#I mean it’s there in the background all the time but today it struck me how Bad they are

[carriesthewind]

Oh dear.

So as some of you may know, I love to point and laugh at bad legal arguments. And as fun as legal dumpster fires are when they are made by people who aren’t lawyers but think this whole “law” thing seems pretty simple, it’s even funnier when an actual, barred attorney is the person dumping gallons of kerosene into the dumpster.

And oh boy folks, do I have a fun ride for y’all today. Come with me on this journey, as we watch a lawyer climb into the dumpster and deliberately pour kerosene all over himself, while a judge holds a match over his head.

The court listener link is here, for those who want to grab a few bowls of popcorn and read along.

For those of you who don’t enjoy reading legal briefs for cases you aren’t involved with on your day off (I can’t relate), I will go through the highlights here. I will screenshot and/or paraphrase the relevant portion of the briefs, and include a brief explainer of what’s going on (and why it’s very bad, but also extremely funny). (Also, I’m not going to repeat this throughout the whole write-up, so for the record: any statements I make about how the law or legal system works is referring exclusively to the U.S. (And since this is a federal case, we are even more specifically looking at U.S. federal law.) Also, I don’t know how you could construe any of this to be legal advice, but just in case: none of this is, is intended to be, or should be taken as, legal advice.)

First, let’s get just a quick background on the case, to help us follow along. In brief, this is a civil tort suit for personal injury based on defendant’s (alleged) negligence. The plaintiff is suing the defendant (an airline), because he says that he was injured when a flight attendant struck his knee with a metal cart, and the airline was negligent in letting this happen. The airline filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that there is an international treaty that imposes a time bar for when these kind of cases can be brought against an airline, and the plaintiff filed this case too many years after the incident.

The fun begins when the plaintiff’s attorney filed an opposition to the motion to dismiss. (So far, a good and normal thing to do.) The opposition argues that the claim is not time-barred because 1) the time bar was tolled by the defendant’s bankruptcy proceedings (that is, the timer for the time limitation was paused when the defendant was in bankruptcy, and started again afterwords), and 2) the treaty’s time limit doesn’t apply to this case because the case was filed in state court before the state statute of limitations expired, and the state court has concurrent jurisdiction over this kind of case.

I’m struggling a bit to succinctly explain the second reason, and there’s a reason for that.

You see, the whole opposition reads a bit…oddly.

This is how the opposition begins its argument, and it’s…weird. The basic principle is...mostly correct here, but the actual standard is that when reviewing a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim (which is what the defendant filed) the court must draw all reasonable factual inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. But even then, you don’t just put that standard in your opposition. You cite to a case that lays out the standard.

Because that’s how courts and the law work. The courts don’t operate just based on vibes. They follow statutory law (laws made by legislature) and case law (the decisions made by courts interpreting what those laws mean). You don't just submit a filing saying, "here's what the law is," without citing some authority to demonstrate that the law is what you say (or are arguing) it is.

Again, this isn’t wrong (although I'm not sure what it means by new arguments?), but it’s weird! And part of the reason it’s weird is that it is irrelevant to the defendant’s motion to dismiss. The defendant filed a motion stating that based on the facts in the complaint, the plaintiff has not stated a claim based on which relief can be granted, because the complaint is time barred by a treaty. There is no reason for this language to be in the opposition. It’s almost like they just asked a chatbot what the legal standards are for a motion to dismiss for a failure to state a claim, and just copied the answer into their brief without bother to double-check it.

The opposition then cites a bunch of cases which it claims support its position. We will skip them for now, as the defendant will respond to those citations in its reply brief.

The last thing in the brief is the signature of the lawyer who submitted the brief affirming that everything in the brief is true and correct. An extremely normal - required, even! - thing to do. This will surely not cause any problems for him later.

The next relevant filing is the defendant’s reply brief. Again, the existence of a reply brief in response to an opposition is extremely normal. The contents of this brief are…less so.

Beg pardon?

Just to be clear, this is not normal. It is normal to argue that the plaintiff’s cases are not relevant, or they aren’t applicable to this case, or you disagree with the interpretations, or whatever. It is not normal for the cases to appear to not exist.

Some highlights from the brief:

Quick lesson in how to read U.S. case citations! The italicized (or underlined) part at the beginning is the name of the case. If it is a trial court case, the plaintiff is listed first and the defendant second; if the case has been appealed, the person who lost at the lower court level (the petitioner/appellant) will be listed first, and the person who won at the lower level (the respondent/appellee) will be listed second. There are extremely specific rules about which words in these names are abbreviated, and how they are abbreviated. Next, you list the volume number and name of the reporter (the place where the case is published), again abbreviated according to very specific rules, then the page number that the case starts on. If you are citing a case for a specific quote or proposition, you then put a comma after the beginning page number, and list the page number(s) on which the quote or language you are relying on is located (this is called a “pincite”). Finally, you put in parenthesis the name of the court (if needed)(and again, abbreviated according to extremely specific rules) and the year the case was decided.

So the plaintiff’s response cited to Zicherman, which they said was a case from 2008 that was decided by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the defendant was not able to find such a case. They were able to find a case with the same name (the same petitioner and respondent), but that case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996, and the lower court cases associated with that case weren’t in the 11th circuit either. (The United States Reports is the only official reporter for the U.S. Supreme Court, and only includes SCOTUS decisions, so it’s not necessary to include the name of the court before the year it was decided.)

Just to be clear. The defendant’s brief is saying: the plaintiff cited and extensively quoted from these cases, and neither the cases nor the quotations appear to exist. These “cases” were not ancillary citations in the plaintiff’s brief. They were the authority it relied upon to make its arguments.

This is as close a lawyer can come, at this point in the proceedings, to saying, “opposing counsel made up a bunch of fake cases to lie to the court and pretend the law is something different than it is.”

That, “Putting aside that here is no page 598 in Kaiser Steel,” is delightfully petty lawyer speak for, “you are wrong on every possible thing there is to be wrong about.”

By page 5, the defendant has resorted to just listing all of the (apparently) made up cases in a footnote:

(skipping the citations to support this proposition)

This is where I return to my struggle to explain the opposition’s second reason why the motion to dismiss should not be granted. I struggled to explain the argument, because they failed to explain why the argument they were making (that plaintiffs can bring lawsuits against airlines in state court, and the state court have specific statutes of limitations for general negligence claims) was relevant to the question of whether the plaintiff’s specific claim against the airline was time barred by the treaty. Because 1) this case is in federal court, not state court, and 2) federal law - including treaties - preempts state law. Again, it’s almost like plaintiff’s attorney just typed a question about the time bar into a chatbot or something, and the machine, which wasn’t able to reason or actually analyze the issues, saw a question about the time to bring a lawsuit and just wrote up an answer about the statute of limitations.

We also end with a nice little lawyerly version of “you fucked up and we are going to destroy you.” The relief requested in the defendant’s original motion to dismiss was:

In their reply to the opposition, however:

“The circumstances” in this case, being the apparent fabrication of entire cases. Because courts tend to take that pretty seriously.

And the court took it seriously indeed. The defendant’s reply was docketed on March 15th of this year. On April 11th:

AKA: you have one week (an extremely prompt time frame for federal court) to prove to me that you didn’t just make up these cases.

On April 12th, the plaintiff’s attorney requests more time because he’s on vacation:

The judge grants the motion, but adds in another case that he forgot to include in his first order.

On April 25th, the plaintiff’s attorney files the following:

(And he lists the cases, with one exception, which he says is an unpublished decision.)

But he says of all of the cases except two, that the opinions…

Which is…nonsense?

First of all: if you cited a case, you had to get it from somewhere. Even unpublished opinions, if you are citing them in a brief, you are citing them because you pulled them off of westlaw or whatever. Which means you have access to the case and can annex it for the court. (There are even formal rules for how you cite unpublished opinions! And those rules include citing to where you pulled the damn case from!)

Secondly: remember that long digression I went into about how to read case citations? Remember that bit about how you include the name of the reporter (the place the case was published)? Yes, cases are published. They are printed in physical books, and they are published online in databases (e.g. lexis or westlaw). If the specific online database you are looking in does not have the case, you look somewhere else. If you have a judge telling you to get them a copy of the case Or Else, you track down a physical copy of the reporter if you need to and scan the damn thing yourself. You - literally - can’t just not have a copy of the case! (Especially published federal circuit court opinions, which multiple of these cases are! Those aren’t hard to find!)

And what kind of “online database” doesn’t include the entire opinion anyway? I’ve literally never heard of a case research database that only included partial opinions, because that wouldn’t be useful.

Maybe if we look at the attached annexed copies of the cases, that might give us some answers.

...

My friends, these things are just bizarre. With two exceptions, they aren’t submitted in any sort of conventional format. Even if you’ve never seen a legal opinion before, I think you can see the difference if you just glance through the filings. They are located at Docket entry #29 on Court Listener (April 25, 2023). Compare Attachments 6 and 8 (the real cases submitted in conventional format) to the other cases. Turning to the contents of the cases:

In the first one, the factual background is that a passenger sued an airline, then the airline filed a motion to dismiss (on grounds unrelated to the treaty's time bar), then the airline went into bankruptcy, then the airline won the motion to dismiss, then the passenger appealed. And the court is now considering that appeal. But then the opinion starts talking about how the passenger was in arbitration, and it seems to be treating the passenger like he is the one who filed for bankruptcy? It’s hallucinatory, even before you get to the legal arguments. The “Court of Appeals” is making a ruling overruling the district court’s dismissal based on the time bar, but according to the factual background, the case wasn’t dismissed based on the time bar, but on entirely other grounds? Was there some other proceeding where the claim was dismissed as time barred, and it’s just not mentioned in the factual background? How? Why? What is happening? Also it says Congress enacted the treaty? But, no? That’s…that’s not how treaties work? I mean, Congress did ratify the treaty? But they didn’t unilaterally make it!

In the second case, there’s an extended discussion of which treaty applies to the appellants claims, which is bizarre because there are two relevant treaties, and one replaced the other before the conduct at issue, so only the new treaty applies? There isn’t any discussion of the issue beyond that basic principle, so there is no reason there should be multiple paragraphs in the opinion explaining it over and over? Also, it keeps referring to the appellant as the plaintiff, for some reason? And it includes this absolutely hallucinatory sentence:

…the only part this that makes sense is that the argument is without merit. I’m not going to discuss the actual merits of the legal arguments in the opinion, because they are so bizarre and disjointed that even trying to describe them would require a Pepe Silvia-sized conspiracy board. Like the previous case, both the facts and the legal posture of the case change constantly, with seemingly no rhyme or reason.

The third one…oh boy. First, large portions of the “opinion” are individual paragraphs with quotations around the whole paragraph. What’s happening there? As far as the content of the opinion itself - I can’t. I mean that, I literally can’t. What is being discussed seems to change from paragraph to paragraph, much of it contradicting. It makes the first case seem linear and rational by comparison. The court finds it doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over the defendant so dismisses the case based on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction? But also the defendant hasn’t contested jurisdiction? And also the court does hold that it has both subject matter and personal jurisdiction over the defendant? And then it denies the motion to dismiss the case? Also, at one point it cites itself?

…also, even if this was a real case, it doesn’t stand for the propositions the plaintiff cited it for in their opposition? I’m not going to go into the weeds (honestly it’s so hallucinatory I’m not sure I could if I tried), but, for example, the plaintiff’s reply brief states that the court held “that the plaintiff was not required to bring their claim in federal court.” The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is a federal court, and there is no discussion of any filings in state courts. The closest the “opinion” comes is with the statement, “Therefore, Petersen’s argument that the state courts of Washington have concurrent jurisdiction is unavailing.” (This statement appears to be completely disconnected from anything before or after it, so I am unsure what it is supposed to mean.)

Moving on, case number four is allegedly a decision by the Court of Appeals of Texas. It includes the following line:

Honestly, the plaintiff’s attorney best defense at this point is that he wasn’t intentionally trying to mislead the court, because if he was doing this on purpose, he would have edited the cases to make them slightly more believable. (Context in case you’ve lost track: these documents are supposed to be copies of the opinions he is citing. The screenshoted line makes it clear that what he is actually citing is, at best, someone else’s summary of an "opinion". It would be like if a teacher asked a student to photocopy a chapter of a book and bring it into class, and instead the student brought in a copy of the cliffs notes summary of that chapter. Except that the book doesn’t even exist.)

The actual contents of the “opinion” are, as is now standard, absolutely bonkers. First, the court decides that it doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over Delta because “Delta did not purposefully avail itself of the benefits of conducting business in Texas.” This was despite the fact that the factual background already included that the appellant (sorry, the plaintiff, according to the “opinion”) flew on a Delta flight originating in Texas. Like, this is just wrong? It’s not even hallucinatory nonsense, it’s just facially incorrect legal analysis. Then the court starts discussing the treaty’s time bar, for some reason? Then it goes back to talking about personal jurisdiction, but now the trial court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the appellate court agrees with the trial court that it does have personal jurisdiction, even though this is the plaintiff’s appeal from the dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction and the court already ruled it didn’t have personal jurisdiction? And even though on page 1, the plaintiff was injured during a flight from Texas to California, now on page 7 she was injured on a flight from Shanghai to Texas? Also the trial court has gone back in time (again) to grant the motion to dismiss that it previously denied?

Also, I’ve been trying to avoid pointing out the wonky text of these submissions, but:

Everything ok there?

Case number five is similar enough to number four that it’s not worth repeating myself.

Thank god, cases six and eight, as noted above, are real cases, so I’m going to skip them. The defendant alleges that the cases do not stand for the propositions the plaintiff cited them for, and I’m going to assume that is true, given the rest of this nonsense.

Case number seven looks legitimate on the surface. But neither the defendant nor I could find the case through any legitimate search mechanisms. The defendant looked up the purported docket numbers on PACER and found completely different cases; I was able to find a case with the name “Miller v. United Airlines, Inc.,” but it was for a different Ms. Miller, it was a California state case (not a Second Circuit federal case), it was decided on a different year, and the substance of the case was entirely different from the alleged opinion filed with the court.

On top of that, this might be the most morally reprehensible fake citation of them all? Because it is about the crash of United Airlines Flight 585, a real plane crash. Everyone on board - 25 people in total - was killed. 

The individual cited in this fake court case was not one of them.

I cannot imagine conducting myself in such a way where I would have to explain to a judge that I made up a fake case exploiting a real tragedy because I couldn’t be bothered to do actual legal research.

Now, I know you all have figured out what’s going on by now. And I want you to know that if your instincts are saying, “it seems like the lawyer should have just fallen on his sword and confessed that he relied on ChatGPT to write his original brief, rather than digging himself further into this hole”? Your instincts are absolutely correct.

Because obviously, the court was having none of this b.s. On May 4th, the court issued an order, beginning with the following sentence:

That is one of the worst possible opening sentences you can see in an order by the court in a situation like this. The only thing worse is when judges start quoting classic literature. If I was Mr. Peter LoDuca, counsel for the plaintiff, I would already be shitting my pants.

“I gave you an opportunity to either clear things up or come clean. Now I’m going to give you an opportunity to show why I should only come down on you like a pile of brinks, instead of a whole building.”

We are getting dangerously close to “quoting classic lit” territory here.

If I learned that the judge in my case called up the clerk of a circuit court just to confirm how full of shit I was, I would leave the legal profession forever. Also, the judge is now also putting quotes around “opinion.” When judges start getting openly sarcastic in their briefs, that means very very bad things are about to happen to someone.

So I’m guessing the delay between this filing and the court order was because the judge’s clerk was tasked with running down every single one of the additional fake citations included in the "opinions", just to make this sure this order (and the upcoming pile of bricks) are as thorough as possible.

If you are following along with Dracula Daily, the vibe here is roughly the same as the May 19th entry where Dracula demands Jonathan Harker write and pre-date letters stating he has left the castle and is on the way home.

Also, hey, what’s that footnote?

Wait, what?

Folks, it appears we may have notary fraud, on top of everything else! Anybody have bingo?

So on May 25, one day before the deadline, Mr. LoDuca filed his response. And oh boy, I hope ya’ll are ready for this.

Hey, what’s the name of that other attorney, “Steven Schwartz”? Where have I seen that name before…

...I ran out of room for images on this post. So I'm going to have to leave this as an accidental cliffhanger. Part 2 to follow once I refresh my tea.

#ai bs #2 Stupid 2 Sanction

[hedgehog-moss]

Update on the French protests: we've had a well-known expert in contemporary political history call the situation we're in "the worst democracy crisis France has known since [the end of the 4th Republic]" and meanwhile the government is trying its hardest to maintain a façade of normal functioning by a) hiding from protesters, b) hiding protesters from view, and c) banning saucepans and other means of drawing attention to the protests that are being swept under the rug.

I mean casserolades are an old tradition in this country but they wouldn't have been needed if Macron &co hadn't started almost systematically banning protests in entire districts of the towns they visit and setting up police roadblocks to prevent peaceful protesters from going anywhere near them. (Too bad because these are the kinds of images the media get (these 2 are from Le Monde) when protesters get to talk to Macron <3) :

Protesters corralled away where they can be easily ignored started banging pots and pans so the protest could at least be heard in the background of TV footage, and then pans started being confiscated.

French courts have repeatedly struck down the bans as illegal but police prefects keep churning new bans out every time Macron goes somewhere anyway, trying to publish them at the last minute so there's no time for a judicial review. (I saw a sign at a protest last week that went "Stop with all the bans we no longer have time to disobey all of them")

After boldly banning saucepans by calling them "portable sonorous devices" last week, today a police prefecture banned "festive gatherings of a musical nature" in a town Macron will be visiting tomorrow. They're (ab)using counter-terrorist legislation for all this, so these days we get to read unheard-of court rulings that go like "We are suspending this prefectural decree as we do not consider festive gatherings of a musical nature to pose a significant terrorist threat to the President."

If Macron had people showing up in support I don't think we would see so many pissy protest bans because then the media could show backers vs. opponents and things would look normal (and not like 70% of the country is very pissed off with Macron). But there's not much for them to show if they don't show the angry people banging pans and it clearly rankles Macron—we learnt yesterday that he sent a letter to 200,000 political supporters of his essentially ordering them to start making appearances all over the country, to show they are "proud of what you are and of what our country has become [since I got elected]." That seems a bit desperate.

For months Macron &co have been predicting that people would get tired of taking to the streets in large numbers, and now that people are going like—right, let's try a new strategy, small local protests greeting gov members everywhere they go!—we're hearing a clear "no not like that, that's not what we meant :l " reaction from the government.

They've also been trying the strategy of announcing stuff at the last minute, like on Monday the Minister of Education announced at noon that he would visit a higher learning institution in Lyon 2 hours later, and a hundred of protesters still showed up and tried to force their way into the building. They were held off by cops using tear gas and trying to block entrances (there's a pic that made me smile, showing cops trying to barricade university gates with garbage bins—how the tables have turned...!) and the Minister ended up not showing up and moving on to the next step of his schedule (protesters tried to follow him there but police vans were blocking the street.)

The first half of the video is at the uni in Lyon; the second half is in Paris later that day. When he returned to Paris the Minister was greeted by protesters with saucepans at the train station, it's like a national relay race of protesting at times. He had to go back through the train to leave via the other end of the platform under police escort so as not to meet any protesters (god forbid).

Macron commented that this was "uncivic" behaviour and I agree, civic behaviour on the part of gov members would be to at least face the people they choose to fuck over, instead of hiding behind cops and fleeing. Obviously Macron was condemning the 'uncivic' protesters though, and the Minister said he felt "physically threatened" by the "violence of [the protesters'] speech" which is a shit thing to say considering on the same day that he was mildly inconvenienced by having to take a different exit and felt physically endangered by words, yet another protester was mutilated after being shot at by police with a rubber bullet. Not a peep about this incident (or previous ones) from the government. The Minister of Education never even condemned that time high schoolers trying to protest got tear gassed and threatened with riot guns by cops in front of their school earlier this month.

But while people continue protesting despite the actual violence from cops, our ministers are looking pretty scared of citizens banging pots and pans. Here's a list of official visits that got cancelled "for safety reasons" (saucepan terrorism) in the past week:

1. Minister P. NDiaye cancelled a visit in Lyon 2. Minister F. Braun cancelled a visit to Evrard Hospital 3. Minister Delegate O. Klein cancelled a visit in Bobigny 4. Minister Delegate O. Grégoire cancelled a visit in La Baule 5. Minister S. Guerini cancelled a visit in Castelnau 6. Secretary of State B. Couillard cancelled a visit in Rochefort 7. Minister S. Retailleau cancelled a visit to the Paris Saclay University (electricity trade unionists cut the power in the building she was supposed to inaugurate, so) 8. Minister C. Grandjean cancelled a visit in Toulouse (this article says it was probably because the visit was quite near a big highway protest where protesters among other things were building a concrete wall on a national road)

In the same bullshitting vein as "portable sonorous devices", gov spokespeople have been insisting that visits aren't being cancelled, ministers are just "adjusting the course of their trips" which is funny to me. I guess we never beheaded any royalty we just adjusted the course of their necks. I also read a newspaper article that made me laugh, that went like "Minister cancels visit; trade unions disappointed" and I thought it was because the cancelled visit was a meeting with the unions which they wouldn't get to have, but the article said it was actually because they had a good protest planned and wouldn't get to hold it...

Watching protesters mess with the government in small ways on a daily basis has been good for morale—on Twitter the hashtags #IntervillesMacron and #IntervillesduZbeul popped up (zbeul = chaos, mess, and Intervilles was a TV game show that aired for over 50 years, where French cities competed against one another in goofy challenges). I only mentioned cancellations above, but fun things also happen on non-cancelled government visits, like a Minister having to leave a building via the emergency exit because of protesters blocking the building entrance (which some people argued is worth more points than a cancellation as it's more entertaining):

Various websites were created to keep track of all these smaller protests and to officialise the point system that ranks cities on their efforts to fuck with the government:

(the first symbol means a protest, the second means a casserolade, the last one means protesters managed to get inside a building where a visit was taking place)

(Translation: Ruckus (saucepans, heckling...) 1pt Protest: 1pt Creative action (chasing minister in the woods, etc): 2pts Measures of energy conservation (= power cuts by unions) 3pts Action that leads to a political figure fleeing: 4pts Cancellation of a visit: 5pts — then there's a weighting system where the score is multiplied by 3 if it's a Minister, by 5 if it's the Prime Minister, by 6 if it's Macron.) (I also saw an interesting debate on Twitter this week—since our leaders often embarrass themselves, how should the government's own goals fit into the point system?)

Right now the Hérault department is winning because on top of protests, power cuts and casserolades, protesters greeted Macron with a giant "MACRON FUCK OFF" sign hung from a cliff (!) and took over a highway display so it'd say "Welcome to [region] Butthole Ist"

These past few days I've been discovering unknown French cities (and Ministers) thanks to them showing up in the hashtag after a good protest. I discovered a mediaeval castle I'd never heard of when unions hung banners featuring our most famous revolutionary dates from the castle's battlements. (Two days later, another protest with eloquent banners in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris:)

People are very creative—last week we heard that protesters got prosecuted for giving Macron the finger and insulting him during one of his official visits (< we are a healthy democracy), so protesters in another region tried a more sarcastic approach, and greeted a deputy from Macron's party at a strawberry fair this week with clapping and confetti and "Thank you for making us work 2 more years, thank you for police repression, thank you!" The deputy beat a hasty retreat. Then said he would file a complaint against the harassment and intimidation he had been subjected to. (The tear gas and riot guns and arrests and protest bans are not intimidation of protesters on the other hand. Or the fact that another deputy from his party recently said on TV that they were "ready for war"... They're ready to wage war, but run and hide when people clang saucepans and throw confetti.)

Anyway. I'm enjoying the fact that they can't even attend a small strawberry fair without getting heckled right now. In one of my first posts about the political crisis in March I wrote something like "How will Macron and his gov have any legitimacy to speak about any issues after this?" and it cheers me up to see a lot of people across the country agree that they have no legitimacy to talk about anything, not even the strawberry harvest.

The next nationwide protest is of course for May 1st, but in the meantime it's been really fun following the smaller protest actions all over the place. Members of government & Macron's party keep making whiny statements along the lines of this is terrorist behaviour, we can't go anywhere, why are people not getting tired of fucking with us and the answer is, because it's really entertaining!

This was the last sentence of a recent Le Monde article about Macron's situation and it has such a sinister, end-of-reign tone:

"I'm moving forward," Macron concluded, on April 20th in the Herault department, while behind his back echoed the sound of saucepans.

#frpol #well this is another very long post and it features maybe 40% of all the shit from the past week #like there was another popular hashtag last week that went ''no retraction [of the reform] no olympic games'' #and the police prefect of Paris said ''the closer we get to the Olympics the more we will saturate public space with police'' #okay! good atmosphere so far

[mrs-kodzuken]

good day! i saw that your requests is open soooo~^^ can I request an iwaizumi x manager reader where they've been in a secret relationship since they're first years (idunno how oikawa doesn't know, but he just doesn't 🤣)...

and when the volleyball team had their reunion after so many years the reader just goes to iwaizumi and kiss him and be like, “what? i thought you all know..” 🤣🤣🤣

thank you! and i love your works so much! ^^~

First year, first love ♡

Pairing: Aged up! Haijme Iwaizumi x fem!reader

WC: 2.1k

Genre: fluff

CW: fem!reader, friends to lovers, clueless!oikawa, a little background to give this fic more oomf, aoba johsai manager!reader, volleyball team reunion, iwa being literal the best boyfie, valentines flashback is italicized

note: my first request!! i hope you literally love this, i jumped up and down once i got this haha, if you have anymore please let me know!

˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖ ˖⁺‧₊˚♡˚₊‧⁺˖

I stared at Haijme, tracing the soft features of his face with my eyes while he slept. I couldn’t be anymore in love with this man. After knowing him since literally forever, it was like he knew me from the back of his hand.

Which is why the longer I stared and sighed contently against him I knew he’d wake up. Being with him was easy to me, it was breathing at the point.

I could still remember the day that Haij asked me out our first year. It was the cutest thing ever but he was such a wreck because of how nervous he was.

It was different seeing that Iwaizumi also got as nervous as I did when I was around him. Compared to then, he’s very different now. With him working as an athletic trainer and being on top of his game in every aspect of his life, he’s very different.

However, I still love this Iwaizumi but sometimes I miss the nervous wreck, friend Iwa.

All morning Iwaizumi has been such a wreck. I mean, I get that it was Valentine’s day but my goodness. He’s dropped his pencil three times already and it’s only second period.

“Iwa? What’s going on with you?” I whispered my question to him, peering curiously with concern.

He locked eyes with me and then looked away as quickly as possible, which was very strange for my friend.

“Nothing, (Y/n).”

My eye twitched, we never tell lies to each other.

Something was definitely up with Iwaizumi today, and I decided right then and there that I’d figure it out by the end of the day.

It wasn’t like he was trying to avoid me or anything but the way that he hadn’t spoke that much to me was a given of my theory.

I walked through the halls and smiled at the decorations for Valentine’s day.

I’m pretty sure our student council had helped make the paper decorations of hearts and spirals to hang from lockers and classrooms. I thought it was so creative because personally, I loved holidays no matter the kind.

The thought struck me like a lightening bolt, ‘what if Iwa got a Valentines gift that made him like someone?’

That could not happen, like ever.

As long as Iwaizumi and I have been friends, I don’t think he would up and leave me because of that? I mean, I baked him homemade cookies—the kind that he loves. He wouldn’t just up and like someone because of something they got him?

Suddenly, my mood had switched and I immediately was focused on knowing his answer. That would be easy since Iwaizumi continued to practice volleyball with his friend, Oikawa. They asked me to be the team manager and since Iwaizumi was my friend I agreed.

I couldn’t help but to impatiently wait for the time to pass by so I could finally get Iwaizumi alone to talk to him. Once the bell rang I immediately got up, almost tripping over my own feet, to find Iwa before he got changed for practice.

I already cringed at the thought of everything he received today from some other first year girls. I’m sure mine was better.

I couldn’t help the wrong feeling of jealousy that filled through me. It was weird and didn’t happen often, especially with me thinking about my friend—best friend, Iwaizumi.

Finally, I caught up to him and found him looking as frantic as me whilst I was trying to find him. It was a sight to see and I didn’t know how to comprehend it. It was so unlike him.

"Hey, can we talk?"

I could tell he tried to mask the nervousness up with trying to seem unbothered but I saw through it. However, just those four words were enough for me to feel nervousness as well.

I nodded my head, too afraid to speak just in case I wasn't in control of my voice.

Iwaizumi leaded me around the gym, towards the backside where no one could see, which made me even more nervous. I knew what went on back here, I just didn't think it would ever happen to me.

I gathered myself and stepped along with him until we came to a stop. That's when my brain decided to make me pay more attention to my surroundings. A breeze blew through us a bit, moving my hair.

It was a cold day but the sun was out shining as if it knew what was today was. I could hear how the grass had crunched when we walked to where we are now.

"What did you need?" I hesitantly asked him, a part of me knowing and wishing he will say what I think he will.

"(Y/n), I'm just going to get straight to the point. I like you. I have liked you for a long time but only realized my feelings now. I won't pressure you into liking me back but I know we have this honest is the best policy thing going on since forever ago and I wanted to keep true to that."

Iwaizumi's cheeks were blush red and he couldn't look me in the eyes after saying that. However, my heart couldn't be more content after hearing those specific words from him. It felt like everything was right again and I knew what was in his head.

"This isn't pressuring me Iwa, I like you too. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, I really love our friendship and didn't want to ruin it." I confessed to him as well, pouring my hopeful heart out right back into his.

I didn't realize until after our confession that the baggie I packed his homemade cookies in was stuffed into his pocket with a little bit of it hanging out.

I couldn't help but smile and watch as he showed me his hand that I also didn't realize was behind his back this entire time.

"Here. I bought this for you since you made me my favorite."

I giggled a bit, overjoyed that he bought me something, nonetheless it was a stuffie and not just any stuffed animal but my favorite.

"Thank you, Iwaizumi. I love it so much." I thanked him and pulled it close to my chest. It was definitely getting a name and being set on my bed when I got home.

"You're welcome. We should head on now." He cracked a smile and I was glad that everything between us worked out now. Well, almost everything. I wasn't sure what to call us yet.

Iwaizumi waved me bye so he could go change into his practice uniform while I put my stuffie in my bag then caught my breath so I felt good walking in.

The shoes squeaked on the floor as I walked in and I immediately apologized to my upperclassmen because I'm not ever late and it felt like I had disrespected them.

I take my job seriously ever since Iwaizumi joined the volleyball club with his friend Oikawa and had asked me if I wanted to be the manager.

"Are you okay? You and Iwa-chan are never late to practice." Oikawa asked me, eye brow raised and peering at me like he wanted the answer I didn't want to say.

"Oh yeah, I had a couple things to do and such. I didn't know Iwaizumi was late too. I think you should practice serving today, Oikawa." I nervously chuckled and picked up my managerial clip board, trying to change the subject whilst trying to keep my face from flushing.

"Hmm," was all I got out of him before he decided to practice his drills and of course serves.

After a day or two, Iwaizumi and I had agreed to go on little dates first and know each other on a relationship level instead of friend level. This was also because we both thought starting our relationship on Valentine's day was cringe.

Just the thought of how we got together still makes me swoon at nervous Iwa but also smile at how alike we are.

I shifted comfortably against him, trying not to move so much to make him wake up or anything. My arm traveled to side ways hug him, his warm body is what always makes me kick the covers off at night.

However, me trying to not move so much to not wake him up fell in vain because I felt an arm tighten around my waist.

"Good morning, honey." I said to him cheerfully, I loved waking up with him by my side.

"Mornin, love." His gruff morning voice spoke out against my neck which sent delightful shivers down my spine.

"We should get ready sometime soon, I think it might be brunch time soon." I commented, already planning out what I'm going to wear and what time I think is socially acceptable to show up.

Our graduating class is having a reunion and our volleyball club reserved a special place to meet up and of course I was invited to both events.

"I know, I just missed you in my dream." He sighed, trying to pull me even closer than I already was to him.

"Yes but you said you're eating breakfast and all, so." I wiggled my way out of his presence and decided to go use the bathroom and do all of my necessities whilst in there.

I knew Hajime was going to eat breakfast because he's very strict about what and when what kind of nutrients were going into his body. However, me? Not so much. From time to time I do decide to workout with him only to improve my self image. However, over half of the time I don't need to just from the way he compliments me.

By the time I was done and dressed, Iwaizumi was ready to go with the keys in his hand and a smile on his face at my outfit.

"You look stunning, love. I can't wait to see everyone." He said before kissing the top of my head and leading me out of our house and into the car.

I was pretty happy to see everyone even though most of us had caught up with each other on socials here and there.

Entering the reserved building, my blood was pumping to see everyone and rekindle again.

"Go find your buds, I want to go talk to Mattsun," I ushered Iwaizumi off and tried to find my best friend that I was super close to besides Haijme in high school.

It was a loud space since it was all men here in one smallish room. There was a banner, drinks, food of course since it was brunch, and plenty of seating. That's when I found Mattsun and rushed over to hug him.

"Fancy seeing you around these parts," I exclaimed after crashing myself into his side.

"Oh yeah? Samesies." He threw his head back to laugh, something he always did.

I got caught up in a conversation with him and suddenly it shifted to talking about Hajime and I. Mattsun was really the only volleyball member that talked about mine and Haij's relationship and I just assumed that everyone else didn't care that much to speak about it.

"It was nice catching up with you, (Y/n). Keep me posted on some new things!" He winked after I said I'd be going to visit the rest of our class which was weird, I didn't have any new things going on.

I found the man I was looking for and smiled, "Hey, I'm gonna go find the rest of my high school girlfriends and see if they came. I love you, honey." I pecked a small kiss on his cheek and he nodded and kissed my forehead in acknowledgment since he was in the middle of a conversation I accidentally interrupted.

Suddenly, the room was so silent that I could hear a literal pin drop.

"What?! Since when were you guys together?"

"(Y/n) just kissed Iwaizumi and he kissed her back?"

"Wait, you guys didn't know they were together?"

"How long have you two been dating?"

Lots of questions got sprang out of plenty of the teams mouths as my eyes widened in the sudden volume change of the room.

"I think I'll leave you to deal with that, honey. Bye!" I scampered out of the room but not before hearing Hajime try to reason and ask if they really didn't know.

That would be awfully hilarious if they seriously didn't know.

However, one thing I didn't know was that there was a small box that outlined Haijme's pants pocket until Mattsun sent me a snap chat video of it. That almost made me choke on my food as I put two and two together of him saying to keep him posted on new things.

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a/n: This was my first request!! I hope I did good and thank you so much for saying that you love my works! It made my day haha!

you all know my header rules, if not see pinned post!!

#kodzu fics #kodzu headers #kodzu navigation #kodzu writing #kodzu girl blogging #kodzu indulges! #haikyuu x reader #iwaizumi fluff #iwaizumi x y/n #iwaizumi x you #hq iwaizumi #iwaizumi x reader #haikyuu iwaizumi #iwaizumi hajime #aoba johsai #iwaizumi x manager #hq x reader #hq fluff #haikyuu fluff #hq imagines #hq x you #aoba jōsai #aoba josai x reader #aoba johsai manager

[grendelsmilf]

rewatched “thank you” (the show golem episode) today, and it had been a while since i’d seen it, but i remembered it being a very lovely and poignant episode. something that struck me on this watch was the way in which the snow golem’s story was juxtaposed with scenes of ice king “fighting” finn and jake, and how the episode ends on finn being so moved by the display of unlikely and even destructive love between the snow golem and the fire puppy that he leans down to give ice king a little kiss on the cheek, to which ice king whispers “thank you.”

adventure time often masterfully reveals windows into background characters’ lives for the very purpose of reminding the viewer how just because finn is our primary perspective into this world doesn’t mean that he is its sole inhabitant, or that everyone who plays a role (big or small) must solipsistically be filtered through his lens. as finn’s perspective widens as he matures, so too does the multiplicity of characters whose perspectives we are given expand. this episode constitutes yet another example of a seemingly bit/background player in the land of ooo being focalized, with finn and jake as background players in the snow golem’s story (a character who is never focalized again).

however, i don’t think that’s all this episode is doing. i think that the b-plot involving ice king is highly relevant to the snow golem’s a-plot, and in fact the snow golem’s journey can be read as a commentary on ice king’s character. the snow golem is, presumably, one of ice king’s creations, and thus an extension of himself, or if not his creation, clearly evokes similarities between the two figures.

the episode begins with our golem going through the motions of his day. it is all very mundane, and while he doesn’t seem outwardly miserable over his sisyphean routine, his silence is noticeable. adventure time is a show with a lot of dialogue per minute, and for once, the main character does not speak. through the quiet, we implicitly recognize a sense of loneliness pervading his existence. it is only when a baby fire wolf starts to follow the snow golem around that he begins to find meaning in his life. as much as the fire wolf is ostensibly causing problems for the snow golem, it is clear he loves the fire wolf, and by the end of the episode, allows the baby fire wolf to destroy him as he laughs, overjoyed, receiving the fire wolf’s affection even as he melts into the ground.

finn and jake, sitting on the bound form of ice king while eating the stolen sandwiches they valiantly repossessed from him, remark that they assumed snow golems and fire wolves were sworn enemies, further complicating the initially established dichotomy of hero and villain that is gradually deconstructed throughout the show. overcoming their initial antagonism in such a genuine display of friendship resonates with finn, prompting him to give ice king a little kiss on the cheek, much in the same way that the fire wolf licks the snow golem’s face.

finn is obviously the baby fire wolf. nascent to the world, especially to a man who has been alive for over one thousand years, finn initially appears as nothing more than a thorn in ice king’s side, disrupting his steady yet existentially unsatisfying routine of kidnapping princesses day in and day out. however, even as finn litters ice king with bruises from their daily fights, his presence helps to alleviate ice king’s fundamental loneliness. in this episode, they are fighting ice king not because he kidnapped any princesses, but because he stole their sandwiches. it becomes increasingly more evident as the show progresses that many of ice king’s schemes to directly antagonize finn and jake are merely thinly-veiled cries for help. he provokes them into fighting him, inviting his own bodily harm, simply so that their presence will fill the void of his isolation. here, he freezes himself in what is essentially a giant block of ice in the hopes that finn and jake will stay with him until it thaws, which they do.

even though the snow golem is harmed by the presence of the fire puppy, he nonetheless laughs with joy at having a companion with whom he can spend his life. of course, ice king has his penguins, but it would also be disingenuous to imply that ice king’s loneliness could be solved by having a pet in the same way that the snow golem’s is. the snow golem and the fire wolf reflect ice king and finn in a more abstract way than that. but it’s also hardly subtle throughout the episode, which is why it closes on the image of finn replicating the fire wolf’s affection towards the snow golem with ice king. and ice king, his screaming silent plea for affection finally recognized, thanks him.

#at ramblings #god. what a show !!!!!

[ladyelissarose]

‘Trust Me’

Johnny ‘Soap’ McTavish x female reader -callsign ‘Leopard’

Summary: After Graves turns his back on the 141 Task Force, Soap and Ghost spread out to hide. But Leopard, who is on Graves side finds Soap first, will she do her job and kill him, or be convinced to stick by his side and trust him, no matter the cost.

 The wind whistled loudly through the broken windows of the church Soap hid in, it was sorta haunting to hear it but not understand it. Pain rippled up his arm to his collarbone for the shot he took from Graves, with his hand he had tried to apply pressure to stop the bleeding, but there was only so much it could do before it seeped through his fingers and painted his hand in a dark shade of red. In agony he prayed to whoever listened in the moment that Ghost would find him, and being them both to safety. He sat there for a moment to try and forget the pain, replaying everything that happened just moments ago,

  ‘I should’ve known somethin’ was up with Graves! Of course he’d be on Shepherd’s side, what a fuckin’ bastard!! Now they’r killin’ ev’ry thing that moves and breathes... hunting and searching through every comer of this God forsaken place to find us!!!’

 Leaning his head back against the concrete wall his back was up against, he sighed lowly while trying not to hiss loudly in pain. He grabbed his radio again and tried to call for Ghost in ragged breaths,

  “G-Ghost? This is Bravo-1, do you copy?? Agh- G-Ghost?”

 Clenching his jaw tight Soap frowned in despair as he only got static in return, Ghost’s thick accent hadn’t come through verbally yet, and that only made Soap more nervous and slightly afraid that perhaps he was on his own now. The smell of rain began to leave his nose as now a rustic scent clouded the atmosphere, the rustic scent came from the blood that continued to pour out from his arm through his fingers. Soap then decided that he couldn’t sit there for long, he had to get up and move, find safe shelter and something to bind his arm, he thought that hopefully on the way he’d find his partner, Ghost. Ghost was the only person Soap was dying to see, though Ghost was kinda cold hearted and silent most of the time, it was his mere presence that made Soap feel safe. Ghost could be trusted and protected him at all costs and Soap knew that, he couldn’t forget Ghosts wide eyes that watched him be shot by Graves as he screamed for him to leave. Seeing the panic in Ghosts eyes was a first he had to say, meaning that things must be definitely down bad. Standing up slowly while trying not to bump or use his shot arm too much, Soap finally stood up straight and hissed under his breath for the new pain that shot it his stiff legs,

  “I need ya to find me Ghost, I can h-hardly fuckin’ move.”

  Turning around to start walking out of the room he was in, he was mid stop by a figure that stood in the doorway, pointing a large rifle right at his head, Soap’s heart dropped as he heard her familiar voice speak coldly,

  “You’re hoping he finds you first so I don’t kill you before, huh?”

 Soap locked eyes with one of the other ‘very few’ people he grew to trust, Leopard, or as he called ‘Leo’ for short. Leo came from a terrible background of being trafficked by the military undergrounds and was forced to be used for her special skills when it came to weapons, her speed, stealth, and undeniable beauty, hence why she was given the name Leopard. And for the most part they got along real well while they worked together in the 141, they had each other backs and grew closer as the days past, but today that changed when she stuck by Graves side as they took Alejandro and shot at Ghost and Soap. He was utterly struck in the heart for her actions, and felt betrayed more than anything, but in the moment of trying to run away and not get shot again, Soap hadn’t had the chance to think about the heavy rock he felt in his throat, along with the pain his heart felt every time he took a deep breath. But now it all came into place, and his mind began to register and remember everything that had happened, and his blood began to boil as he seethed,

  “Why did you betray us! We’ve done nothin’ but have your fuckin’ back Leo-“

 Leopard stepped closer as she spoke sternly,

 “It’s Sergeant to you, McTavish. Now shut the fuck up and get on your knees.”

  In the darkness of the church they were in, he couldn’t see her face, the very little light was illuminated in the building was through the cracks and broken windows that surrounded them, but none hit in her direction, though Soap wished it did, so he could see her face and see if it was actually her who was going to kill him, deep down he really hoped it wasn’t, because he had secretly grown to love her too. Soap then lifted his hands slowly and tried to negotiate while saying softly,

  “Sergeant, listen to me eh? This doesn’t need to go this far-“

  “I said shut up and get on your knees Johnny!!!”

  ‘Johnny? She only calls me Johnny when she scared.. she told me so..’

 Soap wanted to speak again but was ushered to his knees when she took a quick stride towards him threatening by her actions that she’d take him out sooner than was expected in the moment. But when Soap got down on his knees, a soft blue light hit his face perfectly, pointing out the layer of sweat he sported, and beamed against his blood-soaked shirt, along with his hands that were painted. At seeing this she immediately lowered the gun, and lowered herself to her knees, so she was at his level. In the position she was in, her face got illuminated by the light that was cast in the area, and Soap got to see the look of devastation on her face, and couldn’t be more confused as she spoke with a hint of concern in her voice,

  “You got s-shot?”

 Soap read the pain that began to cover her eyes, and replied back,

  “Y-Yeah, me arm got hit by Graves while I tried to get ou’ of there.”

  “oh..”

Her ‘oh’ came out breathy as she moved to sit on her heels, clutching onto her gun tightly as she eyed Soap’s injury with furrowed brows. Soap could read her face and behavior, and could see that her heart and mind were troubled greatly, fighting a battle with one another between life and death choices. Soap for once chose to stay quiet and let her settle her own thoughts before making a decision that could either end or save his life, his heart pounded louder by the minute and soon the pain he felt was numbed by the tension of the room that was thick and heavy. Soap caught on to how her fingers trembled slightly over the trigger of her gun, and hitched his breath nervously when he heard her voice come through her lips that had begun to quiver lightly,

 “I-I can’t do this Soap... I d-don’t know.. what to do.”

  Soap took this moment as the right time to speak as he said plainly but seriously,

  “Do the right thing Sergeant. Just do the right thing-“

  Huffing out angrily Leopard stood up and took steps back as she pointed the gun at his head again as she shouted with pain in her voice,   

  “What is the right thing Johnny?! Huh?! Tell me?!”

  Sitting up Soap voices out reason with a question,

  “Sergeant, what do ‘you’ believe is right?”

He heard a soft sob break through her throat as she replied,

  “I said I didn’t know... but I have to kill you McTavish, I was told I had to, if not there would be terrible consequences.”

  “Like what kind?”

He was met with silence as she eyed the gun then his face, and took a couple more glances back and forth before she replied,

  “They said that if I didn’t kill you, they’d find me and kill me first, then use my DNA to track down my family and kill them next. And it’s not their fault I couldn’t do my job, I can’t let that happen to them.”

  Slowly sinking into the reality of Leopard’s predicament, Soap realized that maybe she’d have to kill him, so that her family could be spared and saved from injustices’ harm, it was quite a selfless and wrong thought, but it also felt so right to him, because he loved her. Looking up to seek her face Soap gave her the get go,

  “Then go ahead... do it. It’s ok, trust me.”

A small gasp left her mouth as she asked confusingly,

  “wait what-“

 “Do it I said, make my death short n’ quick to save you and your family’s life-“

  “But I can’t!!”

Frowning in confusion at her words and actions Soap then shouted frustratedly,

 “And why not?!-“

 “Because you saved my life Johnny!!”

Johnny was taken aback by her answer,

 ‘I What... how?’

The gun in Leopards hands was lowered again as she rubbed her face before saying,

 “You saved my life Johnny, and because of that I promised myself that I’d never lift a finger against you, ever. I promised Graves that I’d kill you, but I promised my heart that I’d protect you. And I want to believe that my self promise matters more, because you saved me.”

 Soap watched her sink to her knees and hold her forehead as she looked down and let out soft cries, her shoulders shook slightly and the gun in her hands slipped out of her hand. Soap couldn’t help but ask,

  “How did I save your life?”

The light found her face once again, but his time Soap saw tears that covered her cheeks, and witnessed how her eyes weren’t cold and hateful anymore, but instead reflected brokenness, as she asked with a voice that was above a whisper,

  “Remember the first time you met me Johnny?”

 Of course Soap remembered, it was the best night of his life, and for the first time ever he had felt seen and heard, so he replied,

  “I do, quite vividly actually.. I met you at the bridge while you were taking a smoke from the cigar you stole from Price.”

  Letting out a soft laugh from being called out for stealing, Leopard then replied,

 “Yeah, well... about that.. I wasn’t there because I was taking a smoke... I was going to jump, Johnny.”

  Johnny’s eyes widened at the realization, that night when he found her at the bridge, he recalled telling her to step away from the weak walls she leaned on, but she swore she was just looking at the river that flowed below which was about 100 feet away from where she stood, but now he knows the truth, she was actually seeing how far the drop was, to see if her pain would be ended quickly. Soap’s heart sank as he took in her next words,

  “Your stupid jokes and company made me step away from the wall Johnny, there was something about you that just made me decide to stay on my feet. I thought my life was going to continue in hurt and destruction, but that thought changed the minute I laid my eyes on you. And sense then every action I’ve done for you, is my way of paying back for every day I get to live, because you saved me.”

  Soap didn’t know how to respond verbally, worried that he wouldn’t say the right thing, so instead he opened his arms for her, and immediately she moved towards him and sank into his embrace as he enclosed his arms around her tightly, and he didn’t care about the excruciating pain he felt in his arm, because he loved her. He cradled her head with one hand and rubbed her back lovingly with the other, as she cried into his neck, he cooed softly against her ear,

  “I’m glad I saved your life lass, if not I would’ve never met ya.”

 Leopard pulled away slightly just so she could hold his face, as she said,

  “I want to stick with you Johnny, I don’t want to be anywhere else.”

 He covered her hands with his own as he promised,

 “And you won’t go anywhere else, I’ll protect and keep you. I promise. Ok?”

Leopard nodded as he then held her face gently, looking into his soft blue eyes she then asked him shyly but boldly at the same time,

  “Can you kiss me Johnny?”

 He sighed softly as he replied instantly,

  “Of course, lass”.

He got her face between his hands and brought her in for a strong kiss, Leopard tilted her head trying to go deeper, but then he squished her jaw lightly so she could opened her mouth, and give him entrance to seep his tongue inside. She moaned lightly at his dominance, but only held him tighter against her as their mouths danced with one another. When air was needed before they could suffocate in their own love, they pulled away but leaned their foreheads against one another’s, taking in the moment, and hearing their ragged breaths coming from the intensity of their love-pouring kiss. 

  But then they heard a loud crash outside the church, and both stood up in sync while Soap caged Leopard between his arms, holding onto her body tightly as she said, 

  “I was sure I wasn’t followed. Did you have anyone coming?”

 Soap shook his head as he stepped in front of her to shield her from danger as they began to hear heavy steps approached the place they were in. Soap then whispered to Leopard orderly,

  “Be prepared, I got ya back.”

 “Copy. I got yours, Johnny.”

Both went back to back as they raised their weapons and held position, waiting for the intruder to bust inside so he could be taken down. Soap could hear Leopard’s breathing softly right behind him, and was comforted to feel her there with him. Leopard could smell Soap’s strong cologne right behind her along with the blood that was on his skin, it was a musky smell, but she’d rather be around his scent than anywhere else in the world. They got closer to each other seeking coverage and comfort when the door that was in front of them soon opened and a large person came through holding a large rifle. Soap and Leopard were on the verge of firing at anyone they saw, but held back when they saw the familiar skull masked face turn towards them. They immediately dropped their weapons when Ghost practically scolded them,

  “Don’t ya dare think about shootin’ at me mate. I’ll murder you both before you even have a chance- wait.. what the fuck is she doing here?!”

  Before Soap could even explain why, Ghost brushed past him pushing him aside and grabbed Leopard by the collar of her vest jacket and slammed her back against the nearest wall, using his height and strength to his advantage when he held her above ground and held her face to face. Soap grabbed Ghost’s shoulder and began to panic lightly when he saw how Ghost held pressure around Leopards throat,

  “Ghost let her go she’s on our side!!-“

 “Bullshit Soap, stay away from her, she’s dangerous, she shot at us and is only tryin’ to bring us to Graves so he can kill us.”

 Leopard gasped for air as she tried to pull off Ghost’s hands from her neck when he began to crush harder, but stopped and held the same pressure when Soap screamed,

  “SIMON LET HER GO!!!!”

Ghost turned his head slowly and faced Soap as he asked coldly,

  “And why would we save her? She’s our enemy-“

  “She had all the time in the world to kill me and yet she didn’t. Graves threatened to find and kill her family if she didn’t kill us when she found us.”

 Ghost thought to himself for a mere second as he turned his gaze back to Leopard who’s face had turned red as well as her eyes which grew watery and spilled tears. He could read fear and even smell it off of people, and he was certain with himself that that’s all that radiated off of her body. He wanted to believe Soap, who was his most trusted partner, but couldn’t help the fact that he had trust issues, so he questioned Leopard sternly,

  “Why should I believe him and trust you?”

 He let her throat go slightly so she could answer him clearly, and she did when she replied,

  “I’m your only chance, Ghost. And I have intel that you need. I’m just as good as you Ghost, if I wanted to kill you I would’ve done it a long time ago, but I didn’t because I trust you.”

  Ghost hardly ever had people tell him that they trusted him, only Soap and maybe Price had said those words, so when Leopard said it, he had to believe it. He then let her go and dropped her to her feet, watching her rub her throat as she added,

  “I know where they have Alejandro, but we can’t go get him now, they have too many people all over the place looking for you guys, and me now.”

  Ghost shook his head approvingly before saying,

  “You better be right lass. And speaking of Alejandro.. he had a safe house for us. We can lay low there for the night then leave in the morning to get him. So let’s go before we get tracked.”

 Soap walked up to Leopard and raised his hand to touch her neck, rubbing it softly as she reassured him,

  “It’s ok Johnny, he didn’t know. So don’t hold this against him.”

 Soap listened but shook it off, Leopard then insisted with a caress to his face,

  “Please Johnny, he only did to to protect you. Ok love?”

 Soap closed his eyes when she ran her hand through his hair gently, and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Soap knew she was right, and it was confirmed when he heard Ghost’s voice say lightly,

  “I’m sorry for hurting her Johnny... I didn’t know.”

 Soap turned around to face Ghost who was holding his eyes on Leopards throat, Soap grabbed Leopard’s hand as he replied,

  “I know Ghost, you only did this to protect me, ya didn’t know what was happening. But now we’re all together, right?”

  Both Leopard and Ghost nodded,

  “”Yeah””

A few hours Ghost led them all safely to Alejandro’s safe house, after going through a couple more shootouts and running away from hungry killers. They all were tired and sighed loudly once they were in the comfort of the house, it looked like it needed a lot of work, but it also looked very comfy and safe. All three kinda stayed quiet for a moment as they sunk into the comfortable silence of the house, looking around in every room checking for security and blankets. Ghost only found two large blankets, and called the other two’s attention when he asked,

  “Did any of ya find something else?”

Soap and Leopard came to the livingroom empty handed as Leopard replied,

  “I didn’t find anything. But you Ghost and Soap, take these and I’ll make do here with my jacket, I’m an uninvited guest after all, you guys didn’t know you’d be stuck with me, it’s only fair.”

 Soap right away stepped up as he said,

  “That’s none sense lass, you’ll be freezing-“

  “No Soap, it’s ok.-“

 Ghost then held his hands up to stop the two from bickering as he suggested,

“Why don’t you two bunk together? And share the blanket, I’m sure you both wouldn’t mind right?”

 Soap and Leopard stayed quiet and got shy as Ghost eyed them both curiously, but Ghost insisted as he added,

  “You two held hands the entire way here, so don’t get shy on me now. I’ll be on watch for about a few hours then we can switch. Go to bed.”

 Soap grew confidence and grabbed Leopards hand as he thanked Ghost,

  “Thanks mate, wake me up first when it’s my turn eh?”

  “I will.”

Leopard sent Ghost a smile in gratefulness for him trusting her, and she could swear he smiled back under the mask when his eyes crinkled slightly. 

 Soon Soap got on the crinkly bed that was there, and as he waited for Leopard to finish showering, he tried to make the bed look as comfy as possible. He then pulled on his hoodie and got under the covers, trying to warm up the space before she got back. The door to the room opened and Soap’s face grew a smile when he saw who it was, Leopard closed the door behind her before walking in and climbed into bed quickly after putting her things away. Soap opened the covers and let her slip inside, then covered them both as she cuddled close to his body. He felt happy to feel her against him, and see that she was happy too. Soap wanted to wrap his arms around and pull her impossibly closer to him but he first asked sweetly,

  “Can I hold you, love?”

Leopard moved her head away from his chest as she replied, 

  “Sure, c’mere.”

Soap opened his arms but went still when Leopard quickly moved and unexpectedly put herself inside of his hoodie, and poked her head through the head as she wrapped her arms and legs around his body, pulling him almost on top of her. Soap hugged her tightly and kissed her head,

  “This is perfect.. thank you, love.”

 Leopard lightly chuckled when she said,

 “I kinda figured that you wanted to be really close. And so did I... thank you Johnny for saving me.. and for keeping me safe here with you and Ghost.”

 “You’re welcome love, I’m glad you’re here with me.. remember that I love you.”

  He felt her peck his neck with sweet kisses as she then cooed,

  “I will... remember that I love you too, Johnny.”

 About three hours later Ghost walked into the room quietly to get Soap so he could take his turn in watch, but stopped in his tracks she had saw how Leopard and Soap were cuddled tightly, in a deep, peaceful sleep. Ghost was really sleepy and needed his sleep, but he couldn’t get himself to wake them up, so instead he walked to his room and got his blanket, walked back to their room and closed the door. He took off his heavy gear and makeshift his jacket as a pillow when he laid on the floor, right in front of the door, blocking it from anyone coming in, and also so he could be the first to hear if something was happening outside. He felt content with his decision and at peace that his pals were sleeping peacefully, and knew he would too once he got comfortable. Ghost knew that Soap was in love with Leopard, and was glad for him, to see him still soft and not as hard hearted as he was, but either way he still made sure to tell his friend to be careful, though he only did that to keep Soap safe, because everything that happened to Soap mattered to Ghost. But now, that he trusted and believed in Leopard as well, he knew he’d protect her too, and keep her safe at any cost, because he knew she’d do the same for him too. Plus, his partner Soap, was in love with her, and even though Ghost didn’t believe in such, he knew that it’d be selfish to take that away from someone who still did, so yes, at all costs he’d protect them both, even that meant he got to see them happy and in love.

#soap call of duty #john soap mactavish #john soap mctavish x reader #soap x reader #john mactavish x reader #john mctavish #call of duty mw2 #call of duty x you #call of duty ww2 #john mctavish x reader #soap x oc #call of duty

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

because i'm a nerd with no time management skills (sunday funday, baby!), i spent today taking screencaps of romangerri scenes that happen in front of or around windows or mirrors, for the THRILL of MOTIF-TRACKING!* screencap post incoming!

anyway, i noticed that wow, they have a bunch of scenes in front of or around windows! (though to be fair, that is probably mostly just this show being beautiful at cinematography. and the fact that most of it is set in glass-walled offices. but hey, it's in the text so i can interpret it as intentional and rife with meaning!!!!) and the windows are usually a source of light, and frame them in a space together, and then it gets dark as season four goes on, and then of course culminates in roman seeing gerri through the glass, apart from him. :'(

but! with this in mind, i watched roman's last scene again, and it really struck me that in our last image of him, the background is half golden light from the window (cough gerri cough) and half darkness (cough all-consuming family trauma cough), which i think really captures beautifully the season-long theme of roman being torn between his softer instincts and wanting to be ~a killer~

so, in my heart of hearts, this ending shot now has even more romangerri power than it did before

(although obviously it can also be a more general representation of roman being caught between light and darkness, for the more rational and calm among us. i am not among those us.)

*motif-tracking might be a thrill to me only

#when will i be cured of this desperate obsession??? 😢 #ao3 is NOT HELPING for the record #i'm so sorry for spamming the tag every dang day #romangerri #roman x gerri #dollsome's deep thoughts

[somethingwittyandweird]

So I finished Sea of Stars today (as anyone with me on their dash will find out as soon as they scroll past this post). Long story short, I loved it! It was a really solid experience from start to finish, and I'm going to take a moment here to sing some praises.

Early on the first thing that charmed me was the environment design- it felt like I could follow my character's journey visually on the world map through the zones when I entered and exited them, which just testifies to how well made the overworld map is. The environment designs were just great in general- every place was visually interesting and some of the backgrounds were absolutely jaw dropping.

I liked the combat system! It's not hard by any means but it's fun. It starts out slow to ramp up the interesting features and many times in the early game I felt like combats were over before I got to use any cool moves, but by the time you unlock all the mechanics it's a really dynamic system. I like the choice to flatten the MP bars and skill costs and put an emphasis on alternating spending MP on two-three skills and then basic attacking to replenish it. The live mana system gives another dynamic angle that ended up feeling a lot like Octopath's BP system in execution (again, setting up a cadence of small attacks to charge -> big damage attack -> repeat) but also interacted well with the lock system. The combo attacks are a highlight and the elemental lock system encourages nearly all of them to enter the rotation. The only gripe I have is that the Obligatory Indie RPG Timed Hits Like Paper Mario, while they do have good feel once you get them down, *really* could have used a timing example on first appearance, or someplace to practice using them. When a new party member showed up with a completely different attack pattern, it took me several fights of pressing A at random times during the animation to figure out where the right timing window was. Turning on the modifier that gave feedback on perfect timing was helpful to know when I had it, but I didn't like having to guess what part of the animation I was aiming at in the first place.

The characters were excellent- though I don't have much to say about some of them, others of them felt like they were aimed directly at me and the types of character I like. There were multiple times that I was delighted to see a new character get to join the ensemble and not just remain in place. I think they were all treated well by the story and most importantly, all had their moments to shine. On that, the story in this one was also excellent- some good twists and some *really* heartfelt plot beats that will stick with me. One visually shattering moment in the middle gave me that awe-struck "oh to experience that again for the first time" feeling whenever I passed through that area thereafter. Just an overall good story well told.

Like I said in my last post, I enjoyed the gamefeel of traversal, which is surprising since JRPGs aren't really a movement focused genre. But again, with the addition of verticality, climbing up ledges and rock walls, and later on the grapple hook to cross gaps, I was pretty engaged even when backtracking- though there was very little backtracking, since the world and environments were designed as very straightforward and easy to navigate. The collectibles and sidequests were at a good challenge level where they weren't free but they also didn't take dozens of hours to scour the world for the hidden door, etc. The game also gives you a modifier that gives a radar for collectibles too making it easy to get that nice shiny completion star. And the sidequests were all worthwhile too, especially the late game character-specific questlines. The full completion reward true ending surprised me at first, but I settled into it once the feelings started to flow.

It wouldn't be fair to the game to not mention the way it wears its love for Chrono Trigger and other SNES-era JRPGs on its sleeve. If "Guest Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda" wasn't enough of a clue, the story is tucked full of easter eggs and references, combo attacks and enemies and environments and plot beats that fans of Chrono Trigger would identify easily. But I think it handles the inspiration well, being an homage that still keeps up its own identity. The lore tying it to the studio's other game, The Messenger, helps with that. It's not just "hey let's remake this game we're all nostalgic for beat for beat" and more "hey let's do our own thing but throw in a lot of nods for us and for other people who are nostalgic for this."

Overall, playing the game was great to end 2023 and finishing the game is a killer start to 2024! A very hearty recommend from me.

#sea of stars #i talk a lot tag #long post #do i have too much to say in these sorts of posts? #nah it's my blog and readmores are my friend #i wish i could have said more about the characters and plot beats even #but everything else about my favorite moments is spoilers so i can't elaborate here #edit: oh yeah funniest thing about the endgame was that the credits had a button to multiply the scroll speed #and once the kickstarter backer section appeared another button appeared to super-multiply the speed

[masterjedilenawrites]

Lena! First off, I hope you're doing splendidly. Your posts always make my day better. Second, I had a mad idea that I'd love your take on but if it's not to your liking, feel free to ignore it. I was listening to the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack today and the thought struck me of which of our beloved clones is like which Jane Austen hero? Wolffe totally gives me Mr. Darcy vibes and I can see Fives as Mr. Tilney (young, handsome, likes to dance, likes to tease, probably understands muslin). Would you be willing to share your thoughts on any of the clones? If you throw in Waxer and Howzer, I'll love you even more than I already do. You're marvelous. Thank you thank you!

LOVE this concept. Mansfield Park is the only Austen story I'm not at all familiar with, so I'll exclude any gentlemen from that one. But here's what I think about the others and their similarities with the clones...

Wolffe is like Mr. Darcy... He's proud, yes, but further, he's a man of duty and principle. He knows what he wants and has no time for things that fall short of those standards. He is a steadfast friend for life, even taking a hit to his own reputation (or life) to save them. In a romantic partner, he'd need someone unafraid to call out his BS, but also patient enough to let him learn his lesson and try again... and he'll always try to do better for the ones he loves.

...Some similarities: Crosshair

Wrecker is like Mr. Bingley... He may not be the brightest star in the sky, but he sure is the most sincere and kindhearted. What you see is what you get with him. He gets along with everybody, making friends wherever he goes, and tends not to get too upset over things. He does, however, get easily flustered, especially when his heart is involved. He'd match with someone who is just as sweet and easygoing as he is, and together they won't have a complaint in the galaxy.

...Some similarities: Tup

Fives is like Mr. Tilney... He's charming and he's playful, he's smart and he's soft. Though he may be private about some matters, overall he's fair and honest and has a very calm but confident demeanor. And yes, he does have a unique appreciation for fashion unfound in other clones. Such a range of traits means he will first and foremost be a friend before a lover, though once shifted to the latter, will have plenty of teasing fun. He'll love someone who can surprise him in return.

...Some similarities: Howzer

Rex is like Captain Wentworth... On the outside he's a strong, dashing trooper, calm and collected in any room he finds himself in. But underneath the politeness and agreeableness is a bleeding heart, a sense of duty that often causes him to strain past his limits. He wants to do the right thing, even if it's at the expense of his own feelings. While he can maintain all sorts of friendships, the only romantic interest he'll have is in someone who knows their mind and sticks to it.

...Some similarities: Hunter

Cody is like Colonel Brandon... Really puts the sense in sensibility, am I right? Faithful, admirable, and smart... he's not old, just "seasoned." He knows which fights are worth having and which are just petty drama to stay out of. He's very generous with his time and resources, but in more of a subtle, working in the background kind of way. His loved ones will have a comfortable life if it's the last thing he does. He may not be traditionally romantic, but his patience and devotion more than make up for it.

...Some similarities: Fox

Echo is like Edward Ferrars... He's another duty-bound gentleman who sometimes gets in the way of his own happiness by choosing to follow what's expected of him over his own heart. He's a fan of good company and good conversation, and can generally get along with anyone. Though his personality may not be as charming, or his looks as flashy, he'd still be able to easily endear himself to a partner of equally good character and heart, once he had no other conflicting interests.

...Some similarities: Dogma

Kix is like Mr. Knightley... He is a sharp, perceptive man who looks out for both his friends and community as if they were family. His maturity serves as a good balance to his more, let's say, chaotic acquaintances, though he's not above having a bit of fun when it makes sense. Despite having such a good head on his shoulders, he can't help but be attracted to someone on the wilder side. Some would say they actually enjoy arguing, probably because they secretly know it helps them both grow.

...Some similarities: Tech

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+Clone & Bad Batch Tags: @marvel-starwars-nerd, @pandora-the-halfling, @darkangel4121, @sobstea, @rintheemolion, @bowtiesandsandshoes, @dionysuskid21, @jesseeka, @hanbetired (it won't let me tag you 😢), @thatmultifandomdumbass, @sarahtanmarvel, @call-me-a-fool, @lackofhonor, @theclonesdeservebetter, @hannahhearttcw, @kaijusplotch, @salaminus, @arctrooper69, @katzs-current-obsession, @501st-rexster, @rebel-finn, @not-a-big-slay, @writing-positivelyexisting, @nekotaetae, @the-mom-friend-dot-com, @pickle-rick-y, @flowered-bicycles, @lucyysthings, @severalseashellsbytheseashore, @the-royal-petals, @droids-you-are-looking-for, @moon-wrecked, @Frost.Bytten (it won't let me tag you 😢)

Tender Loving Clones Masterlist | Master List of Master Lists

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#star wars #the clone wars #the bad batch #jane austen #austen men #mr knightley #edward ferrars #colonel brandon #captain wentworth #mr tilney #mr bingley #mr darcy #commander cody #commander fox #commander wolffe #captain howzer #captain rex #fives #kix #tup #dogma #wrecker #crosshair #tech #hunter #echo #tender loving clones

[blackthunder137]

Oh sorry I didn’t see the scenario part!

🌱leaves rustling with Theodore Nott (Theo taking you on a surprise picnic date)

All for you (Theodore Nott x reader)

Navigation Theodore Nott's masterlist

That’s alright, darling ♡. This is also a cute request. Again, I don’t know how this turned out to be but do tell me how this was! The setting is of muggle au. Also, there is a tiny surprise too! I hope you like it!

You awoke to the sound of birds chirping and the sunbeams descending on your soft skin. You turn around to hear the alarm clock. It was quite irritating. You took it in your hands and turned it off. A piece of paper fell during the procedure, and your attention was drawn to it. You stopped the clock and went to pick up the paper that had fallen. It read-

Meet me at 3 p.m.

By the lake. I have something for you.

T.N

The message made you smile. You expected today to be a typical, monotonous, and ordinary day. This, on the other hand, made you smile. You sighed, and the paper remained on the table. You eagerly anticipated your wonderful boyfriend's plans.

The clock struck three when you looked at it. You were dressed comfortably but elegantly. You took one final glance in the mirror before heading to where Theo indicated you needed to be.

As you approached the lake, you noticed a figure standing there. It was Theo, and as soon as he noticed you arriving, his gaze was drawn to you. He couldn't take his gaze away from you because of your beauty.

You got close to him and pecked his lips, but he kept looking into your eyes. His thoughts had taken over.

"What exactly are you staring at?" You inhaled deeply because you were so close to him. He kissed you again and said, "I don’t know, something enchanting."

He took your hand in his and led you to a little tent that had been set up after your short and sweet kiss. You couldn't tell what it was from afar, but as you got closer, you noticed that your lover had planned a picnic for you.

You hugged him closely and noticed a bouquet, a cake, some food items, a bottle of champagne, and some of the books you enjoy reading.

"This is adorable, Theo. This is beautiful. I love it." You glanced at him and said, "Thank you so much." As he kissed the side of your temple, he whispered, "I know you needed a break from everything, so I decided to do this much for you, sweetie."

The day was spent reading your favourite novels, eating the food Theo had prepared just for you, making jokes, talking about things you both find fascinating, and being grateful for having such a loving boyfriend.

The sky was orange, indicating that sunset was approaching, and the two of you got up and proceeded to your home.

"It was a lot of fun tonight," you said. "I think we should do it more often." Theo nodded and came to a complete halt. You turned around to discover he'd come to a complete halt, and you asked, slightly puzzled, "What happened?"

Looking at you, Theo stated, "I can't do this anymore." Your smile faded, and your heart began to race, prompting you to question, "Wha-what do you mean?"

"I've wanted to do this for a long time." As he got closer to you, you became more puzzled and concerned. "Y/n, I want to spend the rest of my life with you," he said, holding your hands. "You make me complete. I don't believe there is such a thing as life without you. Would you y/n y/l/n marry this jerk who is madly in love with you?" He knelt and held a ring box in his hands, which contained a beautiful ring filled with diamonds.

This feeling caught you off guard and overwhelmed you. You smiled and nodded, tears running down your cheeks. "I was terrified to death when you said that I couldn't do this anymore," you remarked as he slipped a ring on your finger and returned to hug you. Never do something like that again! "

With the sun setting in the background, the two of you shared a long, passionate kiss. It was quite a sight.

And this was all for you.

Welcome to Green Lignum 🌿

#welcome to green lignum🌿 #theodore nott #theodore nott blurb #theodore nott x reader #theodore nott imagine #theodore nott icons #theodore nott headcanons #theodore nott x fem!reader #theodore nott x you #theodore nott x y/n #theo nott #theo nott oneshot #theodore nott oneshot #lorenzo zurzolo #theo nott fluff #theo nott imagine #theo nott angst #theo nott x reader #theo nott x you #theo nott x y/n #theodore nott fluff #theodore nott angst #hp imagine #theodore nott fanfic #theodore nott fanfiction #theo nott fic #theo nott fanfiction #* :☆ﾟmay writes

[treetownconfessions]

The setting sun beams through the open curtains that hang to the floor. A gentle yet soothing scent of lavender drifts through the air as a lulling melody plays in the background. 

Flippy wanted nothing more than to relax on a frigid winter evening- the winter solstice, to be exact. It was surprisingly one of his favorite times of the year, other than the recurring seasonal depression that struck his core every year. One activity he enjoyed the most during the winter season was making wreaths out of grape vines and moss he found on the forest floor. 

One night, however, he chose to stay indoors and enjoy a lovely cup of tea while observing the snowfall. It was his preferred way of meditation- he favored it more than the typical "sit and do nothing" kind. During the winter season, he felt as if nothing could interrupt what he was doing. 

He felt... quite unstoppable.

But today was different. As Flippy finished his daily journal prompt, his phone rang with urgency- one he was all too familiar with. He looked up from his writing, his heart jumping into his throat, and decided to stop what he was doing and answer. 

"Flippy, are you there?!"

A frantic Flaky sounded on the other end. Flippy's demeanor shifted drastically from the calm state he was in before.

"Flaky, what's going on? Are you okay?" Flippy stood up, turning off the music. With the tension that flooded the air, soothing music would only piss him off further.

"There's something wrong," Flaky stammered. Her voice was audibly shaky, "You need to get down here now."

Flippy was already putting his coat and boots on, "I got you. I'm on the way."

"No-.. Flippy, I don't think you understand," Her voice quivered with every syllable, which almost sounded like the reoccurring anxiety attacks Flippy experiences.

"What do you mean?"

"Please... Grab your equipment before you get down here."

Flippy sighed- he wanted to, at least. He knew what equipment she was talking about. 

He was frustrated beyond belief. It was not the first time he'd been asked to banish an entity, and it most certainly would not be the last.

"Okay. Give me two minutes and I'll be there as soon as possible," Flippy raced to his altar- a little table sitting by the window- and started hauling supplies into his arms.

"Please be quick-" Flaky's voice was cut off by heavy breathing and faint sobbing, "It's just me and Giggles right now, I promise."

"Okay, okay," He groaned when his jar of nettle dropped from his arms, "Just be patient and put that salt I gave you around the entirety of the house." -

hi moddy and friends :3 sorry it took me a little while .... being harassed can kill motivation heavily, but I hope this wip will suffice until I can gather the motivation to finish it -pagan flippy anon

:3!

#fanfic

[s65ns]

Out of Time - Chapter Two.

Out of Time Masterlist

Previous Part: One Year / Next Part: Four Months

⚠️ TW: Mentions of Cancer ⚠️

word count: 1.7k words

••••••••••••••

Chapter Two: Six Months

evelyn's pov.

"I'm so tired."

"We're almost there, love." Harry says with a smile. He grabs a hold of my hand while holding the picnic basket in the other hand.

Harry had the bright idea to go for a walk today as a means to get me out of the house. I'd honestly call this a hike instead. We were in the middle of the woods for some unexplainable reason. All Harry could tell me was that it was surprise and that he's sure I would love it.

I sigh exasperatedly as we continued walking.

As time moves on, I can feel my internal clock ticking down and it doesn't sit well with me.

Every morning I wake up, I can feel my body slowly giving up on me. I don't have as much energy as I used to have. There's always something wrong with me every day, sometimes it's something different and sometimes it's the same thing.

If I'm not nauseous, I have a headache. If I don't have a headache, I feel depressed. If I'm not depressed, perhaps I'm fine for only but a moment, but the cycle repeats later on. It's irritating really. Nobody should have to live a life like this.

Ever since my oncology appointment, Harry has become very protective of me. He had already been pretty protective of me before, but something Dr. Ansley said must have really struck a chord with him.

He's been more proactive in my life. Clingy, even. Not that I'm complaining though...I appreciate having someone to walk this journey with me. Though I fear the aftermath of us getting so close only for me to leave some day.

The minute I told Harry I was feeling down, he came running. He claims me being in my house all day is the cause of me suffering with my own thoughts, which he wouldn't be wrong about.

Now here we are. I'm thirsty. My legs are killing me, and I just want to cuddle up in my blankie and go to sleep.

Don't even get me started on how hot it is.

"What if I die of dehydration? The sun is eating me alive right now." I say using my arm to wipe away some sweat.

"Evelyn, that's because you're wearing a sweatshirt in the middle of June." Harry says matter-of-factly. I roll my eyes and proceed to let him drag me to the picnic site. It's not like I could take off the sweatshirt.

The second I take off my sweatshirt, not only will I feel cold, but Harry will see my body.

For the past six months, hoodies and sweatshirts have been my best friend.

Along with the body aches, I've found myself losing a lot of weight. I haven't had much of an appetite, and luckily enough Harry hasn't noticed...or at least I don't think he has.

"Almost there." Harry says, turning back to look at me with a smile. I groan like a small child in return, but I'm soon silenced by the beautiful scenery that comes into view.

Just ahead, the trees begin to clear a small path that is better hidden from the sun. I relish in the shade and let out an audible sigh. Harry briefly glances over his shoulder, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

"We're here." he says. In front of us was a picnic table with a lake in the background. The grass tickled our legs as we walked. It wasn't cut too high, nor too low. The grass was soft and provided the perfect amount of cushion under our feet.

We walked over to the picnic table. Harry placed the picnic basket on the ground.

He released my hand to open the basket. Inside was your typical picnic tablecloth with the red and white patches. I stand back and watch the master at work.

Harry quickly places everything down on the table. As Harry finishes setting up the table, my stomach begins to growl.

Harry chuckles softly.

"Don't worry, love. I'm done." He walks over to me as I stay planted in my spot. My eyes follow him as he gets closer, a lazy grin placed on his face. I can feel my cheeks get hot as Harry runs his eyes over my face.

I try to catch my words taking in the sight before me. I mean, everything was just beautiful from the scenery to the picnic. Harry had really outdone himself this time.

"You made all this?" I ask as my eyes scan the different baked goods and sandwiches on the table. Harry nods, grabbing a hold of my hands to steady them from their subtle shake. He lifts my hands to eye level and places a kiss on each one.

"For you," he starts, "I made all of this for you." His eyes reconnect with mine and there's a glint in them I can't decipher. I watch as his eyes shifts between my eyes and my lips.

We stand there for what seems like an hour taking each other in. My stomach growls again taking us out of our trance. Harry lets out a breathy laugh.

"Let's eat." he says before leading me closer to the table. He makes sure the seat is comfortable for me by adding a small cushion. I smile and thank him.

Harry walks around to the other side of the table to sit across from me.

"Everything looks delicious, Harry." Harry smiles as he opens everything up.

"Thank you. I hope it tastes good too."

"Ah yes. I'm sure the pastries will definitely taste good. I remember you telling me how you spent your teenage years as a baker." I say with a laugh as I wait patiently for him to finish.

"All those years of baking are finally paying off, huh?" he asks. I giggle while nodding my head.

"Go ahead, love. Don't be shy. Dig in."

I say thank you once more before making a plate of two sandwiches and two chocolate chip cookies.

Harry then makes his own plate, and we begin to eat.

We make small talk as we eat. Harry catches me up on the latest drama with his publisher, and I catch him up on some of my latest art projects.

"So, when are you going to paint me?" he asks. I nearly choke on my food at his question. Harry chuckles under his breath at my reaction. He refills my cup of apple juice as he waits for me to calm down.

"I'm sorry?" I ask, I want to be sure I heard what he said.

"I asked when you are going to paint me." Wow, he really did ask that. My mind is scrambling for the best answer while my stomach is doing somersaults.

I have always wanted to paint Harry. He is truly a sight to behold with his beautiful, brown curls that sit atop his head and captivating green eyes. His long eyelashes help frame and bring out his eyes. He stands tall and confident.

Along with his mesmerizing features, Harry has an amazing personality and incredible fashion sense. I can't remember a moment where Harry has looked anything but put together. Even his PJs look styled and all he wears is a white shirt and grey sweats.

He's so sweet and kind. He always knows exactly when I need him and what I need him to do. He's very understanding as well and accepts everyone despite their differences.

Harry's always been such a good friend to me. If I didn't have a timer on my back or have cancer in general, I would take a shot at dating him.

Harry has always made flirty passes at me, and on the very rare occasion I would respond to the comments with a flirty comment of my own, but we never crossed that line.

From the beginning Harry has always been suggesting we take that leap of faith, but he's never once officially asked me.

"Evelyn?" Harry asks. I hum in response.

"Are you okay? You kind of zoned out on me there. I was just kidding about the-"

"No! I mean no, you're fine. I was just thinking about how I would go about painting you. You know how it is. Once I start thinking of something, I get a little carried away." I say sheepishly.

Harry smiles wide and nods his head while finishing up his plate. I had already finished eating and was now taking in the scenery. I stared out at the lake, enjoying the silence that overtook us.

"I would like to paint you someday, Harry." I say looking over at him only to see his eyes were already on me.

"Really?" he says, swallowing his final bite.

"Yeah. If I'm being honest, I've always wanted to. On our late-night drives or the time we went to the aquarium, I captured those moments in my mind, and I've always wanted to draw it out on a canvas."

Harry lets the words I said soak in. He gives a cheeky smirk before saying, "So you've always wanted to paint me like one of your French girls?"

I reach over the table and smack his arm as he lets out a laugh.

"Not like that, idiot." Harry nods as he continues to giggle softly.

We let silence overtake us again and watch the lake in peace. The water was calm, clear, and inviting. If I wasn't scared off shedding my layers, I would suggest we go for a swim.

"Evelyn," Harry says to get my attention, "there's something I've been meaning to ask you."

"If it's another comment about painting you like a French girl I'm not interested."

"No, no. This question's more serious than that." My brows crease together as I turn my body back to the table.

"What's up?" Harry looks at me for a moment before letting his gaze fall to my lips. I feel my cheeks get hot the longer he stares at me. I bite my lip in anticipation and his eyes immediately shoot up to mine.

I take note of how his pupils have eaten away at some of the green in his eyes.

"Harry?" He looks over at the lake briefly as a means of composing himself.

Harry releases a sigh before looking back at me and asking,

"Will you go out with me?"

#deathtrope #evelyn west #harry styles #soft harry styles #fanfic #fan fiction #one direction #harry styles fanfiction #heartbreak #love #sad story #short story #out of time #strangers to lovers #harry fanfic #harry styles fanfic #love harry #I miss her #boyfriendrry #out of timerry #harry styles related writings #harry styles writings

[loftec]

I’m sorry you aren’t excited about writing right now, I know it feels silly and frustrating but you’re so valid in it lol. That being said, I think the only character I would love more about is Edna from NTW??

That’s a lie, I would love to ask everything about Etch but I feel like he’s so well made I know all of his sweet and honest answers.

So number 1 for Edna if you please! Stay safe and happy and warm!

Hello friend! Thank you for the kind words, it means a lot… I felt extra crappy about it yesterday because I have finally (omg don't jinx it don't mention the schedule) cough managed cough to keep up cough a routine! And yet when I sit down at my allotted daily writing time, I waste it on silly things like despair. Anyway! Onwards and upwards, I haven't managed to write much more today but spirits are higher, partly because I got to think about Edna for a while!

I'm not sure any of this will ever come up within NTW so I'm just going to ramble a bit. Edna is quite mysterious to me as well, actually, I feel like I have a really strong image of her but unlike most of my other OCs, she isn't named after or based on anyone. And in the vein of not knowing the full name of an aunt or a grandmother (don't judge me, but I was once asked my grandmother's name and was like ??????? I do know it but I have never not once in my life used it and I cannot recall please help). Well, I did some digging in my feelings and I decided that her married name is Sutherland. I then spent 40 minutes trying to figure out her maiden name and I really just can't. The problem is that she is so clearly a certain way in my head and I want to figure out if she reminds me of someone or if there's a character somewhere that I can compare her to. It's literally been years and I still haven't managed.

Although, I feel like she might look a bit like Miriam Margoyles and I wanted to bring in some connection there, hence Sutherland (Miriam and her partner Heather Sutherland have been together since 1967, which really struck me because it was the same year I'd set in my timeline for Edna and Alan getting together).

This was so much fun, and now all I want to do is write a fic where Ian has a cup of coffee with Edna and gets her to talk about her whole life with Mickey in the background working and walking past to eavesdrop, because he's never thought to ask half of these questions and the old bat is actually sincerely answering everything!

Mickey, after eavesdropping on Edna’s whole-ass life story : I’ve known you since I was born and you’ve never told me any of this! This is some dark fucking magic right here.

Ian, literally just asking normal questions about someone’s life: …yes, must be magic.

Edna, who’s never straightforwardly answered a personal question in her life, and knows it: Maybe you should’ve asked and I would’ve told you.

Obviously, I need to finish NTW so I can write that!

#thank you!

[thoughtsinblue]

Walking Fast and Slow

I've always been one to walk fast. And, looking back at my life, it's rather easy for me to say that that's how it's always been. Maybe it's because I'd perpetually be late to school, or maybe it's because of another reason that I can't quite put my finger on. By all means, it wasn't even until a few hours ago that I consciously realized that that was the case.

It was 7 p.m., a fine Saturday evening. I'd just exited out of a café and although I'd just had a Kouign-Amann and some coffee, I still felt as if I had room for more. I usually have dinner around 7:30 p.m. and so, I decided to make my way towards a restaurant. I opened up Google Maps and selected a fine establishment. It was about 2 km away from where I was. Now, I was in no hurry as I had no one waiting for me at home, and so, as I had this seemingly infinite amount of time on my hands, I decided to walk all the way. (I also secretly hoped that it'd make me feel just a bit better about being such a glutton.)

I put on my earphones, selected a playlist and started walking. As I walked, thoughts started flooding my mind. Now, I have, for a long time, thought of walking as a tool to clear thoughts, but more often than not, this influx of thoughts becomes chaotic. The thoughts come and go, are overlapped, and sometimes they break off, and all of this happens at a rate that is too dizzying for me to keep up with. Most days, this ends with me being completely overwhelmed and exhausted. Today seemed just like one of those days. But then, out of nowhere, an inescapable thought struck me: "Why is it that I always find myself hurrying? Why can’t I just take in all that is around me? I would most definitely benefit from walking slowly.”

And so I did. Well, kind of. As I’ve said before, I've always walked fast, and now that I was trying to slow down, I couldn't. I'd take a few slow steps, but then find myself picking the pace up again. This happened for a while until I finally got the hang of it. I wasn't prepared for what came next. I was quite literally going against my own nature, and so it was rather difficult for me to slow down, but once I did do so, I realized that my thoughts had slowed down too. They weren't zooming past me at the speed of light, instead, they remained long enough for me to pay attention to them. And not only had the thoughts slowed down, but also, the surrounding lights seemed to get brighter. Suddenly, things around me were not a blur, every car that sped ahead on the street besides me had a distinct sound, I was taking in the faces of the strangers around me, most of them moved past me, however their perfumes lingered just a moment longer.

After dinner, I headed towards the sea. I sat down on top of the raised platform that hugs the coast. As I was beginning to put my earphones away, I was greeted by a stray cat. Although I didn't notice her at first, she introduced herself when she started playing with my messenger bag. Needless to say, the cat made her way to me as soon as I pulled the bag into my lap. After a short introduction, she sat down next to me. Her constant purr relaxed me even further to the point where I no longer had anything on my mind. The people around me faded into the background and then, it was just me, the cat and the sound of the waves. The salty breeze against my skin suddenly made me feel at home. I reflected on what I had learnt and now that I think of it, I might have thought a few things out loud as if the cat could understand me just fine.

I do not know how long I sat there listening to the sound of the waves, but when I finally decided to leave, I crossed the street and suddenly, I turned back to take a picture of the cat, but she had left too. I saw her walking, slowly, as if she were reminding me to do the same.

#writing #sea #waves #cat #quote #thoughts #coffee #cafe #author #relaxing #long reads #good reads #melanchonic

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Barbenheimer Double Feature Reviews: Oppenheimer (2023) and Barbie (2023)

NOW I AM BECOME BARBIE GIRL, DESTROYER OF BARBIE WORLD

MELTING PLASTIC, IT'S FANTASTIC

FALLOUT IN THE AIR, DESTRUCTION EVERYWHERE

ANNIHILATION, END OF ALL CREATION

...ahem. Anyway...

----------

Oppenheimer (2023)

Rated R for some sexuality, nudity and language

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2023/07/barbenheimer-double-feature-oppenheimer.html>

Score: 5 out of 5

Christopher Nolan is a very talented filmmaker who I have very mixed feelings about, and one who I think has been considerably overrated by film geeks of my generation who fixate on his successes and ignore his failures. On one hand, his Batman trilogy still holds up and has left a lasting mark on the character beyond just film, ensuring that his legacy in geek culture would be an enduring one even if he never made another movie. Inception, meanwhile, was a brilliant sci-fi thriller, and Dunkirk is one of the best war movies of the last ten years. What's more, his loving embrace of practical effects and old-fashioned storytelling is one that Hollywood could use more of in a time when it seems that bloated, CGI-fueled, franchise-baiting monstrosities are leading it down a road to ruin. On the other hand, his and Zack Snyder's attempts to apply The Dark Knight's deconstructionist approach to Superman with Man of Steel produced a movie that I didn't really like then and which has held up only worse with the hindsight of ten years of the DC Extended Universe, his sci-fi epic Interstellar was beautiful to look at but had a plot that went straight up its own ass and betrayed its pretensions towards "hard" science fiction, and while I did not see Tenet, his actions and public statements concerning the release of that film theatrically even during a pandemic struck me as pretentious to the point of callousness. What's more, he's popularized a rather annoying trend in sound mixing of trying to make audio more "realistic" that, in practice, means that dialogue often gets drowned out by ambient noise, especially during action scenes where there's a lot of loud noises going on in the background.

That said, while I believe that Nolan is ultimately human, I can also acknowledge that there's a reason why he's considered one of the best filmmakers working today. When he hits, he typically sends it out of the park. And Oppenheimer is Nolan at his best. He takes a three-hour historical biopic, one whose only real scene of spectacle is the Trinity test, and makes it feel like a three-hour epic. It has a sprawling, all-star cast and takes place over multiple time periods, often jumping back and forth between them as it needs to, but keeps its focus on a number of important threads in its subject's life in a manner that keeps it cohesive. The entire cast does amazing work, above all else longtime Nolan collaborator Cillian Murphy as the title character, a man who slowly and then all at once starts to realize what his groundbreaking scientific work has unleashed on the world. This was not the sort of movie that had me checking my watch even with its great length; no, I was gripped the whole way through, all the way to its tragic conclusion as J. Robert Oppenheimer looks back on his life and tribulations and wonders if he will go down in history as the man who destroyed the world. It is a grim film, and knowing just the barest amount about the subject matter going in, there's a reason why my double feature of this film and Barbie had me watching this one first. But it is a worthwhile one, and one that I think will go down in history as a modern classic and one of Nolan's best.

Much of the film is told in flashbacks from the year 1954, as Oppenheimer is undergoing a security hearing to determine whether or not his Q clearance should be revoked due to suspicion that security leaks at Los Alamos National Laboratory under his watch may have enabled the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to take great strides forward on its own atomic weapons project. We start in the interwar period as Oppenheimer establishes himself as one of the world's leading nuclear physicists, continue through his establishment of the Los Alamos laboratory, the Manhattan Project, and the first and only wartime use of nuclear weapons, and conclude in the postwar years as he grows increasingly concerned about the destructive potential of the atomic bomb and especially the hydrogen bomb, becoming a leading voice in favor of arms control instead of an arms race. Through it all, his left-wing sympathies, owing to him being both a Jewish man watching the rise of fascism and a scientist whose profession strongly values the free flow of information, bring him first a measure of soft distrust during the war and then a more hard-edged suspicion afterwards as East/West wartime collaboration breaks down into the Cold War, especially given his interaction throughout his life with people and organizations (including his brother Frank, his wife Katherine, his mistress Jean Tatlock, and the Berkeley professor Haakon Chevalier) who were at one point or another connected to the Communist Party of the United States.

The film starts and ends with Cillian Murphy, who plays Oppenheimer at various points over the span of more than twenty years and is captivating in all of them. In his early scenes, between his hair and his performance, he evokes the feeling of a young "rock star" intellectual with his sights set on a bright mission to change the world, bringing with it the requisite ego. Being tapped to run the Manhattan Project forces him to clean himself up, literally and figuratively, adopting a more traditional haircut and dress while ending his overt dalliances with the various communists around him; while he remains with his wife after she explains to him that she lost faith in communism after her fiancé ran off to fight for the Spanish Republicans and died there (in real life, it was more complicated, but it's implied anyway that she's not being wholly honest here), he pulls back from Chevalier when he tries to get him to spill some nuclear secrets to pass along to the Soviets. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki leaves him haunted after he finds out just how much damage his weapon did, best conveyed in a scene where Nolan's sound mixing is actually used well as the congratulatory speech Oppenheimer is giving to his fellow workers at Los Alamos is drowned out by his own internal panic. Before the Trinity test, the possibility is raised on more than one occasion that the atomic bomb might ignite Earth's atmosphere and destroy the world; while that obviously didn't literally happen, the film ends with Oppenheimer wondering whether or not he might have done so metaphorically.

This is not a movie that glamorizes Oppenheimer. On one hand, it spotlights how he was not only one of the greatest minds America had at the time, but also somebody with a strong moral code, from how his politics were motivated by a genuine desire to do right by the world to how he helped recruit numerous European Jewish physicists into the Manhattan Project by recognizing how Adolf Hitler's antisemitism was causing him to cut off his nose to spite his face. On the other hand, by the time he realized what he unleashed and put aside his dispassionate pursuit of science for its own sake in favor of activism, the cat was already out of the bag, and what's more, his idealism, paired with his womanizing, blinded him to the threat of spies seeking to steal his research and use it to empower the Soviets, ultimately destroying his hope that the postwar era would see global cooperation for the betterment of all instead of the competition for power and glory that it ultimately became. He may be the main character of this film, but by the end, even he wouldn't tell you that he was any sort of hero.

The story here is big, and Nolan wades right into it and makes it feel big. At times, the number of supporting characters, famous faces in both the historical figures and in the all-star cast playing them, was almost too many to keep track of, but Nolan keeps it focused on the big ones, specifically how they all interact with J. Robert at various points in his life. In a unique touch, the "present-day" scenes in 1954 are shot in black-and-white, and the flashbacks in color, a choice meant to show that the security hearings are purely fact-based while the flashbacks are colored by Oppenheimer's memories of the events but which I think also served to highlight how, by the time the Cold War was in full swing, his youthful idealism had long since withered in the harsh light of how things actually played out.

And more importantly, even though this was a very "talky" movie, it felt as propulsive as any of Nolan's other films. Ludwig Göransson's score lent a sense of urgency and impending dread to the proceedings, knowing that it was telling the story of the inventor of the most fearsome and deadly weapon ever conceived and always seeming to be driving the film forward. Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema crafted a visual style that feels naturalistic in true Nolan fashion without necessarily going grim and gritty, whether it's the musty old libraries and classrooms that have a hint of dark academia to them or the vistas of Los Alamos, New Mexico that feel consciously designed to evoke Westerns, a comparison that Kitty herself makes when she first sees the town, highlighting the irony of how that older, simpler age of American history was about to be brought to an end through a project carried out in the kind of scenic Western vista that John Ford himself might have shot a movie. It was a long movie, but it was not a bloated one in the slightest. After all, how can you be when you're telling the story of a man who, for better or worse, changed the world?

The Bottom Line

Oppenheimer is another film that proves that, when Christopher Nolan is on the ball, he knows how to make a masterpiece. Whether you're a movie buff or into history or science, this will probably stand the test of time as a classic, and a definitive treatment of the life and work of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

----------

I was told that the preferential viewing order for this would be to screen Oppenheimer first and then Barbie, so that's exactly what I did.

Barbie (2023)

Rated PG-13 for suggestive references and brief language

Score: 4 out of 5

As a toy, a character, and a pop culture icon, Barbie is a figure with a lot of baggage. On one hand, when she first debuted in 1959 on store shelves that were otherwise lined with dolls of babies and young children, she was a game-changer, one who turned dolls from a fantasy of motherhood to a fantasy of being all grown up. She was the original ideal of the modern, liberated woman: beautiful, glamorous, and, as time went on, capable of working every career under the sun, while also having a handsome (boyfriend? Best friend? It's varied over the years) named Ken. On the other hand, having Barbie, a very '50s/'60s idea of a modern, liberated woman (even one who was herself designed by a woman, Ruth Handler), as an ideal to live up to has done a number on the self-image of generations of young girls, especially when it came to standards of physical beauty, and her aspirational marketing often ran head-first into a world where women and girls often found themselves treated as second-class citizens compared to men and boys.

As such, the announcement of a movie based on Barbie, officially licensed by Mattel, was inevitably going to have to tackle all of this head-on: what Barbie was originally conceived as versus what she had come to represent. And when it was announced that Greta Gerwig, a young filmmaker known for naturalistic, relationship-focused dramas who came up through the "mumblecore" scene in indie cinema, would be directing and co-writing the film with her longtime partner (both creative and romantic) Noah Baumbach, I thought I'd figured out exactly what kind of movie I was going to get just from the trailers: a stinging satire of Barbie's complicated relationship with womanhood and girlhood, wrapped in over-the-top girly aesthetics. That is more or less the film that they delivered, but not in the directions I was expecting. Make no mistake, Barbie is an avowedly, unapologetically feminist film, and one that I'm not surprised has already inspired plenty of unbridled, predictable rage from a certain class of commentator. But it's one that surprised me, and one where really getting into the meat and potatoes of its message would require giving away some of the best moments of the movie.

So, to keep this brief, I had a blast with Barbie. It is undoubtedly a very snarky parody of the doll line, its commercialization, and how people have reacted to it over the years, but it is also an affectionate one made by somebody who clearly spent much of her childhood playing with Barbie dolls and suggests here that they played a big role in making her who she is today. It couldn't have had better casting, not just in its sprawling all-star cast but also in its leads, Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, who not only perfectly look the part of the iconic characters they play but take them to some very interesting and even daring places over the course of the film. It's a visual treat, especially in how it imagines the neon-pink world that Barbie and Ken live in, and its jokes were not only hilarious but also hit very close to home, like the most biting Saturday Night Live parodies of Barbie done on a blockbuster budget. Even if you're the most rugged, bearded manly man who thinks he's above this kind of movie, I guarantee, you'll laugh your ass off watching it.

The film starts in Barbieland, where all the Barbies and Kens live. It's presented to us as a utopian matriarchy where all the Barbies are successful women living their best lives and running everything, and the Kens are eye candy who are happy to live for their girlfriends. Robbie and Gosling's characters are the classic, stereotypical Barbie and Ken we all think of when we hear the names "Barbie and Ken", the beautiful blonde bombshell and her hunky-yet-chaste romantic partner whose life revolves around two things, Barbie and the beach. It's established early on that the Barbies know they live in a fantasy world connected to a toy line in the "real world", and that their purpose is to serve as an aspirational ideal to young girls so that they can become better women when they grow up. Which makes the thoughts of death that Barbie has one day rather unfortunate, especially as they mark the beginning of a breakdown of her perfect life. Turning to "Weird Barbie", a wise older Barbie who lives alone and is connected to a real-world Barbie doll whose owner badly mistreated her, for help, Barbie sets out on a mission to the real world to find the little girl she's connected to, with Ken coming along for the ride.

The film doesn't linger for very long on the mechanics of how all of this operates beyond "it's magic", and frankly, it doesn't need to, dropping enough hints that most viewers could probably figure it out on their own. The Mattel corporation is fully involved, but while Will Ferrell's vaguely villainous CEO has shown up in the marketing for this, he and the company as a whole are chiefly two things: the butt of many of the film's jokes, and more importantly, red herrings. The actual villain is telegraphed pretty early once Barbie and Ken enter the real world, and their identity is rather important to the film's central themes, but I will hold off on spoiling it because it's just such a fun moment that I don't wanna give away. Rest assured, though, this is not a film that rests on its laurels and just throws a torrent of classic Barbie iconography at you to distract from a threadbare story.

And it all starts with the casting. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as Barbie and Ken may just be the most perfect casting I can imagine, two actors who both embody the kind of mid-century Hollywood beauty standards that Barbie and Ken were based on and are also two of the most gifted actors of their generation (side note: Gosling's been around for so long that I was surprised to see that he's only eight-and-a-half years older than Robbie), meaning that they don't just look the part, they fill it with personas that I imagine will color how people view the dolls for a very long time. Robbie grabbed me from the moment we get an early dance sequence set to a Dua Lipa disco banger in which, after voicing her thoughts about death, she's tries to go back to putting on a happy-go-lucky party girl face -- but every so often, for just a split second, we see the look of worry creep in. Her comic timing, one of her strongest yet most underappeciated assets, is also on full display here, setting up some of the most hilarious scenes in the film. Throughout, Robbie delivers the kind of performance that would vanquish any doubts as to whether or not she's just a flash in the pan, running the full gamut of emotions as she has to learn about the real world and all its messy stuff. She would've easily walked away as the film's MVP if it weren't for Gosling, who matches her beat-for-beat as Ken learning about his own place in the world and what it really means to be a man. He gets a pair of great musical numbers that both land incredibly well even if he doesn't have the best pipes, and does an amazing job making Ken not just a partner to Barbie, but a mirror to her in some key ways.

Among the characters in the real world, meanwhile, it's America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt as the mother Gloria and her teenage daughter Sasha who both give this film its human soul and rest at the heart of its message. We meet Sasha first, and she's representative of young people who see Barbie as a symbol of the older generations' broken promises to girls and young women, the unattainable ideal that they could never live up to and which was all too often used to belittle them. Gloria, meanwhile, is a mom approaching middle age and working an unglamorous office job who sees Barbie quite differently, as the figure who showed her that she didn't have to choose between a career and a family, and remains attached to the ideal of Barbie even if she knows her life isn't perfect. Together, Gloria and Sasha are the ones who force Barbie to confront what she symbolizes, especially as her own life increasingly flies off the rails and she needs to figure out who she really is if she wants to... well, again, spoilers.

It was perhaps to be expected that Greta Gerwig made this a character-focused film above all else given her background, but the real surprises came in the production design. The trailers already showed off Barbieland quite vividly, and the film spends a surprising amount of time there to show it off even further, a landscape saturated in bright pink and primary colors that would feel like it came out of a Y2K-throwback hyperpop music video if it were played for even the slightest bit of irony. The other assorted Barbies and Kens (and forgotten oddities in the Barbie back catalogue like Midge, Skipper, and Allan) are played by a who's who of actors, musicians, models, and other celebrities who feel like they all signed onto this film just to have the opportunity to say that they were in the Barbie movie, and each of them felt like they were having a blast hanging out on set, the exact kind of non-stop-party energy that Barbieland needed. Speaking of hyperpop, the soundtrack too is absolutely stuffed with top-notch quality, a murderer's row of pop and R&B superstars, cult favorites, and up-and-comers that I think is likely to inspire a lot of musicians in its own right, especially with how it often plays in the context of the movie itself.

If I had one real problem with the film, it's that the bits with Mattel often felt superficial and extraneous, especially compared to the deeper commentary of the film's main satirical thrust. Will Ferrell was funny as he often is, but he felt like he was only in this to act like an oblivious jerk, he and his corporate minions barely figuring into the plot except to serve as an obstacle. There are ways I think this movie could've approached the Mattel subplot better, and which it seemed to be leaning into, presenting them not as a soulless corporate behemoth but as a company whose leadership seems to genuinely think they're doing right by the world in general and girls in particular, but is critically failing them and leaving many of them bitter like Sasha. It's a subplot that could've been fleshed out a bit more with maybe five or ten minutes of extra scenes; I'd love to see what the deleted scenes look like when this hits home video.

The Bottom Line

Barbie wasn't just a wonderful palate cleanser after the gloom of Oppenheimer, it's a legitimately great movie in its own right, as both a big, high-concept comedy of a sort we don't normally get these days and a cutting yet affectionate satire of its main subject. If anybody tells you this movie's "only" for women and girls, don't listen to them. Go see it anyway.

#barbenheimer #barbie #barbie movie #oppenheimer #2023 #2023 movies #historical fiction #world war ii #wwii #christopher nolan #cillian murphy #matt damon #robert downey jr. #emily blunt #florence pugh #josh hartnett #casey affleck #rami malek #kenneth branagh #dane dehaan #alden ehrenreich #fantasy #fantasy films #comedy #comedy movies #greta gerwig #margot robbie #ryan gosling #will ferrell #america ferrera