in love in a secluded cabin okâ; civil war fix itÂ
notes: no one, NO ONE gets me like this fic, it checks like every single one of my boxes. perfection. not lying when i say itâs my favorite fic of all time. it doesnât have a special premise or anything, but thatâs the good thing about it. itâs just so⌠cozy. comfy. feels like home. i canât even remember if like real people do is my favorite hozier song because of this fic or if itâs my fav fic bc like real people do is my fav hozier song, but i know that i never cried as hard as i did when i heard lrpd live and could only think about this fic. nothing makes me feel as good as re-reading this story, i want to eat it.
smut: yes, but only like 2,5 scenes. hmu and i tell you the exact fucking paragraph number or smth, this fic is literally engraved in my soul. thank you CB. some day iâll leave a 2k words comment on every single chapter.Â
The Other Man out of Time by sara_holmesÂ
words: ~97kÂ
important tags: time travel, falling in love, clint barton centricÂ
notes: okay, objectively speaking: this is the best winterhawk fic in existence. not my absolute favorite bc it makes me cry too much, but definitely top 3. no other winterhawk fic made me sob this hard, no other winterhawk fic makes me wanna curl up on the floor and cry for an hour every time i think about it. that being said: IT HAS A HAPPY ENDING!!! and a lot of stuff in between is SO sweet as well. premise is basically: clint travels back in time and fights in wwii alongside bucky and they fall in love. and then bucky!canon happens. you get it? you get it. itâs- UGH itâs so good. jesus. iâm crying.Â
smut: a few short sexy scenes i think, but no SMUT smut, and itâs definitely definitely DEFINITELY not the focus of the story. canât emphasise enough how much everyone should read thisÂ
Hipsters get Remembered, Legendâs Never Die by sara_holmes
words: ~90kÂ
important tags: millennial bucky barnes, awesome clint barton, recoveryÂ
notes: millennial bucky is one of the most entertaining things fandom came up with, and this fic is the epitome of that trope. love love LOVE. plus, clintâs really fucking awesome in this.Â
smut: yes, but only like two or three times in 11 chapters, easily skippable
Puzzle Pieces (series) by sara_holmesÂ
words: ~446kÂ
important tags: steve/tony, kid fic, emotional hurt
notes: if you donât like stony this one isnât for you, just skip to next one :) if you like stony: GOD pls read puzzle pieces!! the first 200k words fic is stony focused and has only pre-slash winterhawk, but even tho they donât get together in this one yet itâs literally one of my favorite clint/bucky portrayals of all time, no one gets them like sara, itâs perfect. the stony/kid fic storyline is SO amazing as well, so if thatâs your cup of tea, check. it. out. after that theyâre a few longer winterhawk instalments, and while some of them are really angsty and painful, thereâs always a happy ending. god i need to re-read this entire thing. it makes me wanna cry and throw up in all the good ways.Â
smut: some, but you can definitely skip it.
Iâll keep you safe here with me by sara_holmesÂ
words: ~110kÂ
important tags: kidnapping, PTSD, mind control aftermath & recoveryÂ
notes: ngl i havenât read this one in a long time, but everything by sara is perfect and this oneâs one of the most kudoâd winterhawk fics, so itâs basically a must read. everyone needs to read a good clint & the winter soldier fic at least once
smut: itâs rated mature, so no really explicit smut. canât remember if they donât get a bit horny tho.
A Heart Worth Loving by Kangofu_CBÂ
words: ~82kÂ
important tages: soulmate AU, no powers AU, modern bucky barnes, forced cohabitationÂ
notes: GOOD FUCKING SOUP. soulmate au AND they were roommates????? beat that. it takes them ages to figure out theyâre soulmates, which makes this equally amazing and frustrating, but itâs all so so worth itÂ
smut: yes, at the end of it. you CAN skip it, although i recommend skimming through it and read the dialogue parts and stuff.Â
if you were a mythical thing by Kangofu_CB
words: ~75kÂ
important tags: teachers au, kid fic, werewolvesÂ
notes: quick story time for this one bc i remember it so so well lmao: winterhawk olympic bang 2022, most authors had started to post their fics except for CB and i KNEW she had written one, and i was literally checking my emails every hour for days. and then she finally posted it and i already started screaming when i saw the taylor lyrics as a title, and then i read those three tags and literally had to sit on my floor for 20 minutes to calm down bc i was so excited. i remember posting like 20 stories on my private insta that were just me keysmashing lmaoo. idk but teachers + kid fic + werewolves is just such a BONKERS combination, and i can promise youâre in for a treat, itâs so so fun. 15/10.Â
smut: yes, but it takes some time to get there and itâs skippable
Adventures in dogsitting by Call_Me_KayyyyyÂ
words: ~53k
important tags: friends to lovers, dogsitting, piningÂ
notes: another olympic bang fic, thank you. cute, fun, lots of lucky content :) good soupÂ
smut: NO SMUT
Under My skin (series) by finely honedÂ
words: ~360k
important tags: Steve/Tony (the âmainâ instalment is stony focused), PTSD, Life after the army, AU - Tattoo ParlourÂ
notes: the âfirstâ instalment is a stony fic (one of my all time favs honestly) but with a lot of amazing side-winterhawk, and thereâs a winterhawk spin-off, thatâs a prequel to the stony arc, so you can just read that first if you want. it was one of the first english winterhawk fics iâve ever read and it always makes me wanna cry when i think about it (in a good way).
smut: theyâre quite horny in both big instalments, but i would say the smut is skippable. itâs not un-important for both the winterhawk and the stony dynamic tho, so i wouldnât recommend doing that
This is Not a Date, itâs a Kidnapping by sara_holmesÂ
words: ~50kÂ
important tags: Fake Kidnapping, also real kidnapping, Bucky Barnes recovering, fake relationshipÂ
notes: all sara_holmes is good sara_holmes, but this oneâs one of my favs, itâs just so fun. GOD i miss winterhawk olympic bang 2021, this was such a blast to read when it first came out!!Â
smut: NO SMUT
Freedomâs Reach by dr_girlfriendÂ
words: ~68kÂ
important tags: arranged marriage, western/historical AU, slow burnÂ
notes: aaaand another winterhawk olympic bang 2021 fic! pretty sure this one was my fav during the bang, like i remember hitting up a friend of mine and screaming at each other for like an hour every time a new chapter dropped, we were SO invested. very good soup.Â
smut: yes, but itâs a sloooow build, so itâs only in the later chapters. pretty sure itâs easily skippableÂ
ghost in the machine by squadrickchestopher
words: ~75kÂ
important tags: fake character death, heavy angst, ghosts, lonelinessÂ
notes: UGHHHH clint âdiesâ, becomes a ghost and only bucky can see him. touch starved clint final boss basically. amazing shit. painful shit. (happy ending tho)Â
smut: itâs rated explicit and itâs by squaddy, so iâm like 99% sure thereâs smut, i actually canât remember tho lmaoÂ
Bartonâs Halfway House for Ex-Brainwashed Assassins (series) by Kangofu_CBÂ
words: ~90kÂ
important tags: the slowest burn, the mcu reimagined completely, accidental baby acquisition, found family, kid fic
notes: this oneâs an ongoing series, and itâs such an amazing one, you can feel all the love thatâs been put into this. you have to go through like 60k of slow burn before winterhawk actually happens, but itâs soooo worth it. plus: kid fic. kid ficâs always good.Â
smut: yes, but only in the 3rd part and the short pwp oneshot. easily skippable
something magic, something tragic by squadrickchestopherÂ
words: ~55k
important tags: supernatural elements, vampire bucky, enemies to loversÂ
notes: VAMPIRES!!! that should be enough to convince you to read this fic!! and itâs by squaddy, it literally canât be bad if itâs by squaddy.
smut: ughhh not entirely sure, pretty sure the mature rating is mostly for violence, but, again, itâs squaddy, so itâs very possible thereâs some sexy stuff hiding in there.
Sweet Home Was Home by there_must_be_a_lockÂ
words: ~110kÂ
important tags: âi sorta made my own franken-canonâ, christmas fluff, soft feelings
notes: i found this one on accident once when i wasnât really expecting to find another PERFECT long ass winterhawk fic i havenât read yet, and then i binge-read it in one night, and itâs honestly one of the best iâve ever read, itâs so so soft and⌠healing. for both bucky and clint and myself. itâs really not as popular as it should be imo, definitely worthy of a place on the first page of the ship tag!! highly HIGHLY recommend checking it out!!Â
smut: yes, but skippableÂ
10k - 50k wordsÂ
Starving for the Light by thepartyresponsibleÂ
words: ~45kÂ
important tags: magic AU, soul bondÂ
notes: jesus christ i wanna eat this fic so bad. definitely my favorite 2021 winterhawk olympic bang fic, itâs just THAT good. need to re-read it entirely to make sure, but i think itâs in my top 10 if not top 5 fav winterhawk fics of all time. clintâs just so⌠beautiful in this, idk how else to describe it. and idk, it has a such a unique premise and setting, i love everything about it.Â
smut: yes, but skippable.��
Historic Features by flawedamythyst
words: ~19k
important tags: ghosts AU, homophobic violenceÂ
notes: oooohhh my god, donât make me think about this fic iâm gonna cry. itâs actually pretty fun and cute and fucking awesome, but clint & buckyâs backstory in this?? iâm ugly crying, leave me alone. premise is basically: theyâre ghosts and haunting the apartment they died in years ago, scaring everyone who tries to live there out of it. then steve and tony wanna move in. itâs fucking great.Â
smut: NO SMUTÂ
Call It What You Want To by Kangofu_CBÂ
words: ~48kÂ
important tags: modern bucky barnes, sugar daddy
notes: clint becomes buckyâs sugar daddy on accident without realising and itâs the funniest fucking shit iâve ever seen, god i love him so much. plus, again,,, millennial bucky barnes. gimme all the millennial bucky barnes.
smut: 3 or 4 scenes i think, starting as early as chapter⌠2??? i think??? pretty skippable tho, as long as you read like the foreplay and everything.
A Thistle Cannot Grow by ccbytheseashore
words: ~12kÂ
important tags: kid fic, developing relationshipÂ
notes: AHHHSDJGHSKJDHG. enough right?? iâm always a sucker for some good dad!clint & soft!bucky content. this oneâs so so sweet itâs one of my main comfort fics, canât recommend it enough if you love kid fics!Â
smut: yes, but itâs literally only like 500 words of frotting, you know when itâs coming and you know when itâs over :) (itâs amazing tho)Â
Attachments by LissadianeÂ
words: ~22kÂ
important tags: high school au, mother hen bucky barnes, clint barton needs a hugÂ
notes: i KNOW many people donât like high school AUs and i donât fucking care. teenage winterhawk has so much potential, i love them to death. which is exactly why you should read this ;)Â
smut: NO SMUT
Outnumbered by sara_holmesÂ
words: ~18kÂ
important tags: kid fic, triplets, no powers AU, bucky comes home to new yorkÂ
notes: another single dad clint fic, but give him 3 boys this time!! â> chaos. amazing chaos. + amazing bucky. good soup.Â
smut: NO SMUTÂ
Once Lost (now found) by TeeelsieÂ
words: 40kÂ
important tags: hurt clint barton, on the run, self sacrificeÂ
notes: hurt clint barton final boss. this was written for whumptober, so you can imagine how bad it gets. SO worth it tho, even if you donât really love that kind of stuff!Â
smut: NO SMUT (pretty sure clintâs too hurt to have any kind of sexual thoughts <3 stupid stupid stubborn man. i love him so much)
The Best Worst Thing (that hasnât happened to you yet) by sara_holmes
words: ~48kÂ
important tags: enemies to friends to lovers, rescue missionsÂ
notes: if youâre into comic winterhawk and read their tales of suspense run, you should definitely read this fic. if you havenât read tales of suspense, go do that now and then come back to the fic, bc itâs basically a rewrite that gives us the bucky/clint & nat dynamic we fucking deserve
smut: donât think so?
skylines and tan lines by flawedamythyst
words: ~33kÂ
important tags: no powers AU, coronovirus lockdown, long distance flirtingÂ
notes: this was literally my fav fic during lockdown, iâm not lying when i say i read this at least 20 times in 2020/21 lmaoo. itâs just such a fun concept; buckyâs living with peggy/steve, and their dynamic is so enjoyable.Â
smut: thereâs quite a bit of sexting & phone sex, plus a smut scene at the end. doesnât take up the entire fic tho, and the rest is worth it as well.Â
Behind Bars by sara_holmes and Behind Bares (On The Other Side Remix) by flawedamythystÂ
words: ~32k (sara), ~25k (amy)
important tags: prison AUÂ
notes: saraâs fic is the original, amy remixed it and wrote if from clintâs pov (with quite some changes). i love both fics, but i definitely read the remix more often and prefer it, but i highly recommend reading both, theyâre amazing!! clint & bucky are cell mates!!! and itâs angsty!! a little bit!!Â
smut: canât remember what itâs like in saraâs version, but itâs only rated mature soo... thereâs definitely one or two smut scenes in amyâs fic, but easilyyy skippable, only like a few handjobs or smth i think.
What do you mean we left Clint on Mars? by sara_holmesÂ
words: ~25kÂ
important tags: outer space, falling in love, clint feelsÂ
notes: a classic. falling in love long-distance is soo fun, and i love it when authorâs touch-starve clint, so thereâs that <3
smut: NO SMUT
A Christmas Miracle: Getting Lucky by Lissadiane
words: ~11kÂ
important tags: christams, hallmark ficÂ
notes: LUCKY!!!! i read this every single christmas. you should too. youâre welcome.Â
smut: NO SMUTÂ
Dear Super-Secret Diary by flawedamythystÂ
words: ~16kÂ
important tags: christmas fluffÂ
notes: clint is bored and gets a diary (and the guy). a christmas must-read, itâs fun and cute and fluffy!!! one of the few times i will accept first person narration bc, well, itâs a goddamn diaryÂ
smut: NO SMUTÂ
winterhawk punks in love (series) by 1000_directionsÂ
words: ~19k wordsÂ
important tags: punk au, amputee bucky, deaf clint, ptsd, emotional hurt/comfort, recoveryÂ
notes: punk!winterhawk is so important to me I NEED MORE OF IT!!! this oneâs such a perfect mix of happiness and angst and comfort UGH it just hits that spot.Â
smut: yes, but the ficâs still amazing if u skip itÂ
Apple Of My Eye by flawedamythyst
words: ~40kÂ
important tags: clint bartonâs farm, found family, domesticÂ
notes: FARM FIC FARM FIC FARM FIC!!! bucky, clint and wanda basically start an apple business on his farm, and itâs just soo comfy and awesome.
smut: NO SMUT
Alone in the Bitterness by Lissadiane
words: ~16k
important tags: no pwers au, nurse bucky, disaster clintÂ
notes: nurse bucky nurse bucky nurse bucky nurse bucky!!! do i have to say more??Â
smut: NO SMUT
Team Spirit by NoxntheaÂ
words: 17kÂ
important tags: case fic, enemies to lovers liteÂ
notes: noxnthea is such an underrated author itâs a literal crime. i normally donât love case fics that much, but this is a ghost hunters case fic AND their banter is so fun that it really doesnât matter for me this timeÂ
smut: NO SMUT
Reach Out by Kangofu_CB
words: ~11kÂ
important tags: 5+1, a lot of sex tags, porn with feelings, feelings realisationÂ
notes: CBâs smut always hits different, and idk, the +1 of this is just sooo funny and adorable, i love it to death. read this more times than iâll admit.Â
smut: basically pwp, big no no if you donât like smut.Â
Storms Within (Bridges Rebuilt) by Kangofu_CBÂ
words: ~11kÂ
important tags: star wars setting, force sensitive bucky & clint, crack treated seriouslyÂ
notes: guys you canât imagine my excitement when the notif for this fic popped up in my emails. luke skywalker is one of my top 10 all time fav fictional characters AND HERE HE IS INTERACTING W MY FAV BOYS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!! itâs so so good, if youâre into star wars youâre gonna love it!! (even if not, itâs by CB, impossible to not enjoy)
smut: NO SMUT
Draw, Breathe, Fire by FestiveFerret
words: ~15kÂ
important tags: falling in love, flirting, banterÂ
notes: havenât read this in a long time, but iâm pretty sure it was like a perfect little bucky-recovering-and-falling-in-love-with-clint-while-living-in-the-tower-fic. he learns archery!! pretty sure they also adopt a ferret or something???? good shit
smut: NO SMUT
Hoist a Black Flag by Kangofu_CBÂ
words: ~11kÂ
important tags: pirate auÂ
notes: ITS BASICALLY AN OFMD AU OKAY HOW CAN U NOT LOVE IT???
smut: yes, but skippable
Cupidâs Arrows by flawedamythystÂ
words: ~14kÂ
important tags: office AU, valentineâs dayÂ
notes: clint dressed up as cupid, bad pick up lines, shenanigans. havenât read this in quite a while, but i remember i enjoyed it A LOT a few years ago and re-read it multiple times!!Â
smut: NO SMUT
The Best Thing since a Double-Shot Expresso by sara_holmesÂ
words: ~11kÂ
important tags: coffee shop AU, misunderstandings, getting togetherÂ
notes: friends to lovers final boss. theyâve been best friends (husbands) for years and literally live together, and it takes them an insane amount of jealousy and steveâs ass to finally get together. such a fun read, highly HIGHLY recommendÂ
smut: NO SMUT
Habits of My Heart by Kangofu_CB
words: ~18kÂ
important tags: Fuckbuddies to Lovers, no powers AU, grindrÂ
notes: fuckbuddies to lovers with loads of pining will always be THE most realistic winterhawk depiction for me, sorry not sorry. this oneâs extra fun bc steve and nat have been trying to set them up for months, but theyâve been already hooking up for months. itâs great.Â
smut: yes, but easily skippable.
In Which Peter Is Everyoneâs Favourite Avenger by DestroyedConscienceÂ
words: ~25kÂ
important tags: Twitter, everyone is gay, gen z humorÂ
notes: look, this is an unfinished, non-winterhawk-centric twitter fic, but as a fellow winterhawk twitter fic author i just HAVE to recommend it. if u like this kind of thing, go check it out, itâs so fun :)Â
smut: NO SMUT
Look What The Cat Dragged In by flawedamythyst
words: 22kÂ
important tags: Bucky Barnes is a cat lover, domestic fluffÂ
notes: i havenât read this in years, but i KNOW it was great. at this point just go check out amyâs account and read all of her winterhawk fics, she has over a hundred and theyâre all great!! but this one has them co-parenting alpine, so itâs extra great!!
smut: NO SMUT
My Heart Will Be Your Home by dr_girlfriendÂ
words: ~49kÂ
important tags: soulmates au, single parent clint barton
notes: soulmate au plus kid fic guys, i repeat, SOULMATE AU PLUS KID FIC GUYS!!! BY DR GIRLFRIEND!!!! GOD i miss winterhawk olympic bang 21/22 this one was such a blast to read when it first came out.Â
smut: yes, but skippableÂ
Chrome Plated Heart by dr_girlfriendÂ
words: ~20kÂ
important tags: pacific rim fusion
notes: iâve never seen pacific rim and i still had a blast reading this one!! (she put a basic explanation for it somewhere in the story notes, so dw about it!!). it was SO nice to read a fic where theyâre not heavily traumatised and just have a chill, easy getting together. really sweet stuff
smut: NO SMUT!!
Know When To Hold âEm by flawedamythyst
words: ~11kÂ
important tags: exes to lovers, no powers au, camblingÂ
notes: UGHHH i need more fics like this one, itâs so so SO good!! flashes back and forth to the time when they were first together and when they meet again and skjdghlksdhg my heart just hurts so much for both of them. (happy ending tho dw, clintâs just so sad in the present and it hurts my soul)
smut: yeah, the part in the present is basically just one big smut scene but itâs soOoOoO emotional and i always love me some emotional smut
Christmas in Colour by mariana_oconnorÂ
words: ~12kÂ
important tags: soulmates see in colour, christmas fluffÂ
notes: SOULMATES SEE IN COLOUR !!!!! *swoons so hard she falls to the floor* top 3 best soulmates tropes i dont make the rules i love it so much. ESPECIALLY when itâs with a character like clint who usually has a colour he loves SO SO much. a christmas must read :)Â
smut: NO SMUT
Chaos By Another Name by shatteredhourglassÂ
words: ~13kÂ
important tags: dimension travel, time travel, friends to loversÂ
notes: DIMENSION-HOPPING TIME-TRAVEL ADVENTURE GUYS!!! why wouldnât you wanna read it???Â
smut: yes
I Still Choose You (The Public Domain Remix) by mariana_oconnorÂ
words: ~14kÂ
important tags: soulmates at first kiss, fake/pretend relationshipÂ
notes: have a fic with two of the best tropes ever, youâre so very welcome. plus plus PLUS: demisexual bucky. as a demisexual/asexual/still trying to figure it out lesbian, iâm always ALWAYS here for any kind of ace spectrum winterhawk, so yeah.Â
smut: NO SMUT
the road rising up to meet me by veryrach
words: ~24kÂ
important tags: pining, sexual reawakening, chaotic slutty clint bartonÂ
notes: MORE DEMISEXUAL BUCKY!!! AND HOT CLINT!!! no other words needed. read it.Â
smut: iâm so sorry but i canât remember if it gets SMUTTY smutty. but thereâs definitely a lot of sexual themes i mean look at the tags lmao
Showdown by shatteredhourglassÂ
words: ~14kÂ
important tags: fake/pretend relationship; fluffÂ
notes: breaking my silence: fake dating might me my fav trope of all time. in this one theyâre pretending to date for the sole purpose of annoying steve and tony and i think thatâs the best thing ever.Â
smut: NO SMUT
Light the Spark by dr_girlfriend
words: ~26kÂ
important tags: fake/pretend relationship, mutual pining, enemies to friends to lovers
notes: aaaand the next fake dating fic >:) the enemies arc is like 0.2 seconds, blink and you miss it, but whoooo cares, weâre here for the fake dating & pining guys!!!
smut: yes, but you can skip it!
-10k wordsÂ
Wine and Pine by feathers_and_cigarettesÂ
words: 6k
Important tags: Touch-Starved, Fake Marriage, pining!clintÂ
Notes: this is one of those fics i always come back to without realising and it always hits that spot. like i said, fake dating is my favorite trope, and MISSION fake dating???? i'm in heaven
smut: thereâs quite a bit of smut, but itâs at the end and even if you stop reading after they kiss itâs really worth it.Â
Over Easy by Lissadiane
words: ~9k
important tags: hook up gone awry, awkwardly crashing the birth of a babyÂ
notes: need yâall to know that this has one of my all time fav smut scenes, i kinda know it by heart. donât quote me on that, this is our secret. this oneâs just so so SO much fun, iâm having the time of my life every time i read it (which is at least like once a month)Â
smut: yes, and itâs kinda the best part, but everything else is so fun as well that i really wouldnât wanna miss out on it
The Love You Deserve by flawedamythystÂ
words: ~8kÂ
important tags: unhappy family holidays, homophobia, family issues, jewish bucky barnesÂ
notes: another must-read christmas fic for me; clint goes home for christmas to an uncle of his or something but they all turn out to be homophobic assholes or something and then bucky shows up to save the day <3
smut: NO SMUTÂ
what you really, really want by NoxntheaÂ
words: ~8kÂ
important tags: pining, misunderstandingsÂ
notes: *blurts out* THEYVE BEEN IN LOVE FOR AGES AND THEN WANDA HEXES THEM SO THEY THINK THEVE BEEN DATING FOR YEARS!!! this is SUCH an underrated fic, it doesnât even have 200 kudos like wtf??? SHOW IT SOME LOVE!!!
smut: NO SMUT
The 300 Club by NoxntheaÂ
words: ~10kÂ
important tags: no powers au, scientist clint & buckyÂ
notes: there arenât enough scientist winterhawk AUs so HUGE THANKS noxnthea for feeding us. i will literally haunt you if you donât read this one, ITS SO UNDERRATED!!! AND SO FUN!!
smut: NO SMUT
For Everything There is A Season by dr_girlfriend
words: ~9.7kÂ
important tags: crack fic, secret service agent!bucky, small business owner!clint bartonÂ
notes: crack fics are always gold and this one especially, itâs such a ridiculous idea, how could you not love it? always a very fun read!Â
smut: NO SMUT
Background Noise by ReremouseÂ
words: ~8kÂ
important tags: modern au, deaf clint bartonÂ
notes: MILLENIAL BUCKY!!! clint is buckyâs upstairs neighbour and extremely loud bc heâs well⌠deaf. lol. and buckyâs a night shift worker which really isnât a good combo on first thought. but on second thought, these are clint and bucky, so OBVIOUSLY theyâre gonna make a great combo out of it. itâs fuckign amazing. plus bucky & sam friendship!! good shit guys, good shit.
smut: NO SMUT
you didnât hear that by jedusaurÂ
words: ~2.6kÂ
important tags: roomates, eavesdroppingÂ
notes: super self-indulgent rec, i always read this one when i need some cheering up lmao itâs just so fun and theyâre kinda nasty and UGH. love. it explores the range of buckyâs super hearing. do with that what you want.Â
smut: yes. it explores the range of buckyâs super hearing in every way ;)
one more time by squadrickchestopherÂ
words: ~4kÂ
important tags: touch starved, hurt clint bartonÂ
notes: i donât even know why i love this one so much, but it holds SUCH a special place in my heart. it might be my undying love for touch starved!clint who finally gets his well-needed hugs by bucky. thereâs also an amazing podfic by flowerparrish for it, make sure to give kudso to them both!!!Â
smut: NO SMUT
the salt on your lips by veryrachÂ
words: ~9kÂ
important tags: kissing, an absolutely ridiculous lack of communicationÂ
notes: exactly what the tags say. itâs a 5+1 as well, WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED IN LIFE???? 10/10. i remember waiting for months for the last few chapters and it was SO worth it!!
smut: NO SMUT
Love Potion No. 10 by Kangofu_CBÂ
words: ~8kÂ
important tags: love potion/spell, not actually unrequited love
notes: i wonât say anything about the story bc i donât wanna spoiler it, but iâll say that i re-read the second half of it at least once a month, itâs just THAT sweet.Â
smut: NO SMUT
Thereâs No âIâ In Denial by flawedamythystÂ
words: ~5kÂ
important tags: truth spellsÂ
notes: clint gets hit by a magic truth gun and canât lie anymore. such a fun & cute read every single time.
smut: NO SMUT
The Name of the Game by squadrickchestopherÂ
words: ~6kÂ
important tags: competition, trash talking, feelings realizationÂ
notes: this oneâs just so so fun, it has allllllll the winterhawk banter anyone could ask for. and i always love me some competitive idiots in love
smut: NO SMUTÂ
Full Barton by aw_writing_noÂ
words: ~6kÂ
important tags: no powers au, cop!bucky, human disaster clintÂ
notes: what the tags say. clint embarrassing himself in front of bucky who enjoys it a bit too much gotta be one of my fav tropes.Â
smut: NO SMUT
one more little mistake by shatteredhourglassÂ
words: ~3kÂ
important tags: clint barton wears glasses, bucky barnes is horny for clint bartonÂ
notes: these tags are basically the entire fic lmaooo. itâs great, i love nothing more than HOT HOT HOT clint barton and bucky realising how hot he isÂ
smut: almost lmao (they get interrupted while making out)Â
my hands no longer an afterthought by shatteredhourglassÂ
words: ~3kÂ
important tags: getting back togetherÂ
notes: i have a sweet sweet SWEET spot for winterhawk getting back togethers if handled well, and this one handles it soo well.Â
smut: NO SMUT
Five Lies People Believe About Clint and Bucky by EVVSÂ
words: ~1.5kÂ
important tags: established relationshipÂ
notes: this is one of those fics i always go back to if i have a few minutes and need some (bitter)sweet fluff. itâs exactly what the title says, some lies are fun, some are painful, and all of them just hit that spotÂ
smut: NO SMUT
My Sausage Brings Alll the Boys To The Yard by flawedamythystÂ
words: ~1.7kÂ
important tags: bad flirtingÂ
notes: this oneâs so stupid it probably shouldnât be on here but i remember how i was reading this in class for the first time when i was still in school and i was almost pissing myself bc it made me laugh so hard. very fun, go read it >:(
smut: NO SMUT
bonus for the freaks:
Filthy Porn Fridays by squadrickchestopherÂ
thereâs 18 works so far, itâs smut smut smut aaaand - you guessed it - smut. if you wanna see the boys fuck nastily, this is your place to be.Â
(delicate tension is the best fic of the series, itâs actually a roadtrip AU and not just smut, highly highly recommend)Â
alrightyyy, i think that's it for now :) this took me quite some time so i'd appreciate some reblogs or whatever!! we need to spread some winterhawk love guys!!
all my love goes out to every author i mentioned here, and every other author who's ever written winterhawk. you guys are my heroes, idk what i'd do without you. literally ripping my heart into a thousand pieces and giving every single one of you a tiny part đ
#this is the most important post iâve ever done pls appreciate it#winterhawk fics#winterhawk fic recs#clint barton#fic recs#winterhawk#bucky barnes#hawkeye#the winter soldier#clint x bucky#ao3#fanfiction#fanfic#fanfic rec#fandom#fanfic author#hozier#taylor swift#amy talks#marvel#avengers#marvel comics#marvel fanfics#marvel fics
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Underrated element of where Jiang Cheng is re: wwx after everything is that they always had a sort of dual relationship. Two different relationship premises, superimposed on one another.
There's the one where they grew up together, as close as brothers, beating each other up and complaining and being one another's closest companions, sharing a bedroom as kids and eating at the same family dinner table, actively encouraged by Jiang Fengmian to interact as equals.
And then there's the one where Wei Wuxian was in service to Jiang Cheng's family. Not as a servant--Jiang Fengmian absolutely refused to do that, even if he couldn't adopt him. But as a disciple of Jiang Cheng's father and recipient of his charity, as Jiang Cheng's future right hand and most trusted subordinate.
It's a vertical relationship, intimate in its own way but with very strict expectations about what obligations flow in what directions; they are not identical and reciprocal as between friends and equals.
(It's my opinion that Jiang Fengmian's core deal was a deep-seated discontent with the hierarchies he was at the top of, without access to any way to actually deconstruct them or even coherently articulate his opposition. Wei Changze was his dear friend, and no one thinks that's a good enough reason for him to treat Wei Changze's son like his own, because Wei Changze was also his servant, and you can't make that circle square. That's not a way you're allowed to love.)
Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were like brothers; Wei Wuxian served Jiang Cheng.
The personal relationship was always the most important one. To them, in their hearts. But it was the other one that was real, that had weight in the world.
And it's important to understand that neither can be held up as more factual than the other, even though they conflict. Both relationships existed, and had power.
So then when Jiang Cheng chose to hate Wei Wuxian and articulate his grudge against him, he chose to do it in the language of fealty. Because as far as he knew, his case there was secure, watertight, and it wouldn't expose him emotionally or politically.
And those are the terms in which he's been condemning him all this time: for abandoning the Sect, for ingratitude, for lack of loyalty.
For fuckups, too, and poor judgment, but some of that now turns out to have been justified and some of it was mostly the fault of enemies behaving badly, or even Jiang Cheng himself allowing himself to be pushed into making unworthy choices.
And it was all for his sake.
The thing, the thing in my opinion, about what Wei Wuxian did, about the core transfer and his silent self-destruction around keeping it secret, is that that is a hideous thing to have done between two people who love each other, as an act of love. Beautiful, but awful. As the man who was like a brother to him, Jiang Cheng has a great deal of standing to object to it.
But as an act of vassalage, it's basically perfect.
If Wei Wuxian were only what he formally was to Jiang Cheng, if he is interpreted through a lens of fealty and obligation, he did exactly what he should have done, and went beyond what duty actually required. And went to his death silently, allowing himself to be judged, taking all the burden on himself rather than let harm come to his lord.
Like, obviously Jiang Cheng was harmed by the part where Jin Zixuan got manslaughtered and Jiang Yanli walked into the line of fire in situations where Wei Wuxian was resorting to violence and probably shouldn't have, but those are one step removed from the core issue. In terms of Wei Wuxian's intentional choices around Jiang Cheng himself, at the times he was feeling betrayed and abandoned Wei Wuxian was in fact being impossibly, poetically loyal, an absolute cliche about it.
But only in terms of the hierarchical form of their relationship.
Which means that even though Jiang Cheng has a lot of reasons to still be mad at Wei Wuxian, his actual complaints that he's centered for thirteen years are basically wiped out by the revelation of Wei Wuxian's sacrifice.
Wei Wuxian was in fact doing the tragic hero loyal vassal thing, which very much includes being misunderstood and slandered by the world. (Chenqing as a name choice absolutely references this expectation, and the idea that Jiang Cheng specifically will never understand that Wei Wuxian was trying to help him first and foremost all along; he is not subtle.)
The debts Jiang Cheng has been spitefully calling in and considering defaulted were already long paid.
So if at this point Jiang Cheng keeps pursuing that same line of rhetorical attack, now that he knows, he'll be putting himself morally in the wrong, and he knows it. But if he pivots to something else, he'll both be signalling the shape of that secret to the entire world and looking like a prize idiot.
Which is already how he feels.
To actually address the remaining grievances between them, which are considerable, would require releasing those safe, open grudges to Wei Wuxian's face and then reclaiming him as a loved one. Which is, one could fairly say, more than anyone could expect.
Which is why Wei Wuxian told him he didn't have to.
Which leaves Jiang Cheng at something of an impasse.
#hoc est meum#jiang cheng#wei wuxian#mdzs#meta#their vertical relationship was always the secure one#the one they could put into words#the one Jiang Cheng could COUNT on#and it's gone and it's what destroyed everything between them#the other relationship could be salvaged in some form#but jiang cheng would have to WANT to#and ofc he does but does he want it enough to choose to?#when wei wuxian isn't choosing him?#and ofc wwx doesn't feel jiang cheng is his to choose#the timing of the revelation is so ironic because imo#wwx spends a lot of the book processing his grief for himself#and the life he had before#and his relationship with jiang cheng#and he let it go and accepted he could never have it back after the debacle at Lotus Pier#only for jiang cheng to be forced to reexamine everything basically immediately lmao#but like wwx is not in a place where he can meet you halfway anymore jiang wanyin#he JUST got closure#it's too soon to go cutting open scars on a man who never lets himself grieve if he can help it#because if you grieve you stop and when you stop you die
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Vivzepop will always be the biggest issue with her own show if she doesn't change. And i'm not saying that because I desperately want to shit on her but rather because it's so clear that her attitude is what made Hazbin Hotel be so dissapointing after the long wait. The pilot released four years ago and Viv had these characters for much longer than that. One could assume that with this much time on her hands she would have a concise plan for how a series of her story would play out (I can imagine that having an own show is a dream for lots of creative people out there). And I get that that plan might get screwed up by a shorter episode count then expected, but she should be the one who knows her story best and who should know what stuff could also be cut out. The first season of Hazbin Hotel is so incredibly overstuffed with characters and plot that it completely looses the main premise the show was originally pitched with (the idea of a hotel were sinners are redeemed. As it is now the hotel is really not important at all). People have talked endlessly about how Viv can't handle criticism and it really sucks because criticism is one of the best ways to improve your writing, drawings, music etc. Without criticism you won't refine the thing you're working on in a meaningful way. Of course it feels bad when you put something out there you wanted to share and then people critique it, but that's part of pretty much every creative journey, or atleast it should be and Vivzepop shouldn't get a pass from this just because she doesn't like it. And there are great shows, movies or books that are rarely or almost never criticised. But the artists behind these works probably went trough years of honing what they do by being criticised for the stuff they put out. And I don't want to say that Vivzepop didn't work hard to make Hazbin Hotel, but it is hard to claim that she improves in her craft, when everytime someone says they don't like her show she throws a hissy fit. She wants the same reactions that these other amazing pieces of media get without ever listening to criticism. Which she sees as a personal attack rather than a tool that could help her to achieve the same level of writing prowess the creators behind media like that have. She believes she is already on the same level as them, just because she basically shuts anyone out who disagrees with her. There's this clip at the end of a Drew Gooden Video which I think sums up the situation with Viv pretty good (the Video is called "Leaving the YouTube Bubble"). He is talking about Lily Singh and her talk show but I feel like a lot of the stuff he says about handling criticism applies to Vivzepop as well.
(you might have to turn up the audio).
Unprofessional behaviour like that might be excusable when the creator is pretty young or they are interacting with publicity for the first time really. But neither of that applies to Viv. And Hazbin Hotel isn't just an indie animation pilot on youtube anymore. It's now a fully realized show created with a pretty prominent studio on a major streaming network and it should be held to the same standards as other shows or movies alike (not saying indie animation or animation on youtube doesn't have a standard but with more budget and support, there's obviously going to be different expectations for the show now). There have been issues in Helluva Boss and the Hazbin Hotel pilot ever since their release which could've been handled with more time and the new show. But Vivzepop shows time and time again that she isn't willing to listen to people who criticise her, which could actually lead to her show getting better. I don't like Viv or her work a lot. I think she is incredibly unprofessional and she has done her fair share of questionable or problematic stuff, which often leads to issues in her shows. There have been some characters I like, some songs or scenes that were pretty well done, very cool animation and an actually interesting premise on paper in HH and HB. There are things that make me come back to these shows to watch the next episode. And i'm obviously passionate enough about these shows to make whole posts about what I think was done badly and what could be changed. But for the aspects of HH or HB I enjoy, there are soo many more problems I have with it. Problems that won't go away unless Viv stops seeing every criticism as a personal attack. Because if Vivzepop doesn't stop acting like her writing is some unreachable stuff that needs no changes I don't really see a point in assuming that these shows will ever get better.
#vivzepop critical#hazbin hotel critical#hazbin hotel criticism#hazbin hotel critique#helluva boss critical#helluva boss critique#helluva boss criticism#i dont support vivziepop
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As much as I love Adam for a few fun parts of his character and for what he could have been at the hands of a competent writer (as shown by the fanfics where he gets properly developed)...
I feel like he (and the way he's characterised) is what broke Hazbin hotel season 1 pacing, Lucifer's character and the show's overall atmosphere.
(Long and packed rant under the cut, because I've been having these thoughts since I saw season 1, and I want to share them. Viewer discretion is adviced)
Before Adam existed (pilot era) it was all simple and worked more properly: a story about the hotel and its inhabitants, and most importanty, redemption. It was a small snuggly location with a few characters in the center of a plot
Heaven was in the background and kept as a mystery. Moreover, from what we've seen in the pilot, Lucifer was obviously a background villain or at least an anti hero, one of the real obstacles for Charlie to overcome on the way to her goal (instead of a minor inconveniece resolved in a single broadway song)
But when Adam and his weird obsession with murder broke into that perfectly cut out premise, everything just shattered. Too many themes got weaved into the short story of the 8 episodes: Heaven vs Hell politics, overlords, war, Charlie's conflict with Adam, the seraphims...
All of that pushed the hotel and the redemption to the background instead of Heaven.... in a cartoon that's named after the hotel. Because 8 episodes is not enough to talk about politics, a war and a 6 month redemption course (the latter even happened behind the screen with only some verbal hints given about the amazing secretive progress the hotel guests made that we were not allowed to see!)
(Had this cartoon stayed indie, there would have been a possibility of making more episodes and tackling more themes properly. But big name broadway actors are more important than that, it appears)
Back to Adam.
He is not even a good villain. He really should have been more of a background antihero. Give the man some sedatives, for f's sake! Where did all that rabidity even come from, after centuries of living in Heaven? Honestly, he'd be expected to act calmer and wiser than how he actually did, especially with how old he is (as old as the earth itself). But instead it's like he got frozen in a state of a dumb jock bully from high school
Imagine if Adam allowed Charlie and her hotel guests to prove that redemption is possible, out of principle, or curiosity. Hell, maybe even allow him to threaten to kill them, but not straight away! Later, after they fail to prove him wrong! If that's what Adam's role had been, the hotel part would have gotten time to breathe and more spotlight
All Adam did in the series, was:
1. make a lot of excessive noise
2. do dumbass things (and it wasn't even explained WHY he's the way he is, not even a single flashback or his own musings and thoughts shown, which makes all of his actions fall flat in every sense)
3. break the remains of logic (Heaven looks plain dumb because of him, not able to tell sinning from non sinning and to judge human souls properly. It's not even corruption, since Adam is not that important or benefitial to Heaven, an actual archangel like Michael could have been leading exorcists in his place and do a better job.... it's just stupidity)
And then Adam just died, for nothing and with no consequences.
I mean, straight after Adam's death Lucifer is immediately trying to divert the viewer's attention: "who wants pancakes? :D". It's like the cartoon itself doesn't care that the first human, one of the most mysterious beings in vivzieverse and someone who badly needed a second chance and therapy, just died. By a very stupid joke too (Niffty didn't even have to stab him).
In short, Adam's plotline is a huge waste of screen time...
And while his final smile to Lute may give us some hints that there's something good inside Adam, but it's more akin to mockery. Since we were never shown that there's more to Adam besides "the main character's opponent=ultimate bad"
And of course Lucifer was retconned into a pathetic uwu boi, who's depression and "silliness" have overshadowed the fact that he practically doomed humanity to a life full of pain, suffering and surviving and took away Adam and Eve's home. We don't even get the slightest glimpse of what exactly Lucifer DREAMED of that was so important to force him to do the humans dirty. Meaning it was something abstract and not thought-through anyway.
(Free will my ass.. Adam and Lilith did as they pleased in Eden without the free will, Adam ordering his wives around, Lilith being able to defy him and Eve being able to disobey God. What good did "free will" from that fruit even do them? If anything, it only did harm to everyone)
And so now this daft egotist is being portrayed as this selfless harmless character only for the sake of contrasting the painfully obvious bad evil that Adam is.
That comes off as black and white writing, fit more for a childrens cartoon, despite the show critisizing Adam for thinking in black and white terms. Not a good look
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Azula was already going to break the cycle of abuse (and Zuko maybe won't?)
The Fire Nation royal family has a massive problem with generation after generation abusing its children. Playing favorites to an insane degree is normalized and perpetuated. Azulon blatantly favored Iroh over Ozai, Iroh blatantly favored Zuko over Azula, Ursa blatantly favored Zuko over Azula, and Ozai blatantly favored Azula over Zuko. One child is treated as useful and important, the other rejected and neglected.
Azula grew up in an abusive environment where all of this was normalized. She was only 14, and had never known anything else other than this style of parenting which served to turn one child against the other.. She literally ordered to fight her brother by her father.
Yet, despite all of this, Azula realized that this wasn't right. That she and Zuko should not be at each other's throats. That there was something very wrong with the favoritism. The entire "bring Zuko back with honor" idea was premised on the idea that there didn't need to be a favorite and a scapegoat, that Zuko and her could share Ozai's favor as equals, that Ozai had been wrong to disfavor and discard Zuko like he did.
Azula was obviously a bad person, a deeply flawed person. But if there's one thing she already learned in her heart of hearts in canon, it's that Ozai and Iroh and Ursa and Azulon's style of parental favoritism was deeply, deeply wrong. This is not something she has to learn post-canon, it's something she learned in canon.
I don't think Azula, on the track she was in canon, would ever grow into a great parent, but I am sure that she would never favor one of her children over the other the way that her elders did, that she would ever favor one of her nieces or nephews in that way. She knows better. She's already on track to break the cycle of favoritism.
By contrast, Zuko never learned that this sort of parental favoritism is bad. His problem with Ozai is not that Ozai played favorites, it's that Ozai's favorite was Azula and not him. He never even recognized that violently fighting with Azula was something bad, much less recognized that parental favoritism inevitably turns siblings against each other.
Thus, unless Zuko undergoes more growth post-canon, I think it's extremely likely that he'll fall into the same sort of abusive favoritism toward his children that his forefathers practiced. After all, that's even how his "true father" Iroh acted.
As much as we would like to act otherwise, the cycle of abusive has not been ended. Zuko needs to learn and acknowledge that what all the adults was doing was deeply wrong before he can personally break the cycle.
#Azula#Zuko#Azula meta#Zuko meta#Not blaming Zuko here#He's been failed by the adults in his life and he's never been taught better#but if he's to avoid becoming like his father and grandfather#he needs to deal with the trauma of the past#Ozai#Ursa#anti Iroh#Azulon#fire nation royal family#Sozin probably started all of this#to be clear#but we don't have evidence
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Hi! As someone just coming into reading the books but who's been with the show since day 1, I'm curious about why people take Lestat's narrative in TVL with 100% sincerity when the premise of the show seems to be interrogating the dissonance that everybody's versions create. Obviously there's some big things that are definitely going to be true, but I'd personally be disappointed if we got a straight adaptation of unfiltered Lestat perspective on events, haha!
I think you're conflating sincerity with some idea of omniscient, objective accuracy, which, as you note, is a useless thing to search for in a show where memory is continually shown to be an unreliable monster.
Lestat's version of events in TVL is sincere, though. He's speaking from the heart and he's trying to give the story of his life, mostly by sharing his truth about what his life before meeting Louis was like, and in part by filling in the gaps Louis leaves us with about what happened at Rue Royale. His recollection may turn out to be as faulty and biased as Louis' or Armand's has been shown to be in the show, but that doesn't make it any less sincere.
And I'm not implying that Louis is lying or anything. I'm talking about him not mentioning or glossing over the happy memories that meant a lot to Lestat and made up, for him, a big part of what it was to share a home with Louis and Claudia for so long. Giving Lestat the space to talk about his love for Louis and Claudia doesn't erase the abuse he inflicted on them in those moments of instability and rage. I don't get why people are so resistant to seeing that. It's not like it makes everything better. If anything, it makes it worse that he loved them so much.
What's important to note, too, is that at no point does Lestat in his retelling excuse himself for anything he did to Louis and Claudia and I doubt very much we would see him do that in future seasons of the show. Lestat even says it himself that he deserved what Claudia did to him. The way things worked out between the three of them is his greatest, deepest regret and it will haunt him for the rest of his immortal life.
Also, not for nothing, what we've gotten this season and last season are the unfiltered perspectives of Louis, Claudia, and Armand. That's not to say they're lying or intentionally obfuscating (okay, well, Armand totally is), but that is what we got---a narrative that was really challenged only by Daniel and not by anyone who was actually there who remembers it differently. I don't see why we shouldn't also get Lestat's unfiltered version, especially considered he is the main protagonist of the Vampire Chronicles series going forward.
For me and many others, it's not about excusing anything. It's all about contextualizing his decisions. Like, Lestat didn't just wake up one day and decide it would be fun to destroy his family. I want him to tell me in his own words (which, as a reminder, he has yet to do at any point in this series so far) what drove him to do the horrible things he did and how he really feels about it. When we do hopefully get that, I expect the fandom to interrogate his accounts as vigorously as they did Louis' and Armand's and Claudia's.
And to answer your question regarding the books specifically, we have Anne herself to blame for that. She wrote IWTV when she was battling some of the most intense grief and despair a person can feel. She had just lost her child. Writing the book was an outlet for that and you can feel it as you read Louis' perspective. When she decided to continue the series, though, she changed her mind about a lot of things---mainly who Lestat was as a character and how she had come to hate the "weakness" in Louis (which was really because she came to hate the "weakness" she saw in herself as she came out on the other side of her grief and identified with him less and Lestat more). There is a very real dissonance between who Lestat is in IWTV and who he is in TVL and beyond. The way she accounted for that in her own writing was that Louis was misconstruing certain events by leaving things out or straight up making things up like their reunion in NOLA at the end of IWTV, which Lestat claims never happened. The reason people take Lestat's words at face value sometimes isn't usually because they hate Louis or think he lied about Lestat's abuse. It's because Anne, as the writer of the story, wanted the reader to doubt Louis' version in favor of Lestat's because she had changed her mind about the direction of the story and the characters she created.
It's also worth noting that, in the actual text of the show, that version of events taken from the book, the content of the original interview, is described by Louis himself as an admitted performance. I think it's a perfectly legitimate reading to consider IWTV (the book) in the context of Louis trying to get Lestat's attention with something he knew would upset him, like Armand suggests was Louis' fantasy, because he wanted or needed to see him again.
This got long and rambley so I'll just leave you with the wise, wise words of Samothy Reid when asked to give one truth and one lie in the show: Everybody lies. Everybody lies.
I don't think that will change if we finally get Lestat's POV so imo people should just relax and enjoy the ride.
#interview with the vampire#iwtv#loustat#iwtv meta#lestat de lioncourt#louis de pointe du lac#iwtv spoilers#i guess#i just don't relate to people who don't want to see Lestat tell his side of the story#i've been waiting for that for fifteen years#more like twenty if you count since i watched the movie for the first time#like sorry i'm supposed to take ARMAND at face value but i can't hear out Lestat?#insanity#absolute insanity#i do love mess tho#and i can't wait to see him in all his pony on amphetamines glory
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Hi my love!! I just reread your bodyguard tasm!peter parker blurb and it was so cute đI loved the original premise where peters spider senses got distracted because of her!! You wrote it so beautifully.
I'd love to request a part two (If you're open to that?) where he's guarding her again and we see their relationship develop a little more??
i read your requests rules and couldn't find anything about you not writing part twos, but feel free to ignore if you'd rather not! lots of love <3 <3
Hi sweetheart, thank you thank you!!
bodyguard!(tasm)Peter Parker x fem!reader ⥠1.1k words
Peterâs staying on the ground for your sake, but he doesnât love it.Â
Youâre relaxed as can be, lounging on your bed while he paces your unfairly giant room from end to end. This, he thinks, is why people hate politicians. Youâve got an ensuite bathroom the size of his apartment, and on the taxpayerâs dime. He gets it now. If you and your dad were living in a shoebox like every other self-respecting New Yorker, maybe the guy wouldnât get so many death threats.Â
âYou donât have to be all vigilant,â you say. âMy dadâs not here. So long as I donât get actually kidnapped or killed while youâre here, sitting down isnât going to affect your performance evaluation.âÂ
Peter looks at you. âIâm getting a performance evaluation?âÂ
Your smile is lopsided and goofy. Itâs humiliating how much it affects him. âNo. Who would he send it to? Your employer?âÂ
âOh.â He feels stupid. âGood point.âÂ
âCome here,â you laugh. âI got us coffee.âÂ
He goes to sit on your bed, mostly because heâll do anything you ask him to. After spending a few hours hugging you on a roof, Peterâs found that he actually likes you. Youâre not snooty or spoiled like he might have expected, friendly to him even though heâs technically working for you. You seem oddly down-to-earth for someone with your upbringing, funny and smart. (Smarter than him, maybe. You turn him into a blundering idiot every time he sees you, though, so itâs hard to say.) Youâre surprisingly fun to be around.Â
You lean over, grabbing two disposable coffee cups from your nightstand. âDo you want peppermint or caramel?âÂ
âWhich one do you want?âÂ
âNo way. Youâre my guest, you get first pick.âÂ
Peterâs here on a job, but he likes your version of the story better. That youâd think of him as your guest, someone invited in whom you want to please, makes an affectionate warmth unfurl in his gut.Â
âYou should probably have the one you want, because the other oneâs going to get cold,â he says, an apology in his tone. Your brows wrinkle. âI canât really drink through the maskâŚâÂ
âOh.â You close your eyes, expression clearing. âGod, Iâm so sorry. I didnât even think about that.âÂ
âDonât worry about it.â Peterâs smiling under the mask. He wonders if you can hear it in his voice. âEnjoy yours. Iâll live vicariously.âÂ
âYou couldnât just lift it up enough to drink?âÂ
âUh, no. The whole secret identity thing isâŚkind of important to the job.âÂ
You smile guiltily, lifting one of the cups to your lips. âFair enough.âÂ
Youâre silent for a minute, watching him as you sip at your coffee. Once again, making it nearly impossible for Peter to do what heâs being paid to do. He should be keeping his senses alert, watching the windows, surveilling the perimeter or whatever. Not looking into your clever, narrowed eyes and thinking about how your whole room smells like you.Â
âOkay,â you say, still scrutinizing him like youâre trying to count the threads in his suit, ânow Iâm dying to know whatâs under the mask.âÂ
Peter sits very still. Heâs had peopleâfans and foes alikeâtry to tear it off him before, but he doesnât think youâre like that.Â
âI mean, obviously youâre tall,â you lean back on the bed, mouth pursed in contemplation, âso youâre not, like, twelve. You sound about my ageâŚâÂ
âI what?âÂ
âYour voice.âÂ
âWhatââ He clears his throat. Tries to sound more generationally ambiguous. âWhat would make you think that?âÂ
You crack another one of those sweet, silly smiles. âWell, youâre not going to fool me now,â you say. âIâve heard you talk. You canât be more than thirty. Plus, when you got here, you said âyoâ.âÂ
Peter really needs to stop saying that. He doesnât even know when he started.Â
âYouâve got stitches all over your suitâŚâ you go on. âWhat neighborhood are you from again?âÂ
âIâm not telling you that,â he laughs.Â
âOh, come on.â You scooch a little on the bed, tucking one leg under you to face him more fully. Your eyes pierce his like knives. Very pretty knives. âThereâs almost ten million people in New York. You really think Iâm going to track you down?âÂ
âYour dad is the mayorâŚâÂ
âStop.â You give his shoulder a playful shove. Peterâs mask feels suddenly warm. âThose surveillance rumors werenât true, the tabloids made that up to mess with his re-election campaign.â
âOkay, okay. Iâm from Queens.âÂ
You lean back on your hands, and he canât decide if the way youâre looking at him is analyzing or flirting. âInteresting,â you say slowly. âSo youâre, like, a real man of the people. Not the Bruce Wayne type.âÂ
âHey,â he teases, âBruce Wayne couldâve lived in Queens. Itâs nice.âÂ
âBut Bruce Wayne wouldnât have to sew his own suits,â you point out.Â
Peter tilts his head, blows a breath out the side of his mouth. Youâve got him there.Â
âAnd youâre tall, clearly pretty strong, you seem smartâŚâ You nod, seeming to have come to a decision. âI think youâre handsome under there.âÂ
A laugh startles out of him. He hopes it sounds casual, like it came from someone cool, whose heart isnât galloping in his chest. Peter really shouldnât care if you think he has the potential to be handsome under his mask. Itâs not like youâll ever find out. Still, it feels weirdly nice.Â
He makes his voice light and playful. âWell, itâs good to have your approval. Now we can pretend that Iâm almost in your league.âÂ
For the first time since heâs gotten here, you look genuinely caught offguard. âMe?âÂ
âYeah, you.â Peter grins. It feels good to have flustered you. Heâs missed doing that. âWho else?âÂ
You look away from him as you laugh, shaking your head. âI donât know if youâve noticed,â you say, âbut youâre a superhero. Youâre not the one who should be worried about leagues.âÂ
Youâre cute. Peter makes a bold move, scooting an inch closer to you, into your space. Heâs glad you canât see that under the mask, his face is just as flushed as yours. âIâm not a superhero,â he says, keeping his voice light as meringue. âIâm just your friendly neighborhood Spiderman.âÂ
You roll your eyes. âHumble, too. Points in your favor.âÂ
A laugh rumbles through his chest. Someday, heâs gonna have to get Peter Parker in your orbit somehow. He wants to meet youâmore than that, he wants you to meet him. Heâs not sure how long he can wait.Â
He decides to let you off the hook. Slightly. He reaches across you, taking the unused cup from your nightstand. âThanks for this,â he says. âOnce you donât need me here anymore, Iâm gonna take it home and heat it back up.â He grins even though you canât see it. âMaybe Iâll swing by and return the favor sometime.â
#tasm!peter parker#tasm!peter#tasm!peter parker x reader#tasm!peter parker x you#tasm!peter parker x fem!reader#tasm!peter x reader#tasm!peter parker x y/n#tasm!peter parker x self insert#tasm!peter x you#tasm!peter parker fanfiction#tasm!peter parker fanfic#tasm!peter parker fic#tasm!peter parker fluff#tasm!peter parker imagine#tasm!peter imagine#tasm!peter parker drabble#tasm!peter parker scenario#tasm!peter parker blurb#tasm!peter parker oneshot#tasm!peter parker one shot#tasm peter parker#the amazing spiderman
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the mind of moriarty đđ§đťâđťâď¸
I had the absolute pleasure of doing the original "the game is now" escape room experience immediately followed by the new moriarty-centric escape room (as though the first one wasn't moriarty-centric enough?) with @victorianpining and @647763 back at the end of July, and I did promise a full write-up when I came back to my senses at the end of it!
First off, I could not have been more pleased with the experience; I do absolutely recommend giving it a go yourself if you have the chance. Now, if you're in the mood for spoilers, I'll be detailing some thoughts and recollections below the cut. đ
Just in case the first escape room experience didn't quite convince you, Moriarty is dead. It's very important that you know that going into this. He's the most dead anyone has ever been. He's so dead he "wishes he could die twice!", after all! They have to keep saying it because otherwise you might forget it, you see. Especially after Sherlock had a whole drug trip on a plane to prove how someone might have faked their death in such a manner only to conclusively decide that dear old Jimmy boy is in fact dead.
I'm assuming everyone reading this is already relatively familiar with the first escape room, and the whole bit where the Network is operating under the guise of "Doyle's Opticians," so I won't spend any time discussing that, except to say that we did get a few confused looks from the various Stamfords when we reappeared (after finishing the first escape room and making the choice to stick to non-alcoholic beverages at the Mind Palace prior to the second) to say, "Oh, no, we didn't get turned around or anything. We've just got a second appointment." (You mean to tell me that most people who go do one experience and then just... leave? Without doing the second one the very same day? What an absolutely unfathomable concept.)
The opening puzzles before the "John Watson held at gunpoint" briefing video (which was the same as that used for the first escape room) were particularly fun: you're shown a series of four images, and you have to figure out the pattern of what's changing (being mirrored, one might say?) between each one to choose the fifth of the sequence from a selection. (Ref. 1: Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them, John Yorke.)
And then you go on to 221B Baker Street for photos and a brief moment of shenanigans, and I must add a note here that the Stamford who was working with us on this round was brilliant, you could tell she was absolutely loving her job, and there was a bit of a spiel about observation and logic and deduction that turned out to actually be helpful in solving the puzzles in the first room. (Shocking, that she wasn't just harping on about those concepts for fun!)
Anyway, Mycroft shows up via video feed, per usual, and introduces the premise of this game: James Moriarty (who is most assuredly dead, by the way, it's very important that you remember that) programmed an AI before he diedâ"an archive of maniacal data"âand your job, as new (read: expendable) recruits in the Network, is to go into a virtual-reality space called the Nexus, where you need to hack into the AI and replace Moriarty's mind withâwell, not yours, obviously, you're "far too, as they say, basic"âbut with Sherlock's. But why not use Mycroft's mind? you may be asking. Especially if he's the smart one.âbecause, dear reader, "One Mycroft Holmes is already too great a gift for this world. Two would be an indulgence." And that's verbatim from Mycroft Holmes as protrayed by Mark Gatiss himself. I am going to haunt him in whatever comes after this life. Still can't believe that you give them money and in exchange they insult you for approximately ninety minutes and at the end you say 'thanks, this was so much fun, I will definitely be doing this again!'
Right before you go into the first room, you are helpfully reminded by Mycroft one last time that "despite what video games suggest, you absolutely can die in the virtual world." Bit of a theme they seem to be harping on! It's almost like they're trying to get you to really believe that Jim is actually dead or something!
(Photos are all from the official 221b social media accounts.)
The first room is a sort of fusion of the pool from TGG with a chemistry lab and a hospital corridor, and also a miniature version of Jim's prison cell from THOB is there. There's a mannequin of John Watson decked out in a Semtex vest in the corner, and you get the usual experience of solving lots of intellectually- and tactilely-satisfying puzzles, which included opening a bordering-on-comical number of lockers. The John mannequin has a key in his hand labelled "007" (classic!) and a phone in his pocket so you can text Mycroft. Moriarty reminds you that he's the good old-fashioned villain in this fairy tale, and that Sherlock needs him or he's nothing, and that John is Sherlock's "live-in ordinary person."
I also particularly enjoyed the little chemistry puzzle in this roomâthey do give you a periodic table on the wall, so you have all you need to solve it without any prior knowledge, but who goes to a Sherlock escape room without a graduate chemist in hand?
(We also decided after the fact that the gift shop definitely should have been selling packs of the stickers seen on the lockers in this room, one of which was notably a pixel-art TV with a rainbow screen and the phrase "brainwashed".)
The highlight here, however, was definitely the prison cell. There's a letter on the chair that's on Pentonville Prison letterhead and signed by Mycroft and otherwise consists of a paragraph or two of fully redacted text. The walls have a number of fun phrases scratched into them, like "THREE SIGNS IS NOT ENOUGH" and "TOO MANY THATCHERS", which continue to live in my mind rent-free. (Some of the other phrases were helpful hints for the puzzles you had to solve, but those two weren't even relevant for the puzzles, as I recall. They were just bonuses. Specifically designed to haunt me, personally.)
At some point in here, Moriartyâno, sorry; his recorded voice, because he's dead, remember! We're just poking around in his virtual mind! ("Jim recorded lots of little messages for me before he died," anyone?)âinsults you over the speakers, saying, "Goldfish, goldfish, goldfish have better recall than you!" (Mycroft Holmes in TEH, "I'm living in a world of goldfish," anyone?)
Anyway, you solve all the puzzles and put the phone you were using to text Mycroft in Jim's prison cell and continue on your way, going further into the mind of Moriarty, in the direction of the "Watson Ward" and "No Sherlock beyond this point" arrows. (Big moment for "there's definitely a reason that every other character in the canon has the initials J(H)W or its respectable inversion JM" girlies!)
Also there's an audio clip of Jim saying "choo choo!" as you leave the room. (Big moment for TFP girlies! I think my exact words were "I am going to kill myself.")
Onto room two! Green lasers everywhere! (They definitely intended you to do a fun little acrobatics situation here but we were content to hit the floor and crawl to find the buttons to disable them.)
After you disable the lasers, you get to focus on the primary puzzle of the room: a wall covered with sketches of people and copies of incriminating evidence, and you have to connect the scarlet thread red strings between each member of the jury and the evidence that Jim was blackmailing them withâyou know, from way back in TRF? When the key code wasn't important at all, it was just about knowing someone's pressure points? (There's a Mary who's having an affair and is a lesbian, btw. Just like our mystery corpse in the original escape room, we should never assume someone is straight when there's room for them to be gay.) This puzzle as a whole was really satisfying, I will say, though it did make us wish for either a notepad or a massive whiteboard to make notes on while we solved the little logic puzzles to match the people to their blackmail material. (They could give you little branded notepads and pens to take with you through the rooms, and to keep as a souvenir, like the ones hotels give you! It would be so fun!) This was definitely the puzzle we spent the majority of our time on.
And then you get to the highlight of this room: opening the safe to reveal Jim Moriarty himselfâwell, a mannequin versionâdecked out in the Crown Jewels, happy as could be. There's a reminder that nothing in the Tower of London is as valuable as a few tiny lines of computer code that can open any door. And Jim's written a silly little poem of sorts and draws far too much attention to both "the rod of power in his right hand's grasp" and "the Orb" between his legs (and then we were at the Tower of London two days later and found out that that's not just a euphemism, it's literally called the Orb? Unhinged behaviour. And I don't even know who to blame for it now. The "rod of power" bit was all him, though. Could have been normal and called it a scepter!) and you have to figure out a code and (spoilers!) the code is 7437. Which is fine and perfectly normal and I'm sure the vast majority of people who complete that room think nothing of it, but unfortunately, we were not a group of "the vast majority" and so our experience was not what you might call "fine and normal", because Mia input the code and there was a little beep of success of and then she, without missing a beat, went on to say, "Oh, that's so funny! That's the numbers for S-H-E-R," at which point Rebs and I immediately sank to the floor to stare into the abyss while waiting for the next door to open.
So, just to recap: the point of TRF was definitely that there was no code, there was never any code, it was just about knowing people's pressure points and getting them to do what you wanted, but now that we're inside Moriarty's mind it's definitely all about codes and there's a silly poem to draw attention to various things including, but not limited to, the Orb between his legs, and the code that you need from him so that you can go deeper into his mind is S-H-E-R. Yeah. Sure. Why not. This is Fine! What really haunts me is knowing how many people will do that escape room and will never know that that's what those numbers mean. Because why on earth would you?
(Just to prove how normal I am about this, I won't even say anything about a potential parallel between Moriarty's "Orb" situation and the globe on Mycroft's desk under Whitehall. See? I'm not even mentioning it, why would you bring up something like that? No M-theory here, no sir! Not a single trace of it!)
Congratulations, you've made it to the rooftop, where Sherlock jumped off a roof and James Moriarty met his end, and I swear Jim has a line somewhere in there complaining about how hard it is to plan this sort of thing. (Whatever that means!)
We've got screens playing clips from all thirteen episodes of the showâokay, that might be an exaggeration; I didn't actually check to see if there were clips from every single episode. But there were definitely clips from series four, which is very funny considering how the universe that these rooms seem to be set makes exactly zero mention of John's wife at any point in time. (Hey, hello, hi, it's me who's writing this. Obviously I noticed when there were shots from TFP on those screens.)âand there are computer-code-esque symbols on the walls and Jim is lying dead on the floor and Sherlock is standing on the edge of the rooftop.
Here are some fun facts for you: the gun is still in Jim's pocket. (He's definitely dead, though! You know how you shoot yourself in the head and then return your gun to its rightful place before you politely lay down and die?) And Sherlock's mannequin is wearing the purple shirt of sex a purple shirt, which is a detail that might not be noticed unless you're thoroughly ransacking his every pocket (twice) to check for a missing key, and I was going to say something about how of course he is, because what else would you expect him to be wearing when we're three levels deep in Moriarty's mind and the code to get this far was S-H-E-R, but then I went back and checked and Sherlock is, in fact, wearing a purple shirt at the end of TRF. (Which somehow still doesn't actually negate any of the above, imo.)
Anyway, the first puzzle in this room involves finding a bunch of physical puzzle pieces to solve a puzzle, and figuring out how to unlock doors to obtain all of the pieces, and some of the padlocks use code words that they give you by putting phrases from their "sophisticated and cerebral" merch on the screen and highlighting letters, and some use numbers that you get by solving other riddles, but one of them is a padlock with a physical key and (spoiler!) it turns out that you don't even need to get the key for that one, because there's another way to get the puzzle piece out without unlocking the door at all! (Was his grand daylight robbery scheme a matter of keys and codes, or was it just about knowing people's pressure points and blackmailing them? You decide!)
And then it's time to manage the final task of uploading Sherlock's brain to the AI, which is accomplished by running around hitting buttons while music plays over the speakers to instil a sense of great urgency. You definitely would not want to do this with fewer than three members in your party. This is where they use Jim's line of "Surprise! You didn't think I'd just disappear, did you?" as seen in one of the teaser trailers, and they also plaster every screen with the classic "Did you miss me?" footage that mysteriously appeared on every screen in the country at the end of HLV.
But when you do manage to complete the task, Mycroft's voice comes back to congratulate you, and to sort of threaten you (though that's par for the course when it's Mycroft Holmes we're talking about, I'll admit), and to leave open the possibility of your returning for another job someday. I, for one, cannot wait to see what they're going to do for round three. (Personally, I think it would be very funny if they put one of the rooms on the Demeter for the next one. No rebranding necessary, no discussion of Dracula at any point whatsoever, but for some reason you find yourself on a boat, in cabin number 9, playing chess with the Devil himself Moriarty! What a shocking and unforeseen turn of events that would be!)
(The only real downside of them doing a third room would be that I would then have to make time to do three of these in one day. And that might be a bit excessive. I mean, three eye exams in one day? Someone's definitely going to say something.)
We had a very lovely time at the Mind Palace bar after that, to debrief a bit, and there was a logic puzzle that I still need to sit down and crack at some point when I have a moment. I was personally very pleased to find drinks called "The Diogenes Club" and "The Lying Detective" (both of which I was contractually obligated to order, naturally), and did you know you can rent out the bar for private events? I'm sure I would be very normal about such a situation. (Good job I'm not local to the area, truly!)
This has already gone longer than I think I intended, and I'm sure I could keep going, given the opportunity, but I'll close things out here, and say again that I do absolutely recommend doing the escape room(s) if you have the opportunity; I could not have been more pleased with the experience. My sole complaint is that they don't let you wander back through the rooms after solving the puzzles to have a moment to appreciate all the small details when you're not working against the clock. And also they should send me the scripts, as a treat. Along with any remaining unused video or audio footage. (Moftiss, my DMs are open, feel free to drop the links at your earliest convenience!)
#the game is now#bbc sherlock#sherlock#*mine#@ rebs and mia feel free to chime in if i missed anything of import here!!!#anyway. need to just post this before i go any more insane today dsfsdlfjs#the mind of moriarty
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alright! we got one whole person interested, so here's my hot take:
the first "how to train your dragon" movie is WAY better than httyd 2.
i know everyone loves like, the cool warrior mom design, the romance and the "epic animation moments" in 2... but can we for a moment be honest and say the whole "hiccup becoming a leader / which dragon is the Good Alpha" plot was dumb as hell? also, the villain sucked?
the original httyd is pretty good about keeping the structural problem grounded in real societal fears. namely, fear of the unknown and of beasts. it makes sense for any ol' village dealing with such a problem. it was intelligently designed around a solid premise.
httyd 2 is like. actually, dragon taming is a big thing, even outside berk. and theres a Scary Foreign Man dragon tamer who is bad and just wants power. it's okay to other him. being a good guy is about being a protector instead of an evil, power-hungry guy... which hiccup never was anyway... so no real growth there. just be good instead of bad. wow. what a theme. very thought-provoking.
people act like httyd 3 being bad came out of nowhere, but httyd 2 was the original sin to me. it totally dropped the societal themes in favor of generic good vs evil fights and "worldbuilding" - despite having no more interesting stories to tell.
it also kind of ruined hiccup for the sake of developing him. like. his whole thing is that he can't fight, so he has to find other ways to contribute to society. he's the anti-macho hero. which ends up being important in convincing the village that dragons can be peaceful. he's empathetic to the other, because he's been othered.
meanwhile in httyd 2, hiccup's like. Cool Warrior Man, who needs to step up and be the hero king when his dad dies. he can fight just fine, because he has a cool dragon to fight with. so he's just like any warrior, but one who fights with weapons instead of brute strength. aka most fictional warriors who arent just "the heavy."
the first movie isn't beyond criticism, obviously. the animation was a little meh compared to httyd 2 - i get why visually its seen as an upgrade. plus, httyd 1 also did the thing of having like a last minute evil dragon to defeat... but that wasn't the point. the POINT was the village and its fears. the POINT was overcoming that.
whenever people list why they love httyd 2 and consider it superior, its like... lists of details. like, look at the upgraded character designs, the cool flying scenes, the affection between hiccup and astrid, or the clever way hiccup's prosthetic leg is designed.
but these are film *details*, not fundamentals.
if you told me the sequel to httyd was going to have a much more generic story, ignore the themes of the original and makes its deliberately lanky and weak protagonist into Handsome Hero Warrior Boy, i'd be like. that sounds kinda bad. but the Animation Details (tm) i guessssss
i know hiccup is still "himself" in 2 to some extent, btw. he's an inventor, he's intelligent, and he initially tries to talk to the villain. but none of that ends up mattering. its arguably looked down on by the movie, which really, really wants him to step up to be the warrior king like his dad. aka a generic Hero Strongman.
i'm not totally against evolving the themes of a work to fit new conflicts, btw. sequels should generally be different from the first movie. that's fine. that's expected.
but while the new conflict in httyd 2 IS born out of the results of the previous movie, that evolution feels very literal, not thematic.
namely, the evolution is "more people have dragons now." it builds the conflict from there. its based on worldbuilding, not on theme.
i don't think a very interesting evolution.
it kinda went from, in httyd 1: "the theme is fear of the unknown. how prejudice/ignorance manifests, educating oneself through compassion, the dangers of worshipping violent masculinity, and the importance of questioning what you're taught by society."
to, in httyd 2: "the theme is dragons. who has them? what they want with them? how can the Good Guy humans protect dragons from the Bad Guys? also, being a Good Leader means being a strong Hero Man who protects his friends," without asking any deeper questions related to the themes of the first movie.
and i'm like. guys. guys.
the theme shouldn't just be "dragons."
the theme of the first movie was NOT just "dragons." the first movie could've been about people being afraid of unicorns. or large birds. or unusually intelligent bears. it was not just about literal dragons, it was about societal fears and trying to overcome our base gut instincts.
i think this is what really plagues httyd 3: it builds on the themes of the second movie, not the first.
httyd 3 asks further questions that only really revolve around the literal relationship between humans and dragons. it does not understand any broader themes of what that relationship represents.
it clearly thinks its very intelligent for asking "what do the dragons themselves want?", but that question is not respected enough to be explored in any thematically coherent way.
the only real weight its given is the argument that there will always be "bad humans" out there, and so, dragons are safer in the wild. which sure is... an argument. but its a very "othering the problem" kind of argument.
it acts like its caring about the agency of dragons, but its not really. dragons were not actually portrayed as "oppressed" in berk society after the first movie, nor lacking agency. they were only at risk of "bad individuals", to which that solution is stupid. the racialized bad guy in httyd 2 didn't steal all his dragons from berk. he caught and subjugated them, mostly from the wild.
all while looking like... this, by the way. i feel like we don't talk about that enough. all the good guys are white nordics, while the only man of color is scary, domineering and cruel. in a series of movies that was once about having empathy for the other.
MAYBE if berk had been really oppressive towards dragons in httyd 2, we could've had a theme. maybe if they treated them like a dangerous commodity that must be tightly controlled despite their nominal acceptance and inclusion, we could've had a thematically tight 3-movie arc about like fear and oppression or whatever.
but that would require, yknow... making the movies be about broad societal problems, instead of just evil individuals. and only the first movie cares about making any real societal critique.
also, the solution in httyd 3 would've still sucked. these movies, in terms of writing, really decrease in maturity from 1, down to 2, to the plummeting depths of 3.
there is no relationship of oppression that is solved by completely segregating society and going our separate ways (httyd 3). just like there is no oppression that is solved just by defeating bad individuals (httyd 2). we have to learn to coexist as equals, to educate ourselves and be compassionate to the other. even if we're afraid.
that's the dream only the first movie kept in its heart.
#httyd#how to train your dragon#httyd 2#httyd 3#how to train your dragon 2#how to train your dragon 3#long post /#media analysis#media criticism#writing#ask to tag /#racism /
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Chloe & Heroism
Chloe Bourgeois as a hero early on is a premise that often evokes either questions, like "How" and "Why". Or expectations that she is either already on a path to self improvement, or will be forced onto within a short timeframe.
These are not bad questions and the former definitely are necessary to consider for a story. However the expectations I tend to feel a bit murkier and while I have no issue with how some authors handle this topic.
I want to outline why I think you could do a good "Hero Chloe" story before she gets character development, but first, house cleaning!
1: I have not watched and largely ignore everything post season 3, so don't bother bringing up Derision. Remember, season 1 Kim was afraid of spiders.
2: In canon. Chloe only revealed her ID publicly because her abusive mother she is obsessed with pleasing (who killed her the day before) chose a girl other than her to take to New York & then tore her to shreds in front of everyone.Â
With all that in mind let's examine where Chloe's values and understanding of the world comes from and how she perceives them!Â
1 - Media/Social MediaÂ
This would be a mixed bag, because on one hand they have Mighty Majesta comics that try to instill good values, but also shows built around lying to and humiliating people are evidently popular television and the internet seems similar in regards to pranking VS trying not to be terrible. So she's gonna get mixed signals at best.Â
2 - Her family & CircleÂ
This is where 90% of the problems come from. Of the important adults in her life, her father, mother, Gabriel and Nathalie are all varying shades of corrupt, abusive, cruel and ruthless, while the lesser evils like Jean and Emilie are largely consigned to the role of enablers.Â
Worse still, even if we ignore the emotional abuse, neglect and other elements that led to her both having trauma and her trauma response manifesting in aggression. We still have issues like Andre, during the brief periods he bothered to parent, explicitly teaching Chloe that, Stealing, extortion and threats are all appropriate ways to succeed in life.
IE, she isn't compromising her morality when she does these things, she is very much doing what she is taught was right at least consciously. This isn't helped by a 24/7 Audrey impression as Audrey deems being in her vicinity as reason enough to hurt people unless she deems them useful.Â
Long story short, the values and people she was brought up around are all explicitly some shade of bad, or enabler, or outright teaching her to harm others.Â
3 - Societies & ClassÂ
However, we know from season 2 that Chloe is not entirely unaware that there are issues with this. Because while she spends much time boasting of how she's beloved and brilliant, when stripped of that and exposed to someone she trusts she is entirely willing to confess that she knows everyone hates her and that she feels she has no worth. She may not be able to articulate why or how this came about but she knows something is wrong.Â
Despite this, school is not the best place to figure this out, especially for someone who obviously struggles with social cues and the like. The teachers run the gamut from indifferent and unpleasant, to extremely gentle and accommodating, to simply not wanting any form of drama and usually caving to whoever makes the most noise and none of them have the authority to do much outside of class hours.Â
The class is not significantly better, because students like Kim and Alix can and do casually throw around snark or do pranks and at worst only get brief bursts of anger while Chloe's garner a more intense response. This is because her relationship with the class and motives are varying shades of different, but for someone with issues reading social cues, it's just going to seem like a confusing double standard.Â
We can also see all this demonstrated in her relationship with Adrien, as Chloe clearly takes the lead in their relationship in Origins and outlines her logic behind the pranks, but is then surprised when Adrien seems to turn against her. What's more, it seems Chloe is aware that Adrien is more gentle/naive than her given she tried to educate him on these matters & turns to him for comfort and protection at times, while seeing no inherent contradiction between her expectations for their relationship and how she treats others.
Adrien does not help matters with seeming indifference to how she treats staff.Â
Thus, while she knows 'something' is terribly wrong, actually being able to understand it and work through it is another matter.Â
4 - Chloe's ConclusionÂ
So, what is the conclusion Chloe comes to in order to square all of these circles when she isn't just in full denial mode? The answer is quite simple and even demonstrated in the show itself, playing one's role.Â
IE, Chloe the mayor and style queen's daughter is different to Chloe the hotel owner's daughter and we see this in her being able to stamp down on her usual instincts and slap on a customer service role when Jagged Stone enters the hotel and guide her father into doing the same. VS how she conducts herself during a class election, IE explicitly threatening and extorting people, to how she conducts herself day by day with her Audrey impersonation.Â
A separate example and way she'd view this for others would be that Marinette the baker's daughter of course has to be nice and sweet and giving because that is how customer service roles work, while Marinette the aspiring fashion designer or would be class president is sneakier and will lay traps so people trying to steal from her are sabotaged. This isn't wrong, this is how she expects people to behave when in these circumstances and roles.Â
Final ConclusionÂ
Which is why Chloe could easily play the role of a successful hero, because she would not be "Chloe Bourgeois, mayor's daughter, hotel heiress and Style Queen's daughter" as Queen Bee, she would just be Queen Bee, a superhero.
They have wonderfully defined roles that would be easy for her to pick up & follow through on: assure the public, save people from danger, protect allies, defeat monsters, all things Chloe was shown doing very well when chosen as a Miraculous Holder.Â
I think that eventually the contrast in how she is received as Queen Bee VS Chloe Bourgeois would start grinding on each other and bleeding through both sides of the mask.Â
But the infectious nature of empathy and a larger support network that don't have the worst impression of her would give Chloe the room she needs to explore and grow.
If she is too snippy as a hero, or shows a ruthless side, these won't be taken in the context of "Chloe that person I dislike" but "Queen Bee my ally" and can allow for more honest and even handed reactions that give her the necessary breathing room to grow and change.Â
So yeah, I think season 1 Chloe could have, under the right circumstances, done a great job as a hero be it Queen Bee or another hero even before any outside circumstances or internal changes might have forced her to chart a new course in life.
Provided the role of Chloe and the role of hero do not intersect and become one almost immediately, because in that case it gets a lot harder for her.Â
#chloe bourgeois#miraculous ladybug#Meta#Analysis#Text Post#My thoughts#No shade on anyone who does things differently#Queen Bee#Though it could be any means of being a hero or any Kwami#Miraculous Holder Chloe
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