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kiwisbell · 3 months

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yellow bird [joel miller]

Taking the weight off your shoulders.

whiskey sour masterlist | my masterlist

pairing: joel miller x f!reader

tags/warnings: 18+ (MDNI), dbf!joel, age gap (20s/40s), sexual frustration, academic-validation-to-praise-kink pipeline, these two are in lurvvvv, thigh riding, joel talks you through it, and maybe reveals a side of him we haven't seen yet, a lil fluid exchange, some sweet sappy talk because it's them what do we expect, pure self-indulgence, that’s about it

word count: ~ 2.7k

a/n: this was mine and @cavillscurls's challenge to myself to write somethin short and sweet, thank you mya for being a cheerleader throughout this whole process. and thank you hugely el @northernbluess for last-minute beta reading and telling me it does not(?), in fact, suck dick n cock. i envision this as part of the whiskey sour-verse, but you don't need to read the series to understand what's going on here! this honestly makes me super fucking nervy to post, but i hope you enjoy. xoxo

read on ao3!

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The moon is carving a path through the darkening sky, and you’ve been quiet for hours.

You sit at the dining table with your cheek in your palm, lidded eyes flitting relentlessly from one side of the page to another. Every couple minutes, you jot down some notes on your cue cards. Your coffee lies untouched next to your textbook.

Each slash of pen across paper cuts into his chest. You write in bursts of furious energy, the paper sometimes bunching under your fist, black ink smearing—you only ever write in black—one letter into the next. Your jerky looping letters resemble nothing close to your penmanship. Your sentences are punctuated by squiggles rather than dots. The corners of your eyes are moist, your skin glowing gold under a filtered smattering of light from the street lamps outside.

There's a tight line to the curve of your mouth, a gash of colour where your lipstick has faded. Weariness dulls the shimmer in your eye. You keep writing.

“Thought you were goin’ out with your friends tonight,” says Joel.

“Hmm?” You blink slowly, the sound of his voice dragging your gaze toward Joel: dressed in jeans and an olive flannel (a gift from you), he's watching you study, a worried slash between his brows. “Oh,” you say. “No. I bailed.”

A flare of his nostrils as he approaches you from the coffee station is the only indication he gives that he's frustrated. “You’ve been workin’ all day, baby. You haven't eaten.” He slides his coffee mug toward you and switches it with your own. “Here, take mine. Yours is gettin’ cold.”

You start to shake your head. “Joel, it’s—”

“It's either you drink mine,” he says, sliding the milk and sugar toward you, “or you take a break.”

You narrow your eyes. “You hate my coffee.”

“Relationships are sacrifice. C’mere.” He yanks the leg of your chair toward him until you're sitting beside one another. He dips his mouth to your temple, and sleep begins to tug at your eyelids. Still, you keep your books open, if not partially out of spite, as Joel drinks your too-sweet coffee and hides his grimace.

“You hate it.”

Joel’s eyes slide to you over the rim of his cup, his chest pulling taut at the sight of the unshed tear on the outer corner of your eye, teetering.

Your bottom lip wobbles, your last Sisyphean effort to hold the droplet of water at bay, and Joel sets down the mug.

“You hate my coffee,” you whisper, not meeting his eye.

It's the press of his hand to your lower back that makes your fingers tremble, curled tightly around your pen. “There are worse things I’d do for you than drink shitty coffee.”

“So you admit it's shitty.”

His fingers dance up and down your lower vertebrae. “You’re exhausted,” he says softly, his mouth grazing your shoulder. “Come and take a break. Can feel all that tension, sweetheart. Right—”

The warm press of his palm between your shoulder blades. The simple touch ignites pressure behind your nose.

“—here,” he finishes with the pinch of his thumb and forefinger around your brain stem.

Your head lolls gently in his direction. “I know what you're doing.”

An innocent sound pitches out of his throat. “Do you?”

Your lashes flutter as he begins to dig his palm into the tense balls of muscle in your back. The contact, warm and almost gentle, undoes you. The pearl stuck in your lashes shakes free.

The impact of it carving a path down your cheek strikes his heart true. “C’mere, baby.”

Pulling you reluctantly away from your workbooks, Joel sits on the couch and guides you on top of him, your thighs hugging his hips. “This sad face,” he says under his breath, brushing the pad of his thumb over your bottom lip. “So pretty when you’re sad.” Your eyes dip when his stubble ghosts across your jaw, his lips warming the shell of your ear.

You huff, your arms winding around his neck. “You’re wandering into patronising, Miller.”

“Hmm, big words.” His grin carves its shape into your skin. He nips the spot just below your ear and you gasp, your fingers curling in the locks at the nape of his neck. “Told you, baby—such a smart girl.”

You open your mouth to snip at him, but he’s sliding one big, rough hand underneath your silky shorts and pinching your ass. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he says, his pinky finger dipping under your waistband.

“I’m fine,” you grumble, wriggling on his lap. He hums, the downward curve of his mouth on your skin etched in skepticism, his hands pulling you tighter to him.

“Tell me what’s wrong, baby.” His hand slides up your spine, lifting your little silk shirt, the hardness of him caging you in. “Tell me so I can fix it.”

You're gooey and pliant on top of him, hips flexing to fix your thighs around his waist, your body attuned to him in a way you refuse to fight. Joel Miller is yours. He’s always had your back.

“I’m tired, Joel. I keep bombing these stupid fucking tests, and the new guy at work is incompetent, and I haven't had an orgasm in a whole week.”

Sometimes, you're surprised by how deeply you envy your Joel for being so fucking right. For knowing, even when you don't, how deeply your wounds sit.

He frowns up at you, his thumb caressing the curve of your jaw, guilt and understanding pinching his ribs. “And I’ve been workin’ late,” he says.

Silently, you nod, fisting the hem of his shirt. “But that's okay, Joel. I know you work hard. It's not your job to—”

He shakes his head, trailing his hands up and down your soft thighs. “I’ve been workin’ late,” he repeats, his voice thinning, “and I haven't been treating my girl like she deserves.”

Your cheeks warm at the way his hands reach your inner thighs, thumbs ghosting across your hip bones. “That's not true.”

“Baby, you look at me.” He cups you like warm wax and you're melting just the same, gaze sliding up to meet his. Brown, glinting gold as they catch the orange lamplight, his eyes don't leave you. “You need to come?”

Your mouth drops. You really fucking do. If he notices your slip—the way your hips still on his lap, your arms wound tight around his shoulders—he doesn't say nor soothe. “Joel, I didn’t mean to—”

He quiets you with a loving nip at your chin. “You wanna be a good girl?”

A shudder railroads down your vertebrae. Your core is tight, hot, your little pyjama shorts shifting over your pussy, velvet-soft. “Joel, you really don't have to—”

“You wanna come?” he says again, his teeth scraping the shell of your ear before he takes your lobe between them. You gasp, clutching him tight to you, a buoy bobbing above the torrent.

“Yes,” you tell him, breathless, letting him play with the waistband of your shorts. “Yes. I need to come so badly. I’ve missed you so much.”

“I know, sweetheart. I’m a bad man, takin’ my girl for granted.”

It’s not true, he’d never, has not once, and still you whimper at the sound of my girl on his tongue.

“You are a bad man,” you tell him, halfheartedly shoving him in the chest.

“And?” he prompts, drawing the poison from the wound.

“And I need to come.”

Joel’s mouth curves in understanding, the hairs of his moustache bristling in the corners.

“Take ‘em off,” he says. “Let me be good to you.”

You ease your thighs out of your silk shorts, and Joel’s got his hands on your shirt, lifting it up and over your head. A cool shiver snakes from your cool feet, now on the floor as you stand naked before him, to the scruff of your neck. It longs for the touch of his fingers.

“God, you're fuckin’ beautiful.” Joel takes your outstretched hand, tugging you toward him. His palms smooth over the planes of your torso, thick fingers fitting to your ribs, the follower at the altar. It's only when he touches the small of your back that his eyes abstain from their reverent path across your body and meet yours.

“Tell me what you want,” he says plainly, fingers catching at the ends of your hair.

You crowd him, gaze sweeping down his body at the hard length of his cock down his thick thighs and the utter stillness of him when met with your type-A jitters.

“To be your good girl,” you say.

“I know.” It's a whisper in the quiet. Somewhere, distantly, the dishwasher churns through its cycle. A car horn blares. Wind blows. “Sit down.”

You go eagerly to him, your spirit alight with his closeness, the scent of pine and sawdust from a long day’s work, the soft cotton of his flannel, the scrape of his denim along your thighs. Wordlessly, Joel shifts you until you're straddling one of his thighs.

The jolt of pressure to your clit makes you gasp, clawing for purchase on his chest. Your fists wrap around the lining of his flannel.

Oh, God is the vague chant that eats at his liver, chewing on the ripe mass, the wound sealing over to deliver himself once again at your feet. It’s tossed into the space between you, maybe a little blasphemous, maybe thoughtless. It’s the glassy film over your eyes, those irises he could trace in the dark, the call of love that never quiets.

“Feel good?”

The smug bastard. His hand is still soft and sweet on your spine, climbing high only to drop, no longer meeting the resistance of clothing. The cool air puckers your nipples, your body tightening as you pull in on yourself.

“You remember that first night?” he says softly, tucking your hair behind your ear. “You were so cold, baby. All alone and needin' a good strong hand.”

He squeezes your ass, forcing your hips to shift over his leg. The slow grind of your wet seam along the coarse denim makes your thighs tremble. “Fuck,” you whisper. “That's… that’s good.”

He hums like he knows. “You remember what you did that night?” he asks. “Climbed on me, just like this, and made yourself feel good. Thought I’d come in my pants then and there.”

Your breathless laugh hitches in your throat as your hips begin to grind down of their own volition. The friction is rough, unkind, nothing like the gentle press of his hands on your bare skin. Sweat begins to glisten in the hollow of your throat as you throw your head back and lose yourself in the rhythmic roll of your body over his thigh.

“That's it,” he grunts, squeezing your hips, his cock twitching, untouched, in his boxers. You’re smearing your wetness over the denim, washing it dark, letting the light shift over your writhing body. “That's my pretty girl, usin’ me like you need to.”

“Ah, fuck,” you cry out, bearing down the weight of you on his leg, grinding hard against him as you seek your own pleasure.

“Let's hear it,” he urges, gritting his teeth at the sight of your poor swollen clit, needy and glistening, exposed. “Lemme have it, baby girl, c’mon.”

Your moan is strangled, language muddied in your head as Joel surges upright and latches his mouth around your nipple. Biting and sucking raw, his rapacious mouth is warm nectar that pools hot in your belly, his hands coaxing your hips through their movements, guiding you in the dance nonetheless.

“I'm your good girl,” you rasp, the coil pulling tight at the base of your stomach, the hollow bowl filling to the brim, keeping him, coveting him.

“That's right. My good girl.” His hot breath blooms like possessive fingers where his mouth makes contact on your throat, plucking your nerve endings like a bushel of daisies.

“I can feel you, baby girl,” he groans into your throat. “I can feel your tight fuckin’ cunt gettin’ me all wet. Feel you grabbin’ me like a goddamn cat. You close, huh?”

You whimper, your nails scratching at his chest through the fabric of his shirt, your stomach taut as you approach your high, bucking your hips hard against his leg. “Fuck, Joel, fuck! I’m so close—”

“Tell me who you are.”

“I’m a good girl.” You wind your arms around his neck as you begin to list, your breasts pressing into his chest, closeness sparking to flame as your warmth rubs up against him.

He’s steadfast, thick arms holding you upright, as he groans your name into your ear like it's something blasphemous. “Who are you?” he repeats.

“I’m your good girl, Joel! Fuck, I’m yours, your good girl. Oh, God, Joel, please…”

“That's right, sweetheart.” His hand latches around the nape of your neck, slick with sweat, while you bury your face in his throat. “My good girl’s gonna come all over me again, because that's what good girls do, hmm? They make themselves feel good when their bad men go and forget their place.”

You sob his name into the crook of his neck, the friction etching too much into your sore, rubbed-raw flesh. Your thighs hug him tight, hips thrashing hard above him as you come with a shout, your wet mouth dragging along the vein pulsing in his throat and trailing saliva in its wake. Joel doesn’t seem to care, coaxing you through your high when it starts to last a little longer than normal, pulling you so close that you can hardly remember your shape when it’s not slotting into him.

There's a dark spot spreading over his jeans, and your inner thighs are sticky with release. Joel tilts your chin up with his mouth, littering kisses from your jaw to the hollow of your throat. His tongue darts out playfully as his fingers dip between your bodies and tease through your messy slit.

“Joel,” you gasp, your face warm. He lifts two soaked fingers to his mouth and cleans them off with a couple swirls of his tongue.

And he's kissing you before you can retreat into yourself. He turns you inside-out, bares your soul to him, and all you can do is taste the sweet tang of the release you gave yourself.

Your tongues tangle, languid in your mutual exploration, the push-and-pull you've always known. By the time he pulls away to press his lips to your forehead, you're decently sleepy, your muscles gooey and your body slumping sideways in his lap.

“Ruined your jeans,” you mumble.

His fingertips ghost up and down your spine. A cool shudder blooms from each point of contact. He’s still hard, enough that it must ache, but he makes no move to free himself. “I like ‘em this way,” he says.

You roll your eyes. “Such an idiot.”

Clicking his tongue, Joel says, “You treat your elders this way?”

You nip his nose. “Only when they’re sweet on me.”

He chuckles, brushing your hair behind your ear so he can kiss your temple. “You feel okay?”

Your hands slide up his chest, hooking around his neck, your fingers threading together in his hair. “I feel like a million bucks, baby. But next time, you can come inside me.”

The purr registering in your chest has him preening under the attention, his hands coming to rest just above your ass. “I’m gonna tell you what’s going to happen tonight,” he says, ignoring your apprehensive glare. “You're gonna put away your books, and eat a good dinner, which I’ll make, and you’ll rest.”

Your Joel is stubborn in his own way, and it shows in the tension above his brow, the splaying of his hand over your back. You reach for him and smooth out his frown with your thumb. “I’ll do whatever you say, Joel Miller. As long as you make my favourite.”

You could drown happily in the way he smiles. It always comes on slow, like he isn't quite sure of himself, but it will glow in his eyes. It will sing through him like a light through glass.

“Yeah,” he says, “I can do that.”

Your blood calls to him. And you could do it all without him, sure—but he won’t let you.

THE END.

#posting this and running #kiwisbell's fics #joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #whiskey sour #joel miller x you #the last of us #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfic #joel #pedro pascal #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller fluff

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deargodhelpmeaaa · 2 months

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Random Analysis of Noelle's character

One thing about Noelle as a character I find kind of interesting is her tendency to see the best in other people, or at least try to look for it. Her dialogue concerning Susie is one place where we can see this pretty clearly:

We also see this in how she talks about Berdly :

And she is right about both of these characters. What's great about the writing for Susie and Berdly is that both deconstruct a "jerky" archetype. Susie is a bully, but turns out to have a horrible home life and deep rooted insecurities that make her act out that way, and she doesn't tend to follow through on her threats. Berdly is your typical Academic Alpha Bitch but turns out to have a superiority-inferiority complex and doesn't know what it feels like to be loved, and latched onto his intelligence as the one thing people could love him for.

Neither Susie and Berdly are bad people at heart, and I find it to be an interesting pattern in the game to set up a character as bad, have us learn more about them and understand that, no, they have problems that made them the way they are.

However, there are some people who might not be so good hearted. There are some people who really are just what they seem to be to the core. One of those people is us... Noelle's tendency to look for the best in other people becomes a problem when you realize that it also extends onto Kris. Kris, her estranged childhood friend. Kris, one of the only people Noelle is truly open about her emotions with. Kris... our vessel.

We see some foreshadowing in Chapter 1 for Noelle knowing there's something off about Kris:

In Chapter 2, she notices this as well, but is constantly seen trying to rationalize it as "just a joke."

and later as them helping her "get stronger"

She still has faith in Kris despite everything they make her do in this chapter, until she is forced to kill Berdly. When she, Kris and Susie wake up, but he doesn't, she knows there's something wrong and does what she can to ignore it, until confronted again at the hospital, where she keeps insisting to herself that what just happened was all a dream. Still, she wants to think Kris is okay.

But she can't hide from it anymore. She wants someone else to notice the same thing she sees now, too.

And most of all, she wants to understand it, and I think, again, this is because she knows Kris wouldn't do those things. She knows the voice she heard wasn't their voice, but someone else's (the player's). So, yeah, this is definitely hinting at the possibility that Noelle's going to find out what's going on with Kris.

Anyway, Noelle's a shockingly hard character for me to understand. While I find her relatable in having an overbearing parent, in being timid and shy and submissive and seemingly forced into her role as an academic overachiever, I also don't really get her at all...

Like... for one thing I can't tell if she's lonely or not. The best I could describe her as is "someone who's nice but you're not really close to them and you can't really tell if they actually like you or if they're being polite to you out of necessity, someone you don't know if they're going to stay in touch with you after a couple more years of knowing them." I feel like I've met a lot of people like that, and I wonder if that's the right way to look at her character, at least from the perspective of Berdly (who I relate to a lot more easily). I feel like there's still so much to learn about Noelle, but is that something we can say about (the character I relate to more than her) or am I really just that bad at reading her?

#noelle holiday #noelle weird route #snowgrave route #deltarune snowgrave #analysis #deltarune #deltarune chapter 2 #deltarune chapter 1 #kris dreemur #kris deltarune #kris dreemurr #deltarune kris #susie deltarune #deltarune susie #berdly #deltarune berdly #berdly deltarune

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nyhti · 8 months

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Definitely think Jonathan can not accept a single compliment regarding his looks. If anybody ever tells him he looks nice or that they like his shirt or that his eyes are pretty, he interprets it as an insult. It has to be an insult, because that's how it has always been. His bullies suddenly saying something nice about him and him thinking they are being genuine until they reveal they were fooling him all along, laughing at him for how ”stupid” he was for thinking, even for a second, that someone might find something in him to like. He told himself he was never going to fall for that again. The only area he is capable of accepting compliments is academics, as the few genuine compliments he received growing up were from his teachers, who were impressed with his smarts. It was those compliments that made him study harder, it was those compliments that led him to become a professor of psychology. To this day, his intellect is the one thing he has confidence in. It's easy for people to think he doesn't like compliments, given how aggressively he reacts to them, but that is not true the slightest. When he can actually believe your compliment is genuine, that is, when your compliment is about his smarts, he absolutely melts. He'll try not to show it, of course. He will try to stay as stoic as always, but it's there. The way he's suddenly stumbling over his words, the way he'll avoid eye contact, the way his moments become jerky and uncoordinated from nervousness. Perhaps you can even see a slight plush forming on his cheeks.

#scarecrow #the first compliment jerry gives him in my verse is when he makes jonathan fill out some sort of depression test #and when jonathan hands it back he's surprised what beautiful handwriting jonathan has #and he tells him that #and keep in mind at this point they've only known each other for maybe under a month #and jonathan at this point 100% thinks jerry hates him #because he thinks everybody hates him until proven otherwise #so it really surprises him #he doesn't quite know what to make of it #only that he wants to hear it again #and now makes sure his handwriting is extra neat on every test jerry gives him to fill

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denimbex1986 · 9 months

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'Scientific grunt work doesn’t render very well on the silver screen. But neither do most jobs, or for that matter, most people. When it comes to theoretical physicists and aesthetic appeal, it’s best to channel quantum mechanics and suspend your disbelief.

Enter Oppenheimer, where Brigadier General Matt Damon says things like, “This is the most important thing to ever happen in the history of the world!” And, “We’ve given them an ace. It’s up to them to play the hand.” No doubt these sentiments were actually delivered as 700-page memorandums, Pendaflex-foldered and date-stamped. But this is Hollywood we’re talking about. You’ll find little in the way of stationery here, at least not on screen. And when the occasional differential equation rolls into frame, writer/director Christopher Nolan cuts smartly away before the audience might nod off.

To Nolan’s credit, Oppenheimer is a terrifically researched film. But it’s a film nonetheless, and translating sprawling, decades-long military sagas via camera necessitates shortcuts. I’m not a vetted expert on nuclear history but I’ve dabbled, having acted as research assistant for a 2020 treatise on plutonium production. This is to say that I’m familiar with the players.

I know, for example, that Matt Damon is far too cuddly, good-looking, and agreeable to portray the irascible Leslie Groves, nicknamed “Greasy” by his fellow West Point cadets. I know that Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist with a famously soft, nigh-unintelligible voice, is misrepresented by Shakespearean enunciator Kenneth Branagh. Nolan’s rolodex runs deeper than Wes Anderson’s these days, and if there’s a gripe to be had with Oppenheimer, it’s that everyone involved is just too damned sexy.

But, again, this is Hollywood, and where Nolan leaves the beaten path of record he generally does so to sate our dopamine addiction. Come to think of it, I haven’t been inside an actual physics department in a while. Maybe the professors really are incredibly gorgeous.

Luckily for Nolan, the subject of his cinematic obsession was a high-cheeked academic anomaly. The poet Edith Jenkins, who overlapped with J. Robert Oppenheimer in leftwing circles, describes his “precocity and brilliance… his jerky walk, feet turned out, a Jewish Pan with his blue eyes and his wild Einstein hair.” Manhattan Project scientist Robert Wilson agrees, admitting that he was “caught up by the Oppenheimer charisma,” “his style, the poetic vision of what we were doing.”

No, Oppy’s jawline never approached the artful chisel of Cillian Murphy’s, but there are unmistakable parallels—a bit elfin, a bit skeletal—to be drawn. Certainly Oppenheimer availed himself of more mistresses than your average mid-century physicist. Nolan spends perhaps too much time focusing on one of them (Jean Tatlock, played by Florence Pugh) and mentions a second in passing (Ruth Tolman, a bit part Louise Lombard), while avoiding speculation of yet others, such as when Berkeley cops found grad student Melba Phillips sleeping in Oppy’s car somewhere in the Coastal Range, the professor himself suspiciously absent.

Oppenheimer’s messy personal life makes him an ideal candidate for exposé—look no further than Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s bestselling American Prometheus, Nolan’s source material. But here I’ll return to Hollywoodization, for it’s one thing to get wind of Oppenheimer’s foibles and quite another to see Florence Pugh writhing hallucinatorily on his lap during the 1954 AEC security hearings.

If Nolan goes too far in this film, if he stretches the Oppenheimer envelope past its roomy Pendaflex accommodations, it’s in the context of Oppy outside the Manhattan Project. Despite magnificent wartime subject matter—not all of which is touched upon—Nolan can’t quit his blockbuster tropes. Monochrome senate hearings, petty political twists (how is RDJ’s aide still employed?), Oppy’s fingers gracing Emily Blunt’s as she asks for a cocktail science primer.

Maybe audiences require such touchstones to contextualize the rest of the film. Nolan seems to think so. But as the string section swelled during a trite turn in the relatively forgettable career of Lewis Strauss, I found myself wishing we could’ve stayed put in New Mexico, on the high mesa that forms this film’s heart.

Nolan’s feat comes in recreating Los Alamos, a critical American moment with more than enough narrative to forgo some of the politico-romantic schlock that drags this thing to a three-hour runtime. Fascinated by character, by gray morality, Nolan found Oppy such an attractive case study that it nearly steered his magnum opus (I do think this film qualifies) off track. Each of the factual and immensely complicated bomb-related obstacles—for example, thunderstorms the morning of the Trinity Test—holds a world-changing thrall entirely separate from the whims of one man, no matter how chiseled his jaw.

Speaking of moralistic study, there’s one character who escapes Oppenheimer scot-free: Matt Damon’s overly fit and preposterously understated Leslie Groves. “I’ve known General Groves since I was 2nd lieutenant,” said the real-world David Nichols (cast as Dane DeHaan) in a 1965 interview. “To start off with, I would say he is the biggest son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever met, bar none.”

“Impatient, brusque, intolerant,” writes Robert S. Norris in his comprehensive Groves biography Racing for the Bomb. “He had few close friends, and others generally kept their distance.”

“When you looked at Captain Groves, a little alarm bell rang ‘Caution’ in your brain,” said a colleague.

Damon bulked up, lumped up—whatever—for his role as Nike executive Sonny Vaccaro in this year’s Air. But it’s a serious leap from office park Vaccaro to Army taskmaster Groves, who even in his 1970 New York Times obituary suffered the redundant label of, “a chunky, heavyset man, with a tendency toward paunchiness.” More unfounded than Damon’s weight, however, is a good guy nature cultivated over decades of Good Will Hunting television marathons, Invictus advertisements, and so on.

Cillian Murphy’s shell-shocked victory speech presents a nice commentary on the ethical morass of atomic weaponry. But Damon/Groves makes for an even juicier moralistic target, and he’s let off the hook with that aforementioned one-liner: “We’ve given them an ace, it’s up to them to play the hand.” If anyone bore responsibility for detonating two atomic bombs over civilian populations, it was General Leslie R. Groves, the only person playing said poker game in the first place.

Racing for the Bomb explains, “Groves, sitting atop his security pyramid, was the only person who knew everything about the bomb project—more than the chief of staff, more than the secretary of war, more than the president.” He was therefore “singularly concerned with the bomb, with getting it finished, tested, and used, and his superiors deferred to him time and again to make the choices that would make this happen.”

Nolan illustrates how the bomb haunted Oppenheimer. Groves, cinematically absent after Trinity, showed no such regret. Critiquing the general’s 1962 autobiography Now It Can Be Told, the Saturday Review wrote, “Groves is motivated by a simple and all-sufficing patriotism that is untroubled by what others see in the atom. He does not probe for any new vision of national interest in the age he helped create.”

Simple and all-sufficing patriotism—sounds familiar. Make of it what you will.

The only Oppenheimer character who comes across as legitimately malevolent is Benny Safdie’s terrific Ed Teller. Maybe I fell for Teller because Safdie, a director by trade, looks more like a physicist than a cologne model. Still, I get the sense that Safdie studied his source material. When he pipes up about the “Super”—the hydrogen bomb—his eyes hold nary a flicker of regret. And he keeps doing so despite repeated disdain from his colleagues.

Look, I get it, I really do, on the attractiveness quotient. This is a movie, and if scientists and bureaucrats don’t suffice for a visual study then we’ll goddamn pretend. It’s only sensible that Ernest Lawrence— who, per physicist Jeremy Bernstein, “looked a bit like a country bumpkin”—becomes Josh Hartnett. That Lewis Strauss, a crooked-toothed self-made paper pusher, turns into silver fox Robert Downey Jr. I guess I even understand why Olivia Thirlby got thrown in out of absolutely nowhere, probably as Lilli Hornig, though I can’t recall her name being said aloud.

Nolan had to beautify this stuff because the big screen is a beautiful place. He gets most of the issues absolutely right, and I’ll be pulling for him come Oscar season. I doubt I’ll wind up remembering Emily Blunt’s Kitty Oppenheimer, Matthew Modine’s Vannevar Bush, or whoever the hell Rami Malek was supposed to be. But I’ll surely remember the Trinity Test, fingers trembling over that big red button, “10-9-8” and the towering explosion and the pressure wave—even if, no shade at Nolan, David Lynch already did it better on television.'

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modernmisadventures · 7 months

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Chapter 2: Reactions

It took three locks to get into Cirdan and Varrus’s apartment. This was on top of the secured access, the doorman-cum-guard dog in the lobby, and the keycard required to take the elevator all the way up to their floor. For Cirdan, it was just another day - for Varrus, it was something of another matter. He wondered if he’d ever get used to it.

But tonight, his head was too full of questions - and a pair of large, brown eyes - for him to do more than feel a momentary anxiousness at the procedure. As soon as the door swung shut at their backs and they entered the well-appointed sitting room of their apartment, he pounced. “So, that girl. Who was she?”

Cirdan didn’t answer immediately, making his way through the seating towards the kitchen. He slipped inside and moments later Varrus could hear the refrigerator open. “Come in here while I see if there’s anything to eat,” called the Au Ra.

"You just downed two drinks and an entire plate of nachos and you're still hungry?" Varrus couldn't help but shake his head with a snort - gods knew that man had a bottomless appetite, for more than just food. All the same, he settled himself onto a stool at the island, but refused to let his friend off so easily.

"You can talk and forage at the same time. So, what's the deal?"

“Ugh.” Cirdan bent down and stuck his head in the fridge, wondering for the thousandth time why he didn’t just get a side-by-side. “There’s shit all in here. I’m going to order in some Doman food. The usual?” Without waiting for the Elezen to respond, he slid his tomephone from his pocket and placed the order.

Varrus was almost certain he was stalling on purpose, and waited in impatient silence.

Finally, Cirdan tucked his phone in his pocket and sighed. “You heard her. Her name is Ciprys.” More silence, and he cursed. “We kind of grew up together. Her parents moved into our neighborhood when her mother was still pregnant, and I was about two. I don’t remember much, except my mother wasn’t very thrilled to have academic-types in her domain.” The Au Ra hardly had to explain more; though Varrus had never met his mother, he’d been treated to plenty of diatribes about her high-class - and high-maintenence - ways.

“Anyway,” he continued, slipping out of the kitchen and collapsing onto one of the overstuffed chairs, which creaked ominously beneath the weight of his plus-seven-feet frame, “her parents were also quite close to the Satrap of Radz-at-Han, so father couldn’t do anything about it without making more waves than he was willing to at the time. So they stayed, and mostly they stayed out of our way.”

He stared up the ceiling, lost in his own thoughts until Varrus pointedly cleared his throat. “I probably actually met her for the first time when she was six and I was eight. One of my father’s men was dressing me down; I’ve forgotten why, now.” He smiled. “It wasn’t important. It was summer, and hot, and I didn’t want to stand there on the sidewalk in front of her house getting chewed out because I’d done something any eight-year old would do. All of a sudden, she comes tearing out of the house, yelling at the man to stop being ‘such a bully’. You know how auri women are so tiny compared to the men?”

Varrus nodded.

“Well, they’re always that tiny. She’s six years old, all of three fulms nothing, and she comes tearing across her yard and plants herself right between me and… gods, I don’t even remember his name.” Cirdan’s smile is surprisingly tender, given his usually fierce demeanor. “And she proceeded to let him know how it’s not right to yell at a kid, and you shouldn’t pick on people smaller than you, and didn’t his mother raise him right to not throw a tantrum in public?

“The guy… Jaiko, I think - yeah. Jerky Jaiko. He drew himself up, affronted. I think he might have struck her, but I reached out and pulled her back, and if he’d hit her, he might have hit me. My father’s men, they could yell at me, especially if I was being stupid, but my father would have had their horns if they’d laid a hand on me.” Varrus wasn’t entirely certain that was simply a figure of speech. Cirdan had never exactly told him what he and his father did - but Varrus wasn’t entirely dense.

He just liked having plausible deniability.

Cirdan inhaled deeply. “Her mother comes streaking out of the house, pale with fear. I held up a hand to her - it was a gesture my father used all the time - and she stopped dead in her tracks. I very carefully told Jaiko that the little girl was right, that he was being rude, and that I expected to hear no more on this matter. It was the first time I’d ever stood up to one of my father’s men when they were picking on me. And damned if he didn’t turn as pale as Ciprys and draw himself up. ‘Yes, Master Cirdan’ he said - just as he often said to my father - and he turned and walked away.

“As he left, Ciprys pulled out of my hands,” Cirdan continued, his smile positively sloppy at this point, “turned around, and informed me that she was not ‘a little girl’. ‘I’m Ciprys Dreamweaver’, she said to me, very regally, ‘and you may thank me now.’. Gods,” he sighed. “She hasn’t changed a damn bit. Anyway. I thanked her, and she smiled and very politely told me I was welcome, then went to her mother, took her mother’s hand, and led her back into the house. We were fairly inseparable after that, for a very long time. Her parents hated it. My parents hated it. They learned very early on we didn’t give a damn and if they tried to keep us apart, we’d simply sneak out and meet up anyway. Then I had to go to Doma for a few years to serve in the Master’s household, and while I was gone, she went off to college. I figured that was the end of that. But she’s here,” he whispered. “And damned if I didn’t miss her.”

“So… Did you ever…?” Varrus let the word hang, his intent clear - it was evident just how much the woman meant to his friend. So much so that he couldn’t help if their reunion had been entirely coincidental. Cir had never spoken such words about any of his partners - and Varrus had had the misfortune of meeting a few in the early mornings after his buddy’s escapades, but they were always in and out, never the same each night; hells, he’d never even known any of their names, the rare occasions he did meet them.

So to hear Cir speak so happily, candidly about this Ciprys woman… Well, it was clear she was special. Beyond special.

Cirdan was quiet for a moment, mulling over the question. “No. No, we didn’t. She was sixteen when I left for Doma - and maybe she was willing, but I wasn’t. Not with her. I didn’t want - she wasn’t…” He trailed off, frowning, and this may have been the first time Varrus had ever seen him so uncertain. “I wasn’t going to do that to her - not when I was leaving and no idea when I’d be back, or what her life would be. So no. We never.” Then he smiled, slow and lazy. “But there’s always tomorrow, now that I know where she is.”

“You, with the same person, more than a single night? I’ll believe it when I see it,” Varrus snorted - though it was a bit of false bravado; there was little that would bring him more joy than seeing his best friend truly, truly happy with another.

Though he wasn’t exactly looking forward to the sounds that would be coming from the shared wall between their bedrooms.

“Well, come on, loverboy.” He plopped down onto the seat opposite the Au Ra. “Food’s gonna be here soon; what say we get a few rounds in? Winner gets the third egg roll.” With a smirk, he tossed the second controller to Cir, knowing he’d absolutely just lost himself a bet - a shame, really. He loved those egg rolls.

Unfortunately for him, so did Cir. And Cir had one advantage.

He cheats.

Ciprys didn’t quite slam the door shut behind her - but it was a near thing. Her mother’s voice was still ringing against her horns, but she blocked it out with the ease of long practice. It was all piss and wind; her mother had never had the fortitude to follow through on any of her threats. Not that Ciprys particularly tested that - she loved her mother and father, and she recognized that their overbearing nature came from anxiety about raising her so far away from kith and kin.

But she was twenty-one years old, by the gods, and she deserved to have her own damn life.

“I need a job,” she said to the air. “I need to stop racking up degrees and just get a damn job with them.”

Her parents would be surprised to find out that rather than being a dilettante who had been in school for nearly four years now with nothing to show for it that she’d actually managed to scrape up two degrees and was on the verge of a third. Refusing to walk or be announced by the school had simply been one more way of taking control of her own life. And since her grades had been exceptional - as expected - the U had been more than willing to indulge her, even against two of their more valuable professors.

But she didn’t want a job. Not one that had her tied to a desk, or a bar, or a building. She wanted to travel, she wanted to see places she’d only heard of, meet people she’d never known existed. She wanted to experience the world first-hand… and she wanted to capture it, she mused as her roaming eye fell upon the camera tucked on her dresser, through a lens, then share it with the rest of the world.

And her parents would never go for it. Without a means of support, that dream was just a dream - she’d known that the moment she’d fallen in love with photography and made it her second degree. They’d never let her out of the city - and if they knew how far away she wanted to go, they’d never let her out of the house. And without a job, she’d never have the means to break those gilded chains.

It all circled back. And why, she wondered, was she thinking of this now?

Jess. Something had changed between the moment she’d walked into the bar tonight, and the moment she’d walked out. She’d already started growing fond of the bartender - and a bit envious of her freedom, her freedom to work, to live away from her parents, to have a life that hadn’t been decided before she was born.

And now there was that other woman - the other Au Ra. The teacher. Someone living the life her parents had imagined for her and happy with it. More than anything, that had made it all hit home: she didn’t want that. She didn’t want the same thing, day after day. She didn’t want the papers, the students, the responsibility.

She wanted to spread her wings.

And if she could just find a degree of independence, it wouldn’t matter what her parents thought of Cir-

No.

Five years. Why hadn’t he told her he was back? How long had he been back? He’d never said anything in the texts, the emails, the little gifts he’d sent anonymously.

Why?

With a grunt, she flung herself on her bed and brooded at the moon rising outside her window. And did her best not to dream a dream of turquoise eyes and wide, spreading wings.

“Can I walk you home?”

“The answer is still no,” Kal’istae replied evenly, ignoring Thancred’s soft sound of disappointment. “I appreciate the invite to the bar, though. I enjoyed meeting your sister.”

Doing his best not to sulk - and how was that even a thing? - Thancred strode along at her side, his hands shoved in his pockets. “Scamp? She’s one of a kind. Minfilia’s more reserved, and Ryne’s more like a daughter, but Jess is exactly the kind of younger sister I wanted growing up.” The affection in his voice was real and rich, and Kal’istae had no doubt in her mind that he meant every word.

Kal’istae let her eyes drift up towards the stars above them, nearly drowned out from the lights of the city. “Is that why you do it?”

“One reason, perhaps,” Thancred replied, only half of his mind on the conversation. “There’s a lot more to it than just filling in the gaps, of course, and it’s mostly for their sakes, not mine - but I’d be lying if I said I got nothing out of it.”

Kal’istae tried to ignore the prick of her conscience, the whisper of her unconscious that suggested that perhaps saying yes, just this once, wouldn’t hurt. She was not interested in leading him on. She liked their relationship exactly where it was - non-existent with a side of friendship.

So why did you go to the bar with him?

Gritting her teeth, she shoved the errant thought away. “Here is where we part ways,” she said instead, indicating the entrance to the underground. “I’ll see you around, Thancred.”

If by around you mean next Wednesday when he inevitably swings by your classroom during his weekly visit to the school.

Well, of course. If he didn’t, she’d probably be very disappointed. Worried, even. Except when he’d had to go out of town, he’d come by every Wednesday like clockwork…

As the thought trailed off, she stared at him as he waited, gazing at her with a puzzled expression.

Oh hells.

“Good night, Thancred,” she said, just a bit faintly. “I’ll see you… I’ll see you.”

His smile was slow, and just a little smug. “Good night, Kali,” he replied, backing away. “I’ll see you Wednesday.”

Yes. Yes he would. And she would be waiting.

Oh. Hells.

#ffxiv #au: misadventures in modern eorzea #oc: varrus varlineau #oc: cirdan takeshi #oc: ciprys dreamweaver #oc: kal'istae miurani #npc: thancred waters #non-canon au #no sundering au #rp fanfiction #multiple authors #author: sasslett #author: ainyan

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allyphase · 5 months

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MARK IN FÓDLAN. ✧

( og source link ) (thank you N for the inspiration!)

PERSONAL INFORMATION

NAME. Mark

GENDER. Female

AGE. 21

HEIGHT. 5’4”

BIRTHDATE. 1st of the Pegasus Moon

CREST/HOLY BLOOD. None.

CLASS. Golden Deer Student

AFFILIATION. A wanderer of Elibe.

BIOGRAPHY. A girl born to nothing, destined to walk history unnamed. Began her life in Bern, but abandoned one army for another when she followed Lyndis’s radiant light. Fought alongside Lyndis, Eliwood, and Hector for a new dawn. Enrolled in the Officer’s Academy to finish her tactics education formally.

INTERESTS. Chess, birdwatching, ballroom dancing LIKES. Old books, Sacean striped warblers, strawberries, rescue strategies DISLIKES. Pranks, too many people talking at once, the sicilian defense, ambush reinforcements STATUS. Former tactician to Houses Ostia and Pherae CLOSE ALLIES: Sain, Kent, Lady Lyndis

DINING HALL PREFERENCES

LIKES. Beast meat teppanyaki, grilled herring, saghert and cream, sweet and salty whitefish saute, sweet bun trio, fish sandwich, daphnel stew

DISLIKES. Small fish skewers, sauteed jerky, cheesy verona stew, country-style red turnip plate, cabbage and herring stew, fried crayfish

DINING HALL NOTES

FAVORITE DISH. ✧

“Oh, this smells delicious! Thank you for offering me a place at your table.”

LEAST FAVORITE DISH. ✧

“Food is food, I suppose...”

TEAM TIME GUIDE

FAVORITE TEAS. Rose-Petal Blend - A faintly floral, sweet and elegant drink with the bitter bite of black tea behind it. Perfect for academics with a bit of a soft side. / Honeyed Fruit Blend - This tea is almost overwhelmingly sweet, more a dessert than anything. The lack of caffeine makes it a perfect evening treat.

CONVERSATION TOPICS. A new gambit... Evaluating allies... Someone you look up to... Equipment upkeep... Plans for the future... Shareable snacks... The last battle... Strange fish in the pond... Mighty weapons... Our first meeting... Books you read recently... The ideal professor... Your ambitions... Things that bother you... Close calls... Capable comrades... You’re doing great work... Exploring the monastery... Thanks for everything... A word of advice.

TEA TIME QUOTES

GREETING. ✧

“Thank you for inviting me here.”

FAVORITE TEA. ✧

“This is my favorite! How did you know?”

FIVE STAR TEA. ✧

“What a nice blend... Are you sure you want to drink this now?”

INTRODUCING OWN TOPIC. ✧

1. “...hmhmhm...” Answer: Sip tea

2. “Sometimes I think the theory of chess is more interesting than playing the game.” Answer: Nod, chat

3. “Do you believe I’m doing well, professor?” Answer: Commend, nod

4. “Do you believe in love, professor?” Answer: Laugh, agree, disagree

5. “I think there is value in keeping your ideas close.” Answer: Sip tea

OBSERVING. ✧

“I’ve always thought my face was very forgettable.” “My uniform looks like my tactician’s clothes, doesn’t it?”

ENDING. ✧

“Thank you for the gracious invitation. I hope I can return the favor sometime soon.”

MISCELLANEOUS DIALOGUE.

GIFT GUIDE

FAVORITE GIFTS. Tasty baked treat, stylish hair clip, lavender, board game.

DISLIKED GIFTS. Hunting dagger, dapper handkerchief, training weight, ceremonial sword.

GIFT QUOTES

DISLIKED GIFT. ✧

“Thank you.”

LIKED GIFT. ✧

“You’re sure you have no need for this? Thank you!”

FAVORITE GIFT. ✧

“This is for me? How did you know...? Thank you, so much!”

LOST ITEMS

FIELD GUIDE. A guide to birds from a faraway plain. Each profile has a small watercolor drawing of the bird as well as a pencil sketch of its silhouette. It probably belongs to someone with an interest in birdwatching.

FOLDING CHESS SET. A small chess set, suitable for travel. The pieces are mismatched from being replaced or lost. It probably belongs to someone who studies tactics.

LAVENDER CANDLE. A candle burned down halfway, scented faintly of lavender. It probably belongs to someone who has trouble relaxing.

LOST ITEM QUOTES

OWNER. ✧

“Oh, you found it! I’ve been retracing my steps all day trying to find where I left that...”

NOT OWNER. ✧

“Sorry, that’s not mine.”

BATTLE QUOTES

MOCK BATTLE RETREAT. ✧

“Ah... I must have missed something... I must fall back now. I’m sorry.” ( Byleth specific ) “You are truly a wonderful tactician...! I must ask you... later...”

FIRST KILL. ✧

“...so this is how it feels...”

MONASTERY QUOTES

CHOIR PRACTICE. ✧

(1) “I’m not a singer, but I will do my best.” (2) “I- don’t know if I can be louder...”

COOKING. ✧

(1) “I can do my part, but nothing fancy.” (2) “Are you sure this is the role you want me to fill?” (3) “I’m much more used to cooking over a fire than a stove.”

TUTORING

INSTRUCT

BAD. ✧

“Oh... An embarrassing mistake.” Critique: “I see. Thank you.” (AFFECTION UP) Console: “I don’t need your pity. Show me what I did wrong.” (AFFECTION DOWN )

GREAT. ✧

“As expected.”

PERFECT. ✧

“That’s it! It must be!”

PRAISE. “Thank you, professor. It’s all thanks to your guidance.”

TASKS

STABLE DUTY. ✧

“With how many cavaliers I’ve known, you think I’d be better at this...” (With Kent or Sain) “Will you show me what your horses like?”

WEEDING. ✧

“...oh! Sorry, lost in thought...” “Do you know this plant? I haven’t seen it before.”

SKY WATCH. ✧

“...I don’t think I’ll be very helpful here...”

CERTIFICATION EXAMS

FAILED. ✧

“Oh... I was so close, I’m sure...”

PASSED. ✧

“More knowledge is always a blessing.”

UPDATE GOALS

REASON. ✧

“I would like to do more than stand at the back and watch. I’ve always been afraid of another arrow being shot my way, and I’d like the chance to fire back. Would you teach me to defend myself and my friends?”

HEAVY ARMOR. ✧

“Perhaps a better strategy to protect myself on the battlefield is to not be hit in the first place. Lord Hector’s resilience is truly something to behold, and I would like to try to emulate him somehow. Will you help me learn how to move in that armor?”

SWORD. ✧

“Lady Lyndis and Lord Eliwood are both more than proficient with the sword. I admire them, and would like to learn something like them. Will you teach me the sword?”

LEVEL UP

0 TO 2 STATS UP . ✧

“...embarrassing...”

3 TO 4 STATS UP . ✧

“I need to do more.”

5 STATS UP . ✧

“Perfectly average.”

6 STATS UP . ✧

“Yes!”

UPON REACHING LEVEL 99 . ✧

“I have reached the summit, but I cannot pause here. Onward!”

BUDDING TALENT

“I could never see myself mastering this!”

NEW SKILL

“This new talent will serve me well.”

RECLASSING . ✧

“A new role for me to play? I will do my best.”

BATTLE QUOTES

WHEN SELECTED

FULL/HIGH HP . ✧

“Guide me as I guide you.”

MEDIUM HP . ✧

“Watch my back.”

LOW HP . ✧

“Pull me back!”

ENEMY DEALS 1 OR NO DAMAGE OR MISSES . ✧

“Not now!”

CRITICAL ATTACK . ✧

“Checkmate!” “You are known!” “Textbook example!” “Fade away!”

GAMBIT . ✧

“With me!”

GAMBIT BOOST . ✧

“Like this!”

DEFEATED ENEMY . ✧

“I’m sorry.” “You were in my way.” “...it shouldn’t be me.”

ALLY DEFEATS ENEMY . ✧

“Excellent work.” “Just as I predicted.” “Let’s keep working together.”

ALLY HEALS/RALLIES . ✧

“Thank you.” “Appreciated.” “I can keep going.”

DEFEAT QUOTE

CASUAL . ✧

“I must- retreat... tend my... wounds...”

CLASSIC . ✧

“Sometimes... a piece must be sacrificed...”

THE ADVICE BOX

“I fear that I am purposeless. My former position no longer exists, and I fear that without it, I’ll lose sight of what I want to pursue. Is there any way to keep myself going on this path without it being set for me?”

> Self motivation is key! > You can be more than one thing at a time. (affection up!) > Try to get your former position back.

#i did this in 2 days #h #within sadness (ooc)#i hope you like it #mark in fodlan #(meta)

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andrea-lyn · 1 year

Text

Happy new year! If the adage is that you spend today doing what you want to for the rest of the year, then I want to keep reading and reccing some fics I’ve loved in the last little while!

So, here’s a mish-mash of multi-fandoms. As always, you can find my master rec collection here.

Ghosts (BBC)

And So On and So Forth by V_Evergreen

Dying is, of course, incredibly tragic. It is also the most wonderful opportunity.

Father of the Bride by EllianaDunla

Rachel Fawcett visits Button House to feel closer to her father.

Which happens, just not quite in the way she expects.

Project Chatterbox by SqutternutBosh

‘What’s this?’ Alison asks, looking down at the scrappy piece of note paper that Mike has just put down in front of her.

‘It’s a list of ways I can talk to them,’ Mike says, sitting down beside her at the kitchen table.

Raven Cycle

hold me tight, fear me not by audikatia for Northisnotup

When Adam stepped around, he found himself suddenly in an emerald glen of moss-covered trees. More blue roses scattered over the green ground like raindrops or tears.

And there, in the center, was a man pinned to a tree with an arrow through his heart. :: Tam Lin AU

Someone Worth Knowing by SprigsofViolets

Alex Claremont-Diaz and Adam Parrish meet on their first day at NYU. They do not hit it off—cue the academic rivalry. They hate each other until they learn to understand each other.

(I can’t tell you how many times I’ve re-read this one, esp as it hits two of my fave canons in all the right places)

since you've been home, see what you have become by Mici (noharlembeat)

Adam goes touring colleges, and Ronan comes along. And Opal, well. She stays with Declan.

***Greywaren spoilers for the below fics!***

There's No Place Like My Room by Lil_Redhead

Sometimes endings are endings, but sometimes they’re just middles and the real ending is very, very far away.

Or, the days between the last chapters and the epilogue of Greywaren

(This one is still a WIP with one chapter left to post, but it hits all the right notes of post-Greywaren + plot that I was craving after finishing the book)

god only knows (what i'd be without you) by RhymeReason

[Part of Gansey was starting to accept that two of his best friends were most likely dead.]

Or: gansey finds adam and ronan :)

and on the seventh day he rested by Prevalent_Masters

On the seventh day, the Lynch brothers discovered they were friends once more.

Or, the week following the (near) apocalypse.

Roswell New Mexico

Contigo me encontré by beautifulcheat (Katalyst), ladynox

The Lockhart House was once a home, although it was never a happy one. Steeped in tragedy, it still stands today, in the heart of Old Town Roswell, attracting ghost hunters and those seeking to catch a peak of something from beyond the veil.

Contrary to popular myth, it wasn’t currently haunted (except by one paranormally talented docent). It was Michael’s favorite job and the best part of his summer home from UNM. Or at least was until Alex Manes was hired to man the gift shop, complicating an otherwise fun and easy job.

With Love Overflowing by Nestra

"We both agree that this is not the place we belong, right? Please say yes."

Michael tossed his hat on the coffee table and dropped onto the couch. "If you mean that your dad's been dead since CrashCon and some kind of crazy shit is going on, then yeah, I agree."

(This one was for me for Secret Santa, it is just THAT GOOD that I want everyone in the world to read it)

Severance

r/severed by curtaincall for LearnedFoot

Welcome to r/severed! This is a subreddit to discuss the experience of severance and provide advice and support to fellow severed people (and friends and family).

Top Gun Maverick

we're fools to make war by whimsicule

In a Walmart at three am, between beef jerky and tortilla chips, with the lights flickering above them like it’s the fucking twilight zone, Bradley wants him more than he’s ever wanted anyone.

or: it's a hundred degrees in texas.

what doesn't kill me makes me want you more by ok_thanks

For Rooster to be his ex-boyfriend, that would require him to have been Jake’s boyfriend in the first place. Which he definitely wasn’t. He was – "Ex-something," Jake coughs. or, the intricate ritual of teasing the guy you've been hooking up with since college that you're definitely not in love with

Men Like Us by DancingDisaster

Seresin men love with reckless abandon. It’s put every man before him in the ground.

Jake refuses to be buried.

#recs #ghosts bbc fic recs #top gun fic recs #raven cycle fic recs #roswell fic recs #(the lack of old guard here is telling me I need to get into my marked to read pile #oops)

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ynseincanada · 8 months

Text

dinsdag 05/09/2023

Ik ben nog altijd een beetje verkouden, maar het gaat al stukken beter dan vorige week. Vorige week heb ik ook mijn tweede bloeddrukval meegemaakt toen ik pizza aan het eten was. Opeens was al mijn kleur weg (aldus, mama). Het duurde even voor ik terug kon rechtstaan, maar sindsdien heb ik het niet meer meegemaakt.

Afgelopen zaterdag zijn mama en ik naar de Farmer's Market in St. Albert geweest. Wat een evenement. Een honderdtal kraampjes met fruit, koekjes, juwelen en heel veel jerky (ieuw). Ik heb zalm jerky geproefd en ik heb nog nooit zoiets zout geproefd. Mama en ik hebben een watermeloen, koekjes, frambozenconfituur en vegan feta (zo ongelooflijk lekker) mee naar huis genomen.

Maandag ben ik naar de opening geweest van het academiejaar. Naast een gratis drinkbus, zoute popcorn (ieuw) en een cola was er niet veel te doen. Twee uitverkoren studenten kreeg 1000 CAD, maar daarvoor moest je in Canada wonen :') Je kreeg ook een gratis bellenblazer. Redelijk teleurstellend.

Vandaag heb ik mijn eerste lessen gehad. Deze ochtend had ik Global Critical Race Theory, maar ik weet niet of het vak iets voor mij is. Ik denk dat ik morgen Topics in Gender and Social Justice ga volgen, om te zien of ik het kan vervangen met GCRT.

In de namiddag had ik Canadian Texts en dat was geweldig. We trekken in de natuur rond om te praten over literatuur, hoe geweldig is dat? De prof is ook een geweldig lieve vrouw. Voor onze eindopdracht krijgen we een plant of dier toegewezen. We moet in de natuur opzoek gaan naar die plant of dat dier en over deze ervaring schrijven. Ik kijk er enorm naar uit.

Hier zijn nog wat sfeerfoto's van de afgelopen week:

De Rogers Arena, waar de Edmonton Oilers spelen

De plaats op campus waar ik verblijf

Het zicht van op mijn kamer

Het mooiste zicht tot nu toe (niet zo duidelijk op deze foto's)

Tot de volgende keer.

x ynse

tuesday 05/09/2023

I still have a slight cold, but I am doing much better than last week. Last week I also experienced my second blood pressure drop while I was eating pizza. Suddenly, all the color drained from my face (so my Mom said). It took me a while to get back up, but I haven't experienced it since.

Last Saturday, Mom and I went to the Farmer's Market in St. Albert. What an event. About a hundred stalls selling fruit, cookies, jewelry and lots of jerky (juck). I tasted salmon jerky and I have never tasted anything so salty. Mom and I took home a watermelon, cookies, raspberry jam and vegan feta (so incredibly delicious).

Monday I went to the opening of the academic year. Besides a free drink box, salty popcorn (again, yuck) and a Coke, there wasn't much to do. Two chosen students got 1000 CAD, but for that you had to live in Canada :') You also got a free bubble blower. Overall, pretty disappointing.

Today I had my first two classes. This morning I had Global Critical Race Theory, but I don't know if this course is for me. I think I will take Topics in Gender and Social Justice tomorrow to see if I can substitute it with GCRT.

In the afternoon I had Canadian Texts and that was great. We walk around in nature talking about literature, how great is that? The professor is also a wonderfully sweet woman. For our final assignment we are assigned a plant or an animal. We have to go into nature to look for that plant or animal and write about this experience. I am looking forward to it immensely.

See you next time.

x ynse

#day 9

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treelightcitystory · 6 months

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Character Chart

Character’s full name: Samantha Pearl Rivers

Reason or meaning of name: Flower in Greek

Character’s nickname: Sam, Sami, Little Pearl

Reason for nickname: Her name is short for Samantha, delicate as a pearl

Birthdate: 5/11/97

Physical appearance

Age: 17 (going on 18)

How old does he/she appear: 15

Weight: 102 lbs

Height: 5’4 ft

Body build: Slim

Shape of face: Soft round

Eye color: Golden yellow

Glasses or contacts: None

Skin tone: Ivory

Distinguishing marks: her golden eyes

Predominant features: None

Hair color: Light blonde

Type of hair: Long, wavy, down to the waist

Hairstyle: Hair down

Voice: Silvery

Overall attractiveness: Her golden eyes

Physical disabilities: None

Usual fashion of dress: Light pink dress, galaxy comprese leggings, flip-flops

Favorite outfit: Crop top, shorts, flats

Jewelry or accessories: Her mother’s pendant from her fifth birthday

Personality

Good personality traits: Sweet, gentle, understanding, caring

Bad personality traits: shy, easily frightened

Mood character is most often in: shy, but optimistic

Sense of humor: Yes

Character’s greatest joy in life: Her father and Josh

Character’s greatest fear: death

Why? She had lost her mother from childbirth

What single event would most throw this character’s life into complete turmoil? If anyone found out about her powers and Everworld

Character is most at ease when: She is around her father and her boyfriend

Most ill at ease when: Someone mentions anything of her mother

Enraged when: Michael had sold her and her friends out

Depressed or sad when: someone yells at her

Priorities: Keeping her home safe

Life philosophy: “Be the reason someone smiles. Be the reason someone feels loved and believes in the goodness in people.”

― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart

If granted one wish, it would be: To see her mother one last time

Why? She loves her more than anything else

Character’s soft spot: for Josh

Is this soft spot obvious to others? Yes, since they first met Alli in middle school

Greatest strength: Her mother’s love for her, her friends

Greatest vulnerability or weakness: Darkness, abandonment

Biggest regret: Not saving her father in time

Minor regret: Talking back to jerky people

Biggest accomplishment: Earning a degree in child care in later years

Minor accomplishment: Standing up to Michael

Past failures he/she would be embarrassed to have people know about: Her old drawing of herself and her family

Why? Someone had made a harsh comment about it

Character’s darkest secret: Her mother’s side of the family is selfish and greedy and blames her for her mother’s death

Does anyone else know? Only her father and friends know

Goals

Drives and motivations: Be normal

Immediate goals: Find a good college education

Long term goals: Raise a family

How the character plans to accomplish these goals: Wait until marriage later on in life, put academics over other things, apart from her friends

How other characters will be affected: Josh will gladly wait with her in the long term goal

Past

Hometown: Arbutus Ridge, Vancouver, CN

Type of childhood: Mother passed away during childbirth

Pets: None

First (worst) memory: her mother’ side of the family blaming her for her death and cutting her off from them

Most important childhood memory: Earning her mother’s pendant on her fifth birthday

Why: so she can know how much she loves her

Childhood hero: Helen Keller

Dream job: Childcare social worker

Education: studied at Graham Bruce Community Elementary, at Daleville Elementary when moved at age 8, Daleville Middle School

Religion: N/A

Finances: Saving for college loans

Present

Current location: Daleville, Alabama

Currently living with: Her father

Pets: N/A

Religion: N/A

Occupation: Senior at Daleville High School

Finances: Saving for college loans

Family

Mother: Georgia Rivers (deceased)

Relationship with her: Biological

Father: Oscar Rivers

Relationship with him: Biological

Siblings: None

Relationship with them: N/A

Spouse: N/A

Relationship with him/her: N/A

Children: N/A

Relationship with them: N/A

Other important family members: Her father’s side of the family

Favorites

Color: Deep pink

Least favorite color: Light pink

Music: Pop

Food: Funnel Cake

Literature: Fiction, Sci-Fi

Form of entertainment: Movies

Expressions: “Oh, my God!” When frightened or surprised

Mode of transportation: Car

Most prized possession: Her mother’s locket and a picture of her and her father

Habits

Hobbies: Studying, hanging out with friends

Plays a musical instrument? No

Plays a sport? No

How he/she would spend a rainy day: Splashing in puddles and spending the rest of the day reading

Spending habits: None

Smokes: No

Drinks: No

Other drugs: None

What does he/she do too much of? Worrying about her father

What does he/she do too little of? Taking breaks from studying

Extremely skilled at: Singing, but only in private

Extremely unskilled at: being dominative at times

Nervous tics: Playing with her hair, avoiding eye contact

Usual body posture: Back straight, arms behind back in shyness

Mannerisms: her mother’s positive outlook and smile

Peculiarities: her shyness and frightfulness

Traits

Optimist or pessimist? A bit of an optimist

Introvert or extrovert? Introvert only a bit

Daredevil or cautious? Cautious

Logical or emotional? Logical

Disorderly and messy or methodical and neat? Methodical and neat

Prefers working or relaxing? Prefers working

Confident or unsure of himself/herself? Confident of herself

Animal lover? Yes

Self-perception

How he/she feels about himself/herself: Feels like she was a burden before she met the Daleville gang

One word the character would use to describe self: Soft-hearted

One paragraph description of how the character would describe self: With her eyes and hair as golden as the sun, Sam is shy but gentle towards people like her mother had been before her.

What does the character consider his/her best personality trait? Her soft nature

What does the character consider his/her worst personality trait? Her easily-frightfulness

What does the character consider his/her best physical characteristic? Her flowing hair

What does the character consider his/her worst physical characteristic? None

How does the character think others perceive him/her: As a soft dork

What would the character most like to change about himself/herself: None at all

Relationships with others

Opinion of other people in general: Some she trusts, others she is scared of

Does the character hide his/her true opinions and emotions from others? She easily tells her own opinions to someone, no matter how scared she is

Person character most hates: Michale James

Best friend(s): Nabel, Alli, Caleb, Cody, Matt, Brittany

Love interest(s): Josh Smith

Person character goes to for advice: Her father

Person character feels responsible for or takes care of: Josh

Person character feels shy or awkward around: The Defenders of Everworld

Person character openly admires: Her friends

Person character secretly admires: Josh

Most important person in character’s life before story starts: Her father

After story starts: The people of Everworld and her friends

#treelight city #original content #original character #oc #original fiction #original art #character sheet #art

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xtruss · 1 year

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Illustration: Timo Lenzen

Too Many People Take Too Many Pills! Medical Systems Are Set-up To Put People On Drugs, Not Take Them Off

— Science & Technology | Overprescribing Drugs | April 26, 2023 | The Economist

As a pharmacist in a big hospital in Adelaide, Emily Reeve would often see patients overwhelmed by the number of drugs they took each day. “They’d say ‘I take so many medicines that I rattle when I walk’,” she recalls. And she worried that some of the medications these patients were on seemed useless, or even harmful.

Dr Reeve’s patients are not unusual, at least in the rich world. About 15% of people in England take five or more prescription drugs every day. So do 20% of Americans and Canadians aged 40-79. Since the old tend to be sicker, the number of pills a person pops tends to rise over time. Of Americans who are 65 or older, two-thirds take at least five medications each day. In Canada, a quarter of over-65s take ten or more.

Not all those prescriptions are beneficial. Half of older Canadians take at least one that is, in some way, inappropriate. A review of overprescribing in England in 2021 concluded that at least 10% of prescriptions handed out by family doctors, pharmacists and the like should probably not have been issued. And even properly prescribed drugs have side effects. The more medicines someone takes, the more they will experience.

“Polypharmacy”, as doctors call it, imposes a big drag on health. A recent study at a hospital in Liverpool found that nearly one in five hospital admissions was caused by adverse reactions to drugs. The Lown Institute, an American think-tank, reckons that, between 2020 and 2030, medication overload in America could cause more than 150,000 premature deaths and 4.5m hospital admissions.

Getting people off drugs is unfamiliar terrain for modern health systems, which are mostly set up to put patients on them. But that is beginning to change. Doctors, pharmacists and nurses are setting up “deprescribing networks” to try to spread the word. (Dr Reeve, now at Monash University, in Melbourne, runs one in Australia.) England’s National Health Service published a plan to reduce overprescribing in 2021. The first international conference on it took place last year, in Denmark.

Excessive pill-popping burdens patients in several ways. One is the sheer logistics of it all. “People feel like their entire lives revolve around their medications,” says Michael Steinman, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. The more drugs someone takes, the greater the chances are that some of them will be taken wrongly.

Other problems are more straightforwardly medical. Some patients end up taking several drugs that affect the same biological pathway. One example is anticholinergics, which suppress the activity of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter. Several drugs, including some anti-allergy pills, anti-incontinence drugs and tricyclic antidepressants, work this way. But doctors are not always aware of that, says Dr Reeve.

The Pills Won’t Help You Now

That can cause overdosing. Loading up on anticholinergics can suppress acetylcholine so strongly that it can leave patients stupefied or confused. Often such effects are wrongly ascribed to old age, or to disease. By cutting away problematic drugs, “we’ve had incidents where we have been able to reverse the [incorrect] diagnosis of dementia,” says Barbara Farrell, an academic and pharmacist at the Bruyere Research Institute in Canada.

Overprescribing can become self-reinforcing, says Dr Steinman. Several common drugs block reabsorption of serotonin, another neurotransmitter. Taking too many can cause tremors, insomnia and jerky movements of the arms and legs. Those symptoms are often mistaken for Parkinson’s disease. So drugs for Parkinson’s are added, in what is known as a “prescribing cascade”. These, in turn, can cause low blood pressure and delirium–which are, of course, treated with yet more drugs.

The problems compound in other way, too. The more pills someone takes, the more likely it becomes that some of them will interact in harmful ways. Pharmacists have reference databases which they check for nasty drug interactions. But knowledge is limited because clinical trials tend to test only one drug at a time. Pharmacists cannot catch problematic combinations when different prescriptions are dispensed at different pharmacies. And anything bought over the counter is “completely invisible”, says Dr Steinman.

All these effects are compounded yet again in the elderly, whose bodies are less efficient at metabolising drugs. Sleeping pills, for example, might make a youngster a bit drowsy the next morning. In an elderly individual they can cause “brain fog” that makes everyday tasks impossible. Getting the dose right is difficult, says Dr Farrell, “because [old people] are usually excluded from clinical trials for new drugs”.

Medication overload persists for several reasons. One, particularly in America, is advertising, which oversells the benefits of medicines, says Dr Farrell. Lack of unified personal health records is another. A cardiologist may prescribe drugs for a patient without knowing what the doctor treating his lungs may have put him on.

Perhaps the most common reason is that patients are not told when to stop taking a drug, or forget. In America one in five patients who are given gabapentin, a potent painkiller, after surgery are still taking it 90 days later (the recommended maximum is four weeks). Often prescriptions are renewed automatically by other doctors, who see them on a patient’s notes and assume they have to be continued.

Many doctors presume that, in any case, patients are not particularly interested in stopping their medicines. That is probably wrong: studies from a number of countries show that eight out of ten patients are willing to give up a drug if their doctor advises them to do so. But those doctors face problems of their own. Money for de-prescribing studies is scant. Drug firms, the main sponsors of clinical trials, are not interested, for obvious reasons.

Evidence about how to proceed is nevertheless starting to build up. Brochures have been developed in Canada to help patients wean themselves off a number of common drugs. They explain, among other things, what alternatives are available—such as cognitive behavioural therapy rather than sleeping pills for insomnia. Trials suggest they work.

Automated de-prescribing tools and guidelines for some medicines have also been developed in recent years. Medsafer, one such electronic tool, increased the share of hospital patients for whom drugs were de-prescribed from 30% to 55%, according to a study published earlier this year in jama Internal Medicine. The Drug Burden Index, another tool, tallies the cumulative doses of drugs with anticholinergic or sedative effects.

A medical movement, in other words, is beginning. Its potential impact could be considerable. Keith Ridge, England’s chief pharmaceutical officer, drew an ironic but telling comparison in 2021: “With well over a billion items dispensed each year”, he wrote, “there is a huge prize to be gained in improving the health of millions of people—comparable to a new ‘blockbuster’ medicine—if we can only get this right.” ■

— This article appeared in the Science & Technology section of the print edition under the headline "An Ill For Every Pill"

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asterdmhealthcare1 · 1 year

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Pediatric Brain Tumors and the Common Pediatric Brain Tumors Symptoms

Pediatric brain tumors are a rare but serious type of cancer that can occur in children. These tumors can develop in various areas of the brain and can lead to a range of symptoms depending on their location and size. As with any cancer, early detection and treatment are crucial in increasing the chances of a positive outcome. In this blog post, we will discuss some of the common symptoms of pediatric brain tumors.

Headaches:

Headaches are a common symptom of pediatric brain tumors. The headache can vary in intensity, location, and frequency. The headache may worsen when the child is lying down or when they cough, sneeze, or strain. Headaches caused by brain tumors are typically more severe in the morning and may be accompanied by nausea and vomiting.

2. Weakness and Coordination Problems:

A brain tumor can affect the child's motor function, leading to weakness, loss of coordination, and difficulty with balance. The child may have trouble walking, and their movements may be uncoordinated or jerky.

It's important to note that the pediatric brain tumors symptoms can vary depending on the location and size of the tumor. If you notice any of the above symptoms or any other concerning changes in your child, it's essential to seek medical attention promptly. Your child's pediatrician may refer you to a pediatric neurologist or pediatric oncologist for further evaluation and treatment.

3. Seizures:

Seizures are another common symptom of pediatric brain tumors. A seizure occurs when there is abnormal electrical activity in the brain. The child may experience convulsions, involuntary movements, or a loss of consciousness. Seizures can occur at any time and may be isolated or recurrent.

4. Vision Problems:

A brain tumor located near the optic nerve can cause vision problems. The child may experience blurred vision, double vision, or a loss of vision in one or both eyes. The child may also experience other visual symptoms, such as a change in the appearance of colors, halos around lights, or difficulty with peripheral vision.

5. Behavioral and Cognitive Changes:

Pediatric brain tumors can also affect a child's behavior and cognitive abilities. The child may experience a decline in academic performance or have difficulty with memory and concentration. The child may also exhibit changes in mood, personality, and behavior.

In conclusion, pediatric brain tumors are a serious health concern that requires prompt attention. The symptoms of brain tumors can be varied, and it's important to be aware of the signs and symptoms to ensure early detection and treatment. If you have any concerns about your child's health, it's essential to seek medical attention from us at Aster DM Healthcare an qualified healthcare professional.

At Aster DM Healthcare, we are on a mission to bring accessible, quality healthcare to millions of people. We strive for excellence in every moment, every day. We understand that excellence isn't a destination – it's a never-ending process of growth and improvement. Our commitment to excellence has made us one of the leading healthcare providers in the Middle East and India, with core competencies in clinical care, diagnostics, and medical services. We are passionate about utilising the latest technology and approaches to improve patient experiences and outcomes.

Address - Corporate Head Quarters 33rd Floor, Tower D - Aspect Tower, Executive Tower at Bay Avenue, Business Bay, P.O. Box 8703, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

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sad--tree · 3 years

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2 midterms 2day 😰😭💀 first object-oriented programming (java) at 12:30-2:30 then database systems at 3........ wish me luck yall i have not prepared at all!!!

#some ppl manifest their mental illness/etc issues in a way that leads 2 being an academic overachiever #and rationally i understand those ppl suffer just as much as i did/do but i was always very envious lol #like damn wish i could be the kind of fucked up that had good grades rather than fucked up with bad grades lmao #(once again. ik this is irrational. im mostly past this)#ANYWAYS ive always been grateful i got the 'inexplicably tests really well' trait bc it has literally repeatedly saved me from failing #so i have not prepped 4 these midterms at all but going by past experiences i still have a good chance of getting at least 80%#(im sure just like i was jealous of ppl who could Do The Work there r ppl who r jealous of ppl who can Do The Tests)#still. always a chance itll be one of those rare times my brain crashes and burns. usually thats a finals thing tho not a midterm thing #lol just now: my prof: trashes microsoft; then right after: oh shoot im recording 😬#he was annoyed with jerky scrolling in word and was like any1 know how 2 smooth scroll? ah nvm its microsoft u dont expect much 🙄#i hate college

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communistkenobi-archive · 2 years

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I miss reading circle-jerky academic literature so bad. I want to read a thousand pages on whether place arises from space or the other way around

#doubly insane that this has implications for land use policy regimes #I mean it doesn’t really. like this is just abstract pissing contests about the definitions of words #but like the framework each side offers leads to different conclusions about how spatial ‘stuff’ is arranged

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alexkablob · 6 years

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cass will you stab this asshole already

#not varian obviously i mean the jerky academic guy #kablob watches tangled

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reidingdays · 3 years

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the first 3 minutes of zugzwang: an ESSAY nobody asked for and i mean an essay the english student really jumped out on this one lads

this scene is arguably the best acting i’ve seen matthew gray gubler ever do and it’s JUST HIM STANDING IN A PARK

so we start in a park, there’s soft music and to me it sounds academic and whimsical, optimistic like you’ve got all the world’s puzzles to explore and endless time to do it in. it’s something straight out of a beautiful mind. it’s autumn, warm colours abound and the cosy vibes continue as spencer’s in good spirits and a warm jacket

he looks happy!!! peaceful!! content!!! treasure that with me, will you

the music reaches a higher key as he dials maeve’s number and he’s making little chhhh chhh chuu noises, singing his own song under his breath in his own little world, the picture of ease, as he calls and immediately hangs up to let her know it’s only him, not her stalker. his movements are light and fluid and given his aversion to technology and germs he doesn’t falter once as he dials on this very public phone box

he sighs because he’s done this a thousand times over but it’s not a sad sigh. it seems kind of like acceptance, as if he’s made peace with the situation and he’s in it for the long haul. it's simply routine. he instinctively - subconsciously?? - reaches for his satchel like a safety blanket, like a reminding reassurance that this is working, she’s safe, and he looks EXCITED while awaiting her call back

he even walks a few steps away, shoves his hands in his pockets, turns away from the phone box, because he knows she’ll call back. there’s no anxiety there, no pressure to stare at the thing until it rings. he trusts her. as he looks around the park he continues the chhh chh chhhh noises, admiring the scene passively among nose scrunches because this is just another liminal space, another random phone box, on his journey to be with maeve

when the phone rings, boy damn near gives himself WHIPLASH look at that hair flip!!!! majestic!!! he couldn’t care LESS about the beautiful park he wants to talk to maeve!!

after he practically dives on top of the phone box, he answers with a jaunty lil “hellooOOOoOO!!” and just look at the mischief on that there face. his eyes are squinted because he’s ready to tease and debate obscure literary theories. there’s the hint of a smirk. he’s playful, ready and willing to hang on her every word, and then the happy whimsical walk in the park music CUTS OUT

CUTS RIGHT OUT

in literally 0.03 seconds his face goes from mischevious lil puppy!!!!!!! to oh shit this isn’t right this isn’t maeve. a collect call from adam worth means danger. his head snaps up, there’s tension in his neck how the hell and his eyebrows are pulled down, eyes wider and can’t focus on anything, BOTH hands clutching the phone and pressing it so close to his face as if doing that could help him concentrate

the operator tells him to pay 2 dollars to hear the call and he freezes then JERKS his body back from the abyss his mind is so clearly spiraling down, like he has to remind his limbs to work. he smacks his arm against the phone box but doesn’t even register it. my bet is he whacked his funny bone and we all know that hurts like the DICKENS and there's still zero reaction. his pain is irrelevant. his breathing is loud and ragged, offbeat and unnerving against the Dramatic Violins, he scrabbles through his satchel with absolutely no regard for it at all because it’s in the WAY, hair falls in his face, then he just RIPS the bag off his person like it’s rubbish

tips out its contents like a man possessed. we’re talking books on books on books. and spencer loves books.

it’s a desperate bid to find enough change to pay for the call. like this guy is a germaphobe. he’s on his KNEES in a public park on a well trodden footpath with a manky phone still glued to his ear, all his possessions are now covered in god knows what, his beloved satchel is cast aside like litter, he’s not even looking at where is hand is in germ city because he’s staring the phone box out in case, knowing his luck, it sets on fire

all his movements are frantic and jagged and, yes, spencer isn’t known for being a swan but he’s also not a jerky marionette. he staggers upright and shoves his change into the phone box, impatiently pushes his hair out of his face to no avail and he’s blinking like five times more than before

the intonation of “hello i’m still here” OH GOD it is spoken completely monotone which is beyond out of character, going to show just how!!! unnerved!!!! he is!!!! happy joyful jaunty hellooOOoOs are long forgotten. he doesn’t have time for emotion which again is SO UNSETTLING THIS IS SPENCER REID KING OF EMOTION. the next scene with hotch is when he allows emotion to seep back into his voice, but right now, alone and responsible, he has to block it out. each word is rushed together to get them out faster the SECOND the call connects and when it does, we hear zugzwang. he steadies himself with another breath and not to be as Dramatic as the violins but his eyes go hard?? because he knows the meaning of that word and infers bad things are about to happen because bad things just follow him around.

he looks up because how the hell can this be happening WE WERE SO CAREFUL. he almost definitely thought through every potential threat and every precaution made wasn’t enough. his entire face screams desperation, denial, guilt, what the fuck. it’s like he gives himself one split second of panic, pain, doubt and fear but then he shuts it out. you can see his brain kick back in when he asks “sorry can you please repeat that?” in order to engage with whoever this is because maybe that will help? because being polite and soft spoken is his strength AND ALWAYS WILL BE (i digress). but the reply is another zugzwang. farewell happy peaceful and content spencer you lasted literally 21 seconds

and then he pulls THIS face out of his arsenal and you just know spencer isn’t going to get a happy ending because he never does and what better way to destroy the character development of both spencer and maeve, the woman that was created simply to be murdered and SCENE

#criminal minds #matthew gray gubler #mgg #spencer reid #THIS MAN CAN ACT #i know its literally his job but sometimes it surprises me #an essay

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