#just a bit of a cautionary tale. and definitively

[punkpandapatrixk]

🕷Awakening Your Femme Fatale — Timeless Pick A Card

Why would you allow undeserving asses to look down on you when you are a literal Goddess? Every woman has that Lilith sleeping deep inside; just waiting for the right temperature to unleash her HOT GIRL POISON🕷

SONG for all piles: Forgive Me by BoA

MOVIE for all piles: Death Becomes Her (1992)

[PAC Masterlist] [Part 2] [Part 3]

[Patreon] [Paid Readings]

Reading guide 1: My readings are always unisex, but Lilith in astrology is a definitively fatalistic Female archetype. If you identify as operating more on the Feminine energy, this PAC could be about what's hidden or awakening inside of YOU~💄Or, if you resonate with being attracted to the Feminine energy, this reading might shed a light on the type of ‘dangerous woman’ you tend to recklessly fall for… or secretly fantasise about🙃

Reading guide 2: Some of you may be wondering why Death Becomes Her is a movie vibe for this PAC, due to the fact that our main characters do not end well at all😜It is a cautionary tale of when Lilith goes berserk beyond control. When Lilith has no self-control, her sense of rivalry towards women and disappointment in men cause her to become a reckless danger to herself as much as she is a menace to everyone else. With great power comes great responsibility. The characters in that movie were not responsible the slightest bit except that man (Bruce Willis kyah!) who eventually came to his senses🤷🏻‍♀️Remember, not all men are as idiotic as they appear to be🤭

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 1 – Amorous Manipulator

VIBE: Kimi ni Muchuu (crazy about you) by Utada Hikaru

your hidden poison – 8 of Cups

Are you aware of the fact that people tend to run to you for comfort? Something about you draws people in; you seem trustworthy, protective, reliable and strong, and they feel cared for in your embrace. They feel understood. You provide a sense of camaraderie. Little do they know, you really don’t care that much. You’re just nice, kinda. You like to chit chat every now and then. But you’re usually crunching numbers in your head—thinking how best to use these people for later purposes.

You’re cool, detached, and calculating about your every single move. You never really show people what’s going on in your private life. People can’t figure you out as you seem flighty… more like, elusive. You’re like a bird or fish ready to escape anytime the temperatures around you get burdensome. Deep down, you feel like you’re the one who wants to run away from these clingy admirers. ‘I don’t understand why they keep following me!’

Thing is… you’re kinda hard not to notice, you know. No matter what type of beauty you are—and you might as well be cute as a rabbit—there’s an animal magnetism about you. People want to please you and gain your validation. In essence, you have the natural ability to attract a lot of simps! How you deal with that, entirely relies on your wit.

your potion of seduction – Ace of Pentacles Rx

Sometimes you feel suffocated about the way people view you. But everyone behaves irrationally nervously because you’re too blindingly hot for the average person. You break down people’s sensibility, rationality, and wit. You leave those you’ve kissed witless for days, weeks even. Because of your nonchalant hotness, some people fantasise about keeping you to themselves in the dark. People… fantasise about you a lot. Like, a lot. All kinds of things they would be embarrassed to let anybody know—unless they’re sinfully shameless—which tends to only increase their nervousness when they see you again.

Due to the degree of people’s endless fascination with you, you may not be inclined to entertain just about anybody. But sometimes, you see a few intriguing fools amongst your admirers and think to yourself, ‘Ugh, I need entertainment. Let me amuse myself with these fuckers and see what happens.’ The results are often devastatingly hilarious. Those who chase you end up looking pathetic in your eye.

Those of you who are more empathetic sometimes feel a bit sorry that people crave your attention—your company—that much when they should know better not to expect anything remotely sincere from you. But those of you who don’t remotely care, gosh dang, it’s all just a silly game of winners and losers. And you, will never end up the loser in this game of manipulation.

Realise to RELEASE! – Queen of Wands Rx

There’s something almost evil in the way you perceive a sense of rivalry with those whom you perceive as being on the same level of hotness as you. It pisses you off when your puppets are looking at someone else and praising them for whatever low-quality beauty/charm/behaviour you find distasteful to yourself. But hold on, I’m not saying you’re entirely the bad bitch for feeling this way every now and then, because… The truth is, some fucks really be doing you dirty by praising others in the presence of you!

There are those who feel dreadfully intimidated by your unmatched beauty and charisma that they—ever so stupidly sneakily—try to bring you down by elevating others in such a manner. Hoping they’d be able to witness your feeling uncomfortable because that would bring them the greatest sense of reclaiming their power from the grip of your hypnotising sensuality. Honey, you don’t even have to be the prettiest gal in your country, people still perceive your beauty as unmatchable because of your inimitable attitude!

Eh, if you’re totally in control of yourself, you don’t compete. You know there is no competition. How can there be? There can be only one you and nobody can emulate what you do. Like for real for realzz nobody can. Have you noticed that not even those close to you have any idea how to imitate your behaviours? You’re some kind of unreal hotness that’s on a whole of another level.

Lilith’s Revenge🔻💙

Scorpio’s secret transformation – Silver Magus (Merlin)

Pluto’s command for control – Priestess of Protection

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 2 – Dangerous Temptress

VIBE: Run Devil Run by Girls’ Generation

your hidden poison – 4 of Pentacles Rx

At some point in life, an ass you would’ve trusted with your safety left you for dead when you needed shelter/protection/assistance the most. This kind of scenario might’ve been a recurrent pattern in your life. Constant abandonment and betrayals that have caused you to believe you’re very unlovable. People’s sharp knives of rejection made you realise you’ve never been anybody’s most important person. You’re never anybody’s top priority. That realisation hurt you so much but also gave birth to your almost dangerous courage now to face any kinds of hardships.

In this world, there is no challenge scary enough to stop you from getting what you want. You’ve survived the scariest chapters of your Life—you’ve dealt with periods of lack, cold and nothingness that would’ve killed most people; what could faze you now? You’re a motherfucker daredevil and people know that. People can see your nonchalant courage and they’re frightened as fuck. You notice nervousness in their eyes all the time. You know they think you’re reckless, but they don’t know your story. And you don’t care, obvi.

You’re fiercely independent. Through abandonment and neglect you’ve learnt to refine your manifestation skills. Now, there’s nothing you can’t have through your own efforts. You don’t need anybody and never will you need to rely on another only for them to let you down. You’ve got all your own bases covered and there’s still more to be hedonistic about. You’re royal, almost scary to the people who are way below you. They may worry that you’re being irresponsible with your resources. But you don’t care; you’re nonchalant AF. Easy come easy go, baby~ There’s always more to make.

your potion of seduction – Page of Cups Rx

Clearly, you’re a hard worker on top of being extremely intelligent. That’s how you managed to bring yourself to such safety after everything that’s happened in the past. There was simply so much lack and restriction it was literally embarrassing what the world had delivered to your doorstep. But now, the fact that so many pretty and expensive things come easily to you intimidates people and they might secretly feel envious of you. They will never say it out loud though, since they want to be on your good side—because they know they could benefit from your royal attitude when it comes to your spending.

Something about you spells CrAzY to a lot of people. Even the dullest dumbest ass can intuitively sense that you’re a daredevil for whom there’s quite literally nothing you’re too afraid to do/attempt. And you exude this dodgy aura that announces to everybody you’re not the bitch to mess with. Unless they wanna risk getting burnt by you. Your feelings run deep but you don’t let your emotions get in the way of your achieving your goals. To others, it almost looks like you’re a heartless temptress no man could hurt.

Your secret though, is that you treat practically everything in life as a Game. Whether you’re having fun, working hard, or dealing with tough situations; it’s all a Game you do not intend to lose. But all games require a loser, and you don’t even care if sometimes you lose a game or two; it doesn’t bother you. It’s all play and the world never runs out of Games anyway. There’s always the next thing to entertain yourself with. This do or die attitude of yours captivates everyone as much as they’re terrified of your fiery but cold intellect.

Realise to RELEASE! – 6 of Wands

A lot of people watch you and they form opinions around your public conducts. You know you command attention—both the bad and the good. Does it bother you though? Well… sometimes. When you’re not on your best day and you have a lot of sad thoughts, you get irritated, a little, that people only see the bad in your conducts. You want to burn every single one of them to ashes and never deal with people anymore. But you are so singular in your beingness, what can you do about it?

People talk about you because they know if they were to talk about themselves nobody would be interested. You’re the most interesting creature most people have ever known! Whatever you do, you’re on top of your game. And you always allow yourself to come first. To you, you’re your most favouritest person ever. Yeah, that’s a mouthful but say that again🤪You are your toppest top priority, and this is a hard skill to get because most people have never learnt how to survive on their own the way you have.

You’ve been to low places others wouldn’t survive in; they can’t understand why you are the way that you are. Who cares though. Live and let live. You’ve got your own abundance to take care of now.

Lilith’s Revenge🔻❤️

Scorpio’s secret transformation – Red Geographer (Marco Polo)

Pluto’s command for control – Priestess of Innocence

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

Pile 3 – Glamorous Destroyer

VIBE: Monster by Red Velvet - IRENE & SEULGI

your hidden poison – 5 of Cups Rx

Are you some kind of god? Well yeah, you ARE a Goddess! I sense you’re so otherworldly in that you’re not typically one who dwells on the past or even regrets that much, if at all. The world is so vast and it keeps spinning, there’s always a new day for a positive mind for braving new territories. You’re already a master at spiritual/emotional healing, but maybe… it’s also because you’re not so feeling.

You’re a realist, to say the least. You look at the world glass half full and everything that’s run its course, you let go without a care. You move right on to the next entertaining endeavour. In fact, you devour all of life’s little and big pleasures. You’re jet set; you don’t even plan that carefully. Details in plans bore you, you would rather do the deed first, then see what the experience gets you. If it falls short, you leave on the spot to find the next interesting thing… or person. You leave people high and dry. You don’t even give a fuck how that makes them feel. You have other people lining up for you to fuck over.

You are the epitome of a cruel femme fatale. You’re this uniquely powerful individual who has like the strongest mentality ever. I’m sensing, either you’re a very young person who has the most advanced Soul wisdom/perspective ever, or you’re very advanced in Life (age wise) and have learnt a lot of lessons that have made you the indestructible Goddess that you are today.

your potion of seduction – Knight of Pentacles Rx

You are unpredictable to a lot of people. Like, they can’t really figure out what your next step would be. One minute they’re certain you’re this typa person who’d choose this typa action, only for you to choose that typa shit no one would’ve guessed you’re that type to do that. There’s always an element of surprise to you. Some love it, some hate it. You attract an equal balance of curious followers and cowards who want to quickly run away from your hot mess.

Those who can’t see through your web of exaggerated narratives are deep in your clutches, they can’t escape your poison—they want your poison—until you decide you’re bored with them and toss them aside without having given them the high they thought they’d get. A few who do get the high…you’ve kinda ruined them in that now you live in their minds forever. And you’re a bad dream for those poor souls.

Now they can’t stop thinking about you but no longer can they ever have access to you. You’ve taken them to that guilt trip and it lives with them for the rest of their lives. Not only in your story, but in their story, too, they’re the villains who have disappointed or hurt you and caused you to toss them away👏🏻

Realise to RELEASE! – Queen of Pentacles

You’re actually super capable of taking care of yourself. But something about the way you look or speak or tell a story is very unassuming. Maybe you’re tiny and cute; maybe you wear dainty accessories or adorn yourself with bunny or turtle plushies. Giving others the impression of a harmless fawn who’s in constant need of cuddles and support. Your admirers flock to help and serve you. They want to be strong and useful for you. They want to appear big in front of you. Help you get out of trouble’s way when YOU are the trouble.

People are usually slow to realise—if ever—that you’re a glamorous destroyer of people’s sanity. People easily melt at your soft, or high pitched, voice. Something about the way you express yourself is hypnotising and magnetic. People can’t get enough of you nor can they feel like they’ve proven themselves enough to you. People want your approval because you’re so beautiful and talented in a way they think they can never become.

People see that you are deep and knowledgeable. Flailing here and there, they find you mesmerising with the skillsets that you possess but lacking in places they think they can fill in. It’s like, they’re thinking to themselves, ‘She’s a 10, but…’ Those ‘buts’ are but lovely to them. And they’d be blind not to see how little fuck you give about any of their opinions.

Lilith’s Revenge🔻💛

Scorpio’s secret transformation – Gold Geographer (John Dee)

Pluto’s command for control – Priestess of Healing

Access full reading + cards on Patreon🌸

☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・. ☆♪°・.

[PAC Masterlist] [Part 2] [Part 3]

[Patreon] [Paid Readings]

#Punk Panda Pick A Pic #female manipulator #coquette #femme fatale #divine feminine #lilith #girlblogger #girlblogging #pick a card #tarot pick a card #pick a card reading #pac #tarot pac #pac reading #tarot community #astroblr #tarotblr #writblr #witchblr #witchcore #witchythings #witchyvibes #red #red aesthetic

[swallowtailed]

palisade 41

honestly don’t really know where to begin here.

because, like, we all kinda knew this was coming, right? odds were it had to happen sometime. now it has.

but there’s still a real cosmic unfairness to the timing of it. figure died right after they decided they didn’t want to. breaking the wheel of their resurrection is fine and all, but they fought so hard to escape clem and join perennial that it doesn’t really ring true to me.

hearing future in the same sentence reminded me that there’s another suite of definitions for figure, aside from the noun meaning shape or form—the verb meaning guess, consider, imagine.

i’m inclined to read future and perennial as two sides of the same coin—two views of the principality. future sees an inevitable road toward culmination, perennial sees that it’s all the same fucking cycle. also, future seizing on a moment of power from perennial and turning it to their own ends.

real gur just cannot catch a break. they’re stuck with future, inside their own reanimated corpse, guarded by the shell of figure? some real eternal torment there.

so, you know. shit sucks!!

i was really, really hoping eclectic would steal future, and it would also have been incredible for gur sevraq (who, as we know, stole the future) to be stolen from future, but the dice fall as they will

really interesting contrast between the two sides of this arc wrt divine/axiom/mortal/etc relationships. thisbe is guiding integrity and communicating with ebullience, building relationships across ways of being. figure is destroyed just by exposure to divine power, subsumed by the weight of a god rearing up on its own. the axiom being willing to treat with thisbe, the divine destroying figure. which is maybe less about those powers than about the hands moving them—instrumentalization as always a core theme of palisade. 

of course it is also a cautionary tale of the capriciousness of dice. if figure and gur had gotten to speak with future i can imagine it going more like thisbe’s side. but maybe not! we’ll never know.

characters being demanded to envision a future was one of my favorite beats in partizan and it was really cool to hit that again (and to call back to leap!). but also heartbreaking. cori, happy and safe…

aw fuck the crew’s still gonna have to find out that figure is dead… mortality of course goes hand in hand with grief. much like valence’s death i think the positioning of figure’s death is ultimately going to be shaped most by reactions to it

dre’s pc deaths are always so fraught, huh. valence and chine were also kind of messy, sudden deaths—no clean tragedy. which, like, is life, but also, ;-;

the music was incredible. like breathing. and the way the dirge just stops—blinks out.

eclectic drawing up the seismic power of opposition, his own power, was really moving. a bit of grace in that moment.

i’m not sure where they’re gonna go from here, especially in terms of character arcs. it’s a rough downbeat. kind of falls in line with the conflict turns, though—fighting back and forth down to the bitter end. might be a bleak finale although at least one more thing seems set to unfold in this arc so honestly who knows

incidentally, bets on that: the smell of computer parts immediately made me think of the nobel, but the mechanical whine heard across the continent made me wonder if it could be palisade waking up (/being woken up). either way, it’s definitely getting to be alarm clock time, right?? (on the other hand maybe this is just motion activating all across palisade, but a bunch of motion factories just got taken down.)

it’s nice that the a-plot crew were having a fun heist though. cori deserves an alise breka mission

tragedy-ass podcast.

#fatt #palisade #palisade spoilers #fatt spoilers #friends at the table spoilers #hello world #fatt lb #:(((((

[avelera]

"The Regime" (starring Kate Winslet and Matthias Schoenaerts) Episode 2 Review

So last week I gave my review of this first episode of this.... rather perplexing show. And this week, mostly out of morbid curiosity, I tried out episode 2 and thought I'd share my impressions of it.

Once again, let's start with the good:

Matthias Schoenaerts (aka, Booker from The Old Guard) is acting his face off in this. So is Kate Winslet.

That said, they are acting their faces off in completely different shows.

But it kinda works?

Hold on, wait a minute, let me start again, because like this show, I'm immediately completely muddled by how I feel about all this or what the fuck is going on.

Let me put it this way. I thought I was signing up for a sort of "Death of Stalin" political satire, with fictionalized object lessons that clearly applied as cautionary tales to modern political issues like Trump, or Putin, or the Royal Family or whatever, using a heaping side helping of comedy.

That's not quite what we got. And I think the people who signed up for that are going to be... at least a little disappointed. The comedy is absurdist and definitely relies on the cringiness of the big personalities involved. But for me, at least, there wasn't quite enough comedy to say this is, well, a comedy.

If you have historical familiarity with various historical regimes and dictators, you'll definitely get a "Where's Waldo" of traits and idiosyncrasies of various dictators all blended together into Kate Winslet's character as she portrays this fictionalized regime head. You'll get your standard cast of various Political Advisors all tutting over her actions and which way this fictional country should go.

But since it is fictional (it seems based heavily on Moldova as of this episode?) a lot of the political clout, to me, didn't exactly land because again, it's not based on real events so I really don't know where any of this is going or which decisions are actually good or bad in the long run.

And if the show was just going to be about that, I definitely would have quit out of it by now, pending good reviews of the finale somehow pulling everything together.

But now for the really unexpected bit.

Because if you signed up for a dark romance between an absurd, psychologically irregular, frankly bizarre would-be dictator who has the occasional moment of pathos, as played by the stunning and talented Kate Winslet, and her psychosexual relationship with her violently masculine, brooding, and supremely fucked-up self-appointed guard dog with the occasional moment of pathos, as played with dark and terrifying intensity by Matthias Schoenaerts, holy fuck do I think you're about to have the time of your life.

Like, I think the show wants to resonate with Veep audiences who are here for a cringey absurd political comedy, but I think the people who are actually going to be absolutely frothing-at-the-mouth obsessed with this show are like... your Reylo shipping Dark Fucked Up Romance people and Tumblr fandom in general who would really enjoy Villain/Sidekick or Villain/Bodyguard romances as seen when this Possibly Evil Dictator and her Possibly Evil Guard Dog/Advisor are being completely obsessed with each other, all with a rather small side of absurdist comedy as things continue to spiral and get gradually more fucked up.

Now, this is just my review as of 1.02. I have no idea if that's where this show is going because the problem I have with this episode is kinda just a slightly lesser version of the problem I had with 1.01, which could be a matter of taste, in that I really have no fucking clue what this show is going for or what it's trying to accomplish. It's not really laugh out loud funny. It hasn't really said anything political yet. We can't really tell yet what cautionary tales we're supposed to take away, if any?

But in the meantime, there's Winslet and Schoenaerts performing in completely different genres being darkly obsessed with each other and, y'know what, I might stick around just for the slow-motion-trainwreck fascination with whatever the fuck they've got going on.

#the regime #kate winslet #matthias schoenaerts

[wenamedthedogkylo]

Cuz yeah wait like... the Hishari were from Issylra. They were into a "darker path" than the Ashari druids. They were doing some hinky elemental shit that baby Ashton was present for and got fucked up from. The village was destroyed at that time.

Oh fuck this line from the wiki stands out to me: "Hishari was formed as a commune and centered around a charismatic leader who experimented with 'esoteric, elemental worship.'" And look I like Abbadina right now, but she's clearly a pretty charismatic leader based on how her little speech was going. And everything we've seen and been told so far about this path of the Loam and the Leaf definitely could count as at least a watered down form of "esoteric, elemental worship" what with those elemental Eidolons they commune with.

This village they're in rn has been here for centuries, and the Hishari village was destroyed a few decades ago. We have no info yet saying just how long the Hishari village was around before it blew up, but the fact that they clearly share a little bit of an old old connection to the Ashari makes me think they were around for a while. We also don't know for sure that everyone else in the Hishari was killed and that Ashton is the only survivor—there's every chance there were other survivors who escaped elsewhere in Issylra and integrated into other communities. And maybe some were easier to integrate into because they already shared some similar elemental worshiping beliefs.

Idk I'm not saying this town is a Hishari cult, it's just a little coincidental to me from a narrative standpoint that there's still a town of elemental worshipers on a continent where another town of elemental worshipers blew themselves up and became a cautionary tale for the temples to wave around and keep people in line. And that Ashton is now on Issylra for the first time since childhood, having been at the epicenter of that cult blowing themselves up. Like... I just feel like the Hishari influence is being felt here a bit and that's interesting af to me. It feels like a situation ripe for surprise backstory.

AND EVEN EMILY IS PICKING UP ON A POSSIBLE CONNECTION HERE WITH ASHTON SO LIKE 👀👀👀 Idk this was rambling and probably not very coherent cuz I was still trying to pay attention to the stream while writing but I'm already feeling a bit vindicated

#Critical Role #campaign 3 #cr spoilers #critical role spoilers #campaign 3 spoilers #Bree's stuff #about me #about Bree

[lateraniansweets]

flowers in the gun barrel

vash the stampede x f!reader

next || m.list

001: welcome to nowhere

Your mentor used to insist that gunsmithing is an art; that every gun made, repaired, and modified was a piece of art. The old coot had said that damned phrase over and over again, probably hoping to instil the same mindset into you.  

Too bad you never saw gunsmithing that way. To you, it was a way to make ends meet, a way to put enough food on the table. Art was for people with money, with dreams, not for some kid from a dusty town teeming with outlaws. 

Gunsmiths are essential in these small towns, for both locals and travellers alike but it was mostly travellers who visited the shop. Travel to the nearest settlement from this town would take two weeks of travel, give or take. Plenty of supplies and preparation were a must if you wanted to make it across the scorching hot sands in one piece. People bought bullets and had their guns checked out in bulk, usually travelling together in caravans in case of a run-in with gangs or outlaws or whatever the hell No Man’s Land’s desserts decided to throw at you.

Maybe it was that need for gunsmiths that became the source of your mentor’s pride, enabling him to fearlessly stand firm on the pricing of the wares sold at the shop even under the intimidating gaze of some shady sod trying to bully him into lowering it. 

A part of you looked up to the old man for that trait for personal and business-related reasons. Your mentor knew the worth of him and his skills and would take no less than that. 

But, for the most part, it served as a cautionary tale. 

The old man finally met his match, a customer —the old man didn’t like you calling them by any other name, with a quick fuse and a quicker trigger finger. One moment they were talking at the counter and the next the customer was exiting the shop with stolen items in tow, leaving you to clean up the brains splattered all over the shop’s hardwood floors.

Later that night under the view of the five moons the same customer had their brains blown out, crimson blood seeping into the sand. 

It has been years since that day.

Turns out you were a pretty good shot, a stealthy one too. You still keep the shop running but after a few incidents, the shop has developed a reputation. Put your hands on the owner, damage the place, or try to steal and you'll find yourself dead in the sands by nightfall. 

You’ve settled into a routine with the other townsfolk, they keep quiet about what you do to unsavoury customers and you’ll claim and share any sort of bounty they have over their heads.

Then it all upended when the humanoid typhoon came into town with trouble on his tail.

He walks into your shop, a dopey smile on his face and blue eyes hidden under the orange tint of his sunglasses. There’s sand all over him and you scrunch your nose as some grains fall down onto the hardwood floor. 

You just finished sweeping dammit!

“Hey,” he greets and you look up from the Milkor MGL you were working on.

“Do you need anything?” You look at him up and down, taking careful note of the lost tech prosthetic arm. 

This guy’s definitely some sort of trouble. 

“Uh, yeah, do you have any bullets?”

You school your features, trying to keep them in that neutral customer look you were known for. “What calibre?”

“.22.”

You wipe your hands on a stained rag and put aside the Milkor. You open the inventory book fingers flipping through the pages. You look at the red-coated man shifting his weight from one leg to another, observing the shop with a glint of fascination in his eyes as he takes in the guns hung up on the wall. You hope he isn’t one of those idiots coming from some rich family with more money than brains playing outlaw.

He's suspicious. 

You click your tongue and he stiffens, audibly gulping down a lump in his throat rather comically. “Ah.”

A bit weird… his expressions are too expressive. 

“Is something wrong?”

“We’re out of bullets of that calibre and we won’t be getting another shipment of .22s until the end of the week.”

“Oh.” He pouts and you almost feel bad for him.

Definitely too expressive. 

“Think you can wait a few days?”

He shakes his head.

“I see,” you press your lips together into a thin line, “I’ll check later if we have any .22s lying around out back. I doubt there’ll be any but I’ll try to look for you if I find any if you’re still in town by then.”

“Oh, uh, thanks!” he smiles, walking out the door red coat trailing behind him, “I’ll see you around then!”

You watch him leave before continuing to work on the Milkor, polishing it until you could see your reflection. While doing so you gather your thoughts, reviewing all the details you could recount in your brief interaction with the young man. 

He looked familiar, you’ve seen that hairstyle and smile before somewhere. You would've caught wind of him if he'd ever visited town before. With the way he was dressed and that prosthetic, he was bound to turn some heads. 

Could he…? 

You know you've seen that face before but what if you're wrong? What if it was just some weird sense of deja vu you had paired with just being extra jumpy today?

But it wouldn't hurt to check right? 

It wouldn't and you could have some peace of mind and the feeling you've been having was just nothing. 

Yes, it wouldn't hurt to check. 

 You finish polishing the Milkor and end up closing the shop early. Once you're done organizing and locking up you head into the storage room located right behind the counter. 

 The storage room was fairly large, making up for half the building's first floor, and was of course dark, dry, and cool. 

The light switch flickers on, dimly illuminating the room. There are crates of ammo, all different types of rounds and calibres stacked up in a corner with one of the crates clearly labelled with a ‘.22’, but you weren’t here for those. 

The walls of the storage room were all lined up with guns save for a single one. 

Wanted posters hung on that wall like some sort of collage, and a few posters had exes drawn over them indicating bounties you’ve ended up claiming over the years. 

You look at the countless faces of hardened criminals and among them is a smiling young man with an undercut and sunglasses. The wanted poster had the symbol of July City stamped in red, indicating the origin of the bounty

That's where you've seen him before. 

The same man that had walked into your shop earlier. 

You rip the poster from its spot on the wall, cringing as the sound of paper ripping reaches your ears.

WANTED

Vash the Stampede

ALIVE

$$6,000,000.00

Well shit.

how do i center text on tumblr pls help i kept trying and failing for almost an hour.

#vash the stampede #vash the stampede x reader #trigun x reader #trigun stampede x reader #tristamp x reader

[o-wild-west-wind]

I’m making an extremely spicy take for one second after seeing how divisive recent episodes have been and then I’ll be returning to our regularly scheduled programming but a truly double-edged sword of this show is that it doesn’t hand-hold its audience. It leaves a lot to subtext, it’s driven by themes over real-life morality (with different lenses of morality per character, even), it gives characters dialogue that contradict their actions, it operates in symbolism and metaphors; it’s very show vs. tell, as most well-crafted media is. And this is part of what makes it so addictive and compelling; you can spend hours dissecting it under a microscope. But it also means that if you’re watching this show literally, you’re going to miss a lot of its intention—and because the show implies but does not tell, it can be easy to take things at face value even when the implication is something else entirely (or else extremely nuanced).

This isn’t necessarily an issue, but I say all this partially because I don’t think it would be so uncomfortable for us POC to see Izzy’s lack of apology to Ed et. al if the harassment in fandom didn’t exist. Because we know that this is how the show operates—a lot is assumed off screen, and long beats of open dialogue aren’t really a thing compared to the way characters are tonally portrayed. Tonal growth speaks more than words here (basically, Izzy’s silent growth speaks volumes). But this show vs. tell/taking things literally is also why the harassment started in the first place—because people took the literal violence of the toe thing more heavily than the tonal presentation of the “this is Blackbeard” scene, for example. So on some level, it now feels a bit like the show needs to do something about a problem created by fandom itself.

Do I want the show to change all this and be more obvious about what it’s trying to say? Honestly, as a viewer, no; I personally think it would be way less impactful if it was. But it’s definitely a cautionary tale that I’m genuinely not sure how much the creative team is even aware of. And what I think is most important is that while you as a fan are welcome to interact with this show however you damn well please, there are 2 things to keep in mind: a) POC are a part of this fandom space too and their feelings and discomfort shouldn’t be steamrolled just because you love your meow meow (you can love him, even I’m growing to, but you’ve gotta be mindful!) and b) this show, while a rom-com, is also so much more than that—and while you don’t personally have to engage with the themes of toxic masculinity and the question of what it means to be a man, you have to be okay with others doing so (and yes, that does include critiquing and critically analyzing Izzy for his role in these themes).

#as usual I only speak for myself so if any other poc have conflicting opinions I am all for others weighing in #I also think there’s something to be said about a dip in media literacy in conjunction with Covid and everyone becoming chronically online #but that’s another post that I will probably never make #I hope this is coherent #ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd s2 spoilers #our flag means death #ofmd meta

[tarisilmarwen]

Rebels Rewatch: "Twilight of the Apprentice"

The shadow of Malachor looms in the very highly-anticipated Season 2 finale.

Right, so, technically I've already liveblogged this before and you can go here for some of my more, ah, realtime reactions.

(Spoiler alert: There was a LOT of screaming.)

So for this and other episodes that I've already reacted to before I'm mostly going to be focusing more on commentary and meta observations and also my favorite bits and moments, music and animation, that kind of stuff.

Let's dive in!

Ooh right off the bat we have the more serious version of the "Shenanigans" cue.

I know this exchange here between Ahsoka and Rex is a callback to when they first met. So a heart stab for TCW fans.

One thing I notice about Malachor right away is how dead it looks, even from space. Just a featureless plain gray marble.

We get down to the surface and it's even eerier. In the middle of a giant crater there's this wide, unnaturally glasslike smooth plain, only broken up by weird towering stone monoliths.

Malachor's whole aesthetic leans very heavily into the idea and theme of descending into the Underworld, into a place of darkness and shadows where the light can't reach. Somewhere underground, somewhere full of devils and demons lurking in wait, with many hidden traps and temptations to stumble over.

Like the one Ezra triggers by touching the monolith lol.

This really isn't a survivable fall but whatever.

The Sith Temple is actually kind of beautiful in a stark, harsh, Gothic kind of way.

This whole environment is really excellently creepy and ethereal. The ceiling above recalls a night sky, the holes like pinprick stars casting beams of light down. The palate is almost colorless, mostly grays and blacks with some splashes of red and white. The lighting is muted and dim, heavy contrast with the shadows. The music relies on dissonant chords. The sound effects are full of watery rumbles, voices whisper quietly that apparently only Ezra can hear.

Oh and there's the scorched ground and statues of people frozen in distress, like the casts at Pompeii.

"To defeat your enemy, you have to understand them." A sentiment echoed and repeated later by both Maul and Thrawn, and inspired by the writings of Sun Tzu in his Art of War. You have to figure your enemy out, learn how they operate and what motivates them, in order to beat them. "Knowledge" is another word they keep using this episode, our heroes need to seek knowledge about the Sith in order to figure out how to defeat them.

I'm still not quite sure what knowledge they were actually able to gain during this trip. Certainly the Force did basically slap the truth of Vader's identity in Ahsoka's face, to get her to confront it and break through her denial. There's maybe a lesson to be learned about not seeking quick, easy solutions to one's problems, which wouldn't fully sink in until "Twin Suns". (Ezra's obsession with finding "the key to destroy the Sith" can be traced straight back to the Malachor plot thread.) There's definitely a cautionary tale and warning about the nature of the Dark Side, that Ezra completely ignores due to his guilt and shame and self-blame.

On the surface level, technically, the mission does accomplish what it set out to do. All the Inquisitors we know about wind up dead, Vader no longer has any interest in harassing them, they keep the base safe. But boy the cost of it all.

It's probably really fitting that the finale takes place here on Malachor, a dead world with nothing left but stone remains and a creepy Eldritch Sith Temple housing a superweapon that must have killed everyone and everything on the surface, in the vein of The Deplorable Word or a nuclear bomb metaphor. The victory is hollow and meaningless, because there is no one left alive to appreciate it. Likewise our heroes' "victory" is pyrrhic and empty, they kill the Inquisitors but take more and heavier losses in return.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We haven't even met Eighth yet.

Hi Eighth!

He's not really developed or explored at all and is really just a generic episode-specific antagonist and ancillary to Seventh and Fifth, but he serves his narrative purpose in splitting the party.

Kanan's worried shout for Ezra after he falls. <3

Ezra looking very nervous here, don't blame him.

HI MAUL!

Oh man, the pre-finale trailers spoiled Maul's appearance and fandom was bonkers about it. (The pre-finale anticipation and hype was crazy man, so much over-analyzing and hypothesizing. There was a Bingo Card we could fill out with our theories. This one was mine.) Not a small amount of people were speculating about the possibility of Maul corrupting and/or abducting Ezra at Malachor.

I was one of them. Obviously. Still a smidge bummed it didn't come to pass, just imagine how devastating that would have been on top of everything else.

Anyway, Maul pretends to be frail and weak and old and harmless like some kind of sick parody of the scene in ESB when Yoda's introduced to Luke.

The appropriate reaction to creepy old men lurking in the shadows lol.

Maul plays on Ezra's compassion at first, and then tempts him with what they came for, "knowledge". Ezra keeps a guard up, but cautiously allows Maul to lead him. I think he's figuring he's going to play this by ear like he did back in "Brothers of the Broken Horn", so he's not giving out his name or really trusting Maul yet. That would come later.

Lol, Maul has met Jabba, he knows full well Ezra's playing him.

There's some excellent tense music for the chase with Eighth Brother but I'm not going to really talk about those segments much since, frankly, all the interesting stuff is happening in the Maul and Ezra scenes.

They're in the roots of the Temple now, very Mines of Moria-esque vibe down here with the columns.

Maul still trying to break Ezra's guard down, playing himself up as an enemy of the Inquisitors and the Sith (even though for all intents and purposes Maul still is a Sith) and I love how awkward things get when Ezra asks him if he was a Jedi, he's all like, "ERRRRRRMMMM."

Talking about his Tragic Backstory though unlocks Ezra's empathy and Ezra lets slip his own grievances with the Empire that Maul immediately tries to manipulate to his advantage, sensing Ezra's anger about it.

Boy if I had a nickel for every time my favorite shows explored the "creepy older villain forcibly trying to make a younger hero their apprentice" plotline...

(I would actually have three nickels now because the Big Hero 6 cartoon also decided to do that plot YOU GUYS GOTTA FIGURE OUT SOMETIME THAT THIS PREMISE IS BASICALLY CATNIP FOR ME.)

Anyway, at this point I think Maul's mostly just using Ezra as a means to an end, he's not planning to kidnap him yet, just needs him for the doors. It's really interesting that whereas the Jedi Temple on Lothal emphasized the individual journey and separated the master and padawan, the Sith Temple forces them into kind of a codependent symbiosis--if one betrays the other like Sith are wont to do, the prize is lost and both of them die--making them have to use teamwork and a certain level of trust.

Chopper stealing Eighth's TIE to use against him is pretty awesome, admittedly.

Maul gives Ezra an abridged lesson in Sith/Dark Side philosophy: Channel your passions--your fear, anger, hate, any strong emotions etc.--through the Force for a lot of quick easy power. Ezra expresses misgivings but attempts it and this time does not immediately pass out, though he's clearly tired by the end of it.

Oh man the sound design here.

Also love that annoyed look Maul gives when Ezra complains about their progress. XD

"Yeah I'm killing you after this, I don't have to deal with this shit."

Watching the expressions on Maul's face is a trip, you can see the subtle little flashes of conniving and triumph.

Aaaaaand every time Maul puts his hands on Ezra I still feel an immediate uncomfortable protective rage. You leave him alone you cockroach. >:(

Enjoy the last vestiges of Ezra's innocence folks, this episode is what shatters that to pieces.

Always loved this sequence, it feels very evocative of the Cave of Wonders segment of Aladdin and also several scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

SO much symbolism with the precipices and pits here.

Love this music cue too.

I already noted in a different post way back when that something subtle I love is how Maul's Force Grip catch around Ezra is clearly much rougher than how Kanan has caught him. Ezra's tiny panicked glances down are great too.

So riiiiiiiiiight about here is when I think Maul decided he was going to keep Ezra, you can see in his expression the mean satisfaction when he grabs the holocron, like he's gotten what he wanted. Ezra gets a prolonged moment of regretting all of his life's decisions before Maul finally decides to haul him up.

Look I know fandom makes fun of the helicopter sabers but I never minded them so this is my only comment about them.

Gah, Ezra's innocent little uncertain expressions here always hurt me.

You know, given the added context of TCW Seaason 7, along with the fact that they had already clearly integrated the unfinished arcs into the background continuity while writing Rebels, AHSOKA YOU SHOULD HAVE REALLY WARNED THEM ABOUT MAUL.

Cool shot is cool.

I haven't talked about the music much because it doesn't really stand out until the climax but it's appropriately menacing and dramatic and ominous, as it should be.

Sam Whitwer's vocal progression through the episode is also amazing, along with the slow shedding of his hood it's like Maul is revitalizing himself, reinvigorated, reclaiming his strength and purpose.

He found something (Ezra) to hang his legacy on and seized it. Or tried to.

Ezra sounds just a bit desperate to convince Kanan, this is likely a product of the straining tensions between them. Maul, meanwhile, takes full advantage of Ahsoka and Kanan's uncertainty to suggest using the holocron to activate the obelisk, not telling them of course that it will turn on the Sith superweapon. Which he's counting on to kill Vader and the Inquisitors.

Ezra's theme in cello bass here, as Kanan decides to trust Ezra.

Almost forgot about Seventh's ID-9 Seekers, didn't we?

Love Kanan's protective bitchiness towards Maul this whole episode. The conflict between him and Ezra is just a little bit contrived, Kanan's been harder on Ezra recently yes, but it also feels a smidge rushed. Then again Ezra's been fixating on trying to solve the fundamental problem of the Inquisitors possibly as a way to assuage his grief over losing his parents, like Anakin he thinks if he can maybe just get enough power he can prevent it from happening again, so he's letting his impulsiveness reign in the quest to find "the key to destroying the Sith" and it's making him have a repeat of "Vision of Hope" where he trusts the wrong person.

Ezra's bright little, "Trust me." here hurts so much because Kanan does trust Ezra, that's the only reason why he decided they would stay and then it all goes HORRIBLY WRONG *SOBS*.

This is a nice sentiment and all Ahsoka, and it shows how much faith you have in Ezra's goodness and Kanan's ability as a teacher BUT ALSO YOU SHOULD HAVE WARNED THEM.

Ezra's out of sight for like a minute and Maul's already picking at his insecurities and need for validation and trying to get him to murderize Seventh.

The momentary pride we feel that Ezra can't bring himself to strike in anger and hate vanishes when Maul tests the veeeeeery limits of the Y7 rating.

Ooof.

I hate this man I hate this man I hate this man I hate him so much. He snarls at Ezra for hesitating, berates his merciful Jedi instincts, and then picks up with that soft manipulative fake concerned tone again. He always uses this tone when he's trying to manipulate Ezra, we'll be watching for it next season, trust me.

Hhggnnl Maul glancing up and seeing the shadow passing over the gaps in the ceiling, he knows Vader's on his way. And he's definitely already made the decision that he's taking Ezra.

Love this brief triumphant cue here, for a moment it looks like they've won.

The matching "Oh crap" expressions on Kanan and Ahsoka's faces when Maul says, "You mean... my apprentice?" they are just a hair too late to prevent disaster.

Yeah so this moment pretty much traumatized fandom. For months.

DUEL OF THE FATES BABY!

And a very unhinged Maul getting a little too excited about using the Sith superweapon to kill everyone.

The presence in the holocron is likely a trace of the Sith Lord who created the superweapon, Darth Tanis.

Sound design appreciation moment, just LISTEN to it.

"The power will be mine! Ezra will be mine!" Very hinged. Much sane. If you had waited maybe five minutes, Maul, and resisted the urge to murder everyone you could have actually had what you wanted! But such is the nature of the Dark Side, the quick and easy way offers fast solutions but hollow ones, in the grasping for what you want it slips through your fingers.

ALL MAUL HAD TO DO WAS NOT TRY TO MURDER KANAN AND AHSOKA AND EZRA PROBABLY WOULD HAVE GONE WITH HIM. At the very least Kanan might have tentatively let Maul hang around. This is the tragedy of Maul's life, he is the king of self-sabotage.

[Insert ramble about the symbolism of Kanan taking up a Temple Guardian mask and how that relates to his role as Ezra's protector.]

I don't remember I think there was maybe one or two people who complained that Kanan shouldn't be able to beat Maul here, but for the most part fandom was agreed that this was awesome.

:(((

Please do note: Maul just kind of... assumed Ezra would use the Sith superweapon when he learned what it was. Ezra's too pure for that, alas.

WELL THAT'S NOT ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING.

Ezra sassing Vader like Kanan sassed the Grand Inquisitor back in "Call To Action" lol.

And there goes Ezra's blaster-saber. :(

I've been a very good girl conserving my limited photos so now you get a lot of Ezra's terrified face.

The Ahsoka-Vader confrontation is pretty much perfect, even for someone who never really watched TCW and doesn't really have the same level of investment as a long time fan would have. Even without the context the emotions and drama come across well.

Ezra veeeeeeerrrrrrrry slowly and carefully trying to scoot away from Vader always makes me giggle.

Vader threatening to torture the information out of Ezra if Ahsoka won't give up any remaining Jedi she knows about. :(((

:((((((((

Still love how TCW recontextualized Ahsoka's angry, "I am no Jedi!" by reframing it as, "I can't be a Jedi anymore, you took that away from me, you killed the Order I loved and wanted to return to!"

I think I heard someone trying to describe Vader here as, "Picture an upright locomotive with a lightsaber." and that's apt, Vader is so heavy and powerful with every movement and swing. This is Vader in his prime, unleashed, against an opponent he won't hold back on and it is glorious.

Chopper guiding Kanan by the hand. :(((

Ezra's horrified realization. :(((((

Small note: Ezra's been nursing his right wrist this whole time, possibly sprained or burned a bit when Vader destroyed his saber. Also a nice parallel to ESB and Luke.

Ahsoka does her best but you can tell she's tiring here.

Some gorgeous animation as the Temple begins to seal back up.

How annoyed do you think Vader must have been to have a blind half-trained ex-Padawan and a scrawny 16-year-old kid managing to fight his Force Pull on the holocron?

Ahsoka swoops in for a Big Damn Heroes moment and breaks open his mask. You're welcome for the nightmares, kids.

Hello so many parallels to Luke and Return of the Jedi.

:(((((

Very effective bringing the orchestra full to the fore with almost no other sound or dialogue here. This whole sequence is brutally powerful.

Kanan and Hera's heartbreaking reunion. The sorrow on Rex's face, feeding into Ezra's clear guilt. Maul surviving to menace us another day. Vader limping off, out of the wreckage of the Temple. Tracking the convor as it flies towards the vague form of Ahsoka descending further into the Temple. The cut to the Ghost with everyone's silent worry and sorry. And closing on Ezra's murderous Kubrick Stare as he gets the holocron to open.

This finale is on people's favorite episode lists for a reason, lol. It's so dramatic and game-changing and tightly-written, leaves us perfectly fuming in anticipation for more.

You know how shows promise that, "Nothing will be the same anymore." in taglines to trick you into watching for the Next Big Twist? Rebels actually delivers on that promise.

It's an amazing ride.

Overall Season Thoughts:

Season Two is stronger than Season One in a lot of aspects. The animation is even prettier with the added budget, the stories remain well-balanced and woven together even with the added breathing room of twenty-two episodes to Season One's fifteen. The show takes advantage of that extra room to build up the finale, especially in the last few episodes, to very good effect. The expanded scope means we're facing bigger and greater threats, and also widening our cast, and yet none of the guest stars overshadow or overpower our mains, who are given plenty of chances to develop and shine.

Aside from one minor misstep in "Blood Sisters", this season is solid through and through.

Onwards to Season Three!

#star wars #star wars rebels #ezra bridger #space dad and his precious pumpkin child #rebels rewatch #liveblog #spoilers #cute boys in peril

[a-world-with0ut-dr34ms]

Your Telepathic Hold On Me

From Control - Full Story in Progress on AO3!

Ghost x Shadow!Reader x Soap

mentions of past Graves x Reader

Love Triangle, Fluff, Rom/Com-like, Slow Burn, Romance, Drama, Melodrama, Character Study, Multi-POV, Semi Explicit, Slight Angst, Wet Dreams, Friendzoning, Steamy (but more teasing than actual smut), Masturbastion, Military Inaccuracies, Canon-Compliant (hopefully), Pining, Angsty with random rom-com moments, A Roller-Coaster, Dark, A bit edgy, Grown men with crushes

tw: // violence, blood

Word Count: 11.5k

This took me 5,000 years to conjure up and type, but I finally finished it and I enjoyed typing it so that's all that matters. I just wanted this to read like a messy soap opera for the eyes. I've been away for a while too so I figured I'd make this long. It's messy, but I'm trying to keep every in character. This is basically a love triangle. Please enjoy (っ˘ڡ˘ς)

Hope it's not boring and stupid, I'm rusty as hell (ʃᵕ̩̩ ᵕ̩̩)

Masterlist

There are many parts of life that Ghost has grown used to.

He's used to waking up every morning and having nothing but his work to look forward to. That familiar solitude waiting for him at the end of every shift was as much a part of his life as anything else.

He's used to his usual streak of bad luck too. It wouldn’t be a regular day for the man if some inconveniences and setbacks weren’t sprinkled in here and there. Dealing with bad luck was a hidden talent of Ghost that life had a funny way of testing. He’s been on edge waiting to see what’s in store for him next.

He's used to doing little things to occupy his free time, which has lately been a lot of journaling and late-night jogging. It helps to have something to preoccupy himself with, rather than turning to the bottle for comfort; yet another qualm inherited to him by his father. Ghost would never allow himself to succumb to such vices as easily as his old man had though. That’s a cautionary tale the lieutenant didn’t need to live through a second time.

He's used to dealing with strangers and all their odd comments and tantalizing stares. When you're as mountainous in appearance and intimidating to talk to as he is, you learn to grow thick skin and not take things so personally. And by now he’s grown used to keeping people at a distance. 

At the start, it had been deliberate, knowing he was in no place to be thinking of building relationships with anyone outside of his team. And even that was with the bare minimum effort. 

Everyone must have just finally gotten the memo. Almost everyone. Eventually, Ghost got so good at keeping people away that he hardly had to try anymore. They just stopped approaching him. Stopped asking him personal questions. Stopped trying. 

He's used to that feeling he gets when he sees couples in public. That twinge which knots at the pit of his gut and wrinkles his nose beneath his mask. As someone known to stare, PDA was definitely a head-turner for the lieutenant, and rather nauseating to look at. That's how he'd put it. 

What many would take for disdain, however, was really only a faint longing for something he's only ever been a passive observer to. Love. He isn't used to that feeling, though he is used to being the one always on the outside of it. Any other kind of love has only ever been taken from him all too soon. Always out of his hands, and always just out of reach. That's a lot more familiar to him.

But that feeling would come, and then it would pass, because it's what Ghost is used to. Moving. Working. Surviving.

Living.

It's safe to say Ghost can handle a few contrivances throughout his day. However, today seemed especially adamant on testing his patience, in all new ways he never thought of before. Both petty, pointless, and far too sweet.

Even his dreams had been out to get him this morning, which did not surprise him, as bad dreams stuck to him like a bad habit. Still, it didn't make them any less welcome. And looking back, it may have been best to have taken the dreams as a heads-up for the kind of day he was in for.

Ghost didn't remember passing out the night before, only that he had entered his room later than he should have, leaving you and Soap to yourselves. While he wouldn't say the night was terrible, it left him with more to think about than he'd wanted when deciding to tag along. 

That would be the case, as his mind would tell him so the moment he finally managed to pass out.

Contrary to popular belief, Ghost could be a surprisingly creative thinker. He's always been very imaginative, even as a boy. Had he a better childhood, perhaps it could have taken him places. But life's never had much in store for him it seems, so his creative talents felt best suited to his nightmares instead.

It had been a simple dream, a near recap of the night before. 

You've left the cafe in a fluster of emotions, soon to be followed by Soap. Ghost remained inside, standing off in the distance as he watched you both run off. Waiting.

The cafe would grow emptier as the minutes crawled by endlessly. The music would slowly fade, and the ambiance would die out. The lights would grow so dim that it made the building feel cold, and before long not a soul lingered around Ghost, who was now alone. Still waiting.

It wasn't until he heard the sounds of you both screaming that Ghost finally sprung from his spot and out the cafe doors.

Outside had been no different. All the traffic and crowds had all but vanished, a dense fog settling across the city streets that even the streetlights struggled to break through. And it was quiet.

Ghost quickly found you standing off a ways from the cafe, your back turned to him, and Soap nowhere in sight. 

In the waking world, Ghost was a man who modeled himself on control and discipline. He could not afford to be someone who let his emotions get the better of him, especially if his behaviors in his dreams were a reflection of who that man would be. 

In his dreams, where all that structure and discipline he's built around himself could no longer follow, lie a man untamed by demons and darker whims he felt powerless to take control over.

He demanded to know where Soap had gone. When you couldn’t answer him, he felt a violent urge take over. As though some demon suddenly possessed him. Ghost lunges towards you, his large hands over-compassing the small frame of your neck with ease, as he pins you to the cafe walls behind you, his dark eyes seething.

You look up at him, stricken with fear as your frail hands pull at him, gasping in shock as you whimper in his grasp. You plead to him, trying to reason with him, even now. 

Your words would only fall on deaf ears, as Ghost's grip tightened around your neck, the muscles in your throat bending to his grasp. His body moved with a mind of its own, blacking out everything else. Waiting to see in your eyes the fears he's harbored for you. Wanting to hear you curse him. Wanting you to affirm to him what he only waits for you to realize in reality. That he’s no good.

But even so, you hold no resentment in your gaze, nor pity. Your hands release from his wrist, slowly trailing up, until he's felt your warm touch rest against the sides of his face. Gently caressing him.

"Ghost..."

Ghost isn't sure when it was that his grip had loosened on your neck after that, only that his hands began to tremble soon after. You take a step closer, your hands still holding him, as his jawline all but sinks into your palms. All the while, Ghost's hands linger around your neck, having grown accustomed to its shape.

Your thumb gently rubs against his cheek, soothing his tense body. "Isn't this what you want?"

"I..." Ghost's head dips, no longer able to look you in your eyes. It shamed him to admit that he did want this. To be touched, to be held, to be taken in and for that not to go away. Not so soon at least. He didn’t want to need those things, to long for them. He’s gotten this far in life without them now, he knows he can keep it up. And yet… “...You're not gettin' in my head. I won't let you. I can't…"

"You can..." You lift yourself up on your tip-toes, the crown on your head just barely meeting his forehead, your eyes locked on his. "...I already am."

Despite your persistence, Ghost somehow manages to keep himself from succumbing to your urges, though it takes everything in him to. He needn't act out on these whims, even in his dreams.

However, your tenacity was a foe unmatched even as a figment of his darker imagination.

Your hands stop just at the end of his mask, and you begin to tug. The sensation is as if you’d begun to pull Ghost’s soul from him. He wishes it would have woken him, but the night’s hold was heavy.

You stop pulling his mask up just shy of the bridge of his nose, revealing the light stubble that painted the lower half of his face, alongside the light purse of his lips. With your hands still lightly gripping the side of his mask, you bring him down to you. 

You press your lips to him, and Ghost' powerless to contain himself, kisses you back, feeling a wave of ecstasy wash through him. Ghost grips your neck tightly again, catching the air in your throat as you gasp into his mouth. His lips overpower your own, his sheer size having you pressed harshly against the wall. 

Ghost only parts from your mouth for the smallest moment, only to come back in again, his hands using your neck to crane your head so that he could hold you in place. Keep you with him. Wanting nothing more than to feel you... only he is unable to.

Your neck in his grasp, your lips against his, your breath that fogged the air around him -- he couldn't feel a thing. Ghost had only the faintest idea of what that sensation could feel like, having felt it so long ago now. And yet he craved it. Yearning it. Because even his dreams could not replicate that smallest of feelings you once gave him.

But before he can truly ascend onto cloud 9, a sharp pain enters his abdomen, breaking through his sternum and piercing straight into his heart. The one thing he could feel. His lips part from yours, and his eyes drag down to where you had stabbed him. 

Ghost stumbles back, his body convulsing with pain as the blood began to pool from his chest and mouth. All the while he can hear your insane laughter filling his ears, a twisted glint to your gaze, before he's finally pulled himself out of his sleep and into a panicked wake.

Once he realized he was no longer dreaming, the stiff cold air of his room finally calmed him, Ghost wasn't sure what he found most embarrassing about what just happened, however -- The fact that he had that dream at all, or the fact that only seconds later, he’s noticed the throbbing hard-on he’d gotten from it.

Ghost groans to himself and sinks his head back against his pillow. “Fuckin’ hell…”

He would have left himself alone, had the arousal not been so painfully uncomfortable to leave be. Weakly succumbing, Ghost brings a hand down to himself to finish the job, sliding his fingers beneath the waistband of his sweatpants to take hold. 

He makes quick work with his urges, moving his hand at a fast pace as he kept his eyes closed, trying to picture something to help get it done quicker.

With no one else who really came to mind, Ghost couldn't help but think back to you. How your lips moved over him in his dream, how his hands fit perfectly around your neck, and how your own hands felt like chains around him. 

He escalates the scenario in his mind, picturing you ridding yourself of your clothes. Your body bare for his perusal. Ghost thinks about you climbing over him now, your legs straddling him to the bed and his hands tightly holding onto your hips. The sweet moans you'd make with him in you would haunt him for the rest of his life, as he’s watching your body vibrate with pleasure, your gaze wanting him evermore.

Ghost buries his face into his pillow just as he climaxes, that uncontrollable lust he felt quickly being replaced by guilt and shame. 

The way you had Ghost so wound up, you'd think he were a virgin. Though that wasn't true; it had been well over three years since Ghost has actually laid with another person, and even then that last time had just been transactional. Some stranger at a bar back home he didn't mind expelling some of himself into for the night. It hadn't meant anything. 

Intimacy hasn't meant anything to him for a long time now.

Yet the way you plagued his mind would have him thinking he's never known the meaning of lust and intimacy before, until now. Like he’s been missing out or something. 

While Ghost has dreamed of you before, never has it been so... graphic. Certainly nothing like this. And for a moment, it worried the man. He's used to his typical nightmares, and knows how to combat those by now. But how was he supposed to tackle this one? What even was this?

Ghost had given up trying to find the purpose of that dream the minute it grew easier to settle for the obvious answer, the one that pained him to admit: Perhaps he did have a crush on you after all. 

He finds you attractive, clearly. But a crush? It felt so beneath him, being unable to stop something as silly as that from forming. Still, this stupid little crush has somehow caused him more inner turmoil than any of the recent ops he’s last run, and it was mighty embarrassing.

It's safe to say, having to see you later today would feel more awkward than Ghost would have liked. Especially since it would technically be your first official day on the team. But he hadn't planned on treating you any differently than anyone else, and a single dream wasn't going to change that now.

That was the plan at least.

…

"You know Halloween ain't 'til the end of the month, right?"

Ghost stood in front of the register at one of the corner stores within walking distance from the barracks. The only one open this early in the morning.

The lieutenant damn near towered over the counter space, tired eyes watching unenthusiastically as the cashier  -- some scrawny little woman who looked like she'd seen a few street fights in her day -- scanned and bagged his box of tea. She's been giving Ghost the side-eye since she stepped in, shadowing him in every aisle. 

Ghost didn't blame her much, seeing as he's shown up in a hoodie and a ski mask. But honestly, the man really did just want to pick up some tea. While this had not been his first choice for tea, Ghost has come to learn how little Americans really care for the drink.

Had Ghost been back home, or not stationed here, he'd have forgone the mask and just gone later in the day. However, seeing as that wasn't the case, going early in the morning to pick up some tea at least meant he wouldn't bump into too many wide-eyed pedestrians ready to gawk at him for wearing a bloody mask. 

Ghost still could not tell for the life of him what fascinated people so much about it. It's only a mask. Though this is coming from a man who also, very often, forgets his sheer size and presence. The mask was only the cherry on top, really. Perhaps in their shoes, he'd do the same.

But even so, unprovoked comments from strangers were the lieutenant’s bread and butter. 

"Just bein' festive, Luv."

Ghost hands the woman cash for the tea, watching her take her time counting it. "And you went with that?" she asks, rather mockingly too.

"Weren't much to choose from, I'm afraid," Ghost says dryly.

The cashier hands Ghost his bag and gives him a learned smile. "Well, hey, you've got time." And then she waves him goodbye. 

Ghost merely catalogs this as yet another awkward interaction he's had with the locals since being stationed here.

The awkward occasion before this one had been with some other woman two days ago. Poor thing just popping by her nearest gas station for a drink, when Ghost all but gave her a stroke. The last thing she expected to bump into when she hastily opened the gas station doors was this ugly mug. She screamed so loud that Ghost was sure the entire block heard her. 

It's safe to say nothing has been quite as awkward as that. Who knew Americans could be so jumpy?

Ghost's walk back to his room had been a sunny one, on a sidewalk busier than this Wednesday morning called for. The air, once warm for the summer, was finally beginning to cool, as early signs of fall showed themselves in the tree's leaves.

As Ghost drew near his building, he passed by a floral shop that someone recently set up at the park. He'd taken a gander or two at the flowers his first time walking past them earlier.

Whoever set it up made sure to have the most vibrant flower arrangements decorating the area. Baskets sat displayed both high and low, filled to the brim with a rainbow of different petals and plants. It grabbed a lot of attention from the bystanders, people stopping to look or even buy a bouquet for their significant other. At times it was like watching a movie.

The last time Ghost bought flowers it had been for his mother. She always liked her lavenders and tulips, and Ghost always enjoyed the smile on her face when he'd show up to her home with them. He nearly sighs out loud just thinking back to that time. It feels so long ago now.

Ghost wouldn't say he had a Green Thumb, though he did always enjoy planting new flowers every Spring with his mother. Whenever she'd find the time to and his old man was away on another one of his benders long enough.

He remembers enjoying how colorful their front lawn would look when they finished, compared to the rest of the gray they lived around in Manchester. Everything around him when he was younger always felt so sad and lifeless, it was nice to just be with himself and the Earth, giving back to it in a peaceful way for a change.

A small part of him thought of buying some flowers for his room, just to lighten the place up some. But then he thought, what would be the point of that? Buying flowers for his room just so when it was late at night he could look at them and be sad all over again. Always the self-destructive sort he was.

A woman approached the shop suddenly, dressed in a white sundress and a light straw hat. She pauses when she sees the sunflowers, nearly matching her in height, as her hair wisps gently in the breeze. 

For a split second, Ghost thought that may have been you; she was your spitting image. It caught the man off guard so much that a cold chill shivered down his spine. Had the little details not tipped him off that it wasn’t you, Ghost would have thought you were stalking him. But it seems you only did so in his mind; anything else was more on him than you, he begrudgingly knew that much.

Ghost watched the woman longer than he should have, seeing her speak to the vendors with such vigor and excitement. She’d take another eyeful of all the flowers, and find herself in another state of awe before she was back on her tangent once more. She feels the petals, smells their scent, then smiles. And when her eyes turn back for only a split second, she sees Ghost standing a few feet away… and then she frowns.

Ghost stares back coldly, wanting to send her gaze away from him. Though when she does look away, it only makes the man feel rather silly. What, had he expected her to smile when she saw him? She's not you, he thought. No one was like you, and that's what made this so damn annoying to deal with.

The faint illusion of you was shattered once the woman’s husband stepped into view. Some short, skinny man who looked nothing like Ghost at all. He curved around her, his arm wrapping around her waist, as she looked up at him with a warm smile. The kind of look a woman gave to someone she loved. Ghost has seen it from others enough times to recognize it.

"Watch out!"

Ghost's head snaps over to the sound of someone shouting at him on the sidewalk. When he looks over, he sees a man on his bike, recklessly speeding straight toward him. 

With quick reflexes he's had time to fine-tune, Ghost quickly sidesteps the cyclist. However, it's not fast enough to keep the cyclist's handlebar from clipping his arm a little, knocking the box of tea out of Ghost's hands and into a large, growing puddle on the side of the road.

Once Ghost sees his tea completely submerged in the murky water, the man prepares himself for the worst-case scenario. He just stands over it for a moment, not even phased by the sheer luck of it all. When he kneels down to retrieve it, of course, the sealant wrapped around it was punctured, letting all the water get into each and every tea bag inside its box.

Though on the outside Ghost was calm and composed, there was a little man inside his brain, completely raging out about not having his tea right now.

Ghost stands to his feet and sighs, already knowing he wouldn't have time to go back and get more before this morning's briefing. He knew he should have just stayed in bed that morning.

He looks back off to the floral shop, for no particular reason. That woman in the sundress had gone by now, taking a basket of trimmed sunflowers with her. 

Ghost couldn't help thinking about you one last time.

…

Ghost was surprised to find Soap already waiting in the briefing room this morning, though the man looked as though he were seconds away from passing out dead in his seat. He sits hunched over his arms, dressed in his fatigues, though he's removed his coat and rolled the sleeves to his shirt up, his arms naturally flexing beneath the fabric. His eyes light up the minute he sees the lieutenant, though it's quickly followed by a short yawn.

"Mornin' L.T." he greets.

"MacTavish." Ghost takes a seat a few chairs from Soap, settling into his seat with a sigh. "You're up early."

"Aye," Soap rubs his hands over his face, attempting to further wake himself. "I'm as shocked as you, L.T."

"Were you two up long after I left?" asks Ghost. He'd been wondering that this morning more than he cared to admit. What was it you two could have been up to last night, all alone with nothing to do? Ghost wanted to imagine it had been nothing. 

To his dismay, he hadn't been prepared for Soap's answer.

"No, but..." Soap grins to himself, looking off into the room. Recalling the night before, and letting his cheeks begin to blush. Johnny didn't have to finish that sentence, Ghost already knew. "Man, what a woman..."

"Good grief, Johnny," bemoans Ghost. Good grief was right. He knew Soap had been into you as well, and you both make it more than obvious that you enjoyed flirting. It figures sparks would fly the minute you two could find the time to be alone together. 

Ghost wasn't happy to hear the news, regardless.

But before he can finish that thought, the door opens, and in comes both you and Kate Laswell.

Both 141 men haven't seen Laswell in a while, not in person at least. She's been busy running ops on the other side of the globe with their Captain Price. Soap's been moaning and groaning about getting back to working as a full team again; Ghost hadn't really cared either way. Just as long as there was something to do. And when you see Laswell in person, you know that time was nigh.

Both Ghost and Soap stand at attention before being dismissed by Laswell. She both liked and appreciated the professionalism from her boys in the Task Force, though she never had a problem with being casual with those she worked with for long enough.

Once Laswell was at the front of the room with you, she began with the point of this whole meeting -- to formally announce your transfer to the team.

Beyond that, Soap seemed too busy looking at you to really give a damn about much of anything else at the moment. Ghost could pass that off as normal behavior by the Sergeant. However, it's when Ghost looks over at you when it urks him. Because you're giving Soap the same googly eyes back, only your much more sly about it. Just not sly enough for the lieutenant.

"I know introductions aren't really necessary this time around," Laswell mentions. "But I figured we shouldn't skip the formalities. Commander Graves and his Shadow Company were kind enough to spare their second-in-command to help assist with our investigation. With her expertise in reconnaissance and data retrieval, and her background knowledge on the investigation already, both General Shepherd and I felt she'd be a valuable asset to the team."

"Well, well," Soap begins to quip. "Movin' up in the world, aye Canary?"

"It's the only way to go," you joke back, which in turn makes you both chuckle bashfully. 

It only took a few more seconds of awkward eye contact to pass before Ghost knew that something was up. It wasn’t just some little thing last night between you, he knew. It was something he no doubt would rather have not noticed.

"For now you'll be on standby," Laswell comments. "We have a few more preparations to make before your next assignment, but it should be soon. In the meantime, we've set up training courses and team-building exercises to keep you all fresh for when we need you. Today's should be fun if I'm not mistaken."

"Aw sweet," Soap whoops dorkishly. "Are ye joinin' us then, Kate?"

Laswell smiles to herself, already preparing to leave the meeting. "I, unfortunately, have a flight to catch in the next hour," she says. "I'm assisting Shepherd with another lead. Along with Commander Graves, funny enough."

Laswell looks to you now, but to Ghost's surprise, you don't appear all that happy to be hearing your commander's name be mentioned. Not like you usually have been in the past. You instead roll your eyes jokingly, some thought irritating you for a moment before you've buried it.

"Good luck," you tell her. 

Ghost can't help but wonder what you could mean by that. The last time he saw you two, you both seemed rather close to one another. Though you seem pretty close to Soap now as well; perhaps that's just how you are with people. It piques his interest nonetheless.

Laswell adjourns the meeting soon after giving you all more details about what's been planned for you today. While today's training was dressed up as a way to keep you all from getting rusty, Ghost knew there was more to this than meets the eye.

When getting transferred, you've just essentially jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. The Task Force has you beneath a magnifying glass right now, ready to watch your every move and place it side-by-side with their own. A mix of friendly competition, and equal parts a deadly game.

Because you were transferred here for a reason, Ghost thought. If you can't keep up even in the courses, the abnormality of your arrival surely wouldn't benefit from it.

You must know this, because something felt a bit off about you this morning. Like there was a lot on your mind suddenly and it was wearing you down.

You let out a sigh once Kate has left, letting your hands fall back to your sides as you try and mentally pep yourself up for the courses. You didn't look all that thrilled.

"So, marksmanship trainin', eh?" Soap starts speaking first. "I'm lookin' forward to seein' what you got, lil' bird."

You scoff. "Little bird?"

"Oi, if you won't tell me your name, then I've gotta call you somethin' else then, don't I?"

You laugh at his comment, though only softly. Admittedly, "Little bird" felt rather close to "Songbird", a nickname you're sure Graves has dumped by now. You'd much prefer something new anyway. And it did help that the Scotsman's accent made the words sweet like candy for your ears when he said it. "Fair enough."

"So are you a good shot?" the Sergeant asks.

"I'd say so," you brag.

"We'll see soon enough, won't we?" Ghost finally speaks.

Your eyes fall on his, and while he can see a fire light up in them suddenly, he can also see that flame being dulled by something else. Something that had you look more worn than you probably were aware of.

"I can feel the pressure already," you say sarcastically.

"Aw, I'm sure you'll do fine," says Soap.

You look down at your feet almost shyly. But then you catch yourself, smirking and looking back up at the two men. Putting on an act, no doubt.

"I bet you I'll get the top score today," you boast.

This makes Soap sit up in his seat now, laughing to himself charmingly. "Oh is that right?"

"Damn straight." You begin to make your way to the exit, settled with preparing yourself for the course. "I'll see you boys on the course." 

You leave them with a wink, and Ghost catches Soap smiling like a moron.

Ghost gives Soap a few seconds to re-gather his wits about him before speaking. "Bloody hell, Johnny," he says. "'Have you gone mad?"

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"You and her," Ghost gestures with his fingers. When Soap tries to play dumb momentarily, it only seems to further tick the lieutenant off. "Didn’t I just get through with tellin’ you last night to keep your head on straight, Sergeant?”

"Oi, relax mate," Soap puts his hands up defensively. He quickly chuckles to alleviate any tension between the two men. "Nothin' major's goin' on. We're just… oh, I don't know. We're just havin’ fun while we can."

"We have a job to do, MacTavish," Ghost scolds.

"You know it's OK to lighten up and live a lil', yeah, L.T.?"

Ghost doesn't respond to the Sergeant's comment immediately, only because he began to ponder them. Lightin' up and live a little? He thought. Lightin' up and live a little…

"That is what I'm doing," Ghost says. He knows he doesn't sound all that convincing, but he wasn't about to elaborate further; he hoped it was enough to take the topic off himself. Soap always had a knack for doing that.

Soap chuckles at Ghost's comment, shaking his head at him. "Sure it is, mate."

Ghost rolls his eyes and stands from his seat. "Just don't let this get in the way of things, yeah?"

"We’re grown. I know what I‘m doin’."

"So you say now."

Nothing major going on. Even hearing that seemed to strike a hidden nerve in Ghost he hadn't felt before. So something did happen last night after he left. Of course it did. This was Johnny we were talking about here. The man could win just about anyone over if given the chance. It's why Ghost hasn't allowed him many opportunities to. But it seems in doing so with both Soap and you, it's only seemed to bring you two together instead.

Why didn't that feel like a good thing to Ghost?

…

Apparently, time no longer has any real meaning. Not in any way that you've found to be helpful. Because it seems you can spend half a year in bed with someone -- giving them everything, always being there -- and in a matter of seconds, watch all that time not mean a damn thing anymore.

I can't deal with this right now.

That's what Graves decided to text you last night after hearing your distraught voicemail. He can't deal with this right now. With you. 

It was almost embarrassing how gut-wrenching it had felt to read that, even as you'd thought you'd been prepared for it. Though before long that hurt turned to bitterness, as you slowly grew disgusted with your previous feelings.

You spend nearly a year with the man and that’s how he chooses to respond to you in a time of need. Talk about ripping off the band-aid. Alas, your commander was always just a step ahead of you all along, both in mind and feeling. 

“Over” really does mean over. 

But did it have to mean losing him completely? You felt it didn't have to be this way, but maybe it was selfish of you to have thought he'd want anything to do with you once you both cut romantic ties. After all, at the end of the day, you're only his subordinate.

Well then fine. If that's how Graves wants it, then that's how he'll get it. You felt ready enough to get back to focusing on yourself anyway. And from the way Ghost has been hounding you over this "training" course, you could use the work.

"You're off your mark!" Ghost's voice comes booming over the intercoms inside the course, though at this point you couldn't really tell him apart from your own inner thoughts. Beyond that iconic gruffness Ghost's voice possessed. At this point, you'd about heard enough of it.

This was meant to be a simple marksmanship course. Same shit, different day. The base had a whole thing set up for the team, the course being inside a large, sanctioned-off building. By now the rest of the team has gone; to no one's surprise, Ghost scored the highest, with Soap being a rather close second. 

That's only left you with the boulder size responsibility of having to prove your worth to the team by beating at least one of their scores. Easier said than done, as this was now your fourth attempt running through now.

You needed to score above the Sharpshooter level. Everyone else on the Task Force could do it, and you knew you could too. Yet every time you rounded the bend and the clocks were stopped, Ghost had the same result to share with you time and time again. "Sharpshooter."

And like that, you were asking to run the course again, reloading your rifle and waiting for Ghost to buzz you in for another go. Even he was starting to side-eye your performance.

On a different day, you may have breezed through this. It's not like you're not a good shot in your own right, and you've always been competitive. However, you hadn't realized how much of a funk you were in until now, and it was really taking a toll on your speed.

You wouldn't give up so readily, however.

You knew this was silly. You knew you didn't have to prove to anyone what skills you had. You were transferred here for a reason and anyone who had something to say about that could argue with the wall about it. But it meant something to you to tell yourself that you could do this. Because you know you can. And if Ghost is OK with continuing to supervise you, then you're OK with running the course for a fifth time.

You reach the course exit nearly out of breath, stray strands of hair now escaping your bun and sticking to the sweat of your cheeks. You lower your rifle and slouch over in exhaustion. That has to be it. "What did I get?"

Ghost steps over to you from where he's been monitoring your progress, having multiple cameras set up towards the lobby area just outside the course. His eyes lazily dip down to his clipboard, before sluggishly returning to you again.

"Sharpshooter."

You groan to yourself, annoyed, as you stepped over to the lieutenant so you could review your results. As you expected, you're only four seconds shy of Soap's top score. You haven't been able to get any closer than that.

"You keep hesitatin' when you pull the trigger," Ghost chided suddenly. "Think less with your feelings, more with your gut. Otherwise, you keep this up and it'll get you killed one of these days. I mean they teach that in basic, yeah?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," you jab, which clearly does not humor the lieutenant in the slightest. Though nothing seemed to humor him much today. In fact, he's seemed almost annoyed with you. Not that you know what it is you might have done. You had more pressing issues to deal with as is.

"I'm not talkin' for my own benefit here," Ghost remarks. "What good is havin' you with us if you can't keep up? This needs work."

"I get it, Ghost, I do," you straighten up, trying not to take his words to heart. 

"Then start acting like you do," he said.

You know that in some way he just wanted to be sure you were ready for what you've gotten yourself into. He didn't want you holding them back, and you shared the sentiment. Even now, he's only run one mission with you in the past, and you'd say your performance then was less than satisfactory that night also.

However, the lieutenant's harping could be rather grating. And he had no problem with continuing, however long you continued to stand in front of him.

"You'd 'ave been dead already, had I not been there on our last op," he says suddenly, a fact you needn't any reminding of. It's part of the reason why you haven't just called it a day yet. "Hesitation, Canary. That's your problem. Fix it."

"Yes sir," you nod.

"Now," Ghost ushers for you to get back to it. "Show me what all this fuss is over you Shadows. I'm still waiting to see for myself."

"In due time, Lieutenant," you say.

"Clock’s tickin'."

You rush back over to the course entrance, waiting at the doorway with your rifle hugged to your chest for Ghost to buzz you in. As you prepare yourself, you don't notice Soap entering the building only seconds later. Before he'd had time to say anything though, Ghost buzzed the door open, as you rushed into the course, the timer beginning.

By now you had most of the course memorized: Around this corner is a narrow corridor with six rooms on either side. Each room is filled with a mix of targets and civilians made out of metal posts that swing up once you've entered the room. The objective at this point was simple enough -- clear out all hostiles as fast as possible with as few casualties as possible.

As far as you're concerned, your precision more than matches Ghost's and Soap's, and if they couldn't see that at this point then they were deliberately giving you a hard time. When you shoot, you don't miss. It's something you've prided yourself on. However, your speed seemed to be more of a crutch than you'd noticed.

From the monitors outside the course, Ghost and Soap watch as you swiftly infiltrate the first two rooms, taking out the first couple of targets in a matter of seconds.

Soap watches intently, not having had the chance to really see you run the course yet. He has to keep himself from grinning; watching you was damn impressive. "How many times has she gone now?" he asks.

"Four. Excluding this one," Ghost answers.

"Steamin’ Jesus," Soap huffs. "How's she scorin'?"

"Just two seconds shy of Expert," Ghost says. "She's nearly got you beat, Johnny."

"Wow, OK," Soap says rather proudly. "She's passed then technically, no?"

"That's right," says Ghost. "She's runnin' this by her own request. Says she can beat one of our scores."

"And she might beat mine?" Soap whines, though Ghost can't tell if it's out of competition or genuine adoration. Though the man's next comment would leave little to the imagination. "Woof. What a woman."

"She's got it down, mostly." Ghost continues to monitor the cams, seeing you reach the final two rooms of the corridor. "Apart from this one bit ‘ere..."

Ghost watches you enter the room, your rifle raised and ready to fire. The targets spring up as displayed: two hostiles and a civilian woman. The hostile cutouts appear as cliche as possible, dressed in dark tactical gear and expressing themselves rather angrily. The woman was rather comical as well, drawn out to look as though she were screaming and crying.

You reach this room and it takes you a good three seconds to fire, and soon after your performance from this room to the next slows down drastically. Just as it has done the last four times.

Ghost presses down on the intercoms again. "Pick it up, Canary," he barks out. "You tellin' me you got in with that aim?"

"A bit harsh, eh L.T.?" Soap comments.

"Some tough love never hurts," Ghost retorts.

You barge back through the course exit once more, reapproaching the lieutenant as you eagerly await your score.

Ghost reviews everything, and looks back at you plainly. "Sharpshooter."

"Fuck!" You throw your head back in defeat, groaning to yourself loudly.

"Fuckin' hell, Canary," Ghost crosses his large arms over his chest, cocking his head at you rather disappointedly. "We haven't got all day. Maybe it's time to call it quits-"

"No," you immediately protest. "I can do this, I know I can..."

Despite the vigor in your voice, your eyes betray you when they fall from the lieutenant's. You didn't want the doubt to start settling in, but it had been a tough battle for it not to. Both Soap and Ghost scored Expert with ease, and here you are now struggling to even make it that far. Even if you get it now, what good would it do?

Having sensed the sudden change in your demeanor, Ghost sighs to himself suddenly, relaxing his posture. "Don't doubt yourself then," he starts. "You've got the right idea; you can do this. I'll be here 'til you do, lieutenant."

Don't doubt yourself. You can do this. I'll be here 'til you do… You want to believe Ghost when he says that. Don't doubt yourself. You're here now, aren't you?

Ghost can see in your eyes that he's said just what you needed to hear, and a small smile forms. You can't see it, but the softness of his gaze made you like to believe it so.

You give the lieutenant an affirming nod, before rushing back over to your starting position, waiting for him to buzz you in for a sixth time.  You should have stopped being embarrassed about it three tries ago honestly.

Ghost calls to you suddenly. "Canary."

You look back at him.

"Remember," he said. "Don't hesitate. You can do this."

"You've got this, Canary!" Soap cheers you on from the sidelines. You wondered if they both could hear your heart skip a beat. You give them a final nod, before turning back to the obstacle, and seeing the lieutenant buzz you in.

Ghost watches you from the monitors, seeing you move unlike any way you have before. You sweep each room with ease, being stopped by nothing and quickly making your way to the next like a shadow in the night. Your performance is so beautiful, neither men can even bring themselves to make a comment on it. They were too busy watching.

"There she goes," Ghost says under his breath, not even aware that he had begun to. Though you can't see Ghost, you can feel him cheering you on from the other side of the wall.

You reach that final room that's been tripping you up this whole time, watching as the cutouts pop up. You remember not to hesitate, and really allow your mind to let go of itself and your finger to move over the trigger naturally. You pull the trigger and drop your targets, and move out in a flash, finishing the last room with ease and making a dash to the course exit.

You barge through the doors for your sixth and hopefully final time, eagerly waiting for Ghost to give you your score, turning the safety to your rifle and placing it on the rack with the rest of them. This had to be it. You could feel it.

Ghost goes over the score, and even he can't hide how impressed he is. You just scored higher than he did.

"Expert."

You let out the girliest squeal imaginable, and it damn near startles both men, as your arms shoot above your head with excitement. You did it. You did it! Not only did you do it, but you beat both Soap and Ghost's scores on top of it. Even though it took you damn near half the day, you didn't care, because you did it.

And then you do something you probably shouldn't have.

Being a habitual hugger in most instances that called for it, your first instinct was to hug someone. Soap wasn't immediately by you, however, Ghost was. And you weren't really thinking when you leaped over to him joyously, your small arms barely managing to wrap around his large frame, as you pulled him in for a hug.

Immediately you feel the lieutenant's body tense up, the man feeling like a statue to hold as a small gasp escapes his lips. Suddenly the man forgot everything he was previously thinking. 

It's a good thing he could keep himself together, however, because had you truly surprised him, he may have accidentally pushed you away from him. Or worse. If only out of instinct. And if you knew the kind of morning he'd had, you might have thought twice about coming in so casually.

Still, your arms felt as good to be wrapped in as they had that night nearly a month ago. You squeeze him as tightly as you can, your face buried in his chest and your smile lying against him. Warm and true. Just like he remembered it.

Just as he's thought of wrapping his arms around you and finally returning the hug, you let go of him, noticing how stiff he is no doubt. His cold and guarded behavior doesn't dampen your mood, as you look up at him and smile. He gets lost in the way your eyes glisten with joy, not wanting to break from its hold just yet.

But alas, Soap has come in before Ghost can say anything further. You see the Sergeant approach you with a huge smile on his face, his arms already out for you to jump into. Which you happily obliged. 

You practically bolt to him, feeling him completely envelop you, as you nuzzle your head into his chest, smiling into him, squealing. Soap reciprocates your hug tenfold, embracing you so tightly it nearly takes the air from your lungs. But there was no better sensation than the feeling he gave while having you in his arms. He could take the oxygen from your lips as he wishes.

"I knew you could do it!" Soap boasted, his voice vibrating inside your chest. Had Ghost not begun to speak, you would have nearly forgotten he was there. Only momentarily.

"Alright," he says rather gruffly. "That'll do, you two."

You and Soap pull yourselves away from each other, awkwardly straightening yourselves up before looking back over at Ghost. He seems more interested in looking at you than Soap, however. His eyes peered into you like daggers suddenly, and it nearly sucked the excitement straight from you.

Have you overstepped?

"I say we celebrate with some drinks, aye?" Soap says suddenly, doing his best to alleviate the sudden tension that had grown between you and Ghost, as even he noticed it now. It nearly works.

"I need at least 48 hours between my nights out I'm afraid," you laugh. 

Soap shrugs. "Eh, suit yourselves then. I'll see if the others want to."

"No rest for the wicked, right Johnny?" Ghost quips.

"Right you are, L.T." Soap clicks his tongue.

The two of you watch as Soap exits the building, leaving you two alone. Suddenly the room felt empty of all its oxygen and incredibly small.

Ghost looked down at you like he had something to say but wouldn't. It's how he's been looking at you all day. You tried your best to not let it get to you, but you couldn't help but worry that last night may have rubbed him the wrong way.

Quickly, you think back on what it was that you may have done to suddenly to provoke him.

"Hey," you turn to Ghost, meeting his eyes bravely, though you admit his gaze felt more chilling than usual. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable just now. I didn't mean-"

"Just keep things professional, alright?" Ghost scolds. "You’d do good rememberin' that, lieutenant."

Right, you understand where the man's coming from. You're here to do a job, not mess around with them. Though they do make that a challenge not to do.

"Right," you nod, looking down at your feet rather defeatedly. "I'm sorry."

You weren't used to feeling this presence from Ghost. Like the sight of you suddenly brought him some sort of displeasure. You've heard stories of that famous, disinterested gaze of his, and how being next to him could make you feel puny in more ways than one. Maybe your were just hoping you'd been a special case with him. What were you thinking anyway?

But then Ghost goes and does something that makes you think maybe you aren't stupid for thinking you're something special. You hear Ghost sigh, and to your sudden surprise, you feel his hand rest firmly on the top of your head, as he began to pat you like a dog.

"Good job today, Canary."

When your eyes meet his again, you smile. And oh, how quickly are you reminded of what it was that kept you so interested in wanting to get close to the lieutenant. These small, little moments he scarcely let out.

You remember how encapsulating his eyes were, holding many years of experiences and stories that only he could tell. Every time you caught them, you couldn't help but wonder what could be going on behind that mask of his. What could be on the mind of a man like him?

Would you ever know?

"I had a good coach," you smile.

"Don't take 'em for granted," Ghost says dryly.

"I won't," you smile. "Thank you. Really. You were just the motivation I needed, it seems. Thank you."

Ghost leaving you with his approval was enough to drown out any other negative feelings you felt a moment ago. At least for now, which was enough.

Despite the mask, from how his jaw shifted momentarily, you could tell he was about to say something to you. Though he decides not to. You'll spend all night wondering what it was he wanted to say, instead of what he opted for instead.

"Don't mention it."

…

Inevitably, the day comes to yet another end. 

After leaving the course, Ghost made sure not to be anywhere near you, needing the chance to recuperate with himself badly. He was beginning to learn how incredibly difficult it would be to block you out of his mind. 

If you weren't such a treat to talk to at times, he's sure he would have no troubles whatsoever with keeping you at distance. But it seems if you're given even the smallest chance to talk to him, the man couldn't help but cave in and be nice back to you.

So he would need to go to plan B now if he wished to squash this little crush and get back to working with you professionally -- avoiding you.

At the very least, Ghost knew he could escape you once the night came, and there was no better distraction than the man's own hobbies. 

Ghost waited until it was well past a reasonable hour to be out, before changing into some gym attire (mask included) and heading out for his nightly jog. The one thing he'd actually had left to look forward to today.

Ghost arrived at an open track just 3 miles or so from the barracks, the field shrouded behind trees and shrubbery, as the clouds began to break and divide amongst a cool, night sky. No one else seemed to be around, a part from the occasional vehicle driving by. It almost excited the man to finally have a place to run that was all to himself.

Most people would be in bed at this hour, however, Ghost liked to use these hours to run errands and work out, seeing as it was the best way to avoid the crowd. He'd scouted out the area around the base the moment he got the name of where he was moving to. 

So you can imagine Ghost's shock and utter dismay when he arrived at the track field and saw that not only was he not alone, but you had been there as well.

Wonderful.

Ghost looks up to the sky for a moment, like a camera was looking down at him, with some distant audience laughing at him. Certainly, the universe was having a go at him. He was prepared to turn back around for the night, or even find another place to do his run. However, you see him in the distance before he can escape.

"Ghost?" 

You call to him, jogging over to where the man stands a little ways off from the track. You were changed into some tracksuit which fit you like a model on the cover of a magazine. Ghost looks you up and down, and then quickly hopes you hadn't just noticed that. 

From the sweat that painted your brow, you'd already been out here for a while. Out of breath, you begin to tease the lieutenant. "Can't stay away, huh? You followin' me now?"

"Not in the slightest," Ghost responds. "I wasn't expecting any company."

"Oh, well... surprise," you grin at him.  "I’ve only got three more laps if you want to be alone.”

Ghost could work with that.

“I’ll work around you," he said. "Don’t worry about it.”

...

You swear you were going to leave Ghost alone on the track.

You were coming up on your last lap now; Ghost had gone ahead and started his way around, sporting his usual hoodie and sweatpants get-up. It made him look like a hulking, shadowy mass on the track, calmly jogging his way along by. Paying no mind to you.

When he'd run by you, he'd make no acknowledgement of your presence, his mind fully focused on jogging. After he'd passed you a third time when you'd not even finished your second lap around, your impulses got the better of you.

Playfully, you wait for Ghost to run by you again before picking up your own speed. Though it's dark, and Ghost, as usual, is wearing a mask, the look on his eyes when he glanced over and saw you jogging side-by-side with him couldn't be more bemusing. 

Ghost doesn't say anything though, merely rolling his eyes as he turns his focus back to the track ahead of him. And then, the bastard actually started to run a little faster. Just fast enough to not be next to you anymore.

Asshole. You pout to yourself, before it's turned to a cheeky smirk. You wouldn't be done just yet.

You pick up your speed now, matching with the lieutenant's again until you're running alongside him once more. When the lieutenant looks over at you again, you smile sarcastically and wave at him.

Ghost runs ahead of you again. But he wouldn't get away from you that easily.

You catch up to Ghost again. And he runs away again. You keep picking up the speed, and every time you've matched it Ghost goes faster. Pretty soon, you both are practically bolting down the track after each other.

You start laughing to yourself, Ghost's stubbornness to let you jog beside him growing borderline comedic to you at this point. Of course you felt equally childish chasing after him, but it also made you feel kind of happy too. It was childish and it was sweet, and you were just having fun.

"Give it up already!" Ghost huffs out suddenly. His tone would lead you to believe he's annoyed, but it's so out of breath you find it goofy.

You laugh out loud. "You first!"

You're just about to be at Ghost's side again, when the universe suddenly feels the need to make you eat your own words. Your foot catches onto the ground wrong, as the tip of your toe trips you, causing you to topple over at top speed. 

You yelp.

The suddenness of it causes Ghost to turn and look your way, as he sees you about to fall. Instinctively, he turns, ready to catch you, just as you subconsciously reach out to grab hold of him. As a result, you both go crashing onto the ground.

Ghost falls onto his back, his head bouncing off the ground with a heavy thud. Meanwhile, you fall on top of the man, who right now feels more akin to a pile of bricks than anything remotely comfortable. As you crash onto him, you feel your weight shoot all the air out of his lungs, as you both fall down with a heavy oof.

"Fuckin' hell, that hurt!" Ghost groans, shooting a hand to the back of his throbbing head. 

You adjust yourself on top of him, trying to catch your own breath. "Are you OK?"

"It's nothin'," Ghost says.

"I'm sorry…"

Ghost pauses, lifting his head up slightly so that his eyes could meet yours. You watch the way his mud-color eyes twinkle in the night, observing how the dark of his irises took in every bit of you. It was hard to look away from.

"Like I said, it's nothin', Luv." 

Ghost rests his head back on the ground with a sigh, staring up at the starry sky above instead. The whole time you remain in place on top of him, feeling the rising and falling of his chest beneath you, as it carried your tiny frame with it. 

Had his hands not still been firmly clasped over your arms, you would have removed yourself from being on top of him. You're not even sure he's noticed himself still holding you.

"You're a stubborn bloody woman,” he comments suddenly.

"I almost had you, though," you tease.

"No."

"You're a lot slower than I remember, Ghost."

"You're a lot clumsier than I remember, Canary."

"Good thing I have you here to catch me then,” you giggle. “Helps you stay on your feet, lieutenant."

"They didn't mention that bein’ part of the job."

"It's under the same section that says not to hesitate."

"I'm surprised you read it then," Ghost teases.

"Oh fuck you."

You laugh and jokingly nudge at him, but almost pause when you feel something suddenly. For the first time since you've known the man, you feel his chest bubble in a light chuckle. He actually chuckled. Of course it's barely audible, and only last for about a second. But he did. And suddenly your heart was racing.

"Does this make me a winner then?" he sarcastically asks.

"For now anyway."

You laugh at his joke, subconsciously resting your head back down on his chest as you did.  In the meantime, Ghost was doing everything in his power right now not to focus on the fact that your body was shifting and moving and vibrating on top of him, your whole being so close to him that he felt he could go to sleep right here.

Though Ghost doesn't speak, you can feel his heartbeat begin to pick up in his chest as well. It makes you pause, you can't lie.

You notice his eyes have been locked on yours for a rather long time now since you’ve looked back at him. Well over a minute. His gaze is softer than anything you’ve seen before, and he’s lost in you from the looks of things. Lost in your eyes, lost by your touch, not even fully aware of just how long you’ve been on top of him, your heart thumping with his.

His hand gently trails up your arm, and it freezes you in place, your breath catching in your lungs. Wondering if you should stand or speak before something happened. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t curious as to what it was Ghost might be planning. Surely he wouldn’t do anything drastic, would he? No, not Ghost. Not the man who prided himself off on his discipline and formality.

Suddenly you’re noticing just how close you are to him too; you’re on top of the man for crying out loud. A position you never thought in a million years you’d be in, let alone today. And his eyes looked so much prettier up close, when they weren’t glinted with their usual tired disdain. No, the look he gave you was now something more… delicate. As delicate as his hands were against you.

Ghost’s voice is so faint you almost miss him speak to you. “Y/N…” 

You didn’t think he’d do anything, however, his hand keeps sliding up your arm, and it's making goosebumps dance down your skin like a ballroom dance. His fingers trace up to your neck, as cold as they were gentle, and you feel as though you’re seconds away from fainting. What is he doing? What in the world is going on right now?

"Ghost..?”

It’s as though the sound of your voice brought him back to the reality of what he was doing, because the second you speak, his hand pauses. His eyes grow wide, before a fire starts to burn behind them, and he takes his hand away from you, shifting himself up instead.

You take the hint, finally climbing off of him as you both fixed yourself, an awkward silence having now fallen in the air. You weren’t sure if you should comment on it. If that was an accident then… that’s what it was, right? Still, accident or not, your heartrate had doubled since that moment, and it hasn’t ceased to stop yet.

You look over at Ghost, wondering what the man might be thinking right now. His hood has fallen off, giving you a better view of his masked-covered head. He stands there, looking off into the field bashfully. Perhaps waiting for you to speak as well. His sudden shyness is not lost upon you.

Habitually, you say to him, “I’m sorry.”

Ghost shakes his head, roughly slipping his hands into his pockets as he shuffled around a bit in his stance. “Don’t be...” he says. “You know, you say that a lot.”

“I can’t help it,” you admit.

“Why?”

You’re unsure where it comes from, but you start to speak more from your heart than from anywhere tactical. “...I just really want you to like me.”

“I fail to see how that matters,” Ghost argues.

“Can’t we be friends?”

“Wha’, like you and Johnny?”

That one catches you off guard.

Of course, he suspected something. That only explains why he had been acting so awkward and cold with you all day. More than he normally was that is. Still, knowing that he knew you and Soap had something going on didn't make that news any better to hear.

“It can be anything you want it to be,” you tell him. “There’s nothing wrong with having people in your life, Ghost.”

He almost looked irritated with your answer. But you knew where that kind of irritation stemmed from. He was as mad at himself as he wanted to be at you. Mad enough to leave in fact, as right after, the man’s turned heel and started walking away from you.

Ghost wouldn't let you in close. He wouldn't allow it. Not you, not Soap, not anyone. He saw it as doing you all a favor, really. Neither of you wouldn't want anything to do with a man like him if you knew any better. Bad things always seem to come his way, one way or another. It's best not to mix others up in that.

You watch him go, ready to let him leave. But not really wanting him to go so soon.

"Where are you going?" you ask him.

"Away,” he says. 

Away. You were beginning to see a pattern.

"You don’t have to,” you call out suddenly.

Ghost stops in his tracks, his back still facing you, and his head cocked back to look up at the night sky. You continue speaking, determined to get to the bottom of this. You might as well, before you’re out in the field and it gets in the way of things.

“I know you don’t trust me, and I don’t blame you” you say. “I also know we haven’t known each other for very long either but… I would never hurt you, Ghost. I hope you know that.”

Ghost looks to you with a doubtful gaze. "Even if it weren't your choice to make?"

You nod. "Even so."

Ghost shakes his head disappointedly, chuckling to himself even. It finally manages to urk you. “Ghost-”

“Look,” he cuts in. “Just stay away from me, alright? I can't make that same promise to you."

"Why can't you?" you press.

"Canary, I'm telling you to leave me the fuck alone if you know what's good for you,” Ghost growls out.

You don’t listen, even going as far as to take a few steps closer to him. You pause when you see him take a step back however, not wanting to further overstep his boundaries.

"If that choice was out of your hands as well,” you ask again. “Would you hurt me?"

"I' don’t want to find out…” Ghost admits.

You stand a few feet from the lieutenant, taking his words in and letting them marinate in your mind. While even now Ghost remained as guarded and closed off as he could be, what he said to you was probably the most honest thing he’s ever said to you -- That he isn’t sure what he’d do if he was forced to hurt you. If you ever gave him a reason to.

In due time, you feared that question would really be answered. You didn’t look forward to that day, should it come.

"Let's hope we don't then, lieutenant,” you say.

Ghost nods. “I will.”

Ghost turns to leave again, and this time you don’t stop him. You remain where you are, reminding yourself to not forget what brought you here.

You hadn’t wanted Ghost’s words to make you sad after hearing them, but they did. His words made you sad, because with it came fear. If Ghost or Soap were to ever hear of Shadow Company’s criminal operations with the General, it would surely be the end to any feelings you've built up over the past month. They'd probably never want you around again. And that’s if you even survived the encounter.

You're not so sure what point it was that you stopped pretending. That you kept talking and wanting to be around 141, not because it was your mission to stay close, but because you wanted to. You wanted their approval. And it upset you, just as much as it kept you going all these weeks.

But how much have you let the lines blur between yourself and work lately? Where was it that your lies ended and your true self began? It was pivotal that 141 liked you, but that hadn't been the only reason why you'd gotten so drawn in by them.

You hadn’t realized how deep into things you’d been until now, because at this point, them finding out the truth would be more than a problem. It would be a complete betrayal of their trust.

No, if you wanted to make it out of here with your life and relationships in tact, the Task Force couldn’t find out about Al Mazrah.

You couldn’t allow it.

...Chapter Twenty Here!

#call of duty modern warfare 2 #call of duty #ghost x reader #soap x reader #simon ghost riley #john soap mctavish x reader #soap mw2 #ghost mwii #soap mwii #cod mwii #Spotify #control

[bookaddict24-7]

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

Books I’ve read so far in 2023!

Friend me on Goodreads here to follow my more up to date reading journey for the year!

___

196. The Alien by K.A. Applegate--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was such an interesting perspective! I wasn't expecting it a few books back and was curious how Applegate would tackle it, especially since we know so little about the character. It definitely added a new pov to the story and I'm excited to see how they are represented in the future after more time has passed and more character development has happened!

I can't say too much because spoilers. But I am genuinely enjoying this series and can't wait to get to the next one!

___

197. The Grip Of It by Jac Jemc--⭐️⭐️

If there is one thing this confusing and jarring book did really well, it is the representation of what it might be like to slowly fall into madness. The way the characters worked off each other in their madness and the way the dialogue and chapters worked together to create a choppy and disorienting dialogue was genius.

What wasn't so genius was how confused I was most of the time. There are so many unanswered questions and the story is full of confusing moments. I know that Horror can sometimes truly be a hit or miss and that one person's horror won't be another, but this is the kind of horror that should probably be read more than once to fully grasp just what the hell is actually happening.

I will say that while the structure of the story definitely works in creating the mood of the story, listening to the audiobook was an interesting and frustrating experience. The chapters would end rather abruptly and would often leave me wondering what had just happened.

Overall, this book was everything I was expecting, but also underwhelming in its over-all presentation. It was wild and so brain twisting. I don't know if I'd recommend it, but if I did, I'd recommend reading it slowly and maybe more than once LOL.

___

198. The Island by Adrian McKinty--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

THE ISLAND was both exactly what I was hoping it would be and still completely different than what I was expecting. I knew it was going to be a ride, but I wasn't prepared for the level of wildness that this book would adopt.

Imagine that you're on vacation with your new husband and his children, shortly after those kids' biological mother has passed away. You're in a country you know close to nothing about (Australia) and being the tourists who should be featured in a horror film, you find yourselves on a small, private island being chased by a trigger happy and aggrieved family. What ensues is something straight out of Hollywood.

I saw this as a cautionary tale for "actions have consequences" and while yes, the consequences here are dire, we have to admit that the catalyst for this was heartbreaking. I think McKinty does a good job of showcasing the dangers of grief and the magic of morally grey characters. Let's be real, the MC and her husband are no saints. They do a pretty twisted thing in order to save their asses and while yes, I was rooting for them and the kids, a corner of my mind couldn't forget the awfulness of their choices.

If you're a parent, this might be a little bit of a rougher read since it does include younger kids in dangerous situations. We get to see an MC who grows as a character in order to make sure these kids survive, but I know some parents, especially those who have younger kids, might have a harder time with stories like this one. Keeping that warning in mind, there were some pretty badass moments, but also some very human ones, as well.

I really enjoyed this and I'm glad I finally picked it up!

___

199. Aesthetica by Allie Rowbottom--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

AESTHETICA was a lot and to be honest, I think that's necessary in the world we live in. So many young people obsessed with social media and their appearance on those apps are incredibly impressionable. What can help them be more famous? What can make them look more beautiful? The exploration of beauty standards and how they affect a young woman, in particular, and those around her can be relatable to at least one reader.

I think that Rowbottom's book is also a great look into generational trauma because of how the MC's mother raised her and how she herself had a level of dislike towards her mom that is a whole other side to this book. While we have the clear main story of the MC regretting the choices she made and dealing with that trauma, we also have her disentangling her love/hate relationship for her ill mother.

AESTHETICA was brought to my attention by an article presenting it as a horror story. In some ways, I can understand that. There is a certain kind of horror behind the trauma of selling yourself in the name of success. There is definitely a particular kind of horror in wanting to face all of the trauma you've faced, to the point where you're set on undoing everything that is the physical proof of that trauma.

Though this is a relatively short book, I think it carries a lot of weight. We see the power of social media and a naive mentality. We see the dangers of those who present themselves in a certain way. And we see the sometimes incredibly complex relationships between mothers and daughters and how deeply entwined these relationships and our own self worth can be. Also, a brief mention on the power of childhood friendships and how they can scar us if they end too soon, or shift in any way that is beyond our control.

I'd recommend this if you want a bit of an acid trip of an exploration into the above mentioned topics.

___

200. Icebreaker by Hannah Grace--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

RE-READ: September 2023:

My library got the audiobook version, so of course I HAD to put a hold on it. I was a little scared I wouldn't love this book as much as I did the first time around, but I'm happy to say that I DID! ICEBREAKER is still one of my favourite romances, if only because of the level of communication between the characters. I also forgot how spicy and full of sexual tension this book was.

Overall, super happy I re-read this. Maybe it'll be a yearly re-read. 😌

___

201. Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham--⭐️⭐️⭐️

There's something interesting about an older man writing a young kid--especially when his MC mentions in the book that at 13 years old, boys don't even notice girls and actively try to stay away from them. LOL. I actually laughed at that because I was thirteen over twenty years ago and I distinctly remember that not being the case. I just thought that was hilarious and felt super disconnected. Not that I want a romance story in a middle grade book, but just...let's be real. And I mention this first because it happens pretty early on.

Anyway, the MC was a pretty cool kid--he knows everyone and even has a little side gig where he gives advice to his classmates. His smart take on the current case and his enthusiasm jumps off the page. I'm not sure how I will feel about the rest of the series, but we will see!

___

202. Misery by Stephen King--⭐️⭐️⭐️

I went into MISERY knowing that it's a fan favourite. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was a bit let-down. I think that while I did enjoy some aspects of this book and was genuinely freaked out at times, this kind of fell into the same category of THE SHINING for me. When I read THE SHINING, it was incredibly hyped up and even though it DID have a terrifying take on the fall of madness, it was otherwise meh for me.

One of the best things that King does with his writing (or at least back them) was his creation of madness in a character. He somehow knows how to take the most terrifying characteristics of humanity and integrates them really well into his characters. The brutality of this villain was something else, especially when we actively see her professing her love for the MC and then causing him bodily harm.

I think one of the downfalls for me in my reading experience of this was listening to the audiobook. It was disjointed and confused the hell out of me. Maybe physically reading it would have been a wholly different experience, but the disorientation of the audiobook could have either freaked me out or confused me and sadly, it was the latter.

Not my favourite King novel, but I can see why so many love it. Will continue on my reading journey with King's books.

___

203. Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Phew, this book was weird and wild and hooked me right from the beginning.

Huang explores so many topics in her skin crawling novel: Racism, social perception of beauty, the addiction the wealthy sometimes have when it comes to "self-care", unexplored sexuality, envy, and SA in the most unusual of ways but could also be an allusion to how the rich can sometimes use money when it comes to getting away with sexual crimes.

I never expected body horror when I picked up NATURAL BEAUTY, but here we are. I remember when that started to show up in the narrative, along with the changing physical body of the MC, I paused what I was doing (while listening to the audiobook) and became even more enthralled. This was such a creepy and genius exploration of societal expectations and the things people will sometimes do to be either "different" or "like everyone else".

There's also an interesting sub-story about the MC's experiences as a child musical prodigy and how that definitely played into her malleability as a victim for the people who would eventually take advantage of her. It definitely played into the stereotypes society has about young Asian children when it comes to classical music.

And somewhere along the way, as the MC is evolving (both metaphorically AND physically), she starts to discovery a side to her sexuality never fully explored. During these scenes, it truly reminded me of the "will they/won't they" that usually accompanies blossoming sexuality--the "I want this, but do I really? But should I? Do THEY want to?" narrative that usually flashes through our minds when we're right on the verge of making that exploration.

Anyway, I'm just rambling now. I really enjoyed this, much more than I thought I would because this book was WEIRD. Like, mind-bending weird. And if it was ever made into a movie, I'd be watching it with the biggest side-eye.

___

Have you read any of these books? Let me know your thoughts!

___

Happy reading!

#books #booklr #bookish #Book Reviews #book review #book blog #book blogger #Features #my writing #my opinion #long text post #read #reader #reading #book list #book rec #bookworm #bookaholic #book recommendations #book reader #readers of tumblr #book addict

[myrfing]

i think. ok. sitting on my hands for a bit thinking about how to say this. america is something of an outlier in the world as far as their experience with war, nationalism, and militarism goes, in terms of our psychological and physical proximity to it and our history and the kind of power we experience from it. american people making media crit who are otherwise brilliant tend to straight up forget or not fully realize this. they think that War Is The Same across the world and how they experience it and how it impacts their thinking and worldview must be a universal human thing that has variance, but within the same range of perspective. but warfare is extremely abstract for most americans. the point of the way we conduct warfare is to make it abstract for us and as the “blood is rarely shed on ‘our’ soil” country we are always looking from the pov of the guy holding the axe, but like, as a dot on a gamescreen. and so the way we parse narratives about war is skewed, and we are susceptible to having our understanding of it shaped by fiction. which is why so many people have trouble grasping how, say, japanese stories that have a “war is bad” tempo to it, may still be structured around imperialistic notions. the white american antiwar narrative has largely been centered around the trauma it inflicts on american soldiers for ultimately nothing and so when americans see this trauma thing in any story, including any foreign story, they’re pretty quick to deem it as unequivocally antifascist and anti-imperialist: see, look, the story tells us how millitarism dehumanizes us and leads to all sorts of bad shit, how can this be xyz. it is obviously a cautionary, condemning tale about Humanity (<- no examination of a whole other culture’s differing definition of humanity). but then this is said by someone who has little to no clue on seeing in action how the self-inflicted trauma of war and it’s suffering and horror and humilliation can actually create justification for its continuing. the logical, easy two step assumption taken as granted is always that if something is bad and hurts, you stop doing it. this is like. different for the people of countries with extremely extensive long periods of modern warfare on their soil and inflicted on their people, who do not have an extremely wide berth to the violence they both perpetuate and experience. like i.e. what it actually means to dehumanize is mythological itself to a lot of white americans, and then they do shit like assume all grotesque imagery is pointed inward because that’s easy to say for people who have no real stake in it. Wat ever actually i got tired of writing this post the context is i just watched another a0t is actually good analysis vid and it did not change my mind

#also i have to say the easiest way to tell when a story is like that is when it takes its war narrative utterly seriously #and does not have an element of human absurdity and humor to it. #not a 100% thing but you can smells it yes

[cornerattic]

Anais' Attic- Balatro.

Have you ever wanted to play Poker, but it's actually Yu-Gi-Oh, but it's Slay the Spire? Well that's what you'll get out of Balatro, the latest Deck-builder Roguelike to hit the market.

I'm a fan of roguelikes/lites, both Clo and I have been for a long time. Risk of Rain 2, Rogue Legacy 1 & 2, Hades, even Enter the Gungeon to a certain extent- and of course, Slay the Spire. Hell, even in Honkai Star Rail we ended up only playing through more of the game so we could unlock more Simulated Universe content.

There's just something about the addiction of “Just one more run, just one more run, cmon, can't end on a loss, just one more” that scratches the lizard brain’s itchy rash like freshly manicured nails, and Balatro definitely hits that urge. It's the prestigious winner of two of our personal rewards, one of which is that in an effort to not have to stop playing, we decided to purchase it on both Ps5 and switch. Sure it's only 15$, but that should tell you all you need to know about how good it really is.

But in case you'd like a full breakdown, here you go.

As stated Balatro is, in essence, another deck-builder roguelike. You win battles, earn money, and proceed to use said money to acquire new cards so you can win more battles to earn more money and so on. Same loop, new software. But one of Balatro's unique things is that it uses your standard 52-card deck as its base to build from. It's more complicated than that by the end of the average run, but that is where it starts. If you've seen a 52-card deck, you've seen every card in the starting deck. Where it gets wild is the different jokers you can use to build into getting all sorts of wild combinations, like turning all your cards into the same suit, or giving you a 4x multiplier for playing a four of a kind.

Because that's Balatro's other shtick- it's a poker game on top of everything else. You know all the memes you can find joking about Chess 2? Well this is Poker 2. If you know how to tell a three of a kind from a straight flush, you're a bit ahead of the curve, but you'll find your advantage means little when you need 300,000 points to beat the end boss of an ante, and you're barely making 30k with your hands. You're in Balatro's casino now, and you're gonna play by its rules.. But hey, at least it'll tell you the rules. That's more than you'd get in vegas.

Balatro is, however, all gameplay. Not so much as a scrap of an excuse plot. If you imagine a scale with “Roguelike storytelling” on it, then Balatro is far on the other end, about as far away from Hades as it gets. If that turns you off, no big deal, I don't judge. But I will tell you you're missing out.

Balatro has exploded in popularity, and it's been mostly to its benefit. I say mostly because while the game did manage to sell over 500k copies in two weeks, it didn't manage to escape without an 18+ Pegi rating, and an outright ban in South Korea as of the time of this writing. Banned and outrageously rated for the same reason there's no more game corner in the Pokémon games- it's too much like gambling, even when games that are essentially gambling and encourage gambling are not only allowed, they're shoved in your face.

If you're just looking for a thumbs up or down, let me answer that with a cautionary tale. Clover and I were told to give this one a try by a friend, and it proceeded to consume just over 30 hours of our sadly limited time on this earth over the span of a week. Given we work a dayjob, but have the ability to play for an hour at lunch, that's essentially nothing but Balatro in every spare moment. Which is why Balatro is the recipient of our other personal reward, being awarded the honor of getting deleted just so that we could get any work done.

After all, if the house always wins, then the only winning move is not to play at all. - 🌙

#balatro #Review #I'm gonna go redownload it now🌙

[bonefall]

I love your wildfur so much, his design is very cool :)

It’s really nice that you’re giving care to characters like him. Warriors probably has the most disabled rep of any franchise I can think of off the top of my head and unfortunately almost all of it is handled poorly. But those cats still mean a lot to me haha.

I’ve always been confused by why we haven’t had a blind warrior. Not that any of the cats have to perform warrior duties if they can’t or don’t want to, but blind cats are pretty active from what I know.

For a personal project, I’ve been trying to work out a better way for deaf cats to communicate, a sort of kitty sign language. It’s been fun and I’ve definitely been a bit inspired by your work.

Sorry about the long rambly ask and all the previous times I’ve been in your ask box! Just really enjoying the au and chatting

I understand the narrative purpose of Wildfur in-canon more than any of the other 'botched examples' if that makes sense; he was basically retconned in as a cautionary tale for Briarlight, which is understandable. They need the cast to get some info they'd otherwise have to trial-and-error out.

The cool part about my AU though, is that I can go back and make Wildfur a full character! I can show him as a full person with a personality, the logic that went into figuring his treatment out, and show that BB Clans would never leave a warrior behind.

(it is fucking weird though that TNP just left a bunch of old people behind ._. "thanks for not slowing us down grandma. Good thing we don't really believe in that whole 'wise and respected elder role' thing lol")

I think the reason we haven't gotten a blind warrior is largely because the Erins really don't write them as cats. They write them like little fuzzy humans without tools. Blindness is really not the handicap for cats that Canon shows it to be; hearing, scent, and touch are much more reliable in cats than they are in humans.

(for example, that moment in-canon where Jaypaw is fighting Owlpaw... they were so close together that Jay would have been able to feel him with his whiskers. I've seen fully blind cats able to fight, hunt, and navigate with barely any restriction. I'm actually going to be demonstrating BB!Jay's unique fighting style; he grabs you and doesn't let you get away from him. "Jayfang" references how much he likes to bite lmao. Ironically deafness would be harder to work with in this society.)

#Also thanx for the compliment #I try to be approachable #even though i. again. am looking at almost 300 asks lmao help

[raytorosaurus]

hi nic nj hardcore scene historian. could i ask for some essential podcasts of thursday/geoff <3 if you have the time ofc :-)

YES OFC okay i need to warn you that this shit is Potent. you will fall in love and it will get to a point where you need a certain amount of food water geoff podcast just to get you through the day. if you search "geoff rickly" on spotify and sort podcasts i can genuinely say every single one of them is worth a listen. but here are a couple that are a good starting place, from memory:

going off track (october 2012): this one's a classic because it's the first time he appeared on steven smith's (yes, of untitled rock show fame) podcast - he's been on it a couple of times and every one is great but this one covers a good deal of interesting information about the jersey hardcore scene geoff was really involved in (which is really cool to learn about as a my chem fan too!) and the vibes are good bc they all go way back (one of the co-hosts, jonah bayer, is in another grindcore/punk band with geoff)

sappenin' (october 2019): again, vibes are great with these hosts because they've been friends for ages. i'm not sure exactly how in-depth they explain it but geoff went through some real shit in 2014-16 and some of that's referenced in here. two pieces of context just in case: they talk a bit about the band geoff formed with the ex-members of l*stprophets after that lead singer went to jail for some fucked up stuff (major csa warning if you google), and also about the music label geoff created in an attempt to prove that it was possible to run an ethical, artist-first label, which...imploded quite dramatically and publicly because he trusted the wrong investor lol.

cautionary tales (january 2018): the vibes of this one aren't as laid-back and fun but it is very interesting and informative about, like, scene history and politics as it relates to both thursday and my chem

lead singer syndrome (feb 2021): geoff has earned his poor little meow meow title more than anyone else. they talk quite a bit about all the label bullshit thursday/geoff went through in this one

shallow rewards dream life of emo part 1 and 2 (sept 2016): again this one's really interesting in terms of emo/post-hardcore history and situating both thursday and my chem in that, fairly succinct too

and last but not least it's worth mentioning that geoff has his own short podcast on spotify (under geoffrey rickly) about mental health in the arts industry, and this episode specifically features steve from thursday and norm brannon (who is also currently touring with thursday) and they discuss homophobia and being closeted as a touring artist in the scene (nothing graphic or too upsetting, but definitely worth a listen).

okay that's already quite a lot of podcast lol but like i said. you can't go wrong. some of the guys, especially tucker and steve, have done some good ones too which are funny to listen to after geoff podcasts bc both those guys are like eighty times less dramatic than geoff in general lmao. also shout-out to this one by stu, thursday's current touring bassist (and geoff's no devotion bandmate), because he does talk quite a bit about geoff in it, but also because it's just like. a really good listen. they talk about some pretty confronting stuff regarding the l*stprophets situation, im not exaggerating when i say this episode made me laugh out loud and cry in my car within like the same ten minutes.

anyway. have fun good luck not falling deeply deeply into parasocials with geoff after these lol ✌️ and just in general, to mcr fans, i honestly think getting to know a little bit of this kind of stuff can really enhance your enjoyment and appreciation of my chem as well!

#SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO ANSWER THIS i am slow at everything i do #mwah enjoy #thursday #answered #ref

[favoriteblogonthecitadel]

was going to ask about Xiomara and Kasumi’s relationship, which i would love to hear about, but also… who on the SR-2 is Xo closest to? does she have any designated gossip buddies, rivals, really close friends, etc…? 👀

Oohh this is such a fun question!!

In general, Xiomara is a curious coworker to have because she’s an extrovert with a strong self-preservation instinct: she tends to get along easily with people on a surface level, but develops few meaningful relationships. More on her various dynamics with the SR2 crew below!

Miranda is the intellectual rival with sexual tension. Xiomara often takes her along for missions because she’s undoubtedly capable and easy to annoy once Xo figures out her red buttons, so she gets to channel her distaste for Cerberus while getting stuff done. The more rogue Miranda goes, the more they come to like each other.

Garrus is another frequent companion because they have a friendly competition and the same aversion to talking about feelings, so it’s a nice bro relationship. I would say he also makes her laugh, but I think it’s more that she laughs at him often and appreciates that he provides that relief just by existing.

Kasumi is an unexpected friend. She frankly seems to have no agenda to influence Shep, she’s just there to get her credits and be hilarious. 10/10 they become gossip buddies, exchange stories about stealing from rich people, and she might even be the only person that Xo ever mentions Kaidan to. Kasumi knows what it’s like to lose your person.

She finds Mordin unnerving because she doesn’t like scientists in general, especially those of the medical kind, being a biotic who often got treated like a lab rat early in her career. The thing is that Mordin’s cold calculation often makes perfect sense to her. So she listens to his professional advice and keeps a safe distance. When he goes through his moral crisis, she lowkey goes through her own as a result, but she keeps it to herself.

Thane, Grunt, Samara, and Jack are all fine by her, they’re also just so intense that she spends less time around them. Samara and Thane also happen to be at a different, later stage in their lives, where Xo doesn’t quite relate to them. In contrast, Grunt and Jack at least share Xo’s penchant for chaos. They’re high maintenance, but what they ask of her is not emotional support or even a listening ear; just blowing stuff up with them, which is the mark of camaraderie in her book.

Jacob is a good, reliable person to have on board, just too serious to pique her interest.

Joker is the one she goes to when she needs to make inappropriate jokes in a safe environment. She definitely doesn’t trust EDI at first, but later becomes quite fond of her.

She recruits Tali last and it’s not until she’s on the Normandy that Xo realizes how fucking much she missed her. Ultimate babygirl that brings the best out of Xo while also being a supportive, unjudgmental ride or die, which means the world to her.

I haven’t gotten to Legion yet so I’m not sure what to describe there, but I can update with thoughts later. 👀

Edit: I forgot about Zaeed lmao!! Considering Xo could’ve easily become a mercenary in a different timeline I feel like they communicate easily. She calls him “old man” when he starts trying to tell her old stories. He feels a bit like a cautionary tale. @urzfanclub Adding this here whoops <3

#ty for asking!! this was fun to think about and describe <3 #I didn’t mention Liara since she’s technically not SR2 crew and is a whole ‘nother story #xiomara shepard #mass effect #asks

[littlemissnoname13]

Being Friends with Benefits with Rockstar!Draco would include:

Summary: I wrote these head cannons based on a conversation with a wonderful Anon of mine. If you’re reading this ◑, I really hope I did you proud.

Warnings: mature language and themes, no smut or anything explicitly nsfw but there are several mentions of sex and innuendos. As always read at your own discretion

A/n: second queued post. Apologies for the spam but I have one more coming after this.

Masterlist

I always imagine rockstar!Draco would have a bit of a bad boy reputation.

You’d probably hear a lot about him in the tabloids and the good ol’ internet for being a bit….temperamental.

Some examples of trashy tabloid headlines revolving around him would read like: “Malfoy in a fist fight again!”, “He’s a cautionary tale about the dark side of fame,” says Draco Malfoy’s former manager, in a candid interview.”

Draco hates that his label makes him participate in social media marketing gimmicks and despises attending promotional events. Unfortunately he is forced to oblige due to his contractual obligations to the label.

Sometimes, he’ll just straight up walk out of press conferences and album launches because they ask him too many questions that he would rather gouge out his eyeballs than answer.

It was never about fame or money for him. His massive Malfoy Inheritance is enough to last him a lifetime without working.

He’s in it because music is the only thing that seems to put his demons at bay. When he’s on the stage, he forgets the rest of the world.

His first guitar was a gift from his aunt Andromeda

He wears a LOT of rings on his fingers and has calluses on his fingertips from strumming too hard on his guitar

TATTOOS. He definitely has a lot of them. And I’m talking tattoo sleeves, ink on his knuckles and maybe one one of his calves

Just as much as he loves the stage, he loves staying up late in his hotel room, strumming his acoustic guitar and writing music.

He has some half finished and brutally raw songs that he doesn’t feel comfortable sharing with the world. They are too sacred and he is afraid of being vulnerable

Out of those deeply personal songs he’s written, most if them are about you

You don’t know they’re about you because Draco never tells you

He’s known you for more than half of his life. You’ve been friends for so long

Ahem..friends that occasionally sleep with each other I mean.

Even though you live in different cities, Draco has a habit of sending you random little texts every couple months

Sometimes he’ll text you right before going on stage or right after

His texts range from sweet little messages like: “Hello from Brussels, I had a waffle this morning and I immediately thought about you.” Or random texts that leave you scratching your head like “I dreamt of you last night.”

You are his one true weakness, his unrequited love

When he’s touring in your city, he’ll meet you for drinks in disguise. It’s an ineffective disguise because it’s just him in sunglasses and a hat or hoodie of some sort

Meeting for drinks ALWAYS ends up in his hotel room with your clothes tossed haphazardly across the floor

“Fuck. I’ve missed being inside of you.” He almost always says into your ears

You love the feel of his tattooed hands around the base of your throat

Obviously the man has impeccable rhythm and his fingers are awfully skilled so you are always a screaming, moaning mess

Every time he touches you, he is hyper aware of his calloused fingers. He doesn’t want to hurt you

You want to be with him and he wants to be with you but somehow life always gets in the way.

Right person wrong time

In between moments of rushed hotel elevator kisses and bathroom sex, there are some profound moments that just suspend in time. During those moments, the two of you lie naked in bed and talk about life

Sometimes he’ll play a song he wrote for you while you lay your head on his leg and listen to him

Sometimes, you’ll even dance to his playing and he’ll obviously toss his guitar away to pick you up and kiss you

“Come to my show tomorrow.” He says “I’d love it if you did.”

And so you go.

The whole time he’s playing, his eyes are on you. It’s like no one in the arena is there. It’s just you. His muse.

When the show’s over, you wait for him backstage. And the minute is back stage, he kisses you. He pours out every emotion into that kiss.

Maybe one of these days, he’ll finally tell you how he really feels but for now, he has to be back on the road again.

Okay this one is a little specific but I can totally see him reaching for your hand and kissing your knuckles like a true gentleman every time the two of you part ways

“Until next time.”

The goodbyes are always temporary though. You’ll always keep colliding with each other. Call it fate, call it divine intervention.

He thinks of you all the time during those gaps though

You listen to his songs during the gap. Not the ones from his platinum certified album but from voice memos from your phone. The songs he wrote for you.

#draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy #draco x reader #draco fanfiction #draco malfoy imagine #draco fic #draco fanfic #draco malfoy fanfiction #Draco malfoy fanfic #draco malfoy headcanon #rockstar!au #rockstar!draco #draco headcanons #draco x reader smut #draco imagine #draco x yn #draco malfoy x yn #draco x you #draco x y/n #draco malfoy x slytherin!reader #draco malfoy x hufflepuff!reader #draco malfoy x ravenclaw!reader #draco malfoy x gryffindor #draco malfoy x fem!reader #scheduled cuz i’m at work

[tetsunabouquet]

Patterns I Notice In (Male) Reviewers of Childrens Media

You know, I've started to notice something.

I've been watching a lot of movie reviews lately, not limited to children's movies but still a lot of children's movies as obviously children's literature is my main focus as a writer.

Remember how in my post where I talked about how Ruby Gillman showed some of the wrongs in children's media today and I had a back and forth in the comment section with someone who pretty much slammed Ruby as bad but as we talked more and more they ended up being like, "It's just not my cup of tea," as I pointed out his/her core issues with the movie was just personal opinions?

These past months, I became a bit more familiar with reviewers who will just claim a movie is bad if it doesn't comes with profound philosophy and/or not their cup of tea and I actually noticed a pattern.

In regards to the people who use their real voices in YouTube videos or the authors listed in review articles, its mostly men who will downright claim a piece of fiction is terrible based on their opinion instead of wether the story is approaching subject matters in a harmful manner, etc. I barely see any women acting like 'I hated this movie, so should everyone else'.

An obvious example that comes to mind, is Monsters vs Aliens.

To me, it's not a masterpiece either and there were definitely a writing decision or two that was made poorly. However, I don't think it has earnt the label of bad or terrible whilst I've heard/seen multiple men call this movie as such.

On an entertainment level of value, does it entertain kids? Yes. As a kid I thought it was okay at its worst, good at its best moments.

Does it have a harmful message or premise? No.

Are the minor storybeats problematic or unrealistic? No. In fact, Derek breaking of their engagement not only mirrors insecure men threatened by more powerful women but it also mirrors some of the douchebags people who developped a terminal illness or disability have dated. Because of the many ship edits, I know not a lot of people actually know the story behind Arcade, the Eurovision hit by Duncan Laurence.

In ship edits, this song often gets used for tragic ships or doomed star crossed lovers, but it's actually about having wasted everything for a relationships that is not worth it and that is the key part of the song people always miss. You see, the story behind the song is this;

Duncan Laurance had a friend who was diagnosed with cancer and she had no chance for recovery. Her boyfriend, rather then being there for her in her final moments, broke up with her and she spent her final days, lovesick on her deathbed waiting for him to come back but he never did. Duncan wrote the song in her memory but also to be a cautionary tale for himself, to never become the idiot wasting their final moments on a asshole who left you to die with a broken heart!

Susan and Derek reminds me of that story, because men like Derek would have also left Susan if he found out she was terminally ill or got into an accident that left her disabled.

So the movie's storytelling isn't downright terrible by any means and the animation is also decent. But again, I've heard multiple men take a dump on this movie for being trash.

I'll admit my brain is too foggy to remember how well the other monsters were written but considering the main story rested on Susan's shoulders and that was told acceptable enough and they gave her the self-acceptance she needed, how well they are fleshed out isn't too much of a deciding factor wether its good, okay or bad when it comes to stories aimed at younger children.

How well characters outside of the protagonist are developped and how important that is to the overall story really depends on the age demographic as well as the kind of story at hand. The more characters a child is meant to empathize for and follow their direction during the story, the more difficult it is to grasp for the really young ones. Small kids prefer having one fleshed out protagonist with a weaker cast over every character having a deeply developped backstory. Flat side characters are a thing in children's media for a reason.

Shows have a somewhat unique position for their ability to flesh out the characters because they have way more time to tell the story so they can easily create a filler episode where a background character shines even if its meant for a way younger audience and it also has the option to have the characters grow and become semi-fleshed out alongside the viewer if the show gets popular enough for a long-run.

In the case of a slightly older kid demographic, this can lead to fully fleshed out masterpieces like ATLA, though not every kid show should be on their level for us not to bash the property. Brain dumb entertainment can still be a masterpiece in a kid's eyes and could lead to them becoming a long-time fan for nostalgic reasons.

What we should bash, are harmful kids shows like Cocomelon who's animation was literally proven to be too fast for a young kid's brain to follow hence the infamous Cocomelon zombie-kid and the Cocomelon tantrums became a thing, because their brain speed has adjusted to a speed faster then real life speed. Anyone who listened often to Nightcore and then went on to listen to the original version, likely encountered this effect with the original song suddenly sounding slower then you remember it- thats your brain speed having adjusted to the Nightcore version.

I couldn't believe my eyes when the far right recently turnt on Cocomelon because of there being some LGBT episode, when Cocomelon was already proven to mess up a kid's brain speed and in kids with brains that are still that lacking of development we don't know how much fucking with their brain speed will lead to in their development. I saw parents turning away from that show during the Pandemic for this very reason so I was flabbergasted so many parents on the far right still let their kids watch Cocomelon in the first place!

It's cheaply made harmful material and I was quite literally fuming with all the stupid parents saying 'God, I really have to keep in mind what type of content my kids consumne', like yeah no shit Sherlock! The fact your kids were still watching all of it after the many controversies, proved you never cared about the quality of media your kids consumne in the first place, don't pull that stupid Pikachu face! The fact LGBT content is the straw and not the actual harm this show does to children's brain development makes me want to punch someone in the face.

Can male reviewers please start targeting the actual bad children's movies and shows and not shit on movies who simply didn't managed to strike the gold of a masterpiece in storytelling and possibly animation? If someone were to force me between watching Dreamworks' Trolls franchise the entire day over and over again and just one hour of Cocomelon, I'd still pick Trolls in a heartbeat.

Because watching an okay is always more better then watching a movie/show that actually deserves the label terrible.

#tetsutalk #writing #critics #reviewers #a trend I noticed #monsters vs aliens #trolls #dreamworks trolls #cocomelon #that a story isn't a universaly regarded masterpiece doesn't make it bad #harmful content is actually bad #brain speed #actually look into the shows your kids watch #don't blame it on the LGBT #Cocomelon has always been a cancer #arcade #the origin of the song and how everyone misuses it