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kitkatopinions · 4 years ago

Note

The baby boy himself, Whitley!

(for the ask meme)

Whitley is so my baby, I love my child so much. I’m realizing I say ‘I’m really excited for this one’ for like every character I get for this ask game, but it’s because I’m having so much fun! These take a bit to write, but they are honestly so interesting to me, so as an fyi, if anyone does have any character they want to ask my about, but thinks they might be too late, or I might be uninterested, I’m still totally interested! It just might take me a bit to answer. :)

My top three ships for the character

Whitley/Oscar is my top ship for this in canon currently. It works best if Ozpin could somehow be separated from Oscar (which is theoretically possible I guess,) but yeah. Farm boy vs rich boy, they look cute together, their personalities could vibe, and they’re both snarky, but at heart caring and compassionate. Whitley/Mercury. I mentioned this in my Mercury ask, but I was writing a fic with @why-i-hate-rwby-now where Whitley and Mercury were thrown together and had to work together to escape their abusers, and I just kind of started shipping them while writing it. O.O Also Whitley/Penny is cute as heck and I could totally see her grounding him and also making him loosen up, while Penny thinks he’s funny and interesting.

My three least favorite ships for the character

Whitley/Blake. I don’t understand this ship, Blake just feels like more of an adult atm compared to Whitley - a literal child. (Yes, I realize I ship Whit with Merc, but A. I thought Merc was sixteen while I was writing that fanfiction and he acts kind of on the young side, while Blake has been acting ‘as an adult�� and being treated ‘as an adult’ for two seasons at least while directly talking to Whitley, and has always been more of a mature character for her age anyway.) But on top of that, Blake seems to treat Whitley like an in the way child and is kinda judgey to him, while Whitley barely seems to notice her. Whitley/Henry Marigold just feels bad. And Whitley/Yang. Again, Yang has been written as a nineteen year old demanding to be treated as an adult (though I wanna say she’s less mature than Blake) but also Yang is a hotheaded character and has been acting pushy lately, and that’s fine as a character flaw, but I feel like it just puts me off her for Whitley especially.

My biggest criticism for the character

He’s treated like he’s not a victim??? Like, his abuse and neglect and even his struggles are just... Not really gone into or acknowledged very much, Weiss acts like he has to prove himself before she can show him the slightest bit of sympathy or affection when she’s his big sister, his relationship with Jacques is glossed over and he isn’t given closure there, Willow’s neglect isn’t really acknowledged seriously, Winter seeming totally disinterested in him doesn’t feel like it even matters, Weiss is treated as blameless in her and Whitley’s problems. And the writing kind of frames Whitley as having gotten a redemption, when the worst things he did was be a bit of an asshole while in an abusive situation as like a fourteen-fifteen year old with no aura or glyphs or fighting ability. Emerald and Whitley’s volume 8 arcs should not be comparable! Emerald is a full on murderer and was still willingly working with Cinder to attack people as a nineteen year old woman, and yet she and Whitley are treated very similarly by the narrative (helping one person and then that ‘making up for’ their ‘past mistakes’ and then them just being on the good side and carrying the team’s actions until the pathways arrive and they both go to Vacuo. To be clear, I think this framing was too much for Whitley since he never even needed a redemption at all imo, and not enough for Emerald, the literal murderer of Penny who was just recently willingly helping Cinder try and murder Penny once again.) Whitley should’ve been treated as the child he is, he should’ve been treated as the victim he is.

My favorite thing about the character

His potential dynamics, but specifically with Weiss. He and Weiss both had almost the exact same upbringing, only Weiss actually had more support, but guys... The way the two of them coped had similarities, but were also very different. Weiss hid behind anger and sternness, Whitley hid behind peppiness and smiles. Weiss copied Winter, Whitley copied Jacques. Weiss was always afraid of people putting on acts around her, Whitley was constantly putting on acts as a means of survival. Each of them are plagued by jealousy, pettiness, judgmental behavior, and they both have good qualities that are similar, but they both are too prejudice against each other to see those good qualities and need to learn to understand where the other is coming from. Weiss is a fighter, but a follower, while Whitley seems to have a bit of a ‘fawn’ tendency, but plans and enacts schemes under the table (even if it doesn’t have to be, like with Nora! Whitley’s instincts were to just figure out how to help Nora and then go off and do it alone without telling any of the obviously antsy people with guns what he was doing - after he was spying on them lol.) I just love the possibilities that exist with two characters that are so similar, but so fundamentally different. Also I’d love to see him resentful of Winter and snarky and passive aggressive with her, and Winter not really getting the problem, and Weiss having to mediate between them. Idk, there are so many possibilities of amazing interactions and connections Whitley could have with the others, and he could be a really new, good viewpoint if he was allowed to flourish. And maybe became kind of a ‘guy in the chair’ more permanent part of the team. Like, I know we don’t need more character bloat, but let me dream!

A headcanon I have about them

Before Weiss lost her inheritance, Whitley was sort of tasked with learning everything but being head of the company, like he was learning the financial side of things, the technological side of things, ordering, inventory, scheduling, all about Dust and mine operations... And Whitley’s naturally academic and a fast learner, so he absorbed a lot of it. But yeah, I think Jacques was trying to train Whitley up to be a sort of always available PA of Weiss’s that could handle anything she didn’t want to do / was too busy to do, and that was something Whitley really resented too. His skillset was essentially being crafted around helping Weiss, but never learning how to actually manage the company itself and severely lacking in the social side of things, like he’d never be able to make a proper speech. Also, like pretty much everyone I think he plays piano and writes his own music compositions (which in my headcanons he subconsciously writes to include vocals only for him to then get bothered that even his music seems influenced by Weiss. XD) Also I know this is three headcanons, but if he had been trained to fight, he would’ve used duel pistols and would’ve eventually developed a ‘born out of trauma’ semblance.

What I would change about them if I was making a re-write

I’d just allow his status as a victim to be recognized and for him to have the sympathy I feel his character deserves. I’d have him and Weiss both framed as having contributed to their bad relationship, but Weiss - as the sister four to five years older than him - would be the one who makes the first moves towards repairing it, proving she has changed enough to put aside her pettiness and be there for the brother she does truly love. I’d also get Willow away from him, or at least let Whitley be angry and distant and not have their relationship fixed over the course of an in-universe day. This is why I say there should’ve been another Atlas season, which I think is what I’d do when it boils down to it. With every plot point coming fast and then being pushed on the back burner for the next plot point, there’s no time to focus on any of it or to give the character’s sufficient growth from it. So then things like Willow having her hand glued to Whitley’s shoulder feels very ingenuine, because their ‘growth’ was so rushed. So yeah, I’d really just add an extra season and let Weiss recognize that Whitley is also an abuse victim, make her be the one to start making steps to be there for him, and let things like his relationship with his mother come slower and not be an easy fix. Also I’d have Winter acknowledge that she has a brother more regularly and have her actually care about him, even if she hasn’t shown it well at all.

What I I think of their character allusion and what (if anything) I would change about it

Whitley has no assigned character allusion and his name doesn’t offer very many hints, since it literally just means white meadow/field snow, but it’s easy enough to assume that like Weiss and Jacques - Snow White and Jack Frost - Whitley’s character allusion has something to do with the cold. I agree with the general opinion that he’s connected to ‘the Snow Queen,’ and is likely meant to be Kai, a once kind hearted boy who gets a piece of a magic mirror in his eye that only lets him see the bad in people and gets kidnapped by the snow queen. His best friend Gerda goes on a quest to save him - encountering a land of eternal summer and a talking crow amongst other things - and temporarily forgets him due to an enchantment, but then finds him almost frozen over and saves him by crying on him and through the power of her love that literally makes people and nature bend to her will, Gerda rescues Kai and dislodges the mirror piece from his eye so that he can be cheerful again. Pretty in tune with how the writers wrote things. I don’t mind this, but if Whitley is meant to be Kai and Weiss is meant to be his Gerda, there were two missed opportunities here that could’ve been great. One, Gerda is reminded of her love for Kai whenever she sees red roses, and Ruby and Whitley have a few similar mannerisms and kind of similar coping through their ‘cheery exterior’s’ even f Ruby’s lost all her sass and Whitley’s never had her spazzy, dorky, rough around the edges traits. I think it would’ve been cute and make for a more interesting dynamic if Weiss had mentioned to Ruby in volumes 1-3 that Ruby reminds her of her brother, and if it had made Weiss both harder on Ruby (since she and Whitley are estranged and he does drive her crazy a lot lol) but it also made Ruby all the more endearing to her and is one of the reasons they could be friends fairly fast despite Weiss’s early animosity (since she loves her brother and the traits he shares with Ruby compliment hers.) The next missed opportunity I can think of is that everyone thinks Kai is dead in the Snow Queen for a bit, but Gerda doesn’t believe it and goes looking for him instead. You could easily fit this into a narrative where everyone else has given up Whitley as a lost cause, but Weiss won’t believe that and is determined to help and to get close to Whitley again, which is what I think I’d want to go with. But also, a Whitley death fake out? That could be very good and very emotional. And it’d be easy omg. Weiss could think the Hound has killed him sometime during the fight (even if just for a moment,) but also if Whitley had been the first one to fall in the void instead of going through to Vacuo O.O

Idk if we’ll ever get his character allusion confirmed, but if it isn’t someone from the Snow Queen, I feel like the whole fandom will say “What?!” at the exact same time. XD

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polkadotzavala · 4 years ago

Note

I don't know which blaseball team you're on so you can pick the characters but could you do 15 for the prompts?

HI!!!! im a mint!!! sorry this took like a week, i accidentally got a little carried away so heres 2k of OG mins lore (as i see it bc he minty way is that Everything Nice Is True

15: Things you said many miles apart

A collection of Interviews, taken in the weeks leading up to the Formation and Appearance of ILB Blaseball Team, The Kansas City Breath Mints. Found on VHS in a tote bag hidden in the office of Mr. M. Betmint, KCBM General Manager, digitized and filed during the Siesta by Mx. B. Monreal, Season 11 KCBM Interim General Manager.

---

“SAY YOUR NAME FOR THE CAMERA.”

“My name is Whit Steakknife, do you always yell like that?” Whit Steakknife cocks his serrated knife blade of a head to the side. His hands do not move from their folded position on the table.

“THIS IS MY NORMAL MANAGER VOICE.” Calls the voice standing behind the large camera tripod.

��“Okay then Mr., uh, Betmint, was it?”

“YES. I AM MAXIMUS BETMINT. I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS FOR YOU.”

“Ask away.”

“HAVE YOU EVER PLAYED BLASEBALL BEFORE?”

“A few neighborhood grabbag teams here and there, even met my second wife, Justice, playing blaseball.” He flashes his left hand, where a single rose gold band is visible.

“DO YOU PLAN ON PLAYING BLASEBALL PROFESSIONALLY?”

“In the league that’s forming? Maybe, if I get an offer to.”

“IS THE COMMISSIONER DOING A GREAT JOB?”

“Absolutely.” Whit Steakknife smiles, and the interview is over.

---

The following VHS’s audio was significantly quieter than the rest and the video quality was lacking more than the others. Still regarded as adequate data. -BM

- - -

“HELLO INTERVIEWEE. PLEASE SET DOWN YOUR BAT AND STATE YOUR NAME INTO THE CAMERA.”

“So, you acknowledge that it is a bat.”

“WHY WOULD IT NOT BE?”

“Because you folks on this end of the pond do not seem to know what Clricket is.”

“YOU’RE RIGHT, I DON’T. WHY DON’T YOU TELL ME WITH YOUR NAME INTO THE CAMERA?”

“My name is Marquez Clark and I am a Clricket batter.”

“DOES THAT MEAN YOU ALSO KNOW HOW TO BE A BLASEBALL BATTER?”

“I wager I could try.”

“WOULD YOU JOIN A BLASEBALL TEAM?”

“I do not see why not.”

“FINALLY. IS THE COMMISSIONER DOING A GREAT JOB?”

“I do not know who he is but I would assume so.” Marquez Clark picks up his Clricket bat and leaves camera view, ending the interview.

---

“PLEASE STATE YOUR NAME TO THE CAMERA.”

The mime on camera does not say anything and simply hands a paper to the man behind the camera.

“GREY ALVARADO, MIME FOR HIRE.”

The mime, Grey Alvarado, nods quietly.

“IS MIME BITS ALL YOU ARE HIRED FOR?”

Grey smiles and shakes his head no. He mimes the action of using a pickaxe to mine, rocking a baby to sleep, and mixing something in a large bowl.

“HAVE YOU BEEN HIRED FOR BLASEBALL BEFORE?”

Grey nods yes and mimes tapping a blaseball bat on the batting plate and readying a swing.

“WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO PLAY BLASEBALL PROFESSIONALLY?”

Grey smiles wider, as if silently laughing, and mimes hitting a pitch with his mimed bat and then shields his eyes as if looking into the sunny distance to see how far the ball flew.

“IS THE COMMISSIONER DOING A GREAT JOB?”

Grey strikes a pose and gives the camera a thumbs up, ending the interview.

---

“TELL THE CAMERA YOUR NAME PLEASE.”

“My name is Eizabeth Guerra, it's right there on the catering invoice.” Eizabeth Guerra sits in a chair, arms folded over her baker’s apron.

“YES THANK YOU FOR THE MINTY DESSERTS, THE SPEARMINT WILL BE APPEASED.”

“The spearmint will-, nevermind, I came here to bring you catered desserts, not answer an interview.”

“IS AN INTERVIEW NOT PART OF THE CATERING PROCESS?”

“Usually not, Mister Betmint.”

“DO YOU EVER CATER BLASEBALL EVENTS OR GAMES?”

“Occasionally.”

“DO YOU THINK THAT WOULD ALLOW YOU TO HAVE ENOUGH KNOWLEDGE TO PLAY BLASEBALL PROFESSIONALLY?”

“What are you playing at Mr. Betmint?” She leans forward in her chair, getting closer to the camera.

“CAN’T TELL YOU.”

“Alright then.”

“DO YOU THINK THE COMMISSIONER IS DOING A GREAT JOB?”

“I’d assume so.” Eizabeth Guerra stands and tips her cap to the camera, the interview is over.

---

“TELL US YOUR NAME. THE CAMERA WANTS TO KNOW.”

“Oh? You don’t know your own boyfriend’s name?”

“ARE YOU MY BOYFRIEND?”

“I might be, I might not be. I guess we’ll never know.” They laugh a little.

“YOU STILL HAVEN’T SAID YOUR NAME.”

“My name is Boyfriend Monreal, ethereal boyfriend.” Boyfriend Monreal smirks and the eyes dotting their lengthy braid of hair blink in a slow cascading pattern.

“MX. MONREAL, DO YOU KNOW WHAT BLASEBALL IS?”

“I’ve seen a few baseball players now and again, yes.”

“WITH ALL OF THE EYES OR ON A DATE?”

“Yes.”

“HAVE YOU LEARNED HOW TO PLAY THE SPLORT AT ALL THROUGH THIS?”

“Enough, and enough to know what you’re going to ask next.”

“WHICH IS?”

“Whether or not I could play Blaseball professionally, and the answer is yes, I will be.”

“DO YOU-”

“Of course he is,” Boyfriend Monreal stands and winks with nearly all their eyes, “for now.”

---

The following footage, though perfectly intact on the VHS, did not translate well digitally. As such it is incomplete, and regarded as inaccurate data. -BM

- - -

“CAMERA! TELL THE CAMERA YOUR NAME” Betmint sounds a little agitated and out of breath, as if the camera had not being working correctly.

“My name is Rodriguez Internet, and I am the Internet.” Rodriguez Internet bows a little, the ASCII Strings that make up his body shifting to create the movement.

“DOES BEING THE INTERNET LET YOU KNOW EVERYTHING?”

“There is way way too much to know, so I don’t know anything.”

“DO YOU AT LEAST KNOW WHAT BLASEBALL IS?”

“It’s a splort.”

“CORRECT. CAN YOU PLAY IT?”

“I’m down to learn it, yeah.”

“DO-” The feed cuts out, the rest of Betmint’s sentence can be heard in bits an pieces, though nothing discernable enough to tell what he said. The feed returns at the end of his next question, “- A GREAT JOB?”

“Yes, of course he is.” Rodrigeuz Internet tips his imaginary hat as he stands and walks away from the camera. The tape runs for about 30 seconds on an empty room before cutting out, the interview is over.

---

“THE CAMERA IS ROLLING. FEEL FREE TO SAY YOUR NAME AND MONOLOUGE AT IT.”

“Thank you for the opportunity to do so Mr. Betmint.”

“MY PLEASURE.”

“My name is Dickerson Morse, PI. Before you start yelling again sir, I am not here to investigate you.” Dickerson Morse levies the camera a steady dead stare from under the brim of his fedora.

“PHEW.”

“I am here to interview for whatever team it was you were advertising with this poorly made flyer. What are the qualifications I need?”

“WELL, DO YOU KNOW WHAT BLASEBALL IS?”

“I’ve done steak-outs at games before, back when I did larceny cases.”

“DO YOU THINK YOU COULD PLAY IT PROFESSIONALLY?”

“Technically I am a professional at everything, so, yes.”

“GREAT. FINAL QUESTION. DO YOU THINK THE COMISSIONER IS DOING A GREAT JOB?”

“Yes.” Dickerson Morse crushes something small against the table, the video feed fills with smoke and he is gone. The interview is over.

---

“SAY HELLO TO THE CAMERA. TELL IT YOUR NAME.”

“Hello, I am Hewitt Best.”

“HELLO. DO YOU KNOW BLASEBALL?”

“Yes, I do.

“CAN YOU PLAY IT?”

“Yes, I can.”

“WOULD YOU PLAY IT PROFESSIONALLY?”

“Would I get union benefits?”

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT THOSE ARE BUT I THINK SO.”

“Then yes, I would.”

“IS THE COMMISSIONER DOING A GREAT JOB?”

“Certainly.” Hewitt Best smiles and simply walks away from the screen, the interview is over.

---

The video on this tape is nearly indecipherable sue to angelic presence; however, the audio is completely intact. Regarded as accurate data. - BM

- - -

“I THINK IT WORKS NOW. HERE’S A CAMERA, PLEASE SAY YOUR NAME TO THE CAMERA.”

“Eduardo Ingram, Seraph.” The bright spot that is the angelic form of Eduardo Ingram shines a bit brighter for a second.

“And leach ingram, lich.” The darker spot on the film that is the necrotic form of Leach Ingram flickers for a second.

“DO YOU COME AS A PAIR?”

“Well, no.” Eddie laughs.

“Can you blame a lich for wanting to spend time with her partner?”

“CONGRATS ON YOUR MARRIAGE.”

“Thank you.” The two reply in unison.

“HAVE EITHER OF YOU HEARD OF BLASEBALL?”

“I have, yes.”

“Where i can throw a ball in the direction of the plate he can hit it out of the park.”

“WOULD YOU BOTH PLAY PROFESSIONALLY IF GIVEN THE CHANCE?”

The colors of the video shift for a second, as if the two are looking at each other. “Yes.” They both reply, curtly, in unison.

“THE COMMISSIONER. IS HE DOING A GREAT JOB.”

“Yes.”

“Absolutely.”

The video flickers to pitch black before refocusing on the now empty office. Eduardo and Leach Ingram have left and their interview is over.

---

“SMILE FOR THE CAMERA AND TELL IT YOUR NAME.”

“A good dentist never does his own teeth, so I'm afraid mine are a little shoddy.” He flashes a crooked smile.

“ARE YOU BOASTING DENTAL PROWESS, SIR?”

“Well, of course, all the kids say Oscar Vaughn D.D.S is the best dentist in all of Kansas City.” Oscar Vaughn sits back a little in his chair.

“DO YOU DO DENTAL WORK ON ANY BLASEBALL PLAYERS?”

“Occasionally.”

“DO YOU KNOW HOW TO PLAY BLASEBALL?”

“Oh, of course, I was quite the slugger in college.” He laughs, “Quite impressed my dear husband, too.” He smiles fondly.

“ARE YOU AT ALL INTERESTED IN PLAYING BLASEBALL PROFESSIONALLY?”

“Given I dust off my old gear and my old splorts bones, I think I could manage.”

“AND IS THE COMISSIONER DOING A GREAT JOB?”

“Forever and always.” Oscar Vaughn nods his head at the camera and the interview is over.

Note: The tape and digital upload of the tape both glitch and play this interview twice over instead of the one single time. No known reason as to why. Tapes are still valid information. -BM

---

“TELL THE CAMERA YOUR NAME, BE ITS FRIEND.”

“Does the camera have the sentience to make friends, Mr. Betmint?”

“I DON’T KNOW. EXISTENTIALISM IS NOT MY STRONG SUIT.”

“That’s fair.”

“WHAT WAS YOUR NAME AGAIN.”

“Axel Trololol and I’m going to become a car one day.” Axel Trololol beams a bright smile directly at the camera.

“OH, DO YOU KNOW ABOUT CYBERNETICS? I NEED MORE PEOPLE WHO KNOW ABOUT CYBERNETICS.”

“I know my fair share, yes.”

“DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BLASEBALL?”

“Quite a bit, my sibling Stu has been playing for a few years and I’ve picked some of it up.”

“WOULD YOU PLAY IT PROFESSIONALLY?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“DO YOU THINK THE COMMISSIONER IS DOING A GREAT JOB?”

“The greatest job.” Axel Trololol smiles brightly and the interview is over.

---

“CAMERA IS GOING TELL IT YOUR NAME.”

“My Name Is PolkaDot Patterson.” “My name is PolkaDot Zavala”

Call two similar, yet distinct, voices from where PolkaDot Patterson and their shadow, PolkaDot Zavala, are sitting. “WAIT ARE THERE TWO OF YOU?”

“Yes And No, We Are Separate People And Separate Entities, Zavala Merely Is My Shadow. Therefore, She Is A Part Of Me But We Are Not The Same.”

“I am them, and I am me, they are only them, and they are not not me.”

“SO DO YOU DO EVERYTHING EXACTLY THE SAME?”

“Not Always, We Can Move As Separate People.”

“I take naps when they do things quite often.”

“IF ONE OF YOU LEARNED A SPLORT COULD THE OTHER ONE DO IT AS WELL?”

“Within Reason, Yes.”

“I’ll just read the textbooks over their shoulder.” Zavala giggles.

“DO EITHER OF YOU KNOW BLASEBALL?”

“A Decent Amount, I’m Not As Good At It As I Would Like To Be, But, I Will Get There.”

“I’ve sat in on a lesson or two, enough to know what’s goin’ on in a game.”

“WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY BLASEBALL PROFESSIONALLY?”

“That Would Be Much Apreiciated Practice.”

“I don’t really have anything better to do, plus it might be fun.”

“OKAY. IS THE COMMISSIONER DOING A GREAT JOB?”

“Yes, Of Course.” PolkaDot Patterson stands and gives a half bow as they turn away from the camera.

“Naturally, duh.” PolkaDot Zavala gives the other half of the bow as they follow Patterson out the door. The interview is over.

#blaseball #Shadows Friends #(thats my anon tag now)#Kansas City Breath Mints #im not gonna tage all the individual players #Long Post #Anonymous

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lacependragon · 5 years ago

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JNR headcanons?

I’ve already answered Ren, so let’s do Jaune and Nora.

Jaune

1: sexuality headcanon

Jaune considers himself to be pan. He loves the flag, he loves the bright colours and the yellow, and he thinks Pan best describes how he feels attraction.

2: otp

God just anything that puts him with Ren. Martial Arcs, Poly JNR, or JNPR Berries. The hug in V4 killed me, is all I’m saying. I love the way Ren and Jaune balance each other out. Also, Arkos is just a good, classic ship.

3: brotp

Jaune and Ruby remains one of my favourite, absolute favourite, brotps. Their friendship started in the very beginning and has carried through the series, and it’s always been a highlight of any episode for me.

Also, his growing friendship with Oscar is just precious, and a far cry from slamming him into a wall last season.

4: notp

Uhhh. I mean. Not really?

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

Jaune is the singular trans person in his family. He’s got seven sisters and he’s a trans guy. Saphron was the one to understand which is part of why she’s his favourite sister.

The other one is a little sadder: as he moves past his grief for Pyrrha, he finds himself falling in love with both Ren and Nora. This absolutely kills him inside. He feels he can never be with them. He feels like he’d ruin their friendship. He feels like he’s destroying everything they’re supposed to be. Ren and Nora are the couple. He’s not supposed to be part of that. But god, he wants to be.

6: one way in which I relate to this character

"I don’t care what happens to me” still makes me sob.

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

“I lied! Weiss Schnee~ Will you accompany me~ To the dance~ ooooon~ Sunday?”8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

Don’t let the fndm tell you otherwise this boy is a fucking cinnamon roll.

Nora

1: sexuality headcanon

Nora spent a long time thinking she only liked boys, then she realized girls were pretty, and figured that maybe she liked boys and girls, and then her boyfriend told her he might not be her boyfriend and he might not be super into gender and she realized that Ren could be any gender and she’d still love him.

And so now her sexuality is just “shrug emoji”. She’s 19. She’s got time to figure it out.

2: otp

POLY JNR! I love it so much and I think it parallels Renora so well in canon. I also adore Renora. JNPR Berries is good too, in non-canon situations, but I love Poly JNR so god damn much.

I also am a firm believer that Ruby Rose lost her virginity to Nora while they were on the road (Ruby was 16, it’s not that uncommon) because Ruby didn’t want to die a virgin if they died on the road and Nora was like “that’s what friends are for!” And now Yang has figured it out and kind of wants to put Nora into a “light coma” as she calls it.

3: brotp

Nora and Ruby, as I just mentioned. They’re great friends and I love how they fight together. Also Nora’s relationship with Weiss is something I want to explore. They seem like they’d have a good time as friends.

4: notp

Nora is really shippable man, I just don’t think she likes many people.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

Nora is the kind of bro to offer to help you lose your virginity, if you want. She’ll practice kissing with you. She’ll teach you how to please someone. She’s weirdly adept at that stuff because she’s been blue-balled for like three years.

Also, she and Taiyang would be the best friends across generations trope. Like she would meet this man and adore the fuck out of him and adopt him immediately.

6: one way in which I relate to this character

SHOUTY.

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this characterChibi Nora is just a hard time.8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

Cinnamon roll.

#rwby #nora valkyrie #jaune arc #rwby headcanons #lace speaks #asks and answers #ask meme #anons #Anonymous

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littlemisssquiggles · 5 years ago

Text

Rosegardening Headcanons: Fellow Rosegardeners, do you know what’d be cool to see?

We’re already aware that there’s going to be a small Rosegardening Rosebuds moment in the first chapter if V7 where Ruby protects Oscar from an unexpected Sayber Grimm attack and the two exchanges smiles. Well as a nice potential follow up from that, what if…Ruby protects Oscar a second time only this time she uses her Silver Eyes?

Picture it.

Imagine if… the Sayber ambush winds up outnumbering and overpowering our heroes, forcing them to retreat. While our heroes join the remaining Mantle townsfolk in fleeing, a Sayber aims a projectile at an abandoned building. For the sake of this example, let’s say the Saybers are similar to the Manticores where they can breathe fire or shoot projectiles from their bodies. The building falls apart and piece of the debris almost falls on top a little town girl who was trailing behind. Oscar takes notices of this and quickly falls back just in time to push the girl out of the way of the debris as it falls around him instead.

The other heroes stop at this and we get either Jaune or Nora screaming Oscar's name. Everyone is worried that the young farm boy is a goner. But then we get a close-up of Oscar being perfectly alive except for his right leg being pinned painfully under the debris. He tries to pull his leg out from underneath the rubble but to no avail; only causing himself further discomfort and pain.

As Oscar is trying to free himself, a line of at least ten Saybers square up to make him their next meal. But just as Oscar thinks he's officially done for, Ruby drops in in front of him just in time to use her Silver Eyes on the encroaching Saybers.

Unfortunately it's the same like with the Leviathan from Argus. The Saybers are petrified but only temporarily. To Ruby’s dismay, the monsters slowly start to break out from their stone imprisonment. Fortunately by this time, Ruby has already freed Oscar with help from the JNR team who arrived to lend her a hand in lifting the heavy debris off Oscar's injured leg; finally allowing him to crawl out. Jaune and Ren then carry Oscar off together while Nora and Ruby take out the breeching Saybers with their weapons. And as the last Sayber is about to break from its bonds, we get one shot of Ruby turning around just in time to see it lunge at her. It then cuts to black and the scene ends with the sound of Crescent Rose unsheathing and slicing through the air.

When we next see Ruby Rose, she is fine meeting up with the rest of her team. Everyone is back at the air ship. As Ruby arrives, she checks in on Oscar. She finds him laid across the floor of the airship as Jaune tended to his bruised and bleeding, possibly broken leg with his semblance. By his pained expression and how tightly his eyes were shut, Oscar was clearly in more pain than he let off. However he toughed it out as best as he could. Barely cried out in pain as Jaune patched him up as best as he could, while Ren and Nora held Oscar’s hands on either side, watching over him like doting parents. Despite her own concerns for her friend, Ruby breathes a sigh of relief. At least Oscar was ok and that’s what was most important.

And scene.

I think a scene like this could be cool. Maybe not exactly like this. Personally I just would like to see Ruby protect Oscar with her Silver Eyes. I’d also like another confirmation in V7 that Ruby isn’t done mastering use of her Silver Eyes.

The Indomitable moment where Ruby uses her eyes against the Leviathan was admittedly my least favourite part of the V6 finale. We barely got any chance last season to really see Ruby practice and hone use of her eyes after the big reveal in V6 C6. Nor did we get to see her be trained by Maria despite the idea being introduced in C7.

To have her use it in the finale under the air that she had mastered it with cheapened the moment for me. Ruby acting all confident while Maria warned her that she wasn’t ready honestly underplayed the potential role she had as Ruby’s future mentor. Who else wasn’t excited to see more moments of Maria actually training Ruby to be a seasoned Silver Eyed Warrior like she once was ---not necessarily by fighting Grimm but by mostly helping her to understand the know-hows of getting in the right frame of mind that she needs to use her power.

We could even get to see Ruby learn a thing or two about combat from Maria. I understand that she’s technically retired and hasn’t fought since she lost her eyes in her youth but…I still think our pocket abuelita got that ole kick in her step. I still think if Ruby were to spar against Maria she’d swipe the floor with her ass regardless of being out of practice for XYZ amount of years.

If the second half of V6 leading up to the finale had been focused ONLY on the Threat of the Leviathan and there was NO Adam Taurus confrontation or Cordovan Mechazord vs JNR_QROW, that could’ve saved us a couple of episodes that could’ve then been dedicated to character development. Such as Ruby actually receiving some training sessions with Maria while staying in Argus. But instead Maria was made kind of useless after V6 C8 and the finale episode made it worse.

If there is one thing I liked about the finale, it’s the little bits of Ruby conveniently---I mean cleverly using Jinn to save her when she tried to use her powers the first time and of courses fails. That and her powers failing yet again to petrify the Leviathan completely.

I took this as a clear sign that Ruby still has much more to learn about becoming a Silver Eyed Warrior and I hope that is taken advantage of for V7 moving onward. And the reason why I’d like another ‘Ruby uses her Silver Eyes and it fails’ moment is to reaffirm to the audience that this is the crutch in her ability. That it wasn’t just thrown in only for the V6 finale to give the episode a chance to have Cordovan show up to finish off the Leviathan. I sincerely hope we don’t get Ruby oneshotting Grimm with her Silver Eyes. I like the idea of her still struggling with her powers which would give Maria an actual role for V7 and the Atlas Trilogy.

But these are only my thoughts here so we’ll see for the new season.

More RWBY Character Headcanons

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#rwby #oscar pine #ruby rose #oscar and ruby #rwby rosegarden #rwby theories #rwby rosebuds #rwby rosegarden headcanon

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valasania-the-pale · 6 years ago

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Unforgivable

This takes place post-V6 and presumably pre-V7 in that happy little space where the party finally gets to settle down in their new locale before diving headlong into a new set of problems. Please enjoy! This can also be considered a spiritual successor to my other drabble, ‘Contemplation.’

Either he was getting better at noticing changes in his surroundings, or Ruby was truly exhausted, because when she slipped out of the small apartment provided to them by the Atlesian military, Oscar was aware of it. That alone surprised him – travelling with a group of huntsmen (‘Not yet’ a voice whispered back at him, not his own) was stressful. Not only did they attract terrifying monsters seemingly by chance, but they also managed to constantly surprise him.

Huntsmen were quiet. They were skilled. They needed to be to stalk their prey, and in the ‘killing Grimm’ category, his companions were particularly prodigious. Sadly, he was a mere farm boy and they often managed to sneak up on him without meaning.

‘You’re improving,’ the other voice whispered again, part in amusement, part just stating a simple truth.

Oscar scoffed, suppressing the tiny glow of pride in his chest, but the other presence noticed it anyways and flickered with amusement.

His mind returned to Ruby. It wasn’t the first time she’d slipped away from the group to be alone. According to Weiss it was extremely unusual behavior for her – Ruby tended to cleave to her friends when emotional or troubled. The heiress had been very offput when he’d confided in her about it; she’d waived him off at the time, but Oscar didn’t need help from his other half to realize that she was more troubled she hadn’t noticed it herself.

What was Ruby doing? Was she just trying to get away from everyone for a little while, find some privacy? After living with just his aunt for several years – punctuated by the frequent visits of neighbors and distant relations, especially during harvest season – Oscar could appreciate how overwhelming it could be to suddenly be surrounded by people day and night. Hell, he felt the same way when he first joined up with Qrow and RNJR for the first time, never mind the additions of Ruby’s original teammates.

‘…Go talk to her.’

“What?” Oscar muttered back. He wasn’t quite used to the mental conversation thing. It was far more comfortable to speak aloud when possible. “Maybe she just wants some privacy, I don’t want to be rude!”

Ozpin shifted – an interesting, if decidedly odd feeling, constrained by his own little partition of their shared consciousness as it was. ‘I don’t believe that is the case… at any rate, I want to speak with her.’

Oscar hesitated. “If you’re sure…?”

‘As I can be. This has been long in coming anyways. Better now than after we meet with James… Powers know what will happen after that conversation.’

“Fine.”

He grabbed his cane from the countertop he’d been fiddling with it on, the handle fitting his hand like a glove. Thankfully he’d elected to stay dressed – Solitas was, quite frankly, freezing. To an extent Oscar hadn’t felt since the bitter winters of his early childhood. The lining of his coat was particularly good at keeping out the chill.

Ruby’d been wearing her cloak, but aside from that just wore her usual attire… Thankfully her footsteps were clear in the fresh snowfall, not yet destroyed by the passerby that would undoubtedly turn the white blanket into grey slush come morning.

A few blocks down – not far enough to be worrisome, far enough to feel distant from the rest. Up some stairs, and there she was. Protected from the snow by a decorative awning, Ruby shivered on a bench, staring out over the Atlesian skyline.

Tense – and still not sure he wasn’t interrupting some sort of private moment of self-reflection or somesuch – Oscar of course tripped on the last chair, startling Ruby out of her contemplation. “Oscar!”

“Uh… hi?”

There were shadows underneath her eyes, and Oscar felt Ozpin measuring the slump of the girl’s shoulders, as well as the sag in her usually excellent posture.

If she noticed his once-over, she didn’t show it, instead putting on a concerned expression. “Is something the matter? Everyone’s alright, right?”

“Yeah!” Picking himself up, he walked over to the bench. “Yeah, nothing’s wrong, just saw you leaving and figured I’d… um.”

Oscar floundered for a moment, suddenly aware that he hadn’t followed her for any particular reason. ‘A little help?’

Ozpin chuckled, a sound Oscar only knew from Ozpin’s memories – when he took the reigns his voice was Oscar’s, if inflected differently. It was a different man’s laugh in his mind.

He felt the nudge, like a hand slipping into a glove, except the glove was his body and the hand was Ozpin’s mind slipping around Oscar’s. It was quite the feeling, and one he hadn’t realized he’d grown familiar with until Ozpin disappeared entirely for the last few days. Oscar surrendered to the loss of agency willingly, becoming just a presence in another’s mind, watching from his eyes as a passenger.

Through those eyes he saw Ruby’s silver widening in recognition as Ozpin shifted posture, both hands resting on the handle of their cane, shoulders evening out in that just-so manner that Oscar’s aunt would have cried to see.

“Oh… Professor Ozpin.”

“Miss Rose. If we’re not interrupting anything, I would like to have a chat.” Oscar could feel the distance between Ozpin and his words. The formality, the coolness bordering on warmth – it was the tone he used to greet new students at Beacon, the tone he’d used to first greet Oscar himself that fateful morning. Jovial, polite, and perfunctory… but still undeniably the voice of a stranger speaking to another stranger.

Ruby blinked, some emotion passing over her face before it shifted into something resigned. Or maybe resolved. Oscar couldn’t really tell – he was used to drawing on Ozpin’s muscle memory and tactical memories, not so much the social kind. Those were a bit more… personal.

At any rate, she didn’t say anything, just mutely nodded and sat back down. Ozpin joined her, leaning forward to put his weight on the cane, just staring out over the Atlesian skyline.

He and Oscar both could sense the tension radiating from the girl. Among the myriad emotions swirling within his other half – more than Oscar had ever felt at once from the older soul – he could feel a trickle of pity and, surprisingly, empathy. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“It’s so much…” Ruby whispered. “So many buildings… like Vale, but so much more high-tech… This is where Weiss grew up.”

“Indeed. It’s not too hard to see how Miss Schnee could come to be the woman she was when she first arrived at Beacon when her origins lay here.”

“It’s nothing like Patch.”

Sadness, a faint memory of a childhood spent far from the city, stars overhead and forests surrounding. Oscar marveled – the images were not his… yet they were so similar to his own, save for perhaps the constellations.

“Atlas is spectacular… though I find myself longing for the days when Mantle was ascendant. Perhaps it was less prosperous, less populous, and dare I say even less beautiful, but there was a pioneer spirit to be found here. The feeling that if you just worked hard enough, for long enough the faintest of dreams were within your grasp.”

“Kind of like Beacon.”

“Yes. The best huntsmen came here because of the city’s lack of natural fortifications, Grimm were still drawn here like moths to the flame. It was slow, but progress was made, and all so suddenly the city was rising before my eyes.”

Oscar saw a flat plain, broken only by the random outcropping of grey stone. Hardly the kind of place one would put a city, with so little in the way of natural fortifications. Grimm would wash over this place like a dark tide, and yet…

Dust. Someone, somehow, managed to discover a truly incredibly vein of Dust. That justified the settlement. The mines. The mistreatment, though he could only watch on in sorrow, a mere visitor – a stranger – hoping against hope that things would change.

Change it did. The vein led to deeper tunnels, more intensive mining, new veins and even more Dust. Soon the settlement grew to a city. Alsius coming into being after the war. The military moving in, providing even more protection as more of Mantle’s population moved to the thriving boom town.

Amidst sorrow, toil, and sweat, a city rose to supplant its parent, eclipsing it in all things.

And then it rose. The mines finally ran dry, but the city would not be deterred. They were Atlas, now. Like the Vytal stadium, the best minds worked in concert and the city moved itself to a new vein – discovered underneath the old capital… too late to save it from ignominy.

Oscar gasped – was it a gasp, if it only happened in his mind? He was not used to falling into flurries of memory like that. It was always nudges or feelings, the briefest glimpses of thought from Ozpin.

‘Hiding did me little good before,’ the older soul admitted mentally, outwardly silent as he and Ruby gazed out on the skyline. ‘And though I don’t believe you’ll pry again, you also don’t deserve me shutting you out entirely… and wasn’t it just incredible, seeing the change?’

‘Yeah,’ Oscar thought. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that… it was like the crops back at home, but bigger. And faster.’

Ozpin chuckled in his mind, almost but not quite hiding the shift Oscar got from him. He was steeling himself for something.

Beside them, Ruby shifted uncomfortably. She was so tense he couldn’t detect her shivering any more, but Oscar could tell her mind wasn’t on the sights any more.

Ozpin broke the stalemate.

“I wanted to tell you that I was sorry, Miss Rose, for deceiving you.” Ruby flinched, otherwise frozen, but remained silent. Ozpin carried on. “I’ve had a fair amount of time to reflect on the last few months, and on my behavior since the fall of Beacon. I haven’t been fair to you, or your teams. I expected too much from you, and didn’t correct you when you made your own assumptions.”

“Professor—”

“No, I don’t want there to be—”

“Professor.”

Ozpin fell silent, halted by the ragged note in Ruby’s voice. The smallness, like he hadn’t ever heard from the girl. She clenched her fists, refusing to meet his eyes, her gaze fixed on the city like it was her prey. “Professor, what we did…” Ruby shook her head, brow furrowing. “What I did was wrong. It wasn’t my business to ask Jinn that question… I shouldn’t have pried.”

Oscar blinked – no, that was Ozpin, Oscar could only feel the slightest edge of bewilderment and sorrow from his other half. Ruby was shaking. His own gold-flecked-hazel orbs tried meeting hers, tried to lock with her gaze to convey… something, Oscar couldn’t tell what Ozpin wanted to do. But they wouldn’t turn.

“I was impulsive,” her voice cracked. “I was cruel… I was a bully.”

Oscar recoiled as the tears began to flow. “I wasn’t thinking about what would happen when I asked, I was just thinking about needing to know… I didn’t want to trust you. I didn’t trust you to not lie again – to hide whatever it was from us behind something else… I’m sorry.”

Their hand rose, hesitantly hanging in the air as the girl buried her face in her hands, cutting herself off from them entirely. Should they comfort her, should they say something? Oscar had no reference, and Ozpin was hesitant to push… worried that too much would break the fragile soul beside him, a feeling he knew too well.

They let the silence hold for a few seconds. Oscar could feel him ruminating in the back of their mind, feel the faintest swell of emotion, of empathy.

‘The harshest criticism comes from within,’ the older soul whispered sadly, a sliver of sympathetic ice spearing their heart. As it had only days before.

Their hand fell, and Oscar watched from the back of their mind as Ruby had her cry. They were a silent presence beside her – had the adrenaline just run out? Was it just the day, the fight, the horror and shock as their plan fell apart around their ears? Or perhaps it was an older wound than that – is this what she did, each time she vanished out on her own?

‘This must be really hard on her too,’ Oscar remembered sadly, images from their shared memories, neither one nor the other’s alone. Ruby knew what to say to make him feel better, at least that one time. He felt helpless now.

‘It is hard on us all – she isn’t ready for this,’ Ozpin frowned. ‘None of you are. In many respects.’

‘No kidding.’

Several minutes passed before Ruby pulled herself together. Minutes that Oscar spent in his own partition, blocking everything else out and seeking some of that peace his aunt tried to teach him in the garden pulling weeds. Away from it all.

“It seems we’ve both made our mistakes.” Ozpin commented after Ruby wiped her eyes.

“Yeah.” Ruby sniffled, looking for once utterly pathetic.

“I’m sad to say, as your teacher, that they only tend to pile up as the years pass by.”

Ruby gave a watery laugh. “I don’t think they have to be this bad.”

That drew a smile from their lips. “We live in interesting times… it used to be said that those were the sort of times you cursed being born into. It’s still a saying in Mistral, if I’m not mistaken.”

Ruby wasn’t distracted by the old man’s intentional rambling – Oscar could only watch from the background as the professor tried guiding her back out of the hole she’d dug for herself.

“I really am sorry, Professor,” Ruby said again, finally turning to look them in the eyes. Pain shone in those silver orbs – as well as guilt, and sadness, and exhaustion.

‘She really needs a good sleep,’ Oscar observed.

‘I wouldn’t say no to that, myself.’ Something felt lighter in his other half. His emotions were a swirling mess – more chaotic than Oscar was used to feeling from the controlled, reserved soul. But it was a good chaos – there was no hiding, no shying, not even from himself.

“I forgive you.”

Eh?

He said it so simply. Like it was nothing, and yet…

“What I did was unforgivable!”

“Well, I forgive you anyways.” There was a note of humor in their voice, entirely Ozpin. He… meant it. Why?

‘Hm.’

He wetted their lips, choosing his words carefully. “Maybe it was unforgivable… It certainly hurt, more than I believe you can even comprehend… but…” Ozpin paused, his mind casting very far back, farther than Oscar had ever felt before. “…I learned long ago that forgiveness is the surest path to peace… I have committed many sins… ‘More than any man, woman or child on this planet,’ I believe I told you… Yet I have met many hundreds of people willing to forgive me, trust me, to be my friends and confidents… Those are the people I have treasured most in my, very, long memory.”

Naked emotion shone in Ruby’s silver eyes, as well as the faintest glint of tears. “I don’t deserve it.”

“’Deserve?’” Their lips quirked. “No… you don’t. But it is my choice. You didn’t mean to hurt me, though you did. Your actions were not born of malice, though their results struck truer than many a mortal enemy I’ve faced… and you clearly feel remorse.” Ozpin hummed, eyes distant on the horizon, peering far back into that ancient memory Oscar couldn’t quite view. “Maybe I shouldn’t forgive you… maybe I should hold onto my anger, lest you tempt me to lower my guard again… but I won’t. I don’t want to. I won’t let her win.”

“Professor…”

“Ozpin. I may still be your teacher, but while we journey together, I believe it wouldn’t be too out of line for your to call me by my given name.”

‘Such confusion!’ Ozpin chuckled.

‘Ozpin?’ Yes, he was confused, and would like an explanation please?

‘I don’t like grudges, Oscar. Perhaps you may feel differently – and I will not urge you to choose anything not to your desires – but I will not torment Miss Rose further when she clearly loathes herself for what she did more than I ever could. Better to bury the hatchet and move on.’

Not parley to their mental exchange, Ruby stared in bewilderment at them. “Does that mean we’re… friends?”

Ozpin mentally blinked – he was too outwardly controlled to let such a tell go unchecked. It was another distinctly odd sensation to feel from a mind. ‘Not the question I would have asked.’

‘Ruby is Ruby.’

“If you would like to call it that, yes.”

That seemed to break her out of her shell a little, because she smiled. It was weak – tentative – but it was something. “Well, my friends call me Ruby.”

Ozpin smiled wryly. “Ruby it is then.”

“Yang is still mad at you.”

Their eyebrow quirked.

“Indeed, and I don’t believe I’ve forgiven her for the ‘bastard’ remark – my mother was a wonderful woman, and happily married.”

“Uncle Qrow’s drinking’s been getting worse.”

“Neither I nor Oscar have forgiven him that right cross… and shan’t until he pulls himself out of his despair enough that he apologizes himself. Oscar can speak for himself on the matter.”

“I still don’t trust you entirely, even though I want to.”

“I don’t believe I shall ever forget what you made me go through, at least not for a long while… but hindsight truly is crystal clear.”

Ruby let out a laugh, hugging herself. “Dust… I’ve made so many mistakes…”

“The Leviathan was a particularly impressive fuckup, if you’ll pardon my language.”

Her arms tightened. “I was only thinking about getting to Atlas…”

“Tunnel vision,” Ozpin remarked clinically. Oscar marveled – he was so… casual about it. About all of these terrible things. The lightness in his spirit refused to be dampened. “It’s a trap even the best fall into. Huntress you are, you were trained to work with goals in mind. If things had been different, Glynda would be working you to the bone even as we speak on repercussions, law, and the more mundane skills to learn. Like critical thinking.”

Ruby groaned, burying her head in her hands.

“Now now, Ruby. You managed to clean up after yourself, and only a few people were hurt.”

“The gryphon pack grounded three of the Argussian airships and thirteen people were injured,” she muttered.

“And a steeple,” Ozpin threw in flippantly. “Never forget infrastructure damage – Glynda was always on me about the migraine of paperwork involved in that.” He folded their hands. “Indeed, your failure endangered countless lives and might have had grievous repercussions… but such is the life you have chosen to lead. Entrusted with the lives of Remnant, your mistakes will cost many more as the years go on. The trick of it all is to reduce the mistakes, and ensure that those that are, for the most part, preventable, do not occur.”

“How can you be so… casual! About this?!” The bewilderment was back.

But Ozpin had an answer for her – one that drew on some of the darker clouds in the morass of his soul. They had just the slightest hint of sharpness, self-loathing. Some irony. “Because I vividly remember a time not so long ago that my lack of foresight and passivity cost me my home, my school, and thousands of people their lives. Even after thousands of years the simplest mistakes to make are made, and there is little to do about it save to pick yourself up, do your best to ensure it never happens again, and move on. Such is life.”

Ruby laughed into her hands, a sound suspiciously close to a sob, and Ozpin patted her gently on the shoulder. Thankfully, she didn’t dissolve back into tears and her moment passed.

“Will you come back after this?”

“I will to meet with James… I don’t believe that Qrow is up to the challenge of countering James’ ego… nor his paranoia.”

“But what about… us? The group?”

“I…” Ozpin paused, eyes flickering down. “In time. A few days isn’t very long. It speaks to your character that you are willing to forgive so quickly… I am not so… inclined.”

‘What happened to the ‘no grudges’ thing?’ Oscar asked.

‘You’ll find that there’s a difference when the other party actually feels remorse for their misdeeds. I don’t like grudges… but I am not a saint.’

Ruby straightened up. In spite of the exhaustion clinging to her frame, she looked more like her normal self than she had all day. “I’ll talk to them,” she said resolutely. “Yang is angry… she’ll be angry for a long time. So will Jaune… Blake will listen, I think. So will Ren. They can help me with the others.”

Curiosity.

“And Miss Schnee?”

“I don’t know about Weiss…” a shadow passed across her face. “Being in Atlas is hard for her, she’s scared her dad will come after her when he hears about her being here. I don’t want to push again…”

‘Ah.’ Ozpin hummed. “Give it time. Impatience got you into this mess, patience will, hopefully, be the cure. I appreciate your effort all the same.” To both his and Oscar’s surprise, he meant it.

“Thank you, Ozpin.”

“Thank you, Ruby.”

#RWBY #Valasanias drabbles #Ruby Rose #Oscar Pine #Ozpin #RWBY Spoilers #Post-V6 #Pre-V7 #I just want these two to talk it out #This is probably a lighter version of that conversation #I've seen some really harsh emotions from Oz #In other stories #Which I get #But I'm curious to know how this will be recieved #Please let me know what you think!#Feedback encourages me to write more

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frasier-crane-style · 6 years ago

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Elseworlds

Well, Tumblr isn’t dead yet and the CW-DC just did a big crossover, so I think it’s time to make fun of the CW........ for the last time.

Did you know Tim Allen actually ended Home Improvement after season 8 because he knew the show couldn’t maintain its level of quality and was on the way downhill? Tim Allen has more creative integrity than anyone involved in the making of Supernatural. Think about that.

Anyhoo, lots to digest! Largely, this crossover felt to me weirdly lackluster and obligatory, like the whole thing was just a trailer for the oncoming Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. It just felt unambitious, which is the last thing an ‘event’ like this should feel like. In fact, it felt a little like I imagine the result would be of filming a bunch of people playing DC Universe Online. We visit Smallville and see Lois Lane! We go to Gotham and meet Batman...’s cousin, and fight a breakout at Arkham Asylum, complete with Mr. Freeze...’s gun and the Scarecrow...’s fear gas. Then, we wrap the whole thing up with an Evil Superman, because God knows, DC never gets bored of that.

-Petty nitpick department: Batwoman just standing around on rooftops looks weird. Not only does it give the odd impression that she’s spent the entire time between episodes just, uh, standing, but c’mon--you’re supposed to crouch. Or at least hunch. Everybody knows that!

-Weirdly missed opportunity to have Ollie do the Flash narration, considering all the other opening narrations are futzed with.

-The whole thing is pretty much a glorified body swap--Stephen Amell is playing Barry Allen and vice versa. I can see how TPTB would be too pressed for time to explain a whole ‘nother continuity where Barry Allen became Green Arrow and Oliver Queen became the Flash, but still, it’s not as much fun.

-They also wholeheartedly borrow the thing of Ollie having to be happy to use Barry’s powers and Barry having to be mad to use Ollie’s ‘powers’ from the episode of Teen Titans where Raven and Starfire switched bodies. So, I guess, congratulations on making the central plot point of your crossover the same as a half-hour episode of a children’s cartoon.

-Remember that time Barry was too happy and too confident in his abilities, so his dad died?

-They got a good actress to play the Lois Lane to this Clark Kent, considering they both just look kinda awkward? His chin looks like he had a face transplant done and her nose looks like someone is constantly Photoshopping it.

NHHHA, He-Man!!

-Don’t do a callback to Smallville, show. Oliver Queen has now spent more time in costume as the Flash than Tom Welling did as Superman.

-Direct fucking hit when Oliver said that Barry couldn’t take a crap without getting a peptalk from his team, but on the other hand, Oliver can’t take a crap without Felicity wondering what it means for their relationship. “Oliver didn’t tell me he needed to go to the bathroom! Why wouldn’t he trust me?”

-I’m just saying, last season on Agents of SHIELD, pretty much every character was in a relationship--there was not so much damn drama. It’s a fucking body-swap plotline, guys. You don’t need to treat it like it could lead to someone’s divorce! Really, at this point, if you’re in a relationship with a crazy superhero, you should be used to it.

-(Although I suppose I’m a little hard to please here, since over on Legends of Tomorrow they suddenly expect us to care about Constantine rescuing the love of his life when we’ve seen their relationship for all of four seconds. But hey, like I said, Agents of SHIELD manages a happy medium and finds time for Ghost Rider to show up.)

-For the post-apocalyptic hellscape they make Gotham out to be, the police respond awfully fast to disturbances.

-”We’re on the corner of Burton and Nolan!” Groooooan.

-Ruby Rose, everyone: the Less Convincing Michelle Rodriguez. It’d probably a bad sign for how compelling Kate Kane is as a character that everyone would rather talk about where Batman is and why Batman would leave. And, speaking as someone who both watched Birds of Prey and The Dark Knight Rises--Rocky, that ‘Batman Retires’ plot point never works!

-(Is Batwoman even that popular a character to get her own spin-off? I suppose she’s ‘TV show’ popular, but still--I think she’s one of those Batfamily members that is somewhere behind Alfred but ahead of Ace, right next to Azrael. And I do think it’s hilarious that TPTB were insistent on casting a real, authentic lesbian!!!--and then immediately got complaints that they didn’t cast a Jew. Oh, Ziggy, will you ever win?)

-I don’t want to be too hard on Ruby Rose here. Yes, she doesn’t showcase anything other than one mode: Snide And Slightly Pouty (Stephen Amell ain’t winning no Oscars, but he can differentiate between Ollie As A Civilian and Ollie In A Halloween Costume). But the writing does her no favors in making a case for this character as being deserving of any amount of screentime, besides the fact that she dresses like Batman, the guy we really care about. She’s a heroine, as are featured variously in every Arrowverse show. She’s queer, as is Alex Danvers, Sara Lance, John Constantine, et al. She’s rich to the point of having unlimited resources, as are (sometimes) Oliver Queen, Barry Allen, Kara through her billionaire friends. She lives in a crime-ridden hellhole, as Ollie has done for several seasons. What makes any of this compelling? The Gotham setting? Arrow has already turned itself into an effective facsimile of that, to the point of having Ra’s al Ghul show up to make Queen into his son-in-law. Arkham Asylum seems completely generic, as does Wayne Tower. It’s all just a different part of Vancouver; who cares?

-Likewise, Supergirl, speaking to you as a TV show--you really should either be adamant that Kara is heterosexual or give her a weirdly flirtatious scene with Batwoman, but not both. I know you need, need, need to let the audience know Batwoman is a lesbian...

Pictured: The CW subtly letting you know about a character’s minority status.

But c’mon. We’ve been over this.

-Speaking of minority status, maybe it’s not the best idea to let slip that John Diggle is an AU John Stewart. Yes, there’s ten brothas in the DC Universe, and four of them are actually the other six. There are so few Negros on Earth-1 that they had to make Barack Obama into a superhero. The Batfamily has two black folks and they’re both related to Lucius Fox. There’s so few black people in Metropolis that Black Lightning knows who his father is!

Folks, the DC Universe is so white, the Black Lanterns are all dead. The DC Universe is so white, they don’t even have black Kryptonite. The DC Universe is so white, even Black Condor is a honky. The DC Universe is so white, they don’t even need a Justice League of Africa, they just have a Batman of Africa! The DC Universe is so white, the blackest guy on the Justice League is a refrigerator with one-half of a brother’s face on top of it. The DC Universe is so white, they named the black woman on the Teen Titans after a bug that’s half yellow! Now Milestone, the Milestone Universe is black. It’s so black, Aquaman is the most powerful superhero there, because he’s the only one who can swim!

(-I’m planning on being chased off of Tumblr like Indiana Jones after he snags an ancient artifact.)

-Would it be that hard for them to go to Arkham and run into the Ventriloquist or Orca or someone memorable, so long as they have access to the Batman toy chest? We got, uhh, Lady Who Can Pick Up Gun and Psycho Pirate I Guess? Like I said, unambitious. Wouldn’t it be so much cooler if they got someone from Gotham to film just one little cameo?

-Also, considering the sex scandal these shows have had, maybe it’s not the best idea to joke about their EPs being depraved maniacs? (Was Guggenheim the one who actually got MeToo’d? Because if so, Dude--Not Funny)

-The show had to character-shill Batwoman so hard that Ollie and Barry stopped being fear-gassed just to reiterate that she is too an interesting character in her own right! (If the characters have all heard of Batman, wouldn’t they have heard of Batwoman too if she’s been an active vigilante more recently?)

-But who cares about four unstoppable superheroes teaming up when we can find out how Felicity feels about her relationship? Just a thought--if you fight with your SO all the time about nearly everything, maybe you shouldn’t be in a relationship.

-Long story short, Doctor Destiny rewrites reality again to make Barry, Oliver, and Kara into supervillains in a world where he’s the hero. He also makes the other characters into pointless cameos, and weirdly gets criticized by Kara for... not giving himself a sex-change operation by becoming Superman instead of Supergirl? He doesn’t have gender dysphoria, Supergirl. I thought she was all about trans issues this season?

-Like, I don’t know, if a woman used a magic lamp to wish herself President, would anyone criticize her making herself a lady President instead of a man President?

-I guess it wouldn’t be Supergirl unless they crowbarred in an extremely awkward girlpower message where Superman and Lois agree that Supergirl/women in general are more useful than men, despite the fact that all Supergirl did was the exact same thing as Barry, while Superman and Oliver fought Dr. Destiny, and all Lois did was call in a bunch of men as reinforcements and then need to be rescued.

-But like I said about being unambitious--wouldn’t it be fun to see our heroes be forced to team up with a few supervillains to save the day? Instead, we just have Cisco playing a villain (something he’s done numerous times before). They get his help, have a weirdly poor showing in a fight against Jimmy Olsen, get Superman’s help again, yadda yadda.

-We also get Superman proposing to Lois Lane. Yeah, considering they’ve been in a relationship at least since Supergirl Season 1, she’s carrying his child, and they’re planning to move to an alien world together, yeah, I should think so? I know Superman probably isn’t a Republican, but does anyone think he’d be so blase about putting a ring on it? Hell, if nothing else, he should want to tie the knot before Ma or Pa bite it. Couldn’t they have just made it that he wants to renew his vows with Lois in a Kryptonian ceremony or some such?

#dc comics #arrow #supergirl #the flash #elseworlds

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theoffice-cris · 7 years ago

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The Wedding Invitations

Set somewhere in season 8.

“Oh! Oh! oH! WOOAH! Yeah! In your face Dunder Mifflin!” shrieked an excited receptionist, causing the rest of the office to fall silent in curiosity of what was suddenly going on.

Jim and Pam exchanged knowing looks before the pregnant woman hesitantly rose from her seat and waddled over to reception.

“Erin?” she said, a gentle smile resting upon her lips as she leaned over onto the desk in attempt to alleviate the pain from her aching feet. “You okay?”

“Huh? Oh! Yeah..” the younger girl squealed, bouncing in her seat as she brought the envelope to her parted lips. “I just--"

Unable to finish her sentence due to her excitement, she jumped out of her seat and shoved the opened envelope into Pam’s arms. The older lady smiled as she retrieved the content of the envelope and began to read it.

“Go ahead, read it aloud!” Erin sang.

“Uh... Sure.” Pam agreed hesitantly.

She’d known exactly what it was just by looking at the envelope, she and Jim had received an identical golden envelope two days prior. However, she couldn’t decline while Erin stood mere seconds away from exploding with more of those shrill squeaks.

“Erin Hannon, your company has been requested at the celebration of Mr. & Mrs. Scott on April 29th..... Be there or be square.....lots of love Michael and Holly Scott.” she read.

Pam: So, Michael and Holly came to visit us a few months ago and Michael asked Jim to be best man.

Jim: After much consideration, I accepted.

Pam: And by much consideration, he means he said yes immediately after Michael ‘popped the question’.

Jim: I---That’s---okay, listen--

Pam: Michael thought that he had to get down on one knee when asking his best man to do the honors. And I must say, Michael’s proposal to Jim was pretty more romantic.

Jim: More romantic than the day I proposed to you?

Pam: Oh yeah.

“Did you and Jim get invited?” Erin asked.

Pam flashed a smile to Jim, “Yeah we did. Actually Jim is Michael’s best man.”

“Oh!” Erin smiled faintly, before snatching her invitation back. “That’s cool.”

Erin: So, I kinda thought that I’d gotten invited before Jim and Pam. Yeah, I got really excited. But turns out, they’d already gotten invites and Jim is his best man.... I guess Michael remembers me at receptionist number two. But hey, that’s totally fine too! At least he remembered.

“So, your invitation to Michael’s wedding came in today huh?” Phyllis asked, absentmindedly tracing the edge of the reception desk.

“Yeah!” Erin smiled. “Wanna see it?”

The girl anxiously handed the envelope to Phyllis who silently declined. “Uh, it’s okay. I heard it when Pam read it, then when Andy read it and when Kevin tried to read it...”

Without another word, the larger woman regretfully returned to her desk.

Phyllis: So, Michael and Holly’s wedding invitations have been sent out. Apparently, they’re all hand written by Michael. Which in Michael Scott, that means that they’re only inviting the ones that he really likes... I haven’t gotten one.

“Hey, uh, Gabe...” Toby said, hesitantly approaching the lanky man. “May I ask you something?”

Toby: Have I received an invitation to the wedding? Well, ya know.....No... But, something tells me to remain hopeful.

Gabe turned in his seat, "Sure, what can I help you with Toby?”

“Well, it’s uh, about this wedding invitation thing...” He started.

Gabe resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He’d gotten so tired of hearing about the wedding invitations. People were bragging about what had been written inside of their invitations as if it had been written by someone who, well, wasn’t Michael Scott. He didn’t see the appeal.

To be fair, his opinion on the whole ordeal could have a bit to do with his own invite.

“No.” the blue eyed man sighed.

It didn’t exist.

Toby smiled a small smile as he left to return to his desk, not giving Gabe the chance to elaborate on what was inside.

Gabe: No, I wasn’t invited. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. Michael Scott is a part of Dunder Mifflin’s past and as far as I’m concerned. I forgot he existed.....You know, if this office focused their energy on working rather than some poorly crafted wedding invitations it would make my job a heck of a lot easier.

“And so I told her, “If my boyfriend left me in the middle of the food court like that I would just kill myself.” Kelly blabbed to Ryan who had been too busy playing Solitaire to truly process what she’d been saying.

“Uhuh.” he hummed.

“Oh yeah. By the way, my wedding invitation come in this morning.” she said. “I can’t believe Holly never asked me to be a bridesmaid.”

Ryan frowned, “Why would she have asked you to be her bridesmaid?”

“Um, because you need at least one smoking hot bridesmaid to model the dress. Duh.” she snapped.

“Right.”

“Please join us, Meredith Palmer as we celebrate the union of Michael and Holly Scott on April 29th. You’re invited, yes. You have to come to both the ceremony AND the reception. Not just the reception. It’s my wedding day, not just a celebration of free booze.”

Angela rolled her eyes, “Meredith, how could you be so proud to read that aloud? He’s openly insulting you by insinuating that you’re an alcoholic.”

“Who cares?” Meredith bit back. “Where’s your invitation?”

Angela brushed a stray strand of hair from her face before stomping off to her desk.

Angela: No, I didn’t get an invitation and frankly I do not care. The senator and I have a very important dinner that evening anyway.

Andy impatiently tapped his fingers on the edge of his desk, he’d been burning with questions since the start of the work day. He stormed out of his private office to stand in front of the reception desk.

“Excuse me, may I have everyone’s attention please?” Andy asked, clearing his throat. “Can I have everyone in the conference room, ASAP?”

Without any questioning, the conference room was full and all, well most attention had been on Andy.

“It has come to my attention that Michael has sent out wedding invites to his friends here at Dunder Mifflin and--”

“You brought us in here to talk about some damn invitations?” Stanley asked, definitely not amused.

Andy nodded, “Yes, but it was only take a few minutes.”

Rolling his eyes in annoyance, Stanley returned his attention to his Sudoku puzzle book.

“As I was saying, about those invitations...” Andy returned. “Just out of pure curiosity, show of hands: Who here has received an invitation?”

His eyes darted across the room as he called out the names of those who’d had their hands raised, “Tuna and Lady Tuna--Halpert duo, D-Dog--”

“Ugh, could you please not refer to Dwight as ‘D-Dog’“ Angela groaned in distaste

“Right-o. Halpert duo and Dwight.” Andy corrected,��“Erin, Oscar, Daryll, Kelly, Ryan, Meredith and wait, Stanley? Really?”

“Is there a problem with that?” he asked.

Andy quickly took a step back, “No, no. Of course not. Alright, well... Everyone return to their stations.”

Andy: How could I not get invited? I mean, he invited Stanley? STANLEY!

The regional manager put on a brave smile until the only person left in the conference room was Dwight, who only looked at him and confidently brushed past him to return to his own desk.

Dwight: So, Phyllis, Toby, Creed, Gabe, Kevin, Angela and Andy didn’t get invited to the wedding? How interesting.

“What’s in the box Dwight?” Jim asked as the bespectacled man stood in the break room brooding of a small, unlabeled cardboard box.

Dwight scoffed, “Right as if I’d tell you.”

Jim flashed a glance at the camera before sipping his coffee, “You know... I think I overheard the others guessing what you had in there. Wanna know what their guesses were?”

“I do not.” Dwight said, abruptly leaving Jim in the break room alone.

Jim whipped out his cell and sent a text to Pam, asking her to join him in the break room.

“Hey, what’s up?” Pam asked, absentmindedly rubbing her belly.

“You notice that Dwight has been walking around with that cardboard box all day?” Jim whispered, careful to not interrupt Creed who’d been reading a newpaper.

“Yeah.” she said, placing her hands on her hips. “What about it?”

“I’m almost positive he’s hiding something. He won’t let it leave his side.” Jim said, “He even carried it to the bathroom with him.”

“Ok, gross.” Pam frowned.

“We need to figure out a way to get the box away from him.” Jim said, rubbing his chin. “I think I have an idea.”

“Good morning all.” said the CEO as he placed his hat on the coat rack.

Everyone immediately scrambled for something to make themselves appear busy.

“Good morning, sir!” Erin smiled.

“Ah, Robert. Good morning.” Jim said walking over to Mr. California. “May I speak with you privately?”

“Halpert.” he said, looking Jim in the eyes in an attempt to read him and get a gauge on what he wanted to talk about. “Is this about a raise?”

“Uh, no. It’s not.” Jim said. “The uh, email you sent me?”

“Then, let’s get down and dirty.” Robert said, gesturing to his office. “Shall we?”

Jim nodded and walking into the room, the CEO following close behind. Pam watched out of the corner of her eyes, trying her best to hide the smirk threatening to grace her lips.

Pam: So, Jim and I learned that the great Robert California has a hard time working through his email. And sometimes, he accidentally sends emails to the wrong people. So, if you go up to him and say “About the email you sent me” he will bring you his office and ramble about random things that make no sense.

Jim: Ultimately it’s about random emails he’s sent throughout the day but the things he apparently emails about are fantastically entertaining.

Pam: He doesn’t really give you a chance to tell him exactly which email he’s talking about. So, Jim and I conjured up a plan to tell Robert that he had received an email about a promotion for Dwight.

Jim: Which buy us just enough time to swipe the box see what’s inside and put it back before he even realizes it’s gone.

She quickly gathered some papers and made her way over to knock on Andy’s office door.

“Ahh, if it isn’t Lady Tuna and Mini Tuna!” Andy smiled, “Come on in.”

Pam quickly closed the door behind her.

Jim emerged from the office, wearing a face of varying emotions as he returned to his desk.

“Can you believe it?” Jim said to Dwight. “This guy is actually thinking about investing in the beet farming business.”

Dwight slowly turned his attention away from his computer.

“I actually told him that there weren’t any beet farms near by so I couldn’t give him an idea on what business would be like here in Scranton.” Jim said. “Pfft, that’s-- I can’t believe I lied to him... I totally forgot about Schrute Farms. I need to go back and put in a plug for you--”

Dwight quickly stood to his feet, “No, you stay right here. You’ve screwed this up enough.”

Without so much as a glance at his mystery box, Dwight stomped over to Robert’s door.

“Ah, Mr. Schrute. Just the guy I needed to see.” Robert said, “Come in, close the door.”

Jim: And I learned that if you go up to Robert about investing in any non- conventional business, he will be all ears. So, it’s like a double whammy.

Jim quickly swiped the box into his arms once Dwight closed the blinds to Robert’s office and he joined Pam in Andy’s office.

“Alright, you guys. As regional manager, I should say that it does not look good that I am condoning the theft of someone’s personal belongings and--”

“Shush!” Pam hissed.

Jim carefully unfolded the flaps of the box, careful not to rip anything as he opened it.

Everyone gasped when they realized what was inside.

“Are those--” Andy started.

Jim reached into the box and sifted through the envelopes, “Kevin Malone, Phyllis Vance, Angela Martin, Creed Bratton, Gabe Lewis, Toby Flenderson Trashy Shiterson, and---”

“Andy Bernard!” Andy cheered. “YES!!!!!!”

Andy: “Nard-Dog, you are cordially invited to the union of Michael and Holly Scott on April 29th. It’s gonna be the kickass party of the year, yo!” How could I possibly have believed that Michael would have forgotten about little ol’ me?

“This is awful!” Pam whispered, “This is exactly why Michael should’ve just mailed them all to everyone’s houses rather than to the office.”

Jim nodded, “Yeah, well I was trying to do everyone a favor by not giving him everyone’s addresses.”

“So, what are we gonna do?” Andy asked. “We’ve got to let these guys know that they actually did get invited.”

“I’ve got an idea.” Jim smirked, “But Andy, this won’t work until we get you to cooperate.”

“Sure, anything!” Andy nodded.

“I’ll go return the box.” Pam said swiftly exiting the office with the box in tow.

“I got an anonymous call that an employee in this building is feeling unsafe and is requesting that I do a check.” Hank the security guard said.

Andy exited his office, putting on his best serious face, “Hey, Hank. What’s the problem?”

“I gotta check everybody’s bags and make sure nobody is carrying anything threatening.” he said, an annoyed undertone in his voice.

“Alright, everyone. Hank here needs to take some security measures. Please cooperate. It’s going to be quick and painless so long as everyone cooperates.” Andy said.

Hank sighed as he walked over the reception desk. “Bags: briefcases, purses; box: plastic or cardboard; Anything that can hold or conceal any item. Put ‘em on your desk. Imma start with you little lady.”

“O-Oh! Uh, okay!” Erin said, quickly slamming her cross body bag onto the desk.

Everyone watched has Hank conducted his search, he’d gone through nearly everyone’s things except Jim, Dwight, Pam and Andy’s.

Eventually, he’d made through everyone’s things but when he’d gotten to Dwight. He’d finally gotten some resistance.

“You do not have to go through this. It’s just an empty box. Can’t you tell by how light it is?” Dwight spat.

“Oh come one Dwight.” Kevin groaned. “He’s gone through everyone’s stuff.”

“Yeah, just let the man do his damn job.” Meredith added.

Kevin: When Hank was going through my briefcase, he found a couple of condom wrappers; empty. I was pretty embarrassed. Now, people are going to start thinking I have sex in this office.

Hank opened the box and pulled out the contents of it. Everyone’s eyes shifted to the person next to them when they realized how familiar those golden envelopes looked.

“Dwight stole the remainder of the wedding invitations?!” Gabe asked.

Everyone gasped, and soon the entire office erupted with chatter.

Oscar: What an interesting development. Dwight actually hid the invitations from these guys? You know what? That’s a new low. Even for him.

Kelly: As it turns out, Dwight was hiding the invitations all along. That’s pretty crazy, right? I mean, I knew he was mad that he wasn’t Michael’s first choice as best man but neither was Jim. Originally, Michael wanted Ryan. I wonder what he would have done if he knew that he wasn’t even second choice.

Ryan: I totally knew about Dwight stealing the invitations. Michael texted me and told me that he sent a bunch of invites here to the office. Dwight picks up the office mail and leaves it for Erin to sift through. Why didn’t I say anything? Well, he bought my silence after I asked him for mine. 200 bucks.

Toby: Would you look at that? I actually did get an invitation. It wasn’t the nicest thing I’ve ever read but it’s better than nothing. I should remember to thank Holly for getting me a spot.

“Dwight, how could you?” Angela spat.

Dwight walked away from the angry blonde to the break room where he could reflect on his mistake.

Dwight: I simply failed to consider every possible angle. I should’ve put them where no one in this office would have thought to look. The handbook drawer in the annex.

Jim: In search of entertainment, we found this. And it was interesting-- To say the least... But I guess, in a way, Pam and I are heroes.

END.

#the office #the office scenario

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agentnico · 7 years ago

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Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) Review

Can we all just take a moment and accept the fact that Mark Hamill is great......okay, everyone accepted? Cool, onward with the review!

Plot: Rey develops her newly discovered abilities with the guidance of Luke Skywalker, who is unsettled by the strength of her powers. Meanwhile, the Resistance prepares to do battle with the First Order.

With me always saying that I have superhero and Star Wars fatigue, I find myself in the strange scenario where I actually enjoyed ‘The Last Jedi’. I mean, that’s a good thing, but it makes totally walk back against my own words. Anyhow, my main issue with ‘The Force Awakens’ was that it was basically a modern rehashed version of ‘A New Hope’. And enjoyable rehash at that, but a rehash it still was. So, my obvious concern walking into ‘The Last Jedi’ was, “is this gonna be a rehash of ‘Empire Strikes Back’?”. The answer luckily is no, this is actually a fairly fresh film in the franchise, however there are some call-backs to ‘Empire Strikes Back’, most notably the scenes where Luke Skywalker is teaching Rey the Jedi ways where you can easily compare with the Luke and Yoda scenes from ‘Empire’. But besides that ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ stands comfortably on its own, and I have to say, with all the differences between critics and audiences on this film, with critics praising the hell out of it and audiences (on IMDb especially) giving it mixed to very negative reviews and actually giving it the worst audience Rotten Tomatoes score of all ‘Star Wars’ films, even lower than ‘The Phantom Menace’, to which I honestly have to say “what the f***??” Yes, I agree, ‘The Last Jedi’ is far from a perfect film, it has quite a few issues (which I’ll get into later), but overall its a very enjoyable film with some high-class visual effects, strong performances from the cast and some very praise-worthy risks taken from the director. So I can see how the way the story goes can divide some people, but I personally really enjoyed the direction they went with. I’m obviously trying to avoid giving any spoilers, as I am not a d*** who ruins movies for people. Then again......nah, I’m just kidding. But seriously, ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ is a very entertaining film, and is also one of my favourites in the ‘Star Wars’ franchise.

Yet as I said earlier, this film does have issues. And the first one comes in the form of Supreme Leader Snoke. You know that guy who kept showing up as a massive hologram in ‘The Force Awakens’ talking to Kylo Ren and who was being built up as this massive big-bad? Well he’s absolutely wasted. Don’t get me wrong, Andy Serkis does a great performance as always, and the character itself is very interesting, however we hardly find out anything about this guy and the movie only uses him as a plot device for Kylo Ren’s story. So I was really gutted that the movie kind of dismisses Snoke when he was built up as one of the most powerful beings in the universe being uber-strong with the Force. As I said: wasted! And the other wasted character of the film is Captain Phasma, who continues her streak from ‘The Force Awakens’ into this film of doing sweet FA. Problem No. 2 - Finn. Well no, that’s not fair, the character of Finn is still as good as in ‘The Force Awakens’, the issue lies in the story he is put. There are various side stories happening for all the characters in this film, and Finn goes with this new character Rose to go get this guy to go do this thing, and that whole story felt really unnecessary and tedious, especially in light of the fact that at the end you find out that all they did was basically pointless. And that whole plot segment takes a good half an hour of the film! My other issue with this film is: marketing gimmicks. That mainly comes from these creatures in the film called Porgs. Yes they are cute and all, but they add zero to the film’s plot. They are literally there to catch kids’ eyes so that then Disney can sell millions of toy porgs to families with zero imagination! Look, if Disney wants to sell toys, fair enough, that’s their choice, but at least do it in style, you know? Like with these damn porgs. Since you have them in the film, give them a reason to be there that would in some ways either progress the narrative, or in some shape or form give development to a character. Because without that it’s basically forced product placement! And my final issue with this film involves the comedy. It’s very Marvel Cinematic Universe-esque, with so many jokes thrown into the film, and even though some of the comedy works, as a whole the gags feel very forced and take away from the more emotional elements of the film. That brings an end to my complaints with this film. So, they were 1) wasted villain, 2) the Finn and Rose story-line, 3) cheap marketing gimmicks and 4) forced comedy.

As I mentioned, even though I have those three problems with this film, overall I really enjoyed it. It’s a great action ride, the effects are superb, from enthralling space battles to some ass-kicking from many characters (the opening and ending sequences are definite stand-outs), it’s definitely a great cinema ride for the festive season! As always, this is boosted by the legendary John Williams score, keeping you pumped throughout the whole movie. There are also a few neat surprises that are sure to please many fans of the franchise. Now let’s talk about the performances! I’ll straight away get to it: Mark Hamill steals the show. He is fantastic as a more weathered, broken Luke Skywalker who has to once again find the Force within him after having been put through so much, and this is easily Hamill’s best portrayal of the character thus far. Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver are definitely becoming the main focus of this new trilogy, with the film creating a Force connection between them, with each of them representing either the Light or Dark side, however at the same time being connected as one. And both Ridley and Driver are great at what they do, with Ridley showing her passion for becoming a Jedi and trying to save Kylo from the Dark side, and then with Driver showing an unstable angry man who is having an inner conflict with himself about what he thinks is the right thing to do, and so the scenes between these two work really well within the film. John Boyega as Finn is good as I already said, however it doesn’t help that he is in the bad side-plot of the film. Oscar Isaac as Poe is given more to do in this film as the Resistance fighter-pilot who reminds me a lot of Maverick in ‘Top Gun’ with his charisma and thought of being able to take on the whole world, and his character gets one of the more interesting story arcs of the film, giving a very good lesson to us all at the end of the film. Then there is Carrie Fisher. I’m glad that Disney kept her story in this film the way they originally intended to, as following her death it would have been very disrespectful to not use most of the footage she worked on prior to her passing. And she is great, I mean, she’s got this role in the bag by now, however it begs the question, what’s going to happen with Episode 9? Are they going to kill her off in the time span between this film and the next, or are they going to pull a ‘Rogue One’ and CGI her character for the next film (which in my opinion is the worst scenario possible!), or are they going to simply recast her role? I guess we’ll find out in two years time!

As a whole I really liked this instalment in the series. Of course my opinion on this is quite limited, since I only properly watched the ‘Star Wars’ movies for the first time two years ago a couple of weeks before the release of ‘The Force Awakens’, so I don’t have the childhood nostalgic passion for this series as others out there do, so I can understand the many of the online fandom being unhappy with the way this film treated the ‘Star Wars’ lore, however as a film I really liked it. It has its issues, but they are definitely overshadowed by the good parts. May the Force be with you all!

Overall score: 7/10

TOP MOVIE QUOTE: “Where are you from?” “Nowhere.” “No one comes from nowhere.” “Jakku.” “Alright, that is basically nowhere.”

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sembell · 7 years ago

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Moving Forward - Chapter 51

Hey you guys, it’s been a loooong time, I know, but MF is finally back! I missed writing terribly, and you guys were the best motivation to continue despite everything! I hope you find your way right back in and that it continues to bring you joy! Love you all, and especially @justholdinghandsok for forever being my wonderful beta no matter what I come up with :P!

(by the way... NSFW alert! :D) - AO3

“The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.” - Nhat Hanh

Gillian took her phone from her oldest son, who immediately pulled his hand away, turned around and ushered his little brother out of the room, leaving her behind.

And now there she was, standing in her kitchen all by herself, heart pounding rapidly in her chest, cheeks warm and flushed.

It’s okay, she whispered to herself, trying to find a calm, centered place in her mind. It’s David. Your David. You’re fine.

Looking down at the screen, she deactivated the speakerphone and with one last deep inhale, brought the phone up to her ear.

“Hello, David,” she finally said and closed her eyes; apprehensively, but also impatiently awaiting his answer.

“Hey, Gilly,” was his quiet reply, his voice so soft and affectionate, and Gillian instantly felt relieved.

She wasn’t sure what exactly she’d been expecting, but his gentleness took her completely by surprise. He often used her nickname, “Gilly”, when she was feeling uncomfortable or when she was irritated by someone or something, and he’d lean down and whisper it softly into her ear. It was meant to be reassuring, and it never failed to be just that. Not even now.

Heat rose to her cheeks once again and her stomach fluttered furiously. A bashful laugh escaped her lips, and it didn’t take a couple of seconds before he started to chuckle as well. He was just as nervous as she was.

“I’m glad these two are so damn clever,” he conceded after a few moments, and she could hear the rustling of sheets in the background.

“And that they’re always able to read my mind,” she nodded absently, half her mouth crooked into a lopsided grin.

“They know you, hm,” David said, and it was more like a statement than a question.

“Yeah.”

“Hmm. I guess we’re either horrible actors or we have incredibly smart and sensitive kids.”

“Both, probably.”

David chuckled approvingly. “Probably, yeah.”

The seconds went by, and both of them stayed silent. It felt like she was finally able to breathe freely again, just because of the few words they’d exchanged. And she felt the built up stress and pressure from the entire last week slowly leaving her body.

“I miss you,” Gillian suddenly blurted out, soft and desperate, and immediately closed her eyes at her own stupidity. Damn, she thought. Why did she have to make herself even more vulnerable? And why was she so scared that he would reject her? Hurt her?

He chuckled softly. “I was just… thinking the same about you,” he stated tenderly, and then went quiet for a moment before continuing. “This bed feels... weird without you.”

A small smile formed on Gillian’s lips and she relaxed a bit. “Does it?” she asked and walked back towards the couch, sitting down on her previous spot.

“Yeah… there are… uh, crumbs in it. Eww.” She could hear him run his hand over the bed sheet. ”We might’ve had oatmeal cookies this morning.”

Gillian snorted amusedly and leaned back. “So it feels weird because I’m not there to play the no-food-in-bed-police?” she asked in feigned indignation.

“No, because it’s oatmeal cookie crumbs and not dark-chocolate-chip. And there’s also no good coffee to wake up to,” he pouted, and they both fell into soft laughter.

“I see. I must be greatly missed.”

Truth was, he would probably make a fool out of himself if he’d start to declare just how much she was missed. Especially at night.

More used to have her there than to have to sleep alone these days, he was waking up in the middle of the night because his hand was constantly, subconsciously searching for her warm, soft, feminine body. Most of the time, he’d end up spooning her; arm around her slim waist, hand under her shirt, fingers spread wide over her stomach. Chest flush against her back and face deeply buried into the soft silk of her hair - that was how he slept the best. But when she wasn’t there, his hand would reach into the void and then fall down onto the cold sheets beside him, and he’d wake up in confusion before remembering that they were an ocean apart again. It was his least favorite way to wake up.

He hummed affirmatively and looked at the empty spot beside him. “I miss you a lot.”

There was silence again. Oh how much he wished she was here, so he could wrap her in his arms. Wished there were no issues, no problems to figure out and talk through. No awkwardness.

“Um-” she started, pulling him out of his reverie. “About me flying back to Vancouver... am I right in assuming that you want to talk before we go back to work?”

“Uh,” David cleared his throat, taken aback by the abrupt change of subject. Couldn’t they talk about missing each other a little more? “If it’s possible, yeah.”

“Okay,” she stated in a flat tone, all the excitement and warmth from moments before suddenly gone from her voice.

Back to business, he thought. The sudden shift stung in his chest, but he was aware that she was just trying to protect herself from getting carried away. From letting emotions getting the better of her. This was Gillian after all.

“I’ll take the plane on Saturday then. Is that alright?”

“Sounds good, yeah.” He tried to keep his voice cool. “You want me to pick you up?”

“No need. I’ll just... meet you at the house.”

“Alright,” David sighed. He couldn’t believe that the sheer prospect of having a serious talk could still bring so much awkwardness to them. Especially after all the hurdles they’d encountered and overcome in all those years.

“Good. So, is there something I need to know? Everything okay?”

“Um, you mean with Eaden?”

“For example, yeah,” she said almost incredulously. Not that he left her completely in the unknown whenever she was away from the little one, and she didn’t expect hourly updates, but not being able to just check on her and see her whenever she felt like it was still so incredibly hard.

“No worries, everything is fine,” he said warmly.

“Okay. Then why are you still in bed?”

“Uh yeah well,” he stalled and cleared his throat. “I didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m just catching up on some while Eaden is out with West and some of her friends for a couple of hours,” David answered, deliberately not getting into detail on why he was still so tired.

The baby had been fussy all night; whimpering, crying and asking for Mama in her sleep. Based on that and her fire red cheeks, David was betting on a new set of teeth coming through. But since Eaden had woken up fairly happy and rested, as if nothing had happened, there was no need to alarm the mother who was thousand of miles away from her baby.

“Eaden is out with West and a couple of her friends? That sounds like she’s… twelve or something,” Gillian said, amusement swinging in her voice. He couldn’t see it, but he bet she had the cutest smirk on her lips right now.

“Yeah,” David agreed with a chuckle. “She’s being introduced to the lifestyle of today's sixteen years olds. They went to Point Dume’s beach and I already got a video of like... six teens dancing to some music and our little girl sitting in the middle of everything… under an umbrella, sunscreen painted on her face indian style, sippy cup in one and a pirates flag in the other hand. So I’m apologizing in advance for any damage done on our child’s innocent little mind.”

Gillian laughed out loud, a full belly laugh he hadn’t heard in way too many days, and it sounded like music to his ears.

“I have no doubt that she is having the time of her life right now. She’s becoming a little Californian Girl, huh? She looked quite tanned in the video you sent us.”

“Yeah, she got a little sun-kissed in the last three days. West says her hair is starting to look like she’d gotten it done by a professional with all the highlights in it.”

Gillian sighed. “I miss her so much, David. Just… give her a big kiss from me once she’s back home, will you?”

“Certainly. She’ll be excited to hear you’ll be back in a couple of days.”

Gillian smiled. “I can’t wait either.”

Three days later, Gillian was sitting on the plane back to Vancouver, having said her goodbyes to Oscar and Felix hours ago as she’d dropped them off at their father’s house. The colorful sheet of paper they’d crafted for her the night before was neatly sitting on top of her clothes in her carry-on bag. 32 days were to cross out until she’d see her boys again.

Gillian felt an almost childish frustration that she couldn’t have it all. Her kids, her partner and her work, all at the same place and at the same time. Just this once.

At the beginning, the prospect of filming this new season had been overwhelmingly exciting. The fact that it would be work, hard work, had somehow made it so far into the back of her mind that the intensity of the first days had taken her completely by surprise. As did the problems that had kept piling up faster than she thought was even possible.

Despite the careful and thoughtful preparation beforehand, their lives were way too complicated for everything to go smoothly.

To say that it was all becoming too much - juggling a life in Europe and another one in the US - and actually declaring defeat, was very tempting at the moment.

She already couldn’t even remember what the first episode was all about, and still hadn’t read past page two of the new script. Yet she owed it to Chris and the loyal fanbase to focus on this, and not much else, knowing how much people were looking forward to these six new episodes. And contradictory of what some people were thinking, it was important to her too.

Almost eleven hours after she boarded the completely packed British Airways flight to Vancouver, Gillian finally walked through the sliding doors after spending an hour getting through security, including an unnecessary argument with one very annoyed border officer about the lack of empty pages in her passport.

She was tired, but the better part of the exhaustion she felt was coming from what she knew was lying ahead of her.

A long, lonely way home and an uncomfortable talk which would stir up one heck of a lot of suppressed emotions and fears. Nothing she was really looking forward to. Never had.

Even from far away she was able to spot the long line of people queuing for a vacant cab, and she let her chin fall onto her chest with a heavy sigh on her way towards the end of the line. It would take her at least another fifteen minutes to even get into a car.

A family of six was waiting right before her. The youngest child, a boy she estimated to be around three years old, was pushing his stroller around, and Gillian gave him twenty seconds to ram that thing into her shins if his parents wouldn’t stop pestering their teenage daughter, who was typing on her phone, almost completely ignoring their pleas to take one of her younger siblings by the hand, who the mother held by his wrist, and who were desperately trying to escape. It was a mess Gillian was all too familiar with, and she chuckled inwardly at the beauty of it.

And then, as if someone had counted down the seconds, she felt a tire rolling over her right foot and the right edge of the stroller hit her knee. Hard.

The boy was pulled away from the handles by in an instant with a warning “Braydon!” by the father, and the teenager dutifully grabbed the little ones’ hands while the mother rolled the stroller back hastily, muttered her apologies and looked at Gillian in a mixture of embarrassment, annoyance and expectation. Expecting the single woman with the little carry-on bag to make some kind of a snarky remark, or at least roll her eyes at them, and Gillian could see the surprise on the woman’s face when she was given a soft smile.

“It’s alright, don’t worry,” she appeased with a shake of her head. The father was looking at her with a doubtful expression, but the mother was smiling that same relieved and thankful tired smile she was wearing herself when they were out in the wild as a family, and no one was behaving themselves.

There was that fleeting moment of sadness again, and the feeling that half her life was indeed missing made her throat tighten for a second before suddenly, she felt a hand coming to its rest on the small of her back, making her startle.

She turned abruptly, and looked into the familiar faces of her own little family smiling down at her.

“You said you didn’t want me to pick you up, but I wasn’t expecting you to completely ignore us,” David quipped with a sly grin on his lips, his hand not leaving her back even as Eaden plunged forward into her arms.

“Wha-, hey!” Gillian let out in surprise and caught the baby halfway before bringing her close to her chest. “Hey, honey. Wow, hi.”

“Hihi Mama,” Eaden babbled and squealed as Gillian peppered her little face in sweet kisses.

“Hi, baby! That is… one heck of a surprise! Wha-, where are you coming from?” she asked and looked around.

“Oh, we were standing right over there,” he extended his arm to his left and pointed at a column.

“Oh.” She must’ve walked right past them. “I guess I was too distracted by that horrendously long line here,” Gillian chuckled bashfully, and let her eyes wander over him while pressing little kisses on Eaden’s temple. He wore a decent 7-day scruff, and was dressed as if he was coming straight from a photoshoot; blue linen shirt, skinny jeans and a pair of dark brown shoes Gillian was sure she hadn’t seen before.

She was completely taken aback by his whole appearance, by how shockingly hot he looked, and was just staring at him dumbstruck for a couple of moments, as if she hadn’t seen him in weeks.

“Yeah well,” David nodded and with a quick glance to both sides, gently lead her out of line by her elbow. “If you want, there’s a car with your name on waiting outside to bring you home.”

He was grinning now, that soft boyish grin that made her knees buckle every single time she saw it on his lips, knowing that this particular smile was only reserved for her.

“Uh yeah, I’d really like that,” she stuttered and swallowed, adjusting Eaden’s weight to one side of her hip before running a hand through her own, unruly hair. Could she smell herself or was she just imagining it? She couldn’t believe that she was feeling so self-conscious all of a sudden.

Sensing her discomfort, he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on the shell of her ear, briefly stroking his daughter's head, whose face was now buried into Gillian’s neck.

Gillian’s cheeks flushed in an instant, and she noticed the other mother smiling at her from the corner of her eye.

“You look gorgeous. Come on, let’s go home,” David said and took her hand on their way to the parking garage.

Their way home was mostly silent. When they’d reached the car, Eadens little hand had already found its way into Gillian’s blouse and had started to tuck at her bra impatiently. While there had been the small hope that one week would be enough at her age to wean herself for good, Gillian felt nothing but relieved that she’d pumped at home when Eaden looked up at her with these big, trusting blue eyes and played with the loose strands of her hair while nursing in the backseat of the car. She was still a little baby needing her mother.

When they were finished, Gillian took a seat beside Eaden, gently caressing her daughter's little face while the baby fought hard to stay awake, not yet ready to take her eyes off her mother.

The prospect of having to have that talk was hanging over them like a dark cloud, making it hard to concentrate even on the small talk they were trying to hold up.

How’s Oscar doing? Did Eaden eat well? Did she say a new word? When will West and Miller come to Vancouver? Have you read the new script yet? It’s supposed to be funny...

By the time they reached the house, Eaden was asleep, and the sun was starting to set.

Gillian took her time to tuck the baby into the crib - changed and put a fresh pair of pyjamas on her, rocked her, indulging her child’s weight in her arms and the sweet baby scent, and humming a couple of lullabies before finally laying her down.

Vancouver was different from what she was used from it. No rain in weeks, hot days and mild nights. She wasn’t surprised to find David outside by the illuminated pool, clad in black boxer shorts and the shirt he was wearing earlier, feet dangling in the water. His back was to her, but as Gillian came closer, she could see the smoke of a cigarette rising above him. A bottle of beer was standing beside him at the poolside. It was silent except for the waves of the ocean crashing softly against the shore nearby.

“Need something to loosen up a little?” he asked and held out the cigarette, not looking at her as she put the baby monitor on the ground and pulled her dark blue skirt a little higher before sitting down beside him. He turned his head when she didn’t reach for the smoke.

She was staring at him with an unreadable expression.

“Why would I need something to loosen up?”

“Aren’t you as… tense as I am?”

“Why are you tense?”

He scoffed incredulously and took a last drag before stubbing it out behind him. A sweet scent immediately filled her nose, and she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply as she let her feet slip into the water. It was cool and felt incredible on her swollen feet.

“What did you mean by ‘you’re scaring me, David’? What exactly does that mean?” he asked, referring to a text message she’d sent him a couple of days ago, and took a swig out of his beer bottle. She shook her head when he offered it to her, but immediately regretted it. The small talk had come to an end faster than she’d expected.

Gillian shrugged her shoulders and stared down at her feet, absently playing with the thin strap of her white tank-top. “I don’t know.”

“Of course you do.”

“Why are you pretending that you don’t know exactly what it means?”

“I don’t. I just want to know… what did I do to make you question my feelings for you?”

“You didn’t do anything to make me doubt your feelings. If there’s one thing you’ve always made sure of, it’s that I know you love me.”

“Then what is it? The logistics? Bad sex?”

She rolled her eyes and clicked her tongue. “Don’t be crude.”

“We don’t have bad sex?”

She shot him a glance and pursed her lips. “Maybe I just wondered if you still want this relationship. If it’s still something that makes you happy.”

“Jesus,” David huffed and brought the bottle back to his lips. “Seriously, Gillian. Sometimes I have trouble figuring out if this is just you being overly dramatic or insecure. I mean, it doesn’t matter in the end, but damn... something has to change. You can’t keep running away from me when things get complicated.”

“I know.”

“Do you? I’m not so sure about that, to be honest.”

“It’s not as easy as you think, you know,” she raised her voice in defense, eyebrows now furrowed tightly.

“I know it isn’t. But Gillian, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I gave you a lot of opportunities to calm down and talk to me even after you accused me of wanting to make you feel even worse than you already did. And sometime between that and the point you left for London and wouldn’t call for days, I expected you to… I can’t say it any differently, I’m sorry… but I expected you to get back to your senses, to be honest. Because that was one fucked up stunt you pulled there.”

“Yeah, I realize that,” she said remorsefully. “And I’m so scared to fuck this up and lose you,” she said quietly, her voice a mixture of desperation and resignation. “Again.”

He licked over his lips and swallowed before looking at her leg and putting his hand on her knee. He gave it an affectionate squeeze. “Gill-”

“This is what happens all the time, right? Me fucking things up. It’s that… damned self-destructiveness of mine. Making everyone’s lives more complicated and putting a strain on my relationships because… yeah, why? I don’t even know myself! Because of my ego? My anxiety? Because of not having enough faith in things?”

David shook his head slowly and raised his left leg out of the water to put it behind her. He was facing her now, and she also shifted so they could look at one another. His hand came to a rest on her upper thigh. “I can’t tell you what it is, Gillian. But you need to figure it out, or find someone to help you figure it out. Of course I’m hurt and confused. But it’s-” he took a deep breath, “It’s hard to see that the person you love tends to fight alone.”

“I know,” she murmured. Tears were beginning to form in her eyes and she let out a shaky breath.

“And it’s you who suffers the most in the end.”

Gillian nodded thoughtfully, averting her gaze, and he watched her silently for a moment before he spoke again. “I learned that I don’t need a lot to be happy, but you-” he reached up and caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, never breaking eye-contact, literally forcing her to keep her eyes on him. “You are the most essential part to my happiness. I don’t want to imagine my world without the kids, but you are my foundation; my base. You’ve been for over twenty years. I know it’s hard; but we knew it would be that way when you got pregnant. And we agreed to be there for each other. That’s what we wanted. And I am here.”

“Yes, you’re here,” she leaned into his touch, and a single tear escaped her eye. He was the sweetest man, the most reliable partner, and it angered her that she was this emotional, unstable mess. She had no reason to cry but out of gratitude, yet she cried out of fear. Fear that she wouldn’t be able to be the woman she needed to be to make this relationship work. To make a marriage work.

As if he was able to read her thoughts, he took her hands in his and brought them to his lips, peppering them with soft kisses before saying, “Separation hasn’t even crossed my mind, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered, sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and smiled.

“We will figure it out together, but you need to let people help you, babe.” His arms came around her shoulder and waist, pulling her into a tight hug. Burying her nose into his soft shirt, she inhaled the masculine, rich scent of his as if it had been years she’d smelled it last.

“We’ve got this,” he kissed the top of her head and inhaled deeply. “Even with the bad sex and all,” he joked, and her whole body was shaking as she let out a muffled laugh against his shirt.

Her fingers found their way under his shirt, and ever so lightly, she started to run her fingers over the smooth skin of his back. He jolted under her touch, and she giggled quietly at his ticklishness while moving her flat hands up higher, pressing him closer against her. He was warm and soft, and she had craved touching him so badly in the last couple of days when she was laying in bed, alone.

His hands moved from her back to her arms and up to her face, cradling her cheek in his palms and gently lifting her head from his chest. He was wearing that soft, dreamy smile of his - the one that was capable of melting thousands of hearts.

It faded only for the briefest of seconds before he was there, kissing her, slowly and tentatively.

Her belly tingled fiercely, and she let out a soft whimper when she felt his tongue boldly seeking entrance and grazing over hers. His fingertips started to do these wonderful things on the sensitive skin of her throat and down to her neck - circling and tugging, again and again as their kiss intensified rapidly. Hungry lips clinging to one another, only letting go to change the angle, to explore again what had been explored so many times before, but would never get old.

It had always been a thin line between fighting, reconciliation and sex for them. They were good in fighting fiercely, and even better at sex. The part in between had always been a small one, but they’d become better at it over time while the fighting had gotten more civilised, and the sex mind blowing. It had taken Gillian a long time to understand this logic and that it was a part of growing up and finally being in a healthy relationship rather than a toxic one.

His hands had travelled down to her hips and under her top when she realized that her own were busy unbuttoning his shirt, as if they had a mind of their own. It fell from his shoulders just seconds later, and her lips were drawn to the sun-kissed skin of his chest like magnet to metal. He tasted rich and salty, and she could feel goosebumps rising underneath her mouth as she kissed and nipped her way up to his neck. The vibration of his low growl tickled her lips, and she smiled against his skin as he bunched up the hem of her top underneath her arms, gently urging her to raise them over her head.

Her hips jerked forward when his lips closed around her engorged nipple. Jolts of pleasure were running straight from her tit down to her already throbbing clit. How on earth his kisses alone were capable of doing that to her, she still didn’t know.

He held firmly onto her waist, keeping her still while she was starting to squirm under his touch. All her senses were on high alert, and the sounds his mouth made as he sucked, licked and nibbled on her were so unbelievably arousing, she wanted nothing more than for him to move down, where she was waiting for him, all slick and swollen.

He suddenly hummed, as if she’d said something, and pulled her over and onto his lap in one swift motion. Her skirt wasn’t tight or uncomfortable for either of them, but he seemed to want to get rid of it nonetheless, and helped her into a standing position.

As she stood up, he put his arms around her legs, stroking up and down their length while smiling up at her. His eyes were dark with lust, lips moist and pink and expression smug as fuck. She couldn’t possibly love him more.

She shimmied out of her airy skirt and kicked it aside, leaving on a tiny black string that caught his attention immediately.

He licked his lips and swallowed. Oh this woman with her milky white, velvet thighs. He could live the rest of his life with his head in between their softness while gently, or not so gently, squeezing their outer sides with his hands. His hands always needed to be occupied.

As did hers, apparently.

She ran her fingers slowly between the valley of her firm tits down to her navel, circling it languidly before wandering down further, tracing the hem of her panties with her fingertips, knowing exactly what touching herself did to him.

He clenched his jaw when her hand disappeared beneath the soft fabric and his breath quickened, nostrils flaring as he inhaled the scent of her need. He was fully concentrated on her, and the thin material didn’t leave much to the imagination so that he could see exactly what she was doing with her tiny hand on her perfect little pussy.

She gasped as her fingers came in contact with her clit, and the other hand shot out to steady herself on his shoulder. He grinned and turned his head to the side to kiss her wrist, eyes never leaving her flushed face. He couldn’t begin to explain how gorgeous she looked with her lips slightly apart, chest rising and falling rapidly as she increased the speed of her hand, knees starting to wobble.

“Oh god,” she gasped, digging her nails into his flesh. “I can’t-”

“Yeah,” he said, knowing that she wasn’t able to stand up much longer, and leaned forward, pressing a kiss onto her navel while she slowly removed her hand from between her legs.

“You smell delicious,” he whispered and took her hand by the wrist, looking up at her as he slowly closed his lips around two slick fingers. “Hmm,” he hummed and released them with a loud plop. “You taste like heaven. So sweet.”

“Sweet?”

“Yeah,” he murmured, hooking his index fingers under the thin straps of her panties, slowly pulling them down.

Her hand reached back down right away, tentatively at first, but then one finger disappeared wholly inside, and she started to buck into her own hand.

“Jesus, babe. You’re so fucking hot.” His own hand slid into his shorts, finding his dick thick and ready, pulsating and waiting desperately for attention. He started with slow, languid strokes, barely any pressure, just a little something to take off the edge. He reached up and palmed her right breast, squeezing it firmly before starting to roll her nipple between his thumb and index finger.

Her eyes caught sight of his busy hand and she whimpered before it grew into a proper moan as her clit hit this wonderful spot on her palm that almost made her tumble over the edge for a second. She slumped forward against his body, his face now against her belly, surprising her by biting and licking at her soft flesh hungrily. She let him for a bit, ran her fingers through his hair, watching him leaving wet spots and red marks on her stomach.

Suddenly, she pulled him away from her. Her patience was gone. No matter how good it felt, she needed him now, and let him know by pushing at his chest so that he landed back on his elbows. He chuckled in delight and raised his hips as her fingers tucked at his shorts, not wasting any time anymore, finally freeing him.

The twitch of his cock as Gillian’s eyes fell on it didn’t go unnoticed, and she tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and smiled one of the slyest smiles he’d ever seen. It made him harden even a little more.

He welcomed her in his lap by putting his arms around her slim waist and pulling her close, kissing her.

This felt so, so right. All of it - her warm body flush against his, his pulsating dick nestled in her hot slit, tongues playing their exciting game. This woman was his undoing in the best ways possible.

David yelped in surprise as he suddenly found himself in her hand. Her grip was much firmer than his own, of course. She knew him better than he knew himself after all. She stroked him with purpose, slowing only to circle the tip of his penis with her thumb before squeezing it in her palm and starting to rub only the shaft, and his efforts to stay still died with an involuntary buck into her hand.

When the head of his cock dipped into her wetness, both of them gasped and quickly looked at one another before falling into soft laughter.

“I love the fuck out of you, you have no idea,” he said genuinely as she sank down onto him; soft, tight walls suddenly surrounding him wholly.

“Hmm,” Gillian raised her right eyebrow, smiling smugly at him. “I fucking love your cock,” she said, starting to rotate her hips.

“You fucking love my cock or you love fucking my cock?”

“Where’s the difference? I miss it when it’s not in me,” she slurred and closed her eyes, concentrating on the sensation of her slow movements.

David grinned and squeezed her thighs. “I can assure you that it misses you too.”

“Ohhh,” she moaned and squeezed her muscles around him.

“Yeah…” he breathed, holding onto her hips as her arms came around his neck and breasts were shoved into his face.

Her movements were becoming frantic as the hot puffs of air coming out of her mouth were wettening his forehead. She was completely uninhibited now, grinding her clit against his pelvis, moaning and whimpering loudly as her release came closer and closer.

“Do you ever miss my pussy?” she shifted in his lap and looked at him. Her movements had come to a stop, only her inner muscles were working, milking him with every squeeze.

“Hell yeah,” David rasped and his balls tightened dangerously. “Every day, every hour, every minute-” he groaned as she dropped her head into the crease of his neck and bit his throat, “Every second… I cannot kiss it, lick it, fuck it... I miss it.”

“Then fuck it now,” she said and lifted her head off his shoulder. “Fuck me, David.”

“Jesus Christ,” he growled and wrapped his arm around her waist.

She’d expected him to turn them both around and settle back in between her legs, but instead, he lifted her to the side so that she ended up sitting on her knees beside him. He came up behind her and pushed her forward so he wouldn’t fall into the pool before bending over her and licking along the line of her spine.

Her body shivered under him. Every nerve ending from her toes up to her head felt like it was on fire, and everything was tingling.

She almost screamed out loud when he entered her from behind, slamming his his hips against her ass while at the same time, biting into the side of her neck.

Her arms were suddenly so weak that she had to brace herself on her elbows, and he placed a last couple of kisses on her shoulder blade before thrusting into her hard and fast.

His fingers were almost painfully digging into her sides, and somewhere in the back of her mind Gillian realized that she would be a sore, walking bruise tomorrow. They both would.

His arm snuck around her middle and suddenly, his fingers were on her swollen clit, pressing, rubbing and pinching and fuck, it felt so good. So unbelievably good.

“Fuck you’re so tight. Feels so good,” he whispered into her neck.

He was everywhere, his large body surrounding hers completely. Even after all these years she couldn’t believe that they were such a good match, with him being so big and her being so tiny. But nothing had ever been more perfect than this.

“David,” she whimpered as his fingers became quicker and her walls began to flutter around him. It was only a matter of seconds before, before… she moaned, and her legs started to shake violently, almost giving up on her if his grip hadn’t been so strong.

“You’re coming, babe,” he grunted, giving her a few quick, hard thrusts and removing his fingers from her clit to press them into her lower belly right above her mons.

“Fu-huck!” she cried out loud as her orgasm hit her forcefully, and the last thing she remembered was the feeling of his hot semen spilling into her before everything went black.

His face was right above hers when she came back to herself. Her heart was still beating rapidly in her chest, but she was laying on her back now.

“Did I just faint during orgasm?” she asked confused, but relaxed immediately when he grinned at her.

“No, not really. You kept talking to me, even if it was just “O's” and “I’s”. But your muscles gave out,” he said and lay down beside her, cradling her close against his chest.

“What did you do with your hand?”

He grinned. “You liked it?”

“It almost killed me!”

“Nah, I doubt that,” he whispered and nuzzled his nose against hers. “Glad to see it works for you, though.”

“Fuck, David. My legs are still shaking.”

“Yep, they are. Are you okay?” he asked softly, his genuine concern making her smile.

Gillian nodded and closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of his warm hands slowly roaming over her back. “Yes. But I have to tell you” she murmured and met his gaze again. She cupped his chin between her fingers and drew him closer to her face before whispering, “If we ever get a divorce, it’s definitely because of the bad sex.”

Both of them were chuckling quietly as she captured his lips for a soft, passionate kiss.

#moving forward #my writing #gillovny #gillovny trash #rpf #thexfiles rpf #gillovny rpf #alternate universe #smut #love #xfiles rpf

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megaphonemonday · 7 years ago

Text

my soul is not satisfied

I was told that it was unacceptable to leave forgetting is too long the way it is, and, given the current state of things and my inability to imagine anything but roses and rainbows for these two, I kind of agree. but dear lord work had to go in before we can get there.

read it on ao3

April

Heads hung and feet shuffled as the San Diego Padres trudged back into the clubhouse after yet another crushing defeat. Captain Mike Lawson brought up the rear.

The team was enjoying a miserable start to the regular season and morale was at an all time low.

Mike would have to be an idiot not to know he was partially (mostly) responsible for the latter and that the latter had definitely affected the former. While he was definitely an idiot about many things, baseball typically wasn’t one of them.

He’d been at a loss when they first started down this losing streak and, seven games later, still couldn’t quite figure out what to say to pull the team out of its funk. Not when he was in such a rut of his own and had been since the end of Spring Training.

In retrospect, it was something of a miracle that they’d had an okay run in Arizona, coming out of the Cactus League with more wins than losses and a solid 25-man roster.

Well, 24-man-and-1-woman roster.

Which was his whole problem, wasn’t it? Or at least the lion’s share of it.

(Not that a woman was involved, just which particular woman it was.)

He would’ve killed, or at least done some morally objectionable things, for the chance to lick his wounds in private and not be confronted with Baker’s wounded/confused face everywhere he turned, but Mike’d missed out on making it as an assassin a long time ago. So, he just had to stew in this seething mire of disappointment and jealousy and anger that he knew was entirely irrational. All while having to share a clubhouse and a dugout and what felt like his entire goddamn life with the woman.

(Mike was well aware that it was only his bruised pride that made him wish, even for a moment, that Oscar and Al had decided to send her back down until her arm was back at 100%. But that hadn’t stopped him from thinking it.

He’d always known he was an asshole, but that thought killed any hope of being the kind of asshole people liked in spite of themselves.)

“We’ll get ‘em next time,” he said, half-hearted.

Only a few guys nodded back, the rest moodily starting to undress so they could hit the showers.

Instinctively, he glanced around, hoping someone would look at him, give him a nod that said, “I got your back.” If he was being honest, he even knew who he wanted that person to be, in spite of everything.

Ginny’d already disappeared into her changing room.

It wasn’t another fucking punch to the gut.

Not at all.

Later, shivering in his ice bath, he came to terms with a few things.

1) This was his last season of professional baseball. He’d announced it to the team in Arizona, but hadn’t yet let his agent make a statement to the press. It still didn’t always feel real.

2) It didn’t matter what fucking shakeups the Front Office went through, Mike was leaving the game a Padre. He would die in this uniform if it came to that.

3) He didn’t want to go out on a low note. Which was going to be something of an uphill battle the way his season was going. It may have been years since he tasted late October air on the field, but he had also never played a first month as bad as this one.

And:

4) Christ. He was going to have to do something, wasn’t he? For at least the next five months, he was still captain of the Padres. Which meant it was his responsibility to pull his head out of his ass, stop being such a moody son of a bitch, and get the team back on track.

Which.

Mike would love to say that he was being a moody asshole for reasons that had nothing to do with his favorite pitcher, but that would be a god damn lie.

(And, Christ. Yes, he had a fucking favorite, okay?)

Even if very little remained of what’d made her his favorite in the first place. Ginny didn’t tease or prod or joke, hardly even made eye contact anymore. When he caught for her—only once of her three regular season starts so far—she followed his calls without fail, remained silent any time he decided to make a visit to the mound, her eyes cast to the ground. Mike could feel her cringe away any time he stepped too close and every single fucking time, it made his heart sink into the pit of his stomach.

Not that he didn’t deserve it because— Honestly, he still couldn’t believe it sometimes.

He’d kissed her.

Drunk and bitter about Rachel leaving him again, he’d kissed her. Probably more than a little bitter about the smiles Ginny was offering to other guys, he’d kissed her.

Guys she didn’t even know. Who didn’t deserve one shred of her attention. (Not that Mike could relate to that. At all.)

So he’d started needling her because if there was one thing Ginny Baker couldn’t do, it was resist taking the bait.

The whole process of getting from Ginny stomping up to him in the bar, fire in her eyes, to having her sandwiched between the building and his body was still a little fuzzy, even weeks later. Why wouldn’t it be when he couldn’t get the hitch of her breath into his mouth out of his head? Or the way she’d been pressed so sweetly against him, her warmth seeking his?

Mike wanted to live in those few minutes he’d had her in his arms.

Right up until Ginny flat out told him kissing him was a mistake.

Which shouldn’t have come as such a fucking shock. Honestly, what else had he expected? That she’d be thrilled to make out with some has-been who’d been nothing but awful to her the past few weeks?

It didn’t matter what he’d thought as she sighed into his mouth: that the silver lining of being told it’d take a miracle for him to walk—not crawl or be carried—off the field if he tried for more than this last season had been Ginny and her perfect fucking smile and the way she made him feel. Had been the idea that they could maybe get over the bullshit he’d thrown in their way because that was what he did best. Had been the thought that they might actually make each other happy for all they were viciously effective at the opposite.

It didn’t matter because Ginny didn’t want that.

She didn’t want him.

And that was fine. It had to be fine, even when the sudden memory of that fact sometimes made his knees want to give out more than any stress or strain from playing ever had.

Mike could be the grown up here, not that he’d done much to prove it lately. If it meant going out as a respected and valued member of his team and not the morale-killer he currently was, he could do a lot. Even if that meant locking up the mangled heart that was left to him and pretending he was doing just fine.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t going to hurt like a motherfucker, though.

So, sitting in a metal tub, freezing his balls off as chunks of ice slowly melted around him, Mike Lawson came to terms with a few things. He came to terms with them and groaned out the one word that adequately encapsulated his situation.

“Fuck.”

May

“Well, Mike,” Oscar said doubtfully, already reaching for the phone in his pocket, “if you’re sure that’s what you want.”

“It is,” he affirmed with a frown.

Oscar just sighed and excused himself. No doubt to cancel some event in Mike’s honor he’d already put into motion. Mike didn’t even feel that bad. It wasn’t like the GM had asked him beforehand. Then again, Oscar’s track record with actually asking things of Mike wasn’t too hot, either.

Both Mike and Al watched the man go, but while Mike’s attention remained on the door and clubhouse beyond, the older man’s shifted. Having played for the man for so long, Mike didn’t need to look to confirm Al’s speculative frown.

And if he didn’t see it, maybe he didn’t have to acknowledge it either.

Roughly, he shoved to his feet. “We done here?”

He kept his body angled towards the door, though the heavy sigh that preceded Al’s words painted a picture all on its own. Mike may have gotten used to being a disappointment, but it never stopped stinging.

“I suppose so, Mike.”

Without a backwards glance, he walked out of Skip’s office, shoulders tense. He was probably undoing all the work Kiki’d already put into his back today, but he didn’t give a shit.

He’d just had the worst conversation of his life, and his wife had once told him in excruciating detail exactly why she was leaving him for the pediatric heart surgeon, so he knew bad conversations when he had them.

Suffice it to say, Mike should’ve known going in just how bad it would get. Especially since it was called at the President of Baseball Operation’s request.

Well.

Charlie Graham could go fuck himself. Mike didn’t owe that guy a thing, especially when he didn’t even bother to show up to the meeting he’d wanted in the first place. Al, and even Oscar, though, he owed it to them to try and work out a game plan, an exit strategy, even if he was against 95% of what it entailed.

Mike Lawson’s Goodbye Season. Tickets on sale now.

He snorted, derisive.

He may be retiring at the end of the year, but he didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. He didn’t want the farewell tour or the tributes or the weird fucking gifts from teams he’d spent his career trying to grind into the dirt. All Mike wanted was to play his last season and then disappear into the sunset. Or maybe something marginally less dramatic, but it wasn’t like he fucking knew what he wanted.

(Well, of the things he could have, he didn’t know what he wanted.)

Like the universe heard him and hated him, a bright, distinctive laugh rang through the clubhouse.

Almost instinctually, Mike turned towards it. A few bad months weren’t enough to erase his reaction to that sound.

Standing in the opening to the round locker room, Mike had a clear view of the whole team. Most everyone was dressed already. With only forty-five minutes to game time, they’d better be.

But where some guys were hunched in their chairs, headphones on, trying to get into game mode, others took a more laid back approach.

And though Mike never thought he’d live to see the day, Ginny Baker was one of the latter.

She lolled in one of the chairs, leg hooked over the armrest, other foot idly spinning the seat back and forth. True, she wasn’t pitching today, and true, she’d already put in her work with her trainers, but it was still strange to see her so relaxed in the clubhouse. Mike tried to rack his memory, recall if he’d ever seen her quite so boneless and content, even when they were at their best, but he came up empty.

Adding insult to injury was who exactly had her so relaxed.

Sprawled on one of the couches nearby, Blip grinned, face lit up with what must have been a good joke. Not that Mike had heard many of Blip’s jokes lately.

While he’d made good inroads with most of the team, bankrolling post-game celebrations and even letting that pack of animals throw a party at his house, there were still some holdouts.

Blip was the one who hurt the most.

It sucked that Salvi and Voorhies still weren’t completely sold on Mike’s new attitude—like it didn’t matter that the Padres had clawed their way up from the bottom of the National League in the past few weeks, settling in for a slog to the top if Mike had anything to say about it—but Mike would get over it. They weren’t his best friends.

That was Blip.

(That had been Ginny.)

So, looking at the man who’d been his closest friend for the past four years joking around with Ginny, that stung.

Not as much as it stung that the third member of their little club was the guy who’d been signed to replace him, though.

Mike couldn’t care less that Livan was still a little shit who delighted in needling his captain, lording every start over his head like it was another nail in Mike Lawson’s coffin. On a certain level, Mike couldn’t fault him.

On almost every other level, though...

Bitter barbs of jealousy roiled in his gut. That and the knowledge that he was going to give up the one thing in the world he was good at in the not too distant future. He hadn’t been good at being married or being a son. He’d never done well in school, and his phase two was a bust before he’d even gotten to it. The one thing that Mike had ever loved and managed to keep in his life was baseball and every day/hour/minute/second that ticked by, he could feel it slipping from his grasp.

All while that fucker was just getting started.

(To make matters worse, he was just getting started with Ginny.)

Mike would give it up and Livan would take his place. Had already taken his place from the looks of it.

But where a month or even a few weeks ago Mike would have let all that vitriol spew forth, today he kept it in check. He didn’t interrupt the meeting of the new Best Friends Club, no matter how much he might like to. He stepped into the room, and though he didn’t do anything to temper the thunderous frown on his face, he kept quiet. He didn’t need to look to know that Ginny’s eyes followed him, wary, or that her shoulders crept closer to her ears, waiting for whatever bullshit he was going to throw her way.

And it was bullshit.

Mike had known that the minute he started needling her back in Arizona. He was jealous, even though he had Rachel and wanted so desperately to be happy with her. At the beginning, the first day of training, he hadn’t even let himself look at Ginny, too afraid that one glimpse of her would remind him why he found it so hard to just want the woman he’d married.

Too soon, though, it wasn’t about Rachel at all. It was all about Ginny. Ginny’s laugh and Ginny’s smile. Ginny teasing Livan the way she’d used to tease Mike.

He’d reacted like a child, jealous of a new sibling getting more attention and desperate to get some back. Mike knew that now and wasn’t proud of it.

Not that it made much of a difference.

So, determined to show that he was trying to be better—for the team and the fans and even Ginny herself—Mike breathed through the ugly feelings clawing up his throat. He shoved them down into the pit of his stomach where he stored all the shit he didn’t like dealing with—his mom, his dad, his imminent retirement, Rachel, Ginny, the likelihood that he would spend the rest of his life alone...

The list went on.

What was one more item?

Blowing out a controlled breath, Mike let go of it all. Everything but baseball and the game he wanted, needed, to win was gone.

Was it healthy? Fuck no. He wasn’t even sure it was sustainable, but Mike was going to hold onto the one thing left to him while he still had it.

Everything else was gone already.

Without thinking about it, Mike’s gear bag was slung over his shoulder and he was headed for the dugout, walking away from his friend, his replacement, and his pitcher without a word.

June

It was too much to ask that no one had noticed the gaping chasm between captain Mike Lawson and not-rookie Ginny Baker. But where that kind of distance could maybe be explained away during Spring Training with all the extra players in the mix, during the regular season, it was glaringly obvious. And not just to over-invested fans with a blog and a Twitter account.

No, this was now being discussed on the Whip Around and SportsCenter. Discussed and analyzed, though thankfully no one managed to hit on the underlying cause of it.

(Bad enough that his team, fans, and sports journalists were all speculating about the apparent feud with his pitcher, it would be fucking mortifying if they knew it was all because he’d been such an asshole that he made the mistake of kissing her; of being deluded enough to think she wanted him to kiss her.)

If he’d bothered to ask, well, anyone, Mike would’ve learned that the consensus was that a blow up was long overdue.

Of course, Mike didn’t bother to ask questions he didn’t want the answer to. Particularly when he was privy to information that would definitely affect that consensus. Namely, that there’d already been a blow up.

But maybe a second one was past due.

Because while Mike had managed to keep his goddamn mouth shut every time some asshole comment wanted to break free, things between him and Ginny hadn’t improved. Ginny still shied away from any interaction with Mike and Mike still went stony and reticent whenever someone brought her up. Arguably, it was an improvement over where they’d been in the middle of spring training, but that wasn’t saying much.

They needed to clear the air.

Unfortunately, all Mike knew about clearing the air was throwing dynamite at the problem, ducking for cover, and waiting for the dust to settle. Hence the second blow up.

Was it so wrong, though, that he didn’t want to do that again? Not that he’d approach this one anything other than 100% sober and 80% apologetic. No encroaching on personal space or saying things that he hadn’t gone over at least twice in his head first. Not that any of that meant all that much considering how easily Ginny’s mere presence seemed to eat away at his self control.

Mike told himself that it wasn’t like Ginny was entirely innocent. She’d thrown too many barbs of her own back in Arizona to claim that.

Somehow, it never made him feel better.

Still, it didn’t really matter how he felt, not when the bullshit between him and Baker was now officially a distraction to the team. (He hadn’t missed the muttering or the too-quick channel changes on clubhouse TVs any time he entered the room. He also hadn’t missed the fact that they’d lost three of their last five games. Games where they should’ve at least put up a decent showing rather than doing their best Bad News Bears impressions—before Matthau whipped them all into shape. They were on a slippery slope back to where they’d been at the beginning of the season.)

Which was why Mike cornered Ginny in the trainer’s room.

Usually, she came in, got her arm wrap, and went back to her cubby to ice in peace. Not today, though.

Mike jerked his head at the intern on duty, who was slower to get out than anyone would’ve been last season. The wary glance between pitcher and catcher told Mike exactly why. Still, the kid left without saying anything, pulling the door closed behind him.

He sighed.

Ginny just shifted her weight between her feet, the only tell as to how uncomfortable she was right now. Otherwise, she was inscrutable. She stared at him with that carefully blank face, the Baker Bot out in full force.

Mike fucking hated it. She couldn’t do him the decency of giving him something? Anger or hurt or sadness? Hell, he’d even take hatred at this point, even though he knew the sight of Ginny Baker’s unadulterated loathing directed at him would probably shred his heart.

Whatever was left of it, anyway.

“I—” He shook his head and cleared his throat. “I wanted to apologize.”

“For what,” she returned, flat.

Clearly, it wasn’t a brush off of his apology. She wanted specifics.

“For the way I’ve treated you. In Arizona. And before that even. There was a lot of other shit going on”—he and Rachel trying and mostly failing to make it work, the three separate sports therapists he’d seen in an effort to get one to tell him he wasn’t falling apart at the seams, not to mention the feelings that he allowed to implode—”and I took my frustration with that out on you, which wasn’t fair.”

She snorted and Mike had to remind himself that she was well within her right to be pissed. She was well within her right to tell him to fuck off and go straight to Deadspin about what a misogynistic asshole Mike Lawson was.

“Not fair? You think that’s the problem here?” she scoffed, cradling her right arm against her stomach like it was still too weak to hang on its own. It didn’t seem to cut her anger any, though. Ginny barreled on, letting loose some of her frustrations. They’d clearly been bottled up. “If I waited around for fair, I’d still be stuck in Tarboro, wishing someone would give me a chance. Don’t tell me you’re sorry because you weren’t being fair.”

He blew out a breath through his nose, arms coming up to cross over his chest. “Well, why don’t you tell me what I should be apologizing for, then.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Mike remembered the last time he said something similar. Probably a good idea not to think about his wife leaving him right now, though.

Ginny just stared at him. Like she couldn’t quite believe what had just come out of his mouth. Mike stared back. Her mouth hardened, jaw clenching.

“Fine. You should just apologize for being a dick. Not for being unfair. Because while it was and I still have no idea what the hell was wrong with you all of spring training, I’m used to unfair. I wasn’t used to you being such a fucking bully.”

He winced at the past tense. She hadn’t been used to it, but now she was.

At the same time, she didn’t ask for an apology for the kiss. Mike wasn’t sure if she just wanted to forget it even happened or didn’t want to push her luck.

“I am sorry, Baker,” he said, looking her right in the eyes. Christ, he couldn’t even remember the last time they’d had this kind of eye contact. One of them was always looking away. Usually Ginny. “For all of it. You didn’t deserve any of my bullshit and the fact that you’re still willing to play on the same field as me, let alone for the same team, is a fucking miracle.”

He watched her lips quiver, like she wanted to smile, but wouldn’t let herself.

Mike pushed on. “I don’t need you to forgive me right away. I know it’s gonna take time, but I don’t have that much left. Not with the team, anyway. And the team needs to present a united front if we wanna make a run at a pennant this year. We need to be on the same side.”

Ginny’s eyes dropped from his, uncertainty clouding her face.

Shit! He’d been so close. Mike scrambled for something, anything, to set her mind at ease, but Ginny deflated, nearly curling in on herself protectively. Doing her best to keep him out of her space.

Her space.

Jesus, how hadn’t he figured?

“‘M not gonna kiss you again,” he murmured, voice low to keep the busybodies no doubt eavesdropping in the hall from overhearing. What was it about a closed door that invited such curiosity from a bunch of grown men? He didn’t mind them hearing everything else, but this was between him and her. Ginny’s gaze cut straight back to his, surprise etched over her features. He guessed it was something of a surprise that he could still read her so well. “So can we just go back to being teammates?”

Of course, that assumed they’d ever been just teammates, but Mike couldn’t take walking around with this pit of bile swirling inside him anymore; it was eating away at him. And he definitely couldn’t take ESPN talking about it like it was news worth sharing.

“You’re not?” she asked, brow wrinkled in what had to be suspicion, lips tugged into a contemplative frown.

“No,” he replied, even though it killed him that he’d never know what it was like to kiss her when she actually wanted him to. “Learned my lesson.”

Ginny was still frowning as she nodded, slow and more than a little unsure. “Teammates,” she finally agreed, her tone guarded.

Mike didn’t care.

It was better than what he’d had to start the day.

July

It was no surprise that Ginny was selected to her second All Star squad in her second season. Even though the Padres had toiled to pull themselves out of the hole they’d dug at the beginning of the season, Ginny’d had mostly solid starts from the beginning, her ERA significantly lower than what it’d been this time last year.

What was the surprise, though, was the fact that Mike was also selected. To both the squad and the Home Run Derby team.

(What could he say? Facing down retirement and the antipathy if not outright hostility of his teammates had lit a fire under his ass.)

Upon hearing the news, Mike texted Ginny: Congrats, All Star. Drinks? I’m buying.

When his phone started buzzing in his hand, before he even got a chance to slide it back into his pocket, Mike took a second to stare at the “Ginny Baker” displayed on the screen.

The past month, he had put a lot of effort into being teammates and friends—just friends—with Ginny. He was constantly aware of the need to check himself, keep from falling even deeper into his feelings for her. If he was also aware of how different this all was from last season, Mike figured that was the difference between knowing he’d caught feelings and being blindsided by them.

But he wanted her friendship, the easy camaraderie they’d once had, almost more than he wanted to kiss her again. And Mike fucking dreamed about kissing Ginny again. He knew that wasn’t happening, though.

Friends it was.

So, they’d chatted a few times on the phone, about easy things, like Mike coming in late to the clubhouse or the new and unique Ginnsanity posters he’d managed to pick out during a game. Nothing like their late night talks from last season, though, where conversation flowed so easily, a natural extension of their rapport on the field. (If he lived in hope that some day they’d make it back there, Mike played that pretty close to the chest.)

He accepted the call.

“What’s on your mind, Baker?” he drawled, spinning his keyring around his finger as he walked out the door. If she didn’t want to get drinks, she would’ve just texted him that. There was something else weighing on her.

“Drinks are good,” she started, only a little hesitant. Still, Mike could practically picture her pacing her room, tugging on her lip the way she did when she considered a problem. But then the reason for that hesitance became clear when she asked, “Just us?”

Every so often, they ran up against the slowly healing wounds of their past and things got a little awkward. Neither was all that eager to verbalize any more of their feelings, which made those awkward patches even harder to navigate.

"There another All Star on the team I’m unaware of?”

The silence before she replied, “No,” was longer than the question probably deserved.

Mike sighed. “Listen. Why don’t you save whatever’s eating at you for when I can look you in the eye and tell you you’re overthinking this, okay?”

Ginny huffed but didn’t disagree. “I pick the place, though,” she bargained, needing to win something in this conversation.

“Yeah, fine. Send me the address.”

When Mike walked into the shitty dive bar all the fucking way in El Cajon—which, he really did not want to know who’d been bringing Ginny Baker to shitty dives in El Cajon—he realized he maybe should have questioned why she wanted to meet here before this.

Because it was pretty clear from the number of empties surrounding her, Ginny’d been here awhile. Since before he’d even sent her the message, probably.

Still, Mike made his way over to her seat at the bar, the soles of his boots sticking unpleasantly to the floor, and sat beside her. Ginny didn’t look up from where she was glowering ferociously at her mostly empty bottle of beer.

“Who pissed in your corn flakes?” Mike asked, signaling the bartender for another round. He wasn’t starting tomorrow and neither was she, so he didn’t see the harm. Besides, it was rare enough to see Ginny so visibly and obviously bent out of shape. She deserved a little indulgence when it happened.

“Me.”

“That seems avoidable,” he observed easily. It wasn’t that he thought he could cajole her out of her bad mood, but it wasn’t like it’d hurt to try.

Ginny turned to face him, eyes remarkably clear for the amount of beer she’d put away. Then again, there was also probably a Double-Double and fries in her stomach, soaking up most of the alcohol. The woman couldn’t resist her burgers.

“I’m a fraud,” she said plainly.

Equally plain, and vividly recalling the last time he had this conversation with her, he replied, “You’re not a fraud.”

“I feel like one.”

“Well, I feel like I’ve got another two years left in my knees, but that doesn’t make it true.”

Ginny’s lips pursed in a little pout, so Mike looked away. Thankfully, the bartender chose that moment to return with their drinks, so it even seemed natural.

“I shouldn’t be an All Star,” she tried again. “I’ve got the worst ERA in the lineup—”

“You’re like a run and a half off—”

“—and there’s no way this isn’t just another publicity stunt by the league. I wonder what hashtag they used this year.”

Mike wasn’t used to Ginny sounding quite so bitter. That was his thing. Even when they’d been at each other’s throats, she’d mostly reacted, lashing out because he pushed and prodded until she had to. Well, if she’d learned it from him, she couldn’t ask for a better teacher.

Still, it wasn’t a good look on her.

Turning on his stool, Mike did his best to reassure her. “That’s not—”

“Please,” she spat, cutting him off. “I know I’m just Eddie Gaedel around here.”

Well, at least she’s given up the martyr routine.

Mike didn’t wince at the thought, but he was glad he’d managed to keep it stuffed behind his teeth. That was the kind of shit that got him here in the first place. Those jabs were coming less frequently, now, as they navigated their way slowly towards a tentative friendship, but Mike was all too aware that one poorly timed joke or backhanded compliment could unravel the fragile truce they’d built.

He did wince wondering if she’d somehow heard what he’d said about her that first start, more than a year ago. He doubted anyone’d blabbed to her, but it was so specific. Pushing down the guilt, he eyed her, wondering if this self-doubt was always simmering beneath the surface of Ginny Baker. She was so good at hiding it most of the time.

“You’ve made it an entire year, Baker. You know how hard that is? And you came back from an injury. You’re the real deal, not just some publicity stunt to sell more tickets.”

She made a disbelieving sound in the back of her throat and picked discontentedly at the label on her beer.

“Maybe, but it’s not like anyone takes me seriously.”

“You made this squad on your own merit, not ‘cause MLB pulled some strings. How much more seriously do you want people to take you? You’re a fucking All Star for Christ’s sake.”

“I won the popular vote because people know my name, not because I actually deserve to be an All Star.”

Mike frowned.

“You know I won the popular vote like three times, right?”

An acidic smile tugged at her mouth and it turned Mike’s stomach. Christ, he hated seeing her unhappy.

“Yeah. Just no one ever told you that you’d be a better asset to your team waiting in the locker room on your knees, mouth open,” she muttered, hunching sullenly over her drink.

Mike burned. Burned with shame that anything he’d ever said or done made Ginny think he came even close to thinking that of her. And burned with rage that some shithead had the nerve to tell her that and still managed to walk away with the use of all four limbs.

“Who the fuck said that to you?” he demanded, ready to shove off his stool, out of the bar, and into the early evening to track down the son of a bitch.

Ginny just shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it fucking matters! Who the fuck thought they had the right to spew that kind of bullshit at you?”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, one brow raised, and Mike wilted a little. He tried to tell himself that his bullshit had been different. Clearly, it hadn’t been different enough.

“It doesn’t matter,” she repeated, taking a slug from her beer and wrinkling her nose. Mike knew why she drank it, despite hating the taste, but he wished she didn’t feel like she had to. “It’s not like I believe it, but it’s hard to shake off the fact that other people do.”

“The people who matter don’t.”

Ginny finally turned to look at him full in the face. There was too much doubt in her wide, dark eyes.

“They don’t,” he pressed, leaning an elbow on the bar to keep from leaning into her space. That wasn’t what she needed. Or wanted. “Blip and Ev don’t. The rest of the team doesn’t. Neither does Al or the coaching staff. Or Oscar and the front office.”

“And what about you?”

Mike tried to shake off the way her husky murmur made his heart begin to pound and tried to focus on the fact that his opinion mattered again. That was the win. Especially since nothing was ever going to happen about the way almost everything about Ginny made his heart pound.

He thought about brushing it off, responding with a joke, like this didn’t mean the fucking world to him. But the uncertainty and hesitance on Ginny’s face convinced him otherwise.

“I don’t think that either.”

She sniffed, neither unimpressed nor looking like tears were imminent. Sometimes a sniff was just a sniff.

“Now that your pity party’s over—” Ginny laughed at that, taken aback but not mad. “—can we get outta here?”

“Yeah, old man. It’s getting close to your bedtime isn’t it?” she teased and Mike struggled not to light up. Fuck he’d missed this.

“You’d need the energy too if you had to drive all the way to El Cajon to give your pitcher a pep talk.”

Her smile this time was a little softer, but it hit him just as hard.

“Thanks for coming,” she said, fishing her phone out of her pocket. “You can go, I’ll just wait for my car to get here.”

“Nah, c’mon. I’ll take you.”

Someday soon—he fucking hoped—she’d stop looking quite so wary when he offered up these meaningless favors: a piece of gum, running hitters, a spot to sit, a bit of advice. She’d stop looking at him like she expected him to spit at her, not that he didn’t deserve the wary caution. He understood that reforming their friendship would be harder, more work than falling into it in the first place had been, but he would wait her out if it meant getting back to what they had been before he fucked it all up. He could be patient.

For Ginny, he was coming to realize, he could do a lot of things.

August

“Lawson,” Ginny called from across the clubhouse, “you coming out with us?”

He hesitated.

On the one hand, the team had just surged ahead in the standings, steadily clawing their way up to a Wild Card spot. If anything deserved a celebration, it was this.

And, personally, he was tempted to agree because he finally felt like his teammates actually wanted him to come. The Padres had come back around on Mike Lawson, a development that certainly didn’t hinder their newfound success on the field.

He should’ve known that Ginny’d be the key to winning back the rest of the team. Once they seemed satisfied that pitcher and catcher had buried the hatchet, Mike found that he was no longer the least popular guy in the clubhouse. It’d take time to fully rebuild some of those friendships, especially with Blip, but finally, Mike was sure that he actually could.

On the other hand, and more pressingly, Mike wasn’t sure it was a good idea to spend the evening with a Ginny Baker flushed with victory and riding a post-win high. Even if they’d spend that evening surrounded by the rest of their teammates. It seemed like a dangerous combination, and one he’d been trying to keep away from lately.

It was hard enough to remember that Ginny didn’t want him when they were fighting. When they were actually getting along? Forget about it.

Mike would love to deny that he was still hoping for Ginny to change her mind. Deny that his continued good behavior was at least partially inspired by the possibility that he could convince her to want him the way he still wanted her. Deny that he wanted the new ease to their friendship to be an indicator that the latent attraction Ginny’d felt for him last year was deepening into something more. He wanted to deny it all because there was no way any of that would come to pass.

These days, though, he was trying to keep his lies less potentially destructive.

At his pause, her eyes narrowed and her chin lifted stubbornly. “You’re coming,” she decreed. “Captain has to come out with the team, right guys?”

The agreement that went around the room was less half-hearted than it would’ve been at the beginning of the season, which was something.

Still, though, Mike hesitated.

Ginny’s jaw set, and before she could tear into him, he caved.

“Fine, Baker!” he huffed, snatching his bag off his chair. “You don’t have to beg!”

“I don’t beg!”

She looked so scandalized, mouth agape but still somehow grinning, Mike couldn’t help but snort and shake his head. The rest of the team started to shuffle out into the bowels of Petco Park, but Ginny waited for him, her fingers curled around the strap of her backpack.

“I’m sorry,” he drawled as he drew even with her, itching to throw an arm around her shoulders the way he would’ve this time last year. She fell into step with him anyway, which would have to be good enough. “What was that big-eyed puppy impression you were doing the other day when I wouldn’t give you my lunch? Seemed an awful lot like begging...”

Ginny scoffed. “Did you just compare me to a dog?”

Mike thought it over and decided to go with it. “I haven’t seen something so pathetic since Jedi used to beg for dinner scraps.”

“You did not just compare me to your dead dog!” she laughed, elbowing him hard in the ribs.

“Jesus, Baker! Watch where you put those things!”

“You deserved it!”

“Yeah, yeah,” he agreed, privately thinking that a few cheap shots were well worth Ginny laughing with him again.

They managed an easy back and forth all the way to the player’s lot, where Mike headed for his truck, figuring he’d just follow the line of Padres to whatever club or bar was hosting tonight’s outing and Ginny would ride with Blip or, God forbid, Livan. Either way, he could take the time in the car to remind himself that he and Ginny were just friends, and he was fucking lucky to have that. He wouldn’t contemplate heading home instead, knowing she and the rest of the team would end up giving him shit all night, blowing up his phone to the point where he might as well just be with them.

He slung himself up into the driver’s seat and loosed a long breath, closing his eyes. In the quiet, he told himself, Just get through this.

That peace was shattered by someone insistently pulling at the passenger’s side door, apparently annoyed at being locked out.

Before he even opened his eyes to see who it was, Mike was reaching to unlock the door. His head lolled to the side and he forced himself to face reality just in time for Ginny to jerk open the door and climb inside.

“Were you planning on leaving me here?” she asked, suspicious but not serious.

“I thought about it,” he replied, not mentioning that he hadn’t even considered she’d want to ride with him. Not when she could have her pick of chauffeurs.

“Rude, Lawson. You’re rude.”

“And yet you’re still friends with me.”

She tossed him a quick smile, no hesitation and Mike wondered if he’d ever stop sagging in relief when she did that: didn’t question their friendship.

Bag settled in the footwell, where Ginny’s pristine Nikes were meant to go, she propped her feet on the dashboard instead, making herself at home. Mike cut her a quick glance out of the side of his eyes as he pulled out of the spot and followed Salvamini onto the San Diego streets, but Ginny ignored him. Instead, she picked up their conversation where they’d left it: Desert Island Movies.

Mike was laughing at Ginny’s latest pick (while he’d never seen the Josie and the Pussycats movie, he felt confident in saying it wasn’t Desert Island material) when the turn he took blew him straight into a bout of déjà vu.

A rumbling sense of intuitive dread crept into his stomach at the next.

“Where’d you say we’re going?”

She shrugged, fiddling with the radio. “I don’t know. I didn’t pick. Livan said he knew somewhere.”

Mike nodded, but as they neared their destination, the pit in his stomach opened up, ready to swallow the ease he’d fought and scrapped for with Ginny whole.

He pulled into a spot on the street behind Salvi’s minivan, threw the car into park, and couldn’t quite hold in his disbelieving scoff of laughter.

Fucking Livan.

“I didn’t pick it,” Ginny repeated, staring hollowly with Mike at the familiar building.

Boardner’s.

Mike bit back his sigh. “I know.”

“You don’t think they...”

She didn’t have to finish the thought for Mike to know what she meant.

“No. I don’t think they know.”

A slightly manic spurt of laughter burbled out of Ginny’s mouth. “So this is just some coincidence?”

“Yeah.”

“It can’t be,” she argued, voice going a little high as she let panic creep in. “It means something. It was this time last year—”

“Hey,” he murmured, reaching out without thinking to hold her hand. It was so rare that he let himself touch her, Mike wanted to revel in the feel of her warm, dry skin against his, but he focused on the matter before them. “You said you didn’t want to talk about it, and we don’t have to. It’s your call, I’ll follow it.”

She looked at him, chest heaving a little as she struggled to wrangle her breathing into its regular rhythm. When it settled, she asked, “You’ll follow my call?”

“That’s all I’m trying to do.”

For a second, a flicker of confusion passed over her face, but it was gone by the time Mike blinked. In its place was frowning comprehension.

That she hadn’t realized he’d tried to be better for her and not just the sake of team dynamics was pretty fucking gutting, but better late than never. Mike offered her a half-hearted grin which she returned, equally unsure.

“You ready to go in?”

Ginny looked back to the bar and blew out a long breath, exhaling her discomfort and the memories of last year. Finally, she shook out her shoulders, settling them straight and even over her spine. “Yeah, let’s go.”

Mike’s grin brightened. How couldn’t it in the face of Ginny’s strength and composure?

When she didn’t move to open the car door, though, he let himself tease her, just a little.

“All right, then. I’d hate to leave your adoring fans waiting.”

She threw him an exasperated glance, but at last climbed out of the SUV and headed for bar (her biggest fan right on her heels).

September

As was becoming habit lately, Mike was the last one left in the Padres clubhouse at the end of the night. Tomorrow, they’d play their last game of the regular season. Two days later, they’d go into the first Wild Card game for the Padres in more than five years.

He was doing his best to soak everything in, commit it all to memory. Even the slightly stale scent of sweat and dirty socks.

“Did you fall asleep again?”

Mike cracked open an eye to see Ginny staring down at him in her post-game uniform of leggings and a workout jacket, fond smile on her face.

“You find me sleeping one time,” he muttered, leaning forward and scrubbing a hand over his face to keep himself from staring.

“It was way more than once,” she responded, flopping into Blip’s empty chair and spinning idly. Mike could feel her studying him, but couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge it. Gently, she asked, “You ready for tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I guess there’s not too much I can fuck up with one day left.”

“Not as long as they keep Salvi out at first.”

Mike ignored the joke, feeling too close to nostalgic and weepy to appreciate it. “It’s a goddamn miracle I made it this far.”

Ginny hummed and nodded. “Your knees?”

He shook his head, though she wasn’t wrong. “I’m not good at just having. There’s something about me that makes it impossible to just let things be good.”

“That’s bullshit,” she returned, entirely and suddenly unsympathetic.

“Real nice, Baker.”

“It is!” she defended, leaning forward in her chair, so close their knees nearly touched. Mike sat back, arms crossed over his chest like he was annoyed, but really just needing space.

Once he was retired, he’d have all the space he wanted.

It wasn’t a comforting thought.

“You’ve had sixteen years in the majors without imploding, Mike. You’re the captain of this team and have the respect of everyone who’s ever played with you. What’s that if not letting things be good?”

“Right,” he huffed, pushing to his feet to pace. “Those same sixteen years where I let my personal life go to shit more times than I can count? Including my wife leaving me twice and blowing that respect you say I’ve got out of the water when I tried to abandon my team over—”

He shut the hell up.

“Over what?” Ginny murmured, though the undercurrent of steel was nothing to laugh at. It wasn’t something he could easily lie to, either.

He didn’t.

“Over something I let get to me and affect the team too long.”

“Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“What else should we call it?” he demanded roughly, looking away.

“Maybe the worst six weeks of my entire life?”

“You got over it just fine,” he said, exhausted and wishing he hadn’t walked straight into this.

“I got over it?” she repeated, disbelief coloring each word. Mike didn’t have anything to say to that. Ginny did, though, standing up, too. “Do you know how fucking heartbroken I was in Arizona? It was like you hated me, Mike, and I had no idea what I’d done!”

“You didn’t do anything and I definitely didn’t hate you,” he sighed, pained that she thought that, but also unwilling to dig deeper.

“It felt like it!”

“What do you want me to say?” he bit out, struggling not to raise his voice, but frustrated beyond hell.

The only reason he’d managed not to lose it all season was by burying the truth of his feelings, their breadth and startling depth, way down deep. He couldn’t believe Ginny wanted the truth now, with one game left in the regular season. They’d made it this far. Why ruin everything they’d gotten back now?

“Start with the truth!”

“No.”

“Why?” she demanded, shaking with her anger.

“Because I already know how this is gonna play out, and forgive me if I’m not that eager to go back to not talking to you.”

“Oh, you know how this is gonna play out?” Ginny mimicked with a sneer.

“I’ve got a pretty good fucking idea,” he spat back. “You made yourself very clear.”

“How could I have made myself clear when I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about?”

Mike snorted, which she did not seem to appreciate. At all.

“What the fuck was that? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mike—”

“You said it was a mistake,” he cut her off, and she fell silent at his words. “When I— When I kissed you, you said it was a mistake.”

Ginny stared at him, for once at a loss for words.

Mike, on the other hand, couldn’t keep the words down any longer.

“It was a fucking mistake. I was drunk and pissed and I never should’ve kissed you. Not because I was out of my mind with jealousy—had been ever since I found out about your date with the billionaire—and desperate to deny the fact that I’d already ruined everything there was between us. I shouldn’t’ve kissed you. Not like that.”

Ginny swallowed, digesting his words. Just when he was about to turn away, leave this conversation on a higher note than he was sure it would go if he continued, her voice stopped him.

“Then how?”

She stared up at him, lips slightly parted and looking so perfectly kissable that it was Mike’s turn to be at a loss. Which seemed to suit Ginny fine.

“How should you have kissed me, Mike?" She took a step toward him, eyes trained on his face. “If you shouldn’t’ve been drunk or jealous or desperate, tell me how you should’ve kissed me.”

Ginny was so close. It would be so easy to reach out and tuck that stray curl behind her ear. So easy to set his hands on her waist and wait for hers to find their own holds on him. So easy to duck down and press the kiss she seemed to be asking for against her waiting mouth.

So easy.

But a mistake.

“I should’ve waited,” he answered. The way Ginny rocked away from him told Mike that she hadn’t been expecting that. “I should’ve waited until we weren’t teammates. Until I wasn’t in the game. Anything else would’ve been unfair to you.”

When Ginny finally managed to come up with a response, she seemed torn between a frown and a smile. Her lips turned down, but her dimples still dotted her cheeks. “I told you I don’t care about fair.”

“You might not, but I do.”

Her eyes closed at that, a rueful smile overtaking the frown. “You know, I thought you were such an asshole when we first met.”

Mike startled back at that, a shocked laugh leaving his lips. Ginny shook her head, gazing up at him, head tilted to the side like she was puzzling him out.

“And you are. You definitely can be an asshole when you feel like it, but you’re something else, too. You’re sweet and strong and entirely too hard on yourself. I do forgive you. Because I know that even though I don’t understand, not all the way at least, what made you act like that in Arizona, I can see how hard you’re trying to put things right.”

“I am,” he breathed, hardly capable of believing that Ginny was really going to forgive him.

She nodded and Mike nearly sagged at how the simple gesture put him at ease. It was suddenly so much easier to breathe, a weight lifted from his shoulders that he’d gotten too accustomed to.

“I don’t know if I agree that any kiss you give me before you’re retired would be a mistake,” she said, which Mike still couldn’t get over. He’d spent so much time these past few months convincing himself that Ginny hadn’t ever wanted him at all. Finding out she did, she does, was maybe more than he could process at the moment. “But I can see your point. You said you’d follow my calls, but—”

As she backed away from him, heading for the clubhouse entrance, Ginny grinned.

“Maybe it’s time I start following yours.”

Epilogue: October

Mike had never been one to believe that wanting something the most meant he was going to get it. There had been so many things in his life that he’d wanted—a regular family, a career for the history books, a happy marriage—a hell of a lot more than most people, but he hadn’t necessarily gotten them.

No, wanting was only as good as the effort he was willing to put in to get it.

But goddamn if he didn’t want this.

It wasn’t the crowd screaming out his name or how inherently right he felt standing at the plate, bat in hand.

It wasn’t that this was the biggest game in baseball and he was finally playing it.

It wasn’t that this was the last game of his career and suddenly everything meant so much more. The last time he tarred his bat, the last time he got into it with an umpire; the last, the last, the last.

It wasn’t even the pleasant pool of anticipation in his gut—such a change from the pit that’d been there all season—every time he caught sight of Ginny.

Or maybe it was. Maybe it was all of it swirled together to make for the most exhilarating nine innings of his life.

Nine perfect innings. Even if it wasn’t Ginny on the mound. And it wasn’t his foot to last touch home. There wasn’t a single pitch, hit, or play that Mike would change or trade.

Not when it led to him mobbed in a crush of his teammates, voices hoarse as they shouted and screamed out their newest title: World Series Champions.

In the melee, somehow Mike found his way to Ginny’s side. Or maybe she found him or they found their way to each other. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t thrown a single pitch today, not when she threw her arms around his neck and laughed out her joy. Mike couldn’t help but echo it back, his own arms wrapping around her waist in a way that felt all too natural.

There was no kiss. Not yet, at least. But one would come soon. And then another and hopefully a million more. A lifetime of kissing Ginny Baker lay before him.

Because even though his career had come to a close, that didn’t mean the rest of his life had, too.

For once, he even believed it.

#bawson #bawson fic #Pitch #pitch fic #i wrote something #this is it #the fic I've been agonizing over #for way too long #and i really like the middle #the end's ok #i'm still processing the beginning

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whymustmyfavalwaysdie · 8 years ago

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Anime recs!

Animes I’ve (more or less) recently watched and loved:

Yuri on ice; 12 episodes; for the story, the character development, the music

Orange; 13 episodes; the story (#heartbreaking), the drawing and the characters are beautiful

Spirit pact / soul contract; 10 episodes (or 20 if you watch the Chinese version); i like the world of it (ghosts, demons,.) and the “funny” moments/reactions of some characters

Sword art online; 25 episodes, i liked the idea of being in a video game’s world and the drawing are really pretty, most of the characters are developed (in my memory)

Hakuoki; 3 seasons of 10 to 12 episodes each; samurai!!! (I haven’t find the time to watch the third season tbh, but the first two are really great!)

Guilty crown; 22 episodes; I’ve learned that this anime is really controverted as some people, like me, really liked it and some didn’t at all but well it’s up to you! the world the characters evolves in, its development and the one of the characters and their personalities are the things i really liked about this anime!

Alderamin on the sky; again, another anime i really enjoyed and i guess the drawings (the drawings means a lot for me as you may have guessed already XD) and the bunch of characters we follow is the thing i like about this anime

Okay Alderamin on sky, Orange, Yuri on ice, Spirit pact are from 2016 and the others are pretty recent as well but the three that are about to come are from the 1980’s and i absolutely adore them! I rewatched them a lot already in the past years and they mean a lot to me! i wasn’t born in the 1980’s but they were diffused again when i was younger and i just love them so much

The mysterious cities of gold, I. LOVE. THIS. SERIES.SO. MUCH SO SO SO MUCH! (I’m kind of pissed right now because i had written a nearly essay for this but i clicked on something wrong and then poof! gone so I’ll try to make this second draft as good as the first one) in those 39 episodes we follow the adventures of Esteban, Tao and Zia and their friends throughout the New World (it’s during the 16th century so we’re talking about the American continent here) as they are looking for the cities of gold. I cannot tell much because SPOILERS but yeah i love this story!! i know the theme songs, the speech intro that’s before the opening song, the plot of the episodes, EVERYTHING by heart! and I JUST LOVE IT SO SO SO MUCH! It means so much to me and i cannot even put words on this because it’s just my childhood, and moments I’ve spend with people and and I LOVE IT OKAY? everything about this story is just great, the themes, the friendship, the story, the drawings, the feelings, EVERYTHING! maybe my point of view is a little biased but let me tell you that the box set holding the DVDs at home is more damaged than Walt Disney’s one SO YEAH! this is an argument don’t judge me! so i hope this make you want to Watch this because i really want more people to know more about this series. it’s a French one so i don’t know how well the dub version is but please please please please Watch it if you can! AND BY ALL POINT! try to not Watch the sequel they try to made back two or three years ago, because #destructionoftheoriginalfeels #childhoodtornapart the story is good i guess, maybe it’s just my strong feelings for the original 80′s series but this “second season” as they like to call it doesn’t make up to it to me! LAST THING! PICHU IS THE BEST PARROT EVER I WANT HIM IN MY LIFE

Ulysses 31, the odyssey BUT IN SPACE! AND NONO IS THE BEST YOU CAN’T TELL ME OTHERWISE! BEST BUDDY AWARD! I used to Watch it with my bro when we were younger and we were so sad when we miss an episode!

Candy Candy, this one i have no Watch during my childhood but i love it anyway, we follow Candy a Young girl who will get through a lot in her life and will always try to keep her big bright smile! her development, the story, the themes, the characters, everything is so Worth it! (again, another series you want to keep tissues with you. I’m not an easy cry but gosh. this one at some point is just too powerful. you will cry of laughter too though)

The rose of Versailles, I’ve Watch this one last year i think, or maybe already two years ago, times goes by so quickly, and it takes place during the French revolution. We follow a girl who has been raised as a boy by her father as he already had many daughters and he wanted/needed a boy more than anything (that’s why the name of the anime is also Lady Oscar), I can’t tell you a lot about the story except it’s really great, that the characters are amazing and that the end of the anime killed me.

Here it is @randomhiccup24! okay i didn’t think at first that it would turn out so long but i got carried away for my love for these four animes I’ve talked about AND NOW I WANT TO WATCH THEM ALL OVER AGAIN!! whyyyyyy

PS: i’ve poured all my heart into this! hope you’ll like it!

@cmarthad1 @ionica01 @mariandanime @paperrabbit13 @ladyasheofkirkwall @thedragneellucy @karla4103

#anime recommendation #yuri on ice #orange anime #spirit pact #soul contract #sword art online #sao #hakuouki #guilty crown #alderamin on the sky #the mysterious cities of gold #ulysses 31 #candy candy #the rose of versailles #lady oscar #I love this series so much !!#i'm so emotional right now #childhood memories

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itsfinancethings · 5 years ago

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When Bong Joon-Ho went onstage to accept the Academy Award for Best International Film for Parasite at the 2020 Oscars, he thought his night was done. “I am ready to drink tonight until next morning,” he said gleefully. He had already collected one Oscar before that, for Best Original Screenplay.

But instead, Bong would return to the stage to collect two more trophies: one for Best Director, making him the second Asian to win that award, after Ang Lee—and one for Best Picture. Parasite‘s upset win in the biggest category of the night, over frontrunner 1917, made it the first foreign language film ever to win Best Picture across 92 years of Oscar history.

“I feel like a very opportune moment in history is happening right now,” one of the film’s producers, Kwak Sin-ae, said while accepting the award.

bong joon ho staring at an oscar in awe pic.twitter.com/s2SjwHZUUW

— Kathryn VanArendonk (@kvanaren) February 10, 2020

Gone are the days when foreign films only stood a chance of opening to coastal cinephiles. Parasite has shown that foreign language films can be unifying blockbuster events—and its success is proof of the fact that, as director Bong Joon-Ho himself said at the Globes, “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”

Released concurrently with many structural changes—including the advent of streaming and concerted widespread efforts to champion diversity—Parasite’s runaway success could mark a pivotal turning point for foreign language films, and especially Asian ones, in America. “This is a huge breaking of a psychological barrier,” Janet Yang, a veteran Hollywood producer, tells TIME. “This wall we’ve built, in which non-English language movies were limited not just in release or box office but in people’s minds, is being cracked.”

But Parasite’s success also arose from a very specific set of circumstances that may not be easily replicable. And in Korea and elsewhere, a new crop of Asian filmmakers is working hard to ensure that Parasite isn’t just a momentary bout of glory but the start of a new global era.

The marginalization of foreign films

Things were very different for foreign language films at the start of Yang’s multi-decade career. When she arrived in Hollywood in the ’80s, Asian-language films, in particular, weren’t even considered a possibility for mainstream wide release. “They would be marketed in a different way. It was all about getting the Asian audience out, along with the specialty festival crowd,” she says. Indie distributors that are now long gone, like New Yorker Films and Circle Films, funneled international films to theaters like New York’s Film Forum, where they found success with erudite and adventurous audiences.

But these films were mostly low-budget, low-grossing specialty affairs that rarely made a dent at the box office—and received even less recognition from the Academy Awards. While Hollywood likes to think of itself as the center of the film world, 92 years of Oscar nominations support Bong’s claim that the Oscars are “very local.” Just 12 foreign language films have ever been nominated for Best Picture—and most of those films depicted a monumental historical event or figure, whether it be the Holocaust (Life is Beautiful), World War II (Letters from Iwo Jima) or Pablo Neruda (Il Postino). The Academy’s choices pointed to the idea that voters valued the modern lives of people around the world less than their historical or American counterparts.

In 2000, Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon exploded to $128 million at the North American box office, becoming the highest-grossing foreign language film produced overseas at the American box office. The 18th-century martial arts film, the first Asian-language movie and only other one besides Parasite to land a Best Picture nod, showed that audiences would be willing to read subtitles—but also reinforced the idea that the only foreign films worth paying attention to were those that told exotic or historical stories. Over the next few years, other martial arts films like Hero and Kung Fu Hustle successfully replicated Crouching Tiger’s success, but did little to expand the scope of foreign language film in America.

The Korean auteur generation

While Lee was stringing together a run of multilingual epics, a new generation of Korean filmmakers was in the midst of its own golden age. Emboldened by the country’s expanding democratic rights and flush with cash from chaebols—large family-run conglomerates—a group of auteurs led by the trio Bong Joon-Ho, Kim Ji-woon and Park Chan-wook rose in the ’90s with films like The Quiet Family, Joint Security Area and Barking Dogs Never Bite. In 2004, Park’s Oldboy became the first Korean film to win the Grand Prix at Cannes.

But it was Bong, in particular, who would chart a path toward international stardom through a set of savvy strategic choices. “He’s able to think 10 years ahead—he understands the industry very, very well,” Jason Bechervaise, an entertainment professor at Korea Soongsil Cyber University who also wrote a Ph.D. thesis on Bong’s work, told TIME. In 2013, Bong crossed over to Hollywood with Snowpiercer, his first English-language film, which raised eyebrows for being one of the first films to come to streaming soon after theatrical release. In 2017, his bilingual film Okja caused a firestorm at Cannes when audience members objected to the inclusion of a Netflix production in the festival.

“This chaos is all good news for Bong because they talk about him, and more people become aware of who he is,” Bechervaise says. Having gained an international profile—and many high profile friends and admirers like Tilda Swinton and Quentin Tarantino—Bong ensured that when he returned to Korea to make a fully foreign language film, the world would still be paying attention.

Streaming and social media rewrite the rules

At the same time, American audiences were also seeing more faces of color on their screens thanks to the erosion of traditional gatekeepers in film and television. In 2015 and 2016, #OscarsSoWhite exploded on Twitter after two consecutive years of all-white acting nominees, leading the Academy to announce an initiative to double their number of female and minority members by 2020. In 2018 and 2019, social media campaigns helped lift Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians to huge box office returns—and even non-blockbusters like Roma (in Spanish) and The Farewell (in Mandarin and English) fared better than expected thanks to insistent support from communities of color.

All of these successes showed production companies and distributors that increased representation was, if nothing else, a sensible economic move. It was in this climate that the distributor Neon came to the fore as a rising powerhouse that invested both in English and non-English films. In 2019, they released four well-received foreign language films, including Parasite, Honeyland and Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

While traditional film production companies and distributors warmed to a broader range of releases, they also received a push from streaming services, whose potential subscribers could come from anywhere in the world. In 2016, Netflix put a stake down in South Korea, spearheading not just Okja but the zombie series Kingdom and the romantic teen drama Love Alarm. Their algorithm placed Okja in the same ‘taste cluster’ as Mad Men—meaning that viewers with no experience with foreign language films might still be prompted to watch it, and give it a chance from the comfort of their couch. In the coming years, the Japanese reality show Terrace House and the Spanish language drama Narcos: Mexico would become global phenomena.

Global resonance

In May, Parasite opened at Cannes to an eight-minute standing ovation, eventually winning the festival’s top prize. In October, the film opened in the U.S.—and thanks to rapturous reviews, word-of-mouth campaigns that included the efforts of Gold House—an Asian American organization that had formed in 2018 to boost Crazy Rich Asians at the box office—and all the factors mentioned above, Parasite claimed the biggest-ever opening for an international film in the U.S.

Of course, it was not merely these external factors that drove Parasite’s success, but the quality of the film itself. While the movie is distinctly Korean in its approach to horror and humor, its incisive exploration of inequality hit the zeitgeist at the exact right moment. “Uneven distribution of wealth is a disease we all live with, wherever you are,” Suk-Young Kim, a theater and performance studies professor at UCLA, tells TIME. “It’s something we can all relate to.” This subject material elevated the film from a local Korean story into a larger wave of movies exploring the same subject—from Burning to Us to Joker.

And it can’t have hurt that the movie was shot in a rising center of culture and fashion thanks to the increasing dominance of K-pop. “Seoul is a cultural hub: a fashionable place that more people want to visit and know about,” Kim says.

Thanks to a shrewd rollout from Neon, Parasite continued to excel at the box office throughout the fall and gain momentum into awards season. The awards season success of Roma the year before had eased the path, as had the the increased diversity within the ranks of the Academy. Since 2015, the percentage of female Academy voters has risen from 25 to 32 percent, while the number of minorities has doubled from 8 to a still paltry 16 percent. This year, the invitees hailed from 59 countries.

But the movie’s momentum was also carried by Bong Joon-Ho who led the way as a witty and charismatic presence on the circuit. He quickly became the main event at many Oscars parties and generated headlines for his extremely quotable speeches. “It’s impossible not to be charmed by him, for sure,” Yang says.

In January, Parasite became the first foreign language film to ever win the SAG Award for best cast of a motion picture. Backstage, Choi Woo-shik, who plays Ki-woo, used the platform to open the door for the next generation. “Other than us, there are so many legends out there in foreign countries,” he said. “I really truly hope that after this moment, maybe next year, we can see more foreign-language films and Asian films.”

“Milestone and motivation”

The success of Parasite does not necessarily guarantee lasting change. The Korean film industry has recently become stagnant—with admissions plateauing since 2013—and top-heavy, with many blockbusters taking up an increasing amount of space at theaters. (Last year, a Korean Film Council study said that on any given day, 67.5% of all screenings would be occupied by the three most screened films).

And while any movie by Bong, Park and Kim attracts widespread interest, the rest of the country’s filmmakers are far less known around the world. “The industry, globally at least, is heavily reliant on the auteurs,” Bechervaise says. He worries that the circumstances that led to their creative rise are not replicable—and that young filmmakers will not only have to contend with the trio’s long shadow, but competition from the onslaught of global content arriving in Korea thanks to streaming services.

But for some Korean filmmakers, Parasite’s success is already causing a trickle-down effect. At the 2020 International Film Festival Rotterdam last week, the director Kim Yong-hoon noticed a change in the way people were looking at his new film Beasts Clawing at Straws. “I definitely felt this increased global interest, not only from the festival programmer but from the audience,” he wrote in an email to TIME through a translator. “These international film industry people now notice that there are plenty of good filmmakers in Korea.”

Beasts Clawing at Straws won the festival’s special jury award, while another Korean film, Yoon Dan-bi’s Moving On, won the Bright Future prize. At Sundance, Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, which is set in Arkansas but spoken mostly in Korean, made a big splash, winning the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize for the dramatic category. The Steven Yuen-led film, produced by Brad Pitt’s company Plan B Entertainment, will be distributed by A24, which successfully launched movies like Moonlight and Lady Bird.

So anyone hoping to find the next Parasite won’t have to look far. The Truth, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s first non-Japanese-language film, stars two French legends in Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche and arrives in March. On streaming, Alan Yang’s Tigertail, which is mostly delivered in different Chinese dialects, will arrive on Netflix, while an adaptation of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko in Japanese and Korean is in the works at Apple. Thanks to Parasite, they all have the opportunity to make an impact not just at Film Forum but across the United States and the world.

“I think Parasite could be a milestone and at the same time a motivation to the next generation filmmakers,” Kim says. “This is a huge opportunity.”

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

androgynouskittycollectorfan · 6 years ago

Video

Under The Spell Of Hollywood 2

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/user_images/4259000/hellokatyperry-4259407_500_350.png

http://www.fanpop.com/fans/hellokatyperry/gallery/image/4259407

Websites and blogs above as below forums blogs

[URL=http://www.fanpop.com/fans/hellokatyperry/gallery/image/4259407][IMG]http://images5.fanpop.com/image/user_images/4259000/hellokatyperry-4259407_500_350.png[/IMG][/URL]

Getty Images

22nd January 2016: In the weeks following, the pair are seen together again several times, including at an LA performance of the play The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey. A photo shared on Instagram shows the couple having a blast, while standing safely apart.

#katyperry #vinessashaw #orlandobloom #Krisgifford #absolutebrightnessplay

A post shared by James L (@jameslecesne) on Jan 22, 2016 at 12:15am PST

12th February 2016: The couple are seen getting close at an Adele concert, aka the best date location ever. A fellow concert-goer tells the Mail Online that the pair were in "high spirits" and kissed more than once. "At certain points Orlando would give Katy a peck on the lips but then would just carry on enjoying Rolling In The Deep," said the source.

24th February 2016: ET reports that the two are on holiday in Hawaii doing coupley things, like holding hands, hiking and making out on a bench. Pictures emerge of a shirtless Orlando and it's clear they are more than just friends.

April 2016: The new couple hang out at Coachella and fellow festival-goers report there was some serious PDA going on. "They came in about 20 minutes in to The Kills set," an eyewitness tells E! News. "They were hugging and with a group of other people. Orlando was behind her and swaying with her to the music. They also were vaping together. They were kissing and very much a couple."

3rd May 2016: Perrybloom attend The Met Gala in New York, but much to everyone's disappointment, they walk the red carpet separately. Still, they do manage to do one thing together. Inspired by the exhibit's theme, "Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology," both decide to wear matching Tamagotchis. (Romance!)

20th May 2016: It's official! After months of secrecy, Katy shares a picture of herself with Orlando at Cannes Film Festival. The photo shows the couple sprawled out on the staircase of a mansion with the caption "we cannes't". It comes a day after the duo tried very hard to play it cool for photographers at the amfAR Gala.

Getty Images

August 2016: Those paddleboarding photos start doing the rounds and suddenly, this relationship doesn't feel so private any more. During a relaxing getaway to Italy with Katy, Orlando strips naked before getting into the water to enjoy a romantic paddleboard ride with his girlfriend, who casually sips on a beer. NY Daily News releases the photographs, and of course, everyone starts freaking out.

THE DAILY STAR FRONT PAGE: "Blooming oarsome Orlando" #skypapers pic.twitter.com/YrwMX2IX0p

— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 3, 2016

October 2016: Perrybloom win at Halloween. Orlando and Katy, who campaigned for Hillary Clinton and performed at several Democrat rallies, decide to dress up as the as Donald Trump and his rival at Kate Hudson's party. And they don't mess around when it comes to making their costumes as realistic as possible. Reports say the singer spent hours having makeup and prosthetics applied.

❤️BILL & HILL 4EVA❤️ Hair, makeup & prosthetics by: @tonygardner @Makeup_man @Carltoncoleman_makeupfx @mthreemfx Wardrobe by: @sweetbabyjamie Trump troll by: @jwujek & @shokrala

A post shared by KATY PERRY (@katyperry) on Oct 29, 2016 at 6:30pm PDT

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

22nd November 2016: Reports that these two are no longer an item first emerge. A source tells InTouch Weekly: "Not long after Halloween, Orlando confessed to pals that he'd decided to end their relationship. He claimed that he's just not ready to get married and have babies." Yet another source claims it was Katy who ended it. "She said they were on different life paths and as much as she likes him, it's time to move on," the insider said. Days later, they pair look like they had the greatest Thanksgiving EVER, which suggests they haven't split up after all.

2nd January 2017: Orlando kicks off 2017 by very publicly showing just how committed he is to his girlfriend. He takes Katy to Tokyo's Sanrio theme park to hang out with Hello Kitty. It must be love.

15th January 2017: In honour of Orlando's 40th birthday, Katy throws him an all-out surprise party in Palm Springs. And she really pulls out all the stops. The birthday boy gets treated to a cake topped with a life-size fondant owl on top and a surprise visit from his mum. She also arranges for guests to be given onesies printed with Orlando's face on the front. Best girlfriend ever.

#HappyBirthdayOrlandoBloom

Orlandobloom birthday party, Katy's Landoowl cake💏👀💘 https://www.pic.twitter.com/gxJbQ9PGJ5

— OrlandoBloom_Orli (@OB_orli) January 14, 2017

26th February 2017: Katy and Orlando are pictured together at the Vanity Fair Oscars party, but multiple sources report that they weren't as close as usual during the event. Despite Orlando sharing a cute photo with Katy's puppy to Instagram the next day, many speculate they have decided to take a break due to their recent time apart.

Getty Images

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Apollo the prophet declares;

As the story goes by 18/08/2018 it was fair to say that ORLANDO BLOOM had finished Katy Perry’s career for good there was no way of using her claws to get back to the heady heights of the period that APOLLO GOD OF MUSIC had taken Katy right up till he discovered the Bloom adultery and as son of god teamed up with ‘PARIS’ his fighting partner Katycumslut never stood a chance as Paris and Apollo take the roles of VULTURES to pick over the bones of Katy Perry like all the money as Katy was a Big Breasted Bimbo up against the V best the UK had to offer:

https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/tours/katy-perry-mania-falters-during-2018-witness-tour/news-story/892768960ed5ad12691bede3e187ab81

1st March 2017: After over a year of dating, a statement from their reps confirms Perrybloom is indeed over. "Before rumours or falsifications get out of hand, we can confirm that Orlando and Katy are taking respectful, loving space at this time," the joint statement says.

14th August 2017: Katy and Orlando are spotted looking super-cosy at an Ed Sheeran gig. Does this mean they're back together? It sure looks like it is judging by these photos on Twitter...

31st December 2017: Katy and Orlando spend New Year's together in Japan, so things are looking good for this former couple. They went on a Hello Kitty ride at Sanrio Puroland and it looked terrifying. (That's Orlando saying hello in Katy's Instagram Stories.)

7th January 2018: Katy and Orlando are spotted having a lovely time in the Maldives together. But is it a romantic getaway or just two pals having a nice holiday together?

Katy Perry with Orlando Bloom today ... 👀 pic.twitter.com/TkoDOuFoMM

— KATY PERRY NEWS (@KPInfos) January 4, 2018

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

13th February 2018: Just three weeks after the couple are spotted holidaying together, a source tells The Sun that they are well and truly back together.

“They’re back on,” a source says. “Katy wants to make things work this time around. She tried, but she couldn’t cut him off. She cares too much about him. This time, they’re keeping things low key – but they’re back together.”

Katy Perry confirms she's back with Orlando Bloom?

26th April 2018: Katy essentially confirms rumours that she and Orlando are back together in an interview with ET, when she's asked whether she'd date an American Idol contestant.

"No, I'm sorry I have been spoken for and speak for myself," she said, and added, "And I'm very happy!"

The reporter responded, "You're spoken for right now?!" and Katy replied, "Yeah, girl, of course I am!"

23rd May 2018: Katy, once again, appears to confirm she and Orlando are back on.

On the season finale of American Idol, the singer confessed her love to Bachelorette star Becca Kufrin, and then let it slip that she's not single.

“Can I be in the running?” Katy jokingly asked the Bachelorette contestant, as she got down on one knee to give Becca a kiss on the hand.

“Yes, I’ll give you all my roses,” Becca responded, but then Katy said, “I’m not single but I still like you.”

She must be talking about Orlando, right?

katyhudson3 https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom/

https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/tours/katy-perry-mania-falters-during-2018-witness-tour/news-story/892768960ed5ad12691bede3e187ab81

https://delicatelypsychicbird.tumblr.com/supermodeltaylor13

https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom/

https://youtu.be/z5Ain15tsxk

https://www.ranker.com/list/katy-perry-without-makeup/celeb-stalker?ref=collections_btm&l=358766&collectionId=752

https://www.elitedaily.com/p/is-katy-perry-single-this-major-clue-suggests-shes-back-with-orlando-bloom-9215250

https://www.buzzfeed.com/lauraturner/katy-perry-god?utm_term=.hnwBY1pXRe#.cwa1xdR34l

GOD DENIES EVRYTHING HE CALLS KATY A LIAR AND A CHEATAND SORRY HE HAS TO BE SO MEAN HE CURSED HER! #OMG https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom/

https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom /

meet n greet pooper scooper in rome:

https://instagram.com/p/BiJPmVNlGrt/?utm_source=ig_embed

#bb Bubbadoos bird @katyhudson3 https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom /

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/re-using-public-sector-information/uk-government-licensing-framework/crown-copyright/

HEADLINES 20TH July 2018 GAYPEDO +(POS) HEPATITUS B CARRIER ORLANDO BLOOM AND SICKO SUICIDAL SINGER QUEEN OF ANAL PORN UNPROTECTED KATHERYN ELIZABETH KATYCAT HUDSON KATY PERRY <3 GOING AT IT AFTER 2 YEARS STILL NO BABY = MK ULTRA ILLUMINATI GODDESS HA! I SHOULD COCOA SHES NO GODDESS AND I KNOW IT, FILTHY SLAG MORE LIKE TELL HER DON’T CUM KNOCKING ON MY DOOR ‘DON’T CUM ON ME NO NOT TODAY, YOUR UNCALCULATED AND KORLANDO CONFIRMED ON SOCIAL MEDIA KATY YOUR AS MUCH USE SINCE YOU RETIRED AS AN OLD GROUPON EXPIRED, HER TITLES ARE ALL OVER AT SELENA GOMISIS ORLENA RANCH IN TEXAS HERE WE CUM ON HER JUST LIKE KATY’S BUBBADOO BABY KABLOOM DOES AND WOW THE 3 OF THEM ARE ALL AT IT:-

https://www.albawaba.com/entertainment/orlando-bloom-loves-being-dad-wants-have-more-1162062

katyhudson3 https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom/

KORLANDO: https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t34.18173-12/21584864_10214426905254383_1605264045_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=51bb0f4815717cc4ce3876e6961ac521&oe=5B7C4466

https://www.facebook.com/messages/t/amina.sami.3762

https://www.facebook.com/227188814746899/videos/228026551329792/?t=0

Katycat Queen Isis

[email protected]

http://www.erzuliedantorvoodoospiritofsexgoddess.com

0 notes

goddessqueenisisaset · 6 years ago

Video

Under The Spell Of Hollywood 2

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/user_images/4259000/hellokatyperry-4259407_500_350.png

http://www.fanpop.com/fans/hellokatyperry/gallery/image/4259407

Websites and blogs above as below forums blogs

[URL=http://www.fanpop.com/fans/hellokatyperry/gallery/image/4259407][IMG]http://images5.fanpop.com/image/user_images/4259000/hellokatyperry-4259407_500_350.png[/IMG][/URL]

Getty Images

#katyperry #vinessashaw #orlandobloom #Krisgifford #absolutebrightnessplay

A post shared by James L (@jameslecesne) on Jan 22, 2016 at 12:15am PST

Getty Images

THE DAILY STAR FRONT PAGE: "Blooming oarsome Orlando" #skypapers pic.twitter.com/YrwMX2IX0p

— Sky News (@SkyNews) August 3, 2016

❤️BILL & HILL 4EVA❤️ Hair, makeup & prosthetics by: @tonygardner @Makeup_man @Carltoncoleman_makeupfx @mthreemfx Wardrobe by: @sweetbabyjamie Trump troll by: @jwujek & @shokrala

A post shared by KATY PERRY (@katyperry) on Oct 29, 2016 at 6:30pm PDT

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

2nd January 2017: Orlando kicks off 2017 by very publicly showing just how committed he is to his girlfriend. He takes Katy to Tokyo's Sanrio theme park to hang out with Hello Kitty. It must be love.

#HappyBirthdayOrlandoBloom

Orlandobloom birthday party, Katy's Landoowl cake💏👀💘 https://www.pic.twitter.com/gxJbQ9PGJ5

— OrlandoBloom_Orli (@OB_orli) January 14, 2017

Getty Images

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Apollo the prophet declares;

https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/tours/katy-perry-mania-falters-during-2018-witness-tour/news-story/892768960ed5ad12691bede3e187ab81

14th August 2017: Katy and Orlando are spotted looking super-cosy at an Ed Sheeran gig. Does this mean they're back together? It sure looks like it is judging by these photos on Twitter...

7th January 2018: Katy and Orlando are spotted having a lovely time in the Maldives together. But is it a romantic getaway or just two pals having a nice holiday together?

Katy Perry with Orlando Bloom today ... 👀 pic.twitter.com/TkoDOuFoMM

— KATY PERRY NEWS (@KPInfos) January 4, 2018

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

13th February 2018: Just three weeks after the couple are spotted holidaying together, a source tells The Sun that they are well and truly back together.

Katy Perry confirms she's back with Orlando Bloom?

26th April 2018: Katy essentially confirms rumours that she and Orlando are back together in an interview with ET, when she's asked whether she'd date an American Idol contestant.

"No, I'm sorry I have been spoken for and speak for myself," she said, and added, "And I'm very happy!"

The reporter responded, "You're spoken for right now?!" and Katy replied, "Yeah, girl, of course I am!"

23rd May 2018: Katy, once again, appears to confirm she and Orlando are back on.

On the season finale of American Idol, the singer confessed her love to Bachelorette star Becca Kufrin, and then let it slip that she's not single.

“Can I be in the running?” Katy jokingly asked the Bachelorette contestant, as she got down on one knee to give Becca a kiss on the hand.

“Yes, I’ll give you all my roses,” Becca responded, but then Katy said, “I’m not single but I still like you.”

She must be talking about Orlando, right?

katyhudson3 https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom/

https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/tours/katy-perry-mania-falters-during-2018-witness-tour/news-story/892768960ed5ad12691bede3e187ab81

https://delicatelypsychicbird.tumblr.com/supermodeltaylor13

https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom/

https://youtu.be/z5Ain15tsxk

https://www.ranker.com/list/katy-perry-without-makeup/celeb-stalker?ref=collections_btm&l=358766&collectionId=752

https://www.elitedaily.com/p/is-katy-perry-single-this-major-clue-suggests-shes-back-with-orlando-bloom-9215250

https://www.buzzfeed.com/lauraturner/katy-perry-god?utm_term=.hnwBY1pXRe#.cwa1xdR34l

GOD DENIES EVRYTHING HE CALLS KATY A LIAR AND A CHEATAND SORRY HE HAS TO BE SO MEAN HE CURSED HER! #OMG https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom/

https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom /

meet n greet pooper scooper in rome:

https://instagram.com/p/BiJPmVNlGrt/?utm_source=ig_embed

#bb Bubbadoos bird @katyhudson3 https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom /

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/information-management/re-using-public-sector-information/uk-government-licensing-framework/crown-copyright/

https://www.albawaba.com/entertainment/orlando-bloom-loves-being-dad-wants-have-more-1162062

katyhudson3 https://www.nickiswift.com/14260/shady-side-orlando-bloom/

KORLANDO: https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t34.18173-12/21584864_10214426905254383_1605264045_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=51bb0f4815717cc4ce3876e6961ac521&oe=5B7C4466

https://www.facebook.com/messages/t/amina.sami.3762

https://www.facebook.com/227188814746899/videos/228026551329792/?t=0

Katycat Queen Isis

[email protected]

http://www.erzuliedantorvoodoospiritofsexgoddess.com

0 notes