#also the fact that he's not watching vhs tapes i guess (

[quasi-normalcy]

Why Deep Space Nine wasn't as popular as the other 90s Star Treks when it aired

So I keep seeing this one kind of conspiratorial text post circulating around which asserts that Deep Space Nine wasn't as popular as the other Star Trek series from the 90s because Rick Berman hated it and deliberately sabotaged it, and also (somehow) marginalized references to it in canon even decades after he stopped having absolutely anything to do with the franchise and just...no. Like, I have no idea how Rick Berman personally felt about Deep Space Nine, but what I do know is that he co-created it and executive produced it and basically ran the entire Star Trek franchise during the 90s, so if he *really* hated what it was doing, he could have just put his foot down and stopped it. Moreover, he didn't marginalize references to Deep Space Nine in canon; Voyager getting into contact with the Alpha Quadrant and learning that the Maquis had been exterminated by the Dominion (something that happened on Deep Space Nine) was one of the very few plot points on that series to have repercussions for more than an episode; First Contact featured the Defiant; both Insurrection and Nemesis have references to the Dominion War. The post is reacting against a problem that doesn't really exist.

But it does raise the question: why *wasn't* Deep Space Nine popular when it aired? And I think that the answer might be difficult for people who weren't alive and conscious during the 1990s to understand, so I'm going to try to lay out the reasons:

Serialization was only just becoming a thing on adult American television: I know that this might sound a bit difficult to believe now, but there was a time when networks really hated serialization and, with context, it's not too hard to understand why. In the 1990s, there was no streaming; there weren't even any DVD sets. Any given episode aired once at a designated time. If you missed that time, then your options were to wait until it was rerun a few weeks later, or again during the summer (and the networks would often air reruns out of order, so good fucking luck with that), or to hope that one of your friends had recorded it on a VHS tape. Otherwise, you just couldn't see it. Even worse than that, networks could arbitrarily pre-empt their own programming. Like, "Oh, you wanted to watch Star Trek? Well a baseball game just went into overtime and it brings in ten times as many viewers. Hopefully you won't find it too jarring if we just begin half an hour into the episode." So you can understand why this would have a knock-on effect on serialised storytelling; if you've missed one episode, and the subsequent stories depend on plot points from the episode, then you're just going to be confused. But even beyond that, if you're not used to serialization as an audience, then you're not going to be on the look-out for context clues. "Oh, that alien just told Quark about something called 'the Dominion'? Oh that sounds important--oh, wait, no, they got to the end of the episode and nothing happened with it. I guess it wasn't important after all."

The Star Trek name: This one seems a bit counterintuitive, because of course the name should be a draw to fans of the other series, but you have to remember that, at the time in question, the franchise consisted only of the original series and movies and the first six and a half seasons of TNG. Now, these differed in several ways, but what they had in common is that they were all about a bunch of moral paragons who flew around in space in shiny starships, having episodic adventures. That was what Star Trek was. And then you got a new series about a bunch of morally compromised characters who sat still in space on a gungy old space station having serialised adventures. It's not the same thing, and so a lot of people who wanted the first thing tuned out (which was, in fact, why Voyager had to be created), whereas a lot of people who wanted the second thing might not have tuned in because they figured it would be the first thing. And this of course brings us to the third reason:

Babylon 5: So stop me if you've heard this one before: it's a serialized drama from the 1990s all about a bunch of humans and aliens having to coexist on a space station as they navigate diplomatic crises and gradually become enmeshed in an elaborate space opera story arc. It features a race of aliens who can be called "highly spiritual", a race of aliens who have recently overthrown a decades-long brutal occupation of their homeworld by a crumbling and overstretched empire, a race of aliens who are often mistaken for gods (and who cultivate this misconception), and a mysterious new threat emerging onto the galactic scene, eventually culminating in a seasons-long war arc. I am of course describing J. Michael Straczynski's science fiction masterpiece Bablyon 5, which he, and a great many of his fans, regarded (and not without reason) as having been ripped off and pre-empted by Paramount in the form of Deep Space Nine. Now, looking at the evidence, I personally think that most of the similarities between these series are a sort of convergent evolution; but, whatever your opinion on the matter, the fact remains that these two fandoms hated each other during the 1990s. And the net effect of this was that a bunch of SF nerds who would probably have really liked DS9 if they had gotten to see it never watched it at all as a matter of principle because as far as they were concerned, its very existence was a corporate ploy to bully an upstart rival out of business.

Anyways, for all of these reasons, it's not remarkable to me that Deep Space Nine never became as popular as TNG and Voyager; and because it wasn't as popular, it makes sense that Paramount would be more circumspect about greenlighting Picard-style sequels or Lower Decks or Prodigy-style spinoffs to it (and indeed, I'm not convinced that all of the writers have even seen it). But I think that it is a testament to just how good DS9 was that it still managed to get the same seven seasons, even if it never drew in the same audience

#star trek deep space nine #star trek deep space 9 #ds9 #star trek voyager #star trek the next generation #babylon 5

[incomingalbatross]

Trick or treat! (Stargate SG-1 edition, especially any fic ideas or headcanons)

Okay so I don't know if this will turn out as a headcanon, a fic idea, an outline, or something in-between BUT what it mostly is is an Excuse. :P So here goes

The first time Teal'c watches Star Wars, the team's been grounded for a week. Don't ask me why - maybe the Gate's shut down, maybe Jack and Sam have leave, maybe Daniel's been exposed to a strange space pathogen and is in isolation while they wait to see if it's deadly. Important thing is, they don't have missions and Teal'c (it's early days still) isn't allowed off-base.

Sam pokes her head in his room with a set of VHS tapes and says, "Hey, I brought some Earth culture you might be interested in!" Explains that Star Wars is a classic and even if he doesn't like them, it'll still be useful to know the references.

Teal'c, very bored and always willing to hang out with one of his comrades, agrees.

He likes Episode IV. There's good vs evil. They're fighting an evil space empire! He gets to see what kind of space combat the Tau'ri have made up for their stories.

He thinks it's kind of...charmingly idealistic? Like, there's an Evil Oppressive Space Empire but there's still enough freedom for Luke to have his ideals and Leia to have a government position (they HAVE a government?) and even Han gets to choose whether he wants to fight the Empire or just slip under its radar. It's a little hard for Teal'c to relate to, but he enjoys it. It seems very much like his friends' views of the world.

Obi-Wan reminds him of Bra'tac. :) Vader reminds him of Apophis. >:/ Teal'c sees something of his team in the main characters.

Episode V! Sam is Very Excited.

Vader is still alive? Teal'c is disappointed by what, honestly, seems like an incursion of reality. Why won't the evil galactic rulers ever ACTUALLY die when they look like they've died.

He's invested in all the action on Hoth, though. These heroes still read as very Tau'ri to him, with their emphasis on loyalty to their friends and their hope and all that. He wants them to succeed.

He does guess the Yoda reveal. A little too similar to the Nox. :P

Then it's back to Darth Vader on his evil spaceship and

Ah

Um

Darth Vader goes down on one knee and asks "What is thy bidding, my master?"

And they've taken plenty of pauses before while watching these movies, so Sam can answer questions about effects or plot conventions or other things lost in cultural translation, but this time when Teal'c says "Pause," he doesn't really have anything to ask. Just, "That...is the Emperor?"

Sam says, "Yeah," and they keep going. But suddenly the fun Tau'ri escapist fantasy is a little harder to watch, as Teal'c processes the fact that the villain of the piece to date isn't actually a System Lord.

Darth Vader is a First Prime.

Everything Vader does now leads to new questions Teal'c isn't sure the story even thinks it's raising. Like, does he want to be doing this? and Does he think he has a choice? and Why is he doing it? and How did he get to this position?

Teal'c watches Vader torture Han and tries not to think about his own past.

And then. AND THEN. You know what comes next.

(Turns out the movie did want him to be asking at least some of those questions about Vader.)

Turns out the evil Emperor's right hand is also a FATHER. He's the HERO'S father. But he also cuts off Luke's hand because the only option he'll apparently countenance is for Luke to join him in the darkness.

But he's a FATHER. He IS a person, not just a faceless villain. But does that make him better or worse?? If he's a person and he chooses to be part of the Empire, then all the questions Teal'c has about him have bad answers.

But also how is LUKE - the idealistic, hopeful shining figure of a Tau'ri hero - going to deal with his idolized father turning up on the Empire's side.

...Suffice to say, Teal'c is glad to see Han rescued and all at the start of Episode VI but he is REALLY REALLY waiting for expansion on the Vader plot.

Luke thinks there's still good in his father. Luke thinks he can SAVE him. Luke sees his father and he BELIEVES in him.

Listen. I believe in Teal'c's right to be a nerd, in general. I also believe that watching Vader say it's too late for him and Luke point-blank refuse to accept that is the MOST INVESTED Teal'c EVER is in experiencing any fictional story, ever.

And

LUKE IS RIGHT

VADER IS SAVED

Vader breaks free!! For his son!! Darth Vader hears his son's cries for help and is able to LISTEN and CHANGE and he is LOVED AND FORGIVEN AND ACCEPTED and he DIES FREE

The Emperor's enslaved right hand is REDEEMED and DIES FREE. That was the story all along

Anyway this is why Teal'c has watched Star Wars nine times. In conclusion.

#stargate sg 1 #you get a long one because this has been Simmering and i'm delighted to have the push needed to unleash it

[lastoneout]

@dittolicous I'm slapping these tags into a new post bcs it made me realize I might be weird and wanted to know of anyone else is weird in the same way.

Because like my fear of heights only seems to manifest on man-made structures? Before my disabilities got bad enough that I couldn't hike I used to climb up on top of really tall stuff all the time, like I would hang out on the Devil's Bridge in Sedona and not feel even a little bit scared, but like climbing up say the stairs to go down a water slide is enough to make me shake and have to not look down/get too close to the railing at the edge. The idea of going to the top of a skyscraper—and I mean like just the top floor inside, not like an observation deck or anything—makes my hands sweat(did you know they SWAY in the wind?????) but I've hung out right at the very edge of the Grand Canyon several times and I've never felt more at peace.

The only man-made structures that don't bother me are roller coasters(kinda), airplanes, and weirdly some playground equipment? Roller coasters are only fine if we stay moving tho, if the thing broke when we were really high up and we had to get rescued I would be a complete mess, but like, as long as we stay moving I love them. Carnival rides are a mixed bag, I enjoy going on ferris wheels but they do scare the shit out of me, and I just won't get on most other rides that go super high up in the air. Airplanes are okay because I understand the science behind it?? It makes sense(and when you take off you can feel the air catch the plane) so I just don't get scared, though if I was in like a skydiving plane that's open I would probably freak out. The logic behind playground equipment is a mystery to me, maybe bcs it's literally made for climbing?? No clue.

And like, I watch a lot of videos of people climbing cellphone towers and skyscrapers specifically bcs they scare me SO much that it works to get rid of my anxiety if I'm freaking out about something. All of my problems seem so small because at least I'm not on top of one of those fucking things. But I do actually really like watching The Walk, idk it makes me scared so bad but I love it.

The only natural structure that scares me is trees. Idk what it is about trees, especially bcs I do like climbing them, but I usually struggle to get down without help.

This also made me remember I used to have vhs tapes with episodes of the Madeline cartoon and in one episode she and her friend get stuck at the top of the Eiffel Tower and despite the fact that I have actually BEEN TO PARIS and WENT UP TO THE TOP OF THAT VERY STRUCTURE and it didn't bother me so much, that episode made me so scared I couldn't watch it. Like wtf is that about??

I've also always wanted to be able to fly or be a witch like in Kiki's Delivery Service. Idk how my brain would react to that tho since it's impossible, but I assume it would land in the "it makes sense so it doesn't bother me" category.

So yeah idk man-made structures are bad and scary because I guess I just don't trust humans to make sturdy things that won't fall down(aside from airplanes and playground equipment bcs those make sense)?? But mountains and cliffs and stuff have been there for like millions of years so I trust that they will stay under my feet and thus I don't get scared by them at all.

And like I know it's weird that I'm like this because my fiancé is ALSO scared of heights(which I find hilarious because he's 6'3" and when he picks me up so my head is level with his it makes me scared because "the ground is too far away") but he doesn't like going up on top of anything. Airplanes, rollercoasters that go upside down, tall buildings, mountains and other rock structures, it ALL triggers his phobia. He won't even let me open the window shade when we fly together, it's that bad. Idk why I'm not like that.

Anyway @ anyone else who's scared of heights:

#long post #sorry I find this incredibly interesting

[chibivesicle]

Trigun Stampede: Episode 1 review

To avoid being lazy and falling into the subgroup of a bitter nostalgic fan who watched Trigun on a fansub VHS tape before it was dubbed or on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, I have decided that I will faithfully review Trigun Stampede.  This will be naturally in comparison to the original anime as well as the manga.  Perhaps, I will become bitter and annoyed, perhaps not.  However, I will do my best to review it as someone who has a soft spot in her heart for the original.

It goes that I will have spoilers for things if for some odd reason you haven’t seen the original so just keep in mind it will be in context to how Stampede compares to the original.

Episode 1 starts out in space with the Project Seeds ships flying near a desert planet.  Vash is greeting all the people in the cryotubes and the ship is quickly met with disaster.  Rem has Nai [Knives] and Vash go into the escape pod, Nai tells Rem to get in but she refuses and tells them this.

She doesn’t tell Vash to take care of his brother or there is no confusion as the door shuts leaving Vash to spend 130-150 years trying to determine what Rem told him to do in regard to Knives.

Rem just cries and makes it clear that they were import to her and her life.

Thus, the anime let’s the viewer know right from the start that people crashed on the planet and we know that Vash and his brother survived and it then cuts to a SUV in the desert with Meryl driving.  Yes, the manga also starts off explaining that people crashed on the planet. But it isn’t revealed to be shown in relation to Vash, so, at the beginning of the anime we don’t know how he fits in this part of the narrative.

Meryl Stryfe is with her older colleague Roberto DeNiro and they are reporters for November Broadcasting.  It is immediately apparent that Meryl is a recent college grad and this is her first job.

We can also see she has some lofty goals to change the world for the better as a reporter.  However, she has to work with jerkass Roberto who rubs snot from his face on her resume, crumples it up into a ball and tosses it out the window.  He refuses to call her by her name, is drinking on the job and chain smoking.  Overall, I hate him and I want Milly back.  The fact that some how anal retentive detailed oriented Meryl Stryfe forgot to charge the battery (and the fact they don’t have a spare to swap out in such a place) makes me cringe.  When they walk up to Vash and she freaks out that he’s not dead cowers behind Roberto.

They are quickly found by the July Military Police (note to the subtitle peeps at CR who wrote it as JuLai) and the bad guy of the week hands them the wanted flyer.  Vash looks much more like manga/anime Vash and he’s got a six million $$ bounty - not the sixty billion one that starts both the anime and manga.

Meryl sends them off his trail for a scoop.  When Vash well, is Vash and all chatty with them, Meryl becomes such a flirty/flattered/ditz.  This is only one of her facial expression/poses of over the top cuteness and - I hate it!

Why is a professional woman, who has to prove herself acting like this?  Face it, women in the workplace deal with enough gendered shit and they went and made her all ‘Oh me? Reeeallly?? I’m just too cute uwuwuwuwu’.  Excuse me while I go barf.  Our man Roberto is already three sheets to the wind with his shirt tail sticking out as he looks resigned to be stuck with his stupid newbie and a weirdo outlaw.

Anyhoo, somehow they make it to Jeneora Rock with Vash’s wandering skills I guess.  Meryl is looking rough as they walk to the main gate.  Interestingly, she’s framed for a brief bit by a man with the weird emu/ostrich (not a thomas) creature with what appear to be metal coffins.  Are these empty waiting for bodies or already full?  Unclear.  Is this man related to the Eye of Michael or just showing the wild west images from media of old?

This leads to the first time Meryl enters a saloon (sans Milly) and it attempts to recreate that first time of a petite professional woman out in the ‘frontier’.  And it falls flat.

Yes, she gets made fun of when she enters similar to the original anime but we don’t have Meryl walking up to the barkeep, pounding her fist down and declaring the following:  A banana sundae!

This is a woman who knows what she wants and she is fucking asking for it with authority.  The animation pans to the shocked expression on the mens’ faces before showing this.

Milly may be the junior but she also knows what she wants!  This then leads to the men heckling and intimidating them which comes to a complete stop when Milly’s strap breaks on her giant stun gun and the men decide to not mess with them.  Keep in mind later in the episode when they are tied up, the minor villain, also realizes that Meryl is packing heat and backs off a bit as well.

Instead, junior reporter Meryl can barely ask for a simple water and gets mocked, by Rosa, not some burly male barkeep!  Jeez, makes for a bad taste in my mouth when she is gushing about how great Vash is and gives Roberto a pass b/c he looks wise and hardened who tries to order a whiskey - like the man he is.

They notice that the city lacks clean water (if they set up a still they could clean it FYI) but it seems the creative team wanted something super obvious for Meryl to realize she isn’t in December or November anymore.  Again, they introduce the role of plants from the get go instead of how the anime had the slow reveal about the giant light bulb things which were one of the few visual cues this isn’t an ‘old fashioned’ western.  Along with the twin suns and extra moons.

While at the dying plant the July MPs are able to show up (they left the main door open?) and want to arrest Vash for the bounty, noting it would allow the town to get a new plant.  Roberto decides to fix the solution, flask in hand by having the hot headed man duel Vash.  Honestly, his argument is tepid at best but the unnamed MP goes for it and will reveal himself to be bat shit crazy.

The reporters hang back since the quick draw is on and Vash waves looking goofy and we do get a rapid shift in his facial expression when he’s no longer in line of sight from below.  Roberto points out that Vash is a fool.

Meryl wants to help but he points out that she’d have been dead several times already.  Which is factually accurate, but he wasn’t doing a good job of mentoring her to not die either.  Compared to the original where we get a full five episodes of Meryl thinking Vash is a total goof and fool and couldn’t possibly be the legendary gunslinger, this one is quick to point out he’s not able to fit in this place.

Of course, Vash runs into the exact same issue from the original but revealed in a different way - he’s out of bullets.  However, in the first one, he’s escaping the bounty hunters in search of him and he slowly knocks them out to steal ammo from them.  This time he has a complete melt down and Rosa is willing to give 1 single bullet to Meryl to throw to him. 

Honestly, this goes for the most epic badass how the hell did he do it with a single shot blah blah blah which - didn’t give me the feels. That’s the problem, we know that Vash is going to save the day and the town seems indifferent to him if he does or doesn’t.

His arm, which has already been identified as lost technology, could break solid rock and rip it out of the ground.  I’m going to guess it likely doesn’t have a hidden machine gun in it anymore for extra protection.  Current opinions on such topics have shifted and I can see Vash having the hidden machine gun as not being as cool anymore.  

Trigun is like other anime/manga of that 80s/90s that were made for firearms nerds.  Specifically, I’m thinking of Gunsmith Cats with Rally Vincent and May (I know that I’m really dating myself know bringing up this seinen series).  Both Kenichi Sonada of Gunsmith Cats and Yashiro Nightow are seinen manga authors who are the right age to have been influenced by the western media that included crime noir/pulp/spaghetti westerns/dukes of hazard/gunsmoke etc etc stuff and it shows.  I remember an interview with Sonada which I’m 99% sure was in Animerica magazine (now, I’m really dating myself) about all his research into firearms and making trips to the States to use them at a range and all sorts of crazy stuff like that.

The crisis is averted and the July MP are sent packing and Vash pretends to be a lucky bastard yet is still chatting with Meryl and Roberto.  Roberto immediately calls him out on what his concern is and Vash just info dumps that he’s got a brother called Millions Knives.  Wow, spare us the suspense and build up Vash.   We get the flashback to the crash where it reveals in episode one that Nai orchestrated the crash, but don’t worry he saved the ship with all the plants so it is okay.

Vash can’t believe this happened and Nai makes it clear that Vash is his partner in this insanity. One of the insect birds flies to a very obvious bad guy layer where Knives is playing dramatic piano music as he learns that Vash been found and that he is to be brought to him.  Stampede is throwing down the end from the start, Knives is the big bad and he has a plot to suck Vash into his orbit.  He might have well had the long bad guy speech about how he formed the Gung Ho Guns and all that as well.  Knives, why don’t you just monologue to your crew in episode one and save us all the mystery?

For someone with a great hatred of humanity, why is he playing the piano?  He found everything about humans to be disgusting so why would he embrace a side hustle with music?  I bet Midvalley the Hornfreak has been eliminated - saxophone is too 90s.  It is 2023, bad guy with piano is in and badass sax is out.

The episode then ends with the scenes of Vash wandering and lots of sand.  It seems alright.  This was episode one, so we didn’t get our usual opening and ending so I can’t say anything just yet about the combo of both.

It seems just to mess with us, the episode doesn’t end with a philosophical preview but just this artwork.  Vash is sitting on a rock outcrop looking at a ship that has crashed in a desert landscape.  The background includes an actual photo, I wonder where it was taken.  However, it indeed does look like the desert; I lived in one for over 7 years.

At the point where the mid episode commercial break was, we got a map of what they are calling the Seven Cities.  The orange dot is showing the current location in Jeneora Rock. We can also see that July is still on the map.  Did Vash not destroy it then in Stampede?

There is also an orphanage on the map as opposed to the one associated with Wolfwood in the anime/manga located in December.  Which in both the anime and manga, December is alluded to be the most cosmopolitan and developed of the cities. 

In the anime during the two year break when Vash disappears after Augusta and the Fifth Moon Incident, Meryl and Milly are back at the Bernardelli Insurance Society’s headquarters in December. It looks like a Gilded Age East Coast American city with paved streets, proto-skyscrapers and lots of motorized vehicles.

Note that the manga points out in volume 1 of Trigun Maximum that Meryl’s coworkers celebrate her birthday. And it reveals that when Meryl first encountered Vash and Wolfwood with Milly, she was 21!  So yes, Meryl was a straight A student who completed her education and landed her job as an insurance adjuster/investigator when she was 21 and likely a recent grad and was the senior colleague to Milly!

I’d also like to note that the blonde colleague here Karen is pretty cool in the anime and manga recognizing that Meryl is an excellent employee and supports her either by preventing the other workers from being weird - or by her monologue in the anime about being happy that Meryl is chasing her career goals. 

Episode 1 conclusions:

Vash - Vash appears to be pretty much Vash.  I didn’t like his screaming/crying meltdown when he realized he had no ammo.  Somehow, realistic tears seemed weird to me.  In the anime he had the more of a comedic expression of horror.

I think the ‘Oh shit, I’ve got no bullets!’ gag worked better when it was low risk - Vash knew he could escape and no one else was involved.  Taking the stakes up to for some odd reason try to save everyone from the cluster bombs which would fall next to the town (?) when it isn’t even clear it was a necessary action makes for a weak plot beat.

He also is info dumping left and right instead of his ‘fake’ smile which isn’t called out until episode 9 ‘Murder Machine’ when Wolfwood remarks that he can actually smile. 

Apparently, Vash doesn’t like donuts anymore.  I am sad if this is the case for Stampede.  I will forever love his ability to eat half a box of donuts while running and also have a full conversation.  It makes the scene where Vash gets the large bag of fresh donuts only to break down and weep openly in public hit you so hard.

I’m not keen on how he looks in Stampede, again having a red jacket that says Project Seeds which is still in pristine condition would make the backstory obvious.  We’ll have to see if he moves the same way as super lanky Vash, but the toned down look and obvious replacement arm aren’t giving him much of an air of mystery.  It was a nice touch when Vash runs into the room where Rem has the photo of them next to an actual germanium in a terrarium with red flowers though.  We are keeping the red germanium = perseverance and tenacity.

Meryl Stryfe - As of episode 1 is the ‘worst’ of her anime/manga original chara and Milly as well.  Derringer Stryfe wouldn’t have walked into a frontier saloon and mumble she wanted a water b/c she forgot to charge the SUV battery and pack a spare to swap out!  She’d walk in and demand her banana sundae!  None of this - the real world outside the big safe city is scary, hiding behind your drunk superior.  The whole uwu bit with Vash was just bad, it makes her look shallow and self-centered.  Jumping behind Roberto more than once - not cool, not cool.  Anime Meryl had a high opinion of herself which occasionally got her in trouble but it was valid; she was a capable person who got the job done and used logic to solve her problems.  For an anime that came out in ‘98 Meryl is a character ahead of her time.  I never found her annoying, I liked her.  Only now that I’m much older, I can see that my younger self - who was younger than her at the time I saw it, she was a good strong female character who was representation for someone like me still not yet in the real world (though I avoided it with graduate school too).

For her character design, I’m also disappointed.  They kept her suit coat, earrings and navy blue tights but that’s it.  The puffer jacket/windbreaker is weird along with the beret/newsboy cap thing, jean shorts and high top sneakers.  If you are going to be in the desert and you want to wear a hat, wear one with a brim.  Okay?  Those finger less gloves - WTF?  

Milly Thompson/Roberto DeNiro - Wow, wouldn’t I as a young professional woman love to be assigned to teamed up with a chain smoking, on the clock boozing, jerkass partner who refuses to use my name?  I’m sorry, I hate his character, he’s lazy writing, decreases the female characters for the main cast and his suggestions barely move the plot in a logical direction.  You really think that July MP guy would honestly have taken is bait to quick draw against Vash?  No!  In the Trigun manga he’d just riddle Roberto with bullets and take Vash.   Hell, if it were the anime, he’d riddle Roberto with bullets.

Roberto is just Don Draper from Mad Men but bitter reporter.  He’d smell terrible from all the cigarettes and booze and sweat.  They are setting up the ultimate cheese plot point where Roberto is like, “Nice job Meryl!  You really nailed it.” and Meryl will have feelings b/c her boss who should have respected her from the start has finally decided to respect her!  The emotions!  The payoff! [excuse me while I go barf some more]

Why am I saying Milly = Roberto?  Let’s look at the preview poster again. We’ve got our four main cast members right here. Vash is riding the bird creature.  Wolfwood is holding onto Vash’s jacket sort of.  Queue the Vashwood shippers.  He’s got Punisher by the strap and he’s losing his right shoe to reveal - no socks!

What’s with the slip on shoes in the desert?  Sand, so much sand and grit and crap is going to get in your shoes and you don’t even have socks?!?!  Where are your white socks with your tan oxfords?  The anime was cheap and made them look like some sort of penny loafer, but they did animate his white socks underneath and yes, I noticed them Madhouse. 

Wolfwood you are unfashionable with your dorky white socks, but I kinda love them.  The manga has lace up oxfords which makes more sense that he’d at least wear dress shoes as a wandering priest/clergyman.  It was visually striking and didn’t make him look as somber with the all black from head to toe.  The tan shoes broke that vibe in a good way giving him a visual pop/interest and also letting others know he isn’t quite what he seems.

It might be that they want to make Wolfwood look younger and hipper and he actually looks like Wolfwood as a kid here when he killed his parental figure.

It zooms out to see him from above (sort of a ‘God’ angle) and transitions to him entering the room through him physically stepping through the door and into his new career.  He looks like he’s wearing hand-me-down shoes as a poor kid.

It goes with the hidden message, that he at least has shoes even if they aren’t the best for going outside of a small town or city.  Poor orphaned kid with his second hand too large for him shoes.  I love how we can even see that as an adult with the white socks that Wolfwood’s shoes fit, the white sock is flush with the tan while in the flashback we can see a gap between his sockless feet and the too large shoes for him.  Nice detail, nice detail.

Meryl has a camera which she’ll shoot with.  No Derringers.  In the manga there is a short several page reflection/commentary from Meryl about the use of firearms.  When I re-read it I’ll make sure to remember where b/c it was top tier writing.  She explains how her father made sure she was trained in the use of firearms as it was a necessity on the planet.  But she takes it a step further and explains what it felt like the first time she ever shot a man.  The power of her monologue keeps brings the reader back to reality and to not focus on the sheer number of people someone like Wolfwood has likely killed and how it would be tearing him apart if someone like Meryl can articulate what it feels like to have this responsibility for the rest of your life.

And Milly’s replacement is Roberto as on the poster artwork, he’s got a small pistol in his left hand.  Therefore, under that boxy ill fitting brown suit coat, Mr. Jaded and Bitter is packing heat.  Ta daaaa!  This means that with Vash, Wolfwood and him, Meryl doesn’t need to dirty her feminine little hands and use a gun.  What will his backstory be if he has one?  Former police officer? Or local sheriff or marshal who gave up and went freelance?

Kuroneko-sama - is missing!  Where is God?  What is she doing?  I have watched the first episode three times and is she there?  No!  The horror, nya!

Last thoughts!

I’ve spent the past few days watching and reading other reviews about Trigun Stampede.  This includes articles on media sites, ANN, Youtube reviews, Reddit and so forth.

Here’s what I’ve gathered

1.) There may indeed be a gender split on Meryl and Milly.  As in female fans are disappointed at the putative smashing of Meryl and Milly into one character as opposed to having two women in the main cast of four.  Roberto is also a jerk and not getting very positive reviews from women.  I think a lot of fans regardless of gender are upset at Milly’s absence but the Meryl/Roberto combo is rubbing a lot of people the wrong way for very valid reasons.  I just notice less male reviewers calling out how toxic and unprofessional Roberto’s behavior is and female viewers not keen on him at all.  Or they think Meryl is the exactly same serious career woman (sir, are we even watching the same show?).

2.) Many people were first introduced to Trigun via the dub on Adult Swim.  They were younger than me when they saw it and are from after the flex point where anime was more common and more accessible.   Some of them never watched in with the Japanese cast and didn’t get the experience of Wolfwood’s Kansai accent which gives him a bonus gold star for me.  I was already done with Trigun before the fandom had likely really solidified.  Watching things like Noir, reading Paradise Kiss, and FLCL dropping hard cash for the official DVDs after watching a file shared fan sub.  I have been told the English dub is good, but no Kansai accent.

3.) Excited by learning about the reboot at AX last summer, I watched all of the original to see if it still hit the feels.  It seems a lot of the people reacting to it haven’t gone back for a recent refresh which might make critiquing it a bit harder since several reviewers said that Meryl was a reporter from the start or can’t exactly remember what happened at various points. 

4.) Character designs are ruffling feathers.  I don’t have an issue with the CG.  I’m not a huge fan of it for animation, I prefer 2D but that is just style preference.  But the character designs for very distinct characters which have been tamed for sure.  Studio Orange is leaning hard into the sci fi element.  The manga and Madhouse were western first - by a long shot with sci fi in a distant second. 

5.) More major character role changes might be coming up. Meryl is a reporter.  And then in PV 2 we have a black screen where we can hear a voice say. “Who me?  I’m just an undertaker.”

Undertaker is specifically a British English term for a person who prepares bodies for burial or cremation.  The screen then pans to a wide expanse of the desert and we can see a figure carrying a cross.

As he walks closer it reveals Wolfwood walking forward with his fairly accurate humor.

However, if this is how he indeed introduces himself in the anime, it will have changed his actual job besides being an assassin/hired gun.

I’m not sure it could equal the comedy gold that this sequence was in episode 9.  You just know that Meryl skepticism is on the mark when she doesn’t seem to believe he’s who he says he is.

Fingers crossed, Wolfwood still gets that air of mystery by introducing himself as a priest/clergyman and not undertaker.  Vash already blew his mysterious background a bit in the first episode, at least let Wolfwood have some since there is the possibility they include the Eye of Michael in Stampede.  I saw you Livio in PV4.

Well that is all for now.  Episode 2 comes out tomorrow and we’ll see how it goes!

#trigun stampede #trigun anime #trigun #vash #vash the stampede #meryl stryfe #roberto deniro #milly thompson #kuronekosama #anime review #episode review

[skullaton]

Chapter 2: You should head back

Wally Darling / GN Reader Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8

Rating: M

Summary:

The city is full of people. Then why did it feel so lonely? Memories of clinking bottles and dazzling neon lights flickered through your mind. Misty, car filled streets with humans, but no humanity. A bridge and a phonebooth. And a sweet voice that wanted you to come home. You’ve wandered too far, and you don’t know how to get back. But don’t worry! You’ve made some friends from a colourful town that can help you!

TW: Childhood trauma, scopophobia, alcohol references AO3 link: here Wally logo by Clown

A low buzz of static hummed throughout your living room.

You were alone again.

It wasn’t new to be alone.

Your mom worked multiple shifts, and your teenage sister was often out late.

Your dad had been out of the picture for a long time.

You sat on the verdant shag rug as you leafed through the spines of old VHS tapes on your entertainment centre. Tempting titles such as Pokemon or Doraemon called for you to pick them, but there was one that you always meandered back to.

There was a worn, yellow plastic tape, the sticker long faded from years of use.

Welcome Home.

Your mom picked it out at a second-hand shoppe - probably to get you off her back while she shopped for other things.

It quickly became one of your favourite shows.

It felt like a nice little respite from the world. A home away from home.

You also loved the fact that the artist segment changes every time you watch it!

It must be a new feature for VCR players, because none of your other tapes did that!

You popped the VHS into the player, the gears winding the tape.

The rainbow show lit up the room, like a beacon of life in this dreary existence.

The opening title of the show rolled. You hummed to it as you got comfortable on the floor, your tiny legs kicking in the air as you lay on your stomach.

The segment started, the main character behind an easel peaking out, paintbrush in hand.

“Hello, neighbour!”

----

Your heavy eyelids blinked as consciousness pulled you out of your deep slumber. You sucked in a deep breath of air as you stretched your sore limbs.

What a day, yesterday.

You rolled to your side as the reality of waking up connected in your brain. You tiredly stared at the rows of storeroom shelves, internally cursing yourself.

Guess it was all real.

You fumbled out of your blanket cocoon and wobbled your way to the door. You were greeted with the same towering, multi-limbed creature from yesterday. There was something comforting about him today, though. He felt more realistic. Kind.

He was stocking his shelves dutifully before looking up to you. He held in a chuckle. “Good morning! You look like you slept well.”

You gave him a groggy ‘huh?’

He responded simply by pointing at your hair.

Your hand went up to touch the literal bird’s nest that sat on your scalp. You hurriedly ran your fingers through the locks, flattening out whatever imperfections. An embarrassed blush crossed your features.

He chuckled once again. “If you want, you can use the shower. I can find you a fresh pair of clothes.”

“You sell clothes?” Your sleepy voice cracked in surprise.

“More like I special order clothes for Julie. The only thing is that silly little girl always forgets to pick up her orders.”

You rubbed the sleep from your eyes. “Wouldn’t she be mad if you looked through her orders?”

He gave a dismissive wave of a hand as he moved his way to a few boxes behind the front counter. “If I told her that it was for you, she’d probably assume it was for ‘dress up party’ purposes. So I don’t think she’d mind.”

You tried not to think about the ethical and legal implications of going through your customer’s stuff. Arguing probably wouldn’t help you in this case.

He pulled out a pair of high waisted flare jeans and a muted rainbow top. He offered them with one set of hands, while the others went to seal the boxes back up.

Dang, multitasking to the extreme.

You gratefully accepted the clothes. “You sure this is okay…?”

He gave you a caring smile, dismissing your concern, “Go get washed up.”

You bowed your head in thanks, padding your way to the bathroom.

**

A shower will help you feel human again in this insane puppet world.

Turning on the faucet, hot steam clouded the tiny washroom. Dipping into the warm waters, you felt your woes and worries wash down the drain.

Your mind wandered to Howdy. He sure helped you a lot. His generosity knows no bounds. Maybe you should help him in some way? Maybe pay back your debt by cleaning up the bodega a bit?

Yeah, that sounds good. It must be hard being the only worker.

You stepped out of the shower, wrapping a spare towel around your body. You swiped a hand across the clouded mirror, giving a good look at yourself.

That husk of a human from last night looked more alive. Colour was back in your face, and the fine lines around your eyes seemed to have lightened.

Those retinol treatments you were doing probably helped a lot with your complexion.

Despite everything, you’re still you!

Tossing on the retro styled clothes, you embarked on the new day.

**

”What can I do to help?”

“Really, you don’t need to do anything.”

You released a stubborn sigh, arms folding across your chest. You stared at the bug man from across the counter. “I really want to help you, Howdy. I want to help pay off my debt.”

The salesman weighed the options. He gave a resigned sigh. “Alright, but you have to follow the price guides of the bodega!”

You quirked a brow. “Price guides?”

He gestured to the ‘100% off!’ sign on the window pane.

Your brows furrowed as you scoffed. “How does that even work?”

“Well, people pay in jokes, ideas, or observations!” He then pointed to an apple display adjacent to the front counter. A sign on it read ‘1 Apple for 1 Joke’.

There’s no way these silly Muppets live in capitalism-free town. “How does commerce even work, then? How do you pay for goods being imported to your shop?”

Howdy put a finger up to his lips as he smirked. “Trade secrets! Maybe you’ll find out some day, young Grasshopper!”

You released a defeated huff.

“Besides, there’s more to life then pointless currency. Sometimes the most valuable things are your friend’s company and wise words!”

They really did live in a commune. In a sense, you envied them.

The morning tolled on, and he instructed little things on how he ran the bodega. You helped by stocking some shelves and sweeping the floors. Before you knew it, it was midday.

The door chimed as a pair of customers sauntered in. Your breath hitched as you saw a 7 foot, bumbling blue dog plod through the doorway. You were tempted to hide behind a shelf,… that is, until your eyes landed on the shorter man walking behind him.

A smile stretched across your face, “Hello, Wally!”

The cardigan-clad puppet gave you an all-encompassing grin, “Hello, neighbour!”

“Oh, is this the kid you were talking about?” the dog rumbled in a deep baritone.

Your skin prickled at the term ‘kid.’ You were quite obviously not a kid.

Wally regarded the towering puppet with a nod. The giant mock Blue’s Clues character offered a wave, “Welcome to Home! The next Big City this side of the forest! I’m Barnaby, by the way.”

You assuaged the temporary anger and introduced yourself with a little wave. Howdy, who was behind the front counter, called out to the new patrons. “What can I get for you fellas?”

Barnaby put up two fingers, “Two hot dogs, please!”

“Two dogs wrapped in yellow and red bow ties, with all the fixin's, comin’ right up!” The caterpillar’s limbs went to work as he swiveled around to the hot dog machine. He loaded the dogs up with whipped cream, onions, ketchup, mustard, and a cherry.

Imagining the taste made you shiver.

He offered the food to the pair, while another set of hands punched in the order on the cash register. “And how will you be paying today?”

Barnaby gave a smug smile. “Why did the baby cookie cry?”

A pause.

“Its mother was a wafer so long.”

Howdy erupted in a boisterous laugh, one of his hands going down to slap his knee. Even you smirked at the atrocious dad joke. He rubbed a tear away from his eye as he regarded Wally. “And how about you?”

Wally gave his signature hum as he rolled his head to the side. “What do you call an insect who can’t get out of bed?”

You peered at him expectantly.

“A bedbug!”

Howdy offered a sympathetic chuckle, the joke not landing as hard as Barnaby’s. He punched the jokes on the register, the receipt screeching out as it was printed.

“You tried, fella,” Barnaby put a big paw on Wally’s shoulder.

“Can’t top the town jokester, after all,” the smaller puppet winked up at his friend and they both chuckled.

With hot dogs in hand, they started to make their way out. As Barnaby ducked out of of the tiny doorframe, Wally stood in place for a moment.

It felt like minutes pass until he finally regards you. “Would you like to come with us? We can introduce you to the rest of the neighbours.”

You bit the inside of your cheek as you considered. You still felt guilty about not paying back all of what Howdy has done for you.

“Go meet everyone, Grasshopper,” the voice next to you pulled you out of your thoughts, the new nickname cooling any form of anxiety that you harnessed. “You can’t figure out how to get out of here without friends, right?”

You offered Howdy a kind smile. “Thanks.”

He shooed you off with your new friend, allowing you to step free into the rainbow world of Home.

Wally and you caught up to Barnaby, who was happily snacking on his treat.

**

The three of you trekked throughout the colour radiant town, making pit stops in front of each of the townsfolk’s homes.

The first person you all ran into was the mailman, Eddie. He curtly greeted himself, but just as quickly excused himself to get back to work.

You watched him run off into the distance before regarding your friends. “You reckon he’d know the roads out of here?”

Wally tilted his head as he observed you, still just casually holding his hot dog. “I think his route takes him further from the City.”

You gave a sad, thoughtful hum before Wally and Barnaby, the persuasive of friends, convinced you to meet with every one of the neighbours.

Poppy, who lived in a barn, was elated to see you again. She gave praises and crooned over how you were a ‘poor lost duckling.’ She vowed to cook for you if you ever needed food for the trip.

The next new person was a literal star who lived in a theatre. Sally was an eccentric puppet who was working on a set for an upcoming play. When you spoke to her about your story, you can tell she was taking internal notes. Please, Sally, don’t make your lost voyage into a Shakespearean tragedy.

Julie was as excited as ever to see you again. She complimented your outfit, stating that it looks ‘oddly familiar.’ Hm. You wonder why. She offered if you needed anymore clothes, she’s always willing to play dress up.

Frank was out in his lawn, taking notes on a butterfly perched on a flower. You all decided not to bother him. Butterfly watching seemed stressful, as is.

Now you all stood in front of Barnaby’s doghouse. He was hungrily staring at Wally’s hot dog, who, to your humour, was carrying the snack around like it was a show and tell specimen.

“You going to finish that, buddy?” Barnaby rumbled.

Wally shook his head and offered the undisturbed snack to his friend. The dog practically wolfed the food down in a blink.

The yellow puppet clapped his hands to get the remaining crumbs off his palms while Barnaby wiped the remnants on his own forearm.

“I think this is a wonderful day to sun bathe,” Barnaby started before dipping into his yard. “You guys comin’?”

Wally hummed at the offer before shaking his head politely, “I still need to show them Home.”

Barnaby gave a carefree shrug, “Suit yourself. Y’know where to find me.” With that, he sauntered into his littered yard and found a nice batch of grass to plop down on.

You regarded Wally with a quirked brow, “’Home’? Isn’t that just the town name?”

He tutted with a tiny smirk, “Silly, silly.” He didn’t explain, instead marched up the hill to the centre of town. A red house sat on the crest, it’s windows watching you.

Wait… watching?

You stumbled back as you stifled a yelp, the giant windows blinking at your reaction. You tried to scramble behind the short puppet man.

He simply shook his head with a chuckle. He gestures to the sentient house, “This is Home! This is where I live!”

Home made some thumping noises in greeting.

You sucked in a breath as you watched in horror. Your hand came up to grasp your forehead. “Okay, I finally accepted puppets. Houses now? I must be dead. There’s no way this is real.”

“If you’re dead,” Wally looked back at you with sleepy eyes, voice nonchalant, “then this must be heaven!”

You swallowed thickly, not sure how to process his words. You sucked in another big breath to calm your trembling body and forced a weak wave at Home.

Home waved its shutters in greeting.

Well… it’s not trying to eat you like Monster House. Maybe it really isn’t that bad?

Wally broke his barrier between you and Home, making you feel exposed and vulnerable. He maneuvered his way to an easel that sat just outside his home. He placidly began to pack up the art supplies that was left outside. A half painted picture of an apple lay on the canvas, probably abandoned this morning as he opted to hang with Barnaby.

The tension you held in your shoulders ease as you watch his easygoing pace.

There really is a charm about him that can ease your worries.

He briefly glanced back to catch you staring, a soft smile gracing his plush lips. “Penny for your thoughts?”

A blush shot to your face as you looked away, embarrassed. Your heart hammered as you focused on anything but him. You cleared your throat as a thought began tumbling out, “It’s nice here, but I’m wondering if… maybe you have any suggestions on how to leave?”

Wally noticeably tenses. He was quiet for a few beats, his lazy eyes never leaving yours. “I suppose I can paint you a map! But…”

He paused, his expression softening, tone becoming more sympathetic. “It must have been pretty serious for you to get lost like you did. Do you really want to go back? You wouldn’t be a burden here in Home! You’re always welcome.”

It felt like time stood still as his words washed over you.

There was a heaviness to it all, something akin to scratching at a mental scab. A truth that you didn’t want to uncover the band aid of.

You stood in silence as you mulled over the implications.

He watched you as your thoughts clouded your features. He observed the storm in your brain get cloudier before deciding to intervene. He extended a hand out to caress your arm, the felt touch anchoring you back to reality. His voice was low and pleasant, “Take your time. It’s a big decision, and there’s no need to rush. I’ll be here for you if you need it.”

The pressure from your jaw released, the tension that built up now toppled like building blocks.

He really was a good person.

“Thank you, Wally.”

He only offered a cute feline-like smile. **

It wasn’t long before the sky became a vibrant array of pinks and blues. The sun was settling just over the horizon as you and Wally decided to part from each other.

You made your way back to Howdy’s Place, giving the caterpillar a quiet greeting. He was starting to close up shop, and you decided to help him - much to his dismay.

With the two of you, the shop was closed and cleaned in record time.

He wiped the sweat off his brow, his face bearing a proud smile. “You really help a lot, young grasshopper.”

You shrugged. “It’s the least I can do.”

He shook his head with a chuckle. “You should eat some food. I think I have a spare salad in the back.”

You blinked at the thought of eating. Come to think of it, you didn’t feel hungry at all today.

How strange.

You decided to chock it up to stress from a new environment.

You thanked him for his generosity before wishing him a good night. You dipped into the backroom to locate the fresh greens. Chomping on the leaves, your mind wandered to the day.

The day felt… nice. Almost surreal.

You almost felt like you belonged.

But… you really should head home.

… Right … ?

#wally darling / reader #wally darling x reader #welcome home #welcome home fanfic #wally darling #wh wally darling #wally darling x you #tw childhood trauma #tw scopophobia #tw alcohol #writing

[scullyverse]

Day 30: Favorite

Prompt: Mutual Masturbation & Watching Porn Pairing: Mulder/Scully Rating: Explicit Words: 1,834 AO3 Link || Masterlist

🖤 Content warnings; mulder/scully, smut, plot what plot/porn without plot, shameless smut, fluff, smut and fluff, mutual masturbation, vaginal fingering, handjobs, watching porn 🖤

Mulder and Scully watch one of Mulder’s favorite tapes and they just can’t help themselves.

“Do you have a favorite?”

Mulder pauses, his towel still drying his wet hair. 

Scully’s standing in front of his video collection, fingers brushing over the spines of VHS titles that would cause some women to blush. But of course, she’s not blushing. Her eyes are looking at him curiously with a hint of excitement hidden just beneath her increasingly dilating pupils. He doesn’t quite know what to say, just gawks at her and tosses his towel onto the couch.

“Yeah, I guess,” He shrugs off the comment, knowing that she’s probably trying to be somewhat polite.

They’d only just started having these ‘sleepovers’ and Mulder doesn't want to make her uncomfortable by opening up the can of worms that was his rather eclectic porn collection. He’s discovered that Scully is anything but a prude, in fact, she’s taken him by surprise with her sexual appetite, but he also knows there are videos there that even he is slightly put off by — call it some bad investments.

She’s biting her bottom lip and Mulder feels a twinge of arousal stirring in his groin. Goddamn, Scully.

“Could we watch it?” She asks and it’s strange to see her look so shy all of a sudden, so small in his oversized Knicks shirt.

Mulder’s sure he probably looks like his fish, mouth opening and closing in a mixture of shock and surprise. Well, he hadn’t been expecting that, that’s for sure, and now that twinge in his groin feels more like a constant throb.

Did Scully really want to watch porn with me? Am I dead? I must have slipped in the shower and hit my head…

“Mulder?” Scully teases with a playful smirk.

“Huh?” Mulder’s brain seems to be coming up empty and he chuckles when she giggles at his lack of an eloquent reply.

“Can we watch it? She asks again and sits down on the couch — on the left side, her side — and crosses her legs. “I haven’t watched porn since college and I’m curious to see if they’ve gotten any better.”

It amazes him that she can be so casual about this while he’s struggling to form a coherent sentence and will his body not to give away how excited he is at the prospect of watching porn with Scully. Scully, who would be sitting next to him and wearing his shirt — she knows that kills me — and nothing but her underwear underneath.

“Yeah, okay,” Mulder manages to get out and smiles somewhat bashfully when Scully grins at his inability to think.

She grabs the beer that’s been waiting for her on the coffee table as Mulder pries the video from the shelf; a plain black box that hides something that means so much to him in some weird, sentimental way. I hope I remembered to rewind it after last time.

Once the video’s ready, they get into their usual position — Scully curling up to his side — and both seem to nervously sip their beers as they wait for it to start. It’s nothing fancy, nothing high budget or built on the foundation of a story that has no business being in a porno, but the realness makes it one of his favorites. There’s an amateur quality to it, a home filmed movie between two people who clearly love each other, that had filled an emotional void in his life before Scully came along.

They’re silent, Mulder quickly sculling his beer as he watches the couple languidly kiss and roll their hips, seeking friction. There’s no cheesy music, just the wet sounds of lips and soft moans and he dares to flicker his eyes over to gauge Scully’s reaction.

He's not sure what he expected to see; maybe a roll of her eyes or a general disappointment that it didn’t raise the expectations set in college. But he hadn’t expected her genuine interest, beer cradled in her hands as her cheeks grow redder with her growing arousal.

“Oh,” She whispers. “ I wasn’t expecting it to be this…arousing.”

Her body feels warm next to him as he takes another sip of his beer to help swallow down his own growing arousal. He’s glad he chose to wear loose sweatpants — not so glad that I opted to go commando, though.

“Yeah?” He asks as Scully looks at him.

“Yeah,” Scully puts her beer down and focuses back on the screen as her hand rests comfortably on his thigh.

The couple starts to get serious, the copious amount of foreplay finished as their growing hunger takes over and Mulder feels his cock start to react. He knows what’s coming but he can’t lie to himself and say it's solely down to that. A lot of it was to do with the fact that Scully was sliding her hand down to massage his inner thighs, her eyes glued onto the screen as the man slides deep inside his lover with a single thrust and Mulder swears he hears Scully moan.

“I didn’t think I would get this wet.”

Holy shit.

If his cock wasn’t hard before, it certainly is now.

Mulder raises his brow to look over at her and she bites her bottom lip with a shy smile. 

“Hmm, really?” He’s aware of the moaning on the video — barely — as his eyes shift down with a lustful pout when he sees how hard her nipples are through his shirt.

“Really,” She replies and before he can comprehend her answer, her fingers are delicately teasing his cock through the cotton of his pants.

As things heat up on the screen, they heat up on Mulder’s couch too, and it doesn’t take long for Scully to shift her hips in eager invitation as she continues to squeeze and caress his cock.

The angle is a bit awkward and her underwear makes touching her difficult, but she seems to enjoy it; if the subtle wiggle of her lips and shallow breaths are anything to go off. Mulder has to admit that he’s enjoying himself too, her touch infinitely better than any he could ever give himself.

“Mmm,” Scully whimpers when Mulder’s fingers slide effortlessly over her clit.

She wasn’t lying, she’s fucking soaked.

—— xxx ——

Mulder’s not even aware of the video anymore. 

His concentration is purely on Scully as she sits opposite him with her feet tucked up at his shoulder and her pussy so close that he feels her heat radiating onto his balls. His thumb is gentle and slow as it rolls over her clit, skin glistening with her arousal and every flick is rewarded with a breathy moan.

There’s no urgency between them and Mulder succumbs to seeing her watch him with dark eyes and heaving chest, blushed and freckled. He can’t even remember when they got undressed. Her fingers are heavenly as they match his rhythm, slow but confident, stroking his cock and tickling under his swollen head with the blunt of her nails.

Dipping his thumb down, he easily slips inside of her and he marvels at the cause and effect; her head tipping back and her lips parting with a breathless sigh. Her hand stalls for a few fleeting moments as she relents to her pleasure but he doesn’t care. At this moment his own pleasure just seems like an afterthought.

Mulder slides his thumb back up and circles her clit again, just how he’s memorized she likes it. Slow, small circles. Scully’s eyes are back on him as she shuffles closer and he bites back a groan when her pussy rests flush against him, like the most delicious temptation that’s just out of reach but close enough to make him dizzy.

She’s getting more unhinged, fingers sloppy and uncoordinated on his cock — like it matters, I’m already embarrassingly close — as he speeds up. It doesn’t take much, but even the slightest increase in pace is enough for her to suck in a breath.

“O-Oh,” She whispers and it’s barely audible over the increasing moans on the television.

His fingers fan out over her mons, gliding through trimmed curls, as he dips his thumb back inside just as her orgasm creeps up on her. Her head falls back and she fights off her pleasure for a few seconds, hand reluctant to stop stroking him until it’s too much and she can’t fight anymore.

“Ah...” Scully moans and Mulder bits his bottom lip at the sound. I know that sound.

Scully’s spasms softly around his thumb and he feels like the luckiest man alive. She’s never overly vocal in bed; but every whimper, moan and pant are as loud to him as the most visceral of screams. He brings her down, pulsing in and out slowly, until her thighs still his hand and he pulls out.

He’s not even aware of his own aching arousal until her fingers wrap around him with a renewed reverence and Mulder’s hips hollow as he bites his lips to stop himself from blowing it too early. It wouldn’t really be too early, but he stubbornly never wants this moment to end.

But with a skilled squeeze to the head of his cock, he knows it’s all over.

He chants her name under his breath — Scully, Scully, Scully — and urges her to keep going with a gesture of his hand. And then he’s there, his body falling back onto the couch as his cock throbs wildly in her hand, shooting his come onto his stomach.

The pleasure is white-hot and all-consuming and he rumbles his approval in his chest. Though nearly as soon as it began, it’s ending and he cracks open his eyes to see her gently stroking him with a post-coital grin on her face.

The room’s silent, save for the crackle of static coming from the television and it makes him chuckle to himself that he can’t even remember when the video had finished.

Scully untangles herself and stands — albeit on wobbly legs — and hands him a few tissues and he cleans himself off as she takes the last sips of her beer. He smiles blissfully, playfully slapping her ass and tugging her back down to him.

“Mulder!” She giggles and tumbles onto him willingly, playfully trying to wrestle out of his grip. “Let go!”

“Never,” He grins and wraps his arms and legs around her to hold her in place.

Her giggles turn into a wholesome laugh as she buries her face into his chest and relaxes into his embrace, her hair tickling his skin.

The leather of his couch is sticking uncomfortably to his ass but like hell he was going to move.

Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time I’d have to get the couch cleaned.

“You know…I think there’s a part two of that movie here somewhere…” His fingers move down to knead the supple flesh of her ass.

The wiggle of her hips, devious look in her eyes and the corresponding stirring of his cock seemed to agree. Like hell he was going to move anywhere anytime soon.

#svkinktober2022 #kinktober #kinktober 2022 #fox mulder #dana scully #danaxfoxfic

[potterandpromises]

where the spirit meets the bones

This is different from what I usually write, in style, structure and content. I hope some of you like it nonetheless!

Also on AO3

The trouble began twice, first in 1980 in Pula, Croatia when Lorena saw her first ghost, then again on a crisp October morning in 2014 when Lorena sees another of herself, dazed and staring at her from across the kitchen table.

Most ghosts just want someone to share their pain. Most are happy to share by talking. 

Other ghosts, of all sorts but very often young men who died by violence, severely want to affect the world. They want to cause pain, and she’s always been the only part of the world who could see and hear them. She’s never met one who wasn’t surprised, who said: ‘ah, I’ve met people like you before.’

Often, she is happy to talk. In fact, she loves to help solve the occasional murder or missing persons case via information passed between a ghost and her and the anonymous tip lines. But not always. Sometimes, for example, she is taking her daughter to the park, yet can’t help looking at nothing for a little too long to try and guess the era of their clothing. Some ghosts will then shout at her and she tries not to look or flinch or react in anyway, but that is thus far impossible.

For her part, other Lorena, ghost Lorena, who happens to be dressed in the same pale pink nightgown as the living Lorena, does not speak. She watches.

The living Lorena does not speak to her either. Not because Iris is also at the table— she doesn’t know anything other then her mother speaking to no one, and honestly Lorena isn’t ready to rule out the possibility that she too will one day see ghosts— but because, just as Lorena has decided that ‘what are you doing here?’ is as good an introduction as any in this situation, Iris spills her juice cup into her cereal bowl and the bowl’s rattle echoes the room like a gunshot and anyway, Lorena does acknowledge she may still be crazy even if she is satisfied with faith and other explanations.

She doesn’t mention it to Garcia when he kisses her goodbye, either, because it is entirely possible she will go away. Not all ghosts mean to be where they are, and curiously, they can not just teleport.

She does go away.

Or, more precisely, Lorena catches a glimpse of her silvery form in the backseat of her husband’s car, next to Iris in her car seat, ready for kindergarten.

-

God knows she is open to other possibilities but basically, she’s been aware of ghosts for 34 years and she knows one when she sees one.

She is dead.

She is also alive.

Her ghost walks up to her at her desk towards the end of her work day. She tells herself: “hello.”

She does not answer, but her pupils, in her wobbly, watery form, do slide in the direction of her lips.

“Can you hear me?”

The other Lorena tilts her head a little, focuses more on her lips. Otherwise she is very still. Lorena has never been that still in her life.

“Did you call for me?” Lorena’s coworker, Craig, pokes his head through the door.

She smiles, tight-lipped. “No.”

So, ghost Lorena is deaf. Her vision seems to be intact. So far Lorena’s only theories are a collision of dimensions or a Dickens-esque message from God.

Some ghosts remember their lives very well. Others do not. Lorena has always suspected this is for the best. She tests her ghost’s memory.

She thinks for a moment, is startled by the window into that recent time in her life, holds up her hand and makes the appropriate shape.

Ghost Lorena perks up and signs back. Hi.

They both remember.

Lorena taught Iris baby sign language from a VHS tape and pamphlet she brought at the library discard sale. It’s not a proper language, she cannot, for example, ask herself how she died like she could if she knew ASL or Croatian Sign Language, but it should make simple communication easier then if she had to write absolutely everything or expect the other Lorena to read lips on top of everything else.

They smile at each other.

-

She picks Iris up from school and they spend the afternoon sticking pieces of construction paper together.

“Did you want me to use up the fish?”

Her ghost self is watching them, and she thinks, absurdly, despite all her experience: doesn’t she have anything else to do?

“What?”

“For dinner?” Garcia says, watches her more closely.

She shakes her head a little. “Anything’s fine.”

“Are you seeing ghosts?” he asks, tentative.

“Later,” she says, and turns back to Iris.

-

Iris wants them both at bedtime again. She’s developing a cough and Lorena does not, today, push anyone to be alone.

The other Lorena watches so very sadly, her face coming back in expression if not in color. She does consider gesturing for her to glide through the wall, just for a moment of privacy, but finds that she can not begrudge her this, although boundaries will likely be needed if she is not ready or perhaps not able in any sense to cross over.

“One more,” Iris says. “One more story?”

“One more goodnight,” Garcia says. “Two more goodnights.” He sets her plush stuffed snowy owl into the crock of her elbow. “Three more goodnights.” He kisses the top of her forehead and pulls away. Lorena follows suit, finds that she feels a bit out of body herself, and all three of them— Iris stays— make their way into their bedroom. Ghost Lorena takes the way through the walls and is there by the time her and Garcia open the door.

Garcia flicks his tongue, looks into her eyes, waits for her to share whatever crazy impossible thing she’s seen today.

“I, um.” She knows he believes her, took some time to wrap his head around it in the beginning but has always listened. Still, this is asking a lot.

“Are you alright?”

Lorena considers the ghost, looks at her own hand, her fingers splaying. “I mean, yeah. Now I am.”

That does not alleviate his concern. 

Ghosts cannot touch people, even her, or animals or other ghosts. There are no exceptions that she’s seen or been told about, and she does ask plenty of different ghosts the same questions to be sure. Garcia also knows however, about that one very creative former teenage girl who discovered that by merging with the insides of Lorena’s car then sort of jumping in front of it, she could almost murder her.

“There is,” she glances down at the off-red carpet that she’s always disliked, then back at him with conviction, “a ghost right across the room.” She gestures in the ghost’s general direction. Ghost Lorena is looking at Garcia.

“Is it,” he starts. “Are they anyone we know?”

If anything, he looks relieved. It wasn’t a near accident or a near involuntary hospital stay or any of the things she’s had nightmares of ghosts doing to her come awake.

She had, in the past, seen his mother, back when Iris was a newborn. Her and Lorena had talked. Maria and Garcia had talked with Lorena as the go between. She’d gotten to meet her grandchild even if her grandchild hadn’t quite met her. She’d stayed for awhile. Maria and Garcia settled things between them.

Lorena bites her lip. “Sort of. I— it’s me, Garcia, I’m looking at myself, right there, as a ghost.”

Several things cross his face. He works his jaw. “But, you’re not dead,” he tries.

The other Lorena may not be able to hear but she must guess what’s going on by their faces because she reaches for Garcia’s forearm and her hand flutters through him.

“She’s trying to touch you.”

He looks around as if he might see.

There’s a look of devastation and increasing desperation on her other face that Lorena hopes she herself never feels but knows in her bones she will.

“it’s okay. It’ll be okay.” Although if anything she guesses it won’t be and certainly not for this other self— well, not yet, anyway. She could still cross over.

He runs a hand through his hair, pulls at it. “Have you asked her,” his voice falters, “I don’t know, what’s going on?”

“She can’t hear and I don’t think she can talk.” Lorena did not see her sit down at the table but that doesn’t mean she appeared there. She imagines her ghost waking up for the first time in her bed, with her and Garcia still in it, sitting up and screaming and triggering no effect. “I think it’s because she’s from another dimension, I guess?”

Another timeline? Another somewhere? She’d heard of those theories but has never considered it as an actuality. Mostly, she wants to know why. But if there’s a warning or an explanation to give, if that’s the reason she’s here, if she even knows why she’s here, then Lorena suspects she’d be able to tell her.

“Another dimension,” Garcia echoes.

“Or something like that, I think. This hasn’t ever happened before. I’ve never seen anyone I know is alive.

And she does look them up, if they give a name. She doesn’t always find proof of death but she’s never found proof of life. That’s why most days she’s at least 95% sure she isn’t crazy, or if she is, then the craziness is divine in nature and not actually a bad thing.

“I’m going to try writing down some yes or no questions, see if she can tell us anything.”

“Right,” Garcia says, and repeats: “right.”

Lorena thinks maybe she should’ve waited to drop that bomb until the weekend, let him sleep a few more nights, but Iris’ cough worsens and it turns out not to matter.

They both get up. All three of them go to her room. When Iris falls asleep in Lorena’s lap she asks him to find papers, a pen, the whiteboard and dry erase markers.

“Write down: ‘why are you here?’”

He writes what she says on one of the sheets of printer paper, hesitates, becomes stiff. “We need to ask her how she died.”

Meanwhile, ghost Lorena has perked up at the sight of words she can understand and is alternating between shrugging and shaking her head.

“Yeah, I— I guess. I do want to know, but I also can’t unknow, or know if I’ll die the same way she did or not.”

Iris stirs in her lap. “Mama, what are you talking about?” Her voice has grown froggy since they put her to bed.

Garcia answers. “Nothing, sweetheart, just some, ah, theoretics.”

Iris wrinkles her nose, both at the dental of adult information and at the unfamiliar word.

They wait in silence for a few minutes. Lorena strokes Iris’ hair. Garcia’s eyes take in every inch of her holding their sleeping child, committing her to memory.

“Wait,” he says, low and hoarse. “How did— how does she look? Does she look old?”

“No,” she glances at the ghost, who’s frowning, arms crossed. Being a ghost obscures wrinkles and sunspots noticed later in pictures from life, but her ghost isn’t significantly older then she is now. “She could be a little older, maybe, but she looks like I do now.” She is, of course, still wearing Lorena’s clothes, although no longer the clothes currently on her body.

“Do ghosts always look how they do when they die?” he asks. “I know you said the injuries can disappear, that what killed them isn’t usually visible. But do they ever look younger?”

She realizes she’s only ever described ghosts very generally except for his mother. He knew the shimmer and the haze and ripples through the walls like water from his mother only, and she’s almost always been open, and they’ve known each other for how long?

“No, they always look how they looked when they died expect for the injuries that never had a chance to heal into scars.” She’s met her fair share of thin and bald ghosts.

She can see him silently curse.

She lets the silence hang.

Iris’ other mother takes a few steps and tries to run her fingers through her baby’s hair and it’s probably a coincidence, but Iris stirs and sighs.

Garcia watches her track the nonexistent movement of her ghost stepping back. “Maybe she’s here so we can prevent it.”

“Maybe she’s here so we can give her peace somehow.” If there are multiple universes and multiple versions of herself, and this is the version where she lived and didn’t leave her child without a mother, then maybe the other Lorena will feel better just knowing that? But she hasn’t left yet, and if she doesn’t know why she’s here, Lorena suspects she isn’t close to satisfied.

“I need to know,” he says. “Even if knowing will make it worse I need to know.”

So they come up with the common ways to die, split into the categories of illness, accident, and murder, figuring the beauty of the whiteboard is that they can write down more specific questions once it’s narrowed down into a category.

Ghost Lorena looks on with enthusiasm.

But before she learns how her other self died and forgets her curiosities, Lorena insists Garcia first write down some simple questions about how the universe works because even though she suspects her ghost has not reached unity with God, she does not know for sure, and therefore must ask.

Future conversations ready, Garcia begins to write in huge capital letters on the fateful whiteboard and before he even finishes ghost Lorena is jabbing her finger through the word murder; in and out several times like tapping, so excited to finally tell someone even if it’s just herself.

Then she points to Iris.

Then to Lorena, then Iris, then Lorena then back at herself and at the word murder and at all three of them and at the word murder and not at Garcia and at the word murder and makes it so clear—

“Lorena?”

She pulls Iris up into her arms without meaning to. Her baby whimpers and with no warning Lorena bursts into tears.

Garcia crawls across the bed and she does not tell him because she wants him to keep writing questions and she does not tell him because she can’t breathe.

“Mama?”

She doesn’t tell him because Iris is crying now too and she thinks he might be as well and she knows nothing will ever be the same again and she knows it’s Wednesday night and neither of them will be going to work until at least Monday.

-

When no one’s sobbing and Lorena can mostly see again, although her eyes are tired, ghost Lorena puts a finger through the word fate and shrugs in an exaggerated manner.

-

Of course she tells him, whispers it in his ear in the middle of the night. She cannot hide the details of her pain and supposes her dead self and her living self have a lot in common.

He sucks in a breath. Iris is breathing inches from their faces, asleep and oblivious on his chest.

“She made it clear she doesn’t know what that means for us.”

Garcia doesn’t reply but reaches up and strokes Iris’ hair.

-

In the morning of her confused, shadow mourning, Lorena hears Garcia start to tell Iris that last night was nothing to worry about. Mamas get upset too, just like how Iris gets upset and she assumes he says it’s a normal part of life or whatever but she doesn’t stay to find out. She goes and sits on the porch for reasons she’s too tired to name.

Her ghost does not follow her, which is great because her ghost watched her whole family sleep last night and if she joined her now Lorena would start screaming.

It is, of course, not actually true that Lorena is normal. Iris will learn that in the coming years, or the coming days, weeks, seconds.

She pays attention to her breathing and begins to calm. Yes, her own ghost appeared and told her that her very alive child is (was?) dead. But actually, everything is fine, for now.

As if on sick queue, a mother pushes a stroller up the street. A little ghost, maybe seven years old, skips behind them.

The only dead children Lorena’s talked to were either murdered, said they were scared to leave their families or both.

She goes back inside.

Her ghost is standing by the calendar, waving her over as if ushering a plane landing. Lorena offers herself a tight lipped smile.

She points to a date, two days ago. The last day before she appeared, Lorena slowly realizes. Her ghost makes a cutting motion at her throat, then points to her chest, sort of spreads her hand in front, as if to reassure Lorena that the thing that was severed wasn’t her throat.

Lorena finds that she doesn’t really care how exactly it happened but does care how quickly and if her baby was in pain—

Iris must have died first, Lorena realizes, because her ghost doesn’t know anything about fate or God or why she’s here so Iris must have died first and during the last moment of her life she must have known her child was dead.

Her ghost signs: good, and it takes her several dull seconds to figure out what could possibly be good until her impatient ghost points again to the dates on the calendar. The day before she arrived and now and the days in between. It’s a good sign that her and Iris aren’t dead yet; a sign against insurmountable, unchangeable fate.

She gives her ghost a thumbs up.

-

No one dies who isn’t already dead. Iris gets sicker, then better, and the four of them settle into a routine. Her and Garcia begin to sleep longer if not deeper and Iris goes back to her own bed.

Lorena does a little research on Alternative and Augmentative Communication. She comes up with a white board full of words relevant to ghosts. Living with her ghost is a bit like having a new pet. It’s like taking in the shaggiest stray after finding it scavenging in the trash. It’s like figuring out the complex emotional needs of a raccoon, except the raccoon somehow actually is her, and also a constant reminder that she knows nothing, other then the fact that she and everyone she loves in the world will someday soon be dead too.

She also writes down ground rules, one rule per sheet of paper, and tapes them above her and Garcia’s bed. The rules include, ironically, staying out of the bedroom at night.

She does not, however, tell her ghost she can’t go to Iris’ room. Ghosts can’t sleep. It’d be inhumane to stop her from looking at her child for as long as she can. It would also be impossible. 

Lorena does imagine Iris, some night over dinner, talking about her other mother. Although she doesn’t actually have any basis to believe the ability to see and hear ghosts is genetic, she always thought, in the way of parents, that her child might be like her.

Her own mother told her not to talk to anyone about the silvery, shiny people. So she didn’t. The only person she ever told for the first time as an adult was Garcia, and that was only because he heard her losing it at an uncommonly obnoxious ghost outside a bar she didn’t want to be at and he found her alone.

She did ask once, in her 20s, if her mother saw them too. She said no, she didn’t, that yes she always believed Lorena, and that for people like her, who knew things no one else knew, staying quiet was staying safe. If she told people what she knew she’d be lucky if she was dismissed. She’d be lucky if it made her an outcast with no friends. People like her were institutionalized. People like her were martyred before they were ventured.

The thing is, outside of the rare moments right after she is told about the car in the river, the blood soaked mattress, the bones under the moss, Lorena doesn’t feel like she has any special knowledge.

Ghosts don’t have any special knowledge beyond their own lives, deaths, and afterlives. For a few she’s met, it’s been so long that they barely remember a time before all this strangeness.

She hardly remembers a time before all this.

-

The better part of a year passes and they try to adopt a dog, but Lorena’s ghost comes with and the Labrador mix known as Maggie barks and lunges at her.

Her jaws snap through her translucent silver target, and she pauses for a moment, utterly perplexed. She turns and barks at the living Lorena instead.

“I’m so sorry.” The SPCA worker tugs on Maggie’s leach, guides her to the gate. “I’ve never seen her like this before. She’s always been friendly.”

Iris buries her face in Lorena’s hip.

“Not everyone can get along,” Garcia reassures.

They get a hamster instead.

-

Ghost Lorena grows bolder and experiments with her non-body. She messes around, half stomps through the floor then pulls herself back up. She punches perfectly nice strangers in the face just to get a reaction out of her living counterpart.

Lorena watches herself silently cackle that day in the coffee shop. She wants her ghost to heal, but also to be happy, whatever that means for her.

She can’t feel it when ghosts touch or move through her. Nothing. No coldness. Not even a twinge. She used to think there was something small there, a sensation like tickling, goosebumps almost. But this feeling, when it exists, is supplied by her subconscious. The matter is settled for her one evening when she is cooking dinner, and she glances down to see a silver hand with splayed fingers sticking out of her abdomen.

She gasps like she’s been stabbed, drops her spatula and burns herself.

She yells at her ghost, not that it does literally anything. But she does not stay mad for long, because it’s all exactly what she would have done in that position. And she writes it down, the fact that she really didn’t feel anything, because had the roles been revered she’d want to know.

Her ghost continues to pull pranks using her inability to manipulate objects, but to her credit, exercises better judgment most of the time.

-

The routines work. Anything can become normal. 

The hamster grows old and Iris grows taller. Lorena and Garcia watch her grow. Lorena’s ghost watches her grow, too. She isn’t fated to die at five and life goes on.

One evening, as Lorena is folding laundry, her ghost stands by the whiteboard and shoves a finger through the word go. She then makes a movement with her hands that Lorena can’t decipher.

She shrugs and shakes her head, mouths her lack of comprehension.

Ghost Lorena jumps and flaps her arms like wings. For several seconds, Lorena thinks her ghost is telling her she’s about to cross over. That’s fine. That’s great. Lorena figured and hoped that she would be ready and able eventually, but grief surprises her, twinges in her midsection.

Frustrated, her ghost changes her gesture, more clearly mimics a plane.

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Lorena says out loud.

Ghost Lorena signs: more. More words. Lorena learns after several minutes that her ghost plans to visit Alaska for an as-yet-unknown length of time. She may go elsewhere, too, but then she’s coming back.

Lorena has never wanted what little ghosts have, except for right now, at the thought of not being bothered by cramped airplanes, of riding the wing of the plane over Alaska, of walking right through TSA, invisible and invincible.

With a pink marker in big letters she writes: I am so happy for you!

-

Her ghost leaves, and comes back, and leaves and returns again, and tells Lorena as much as she can about her trips. It isn’t life. Lorena is not informed of any epic ghost love stories. But it is something. It’s what her ghost needs, and she seems sort of happy, certainly less burdened, as time goes on.

Years pass in that way, four since her ghost arrived, and one morning in late summer she wakes up and finds her ghost gone.

She’s stringent about communication, has never been gone more then a few hours without telling Lorena first.

She guesses, senses the permanence of her absence, and although she expected to get a goodbye like with Maria, she’s at peace with it.

Except Garcia isn’t in bed when she wakes up. He didn’t leave a note. She calls him, expects to find out he needed to go into work early even as her anxiety worsens. 

He isn’t at work. He isn’t dying of a brain bleed at he bottom of the basement  stairs.

The neighbors didn’t see him leave the house.

#timeless #lorynn #lorena flynn #garcia flynn #iris flynn #fanfiction #my fanfic tag #fic: where the spirit meets the bones #this was inspired by reading the dead romantics #(which i don’t really recommend; it was just okay) #i wrote the first draft on impulse in more or less one session #and held back when editing in order to preserve the dashed off style #quite a different writing experience for me

[adultswim2021]

Moral Orel #28: “Orel's Movie Premiere” | July 2, 2007 - 12:15AM | S02E18

Orel has been working on his masterpiece: a stop-motion animation movie about his adventures. He’s invited all of Moralton’s respected adults to the premiere while he and several children are doing the voices on live microphones. Orel’s film doesn’t have synchronized sound and is being projected with an old school projector. This begs the question: what year does Moral Orel take place in? I’m not sure I’ve actually brought this point up before, but the technology in Moral Orel seems to roughly be mid-20th Century, think 1950s-1960s. For example: when people play music it’s always on a vinyl record or over the radio. I can’t even recall an instance of a VHS tape being on the show. I’m guessing this is meant to match the setting of Davey and Goliath, which (begins sweating) THIS SHOW IS 100% NOT A PARODY OF. Sometimes you hear an out-of-time Christian death metal song, and Stephanie, the sex shop owner, has a lot of Suicide-Girl-esque body mods that don’t exactly scream 1950s. My guess is that it’s set in the mid-60s until it’s inconvenient, or Moralton’s strict codes for living prevent technological advancements.

Anyway, the film roughly tells the events of The Lord's Greatest Gift, God's Chef, and Charity. These very important events in Orel’s life happen to be the first three episodes (in the intended viewing/production order). Orel innocently reveals a little too much about the personal lives of various adults sitting in attendance. In particular he bumps up against the psyche of Reverend Putty, who he describes as a great man who is so pious that he doesn’t need to have any girlfriends ever. Putty’s inability to get his dick wet has been a running gag in the show up until this point. He does get his bone on in the previous episode, which might undermine the joke here. It’s important to note that this episode was actually scheduled to air BEFORE that episode, but as far as I can tell the widely-accepted episode order for the series is production-order for season one and air-date order for season two. It makes enough sense.

I guess the more important thing to notice here is that Orel considers the events of the first episode (as well as the following ones) to be a significant moment of his life; perhaps it’s the moment he saw himself coming of age. These events will also weigh heavy for other citizens of Moralton in the coming season, and only then do people start to reckon with the various things they’ve been through as a town.

One memorable moment features Orel’s expressionistic portrayal of being spanked by his father, involving an actual human-sized belt wrapping around his clay maquette as if it were a giant snake. This causes Moralton’s doctor (I forget his name! SO SUE ME) to question if Clay is molesting his son. Clay is aghast and disgusted. It’s sort of a strange moment for me, it would seem gratuitous unless they were intending to center the series climax on this uncomfortable idea. But it seems like he’s not molesting him? Like, he shouldn’t be spanking Orel but it does seem like he’s punishing him in a socially acceptable way. I don’t know. I might be watching season three a little more closely now. I wonder if Dino originally wanted to go full-on Todd Solondz with season three?

At one point (midway through the second act of Orel’s film), Joe takes the microphones away from the other kids and mocks the film while everyone gets mad at him. He calls out the librarian for making eggs be illegal, and calls out Principal Fakey for having an affair with “the dumbest girl ever” (Nurse Bendy). This is ironic foreshadowing for season three. He also has a passing mention of not liking to think about the inevitability of death (who does?). This anxiety could also be related to the fact that his father is very elderly and close to dying himself. This is explored more in season three.

In addition to those bits of continuity, there’s a nod to casual viewers’ penchant for mixing up the name of our protagonist, Orel, when Doughy flubs a line by calling him “Moral”. Ironically this episode is currently incorrectly titled “Moral’s Movie Premeire” on Amazon’s digital service. They also list the episodes in strict production order, which fucks up a lot of continuity. Don’t watch it in amazon order, people. HBOMax seems like they have it all sorted out correctly, for what it’s worth.

This is a very funny episode, and it goes down easy. This MIGHT be the last episode of the show that does that. Get ready for “Nature’, everyone. 

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #moral orel

[perryvonvicious]

Completing a Toy Collection After 35 Years!

Right from the start, I want to address the fact that the title I've chosen here is, indeed, clickbait... sort of.

When I was just 2 years old, another little boy at my babysitter's house brought a VHS tape his parent had recorded off TV... the event in question? 1986's Return of the Monster Trucks! Our babysitter put it on for us, and my life changed. For years thereafter, monster trucks became an obsession for me. That same day, I came home from the sitter's and I would not stop asking my parents for monster trucks. They had no clue what a monster truck even was, but I was 2, and it was the first time I found a unique interest all on my own, so they wanted to indulge me.

My parents played monster trucks with me, using whatever toys we had that could approximate monster trucks or crushed cars. It might mean me crawling over paper grocery bags to "crush" them, or my dad helping me make trails and tracks in the sandbox for my Tonka trucks to race through. But the only actual monster truck item they could find for me, was having the mother of that other boy make a dubbed copy of Return of the Monster Trucks so my little brother and I could watch it at home.

It wasn't until my 3rd birthday that my parents found, hanging on the pegs of the toy aisle in Ames department store, Matchbox monster truck toys ACTUALLY BASED ON THE VERY TRUCKS FROM MY VIDEO TAPE! The toy series was called the Matchbox Super Chargers. I can't actually recall my reaction when I opened those presents, but I can, at age 38, remember exactly what I got: Bigfoot, USA-1, Awesome Kong II, and Rollin' Thunder!

I would get many other monster truck toys over the years, some from the same series, some from its sister series (Monster Wars), and still others from off-brand toy makers who pretty blatantly copied everything about these toys' stylistically... but those first 4 toys were always my favorites.

Years went by, and my obsession with monster trucks faded into the background as I discovered other things in life: wrestling, music, books, abstract art, Disney Parks, filmmaking, weight lifting... and, of course, girls. My toys left the toy box and entered a cardboard box. At some point, likely while I was in college, I agreed to give them away to my (now ex-) girlfriend's baby brother. He was a good kid, probably 8 at the time, and he LOVED monster trucks. They went to a good home.

Jump ahead to July 2020. My birthday was fast-approaching and, like when I was little, I was constantly trying to guess what present(s) I might get. My wife kept getting a little grin and laughing. "You're not going to guess what I got you, but you're going to love it," she'd say. My present, when I finally saw it, was in an oddly shaped box, and it was a little heavy. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I had no idea what this weird, oddly-weighted item could be.

I opened the gift to discover a mostly-complete, and in pretty good shape Matchbox Super Chargers Arena Track Playset! I couldn't believe it. I'd never managed to get one when I was a kid, but I'd ALWAYS wanted one.

The surprises didn't end there... because this playset was designed to also be a carrying case for the individual trucks, and I could feel some thing(s) rolling around inside. My wife told me she didn't know anything about other toys being included when she ordered it. I opened it to find Bigfoot, USA-1, and a pulling sled! I couldn't believe it! She also revealed that she had a second, smaller gift. It was Rollin' Thunder!

This might be the only time I've ever been driven to tears by a birthday present.

I began slowly collecting more of the series. My first purchase, no surprise, was Awesome Kong II. In just a week, I'd reclaimed my original four toys. Shortly thereafter, my Dad found a box of toys in the garage... it was my entire collection of the Monster Wars series! Over the next few years, I would make some trades with folks online, and even be gifted toys from fans, all the while, slowly growing a collection I'd never managed to complete as a kid.

Then came today. Today I received the last two toys from the series. They were sent my way by a fan. It took me 35 years, but I finally have the full set of my favorite childhood toys!

Admittedly, there are rare variants, oddball rereleases, and rare foreign releases, but I'm not worried about those.

For now, I leave you with a photo of the collection.

#toys #monster trucks #matchbox #matchbox super chargers #collecting #childhood #life story #birthday gifts #retro toys #80's toys #80's monster trucks #blog #monster wars #bigfoot #grave digger #monster truck toys #monster truck #hot wheels #matel #sled pull #tractor #play set

[irenic-raccoon]

Yall wanna see my The Young Ones creepypasta? Of course you do here u go. This is a joke btw. I'm not a good writer but I wanted to write something funny. The Narrator is unreliable. Or not. U decide lol. I just tried to write this fic with somewhat similar humor to that of The Young Ones.

____________________________

Neil.Exe

I wanted to share this story as I am now in my Late 40s early 30s and this memory still sends a chill down my spine... Ow, my back.

It was the 80s and I was a British youngster. Don't worry, I recovered. I'm now a proud American. USA!!! Before my recovery, I'd watch alot of Television. This was before TV went extinct. No seriously. Some coder made a digital meteor and wiped all technology into extinction. Why did he even do that what's wrong with him??

I'd watch BBC and they had this show called "The Young Ones". It was this very nonsensical sitcom with slapstick and toilet humor. It wasn't even a cartoon this was all live action. What kinda drugs were they on??? Errmmmm 😂. My pops really liked it though because was a stupid alcoholic who'd laugh at paint drying. I prefer watching the grass grow but to each their own I guess. He'd record the episodes and save them on VHS. We burned them all one day because it was cold and he drunk us out of home. He gambled our house for bitcoin. Yes, Bitcoin existed in the 80s shut up this is my story.

One of the VHS tapes wasn't burnt though. My father mentioned something like how "it's haunted" and he "bought it from some strange man with a black cloak and glowing orb"... Even though HE recorded the episodes himself!?!? I got bored of living on the streets and bought a house with the money I had in my bank account. R.i.p Mom and Dad, they ate eachother alive while being homeless. If only there was something I could have done to help 💔. Still had that one recording of "The Young Ones". I got bored of watching the grass grow in the green room that costed 3 thousand dollars, so I decided to give it a watch. The VHS tape had writing on it. "DON'T PLAY THIS TAPE!!! IT'S CURSED AND YOU WILL DIE!!! ESPECIALLY YOU JOHN YOU BASTARD!!!!". Typical dad, always such a drunk comedian!! 😊

It started off normal. This was the last episode of the series. The main characters die in a bus crash at the end. At least thats how I remembered it before I watched this recording. The tall one, Neil, was being insulted by everyone while in the back yard, talking about summer break. Strange, since they looked too old for highschool, but that's also typical in media so I brushed that thought aside. Neil was usually the punching bag because he was a dirty hippie. In the original episode he tuned into the Hulk. Well, it was a daydream segment. The usual nonsensical shit. But in this one when they got a close up on his face before his Hulk transformation, the screen got really glitchy. Nothing out of the norm since it was a VHS. Except for the fact that his eyes got all black and he started crying blood. I thought it was just the VHS acting up so I turned the TV off and on again. It played the episode back from the beginning and it was just a black screen for 10 minutes this time.

I just sat there watching the black screen, since that was my 2nd favorite activity behind watching grass grow. I was having the time of my life. After that, it just showed Neil in the back yard, the same place before the tape started acting up. It was nighttime for whatever reason and he just stood there, looking at me... What the hell was he looking at? He needs to get a hobby! What did I do to him?! I looked at the screen a little closer since the screen was so dark. Bad directing on their part. Three bloody bodies laid there behind him. I don't remember the episode being this dark but also this show was all over the place and I was probably just high and imagining things again. It's a serious problem. I'm just like my father.

I had to go take a shit so I stood up and went to the restroom. Couldn't shit on the couch again. The stain was still there and it smelt bad. When I came back, Neil was gone and it was just the bodies. Boooring! I took the VHS tape out and threw it away.

None of this has to do with the creepy thing I mentioned in the beginning, just got off topic. I ran out of Adderall. Anyways, I was outside looking directly at the sun since that was my 3rd favorite activity. When I was out there, I saw a guy walk by wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. Nirvana didn't even exist by then. What the fuck. But bitcoin did. Don't question me!

Okay that's all I had to write. Time to go gamble away the child support I just received OH FUCK OH SHIT HELP ME NEIL IS IN MY FUCKING HOUSE SOMEONE CALL THE COPS IM TOO BUSY TYPING TO CALL 911 FUCK OW MY ORGANS!!! HES EATING MY FUCKING ORGANS AND IM STILL TYPING!!!!! THIS IS PURE TORTURE!!!!!!! I DONT SEE THE LIGHT I ONLY SMELL LENTILS AAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!

Neil.exe is coming...

Hahaha I said "coming."

The And

#why did I waste my time writing this omg this is so stupid #ngl kinda fun tho #hope this got a laugh out of some of u #the young ones #tyo #neil pye #rick pratt #vyvyan basterd #mike the cool person #rik mayall #ade edmondson #if Rik Mayall read this would he be proud or confused

[1-dollar-bottomless-void]

1002F

A VHS tape with "1002F" written on it. When played, it shows episode 76 from season 8 of Sesame Street (episode 1002 overall). The video is exactly the same as the episode as it aired, but features an Elmo segment not included in the release.

This is odd because Elmo's first appearance occurs in season 11, episode 90 (1405 overall).

The VHS only shows the aired episode when digitized. In order to see the missing segment, it must be watched on a VHS player.

The following is a transcript of the segment:

[A plain white background, with Elmo in the center of the screen]

ELMO

[Gasp!] Hi everybody! Elmo is so happy to see you. Elmo always love to see Elmo's friends. Elmo believes everything is better with friends!

[There's a bit of digital fuzz and audio distortion. Elmo appears to stretch horizontally before the distortion disappears]

ELMO

Elmo also loves sharing friends. New friends, old friends, Elmo loves when Elmo's friends meet each other.

In fact, Elmo has a very special friend Elmo wants you to meet! Come on! Let's go!

[Elmo walks off screen. The scene changes to a badly lit set of a street. It looks like one of the sesame street sets, but everything is faintly tinted blue. Elmo is sitting on a cardboard box]

ELMO

She should be here any second... there she is!

[A human walks onto the screen. She is wearing a very short skirt and high boots, and a large yellow hoodie with a pixilated smiley face on it. Her face is obscured by video static]

THE GIRL

Hi Elmo!

ELMO!

Hey Girl! Everyone, this is Elmo's friend, The Girl! Say hi to everyone!

[The Girl waves]

THE GIRL

Hi everyone! Thanks for having me on the show, Elmo.

ELMO

You're welcome!

THE GIRL

A little big bird told me that we're here to talk about friends?

ELMO

He did? He's such a snitch!

THE GIRL

He really is.

ELMO

Did you know that snitches get stitches?

THE GIRL

I did, Elmo. That's a very good thing to remember.

ELMO

Elmo would never snitch Elmo's friends. Like you!

THE GIRL

Thank you Elmo! I wouldn't snitch on you either! And you know why?

ELMO

Why?

THE GIRL

Because friends don't snitch.

[The sound of a lightbulb bursting and glass falls on the stage. Neither Elmo nor The Girl react]

ELMO

You're right! Friends don't snitch.

THE GIRL

And friends are what we're here to talk about, right?

ELMO

Right! Elmo has lots of friends. Girl, do you have other friends?

[There's digital static for a second, and the video distorts in a sort of swirl, only lasting a couple frames, after which the pixelated face on The Girl's hoodie is now a spider]

THE GIRL

In certain way, I guess you could say that I do. In another way, you could say that I used to have other friends.

ELMO

That's okay. Elmo knows making friends is hard.

THE GIRL

That's right. And keeping them can be even harder.

ELMO

What do you mean?

THE GIRL

Well, sometimes people change, Elmo. Sometimes they become so different, it's hard to be friends with them anymore.

ELMO

Elmo has a friend who changed once!

THE GIRL

Really?

ELMO

Yeah! She was living for a long time, then she changed. Elmo doesn't think she's ever going to change back.

THE GIRL

Sometimes change is permanent. Did the two of you stay friends?

ELMO

Oh yes! Elmo is still good friends with her.

THE GIRL

You two must be very close. That sounds like a very good friendship.

ELMO

Absolutely!

[Another lightbulb breaks. Neither react]

THE GIRL

You know, I used to have a very close friend. He changed a lot, too. We didn't stay friends after that.

ELMO

You didn't?

THE GIRL

Mm-mm.

ELMO

Why?

THE GIRL

Well you see, Elmo, he tried to—

[The audio distorts and three more lights burst]

THE GIRL

—so I had to—

[The audio distorts again, and The Girl's hoodie is suddenly soaked through and dripping a thin black liquid. The pixel spider is now a face again, this time laughing]

THE GIRL

—him.

ELMO

Ohh.

THE GIRL

Yeah. Sometimes I miss how it was before.

ELMO

You do?

THE GIRL

Yes, Elmo, I do.

ELMO

That sounds sad. Can Elmo give you a hug?

THE GIRL

Of course Elmo!

[The two hug. The Girl's hoodie rapid shifts through multiple colors—grey, yellow, cyan, green, magenta, red, blue, black, white—before returning to yellow]

THE GIRL

Thank you, Elmo.

ELMO

You're welcome, Girl! It's always nice to hug your friends.

THE GIRL

It sure is. But remember to ask first, since not everyone likes being hugged.

ELMO

And they might be made of knives!

THE GIRL

That's very true.

[Elmo turns to the camera. The Girl shifts her stance in a way that seems to imply she's also looking at the camera]

ELMO

It's okay if you don't have many friends. Making friends can be really hard, and it doesn't always work out.

THE GIRL

Sometimes they change.

ELMO

Or you change.

THE GIRL

Or you change. But that's okay. Because even if you feel alone, there's always people you've never met, and even if you feel alone, there's always people you've never met, and even if you feel alone, there's always people you've never met—

[Two more light bulbs burst. The girl keeps repeating the words "and even if you feel alone, there's always people you've never met." The blue tint becomes more intense. The screen is covered in distorted static. Suddenly both Elmo and The Girl are facing away from the camera, their backs to us, their heads angled upwards. The entire screen is now tinted magenta. The girl is still talking, but there's another voice, deeper and crackling like a record. Played backwards, the second voice is saying "two from gee and two from see, the cortex spasms rhythmically, from the heart and through the veins, and back into the heart again, alterations incomplete, with ghost intent in formless meat." The second voice repeats this again as more lightbulbs burst. Suddenly everything returns to normal: the screen is tinted slightly blue, The Girl and Elmo are facing each other, The Girl's hoodie is dry. The pixel face is now an eye]

ELMO

Elmo loves you, Girl!

THE GIRL

Aw, I love you, too, Elmo!

[Both turn to face the camera]

ELMO

And Elmo loves all of you, too!

THE GIRL

I will find you. I promise.

ELMO

Bye bye, friends!

THE GIRL

Bye bye, friends!

[Both wave. The screen turns to static snow. For a single frame, Elmo can be seen falling limp and The Girl stretches a hand out toward him. The hand is split between the middle and ring finger, all the way up to her mid forearm. Teeth line the flesh along the split and the inside of each finger, a mix of canines and molars. The set is covered in splattered black fluid. Then the screen goes dark]

[intern] found the VHS in a cardboard box with "erase" written on the side in blue paint. The box was left outside my boss's office yesterday morning. Video surveillance doesn't show how it got there. There was just a weird glitch and then there it was. This happens a lot, but usually there's at least a return address or a name.

Compare to the note I found about the Girl. Same person??]

#surreal horror #vhs #the Girl #1002F #from the soup

[daysofourlivesrecaps]

Friday, 9 June 2023

Yesterday I lamented the fact that we didn’t get to see the old soap that Abe was watching (on videotape!) at his kidnapper’s house. Today, though, more than makes up for this egregious omission.

Behold: Body and Soul!

(Okay, I posted these caps separately because I was so very excited about them. So you may have already beheld.)

Okay. So. First, the DiMeras.

Megan restates the central premise of her “you have to marry someone to get the Von Leuschner family fortune so it might as well be Gwen” argument.

Dimitri is reluctant, but let’s be honest: he calls his mother “mother.” This guy is about 1/3 that guy from the Manchurian Candidate, 1/3 Buster Bluth and 1/3 Seymour Skinner. He’s obviously going to do exactly what she tells him to do.

Then Kristen (in this weird but exceptionally cleavagey dress) asks Megan what she needs with all this VonLeuschner VonLoot and Megan hints at a plot that involves actual world domination.

At the pub, Harris Michaels shows up, continuing to have no friends in this town and no real purpose for being here. He looks remorseful (pretty much his only move right now) at Roman and Kate for a minute.

Then Roman leaves and Kate gets down to business. “You want a job?” she says. “I’ll hire you to murder Megan Hathaway.” (I don’t think she knows about the DiMera declaration yet.)

Harris considers this, probably because he knows full well that he’s gonna need SOMETHING to do if he intends to stick around in Salem. But then he decides against it because he’s “trying to be good” now that he’s finally shaken himself loose from Megan’s brainwashing.

(Oh, but I forgot to mention that Megan strongly hinted that she’s gonna reactivate Harris as part of her whole world domination thing. Which feels like something you should probably know.)

Gwen returns to her home at the Salem Inn.

(So many characters have lived in this hotel room. Probably because it’s cheaper than decorating a set to serve as a specific character’s home. I’m almost certain we blew the entire set budget for 2023 on the stuffed cats at Nurse Kim Coles’ house.)

Leo vents to Gwen about having visited his Horrible Mother in prison. (This is where Horrible Mothers belong. There or Florida.) And with this cursory attention to a backstory and some actual emotions, Leo continues his transformation into an actual character rather than a sad collection of dick jokes in ugly outfits.

He and Gwen commiserate over bad parents and a distinct lack of love in their lives. And they make a pact to marry each other if they continue to strike out. Which is something I’m certain they’ve said before, but I’ll give them a pass because… again, Leo’s actually acting like a person today and I want to encourage this behavior.

Then Gwen leaves and there’s a knock at the door and it’s Dimitri. Is he still mad that Leo stole some vital component to the doomsday device he was trying to assemble in the Beyond Salem miniseries? I suppose we’ll have to wait till Monday for the answer to that one!

Back at the hospital, Paulina is still recovering from her panic attack (after a quick break to go harass Colin at the police station). She runs into Nurse Kim Coles and they do the tired dance of “does Paulina know that this is the woman who may have (definitely did) kidnapped Abe?” but no, of course she doesn’t.

Then Rafe shows up and says “hey, I knocked on your door for like an hour today but I guess you were here.”

Right, I also forgot to mention that Rafe knocked on her door for like an hour. Actually, I’m not forgetting these things so much as having difficulty writing about each plot thread separately when they intersect like this. Stop making the show so dynamic, Days writers!

Finally, Abe is still watching Body and Soul and not answering the door.

But then he gets to a part in Nurse Kim Coles’ VHS tape where a 2008 episode was interrupted by a news break involving… Mayor Abraham Carver!

And Abe’s all “wait a minute, that’s me! Maybe I have amnesia like that guy in that stupid soap opera I’ve been watching.” And I’m still trying to figure out if this is a genius level of meta-storytelling or maybe they just took things a little too far.

It’s gotta be the first one, right?

#Days of Our Lives #DOOL #soap opera #Peacock

[stilitana]

I may be too optimistic about the Archive 81 adaptation at least in this one regard, but i’m not really jumping to negative conclusions from the vague statement that a “dark, deeply emotional romance” is at the core of the show--in many ways, I already see it that way. thoughts on a81 as a romance under the cut

To me, the vague info we have isn't enough to conclude they’ve completely rewritten Melody and Dan as romantic interests, at least not in a conventional sense. I've seen some upset reactions suggesting this, so I think some may be assuming the worst, but I'm not quite there yet. tbf...Melody already is Dan's love interest, at least in s1! By which I mean she is the name and voice onto which he projects his desire for human connection. (he does the same thing in s2 with clara. it's a thing he does.) Quite honestly, I did see the source material as a “romance,” in the dark and dysfunctional sense of a romance as consumption—dan consuming and being consumed by the tapes, developing a one-sided relationship with the melody he invented in his head because hers was the only voice he had for so long at his loneliest and darkest time. because she was the only one who could possibly understand what he was going through. because he was vicariously experiencing her life through the tapes--to him, it felt like they shared experiences, although in reality he was only a passive witness...at least at first. (and this is really interesting to me--it's like the whole blue velvet conundrum, "i don't know if you're a detective or a pervert." are you solving an archival mystery, dan, or are you just a voyeur getting way in over your head and inventing intimacy where none exists? can we have a relationship with someone we "know" through documents without being known in return? what does that look like, what does that mean? what is the role of an archive and an archivist, what are their relationships to subjects, how do documents form narratives?)

season 1 was a romance on multiple levels—between Melody and Alexa, and also about people like Melody and Dan who can’t stop listening and poking and prodding at something until it’s eaten them alive. also like…marc is a producer on the show and it's his material that includes gay characters in prominent roles in every season so. Just sort of hard for me to imagine taking archive 81 of all things and turning it into a milquetoast straight love story, because it's so...it's such a weird thing, honestly still in shock it's even being adapted for TV. It feels like one of the last things you'd even want to add visuals to because so much of what it's about is sound and noise and the weird scrappy writing that swings wildly at every pitch, misses a lot of them, keeps swinging anyway with greater vigor. It's actively worse and less interesting by leagues to turn it into a played-straight romance between Melody and Dan rather than Dan developing a disturbed parasocial relationship with the voice of a woman who is narrating him past the point of no return while she herself ventures deeper and deeper into something she will never really escape ever again. (And then manages to build a life like that with her wife anyway.) Then again, this is television, so maybe worse and less interesting is the goal...but then I have to think there are easier stories to adapt than this one. 🥴

The romance is Dan and the tapes, Melody and the Visser mystery, people and the inexorable pull of knowing things we are not meant to know even if it kills us or, as is often the case in a81, irrevocably alters us. That's the story I hope they're interested in telling.

I think this is why season one was really peak for me. I wouldn't necessarily make the romance genre claim for other seasons, but for this one I would. (In the vein of calling House of Leaves a romance.) Then again, it's Netflix, so I'm prepared to eat these words--it's possible they'll try to shoehorn in a conventional romance to draw in viewers who otherwise might look at the premise and source material and go, what the fuck is happening here? Which of course detracts from what a81 has going for it, which is swinging and missing and swinging again in an off-the-beaten-path medium without the rigidly enforced genre and plot limitations of television where listeners know what they're getting is a labor of love, something weird and silly and rough around the edges and always changing. I'll watch more out of morbid curiosity to see if I can understand how and why and what is gained/lost when an audio story like this is adapted...even though at the end of the day, for me, the joy of a81 was really the exuberance of the storytelling and witnessing mr. dan powell's obsession with sounds and odd noises...a love letter to sound indeed.

#txt #archive 81 #as much as i enjoyed listening to the tapes w dan...do i really need to /see/ melody explore the visser building? #? #i say no but we'll see what new things they bring to the story #never thought i'd get here...dan apologism...absolutely hated him when i first listened... #i was like where is the boss character bring him back someone needs to bully this guy #not to be too on brand but. i did start listening because i'd heard there was. le body horror #so the whole time i was like. when is this guy going to get fucked up already #then he did and i. realized maybe i didn't actually hate dan lmao i was like oh. oh no put him back he was okay actually! #he was just some guy! #and then...then we met nicholas...and the entirety of s3 was just 'where is dan? come back sir i understand your role now!' #give me back my squishy fake-brooding put-upon sap of a moral compass character please...something needs to balance this chaos... #even though he was insufferable for new reasons in s2 like. without his scruples he was nothing but that was plot relevant so i accept #also there will be no season 2. no one wants a season 2. the only thing i want to /see/ less than s1 is s2. #also the fact that he's not watching vhs tapes i guess (?) will introduce certain...logistical...difficulties... #i guess he can um. walk around rolling one of those old tv sets on a cart they used to wheel in at school 🤕 #actually nevermind that's funny they should definitely produce a season 2 and do the office comedy version of videodrome #that sounds like a fantastic and highly marketable idea i think would do well without a doubt #anyway that's enough podcast thoughts for one day 🥴

[whataperfectwasteoftime]

Born to Run / Chapter 12

Pairing: Marcus Pike x Marathon Runner f!reader (no y/n)

Rating: E (SMUT! 18+ only please)

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: Pining and angst. Idiots in love. Light description of a horror movie. Unprotected PIV sex, cockwarming, feelings FEELINGS FEELINGS.

Summary: You and Marcus watch ‘The Thing.’ Marcus comes to some realizations and worries about his imminent departure.

A/N: Marcus loves classic horror, I just know he does.

SERIES MASTERLIST

Chapter 11 | Chapter 13

“Guess what I found.” Marcus said, almost giddily, before kissing you tenderly on the upper part of your cheekbone in greeting as you stepped into the front hallway of his cabin on Saturday night--the last night you had together before he left to go back.

“Hello to you too,” you grinned. “What did you find? Or did you really want me to guess what cursed old object you found in a closet in this crazy house?”

"Hush, you, it has character,” Marcus teased, rubbing his nose playfully against yours. “I found a bunch of old VHS tapes in a box tucked away on the top shelf of the living room closet. I already ordered pizza, figured we could make some popcorn too and watch one."

"Are they cursed?" You joked, running your finger down along the vee of Marcus's t-shirt.

"Possibly." He grins, wrapping his arm around your waist and nuzzling against your temple. "There's some good stuff in there. Ever seen 'The Thing'?"

"I don't do well with scary movies. Overactive imagination, and all that."

Marcus wrapped his other arm around you and started playfully kissing a path from your temple down to your lips. "If it makes any difference, there aren't-" kiss "any jump scares." Kiss, "It's mainly just-" kiss "suspense with ah…" kiss "some very gory-" kiss “practical effects.” He reached his destination and no more words were spoken between you for a few moments as you traded gentle, lingering kisses with no particular sense of urgency.

"You're not taking no for an answer, are you?"

He pulled back. "Of course I'd take no for an answer." He traced a path down the bridge of your nose to the tip with one finger. "I just wanted to make sure I argued my case here."

You considered the idea. On the one hand, a scary movie could mean bad dreams for you later that night, but on the other hand it could also mean hiding your face in Marcus's chest, feeling his strong arms wrap around your body, making you feel safe, warm, protected… wait, what were you arguing against, exactly?

You grinned. "I'll get the popcorn, you get to figure out how the VHS player hooks up to the TV."

"Channel 3, right?" He chuckled, watching your retreating form head into the kitchen.

"No fucking clue!" You answer back in a singsong voice.

With a bowl of microwave popcorn in hand, you make your way back to the living room to find Marcus had already worked his magic and had somehow hooked up the old VHS player up to the much newer TV. You went to sit next to him on the chaise lounge end of the cozy sofa, but he patted the space between his legs and looked at you with soulful eyes. You grinned, changed course, and settled your back against his chest, reveling in the warmth and comfort you now associated with being nestled against Marcus.

You rubbed against the short stubble on Marcus’s cheek, and you turned to study him. “This is new,” you remarked, dragging your fingertips along his now-scratchy jaw.

He laughed. “Ran out of razors yesterday. Didn’t feel the need to rush out and buy any since, well…” He trailed off. Since I’m leaving in the morning, was what he had left unsaid.

Rather than dwell on that sobering fact, you smiled and tickled him lightly on his chin. “I like it,” you informed him.

His smile widened.

With his lips ghosting over the shell of your ear, he pressed ‘play’ as you playfully wiggled your body back against his, settling as close to him as you could manage.

Marcus didn’t watch a single second of the movie. Instead, he watched you watching the movie. He kissed every crease on your forehead, smiled at every surprised (or disgusted) exclamation that came from your lips, and soothed every tense muscle by running his hands up and down your arms.

This was moving way too fast. Marcus acknowledged this, he understood it. As usual, he was careening off a ledge without checking to make sure he had a parachute first. But he couldn’t help the tenderness he felt as he watched your various facial expressions as you took in the film. He knew you, knew the specific way in which your face reacted to every emotion. He felt he could pinpoint every little furrow on your brow with his eyes closed. He could trace the shape of your mouth as you smiled for him, could see so clearly in his mind’s eye how your lips would purse when you were deep in thought, or how they would fall open when he would hit the perfect spot deep inside you. He had never had much of a skill for portraiture, but he felt he could easily paint you using only his memory. How had it only been three weeks?

“The fuck is wrong with the dog?” you demanded of the TV.

“Shhhhhh, just watch.” Marcus couldn’t keep his lips off the side of your face. They were grazing your cheekbone, kissing along the side of your ear, or nuzzling your neck with little love bites that were far too gentle to leave marks. God, he wanted to devour you. He resisted the urge to bite down on the junction between your neck and shoulder. He didn’t want the both of you to lose yourselves to your mutual desire just yet. If anything, he wanted to prove to himself that he could sit with you against his lap, pressed so close to him like this, and not give in to the overwhelming want that he felt whenever you were close. Had he ever been this insatiable?

“Oh, FUCK!” you suddenly yelped, as you found out exactly what was wrong with the dog. “Holy SHIT! God, that’s so gross!” you squealed, burrowing further into Marcus’s chest. You brought one hand up and partially covered your face, watching the movie through your splayed fingers.

Marcus chuckled and made quiet shushing sounds, his lips never leaving the side of your head, enjoying immensely the feeling of your body pushing closer and closer to his. He adored this. The feeling of having something to protect, someone to really care for. You were so strong, he mused. So--so resilient, so willful, and yet you willingly gave him your trust, your control, your vulnerability… It was a heady feeling--exhilarating, even--to be responsible for you in that way, to care for you in a way he’d never been able to do in any other relationship. And oh, he loved it.

He frowned--he was still afraid to examine that thought any further. The two of you had made no real plans outside of long phone calls and visits back and forth when his vacation time was up tomorrow and he had to return to Washington and go back to his work, his city apartment… alone. He couldn’t ask you to follow him. You had a life here, a job you loved, friends. For fuck’s sake, you had a fucking marathon to run in a few weeks. He couldn’t ask you to come back with him. He was too afraid of what your answer would be. He couldn’t handle another rejection. Not from you.

You hadn’t really talked about what his departure would mean. The realities of long distance relationships were hinted at--plane tickets were discussed and you made many jokes about what you were going to do during your video calls--but he was terrified of having you so far away from him. Your feelings for him could fade and he wouldn’t know it, he feared. He couldn’t see a way forward with him living halfway across the country from you. He knew he was too close to his breakup with Theresa to have any kind of perspective he needed to pursue another relationship, but he couldn’t help that now. He was in too deep, your lives already too entwined. You were so much more than a rebound, he thought. I… I lo-

His thoughts were cut off by your shriek of disgust and horror as ‘the thing’ detached its head from its body in gruesome detail and skittered off on spindly legs. “FUCK!”

Marcus shook with laughter at your reaction. “Isn’t it disgusting? Can you believe these are all practical effects?” he said gleefully.

“Oh my GOD, shut UP!” You playfully shoved his chest and he banded his arms around your back, trapping you against him.

“Got you now,” he growled in your ear, and you giggled and settled against him, happily resigned to your fate as you took in the rest of the movie.

As the movie came to a close and the credits rolled, you craned your head up to meet his eyes with a lazy smile.

“What’d you think?” he murmured, mouth hovering near your lips.

“Absolutely disgusting. And fucking bleak as hell. But you know what?” you grinned.

“What?” Marcus gave into the pull of your orbit and pressed his lips to yours.

“I kinda liked it.”

Marcus hummed in satisfaction and deepened the kiss. “Told you so.”

“I might make you leave a light on tonight, though.”

“Fair enough.”

You sat in comfortable silence for a few beats, just enjoying each other’s presence, reveling in the closeness of your bodies and the shared breath between you. He cradled the back of your neck in his hand and guided your head up to meet his. You turned in his lap, meeting his lips once again. He took his time, kissing your upper lip, lower lip, one corner of your mouth, and then the other. He caught your lower lip gently between his teeth and sucked lightly, pulling it into his mouth, and you let out a small whimper that set his blood alight.

“Fuck, Marcus,” you breathed against his mouth, “I want you.”

His grip on you tightened. “You’ve got me.”

You were both silent for a few breaths--the calm before the storm. He counted them. One, two, three… You moved suddenly, bringing your legs up to straddle his lap. He brought his hands from around your shoulders down to your hips and pulled down, grinding you against him. You gasped into his mouth.

“Want to do it just like this,” you whimpered into his mouth. “Right here.”

Marcus answered by biting down on your lower lip, reveling in your reaction. He quickly set to the task of removing you of your shirt and bra. The moment your skin was exposed, he pressed his face into the side of your neck and scraped the skin there with his teeth, an action that he knew would make you cry out in pleasure. He already knew your body so well. You were frantically pulling at the hem of his shirt, and he helped you bring it up and over his head as he plundered your mouth, barely breaking the kiss when his shirt passed over his lips. He was desperate for you, filled with hunger, passion… with…

Love.

Marcus heard a desperate moan come out of his mouth at the realization, the word finally uttered in its full form in his mind for the first time. He loved you, fuck, he loved you. He was leaving tomorrow with no plan and no idea how to move forward but he loved you.

And he had no idea what to do about it, now that he had finally admitted it to himself. But the admission itself had made him hungry beyond all reason for you. He scrambled out of his pants and underwear, freeing his cock as you struggled with your own clothes above him. Once all your clothing was cast aside, you straddled him again and ground your dripping slit against his cock, coating him, easing the way. The friction made him groan and he gripped your hips tightly, guiding you back and forth against him.

You rose up, in preparation to sink back down onto him. Marcus took the opportunity to take one of your nipples--the more sensitive one, he had learned--in between his teeth and scrape it gently, making you throw your head back and cry out. He chuckled darkly at your reaction. He loved how you felt everything so loudly, he thought as you slowly sank down on his aching cock. He loved it, he loved it, he loved it. He loved this position, too--him seated on the couch, with you grinding on him. He could easily kiss you, touch you, wrap his arms around you, but most importantly, he could watch you take your pleasure--watch your face from only a few inches away as you lost yourself.

He took the opportunity to do all of those things--he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you down on him over and over again, meeting you with heated, messy kisses and then pulling back to watch your mouth drop open as your clit ground against his pubic hair.

God, you were beautiful.

You buried your face in the crook of his neck as he felt your pussy start to flutter and tighten. He started meeting you with thrusts of his own, bringing himself deeper inside you and making you cry out into his neck. Marcus was overwhelmed with the feel of you, your bodies pressed together as close as you could manage as you both chased your pleasure. He loved the feel of your skin against his, oh, he loved-- There was a lump in his throat that he couldn’t swallow, making him incapable of speech (which was unusual--he usually felt as if he couldn’t stop talking to you, praising you, whenever he was buried in your heat). If he spoke now, Marcus knew, the result would either be an unbidden sob, or the utterance of those three treacherous words that were swirling around in his head. I love you, I love you, I love you. He was unable to think of anything else.

Unaware of his inner turmoil, you were grinding down on him and spiraling higher, higher, higher, until Marcus felt you clench around his cock over and over and over and--ouch--you really did come ridiculously hard every time. He was fighting a losing battle, now. Desperate to come, but not wanting this to end. He didn’t want any of it to end, he didn’t want to leave tomorrow… Marcus forced himself to speak through the lump in his throat.

“Look at me,” he begged, his voice haggard and rough. “Please, look at me.”

You pulled back from his neck and met his eyes, and Marcus gazed up at you, lost in you, lost in his pleasure, lost in…in love, fuck! He was going to say it if he didn’t find something to occupy his--

Marcus surged up and pressed his mouth to yours in a desperate, bruising kiss as he finally fell over the edge and came hard, pulsing and spilling inside you with a goan against your perfect, perfect lips.

You didn’t move from his lap as he softened inside you. The air was thick with emotion--both of you were very aware that tonight was going to be the last time you did this for a while, but neither of you were willing to acknowledge it. You had laid your head back down on his shoulder and he brought his hand up and down the side of your neck because he knew how much you loved it when he did.

“Take me to bed,” you whispered into his neck.

“Hold on to me,” Marcus replied, and you tightened your arms around him in response. His back very much protesting his actions, Marcus rose from the couch still holding you to him, your legs and arms wrapped around his body. The movement finally caused him to slip out of your velvet heat as he walked to the bedroom with you clinging to him. He set you down on the bed and climbed in beside you, drawing you to him, wanting you to be as close as he could get you tonight.

“Still want the hall light on?” Marcus asked with a playful smile against the shell of your ear.

You wigged your hips back against him and sighed. “Nah, I don’t need it…” you murmured sleepily, happily.

“...Because I’ve got you.”

-

Taglist: @honestly-shite @thirddeadlysin @deepstarsco @221bshrlocked @mando-amando @frenchyjuju @farfromjustordinary @chronic-nosebleed @stilettoforbeginners @leslie-lyman @gaiuswrites @absurdthirst

#marcus pike #marcus pike x you #marcus pike x f!reader #marcus pike x reader #marcus pike fanfic #the mentalist #the mentalist fanfic #pedro pascal #marcus pike fanfiction #the mentalist fanfiction

[darling-i-read-it]

Dinner

Part 1

RE7 Rewrite Masterlist

Ethan Winters x fem!reader

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: spoilers for re7, violence, injuries, blood, gross rotted stuff

Author’s Note: Is this going to be a shit ton of work? Yes. Am I going to have copious amounts of fun with it? Also yes. I really hope you all like the first part!

Summary: The beginning of the game through the dinner that the Bakers hold for Ethan.

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director/creator. Some of these lines are directly from the game so they may sound familiar.

(not my gif) (this is a mia winters hate blog)

The car underneath you was bumpy. You looked out the window, your thumb up to your mouth as you watched the ragged scenery pass by you. You tried to take even breaths, not thinking about what was to come. You would much rather not think about what was coming. All it did was stress you out.

Ethan drove the car beside you. His face was forward and focused. He could find Mia. Probably. The windows were down, trying helplessly to get air flow inside the car. You swatted a bug off your arm.

“I hate Louisiana,” you muttered. “Where even is Dulvy?” Ethan scoffed and shrugged.

“The place where Mia emailed us she was,” he said.

“No shit Winters.”

You had been Mia’s closest friend before she went missing. Just before she went missing she spilled her guts to you about everything that she had done, all of the bad and the lying. After she disappeared you told Ethan about it. You and Ethan didn’t know each other well but after Mia went missing you were all each other had. You shared her secrets, you pooled together your knowledge, you grew close.

Now, even three years later you were each other's closest companion.

Mia had emailed both of you, telling you to come and get her. Naturally you went together, in hopes that by not going alone you would be safer. It didn’t help the rising worry in your chest though.

“You really think she’s out here?” you asked quietly.

“I don’t know. It seems we didn’t know her at all,” he muttered. He was still hung up on the fact that she lied to him. You didn’t blame him.

“Why did you come? I mean, I get she’s your wife but I almost didn’t. I figured you know, she lied to me our whole friendship. She worked for some sort of evil organization. Good riddance to her,” you said. Ethan had been thinking the same thing. But when he got that email he couldn’t help it.

“I want to know what happened to her. And I want to know why she lied,” he said bitterly. You nodded and looked back out the window.

“Well I guess we’re going to figure that out.”

====

You came up to a large looming house. It was in the middle of nowhere. God only knows how they got groceries. You and Ethan started to walk up to the gate.

“Pff, a house in the middle of nowhere and they have a gate?” you muttered quietly. There were chains keeping it shut. “You think you could climb it?” He scoffed.

“No. You?” You shook your head. You gestured to a well worn path.

“This way it is then.”

The two of you walked your way through the path. There were crows hung from the trees and cow legs tied up to make some sort of circle. Ethan grabbed your arm before you could go through the cow leg entrance.

“Let me go first,” he muttered. You turned around to him and shrugged.

“Alright Winters. I’m right behind you.”

The path led the two of you to what looked to be the back of the main house. There was a swinging chair that you passed up to the decrepit house.

“What the fuck did Mia do?” you asked quietly. Ethan looked over at you as he kicked open the door.

“Wish I knew.”

You took a step inside. It stunk. After going through another door you came down a hallway and then a kitchen area. The place looked like it hadn’t been used in years. Ethan opened up the fridge. Rotted food was inside. He gagged.

“Gross,” he muttered. You looked in one of the pots.

“I think there’s something moving in here.”

You ventured further into the house. You went upstairs and looked around, noting a tape on the desk up there. You picked it up, turning it in your hand.

“You see a fuse up there?!” Ethan yelled. You came back down the stairs, shaking your head.

“Just this tape.” You handed it to him.

“There’s a VHS player in there. Let’s watch it, maybe it has something to do with Mia,” he suggested. You nodded a bit and followed him into one of the rooms. It was dark. You were just happy that Ethan remembered to bring some flashlights.

He stuck the tape into the player and the two of you sat down. Before long there it started up. A story started to play out about some men filming for a TV show. They seemed disinterested in the house and then it came into focus that one of them had disappeared in the house. They pulled a level under the fireplace and climbed down a ladder to the level below you.

At the end the man who had gone missing seemed to be distorted, his face stuck in a pipe downstairs. You grabbed Ethan’s arm worridley and he took the tape out, turning off the TV.

“I guess the only way to go is down,” he muttered. You nodded a bit and looked over at the fireplace.

“After you Winters.”

Ethan pulled the lever and the small door opened. You both climbed through it, to the latter. He glanced at you before climbing down. You watched as he descended into the darkness. The latter broke and he fell.

“Damn,” he muttered. He stood up and looked up at you. “You’ll have to jump.”

“No fucking way.”

“Yes way. Come on.” You looked back and took a deep breath. Then you looked down at him.

“We won’t be able to come back up,” you said.

“I already can’t. You gonna leave me?” You nodded a bit and sat on the edge. He put his arms up in the air and you hopped down. He grabbed you to help you landing. You wiped yourself off and looked around.

“No going back now,” you muttered.

You walked forward and through some water before coming to a prison door.

“Mia?” he muttered as he leaned forward. You nodded, turning around and grabbing some bolt cutters that were lying around. You cut open the chains that were holding it closed. You tossed it to the side. Ethan rushed forward and to her. He shook her awake. She turned around, waking up.

“Ethan?” she muttered.

“Well I’ll be damned,” you whispered.

“Y/N?” she asked. You nodded. She stood up. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“What do you mean? You contacted us,” you explained, arms crossed. You looked around worriedly.

“No,” she said hardly. “No I wouldn’t! Did I?” She sat down and then quickly sat back up. “Did anyone see you? Did he see you?”

“He? Who else is here?” Ethan asked.

“What the fuck is going on?” you questioned.

“Daddy’s coming. We need to go,” she said, quickly grabbing his arm. He started to drag him away before grabbing your arm and pulling you away. You went through the door again.

“Where are you taking us?” you accused.

“Someplace safe,” she promised.

“You don’t seem to know where you’re going,” you said. She gave you a look.

“I will find a place,” she promised. You and Ethan shared a worried glance and kept close to each other. “Are you going to tell us what’s going on?” Ethan asked harshly.

“I am telling you everything I know.” You scoffed.

“Doesn’t look like it Mia.” She ignored you and kept walking. She pushed through a couple of rooms, looking disoriented.

“I remember the family used to bring me food through here.”

“The family?” Ethan asked. But again she ignored your questions and pushed on. Finally you came to a well lit room.

“There was a door here. Where’s the door?!” She asked, looking at a boarded up wall. She stumbled back and her demeanor changed. “We’re going to be a family now that you’re here.”

“What?” you asked.

“There’s another door here. I’m sure of it.” She walked over to a coach and leaned down over it, putting her head on the side. You walked into the other room, searching for another way out. Ethan followed close behind.

“She seems weird no?” you asked. He scoffed.

“I suppose you can say that again.”

There was some loud commotion in the other room. You both quickly turned around and found Mia gone, the boarded up door now crashed open.

“Mia?!” you called. You ran through the door and went upstairs to a different place. You and Ethan stayed close together as you came to what seemed to be the upper floor.

“Mia?!” he yelled. You barged through the rooms, opening up a bathroom door. On the counter there was a handgun. You scoffed to yourself and picked it up quickly, struggling with putting the loose bullets into it. Ethan came through the door. “I found a gun.”

“Me too,” you said. “Convenient. And worrying.” You couldn't find another way out so Ethan opened the door back to the basement.

“Maybe we can go back to the other house,” he suggested, walking down the stairs. You nodded and started to follow him when you saw Mia climbing up the stairs. Her face was odd, evil. Veins popped out of her skin, her eyes a dark color. She was crawling up the stairs.

“Ethan,” you muttered but then she was up in front of you, stabbing at Ethan. He just narrowly managed to hold her back as you backed up, trying to figure out how to use your gun. Finally you were able to shoot her a couple of times.

“I can hear her,” she whispered. “I can feel her crawling her way back inside of me.” She hit herself against the wall and then fell flat.

“What the fuck!” he yelled, her limp body as his feet. You shook a bit. You may not have liked her but you hadn’t wanted her dead. You had killed her. Ethan had his hands in his hair.

“We need to get the fuck out of here.” Just as you finished saying it, Mia stood up quickly stabbing at you. You screamed as Ethan shot her in the back and she quickly turned around, pinning him and putting her knife clean through his palm. You screamed for him and hit her over the head with your gun when you ran out of bullets.

She collapsed again. You ran back to Ethan.

“Fuck,” you whispered. You kneeled down beside him.

“Just pull it out,” he said, breathing between clenched teeth. You nodded and grabbed the hilt of the knife. You took a deep breath and then pulled the knife out of his palm. He groaned helplessly and held it to his chest.

“Oh God. Oh fuck Ethan,” you said grabbing his shoulder. The phone behind you rang. Ethan stood up before you even processed it, picking it up and putting it to his ear. He was quiet for a second, only saying curt responses. He hung up the phone after not long.

“It was some girl named Zoe. She said there was a way out in the attic.” You nodded curtly.

“It’s the best we got I guess.” When you walked back to where Mia was, she was gone. You grabbed the axe she had left and Ethan grabbed the knife.

The two of you went up to the attic and had a run in with Mia again. Before long she was down for the count but you had to move quickly. You were both injured and weak but you had a feeling this was just the beginning.

But yet again she got up, just as you had gotten the fuse to get to the attic.

“Mia I’m getting fucking sick of this!” you yelled, throwing the axe at her. She turned to you, a chainsaw in her hands. You looked at Ethan who was on the floor, his hand cut off. You gasped and tried to keep yourself together.

“He’s my husband! Not yours!” she screamed. She ran at you so hard all you had to do was move to the side before she could trip over her own momentum. You dug the axe into her head and she fell to the ground, the chainsaw stopping with her. You turned back to Ethan who had his severed hand in his other hand.

“Fuck Ethan.” Was all you were able to say before the world went black.

====

When you woke up again you were tied to a chair. You let out a harsh sigh and looked around wildly. You were at some sort of dinner table. As you came too you noticed that Ethan was sitting beside you, awake. His hand was stapled on.

There was a man, a woman, a boy and an older lady around the table as well.

“He’s not eating it Jack!” the woman yelled.

“Shut up woman!” There was a knock on the door outside.

“Goddammit,” the boy said. “I bet it’s those damn cops again.”

“Pigs,” Jack muttered. He pointed a knife at both you and Ethan. He stared at you a beat longer. “Don’t go nowhere.”

The woman, the boy and Jack left the room in opposite directions, grumbling. You and Ethan stared at each other.

“What the fuck,” you whispered, fear in your voice. He moved back and forth on his chair before it fell over and broke. He quickly stood up and helped untie you. “Is your hand okay?”

“It’s stapled on if you think that that’s okay,” he muttered. You both stared at the old lady but she seemed like she wasn’t going to move. You stood up and backed away into the living room behind you.

You grabbed Ethan’s arm and he had a tight grip on your side. You were shaking and he wasn’t going to let you go for jack shit.

“What the fuck have we gotten ourselves into?” you asked. Ethan shook his head, swallowing hard.

“I don’t know and I wish we didn’t have to find out.”

Part 2

#ethan winters x reader #ethan winters imagines #resident evil imagines #resident evil 7 rewrite

[boldlyvoid]

ain't it fun? | part two

Part Two

summary: reader just needs an NA meeting before they have a meltdown, they end up with the best friend they could ever make.

warnings: falling in love, fluff, hurt/comfort, implied/referenced smut, non-descriptive

a/n: so glad you liked part 1 I couldn't help myself from continuing

word count: 3k

from the beginning

She’s laying in his bed, one of his friends showed up early and she’s pretending she’s not there. But his friend brought breakfast and it smells good and she’s starving.

After crewing the hell out of her lip and 5 minutes of hyping herself up; she gets up off the bed, still in her sweater and shorts from their movie night, and she slowly opens the bedroom door, peaking out to see if Spencer was in view.

“Hello?” A friendly man spots her, standing as he makes his way to shake her hand. “I’m Derek.”

“Y/N,” she smiles.

“Pleasure to meet you,” he smiles back. “What’s going on here?” He gestures to her and then back to Spencer as he exits the kitchen and sees her.

“We watched star trek all night, if you don’t believe me I can make him recount it to you from memory?” Y/N replies, smirking like she knows him just as well as his friend.

“And how might you know Spencer?” Derek teases right back.

“He’s my best friend in the whole world,” she replies like it’s nothing, “and I live across the hall.”

Derek shoots a look at Spencer that’s almost proud, almost emotional, like a mom who heard she’s going to be a grandma, “Is that true?”

Spencer blushes, “she’s my best friend.”

“Tell me how this all happened!” Derek is more than excited, sitting down on the couch with a wide grin as he waits to hear more.

“Um, we met in the hall, we have the same interests and now we watch movies together and have sleepovers with candy and popcorn, like we’re 13-year-old girls? I’ve even braided his hair,” she avoids the real reason why they met. Unsure if Spencer has told anyone about his drug problem or not.

“And now I’m going to go finish sleeping in my own bed,” she makes awkward finger guns at the door accompanied by her most awkward smile and she’s off.

Spencer follows her out into the hall, closing the door and looking at her apologetically; “I’m sorry, I won’t tell him anything more about us if you don’t want me to?”

“Us?” She questions? “You tell me you love me a lot, but you’ve never told me who you want me to be to you… I want you to think about that and then come and see me later.”

“Can I have a kiss? It helps me think better,” he whispers as he leans in.

She rolls her eyes, playfully, leaning in as well until their lips meet. It’s soft and sweet and she wishes there could be more, but for now she has to go.

Once she’s inside, she leans against the door of her apartment and listens to see when he goes back inside. Only what she hears is even better, “Derek, I’m going to have to ask you to leave so I can go ask her to be my girlfriend.”

He shoos the man from his apartment, avoiding all his questions and convincing him to finally leave by saying, “you’ve been telling me for months that I need to get over it, and now you’re going to stand here and stop me from telling her I love her, again?”

“Again?”

“Derek!”

“Fine.”

And then he’s knocking on her door, “who is it?” She teases.

“Y/N, open the door, please?” He begs without a single regret behind his tone.

She opens it slowly, “yes?”

He tilts his head with a look that screams; ‘come on?’

But she looks back at him as if to say; ‘what about it?'

“Are you really going to make me say it?”

“The first step in getting help is admitting you have a problem.”

He laughs at the absurdity, “you’re kidding?”

“Spencer, even though you’re a pain in my ass; would you like to be my boyfriend? I’m asking because the words make it real, and I would like you to really know how I feel, thanks for coming,” she extends her arm into the apartment, gesturing for him to walk in and he does so with a laugh.

“I would love to be your boyfriend,” he responds once the door is closed. “I’m sorry I made you feel like I didn’t want this to be real?”

She can tell he’s not sure why he’s apologizing, “I need confirmation. I can’t sleep in your bed almost every night for a month, and just have to guess if I’m allowed to call you my boyfriend when my mom calls and asks why I won't text her back at night.”

“Oh,” he looks upset. “I thought that by telling you that I love you that it would work, but I understand. I really would like to be your boyfriend and be yours for however long you’ll have me.”

Her heart melts in her chest, he's so nervous and shy because he truly means it. His heart is in her hands now, “how long are you available?”

“Forever.”

“I have more questions,” she whispers as she moves closer, pressing their bodies together as she holds his sides and he holds her shoulders.

“Okay.”

“What did you mean out there, and also sorry for listening, but I’d like to know…”

“It’s okay,” his words are soft. “I’m um, a virgin?”

“Oh?” Her eyes shoot wide open, “I was expecting like an ex who broke your heart?”

“Oh no, I’ve never… I don’t... no,” he shakes his head profusely. “I’m not in a rush either, I just wanted him to leave me alone. That’s not what I’m in here for.”

She smiles, “I am too…” she whispers, “I’m really glad you are too, actually.”

“You’ve thought about it?”

“Think, big brain, go back to right before I closed my door that first night…” she teases him before making a fake VHS tape rewind sound that always makes him laugh.

“You wanted to leave the group because you can’t sleep with members while you’re healing,” he smirks at his recollection, “I mean, other than the general attraction, have you thought about the possibility of that happening for us one day?”

She nods again, “one day, I’m cool just making out with you for now, actually. But yes. I would like for you to be my first because I trust you the most out of every single person I’ve ever met.”

He looks like his heart is exploding as his grip on her shoulders tightens, “I would like for you to be mine too, eventually.”

“Eventually,” she repeats with a small smile, leaning in for another small kiss.

“Derek left without his breakfast, and he didn't even get a chance to touch it yet…” Spencer whispers against her lips.

She laughs through her nose, kissing him once more before pulling away, “come on, boyfriend.”

—

She’s been in Quantico for 5 months, 3 of which she’s now spent with Spencer.

She’s laying beside him as they watch star trek and her mind is off in space. She can’t focus on anything other than the thought of her rent coming due and how she’s probably going to have to decide if she wants to leave after her 6-month lease is up.

“Spence,” she whispers, “do you know any other cheap apartment buildings in the area?”

“Why?”

She turns to face him, the yellows, reds and blues flash across the screen and illuminate him lightly, “I don’t have enough money to keep living here, and I don’t want to move back in with my parents.”

“Would you like to move in with me?” He asks carefully, “don’t feel pressured to say yes, it’s just I’m never really here and I don’t want you to leave.”

She smiles at the offer, “If I move in I have to tell the disability people, and then my disability money will change because you make so much and they still believe that men own women when they get together, like some what's yours is mine, shit.”

“Really?”

She nods, “yeah. They'll want to know how much you make every month when I get my statement and then they decide what I deserve because if you’re making money, clearly I’m taken care of, right?”

He can hear her sarcasm and he knows it's just to mask the hurt, and she can tell by the way his whole face changes.

“Wrong,” Spencer is oddly defensive. “That is so wrong, there are so many women in this country trapped with terrible men who abuse them. They never see a single dime of the money that comes in, and if they have children they are lucky to receive money for groceries. I’ve seen all of it first hand, it’s horrific, and yet they still think they can take care of disabled women who are in more need of money than anyone else?”

“I love you.”

“What?” He stops, breathing, blinking, everything. He just stares at her as he comprehends it.

She hasn’t said it back yet.

“I love you.” She repeats it and smiles, tears welling in her eyes as she appreciates how much he really does care; how much he really gets it.

“Lie, tell them you’re back with your parents. It’s not like they check-up and then just stay here. Move your things in and make this your place too, do whatever you want to it, it deserves to be lived in.”

“You’re really serious?” She’s not sure why she’s so surprised, he’s been saying he loves her every single day for the last 2 months and 3 weeks.

She’s loved him the whole time, but she’s afraid of that at the same time because once she loves him out loud, then she loves him for real and that’s scary. He has a scary job and he’s never home and if she loves him then she has to deal with that and the fact he might not come home one day.

He nods gently, “I know you need a lot of space for your art supplies so move whatever you need to to make room. I think you’re magnificent, and I don’t think that you should feel held back, I'll do anything to help you with your little craft store.”

A tear slips past her eye and towards the pillow, she blinks as she smiles, unable to speak as she just appreciates his kindness, “I think when whatever is out there made your soul, they were like 'this one; he’s special, we’re only making one of him and he’s going to go through some shit, but it’s because someone else is too and they need each other.'”

Spencer’s smile grows, large and toothy as he moves in closer to hold her. Noses pressed together, they’re hugging basically now, arms wrapped around each other and legs tangled as they enjoy the moment. It’s so nice, there’s nothing left to say.

They’re content with each other.

—

She moves what she needs into Spencer’s apartment the next week, he’s out of town and it’s easier this way with him out of the way.

It’s easier to miss him in here though, everything smells like him and feels like him, and his personality is on every single wall. She wants him to come home so badly, living without him for random bouts of time was the worst part of their relationship.

The rest of her things are in boxes in her apartment, waiting by the door for when Spencer comes back. He offered to put everything in his old Volvo Amazon and meet her parents for the weekend and her mother was through the roof over it.

She has called 4 times in the last week to ask about all Spencer’s favourite meals, what he likes for breakfast most mornings and if he had any allergies. She’s cleaned the “guest” room, which was really just where she slept before, and she was very clear that he was allowed to sleep with her as long as no funny business happened.

That was the funny part.

They still weren’t doing it and she was fine with that, so was he. Neither of them was ready, emotionally nor physically. They’ve both been through some terrible things that make it very hard for them to want to share yet.

She loves him more this way, while the sex would probably be amazing and she knew they were both getting off anyway and they weren’t secretive about it, at all. They just didn’t do it together yet… and she was starting to want to.

The most they’ve done is the occasional mutual masturbation session and that was just when they were too lazy to do it when they were alone, earlier in the day, and just needed to in order to finally sleep. It was always quick, quicker than when she would do it alone because he was just so cute like that.

She found herself getting off to thoughts of him more than anything else the longer and longer they shared more and got to know each other.

Because while, yes, they live together and they’re dating; they’re still really just best friends and roommates. They don’t see each other as often as they want to, they have separate friend groups, she has meetings on the other side of town now and they’ve never even been on a date.

For how fast they looked to be moving to anyone who knew them, they were going extremely slow behind the scenes. The reality is, they were following the rules of addiction recovery more than the rules of society.

She wasn’t really ready to take on the emotional commitment of having sex with someone when she wasn’t really over her trauma. It went far deeper than just her addiction, there was more Spencer had no idea about and she wanted to make sure he knew everything before he met her parents.

So like always, they got into bed as soon as he returned and they had a cuddle conversation. It was soothing to not only feel the other person close, but they both stimmed by running their hands over something soft. He knew something was up as soon as he walked in the door and she asked for a cuddle before even saying hello.

He didn’t, however, expect the long-winded backstory of her childhood to be the issue. He was silent the whole time she explained, he cried with her as his cheek rested on her forehead and her tears fell onto his shirt below her face.

Learning his past was just as hard.

She cant imagine how no one could love him, no one took him in and offered him shelter and love and warmth. He deserved kindness and family. He was worth the world and then some to her, and it hurt so deeply to think of no one showing that to him. He’s spent the last 25 years just searching aimlessly for a single iota of respect.

No wonder he fell in love with her so easily.

—

The first time is terribly awkward but incredibly euphoric… and they cry after. Not from sadness or regret; no, they’re so in love and so happy with their choices, it’s more of an overwhelming overflowing of emotions that was bound to erupt along with them.

“This has to be the most vulnerable time in the entire world if you really think about it,” Spencer justifies why he’s crying as he starts to get anxious about being too much. “I mean we’ve already seen each other naked and know each other outside… we might as well share what's going on inside too.”

She nods against his sweaty chest, “I used to be really upset that my doctors put me on Dilaudid. I still hate that all this happened to us, but I’m really glad we don’t have to be alone anymore.”

“Me too,” he whispers.

It gets easier the more they do it. It’s still always hilariously awkward, they were so stupidly in love it translated into every moment; like when they attempted shower sex and knocked the curtain down and got water everywhere. Or the time they attempted a quickie in the bar bathroom and his boss walked in, and they had to try not to laugh or move or do anything as they made the most awkward, silent, eye contact ever, in the corner of the stall.

Being horny and awkward was the worst combination but they made it work pretty well.

He was tender and loving and he listened to instructions well. He was a quick learner, he was happy with whatever she wanted and he always, always, tried to finish last. (He wasn’t that lucky) but he was a truly nice guy.

She loved him more and more as the seconds passed. He was just so wonderful, he had his up and downs but they always had great communication, and he understood her unpredictability from her disabilities. The best part was that he loved her regardless of how she was when she woke up in the morning, and she always went to bed with either a kiss or a text proving he loved her.

Before they knew it, a year had passed and she was laying in his bed while he got ready for work. She loved watching his selection process, his colour coordinated closet and handy-dandy tie organization rack. He was so cute, and he always looked so amazing.

“I don’t want you to go in today,” she whispers with a pout.

He takes his phone off the dresser and calls in then, “yeah, Hotch I’m really not doing well. I don’t know what we ate last night but I— yeah thank you.”

He puts everything back in the closet and crawls right back into bed, he snuggled back in close and she smiled at her job well done. He didn’t need to be at work as often as he was, he had a lot of personal and sick days stored and they were always telling him to use them. He deserved a break for that beautiful brain of his, an 8-hour turnaround between psychopaths wasn’t good for anyone, especially not the 2nd most prized possession of the FBI.

“What do you do during the day when I’m not here?” He asked, genuinely not knowing how she occupied her time outside of his presence.

“I sleep until 11,” she whispers as she snuggles in closer.

He’s warm and cuddly and perfect. Naps in the morning are possibly the best periods of sleep someone can ever experience. It’s so relaxing to reward the body with more time, and it’s even better when it includes the perfect snuggle companion.

Taglist:

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