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all-about-the-tea-parties · 2 years ago

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What I do thoroughly love about House of the Dragon so far is it’s unreliable narration. Right from the very beginning, we’re being given a false sense of history, memory, and knowledge.

It opens with script, much like that of a history book, and then narration - from Rhaenyra Targaryen. This is House of the Dragon, so it makes sense, easily goes by unnoticed as a highly important perspective choice, but the rest of the episode puts everything into question. It is demanding the viewer to ask *why*. It doesn’t seem like it at first because the dialogue, while good, isn’t as witty as game of thrones.

But that’s part of the unreliability of our supposed objective experience. In the game of thrones, we get to see intelligent people unleash their tongues on each other, try to trick each other - but we tend to have all the context for the why. We can guess who is good, bad, in it for themselves, or simply being a dick. Here though, we’ve been framed as if we’re being shown events of the past, as they’ve transpired. But remember, George R R Martin enjoys unreliable narration as a style, it’s extremely present in A Song of Ice and Fire - it never truly carried over because Dumb and Dumber don’t actually understand the story. They know that each character tricks other characters, but they don’t realise they’re supposed to also trick *us*. (Where’s my dialogue of Sansa recounting her last moments with the Hound incorrectly?)

House of the Dragon writers seem to know this.

From Daemon’s speech being cut away from, to the Maester pulling Viserys aside, to Otto’s overt worry about King’s Landing, to Aemma casually saying how exhausted she is, and Rhaenyra’s voice over; we are being set up to make assumptions: Daemon wants power, the maester is unassuming (misogynistic maybe, by consulting the man first, but that’s pretty normal), Otto is a good councillor, Aemma is sick, and Rhaenyra is the titular hero. She is going to tell us the truth.

What is the truth? Who controls the truth?

This is a show based on a book written as if it were a historical document. A book in-world called the Dance of Dragons, and by George R R Martin as Fire and Blood.

We’ve been given a false sense of history, memory, and knowledge. We are falsely secure in our ability to perceive the objective truth.

The seat of all knowledge in Westeros is that of Oldtown; the home of the Hightowers, yes, but also the maesters. (YES im back on my bullshit, paranoia is the flavour of the season! A person commented on one of previous posts before and said there’s big suspicion toward maesters in the fandom and now I’m holding red string and pointing violently at a board.) Maesters are loyal to whom? A king or a lord? The sanctity of knowledge? Money? A god? Victors write the history books, for sure… but who actually *writes* the history books? What gets left in? What gets left out?

As someone with both an English and a history degree, this thrilllllllls me. I could absolutely go on a RANT about how the positioning of the written storytelling tradition as the supreme form of historical archiving in large scale civilisations is a control tactic that weaponises the accumulation of knowledge by maintaining a status quo driven by a literacy line, forcing the illiterate to take ppl at their word about history and tricking the literate into assuming that something is honest and accurate simply because it’s written. Oral tradition is the oldest and most common form of knowledge sharing in human history, yet in literate communities it’s viewed as inherently biased and low class.

(I mean you can even *see* this being discussed in episode ONE w/ the way the Targaryens value their mother language, openly engage in it, how Viserys and every! king! that! came! before! him! safeguards a propechy through memory alone, and how Rhaenyra tears a page in half to the shock of Alicent who values it above all else. Alicent who adores history, clutches the proof of it in her hands, a priceless manuscript that she only even has access to because of her status, while Viserys curates the proof of his city into tangible and accessible art, no doubt a piece of work that any person could engage in, while the Targaryens feel the proof of their ancestors in their language and their stories. *Culturally* we are shown that Oldtown and Targaryens are at odds with one another and how they exert power. Oldtown through literacy, Targaryens through magic. Propaganda vs military strength.)

(Dragons may be otherworldly, but fire power is just a shield. Dragons, as weapons, are a recipe for disaster. The establishment of a literacy culture that actively *prevents* just *anyone* from being able to access or curate this knowledge isn’t just a weapon, it’s a noose.)

If you started reading this thinking I had answers I am so sorry. It’s gotten a bit away from me. I feel like the throw dog sketch.

No answers.

Only theories.

We are not meant to take each characters word for truth, I believe. Instead, we are only meant to view them as human. Capable of misinterpretation, miscommunication, assumptions, and prejudices.

This shits going to be complicated. I doubt there will be a straight answer. Nobody will be easily likeable when it’s done.

#paranoia is the flavour of the season #who are the hightowers #what do the maesters have on them #who is manipulating who #the targs come off as the hurt party in the books #but ARE THEY???#I actually just don’t trust the maesters #you’ve got a giant library and you simply don’t share?#it goes against all my Irish instinct #I come from an oral tradition older that the Christian manuscripts that correct us #I haaaaaate the belief that written trad > oral tradition #esp since it shits on indigenous cultures #can’t gatekeep memory #hotd #hotd spoilers #hotd theories #house targaryen #house of the dragon #theories

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jennagrinsoverml · 3 years ago

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Do you have any Adrien-centric angst fics? Like, fics that will completely gut you emotionally and you have to lay down for an hour after you read it just to decompress?something like that?

I've recced angst fics before, but let's have some SADRIEN hours around here, shall we?

a fight that you were born to lose by @captainkirkk

When the prosecution starts throwing around the word victim in reference to Adrien, he has to stuff his hands under his thighs to keep himself from bolting out of the courtroom.

Adrien had felt unsafe during those last few weeks, but, until he had woken up and seen Father silhouetted in his bedroom doorway, that had only been paranoia. Father was controlling and cold, but he wasn’t hateful. Adrien was isolated. He was often hungry. And some weeks ago, when he had snuck out to visit Nino, sitting thigh-to-thigh on his bed while Adrien cried in that silent, crumbling way of his, he hadn’t argued when Nino put a hand on his shoulder and said, tentatively, That’s abuse.

But Adrien remembers being small and Father touching his hair after he’d aced another test; Father holding his scribbled drawings like they were something precious, and framing them around his office; Father, dressed as Hawkmoth, his eyes wild behind the mask, lashing his sword against Adrien’s baton; Father, collapsed against Mum, crying into her ashy hair.

Adrien finds out Gabriel is Hawkmoth, and Gabriel gets to bring his long-waited plan into action.

One-shot. (But a LONG one-shot--it's 18k.) This one really digs deep into the abuse that Adrien suffers at Gabriel's hands and the emotional fallout from that. Gabriel is really, really, really terrible here. Worse, I don't think it's OOC at all. This fic is gorgeous, but it's a hard read and it goes to some dark places.

Anhedonia/When Adrien Met Marinette... by @mikauzoran

Chat Noir hadn’t been lying when he told Ladybug he’d moved on. It was only when he found out that Ladybug was Marinette that he realized he was wrong. Meanwhile, Marinette thinks that she’s missed her chance when Adrien insists that he’s gotten over his feelings. Now, they’re roommates and making themselves miserable as they pine for one another, thinking the situation’s hopeless. Things finally come to a head, and they’re forced to sit down and have an honest conversation about their feelings.

One-shot. Adrien's just so sad and lonely and pining here, and I'm here for it. I really found myself getting swept away in his feelings as I was reading. This isn't dark and doesn't get into any heavy issues like some of the other fics on this list, but I found that it was very relatable and evoked a lot of emotion.

Adrien and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by @vickyvicarious

Chat Noir's used to bad luck - it kind of comes with the territory. But detransforming in the middle of a crowd of reporters is a little worse luck than he’s used to having.

And he hasn’t heard a thing from Ladybug since.

(AKA the "everyone finds out all at once" angst fic no one asked for.)

One-shot. Oof, does this one ever hurt. Adrien's painfully in-character, and the way he's trying so very hard to stay positive even as his life is completely falling apart and everyone keeps hurting him...it's so him and it packs a punch.

The Importance of the Black Cat by @chatonne-rousse

Plagg gets down almost two full wedges of cheese before Adrien sits down on the edge of his bed with a heavy sigh.

“Hey, Plagg?” His voice is quiet but doesn’t betray any emotion yet. That’s actually more worrying.

Steeling himself, Plagg swallows the last big bite of cheese and zips from the desk to perch on top of the globe, facing his holder. “What’s up?”

He heaves another sigh before looking up into Plagg’s eyes, emotions still unreadable.

“How important is the black cat?”

*****

Adrien has a lot on his mind - concerns, questions, doubts. And right now, he has only one being to confide in. There is not enough cheese in the world to make Plagg want to handle this situation, but his holder needs him, and he knows two things with certainty: his very important place in the world, and that no one hurts his kitten. Not if he has anything to say about it.

One-shot. You want some season 4 flavour Adrien angst? How about some post-Optigami wallowing? I love the portrayal of Adrien and Plagg's relationship with the mix of light and heavy. Pretty sure I still owe Rosie a sequel to this one because I wanted to see more resolution afterwards and made the mistake of sharing my thoughts on that 🙈 It's just very thought-provoking!!

Working Past It by Taitai83

Chat is deeply hurt by Ladybug's actions, and he needs to process those feelings. He finds that confiding in a friend is helpful in finding clarity.

One-shot. Here, have some more season 4 angst! This one is shamefully overlooked. Go read it and help fix that!! Remember when Gang of Secrets came out and we all wondered how Chat would react when he found out Ladybug told someone her identity? This was an early stab at that, and I found the reactions and thought processes here to be so in character. Plus there's some nice marichat hurt/comfort, though purely platonic.

Timetagger 3 by rosebud1000

Years after Hawkmoth's defeat, Marinette and Adrien encounter Timetagger for the third time. And this battle hits closer to home than any other.

One-shot. Here we have some more of the fallout from Gabriel being a shitty parent, only we have an adult Adrien who is a father himself struggling to reconcile how his father acted with his own parental feelings. As a parent, I really felt this one.

Chat Noir's Family by fleurjaune

The thing is-

The thing is Adrien doesn’t actually mean to lie. Not at first anyway, but they have to keep their secret identities secret don’t they?

And his family, well, their tragedy is out there for the world to see and the world did see it.

One-shot. The more Chat lies about his life and his family, the more we learn about Adrien and see how he wishes his life was. And that chasm...really fucking hurts. I wish this sweet boy could have the kinds of relationships and family dynamics he lies about.

Partners by @karkalicious769

"Um." Alya fidgeted nervously as her earrings beeped their countdown. "Ask me a question that only Ladybug would know the answer to."

Chat Noir barred his teeth, and— Were they always that sharp? At least he wasn't growling again. "You are not Ladybug," he snapped.

"Just do it!"

It was all Alya had to go off of and she really needed to pull this partnership together before the akuma got any worse. She wasn't deluded enough to think that she could do this without Chat Noir.

One-shot. SPOILERS FOR HACK-SAN!!! And yet some more season 4 feels because let's be serious, this season is putting our kitty through the ringer. And this fic definitely does it, though by playing with the episode a little. Although we've got a tight Alya POV, Adrien's hurt and suffering is palpable, and made all the worse by how resigned he is. Read this and sufferrrrrr.

#miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #ml fanfic #ml fic rec #adrienette #adrinette #ladynoir #marichat #angst #fic recs #jennarecsml

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doctoranon · 4 years ago

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Jay-Bird Rock.

50′s Jasonette. Or at least a tease of it. This might have turned into a two shot.

Giggling arm in arm with one of her best friends, Marinette swayed into the popular Juke Joint ‘Bat Burger’ on the corner of Gotham’s main street. The music was blaring from the jook in the corner and she couldn’t help but bop along with the rhythm towards their destination, coordination be damned.

Madame Bourgeois had been invited to the Wayne Gala, of course, and when Chloe had learned her father would be declining his invitation (It was election season of course and he couldn't be away from Paris for even a week!) she had decreed she wouldn’t be attending without Marinette. As such, the two girls would soon be in attendance that night, but before that had wanted to enjoy themselves by getting a bite to eat and enjoy the different scenery the American city offered.

Looking over the menu and trying to figure out what sounded good, Marinette would swear she could feel eyes on her, but taking a swift look around, there was no one staring that she could notice. Bringing one hand up to fiddle nervously with one of her ladybug earrings, she figured it was just paranoia from the thought that the Joker gang was known for attacking in broad daylight.

While not something she wasn’t unused to, she was used to being able to fight back as Ladybug. But Ladybug was a magical Heroine from Paris, who dealt with an actual magical villain, not a street brawler or vicious gang in Gotham.

Feeling the presence of someone by the table, the two girls looked up from their menus, expecting to see a waitress ready to take their order, but had to refrain from rolling their eyes at the duo of boys that had crowded them instead.

“Well ain't you birds a knockout.” the first one schmoozed, leaning his arm over the back of the girls seat, putting him clearly into Mari’s space. Unappreciative of the intrusion, Mari leaned away closer to Chloe, raising a questioning brow at the audacity. Is this what Americans considered etiquette? Sharing a look with Chloe she knew she had had the same thought, though probably a little more vicious in execution.

“Beat feet, Chuckle-head.” Chloe snapped, not having the patience for her afternoon to be interrupted, least of all by a couple of Dunderheads. “We’re no back seat bingo girl’s and thoroughly not interested.” she sniffed, the tried and tested daughter of the Mayor act masking her face.

“Aww, come on sweet cheeks, don’t be like that.” The second one chimed in, leering at Chloe with a smirk. “That’s not what’s happening here. We’re just two upstanding gentlemen looking to invite two hot mamas to cut a rug with us.”

The first of the unwelcome disturbances had taken to leaning in closer to Marinette, not leaving her with much room at all, a frown etched deeply on her face. “Whatcha say, gonna hang with us?” he asked moving his free hand to move a stray hair from her face.

Before she could even move her own hand to stop him, another hand grabbed his wrist, stopping it firmly in place. Following the hand up past the leather clad arm, she was met wit the sight of the dreamiest guy she’d ever seen, his black hair styled like a greaser, and his figure cutting an impressive figure. Meeting his eyes, her breath caught and a blush bloomed on her cheeks.

“Hey Doll, these boys bothering you?” he asked, as she melted. His voice was the richest baritone she’d heard and she wouldn’t lie to herself, she wanted to hear him call her Doll again.

“As a matter of fact-” Chloe started before being cut off by the second annoyance.

“Hey man, these are our birds, go find your own.” Well if that wasn’t the wrong thing to say. Marinette watched as the man’s blue eyes turned to ice as he looked at the boys harassing them.

Pushing the one he had a hold of back and into his friend, the black haired dreamboat scoffed, pulling a smoke from behind his ear and placing the tip between his lips. She had no idea how a man could make that so damn sexy to watch, but this one succeeded. Watching him light it up and take a drag, Mari felt herself flush, and reached behind her to grasp Chloe’s hand to keep herself grounded.

Even her crush on Adrian hadn’t been this fast and hard, but the man in front of her was something else entirely. From the way he held himself, brimming with confidence, to the way he expelled the smoke he’d inhaled, he had her craving his name and wanting his presence.

~~~~

Demolishing the Burger in front of him, Jason Todd savoured the flavour of real food. Tonight was the Wayne Gala, and he knew from experience it would be posh finger food and no amount of pleading would change that.

He’d even brought Tim with him on his pilgrimage to Bat Burger. Knowing his sleep deprived brother, he could use the pick me up before the masses of pretentious gasbags shmoozed with them, trying to gain B’s favour. Not that it had ever worked for any of them.

His attention was caught by a swish of pink and a lyrical giggle as a couple of girls passed them by, and his eyes followed, head tilted in interest as he watched the swaying hips and bobbing head of the prettiest girl he had ever seen head towards an open booth.

A nudge from his left brought his awareness back to the fact he was gawking with his burger hovering in front of his face. Taking a large bite he cut his eyes to his brother to be greeted with a knowing smirk. “Ya dont have the time Jay-bird.” Tim told him, taking a bite of his own burger and gesturing with it towards the two girls. “We’ve got about enough time for this before B sicks Alfred or Dick on our tail to get ready.

Jason scoffed as he ran his hand over his quiffed hair, eyes moving back to the girl as she looked at her menu. Pity, she really was a knockout if ever he did see one, but he knew what his brother said was true, they were on borrowed time right now and could probably expect Dick to saunter through the doors at any time to collect them. “Killjoy.” he grumbled back, finishing his burger off in one bite, and wiping his hands on a napkin.

Pushing back from the counter, he reached over to swat the back of Tim’s head. “Come on then, Timmers let's hit the road.” he sighed, twirling his ride’s keys around his finger. He chanced one last look back at the girls before freezing. Two of the Joker gang wannabes were crowding them into the booth, a no good look on their faces.

Protective instincts flaring, Jason gripped his brothers shoulder to divert his attention to the situation, meeting his eyes as they held a silent conversation. Really it was none of their business, but they had the self respect to know a couple of uninterested girls when they saw them, and he was sure Alfred would rake him over the coals if he just let them be harassed, personal interest put aside.

Making his way over, his anger got the best of him as he saw the one guy crowding and reaching to touch the girl who had caught his attention. His arm was already grasping the offending appendage before he could stop himself. “Hey Doll, these boys bothering you?” he asked, meeting the bluest eyes he had ever had the privilege of looking into.

When her friend was cut off, he scoffed, pushing the miserable little snob into his equally miserable pal. Taking his smoke from behind his ear, he put it to his lips and lit it, taking a drag and blowing it in their direction.

“I don’t seem to remember asking your opinion on the matter.” he cut back, feeling his brother take up a position at his back. “But I know you weren't about to continue harassing these lovely ladies, were you, ‘cos you’d be just aching for a breaking if you were.” he warned, speaking through the cigarette before taking another drag and taking it in hand.

He watched as the two boys sized him and Tim up before scoffing themselves and scurrying off, tails between their legs. Smirking he took another drag of his cigarette before turning to the two girls.

“You okay now, Kitten?” he asked, eyes firmly on the black haired beauty, before flickering towards the blond as she started to speak.

“We had it handled” she snapped at him, and he raised a brow, grinning at her attitude before looking back into the blue eyes that had caught his attention.

“I don’t doubt it, but I see two knuckleheads harassing a couple of pretty ladies, I ain't gonna leave them to it. Not how i was brought up.” he said, finishing his cigarette and putting it out on the tray on the table, having to lean over his girl slightly, coming close enough to make out the cute speckling of freckles across her nose.

“Thank you.” the girl murmured, her eyes having not left his since he made eye contact. Jason smirked about to answer back when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned annoyed as hell at the intrusion.

“Jay, come on, we’ve gotta beat feet.” Tim warned, though Jason noticed Tims own eyes sliding past him towards the blonde in the booth.

“Fine, whatever.” he snapped, pulling a comb out of his leather jacket to make sure his hair still fell as he liked it. Looking back at the girl he hesitated, he felt such a connection to the girl for having only shared a few words with her, biting his bottom lip he sighed.

“Guess I’ll see you around, Doll.” he told her, winking. He spared a glance at the blond to see her smirking at him, a calculating look in her eyes. Raising a challenging brow at her, he slapped his arm around Tims shoulders, pushing him from the table and following slowly.

#jasonette #maribat #maribat fanfic #maribat fandom

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bluejayblueskies · 3 years ago

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TMA Fanwork Appreciation Challenge: Lunch Dates

For round three of @themagnuswriters fanwork appreciation challenge! I've only got a few for this one since I don't read as many season two fics, but these are the ones I've really enjoyed!

List begins under the cut:

eight things jonathan sims knows about martin blackwood | jonmartin, rated T | Ao3: angelheartbeat | tumblr: @thoriffix

1. He takes his tea with a generous glug of milk, no sugar, and honey. 2. He's always wanted a dog, but has never been allowed a pet. 3. One of his prized possessions is a vintage record player. 4. He likes to garden. 5. His favourite flavour of ice cream is strawberry (but he thinks it's a boring choice). 6. He knows how to knit. 7. He hates wearing ties. 8. He loves Jon.

A series of missing scenes throughout the seasons! I really enjoyed the level of detail in these and the quiet sort of intimacy they had. The season two lunch date one is number two!

Reconnaissance | jonmartin, rated G | Ao3: boredshyandbi

Entry #1 12 September, 2016—09:04 Subject: Martin Blackwood Current level of suspicion: high Subject status: passive

Observer’s notes: Goal of observation is to determine severity of subject’s alleged lies and identify causes of subject’s recent abnormal behavior. Subject has demonstrated increased preoccupation with observer’s mental and physical well-being e.g. subject’s placement of jar of Prentiss’ ashes in observer’s office, subject’s repeated insistence on the observer “getting some rest”, and subject’s hovering in office doorway Friday morning until observer was able to present empty mug as evidence of having drunk all his tea. Additional cause for suspicion originates from subject’s references to his own deceitful activities found in letter addressed to subject’s mother.

Not sure whom he can trust, Jon keeps a close eye on Martin. A very close eye.

Jon suspects Martin of Gertrude's murder and takes notes on his actions as they spend more and more time together. I really enjoyed the format of this fic, and I thought this fic handled Jon's season two paranoia very well.

Lunchtime Revelations | jonmartin, rated T | Ao3: CirrusGrey | tumblr: @cirrus-grey

Martin invites Jon out for lunch. It goes surprisingly well.

This has a lovely combination of season two lunch date growing-closer vibes and discussions of asexuality, and I love how soft Jon gets about Martin recognizing the asexual flag 💜🤍🖤

For the Sake of Sunlight | jonmartin, rated G | Ao3: WhyNotFly | tumblr: @apatheticbutterflies

Martin does everything he can to lure Jon out of the Archives and get him some fresh air and sunlight. If that means spending some time having lunch with him, it's a sacrifice he's more than happy to make.

Some lovely lunchtime conversations! The line 'it's not manipulative if he's helping' is very Martin, and the idea of Martin taking Jon to a restaurant further and further away each time in order to get him more sun is very sweet.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma fwac #jonmartin #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #fic rec #fic rec list

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 4 years ago

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Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 111

111

Lance had Keith tucked up in his lap, Coran way ahead of him by sending through the ultrasound video. Technology was scary, he’d recorded it, yet in the time it took for them to get home, he’d already received the photos with the measurements and a copy of the video like it was nothing. Keith want to hold him, but Lance was happy with the three blankets over his shoulders between him and the sofa, plus he was doubly happy having Keith there kind of as a protector between him, their baby, and the rest of the world. Pidge and Hunk wanted to make plans for the camping trip, more like snoop if they asked him for the truth, Lance banning them from driving over to see them in this weather, he’d head down tomorrow if things cleared up. Yeah. He was paranoid. Keith hadn’t pried into his paranoia, Lance holding back telling him that stemmed from a nightmare he’d had over losing his two best friends to the snow. He’d tell Keith, but only if he asked.

Watching the ultrasound on repeat, Lance couldn’t get used to the background noises. There was something not quite there, his heart telling him it was the racing heart of their baby. He felt the same as Keith did, that fear that lingered like the fear that lingered after that near miss. With his chin on Keith’s shoulder, he could watch the scan all day now that he was needing to pee

“You okay?”

Keith hadn’t said much, watching the screen as intently as Lance

“Yeah... I still... it’s... wow”

His boyfriend was so eloquent

“You know, we need a name for them so we stop calling them “it””

“People name them? Like before they come out?”

“Some people even have names picked out before they fall pregnant. I suppose “squirt” is the obvious one”

Keith hummed, mind more on the video than the conversation

“Not squirt. That’s how we got them in the first place”

Okay, maybe he was paying more attention than Lance was giving him credit for

“Lots of people go with “bean”. I don’t know...”

“Let me think about it”

“Yeah. That’s probably the smartest idea... ultrasounds look so weird. Like what’s all the grey? I mean, obviously is like inside me and all, but it looks like we’re watching a bad fish film”

“I was thinking the same thing but thought I must be stupid”

Lance melted, nuzzling into Keith

“You are not stupid. This is new territory for both of us. If anything I’m the stupid one for not realising I was pregnant”

Keith leaned his head back against Lance’s shoulder, looking to him with a soft smile

“You’re not stupid. Maybe... we could name it something like “Macaroon”? I mean... if I’m an anger loaf and you’re an idiot crumpet... I don’t know what a crumpet and a loaf make together”

Lance didn’t know why he found Keith saying “Macaroon” so funny. His big bag boyfriend definitely had a hidden sweet tooth

“You’re laughing at me”

“I’m laughing at the word “Macaroon”. There’s a macaroon floating around in my stomach”

His boyfriend snorted

“Okay, point taken. Not “Macaroon””

“Noooo. Let me have this... it’ll be like the longest I’ve kept down food in 37 years”

“You are pretty bad at keeping food down”

“Don’t blame me. I have no control over this body. Sometimes even water gets thrown back up, other times it doesn’t... it’s weird”

“It’s fine. You should eat though”

“But the baby”

“The Macaroon needs food... the idiot crumpet needs food to feed the Macaroon”

Lance snorted at his boyfriend

“If I’m feeding something, then shouldn’t it be like an animal. Like a guppy in all those fish?”

“You’ve been spending too much time on the internet”

“I can’t deny that... alright, I know you’re going to be bossy until I eat. I’ll have a shake now then a nap with my macaroon maker”

“Do you want to try blood in the shake? See if that keeps it down longer?”

Lance tensed. Keith was trying to be sweet, but he didn’t want him going out his way, or making him uncomfortable with his dietary requirements

“I... uh...”

“It’s okay... I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’m not going to be grossed out”

“It’s blood”

“Babe, you drink blood all the time. I might not like the taste, but it’s something you need”

“I never really... I’m still getting used to being able to feed without hiding it”

He’d drank a few times in front of Pidge and Hunk, before overthinking about how they’d be uncomfortable watching him eat. Keith, Shiro, Curtis, Matt, and Rieva, were all different because they were used to this world

“Let me make you a shake. I’ll use a little of my blood...”

Not this again

“Babe. No”

“Not a lot...”

“You can’t”

“Lance, I want to. You’re scared over my blood, so I think maybe we can try just a bit in your shakes and see if that helps them stay down longer”

Keith broke his heart bringing up his jealousy over a strangers blood in his system. To Lance it was food now. He’d fed for so long on blood bags. Nameless blood bags. Sources responsibly, without the donor being harmed. They were of course compensated well too... He honestly feared too much fresh blood in his system would make him an arrogant arsehole. Yeah. He’d fed on Keith... when he’d had to. Keith’s blood was... easily very addictive. He didn’t taste like blood bag blood. He wanted Keith to feel connected with their baby. Not feeling inferior, like Lance was cheating on him repeatedly. He didn’t want to say yes, but for Keith... he couldn’t deny him. He couldn’t deny him anything... the words stuck in his throat... He wasn’t that kind of vampire...

“Lance, let yourself rely on me”

“I do. I need you understand who hard it is still to accept blood from you. Bags are like eating a well seasoned steak that’s cooled enough to lose its tenderness. Humans are like eating that steak while it’s still part of the cow... and knowing you can have the whole thing if you really want it. My teeth cut your lips when we kiss to much... so it’s not I haven’t tasted your blood a lot. Your blood tastes good... You are good. Good not food”

“You sound like you’re deflecting”

“I’m not trying to deflect. Fine. Think of it as having too much coffee”

“You can never have too much coffee. I don’t mean like a lot of blood, just a little bit, and just to see if it helps keep food down for you and the baby. I’ll use some from a bag if you’re going to be this upset”

“I’m not upset. You being hurt would upset... and we don’t know how I’ll react to the scent of blood... If you’re so set on trying this, then wait until Shiro is home”

Keith’s safety was his priority. As the pregnancy progressed he feared he’d need more blood to keep up...

“Fine. But you’re having your shake”

“Only if you finally show me what this secret thing is”

“Deal”

Well fuck. Keith agreed far too readily.

Keith secret turned out to be a letter from Krolia. Though Lance liked to keep things neat and tidy, he respected that there were certain things he shouldn’t be touching or moving, the things on Keith’s desk being one of those cases. He also never touched his boyfriend’s phone or laptop with Keith’s nagging, respecting his boyfriend’s privacy. He knew Keith sometimes messaged their friends privately, and Lance like Keith feeling comfortable doing so. He wasn’t going to be that kind of controlling partner who had to know everything and didn’t trust their partner enough to let them have their own secrets.

Keith forced him into his lap this time. Sitting on the sofa again, Lance sipped his shake slowly, trying to do draw out eating in the hopes if he kept eating it’d take longer to come back up. The blood with the vanilla wasn’t the best flavour combination, Lance didn’t really know how to describe it. Blood lasted like blood to him, but it wasn’t gross tasting like it was to humans. It was only gross tasting now thanks to the vanilla flavour in the shake powder. Opening the envelope, Keith’s hands were shaking

“Babe, it’s okay. We don’t have to rush”

“I’ve had this for like a month now... I need to face it... before Krolia finds out we’re having a baby”

Honestly, if Krolia told him she knew, Lance wouldn’t be surprised. Allura had probably noticed the change in his quintessence... Though Krolia didn’t have fae powers, she was at VOLTRON a lot. Like a whole lot. She easily could have snuck into Coran’s office and found out, or intercepted lab results. Heck, the Blades had 4 werewolves who were probably smarter about this than Matt and Rieva

“We can still take it slow”

“I’ve been thinking about it for weeks... She... I don’t know...”

“Maybe you don’t dislike her as much as you thought?”

“She’s not the same here as she was in Rome”

“That’s good. Noticing that, that’s okay. I’m not trying to pressure you, but if you’ve been thinking it’s time for a while now, maybe it’s time to read this letter?”

Krolia usually tried to say hello to Keith, or to him if she saw them. She wasn’t shooting him, a good sign that he was still in the clear with her, although it could be thanks to the Blade’s being busy. Lance had tried to forget the briefing room board and all the scraps of information on it, trying not to cross the lines or belittle their work... even if it solving the question of where Sendak was would be great. He’d loved to be able to rub in their face as revenge for not telling them about Antok.

Dropping the envelope into his lap, Keith separated the pages, photos falling out. The letter from Krolia was roughly two pages long, Lance noticing immediately that Krolia had enclosed a copy of the photo she’d shown him on his birthday

“Dad...”

The letter was no longer important. Lance taking them from Keith as Keith tried to hold both the letter and the photo at once resulting in the page crumpling. Turning the photo over, Krolia had written on the back

“Keith aged 5 months”. She’d stayed longer than Lance thought. Keith seemed to think it was more a “pop and run” kind of deal. Turning the photo back over, his boyfriend’s tears started soaking into Lance’s borrowed long sleeve shirt

“I think that’s my dad... and my mum”

Lance stared at the photo. Keith’s parents couldn’t have been much older than Keith when the photo was taken. Damn if Keith didn’t have some good looking genes in his family tree. Lance nearly pointing out that Keith’s dad was as hot as his son, then stopping himself him short thanks to thinking of how Keith had lost his father in a fire

“I... I forgot his face... I had a photo at some point but... God. What kind of a son forgets his dad’s face?”

“The kind of son who loses him far too soon. What are the other ones?”

Keith sniffled loudly, his hands shaking harder as he took three attempts to pick up the the other two photos

“God... is that me?”

Young Keith was holding his hippo, the photo older and taken from a distance... Hanging off his dad’s arm, Keith was wearing the biggest smile Lance had ever seen. Both hands holding around the arm in the photo, with his hippo barely gripped as he hung in the air. Lance wasn’t sure for sure it was his dad’s arm, but an educated guess would say it was

“Yeah, that’s you. I’d recognise those knobbly knees anywhere”

“I don’t remember this at all”

“Check the back”

The back read “Keith aged 5”. One of Krolia’s friends must have taken it, or one of the Blades, or even of one Lance’s father’s friends.

The third photo was a photo of a photo. The photo used when Keith’s father had died in the house fire. Keith’s dad really was very good looking, especially in his fancy firefighter uniform

“How did she have these?”

“She said she never stopped wanting to know you. She probably had hunters or friends take photos... I know you’re probably not going to be happy, but she showed me that one of you guys together. She says it’s her good luck charm. She’s proud of you... I’m not trying to interfere here, but I don’t think there was a time that you weren’t in her thoughts”

Keith sniffled hard, Lance moving to kiss his cheek

“Hey, I’m here for you”

“I... what do I tell her? I didn’t get it. She and Shiro tried to tell me and I didn’t get how you could leave your baby behind... and now you’re pregnant, I finally fucking get it. I wasn’t brave enough to read this sooner... she... she’s been respecting my boundaries more and more...”

“You kind of wanted to talk to her before you found about the baby and now you’re worried maybe she’ll only be concerned with listening to what you have to say about it?”

“I couldn’t have faced her if I hadn’t come here. You helped me so much... and she... she walks all over everything. She butts into my life. She shot you. She gets on with everyone else... but she’s... at the Blade of Marmora Headquarters she was terrifying. Like... a walking statue made of gold. Something you shouldn’t be approaching. I felt like she was always looking down at me... I hated it. I fought so hard to carve out my own space but that didn’t matter with her there. She didn’t even come when I nearly got killed. I was pretty desperate, hitchhiking and trying to get to the cabin. Caught a lift and it turned out someone let slip Krolia had a son. No idea who or how they know me. They tracked me down, assuming I was running back to dad’s shack. They were so nice that I thought I was being careful. Shiro was tracking them tracking me. I nearly became dinner. He shot out the windows, flooded the place with light and took me away... I didn’t even know I was in danger until they showed their faces and fangs...”

“You’re both lucky”

Keith would have been lunch. There was clearly more to the story, which Keith had left out

“He knew what he was doing. I had no idea. I thought I was a freak of nature that maybe deserved it. I can’t believe... dad...”

He got what Keith was saying. He tried so hard to find a way back to his dad and now he had part of him returned

“He looks so much like you... You even have that same crease in the corner of your eyes when you smile”

“Do you think so?”

“Babe, yeah. You two against each other photo wise, people would think you’re brothers”

“I can’t believe she had these”

Lance wasn’t sure Krolia had had them. He was secretly sure that out there there would be a file on Keith filled with photos and reports on Keith growing up

“I think she probably always wanted to show you... but that’s okay. Because you weren’t ready before. You made to feel worthless by worthless people instead of being confident enough to see how much you are truly loved. I know it’s hard. When so many people are mean to you, you feel like people complimenting you are only doing so because they’re either lying or laughing behind your back at how dumb you are for believing them. I get paranoid like that too”

“I don’t know what to tell her. You saw me today. I panicked at the idea of Kolivan knowing. I panicked at the idea of be treated differently... I don’t want to be given special treatment...”

“You’re not as weak as you believe you are. If they still see you as weak, then they’re morons. You were in a fucking accident and still cared more about your bike than you”

“I think that just makes me slightly stupid”

Keith bike was still at VOLTRON. Lance assumed it was being fixed, but Keith seemed pretty down about it still. His boyfriend would probably be working on it more if he didn’t have him to worry about

“Nah. I’m shitting myself over you getting back on that death trap, but that’s what you want to do. Your brave. The world hurt you, and lately you’ve showing your face more. I really like it. You keep moving forward and that makes you strong. Your father was so proud of you. I can see it in his eyes. He loved you so much babe. He’d be even prouder if he’d got to see who you grew into. That stuff in the middle, that doesn’t make you a bad person... in his last moments I’m sure all he was hoping for was your safety and your happiness”

“I’m sorry... I think maybe I... I think I need to talk to Krolia”

“You don’t have to be sorry for anything at all. You talking with her is what you need. Again, I’m not pushing, but when we talked... she’s desperate to know you. She loves you. You’re loved very much”

“I want to see the others too...”

Lance nodded

“Tomorrow. If the snow let’s up we’ll head there tomorrow. I miss them too”

“I didn’t think I’d ever miss a bunch of people”

Lance chuckled at his boyfriend

“That’s because we know the coolest and weirdest bunch of people. You’re in with the cool kids, babe”

“And you’re sounding like Shiro”

“Hey, it’s not my fault. I’m totally allowed to be lame when I feel like it”

“You feel like an ice block again”

“I’m thinking of taking a trip to the fridge just to warm up”

“Or we could go to bed”

Lance blinked half a dozen times. Keith didn’t mean that... like that...

“Yeah. More blankets and snuggles sound good”

“Who said anything about snuggles?”

“Me, right now”

“I suppose that can be arranged. I want to make copies of these photos. I don’t ever want to lose them”

“We’ll work that out... like we work everything else out”

Keith kissed his hair

“We make a good team”

“That we do”

#once bitten twice stupid #oncebittentwicestupid #ashratherose

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amplesalty · 4 years ago

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Halloween 2020 - Day 1 - The Stand (1994) - Episode 1 The Plague

Gee, an epic post-apocalyptic story about an out of control pandemic. Never heard that one before.

Much as we like to tie the Halloween season to the Christmas one by opening up with a festive horror movie, why not link back to the TV binging that provided some content to this blog earlier in the year by partaking in this mini series? We’re only covering part one here today as this is like four feature length episodes. In a worst case scenario, the rest will serve as backups that I can plug in if I’m having an off day so to help me from falling behind. But ideally they’ll go up once a week on the same day as a standard movie post. You manage to go back to actually doing 31 entries for the first time in donkeys years and it all goes to your head and you suddenly think you can do 34!

This has actually been on my list for quite a while now, we do love a good (or bad) Stephen King adaptation around here and I have a distinct memory of seeing this on TV when I was a kid. I’m guessing it must have played over a few nights over here at some point or maybe over a bank holiday or something? Not that I really remember much in the way of details, just the cornfields and a creepy face which we’ll get on to.

It’s something that’s stuck with me over all these years, I actually got a copy of the book at one point in what must have been the early to mid 2000’s. Still have it actually, I dug it out for the sake of this entry. Seems it’s a version from 1980 from it’s first run as a paperback in the UK. Seems to have a page or two missing near the start in amongst all the copywright business but otherwise it’s in okay shape.

Even has some writing on the first page that I can only make out in parts, one section seems to read ‘an old man beats a mule’. Or perhaps, more pertinently to this story, a mute...

Cover seems a bit dull and non descript compared to the various other ones that have come out over the years. There’s something interesting to this original version with the two figures fighting, very much a literal take on the good versus evil nature of the story with one figure dressed in light colours and the other dark. The dark figure is wielding a scythe which is obviously closely associated with the Grim Reaper. Seems to have some form of beak sticking out of its hood too and the robes and shoes seem to be almost harlequin or jester type clothes?

I wasn’t really expecting much going into it, especially based on the 1990 mini-series of It. I think because of the nature of It being partly set in the 60’s, as well the contemporary portion which just looks very 80’s, gives it this image in my head of being very dated. Outside of a few actors like Tim Curry, John Ritter and Seth Green, there’s not really any notable stars in it either and even though, Green’s notably arguably came much later on. The Stand though? This thing has some names, even if the bigger ones are just small cameos. Amongst the main cast you’ve got Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald and Rob Lowe. Obviously Ringwald isn’t a massive star or anything and is only really known for that string of John Hughes movies in the 80’s but around this time was peak Sinise. He’s not long removed from starring in Of Mice and Men (...and men....and men...) and would have roles in Forrest Gump, Apollo 13 and Ransom in the following years. Plus that big stretch in CSI:NY in the 00’s. But then you’ve got people like Ed Harris and Kathy Bates showing up, albeit briefly but these guys have some clout. I mean, Bates had just won the Academy Award a few years prior for her role in Misery so maybe she felt compelled to do more work under the King umbrella. Even the more minor roles seem like a roll call of ‘hey, it’s you!’ with Ken Jenkins (AKA Bob Kelso from Scrubs), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the proprietor of Joe Bob’s Drive In, Joe Bob Briggs.

The landscape of TV feels very different today with actors much more willing to work in the field as it’s taken on much more artistic integrity. The greater availability of shows after they’ve aired, be it through DVR, home media or streaming, has enabled people to watch in far greater numbers. There was a time when the big break was deemed to be making it to Hollywood and starring in motion picture epics but it seems more and more that story tellers are moving away from the relatively cramped 2 hour-ish format of the silver screen to having their vision play out over a long form story and the big name actors are following suit. I feel like things would have been very different back in the early 90’s so to have these names attached.

Seems for a long time there were plans to turn this into a movie, it’s even referred to during a ‘making of’ feature on the blu-ray (pretty much the only feature on there I might add) as a ‘motion picture epic’ but this must have been done way into production so either they were confused or trying to mislead viewers for some reason? Apparently in the early 80’s the idea was for the success of Creepshow to finance production of The Stand but took until the early 90’s for everyone to finally settle on the miniseries.

Very much a big budget affair too for a TV Show, $6m per episode. And it’s needed given the scale of the story, taking place in all these different locations, the special effetcs and with so many characters involved with over 125 speaking roles across the series. It’s definitely a jump up from It, even though that had the two different time periods, it only had a budget of $12m across its two parts compared to the $24m here across four parts.

But to finally address the massive elephant in the room, this story centers around an outbreak of a strain of influenza seemingly created in some shadowy government facility. After something goes awry in the lab, a doomed insider pleads with the guy watching the main gate to seal the facility but he instead piss bolts for his nearby house and hurriedly bundles his wife and child into their car as they make their escape. Everyone else is not nearly as fortunate though as the camera pans the facility, lifeless corpses strewn throughout that have seemingly dropped dead in the middle of their everyday activities, there’s even one guy doubled over on a ping pong table. All of this is set to the sounds of BOC’s Don’t Fear the Reaper and culminates with the image of a crow picking at a doll dropped by the child in the rush out of the front gate. The crow features prominently on the front cover of the blu-ray I have, perched atop of a skull. Though, I know they’re going for the whole post-apocalyptic vibe but what about the superflu is causing the road to burn up and crack like that? The bird also shows up a fair bit throughout the episode, I was going to talk about it being a raven and how such birds are linked with ill omen and death but it’s a crow apparently. Who knew? Not me, I’m no ornithologist. It also seems to be very closely linked with a mysterious figure that is alluded to throughout, a ‘dark man’ or monster.

When the original carrier of the disease makes his way into Arnette, Texas, and crashes into the gas station that Sinise’s character Stu Redman is working at, his dying words are of his efforts to escape from a dark man that was chasing him and that no one can out run him. Maybe in that moment you’d think this is just a state of delirium and he’s speaking oddly poetically about trying to outrun Death himself but as the show goes on, more and more people speak of this dark man, almost as if everyone in the grip of this disease comes to share this vision.

And speaking of visions, we can’t forget Mother Abigail and her cornfields. Both Lowe and Sinise’s characters are whisked away in their dreams to the middle of nowhere where a centurion on her porch warns of them of an ominous future. Think Mama Murphy from Fallout 4 only with much less chem addiction. The only thing Mama Abigail needs is her bread. What is it with King and fields anyway? You’ve got In the Tall Grass, plus the corn fields here and in Children of the Corn. There’s probably more I’m forgetting too. It’s either cornfields, writers in distress or killer ‘whatever I can see in front of me whilst I’m pitching this story’ with this guy.

In a way though it’s good that the show takes this supernatural turn because otherwise this would be a little too on the nose to be watching in this current climate. It’s very eerie to see such similar events play out on screen, starting with the widespread rumours and misinformation. It starts out innocently enough with talk of this so called superflu being downplayed, covered up by the government as an anthrax attack or outbreak of swineflu. I remember back to those more innocent times at the start of the year when COVID was naively dismissed as little more than another flavour of the month disease like the swineflu, sars or ebola that would be here today and gone tomorrow. But then you’ve got things like the sense of paranoia suddenly surrounding a simple cough or sneeze, talks of quarantines, social distancing, the implementation of masks (which one reporter describes as not being able to stop a flu germ with a hangover) to the more disturbing scene of lethal force being used against a TV news crew who refuse to surrender footage they’ve shot of army troops disposing of bodies. Granted, we never got anywhere near that level, I think the worst we had was that guy from CNN getting arrested or that Aussie reporter being pushed over.

They even managed to mirror how universal a pandemic like this is, from the common man to the height of celebrity. One of the characters we’re introduced to is a singer who, whilst he seems to be one of the few lucky to have some immunity, still sees his mother succumb to the virus. Just like we saw with the likes of BoJo or Tom Hanks, it really is a great leveller and, as a wise man once said, ‘You might be a King or a little street sweeper but sooner or later you dance with the Reaper!’. I guess we can take solice that we haven’t quite had the societal collapse that this show manages to pull off in less than a week, with Times Square on fire and a guy running around shooting people like he’s in Falling Down. That’s not to say we wont get there, we seem to be hovering more around general civil disobedience right now with the growing frustration of lockdown and PPE spilling out into protests.

It makes for compelling viewing to see how quickly things break down from simply a man having the sniffles to people being rounded up from their homes and ushered into army vehicles. There’s a lot to take in as the show has to establish the events taking place and introducing it’s multitude of characters so there’s not really much room to breathe. Hopefully episode 2 can relax a little now and give the cast some time to grow. There’s still some standout performances though such as Redman’s growing frustration at being cooped up in a test facility, lashing out at the doctors and nurses coming in in their hazmat suits, prodding and poking him. It would have been nice to see more scenes with him and Dr. Dietz. They have one argument where they nearly come to blows before having a big showdown by the end, with the Doc being one of the last staff members left alive, seemingly crazed by their inability to find any answers in Redman’s tests and he threatens to take his frustrations out on Redman by shooting him. He might be immune to the virus but I bet he’s not immune to a bullet. Dietz starts out with this complete lack of empathy, almost to the point of having a rather cheery deposition considering the circumstances, as he finds some fascination in the speed at which the virus causes death. But he becomes more and more short tempered and threatening as the days wear on and it would have been good to see a more gradual descent.

The aforementioned Ed Harris plays General Starkey overseeing the initial bioweapon project and the fallout of it’s outbreak, perhaps overseeing to a fault as it becomes pretty clear from his ever increasing five o’clock shadow, dishevelled clothing and massive bags under his eyes that he’s slept very sparingly since the initial breach in containment. I think for the entire time we see him, his screen never changes from a shot of one of the cooks at the base of the initial outbreak slumped over, face down in the meal he was preparing. It makes a bit of a change to go from the quite verbal exchanges of Redman and Dietz to Starkey’s physical appearance and facial expressions putting across his mood.

#Halloween 2020 #Stephen King #The Stand

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liaroflesbos · 5 years ago

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So I was thinking about Jon’s guilt throughout the entirety of Season 4, and I think Helen’s statement that Jon’s feelings are a “flavour, a seasoning” aren’t quite right. I think they’re food for his god in of themselves.

Jon, our avatar of the Beholding, has always been as much a food for his god as he is a supplicant to/practitioner of. In season one, Jon reveals that he was constantly afraid of the presence he felt watching him as he read, and became crueler to manage that fear. In season two, Jon falls into that fear so hard he becomes explicitly and dangerously paranoid. In season three, I don’t know, actually. I haven’t relistened yet. But we definitely see in the first two seasons how Jon falls to the paranoid fear of being Seen just as much as he feasts on his own self-destructive need to Know.

But this is about season four Jon, fully an avatar and having given in to the paranoia of Eye’s observance. In “The Eye Opens,” when Martin asks if they’re safe, Jon immediately responds that Elias can find them, but this no longer causes Jon any great distress.

No, Elias calls out what upsets Jon pretty early into his second hand monologue (that smug bastard). “The discovery,” Elias-through-Jon says, “not simply of the dark and horrible reality of the world in which you live, but that you would quite willingly doom that world and confine the billions in it to an eternity of terror and suffering, all to ensure your own happiness, to place yourself beyond pain and death and fear. It is an awful thing to know about yourself...”

What Elias points to here is a knew horror of Knowing that we haven’t confronted before, I think. The horror of self-knowledge. Of knowing that you yourself are capable of evil, of cruelty, of anything-for-survival or anything-for-him. The horror of knowing that you doomed the man you loved and all your friends because you weren’t clever enough or kind enough to save them.

Four all of season four, Jon has been topful of this horror of self-knowledge that it’s kind of been the central building block of the season. And it’s just another goddamn way of feeding the god he may want to escape from.

(The only time he was free, I think, are in those few moments with Martin at the beginning of “The Eye Opens.” He’s made his peace with being some form of avatar of the eye without causing more harm. And then--Elias takes that from him too.)

#tma #the magnus archives #tma meta #the magnus archives meta #jon sims #my meta

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lbibliophile-mcu · 5 years ago

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Plums

Written for: @sambuckyevents - Day 1: plums @whumptober2019 - Day 1: shaky hands @buckybarnesbingo - Y4: Sam Wilson / Falcon

Characters: Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson

Tags: PTSD, Bucky Barnes’ plums, Sam Wilson is a good bro

Word count: 630

Also on Ao3

_____

“Hey man, I got you something.”

Bucky looks up in time to catch the paper bag Sam tosses at him. Holding it carefully and away from his body, he raises an eyebrow.

“What? Why… oh, c’mon, do you really think I’d do something like that.” Sam crosses his arms and raises an exasperated eyebrow of his own. “Look, I promise that it’s not going to explode, it’s not going to poison you, it’s not a prank. This is me being nice. If this is the thanks I get...”

He eyes Sam suspiciously for a moment longer – more as a matter of principle than because he actually suspects the man is trying anything – then turns his attention to the gift.

It is a plain paper bag, rolled and scrunched at the top to keep the golf-ball sized globes inside from escaping. He tries to keep the growing smile off his face as he opens the bag to peer inside. Is it…? Yes! Half a dozen dark-purple and perfectly ripe plums.

Bucky loves plums.

It was one of the first things he discovered once he started the process of becoming a person again. He had walked past a tree filled with the ripe fruit, and something had prompted him to pick one. The first burst of sweet juice tasted like pure pleasure: the intensity of flavour and texture almost overwhelming. Every chance he got, he sought out more.

Later, came the memories. Preparing late-season plums for canning with his mother, sneaking slices when she isn’t looking. Counting a handful of coins, and the tart sweetness making him unable to regret the expense. Finding a fruiting tree in an abandoned churchyard somewhere in Europe, and gorging on the fresh produce.

Slowly, savouringly, he reaches into the bag and pulls out a plum. He holds it up to breathe it’s scent. He feels the smooth roundness, firm flesh just dimpling under metal fingertips. He… remembers.

Gently squeezing a plum in his gloved hand, then smiling at the stall vendor and handing over cash – lei and bani. Turning to head back to his tiny apartment, the sounds and scents of Bucharest swirling around him. Panic spiking as he hears a siren, coming towards him, then relief as it passes by without slowing. The persistent feeling of tension, paranoia rising, the certainty that people are staring at him, recognising him. He tries to talk himself down, work through his irrational anxiety, but then he sees the newspaper. Sees a photo of himself where he has never been – and it was a new photo, so he would remember, not like before. Returning to his apartment knowing it is time to run or fight or both, that the bubble of peace he has built is about to be shattered…

“- breathe. You’re ok. You’re safe. It’s just you and me. Everything’s fine. Just breathe.”

The calm voice – Sam – eases it’s way into his awareness. As he listens, the counterpoint of gasping breaths – his – gradually slows and steadies. Other senses return. He can feel the floor beneath him, solid where he slumped to his knees. The scent of plums fills the air; he looks at his hand and sees pulp coating the metal plates, squeezed through the fingers. The rest of the contents of the dropped paper bag have spilled across the floor.

Taking a deep breath, he looks up at Sam.

“’m ok now. Sorry, I just…”

Sam looks at him for a moment, then nods, intent reassurance relaxing into something more casual.

“Hey man, I get it; don’t sweat it. Note to self: I guess a bag of plums is a dangerous gift after all.”

Bucky gives a shaky laugh, as much from the release of tension as the weak joke. Carefully, he rearranges his face into a mournful expression.

“But I like plums…”

#sbweek19 #day 1 #thanks to timezones. it still is (just!) somewhere #whumptober #no. 1 #buckybarnesbingo2019 #bucky barnes #sam wilson #bucky barnes/sam wilson #winterfalcon #ptsd #bucky barnes' plums #fanfic

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sanguisfulgur · 5 years ago

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Please repost, don’t reblog.

Answer the questions for your muse and tag some people.

Muse name: Sharna Adrienne Hikari

Least favorite nickname: Anything to do with how tall/skinny she is. Got way too much of that in school

Least favorite color: Orange, she’s not a fan of neon colours either.

Least favorite season: Summer

Least favorite weather: Hot, sunny and humid all at once.

Least favorite—hot or cold: Hot

Least favorite holiday: Independence Day. Maybe it’s because she’s an naturalised American, not born in the States but she doesn’t really care about it.

Least favorite food: Anything sour/bitter, she’s not a fan of the texture of sushi.

Least favorite flavor: Again, sour/bitter things. Not big on super-processed ‘American cheese’ flavours either.

Least favorite drink: Rum.

Least favorite scent: Rotting flesh and the damp smell mould has.

Least favorite sound: Anything loud and high-pitched: dog whistles (thanks to vampiric hearing it’s a nightmare), most alarms, ect.

Least favorite book: She couldn’t even hate-read the Fifty Shades books

Least favorite movie: The Notebook. As a stalking victim she hates creepy/manipulative behaviour being seen as romantic and rewarded.

Least favorite tv show: Reality shows

Least favorite school subject or area of study: Home Economics because it was always a disaster

Least favorite aspect of their job: Having to occasionally deal with dead/murdered children. It eats her up inside and she blames herself for not being there to stop it in time.

Least favorite fictional character: Joe Goldberg (You)

Least favorite person: Theo Frost & her godfather

Least favorite trait in others: Bigotry and other forms of wilful ignorance.

Least favorite place: Night clubs (too loud and too many people)

Least favorite thing to talk about: Liam’s death at Theo’s hands.

Least favorite thing about themselves: Her paranoia, it stems from mental illness but she hates that she thinks the worst of everyone automatically.

Least favorite sexual position: Honestly it’s not so much the position as being forced into a submissive role.

Least favorite daily chore: Ironing, it’s annoying and usually largely pointless.

Least favorite style of clothing: Tye-dye. Too many bright colours going on.

Least favorite activity: Paperwork is hell, leisure-wise it’s sunbathing. It’s boring and she hates the sun so isn’t keen to lie around in it.

Least favorite superpower: In herself? Um, her supernaturally enhanced hearing probably qualifies, it can be hell even when you’ve learned to filter most noise out.

Least favorite thing about humanity in general: The capacity they have for evil

Least favorite thing about being in love: The vulnerability that comes with it.

Least favorite thing about death: The dead coming back wrong.

Tagged by: @blakholsandrevelations Tagging: @iinterminatis @witheriingsouls (any of your babies!), @sheconqueror & anyone else who wants to!

#of relevance;#Headcanon #{ I'll do one for Salem in a bit too }

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pretentious-clownery · 2 years ago

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when i die take my ashes and make them seasoning for one pack of noodles with the label of “depression flavouring with a dash of anxiety and paranoia”

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gemgeminox · 6 years ago

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MYSHUNO MONDAYS: Seasons Let’s Play, Chapter 23

Chapter 23: Let It Go

RACHEL

Rachel Yi was a true Romantic in every sense of the world; not just for that soulmate kind of love she’d found with Jesse, but in the sense of those old poets capable of looking out across a desolate landscape and finding something to wax about in the beauty of nature.

Moving to an inner city hadn’t changed that about her; she felt the coming of autumn in the air around her, in the newfound crispness and the sense of business that came with the shaking off of summer. It was a change that made her crave flavoured coffee and shades of pumpkin orange; a change that made her want to take to her easel and paint it into life in shades of bronze and terracotta…

… a change that made her want to run free into the streets just to stand and be in it.

The people of her new city weren’t as keen on the changes to their weather.

Well, the changes were pretty sudden.

In Rachel’s experience, rain so sudden and intense brought thunderstorms with it; and, keen to immerse herself in autumn – and distract herself from Jesse’s constant busyness with the Llamacorns for their upcoming season…

… and the fact that she wasn’t seeing as much of him, and her worry that fans of his like flirty Eliza Pancakes might be – she did the one thing she could think of: she got all out of dodge, all the way to a Newcrest park.

She took Tommy and Juliet with her.

Busking Tommy found himself with a Llamacorn amount of fans…

… to which Juliet shook her head and took the chess table, instead.

But Rachel, who could only take so much of Tommy’s music, and had never been one for chess, took to something new – skating.

To various degrees of success.

But the beautiful thing about skating was that when you dropped, you got right back on your wobbly feet and started again.

And she understood, for the first time, the cathartic motives behind Jesse’s love of sports – and that she should apply her motto of skating to her own life.

She went home and danced all her paranoia right out.

#sims #sims 4 #ts4 #sims gameplay #sims 4 lets play #sims 4 lp #sims seasons #sims 4 seasons lp #ts4 seasons lets play #ts4 gameplay #seasons gameplay #sims autumn #sims roller rink #san myshuno #sims newcrest #sims busking #llamacorns #myshuno mondays #simblr

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littlehollyleaf · 7 years ago

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Another thing to keep in mind is that Ed has always kind of had a crush on Lee (sniffing her hair) even when he was infatuated with Kristen, so that mixed with his general insanity, and inability to fully understand love is going to leave him rather broken-hearted this season. I mean, it'd be insane to expect Lee to reciprocate. However, it could end up being a catalyst for Ed to get help...If he's afraid of hurting another person he cares about.

True about Ed always ~kinda crushing on Lee, although… IIRC it was LITERALLY only the fact he knew what she smelled like that vaguely hinted at that? (we don’t actually see him smell her I think? he sniffs KRISTEN’S hair in an extremely creepy and inappropriate fashion early on, but about Lee he only comments to Harvey and Jim that he thinks she ‘smells nice’ - is that right?), so I wouldn’t argue that it was MUCH of a crush really.

That said I do not think it’s OOC for him to crush on or believe he’s in love with Lee (hell, idk, I don’t think it would be wildly OOC for him to ACTUALLY fall in love with her, esp. now that she is embracing her melodramatic side as well as her dark side, meaning they actually have a fair bit in common atm). I just… don’t find it… NECESSARY as an aspect of their plot/relationship.

So basically, like… it WORKS, I guess. It MAKES SENSE as a story choice in the sense that it FITS within the narrative the show has crafted. I just… don’t like/want it *sigh* So I’m not trying to get on a high horse and say that it’s objectively wrong/bad and/or nonsense or anything, I’m just venting my personal distaste.

Been doing that a lot with Gotham lately - how very lame for my followers, I’m so sorry!

I do like your idea that it could act as a catalyst for Ed seeking help though, in order to not put Lee in danger. That’s nice thinking!

Although I’m afraid I don’t share the optimism :( Because Ed NEEDS to get back to being Riddler at some point ofc (sooner than later probably), and since being Riddler seems to me to be symptomatic of his illness, my general assumption is that he is doomed to consistently FAIL to get help (as is the case for, like, all the Batman Rogues I feel? awww).

Considering that, it has always seemed to me that this happy family with Grundy and Lee was the set up for a tragic fall for Ed - giving him a taste of happiness in order to make his inevitable return to madness as The Riddler more powerful/painful for the audience.

So I’ve been prepping for Ed to break with Grundy and Lee from the start and with Grundy it has always seemed pretty likely this would happen with Grundy getting some of Butch’s memories back, realising Ed has been lying to and exploiting him, and so turning on Ed - possibly actually trying to assault him, but ultimately leaving him in any case (though I have made some desperate hopeful speculation otherwise!). Which would then contribute to Eddie embracing being The Riddler again, since he will have lost a key part of the support system that was keeping him from being overwhelmed by his unhealthy thoughts/urges, yeah?

With Lee though I’ve had no thoughts on how she and Ed might eventually part ways… in fact, considering how heartwarmingly good together they’d been of late I was actually starting to wonder if perhaps they might NOT split on bad terms at all - that perhaps Lee would genuinely try to HELP Eddie fight his mental problems, but that in the end the pull to become Riddler again would just be too strong and Ed would run off right back to his previous crazy life of crime, albeit with warm feelings towards Lee still. While Lee is left disappointed, but with some sort of lingering warm feelings for Eddie too, maybe holding on to some hopeful idea that he can still be appealed to and helped… (I actually would really love this, oh, can’t we have this??)

HOWEVER, now we have this sudden, unexpected romance element… I have a new theory on how Ed might end up splitting from Lee -

Because no matter what I’m thinking Lee will NOT reciprocate any romantic feelings towards her from Ed, be they real or not, (as you say anon - that would be ridiculous), so… maybe it’s just because I recently played through the first Telltale Batman (:p), but I’m picturing a variation on the Harvey Dent spiraling into Two Face scenario, as seen in Telltale and also BtAS (since Gotham has given their Eddie a bit of a Two Face flavour after all) -

ie. Ed makes a pass at Lee (leaves her flowers, just blurts out that he loves her, something like that) and she rejects him (I imagine she’d do it really nicely too, emphasising how she values his friendship or some such), but while this is all innocent it kickstarts Eddie’s paranoia (why doesn’t she love me? am I not good enough? does she have someone else? is it Jim? etc etc), which then spirals into darker more violent thoughts (why shouldn’t she be with me? how dare she think I’m not good enough! what does Jim have that I don’t?! etc etc)… leading, perhaps, to him being angry or even violent towards Lee (who will defend herself in kickass ways if that is the case ofc) and ultimately going off in a rage believing that Lee isn’t and never was his friend and he was stupid to think they could ever be friends or more… or possibly slinking off in shame at having tried to hurt her, believing that she hates him now and that he clearly can’t fight his violent urges anyways (oooh that might be quite cool actually)… endgame being that he turns to becoming Riddler again as the only life he thinks he can have…

…in general I guess it might not be a TERRIBLE way for Eddie to tragically fall back into being The Riddler - I do love a good tragedy and all that :) But… I feel like they could do similar WITHOUT any (potential) romance involved… hmmm…

I’ve been a disaster at predicting the show this season however - so hopefully that trend will continue and this will be wrong :p

(one thing I do find curious and that works against my prediction is that Eddie was very ANGRY at his Riddler self when he suggested he was in love with Lee… could be that Eddie didn’t want his feelings mocked/belittled/tainted and/or didn’t want to start having violent urges towards another woman he loves, hence telling that side of himself ‘SHUT UP!’… OR, idk, could be that Eddie ISN’T in love with Lee and he doesn’t want his mind to start twisting his relationship with Lee into something it isn’t and that’s why he’s angry? (kinda like Ozzie being pissed at everything thinking he was in love with Sofia?) he just wants to keep being happy and being friends and not feel compelled to be more… this would fit a reading of Ed as suffering from issues of toxic masculinity and all that - the side of him that’s all about hyper-masculinity is telling him that as a woman Lee ofc should be considered as a potential lover because that’s what women are to men and that kind of nonsense, so he’s trying to resist that…. on the same note, it’s interesting that his Riddler self mocked his acting - his toxic thoughts shaming him for having ‘unmanly’ interests perhaps??)

SORRY ANON, I’ve got WAY WAY OFF TOPIC pls forgive me! thank you for making me think anyways xx and if the show does use this story to have Eddie actually seek help like you suggest that will be cool and I will owe you all the kudos!

#gotham spoilers #gotham: queen takes knight #character study: edward #gotham season 4 spec #...the more different Batman versions I consume #the odder it is that this Eddie has all these internalised toxic masculinity issues #because... that doesn't seem the case for many other Riddlers?#or at least...#it's esp odd that the Riddler persona in this ep #should mock Eddie's acting and so seemingly perhaps be opposed to Eddie's 'non-masculine' characteristics #because... The Riddler is traditionally ALL ABOUT being flamboyant and NOT exactly traditionally masculine?#so... idk... my mind always ends up a muddle thinking about Riddler oy!#Anonymous

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