#why am i still rewriting this movie five years later

[autumnrory]

i rmr when all the initial meta around endgame was coming out people were talking about steve being depressed and whatnot and it's like well yeah but he's BEEN depressed, like he woke up alone in this century and he kept going, now i can understand it being worse this time after finding a family and getting bucky back and losing them all except of course that's not why endgame steve was on about so like......the people writing meta were trying to connect these things that of course weren't really there on screen because that simply wasn't our steve

but i think it really could've been SO interesting to see this is the thing that finally makes steve stay down like he's lost so much and he just CAN'T keep fighting like i get some people think that's what they were going for but considering the ending......it's really not. and so i'm just thinking about a version after iw, maybe he gets some of the thor treatment except not turning his depression into a dumb fatphobic joke lol and maybe nat and others are trying to get through to him and it just doesn't work and then we get some flashbacks (which you could have done for all the original avengers actually which would be particularly important for bruce and nat and clint who did not have their own trilogies) including his mom telling him "you always stand up" and THAT being the thing to finally get him moving like it would've been such a perfect way to finally show sarah rogers some respect and ACTUALLY show steve really struggling instead of whatever they tried to do with him in that movie

[lochrannn]

Sending this ask to a few tua accounts!

Diegolila is probably my favorite ship in the show, but I've been thinking about this a lot lately. What would you change about their relationship in season 4? Obviously they're not in the honeymoon phase anymore, and they have three kids, so I feel like naturally they would go through a rough patch. But what made me sad in season 4 was that none of it got fixed. The five/lila relationship aside, it was weird to see Lila be just completely disconnected from Diego and not come to any realizations about her relationship with him, especially because she IS a deep character and she really does love him. Plus, I don't completely agree with her being a housewife either. It hurts to see them fight and stuff because I feel like they're 2 characters who are really in sync with each other and who make each other better people, but it hurt a lot more when their arcs ended in them basically not really loving each other anymore.

TLDR how would you rewrite their relationship in season 4? Would Lila still be a housewife/Diego a delivery driver? Who would try to fix the relationship first? Why would the relationship go through the rough patch in the first place? Is it because they're both just tired of each other/suburban life/kids? Or is it something else? Would they try to fix it in the first place?

Sorry this is a really long ask, but I love all your tua takes and I feel like they ripped off Diego and Lila in the worst way this season. Would love to know your thoughts.

Sorry, this took me a while to get to but it's an interesting ask!

There is a small issue I'm having though and that's that I'm sort of answering some of that questoin in the fic I'm writing, and, while that might sound self-indulgent, I don't wanna spoil it XD

That being said, I think I can definitely think about some of the specifics you're asking about.

In terms of how, in general, could one do something with the fact that after 6 years and 3 kids with no fun up relationship in which they could have properly got to know each other ahead of time and that probably causes some issues down the road, I had actually started planning out a fic about a year ago and then never wrote it and now won't as I'm using some stuff in the fic I am writing.

My initial plan also included Lila starting to sneak and withdrawing but instead of cheating it turns out she's been drawn in by the commissoin, some alt version of the Handler who has her convinced that the Diego she's living with is not her Diego... listen, I was going to work out the time travel/time line mechanics later, basically I was trying to get to a Mr & Mrs Smith (the movie) style blow out fight that ends with them smooching.

What I'm saying is, with how volitile their relationship has always been, making them not be all functional is a logical step in the story telling, I take no issue with that. But previous precedent had always been that they care enough to try and find a messy way back to being together, that whatever else, that's more important to them, and just taking that completely away is what bugs me most.

Anyway, to your specific questions: there's a lot of people headcanoning Diego as a stay at home dad, and I guess, yeah, possible, but I think he's a bit to feral for that and on that note, so i Lila, so I would have them both have meh jobs that they hate their bosses at and part of what has caused strain on the relationship is that they are both endlessly busy and find no eral time for each other. (Which also leads to a way to resolve this issue in decent communication and them making an effort to be a couple again).

I have in the past written some fics where I immagined them as a family living the suburban life and Lila finding it...trying... but in my head, she would treat it like a mission, do both the best job she can at it, while basically trying as hard as possible to infiltrate every element of this unfamiliar world and then for some shits and giggles, sow some benign chaos.

Diego being Dad with a mustache and too much care for his van and telling people to take their shoes off in his home tracks. I have no notes. Other than the weird bits where they made him say the words claiming he resents this life but then make him good at it and seem pretty happy, I think they nailed Dad Diego. Shame they made him miserable on puprose, but I digress.

I really enjoyed the first four episodes because I was convinced Diego and Lila would both learn something and want to be together again, I don't think that is trite, I think that is how adult relationships go some times. Lila.... well....

Thanks for the ask!

I haven't been posting much about my thoughts on the season because they are quite jumbled and I'm not pushed to go back and watch it again (which is a real fucking shame, but here we are) to try and sort some details out.

What are your thoughts?

[kinglazrus]

The Dying Star, Chapter One

Truce fic for @lexiepiper. It's 6:30 a.m. and I stayed up all night rewriting this chapter a dozen times because I wasn't satisfied, but here it is! Will be posted to Ao3 later when I am not sleep-deprived.

Links to be added | Next | AO3

Word count: 1875

Living in a place like Amity Park, you get used to echoes. Things like to linger here. The old movie posters that sometimes show up at the Multiplex. Children's laughter resounding from a rusted jungle gym. A whiff of smoke at an empty lot where a building burnt down five years ago.

Amity Park has always been haunted; it just wasn't always by ghosts.

No one knows why. Maybe the Fentons have a theory, but Valerie has never asked. She came close to it once after her mother passed. She spent days wandering Amity Park, going to all the places they spent time together, searching for remnants. She found plenty, yet none that belonged to her mother. But in her hours of seeking, she made a discovery.

There are voids. Places that swallow things up and, rather than a cascade of emotions, feel like nothing at all. Casper High is one of those places. Too much has happened here, Valerie thinks, for any one thing to linger. It's most apparent when you're alone and even the sound of your breathing is eaten up by the void, leaving you with silence.

Valerie knows this well. Just as she knows that she is not alone right now.

She walks at a firm pace, steady enough to keep a marching band in time, which makes it obvious when she misses a beat and the person following her does not. She pauses, holding her foot in the air a second longer than necessary, and a step echoes when it should have been quiet.

It takes considerable effort for her not to react. She keeps her attention forward, placing one foot in front of the other. An echo on its own is harmless, even one that's a real, tangible thing. As long as she doesn't provoke it, and it doesn't do anything to her, she's fine with it following her.

Focusing on the task at hand, she tells herself. If only she can remember what that is.

The lights are off, and the school is empty. She has the glow of the emergency exit signs, which stick down from the ceiling every twenty feet or so, to see by. The pools of light don't quite touch, leaving a stretch of shadow no more than a few paces long between them. As Valerie passes beneath the next sign, she glances up at it. The arrow at the bottom points straight ahead, but there is no exit in sight. Not only that, but she can't see any classroom doors, nor did she see any on her way here. On either side of her, the row of lockers continues unbroken. The same stretch of hallway repeating into eternity.

Something is deeply wrong. A part of Valerie knows this, but any time she tries to bring the thought to the front of her mind and acknowledge it, it slips away against her will, leaving her with a niggling sense of worry. She clenches her hands, needing some way to work through her tension without alerting her echo, and falters when she feels something against her palm.

Opening her hand, she finds a patch. She must have been holding it the whole time, but she didn't feel it until now. What hope discovering it might have brought is quickly dashed when she realizes the patch has no detail. A plain embroidered edge and empty middle. Some bits of thread stick out the back, along with a scrap of the fabric it was originally sewn to. When she rubs her thumb over it, she feels stray threads brushing against her finger despite not being able to see them.

Valerie looks down the hall again. It goes on and on, lockers and exit signs merging into a pinprick of red light in the distance.

She was searching for something. Is searching for something.

Only now, as she comes to that realization, does she notice the second set of footsteps hasn't stopped. They're coming from behind her, faster than she had been walking, and getting faster still. She doesn't have time to dawdle.

Valerie shoves the patch in her pocket and takes off running. The shadows stretch ahead of her. What should have been a few steps turns into miles as the red light pulls away. She passes lockers at a crawl while the approaching steps get louder and faster. The noise thunders in her ears until it's all she can hear. Closer and closer, louder and louder. They're almost upon her when she gives into temptation and whips around, looking back for the first time, but there's nothing to see.

Beneath the thunder, something whispers in her ear.

"Valerie!"

—

She wakes up to a warm hand on her forehead. She doesn't need to open her eyes to know it's her father running his hand over her hair. Valerie leans into the touch, humming with relief.

"Valerie?" Damon's hand pauses, but he starts again when she whines. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired." The temptation to go back to sleep is strong. Normally, a quick nap is all it takes for Valerie to feel re-energized. She has learned to live off stolen minutes between school and work and ghost hunting, but this time feels different. Not just because of the dream that's already fading from her mind, but because of the pounding in her head and the warmth throughout her body. If hadn't already been lying down, she would have slumped over.

As it is, she melts into her father's side. Even if she's already feverish, the comfort his presence brings outweighs any unwanted heat.

"Sweetie, you have to sit up," Damon says.

"Do I gotta?"

"Just for a couple minutes."

She grumbles as she complies, letting Damon sit her upright. The shift in elevation makes her head pound even more, and it only gets worse when she opens her eyes. She closes them again immediately.

"Hey, I need you to keep your eyes open," a new voice says.

Valerie doesn't want to, but her curiosity wins out, and she finds herself looking at a middle-aged woman in a white coat.

"Very good," the woman says. "Now look straight ahead."

A light flashes in Valerie eye, making her wince. The woman hums and does it again with the other eye, then does... other things. Valerie doesn't really know. She feels hands on her head, and hears the woman and her dad talking, but it floats over her. She is sinking down into an ocean of half-formed thoughts and doesn't mind drowning there.

"Valerie." Damon jostles her, yanking her back to the surface.

"Hm?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" the woman asks. A doctor, Valerie realizes. She's a doctor.

"Uh, Mr. Lancer let us go early..." Valerie tries to dig for more, but capturing a solid memory is like catching rain on her open hands. Each drop offers a brief sensation. The buzz of her ghost hunting suit. A flash of pristine white. The feel of a rough hand in hers. She knows she could get more if she cupped her hands and pressed them together, but her fingers are too numb to move.

"Is this the concussion?" Damon asks.

"Possibly. We'll get her scanned to make sure there's nothing wrong internally, but there could be other causes for her symptoms. The ghost we detained was particularly strong. It's known for causing trouble, and with the kinds of powers it has, we don't know what its ectoplasm could have done to her."

Funny. Valerie didn't know doctors could ghost hunt. Except the Fentons are doctors and they ghost hunt. They aren't the same kind of doctor, though, are they? She wonders if that matters.

"As soon as we're done with the preliminary samples, we'll know how to proceed. As it is, we have two options ahead of us."

"Which are?"

"If the samples come back negative, we transfer her to South Mercy, and with any luck she's back home by the weekend."

"And if it's positive?"

"In that case, we'd—" A buzz interrupts the doctor. "You'll find out right away."

"What do you—"

A door slams open. Valerie jumps, her eyes flying open, although she doesn't remember closing them in the first place. Four men in hazmat suits stride into the room. Damon leaps from Valerie's side, standing between her and the men.

"What's going on?" he demands.

"Sir, you have to come with use. We need to make sure you haven't been exposed." As the men stride forward, the doctor backs away. Two of the men grab Damon and pull him back.

"Daddy!" Valerie shouts. Her own voice pierces her brain like an icepick.

"Stay calm," one of the remaining men says. "Don't panic."

Valerie panics. She leaps off the cot she had been sitting on and charges toward her dad, or tries to. The room tilts around her and she careens into the fourth man. His arms close around her. Someone holds a mask to her face. Valerie tries to fight it off, but she can't. She gasps and sucks in a lungful of the gas. Her head grows fuzzy. Spots fill her vision. In no time at all, Valerie finds herself slipping back out of the waves, and this time her dad isn't there to pull her back up.

—

He waits until the little ghost hunter and her father are gone before pulling off his hood. He casts the hood aside. The rest of the hazmat suit follows, discarded onto the patient bed beside him. "I hate these things. They're so hard to breathe in."

"Well. That was theatrical," the doctor remarks. "You sure you didn't overdo it? She was really panicking."

"I doubt she'll remember. This was more for her father than anything."

"If you say so." The doctor looks him up and down, a smirk appearing on her lips. "Careful, you almost look rumpled."

He follows her gaze to his lapel, which had somehow folded over in the chaos. He tries to smooth it out, but a crease cuts across it, ruining the natural fold. It's tolerable, if a little annoying. He smooths out the rest of his suit, checking for any stains or smudges. White clothes are great when dealing with ectoplasm, which is a natural bleaching agent, but there are so many other things that can ruin it. It's unfortunate, especially for someone like him who always wants to look his best.

The doctor stands and stretches, popping her back. "I should be there when she wakes up."

"Agreed. I'll talk to Mr. Gray." They part outside the examination room, heading in opposite directions. The doctor will have plenty of time to examine the patient while she's unconscious. He's almost jealous. Sometimes, he wishes he stuck to the more scientific side of things rather than going for field work. Less people to deal with. More time in the lab.

Not that he doesn't enjoy his job.

He doesn't go far, knocking on the door to another examination room a little ways down the hall. Damon Gray looks up at his entrance, the perfect picture of a distraught father.

He sits down opposite the man and begins. "Mr. Gray, I'm Operative S. I'm afraid we need to talk about your daughter."

[sleeponthephone]

there are three ways to chart this narrative. I am living in all of them.

just try to appreciate

what you’ve got while you’ve got it

so if it ever goes away

you can say you enjoyed it while it lasted

1.

I’ve decided to be comfortable irritating you. it’s already over, in my mind. I can relax now. I can say whatever dumb shit pops into my head and send you every single post I think you’d like and ask you to hang out as often as I want. let me give you this thing I made for you. can I take a picture of you? can I take another one? I’m going to hold both your hands. the story is over! we’re just waiting on the epilogue now. in the meantime, come over and drink wine with me tonight. I’m not worrying over how much you’ll enjoy my company.

I’m going to love so much and so hard, I’ll get my heart broken by the end of the summer. this thing does go away, and I don’t want the story I tell later to be one of holding back.

dance with me, lovely. oh my goodness, it is so wonderful to laugh with you.

I had my heart broken in 2017 and again in 2019. I was too hesitant for it in 2021, but I look around and all of a sudden it is 2023! and I look around and you are next to me, and I love you so dearly I took the sun out of my eyes to see you for real.

I am laughing- and believe me, I know the bittersweet that comes after the sugar rush. the creature in me is growling softly, so tired of trying to make it easier to be with me, trying to be easier, trying not to love so hard, so wholly, so envelopingly, trying to be less boring, less anxious, less clingy, trying to be less be less be less, tired of how the only way I know how to convince people to love me is to be less, tired of being sorry it never works.

you look so cute in those black and white polka dots. I tell you. you’re sending a picture of me to your friends, telling them how hot I look in my box-dye hair and my five dollar sunglasses. for now? for now. I can be happy in the for now.

and you don’t need me to tell it to you, that friendship breakups hurt the most. you say any one of the people you’ve loved, even the awful ones, could turn up on your doorstep now, and you would still offer them the couch. you say you always love full-throttle. I shift into sixth gear and say race me as reckless driver by lizzy mcalpine is blasting.

- I love you. I am through with trying to make it as forgivable an offense as I can.

I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love,

you won’t be able to see beyond it.

2.

sometimes I feel that I am restarting my younger years, writing a better life over the one I had. I split my trinkets with my friends 50-50. the two most important things in the world to know about zir, their favorite ice cream flavor alongside their parking spot preference. dying red into their hair and for a moment it could be sticky fingers and koolaid colors. I cut out hundreds of pictures to color my walls. I hang the string lights up, and I am so in love with myself it’s hard to imagine I’ve ever been alone. we snap photo after photo after photo like it’s muscle memory from a disposable camera at eight years old. I give myself the abundance to push back against an old scarcity. I hold both your hands! why shouldn’t I?

in our barbie movie marathon, we will only have pink drinks- strawberry gin, rosé, pink lemonade mixers. a friendship bracelet for valentine’s day, a frog for springtime, a felt bird in summer. let me sit with my hands in the dirt and make something for you. let me see if I can find it, push past the pillbugs and the millipedes and the worms, graze over the rocks and potatoes- yes! I pull it out for you.

needle in my hands, thread pulling through, and it comes again, this sense of deja vu I’m so prone to. perhaps in a dream, perhaps in another life, but I know I have done this before. and it’s nice- whenever I catch myself in a moment like that, it feels like an affirmation that I have been making the right choices, that this is the point I was predestined to arrive to. we are in the right timeline, because I am sitting here making art for someone I love.

- I’m worried, because what if you see how much I love you? I’m excited, because: isn’t that the point?

that’s the kind of heartbreak

time could never mend

3.

summer is only my third favorite season. I don’t think any of my selves would be upset by my saying it is the best of me, the one that comes alive in the first half of summer. she is brilliant, filled with laughter and confidence and a love untinged by anxiety. oh, I can’t help but love her, raining flowers and flashes of green. she loves herself better, and she loves him a little better, for coming to us in the cold months when the fear leeches out from me like a sickness and choosing to love anyway, for staying long enough to see the gold catch in our eyes in june.

no, they are not an answer to this thing within me. I sit with myself in this home, and I love both him and me enough. I love us all to the point of invention.

my sister has fallen in love for the first time. she is afraid of her first heartbreak. she can’t fathom how taylor could love joe for six years and not end up with him. I think of how I used to love in forevers. I fell in love with potential. I spent so much time in the future of various relationships, it became a detriment to their present. now, I romanticize the ephemeral as much as I can. I am here for the little stories of the morning, this afternoon, the brilliant night we are sharing together. I do not project into next year. I sit with you in the same room and I exist with you at the same time. it fills my whole heart up.

summer was the worst of me, for a long time. too many beginnings and endings and old friends’ birthdays. all the shattered things are stitched together now into this personhood. it is strong. I am not afraid of them breaking it. I have had the piercing ruptures, the departures that rended flesh from bone and hollowed my cheeks and left me gushing blood and hope for months. he will not cause that. whatever damage may come, time will be enough for. I will be enough for.

- and in this way I manage the eventual death of us. it is the death of us. it will not be the death of me.

xoxo

[sirthisisa-wendys]

Investigations (Part 3): Ran Haitani x Fem!Reader

synopsis: when things are uncovered, can you handle the truth? Or are you doomed to make a mistake you can't rectify?

wc: 2.1k

tw: violence

masterlist

song recommendation:

Ran's past was a lie.

When you met him at the country club five years ago, your pasts had been explained in hushed tones and excited flurries of memories; sharing photos of the time before he was an executive of the communications company he worked in and the time before you were a journalist.

Ran said he had gone to jail twice, both for crimes he had been an accessory to as a delinquent kid, but that he'd cleaned up his act after and made his way up the corporate ladder. Nothing about gangs or being a Heavenly King in Tenjiku made it past his lips.

You had been honest, too. Your tales included the time you'd accidentally happened upon a massive gang fight, and that's how your investigative journalism skills began to bloom.

Who was fighting?

What were they going to do after?

Where did these gangs come from?

When did this argument start?

Why were they fighting?

How did gangs form in the first place?

Those were all the questions you sought out answers for that night and the next five years after, devoting your time and effort to finding the truth about everything.

"Babe?" You freeze, hands hovering over the keys at the sound of Ran's voice. You don't turn around - you can't even look at him the same these days - but he fixes that by walking over to you and turning you around in your chair. "What are you doing up so late?"

"Just doing some writing." His violet eyes search yours for the truth, but you know he won't be able to find it. Not while you're still trying to unravel his past. Ran kisses your eyelids sweetly, cupping your face in his large palms and littering his love across your face as you try your best to remain still and not confess about your research.

"Come to bed. It's late."

"I've got a few more paragraphs," you explain, motioning to the small print on your screen. "I'll be in bed soon."

But your lie is discovered shortly thereafter. It's five a.m. when Ran returns, seeing you slumped against your desk, arms cushioning your head, laptop screen blank. Instinctively, Ran pulls you out of your seat - making your notebook fall to the ground - grunting softly as he scoops you up into his arms and cradles you against his chest.

You willingly allow your husband to carry you to bed, where your two-year-old is also nestled among the sheets and pillows, thumb tucked into his mouth. And for a moment, Ran appreciates the view, seeing the two people he loved the most - besides his younger brother - laying in the bed he paid for, in the house he built, in the city he owns.

But then he remembers the slight disarray you left your things in at the desk and returns, picking up your pencil and notebook before laying them beside the laptop. Then his eyes catch "Ran's past?" written in bold, red letters, along with the words: "Tenjiku" and "Tandai" also written in the web of other words surrounding his name. "South Terano" is also on that web.

He'd have to take care of that in the morning.

And for the first time in a long time, worry bubbles to the surface of his mind, and Ran rips the sheet of paper from your notebook, tossing it into the kitchen trashcan and considering his deed done. He concealed his past to protect his family. And he's concealing the present to achieve the same goal; all for the future to be revealed later. That's how everything should be.

Right? _____________________________________________________________

"Ran," you whisper, lips running across his knuckles. His fingers cup your jaw, and his own lips press against your forehead, violet eyes darkening slightly. "It's six am. Where are you going this early?"

"I have to go into the office for a little while," he murmurs, kissing your forehead again. "I'll be back around lunchtime." Thoughts of Tandai and Tenjiku flash into your mind for a moment, but you smile at him sleepily anyway, absolutely sure these things are part of his past and not in the present.

"We'll be waiting for you, my love."

Despite all of your best intentions, though, you can't help but be consumed by the idea of Ran out, fighting, stealing, maiming... You consider asking him about these things, these concerns, but you decide against it as you're helping Kai with his lunch. If he wanted to leave it in the past, there's a good reason for it. He would have told you if it would be a problem later. Right?

Ran wouldn't jeopardize your family, your home, your life for something so... juvenile.

Right?

The clatter of keys on the counter in the living room brings you back to the present, and you perk up, your two-year-old mimicking your expression.

"Daddy!" Kai slides down from his seat and runs to greet Ran, clutching his father's legs with all his little might.

"Hey, buddy," Ran laughs, stooping to pick up his son with excitement. "How are you doing?" As son and father have a very stimulating conversation about playtime, you watch them in wonder, observing the way Ran makes his child a priority, just like he makes you a priority. But your countenance falls as soon as you see the blood spot on the bottom of Ran's lavender suit jacket. You know its blood because of the way it dried - that's no ketchup stain.

You fake a smile anyway, giving Ran a kiss on the cheek and tugging his jacket off after he sits Kai back on the tile floor.

"Hard day?"

"Kind of," Ran mumbles, and you catch the sight of a long scratch down the side of his neck. "But I made it through." You hum, taking the pin-striped jacket to the laundry room and slinging it over the side of the washer. You'd need that later.

"Need to relax?" you wonder, and Ran grins at you mischievously.

"Maybe later, after bedtime?"

_____________________________________________________________

But "later" never came.

Instead, Ran and Kai fell asleep on the sofa, watching a kid's movie, and you retreated to the office, powering up your laptop and pulling your notebook closer.

You immediately notice something's wrong, as the notes you had before were missing. Everything is gone. Not even a word of all the research you had done was there. Hadn't you written meticulous notes and names and things about Ran's past that could be interconnected? You break out in a sweat and search in every drawer of the desk, every place it could possibly be. You come up with nothing, and let out a frustrated sigh before slumping down in your seat and pulling up the computer history from yesterday. If you had to rewrite every single thing, that's fine. You'd just need more time to gather your evidence for the meeting on Saturday.

You're knee-deep in articles and police reports when you stumble across a more recent - actually as recent as this morning - article titled: "Ex-gangster found dead in meat factory". The picture of South Terano startles you, and you click on it, feeling a sense of dread as the article details how he was found hanging upside-down in the warehouse with a bullet hole in his head. And just like that, your newest lead has fizzled out. You groan, writing down "South Terano, deceased" on your notepad, then exiting the tab.

There had to be someone else you could ask. Shuji Hanma only provided you with Ran and Rindou's names, no one else.

"What's this?"

The door to the office shuts softly, and you look over your shoulder at Ran, who is walking toward you with measured steps, his eyes taking in your exhausted expression and the way you're hunched over that notepad. Again.

"What are you doing? You look tired, babe. Let's go to bed, yeah?"

Suddenly, pieces begin to click as Ran leans his hip against the desk, staring down at you in the chair with squinted violet eyes. "You threw away my notes... Didn't you?"

"What are you doing in my business, y/n?"

"Why didn't you tell me that you were in two gangs?" you counter, fingers shaking slightly. "Ran, this is something I needed to know before--"

"You wouldn't have married me if I told you." Ran's tone is cold, almost as if he's turned into the past version of himself without batting an eye.

"You don't know that." Ran leans forward, coming to eye level with you a smirking.

"I know you. And that's all I need." Ran reaches out a hand to close the laptop, still smiling and maintaining eye contact. "Now here's what you're going to do. First, you're going to stop digging into my past. There's nothing there that you need to find. Second, you're going to come to bed. It's late, you're tired. Finally," Ran cups your chin like he did this morning, except his fingers aren't so tender this time. "You're going to cut off contact with both Shuji Hanma and Taiju Shiba. I'm not really fond of either of them, and I'm not a fan of having them tell my business to my wife."

"They were only doing it because I asked."

"Taiju, maybe. Shuji isn't so eager to fuck you. I doubt he did it out of the kindness of his heart." You can't say anything to refute his claims. Ran is probably right. But you can't get one question out of your mind.

"Why are you trying to hide your past? What's there that I won't like?"

"What isn't there is the real question."

"What can you tell me about the gang that's just surfaced in Tokyo?" Ran's face slackens, transforming into a half-surprised, half-blank look that you realize is one that means he's been caught. "Oh, my fucking god," you breathe, tears stinging your eyes. "South, the fish, the murders, the crime... It's you. It's been you this whole time. I've been chasing my own husband down." Panic begins to set in, and your mind whirls around as you shake in your seat, bringing your hands up to your head. "Just tell me Rindou isn't in this," you breathe, but Ran doesn't answer you, still wearing that dumb look on his face. You let out a cry of shock, covering your mouth and trying to back away from Ran as much as you can.

The source is a lot closer than you think.

You slide down the wall, shocked into stillness as your sobs quiet, and Ran straightens up, placing his hands in his sweatpant pockets. The long nights, the early mornings, the bloodstains, the damn suits... It all led to this. Ran had never really left his old lifestyle behind. He'd gotten caught up in it, and brought you and Kai into it unknowingly.

"I never meant for it to get this... unhinged." You can't reply, tucking your knees into your chest as you stare past Ran and at the opposite wall, wondering how you'd missed the signs, the obvious signs that Ran was up to no good. "I know this is a lot to take in, but we can--"

"I can't stay here."

The words fall from your mouth and Ran flinches, shaking his head.

"No. You can't leave."

"Yes, I can," you mumble, standing and wiping your tears. "I can do whatever I need to do to keep Kai safe, and--"

"Kai is safer here than out there," Ran snaps, pointing at the window. "I'm not letting my son out of my sight. Your snooping has caused enough trouble as it is; I wouldn't have had to go and clean up this morning if you hadn't--"

"Don't blame this on me," you retort, pointing at Ran accusatorially. "You're the one who joined a gang and is still in one! What kind of role model are you for our son now?"

"I provide the best way I can," Ran grits out, clenching his fists. "You've never gone hungry, cold, or ill-clothed a day in your life while you were with me."

"I would rather die than enjoy a life paid for with blood money."

"Blood money? You really think--" You try to push past Ran, but he grabs your shoulders, yanking you back in front of him. "You're not going anywhere except to our bed."

"Let me go, Ran Haitani," you mutter, hands balling up into little fists. "Or I'll scream."

"Who will hear you? Kai?"

How had you been so foolish? Ran's lips press together momentarily as his violet eyes run over your figure, taking stock of all your five-foot-six stature. You're no match for Ran. Not mentally, and certainly not physically. Ran notices your defeat and his hands slide down to your wrists, tugging your delicate hands up to his chest.

"Everything will be fine," he whispers, drawing you close. "I'm taking care of us. Just trust me."

Just trust me.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with tatooedlaura (Laura Sprys)

Laura has 28 fics at Gossamer, but the big treasure trove of her stories is at AO3, where she has 193 fics. Thank goodness for the richness of the X-Files and for talented, creative people like Laura who can find so many interesting ways to tell tales in the show’s universe. Big thanks to Laura for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

Maybe reading mine but reading older fic in general is something I still do and something I still find entertaining. I do wish i could get into my old fics and post a warning that some of those were written before the author: ever had a drink, ever had sex, ever had a boyfriend, ever lived on her own, ever had a real job, or ever experienced much of anything in the real world.

Then again, fanfic is a perfect time capsule for the age and it’s always fun to see where the originals started and how they’ve grown.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

Back in the day and up and through today, it has always been a fun experience. From it, I’ve learned to love writing. I’ve learned that fans are crazy, weird, wonderful, generous, talented, committed, passionate, and imaginative. In a fandom, you can think whatever you wish and write about anything you like and because I’ve been around so long, I’ve gotten to watch the storylines shift and the relationships change ...

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

Originally, I never had much interaction with people other than ones who sent emails commenting on my fanfic … the internet at my parents house was dial-up and I had to access through the AOL free disks that arrived in the mail so, for the most part, I didn’t have the bandwidth or the connection speed to do more than upload stories and download episode guides.

Good lord, I remember submitting a story and having to wait upwards of two days to two weeks before the new batch of stories was posted ... then ephemeral came around and you could actually have your story up in under a day ... all ya'll who started on tumblr and ao3, you have it great, let me tell you :)

One thing that stands out in my mind still (and I’m still friends with her on Facebook) was a woman from western Canada who I stumbled across somewhere while looking for the blooper reels. She offered to send me her copies on VHS for my collection. I don’t think she asked for payment and one day, a package arrived from a lovely woman near Lethbridge, bloopers playable, tapes labeled in clear printing. I still appreciate that 20 some odd years later :)

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Fandoms are crazy places. Tread lightly at first but enjoy what you want, ignore what you don’t, rewrite what you hate, and write what you love. Don’t be an asshole when you don’t agree with someone … when you do, tell them …

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

I was on board from the first episode. It was a show about two people who you felt were destined to be together but weren’t, and wouldn’t be for years. It was a cop show about aliens and a monster show with cops. I was in the right place at the right time in the right frame of mind and there was just something that clicked and I never looked back. Friends were not allowed to call me on Friday night and once it switched to Sunday, I made sure that my parents got us on early evening bowling league so we’d be home in time to watch. Even my boyfriend (eventual husband) knew to shut the hell up from 9-10pm, even if he was sitting next to me on the couch (with my parents in their chairs watching as well)

Also, my 56-year-old dad had a crush on Scully from the start so that was entertaining as hell as well

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I have been writing stories in my head for literally as long as I can remember. Watching some episode, I honestly don’t remember which one, I suddenly had an idea for a story about Mulder and Scully. I had never written a story with pre-existing characters before and it was totally foreign to me. How do you write a character with a current storyline. It was weird, it was difficult, it was some of the most fun I’d had writing up to that point.

Suddenly, I didn’t have to explain or describe the characters, think of jobs and mundane things … they already had those … and it was great.

Honest-to-God, my first fic was written, in pencil, on a yellow legal pad by flashlight while lying with my head at the foot of my bed so I could see my parents coming down the hall if they happened to wake up at midnight to go to the bathroom. Later fics were written by the light of an 10” TV/VCR combo with me still lying with my head at the foot of the bed. I still have those old legal pads somewhere and I remember having to type them in secret, having to wait until the house was empty for 20 minutes to an hour at a time. Uploading them was always unnerving because of the slow dial-up and the fact that I didn’t have my own email address, but had to use my dad’s. I’d have to make sure to check it whenever I could, intercept the feedback I’d get off gossamer.

I was such a damn rebel.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Well, I now know how to interact with people given tumblr and AO3 but it hasn’t changed much. I contribute a little more now that I understand posting on social media but mostly, I still just write like a fiend and post, read voraciously and give kudos and likes often, comment some and reblog.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I dabbled and have a favorite ‘Fringe’ fic … I tried to read a Harry Potter fic once … I type ‘West Wing’ occasionally in ao3 and tumblr ...

And nothing, absolutely nothing, has ever caught me like the X-Files did in regards to the fandom experience.

I have shows I watch and re-watch and re-watch but no two characters have ever had me writing and thinking and planning like Mulder and Scully. No other combo has ever made me write upwards of 300,000 or more total and still have plenty of stories to tell.

I’m okay with this.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

Aside from Mulder and Scully and the gentlemen three of Frohike, Langley, and Byers … I love all Scully’s nieces and nephews in my ‘Life’ series … I also love Corduroy (picture books), Harold (purple crayon fame), Neville Longbottom, the characters from my own novels, Katniss (book not movie), Anne Shirley, Elnora (from the Limberlost), Will Stanton/Merriman/Barney/Jane from ‘Dark is Rising’ and 10,459 others …

I’m a children’s librarian so most of my favorite books are those written for the younger and YA crowd. I like my job :)

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I watch this show all the damn time. I will think about Mulder and Scully when I have nothing else to think about, normally writing and editing whatever story I may have in the hopper at the time about them.

My husband laughs when I have the show on. He knows all the episodes with me and it’s one of my comfort shows that I don’t have to pay attention to when it’s on. During it, I have edited books, decorated cookies, been sick, been recovering, simply wasted a perfectly good day because I could.

My 17-year-old daughter keeps it on while she does homework and works out.

It’s a staple at our house and no one is allowed to make fun of it, even though we all know that parts are completely ‘make fun-able’

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I read fic all the time … I have worked my way through AO3 starting from the beginning and if it was more easily readable on a phone, I’d work my way, once again, through gossamer.

Restated from above: I dabbled and have a favorite ‘Fringe’ fic … I tried to read a Harry Potter fic once … I type ‘West Wing’ occasionally in ao3 and tumblr ...

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

I have all kinds of favorites on tumblr but right now, I honestly don’t remember most of the names … I pretty much read everything that comes through my dashboard and every few days, i read through the newest posts on AO3 … I love you all!!

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Of X-Files fics, I love my newer stuff … I read “Life” and its sequels every few months … ‘Your Place or Mine’ is another one I will read … actually, I’ll just say it .... I read all my own fic over and over again …

With fic, you get to write the characters as you want to see them and write situations that you want to see … I write for myself most of all and I love to read what I wrote :)

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I write them all the damn time. I have tons of snippets and half-finished that I occasionally glean things from but while sometimes, old stuff morphs into new, sometimes, it just needs to gather that dust and live a quiet little forgotten life in some backhand folder on my dropbox account ...

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

First question is answered above.

As for other creative work, I have published two YA novels, have the third in that series in editing … I have five other novels in the hopper in various stages of ‘good lord this needs an edit or twelve’ …

I am writing things constantly in my head or on my laptop … most is crap … stome sticks … some turns into fic and some turns into books …

But the point is, I am writing, in some form, at all time :)

Where do you get ideas for stories?

Some two sentence conversation will spark an idea … the line of a song will inspire an idea … a word will start a sentence which will turn into a paragraph which will tumble straight into a story … and sometimes, stuff just pops in my head for no damn reason at all ...

What's the story behind your pen name?

On gossamer, I am L. Sprys because that was my name at the time :)

On tumblr and AO3, I’m tatooedlaura because my name is Laura and I have, now, six tattoos (yes, I spelled it wrong in my handle but that’s life) … when I decided on the name, I think I only had two

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

They do now … it took me years to crack and tell them … my husband has never read them, nor have any of the people I have told (as far as I know)

Now, I don’t really care who knows … I’ll tell them I write smutty X-Files fanfiction and family-friendly X-Files fanfiction …

I am too old at this point to be embarrassed by what I like to do. If they laugh at me, I tell them they only get to laugh when they’ve published a book and I pull up my books on Amazon … I’ve only had to do that once and it shut them right the hell up …

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

Gossamer: L. Sprys

Tumblr and AO3: tatooedlaura

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

I love you! I see you! I appreciate you! I hope you enjoy! Don’t judge me for my grammar issues! I will never be able to spell the word ‘excersize’!

(Posted by Lilydale on April 27, 2021)

[noahstayed]

Sorry if you've already answered these questions but I still want to ask them so...

1) Are you going to make another book after Earthshine?

(If the answer is yes; (and you don't have to answer this one,) Are you going to do a time skip or will you go the 'the condom broke'?)

2) Will Edward have a mate (If yes; will you create an OC or simply pluck a character from the twilight saga archives are revamp them?)

3) If you do make a version of Breaking Dawn, will it have the same premise (Ie. Wedding, Honeymoon, (I typed hUMANmoon and then corrected it, don't know why my fingers went there.) surprise pregnancy (or not? Because Carlisle is a DOCTOR) turning, then the Volturi going all "We must kill the child!"?)

4) With regards to question three, in the (honestly, and sadly, unlikely) ( completely forgot what word I was going to type, and It as too much trouble to type that so I'm just going to use another word that won't flow as well) situation (I'm so unhappy with this word, my stomach is turning something fierce, man.) that you DO go the standard "with the other book as a very, very, loose guideline) Would you go the route of OYH or would make an entirely new plot?

Also, if you do go with the same general outline, (which is unlikely since Irina isn't with Laurant in newmoon but with Charlie, so there's no bitter feelings and she won't immediately go to the kings before she's heard Carlisle's explanation.) How would you make that work?

5) I know you said that if you do make a fourth book you would just use the dhampire from OYH, Elisha, does that still reign true? Or are you planning to make a new character entirely?

6) If you do make a fourth, and go the OYH route, would you still make Elisha Emse's mate, like in OYH? Or will you go with Garette?

7) Also, since you have previously made an ff about Garette and Bella having a brother-sister type friendship would we see that and get to see Garette claim her as his sister and charlie as his father, and everyone goes along with it? (Honestly, I REALLY want this to happen, especially since I've spent the last hour scrolling through your tumbler and stumbled upon the 'I'm older than my father' post.)

8) Really, all these questions border on the main one of "is there going to be a breaking dawn/part 4-5 (depending) in your rewrite?" but if you do, would Carlisle buy Isle Bella as a honeymoon present of would that be in the oneshots book (that you'll hopefully be writing after this is over) as like a "Have fifteenth anniversary" thing?

9) Are you going to write a book full of random one-shots you couldn't fit into your story? I REALLY HOPE SO.

enthusiastically hope so. :) (that's really a tense smile with eyes SHINING with hope. Just informing you that you'll be crushing my heart. Brutally. With a stake. No pressure :) )

10) If you don't write the fourth book will we get an epilogue with the wedding five years later? Like, with Bella being SUPER nervous?

And finally, 11) (I really want a war to showcase Bella's awesome vampire powers (because you've stated (in a previous Tumblr post) that you'd give Bella her BAMF!Bella OYH powers)) So if there's a part four, even though the Volturi is "lawful" and like, has a brain, in your series, can they like have a brain fart where they go. "He's making an army," Or just straight up CANNON!Aro with his need for power be like "It's an immortal child, and it needs to be destroyed." But really be thinking, "They're growing too large, already their numbers rival our own, they must be put down! This is the perfect time!" Like the (cowardly) power-hungry and villainess we all know and love. Kinda.

I have other questions but those can really wait lol.

I basically want breaking dawn and the third (Do you count Charlie's book as part of Bella's story or as a stand-alone since you weren't really progressing the plot very much (also a very good way to have a time skip in your main)?) isn't even done yet.

I don't know if you can tell, but I've been reading this series for three days straight (new fan!) and just started your OYH series and I'm just filled with a desire right now. Like, I typically hate sex scenes in a twilight book (but that's because I was a child when these movies came out (saw them all in theatre!) and still was when I read the books, so Bella is SACRED lol, and It just makes me uncomfortable to imagine her in those positions (it's like a trauma okay?) but I really enjoyed your stories (even if I basically glossed over your sex scenes and read through them quickly) and could actually sit through your sex scenes (mostly, because it wasn't INTENSE! Like, a lot of rewrites turn breaking dawn into literal Porn and sully the books for me because they basically remove a lot of plot to make room for Bella's sudden appetite, and while, yes, you gave her an appetite and... I am just really enjoying your stories and how you write so Thank You.

Okay, I've let you know your appreciated and put out my question into the tumblr universe so now I just have to wait for you to see this and maybe respond.

I hate waiting.

I haven't gotten an ask in a while and AJKHFJKHD Listen!! THE FACE I MADE AT HOW LONG THIS IS??? Superb!! I'm honored you've taken the time to write this all out so I'm gonna try to answer you as best as I can!!

Right now I'm 100% sure that there will be a couple of Novellas/Novelettes directly after Earthshine. The Renee Story, the Charlie Story, and the Roommate Story which all will get maybe 40k and mini plots that are far more focused than Charlie's first story. Charlie's new story will be focused on his relationship with Carlisle too, so that should be fun!

Edward having a Mate is still up in the air at the moment. Since he is still very young, I don't see the need to really give him someone so quick when other characters have waited WAAAY longer. As for who it might be, that's also still up in the air in case I want to do a short story with him that's a part of a series of Novellas after the main books

If I do make a BD rewrite IT WILL have wedding/honeymoon/surprise pregnancy then it will PRETTY MUCH go off the rails from there because the Pregnancy will be VASTLY different. Carlisle is a Doctor and Bella isn't an idiot. They won't be in Washington either.

Again. The first half will be loosely based on the book and then just go completely off the rails because, Like you said, the Volturi have brains and I LOATHE an 'idiot' plot where people are required to suddenly become stupid for the story to work. As for the OYH route, I will be borrowing a couple elements from OYH but the conflict will be very different.

Elisha is baby and there's no way I could make another Dhampir at this point. Not with how much I love him.

The aging process will work differently in this fic for Dhampirs, so this question is irrelevant since Elisha will be a child for the entire fourth book. As for when he's older, Its still up in the air for this series. He deserves to be baby and I very much dislike the trope of age faster = mentally develop faster because that's BS.

We'll see, I love Bella and Garrett, but there's A LOT I'll have to cram into the last book so we'll just see.

As much as I'd love to answer this, I'm covering the honeymoon in the fourth book so you'll see what happens in there ; )

I HAVE PLANS for random one shots. I REALLY DO. I just has so little time to work on the main story so I might write some when Earthshine is done! I have a name for the one-shot collection already too and some Ideas!

I very much plan to write the fourth book you'll be fine. Bella will not be nervous, she'll be WAY more anxious about it going right. Mostly her nerves will be from anticipation and excitement because she'll be 23 and be very secure in her forever with Carlisle.

There will be a fight in book four that will not have the Volturi turning stupid. Don't worry about how.

Charlies little story is a Novella so I don't count it as a book.... GOD hearing you plowed through the series in so short a time is MIND boggling. I get people telling me this occasionally and I NEVER stop being amazed by it!

As for the sex scenes, yeah, I didn't want this to be erotic literature. I frequently scream that 'THIS ISN'T A SMUT BOOK' because them having sex is just a normal healthy thing that happens in relationships and wanted to show that. The sex scenes I write tend to be glossed over anyways so I'm glad it was readable for you. I get feeling frustrated and wanting more plot, but there are plenty of people who prefer the very explicit smut.

If sex scenes aren't your cup of tea, that's fine. I don't view Bella as pure and innocent though. It teeters dangerously on the Madonna/Whore dichotomy to act like she is. I get wanting to preserve the innocence of your childhood through her. That's not me though. Bella/Carlisle's relationship is highly sexual in nature within SoG and that's ALRIGHT too!

Thanks for the super long ask!!! it was great to read and fun to respond to!

[carinyms]

We're three days from the Loki finale and I’m back to spout more meta and theories about episodes 5 & 6! It’s a long one (again.)

I really enjoyed episode five. People have complained that they felt it didn't do much to move the show forward, but one of the things I've loved most about this show is the time it takes to sit with the characters and learn about their backstory, their feelings. (I'm always a little bugged when critics say that an episode hasn't done enough to move the plot forward, because without adequate character development, why should I care about the plot?) I thought the pacing of it was really well balanced.

….and I have never been so nervous for a finale in my entire life. There’s a lot of reasons.

The first is just the fact that I’ve been waiting for this show for a whole year, and the anticipation and excitement of it literally helped get me through the pandemic--so when those final end credits roll I’m going to be a whole mess no matter what happens. (I really hope the rumors floating around about season two are accurate) I also just feel like it’s somewhat inevitable that this is our final farewell to Tom’s Loki, and like—I’ll never be ready, but especially right now, amidst all the rampant controversy around this show, I’m just not ready to deal with that. I have a *small* modicum of hope that this won't be the case, but it feels unlikely. Anyway, guess I’ll die.

I really want this show to stick the landing, so to say. I loved the last episode, but a lot of the response has been that it felt like a lull in the plot. I want this show to end in a satisfying bang so it can get the credit it deserves.

Also I’m a whole hypocrite eating my words from last week—I’m fully on-board with Loki/Sylvie now (not that I was ever really against it)--I’m not sure why I’m surprised. They’re so adorable and wholesome, and I’m in love with seeing Loki in love. It’s so precious. (Just as a PSA, if you’re not into them that’s chill, and you’re allowed to dislike a ship without trying to justify your opinion by labeling shippers as morally problematic. Selfcest isn’t a real thing, therefore there isn’t a moral high ground to stand on here. Okay? Okay.) Wherever it ultimately leads, their relationship is still a really sweet exploration of them both growing and learning how to love themselves and trust others. Also, them cuddling under a tablecloth is the cutest shit I’ve ever seen with my two eyes.

MY THEORIES:

I love Sylvie so much, SO MUCH — and she is 100% going to stab Loki in the back by the end of the next episode. I don’t think the betrayal is going to stick, and by the end they’ll both be on the same page again, but the conversations on trust have been way too one-sided for my comfort. If nothing else she's going to seriously consider it. Here’s one way I can see that going. Spoiler alert: it hurts.

Sylvie betrays Loki at one point—and we see Loki’s growth and arc come full circle as, even after being betrayed by the person he hinged his entire development around, he still believes in doing the right thing, in saving her regardless. It ends in a heart-wrenching self-sacrifice of some kind, and his actions serve as the catalyst for her full development as well. We keep seeing different versions of Loki die for their ‘glorious purpose’, just like how Classic Loki shouts the phrase as he was consumed by Aloith (RIP King, I love you).

Loki has already called Sylvie his glorious purpose (or inferred it). There’s been backlash around him saying that, but the way I see it, it’s less “I’m obsessed with this girl she’s my purpose now” and more “I believe that she’s the best version of us and I’m going to make it my purpose to help her succeed and be what the rest of us aren’t”. That’s why seeing all the other variant Loki’s at their worst in the Loki clubhouse (? what do I call this lol) only fuels him more to find her. I think about what Mobius told him: “You exist to cause pain and suffering and death, all so others can achieve the best versions of themselves”. I don’t think Loki truly believes he can be the best version of Loki — I think he saw Sylvie and thought, "it's her". He’s decided he’s going to help her achieve the best version of herself, but he'll do it giving her love and trust and devotion, rather than through betrayal, pain and suffering. He’s re-writing his pre-determined role, in his own small way. I’m so proud of him.

So who’s behind it all and what’s truly going on here? (This isn’t really one theory, more like a string of possibilities and I don’t really know how they’d fit together.)

I still think it’s another version of Loki. And if it is, I can’t help but appreciate the connections between his position dictating the end of time in the show in relation to Loki’s role in the Norse myths, where he’s the catalyst for the destruction of all things. It feels relevant, considering the whole idea that ‘the end of time hasn’t been written yet’ has come up twice now. That would be a fascinating tie-in to the mythology. (Also—Alioth looks like a giant dog. And Fenrir’s role in Ragnarok was devouring the world—I realize this is a reach but am I the only person seeing this connection?) The thing I really can’t predict is the motivation. What would cause a Loki to want to prevent Loki’s from changing? Was there something that happened in the sacred timeline this Loki is trying to preserve? (I also like the idea of us maybe seeing another version of Sylvie behind it all, but I’m just going to leave that rabbit hole alone. )

But here’s the theory I can’t stop thinking about. There’s a theory floating around tik tok (by user twelvepercentcredit) saying the ‘castle’ we see beyond Alioth looks like a place called the House of Ideas, something that appeared in a (discontinued?) Loki comic. Here’s the wiki page on it. Just looking at the imagery of this compared to the location we’re seeing in the trailers, it’s too similar to be a coincidence. The huge bookshelves, the towering ceilings.

Here’s a description from the wiki:

“The House of Ideas is also home to a library which archives the exploits of every hero who has ever existed in the form of books, written unconsciously by the collective minds of their believers. This collection is curated by Now and Then, two of the children of Eternity. Now and Then routinely seek out heroes to bring into the House of Ideas to bargain with them and give their collections more pages, therefore more time for adventures and exploits. “

And later on the page on how Loki ties in:

“Heeding the desire in Loki's heart to do more with his life, Now and Then approached Loki and brought him to the House of Ideas,[5] where they struck up with him the deal to give more pages to his collection of exploits, rewriting the Books of Loki with a hero's stories in exchange for an eventual hero's death.”

Are they gonna play with the exact happenings of this? I don't know, but it sounds pretty cool!

It would be gutsy to go this route with the show given how meta it is, but I love the idea of it. Would they put characters that embody the abstract ideas of “Eternity” “Now & Then” into the show in the last episode? I’m not sure. Something I could see as a possibility though is an alternate version of Loki having overthrown whoever was previously guarding the timeline, and Loki and Sylvie will have to take them down in turn, thus ‘releasing’ the multiverse to its default, chaotic state.

What if our Loki’s ultimate destiny, ultimate Glorious Purpose, is to release the timelines--restoring all the variants back to their original timelines--and remain in this place for eternity, guarding the timeline and ensuring the multiverse is allowed to exist in its natural state? It seems a pretty fitting role for the God of Chaos. It would also explain why whoever’s behind the TVA would be so desperate to eliminate all variant Loki, if that was his ultimate destiny.

It would be an effective way to remove Hiddleston’s Loki from the movie-verse without killing him, AND place both Sylvie and any other Loki variants back in the the main timeline for use in future films—which we know has to happen somehow, because Young Avengers is definitely happening, and Kid Loki has got to get out of the void somehow.

And yea, this outcome would hurt like a bitch. Because even though that would truly be a lovely glorious purpose for our Loki, he’d be alone. And the whole point of this show is that he doesn’t have to be alone! It would be a very poetic sacrifice for him to take on the burden of watching over the timelines alone for all eternity so that his other variants could be the best versions of themselves, but I really just want him to be happy. I will be crying my eyes out if this happens. I’ll be proud but I won’t be okay.

And this all is probably speculative nonsense and could go off in an entirely different direction. Who knows. All in all, I just really want to see Loki fully believe in himself and his ability, to truly absorb what he said about being stronger than he realizes, and to take control of his destiny.

WHAT I WANT (NEED) FROM EPISODE 6:

Let Hunter B-15 and Mobius team up to burn the place to the ground. She was nerfed in the time-keeper fight, I want to see B-15 kick some ass.

I kind of want Ravonna to escape and be a character that carries over into the films for her tie-ins with Kang? I want to see more of her.

Give Loki a new badass costume. I’m begging. If he’s gonna go down, he deserves to go down in something other than khakis.

And then I want to see him and Sylvie fighting side by side in matching outfits.

I want a Mobius-level hug between them. Or a kiss. Or both. But I want the hug more. And you know what? I want her to initiate the hug or kiss or whatever it is because I want Loki to experience receiving love and affection from others as much as giving it. He deserves it ok??

I expect Mobius on a jet ski in the post credits and if I don’t get it I riot

@marvel these are my demands.

As always, if you've made it this far I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[a-force-dyad-in-space]

A continued rant of Breaking Dawn Part 2 - Part 1

Just so you know, I was SO CLOSE to finishing this post when Chrome fucking froze on me and I couldn’t get it going again and I couldn’t save what I’d worked on so far, so now I have to rewrite the entire thing from memory, love that for me.  😭😭😭😭😭😭 Tumblr didn’t want to save everything, though, so I had to split it up. Link to Part 2 is at the end.

Well, @diamondkissle and @edwardssparklyskin asked for it and it’s Christmas, so they shall receive. Happy Holidays, guys. I present to you my continued rant of Breaking Dawn Part 2. I will pick up where I left off in the last post, after Bella’s sparkle faint glimmer scene.

So, going straight into it, we got one of my bigger annoyances, and that is this right here:

Um, Carlisle, sweetie, what are you writing that down for?? You have?? Like?? Perfect Recall?? You’re probably gonna remember every single measurement by yourself for like?? Centuries?? Like Bella could ask you five hundred years from now what height Renesmee was at 4PM on Day 5 and you would be able to tell her??? From memory??? What is the notepad for??

Also the terrible CGI on those kids’ faces is just sad. I know they wanted all of them to look like the same child but they could have tried to find more kids who look similar to Mackenzie Foy instead of that obviously fake face replacement, since most of them only show up for literally only a second. Just yikes. I’m not adding screencaps of those here, you guys know what they look like.

One positive thing I will say is that I liked that they didn’t make Bella’s eyes go straight from red to gold, but instead used one or two hues in between until they arrived at gold, like this one during the snowflake-catching scene:

Then of course we have Irina snitching on the Cullens and Caius giving us his cringey but still iconic sarcastic “Hm?”, which just ... well, it is what it is.

And now. AND NOW. We’re going into one of my biggest annoyances of this movie, and I call it SCENES THAT WERE OBVIOUSLY SHOT IN DIRECT SUNLIGHT BUT FOR SOME FUCKING REASON NONE OF THE VAMPIRES SPARKLE. 

Part 1.

For this we are heading up into lovely Alaska where Edward, Bella and Jacob are taking Renesmee to the Denali coven to ask for their support. Now, when Edward steps out of the car, you see that lovely halo around his hair?

Am I the only one who sees this and sees DIRECT SUNLIGHT? Like, if this were overcast his hair would not light up that much on the edges, right???

KATE IS EVEN FUCKING SQUINTING BECAUSE THERE’S SO MUCH LIGHT, HOW IS THIS NOT DIRECT SUNLIGHT????

WHY IS

THERE NO

SPARKLING????????

WE WERE ROBBED. We deserved to 1. get a proper sparkle scene of Bella in the first place and 2. see some of the other vampires sparkle as well. Where is my Alice sparkle scene??? My Esme sparkle scene??? My Emmett sparkle scene???

But yeah, let’s move on, right? Straight into SCENES THAT WERE OBVIOUSLY SHOT IN DIRECT SUNLIGHT BUT FOR SOME FUCKING REASON NONE OF THE VAMPIRES SPARKLE. 

Part 2.

For this we’re heading over to sunny Cairo, where the sun may not be shining down directly on our characters, BUT my point still stands because of this:

You see that lovely light coming through the window? That’s direct sunlight, baby. And even coming through a window it should bounce off vamp skin at least a little bit and make it at the very least glimmer a bit, right?

And yet

Nada. Not even a faint glimmer. Fuck this.

Moving on, we got something that is not exactly a critique so much as an observation. So when we first meet Benjamin and when Benjamin first meets Renesmee, his eyes are very red, as expected. 

But then later, when he declares that he will fight with the Cullens, should it come to it, his eyes look at little more orange to me.

Do you guys think that’s because he’s growing thirsty and they’re darkening, or do you think (which definitely would be interesting) that he hunted animals at least some of the time while visiting (which would go against Amun’s principles) and that’s why the eye color is slightly different?

Next up, the Volturi’s a bit strange interaction with Toshiro.

This is where we see Alec’s power for the first time and while I get that they wanted to visualize it for the audience, I feel like they could have done it differently and still gotten the point across without resorting to literal black smoke. Not sure I’m really happy with it, the way it looks.

One funny thing, though, is the fact that Aro looks like he’s offering Toshiro to join their Victorian goth metal band, lol.

Then we have another strange choice they made with this movie, and that is the way Alistair looks at Bella. Like, here we have him seeing her for the first time, and being quite antagonistic and hostile and a lone wolf

Flash forward to when Bella succeeds with her shield projection for the first time and we have him looking at her like this

Is it just me or does this scream more than just plain being impressed by her abilities? I mean, even though no two shields are exactly the same, they’re not super rare or anything, so why would he look at her like that? It’s weird.

And then of course we have this awkward interaction between them after she returns from her meeting with J. Jenks.

I know part of it is him believing she’s not being genuine about the whole situation with Renesmee and their impending confrontation with the Volturi, but to see him take so much interest in her when he literally doesn’t give a shit about anyone but Carlisle (otherwise he wouldn’t have come in the first place), is really, really odd to me.

Speaking of Bella, another thing that bugs me. When she drops off Jacob and Renesmee at Charlie’s on her way to her meeting with J. Jenks, it’s apparently okay for her not to wear brown contacts, even though?? She’s supposed to be?? Stealthy with Charlie?? If I remember correctly (and correct me if I’m wrong), she always wore brown contacts around Charlie in the book (and she does again later in the movie, too, where Charlie is the only one who doesn’t know she’s a vampire specifically), but here apparently it’s okay even though they’re clearly visible???

But then, when she meets with J. Jenks, who has never seen her before, she puts contacts in??? Even though JJ has no fucking clue gold isn’t her normal eye color?? Even though the Cullens run around humans with golden eyes all the fucking time because no one knows their human eye colors???

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE.

And speaking of the J. Jenks bit. I know they couldn't spend too much time on it, so they decided to do it in one fell swoop, and that's fine, but I still wish we could have gotten the whole part of her finding his office and talking to the guy on the street and everything. Bummer.

Next up, ah, Christmas. How fitting for today. xD So, the Christmas scene is another one that frustrates me a bit. I mean the whole Bedward giving Charlie tickets to go fishing out of town bit and him being like "You guys wanna get rid of me or something?" is quite funny. But like??? Seth and Leah are here, too??? And all we see of them is the back of their heads???

We don't even get a glimpse of them from the front??? Not a tiny bit of awkward conversation between Leah and Bella? Not one clever quip by Seth about anything?? We were robbed, I'm telling you, ROBBED.

This is the end of Part 1. Here is Part 2.

[birdy-bat-writes]

Friends Day In

Word count: 2.3k

Prompt: You and Jason planned to spend the day together, until Roy called asking him to babysit.

I might rewrite this one in the future with a different character because I like the prompt. Hope you enjoy it!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was relatively cold for a summer day in Gotham. There was a breeze blowing and it didn’t smell like smoke. The sky was a rich blue and filled with white clouds. The sun was shining over the city. It was weird. But the good kind of weird. You weren’t used to Gotham looking this pretty, and neither were you used to playing dollies with a five-year-old, so nothing about today was normal. But you liked It!

The night before, you convinced Jason to take day off from everything and spend some time with you, because you hadn’t had a best friend’s day out in a very long time. He had been busy on missions away from you and you really missed him. Not as much as he missed you though. You hadn’t heard someone say yes that quickly in your life! The two of you had decided on meeting up at his place and going out later. The evening would end with dinner although you hadn’t decided if it would be a ‘takeout and movies’ kind of night, or the ‘chili dogs and strolling down the street’ type yet. You supposed you’d let the magic of the moment bring you to a decision, because either way if you were together you had something to enjoy.

That morning you hopped out of bed with a spring in your step. You were definitely more willing to get out of bed than you usually were, but who could blame you? You hadn’t had any quality time Jason in weeks. The idea of seeing your best pal and crush after that long was enticing enough to get you to pick out your clothes, finish a shower and breakfast all in under an hour. Somewhere around 12:00 pm, you headed oto your car, or should we say, skipped to your car and made your way downtown, opening the windows and enjoying the cool air.

Jason was in a similar position. He too, woke up feeling more energized and got through his morning routine much quicker than necessary, but he couldn’t help himself. He was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, paired with his favorite leather jacket, to give him the boost he knew he’d need today. Jason was looking forward to seeing you today for more than one reason; the first obviously being that he missed you, and the second being that he realized he didn’t want to have to miss you as much as he did and today would be the day he would confess how he felt about you. He had been in love with you for about year, and now he wanted you to know. So, he stared at his TV, not really paying attention to what was playing. He only glanced at his phone to check the time.

The next time he picked up his phone it buzzed it his hand. Roy was calling. “Hey, Roy. What’s up?”

“Jay, there’s an emergency.”

“What’s wrong?” Jason’s casual tone shifted to something a little more serious.

“There’s something going on in Star City. Oliver needs me.”

“Oka-,”

“Of course, I’ll watch her, don’t worry about it. And Roy, in our line off work, there isn’t exactly time off. Will you drop her over?” Jason could hear the panic in Roy’s voice and kept his own soft. This must be really bad. The last thing he wanted was to give Roy another reason to worry and taking are of Lian was the least he could do for his best pal.

The unfortunate downside to this would be that he would miss out on his time with you. He knew you would understand but the pang of guilt in his chest still stayed. He was just about to call you when he heard his doorbell ring. He opened the door to you, wearing that slightly apologetic look and you knew something was up.

“Hi, what’s wrong?”

“Y/N, I’m really sorry. Somethings come up.”

“That’s okay, but… What’s going on?”

“Roy needs to leave town for an emergency, and he needs me to take care of Lian. There was no one else he could find in time.”

“That’s alright, Jay. We could meet up another day.”

“I promise I’ll make it up to you.” He had an idea. “But you know you’re welcome to stay. We can have a friend’s day in!”

“That sounds great, but what about Lian?”

“We can hang out while she’s here. She’s an absolute angel. When did you meet her last?”

“Well it’s been a while, I haven’t seen her in like a year.”

“You should stay. We can babysit together. She’ll love you.” He flashed you his signature smile, dimples and all. You were a little hesitant, you didn’t want to take up too much of his time if he was busy. You knew what Roy and Jason did wasn’t easy and things often came up, so you were more than understanding. Jason then added a, “Please?”

“Okay.”, you said, putting your purse down the table.

Only minutes later, the doorbell rang. Jason opened the door and saw Roy with duffle bag thrown over his shoulder and his daughter in his arms. She had a little Dora the Explorer backpack with her and she was smiling, flaunting gaps in her baby teeth.

“Uncle Jay!”

“Hey kiddo!” Roy put her down and she hugged Jason’s legs. He smiled down at her adorable behavior and crouched down to her level, “Why don’t go inside and turn on the TV? We can watch Power Rangers.” He watched her speed away into his apartment and then stood back up. “Roy, be careful Ok?”

“When am I not?” He smirked. “Don’t worry its nothing too crazy, so I’ll only be gone for a few hours. Thanks for doing this.”

“No problem.”

While Jason was and Roy shared their well-wishes, Lian and ran into the living room at speeds that could rival the Flash, and then stopped. She was looking at you, visibly confused.

“Hi! I’m Y/N. You must be Lian. I’m friends with your dad and Jason.” She nodded plopped herself on the couch, one cushion away from you.

“Do you like power Rangers?”

“I do. Which one’s your favorite?”

“Blue one.”

“Blue’s my favorite color.”

“Me too!” She’s so cute. She rummaged through her little backpack and pulled out a small blue whale and two barbie dolls. “Your name is Y/N?”

“Yeah.” You wanted to think it was just something kids did, but something seemed odd about the way she started staring at you. Right on time Jason waked into the living room. He took in the sight of you intently watching power Rangers and holding a doll in your hand next to a small child plying with a whale plushy.

“Anyone hungry?”, he called out.

“Me!” Lian responded.

“PB&J like usual?” She nodded cheerily in response. “Anything for you, Y/N?”

“Can I get a PB&J too?” You asked.

“Anything for my favorite girls.” He said with a breathy laugh and disappeared off into the kitchen. He could kiss his plans of confessing today goodbye, but on the bright side now he had a little more time to plan it. He made four sandwiches and cut the crust off of one. He decided to go the extra mile and cut the sandwich into a heart just to see Lian get excited over it.

He walked back to the living room and put the plates down on the coffee table. He looked up for you and Lian, but you weren’t in the room. He walked around a bit and heard a giggle from the second bedroom. His heart melted at the sight. Lian was sitting on your lap while you were braiding her hair, tying it with a bow hair tie. “Pretty as a princess!”, you called her. Jason had no idea you were that good with kids. It was endearing.

Smiling lightly, he said, “Lunch is ready.” Lian jumped off of you and walked to the living room, picking up her heart-shaped sandwiched. She gasped,

“Thank you!” and began eating her sandwich. You stood next to jason and looked at the little girl in awe.

The day consisted of Pokémon marathons, hide and seek, and a game of tag that ended up with Jason picking you up and running around the apartment. You did the same with Lian the next round. The cheerful energy of little children was very contagious, but at some point, the energy burned out. The three of you sat down to take break before putting Lian down for a nap. Today you saw a side of Jason you didn’t even know existed. He was always calmer and goofier when you were around, but when he was with Lian, it was something else. You fell for him even more, if that was possible. Seeing him with her made your lips involuntarily perk up at the corners. And then it happened.

“Hey uncle jay?”

“Hm?”

“Is this the girl you’re always talking to Daddy about? The soulmate?” you saw Jason stiffen. You were very intrigued though. Jason talked about you to Roy? “Her name is Y/N too. Is she your girlfriend?”

“No, she’s not my girlfriend.” He was genuinely mortified.

“I think she wants to be your girlfriend.” Now it was your turn to stiffen. How did she-? “She hugs you a lot.”

           “Lian aren’t you tired? Let’s get you to bed.”

“Okay. Uncle Jay, you should kiss her.” Jason picked her up and hurried into the guest bedroom, leaving you a blushing mess where you sat.

He returned around ten minutes later, looking pretty tired himself. “I. Am. Exhausted”

“Same here,” you replied. “You’re really good with kids.”

“So are you.”

“Lian is such a sweetheart! Roy is going to have to deal with me a lot more now.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I want visit Lian all the time.”

“Oh.”

“Hey, can I ask you something?” He nods.

“What was Lian talking about when she said you spoke to Roy about me?”

“Well,” I guess confessing is back on the table. “I talked to Roy about you because I wanted his advice.” You gave him the ‘please elaborate’ look. “I like you.” He finally blurted out.

You looked up at him feeling butterflies. “I like you too, Jay.” As soon as the words left your mouth, you could feel your heart racing. Jason met your eyes, grinning ear to ear and asked,

“So, does this mean I can ask you on a date?”

“I believe it does.”

“Y/N, would you like to go out with me sometime?”

“Yeah I would.” You pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I am a little concerned though.”

“About?”

“You were trained by the world’s greatest detective, and yet, a five-year-old figured that I liked you before you did.” Jason’s expression turned into one of both shock and disappointment and you couldn’t help but laugh. “Todd, you’re losing your edge. You were beaten by a toddler.”

“Huh, so were you!” The two of you joked around quietly as not to wake the toddler in the other room. “You know it’s only 6:30. Feel like staying for dinner?”

“I’d like that.” You were looking up him due to the height difference.

The phone rang. Roy was calling to let Jason know he would be by to pick Lian up soon. The two of you sat comfortably and put on a movie.

“You sure you don’t want to watch power Rangers? I know how much you love the blue one.” He teased, which earned him a light punch to the shoulder.

Soon after, Lian woke up from her nap and crawled in between you. There was comfortable silence in the room. Jason had his arm around you, and you nuzzled into him holding Lian. The way Lian held his hand made your heart swell. He was going to be the best father one day.

Just then the doorbell rang. “That’s your dad.” She climbed down and walked with Jason to the door.

“Daddy!”

“Hey princess!” He lifted her into his arms. “Did you have fun today?”

“Yeah! I played with Jay and Auntie Y/N.”

“Oh, wow.” Roy looked at Jason with an eyebrow raised. “Auntie Y/N?” as if on cue, you showed up at the door.

“Hey, Lian you forgot your backpack.” You said handing it to her. “Roy! Oh, my goodness I haven’t seen you in a month! You have got to come over more.” You said, hugging him.

“I definitely will.” He said, hugging back with one arm.

“Good. Bye guys! I’ll see you soon!” And with that you, turned back and made your way to the kitchen.

“Roy how’d everything go? Is the city Ok?”, Jason asked.

“Yeah, yeah. City’s fine, Ollie’s fine. What’s up with you two? Did you finally tell her?”, Roy asked expectantly. With a smirk and a dramatic sigh, Jason replied,

“All I will say is that your daughter is a much better wing woman than you.” He punctuated his sentence by high fiving the little girl in Roy’s arms.

“ARE YOU GUYS DAT-?!”

“Bye, Roy! Bye, Lian! See you guys later…!” And he closed the door, fully expecting his phone to be flooded with messages in an hour, but in the meantime, he planned on taking advantage of some much-needed alone time with his new girlfriend.

“So, princess, where would you like to go for dinner?” Snaking your arms around his torso, you said,

“I don’t know, what do you feel like having?”

“You in my arms.” Your face heated up.

“I meant for dinner! And I’m already in your arms.” He chuckled lightly.

“Chinese takeout?”

“Chinese takeout.”

“And movies?”

“Of course.”

“…. Cuddles?”

“Like we don’t do that anyway.” All in all, that day did not go as planned but you weren’t about to complain.

[sineala]

On Being Fannish

An answer to a question I got on Patreon last month.

A question I recently received:

I saw your Tumblr post about The Eagle and I went back to your AO3 page to see the other fandoms you’d written in. I’m curious as to whether there’s a fandom you’ve written in that you didn’t particularly follow or like the canon? And why (can be more than 1 answer) For me I think about Due South. I tried to get into to show but it wasn’t happening. But I was engrossed in the works (and fanzines).

And my answer:

Thank you for asking this! I think there's a few different ways I could answer this question, and I'm going to try all of them.

The larger, more general big-picture question, for me, is: what qualities about a fandom make me feel fannish about it? This is something I have actually thought about enough over the years to have a decent answer for. One big plus is if the fandom has a lot of canon -- I mean, I'm in Marvel Comics fandom now, and my first fandom was Star Trek, so when I say I like fandoms with a lot of canon, I mean a lot of canon. I like to have lots of facts and little details to be able to play around with; that's the kind of thing that gets my writing brain going. Single TV shows without extended universes are probably just enough canon, but I would be happier with more. Single books are not usually enough canon to make my fannish brain light up, but book series can. Single movies are not usually enough.

Similarly, I also really like when a fandom has multiple versions in different media -- like, if it's a book series and a TV show and a movie and a comic, or whatever. I like being able to compare and contrast different versions of plots and characters, and, yes, I do find the Marvel multiverse absolutely delightful. But, say, I probably wouldn't have been into The Eagle as long as I was if there hadn't been so much other ancillary canon -- not only was there the movie, there was also the book The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff, and the 1970s BBC miniseries that also adapted the book, and there were the rest of Sutcliff's novels, many of which were set in the same universe (The Dolphin Ring Cycle), and then that even ties into, well, being a giant classical history and language nerd and getting to be fannish, more or less, about Ancient Rome. (I learned Latin so I could write a Roman AU. No, really.) If The Eagle had just been a movie and nothing else, with no other related things, I probably wouldn't have been very interested.

There's also another important quality that I like to see in fandoms I really get fannish about, creatively fannish, and this is going to sound deeply weird when I say it, but this is the best way I can think of to phrase it: they have to be mediocre. They can't be bad, exactly, because if they are bad then I'm not going to like them at all, but they can't be too good, because if they're too good, I can't really do anything with them. Take Babylon 5 as an example. I happen to love Babylon 5. I watched it when I was originally airing, I've watched it multiple times in reruns, I own copies of the scripts and a bunch of the tie-in novels and all the DVDs. You get the idea. I used to be glued to the  Lurker's Guide and rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated. And as a fan, I love it, but I can't really create anything about it. It's too good. It's a sprawling, epic, five-year arc, from before arc-based TV was cool, with what I consider to be amazing characters and a gripping plot. But there's no room. What kind of story could I possibly tell? Sure, maybe I could write a couple of vignettes. I'm pretty sure I have. But I can't tell a B5 story that's equal to the glory of B5. B5 already did that. And it wrapped up the arc on the way out. There's not really much left to do.

And I know we say that no one hates comics like comics fans do, but when I say comics are mediocre I mean that with affection. Sure, there are so many amazing stories that I love with my entire heart. But there are also things I wish they had done differently, and gaps that canon never explored -- and that, that's the kind of thing that gets my fannish brain going, if I can look at canon and think, okay, this but more. And then I can do that. There's room to play around! If I want to rewrite Civil War but add more UST between Steve and Tony, I can do that! Everyone can do that!

And then there's the more specific version of the question: what fandoms do I like the fandom for but not the canon? I have been in a lot of fandoms over the years, and I'm willing to read in fandoms I don't know as long as the fic is good, so that often means I've read a lot of fic in big slash fandoms without being into the canon all that much. I've read a bunch of Teen Wolf slash, I've never seen the show in my life, and I'm not likely to start. I only made it through Season 1 of Merlin but I still read the fic sometimes. I have zero interest in hockey but sometimes I read the Hockey RPF AUs. I've read a bunch of SGA fic but am kind of meh about the actual show. You get the idea. Sometimes I read a bunch of fic and get a new fandom. Sometimes I just get the fic.

And then there's your actual question: have I written in fandoms where I didn't like the canon? I'd have to say generally not. My fandom journey is a little weird because I spent about ten years lurking and not writing anything and not really able to finish anything -- this started back in the late 90s when the big Western slash fandoms were The Sentinel, Due South, Highlander, X-Files, and maybe Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and it felt like everyone in fandom was in some combination of the above. And in all those fandoms, I liked the canon (I think I would change my mind about TS if I rewatched it now, though) and I liked the fandom -- I just didn't write any fic because I couldn't figure out how to start and finish a story. So the fact that I have barely any dS stories doesn't mean I hated dS; it means I just wasn't writing anything back when I was really into dS. And then one day a switch flipped in my brain, or something, and I wrote a 90,000-word Professionals story and it just went on from there.

I do love Due South in particular, though; it was the fandom I met my wife in, because we both shipped Fraser/Kowalski and liked to hang out on AOL Instant Messenger and talk about fandom. And then fourteen years later we got married.

I hope that answers your question!

[lambourngb]

Get me out of here - places to go when canon is complicated

It’s Day 3, time to celebrate those stories that I turn to when I can’t deal with canon, or when I don’t have the emotional energy to untangle all the emotions I have for what’s going on in canon. Alternative universes, the safe harbor for us. Below are a mix of rewrites of canon, remixes of canon, or out right not even set in Roswell- to fill every type distance you want from canon- from near to far.

The first story I’m reccing is a long one,- so pardon the very long review below.

my love is a life taker by @jocarthage (267,600) So one day, Jessi popped into discord to share a dream she had about timetravel and being able to save yourself in the past basically, particularly Alex getting to give his baby-self a hug, and we all went, “holy shit that’s a cool fic idea please write it!” and really reality sucks right now with quarantine and whatnot, so what better thing to do than follow a WIP? I can’t tell you how badly I needed to something to look forward to as I was staring down a milestone birthday with all my plans in tatters, and this story filled the void.

Okay- now about the actual story itself, the world building about time travel in this is incredible but easy to absorb. Jessi dumps you straight into the action in chapter 1 with Alex, at 28, assassinating an Iraqi intelligence agent in 2009 that averts a bomb that was planned on US forces. You learn so much about both the story-universe and Alex here- one, that even dressed in mask and killing someone, Alex is kind and uses morphine as an overdose and has arranged for his victim’s family to be compensated, you learn that time agents can only visit places they themselves have visited during that time, and Jesse Manes had dragged his son, who was ‘time aware’ to every place of war and ruin on the planet before he was 18 and that, Alex’s victim, even as he’s dying, recognizes what a shit childhood Alex had but that Alex doesn’t.

The next part is where Alex’s time crystal malfunctions, instead of returning him to 2018, it takes him to 1998 where an 8 year old Michael is getting beaten by his foster dad and Alex, out of his time line mysteriously, visible to only Michael, saves him, but only temporarily. We all know with abusers, until you’re out of the house, it’s just a matter of time before the next beating. However, with one act, Alex at 28 starts putting into action (even though he doesn’t recognize it at the time) the steps to save his own life as he works to save Michael from his childhood. Each mission, each jump through time, Alex meets Michael, always a year apart and only for 1000 seconds, or almost 17 minutes. Jessi takes you through some of the darkest points of US foreign policy, only as Alex takes control of his life, he also starts to change the missions, and change the world. The details of places, people, food, etc are authentic from the author’s experience, if you don’t click on the links at the end of the chapters and disappear down google-rabbit holes about the events in history, well- you’re made of stronger stuff than I am.  There are lots of heavy subjects discussed, but there’s always care and honesty behind the intent. The way Michael grows, the way Alex grows, and of course the journey to the present time when they could be together? It’s like pining on steroids but it’s so wonderful. I wish I could pull out one thing that I loved in particular in this story- but it’s impossible, only to say that I love that I could disappear completely within the confines of ‘my love is a life taker’ knowing that I would be kept safe by the author, that goodness prevails.


when I’m oceans away by @neapeaikea (28,000) this is a post-2008 shed canon-divergent AU where Alex Manes, after the best/worst night of his life bolts from Roswell and leaves Michael behind. 10 years later, on the hunt for a child conceived at Caulfield, Michael walks into a youth home in California and finds Alex. A few things, I love that this author writes an Alex who didn’t join the Air Force but still lost a leg, I don’t really enjoy disability erasure in modern AUs (I’m better at looking past that in historical or sci fi aus) . It’s pretty clear after five minutes that the connection between the two men is still there and strong despite anger, secrets and guilt. The teasing and flirting between them is great but so is the acceptance of baring their vulnerabilities. I loved the care they take with each other, and the tie in to an alien child is just so perfect.

Crucibles (series) @ninswhimsy (9,000)- I’m cheating and naming both here, but obviously nin had her finger on the pulse of fandom, by writing crusade-set queer stories before The Old Guard ever boomed into a fandom from the movie. I was lucky enough to trade DMs over the ideas of holiness and the body, and how Alex would have treated himself, certain of his doomed soul, and how Michael would have responded in turn. It’s no secret I love everything Nin writes, but this series stuck in my mind. I will be drifting off to sleep, and think about Alex walking through the ancient city of Aleppo, ready to be done with his burden and Michael there with soft palms and scented oil, and boom! I reach for my kindle to re-read it.

no regrets if we walk this new road by @andrea-lyn (97,000) This author has written so many amazing AUs, some quite far away from canon events like her Mummy AU or her Avengers AU, but I have to say, I have a very soft-spot for this rewrite of season 1 for a lot of reasons. I mean, it’s 2020, so my appetite for Cop!Max is definitely at an all-time low, so the idea of exchanging his job with Kyle’s was extremely appealing. At least Kyle is a POC holding the badge, not a white man like our canon. Anyway, politics aside, this story is special to me for the scorching good Isobel/Kyle relationship that develops, the way Isobel sharpens herself into a lawyer (not an event planner) and how Michael rounds his own edges off in turn by becoming a teacher (and being secretly married).  Each deviation from canon made complete sense once you alter the way Rosa’s death affects the pod squad, and how they covered it up ripples out toward Liz, Kyle, etc. 


Layer on layer, down on down by @dotsayers (9,440) I love sci-fi tropes, especially time-loops, but they are incredibly hard to write (I know, I abandoned mine a while ago) so this story stands out because of just how well done the execution is and also the angst. Michael in a time loop about Caulfield, like how great/agonizing is that? The plot is so good, how it ties into Caulfield and why it happens in the first place, like wow.  The care, and the hurt, and the fatigue that Michael has in this story, oh you just want to wrap him in a blanket. There’s a tiny throwaway line about how one of the first things Michael learned to do in foster care was to make himself heavy and unmovable- and you instantly picture kid!Michael not wanting to be removed from a house - like my heart broke! The structure of the story, with the background of his just how much he loves Alex but how badly it hurts to see him die, really makes this study of 1x12 special. Along with all the angst, there’s tiny gallows humor lines, so am I weird, that I laughed through a couple of these scenes even as Michael kept dying?

Petty pace by @aewriting (11,600) Aewriting has a couple of stellar AUs, so trying to pick just one was difficult, but I rather feel this story is sadly underappreciated it (mind the tags). It was a remix of @iwontbeyourmedicine ‘s fantastic ‘Freaky Friday’, where the humans and aliens swap roles. Alex in the role of Michael basically was something I had never pictured until Ly wrote that story, and now feel utterly changed by it, especially with this backstory- the idea of Jesse Manes bringing a foster child home? Incredibly well done because there’s an off the charts level of menace in this story. The way Jesse watches Alex, who at first mistakes it for how a pedophile might size up a victim, but then catches on quickly that it’s so much worse in a lot of ways. And Alex is such a loner in the beginning, even as he reconnects with his pod siblings Liz and Maria, he’s still planning on keeping his head down and leaving Roswell far behind. Like freedom is literally the only thing he can conceive of for himself, no real dreams outside of that until Michael slips under his defenses. I probably could have saved this story for angst day- because the second half of the story, if you don’t sob while you read it, then I dunno. It’s helpful to read Ly’s story right afterward as a reminder that things do get better for Alex ten years later. In a lot of ways this story is sadder than canon (though there’s no murder of Rosa/4th alien), I’m comforted that at least Alex has Liz in the aftermath, alike in heartache in a way that Michael didn’t have because of the pact he and Max made about Isobel in canon.

Unexpected tidings by @bestillmyslashyheart (24,800) Another rewrite of canon, that explores a couple of very interesting questions, like what would it look like if Michael never made it back to Roswell as a kid but met Alex by chance in 2008? Imagine the cornerstone of the Lost Decade love affair revolving around the mundane questions of a long distance relationship that wasn’t built on the pain of the shed or Rosa’s death? Marlo writes an amazing take on this, that is both real and deep with the normal couple problems, before introducing that spanner in the works of oh yeah, aliens are real. With Michael on the east coast, and Alex finishing off his service in Roswell, Project Shepherd still entangles Alex with Liz bringing him in on the secret in hopes that with his hacker skills he can track down the third alien child that Max and Iz remember so they can warn him. As interesting as the current plot was, I found myself absolutely revitted the slow piecemeal reveals that Marlo doled out about Alex and Michael’s relationship over time. (I also while rereading this recently got very nostaglic for season 1 Alex who didn’t trust Jesse as far as he could toss him.) 

Don’t Punish Me For What I Feel by @winged-fool (3,600) Tarsus IV AU - another wonderful author with a catalog of great AUs, both sci-fi and dark, and honestly it was difficult to narrow it down to one. This story, well in 2009 I was a hard core Trek movie fan, so when I saw a trek-fusion story appear, I knew I would love it just on that basis. The thing is, this gave me Michael as the Captain, a surprisingly rare role for these space fusions, even though genius level repeat offender Jim Kirk and genius level repeat offender Michael Guerin seems pretty married in my mind as a connection. As a Tarsus-like story, all the tags are well earned by the story that Alex finally shares with Michael. It hit on so many levels, the hurt/comfort level for sure, but also to have a story where Michael is this stalwart protector of Alex was really nice to find. 

this isn’t the ‘holiday best friends championship’ by @usbournejez (6,090) alright to leave this on a lighter note, my final AU rec is this masterpiece by Kieran that was part of Malex Secret Santa gift fics- and what a gift it was to all of us! The way she writes established Malex is first-rate, because she always includes their canon-levels of snark/sharpness but it’s never directed at each other and that’s something I love. Here we have Alex, where we learn in just a few short lines, is a huge control freak but has the extremely big emotional handicap, and that’s his love/fondness/deserve to caretake Michael. Emotional cactus Alex who is soft for Michael? Love it. There are small drops of angsty backstory peppered in this, but really that just fuels just how sweet and wonderful the main theme of the story- which is Alex might hate the whole world at large, he loves, protects and worships Michael (and vice versa). As someone who can bake cookies, but that’s about it, I was still enthralled with the baking details and this story has never failed to encourage me to eat dessert before dinner basically. 

[anasticklefics]

Tickle Cheating

Fandom: Star Trek

Characters: Jim Kirk, Leonard McCoy

Summary: Jim tickles Bones. It’s what he DOES. So how does one react when you see someone else tickle your usual victim? Like a mess if you’re Jim Kirk apparently!

A/N: I blame @fickle-tiction (are you HAPPY?). Also I don’t know how hospitals work don’t yell at me. Might rewrite this idea with lee!Jim because he has my heart.

Also does this whole fic and my author’s note have a general chaotic air about it or am I going crazy haha?

Words: 3 124

The first time Jim noticed it was when he dropped by the hospital to deliver Bones’ lunch that he’d left at the kitchen counter of their shared dorm room. Entering a space that was oddly both chaotic and completely still at the same time, the general air so suffocating that it was no wonder Bones was exhausted each time he returned from a shift. Jim grinned at the receptionist, unsure of where the med students where and if he was even allowed past a certain point and if so, “would you or someone give this to Leonard McCoy?”

But the woman, hair framing her heart shaped, incredibly kind face, met his grin with a smile and told him he could go right in.

“If someone stops you or you can’t find him, simply ask if someone can leave the box in the kitchen.”

Her words sounded scripted in a way that told him this probably happened more often than not, and he thanked her and left. Up three stories with the elevator to the floor she’d directed him toward, footsteps echoing around the empty corridors, until he eventually found a more chaotic environment in the form of the emergency room.

How many times had he been here just that semester?

“Kirk!” someone Jim recognized from the Academy called out, glancing up from a clipboard. “What have you done now?”

Jim rolled his eyes. “It’s been months since… whatever. Do you know where Bones is? McCoy. Whatever you call him.”

“I tend to call him Leo.”

“That’s weird. Do you know where he is? He left his lunch.”

The guy, unnamed for now and the rest of eternity, pointed his thumb in the direction of yet another corridor. “Third door to the right.”

“Should I just go in?”

“They don’t have any patients in there right now.”

So Jim went, wondering if he was breaking any rules but feeling extremely ready to get out of there.

He saw it then. The small room - do they perform surgeries in there? - with a bed and a table and four windows and five people, all on top of each other with Bones in the middle. All talking, simultaneously grave and cracking jokes. Familiar, whether they wanted to or not. A job where you couldn’t be timid of bodily contact; eating and sleeping almost in each other’s laps. Jim looked at Bones, saw how easily he moved with elbows in his guts and people breathing down his neck.

He also saw his face light up when he caught sight of Jim.

“I brought your lunch,” he said meekly, holding it up, and if Bones was the type to profess his undying love for his friends, Jim was sure he would be going down on one knee right now.

“I’m only gonna say this once,” he said later, having entered their dorm as Jim had been nearly falling asleep over his homework. “You bringing me food literally saved my day and I will grant you one wish as a reward.”

And Jim, exhausted, lonely and closer to the verge of tears than he would’ve liked, demanded cuddles.

In their years of living together Jim had never asked for cuddles. He always wanted to, but whatever physical affection he had a tendency to hand out to his friends like a way too common gift, he always stopped before they could get mad, and therefore always stopped before he felt satisfied.

“I just want a good fucking cuddle,” he was saying now, his tone too desperate for it to sound like a joke. Bones, bless him, didn’t comment on it.

“Let me take a shower and change,” he only said. “Trust me, you don’t want whatever my clothes have.”

Jim nodded, suddenly feeling too vulnerable, too exposed, so he ducked his head back down, eyes on his books. Listening to every sound Bones was making, thinking he was being both too quick and too slow, and when he finally returned Jim was fully aware of it, but pretending to be too engrossed in his work to notice.

“You wanna cuddle now or later?” Bones asked, so casual about it that Jim knew he’d never manage to get a single thing done for the rest of the night.

“Now,” he said, standing abruptly enough to nearly knock his chair down.

Bones grabbed it, his face a mix of amusement and concern. “Right then. The couch? Movie night?”

“Sure.”

“Want to pick the movie?”

“You go ahead.”

“Okay.”

Jim tried to shake the sudden awkwardness out of his limbs as he followed his friend into the living room area of their tiny dorm, realizing this was probably a bad idea. They hadn’t even touched yet and he was acting like a total fool.

“We don’t have to do this,” he blurted out, causing Bones to stop in his tracks. “I don’t know why I asked for it. I’m over it. I was just tired. We really don’t have to.”

“Jim.” Reaching out to grab Jim’s arms, Bones gave his flesh a squeeze. “Breathe. It’s fine that you asked for it and we don’t have to do it if you’ve changed your mind, but if I really didn’t want to myself I would’ve said so.”

Jim deflated. “Promise?”

“Jesus, you must be exhausted. Yes, promise.”

“It’s just that-” Jim wasn’t sure why he was trying to explain when Bones hadn’t asked for an explanation in the first place. “-I saw you at the hospital and you seemed so okay with being physically close to people and I feel like I might die if nobody holds me for, like, half an hour-”

“Jim.”

“-and I know it’s part of your job so I don’t want to overstep-”

“Please shut up for a sec.”

Jim did, but only because Bones had said please.

“I don’t necessarily enjoy having my personal space so violated,” he continued. “But of course I don’t mind you doing it. You’re my-”

“I know,” Jim said when Bones trailed off. They had no words to describe what they were. “So I shouldn’t be jealous?”

“Absolutely not, but mostly because you act like an idiot when you want something you think you can’t have.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You act like a petulant child.”

“Oho, is that so?”

Bones ruffled his hair. “Go back to being timid. It was cuter.”

So maybe Jim didn’t pay attention to anything that happened in the movie and fell asleep in Bones’ arms ten minutes later, Bones’ fingers squeezing at various places on his body to get him to “relax for fuck’s sake”. Maybe he couldn’t picture himself falling asleep in an empty bed again for weeks. Maybe Bones was really fucking good at cuddling.

Waking up sweaty with Bones’ knee pressed to the small of his back later was a whole other thing. “Hhng. Get off.”

“You’re nearly on top of me.”

“Feels like I was hit by a truck.”

“You snore like a goddamn-”

Jim somehow managed to roll over and press his face into Bones’ neck. “Shh. Too loud.”

A spasm went through Bones’ body, convincing Jim he was trying to throw him off the couch and making him resort to clinging onto his torso for dear life. “N-no.”

“What was that?”

Bones was, miraculously, laughing.

Jim tried to crane his neck to get a glimpse of his face, but he only succeeded in pressing the top of his head beneath Bones’ chin. “Okay, what is happening right now?”

Bones said something incoherent, his words slurred with sleep and higher in pitch with laughter. His hands were clawing at Jim’s back, unable to get a good grip of his shirt and therefore only managing to lightly tickle him, which was kinda nice actually.

Wait.

“Oh, this is tickling you,” Jim said, laughing into Bones’ skin as if this was a group activity. “Hey, I didn’t even know you were ticklish.”

“I’m not,” came the strangled denial.

“Hmm, I think you are. Otherwise this wouldn’t bother you.” He spidered his fingers up Bones’ side, noticing the squirming getting a notch more desperate the closer he came to his friend’s ribs. He paused just beneath them. “I’ll make you a deal. If you don’t react to this I’ll believe you’re not ticklish. Okay?”

“Jim, you fucking-”

Jim jabbed him in the ribs and nearly lost his hearing from the shriek that left Bones’ mouth.

“Ah, so you’re ridiculously ticklish, then?”

Bones cursed and managed to slip his arm out from beneath him, placing it against Jim’s chest, but not pushing him off.

“And you don’t mind this? I see.”

“I’m gonna kill you, James Tiberius-”

“Don’t you middle name me, Leo.”

Years passed. They graduated. Jim somehow became a captain and got a ship. Bones for some reason decided to work on said ship, bestowing Jim with his constantly shifting moods for the next five years. Not that he complained. Was literally doing the exact opposite. And, all the while their lives changed and kept changing, Jim kept tickling him nearly daily.

“Don’t fucking tickle me in front of others,” had been Bones’ one demand disguised as a request.

So Jim didn’t, but kept it behind closed doors as they always had. The image of Bones being physically close to others always prompting him to demand cuddles, now that he wasn’t ashamed of this dire need anymore. And, more often than not, he would slip his hands beneath Bones’ shirt and make him laugh uncontrollably for a few minutes. He wasn’t sure how it had become a part of their routine, but he felt that if he didn’t get these intimate yet playful moments as often as he could he would shrivel up and die.

“You’re a drama queen,” Bones had said more than once when Jim had complained about them not having gotten any alone time.

“You literally beg me to stop when I’m barely even touching you,” Jim countered each time. “Don’t call me a drama queen when you’re just as bad.”

Bones would only wave a hand at him, having gotten out of the habit of blushing over his sensitivity years ago.

Something else that had become more common than they probably realized was how often Jim brought him food into medbay. Sometimes it was breakfast, snacks, his forgotten lunch or dinner. Other times it was just a drink, just as an excuse to stop by. Sometimes he came empty handed.

That day Bones truly had forgotten to eat, his empty seat painfully loud in the cafeteria. Jim knew his habits more than anyone and knew he wouldn’t eat unless food was visibly presented before him, and so he filled a tupperware with everything he knew Bones liked and skipped through the corridors, suddenly feeling like he was back at the Academy again.

Bones wasn’t alone, but he rarely was. The crowded hospital rooms had been replaced with him and Chapel dancing around each other, sometimes with more than one crew member present; arms and legs and chests and heads laid out for Bones’ magical fingers to heal, or so they hoped. Jim had lied there more times than he could count, so he was highly familiar with the nooks of this part of the ship.

Bones was standing on a stool, which made Jim stop in his tracks before he announced his presence, greeting dying on his lips and being replaced with a grin. Whatever Bones was trying to reach, it seemed to be just out of reach and he was grumbling as he kept stretching.

“Do you need a hand there?” Chapel asked, her tone playful while Bones let out an unprofessional curse.

“Can I borrow some heels?” he muttered, and she laughed, all familiarity due to working together in such close proximity for years. It wasn’t elbows in guts or naps in laps, but Jim recognized it from his crew on the Bridge. It was impossible to not grow close.

“It might help if I make you jump,” she continued.

“How the hell will you do that?”

Jim was almost proud of the fact that he didn’t let out any sound as he watched her reach out and poke at Bones’ ribs, just at the spot that could make him scream with laughter. It was a coincidence, it had to be a coincidence, how the hell could she know.

Bones didn’t squeal, but he didn’t pretend as if nothing was happening as he had learnt to do back in school, partly because back then people never meant to tickle you if they tried to get past you quickly and had to grab your waist. Chapel did indeed mean to make him squirm.

Jim watched his arms shoot down, swatting at her with a laugh so relaxed this really truly couldn’t have been the first time she tickled him. It really truly couldn’t.

Other people tickled Bones. Bones let other people tickle him.

He started backing away, lunch box forgotten when he literally bumped into Uhura who was coming from the opposite direction. The tupperware flew out of his hands as he let out a gasp in surprise, the food littering the floor only a second later. Things were a bit chaotic after that, but maybe because everything was overpowered by his frantically beating heart, that really had no business freaking out but there they were.

“I’m so sorry!” he heard Uhura say over his own incoherent babbling, the two of them crouching down to clean up the mess while Chapel and Bones kept repeating that “it’s fine, we have a broom, please get off the floor” that Uhura eventually listened to while Jim had to be pulled upright by Bones who was laughing, only to start frowning when he realized just how truly stressed out Jim was by the whole situation.

It wasn’t even about the food, but.

“I’ll go get you some more before they close the cafeteria,” he said, heart in his throat, threatening to spill out among the food on the ground, and who knew what that treacherous heart would reveal. “Really, it’s fine,” he said, leaving them be and rushing to the first restroom he could find, finally allowing himself to calm the fuck down and breathe.

What a stupid thing to get upset by, but.

He heard someone enter the room, causing him to press his body against the stall like a coward, but Bones’ voice rang clear anyway. “Jim?”

He didn’t reply.

“Come on, I know you’re in here.”

“I’m peeing.”

“Right, well, I’ll wait until you’ve finished.”

“Okay, I’m not peeing.”

“I know.” A beat, and, “Come out. Please.”

It was always the please that got him.

“Before you ask,” Jim said, exiting the stall. “I was gonna go get your food just after this stop.”

Bones rolled his eyes. “I don’t care about the food. I mean I do, and it was really nice that you brought me some, but it’s a slow day and I’ll be fine.”

“Oh.”

“I wanted to see what was up with you.”

“With me?”

“You seem… I don’t know. Freaked out? Like something is wrong?”

“I see.”

“Jim.”

He shook his head, ran a hand through his hair, looked anywhere but on Bones. “I don’t know. The whole situation sort of shook me and now I feel weird.”

“You spilling the food?”

“No. Jesus, no. Just-” He waved his hand in Bones’ general direction. “You being tickled by someone else. It was weird being an onlooker.”

“You’re acting like a disaster because of that?”

“Look, you know I’ve acted worse about tamer things.”

“You’re so stupid.”

Jim snorted, finally meeting his friend’s eye. “I’d love to have this conversation-”

“Stop lying.”

“-but I have to head back. Got a ship to run and all.”

Bones rolled his eyes. “Fine, but I’m bringing this up tonight.”

Jim patted his shoulder as he passed. “I’m counting on it.”

It didn’t mean that he was looking forward to it, however.

“Ugh, just get it over with,” he groaned when Bones entered his quarters, looking rather alert, pointing to a calm rest of the day.

“Don’t sound so excited about it,” Bones deadpanned. “We’re gonna talk about my sensitive spots, after all.”

“I love your sensitive spots.”

“Focus.”

“I just thought it was something only I did to you, that’s all.”

“You got jealous?”

“Maybe a little?”

Bones relented. “You’re being-”

“Ridiculous, I know.”

“And kind of endearing, but I’ll only say that once.”

“You say many things once. Doesn’t mean I’ll forget them.”

“Oho, you’re kind of asking for it yourself, you know.”

Jim threw up his hands. “Tickle me, then. This whole day’s weird and backwards anyway.”

“You know I would never take your job.”

“Chapel did.”

“Oh, come on. As if you’ve never tickled anyone else before.”

Jim huffed, crossing his arms. “I never said my reaction was logical.”

“You gonna tickle me or not?”

“Are you asking me to?”

Bones did flush then, so rare nowadays. So wonderful. “Shut up. Just shut up.”

Jim barked out a laugh, already approaching him. “Stay still.”

“You know damn well I won’t.”

“I do, but it’s fun watching you struggle.”

“You sadist- wahait!”

Jim cornered him and pushed him down onto the couch, fingers already working over his hips, a spot he was certain no one else knew of. A spot that could make Bones scream so loud Jim had to stop out of fear of accidentally killing him.

Usually he was gentle, starting slow to make him giggle, but Bones had technically tickle cheated on him and that just wouldn’t do. Pinning him beneath his thighs, Jim dug into the sensitive spots, Bones’ clothes doing nothing to help him whatsoever.

Oh, how he laughed. Not a quick little inconvenienced laugh as he squirmed away, but a proper, desperate belly laugh. This was theirs and only theirs. Jim the only one Bones trusted to know this intimately. He was grabbing at Jim’s wrists now, but despite his strength he wasn’t pushing Jim away. Merely steadying himself.

Whatever they were and whatever they had, it always had and always would include this.

“I should tie you up and torture you,” Jim teased, even though he’d never immobilized him during this and only tickled him for a couple of minutes at a time, but Bones had once become a stuttering mess when Jim had threatened this and he did love a flustered Bones, after all.

He was laughing too hard to stutter, but the way he was shaking his head told Jim all he needed to know. His words had left a mark and whatever he did now, wherever he touched, would be more ticklish than usual.

He got to work.

[sebkijk]

Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021) - Movie Review | SebKijk

This movie review was originally published on: https://sebkijk.nl.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is finally here. I can joyfully say that this movie has been well worth the wait. This movie is truly amazing. Not only is this my favorite DC Comics movie since The Dark Knight, but it is also one of my favorite superhero movies of all time. I’m just going to say it. Zack Snyder’s Justice League is also one of my favorite movies of all time. It is currently my number one movie of 2021. I have to limit my enthusiasm so I don’t just type in capital letters full of joy, but nonetheless, I’m going to fervently tell you why this movie is simply epic. My thanks to Warner Home Video and Day One MPM for their cooperation and screener copy of the film.

Synopsis Zack Snyder’s Justice League

In Zack Snyder’s Justice League, we see how Bruce Wayne is determined to make sure that Superman’s ultimate self-sacrifice was not futile. That’s why he teams up with Diana Prince. Together they try to form a team of meta-humans that can protect the world from an upcoming threat of catastrophic proportions. The task proves tougher than imagined for Bruce, as each member must deal with their own demons before they can form an unparalleled team of heroes together. United, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash may not be up to the task of saving the planet from the cruel plans of Steppenwolf, DeSaad and Darkseid.

Snyder’s Vision

I want to take a moment to talk about the making of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. This film is the director’s cut of the 2017 American superhero film Justice League. It’s directed by Zack Snyder – duh! The film reflects the original and true vision of director Zack Snyder. Zack Snyder outlined his visionary foundation for the DC Extended Universe with his films Man of Steel (2013) and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice(2016). Snyder’s original plan was to create a five-film arc. The films Man of Steel and BvS were to be succeeded by a Justice League trilogy. Snyder’s original vision was to show the dark and epic mythological side of superheroes.

This did not please everyone – including myself. I am not exactly a fan of Man of Steel, but I could appreciate BvS. However, I have only seen the theatrical version of this movie and not the Ultimate Cut. This ultimate version is also, according to many, the better version. After seeing Zack Snyder’s Justice League, I have also been itching to see this Ultimate Cut. Batman v Superman was mainly poorly received due to its dark tone, slow pace and lack of humor. Distributor Warner Bros. reconsidered changing the tone of the upcoming DCEU films, including the Justice League film which at the time was a month away from shooting.

Reshoots & other Difficulties

The shooting of Justice League began in April 2016 and concluded in December of that year. Months later, multiple versions of Snyder’s Justice League were shown to Warner Bros. executives. These executives considered these versions to be unwatchable. For this reason, Warner Bros. hired director Joss Whedon. Whedon had worked on superhero movies before. For example, he is the director of the Marvel Studios films The Avengers (2012) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). He was hired to rewrite the script and help with extensive reshoots. CEO Kevin Tsujihara determined that Justice league should not exceed two hours in length, and Warner Bros. also decided not to push the release date. This made it more difficult for the filmmakers to finish the film properly. Zack Snyder was expected to film the scenes that Whedon rewrote.

They worked together until Zack Snyder’s daughter Autumn killed herself in 2017. Zack Snyder continued working on Justice League for two more months to distract himself, but finally stepped down in May. His wife – and producer of the film – Deborah Snyderalso left the project. Whedon took full control of the production, although Snyder retained directorial control. It is estimated that Whedon’s version used about 10% of the footage Snyder shot. Composer Tom Holkenborg was also replaced by Danny Elfmanmidway through post-production. The scenes Whedon wrote or reshot for the theatrical release had a different tone and more humor. In addition, the level of violence was reduced in Snyder’s darker direction.

#ReleasetheSnyderCut

More than 90 minutes of Snyder’s footage was removed, but the result still remained the basis of the story. Although the initial cut was poorly received by test audiences, the early screening of Whedon’s cut scored as high as the first Wonder Woman film. For this reason, Warner Bros. decided to go ahead with it. Justice League was released in theaters in November 2017. Many critics and fans were disappointed. The film was described as one in which the work of two different directors – with competing visions – totally failed to come together. Warner Bros. lost about $60 million with this film, according to Deadline Hollywood. Fans rebelled against this version of the Justice League film and created an online petition to see Zack Snyder’s vision of the film.

The movement to see the Snyder Cut continued to grow tremendously on social media under the hashtag #ReleaseTheSnyderCut. On May 20, 2020, Zack Snyder announced that his version of Justice League would be released on HBO Max in 2021. Fans around the world reacted to this news with enormous happiness. Additional scenes were shot in October 2020 that featured cast members such as Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill and Ray Fisher. In January 2021, it was announced that Snyder’s version of the film was completely finished. So this film has a long history, but how glad I am that this film still came out.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is DC’s Crowing Achievement

Zack Snyder’s Justice League feels like an epic comic book movie adaptation that evokes profound emotions. The film may be longer than 4 hours, but the strong quality makes it feel even too short. Snyder put his full vision and passion into his version of Justice League. The film is full of scenes that you’ll have not seen before. These are not only incredible action or mythological scenes, but also storylines where more empathy is generated for the characters. All the main and supporting characters are more strongly underpinned with backstories and motives in this film. Even a weak villain like Steppenwolf is much better fleshed out in Zack Snyder’s version of Justice League. As a viewer, I almost couldn’t believe it, but Steppenwolf genuinely came across as a danger to the heroes. In the 2017 Justice League film he looks and acts like a joke.

The villain’s design may be slightly over-the-top, but in terms of visual effects and CGI, it is certainly as good as the Marvel villain Thanos. Zack Snyder’s Justice League feels like DC’s epic. This is their answer to franchises like the Marvel Cinematic Universeand The Lord of the Rings. Zack Snyder’s Justice League is grandiose, spectacular and exceptionally deep. For example, the character elaborations are so good that as a viewer you start to care about fairly weird DC characters like Cyborg and Aquaman. Your empathy is not only created by the strongly written story and great acting. The camera work and editing also provide many symbolic shots that develop the characters.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is the Better Version

Take for example shots where Cyborg is looking out of a broken window. This symbolizes the fact that this is a broken character with a damaged view of the world. Each superhero gets a chance to steal the show, in that each character is much more fun and better than the characters in Whedon’s version. The Snyder Cut is simply a dream come true. Not only for Snyder, but also for the fans. For those who weren’t already aware; in my opinion, Zack Snyder’s version of Justice League is way better than the 2017 version. The film may be very long (and, according to some, slow), but this does not take away from the fact that the added material has a purpose. It doesn’t just consist of extra fan-service scenes.

These new additions serve a purpose and do not feel like a weakening of the material. On the contrary – it strengthens the entire film and its supporting characters. In Joss Whedon’s version, the superheroes only come together because it’s a superhero movie. In Zack Snyder’s version, the choices and motives are so much better substantiated. As a viewer, you believe that these characters must come together to stop the enemies. This is due to the sincerity of the new scenes. You get to see how these characters must learn to appreciate and understand each other. You get to see how they must learn to function as one team. According to some critics, the story still does not feel earned. The reasoning behind these criticisms rests mainly on the idea that all the characters should have been worked out in solo films first.

Unnecessary Criticism and Minor Flaws

While I can appreciate the idea of previous solo films, I personally think this is bad criticism. It is not based on what the end product is, but on what the end product should have been according to the reviewer. In my opinion, this is not how (film) criticism should work, even though I sometimes understand the urge to review like this. Of course, every reviewer is free to write however they want. The problem is that these critics allow their written opinion to be presented as the truth, when in fact it is their personal opinion. Still, I must say that I (also) have some minor problems with Zack Snyder’s Justice League. For example, there is an overuse of slow-motion scenes in the first and last hour of the film. This can get quite irritating at certain points, but that’s a personal taste issue.

In addition, the CGI and special effects don’t look quite finished at some points. For me, these are the only two minor points that I would like to criticize. Other than that, I for one thoroughly enjoyed Zack Snyder’s Justice League. Also, the work of composer JunkieXL is simply brilliant. It brings together musical themes from different films and characters perfectly. The acting by the entire cast is top notch. In this movie I particularly enjoyed Ray Fisher, Ezra Miller and Ben Affleck. The powers of the superheroes are also used to their full creative potential. This makes for spectacular scenes full of action and suspense. After watching Zack Snyder’s Justice League, I have a huge desire to re-watch Man of Steel and BvS. It has also created desire where I hope Zack Snyder gets to continue and finish his vision for this franchise.

Conclusion

Normally I write an extensive conclusion, but I only want to say two things briefly now. My thanks to Zack Snyder. Not only for creating a top-notch movie, but also for continuing your original vision. And also I hope Zack Snyder can make his two other Justice League movies. In short – #RestoreTheSnyderVerse.

★★★★★

[marvelousstevetony]

Destined (For Happy Endings)

I’ve been working on this fic for a while, but I never really got around to finishing it. But I did now, and I just want it out, lol. I might come back to it in the future and edit or rewrite parts of it, but for now... well, this is it.

This is set the night before the Avengers go back in time to reverse Thanos’ snap. Steve and Tony have a conversation that’s been a long time coming.

5,1k, Steve/Tony + angst with a happy ending

***

Of all places, Tony was in the communal kitchen. He had been in the workshop most of evening, but then he went down for drink, needing something to calm his trembling hands. They just wouldn’t stop shaking. It’d been a while since he’d felt this nervous, this scared. Well, a few years, at least.

It was way past midnight, the rest of the team probably lying in bed, overthinking everything that was going to happen only a few hours later, just like Tony was. They all tried to keep composed, act unbothered, but everyone knew they were just trying to cover up what was hiding beneath the surface; the fact that they were all scared, terrified, of what they were gonna face.

Sure, they knew where they were going. Tony, for one, had been mentally preparing for going back to 2012 the entire day. It’d been more than a decade since whole flying through a wormhole and saving New York thing, but he still saw it every once in a while, even after everything he’d seen since then; Cap’s shield being smashed into his chest, feeling Peter’s body dissolve in his grip, being stuck in space while believing he was going to die. The point was, Tony still had nightmares about all of those things, and knowing he was gonna be face to face with the thing that had started off his anxiety made him… well, anxious.

So he’d done everything he could to make sure he’d be fine when the time came. He was just working on the finishing touches on the newly designed suits, but it would’ve been so much easier if his hands would just keep still. So yeah, a drink it was.

The kitchen was dark, quiet. Only the weak light from refrigerator Tony hadn’t bothered to fully close and the sound of his breathing gave any indication of activity. He hadn’t even taken anything from the fridge, just vainly rummaged through it before opting for a glass of whiskey. He didn’t know how long he sat there, sipping at his drink and staring out into nothing but his own hallucinative visions, but apparently long enough for someone to crash his one-person party.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping? Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.” Tony jumped and turned to see Steve leant against the door frame, arms crossed, a tired smile playing on his lips. That was such a dad-pose, Tony thought, such a Steve-pose.

Tony rolled his eyes and sighed to himself. “Thought I’d had enough of your lectures, Cap. You’re awake too, by the way, unless you’re sleepwalking. You’re not sleepwalking, are you?” Tony said drily and Steve looked to the floor with a humorless huff of a laugh.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to- I’m not judging,” Steve mumbled apologetically, then eyed the chair next to Tony. “Mind if I join you?”

“Be my guest,” Tony muttered and made a gesture for Steve to take a seat.

Steve scrubbed his face as he sat, rubbing harshly at his eyes before settling his glance on Tony. “I see you’re still a night owl,” he commented, referring to all the times he would stumble upon him, staying awake all night, working in the lab or simply drinking coffee in the kitchen by himself.

“Some things never change, Cap.”

As soon as the words had passed his lips, Tony felt something inside him churn, because isn’t that ironic. Everything had changed — that’s why they were here. Tony didn’t know if it was comforting knowing that he, maybe, still was somewhat like he’d been before everything; the accords, Siberia, the battle against Tha-… the battle, went down, or if it was exactly the opposite of that.

Maybe it was just Steve’s presence that sent a wave of nostalgia, a longing for the past, through him, and it annoyed him deeply that Steve still had that effect on him, because Tony had changed in the last five years. He had. He was out of the city, living in a small house, he had gotten married, and, hell, he’d had a daughter. And, okay, maybe his and Pepper’s relationship wasn’t like it used to, which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It was just more like they were clinging onto each other because they had nothing else to keep them sane in a world of insanities. Maybe he didn’t feel the same way when he went to bed like before, and he knew Pepper felt the same, but that didn’t mean they loved each other less, just… differently.

But Tony was happy, for the most part, living like this. Like he’d said: I have my second chance right here.

“You alright?” Steve asked, snapping Tony back to their conversation. He must’ve fallen quiet, deep in thought.

Tony opened his mouth, but shut it just as quickly. He was just about to let out his usual reply, always, as he’d insisted so many times previously, but, for maybe the first time in his life, he took a second to actually think about his answer. God, he really had changed. He sighed and looked into the blue eyes he once had known to be so familiar. They were still just as beautiful, just as piercing, just as kind as they’d always been. But, somehow, they seemed… different. Tony wondered how long they had been like this. When Tony looked into them he saw Steve, but not the one he knew. This one was sadder, emptier, than he remembered the soldier.

Steve had always been sad, to some degree, in a way Tony couldn’t quite understand. Sometimes Tony forgot that Steve was actually just a kid when he went into the ice. All Steve had wanted was to serve his country, to be of use and no longer be a sickly child. And Steve, being the self-sacrificing and too-admirable-for-his-own-good idiot he was, had crashed the plane into the Arctic with no intention of waking up in a whole new world where everyone he knew was gone. Then he got some of it back, Bucky, and though Tony felt betrayed that Steve chose Barnes over him, he tried to understand Steve’s reasoning despite not agreeing. Tony carried the freaking flip phone everywhere, because he couldn’t let go of it, no matter how stupid he thought it was. And then Tha-… and then they lost. And Steve lost his best friend all over again, lost Sam, lost the twinkle in his eyes and maybe that’s why they’re so empty and goddamn sad.

By watching and knowing Steve, Tony somehow learned that being alone and being lonely is not the same thing. Tony thought back to the fanciest galas and biggest PR-events, to the team movie nights and training sessions, and pictures of Steve’s face flickered before his eyes. The distant glance, the creased forehead and the smile. Steve would always smile, because even when everything was shit, Steve felt the need to reassure everyone around him that it’d be fine, that he’d fix it. And Tony might not be genius when it comes to people, but he could tell a fake smile from a real one from miles away. After spending years pretending and perfecting his façade, he was practically an expert on the matter.

He could tell by the way Steve’s jaw clenched too hard, the way his lips were pressed firmly together, the way the corners of his mouth forcibly twitched, and the way that his eyes just never beamed. He could be standing the largest crowd either of them could imagine, but no matter how many people Steve was surrounded by, Tony could feel the loneliness radiating from Steve miles away, exuding it like it was his own natural scent.

But Steve never complained, never whined or whimpered, never asked for anything, and Tony hated that Steve never needed them, never needed him. He never wanted backup during mission, Tony remembered faintly. He didn’t want anyone worrying over him, not even when he nearly died out on the field. He never let anyone take care of him. He was always just fine on his own, and Tony felt like he’d been stabbed in his chest whenever Steve would shrug off the pain and act like he was happy when he clearly wasn’t.

But Tony just had to come to terms with it: Steve simply didn’t trust him. Not in the way he had wanted him to, at least. And honestly, all Tony could think about, all he wanted to do when Steve wore that characteristic melancholic frown, the line right between his eyebrows, the heartbreakingly unhappy smile, was to suck out every inch of sadness from Steve’s body.

And now more than ever, the sadness was physically visible in Steve’s expression, and Tony had never been good at dealing with emotions, not his own, not other’s. But in a few hours, all of this wouldn’t matter, and Tony didn’t have it in him to just… act like he was okay. In all honesty, he didn’t really know what he was. So that’s what he said;

“I don’t know,” Tony straightforwardly thought aloud. “I actually really don’t have an answer for that question.”

“Tony Stark at a loss for words. Wow. So I’ve successfully managed to stump you, huh? Who would’ve thought,” Steve smiled, still sadly, because that’s just how Steve was.

Tony huffed a humorous laugh. “Yeah, well, don’t get too cocky now, Rogers. It’s been a long day, my wits don’t come as easily when I haven’t had my coffee.”

“Or slept?”

Tony rolled his eyes again. “You said you weren’t judging.”

“I’m not,” Steve replied solemnly.

It was quiet for a while, a heavy silence settled over them. Steve was nervously twiddling his thumbs, biting his lip, while Tony just stared into space. It seemed like no more words were to be exchanged but then Steve spoke up.

“Are you scared, Tony?”

“About tomorrow?”

Steve nodded weakly.

“I mean, yeah. I am. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”

He swallowed thickly. He’d never actually admitted it, not out loud at least. But the words just slipped out through his lips like confiding in Steve was the easiest thing he’d ever done. He didn’t remember that ever happening before. It was the alcohol, he was sure.

“Are you?” He heard himself ask.

Steve inhaled deeply, holding his breath for a few seconds. “I… I don’t really know, to be honest. I think I’d be stupid not to. But I can’t let my fears of what could happen keep me from doing what’s right. Not again.”

Tony didn’t know how to respond to that — wasn’t quite sure what Steve meant by it. He just kept quiet instead.

Steve’s knitted his brows together in thought, visibly trying to decide how to continue the conversation. It took him a while, but at last he drew in a long breath and opened his mouth.

“Ever since what happened… happened, I’ve been… I’ve been trying to figure out how to move on. Grow,” Steve started, eyes low and aimed at his quivering hands. “I tried to help with the clean-up until everyone just… gave up, I guess. Nat and I tried our best to keep the team together, or what’s left of us. Tried going back to normal. But nothing every really did go back to normal, did it?  I um- I started a support group. Sam used to lead one, I don’t know if you knew that, but he did. A-and I thought that even if I couldn’t move on, maybe I could help someone else. I don’t know if it worked, but I think Sam would appreciate me trying.”

“You know he would,” Tony said before Steve could continue his ramble.

The blonde looked up, revealing his suddenly watery eyes. Tony thought he saw something that reminded him of gratitude, but he wasn’t quite sure. Their eyes only locked for a split second before Steve’s glance snapped back to his hands.

“It’s just- I don’t know what my purpose is anymore.”

“I think we all lost some of our purpose when Tha-,” Tony stopped half way through the name. He sighed. Why couldn’t he just say the goddamn name? He gritted his teeth, squeezing his hands into fists. “When Thanos won.”

It felt weirdly relieving, Tony thought, after finally saying the Titan’s name for the first time since he’d returned to Earth all those years ago. Like had he been stuck under the moon that had been thrown at him and then suddenly released. An odd lightness after getting used to the heaviness. Maybe that’s why he suddenly gathered the courage to demand a better answer from Steve than I don’t really know.

“Y’know, you always were horrible at lying, Rogers,” Tony said instinctively, but then a sudden flash of reminiscence crossed him, of hard metal slamming into his chest, and he nearly went on to retract. Steve’s expression was unreadable, but Tony knew they shared the same thought.

Tony drew in a sharp breath and continued. “What I meant was that I want a better answer, an honest answer… Are you scared?”

Steve seemed to consider this for a long time, gnawing at his bottom lip, eyebrows knit together as if he was having an inner conflict with himself. Then he huffed and shook his head weakly.

“No, I’m not. I should be, but,” he shrugged and smiled humorlessly, “I don’t really have anything left to lose, right?”

“Right,” Tony said quietly. Something about the tone of Steve’s voice was despairing in a way Tony couldn’t bear, so he drew his eyes away from the man opposite him.

Steve appeared to notice Tony’s withdrawal and he quickly spoke up.

“Tony, I- I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think-“

“What are you apologizing for?”

Steve swallowed. “Sorry, that was just an insensitive thing to say… I know that you and Pepper have so much now, I know I dragged you into this, and I-I shouldn’t say stuff like that, shouldn’t be that inconsiderable.”

“No. No, I don’t— you’re good, Cap, really,” Tony said and he felt like he meant it. “I won’t lie and say this isn’t a big risk. I have a lot on the line, but if I have the chance to save something. Someone,” he corrected as  a the voice of an awkward teenage boy played in his mind.

Mr Stark? I don’t feel so good.

He swallowed thickly and felt the hairs on his arms raise.

I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go, sir please-

He had to shake himself, squeeze his eyes shut, to rid himself of the haunting voice.

“I have a lot win, too,” he explained, not wanting to go into any more detail. He couldn’t. At least not if he didn’t want to have a complete meltdown in front of Steve, who seemed to take the hint.

“Okay. Thanks… But I am sorry, Tony.”

Now, Tony nearly laughed despite the tension. Steve had always been unapologetically himself and with good reason. He was usually so stubborn and headstrong it made Tony want to throw up. But right now, Steve seemed insecure, uncertain, goddamn nervous, and, sure, Tony had gotten better at self-control, but he was still Tony Stark, and he couldn’t help but comment on it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you apologize that much. Something change within the last few years?”

Tony had meant for it to be a joke, but in hindsight he knew he sounded petty and unfair. He wanted to reverse what he said, but Steve beat him to it.

“I should’ve done it earlier. Apologize I mean,” Steve clarified.

Tony didn’t know how to respond, his mouth opening and closing a few time before settling on hanging slightly agape.

“I’m sorry, Tony. I am so sorry for all the pain I caused you. I don’t regret defending Bucky. He didn’t deserve to be locked up in a prison. But I do regret not telling you about your parents… I don’t think I’ve ever regretted anything as much as I do that. And I, um, I tried to let you know. To apologize. I sent you a letter, there was a phone as well, I don’t know if-“

“I got it,” Tony confirmed and something inside him twitched, a peculiar sensation that he couldn’t quite place anywhere else but in his chest. It was uncomfortable and fiery, and definitely not positive.

“Oh. Okay-“ Steve started, but was quickly cut off again.

“Why?” Tony asked, his voice filling with rage as pictures of the letter and the stupid flip-phone flickered through his mind. “Why didn’t you call?”

Steve frowned and yet, his features were still soft. Vulnerable. “I didn’t think you’d want me to.”

Now, Tony actually laughed. A spiteful chuckle rolled off his tongue and he could almost taste the venomous bitterness of his next words.

“I hated you-“

“I don’t blame you,” Steve concurred, his gaze dropping to the floor.

“I hated you. I hated the letter. I hated that goddamn flip-phone that, by the way, I carried with me every single fucking day, waiting for you to be the bigger person, because you alway were. You were always so good and righteous and so fucking perfect it made me sick.”

Steve bit his lip.

“I didn’t want to reach out in case you wouldn’t respond… I- I couldn’t bear the thought of you choosing to avoid me, even though you had every right to do so, so I just decided… not to. I thought I’d rather just not know in case I didn’t get the answer I wanted. And I’m sorry for that, too.”

“Back at it again with the apologies,” Tony rolled his eyes for what seemed like the twentieth time that night.

“You deserve more than a hollow apology, Tony.” Steve’s voice was way too earnest, way too sober, saying it like that. Like he would be satisfied if those were his last words. “I wish I could offer you more, wish I could show you how badly I wanted to press that call button, how much it has haunted me all these years…”

Steve trailed off and looked back up at Tony through long, thick lashes, blue crystals sparkling with pained hope. They were still so characteristically sad, Tony knew them, or at least he used to, because now there was something unfamiliar flickering in them. Maybe it was the moonlight that shone on them through the large glass panels, or the moisture that gathered at his bottom lash line that made Steve’s eyes look so vulnerable and sincere.

The remorse cascaded from Steve’s eyes. He didn’t have to say anything for Tony to picture how the nagging feeling inside Steve’s chest had been silently killing him for years. Tony could see it very clearly; how the regret would come to him in quiet moments, such as when he fruitlessly fought to fall asleep, or when he sat alone in the back of a diner, drinking cheap coffee that was bitter on his tongue, yet not bitter enough to extinguish the lingering taste of guilt.

Tony saw how the regret washed over him like slow waves on a shallow beach, how each wave was ice cold and sent shivers down his back. How he longed to turn back time and make a different choice, the right choice. How he envied the the pebbles, unbreakable and lifeless, unable to sense the stabbing agony Steve felt in his bosom.

Tony could see it all, he could feel it, and it made his breath catch in his throat. He knew.

“I know,” Tony breathed, voice barely more than whisper. “I know you’re sorry.”

Tony only realized Steve had been holding his breath when he exhaled slowly, his shoulders dropping, a small amount of the pinched expression bleeding out.

“And I’m sorry too, by the way” Tony said, voice surprisingly steady. “I, uh, I’ve got a lot of regrets as well… guess none of us are completely innocent, right?” He gave a one-shouldered shrug and tried for a wry smile.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, Tony, I can’t ask that of you,” Steve shook his head, eyes still so serious it made Tony uncomfortable.

“I know,” Tony said. “But if tomorrow goes south I at least want to go with a clear conscience. So I’m offering an olive branch.”

Steve was quiet for a bit, and Tony was nervous he might decline, but then he smiled, sadly, but it was real.

“Thank you, Tony. I don’t deserve your forgiveness but… thank you.”

Tony swallowed thickly, then nodded. “You’re, uh, you’re welcome, Cap… it feels kinda good to do the right thing,” he said, a sigh of relief slipping past his lips.

Steve snorted a laugh, a sound Tony had missed more than he cared to admit, but the smile that began tugging at the corners of his mouth was telling enough.

A peace had settled upon the comfortable silence of the kitchen. The air no longer felt so dense and suffocating, and Tony allowed himself to actually breathe for a few seconds, risking at glance at Steve. The tightness in his chest he had felt every time he looked at Steve for the last seven years had eased. He no longer felt angry or betrayed, he didn’t have the urge to scream, to cry. He just felt… calmness.

It was almost paradoxical how he felt this relaxed just mere hours before what could be the most dangerous journey of his entire life. The calm before the storm, he thought to himself and found that he no longer feared the storm.

“I think I’ll go to bed. Catch some Z’s before tomorrow,” Tony explained as he raised from his seat. Placing a hand on Steve’s shoulder he gave it a squeeze and smiled, genuinely and warmly. “I’m glad we had this talk, Steve. If one of us— I’d hate for us to end like that.” It didn’t even feel foreign to say us anymore. It just glided past his lips like had they never parted ways.

“Goodnight, Steve,” he said and left for his quarters, but before he had even exited the kitchen, Steve called out.

“Tony, wait!”

Tony turned back around with a curious look on his face.

“I, um… I just want to say a few things before you go.”

Tony nodded curiously, urging Steve to continue.

“I, uh, didn’t really sleep. After Siberia, I mean. Not so much after the snap either, but mostly it was because of what happened at the Hydra Facility. I spent a lot of time thinking, about you… about us. I always told myself that if I got the chance I would tell you how grateful for you I am. For always being so hospitable to me, even before I moved into the Tower. For making sure I was okay and for caring about the team more than you cared about yourself.

And, uh, for all those things I said when we first met… I know the scepter was messing with us, but I want to apologize for that, too. You’re a good man, Tony, and I’m sorry I dragged you back into this mess of a life. You deserve to live your life with your family and not have to worry about another alien invasion. You deserve to be happy. If something happens tomorrow… Just know I’ll do everything in my power to keep you and your family safe, even if I won’t live to see it. Whatever it takes.”

Steve was out of breath, heart racing, the sound of its pounding ringing in his ears. His eyes were desperate but soft, and Tony was left speechless yet another time that night. And goddammit, Tony thought, how did he do that? Tony was always ready with a comeback, a witty reply. But tonight, standing in front of Steve Rogers, whose eyes were older than Tony remembered but still just as sad, just as beautiful, whose smile was small and shy and just for Tony to see, whose voice was warm and addictive and sounded like home, Tony’s mouth went dry, and he had to bite the inside of mouth to make sure Steve’s speech had left him numb.

Steve must’ve thought Tony wouldn’t react, because he just flashed a thin-lipped smile and looked down at the kitchen counter like he expected Tony to leave for good this time.

But Tony was still standing like a dear in headlights in the middle of the quiet kitchen. Had Steve just admitted that he’d die for Tony if it came down to it? Tony thought that was what he meant, and it made him uncomfortable, made him want to cry.

“Don’t say that.”

“I mean it.”

“You shouldn’t…” Tony bit his lip and shook his head. He couldn’t get himself to finish that sentence.

“Shouldn’t what?”

“You know what I mean, Steve. I don’t want you to… to sacrifice yourself for me.”

“But I’m willing to. I want to-”

“Steve,” Tony breathed sharply, like his throat was restricting.

“Please, don’t take this away from me. This is what I was meant to do.”

“You were meant for more than this, you know. You were meant to be more than a soldier. You are more than a soldier, and I hate that no one told you this,” Tony said, honestly, because it was the truth. “You were meant for— for picket fences and slow dancing in the living room, even though you’re a horrible dancer. For baking apple pies and watching your grandchildren play in your backyard. For living.”

“I was never destined for a happy ending, Tony.”

Sharp daggers speared their way into Tony’s chest. He couldn’t take it anymore; couldn’t take any more sorrow, couldn’t take another look at Steve’s despairing face.

Steve’s life had had an awful lot of endings.

If anyone asked, which they probably wouldn’t as Tony and Steve were the only people there, Tony did it out of sympathy. He did it simply because he wanted the sadness gone, or at least to pause it for a second, even if it meant getting pushed off and punched in the face. But Steve did neither. Instead, he melted into the gentle touch of Tony’s lips on his.

Tony had kissed a lot of people in his life, but none of them kissed like Steve did. Steve was hesitant but generous, tender and compelling. Their lips were a perfect match, like fate had sculptured them for this exact purpose. When they drew back, Tony’s lips felt cold from the loss of contact, instantly feeling the urge to lean in again.  

“What was that for?” Steve asked in a fragile voice, but Tony could hear the smile on his lips.

“For happy endings,” Tony murmured against Steve mouth, replying simply, like it was an obvious answer.

“Tony—”

“I never actually hated you,” Tony clarified. “I thought I did, and I really tried to, but I… I couldn’t. I was hurt… Fuck, it hurt so bad. But then I realized it’s just like they say; the ones you love hurt you the most.”

As soon as the words had left his mouth, Tony stilled. He hadn’t meant to say that, he didn’t even know he felt that, but it came so naturally, as easily as falling off a log.

“Pepper…” Steve mumbled guiltily, an unspoken question hanging precariously on his tongue.

“She knows. Somehow, she always knows. More often than not, she knows even before I do.”

“But you love her,” Steve stated without a hint of doubt.

“I do,” Tony confirmed confidently. “I always will. I love Pepper the way I love Rhodey. The same way you love Barnes.” It took him a second to decide if he should say love or loved, but ultimately he ended on the former, because love doesn’t cease to exist even when the person you love is gone. Tony had experience on that matter.

“Because she doesn’t take your bullshit; is brutally honest with you even when the truth hurts; takes care of you no matter how stupid you’ve been? Because she’ll always be there for you, and because, despite everything else, she feels like coming home? Yeah, that’s… that’s Bucky,” Steve smiled to himself, every memory of him and Bucky, the good and the bad, flashing before his eyes.

“I love her — she’s the mother of my child and the one person I know that’ll never leave me. But we were never really meant to be. We’re family, but… we both know our love is purely platonic. We want each other to be happy, even if it means being happy with someone else. Mutual agreement.”

Steve went quiet, processing what he’d just heard, as Tony trailed his index finger over Steve’s parted lips. They were pink and soft, a bit swollen and wet from the kiss, but undeniable. Irresistible.

Tony leaned in again, silently asking for consent that Steve authorized. It was deeper and longer than the first, leaving them both breathless as they pulled apart and rested their foreheads against each other’s.

“Why now?” Steve asked. “It’s too late for us.”

“If tomorrow really is the end of you and me, whatever that may be… I want you to have at least one happy ending in your life. If you want that, I mean.”

Steve laughed wetly and nodded. Their faces were so close, Tony could feel the air that passed Steve’s lips.

“If I want that,” Steve humored. “That might just be the understatement of the century… though, I think I’d prefer if it wasn’t an ending.”

Tony’s smile stretched from ear to ear, and so did Steve’s. It wasn’t that the sadness had left Steve. Tony didn’t think it ever fully would. But Steve’s smile was wide and accompanied by eyes sparkling with hope, and god was that not the most beautiful thing Tony had ever seen.

“It doesn’t have to be, Steve. Not as long we stand together tomorrow. Just like we promised we would a long time ago.”

“I broke that promise, Tony. You know I did.” Steve murmured.

Tony took both of Steve’s hands in his, intertwining their fingers. They fit together perfectly, and just like with their kiss, Tony got the feeling this was meant to be.

“And yet, somehow, we ended up here.” Tony stroked the back of Steve’s hand with his thumb. “We’re gonna get them back, Steve. All of them.”

“How can you sound so sure?”

“Because we’re together,” Tony said like had he never been more sure of anything in his entire life.

Steve sighed, but it was relieved and pleased, and against Tony’s mouth, he mumbled, “Maybe I was destined for a happy ending after all,” before closing the space between them once more.

[strangetownsayit]

ok so um.......... .. . . ..

 i had a really bad time, went crazy and deleted all my maurice fics. Yes I have them in my notes and if someone wants them, I can send them to them, but still. i no longer feel confident about You Don’t Own Me and To a Happier Year.

but i feel bad and guilty bc then i remembered someone who left a very nice comment in my fic. maybe ill rewrite everything and publish it again, but not today and certainly not tomorrow. so ill explain my outline for the two fanfics cus i already had a ending in mind

before anything-- do i plan to write more maurice fanfic? the answer is yes. i hyperfixate very hard on maurice so ill never stop, but ill try not to make it public till i trust my bilingual capacities

 so, You Don’t Own Me

Percival Darsey is a young man who spend time in Penderleigh’s after having an encounter with Anne in the village next to Penge. He becomes Clive’s pupil bc of Anne’s desire, and so Percival bounces between them (wanting clive’s attention, then wanting anne’s)

Clive doesn’t really care about Percy’s attraction to Anne, bc he was sure it was silly love-at-first sight stuff. It was supposed to be explained later that Percy was really naive when it came to love. I actually had some dialogue written in my phone’s notes app to show how percy views were when it came to love and how easy it was for him to fall in love:

“I can’t do nothing but leave it to take me, Mr. Durham”, said Percy gently, with his back resting against the black slate of the roof; the light rays of sun --whose bright, blinding face was hiding behind clouds-- were worth coming the next day. “When someone smiles back at me, when someone touches my shoulder to get me out of the way, when they wish me a good day; I fall in love too easily, with many people. Approximately five times a day.”

“Many people?”, Clive laughed. “You mean, many women.”

Percival contemplated the sky a while.

“No,” he finally said, “many people.”

 Percival was supposed to be Clive’s opposite: excited about loving and be loved in return, excited to be discovered and being so happy with himself, he can barely hide it.

But when Percival got infatuated with a man, an acquaintance of Clive, Clive started to snap, to wander, to ask questions he could’ve never asked before. But Percival had nothing to hide anyways, and this would make Clive distant

Resume: with time Percival would’ve become closer and closer to anne’s circle, and thus he would’ve grown tired and exhausted. Bc Percival is autistic, and he has very little spoons (a metaphor about being autistic), meeting new people every day, being dragged to social compromises and being treated as some sort of servant that these rich ppl needed for entertainment, he would’ve suffered a meltdown and avoid Pendersleigh for a while

But bc Percy is not dumb, he would’ve returned bc he needs to eat, and bc of his neurodivergence he couldn’t keep jobs that were mostly aimed to neurotypicals. So when he came back, he decided to stay in Clive’s side. He found comfort in his cases cus all he needed to do was ignore Clive and sleep and little lol. And so this was supposed to be the first step to develop their relationship: Clive being interested in percy now that he has discover Percy likes men as well, Percival feeling drawn to Clive. They get to know each other and eventually, they fall in love.

But ofc everytime Clive perceives a hint of flirt, he panics and back off, bc hes an I—HSHFS- NOO- WAIT—LMAO DLFAOF—IM SO SHY--- gay, and Percy is a ;)) bisexual, so they keep flirting a good part of my outline.

But then BOOm I planned Mrs Hall to visit clive. And so clive wouldve remembered everything with Maurice, feel bad, and reject percival once for all. Percival cries a lot and anne thinks he is sick bc he has an uncontrollable sobbing, but then he escapes again

Clive has some awful months and Anne notices. She knows, but at the same time, she doesn’t: she knows Percy and Clive had a cute dynamic and relationship, she knows they loved each other, but she cant notice the homoerotism they had, and so she goes on looking for percival

I shpuld add that even tho I didn’t outlined this, there was a subplot exploring Anne’s bisexuality. I was working on how to do it when I deleted the fanfic

She finds Percival and discovers that he lied this whole time: his real name is Daniel Darcy, son of Mrs. Darcy, a middle-class woman who fell in disgrace after her husband escaped with his lover. It is revealed that Percival has many brothers and is the youngest of all, being 22. It is also revealed that he have been running away from home and coming back since he was twelve. His mother openly talks shit about Percy and it is hinted that Percy is a  Bastard, a product of a love affair.

There was a silly joke I had in my notes app:

“Many years ago, Mr. Darcy ran away from us, in the gay nineties”, he spat, struggling with laughing and bitterness. “Gay, my mother hates the word, just like she hates me and everything that is stunning.”

Then Anne wouldve told Percival about Clive but he wouldve stop her and ask her to go. But he wouldve return to penge a few weeks later cus he a dumbass who doesn’t value himself. Then he and clive wouldve kissed in the rain while he sees percy in the darkness of the night at penge’s garden, but then percy wouldve been like “lol bye” bc he just wanted to let clive know that he loved him too and that he would be back in the morning.

Fluffy ffluffy fluffy flufly

Then BOOM Maurice makes an appearance, telling clive everything about what happened with kitty, then asking for money lmao so he and alec can look for another place, and he tells clive that didn’t anywhere else to go. At fisrt Clive says no but then percy manages to persuade him into helping Maurice, who is surprised to see Clive with a man. Clive and Maurice have a nice chat, clive apologizes and cries and then the next day Clives calls Risley and cries too and say something like sorry I wasn’t there for you yoy didn’t deserved to go through that and it was so unfair, and then he -in  a very subtle way- apologizes to anne. And thus Clive is clean of guilt

But then Clive and Percival have a fight bc he wants to participate in Clive’s life but Clive refuses. Angsty angsty angsty. Percival reveals he was promised by his mother his part of the heritage if he married and became a proper gentleman. He tells clive he will accept his mother offer if clive keeps being ashamed of him

Clive wants to be with percival but he sees himself in another drama, so he does what is easier: letting Percival go.

But percival didn’t expected that shit to happen ?? as extra as he is, he thought clive wouldve comfort him and kiss him. .. .. . . .

Bc he doenst know anywhere else to go, and doesn’t want to get married and hates his mom and he would hate it if he became clive, he goes with Maurice and Alec CUS HE WANTS THEM TO BE HIS DADS ¿’¿’’93 me too bitch get in the line

So advices advices advices. Percival has a clearer mind and he runs his way up to penge

So kisses kisses kisses, he and Clive are in love nd stuff. JUMP TIME, Maurice and alec live in France and they are Percy’s and Clive’s neighbors. Anne is looking for adventures and kisses many women and many men. Everyone is happy YAY I can cope

TO A HAPPIER YEAR

Ok I am a little tired I want to sleep jdswiow io

So Clive’s durham first love. Fluffly fluffly fflufy

It cover events during the movie (clive being tired of bullshit after Christmas vacs).

Bc clive is an asshole, he ignores Quinn (his first love and stuff]) and quinn wants to know why he is being pushed aside and why is clive so distant. But then he discovers it and wish clive luck

JUMP TIME they are both in their 36 and clive is miserable during a trip in Italy. They both meet during said trip, reconnect romantically,  and HAPPY YEAR YES EVERYTHING IS HAPPIER THE YEARS HAPPY ENDING WHATEVer. I swear it is cuter Im just very sleepy now lol