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chuckaf · 4 years ago

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Chuck Fic Rec List: Updated

So my fic rec post was in my notifs again the other day, and I noticed a while back that the formatting on the post has gotten all messed up and it’s also had like three reblog additions to it anyway meaning there are three versions out there lol. so, I wanted to do another list of chuck fic recs! I’ll keep the other one up still, so I’m not gonna repeat every fic here, just some I really recommend. I’m also adding the fic summaries, which I didn’t on the old post, and some more of my own opinions so, buckle up for a long post!

Chuck Versus the Steampunk Chronicles | Steampunk.Chuckster

1896. A world powered by steam, where humans and machines coexist, and airships are the fashionable mode of transport. The US Empire's deepest and darkest secrets arrive at Chuck Bartowski's doorstep. Have they fallen into the wrong hands? Or will the inventor prove his mettle, even while he's forced to hide from the very people he's protecting? AU, ongoing chronicle, Charah.

A genuinely incredible AU story, with an entire crafted world and universe, so detailed it frequently blows my mind. There is heart and family and infuriatingly brilliant slow-burn, plus a buttload of danger and super fun historical/steampunk action. Oh how I LOVE it.

Chuck vs the Charade | somedeepmystery

When computer nerd Chuck Bartowski returns home to an empty apartment and a dead girlfriend he finds himself embroiled in a deadly game of espionage and deceit. Everyone around him is playing a part to get what they want and when he starts falling for the new woman in his life, he can't help but wonder if he can trust her or if she's the one he should fear the most.

An action and twist-filled AU based on the movie Charade, which is just such a brilliant fic concept I absolutely adored it from the start.

Two Sides of the Same Coin | dettiot

When you're a spy, there's all kinds of occupational hazards when you work with another spy. For Sarah Walker, though, one mission becomes a life-changing experience. Because working with Charles Carmichael leads to protecting Chuck Bartowski.

The first time I read this fic my mind was just blown to its genius. Such a brilliant interpretation of what the Intersect and its concepts set up in the show could be, and ooooof the Chuck/Sarah interactions, my HEART. Related to it, its companion piece:

A Flip of the Coin | dettiot

What made Charles Carmichael agree to become Chuck Bartowski? Well, to start, it wasn't as much of a change as you'd think. A companion to the early chapters of Two Sides of the Same Coin from Carmichael's perspective.

Chuck vs The Butterfly Effect | n7agentbartowski

Chuck Bartowski is a normal guy who just hit rock bottom. No girlfriend, no career and no super computer stuck inside his head. It isn't until Chuck meets a gorgeous stranger on the beach that he begins to think his life is about to change for the better. An AU Chuck fic without the Intersect. "Change one thing and it changes everything."

I said it on the OG post, but this story has one of my top 5 Chuck/Sarah fic meetings. So funny, so... very Chuck. The story is a little angsty overall, but a great read.

Chuck vs the Rogue Spy | Crumby

When a rogue spy from Chuck Bartowski's past shows up to help him during his first solo mission, Chuck hopes that he'll finally find out what happened to Sarah Walker. Post-S2 AU.

There’s a lot of Season 3 fix-it fics out there, which I don’t usually read bc I actually love season 3 lol, but this one’s a good one! A twisty deviation from canon, but still feels really true to character.

Chuck Versus the Nerds Rewrite | Steampunk.Chuckster and David Carner

What happens when two nerds talk endless hours about their favorite TV show? A new take on the show you know, but with the flair, twists, and turns you've come to expect from Steampunk . Chuckster and david . carner. Somewhat canon. Charah.

As the summary says, a different take on the show, which honestly makes a couple changes I would too, but also adds a bunch of fun twists and plots that make it totally new and fresh. Seeing Chuck and Sarah’s thoughts in the more canon sections is just delicious, too.

The Trapped Assassin | SarahsSupplyCloset

After a mission goes awry, the CIA's most lethal assassin is ordered to take vacation while her superiors figure out what to do with her. But when she meets a disarming tourist, their immediate connection only adds to her disillusionment with the agency and her career. Will he be enough for her to finally take the plunge and leave the only life she's ever known? Charah AU

A warning for the very justified M rating if you don’t like that sort of thing, but this is definitely a plot-heavy fic, too. A really neat Sarah-heavy AU, with a whole lotta Chuck/Sarah fancy French vacationy goodness.

Chuck vs the Second Chance | malamoo

AU from mid-season 2 and onwards. Chuck and Sarah part ways only to be reunited years later. COMPLETE.

Literal, crying-at-my-screen angst. Not even a super happy ending. But a brilliantly written, part-reflective/flashback fic, exploring what would’ve happened if Chuck and Sarah’s relationship really was an assignment all along-- and the aftermath. It’s heartbreaking. But if you want a little heartbreak, this is your fic.

Ready at Your Hand | dettiot

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a Catholic plot against the queen comes to the attention of spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham. To protect Elizabeth, he develops an unusual plan: hide the passing of intelligence between two agents by a false romance. When Lady Sarah Walker and Chuck Carmichael meet, though, their pretend flirtation becomes much more.

I love Chuck fic for the very reason that it’s inspired such adventurous and totally unique AUs. Here’s some Elizabethan fake-dating Chuck and Sarah! They have to be so Proper, it’s like that hand moment from Pride and Prejudice but Elizabethan and times a billion. The pining!!

Sarah Versus Getting Married | Steampunk.Chuckster

Sarah Walker is getting married. Canon. Charah.

I’d recommend all of SC’s fics if I had the room, and I’m already recommending a ton sksks but most of my fic recs are AUs, and this one isn’t! It’s canon, and covers some of in the gap in 4x24, with Sarah just before the wedding itself. Super sweet, heart-tugging, brilliant.

A Chuckmas Carol | Mikki13

A new twist to Dickens' beloved "A Christmas Carol". When Sarah begins to shut out the world around her, three spirits come to show her the error of her ways. Season 3 AU.

Another Season 3 AU, this one written pre-series so it definitely doesn’t fit to canon, but it’s still wonderfully rich in character depth and angst and it also made me cry. Plus, festive!

Chuck Versus Thin Ice | Steampunk.Chuckster

On the doorstep of the Olympics, top American curler Sarah Walker has lost her mixed doubles partner and her boyfriend in one fell swoop. Her coaches throw newbie Team U.S.A. curler Chuck Bartowski onto her team and thrust them into the Olympics, hanging America's curling hopes on two people who only have a short amount of time to learn to trust one another. Charah AU.

Do you like curling? Or the Winter Olympics? It doesn’t really matter because somehow this fic made me extremely invested in both of those things, as well as Chuck and Sarah and them being INSUFFERABLE. Catch me now knowing a ton about curling thanks to this fic.

Walker’s Eleven | Moonlight Pilot

Not the same plot as the movie. Sarah Walker never got out of the con game or became a spy, and now she's on her final con. What happens when true love and betrayal get added to the mix? Twists, turns, and Jeffster!

Con!Sarah always interests me, and this fic is full of her. Lotta con plot, lotta Chuck and Sarah.

The Detective and the Tech Guy | thecharleses

Sarah Walker is a Pinkerton detective. Chuck Bartowski is an electronics genius. They wouldn't have met except for a case of mistaken identity and murder. Will the detective and the tech guy solve the mystery, distracted by the riddle in their own hearts? An homage to The Thin Man film series. Formerly co-written by Steampunk . Chuckster and dettiot, now ONLY Steampunk . Chuckster.

Everyone in this fic is so damn cool. There are so many martinis. But also great heart and family and like, standing up for who you love, and later also Chuck with Baby Clara content which frankly the show robbed us of. Also, PI!Sarah!!!

Gravity | Poetic4U

AU. Sarah makes a decision that altered her life forever.

This is just a one-shot, which many of these stories are not, so a good one if you don’t fancy a big read! Just because it’s short, though, doesn’t mean it’s lacking; a really awesome what-if AU, and heavy on the Chuck and Sarah.

A Yuletie Tale | Steampunk.Chuckster

Sarah Walker was dumped the day before Christmas Eve, and her Plus One at her work’s annual Christmas Eve Soiree is now officially a Plus Zero. Her best friend Ellie Bartowski has a solution to her problem, and Sarah finds she isn’t quite as sure about it as Ellie is. AU Christmas Charah.

I’m particularly in love with this fic because, instead of beginning with a meet-cute, it involves Chuck and Sarah already two years into a friendship-- Sarah is Ellie’s best friend. And she’s been crushing harrrd on Ellie’s brother. Also Chuck is in a tux. It’s pretty.

Set, Spike, Dive! | Frea O’Scanlin

Chuck never expected to even make it to the Olympics. Everything is working against him: he's too tall for a diver, too inexperienced for a medal, too much of a wildcard to really make his mark. But an unexpected meeting at the airport, some intriguing new friends, and a whirlwind romance on the sand just might set up London 2012 as the time of Chuck Bartowski's life.

A London 2012 AU, because why not. This is just a fun Olympic-y ride!

OTP (One True Pairing) Prompts | David Carner

A series of Prompts I found online about different times and places in Chuck and Sarah's life. Mostly AU, mostly one-shots. I assume mostly fluff, but I might get deep. I doubt it, it's me. Charah...ALWAYS (It says complete, but if an idea strikes me...)

If you’re not so into long stories, this fic is perfect. Individual set-ups and stories, all Chuck and Sarah, and all super cute. You could dip in and out and just pick a scenario you enjoy.

Chuck vs The Frontier | ninjaVanish

AU: Chuck was enjoying a simple life as a 19th century watchmaker until an encounter with a beautiful Secret Service agent thrust him into a world of intrigue and adventure he never wanted. But then, with Agent Walker around, it can't be all bad, can it?

This fic gets props for being historically-set but still including the Intersect. Again, a historical AU, so the pining!! the need to be Proper!!! But besides all that, there’s a lot of action fun as well.

Chuck Versus The Crosswalk: Remastered | WvonB

Will a last minute mission help our two favorite characters finally get together? This is the remastered version of my first story.

The original version of this fic is on my first list; this is the updated version! It’s not a complete AU, instead a story that diverges from canon, so if you’re more into canon characters and setting than a new AU scenario, this is a great fic for that.

Little Girls, Paper Wreaths, and Choc Chip Cookies | DanaPAH

Very AU: Sarah Walker is a single mother whose Christmas spirit needs a boost after a tough divorce. She isn't quite ready to go looking for romance, but her little daughter's affection for their new neighbor may lure it right to her doorstep, anyway.

An incredibly sweet AU one-shot where Chuck and Sarah are new neighbours, and Sarah has a super cute little girl. So much sweetness and love and hope. I love this fic so much it literally led me to write my own neighbour-kid-AU, so, not to toot my own horn but I’ll link it here anyway.

May Your Walls Know Joy | halfachance

Looking for a fresh start after some tough times, Sarah and her three-year-old daughter move to LA. When they meet a sweet curly-haired nerd who lives next door, though, Sarah realizes they might just find more happiness than they'd ever imagined, if only her past doesn't catch up to her first. AU.

It’s what the summary says; if you wanna read, feel free!

Chuck vs the Sound of Music | quistie64

AU. Chuck, nerd extraordinaire, is a man with seven children and Sarah must protect them all from Fulcrum's evil designs. Warning: there will be singing.

I mean. Not much mystery as to the concept with that title and summary lol, but this is a super fun, soft ride with a lotta sweetness, and yes, singing.

Just Two People | David Carner

Meet Sarah Walker PhD, Psychologist, specializing in personality traits. Meet Chuck Bartowski, man who has left THE electronic company of 2020. When Burton Consultants tries to figure out what is wrong with the morale of Orion Industries, what happens when a guy named Chuck meets a woman named Sarah. I'll give you a hint, it's me writing.

David’s done something pretty special with this fic. It’s Chuck and Sarah centric, but very much an ensemble piece, too, with a lot of Team Bartowski and other familiar faces throughout.

Chuck Versus the Con Game | Steampunk.Chuckster

AU. Chuck and Sarah are partners in the con game. It's an existence wrought with danger and violence. Every day could be their last. Every mission could be the end of the line.

This is where I freak out SC and declare this fic the reason I ever got hooked on Chuck fic and then wrote Chuck fic, and the reason I still love it today but. that is true lol. Just so. so good. It’s also written with the chapters out of chronological order, which is super fun from a reading perspective. But con!Sarah AND con!Chuck?? Best. The kind of fic you will be thinking about for days (if not, y’know, years).

As you can tell by the repeats, I highly recommend just about anything by Steampunk.Chuckster, dettiot, or David Carner, but there are a TON of amazing Chuck fics and authors out there. I’ve never known a writing community so wildly creative-- there are so many unique AUs and canon explorations and story concepts that this show has manifested, and it’s all so much fun.

Most of the Chuck fic community is still over on FFN rather than AO3, so if any of these whet your appetite, feel free to have a browse there for more stories. I’m sure you’ll find something great. Personally, all the incredible writing there has also led me to write a buttload; I’m at halfachance on FFN, so if you see any of my stuff or wanna chat fic, feel free to message me there or here.

Happy reading, folks!

#chuck #fic rec #chuck fic #nbcchuck #praying if i edit this to add to it or i reblog it to add to it all the links stay and the line breaks don't disappear sksks #the old one still looks okay on desktop but it's messed up on the app and on mobile and it's just all generally messy #so i've been wanting to make this for aaages lol yay to finally doing something! woo!

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makoodlesarchive · 5 years ago

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in bloom 🌼 || bnharem server collab

hellooo everyone!! this is my piece for the bnharem sfw collab. The theme this time was ‘flowers’! i had the absolute pleasure of writing for my baby kiri! this collab was actually super fun to write for, i had a blast 🌸🌸🌸

please go and check out all of the fantastic works on the masterlist here!

kirishima x reader

word count: 4.9k

｡ﾟ❁ུ۪ °ₒ 𓂂 ˚ 𓂂 ₒ ° ₒ 𓂂 ˚˖⋆ ｡ﾟ❁ུ۪ °ₒ 𓂂 ˚ 𓂂 ₒ ° ₒ 𓂂 ˚˖⋆

Your apartment in Musutafu is small and cramped, with thin walls and very little natural light. The rent is extortionate for what it is, even considering the location in the city centre, and at least once a month there’s a complex wide electrical blackout. You can overlook all of the faults of the apartment though, because it’s in a safe neighbourhood close to a hero agency and, most importantly, it’s got a balcony.

Like the rest of the apartment, the balcony is small, but you’ve got enough room to cram a little outdoor bench into the corner. The rest of the space is filled with planters full of flowers and leafy pants, transforming the cramped little space into your own tiny garden. As the weeks begin to melt into summer, your little garden transforms into a wildy colourful and delightfully fragranced haven for butterflies and honeybees. You love to curl up on your little bench with a book, relishing the warmth of the sun on your face and the musical buzzing of the bees flitting about your Lantana flowers. Your apartment’s location on the ground floor means that you don’t get a whole load of privacy, but it doesn’t stop you from spending as much time as possible on the balcony beneath your hanging ivy planters.

Another bonus to the ground floor balcony is the cute redhead that wanders past every day at 2pm and then again at around 9pm. You’re not entirely sure when exactly you first noticed the man, but since you’ve moved in he’s become a permanent fixture in your daily routine. In the afternoons when you take a break from working from home and sprawl out amongst the leafy greenery of the balcony, you always catch a glimpse of him. You guess he must work in one of the offices nearby, and judging by the hastily buttoned jacket and wrinkled sweatpants he changes before going on his lunch break.

Every day he walks by, and every day you see him craning his neck to catch a glimpse of your balcony. It’s not uncommon for people to stare, considering your balcony is basically a green splash amongst the dull grey drabness of your apartment building, but unlike all the other curious passers-by, whenever this guy makes eye contact with you when you’re sitting out he’ll make sure to grin widely and wave at you. It’s sweet. You know next to nothing about the guy, other than that he always seems to be in a hurry and he has a smile so bright and toothy it could probably be seen from space, but those little interactions always put you in a good mood for hours afterwards.

After countless days of waves and smiles from a distance, you look up one day to find him grinning and waving yet again, but this time with a new addition. In his hand is a little potted cactus, which he holds up in the air so you can see.

“It’s for my office!” he yells to you. There’s a shrubbery area right outside your balcony that acts as both decoration and security to prevent anyone from just strolling up and hopping over the railing, but the guy is still standing as close as he can get on the sidewalk.

Your grin spreads slowly as you get up off your little bench and lean over the balcony railing to get a closer look at his little potted plant. “It’s cute!” you call back to him.

He beams, impossibly pleased with himself. “It’s not as impressive as yours!” he gestures at the foliage flowing over the railings and the hanging baskets.

“Everyone has to start somewhere!”

He laughs at that, his nose scrunching up just a little, and then waves at you again before setting off down the street. You watch him go until he disappears from sight, then return to your bench to continue reading. You’re so distracted by that whole little episode that it takes a few minutes for you to realise that your book is upside down.

It was such a short exchange, but after nothing but smiles and waves from afar for so long it leaves you a little dazed. You could kick yourself for not asking what his name was, but you just hadn’t had the time. Besides, you had been a little dazzled by his smile.

The man’s name is Kirishima Eijirou. Since the first day he spoke to you, you’ve bumped into him at the local supermarket several times. He’s friendly, sometimes overwhelmingly so, and really kind. He’s the perfect package wrapped up in the body of a professional cage fighter, so it’s probably inevitable that you develop a big fat crush on him. The two of you have only really exchanged basic pleasantries and small talk, but it’s enough to have your pulse skipping everytime he smiles at you.

The local flower shop is beautifully vibrant compared to the gunmetal grey skies outside, and the quiet warmth of the place makes it one of your favourite places to spend your days off. Hanging baskets full of seasonal flowers and trailing ivy are suspended from the ceiling and from high shelves, and leafy green plants create a jungle-like atmosphere within the shop. The effect is delightfully mismatched, with enormous bouquets of flowers brightening up the spaces along the walls. The high shelves and boundless foliage makes the whole place feel like a maze; you could happily lose yourself for hours upon hours within the humid little aisles.

You trace your fingers along the large waxy leaves of a monstera plant, enjoying the smooth texture. A bell tinkles overhead as the door to the shop opens and shuts, momentarily breaking the soothing blanket of quiet. You contemplate the price tag on the monstera plant; you already have one, and if you buy another you’ll be pretty hard pressed to find space for it. It is really cute though, and you’re pretty sure that if you move your ficus a little more into the left corner of your balcony you can make enough space for it.

Your thought process is broken by a noise from the top of the aisle, and you glance up to meet the gaze of a surprised yet familiar man.. “Oh! Kirishima-san.” you say at the same time as he blurts “Hi!”

Before you can say anything else, his face splits into a smile. “Aw man, I can’t believe you’re here! This is perfect!”

You laugh a little nervously. “Huh?”

“I was hoping to get a new plant for my office! Could you help me pick one out?”

“Oh.” you blink, a little overwhelmed by his exuberance and the way his eyes crinkle up when he smiles, “I don’t work here.”

He laughs like you’ve just told a really funny joke, and moves to meet you in the middle of the aisle. “Yeah, I know. I’m just guessing that you know your stuff about plants -- your balcony is so awesome.”

“Oh.” you say again, straightening a little despite yourself. You feel ridiculously pleased, probably more than such a simple comment warrants. “Thank you. I worked hard on it.”

“It really shows!” he enthuses. “It actually inspired me to spruce up my office a bit, actually!”

“Really?” you ask, leaning back against one of the shelves. A frond-like leaf tickles the back of your neck, but you don’t bother swatting it away. You think that the two of you might be the only two customers in the shop at this time, and your conversation seems so loud in the relative silence. Somewhere near the back an electric fan buzzes, the noise breaking up the monotonous quiet so it doesn’t seem quite so oppressive.

“Yeah! So, will you give me a hand?” he tilts his head as he asks, and you realise that his shoulders have dropped down, as if he’s trying to make himself appear smaller. “My friend thinks it’s stupid, but I’m determined to have the nicest desk in the whole building!”

You smile despite yourself, his good humour infectious. “Yeah, okay. Are you looking for something in particular?”

Kirishima steps back and regards the surrounding display cases thoughtfully. “Um. Honestly, I don’t know much about plants. I have my little cactus, but it’d be nice to get it a friend, right? I’m happy to go with whatever you think is best!”

You hum, considering your options. If it’s a small office desk he’s hoping to decorate, you suppose a couple of small succulents could do a nice job of adding a bit of life and colour. “I’m sure we can find something.”

“I’ll leave myself in your capable hands, then.” Kirishima says with a grin, inclining his head a little.

You step further into the shop, ducking under a trailing strand of ivy leaves. The dark hardwood floor creaks as you move, with Kirishima following close behind you. When you pause to gaze at a couple of potted plants on one the shelves you keep your gaze cast down, but glance up through your eyelashes to look at Kirishima. You’re surprised to find him already watching you, like he’s drinking in every move you make. The attention is a little overwhelming, but it’s also exciting. His gaze on you is like a physical weight, and you can’t quite help the coy smile that curves over your face. You know you’re not imagining the soft, heated interest behind his eyes; he’s not exactly being subtle.

You duck into a parallel aisle, just fast enough that Kirishima stumbles for half a step at the sudden change in direction. You hum quietly to yourself, and toss a playful smile over your shoulder as he follows behind you. He meets your smile with another grin, bright and handsome. He doesn’t look away from you for a second.

You come to an abrupt halt in the middle of the aisle and turn to face him. The sudden movement takes him by surprise, but he manages to catch himself before he barrels into you. It’s probably not entirely intentional, but he ends up standing so close that you can almost count the delicate little freckles splashed across the bridge of his nose from the summer sun. His head dips down towards you, leaning into your space in a way that is decidedly more than just casually friendly. His lips part, but before he can speak you ask, “What about this one?”

His gaze drops down to the space between you, where you’re holding up a small plant with waxy little leaves. He blinks at it, and then recovers gracefully. “Hey, that one is pretty cute.”

“‘Pretty cute’s not quite good enough, though, is it?” You pretend to ponder, tapping your chin. “If you want the nicest desk in the whole building, you need better than ‘pretty cute’, right?”

If anything, Kirishima’s smile grows even wider. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. You up for the challenge of finding me the best plant in the store?” He steps closer as he speaks, until there’s nothing but a scant few inches and the potted plant between you.

You make a show of considering the challenge, shifting your weight from foot to foot. “Hold this for me?” you ask suddenly, practically shoving the plant into his hands.

Kirishima takes it, startled, and in the moment of distraction you turn on your heel and dart down the aisle, disappearing down another row of shelves. You’ve barely turned the corner when you hear a deep, rumbling chuckle followed by quick footsteps against the hardwood floor as he follows after you.

It’s like a game. You wind your way through the aisles, skipping over vines and stray pots, and Kirishima tries to catch up. You know this shop like the back of your hand (you’re in here nearly every single weekend), but Kirishima is fast and agile despite his large stature. There are a few close calls, where you just manage to round the corner of a new aisle before Kirishima can reach you, and each one makes your breath catch in your chest when Kirishima’s delighted laughter rings out through the shop.

You can’t help the grin that stretches across your face as you turn into another half-hidden aisle, ducking under a large fan-like leaf that stretched out and drooped low. Only a moment later you hear a soft slap and an “Oof!” as Kirishima presumably runs straight into it, and you laugh quietly to yourself as you slip in between a row of glass display cases.

A clatter and a soft curse sounds from one aisle over, and you guess that Kirishima just accidentally knocked a pot over. You pad softly to the end of the aisle, taking a moment to try and catch your breath and stifle your wild grin. It’s so childish, playing a game of chase in a garden shop with a man you barely know, but you’re having so much fun.

You poke your head cautiously around the edge of one of the display shelves, biting your lip and listening carefully for any sign of Kirishima. The only noise you can hear is the strained mechanical whirring of the fan from somewhere near the back of the shop, so you edge forward. You’ve only managed to take two steps before you feel a presence behind you.

“Gotcha.” Kirishima rumbles, right by your ear.

The noise that’s punched out of your chest is embarrassing, a weird cross between a yelp and a laugh. You whirl on the ball of your feet to face him, only for him to keep stepping closer. You have no choice but to retreat, until you’re backed up into a little alcove between two large glass display cases overflowing with luscious green ferns. Kirishima advances until he’s as close as he can be without actually touching you, and maybe you should feel a little intimidated by this man that’s built like a brick wall of pure muscle but his smile is so delighted and soft that you don’t think you could be afraid of him if you tried.

“You got me.” You agree, a little breathlessly. You don’t know if it’s from the exertion of running through the shop like a child or from the thrill of Kirishima’s closeness to you, but your heart is thrumming like a wild thing in your chest.

From this close, you can see the way Kirishima’s hair is sweat-damp on his brow and curling just slightly; it must be from the humidity inside the shop, because he doesn’t seem even the slightest bit affected by the physical activity of chasing after you. “You’re fast.” he says, his voice quiet as if afraid to break the atmospheric stillness within the shop.

“Yeah?” you mimic his volume subconsciously, “You sure you don’t just like chasing me? I think you could have caught me earlier, if you wanted.”

Kirishima laughs, and the skin around his eyes crinkle up in the most adorable way you’ve ever seen. “Maybe.” he says, and it sounds like a secret. His teeth are white and sharp and his cheeks dimple when he smiles. You’re distracted by the dimples, so when he raises his hand you barely notice until suddenly there’s a flower right under your nose and your eyes nearly cross in your attempt to look at it.

“It’s pretty.” You say with a smile. It’s a simple white cosmo flower, though Kirishima is beaming as though he’d managed to find a particularly rare gem, and you don’t get a chance to take it from him before he tucks it neatly behind your ear.

“It’s like you.” He says. The words are flirtatious, but he delivers them so earnestly that you don’t quite know how to react.

“How about a potted ivy?” you blurt, at a loss for anything else to say. “It would be easy to take care of, and it looks good.”

Kirishima blinks, but takes the change of subject in stride. “Is that your professional recommendation?”

“Mhmm.” It’s hard to focus when he’s so close that you can feel the warmth of his breath ghosting across your skin every time he speaks. You’re sure he must be picking up on how flustered he’s making you -- you’re not convinced by the innocent expression on his face. “Maybe a few succulents, too.”

Kirishima nods thoughtfully, consideringly. “Hmmm. That sounds good to me. Will you go out to dinner with me?”

It’s such a non-sequitur that it takes your brain a long moment to register his words. “I- huh?”

His dimpled smile turns bashful and a little self-conscious. “Ah. Sorry, that might have been a little forward.” He scratches the back of his head, and your gaze is drawn to the way his bicep bulges at the movement. “I was wondering if you’d like to get some dinner with me? I know a place that does some really great burrito bowls.”

“Are you asking me on a date, Kirishima-san?” Your words come out soft and quiet and effortlessly flirtatious -- you hadn’t intended on sounding so seductive, but you can’t help but enjoy the way Kirishima leans in closer to you.

“Yeah. No pressure if you don’t wanna, of course!” He’s quick to reassure you, “It’s totally fine if you’re not interested. I just wanted to let you know that I am very interested.”

As refreshing as his straight-forwardness is, you can’t help but feel surprised. This man is very much out of your league, you’re not blind, and yet he had been the one to approach you, and had indulged in your silly game of chase around the shop, and had playfully cornered you in an alcove and asked you out. You’ve met him enough by now to know he’s kind, friendly, and eager to help with just about anything you ask. Plus, he’s practically built like a Greek god, with a handsome face and the most stacked muscles you’ve ever seen in person.

“I’m interested.” you breathe, heart hammering in your chest. God, you really hoped this wasn’t some kind of elaborate joke.

Kirishima seems to actually inflate at that, a bright smile blooming across his face as his shoulders straighten. “Really? Great! Awesome! Tonight?”

“Sure.” you agree, returning his smile. Your heart rate still hasn’t returned to normal from your chase around the shop; if anything, it feels like it’s pounding harder than ever. “I’m free tonight.”

“Great!” Kirishima says again. He seems more excited than you would have expected, which is honestly pretty flattering since you’re pretty sure you’re the one that should be feeling the most excited in this situation. “I have to go back to work since I’m technically on my lunch break right now, but I could pick you up at your apartment at around eight tonight?”

“Eight is perfect.” you straighten the flower behind your ear and smile up at him, letting your own excitement shine through on your face.

Kirishima steps back, finally giving you some space. You forcefully resist the urge to follow after him, watching instead as he backs away, still beaming. “Okay. Okay, cool. So, I’ll see you tonight?”

You let him go a few more steps before tilting your head and asking, “So, you changed your mind about the plants?”

He pauses, one foot raised mid-step like a cartoon character. “Plan-?” he starts, before his eyes go comically wide, “Oh! The plants! Right!”

You laugh, finding him stupidly endearing, before stepping out of the little alcove and setting off down one of the aisles to the left. There’s a whole section of the shop dedicated solely to the house plants, and it’s not difficult to find a suitable ivy plant with light green leaves and tumbling vines. Kirishima takes the potted plant when you hand it to him, and trails after you again as you go in search of the succulents. When you’ve found some suitable little plants, you help him carry them up to the counter with the cash register. There’s no one manning the register (and you breathe a quiet sigh of relief at that, because it means that no one saw the two of you running through the shop like idiots), and you ring the little bell to notify the employees that you’re at the counter.

“I’ll leave you to it,” you say, stepping away from the counter as an employee finally emerges from the back of the shop. “See you tonight?”

Kirishima fumbles with the plants in his hands as he tries to wave. “Tonight! Yeah!”

The bell tinkles as you duck out the shop door, biting your lip to try and stifle your excited grin.

You look in the mirror yet again, tugging nervously at your clothes. You look pretty good, you think, but the closer it gets to eight the more nervous you get. You realised too late that you never exchanged phone numbers, and Kirishima doesn’t know which number apartment to buzz from the front door. You focus on staying calm and not overthinking things; it’s just a date, with the most handsome man you’ve ever actually spoken to. No big deal. It’s fine.

You tug on your shirt again, even though it’s sitting pretty much perfectly. You just lean forward to check your teeth when a crash sounds from your balcony. You jerk towards the crash automatically, and race out to open the doors to the balcony. You’re greeted with the sight of Kirishima with one leg over the balcony railing, staring dismally down at the shattered pot that he apparently just knocked over.

“I’m so sorry!” he blurts as soon as he sees you, “It was an accident! I didn’t know your apartment number to buzz the door and so I thought I’d just knock on the door to your balcony but I didn’t see the pot and- wow, you look really good!”

You wave away his frantic apologies with a laugh as you step over the spilled dirt. “Don’t worry about it. You look pretty good, too.” Your eyes drop to where he’s hiding his hands behind his back. “What have you got there?”

Kirishima hikes his other leg over the railing and drops to his feet, before pulling his arms out from behind him and revealing a large bouquet of beautiful white and pink lilies. “I got these for you.” he says, a pink blush dusted over his cheekbones. “I know you, uh, like flowers and plants and things. I don’t know much about them, but I thought they were pretty!”

Your whole face softens, and you reach out to take the bouquet. They are pretty, with delicate pink-streaked white petals and long, dainty stems. Pollen drops from them at every movement, sprinkling into the air in delicate yellow puffs. “They’re beautiful! Thank you.”

When you glance up at him you find that his attention is caught by the side of your head, his own smile softening. “You kept it?”

You touch the cosmo flower still tucked behind your ear, a little embarrassed. It had seemed like a cute idea to keep it and wear it for the date, but now you wonder if it’s a little weird. “Yeah. Like you said, it’s pretty, right?”

“Yeah.” he agrees. His gentle pink blush has intensified into a deep red. “Very pretty.”

You look back down at your lilies, still smiling. You feel so pleased, like all your nerves are being melted away only to be replaced by excited anticipation. “Your office must be really close by if you had the time to grab these before getting here.”

“It’s right around the corner,” he points towards the end of the street, “But, uh. My boss actually let me go early today.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I, uh-” His blush, impossibly, seems to intensify further. “I’ve been talking about you for a while, I guess. Telling people about your awesome balcony and stuff, and how nice you are whenever I meet you. I didn’t actually realise how much I mentioned you, but, uh, when I told Fat that I had asked you out, he pretty much told me to get outta there and come straight to get you.”

You laugh, pleasantly embarrassed yourself. “Wow. That’s… that’s really sweet.” A thought intrudes on the back of your mind, suddenly, and you frown a little. He said his boss's name was Fat? Office around the corner? “Wait. You work at Fat Gum’s Hero Agency?”

“Yep!” He flexes one of his biceps playfully; you’re pretty sure it’s bigger than your head. “I’m a sidekick there! ”

“Wow.” you say, gaze stuck on his muscled arm. “That- well. That explains- I mean, you have a very nice body.” Oh god, you think, cursing yourself. Why had you said that?

Kirishima flushes from the roots of his hair to his chest. You can’t help but grin, his bashfulness impossibly charming. “Oh! Thanks! I work out a lot.” he chuckles, shrugging as if it’s nothing.

You’re still grinning as you look at his rosy face, your eyes dropping to his red-flushed chest. His very red-flushed chest. “Uh.” you glance to his neck, where the skin is an angry crimson colour. “Kirishima-san?”

“Yeah?” The sun is dropping low in the sky, and the golden sunset throws buttery yellow-toned light all over your balcony. It lights up Kirishima’s profile in warm relief, and makes you wonder if you’re maybe imagining the colour you’re seeing.

“Are you okay? You have- I think you have a rash?”

“Huh?” He drops his chin to his sternum, trying to get a look at what you’re seeing. When he tugs his shirt down, it reveals angry red lines streaking down his chest. “Oh. Yikes.”

Your mouth drops open. “That.. looks painful.”

“It’s more itchy, really.” He admits, poking at the patch of ruddy skin. His head snaps up, eyes wide, and he quickly adds, “This doesn’t usually happen! I don’t usually have, uh, whatever this is!”

That definitely isn’t as comforting as he’s clearly hoping it will be. “Um. Kirishima, do you feel weird right now?”

“A little? I think I’m just nervous for our date, though.” He shifts on his feet and reaches up to scratch at his throat. “Just a little itchy. My throat feels a bit weird. I think it’s nerves.”

The angry red rash climbing up his chest and throat suggests that it’s not just nerves. “Does your throat feel… swollen?”

“Kinda?”

Your gaze drops to the flowers in your arms. The breeze shakes loose another little cloud of pollen from them, which floats into the air in a little puff of yellow dust. “Did this start after you got the flowers?”

“I guess!” Kirishima says, clearly not following.

“Oh.” You stare at each other. Kirishima still hasn’t quite caught on to the logical conclusion of these questions. Now that you’re looking at him closely, you’re pretty sure his face looks a little puffier than usual. “I think you’re having an allergic reaction.”

Kirishima blinks, then looks to the flowers in your arms. His hand scratches idly at the base of his throat, which is now a raw and angry red. “Oh. Oh, I see. Huh.” You might be imagining it, but his voice sounds a little thicker now.

“I think we should go to the hospital.” You set down the lilies on your garden bench and usher him into your apartment. You haven’t had time to tidy up, but you’re past the point of caring about cleanliness. Kirishima doesn’t seem to notice anyway, as his face has fallen.

“What about dinner?” He asks, obviously disappointed, and yep, his voice has definitely gotten thicker. It sounds like his throat is swelling.

You try not to panic. “We can get food after the hospital!”

Kirishima actually has the nerve to pause and think about it. “Are you sure? I don’t feel that bad, and I really want to take you somewhere nice.”

It’s hard not to feel flattered at that. “I really appreciate that, Kirishima. I would feel a lot better if we got you checked out before dinner, though. I think the date would go better if you weren’t on the brink of anaphylactic shock.”

Kirishima concedes at that, and lets you call a taxi. As you stand on the sidewalk waiting for the taxi to arrive, he sighs and tilts his head. “This is embarrassing. I can’t believe I finally ask you out only for it to be ruined by some stupid flowers.”

“Hey,” you bump him with your hip, but it’s like hip-checking a boulder. You wince and rub at your hip bone as you say, “The flowers were beautiful, and a really lovely thought. Plus, I’ve kind of had a crush on you for a while now. One little bump in the road isn’t gonna chase me away, okay?”

“Really?”

You tug him over so you can press a chaste, tentative kiss to his cheek. “Really.”

“I’m gonna make sure when this is over that I bring you on the most unforgettable date ever!” In the light of the setting sun, Kirishima is lit up golden. He grins, gilded and bright, and even with his puffy face and swollen throat, you think he might just be the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen.

“I think that you’ve already accomplished that.” you say delicately as you spot your taxi rounding the corner of the street, “Maybe our next date should be a little more uneventful.”

“Yeah,” Kirishima laughs, sounding like his throat is full of cotton balls, “Maybe uneventful is best. But you basically just agreed to go on another date with me, right?”

You suppose you have to be impressed by his determination, if nothing else. You’re not used to being the focus of someone’s attention like this, especially not someone on the brink of a medical emergency. It’s… flattering. “Yeah, I guess I did. Maybe next time we should leave the flowers, though.”

“No flowers.” Kirishima agrees, then chuckles.

You think his swollen, puffy smile might just be the cutest thing you’ve ever seen in your life.

#kirishima x reader #kirishima eijirou x reader #bnharem server collab #bnharem collab #bnha kirishima #bnha x reader #mha x reader

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miraculousmarifan · 4 years ago

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Felinette Month 2020 - Day 12: Reunion

The prompts on @felinettenovember are gold and everyone should check out what the others are doing for this month!

Theirs are also most likely on time, and this one is only 3 minutes away from being posted on the wrong day... but it’s still the right day for me!

Approximately 3100 words of absolute Lila salt. Her character is poorly enough written in the show that I had to make her villainy almost cartoonish to a certain degree.

Also before anyone takes my word for it at the silk part, just know I have the bare minimum of knowledge about the intricacies of fabric as I’m just a data analyst. I did however read a really interesting article earlier this year discussing the difference in modern and ancient forms of fabrics (it was specifically discussing cotton, if I remember correctly) and how industrialization of fabric production had drastically reduced both the initial quality of the fabric and the durability. Which they were using as an explanation of why it’s still possible to find cloth artifacts in archeology, whereas it’s suspected that the “same” fabric now wouldn’t have survived due to the poorer quality. So I willy-nilly applied this logic to silk weaving. If you are an expert in this stuff and want to pass along actual knowledge, I’d love to hear about it.

Marinette had found that going to university for fashion design was both easier and harder than it had been doing it during school. There were similarities with the existence of homework and specific class times to schedule around. Working at a smaller fashion house had been another beast entirely. Marinette had been offered a 5 year contract as the only pupil to the head designer, working both with the team of designers and working apart from them. Her ideas first needed to gain the approval from the head designer before she could put them through peer review with the team. She was required to have her designs be closer to a final product before she would get approval to proceed to peer review than the designs of many designers on the team had after multiple reviews. Marinette kept her head high, as her designs often went through fewer changes in the review stage as a result of this additional standard.

However with less than 10 designers doing all stages of the process, from researching ideas and sketching to actually assembling the final product and altering them for the models that would wear it, they were always busy. As a result, Marinette found herself more devoted to work outside of their standard hours, sketching variations on most outfits for potential changes she thought may be suggested while she sat at home.

At 25, Marinette found herself married to her career, with only two nights per week that she had set aside for her friends and her family and refused to budge on that time. This had left dating relatively untouched outside of some short high school relationships and a few first dates that never went further.

Alya never could understand why Marinette was so content on her own. She married Nino at 22 and had been happy in her marriage, but she was able to have her career and her relationship. Sometimes her journalism interfered but often she would just finish typing up any articles or notes she had while home and returned her attention to Nino.

Marinette often didn't disconnect from her sketchpad until late in the evening and then she simply wanted to eat, relax a little, and sleep. Dating required too much effort and time during the week and she only had so much time on the weekends, especially because of the occasional work event on a Saturday night.

This Saturday was one such event, a black tie party in a ballroom, where many designers were getting together under the pretext of a party, however most realized it was an important networking event. Designers would be discussing the styles that were in currently, some boasting about what they expected the next trend to be, and many would try to woo the various models in attendance to sign on for a certain number of shoots or shows in the upcoming seasons.

Marinette knew that she had to show her best at this, as she was entering the fifth year of her contract and would need to get her options in order. She was determined to have at least one outside offer waiting at the end of her contract, so she felt more free to decide if her current company was the best fit.

She had invited Alya over before to help her solidify her outfit by reassuring her choice in dress and accessories, as well as providing suggestions with make-up choices as requested. Marinette really needed a hype woman to get her in the right mindset for dealing with pretentious models and designers for her entire evening.

The ballroom hosting this event was as decedent as Marinette had anticipated and each designer eyed the others' appearance critically. Many of the compliments bestowed on others were backhanded, in the most subtle manner possible. The more inexperienced often missed the jabs but Marinette had expected them. Her mentor had arrived shortly before her and gestured for her to join his conversation upon seeing her entrance.

For nearly an hour, her mentor paraded her around, introducing her to each designer he personally knew and discussing with them her strengths. She was grateful for his support when he could have easily left her to flounder. The designers that had taken a liking to her brought others to meet her the moment he left her side to fetch a new drink. After dealing with their undivided attention for a while, she tried to find a polite way to excuse herself so she could breathe and let her face rest a moment.

The opportunity to slip away came when Gabriel Agreste entered, accompanied by his assistant and three others. The designers commented on his boldness to bring three young models and speculation started about which of the blond men was Gabriel's heir and if they knew the woman with them. He had brought Lila, Adrien, and Felix. She should’ve expected to see at least two of those three here. Time had allowed her to forget about their presence in this world.

Marinette murmured to the closest person that she was going to grab herself a beverage, then quietly slipped away while the designers speculated amongst themselves. She wouldn't contribute with an explanation of any person in that group, let alone bring an opportunity for her past relationships with them to come up.

She instead had snuck around, hiding amongst the various crowds filling the room to get to the hallway where the bathrooms were located. Rather than going into the bathroom, she walked around a turn in the hallway past them and stopped, leaning against the wall to take some deep breaths and think.

If Lila was here, she was definitely still employed with Gabriel and in good standing. She had cut contact with Alya and Nino after the graduation day incident so Marinette hadn't heard much about her since then. Luka didn't talk much about Juleka outside of their time together at the houseboat or in Kitty Section, but Marinette was sure he wouldn’t have let any news of her reach Marinette anyway. Mr. "High-road" Agreste was here so she would likely need to stay hidden or leave so he didn't try to be overly friendly with her. She didn't want to deal with his attempts to catch up and accusations about not staying in touch, even though he hadn't been a great friend of hers after trying to convince her to be a doormat, even if it nearly got her akumatized. Ice King Felix was a wild card. In school he had been a strange mixture of harsh and quietly supportive (primarily in dealing with Lila or Chloe). If Marinette had to deal with any of those three, he would be her preferred. He had potential to be on her side simply on the conditions that Lila still despised her and that Felix still disliked Lila or/and Adrien. Regardless, Marinette preferred if she could just make it through the night without needing to speak with any of them. Slowly she was considering going back to attempt navigating the party. Pushing herself off the wall, she took one more deep breath with her eyes shut.

And promptly fell to the floor due to the unexpected force of something ramming into her. Her head bounced off the carpeted floor and she felt like her brain was trying to restart.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t see you around the corner and ran into you. Are you alright?” The man leaned down next to her, while Marinette blinked a few times, trying to get her bearings. Then she slowly started to sit up. He spoke again, “Do you need to have your head examined? It looks like you may have bumped it and messed up your hair.”

Her hand came up and ran across the back of her head, over the hair, still blinking as her brain started running again. She turned to look at him and felt a little bit of dismay.

“Felix. I’m okay. My head is just pounding a little bit. I should really check to see what I need to do to make myself presentable again,” Marinette slowly moved towards getting up, hand reaching out to the wall. Felix took her hand and offered his other for more support. She took it without thinking, balancing herself as she stood. Then she turned her body, releasing his hands, and leaned against the wall again. “Thanks. It is Felix right?” Maybe if I play my cards right, he won’t recognize me and will think I just know from his ads.

“Yes Marinette. One and the same,” he smirked at her efforts and she groaned inside. “Did you know that you’re the hot topic in that room? Well actually you’re right behind whether Adrien or I will inherit Gabriel. As if the man is even considering retiring at this point.” Felix leaned one shoulder against the wall next to her, grinning like a cat.

“It seems that you made a splash socially, then disappeared right as Gabriel Agreste showed up. They’re speculating and Lila seems to have convinced enough of them that the two of you are friends. She’s so sure you have a surprise planned for her, even if she hasn’t figured out that you’re the same person yet. That only brought more speculation as to why you aren’t working at Gabriel. ‘Is it perhaps because she has an indecent relationship with an heir? Or is she the victim of nepotism?’ If you don’t make an appearance again soon, these rumors may live on past the evening.” His eyes had narrowed slightly as he brought up Lila and the rumors starting around her, trying to read the slightest reaction. Marinette just deflated. She had just been ready to go back before their collision and now she just wanted to curl up in a ball. With this last statement, she let out a little sound of exhaustion.

“Why did she have to be here? And how is it that even the people that are used to dealing with snakes don’t recognize her as one?” she groaned out, hands pressing her eyes. After a moment she straightened her back against the wall, breathed deeply and sighed. “Alright. We’re adults. Might as well act like it.”

“You’re going back now?” Felix stood, sounding more curious than before. Marinette had stood straight up, and was taking a step from the wall to walk back into the main hallway and looking at Felix as she replied.

“Of course I’m going to go back. I’m a professional that doesn’t lie and pretend to get places. I do the hard things and succeed--” she raised her eyebrows and smirked back at him “--Of course I need to fix my hair first, since you messed it up. Are you going to hide here longer?”

Felix faintly blushed at her expression as she told him he messed her hair up and thought about another way he could mess it up. As she slowly walked he turned to follow her. “Did you have a companion with you tonight? It’s not uncommon for designers to bring one…”

“I did not. I have been networking. Why do you ask?” Marinette slowly stepped towards the restroom door, nearly laughing at his stalling tactics.

“Would you like one when you’re finished fixing yourself up?” Marinette couldn’t believe how warm he was being with her, even with his mocking way of warning her what she was walking into. Is this really the Ice King I knew in school?

“I guess you’ll have to wait if you want to see…” Marinette pushed into the bathroom, walking up to a mirror. Luckily my hair wasn’t too extravagant and the back is just a little messed up. With a little bit of water on her fingers and some adjustments of her bobby pins, her hair looking untouched and she was exiting the bathroom.

Felix had moved to stand against the wall near the bathroom, and straightened to join her. Marinette liked the way he was acting with her now and made a split second decision that at worst, she didn’t need to keep him around if he changed his tune. She could push him back out of her life. She reached a hand out to beckon him and he offered her an arm. Their strides matched as they walked back to the party.

Whispers started in the groups closest to the door as they saw their up-and-coming sunshine designer enter on the arm of the model known for his aloofness and cold professionalism. Felix’s face slipped back into it’s icy indifference, looking harshly at specific individuals that dared to make too inappropriate of a comment in his earshot. Marinette smiled and nodded at different individuals that she hadn’t spoken enough with at length. A small squeeze to his arm and twist of her head had the pair walking towards one of Marinette’s first choices for her next employer.

Other groups had taken notice of the pair, drawing more eyes, and conversations turned to theories about their relationship. The two ignored stares and managed to strike up a pleasant conversation with a woman that could drastically improve her prospects. With the increasing curiosity of most guests, one young woman noticed and began to formulate a plan.

“Marinette! Over here! It’s me! Why didn’t you tell your best friend that you were coming?” Lila loudly exclaimed as she began prancing across the room and waving a hand wildly like a child trying to catch attention. Her dramatics went unacknowledged as Felix used his most winning smile, describing Marinette’s designs throughout their school years and then drawing attention to the dress she was currently wearing. She couldn’t help but blush that he had recognized her craftsmanship even after years apart. The woman seemed to be swept up in the warmth and friendliness he was using, as well as the atmosphere those two formed around their group. Others paid particular attention to the hand Felix had rested on her side.

Marinette had been gaining attention up to this point, however the entire party noticed the atmosphere tense as Lila appeared to trip, right as she was about to reach the designer. Felix moved behind Marinette, having her twirl in front of him to show off the patterns embroidered into her dress, and felt the liquid on his back before Lila collided with him. Felix had made note of Lila as he was gesturing to Marinette’s dress and guessed at her plan with a fair bit of accuracy. Marinette was completely dry and far enough forward to avoid being bumped by Felix when the force from Lila’s impact pushed him. The icy glare returned to his face as he turned to deal with her.

A few men from nearby moved over to help Lila, who faked a sob story about how clumsy she was, because she was just so excited to see Marinette since “our schedules have just been so busy that we haven’t gotten to see each other!” when Felix interrupted her.

“Strange that you say that. I actually remember Marinette getting a restraining order on you after graduation, when you tried to poison her food. You claimed to be allergic to shellfish and said she was trying to slip clam broth into your food. However you had the broth container in your bag, it was slipped into her food, and according to her up-to-date school medical records, she’s severely allergic to mollusks so she wouldn’t come near the container. At the time, you were supposedly diagnosed with a disorder that causes you to compulsively lie. Regardless, the courts didn’t seem to believe that a disorder like that, which was unknown to and unheard of by medical professionals, wouldn’t have been grounds to explain trying to harm her and granted the order. Do you not remember that?” Felix recited the story almost impassively, as though it was simply a reminder of what she ate for breakfast, however he gave a mock confused look with his rhetorical question. The crowd had gathered around with her fall and were well within earshot as Felix described one of the worst incidents of Marinette’s life. The pale expression she wore and the Lila’s furious expression as he described it convinced even those that would’ve been inclined to side with Lila.

With one final look of distaste, Felix turned to Marinette and reached for her hand. The onlookers were surprised at the obvious tenderness as he spoke to her, “We should get you away from here. Do you want to stay at the party and talk to some more people or would you prefer I escort you home? We can see about getting some contact information before we leave, if you’d like.”

The room was deathly silent, even Lila having the sense to wait, in case she broke the tense quiet that had formed. After a deep breath and a shaky smile directed at Felix, Marinette turned back to the woman she had been speaking with before Lila’s act and politely said, “I enjoyed our conversation and hope we have the opportunity to speak again soon. I would love to hear more about your work to more effectively create silk patterns by hand. I know you said it before but hand weaved silk really is so much nicer than the machine weaved and I’ve read that it’s much more durable. Thank you for your time this evening!”

Felix moved to her side and Marinette slipped her hand into his before stepping towards the coat room. With coat in hand, the pair swept out of the ballroom to leave behind the drama of the evening.

Suddenly the room burst into chaos and Lila was escorted to a private room to wait for Gabriel to decide how to handle this revelation. He knew he would lose the respect of his peers if he kept a young woman on staff that they all knew had tried to murder another one. The cherry on that cake would be that the would-be victim is an up-and-coming designer that nearly all were considering making an offer to. It was clear to him that Ms. Rossi would be fired. Now it’s just a matter of the other clean up that would follow. Additionally, it seemed Ms. Dupain-Cheng also had a close relationship with his son, considering the show that he was putting on since they arrived. He would have to dig into his sons’ involvements with the designer's misfortunes, as that would impact how they looked to the public. There was one other aspect that Gabriel Agreste was rather certain of, one of his son’s was smitten with a good match and if they were happily married, it would help their careers immensely.

Marinette’s night out ended with a private car pulling up to her building, a kiss placed on Felix’s cheek, and her hand slipping a piece of paper with her phone number into his jacket pocket. She was pleased to find he messaged her immediately to make sure she made it into her apartment alright.

Felix was too lovestruck to sleep that night.

#felinette month 2020 #felinette month #lila salt #felinette #miraculous ladybug

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gay-otlc · 4 years ago

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Keepers Of The Chaos (3)

Summary: Tam, Linh, Dex, Keefe, Biana, and Fitz are part of the tiny fandom for Keeper of the Chaos, and Tam and Linh’s podcast convinces some of their other friends to watch it as well. The group finds themselves strangely invested in this show, where students at Tumblr High School who work together to write about an elf named Sophia, cause incomprehensible chaos, and fight their rival Pinterest High School.

Content warnings: Cursing, religion (Jewish Vackers), and Amsterdam (just in case, I know that was stressful for some people).

Word count: 1621

Notes: Most of the episodes are just events stolen from Lynn's roundup, Dex's memes are here

(Read on AO3)

The life of an amateur meme maker on dumbles dot com was a strange one, that was for sure. After finishing xyr favorite show- Ze-Ra: Monaerchs of Powhir- for the third time, Dex had searched for another show to fill the void in xyr soul. Biana recommended this show called "Keepers of the Chaos" and described it to xem. Xe was doubtful at first, but after watching the first episode, xe was hooked.

Xe used to not have many friends at xyr school, so xe did what every neurodivergent queer teen would do- made an account on dumbles dot com. People seemed to like xem- or at least, they liked dizznee-plus's memes and edits of Ze-Ra characters. Even after Dex befriended xyr squish, Fitz, thons sister, Biana, and aer girlfriend, Sophie, xe continued making content on dumbles. Around that time, the Ze-Ra fandom started dying off, and xyr memes started getting fewer note

In a sudden, two am burst of inspiration, Dex made edits of some of xyr favorite characters, like Ref, Akki, and Rose, with their respective pride flags (all of them bi) over them, and captioned it "we must be gay." The post blew up, or at least, what could be considered blowing up in Keeper of the Chaos's tiny fandom, and that was how Dex found xyr calling as an amateur meme/edit maker for KOTC.

History had been repeating itself, with the KOTC fandom starting to die off, until it was revived by an announcement from creator Saturn Nolastname- a season two would be released soon. Frantically, Dex made a meme about season one episode two, with the car salesman meme. Xe edited "chaos keepers" onto the car salesman, "the rarelynoticed" on the car, and "this bad boy can fit so many stripper outfits into it."

That had been... an interesting episode, to say the least. The chaos keepers had been talking about the antagonists of "Sophie and the Dark Duck"- a rebel group called the Rarelynoticed. In the information packet they'd been given, it was confirmed that the Rarelynoticed wore black cloaks and armbands, but no other clothes had been mentioned. Somehow, the chaos keepers came to the conclusion that the Rarelynoticed really wore neon pink leotards and green stripper heels, then drew this idea.

Needless to say, the Tumblr staff did not let them write that into the book. Nor did Lynn, the unofficially chosen leader of the group. Unfortunately for her, this didn't stop the chaos keepers from drawing more of these- or the fandom from making a ton of memes. In addition to the car salesman meme, a post with Drake saying no to "wearing normal fucking villain outfits" and yes to "leotards and stripper heels" gained popularity within the small fandom.

Though nothing could match the absolute shock of seeing the Rarelynoticed stripper outfit for the first time, Dex decided to rewatch the episode anyway- it was funny to see the chaos keepers freak out, and maybe xe could get some good screen captures. The good Saturn Nolastname indulged xem, and xe captured an excellent scene of most of the chaos keepers either laughing or screaming at the Rarelynoticed stripper outfits, with Kimber- one of xyr favorites- sitting on the side, explaining to Juno and Kaitee why Bianca Cracker was bisexual.

Xe went over to dumbles, posted the picture, added an image description, and captioned it "Live photo of me not caring when my friends talk about sex/romance." Xe chuckled to xemself- this really was how it felt to be aroace. Xe tagged it as aromantic and asexual as well, since dumbles added flag colors. Smiling, xe went to go check xyr notifications.

Xyr jaw dropped when xe saw that @lordofthesnuggles- Fitzroy (Dex didn't know thons middle name) Vacker thonself had liked and reblogged all three of xyr memes, even adding compliments in the tags! Xe'd had a bit of a platonic crush on Fitz for... a really long time, but xe always felt too awkward to talk to thon, so it was nice to see that thon appreciated xyr humor.

Feeling energized- and excited to procrastinate on xyr math homework- Dex went to watch the next episode: Dark Duck Is Jewish Now. Being Jewish xemself, this was a really funny episode to xem.

Lynn had been writing a sort of spinoff- it would be called fanfiction, but it was for her own story- about some of the Dark Duck characters celebrating Christmas, and added a throwaway line about Bianca and Finn Cracker celebrating Hanukkah. Then, her fiance, Shai, had taken that idea and run with it, writing a list of ideas about what would happen if the Cracker family was Jewish. Hir friend Sam had jumped on the idea, and soon they had abandoned writing the actual Dark Duck in favor of writing a story about Jewish Dark Duck characters. Some of the other Jewish chaos keepers, like Ref and Cat, helped out.

To be honest, it kind of surprised Dex that no one had made a joke about the Jewish Crackers just being matzah, so xe supposed xe would have to be the first.

Xe posted that observation, quickly getting a like from Fitz- which made xem smile. After a few minutes, Dex posted another meme: Shai and Sam standing in front of a door with a sign that read "elves don't have religion," and them saying "This sign won't stop me, because I can't read!"

It was accurate.

While that episode was great for Jewish representation, and funny, the Banana Noir episode was just plain weird.

It focused less on the Dark Duck than most of the other episodes, and was more about the crazy interactions of the chaos keepers. The episode was named for Banana Noir, who was really Cat Noir, but in a banana suit. Banana Noir was the son of Mellie, who looked like a shark, and Nora, who had platonically married faer. The mothers tried to arrange a marriage between him and Akki, who loved the side characters of the Dark Duck series. However, Akki wanted to marry Amelia. After a lot of shit that basically no one understood, Banana Noir's attempts were thwarted, and Lynn officiated the wedding between Akki and Amelia.

Yeah, Dex had no idea what the fuck was going on either. Xe'd watched an episode of Twins of the Chaos and a youtube video by arsonpog analyzing the Banana Noir chronicles, as it had been dubbed by the chaos keepers, and both expert opinions seemed to agree that Saturn Nolastname and the rest of the writers had probably been on crack when they made that episode.

The next episode made slightly more sense, though it was a low bar. After taking a break from the "official" Dark Duck story, the chaos keepers began collectively writing a Cinderella story about the characters Sophia and Bianca. People weren't allowed to be queer in the official story, but the chaos keepers still wanted to have fun with their obviously gay characters.

Even to the viewers of the show, who only received secondhand information about the Dark Duck characters, knew there was no way any of them, let alone all of them, were allocishet. The exact identities weren't entirely clear- when Dex had made edits of the characters' official art and xyr headcanons for their pride flags, a few people had disagreed- but both the chaos keepers and the fandom knew that despite what Shannon said, Sophia and Bianca were in love, and their Cinderella story should have made it in to the official Dark Duck story.

While excerpts of the Cinderella story were quoted in the show, most of it was left unclear, so Biana had taken it upon aerself to write aer own version of it. Dex was expecting an update later that day, actually, or maybe the next. Ae wasn't always 100% reliable with aer update schedule. Still, Dex looked forward to when it eventually did come.

After the brief calmness from the Sophianca Cinderella episode, season one episode six, Amsterdam, exploded back into chaos. A few of the chaos keepers decided to discuss a fake scene in the book in which crazy shit went down, with the scene supposedly being located in Amsterdam. It had never been written and was never going to be, but everyone discussed it like it was real. Some of the highlights involved all the Dark Duck girls having swords (and the chaos keepers being gay for them), and a speedboat chase scene through the canals. Fitz had a popular theory that the chaos keepers would actually travel to Amsterdam in order to commemorate this crazy part of their lives. Almost as popular as that was a meme Dex made, with a man labeled "chaos keepers discussing amsterdam" and gesturing feverishly to a wall covered in papers and red string.

Of course, episode seven (Dark Duck Disney) was chaotic too. Everything was chaotic with this group, it was in the title. Shannon announced that the winning Dark Duck story would be adapted into a Disney movie. After past experience with terrible book to movie adaptations, the chaos keepers panicked. They panicked so much that it became major news within their school, which until then, had been largely ignoring the chaos keepers. Once the discussion about the movie settled down, they talked a lot about how in awe they were that their Dark Duck shenanigans were trending within the school.

But of course, none of that compared to the last episode of the season...

Dex changed xyr profile picture to include an ominous pair of teal eyes and sighed.

#tumblr kotlc fandom fandom #keepers of the chaos #shai types things #shai's writing #hehe like the ze-ra reference

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itsthenovelteafactor · 4 years ago

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Superhero Gothic

Thanks to everyone who responded to my previous post (special shoutout to @jeyfeather1234 💛 ) about superheroes and gothic media! I know it’s been, like, a month, but here we go.

Here’s a bit of a look into some common gothic themes, and how they apply to Doom Patrol, The Boys, Watchmen (2019), and The Umbrella Academy. This one’s a bit long, not gonna lie, but I hope you enjoy!

Part I: Let’s Talk About Gothic Media

There is not actually an all-encompassing definition for gothic media, or even a universally agreed-upon one. You’re probably familiar with some well-known gothic works (think Dracula, Frankenstein, Edgar Allen Poe, Stephen King) but there is a lot of debate on what exactly makes them gothic.

There are some common themes in gothic works, though: families/characters under the control of a tyrannical paterfamilias, the crumbling of the established order/estate, long-buried secrets that have consequences in the present, and supernatural events that are stand-ins for/reflective of the emotional state/past actions of the characters.

(Note: these aren’t all the themes of gothic works or even most of them, but for purposes here, I’d like to limit this analysis to them. I’d love to talk about other themes/ideas, though, if anyone has them. 😊)

So… superheroes (quick overview in case you haven’t watched any of them… spoiler warnings for the rest of this discussion)

Doom Patrol:

Five misfit superhumans attempt to rescue their mentor figure when he is kidnapped by an old enemy.

They are very, very bad at it.

Also features a singing horse head, a sentient nonbinary teleporting street (who is by far the best character) and the narrator is the fourth-wall breaking series villain.

Beautifully weird but will also emotionally devastate you. Criminally underrated, tbh.

Watchmen (2019):

Story takes place after the canon of the graphic novel which is too much to summarize.

Alternate history (that should really feel more fictitious than it does) where white supremacist organization the Seventh Cavalry, masked police officers, and former superheroes in hiding all collide in Tulsa Oklahoma

Swept the Emmys this year and ABSOLUTELY DESERVED TO

The Umbrella Academy:

Washed up former child superheroes are forced to reunite when their father dies under mysterious circumstances

Time travel, dysfunctional siblings, and a killer soundtrack

Basically a family drama with the superhero story as secondary (complimentary)

Probably the most obviously gothic of all of these it is aesthetic AF

The Boys:

Superheroes exist but they are corporate sellouts under the control of evil company Not-Amazon (AKA Vought)

Regular human protagonists try to hold them accountable for their actions with varying (read: usually minimal) success

Yes, it’s the one from those weird ads earlier this year

Billy Joel!!

Part II: Niles Caulder, Ozymandias, and Other Terrible Father Figures

The Tyrannical Paterfamilias:

Does not always mean a father figure explicitly, often relating to the notion of a patriarchal tradition, or family inheritance that plays a role in controlling the main characters.

Sometimes, it is a father figure.

Sometimes, it is a representative of patriarchal tradition/male head of pseudo-family unit.

So, uh, role call:

Reginald Hargreeves (even in death) holds power over his children, and has shaped all of them into the adults they have become, and that drives the majority of the conflict. Each of the major character individually grapples with the after-effects of his abuse. Luther feels the need to be the leader and protect everyone and alienates his allies as a consequence. Diego constantly asserts himself as a hero (often to dangerous extremes) because it is the only way he was ever valued. Allison has to teach herself boundaries and responsible use of her powers after he encouraged her to abuse them for years. Klaus turns to drugs to cope with his childhood trauma. Five disobeyed his father with disastrous consequences and is constantly fighting to not become him. Vanya spent her entire childhood in the background, and never learned to assert herself in a healthy way. Thanks, Reggie.

Homelander says that The Seven are like a family. While whether or not this is accurate (it isn’t) is up for debate, he does occupy the tyrannical paterfamilias roles incredibly well. Homelander controls every member of the Seven, threatening them and their loved ones whenever they step out of line (read: do not do exactly what he wants in the exact way he wants them to do it.) He is also very closely tied with conservative/patriarchal rhetoric in-universe and at one point dates a literal Nazi.

William Butcher less evil than most of the other characters on this list but the bar is also like, on the ground. Butcher tries to control the Boys in a similar way (Butcher and Homelander are character foils, okay? it’s actually pretty neat). He’s perfectly willing to sacrifice them in pursuit of his own goals, disregards their points of view and the well-being of their loved ones, and tries to cut loose anyone who disagrees with his methods (recall when Hughie tried to rescue his friends at the end of s1 and Butcher… punched him in the face? Yeah, that.) The difference is that the Boys can push back against his without being, you know, brutally murdered. (And also the Butcher isn’t a literal monster; I’m not anti-Butcher, okay? He’s an interesting character and the fact that he seems constantly on the verge of becoming that which he hates most is part of what makes him interesting.)

Guess what, folks? It’s hating Niles Caulder hours. He engineered accidents to turn the main characters into his test subjects, and then kept them conveniently hidden away in his large manor. Stole their autonomy and independence but paints himself as a benevolent father figure. And that’s not even including what he does to his actual daughter, Dorothy. He’s terrified of her growing up (read: becoming a young woman) and so he locks her away for almost 100 years and, when she is freed, yells at her constantly and makes her terrified of showing any signs of maturation (even though she’s 111 and clearly tired of being written off as a child).

The relationship between Ozymandias and his daughter, Lady Trieu, is integral to the final act of Watchmen. Heralded as the “smartest man in the world,” Ozymandias refused to acknowledge his daughter as his until he needed something from her. While Lady Trieu is more self-sufficient and independent than some of the applications of this trope, she goes to great lengths to prove herself, first to him, and then to herself when he rejects her.

Part III: Been a Long Time Gone (Constantinople)

Gothic fiction is often associated with change, and particularly, the collapse of established systems of power. For example, many works like The House of the Seven Gables and The Fall of the House of Usher take place in old, crumbling manor houses. There is a reason for this! These kinds of estates are remnants of a past that is irreversibly gone, and their continued presence in decrypt forms serves as a reminder.

Each of the four series takes place at a moment, either on a wide scale or on a personal scale (or both!), in which an established order is being questioned, and the constant reminders of that failed order are used to gothic effect.

The Umbrella Academy plays this most directly (In fact, there are TONS of parallels between the end of s1 of TUA and House of Usher that I don’t have the time to get into right now... lmk if you want that meta). We can see the Hargreeves mansion as a very literal example of this. While not worn down, the house is notably both very large and very empty. Shelves are filled with merchandise for a superhero team that disbanded over a decade prior, and portraits of a family that no longer speaks to each other. None of the family members ever seem truly comfortable or at ease in the house, and for good reason - every back corner is a reminder of their incredibly traumatic childhood.

In The Boys, the story begins with the fridging death of the main character’s girlfriend, Robin, at the hands of a member of the Seven, a group of heroes so ingrained in the public consciousness that when they later hide out in a costume shop, literally every single costume is for one of Vought’s heroes. The Seven represent the system in power, which, at the disposal of Not-Amazon means corporate greed, shallow altruism, and the cultivation of public personas at the expense of actual humanity.

From that moment on, the sheer presence of The Seven on everything from public billboards to breakfast cereal is a remainder for Hughie (and the audience) that this established system doesn’t work and is based on lies, which serves this effect on a personal level. In the broader scale, however, we also see that the Seven themselves are fracturing under an unsustainable business model. Even their name, “The Seven” starts to seem a bit dated when halfway through season one through the end of season two there are notably... less than seven of them.

The main characters in Doom Patrol are all in recovery after the accidents that irreversibly changed their lives. We see through flashbacks the people that they used to be, and the difference is striking. They were each established in their own elements: Cliff a famous race-car driver, Rita a world renowned actress, Larry a hero pilot, Jane was involved in counter-cultural movements, Vic was a student and athlete. The foundations upon which their worlds were established are completely decimated by the accidents, and now they (save Vic and sometimes Jane) live mostly in isolation in Niles’ manor house, an estate that is far larger than would be necessary to comfortably house a group of their size.

And you feel the emptiness, both in the manor, and in the lives of the characters. They have barely created a shadow version of their own existence when the series starts, so fragile that a simple trip into town devolves into utter chaos.

Angela Abar of Watchmen has also constructed a life following the terrifying act of terrorism on the White Night. It’s a bit of a double life, and we see that the balancing act is challenging for her, even before the story truly begins. The death of Judd Crawford, and the revelation about him that follows is not only traumatizing on a personal level (but it definitely is that), but also upsets her understanding of the world. People she’s come to trust are not just dishonest but truly monstrous. And the more Angela learns about what has been happening, the more her understanding of the world begins to unravel. Her memories, and the memories of those around her are cast in a much more sinister light, and the effect is genuinely chilling.

Part IV: “I’m the Little Girl Who Threw the Brick in the Air”

In episode 3 of Watchmen, Laurie contacts Dr. Manhattan on the cosmic phone booth to tell him a joke. It’s a version of what TVTropes calls the “brick joke,” and it relies on set up taking place early on, other stuff happening, and then the response coming at an unexpected moment.

So, yeah. Events of the past/buried secrets resurfacing with consequences in the present.

Continuing with the theme from Watchmen, the entire series is punctuated with the way the past and the present intertwine, with elements from both the original Watchmen graphic novel, and actual American history. One of the things we talked a lot about in my gothic lit class was the manner in which the overhanging specter of past atrocities casts a shadow over the present, and how many works cannot help but have gothic themes because there are so many horrifying things in the past that cannot be ignored, and provide both context and nuance for the discussions we have in the present. No series tackles these topics quite so directly (and with as much care) as Watchmen. (note: it does not always make for easy viewing, but if you’re in a place where you feel like you can engage with that kind of material, I highly recommend the show.)

In Doom Patrol, the past actions of the characters very much control the storyline (see: previous discussion of Niles Caulder), but the character whose storyline I want to talk about here is Rita (partially for plot reasons and partially because I just love Rita, okay?). We learn when we first meet Rita that in the past she was... not a great person. We know that the trauma of the accident that gave her her powers has changed her, we also know that she still holds on to the guilt and that her guilt has limited the scope of her world for years, but we don’t know what exactly it is that she’s done.

Enter Mr. Nobody, all-powerful narrator who is not just aware of Rita’s greatest sins, but perfectly capable of manifesting reminders of them into the story. She is confronted with empty cradles, and the sound of crying children in the background of many scenes and we see how much it effects her, without a full understanding of why it does (see: The Tell-Tale Heart). Her past begins to haunt her physically, and she begins to crumble in response to it, until finally she is forced to confide in a stranger (and thus the audience). The past actions do not just inform the audience of Rita’s character - they show up to influence her behavior in the present.

The ending of The Umbrella Academy season 1 is super evocative of the gothic genre with Vanya breaking open the soundproof chamber (wherein she was silenced for years) and rising from the basement to destroy the last remnants of the Hargreeves legacy (which would be awesome if the last remnants of the Hargreeves legacy didn’t include the rest of her family). Pretty much every mistake the siblings make over the course of the season feeds together to create the finale, but the primary cause isn’t something any of them actually did. It all ties back to Reginald Hargreeves’ complete inability to be nice to children. Any children. His own and random strangers that need help.

In The Boys, while the extent to which people are making f-ed up choices in the present cannot be expressed enough, we see through the characters of Homelander that many of the present difficulties are a result of past mistakes. Particularly, the profit-seeking corruption within Vought. We learn in s1 through Vogelbaum that Homelander was raised in a lab by Vought as an experiment, only to be unceremoniously thrust into the spotlight and told he was a superhero (which... does not justify a single one of his actions but is still a major yikes). As the head scientist of the project, Vogelbaum is very aware that ignoring his conscious if the name of research has essentially created the biggest threat their world has ever seen.

(Seriously y’all just stop raising your super kids in isolation)

Part V: Put Them Together, and They’re the MF-ing Spice Girls

Having the environment respond to characters’ emotions/mental states is pretty common in gothic works (it was a dark and stormy night = someone is probably not doing super well). One of the advantages of the genre’s tendency towards the supernatural is that, often, those elements of the stories, as well, are reflections of the main ideas of a work of fiction (see: Stephen King’s really unsubtle period metaphors).

Because all of these shows have a ton of supernatural/scifi elements by virtue of being, well, superhero shows, I thought it would be easier (and more fun!) to come up with a short list of elements, what they mean, and what cases they might apply to.

1. A Nonlinear Experience of Time

The Umbrella Academy: legitimately about time travel. Characters are attempting to fix the timeline but are unable to because they are both mentally and sometimes literally stuck in the past.

Watchmen: In the episode This Extraordinary Being, Angela experiences firsthand the experiences of her grandfather, under the influence of a drug called Nostalgia. The episode touches on many themes, one of which being the impact of generational trauma in marginalized communities. Throughout the series, Dr. Manhatten is cursed with experiencing all time at once, and the episode A God Walks into Abar illustrates that, because of this, he is constantly facing the consequences of particular actions before, after, and while he is preforming him.

Doom Patrol: Mr. Nobody is able to physically travel to one of Jane’s flashbacks via his fourth-wall breaking powers, and gives Dr. Harrison an ultimatum for the future.

What it implies: Events, particularly events that evoke guilt or conflict, are not as rooted in the past as one would like to think.

2. Powers/Abilities that reflect personal trauma/failings

Doom Patrol: Larry’s abilities/bond with the Negative Spirit have made it so that he is constantly covering himself with bandages/avoiding other people, which reflects his experiences having to hide his identity as a gay man in the 50/60s. Rita forced herself to walk a thin line, betraying everything in pursuit of her image; her abilities require constant effort to keep her entire body from becoming misshapen and out of control. Vic’s father with boundary issues can literally control his perception of the world through his cybernetic enhancements. Dorothy’s abilities manifest as imaginary friends because she was kept isolated for years at a time.

The Umbrella Academy: pretty much all of the kids’ powers are representative of the interpersonal skills they were never able to develop. Luther is super-durable but also the most emotionally vulnerable of the group. Five can teleport and time travel but always seems to be too late to stop things. Diego can manipulate the trajectory of projectiles but cannot escape the path his father set out for him, not matter how much he resents it. Vanya always forced herself to stay quiet until the sound literally explodes out of her.

The Boys: Annie’s abilities allow her to control light, but she struggles (in the beginning) to bring to light the horrible things done to her behind closed doors.

Watchmen: Not technically a power, but Looking Glass’ mirror-mask is a constant reminder of the hall of mirrors that both saved his life and traumatized him forever.

What it implies: from a story perspective, these allow for an exploration of trauma/guilt to occur on a scale much larger than people simply talking about their problems (as if anyone on any of these shows knows how to talk about their problems...) It also means that the trauma/guilt of the characters takes on a physical form that is able to haunt them, and constantly remind them/hold them accountable for their past actions.

3. Diluted Sense of Reality:

Doom Patrol: The first season is narrated by its main villain, and throughout the season we see that the act of narration itself has an impact on the story.

Watchmen: The event that kicks off the plot of the story is hinged upon a paradox introduced by Angela near the end of the series when trying to speak to her Grandfather in the past through Dr. Manhattan.

The Umbrella Academy: The pair of episodes in season 1, The Day that Wasn’t and The Day That Was take the same point in time and explore two possible avenue for the future from there, with The Day that Wasn’t ending with the events of the entire episode being completely erased from the timeline.

What it implies: you can’t necessarily trust everything you see, even from the audience perspective, giving them a position not unlike that of the characters. The character’s uncertainty and confusion is magnified and reflected in the world that surrounds them.

Other examples: an apocalypse (The Umbrella Academy, Doom Patrol, Watchmen (of a sort)), ghosts (The Umbrella Academy - hi, Ben!), immortality/invulnerability (Watchmen, Doom Patrol, The Boys), and characters that look significantly younger than they actually are (The Boys, The Umbrella Academy, Doom Patrol).

Part VI: Why Did You Write a Literal Essay Don’t You Have Real Schoolwork (yes... shhhhh...)

And... there you have it. I don’t really have some grand conclusion here. This is (clearly) far from a complete analysis but it is the most my finals-week brain can concoct at the moment.

If you have other ideas, let me know! You can always add to the notes or message me – my inbox is always open! If you got this far, thank you so much for taking the time to read this! Much love! ❤️

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lonelyreputation · 5 years ago

Text

Different (part two)

A/N: Surprise!! I’m posting earlier than I thought I would! And we’re back with the angst!! Straight angst! Like literally all of this is angst there’s nothing else. Also! I just started a tag list, so send me a message if you want to be added!!

Don’t we all just love some unrequited love?? 💞 💖

Also, your support has been so tremendous, thank you guys all so much, I love you to the moon and to Saturn 😉 💫 THANKS A MILLION! Reblogs are never expected, but always appreciated!! 🤗💞🌻

REQUEST/PROMPT: People talking a room away & Fighting the urge to cry & Unrequited Love

Part ONE | Let’s Chat!! | MASTERLIST

Warnings: Few swear words, some self-doubt, and ANGST!!!

Word Count: 5.7K

Shawn’s texts are bold and italicized & your texts are in italics

You promptly left the party, the broken glass left unattended on the floor, and silently cried the whole way back to your apartment with your arms hugging tight around your stomach.

Opening the door to your apartment wasn’t an easy task. Tears clouded your vision as you fumbled to find the right key to open the door. You had bit the inside of your cheek repeatedly on the walk home causing you to taste metallic every time you swallowed back a sob. Your chin wobbled, and just when you were about to give up and sit out in the hallway to cry, your roommate opened the door with a questioning look.

“How was the…party?”

She’s different––She’s just a friend––I don’t love her.

You brushed past her, “Fantastic.” You said as a few more tears fell from your eyes and your voice cracked.

She seemed to have caught the sarcasm behind your voice that alluded to the party being anything but fantastic. Your bloodshot eyes and wobbly chin also gave her a good indication that you left the party early.

There weren’t anymore words exchanged between the two of you as you quickly walked to your room to finally break down. You held a hand to your chest, clutching your necklace, a birthday present from Shawn, in a fist as you gasped out for air.

You’re different. You’re just a friend. He doesn’t love you.

You had a hand on the handle of your bathroom door as you harshly banged against it with your shoulder to open it wide. Once the door was closed, and you felt safe from the world around you, as you leaned up against the door and let out a cry of desperation. You were so sure that Shawn was the love of your life. You were positive that he had felt something––maybe not love––but some type of feelings for you that were stronger than friendship.

You slid down the door until you were sitting on the cold tiles, the only thing giving you a feeling other than absolute heartbreak. You tried your best to keep your cries quiet, clenching your teeth and hissing out a breath every now and then in order not to draw anymore attention from your roommate. You could physically feel your chest caving in on your heart.

The necklace that was still being held tightly in your hand burned your exposed skin. Hastily, you unclasped it from your neck, and heard the little dink of a sound as the soft metal material of the necklace collided against the tile.

You bent your knees and hugged your legs close to your chest, failing at sniffling back your sobs as you rested your forehead on top of your knees. You were second guessing every interaction you had with Shawn; the soft smiles from across a crowded room, him randomly sending you flowers when he knew you were stressed, how he touched you only a few hours ago.

Who said anything about love?

You tried to hold back something between a sob and a shout as you heard Brian’s question repeat over and over in your head. You felt hot all over your body, and most of all, you felt like a fool for listening to Olivia’s advice about confessing your true feelings to your best friend. The back of your head started to throb and the ache of your breaking heart was having a tortuous physical effect on the rest of your body.

Buzz. Buzz.

You lifted your head to see your phone vibrating against the tile, moving ever so slightly with every ring. A new wave of tears started to fall over as you saw Shawn’s contact picture; a picture you took of him asleep on the couch after the first time you watched 10 Things I Hate About You. You let the call go unanswered. Once you saw his picture disappear, you let out a shaky breath, but it didn’t last long because his picture showed up on your phone again.

You screened his call again.

Thankfully, he didn’t try calling you again, but your phone continued to buzz indicating that a few text messages were being received. You bit your lip as you brought your arm up to your nose to wipe away the excess of tears that mixed with your runny nose and read the text messages.

Where are you? I came back to the kitchen and didn’t see you?

Are you still here? Y/n?

Liv just told me you were feeling sick, do you need anything? I can come around tomorrow morning. Love you & hope you feel better xx

Just like your necklace, you slid your phone across the bathroom tile for it to be as far away from you.

Love you? The malicious part of your brain spoke up, ha. He even said it himself, he’s never loved you.

And again, the sane part of your mind didn’t have a rebuttal.

///

It had been five days since you eavesdropped on Shawn and Brian’s conversation. Five days since Shawn said he didn’t love you. Five dreadfully long days since your best friend broke your heart and you had to pretend like everything was fine.

Everything was not fine.

On the first day, you left his texts unanswered and told your roommate to turn him away if he showed up at your door. Day two, you respond to his texts saying you had a migraine and couldn’t look at any bright lights, your excuse for not responding to any of his messages. Day three, he came over to your apartment with pizza, two big fuzzy blankets, and your favorite Pixar movie because, you always watch Pixar when you’re feeling sick, I know you, he said.

I know you; but he didn’t know that you were purposefully avoiding him.

On day four, you were back over at Shawn’s apartment with Brian. Like you had done earlier when Shawn had just come home from tour, the three of you were out on his deck with the fire going. Brian was in the single chair again while you and Shawn were sharing the couch. Except this time, your head wasn’t nestled into his chest, you were sitting on the complete opposite end with your feet tucked under you.

Brian and Shawn both had alcoholic drinks of their choice while you had a glass of water.

“So, Shawn,” Brian quickly looked over at you for a brief moment before he looked at the boy in question, “Write any good songs?”

You wrapped the blanket tighter around your body, using it as a shield for whatever his answer would be, as you took a sip of your water. You stared at the CN Tower, pretending like you weren’t interested in their conversation.

You felt Shawn’s eyes glance at your figure for a second before he took a sip of his drink and nodded, “A few.”

“Oh c’mon,” Brian let out a little laugh as he looked at you until you gave him a roll of his eyes, “It’s just us––It’s not like we’re gonna leak them.”

“Y/n heard one of them.”

Brian raised his eyebrows, “Did she now?”

They both expected you to give your input, but you stayed silent, pretending to be enamored with the city lights.

When Brian noticed that his two best friends weren’t going to say anything, he cleared his throat, “And what did you think of it?”

With a question directed at you, you knew you couldn’t avoid contributing to any part of the conversation any longer. You shot Brian a glare, as you took a sip of water to stall some time, “It was nice.”

Brian threw his head back in laughter at your simple answer and Shawn stared at you with a questioning tilt of his head. You knew that he was thinking back to your taco night when he nervously played the song for you. Where you praised him for his songwriting abilities and said it was your favorite song he had ever written. But the more you thought back on that night, the more you noticed how distracted he was.

He didn’t want to mix the spices, and while you measured the different seasonings, you would glance up at him to see his thumbs rapidly moving across the screen of his phone. You remember asking him what was so important on his phone when you caught him smiling down at it. And he didn’t tell you any specific stories from when he was on tour, which were always a topic of discussion on taco night. He specifically brushed away your questions about Los Angeles.

“There would be a million girls out there who would die to listen to an unreleased Shawn Mendes song and all you say is that it’s nice?”

You shrugged your shoulders and took another sip of water, hoping it would ease the familiar scratchiness at the back of your throat, “Yeah.”

Just thinking about the song that was so clearly written for you made you want to cry like you did that night you found out Shawn didn’t love you. When you first heard the song, you wanted that sweet guitar melody ingrained in your mind forever. You wanted those lyrics tattooed somewhere on your body that was only visible to you. He had sung about having a different kind of love for you.

Different.

You finished your water and excused yourself to get a refill with a sniffle as you went into his kitchen, wiping away a few stubborn tears that fell.

But the fifth day…The fifth day was worse than the day you overheard Shawn say he didn’t love you.

You were out grocery shopping when you felt your phone buzz in your back pocket. Unlocking it, you saw a text from Shawn; Busy?

Out food shopping, you texted back, everything alright?

I’m bored.

You let out a small laugh at his response, pushing your cart out of the aisle you were in and stood off to the side, not wanting to disrupt anyone’s shopping habits.

Poor you, you texted back, I’m sure you’re really missing the tour life right now.

Nah, he texted back instantly, just missing you.

Your heart soared with happiness, but only for a split second. He didn’t see you in the same way you saw him. He didn’t look at you like you hung the stars in the sky. He didn’t think of you as being someone he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

With a frown, your thumbs moved quickly across the screen, Boo hoo.

Come over.

You weren’t expecting him to be so direct. You hadn’t hung out alone since taco night and you weren’t sure you were strong enough to keep your composure together.

And don’t say you’re busy.

You only go food shopping when you have absolutely nothing to do.

Your thumbs stopped typing out your response. Maybe, you thought to yourself, just maybe he does know you as well as you knew him.

Let me check out and drop the bags off at my place then I’ll head over.

You felt your stomach churn with anxiety as you stared at the lone smiley face. He usually texted with emojis, so you knew something was off when he was using simple keyboard emoticons. It only made you that much more nervous to be alone with him.

It didn’t take long to finish gathering what you needed and then headed to check out. You didn’t have too much stuff, so it was easy to carry your reusable bags from the store front to the car without your cart. Once your bags were placed in the back, and you were in the driver’s seat, you placed both hands on the steering wheel, gripping the leather material until your knuckles turned a few shades lighter than your skin tone, letting out a deep breath.

You told yourself you didn’t have a reason to be nervous. Deep breath in. You were the one who had the problem with Shawn, not the other way around, he didn't know you were in love with him. Deep breath out.

Turning the key in your car took a little more effort than normal because you could feel your stomach tell you not to go over to Shawn’s place. Your gut had a feeling that something wasn’t right. But he was still your best friend, you still loved him, and you would do anything to have him in your life.

You drove home, quickly placing your groceries away, and then walked over to Shawn’s apartment. Sure, it would’ve been easier to drive, but you couldn’t pass up the sweet summer air that whisked down the streets of Toronto.

Are you still coming?

A smile crept onto your face as you sent him an eye roll emoji, At the corner waiting to cross the street. Be there in five.

Instead of your stomach flipping with summersaults, it flipped with anxiety. You shook your hands to free yourself of the nerves you felt inside, and smiled at the doorman who greeted you by name. You made your way to the elevator, pressing the button to Shawn’s floor.

You were always bouncing with excitement riding the elevator up to Shawn’s place because it meant that you were going to see him. But now your leg bounced with anxiety and the ride up seemed to take hours.

Once on the floor, you made the journey to Shawn’s door, and before you could knock, Shawn swung open the door with a smile on his face. You couldn’t even get a greeting out as he wrapped his arms tightly around you, leaning his cheek on top of your head.

You felt the familiar feeling of warmth that you associated with him as you felt his heartbeat. Out of instinct, you brought your arms around his torso and hugged him back just as tightly, breathing in his scent.

“C’mon,” Shawn squeezed you tight one last time before unraveling his arms from around you, letting his hand graze your down your arm to your hand where he intertwined your fingers, “Brian will be here in like an hour and I want you to myself for a bit.”

With your hand in his, he pulled you inside his apartment and you looked at the back of his head like he was leading you to an eternity of happiness. As he pulled you past the kitchen and into the living room, he peered over his shoulder and offered you a shy smile.

Oh yes, you thought to yourself, you were still hopelessly in love with him; ready to bend yourself however which way just to see him smile.

He flopped onto the couch, with you standing above him, but with a gentle tug of your hand, you were falling into his chest with a laugh. You placed a hand on his chest, feeling the familiar warmth of his skin through his cotton t-shirt seep into you. You looked up at him through your eyelashes, his chest still vibrating with laughter, and you thought that even though he might like someone else, he may just love you.

“Wanna watch La La Land?”

His question brought you out of your daydream, “I thought you didn’t like the ending?”

Shawn shrugged his shoulders as he reached for the remote, the movie already queued up, “Haven’t seen it in a while.”

You slowly nodded your head, using your hand that was on his chest to push yourself off him. But he caught your wrist in his hand, “Stay.”

With a smile slowly tugging at the corners of your lips, you nodded and laid your head on his chest, sliding your legs between his, as you felt his heartbeat accelerate. Around thirty minutes into the film, you felt Shawn bring one of his hands up to your head, softly running the tips of his fingers over your hair.

It was the little gestures that made you fall in love with your best friend. How he always managed to relax you with a hand on your shoulder. How he would listen intently over the phone when he was hundreds of miles away. And how when you would be out on a date, he would call you after texting him your codeword for an excuse to leave. But even if the date was going well, you would still text him to call, because he wasn’t the one sitting across from you.

As if you had plunged head first into the ocean, thoughts were swimming around in your mind; his touches were comforting––you felt a spark tingle its way through your veins every time he touched you––you were never afraid to be yourself around him.

But soon the thoughts that made you feel like you were floating above the surface, suddenly swallowed you whole, and the thoughts only got worse, feeling as if you were thrashing around the water, reaching your hands up to break through to the surface; this is all you’ll ever be to him––You won’t ever have the joy of graduating to something more––Soon his gentle touches and soft eyes will be reserved for someone else––Someone he’s capable of loving––He’ll never want you in the way you want him.

As he repeated his movements of touching your hair, as if he didn’t give it a second thought, it was the only thing you were capable of giving your full attention to. The warmth you usually felt now felt like a burning sensation as it spread like a wildfire throughout your body.

You lifted your head from his chest abruptly before his hand could caress your hair once more. Shawn was startled by your sudden movement and looked up at you with a raised eyebrow.

“I––Sorry, I––” you felt your chin wobble and you knew that you had to get away from him, “I have––I’m gonna go to the bathroom.”

You untangled your legs from his as you stumbled to get up, bringing your hand up to cover your mouth when your back was to him. You could hear his distant voice asking if you wanted him to pause the film as you skidded across his floor to the bathroom. You didn’t bother replying to him, already knowing how the film played out.

You tried to even out your breathing, soft gasps emitting from your lips as to not alert Shawn that you were having a breakdown in his bathroom. You thought you could be friends with him, you were trying everything to keep him in your life, but it was taking too much of a toll on your feelings.

He loves you like a best friend, the rational part of your brain tried to make sense of your heartbreak.

But that’s not enough, the irrational part of your mind yelled over its counterpart, you’ll never be enough.

Your hands gripped the granite countertop so tight that your knuckles turned a few shades lighter than your original skin tone. The coolness of the granite didn’t do anything to soothe the leftover burning you felt course through your veins from Shawn’s touches. You lifted your head to look in the mirror and noticed that the reflection of the girl looking back at you was a heartbroken stranger.

Turning the sink on, you ran your hands under the cold water, cupping your hands under the faucet and splashing your face with water to cover up the redness of your eyes. You grabbed a towel from the rack hanging on the wall after you had shut the water off and dried your hands. You didn’t think you could last through the rest of the movie without breaking down, so you turned on your heel and opened the door, prepared to tell Shawn you had a headache and wanted to go home.

But when you opened the door, you were met with Shawn leaning against the wall across the hallway, arms crossed over his chest, with a concerned, yet irked, look in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

HIs question was direct, and you had the truth banging from the inside of your skull, begging to be released; I love you––I want to be more than best friends––It’s killing me to not tell you how I feel––But I know you don’t love me.

“Nothing,” you tried to squash your thoughts, but it only made your headache hurt more, “Listen, I––”

“Why aren’t you wearing your necklace?”

Another direct question that left you speechless. You slowly brought your hand up to your chest, fingers resting just beneath your collarbone, where your necklace had taken up a home everyday since Shawn gave it to you four years ago.

“I forgot––I forgot to put it on this morning.”

“I know you sleep with it on,” Shawn’s voice was monotone as he deflected your excuses and shot you another direct question, “Why’d you take it off?”

A flashback of you ripping the necklace off your skin and throwing it across your bathroom as tears heavily flowed down your face flashed through your mind. The sound it made as it hit the tile floor echoing in your thoughts.

You bit the inside of your cheek, trying to suppress the heartbreak you felt on that night down, “You’re delusional, if you’re so sure I sleep with it on––”

“Y/n,” his voice was dangerously low, “Why did you take the necklace off.”

His jaw was clenched to hold back his rage of anger. And your jaw was clenched to hold back your waterfall of tears.

“Because I did,” you scoffed at Shawn, sending him a glare, as you walked past him, “It’s just a necklace.”

It’s more than a necklace, the rational part of your mind whispered, both of you know that it’s so much more than just a necklace.

The irrational part of your brain stayed mute.

Before you could successfully make it down the hallway, Shawn circled a hand around your wrist, “Don’t feed me that bull––”

You were fed up with him. You were fed up with his teasing touches, fed up with the caring words he whispered to you in secret, fed up with how he thought he knew you better than anyone else. Because if he really knew you––knew how your heart beat faster just for him––then you wouldn’t be in this position.

You ripped your wrist out of his hold and spun around, “Shawn, I love you!”

Your tone was scathing, but at the same time it was a cry for help. And the only person who would be able to offer you assistance was frozen to the ground, lips slightly parted, but his eyes stayed the same. You expected his eyes to be wide in shock, you expected him to be thrown off by your statement, but he didn’t seem fazed.

“I––I’ve loved you for so long and I can’t––Everything just hurts,” your voice cracked at the end of your sentence, as your eyes maintained contact with the boy who you would give everything up for, “You act like you know me, but if you really did, then you’d know how much my heart is breaking whenever I’m around you.”

You already knew that he didn’t love back, you had already gone through this heartbreak, but seeing him trying to figure out the words that would no doubt ruin your friendship, it was as if your first heartbreak felt like a little scrape on the knee.

He brought both hands up to rub his face, taking in a deep breath, as he looked up toward the ceiling, “Y/n,” his voice was strained, but not in the way you felt your throat closing up from the threat of tears, he was holding back resentment, “That––Can’t––You don’t love me––Not––Not like…That.”

Without any remorse, it was as if he had ripped your heart apart like you were just a piece of scrap paper with lyrics he didn’t think were good enough. Not good enough, your mind echoed, you’re not good enough for him.

He had already witnessed you confiding your deepest secret to him. And you didn’t think he deserved to witness the aftermath of your world crumbling.

You understood what the collapse of the Roman Empire must’ve felt like.

Tears were already falling fast down your cheeks, and you spun around, not bothering to say anything else to him because he didn’t warrant any more of your words after he so carelessly threw away your confession.

You made it to his kitchen when you heard his pleading voice, “Wait––” And when you felt the fire of his skin on your skin, it was a pain you never wanted to experience again.

Before he could enclose his hand around your wrist for a third time today, you snatched your arm away, cradling your wrist into your chest like you were trying to heal a wound. You had an internal wound that you didn’t think would go away any time soon.

“If you can’t––If you don’t want to be with me,” You choked out a sob as you stared into his brown eyes; it was the first time you saw genuine heartbreak in his eyes. And part of you was glad that he was experiencing a fraction of the pain he put you through over the past five days, “I can’t…we can’t be friends.”

His exasperated exterior fell just as fast as his face, “Don’t say that,” he took a few steps forward and reached out a hand, but stopped it mid-way and left it hanging in the air, knowing you would push him away again, “You don’t mean that––”

“I––Shawn, I can’t––” your voice was high-pitched as your bottom lip quivered, the reality of the situation becoming all too real for the both of you, “It’s been so hard these past few years––”

“Years?”

You ignored his question as another one of your secrets slipped past your trembling lips, “It’s just too––too hard right now,�� you hiccuped, “I need–sp––space.”

“But I––I just got you back––You’re my best friend. I don’t want space from you.”

You did your best to ignore the tears welling up in the corner of his eyes as you tasted your own salty tears as you spoke, “You have Brian––”

“Don’t,” his voice was rigid as the first of his tears fell from his eyes. He harshly brushed the top of his palm across his cheek to rid himself of his falling tears. But the more he kept wiping away his tears, more fell from his eyes, “You know that our friendship is different than what we have with anyone else.”

“Exactly!” You threw your hands up in the air, letting out a humorless laugh, “It’s different because we’re different! We’re different around each other because there’s something more between us––”

“We’re just friends!” Shawn raised his voice over yours.

It was silent after that as you tried to keep your sniffles to a minimum, gulping your emotions down your cracked throat. You had made your feelings about him clear. And he had made his feelings about you clear; friends. Just friends.

“What,” he smacked his lips together, his next question coming out in a whisper, “What did I do wrong to make you think of me––of us––to be more than friends?”

What did he not do? That was the real question that had been floating around your head for years. How could you not fall in love with the cadence of his voice? How could you resist the invisible pull you felt toward him that only grew stronger since the first time you said hello? How could you refuse to let yourself fall in love for someone you were so sure was made for you?

You offered him the best smile you could through your tears, “You did…Nothing wrong,” you let out a whisper of a laugh as you stared into his eyes that were once so comforting. His eyes used to bring you so much joy, but now they held with just as much heartbreak as yours, “You were just…Yourself.”

“But you––Why tell me this––Why are you destroying our friendship when you already knew I didn’t love you back?”

“I didn’t want to tell you––Wait,” you had felt your heart stop for the boy in front of you a million times. Your heart had stopped for him when he gave you your star sign constellation as a necklace for a present. Your heart had stopped for him when he pointed at you when he was performing on stage.

But never had it stopped for this long as you awaited his answer, “How did you know that I knew?”

Shawn’s red eyes grew wide, not expecting for his little secret to slip out. He tried stammering out an excuse through his tears, but just like he had deflected your excuses about not wearing your necklace, you weren’t putting up with him. You had an inclination as to how he knew that you knew he didn’t feel the same way about you. But you were praying that you were wrong.

God, you hoped you were wrong.

“Shawn,” your voice cracked as you looked at him, he was shaking his head as if begging you not to ask your next question, “How did you know?”

“Y/n––”

“How.”

Shawn let out a breath so shaky that you felt yourself lose balance, “At the party, five days ago…” his eyes were begging you to have him stop his explanation, but you shook your head, wanting him to twist the knife he had already plunged so deep into your heart.

“The bathroom door was open and––and I saw you form the corner of my eye and when Brian asked me about you––I thought if you heard I didn’t love you, instead of me saying it to you, that we could go back to being normal.”

He knew you were listening. He knew you weren’t okay when he asked you so delicately, so full of obliviousness, as you cut yourself with shards of broken glass. And he knowingly left you in the kitchen after he knew he had broken your heart.

Turns out, he did know you just as well as you thought.

“You…You knew I was listening?”

The nod of his head was the final hit. It felt as if a hawk had swooped into your heart, talons digging in deep, thrashing until they successfully picked your heart apart piece by piece, savoring every moment of your destruction.

You didn’t think it was possible to feel even more hurt than you did that night when you listened to him in the bathroom say so confidently that he didn’t love you. He said it with so much conviction––I don’t love her––knowing that you were just a few feet away from him, clearly able to hear him break your heart.

His presence, one that you yearned for during every second of the day you weren’t with him, was now something that repulsed you.

How did your supposed best friend have so little respect for you?

Without a second thought other than to get the hell out of his apartment, you dashed behind him to the living room to pick your phone up from the coffee table, haphazardly slid your sneakers on, and tucked the laces under the tongue of the shoe. Your hands were shaking as you rushed past his standstill figure in the kitchen.

Your hand was on the doorknob, about to turn it, but his voice cut you off.

“Don’t––Y/n, I’m sorry––”

The tips of his fingers grazed your elbow, just as gently as they caressed your hair earlier, but you opened the door, jumping out into the hallway to put as much distance between the two of you as possible.

“Fucking––Stay away from me.”

You slammed the door on his tearstained face and ran down the hallway. You ran to the very end, skipping the elevator as you yanked the door to the stairs open. Your palms were sweating, heart beating out of control, as you raced down the stairs out of breath. Shawn had made you feel all those things before, but never had you felt them in such a turmoil of pain, you had previously only felt them out of the nervousness of love for him.

You made it to the lobby, praying that Shawn hadn’t taken the elevator down to stop you from leaving. When you saw that the coast was clear, you avoided eye contact with the doorman, as you quickly walked past him.

“Y/n?”

You whipped your head around, eyes wide, as you saw Brian stood a few feet away from you with a concerned look on his face.

His eyes started at your face, taking in your splotchy appearance, then his eyes darted to your shaky hands, and then back up to your red eyes, where tears were still falling.

He looked at you with a regretful smile, “You told him?”

You sniffed back the tears and brought your forearm to wipe under your nose, “I don’t––Told him what?”

He gave you a pointed stare, you had never confided in Brian about your feelings for Shawn, but you always had a feeling that he knew something.

“Did he tell you?”

You screwed your eyes tight wanting to erase everything you had heard in the last hour.

When you opened your eyes, Brian’s mournful stare was still on you, “He told me a lot of things.” He perked up at that piece of information. There was a glint of glee in his eyes, but it was soon replaced with confusion as you said your next sentence, “Keep him from coming after me.”

“What do you––”

The ding of the elevator and a desperate shout of a voice that had just destroyed your heart called out your name, cut him off, “Y/n!”

Your body went into fight or flight mode, and you chose flight as your petrified body sprinted out the glass door of his building.

And just like the night after the party, you walked home from Shawn’s place to your apartment, arms hugging your stomach for some sort of comfort, tears clouding your vision. You miserably failed to keep your cries at bay as you publicly showcased your heartbreak as gray clouds rolled in and thunder boomed from the distance.

-----

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ejzah · 4 years ago

Note

Could you do a fanfic where kensi has to go undercover as a model?

A/N: This prompt was sent a very long time ago. I apologize for it taking so long. This is set in season 4 and may deviate a little from canon.

***

Top Model

***

“This is the best day ever,” Deeks muttered, unable to hide his wide grin. He was situated at the end of a long runway next to several other, actual photographers who snapped rapid fire pictures of the models walking past.

He peered through the viewfinder of his camera, taking several pictures as a heavy beat vibrated through the room and a woman in a mustard yellow dress with a deep slit and feathers decorating the bodice stopped directly in front of him and gave him a sultry stare.

“See something you like?” Kensi asked, sarcasm filling her voice. She was somewhere backstage, waiting for her own turn to catwalk down the runway. He wasn’t sure what strings Hetty had pulled to get his and Kensi’s aliases, Bobby Harper and Rosa Black gigs at a fairly high profile fashion show 12 hours before the event started, but he was infinitely grateful.

Not only did he get to wear a shirt that cost more than his monthly salary (a nice change from all the utility uniforms of late), but he would also get to see Kensi live out her ANTM dreams. He wasn’t sure which of them was more excited.

“Mm, not really my type.” His camera whirred again, capturing the daring stance of a read-headed model in a deep green dress. Kensi made a rude noise, not exactly fitting with her current persona.

“I thought any woman that doesn’t run away is your type.” He grinned again, holding back a chuckle, reminding himself that it would look a little strange if he started laughing at nothing. “Ooh, what about the leggy brunette headed your way?” Kensi waited for the model to stop in front of him and then added. “Her name’s Jasmine and she likes long walks on the beach.”

“She sounds delightful, but still not my type,” Deeks muttered. He had a different leggy brunette in mind who would probably gut punch him if he ever dared to call her “leggy”.

He took several pictures on auto pilot, thankful that no one would actually be scrutinizing them for quality. His photography skills were satisfactory for crime scenes, but probably not quite magazine worthy. “Did you see anything interesting back stage?”

“Other than two models getting into a fight over a pair of Louis Vuitton shoes?” Kensi said. “Not really. There was too much chaos to focus on one thing.”

“Now that I would have loved to see.”

“Creep.” He grinned again at her mild comment. Two more models stalked by, giving their own variation of the same overly dramatic stance. Lowering his camera for a moment, he quickly swept the room to see if anyone was giving particular notice to a single model.

One of them was suspected of selling sensitive information to a foreign government. Nell and Eric had traced the sales of similar information back to several other modeling events over the past two months. They were still trying to figure out how their suspects, mostly in their early twenties and without criminal records, had attained classified information.

Sam and Callen were in the audience, keeping an eye out for their buyer. So far they’d been pretty silent though.

Three more models emerged from either side of the runway amid a cloud of manufactured mist. As the fog cleared, Kensi walked out, and the beat of his heart suddenly matched the rhythm of the music. She wore a dark blue evening gown, the plunging bodice clinging to her torso until it reached her waist and flowed down into several full layers of sheer material. Half her hair was swept up to the side with the rest fell around her shoulders in soft curls.

She looked absolutely stunning, and more importantly, confident. There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation as she strutted down the runway. As she drew closer to the end, Deeks heard a rush of whispers from the other photographers, wondering who she was.

Kensi paused in front of the them, her skirts swirling around her dramatically as she stopped. She glanced to him, her eyes making contact for the briefest of seconds. In that moment see saw a hint of uncertainty and then pride as the whispers continued and a dozen cameras flashed around her. She gave an extra twirl before she headed back down the runway.

One of the photographers said something about winning an award for her pictures and Deeks smothered a smirk. Kensi would get a kick out of that. To bad said pictures would never see the light of day.

“Guys, I just saw one of the models, Jenna Martinez, talking to a guy. He looked about 50 years old with gray hair and a dark blue suit,” Kensi said a few minutes later, sounding a little breathless. “I’m sending you a picture.”

“Did you see what he gave her?” Sam asked. “Coulda been a lot of things. Drugs, money in exchange for other services...”

“No, all I could see was a white envelope. But models aren’t supposed to leave styling area in between walks without permission though. If someone caught her, she could risk getting kicked out of the show. That seems pretty suspicious to me.”

“Kens, check it out,” Callen decided. “Deeks, figure out a way to get out and back her up. We’ll see if we can find Kensi’s mystery man.”

“Got it. Deeks I’ll be back where they store the extra wardrobe.”

Deeks sat through two more cycles of models, conscious they had limited time before the area would be swarming with with even more people once the show had finished. He took the opportunity to slip away when one of the models took an unfortunate fall after tripping over the train of her dress.

Surprisingly, no one questioned why he was wandering around back stage. The stylists and make up people seemed completely consumed with making sure the show stayed on track to wonder about his motives.

“Kens,” he whispered when he found the storage area empty.

“Right here,” she answered, appearing from one of the many closets, still dressed in the evening gown. When she noticed his raised eyebrow, she added. “I didn’t have time to change.”

They passed through a couple dim hallways, taking a less direct route to the locker area to avoid running into anyone.

“You watch the door.” Kensi headed to the second row of lockers, sinking to a graceful crouch.

“Did you really bring your lock picking kit with you?” he asked, glancing through a crack in the door as she pulled something from the top of her dress.

“Nope, bobby pin,” she said holding it up with a smirk before she pried it open with her teeth.

“How very resourceful of you, Nancy Drew.” He nodded in appreciation as she inserted the straightened end into the keyhole.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” After a minute or so of wiggling it around,

she swore under her breath. “Damn it. It’s like there’s rust or something stuck in here and it doesn’t want to give.”

“How much longer do you think it will take?” he asked, checking the door again. There was no one in the vicinity so he left his watch and crouched beside her.

“I don’t know, Deeks!” Kensi snapped, blowing out a long breath. She glanced at him a little sheepishly as she removed the pin and started over again. “Sorry. It’s just that this usually takes me about 10 seconds.”

“Don’t worry about it. You wouldn’t happen to have any WD-40 tucked in there too?” He nodded to her chest and she slanted him a wry look, but didn’t look too annoyed.

“Right next to my wrench and screwdriver. I think-“

“Wait,” Deeks interrupted, making a hushing sound. “I think someone’s coming.” He rushed back to the door as quietly as he could. He couldn’t see anyone yet, but he heard voices and footsteps, drawing closer every second. “Kens, someone’s coming. We have to get out of here.”

“Just one more minute,” she insisted. “ I think I almost got it.” The lock made an audible click and Deeks winced at the loud creak as Kensi swung the locker door open and pulled out a Dior purse and a cloth shoulder bag.

“Kens-“ Ignoring his warning, she dumped the contents of both bags onto the floor and a collection of makeup and clothes fell out along with a medium sized envelope. Kensi snatched it up, tossing it in his direction and started stuffing the rest of the things back in the locker, not taking time to worry about neatness.

Heart pounding, he shoved the envelope in the inside of his pocket, glancing around for somewhere to hide. Two men were walking down the hallway, making a beeline for the locker room.

“Ok, let’s go,” she whispered, reaching for his hand as she stood up.

“No time,” he hissed back, tugging her further into the room. Kensi made a surprised sound when he pushed her up against the lockers and added, “Please don’t hit me.”

She didn’t have time to respond before he dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers.

***

A/N: I clearly do not know much about modeling or fashion shows so I went with what I do know fairly well. Densi. Hope you enjoyed and there will be a part 2.

Thanks for the the prompt anon!

#ncis la fanfiction #marty deeks #kensi blye #season 4 #pre densi #undercover fic #anonymous prompt #ejzah fanfiction

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panharmonium · 5 years ago

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...and damn the consequences

These are just some thinky-thoughts that I suppose could be an addendum to this old piece about Morgana, since I saw a couple of different discussion threads in that general vein in the tag a while back, and you know reading about this show always gets my brain going. :)

Most of what I ran into was written with the intention of shifting the blame for Morgana's issues away from Merlin, which is something I appreciate, personally - I've talked plenty myself about the myriad reasons why Merlin does not owe Morgana his secret and does not deserve "blame" for the things she does.

But when the blame is shifted (rightly) away from Merlin, it does sometimes end up getting pushed onto others. And while I do understand where that impulse comes from, I actually tend to approach this from a slightly different perspective, so since I don't think I've ever typed up anything about this particular subject before, I figured I might as well set down a few potential things to consider about a) Morgana (in relation to Gaius, specifically), and b) the more general question of "the blame" (and whether it's really a productive line of discussion, given that the question only has one legitimate answer, for me, at least).

disclaimer, as always: these are just my own thoughts, and nobody is obligated to share them! If my particular perspective isn't interesting to you, don't worry about it - I'm just hanging out talking to myself on my own blog, so feel free to scroll past and continue interpreting the show in whatever way is most enjoyable for you!

i. my favourite patient is always welcome

So, first of all - some thoughts about Gaius.

I was really surprised at how infrequently Gaius appeared, when I first started poking around in the fandom. For such a major character, and for someone who is such a huge part of Merlin's life, I definitely thought he would be more prominent, but essentially the sorts of posts I've seen about him are mostly restricted to two things: 1) memes, and 2) call-outs (he's in a very similar position to Kilgharrah, in that way).

I don't necessarily think those things do him justice, and there’s a lot more we could talk about when it comes to his character, but for now, the only thing I'm really interested in working on is maybe adding some nuance to the perpetual question of Gaius, Morgana, Merlin, and "the blame."

(For clarity’s sake: nothing that follows necessarily means that Gaius makes the “right” decisions. The entire point of his character's history is in fact his failure to always do the right thing - see: Kilgharrah's line where he tells Gaius to “do nothing," because “that is, after all, your talent." What I’m saying in the section that follows is just that there's more to consider about the choices Gaius makes than “he's a coward.")

So - some things to consider, when we think about Gaius and Morgana:

1) One thing I'm not always sure people realize about this show is that neither Gaius nor Merlin knows that Morgana has magic until 2.03.

And I definitely can see why people don’t necessarily realize it, because as we all know this show can be a little haphazard/loosey-goosey with its worldbuilding, but just to help clarify: until 2.03, Gaius does not know that Morgana has magic. He knows that "some of the things she dreamt" have indicated certain future events (NOT all of them, importantly - more on that later), but her dream-visions are also specifically stated to be a separate gift from sorcery - dream-visions and magic are clearly established to be different things in this show, and prior to 2.03, Morgana has only ever demonstrated one of these abilities.

At the end of 1.07, Merlin asks, "Is she like me? Does she have the gift?" and Gaius's response is, "I hope not, for her sake." Earlier, he also says, "The gift of prophecy is too close to the work of magic," indicating that the two things are, in fact, different abilities (if equally dangerous ones, in Uther's eyes). “It's said to be an innate ability. Those who have it are born that way.” Whereas magic, in the Merlin-verse, is a learned skill. We spend so much time around Merlin that we tend to transfer his experience to all other magic-users, but we have to remember that Merlin, in this world, is directly stated to be unique. He uses magic without spells, without study; he tells Gaius he was born doing it. But when Gaius hears Merlin say this, his response is, "That's impossible." It's not something that happens.

In the Merlin BBC-verse, people can be born with the "gift" - the ability to use magic - but their magic doesn't just manifest on its own. What happens to Merlin (being able to use magic "before he could talk," with no training and no spells) and Morgana (starting a fire accidentally) is NOT something that is indicated to ever happen to other magic-possessors. We aren't being introduced to a world where magical children will automatically start manifesting their magic in dangerous ways unless they're trained to use their abilities (ie, the X-Men model, or the Force-sensitive child model, where choosing not to teach someone is automatically irresponsible ). Magic, as presented to us in this show, is something that cannot be used without training or specific spells/power-amplifying artifacts. Merlin (and, later, Morgana) are exceptions to a universal rule.

And this is just something to keep in mind, because it does provide some context for Gaius's decisions. It doesn't mean people have to agree with the choices he makes - it doesn't even mean *I* always agree with the choices he makes, to be honest - but I do think it's worthwhile to at least remember that Gaius doesn't make his decisions thoughtlessly. As far as Gaius knows, even if Morgana did have magic, there is no way that it could ever manifest and become an issue for her without her being trained. If she doesn't learn how to use magic, she can't use it, period. And if she can't use it, no one will ever know she has it. And if no one ever knows she has it, no one can ever kill her for it.

(Once we hit 2.03, the conversation changes, obviously. It becomes clear that Morgana is some kind of anomaly as well, and at that point, the only appropriate path forward is to tell her she has magic.)

(Which is, of course, precisely what Merlin does.)

2) According to the show, only "some of" Morgana's dreams have actually played out in real life; others have just been regular nightmares (and we see later on that even some of her prophetic dreams are vague to the point of incomprehensibility - eg, she dreams about a raven in 2.01, but how would she ever know what that meant, or if it meant anything at all, barring external context?) Some of the risk/benefit analysis on Gaius's part has to take this problem into account - what if he did tell her that some of her dreams might be prophecies? There would be no way for anyone to sort out which ones were real and which ones were just nightmares. And Gaius has known Morgana all her life - he knows what she's like; he knows how headstrong she is. She would assume all of her dreams were real, and she would act on all of them, because what if the one time she ignored a dream, something bad happened to someone she cares about?

Gaius is familiar enough with Morgana to know with absolute certainty that this is what she would do. And he knows that this could SO easily end up getting her killed, either by Uther, who would quickly figure out that something was going on, or by the sheer dangers associated with Morgana throwing herself into confrontations based only on uncertain visions (or worse, regular old dreams).

3) We also have to think about what this show tells us about prophecy in general. Trying to act on prophetic information, in this world, is firmly established as a dangerous game, one which, more often than not, ends up directly causing the outcomes one was trying to prevent. Trying to change the future, in the BBC Merlin universe, backfires on people every single time. In 2.10, the Crystal of Neahtid is framed as holding "a terrible power," and Merlin knows instinctively that "no good [will] come of it," even as he feels compelled to look into it. In 3.05, Gaius himself says of the Crystal Cave that "the crystals are treacherous," and Kilgharrah says that "to change the future is no simple matter, Merlin. To do so is fraught with danger." In Season 5, of course, we all know what happens with Merlin's attempts to prevent Mordred from killing Arthur - it ensures Arthur's death! And that's not even mentioning all the collateral damage it causes - Kara's execution, Mordred and Morgana’s eventual deaths, etc.

I thought I could alter the future, but instead, I caused it. I made it happen.

What you did was dangerous, even for someone as gifted as you.

These are truths about the universe in the BBC Merlin world, not Gaius's personal opinions. Gaius had been brought up steeped in the rules of the Old Religion; he knows how that world works. The risk posed by Morgana interpreting all of her dreams as prophecies (and the absolute certainty that she would constantly attempt to alter their outcomes) is not a trivial concern or something he should ignore. It is real, significant, and extremely dangerous, for both Morgana and the people around her.

So in general, I do think there's a broader context to what Gaius does than we typically look at. I'm not saying that it isn't a sticky situation, and I'm not even saying that Gaius makes the right calls. All I'm saying is that I think it's worth acknowledging that the decisions he makes are a) always sincerely intended to protect Morgana from a number of very real dangers, not just Uther, and b) founded on more than simple cowardice or carelessness.

ii. of course what really matters is the blame / someone you can blame

More generally -

Whenever I see discussion circulating about Morgana’s descent into villainy, occasionally the conversation can start to feel to me a little bit like that scene in Into the Woods where all the characters start going "so it's HER fault/HIS fault/YOUR fault" as they backtrack further and further along the chain of events and tear apart every single character's innocuous decisions (the consequences of which could not possibly have been foreseen) in order to escape any scrap of personal responsibility, until the Witch interrupts their bickering and rips them a new one for worrying so much about who to blame when they have a real problem to solve.

These blame-placing conversations about Morgana, much like this scene, are interesting and enjoyable to think about in their own ways, but they rarely get quite where I want them to go. I definitely love seeing people articulate the "we shouldn't blame Merlin for what Morgana does" angle, but things often then slide into "we should blame X person instead", where X person is Kilgharrah or Morgause or Gaius or Uther or whoever.

And for me, that analysis doesn’t quite hit the mark. The correct endpoint of "we shouldn't hold Merlin responsible for Morgana's actions" isn't "we should hold X person responsible instead." The correct endpoint is "the only person responsible for Morgana's actions is Morgana."

The last time I wrote about Morgana like this, I mentioned that ultimately, the difference between Merlin and Morgana for me is that Merlin owns his choices. He feels guilt, he expresses regret, he apologizes for his mistakes, and he blames himself for his missteps (as well as for other things that aren't remotely his fault). Morgana, on the other hand, never apologizes for anything (despite the fact that she's made plenty of mistakes worth regretting), and sometimes it feels like in fandom we don't necessarily expect her to do so, as if it's a benchmark we don't need her to meet.

So because I really do have strong feelings about the double standard we use when it comes to Merlin and Morgana, I want to talk for a minute here about Merlin and Gaius’s relationship, to provide a comparison.

Morgana isn't the only person who's had important information about her parentage and potential abilities withheld from her. Gaius hides both Merlin's dragonlord heritage and the identity of Merlin's father all the way until the end of Season 2, when necessity forces him to reveal the information. Merlin's mother, for her own part, has been hiding this information from Merlin all his life - out of valid fears for Merlin's own safety, of course, the same way Gaius is trying to protect Morgana. But still, from Merlin's point of view, in the moment when the information is revealed to him, the justification offered by his guardians is unacceptable. He is angry and upset, and he feels cheated out of knowledge he deserved to have, the absence of which has negatively affected him all his life. “I had a right to know,” he keeps saying, on the verge of tears.

Has Merlin been harmed by the choices his guardians made for him, even if said choices were made to protect him? Yes. Does he have a right to feel hurt, betrayed, and angry? Yes. Is he entitled to every ounce of his righteous rage? Absolutely.

Is he also responsible for how he reacts, now that the information has been revealed? YES.

Merlin has no say in what his parental figures do to him in the name of protecting him, and he has no choice about how it makes him feel. He does, however, have a choice about what actions he will now take in response. He can react in a way that hurts others, or he can choose a path of lesser harm. And there's plenty we can say to justify both options, certainly, but either way, the decision he makes is on him.

What that means, in short, is this: Merlin is not responsible for what was done to him. But he is responsible for what he himself does next.

The same goes for Morgana. In absolutely no universe would we classify Merlin's behavior as acceptable if he'd reacted to the revelation of his Dragonlord heritage by assassinating Uther, claiming the throne for himself in the name of his murdered kin, and then shooting innocent civilians in the street when the knights refused to recognize his legitimacy. We would never say that was okay. And we definitely wouldn't then blame Merlin's downfall on Gaius, saying it was Gaius's fault for withholding information about Merlin's powers for so long. The choice to act in a harmful way would still be Merlin's, in that situation.

The same standard holds true for Morgana - particularly when she has access to resources that Merlin can't even dream about. She is rich, beyond his wildest fantasies. One of her dresses costs more than everything Merlin has ever owned in his life - his house, his land, his livestock, every bushel of wheat he's ever harvested. She isn't the 1% in comparison to Merlin; she's the 0.0000001% - a princess in all but but name, and one who would presumably be heir to her father's entire estate in addition to everything she already has in Camelot.

Morgana has the wealth to go anywhere she wants, including places where magic is practiced freely (see Helva, as mentioned in S5). She has the prestige to affiliate herself with powerful people outside of Camelot, if she chooses to do so. Any person in her position would have a broad, high-status network of friends and allies, and indeed we do see that Morgana has political ties outside Uther's court (see: how easily she's able to go to Cenred, Agravaine, Annis in Seasons 3/4 and be admitted, recognized, and trusted, as well as her repeated ability to recruit and/or take command of external armies).

She could leave Camelot if she wanted, learn about her abilities, and build a life for herself elsewhere. She could stay in Camelot and use her considerable resources to work toward her people's liberation, without indiscriminately murdering and enslaving the innocent poor. She could seek out other magic-users like Alator in the spirit of true solidarity, as opposed to just using them as tools to get what she wants and then turning on them when they decide that they don’t want to use her sort of tactics to achieve their liberation. She has hundreds of options, none of which necessarily even require her to forgive or reconcile with the people who harmed her, and none of which are even remotely open to Merlin, who (like Morgana) is still learning about his own abilities, and who (unlike Morgana) has no money, no social power, and no connections that he can leverage or lean upon, besides a tiny village of dirt-poor peasant farmers on the other side of the border with Cenred's kingdom.

Morgana has options. The choices she makes are hers. Gaius's decision not to tell her about her dreams is not equivalent to her receiving a blank check for harmful behavior. She has so many resources. She has so much power. She could have chosen so many other paths - like Merlin tries to plead with her, in the crypt, after he tells her that he does not believe she deserves to be executed, despite what she's done: “We can find another way.”

She's the one who says, “There is no other way.” She makes that decision. She chooses to dismiss the thousand other paths available to her.

That's on her. That is always going to be on her.

iii. i'm going to give you one more chance

This last section...it’s more just a muddle of feels-riddled musing as opposed to a real opinion. It's not something that has a right answer or a solution; it's just something I ponder sometimes.

When we talk about harm being done in the real world, we talk about how intentions don't matter. And that is absolutely true, in terms of both the impact of harmful actions and the harm-doer's responsibility to own what they did/make restitution. If someone knocks you down, and you break your arm, the impact of that event doesn't change depending on whether the person in question did it on purpose or not. Your arm's still broken, either way. Intent doesn't matter, in terms of impact and responsibility - the actual harm done is the same, and the person who knocked you down should still be apologizing and making amends, regardless of whether they intended for you to fall or not.

However - intent does matter when you're considering the future of your relationship with the person who knocked you down. It affects how you react to what they did. It changes how you respond to their actions. If someone threw you to the ground on purpose, you'd (probably) feel differently about that than if a friend knocked you down because they were trying to pull you out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, or because they were carrying too many things in their arms and didn't see you turn the corner.

I think about this sometimes when it comes to Morgana and Merlin.

I don't want to frame this as "Morgana should have forgiven everybody who hurt her," because I don't think that's the case. I've written before about how I fully understand her reasons for ultimately rejecting Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Gaius, etc. She's not required to reconcile with anybody if she doesn't want to.

At the same time, though, I do wonder sometimes about intent. And sometimes I ask myself how things might have been different if Morgana had considered intent, before things went completely to hell, and whether the story’s ultimate outcome might have changed, if she had given even just one of these people a chance.

Morgana has plenty of reasons extend some degree of understanding to the people who caused her pain. The vast majority of the people who caused Morgana harm did so either a) out of love, in a sincere attempt to protect her from being killed, b) without any knowledge of the fact that she needed help, or c) after they thought she was attempting to kill everybody in the city. Everything Gaius ever conceals from her is concealed with the intention of keeping her safe. Arthur knows absolutely nothing about Morgana's parentage until after Morgana has already violently invaded Camelot, and he knows nothing about her prophecies/magic, either. Gwen, too, is never told anything about Morgana's parentage or her magic, even though Gwen supports Morgana when Morgana thinks her dreams might be sorcery. And Morgana never comes to Merlin for help, despite his demonstrated support in 2.03 - what he does later, in 2.11, is a response to him legitimately thinking that she is actively trying to kill everyone in Camelot. When she comes back a year later, he forgives her for it immediately, and when he realizes she has turned against them again, he STILL tries to talk her around, to offer his hand.

So I think about that sometimes. And I wonder what would have happened if Morgana had chosen to recognize things like this. Merlin, for his own part, always chooses to recognize things like this when it comes to the people who've done him wrong (and by this I do not mean to say that his response is always the best one - I'm not talking about him consistently allowing Arthur to continue oppressing him and his community, here. I'm talking about him, on an interpersonal level, being able to recognize when the people who've harmed him did so in an attempt to keep him safe, or without fully understanding the potential consequences of their actions.)

Merlin understands that his mother lied about Balinor and the dragonlords in an attempt to protect him, and he continues to love her in spite of the fact that the deception legitimately hurt him. He understands when Gaius gives Finna up to Arthur, because he know that Gaius sincerely believed her to be a trap laid by Morgana. He understands many of the things Morgana does, too, and he gives her all kinds of chances - he knows why she tries to kill Uther in 1.11, and he holds no grudge. He knows she tried to steal the Crystal of Neahtid in 2.10, and again he holds no grudge - he doesn't even suspect her, at the beginning of the next episode, when the entire city falls asleep. He forgives her in 3.01 after she (as far as he knows) tried to kill the entire city at the end of the previous season, and even after she reveals herself to be a traitor in 3.02, he tells her he doesn't believe she deserves to be executed for who she is. He still feels for her. He still understands. He wants to connect with her.

And, admittedly, neither Morgana nor Merlin are obligated to extend this kind of understanding to the people who've harmed them. The impact of the harmful actions is the same, and Morgana doesn't have to give her friends a chance if she doesn’t want to. She doesn't have to consider their intentions.

But she could have. And I think that in some of these situations, there are compelling reasons why she should have.

It's important to me to recognize that Morgana's choice not to ever consider her friends' intentions, particularly when it comes to people like Gwen, who didn't even understand what was going on and who were given no chance to prove their willingness to help Morgana before Morgana attacked first - completely obstructs the possibility of making amends, working things out together, making a connection, or seeking a more positive outcome. Morgana’s actions come out of nowhere, for most of the people who know her. She starts trying to kill them before they ever even know anything is wrong. She doesn’t give them a chance to help her.

And she doesn’t have to, certainly. But I wonder sometimes what things would have looked like if she had.

#the once and future slowburn #meta #sometimes you've got to do what you think is right

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watchingspnagain · 4 years ago

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Meet Mace

Hi, I'm Mace, and this is my Intro Post. Ab Spectando Condito and all that. (I sometimes channel Livy when I'm nervous, don't be alarmed.) And I'm nervous because my memory is absolute crap so I can't actually remember all the details here, even though this all started only, like, two years ago. It's also hard to wrap my head around the idea of trying to describe this thing that Lor and I have started (created?) and how and why it has become so important. So, well, bear with me.

Okay, here goes: For years friends had been telling me that I *needed* to watch Supernatural; it was right up my street, they'd say. But I kept putting their recommendations aside, thinking that, sure, Dean from Gilmore Girls is in it and he's adorable, but that other guy looks like a frat boy cliché, and overall the show seemed like it was probably Buffy but with Dudes (and I LOVE Buffy and will brook no substitutions or messings-with The Buffy). Eventually I decided to give it a try anyway, a decision wholly based on how hilarious the memes were. Maybe the non-Dean guy (His name is Dean? *His* name is Dean? Wait, no, that's not...but why tho?) isn't so bad? The first attempt didn't go well: my husband, who is so very not interested in SPN, was away on a business trip and I waited until my then-10yo son was in bed, crawled into bed myself, and started the first episode. At night. Alone. I made it 10 minutes before actually saying out loud, "NOPE" and turning it off. Cripes, that first episode (and most of the first season, really) is actual, full-on scary! I mean, what. Why have Handsome Boys making Hilarious Quips on a show that I can't watch because I'm too scared?! Sort of rude, to be honest.

And that was it for, I think?, a couple of months or so. Then - and this is one of the places where my memory gets foggy (I tried three times to type that correctly and the first two came out as "goofy" and honestly yes that too) - the watching of SPN was mentioned on another site I spend much amounts of time on. I suspect Lor remembers the details much better than I do, but somehow we starting talking about how we both had been thinking about watching SPN for a long time, but hadn't actually done so because past attempts on both sides had resulted in fright and flight.

Now, Lor and I have been friends on that other site for several years, but never before really corresponded much outside of that site's chat-like forum section. I pretty much admired her from afar, as it were, and held her as a Fantasy BFF in my daydreams - she was (and still is to this very day) cool and *so* clever and smart and had (and still does to this very day) such a brilliant knack for turning a phrase and I admired (and still do to this very day) her wit and snark and general amazingness, but, again, mostly from afar. So when we somehow decided to try again with Supernatural, but this time together, I was ridiculously excited. I had no idea, though, just how life-changing that decision would be. We bonded, it seemed, almost instantly over our love (second time is the charming one, I guess?) of the show and over discovering how much we have in common with each other. It's comical, almost, just how alike we are in all kinds of areas: similar childhood experiences, nearly identical (like, eerily so sometimes) tastes and opinions on all manner of things, and we're essentially twins in our list of Things That Make Our Anxieties Spike.

We started off watching the episodes separately (I think I was a little ahead of her for a bit? Gah - stupid faulty memory) and then typing up our comments and emailing them to each other, then responding with comments on our comments. And it quickly became one of the highlights of my days, getting those emails, reading through her clever and hilarious remarks, feeling pure glee when we had almost exactly the same thoughts - sometimes even typing the exact same phrases, word for word. This, then, at some point, evolved into watching the episodes at the same time and live-texting each other, which means that now we very often are typing exactly the same reactions, word for word, and then geeking out at how SAME we are in real time. Of course we have differences, too, but even those seem to complement each other: she's the Hufflepuff to my Slytherin; she's a Dean girl and I'm a Sam girl (well, and also a Crowley girl - Sam girl in the streets and Crowley girl in the sheets?); she likes Wuthering Heights, which slightly baffles me but, okay, because we both agree that MacFadyen is the best Darcy.

We had big plans to have a meet-up to watch the series finale together. See, we've never actually met in person. We became friends online, then became closer friends through this mutual SPN watch, but that's also online. And so I've never been face-to-face with my best friend. Because the meet-up for the finale didn't happen, of course. Because Covid, of course. For both of us, anxiety added a special sauce of NOPE to leaving the house this last year and we've both, I think, been pretty much isolated, staying home and not having much interaction with others outside the other members of our households. Which means that our SPN watching and our growing friendship took on an even greater meaning and importance for me. I'm honestly not sure that I could have handled the massive stress and anxiety of this last year without Lor's friendship. It just feels...natural, at this point, that I spend my days texting her back and forth about all sorts of things, the small and mundane to the big and important. Lor has become a huge part of my life and if a full day were to pass by without talking to her, I'd feel that loss fairly keenly. On some level it seems pretty bizarre that I owe such a debt of gratitude for this amazing friendship to a TV show, but here we are. This show, its characters, and the actors and writers who have made them so outstanding and special? Well, I owe them all incalculable amounts of thanks.

Anyway. So.

We're now on our second go-round with our SPN watching (because I think neither of us can now even begin to fathom a life in which we're *not* watching this show together), and Lor, (hello - did I mention she's brilliant and amazing?) low-key drops the idea that we should be blogging our live-text conversations. We've talked before about really wanting to have a record of *waves hands around* all this, and a blog seems like a great way to do that, regardless of whether anyone else ever reads it. I'm content for it to be an open and ongoing love letter to Supernatural and to our friendship, even if it remains a largely unread one.

And finally, here are a few Thing You Should Maybe Know About Me:

I'm a farmer's daughter with a PhD in Classics, a one-time professor, turned stay-at-home mom, turned part-time librarian, turned Classics prof. again, living in the Midwest with my husband, 12-going-on-80yo son, and a goofball of a golden retriever.

I love reading as much as I hate housecleaning, and I'll read pretty much anything unless the dog dies or the child gets hurt.

I also really like knitting and sewing and one of my very favorite things is to make ridiculously-tailored Halloween costumes for my son (thank the gods he's totally into it, too). I missed my calling to be a cosplay designer. Maybe in retirement...

I fall in love easily and fast and hard for fictional characters, especially the ones that are 1) evil and/or generally villainous, 2) tormented, 3) super smart and/or skilled, 4) filthy rich, 5) completely unattainable, and if they're all of the above, Holy. Damn.

#watchingspnagain #watchingspnagain intro #watchingspnagain mace speaks

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galvanizedfriend · 5 years ago

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Klaroline Fic Rec - Day 1

Klaroline Fic Rec Event 2020 - Day 1: Canon-ish Title: All I Need Author: @euvixen Summary: In which I vaguely follow TVD cannon and write the soulmate/werewolf mating AU which absolutely no one asked for. OR The one in which Klaus finds his soulmate, gets bitten, hides his mating mark from her and waits for the day she'll let him give her one back. Fluffy, mildly angsty slow burn with possible super hot hybrid smut in later chapters. Warnings: Some HOT, HOT NSFW scenes, spoilers for TVD S3. Status: Complete

Why you should read it:

As much as I can appreciate a good AU, nothing makes my heart sing like a good canon-divergent fic, and this rewriting of TVD Season 3 has EVERYTHING.

It takes off from the Episode That Doomed Us All (aka, Caroline's 18th birthday), but with a twist: the second Caroline bites into Klaus' wrist, he realizes she is his mate. From that point on, the two of them start to experience a load of things - shared emotions, pain, cravings. The most significant of all is that Caroline is hungry for his blood, to the point she needs it just to stay alive. A consequence of a mating bond that demands to be completed. It won't be, however, until Klaus has marked her back, but he decides not to take it by force, instead letting her dictate the rhythm of their growing intimacy. Caroline has no idea what's going on, of course, but she finds herself drawn to him in ways she cannot avoid - and, much to her surprise, she realizes it's not all weird sensations and cravings. The more time she gets to spend around Klaus, even as reluctant as she is, the more she realizes she does not find him nearly as terrible as an evil dude of his calibre should be.

The way @euvixen weaves the whole of season 3, with all its major Klaus-related plot points and all those beautiful moments that have ruined us forever (seeing as, seven years later, we're still here) is a thing of WONDER. She keeps enough of the show, adding her own spin to it, and makes everything SPARKLE. It's so well written and so well crafted, and I simply could not stop reading. I love, love, love that despite the fact Klaus is his well-documented trash-for-Caroline self, he's not at all happy about this development, and his conflicted feelings are so interesting to read, and so, so IC. I love a well written Klaus, when he's not magically turned into a puppy or a prince charming type of character. @euvixen 's Klaus is irresistible, charming and yet temperamental and dangerous in just the right measures. And oh! The way she describes his struggle with ruling over his recently-conquered wolf side is PERFECT! I had honestly never read a story that treated that in such a way, almost like Klaus' wolf is this second entity inhabiting his body and making all these demands that drive him out of his mind, split between how desperately he wants to give in to its animalistic instincts and the pleasure he drives from the struggle and subsequent pleasure of having wrestled it into control.

I talk about Klaus, but Caroline's also amazing! It's everything I've always loved about her character, and built in a way that gives her more agency, apart from her friends and Tyler. Her newly found craving for hybrid blood and all the time she spends with Klaus means Caroline has a secret she can't share with the others, which makes her majorly conflicted, but also much more independent within the story. Suddenly, it's not about Klaus wanting Elena, or Klaus controlling Tyler, or her approaching him to serve as bait anymore. It's Caroline making her own decisions, for herself. Of course she's still loyal and caring because that's the fabric of who she is, but I for one always longed to see a moment when Caroline would have a chance to consolidate all that growth and character development into a story line on the show, and that never happened. I absolutely LOVE this Caroline, who's endearing and strong-willed and inherently good, but also learning how to see past the black-and-whiteness of her morals.

And Kol! I don't care AT ALL about Kol, but all the parts with him here had me cackling. The dialogue is so spot-on and so funny! I swear to God, if this had been real Kol, I might've liked him better. I think this is Kol as he was intended to be, but the show's execution butchered him. @euvixen to the rescue!

You can see the mark of a great writer and a well-thought out and built story when it GROWS as it advances. There's never a moment when I felt frustrated or like the story had slowed down. Everything that happens caused an impact, and it flowed SO nicely. By the time I reached chapter 10, I had ALL THE FEELS SCREAMING inside of me!! There were many moments I loved to bits, but I won't go into details because spoilers. I'll just say that the first chapter is a thing of ART and probably one of the best opening chapters I have ever read.I was hooked before I'd reached the halfway line.

If all that is still not enough to convince you, it also has A++++ sexy times, folks!

The best of season 3, made even BETTER. Honestly, this is flawless.

Thank you so much for writing!

_____________________

Because I have written several recs over the years, here are other brilliant canon-ish stories from past recs of mine that I think you folks should read and shower with love:

The Tale of a Hybrid and a Vampire by @idiot--wind

I Miss You by @klavscaroline

All The Dirty Thoughts by OneTrueBear

This is a Harvest by @highgaarden

Wild Hearts by @itsnotacrimetoloveyou

Like a Wedding Dress Needs Dirt by @itsnotacrimetoloveyou

#klaroline #klaroline fanfiction #KCFicRecEvent #klaroline fic rec

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managedmischiefs · 5 years ago

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north//chapter two

ta da! chapter two for you! I am so incredibly close to finishing writing this fic (I’m halfway through the second to last chapter) and once that’s done, I have a shit ton of editing to do. I’m sure that will take a while but it will just be jazzing up the writing style and cementing the plot holes. once I’m done then I’ll have a set posting schedule and I’ll let u know what it is.

again, if you want to be added to the tag list then comment under this post or send me a message! thank you for reading and enjoy. please leave feedback, it makes me vv happy!!

genre: fluff

pairing: season nine spencer reid x female oc

warnings: none! fluff!

word count: 4.7k

SPENCER

"Reid."

I struggle to hold in a groan as I hear Hotch calling my name from his office when I try to leave the bullpen after returning from our most recent case. Alex gives me an understanding smile, one that says sorry you can’t get out of here as quickly as the rest of us, collecting her go-bag and heading into the elevator. Rossi pats my shoulder as I head up the small staircase to Hotch's office, closing the door behind me as I enter. I don't say anything as I enter, for fear of incriminating myself for whatever it is I’ve probably done wrong. After all, I’ve never been called in here to be given a pat on the back and thanked for my hard work. It’s always been to be scolded for whatever reason. So I figure for now I’ll just stay quiet until I’ve been told what the issue is.

Hotch just barely glances up from the paperwork he's doing as I stand in front of him, my bag in my hand, lingering by the closed door so I can make a quick getaway when this ends. "Is everything okay with you?"

"Yes," I say, probably a bit too quickly for him to actually believe it’s true. "Everything is fine,"

Hotch sets down his pen and stares up at me with the same intimidating, stoic expression he always has. "Reid, you were very distracted throughout this last case. You clearly weren't focused. It didn’t impact your work very much but it nearly did. One slip up means catastrophe and we can’t afford that. We can’t afford our personal lives mixing with our work lives. You know that,"

"It won't happen again,"

It's true. It won’t happen again. I’ll text Amelia and two things could happen. She could either ignore me and therefore, my infatuation with her will dissipate because I'll have no fuel to my emotional fire. Sure, that situation will hurt incredibly bad but at least I’ll have some level of closure and I’ll be able to block her out from my mind. On the other hand, she could answer my text and I'll get to see her again, and my thirst to see her again will be quenched and I won't be so plagued with a single image of her. I won’t be left to daydream of her blonde hair and her blue sweater and white nail polish. I’ll be able to see her again and hear her voice and learn more about her. But that’s contingent on if she actually answers my text. That is if I can actually get myself to reach out to her and not get swallowed up in self-doubt and anxiety.

"Good," Hotch picks up his pen again and gets back to work, ducking his head almost completely out of my view. And just when I think this conversation is over and I can get home at a reasonable time, he speaks again. "So who is she?"

My eyes widen slightly, but I manage to compose myself before my face gives away too much. My hands tighten around the leather strap of my messenger bag and I clear my throat. "Excuse me?"

Hotch gives me the tiniest of smiles, not even lifting his head or stopping his work. "I can tell. Who is she?"

I run my fingers through my hair and let out an exasperated sigh, and I know that no lie I could try and come up with would get past him. So I guess I’ll just tell him the truth and hope that he won’t ask too many questions now or in the future, if anything even transpires in the future. "Just some girl I met when I was getting coffee,"

"Must be some girl if she's been on your mind for four days," Hotch remarks. "Well, you better text her now that we're back. Head home and get sleep. That's an order,"

///

It takes me hours to actually grow the courage to text Amelia. I get back to my apartment after leaving work and I shower, do laundry, eat dinner, and read a few books before I even think about reaching for my phone. But even after I reach for it, I pick it up and put it down a few times before I force myself to sit down on the couch and open up my contacts to search for Amelia’s name.

I type and retype my message to Amelia what feels like a million times, but it actually turns out to be seven times. I wind up sending her a simple text, and even after seven attempts at a perfect message, it still feels completely wrong.

Hey, it's Spencer. We finished the case and I'm back home.

I should have said more or maybe less. Well, she told me not to text her until I got back home so isn’t it implied by the existence of the text that I’m home? Did I need to reiterate that I’m home by putting it into words for her? And she has my number so she knows it’s me texting her. I didn’t really need to tell her my name again.

I stand from the sticky leather couch and cross my apartment, standing in front of one of my many bookshelves, searching for a book to read. I might as well read to distract myself from the text that surely just ruined any chance I had with the most beautiful, interesting, and intriguing girl I’ve ever met. But before I can even find a book that is compelling enough to distract me, my phone dings. I audibly gasp, and I almost hit myself for acting like this. I've never been like this. It's dumb, really, to be acting like this. But no matter how dumb I try to convince myself I’m being, I can’t help the excitement that bubbles up in me as I rush back to my couch to grab my phone. Is this what it's like to be a teenager and have your first crush? Is this what it's like to stay up late and talk to your crush on the phone, having to whisper to not wake your parents? Is that what this is like?

how did the case go?

It's an interesting question and I'm surprised she even asked. I'm not sure what I was expecting her to say, but it wasn't that. Maybe I'd expected a text about the four day gap in communication, but nothing. Just a simple question about the case. It still takes me too long to answer as I grapple, yet again, to come up with a proper text.

It went pretty well considering the circumstances. It was an abduction case of a few women and we managed to save all the women in the end.

She responds almost immediately this time. Was she sitting and watching her phone and waiting for me to respond? Is that something people do in this situation? Is that what I’m supposed to be doing? Should I call Penelope and ask for advice on this? No. Absolutely not. The entire team would know in minutes and that’s the last thing I want.

that's great! good job. it's always nice to hear of good outcomes. I hear about way too many cases with horrible outcomes.

I'm about to type a response, but she sends another text before I can.

will you be getting coffee tomorrow?

Most likely. Why?

do you want to get coffee with me? we could talk a bit more before you have to go to work

I can't help the smile that comes to my face. She actually wants to see me again. Even after I didn't text her for four days, she still wants to see me. She asked me out. That has never been my luck.

There's a small tinge of doubt that starts to grow within me. The Pessimist in me starts to scream, telling me to run in the other direction. It’s telling me to delete her number and curl up in bed and never go to that cafe ever again, just so I know I’ll never see her again. The Pessimist is telling me to stop talking to this angel and not get her tangled up in this horrible job that I'm enveloped in. Too many people have been hurt because of me and I don't want to ruin another innocent life. But I can't help the way I get excited when I see her name pop up on my phone, and I can't stop my shaky hands whenever her face renters my brain. It's wrong, I know it is, but I can't help myself. So against my better judgment, I respond.

I'd love to get coffee with you. I'll meet you there at 8?

sounds perfect! see you then

I barely sleep at all that night. I doze off a few times on the couch with a book my book falling onto my stomach, but that's all. I'm far too excited to see Amelia again to actually spend more than an hour asleep at a time.

It takes me almost an hour to get dressed. I just can't decide what to wear. It takes me an hour to decide on an outfit, and I wind up wearing clothes that I would wear to work on any normal day, not on a day where I’m meeting a pretty girl for coffee (and tea). A button-up, a tie, a sweater vest, a peacoat jacket, jeans, and my beat up black converse. Yet again, it feels like it's not enough but god only knows what today could have in store for me. Plus, it's cold and I don't feel like freezing to death on my walk to the cafe.

I grab everything I could need for my walk and sling my messenger bag over my shoulder before locking up my apartment. I almost stumble down the stairs in my daydreaming daze but manage to keep my feet steady, letting out a breath and calming myself down as much as I can. I’ll need to be as calm as I can when I arrive because I know I won’t have much opportunity to when I get there.

I arrive at 7:45 and stand on line, waiting patiently to get to the barista. I order my coffee and then relay Amelia's tea order as well, the one I had noticed in her hand five days ago. Once I pay for the drinks, I sit down in the same booth we had been in previously and hope that Amelia will have the same thought process as me and will find me here.

I'm determined to make myself seem more comfortable than I was last time, so I put my messenger bag aside and straighten my tie around my neck. I make sure it's even with the hem of my sweater vest and smoothen down my pants, then run my fingers through my hair to make sure it's not too unruly. I've gotten a new haircut recently and I'm not too fond of it. The sides are too short and the top is too long but I haven't gotten a chance to go back to the barber to get it fixed. I'm not sure how to style it yet but I guess I have to figure it out eventually. But once I’ve dealt with my appearance, I roll my shoulders to loosen them up and take a few sips of my coffee, hoping that the caffeine will course through my veins at rapid speed.

"Hi, Spencer," Amelia pops up beside me with her stunning smile, pouring out her energy onto the table and setting the tone for the morning. Maybe I won’t even need my coffee if she’s with me.

I take a refreshing breath as soon as I see her, smiling back. I push myself out of the booth in an attempt to greet her properly, as best as I can. "Hi, Amelia,"

Despite it being five incredibly long days after our first meeting, Amelia is just as stunning to me now as she was before. Her skin is glowing and her eyes are still harnessing the beauty of the ocean. Her hair is up in a bun today, just a little bit messy but just perfect enough to be put together. She's wearing a black turtleneck with a red plaid skirt, black stockings, and the same black heeled boots as before. There's no camera around her neck today, but I see the straps of her leather backpack around her shoulders and I assume it's tucked away in there. Her nails are yellow now and her fingers are still full of rings, and now that her hair is up, I notice a handful of piercings in each of her ears. She looks different, sure, but I still have to keep myself from swooning at the mere sight of her.

"Okay," Amelia holds her hands out in front of me, as if halting me from coming any closer, "so I was thinking about you when you were off at work-"

That's nowhere near the end of her sentence, but it catches my attention the most. I couldn't stop thinking about her, but she was actually thinking about me. Maybe she was thinking about my coffee order and my tie and my messenger bag like I was thinking about her heels and her blonde hair and her choice of tea. It's not one-sided. I've never been successful with girls but I somehow did something to this girl to make her think about me and to wait for my text and actually want to respond. What could I have possibly done?

"Or more specifically," she corrects herself, "about how you don't like shaking hands and I totally agree with you. I looked up more statistics on handshaking and it's so disgusting and so germy and I totally get why you hate it and, honestly, I don’t blame you one bit. So," she annunciates the word with a huge smile, and she bounces just a little bit on her toes out of excitement. That sight is truly the most adorable sight I think I’ve ever seen. "I came up with alternatives,"

I furrow my eyebrows. "Alternatives?"

"Yeah! For handshaking," Amelia tells me, her excitement never faltering. "I thought maybe we could high five, but that wasn't my favorite option because it’s kinda lame, and it’s still touching hands, just for a really short time. We could fist bump, or we could elbow bump, or we could do like," she holds up her hand with her pinky out, "almost like a pinky promise but then I thought that, again, it's still technically touching hands, but we're not covering as much surface area as a whole handshake would. And, of course, I'd assume that hugs are off the table, which is fine. As much as I love hugging, I get that hugging strangers is super weird so it’s not that big of a deal to me." Amelia lets out a loud breath as she finishes her speech, a speech similar to the ones I deliver daily to my coworkers, and as she speaks, my smile grows and grows and I can’t seem to stop it. "That was a lot all at once. Sorry about that,”

"No, it's okay," I tuck my hands in my pockets and bow my head, trying to wipe the stupid grin off my face. "It's actually really, um, it's really sweet that you put so much thought into how to greet me. Most people think I’m weird because I don’t like shaking hands,”

Amelia presses her lips together in a shy smile and she just bounces on her toes once more before her eyes dart towards the growing line of people towards the front of the cafe. "I should go get on line before it gets too long. I'll-"

"Actually, I-"

"Spencer!"

My cheeks turn pink as the barista shouts out my name with impeccable timing, cutting off Amelia’s sentence. "I noticed your order when we met and I ordered your tea when I ordered my coffee, if you don’t mind. I hope it’s okay,”

"That's really sweet of you, Spencer, thank you," I find some sort of odd comfort in the way that Amelia seems to get shy at my tiny gentlemanly gesture. Maybe the comfort comes in knowing that I’m not the only one who’s getting bashful.

"Sit, I'll go grab them," I gesture back to the table before rushing off to grab both of our piping hot drinks, hurrying through the growing line of customers before they can cool off too much. I sit back down and slide the cup over to Amelia, which she grabs with a grateful smile. "So how are you?"

Amelia takes the first sip of her tea as I pull off the top of mine and blow gently. "I'm pretty great, actually. The weather isn't so nice out today so I don’t think I’m gonna be able to get that many good pictures. What about you?"

"I'm," I weigh my options of what I could say for a moment, "happy to be here,"

Amelia's eyes widen slightly and her cheeks get pink as she hides in a long drink of her tea, but I can't tell if her blush that's because of her scolding drink or because of my implication that I’m happy to be with her. "So, Mr. FBI, tell me more about you. I know we don't have too much time but I wanna know more about you," she goes quiet then, giving me her full attention. Her eyes are locked with mine and she's facing me straight on, giving me her full and undivided attention. I don’t give myself enough time to get anxious over this attention and I just focus on trying to tell her the basic details about myself that seem to be most prominent in my life.

"Well, I'm a behavioral profiler for the FBI, but you already know that," I almost roll my eyes at how dumb it was for me to say that first, because Amelia already knew that, but I move on just as quick as I did when I sent her that stupid text with my name in it yesterday. "I have an IQ of 187,"

Amelia's eyes go wide and she quickly sets her cup down, nearly slamming her hands down on the table as her jaw falls open in disbelief. "You're serious?"

I laugh at her reaction, even if her reaction is much more dramatic than the ones I’m used to seeing from police officers and other FBI agents. But at least her first reaction isn’t to call me weird or freaky for being so abnormally smart. "Yes, actually. And I can read 20,000 words per minute. I've got three Ph.D.’s and three BA's,"

"Oh my god," she puts her elbows on the table and presses her fingers into her temples, "I'm in the presence of a literal genius! I don't even deserve to be sitting at this table," her words contradict her body language though because despite what she's saying, she seems to become more comfortable and sinks impossibly further into the leather booth. "So," she takes a breath and drops her hands from her head, collecting herself just a little bit, "you're a doctor?"

"Yes," I say, taking the first sip of my coffee, now cooled off enough for me to actually drink it, "but not a medical doctor,"

"So you're Doctor Spencer-" her voice trails off and her eyebrows raise as she expects me to fill in the blank.

"Reid,"

"Doctor Spencer Reid," she says it as if she's testing out the way it rolls off her tongue. And if I thought if my first name coming out of her mouth sounded magnificent before, my full name escaping her lips so effortlessly sounds breathtaking and glorious. I almost miss it when she speaks again because I’m so caught up in trying to recreate the sound of her voice in my head. "Wow. You work for the FBI, you're a genius, you're a doctor with three Ph.D.’s, is there anything you can't do?"

I choose not to answer that because I could give a laundry list of things I can't do. But this is not the time to be self-deprecating. I want Amelia to actually like me, not be scared away by my incompetence. But thankfully, before I can try to think of anything to say to pivot the conversation to a new topic, Amelia does it for me.

"And what else? That's just work stuff. Tell me about you as a person. Your hobbies, that kinda stuff,"

"Well, I read a lot," I tell her. "I always have books with me. I like classical music," I take another second to think, my eyes wandering around the relatively empty cafe as I struggle to think of more things about myself that would seem intriguing and wouldn’t make me seem completely lame. But I’m starting to get the impression that Amelia doesn’t think that way. She hasn’t given me any reason to believe that she thinks I’m weird, even as I reveal more and more details about myself. "I like magic,"

"Magic?" Amelia smirks, the topic clearly piquing her interest. "I didn't peg you as a magician, Dr. Reid,"

"Well, I'm from Las Vegas so it's kind of imperative that I know some magic tricks,"

"Then you'll just have to show me some tricks next time, won't you?"

Next time.

"Y-Yeah," I stutter out, trying not to sound too taken aback by the revelation that she is willing to see me again, "I'll come prepared next time." Amelia beams at my response and now that she’s distracted, I figure now is the perfect time to divert the conversation away from me. "Okay, now you go. Tell me about you and your hobbies,"

"Oh, okay," she wiggles in her seat from excitement, brushing her fallen pieces of hair behind her ear when they stick to her long lashes and obstruct her sight, "art is what I find myself doing the most. It’s my job but it’s also my main hobby, considering I’ve already told you I walk around with my camera a lot. But apart from art, I really love thrift shopping. I don’t know if that qualifies as a hobby but I really love seeing what I can find. I have this system that I follow and it’s top secret but it ensures you find something really good every time. Maybe I’ll tell you about it one day. Other than that, I’m a Taurus. I moved here right after college with my best friends but I live alone now. What else? This is lame but my favorite color is-”

"Yellow," I cut her off but I barely even mean to.

Amelia's smile falters for a moment, but then it grows even bigger than before. "Y-Yeah, it is. How'd you know? Well, you're a profiler and you’re supposed to notice behavior but how do you know what my favorite color is based off of my behavior?"

"The scarf on your head five days ago had a pattern on it but was mostly yellow. The rings you were wearing also had yellow in them, as do the ones on your fingers now," she glances down at them as I talk. "Your nails are also painted yellow now, but they were white before and they weren't chipped. That means that you took the white polish off and changed it to yellow even though the white polish was perfectly fine. So that means your favorite color is yellow,"

"You-" she lets out a breath, absolutely baffled, "you remember the scarf I was wearing and that my nail polish wasn't chipped?"

"Yeah," I bob my head up and down in a nod, clutching my coffee cup tighter in my hands, "ironically enough, I forgot to mention that I have an eidetic memory,"

Amelia tilts her head to the side. "What's that?"

"It's also widely known as a photographic memory. I can see or read something once and then I'll remember it. I don’t necessarily remember every word of a conversation but I remember books I read and I’ll remember our texts and I remember what we were both wearing-"

"It's why you remembered my order," she has a moment of realization, her fingers curling around her almost empty cup of tea. "You just keep getting more and more impressive, Dr. Reid. But unfortunately," I see her eyes wander over to the watch on my wrist, "you're not the only one who remembers things. This is about the time you left last time,"

"You'd be correct," I sigh begrudgingly, my hand slowly reaching for my bag, dreading the fact that I have to go to work yet again and leave her warm presence. I know I can’t possibly leave her without expressing my need to see her again. So once I’ve managed to get my bag over my head and inhale deeply, I quickly blurt out the first sentence that pops into my head that articulates my thoughts. "I'd love to do this again,"

"You better! You need to wow me with your magic skills!" Amelia exclaims with a casual tone to her voice that makes me wonder if I even needed to tell her that I wanted to see her again. Maybe she just expected that we would see each other again. "Tomorrow, same time? Of course, that’s contingent on your job. If you have to work then it’s fine. We can rain check,"

"That sounds like a plan to me,” The giddiness and the excitement build up in me as I stand and wait for her to button up her jacket. She flashes me her millionth smile of the morning as we head towards the door, and I make sure to hold the door open for her to make sure she gets out first. "So I'll text you or call you later and let you know if I get a case,"

"I'll be waiting,"

We pause in front of the window of the cafe, just waiting for one of us to initiate a proper goodbye. But nothing seems to feel right after the perfect morning we had. No smile, or wave, or verbal greeting can wrap up an encounter so absurdly perfect. But then as I see Amelia glance down at her shoes and as she lets her anxieties shine through for one of the first times since I met her, I remember what she had told me when she first arrived at the cafe this morning. I hold up my hand with my pinky sticking out, and I'd do anything to immortalize the smile that comes to Amelia's face in that exact moment.

"I knew you'd like this one," she murmurs to herself happily, even though I can obviously hear her, wrapping her warm pinky around mine. "I'll talk to you soon, Dr. Reid,"

"You know, you can call me Spencer," I respond, reluctantly letting go of her hand as she takes a step in the direction opposite to where I need to go.

"I'll think about it," she smirks and turns on her heels, bouncing on her toes again before rushing down the sidewalk. I watch her go, too entranced by her to even move or think about attempting to catch my train. Every tiny detail about her draws me into her world and just watching her walk away makes me want to run up and sweep her off her feet, literally and metaphorically. Leaving her is the most disappointing thing I can think of, and all I want is to drag her back into the cafe and back to the booth and sit down and talk for hours upon hours. But I shake my head at my intrusive thoughts and force myself to turn around and get to the metro before I miss my train. I can't afford to be late. I can't afford anyone asking questions.

///

We got a case today. I'll be headed to LA for a couple of days. Raincheck on coffee and tea?

coffee and tea and magic tricks! don't you dare forget magic tricks!

if you’ve read this far then please let me know your favorite color. i really wanna know. thank u sm. also let me know what you thought of the chapter. love u all <3333

TAGLIST

@etheralgubler @babybobbybones @whollytaciturn @reidswords @thegingerfairchild @matthewreid @shrimpyblog @garcias-batcave @anamelessfacelessnerd

#nikos north fic #nikos writing #spencer reid #dr spencer reid #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid x oc #matthew gray gubler #mgg

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rovewritesit · 5 years ago

Text

Angel Of My Dreams (Chapter 1) John Deacon x Reader Series

I’ve read so many fan fics in the past four months and I thought it was high time to try my hand at it. I’ve created this side blog so that I can 1) Express my love for Queen and 2) Not annoy the randos from high school and college who still follow my main. This’ll be a slow burn folks, so hold on to your hats.

Series summary: After reluctantly joining a band with your childhood best friends, you are thrust into oncoming stardom with no sea legs and an overwhelming sense of anxiety. But you just might find your way, thanks to some seasoned pros by your side. And the interest of one particular bassist.

This series is a work of fiction, and is loosely inspired by real people and events. Absolutely no offense is meant to actual Queen or their families.

PART 2 - PART 3 - PART 4

Pairing: John Deacon x Reader (eventually)

Chapter Warnings: Lots o’ curses

Chapter Summary: This is basically just some set up for the series. No Deacy yet, but a meet-cute to happen very soon! I got the band name with the help of some random band name generator so be kind. I’m hoping to introduce in some songs readers may not have heard - I was thinking of “Heart of the Night” by Juice Newton while writing this, hence the single name and album.

Song/Title Inspiration: Angel - Fleetwood Mac

- - - - - - -

Days of Our Lives Documentary Shoot - 2010

(Brian May and Roger Taylor Joint Interview)

“The early 80s were huge for us, for sure. I believe we were at our biggest then, internationally speaking.” Brian states, glancing over to Roger.

“Yes, Another One Bites the Dust really set things a-flame I think. The traveling and playing were constant. The crowds getting bigger by the venue. Parties, hotels, girls, more parties. We were meeting just so many people.” Roger adds.

“And one of those being a certain American female rock singer.” The interviewer adds quietly from off-camera.

Roger glances over to him with a questioning look, but Brian catches on quick, like always.

“Ah yes, that particular rock goddess. We did meet her around then, I believe, yes. Maybe a few years after.” Brian says knowingly, still playing along.

Roger stares into space with a confused look on his face until the realization hits him. “Are we talking about Y/N?” Roger mutters to Brian. “Yes” Brian chuckles, patting his friend on the shoulder.

“Oh, what a spit-fire she is! Not back then though. Fred really worked some magic with that one. Almost inseparable those two were.” Roger laughs out, a wave of nostalgia washing over his face.

Brian raises his large eyebrows, “Deacy would beg to differ I think.”

Roger smirks, “Oh, well that’s a whole different story.”

- - - - - - -

1982 - MTV Studios, New York City

You run your hands up and down your thighs, trying to will your left knee to stop repeatedly bouncing up and down. The satin of your pants does nothing for the layer of sweat on your clammy hands. You fold them together in your lap and gaze around the studio instead, taking in the bustling of crew members as they ready for the pre-taped interview. The god-like VJ, Alan Hunter, sits in a chair off to the side as someone artfully pieces his blonde locks into place. He grins over at you with a small wave. You limply lift your hand in a greeting, pasting on a small smile that doesn’t reach your eyes.

You catch your pained expression as you glimpse a monitor off-camera. A friendly woman backstage had painted your face to the point of being almost unrecognizable. Gone was the evidence under your eyes of the restless sleep you’d fought the previous night. They were wide and doed, rather than their normal crescent shape. Your lips full and vibrant, your hair bounced and fanned out around your face. And your skin seemed to be glowing, masking the spots that had popped up overnight from stress. You looked every bit the rock goddess the label hoped to paint you as, and the exact opposite of the nerves currently threatening to overtake your body.

“Y/N, I can feel you vibrating from here. Take a deep breath. It’s gonna be fine.” Rich commented from beside you. His legs were splayed out, his arms bent behind his head. Looking as relaxed as can be, as if he were on his couch at home catching a movie marathon, about to doze off.

“How can you be so calm right now?” You rush out. “Who knows how many people are going to see this interview. Do you know how many times a day I accidentally let the F word fly out of my mouth?”

Rich lets out a snort. “I happen to know exactly how much you curse, thank you. Yesterday you said fuck 3 times in one sentence. It was charming, my mom loved it.” He moves his right arm to squeeze around your shoulders. Usually, it would be a comforting display of friendship, but you shake it off.

“And look at those three. Already so at home, I see.” You nod to the three other members of the band. Steve is exuding energy like yourself, but it’s excitement that bubbles from him. His eyes flit around the room quickly as he taps out some unknown rhythm on his bent legs. A wide grin permanently fixed on his boyish features.

At the far end of the couch, Eddie and Lawrence are wrapped up in a not-so-silent game of knuckles.

“Son of a-- Will you take off those damn rings? It’s my turn and I’m still getting bruised.” Lawrence huffs. Eddie wiggles his long, skilled, silver-clad fingers in front of his face and raises his eyebrows. “It’s all about the look, baby. Gotta play the part of the guitar god.”

“Will you both knock it off.” You call over to them. “We need both those sets of hands in playing shape for tomorrow night.”

Eddie turns, probably to counter with some playful comment about how you mother them too much, but Alan approaches.

“Alright, guys. And girl.” He flashes his perfectly white teeth your way again. “We’re about 5 minutes out from going up. Anybody need anything? Water, vodka, beer…” He turns his gaze to Steve, who is still tapping lightly on his legs. “A Xanax, perhaps?”

“Waters all around would be great, thanks.” You offer. Alan nods to a twitchy PA waiting to his side and they hurry off.

“Oh wait up, a Bud Light too, if you have any!” Eddie calls after them. The other three boys echo the same as well.

“You can take the boys out of Long Island…” you mutter to yourself. Rich teasingly pokes your side. “And something stiff for the lady!” He shouts out.

“In all manner of ways” Steve giggles. You feign a shocked expression and reach over to place a gentle slap to the side of his head. He looks over with big apologetic eyes and you stifle a laugh.

In record time, the lanky PA rushes back over with a myriad of drinks, all threatening to topple over on the tray they were precariously balanced on. Another PA trails behind, handing you all water, which you’re in desperate need of. They hand the drinks out one by one and stop before you. “Your water, Miss. And I didn’t know what you liked so I have a jack and coke, a whiskey sour, and a gin and tonic.”

“The gin and tonic is great, thanks.” They hurriedly hand you the drink and go to turn away. “Love your hair by the way.” You tell them. “I’m absolute shit at styling mine. Guess I’ll have to learn now.” They smile back at you and run a hand through their short locks before disappearing amongst the rest of the crew.

“Okay, we’re ready to rock n’ roll!” Alan exclaims, getting the band’s attention as he sits down in a chair next to your side of the couch. “We’re going to start off with a few basics on the band. Your lower thirds will have your instruments labeled but feel free to explain how you guys started out, your influences, your process. I’ll prompt you in between and then we'll talk about the album and promote your upcoming tour towards the end. Should take 15 minutes tops, so keep your answers brief. But I won’t say no to any rowdy stories you want to throw in.” He finishes with a wink.

The band nods along as you gulp down a breath, your palms becoming even slicker. The stage manager’s high voice rings out around the studio. “Playback ready! Live to tape in 5.. 4...” Rich places a hand over your knee and gives a squeeze. “Light em’ up, Bun” he mutters in your ear.

“3.. 2..” She holds up a finger and then points it at Alan, a wide smile already set on his face. The camera light flicks red as the MTV open plays from speakers around the room. Alan beings as the song fades out.

“We’re here in the studio and boy, am I excited to get to know this next band. Over at MTV we’ve been watching the steady rise of their single “Heart of the Night” on the charts. And as an added surprise, they’re here to introduce their very first music video. I’m very pleased to welcome to the studio, Lo & The Limbs!”

You try to relax your face as a camera pans across the band and settles on a two-shot of you and Alan. You know your eyes are gleaming with anxiety so you glance down the couch, silently praying for one of the boys to take the lead.

“Thanks for having us Alan, it’s such a trip to be here.” Eddie says with ease, resting his forearms on his knees.

“So, I have to ask. Who is Lo? Is it you Lawerence?” Alan questions the piano player.

“Oh god, no.” Lawrence chuckles. “Our high school was affectionately called Lo High, for Long Island HighSchool of the Arts. So we sort of tacked that on while playing during those years to let people know where we were from. That and well, as you can see we’re all above 6 foot except for Y/N, so a lot of limbs going on here.”

Alan gives a short laugh. “You released your debut album, Quiet Lies, earlier this year to growing success. Why don’t you tell me how you all started out.”

“Well, the boys and I have been together for a few years. We’ve been friends since grade school and we always just used to jam about. As we got older we started playing local bars back on Long Island to mostly middle-aged crowds, trying to break in, but it wasn’t working. Then Rich had the idea to invite Y/N to join up and it’s all kind of all taken off from there.” Eddie explains.

“We needed a pretty face to balance out all these ugly mugs” Steve pipes up.

“It took a while for her to finally concede though. She was off being too studious for the likes of us.” Rich adds on with a smile and nudge to your side. Your eyes grow wide as you feel a question directed at you coming on.

“Is that true, Y/N?”

“I- I guess, I was at NYU studying documentary filmmaking.” You choke out, but continue on. “Love this lighting set up, by the way, it really hides all sins.” That gets a light chuckle out of the crew surrounding you.

“And these sins you’re hiding are…” Alan grins but quickly bounces to the next topic. “Certainly a good call, Rich. Heart of the Night is the only song off the album that Y/N is singing lead on and look how well it’s doing. How did that happen?”

“Most of our songs were already written from before when we finally got the money to record. We wanted Y/N to feel a part of it, so she went on and wrote Heart of the Night and we were all very pleasantly surprised that it’s become such a hit.” Steve explains. “She also directed the music video we’ll be debuting today. I can’t believe she let us do all the things we did in that… well, you’ll just have to see for yourselves. We can be a bit of a handful.” The boys all chuckle.

“That and she plays the weirdest collection of instruments. Rhythm guitar, any type of strings, the saxophone… She's a boss on the harmonica.” Eddie turns to you as he speaks. “You just need to get over those pesky little nerves about your singing, Bun!” He points in your direction.

You feel the heat rise behind your perfectly painted cheeks at the slip of your nickname. You cast your gaze down at your lap. Not liking how the conversation has turned directly onto you.

Alan quirks an eyebrow at you. “Bun?” He teases.

You have yet to lift your eyes when Rich answers for you. “Bunny, an affectionate nickname. It’s stuck around since grade school when she wandered into Lawrence's backyard in search of a rabbit she was chasing.”

“A rockstar called Bunny. There’s a first for everything.” Alan quips, but quickly notices your displeasure in the current topic. Sensing your growing panic, he addresses the rest of the group. “This has been quite the debut album, with more hits sure to come from it. Any bands you’ve taken inspiration from while writing and producing?”

Rich jumps at the question. “Fleetwood Mac would be a big one. The way they layer their sounds is just unmatchable. You catch something new with every listen of an album of theirs.”

“I can’t be a pianist from Long Island and not mention the granddaddy, Billy Joel.” Lawrence adds. “His songs take you on such a ride. They’re full stories, each one of them.”

“And you, Y/N?” Alan directs the next question. “Who will you be drawing inspiration from when you write your next hit single?”

You smile to yourself. “It’s gotta be Queen for me. I’ve loved every one of their albums. I mean, the way they’ve changed their sound just in the past few years alone. They’re always transcending. Never afraid to try out something new or weave a different genre into one of their songs. But you always know it’s a Queen song. I saw them 2 years ago when they played the Garden, and fu--” You catch yourself as you get more animated. “And they were all just so on. Perfectly in sync. There’s something so distinct about their sound, so practiced. I’d love to get to their level, to be able to experiment like that. To give joy in the way they’ve given it to me.” You finish. Realizing you’ve rambled for a bit, you turn your eyes downwards yet again.

“I think that’s the most I’ve heard you talk since you came into the studio!” Alan laughs. “Well, you heard it here first folks, Y/N L/N is a Queen fan, just like the rest of us. I’m sure you’re just as excited about their new album as well.” You nod quickly as Rich hides a smile. Knowing full well you’ll be first in line to purchase their new album, Hot Space when it drops.

“But before you get off to writing more hits, I believe you have a tour coming up!” Alan states, signaling that the interview is wrapping up.

“Yeah, we have a small American tour starting in February. But until then we’ll be opening up for Hall and Oates during their tour of the NorthEast next month.” Steve says excitedly, bouncing slightly in his seat.

“And with that, I think we’ll roll into the long-anticipated music video and directorial debut for the lovely Y/N L/N. Thank you all so much for coming in today and I can’t wait to see what’s next on the horizon for you. Here’s Lo & The Limbs with Heart of the Night!” Alan keeps his painted smile till the red light vanishes from above the lens on the large pedestal camera in front of him.

You breathe out the breath you’d been choking on as Rich puts an arm around your shoulders. He leans in and whispers lightly, “And only one hint of a fuck, ladies and gentlemen. She might just make it in this business after all.”

- - - - - - -

One Month Later - Veterans Memorial Coliseum - New Haven, Connecticut

The Limbs bound off the stage in full force, glistening with sweat and excitement. It was the largest crowd they’d played for by far. 10,000 people cheered from the audience as roadies and crew moved around them to set up for the main act, Hall and Oates. Rich spreads his long arms and huddles the rest of the group into a family hug, your skin sticking to one another, the smell of sweat filling your noses.

“I just want us to all remember this moment.” He speaks to the group, foreheads touching. “Even if nothing happens past this album. That was insane.”

“Absolutely bonkers, dude!” Steve says and he bounces up and down beside you. You all take a deep collective breath and squeeze.

“Alright, get off of me you fucks.” You laugh, untangling yourself from their vast expanse of limbs. “We all stink and I have to get out of all... this” You gesture to the skin-tight bodysuit your best friend, Dawn, had insisted you wear. Eddie presses a light kiss to your temple as he lets you into the dressing room first to change out of their view.

You close the door and sigh, glancing at yourself in the mirrors that line one wall of the room. Your eyes are bright, your hair is two times the size of when you went out on stage an hour before, and your makeup looks like you’d been in a fight. Grinning to yourself, you start to unlatch the halter top of the bodysuit, excited for the air to cool your skin.

Just as you are about to shimmy out of the rest of the ensemble, the door bursts open.

“Shit! Lawrence, what the hell?!” Scrambling to cover your top half.

Lawrence trains his eyes to the ceiling as he speaks. “Bunny, you gotta… just cover up and get your ass out here. You just... You gotta see, c’mon.”

Flustered, you hurry to redress your sticky body. After making sure everything is properly covered, you step out into the hallway backstage, already glaring at the boys. They’re all tight-lipped, staring at one another. “Okay, someone want to tell me what the hell is going on?” You say loudly. “Shhhhh” Rich hisses as he gestures behind him with a shake of his head. You glance over his shoulder to see the backs of two men. John Hall and Daryl Oates.

“Yeah, okay... I don’t get it. We’ve hung out with them like 5 times. Why are we fangirling?”

Rich widens his eyes at you and you glance back at them again. This time they part and you can catch a glimpse of who they’ve been talking to.

The flash of a tight leather jacket, a mustache, and two front teeth shining while laughter erupts from behind them.

You gasp.

“Fucking, fuck. That’s Freddie fucking Mercury.” You say, a bit too loud.

The bold man in question locks eyes with you. Something mischievous dances behind them as he narrows his gaze. Daryl and John move to their roadies to get fixed up before heading out on stage and Freddie lets out a sharp burst of laughter as he makes his way over. Your stomach churns with embarrassment but you can’t tear your eyes from his.

“Quite the redundancy of expletives, my dear. All you had to do was say hello.” he grins at you, all teeth. You’re not one to get too clammy in front of other musicians, but your voice gets trapped in your throat. You pray to whatever gods are out there that your eyes don’t get any wider.

Eddie’s easy charm luckily saves you. “This beautiful songstress right here is Y/N L/N.” You barely lift your arms as Freddie pulls you in for a light hug and kiss on the cheek. “But you can call her Bunny.” Eddie grins. So much for easy charm you think as you stare daggers into the profile of his face.

“Ha! Bunny? Oh my, that is wonderful.” Freddie chuckles. “It sounds as if you’re a socialite... Or a stripper. I can’t tell.” He beams at you. You can’t help but beam right back.

“Come along. Let us watch the show and you can tell me which one it is.” He says with a wink. “And introduce me to these giants you call your band.” He grabs your arm and leads you off, the boys in tow. Bouncing with excitement for what’s to come.

#queen fic #queen fanfiction #queen fanfic #john deacon #john deacon fic #john deacon imagine #john deacon x reader #john deacon series #deaky fic #deacy fic #deaky x reader #deacy x reader #angelofmydreams

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pebblysand · 4 years ago

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[SEPTEMBER ‘21] - THE LIFE/WRITING UPDATE NO ONE ASKED FOR (AND SOME QUICK LINKS)

well, hello hello, welcome, it is september first and hogwarts is back in session, haha! where’s your letter, did you get it? i hope so!

in true gryffindor fashion, i’m a summer person. i like parties, the beach and hot weather, so i’m currently working hard, trying to delay the inevitable return of autumn and the dreaded back-to-school mood by staying in sunny southern france for a few more days. i’ll be back in dublin on saturday where, as per usual, rain has been scheduled to occur upon my return lol.

Anyway, before diving into more life/writing updates, here are some quick links to different blog pages you might not see on mobile :

to read my fics [updated]

to read my original work

fic recs

to read my tumblr rants about stuff

[NOTE: i am currently not accepting prompts. i already have a backlog, folks.]

Castles (chap 9) ETA: optimistic? 19 September. realistic? october.

links extended a/n-s: chapter v ; chapter vi & vii ; chapter viii

[more life/writing updates under the cut]

what i’m reading:

i’m actually quite happy with my book reading this month. i read a friend’s short-ish (27k) story, as well as two full books, and started a third. i wanted my holidays to be a time of catching up with missed reading opportunities, and it definitely was.

first, i read three rooms by jo hamya. i picked this one up because it was recommended by my bookshop, was written by a BAME author, marketed as a ‘millenial’ literary fiction novel which i’m always a sucker for, and the cover looked intriguing. the story is that of an unnamed narrator in her early/mid-twenties, navigating the end of her masters degree and her first job in london. to be honest, as i previously said in another post, i don’t particularly fancy myself as a book critic so i don’t really like to say negative things about the books i read. as an author, i know how hard things can hurt when people are talking about your writing sort-of behind your back and i’m always paranoid that the author might one day see what i’ve written, lol. this being said, what i will say about this book is that while not bad, it wasn’t really a fit for me. the writing is very good, crisp and quick just the way i like it (though if you get irritated by the current trend of not using quotation marks for dialogue, you might get irritated by this), but i just found it hard to relate to the characters. i think you will like this if you like books that are more about their setting and their world rather than plot or character. the author is really good at describing current britain, life in london, the book is brilliant at describing the millennial ‘world’ of social media, politics, etc. but its main character seems to just aimlessly float through her life without any sense of self or purpose, which i personally found very frustrating. the book addresses issues of class, poverty, temp contracts, housing prices, discrimination but it feels very much like a matter-of-fact statement rather than an actual argument to change things. the other characters are mildly more purposeful but very single-purpose and while the novel is interesting but it didn’t really make me feel anything beyond an intense desire to grab the narrator by the shoulders and scream: do something! three stars.

then, i read incendiary by chris cleave. full review here. this book is just unreal and the best fiction i’ve read in close to a year. if i could give ten stars i would.

i’ve now started an american marriage by tayari jones. unless you’ve been living under a rock, this has probably been recommended to you a billion times already, but what can i say, i’m always late lol. i’m only about 100 pages in but seems promising.

in terms of fanfic, i honestly haven’t read much bar this one fantastic spooks au of which i really wish there was more of. i have trolled all of livejournal and dreamwidth to find the rest and came up empty. tragic.

what i’m writing:

funny how the girl on a writing break still managed to put out circ. 9,000 words in a month, lol. granted, pick me choose me love me was written in july, but still.

this being said, i do feel like i took time off and i do feel way better than i did back in july. looking back, i was exhausted and burnt out and felt like i was mostly writing to fulfill people’s expectations, rather than to make me happy. i’m now feeling much more confident with my words. the story that i did write this month was a self-indulgent bit of fun because it was written for a fandom no one cares about, and rather liberating, if i’m honest. i think i needed to write something for me and my audience of three again, and it was great. i genuinely love that story. i do think that if you want to give it a try, it might be one of those that can be read without having watched the show in question because it’s about a side character so a lot of what’s in there is original rather than show-related. if you do want to read it, it’s here: listening to that angel choir.

in terms of upcoming projects, i’m happy to announce that i’m actually excited to get back to castles, which is exactly what i wanted this break to achieve. i’m waiting until i get back to dublin to get back to work but i’m ready to dive back in and honestly can’t wait. as i said above the cut, i would love to put it on the 19th September but i’m not sure that i’ll manage to whip out next chapter this quickly. it’s not unheard of, so we shall see. also, castles is turning a year old on 16 sep, which is absolutely fucking insane. i certainly did not think it would be this massive of a project when i undertook it, lol. the numbers on it both in terms of wordcount and appreciation/hits give me vertigo so i try not to look at them but honestly, i can’t thank you all enough. i know i always say this but i come from very small audiences and fandoms and the amount of love i’ve been getting this past year thanks to all of you has meant the world. thank you.

in terms of one shots, i’ll be mostly focusing on castles this month, so i probably won’t write anything else. this being said, for those of your on tumblr, just be aware that you might see me repost some of the tumblr ficlets that i posted on tumblr these past few months on ao3 soon-ish. i initially decided to keep them on tumblr alone because they were too short but i’ve been having anxiety about tumblr collapsing and these things disappearing into the ether. so, don’t be alarmed, they should be the same, just reposted.

what i’m doing:

honestly, this month has been amazing, especially the past three weeks. i’ve been able to relax, see family & friends, went hiking, had my birthday, hired a boat - it’s been fab. as alluded to before, i’ve also been having fun rewatching spooks, which is definitely a series worth watching, even ten years after it ended. i find it even more fascinating in light of what is going on in afghanistan at the moment, and of course the presence in the show of rupert penry-jones whom i think every straight woman with a pulse fancies, is an added bonus.

anyway, i hope you’re all doing well. see you next month for pumpkin spice lattes (yeah, look, i’m a basic white girl) and the beginning of my seasonal depression.

lots of love,

pebblysand.

#life update #september

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mayabishopapologist · 4 years ago

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station 19 - season 4, etc

this is long but i want to put down my thoughts before thursday comes and i guess i have A Lot To Say.

honestly didn’t pay much attention to this show until halfway through season two— always liked maya and was glad that they gave her more to do. going into season 3, i was excited for more character development &stronger storylines. however, by the end of 301 the dip in quality was glaringly obvious. a quick google search revealed that there was a new showrunner and, well, it showed.

while the show had been going in a really good direction with balancing the screen time between andy and the other regulars, this season, the plot was all over the place. it was uber dramatic and just. so much happened just to happen? seemed like every other episode had a major event(deaths alone; ryan,rigo,pruitt?!!?). they were so frequent, it was hard to process. it was also hard to get invested as the characters themselves moved on(or were shown to have moved on, extremely quickly!)

i enjoy the show for what it is and i have no delusions about broadcast tv shows (or shondaland productions, for that matter)but the suspension of disbelief.... i mean: a stabbing, a robbery, a shooting and a car crash? all in one episode? please! lmaooooo. drama for dramas sake is always boring and weakens the story.

& as for the characters... .

everyone felt like a hollow version of themselves this season and it was hard to watch sometimes, actually. characters switched motivations /personalities for the sake of the current episode and i know this show is very ‘monster/emergency of the week’ but. some consistency! please! like—

maya: she’s always been determined and focused but they went so far with it this season, it was almost cartoonish. her competitiveness was hinted at in season 2 but she was always portrayed as self aware. ‘the beast,’ as she dubbed it to andy, was something she knew of and tried to contain, because she knew it could get out of hand.

yet, in season 3 she suddenly forgets this and just. becomes the most power hungry/singularly focused person, ever. she goes after the captain position behind andy’s back, (citing andy’s emotional state, because of the death of her best friend as a reason she shouldn’t get the job?? huh. since when is maya this purely callous??!) she just doesn’t give af, suddenly, about andy at all, and goes for a job that she is hardly qualified for(she was lieutenant for like, a few months?)

and then after she gets the position, she just. loses all sense of reality? literally she was so unhinged(fun to watch but so much) and it was like. um?? maya has never been the uptight one (they've mentioned and depicted andy as being the one like this, multiple times!) and we know she knows how to have fun, so, for her to all of a sudden just. not know how to read the room? yeah okay. to make her so intense and severe, especially w the drills and training was, a choice. a bad one, on the writers part. like, i get that they needed her start as captain to be dramatic or whatever, but there were ways to do that. and even the animosity with the team and her went so far, i just think that whole storyline was amazingly lazy, honestly.

and the friendships!! andy and maya’s friendship is just, a mess. at this point they've spent more time at odds, and the idea that they're supposed to be best friends with this super close bond? yeah, i just... i dont buy it tbh. if they'd spent more time building up their connections and making us understand why they would be friends and showing them being there for each other past a few scattered scenes her and there? maybe. but so far, that hasn't been the case. making that bond real, solidifying that friendship, would have made this conflict have more of an emotional impact. but doing it now? making maya ‘turn’ on andy, this soon and this drastically just. it made her seem like she was extremely jealous and had been waiting to pull the rug out from under andy all along. and also, why would they stay friends when, so far, maya has showed, time and time again, that she’s willing to let her wants/ambitions leech on her loyalty to andy? (jack thing, job thing, etc). although, it’s not like andy’s a good friend to maya either, she’s selfish and seems to like it when maya is in her corner but isnt always there for her. they went so far with the idea that maya was this coldly calculating asshole that she was almost a villain?? it was so silly to me.

and the traumatic home life plot they gave to maya was clearly their attempt at some adding nuance to her character and trying to explain why she would act the way she did, but to me? it fell flat. it was rushed, and they went from zero to 100(why did her mother come to talk about her divorce/abuse at maya’s job? like she was literally working? idgi. no boundaries lmaoo)

and i actually relate and sympathize w maya a lot. and while i liked that they were exploring the many ways abuse can present itself, it was very... hm, ham-fisted. just super rushed and then wrapped up so quickly. they have, i think, written themselves into this dark place i fear they have no intention of exploring.

and while i understand it, i hated how far they let maya go, especially because i don't feel they’ll adequately address it. they move on so quickly( maya was deaf for like half a season and then. she just. wasn't) and i hate the idea of her just being ‘fixed’. a relationship and an apology doesn't undo years of abuse, idc. also will they ever address maya’s um, thoughts about death??? because that was super heavy and not just something someone gets over? going to need for her to get actual professional help. that isn’t her girlfriend, like. asap.

speaking of carina, i do like her and maya together a lot. big part of why i watch, ngl. but i need their relationship to be a lot more reciprocal. like, lets dial it back on the codependency, maybe. carina cant (and shouldn't have to) hold her up so much ! that’s not love. also maya needs to start being a good girlfriend. they started off that way, i know they can get back there. but like, we hardly got to see them settle into it, we got those cute 30sec clips of sweetness then maya was lashing out and cheating and it was like. wait a minute! what???

for s4, i want to see them working at reconciling—im talking, groveling, awkward in-between moments where carina isnt sure she can trust her. okay, tough conversations, hell, even jealousy because let's be real. maya working with jack is a lot for carina to just. take? i know i absolutely would not be happy about that, but i also wouldnt take maya back so... anyway! brushing over that would not just be a missed storytelling opportunity, but it would also be super unfair to carina and do a huge disservice to their relationship as a whole. as cute as they are, having cute moments with no real depth would get very old, very quickly.

carina: what can i say but-perfect, amazing, fantastic, WOW

seriously, carina is almost unrealistically perfect. she takes a lot and has been through the most (can they be nice 2 her this season? like just for fun) going forward, im going to need her to be more than a plot device to calm and soothe maya. i get that she was introduced as a love interest, but in season 4(as a season!!regular!!) that cant be all she is.

speaking of, it was really weird to me that she was promoted to station 19 and not greys because... what is a gynecologist going to do at a fire station? the general consensus seems to be that she’ll join warren’s PRT but like. she’s not a general surgeon so that’s a reach but, i want her around so ill buy it. i just want better and more for her tbh. not just screen-time, but also character development and depth! also friends! tired of carina being isolated, they did it on greys which. a waste! i meaaan, amelia was RIGHT. THERE. just look at the material! for s19, i want her, vic and travis to be friends or even just her and vic, like yesplease! i also want to know more about her and im tired of her being treated badly. like, i think society had progressed past carina being shitted on, thanks!

vic: my fave!!! they did so lazy by her this season ugh. she’s so charismatic and charming and just so good!! yet, her storyline was all over the place. we hardly got to see her sit with her grief (spontaneous crying aside; barrett doss is so good!) she was just kind of... around. and that relationship w jackson. lol. it was so obviously for crossover potential and well. i didnt hate it or like it. actually, i was mostly indifferent. bored, even when they were onscreen together. i just didn't care and wanted more of vic, not vic and whoever. i know they're up in the air rn but i wouldn’t be torn up if he doesn’t come back.

i want more for vic past just romantic entanglements. i know we’ve gotten a bit of her past, but i would like to see more! also, what about employment accomplishments? her artsy theatre friends? her family? just. more vic, please!!

she’s so fun and cool and when they let her, she shines. they need to let her!

jack: my boy! so dumb, but i love him sm. he def needs like. major help, though lmao. and maybe it’s just me but im tired of his sex addict plot. like, we get it, but can we move on now? kthanks. they need to let him work on himself especially, the constant self sabotage. it's getting old. for ALL of them, actually, seriously, how many times can they all get in their own way.

andy: don’t really think about her. the mom storyline seems like it would be wonderfully dramatic, im intrigued. she and sullivan are cute, i guess. hope they make it.

ben: no major issues w his storyline, hardly remember it honestly. i liked the rapport he was building w vic and want them to explore that relationship more, its cute.

travis: so funny and adorable, let him do more.

dean: loved him in all his entitled first born African son glory. i didnt so much love the baby plot but that always bores me. his sudden love for vic though. lol. since when? it def, came out of no where and while i really enjoy their friendship, to me, there is zero romantic chemistry there so i would prefer it if they just. stopped. lmao. also. the way he treated her because he could get a handle on his emotions? ridiculous. has humanity not like, gotten past the ‘he’s mean bc he likes you’ thing?? like grow up maybe?

and this isnt just about dean but like. are there not more single young people in seattle? why do they all have to sleep with the same 5 people. ik for the sake of plot, workplace relationships are easier but still. i think they should branch out. really.

overall, i want better for all of them, and i think if the writers would just. take a moment and stop trying to tell so many stories in such little time, they could do better! also, whoever’s out there. please, enough w the crossovers! dont want to be forced to watch greys just to know what’s happening on 19. i get that they're in the same universe. it’s only mentioned every other episode. we. get, it. i liked what they did with private practice, it was like once every few seasons. and i know they won’t do that, but maybe, two a season.

this is so much. but this how does have a ton of potential and i just really want it . like, get there.

#either way #im still watching lmao #h8 it here lol #station 19 #maya bishop #vic hughes #andy herrera #dean miller #jack gibson #ben warren #travis montgomery #s19 #mtxt #if u see spelling mistakes #no u didnt xx #me writing dissertations to justify why im stuck here lmaoo

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