#can we talk about how she looks likes she’s cosplaying Princess Leia which I just fucking love

[quinnkeeper]

This blog is a Christian and Geri ‘Ginger Spice’ Horner fan blog

#f1 #formula 1 #christian horner #geri horner #geri halliwell #ginger spice #red bull racing #i love them #i love them so much #they’re so cute #can we talk about how she looks likes she’s cosplaying Princess Leia which I just fucking love

[leverage-ot3]

notable moments from The Nigerian Job

(PART ONE)

leverage 1.01

note: there are A LOT of scenes in this one, but they are all important in one way or another in terms of notability, character-building, etc

Dubenich: I’m sorry Mr. Ford, sorry, I know who you are I’ve, uh, excuse me. I’ve read all about you. I know for example that-that when you found that stolen Monet painting in Florence you probably saved your Insurance Company what 20-25 million dollars. Then there was that identity theft thing and you saved your insurance company I don’t even know how many millions of dollars but I just know that when you needed them… What happened to your family is the kind of thing--

Nate (slams glass down): You know that part of the conversation where I punch you in the neck nine or ten times? We’re coming up on that pretty quick.

- - - - -

Dubenich: I’m serious. Look, look at the people I’ve already hired. Do you recognize any of these names?

Nate (going through file): Uh, yeah, I’ve chased all of them at one time or anoth-- Parker? You have Parker?

Dubenich: Is there somebody better?

Nate: No, but Parker is insane.

Dubenich: Which is why I need you.

Nate (laughs): No. I’m not a thief. (closes file)

Dubenich: Thieves I got. What I need is one honest man to watch them.

- - - - -

Hardison: I’ve been doing this since high school, bro, I’m Captain Discipline.

[Flashback]

(New York City Hotel, Five Years Ago)

Manager: They came straight from the airport and up to their room.

Security: So you never actually saw any of them then.

Manager: No, but the credit card numbers checked out.

Security: Break it down!

(Doors open to reveal Hardison sitting on a couch drinking orange soda while three beautiful women dressed as Princess Leia fight with lightsabers)

Security: Does that look like Mick Jagger to you?

Hardison: This is not the room you’re looking for.

what a fucking GEEK oh my god

like, his flashback is so tame compared to the others???

like, his version of criminality is hanging out with cosplaying pretty girls and watching them fight with lightsabers, all under the guise of pretending to be mick jagger

- - - - -

Hardison (holding up an earpiece): It’s a bone-conduction earpiece mic, works off the vibrations in your jaw.

(Hardison tosses it to Eliot who holds it to his ear)

Hardison (whispering): You can hear everything.

Eliot: You’re not as useless as you look.

eliot being subtly impressed with hardison is my religion

- - - - -

Hardison: I don’t even know what you do.

[Flashback]

(3 Years Ago Eliot, wearing glasses and drinking from a mug of tea, enters a room full of men in Belgrade, Serbia)

Eliot: I’m here to collect the merchandise.

(Most of the men pull guns. Eliot takes a long sip of his drink. Outside, the windows flash with gunfire. Moans and the sound of a body falling fill the air. Inside, Eliot calmly takes another drink. One man sits at a table surrounded by bodies that litter the ground. He places a baseball card on the table. Eliot smiles)

am I the only one that wants to know the context of this???

- - - - -

(Parker drops down between Eliot and Hardison, hanging upside down from scaffolding)

Parker: Can I have one?

Hardison: You can have the whole box.

(Hardison holds the box of comms up for her. She takes one and pulls herself back up)

Eliot: What are you going to do when she finds out you live with your mom?

Hardison: Age of the geek, baby. We run the world.

Eliot: You keep telling yourself that.

(Parker puts the comm in her ear, smiling)

ot3 moments from day one baby

also eliot goes from ‘baby’ to ‘oh god, I’m baby’ in 0.0000005 seconds

- - - - -

[Flashback]

(19 Years Ago in Kansas City, a ten year old Parker stands in her living room watching her foster parents fight. The foster father turns to Parker, holding a stuffed bunny while the foster mother stands in the background, crying)

Bill: You thought I wouldn’t find this? You don’t get bunny until you do what I say. So be a good girl or, I don’t know, a better thief. (walks out of room)

Foster Mother: Bill!

(Parker walks outside and down the walk. Behind her, the house explodes. She hugs her bunny and smiles)

for the LONGEST time I thought she blew up the house with her foster parents until I saw that john rogers confirmed they weren’t home at the time

also this gives HEAVY insight as to how even the smallest part of Parker’s childhood was

abusive, emotionally manipulative, etc

- - - - -

(Parker adjusts her repelling gear, caressing it as if it were a lover)

Parker: Last time I used this rig, Paris, 2003

Nate: You talking about the Caravaggio? You stole that?

- - - - -

Eliot (examining earpiece): Is this thing safe?

Hardison: Yeah, it’s completely safe, it’s just, you know, you might experience nausea, weakness in your right side, stroke, strokiness.

Eliot (puts earpiece in): You’re precisely why I work alone.

shut up eliot you’re about to be so far gone for them it will be amazing

- - - - -

(Parker dives off the roof)

Parker: Yeehaaaa!!

(Eliot and Hardison run to the edge and watch her fall)

Eliot: That’s twenty pounds of crazy in a five pound bag.

what’s the opposite of foreshadowing? because I’m thinking about the long goodbye job and it’s reference to this (also the SIGNIFICANCE in that episode in how both hardison AND eliot repeat this line, finishing one another. because they both are on the same wavelength by that point, so in tune with one another and in constant awe of parker.)

- - - - -

parker just ??? drops the fucking glass ??? onto the sidewalk below ??? like ??? what if it hits someone ???

- - - - -

Nate: Okay, you got any chatter on their frequencies?

[Electrical Room]

Parker: No. Why?

[Unfinished Office]

(Nate checks records)

Nate: There’s eight listed on the duty roster, there’s only four at the guard post.

[Electrical Room]

Parker: I can’t even tell how many guys are in the room. How can you tell who’s who?

[Unfinished Office]

Nate: Haircuts Parker. Count the haircuts.

[Electrical Room]

Parker: I would have missed that.

[Unfinished Office]

Nate: What?

[Electrical Room]

Parker: Nothing.

mastermind father and daughter in episode ONE

- - - - -

we love to see eliot beat up four guys in the time it takes hardison’s bag to fall to the ground

- - - - -

Eliot (empties gun and smiles): That’s what I do.

(Hardison looks impressed. Behind him, the door clicks open. He and Eliot smile and enter the server room together)

the FLIRTING ENERGY in this scene

- - - - -

Eliot: Did you give them a virus?

Hardison: (chuckles) Dude, I gave them more than one virus.

hardison doesn’t half-ass, pass it on

- - - - -

Parker: Problem. Those guards you ganked?

[Electrical Room]

Parker (looking at monitor): They reset all the alarms on the roof and all the floors above us. We can’t go up.

[Hallway]

Eliot: Every man for himself then. (starts to move away)

Hardison: Go ahead I’m the one with the merchandise.

[Electrical Room]

Parker: Yeah, well I’m the one with an exit.

[Unfinished Office]

Nate: And I’m the one with a plan. Now I know you children don’t play well with others but I need you to hold it together for exactly seven more minutes. Now get to the elevator and head down. We’re going to the burn scam.

[Elevator]

(Eliot and Hardison enter an elevator and begin changing their clothes)

Hardison: Going to Plan B.

[Unfinished Office]

Nate (packing his things): Technically that would be Plan G.

[Elevator]

(elevator doors open and Parker runs in. She begins changing while the men look away)

Hardison: How many plans do we have? Is there like a Plan M?

[Unfinished Office]

Nate: Yeah, Hardison dies in Plan M.

[Elevator]

Eliot: I like Plan M.

there are SO MANY things about this scene I want to discuss but here are the top ones:

1- nate calling them out as children? amazing

2- eliot and hardison canonically changed in the elevator together BEFORE parker dropped in, but they weren’t necessarily looking away in a backs-turned way when she came in (when they were still getting finished getting dressed)

3- parker being completely nonchalant changing with two men in the elevator? she must not really care about being naked in front of other people (as seen later in what I think is the morning after job (?), for example)

4- the boys look away to be polite but there is definitely interest in BOTH of their faces

5- so this is what the burn scam entails

- - - - -

parker takes shotgun while the two boys are in the back. I need to see the scene of them awkwardly sitting together in the back. possibly bickering.

- - - - -

Nate: All right, all right. The money will be in all your accounts later today.

Hardison: Anybody else notice how hard we rocked last night?

Eliot: Yeah, well, one show only, no encores.

Parker: I already forgot your names.

Hardison: It was kind of cool, being on the same side.

Nate: No, we are not on the same side. I am not a thief.

Parker: You are now. Come on Nathan, tell the truth. Didn’t you have a little bit of fun playing the Black King instead of the White Knight, just this once?

(they all walk away in different directions)

smh you’re all 0.000005 seconds away from becoming a family

“no encores” my ass

+ I love how hardison is the FIRST one to (immediately) bring up how awesome they worked as a team

- - - - -

(Nate walks slowly down a toward a large room where voices are coming from)

Hardison (holding gun): You mind telling me what happened to the designs?

Eliot: What makes you think I know what happened? Stupid.

Hardison: Look, forget you man. You did it when we were coming down from the elevator.

Eliot: Yeah, that makes sense doesn’t it? You had the file every second.

Hardison: Hold up Kujo, I did my part, I transferred the files.

Eliot: You better get that gun out of my face...

Hardison: What did you do?

Eliot: …or else I’m gonna feed it to you.

Nate: Hey!

(the men turn, Hardison pointing the gun at Nate)

Eliot: Did you do it? You’re the only one that’s ever played both sides.

Nate: Yeah, you seem pretty relaxed for a guy with a gun pointed at him.

Eliot (looks at Hardison): Safety’s on.

Hardison: Like I’m gonna fall for that.

Nate: No, no, actually he’s right, the safety is on.

(Hardison looks at the gun and Nate grabs it)

Nate (to Eliot): You armed?

Eliot (shakes head): I don’t like guns.

(Eliot looks pointedly past Nate’s shoulder. Nate turns, pointing the gun at Parker who is holding a gun on him)

Parker: My money’s not in my account.

(She walks around Hardison, raising her gun as Nate lowers his)

Parker: That makes me cry inside in my special, angry place.

Nate: Okay, Parker. (slowly reaches out to lower Parker’s gun) Now did you come here to get paid?

Hardison: Hell no. Transfer of funds man. Global economy.

Eliot: It’s supposed to be a walk away. I’m never supposed to see you again.

eliot could have IMMEDIATELY taken the gun away but it made hardison feel safe so he was humoring him

and how easily nate took the gun away? interesting, for a former insurance agent

“you armed?” “no, I don’t like guns” eliot sweetie I love you

also parker’s entrance tho

- - - - -

Nate: Then the only reason you guys are here is because you didn’t get paid. And you’re pissed off. (laughs) As a matter of fact the only way to get us all in the same place at the same time is to tell us that we’re not. Getting. Paid.

(a look of realization goes through the group and they all start to run. Nate opens a garage door and directs them out. Hardison trips on the stairs and Eliot pulls him to his feet)

Nate: Come on, come on, get up. Let’s go, hustle. Go.

(the others exit and Nate looks back to see a ball of fire headed toward him)

eliot: I hate you all, I work alone, I don’t care about any of you

eliot 0.000005 seconds later: hauling hardison off the ground so he doesn’t die in an exploding building because ‘I guess he’s by boyfriend now’

- - - - -

Nate: Have we been processed?

(Eliot waves ink covered finger tips at him)

Eliot: They faxed our prints to the State Police.

[Hospital Room B]

Hardison: Yo, if the staties run us man, we’re screwed.

Parker: How long?

Hardison: Thirty, thirty-five minutes depending on the software

- - - - -

Nate: Parker! Get me a phone. What we’re going to do is, we’re going to get out of here together.

Eliot: This was a onetime deal.

Nate: Look guys, here’s your problem. You all know what you can do, I know what all you can do, so that gives me the edge, gives me the plan.

[Hospital Room B]

Parker: I don’t trust these guys.

[Hospital Room A]

Nate: Do you trust me?

Eliot: Of course. You’re an honest man.

Nate: Parker, Phone.

[Hospital Room B]

Parker: This is gonna suck.

(she sticks her fingers down her throat and bends over)

Hardison: Oh. Hell no

the amount of times eliot brings up that it was supposed to be a one-time thing is HILARIOUS considering just how fast he imprints on them lmfao

also how they all immediately trust him, I’m soft

- - - - -

(Parker nods compliantly. The doctor and nurse leave the room. Officer checks her handcuffs then leaves. Parker and Hardison hold up the phones they stole. After a quick glance, they switch phones. Parker holds up the keys she stole and tosses them to Hardison before standing up and talking to the vent into the next room)

domestic pardison

- - - - -

(Hardison leads Eliot to a police cruiser that Nate and Parker are already inside of. As Hardison guides Eliot into the backseat he hits Eliot head on the top of the door frame. Eliot turns and growls at Hardison)

Hardison: Walk it off. Walk… get inside. Get inside.

(Eliot gets in the car)

I love chaotic (pre)boyfriends

- - - - -

Eliot: I’m gonna beat Dubenich so bad that even the people who look like him are gonna bleed.

Parker: You won’t get within 100 yards. He knows your face. He knows all our faces.

Eliot: He tried to kill us.

Parker: More importantly he didn’t pay us.

Eliot: How is that more important?

Parker: I take that personally.

Eliot: There’s something wrong with you.

okay to be fair eliot at least is open to and listens to parker’s reasoning before concluding she’s crazy

- - - - -

Eliot: What’s in it for me?

Nate: Payback, and if it goes right a lot of money.

Parker: What’s in it for me?

Nate: A lot of money, and if it goes right, payback. Hardison?

Hardison: I was just gonna send a thousand porno magazines to his office, but, hell yeah man, let’s kick him up.

these characterizations are so on point

- - - - -

SOPHIE’S INTRO LMFAO

+ how everyone else is horrified but nate just looks entranced

- - - - -

[Flashback]

(In Paris seven years ago, Sophie is cutting a painting out of a frame with several empty frames nearby. The door burst open and Nate enters with a gun in hand)

Nate: Freeze.

(Sophie grabs her gun and shoots Nate in the shoulder. He responds by shooting her in the back. They both clench at their wounds)

Sophie: You wanker!

so are we, as a fandom, EVER going to talk about this scene ???

- - - - -

(so apparently there’s a 250 text block limit for posts on tumblr so I guess I have to make more than one post for this now. the following part will be reblogged on this post immediately after. reblog that version instead please lol)

#leverage #notable moments #leverage season 1 #season 1 #leverage 1.01 #leverage 1x01 #the nigerian job #mine

[seven-oomen]

Omg, lol, yes, go to bed!!!

I mean, I have tried a fair few of our treats just so that I can mess with people when they ask for recommendations.  There was one treat that we used to sell by the pound that a lady actually asked us to stop carrying because her husband would buy and eat them.  Like, she would find stashes in his sock drawer.  One that we carried from a local company for a while was actually meant to be eaten by both the owner and the pet.  As I recall, they too were a bit dry and bland, but not bad overall.

And yes, that does help clear things up a bit without giving anything away, and shift the anxiety more towards curiousity.  About multiple people now, it seems.  And I love the new preview, which I presume is part of a fleshing out of Chris’s flashback about the incident with the basketball players?  Can’t wait to see how that goes.  (The angst.  The potential for comfort.  Mmmm.)

Those are excellent choices, and also some of my faves.  Ragnarok was a fucking masterpiece (will Loki’s face when Odin says “I’m proud of you my sons” ever stop catching me like a knife to the chest?  Pretty sure the answer is no.)  I love when Thor gets a chance to prove he’s actually intelligent, and I need a Valkyrie movie asap.  (And omg, some of those visuals…)  And I really need to see Black Panther again soon.  Pretty sure Shuri is my fave Disney Princess after Leia.  (For some reason I’d also really love to see Okoye and Carol meet.  Like, I’m pretty certain the combined confidence and self-assurance would just make every dude in the vicinity spontaneously bow or kneel without even fully understanding why.)

I haven’t actually gotten to see any of the footage from the FF7 remake yet, but I remembered their participation being talked about on Tumblr (which is also where I saw the pics of Keahu’s cosplay.)  I haven’t had a chance to see my friends and talk to them about it, though it’ll be more “hey, did you know that Sephiroth is voiced by Superman?” because none of them watched TW, but a fair few have seen the CW DC shows.  And hey, don’t sweat it, I just have a weird ability to remember stuff like that, whether I want to or not.  I may not always recognize the voice, but I remember names fairly well most of the time, which comes in helpful at work when we’re talking about some piece of media and they can’t recall someone I’ll play “what else were they in?” with them until we can usually figure it out.  Or when my mom is telling me about something she saw (she’s a caregiver with a patient who LOVES going to the movies, so she’s seen more in the last few years than I ever did with her as a kid XD ) and cannot for the life of her remember names correctly.  Like, at all.  It astounds me sometimes what she comes up with trying to get it right.

Gonna have to look some of those characters up, only some are familiar.  (If it weren’t for the fact that they’re cousins here, I would be screaming Geralt!Derek and Jaskier!Stiles from the rooftops.)  I have actually done a video game costume myself but it was very long ago.  Some friends and I were in a small, local Halloween parade.  We had a Mario and a Luigi, a Lara Croft (with old Nintendo guns instead of regular ones), a couple of puppet Pac-Man ghosts being chased through the group by a large cardboard Pac-Man, several Tetris pieces, and one person wearing a Power Glove, a dance pad as a cape, and innumerable corded controllers as bling who I think was technically “leading” us along.  I was the T-shaped Tetris piece, and for what was basically a large cardboard tube with another cardboard box attached to the back, it was surprisingly easy and comfortable to walk in…as long as I didn’t try to sit down.

Ooh, and last random thought that occurred to me earlier.  If Cora does turn out to be alive (which we don’t know if she is), and Peter gave up the Alpha spark, would it go to Cora, as eldest female in the Hale line, or Malia, as eldest female in Peter’s line specifically (assuming Allison stays human)?  Feel free not to answer if need be in case of potential spoilers, I just happened to think of it.

Hope your sleep was sufficient and restful!

I’m going to put down a couple of quick answers to all of these lovely asks since I don’t have much time but I do want to address some of it.

First of all, this just made me smile today all of it. I love reading through these on bad days.

Second, it was a continuation of the scuffle with the basketball players. This time seen from Peter’s pov. The preview I put up today is basically a short scene where they’re a few months into trying to get close to Chris and finally, things seem to be working. Not included in this preview is also some background info on what’s going on with Melissa and Claudia.

And that is a good question, one I haven’t thought much about since I’m still not 100% sure what I want to do with Cora in the sequel. I’m kind of tempted to not bring her back and have the spark go to Malia by default. But eh, more thoughts need to be put into this.

#ben says stuff #once upon a time comments #my convos with anon #submission

[clairen45]

Red Re-Read: The Company of Wolves and the ST

This meta is long overdue. When I started my blog in January, I had a list of prospective articles I wanted to write about Kylo and Rey, or some themes that I was seeing suggested in the ST. On top of the list was Little Red Riding Hood, and I never even imagined going there without at the very least a honorable mention to Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber (1979) and the extended movie companion to 3 of these tales, Neil Jordan’s 1984 The Company of Wolves. Special request by @missnomerblr pushed me to finally complete the task. Also tagging our dear Reylo she-wolf extraordinaire, @ravenmaiden. The aesthetic and special effects left quite an impression on my mind as a child when the movie was released. Of course I was only allowed to watch it years later, and I didn’t get all the symbolism as a young girl, of course... but the idea that men with Frida Khalo eyebrows could turn into wolves, and that the wolf could get as seduced as the girl, were forever ingrained in my mind. How is it relevant to Star Wars, will you tell me? Ok, I will imagine that you didn’t catch any reference before, or read any meta on the sexual subtext of the movies,  but how could you miss the obvious red-themed campaign for the release of TLJ in theaters, with all the characters’ clothing dipped in red, and that little piece, very much unabashed about its reference:

Daisy Ridley even joked at the time about her poster, calling it “Little Rey’d Riding Hood”. That’s a good one, Daisy.

Officially, so many tales have been used by the Star Wars team to describe the ST. JJ compared Rey to Cinderella in his audio commentary to TFA. Sure, it’s a rags to riches story for Cinde-Rey-lla who is an orphan, undervalued and under-appreciated, and who maintains through her many hardships and trials a positive outlook on life and people, and a sunny character. Like your classic Disney princess who can talk to birds and mice, Rey understands every language. And if it’s not with a glass slipper that her prince identify her as his future bride, it is a blue lightsaber that does the trick. A saber, which like the slipper in Disney’s version, gets broken in the process right before the epilogue (part 3). Second reference: the characters were apparently coded as Goldilocks and the Bears during the shooting for TLJ. Again, that’s fair, because Rey, like Goldilocks, takes an adventurous stroll into the woods and ends up borrowing, like a cuckoo, things that don’t belong to her: a saber, a MF etc... She also trespasses onto Luke’s island, and then onto the Supremacy. And, like Goldilocks, in the positive versions, after a narrow brush with danger, she escapes barely unscathed with possibly a valuable life lesson. There is also Snow White, and the glass pod/ coffin that Rey uses to meet with her prince. I will add another element later, but I’ll hush for now. There is also the implicit Sleeping Beauty in the title The Force Awakens and the idea further developed in TLJ that Rey’s powers have been dormant ... until a prince awakened it... And then, there is Little Red Riding Hood.

This tale belongs to the cycle of educational tales about menstruation and loss of virginity. They are pretty easy to spot (intended pun): they are the ones with the color red encoded somewhere, with numbers that evoke the passing of time (12 fairies, 7 days, etc...), and also stories that require the heroine to lose a bit of blood: from the finger pricking of Sleeping Beauty or Snow White’s mom to the potential gore of Bluebeard and Little Red Riding Hood. And yes, usually menstruation and seduction go hand in hand pretty nicely. Because, traditionally, a woman who bleeds has just become fair game: she is desirable because able to bear children. So cycle of blood it is: menses, hymen, labor. What is fairly subtle, symbolic, and innocuous in cautionary tales aimed at children is brought to full light in Carter’s take on the classic tales aimed at adults. Her heroines, though, are given more obvious agency. More attention is given to the fact that it is also a time of budding sexuality for the heroines as well, a time when desire shifts from narcissim to the desire of the other. In tales, this otherness gets the extreme treatment: the object of desire is a monster, an animal, that normally becomes civilized by the end, so that desire fits conventional standards and doesn’t disrupt society. So the monster turns back into a prince when he can be salvaged (The Beast, the Frog), and he is killed when really too far gone (Bluebeard). I will also argue that, most of the time, the transformed one is actually the princess: though she doesn’t change physically, she has learned to accept her desires and stops seeing male desire and sexualty as monstruous. She has accepted the otherness, so she stops seeing him as a monster. She has changed psychologically. That being said, Carter was not the first one to bring a magnifying glass onto the implied sexuality in Little Red Riding Hood. It is implied for children, but has been very much understood as it was by adults... Think of Tex Avery’s wolf and Red for instance. What chance would have Wolfie against the very savvy and alluring vampish Red Hot Riding Hood? So the story of seduction has been going both ways for quite a long time, with Red being seduced or seducing the wolf... Then you have different outcomes, and frankly, writers and directors have done them all: girls gets devoured by wolf, girl gets devoured and rescued, girl barely escapes, girl outsmarts wolf,  girl kills wolf, wolf falls in love with girl, girl becomes a wolf, girl tames wolf... you name it.

ELEMENTS FROM LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

It was quite a bold choice in TLJ to have Rey in full Little Red Riding Hood Cosplay when so far the elements had been merely subtext in TFA. Red, so far, had been mostly coded as Kylo’s color. But as we get to find out more about him, the color seeps and bleeds, especially in TLJ, the litteral “core” (aka heart) of the ST, the middle chapter which is very much about Kylo’s exposed wounds (both figuratively and symbolically), culminating with Crait, the planet that seems to be bleeding every time you  but skim its surface. Remember also that “raw” was the keyword in the trailer, and defines Kylo: “raw untamed power”. Raw means what it means. Exposed flesh, scorched, flogged. I thought I had read somewhere that the throne room scene had been coded with Little Red Riding Hood and Big Bad Wolf during shooting, but I have never been able to find the link through my research... Please, if you happen to know or remember that, just let me know. But back to the hood...

There has already been many metas on the importance of Kylo and Rey meeting in the woods. They could have met on Jakku, they were that close... But they didn’t. There’s the woods, but there’s also straying from the path. Red, like Goldilocks, is cautioned against that. Nothing bad will happen to little girls who stay on the straight and narrow. Possibly nothing at all wil ever happen to little girls who remain on the path... In most stories, though, straying a bit will be the good start for some journey... And indeed, Rey, given a clear path, “the first steps” on the famous Path of the Jedi, through her Force visions, refuses it. Rather than following the path, she runs away... straight into the woods... Where she meets her big bad Wolf. As in the original story, he starts out being more cunning than Red, and is able to get her where he wants her to be. Abduction in TFA. Long way to Granny’s house while he takes the short cut. Plotwise, there are also some common elements. Red carries a basket full of goodies that she is supposed to take to her sick grandmother. Her mother commissioned her to the task. It’s all female realm. The grandmother lives alone, far away, in a secluded place. The grandmother represents knowledge, and also fate for the little girl: one day she will be a mother, and then a grandmother. The wolf wants to get there and get it all: the girl, the goodies, and the grandma. By getting away with the grandmother, he also symbolically tampers with the girl’s future: aka, being seduced/bedded (and not married), she will never be a wise, old, respected lady one day. As for Rey, this is not too far off. Her basket of goodies is short round BB8 which holds information. Information that is of importance to Leia. And which can lead to an old, wise... Granny Luke? living alone in a far away, secluded place... And who in a way represents a potential future for Rey, being the Last Jedi. Kylo also wants to get there. So just as in the tale, there is a potential race towards Luke’s place. And by getting the girl, Kylo is also tampering with her future: dark Side or Light Side Rey?

ANGELA CARTER’S SHORT STORIES

3 tales deal more specifically with wolves in Carter’s The Bloody Chamber : “The Werewolf”, “The Company of Wolves”, and “Wolf Alice”. I am just going to undeline a few elements that can resonate with what we have seen in the ST so far.

“The Werewolf”: the little girl gets attacked on her way to see her grandmother. She defends herself and cuts off the forepaw of the wolf. The paw turns out into a human hand. When she finally gets to her grandmother she finds her really sick and feverish, and understands that the wolf was actually her grandmother. She kills her and takes her place in the house. For that one, I want to underline the idea that monsters can hide under familiar faces, or that something that was deemed monstrous can reveal a human side. Depending on what side you are looking at it. That was the point of the ST in the cross flashbacks that tell us about Luke and Kylo. The monster gets humanized, and we get to see something unattractive and upsetting about someone who had all our trust. I am not saying that Luke is a monster, but that he potentially could have done something monstrous, which it turns out he did, because this fleeting moment turned Ben into a monster. And on the other hand, Rey gets to see Ben the man under Kylo the monster. Special bonus to the Skywalker special in the Werewolf story: the cut off hand. And in the end, Rey is indeed the one in Luke’s stead.

“The Company of Wolves”:  different folk tales and folklore about wolves and werewolves...  I have underlined that one for you: “Before he can become a wolf, the lycanthrope strips stark naked. If you spy a naked man among the pines, you must run as if the Devil were after you”. It reminded me of half naked Kylo. And then the story of the girl.This description of the girl:

She stands and moves within the invisible pentacle of her own virginity. She is an unbroken egg; she is a sealed vessel; she has inside her a magic space the entrance of which is shut tight with a plug of membrane; she is a closed system; she does not know how to shiver. She has a knife and she is afraid of nothing.

Some of these images of virginity (and virginity consumated and broken) we have seen played out on the screen: from the veil covering the MF on Jakku, the eggs on Ahch-To, the curtains on the Supremacy, to the cave on Crait... In Carter’s story, the girl is not a little girl, she is described as a pubescent, or verge of pubescence, girl, barely formed. She meets a young man in the woods who holds a reamarkable object, “a compass”. It’s nature versus culture. He bets her a kiss that he can get to Grandma before she does. The girl will take her time, she wants to lose that one. In the meantime, the man does away with the grandmother, but not before stripping naked and showing his genitals (”His genitals, huge.Ah! huge!”). When the girl walks in, she is no fool. She understands fast enough. She starts by showing compassion to the lot of wolves howling in the cold night. Then she starts shedding her clothes she “took off her scarlet shawl, the colour of poppies, the colour of sacrifices, the colour of her menses, and since her fear did her no good, she ceased to be afraid”. As the man talks about eating her, she starts laughing: “she knew she was nobody’s meat”, and she joins him in bed. The last line sees her sleeping sound and sweet “in granny’s bed, between the paws of the tender wolf”. Which reminds me of Isaiah “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb” and the coming back of a Golden Age.

“Wolf Alice”. That one is about two awakenings. On the one hand we have a young girl who was suckled by wolves and is found by nuns. Desperate to fully civilize her, they deliver us to the house of The Duke, who is some kind of a monster. You think he is a vampire at first, since he has no reflection in the mirror , then some kind of monster feasting on corpses. But he turns out to be a werewold at the end of the story. So the two creatures are actually very much alike. There were a lot of elements there that reminded me of a particularly twisted AU Reylo, to be honest. To begin with, their circumstances: she is a nobody, without any family, barely a first name, and he is a Duke, with a castle and countless trinkets from the past. For instance, Alice’s description:

Like, the wild beasts, she lives without a future. She inhabits only the present tense, a fugue of the continuous, a world of sensual immediacy as without hope as it is without despair.

It could fit Rey on Jakku, marking down each day. She does not have any plans beyond today. She is caught in a stasis.The Duke is constantly described by his hunger: “huge, inconsolable, rapacious eyes. His eyes see only appetite. These eyes open to devour the world in which he sees, nowhere, a reflection of himself”. That also reminded me of Kylo’s need to cover his face and his body in TFA, as if he wanted to disappear. They never interact with each other. The castle is referred to as “the den where she and the Duke inhabited their separate solitudes”. Alice changes, though, as she discovers the passing of time through her menses, and her reflection in a mirror. The mirror scenes can also evoke Rey’s experience on Ahch-To... At first Alice is very happy about finding a girl in the mirror because she thinks she has made a friend, that she has a companion to share experiences with... After a while, she ends up understanding that this companion is “no more than a particularly ingenious variety of the shadow she cast on sunlit grass”. With this knowledge, she puts on a wedding dress that she found in the castle and starts roaming outside. Her wanderings take her to the graveyard where the Duke is having a feast, and where he is hunted by an angry mob who manages to wound him. That’s when Alice (in full bride attire) and him interact, and that seeing him in pain, she nurses him back to life.

Poor, wounded thing... locked half and half between such strange states, an aborted transformation, an incomplete mystery, now he lies writhing on his black bed in the room like a Mycenaean tomb, howls like a wolf with his foot in a trap or a woman in labour, and bleeds.

The whole beginning could have been written for Kylo. And the symbolism at the end is clear rebirth. As she gently licks his face. Where there was nothing in the mirror, gradually appears the face of the Duke under her ministrations:

the prey caught in its own fishing net, then in firmer yet still shadowed outline until at least as vivid as real life itself, as brought into being by her soft, moist, gentle tongue, finally, the face of the Duke.

It sure reads like some smutty AU fanfic... And not far from Rey’s own experiences and interactions with Kylo. Two solitudes that meet. The girl so hopeful to find what she wanted to see in a mirror and finally crying when she understands it was all a lie, a shadow, and not what she wanted. And who turns to another solitary person right afterward, who may be the only person in the world to understand what she goes through. A creature that is caught between two states. A monster tracked down and wounded, whose human face she is alone able to reveal.... Ummm...

THE COMPANY OF WOLVES: CINEMATIC PARALLELS

Though Neil Jordan’s adaptation of Carter’s tales is contemporary to other fairy 80′s classics such as Labyrinth, Legend, The Neverending Story  or Dark Crystal, that one was never aimed at children. In an article from Film Ireland, this movie is best described as

more influenced by filmmakers like Jean Cocteau (Beauty and the Beast) and 1970’s Parisian pornographic art movies that embedded fairy tales with a salacious twist. The result is a film drenched in sensuality, richer than chocolate cake, and sporting enough themes and allegory to keep film students occupied indefinitely.

Neil Jordan worked with Carter herself to write the script for this movie. And, interestingly, most of the crew for the movie came from the Star Wars movies... The story goes like this: in a house in the country, a young girl is sleeping in her bedroom, dreaming, and visibly upset. She has an elder sister who doesn’t like her, and parents who are at a loss about her behaviour. In her dreams, the girl imagines she is a peasant girl from an XVIIIth century village, plagued by wolf attacks. Her elder sister gets conveniently killed at the beginning of the story. The girl spends most of her time with her grandmother (Angela Lansbury), some kind of a witch/fairy godmother, who knits her a wonderful red coat, and who warns her about men and wolves. Most of the stories do come from Carter’s tales but are fleshed out. The girl, who doesn’t have a name in the original story, becomes Rosaleen. She also has a suitor in a village boy... But then one day she meets a strange man in the forest and then...

There are indeed many interesting parallels to draw between Jordan’s movie and what we have seen so far in the ST, as far as Rey’s journey is concerned. The Company of Wolves is supposed to be a journey after all, an experience, what Film Ireland superbly calls “ a timeless and psychedelic daydream/nightmare, undulating and shifting”, that is supposed to reflect a young girl’s fantasies and fears as she is on the cusp of womanhood. This is about transformation, and, as the girl is portrayed sleeping most of the movie until the end, about an awakening. Which is not too far off from what Rey is experiencing, albeit in a galaxy far far away, and in a totally different genre. But, it would not be smart to overlook the implications of the title for the first installment: The Force Awakens. We know, from Snoke and Kylo’s conversation in TFA, and from Rey’s conversation with Luke in TLJ, that it is not so much about the Force Awakening (did it ever sleep?); but about someone awakening within/to the Force. And who else but Rey has been awakened? “Something inside of me has always been there... But now it’s awake.  And I'm afraid. I don't know what it is or what to do with it. And I need help. “ Which could honestly be uttered by any teenage girl (granted, boys too) as she experiences puberty... The novelizations insist on Rey’s dreams and nightmares, something we unfortunately never got onscreen...

There are more parallels to draw between Rosaleen and Rey. Rey, like Rosaleen, is the girl with the rose. The wilted flower in her AT-AT was a subliminal call to the Beast’s magic rose in Disney. White roses, red roses, are not just emblems of love, they also represent female sexuality, and female blood.

They both are fighters. Rosaleen carries a knife with her into the forest. And when her grandmother tells her a story that ends with a husband beating his wife, Rosaleen’s reaction evokes Rey: “I'd never let a man strike me!”. Her meeting with the wolf/man is also interesting to compare with Rey and Kylo. In Carter’s story, the man is described as a hunter, but in the movie he is turned into a rich man, a marquis. There is a class divide that did not exist in the short story. When she finally quizzes him about what he really is, whether he is a man or a wolf, his answer is that he doesn’t belong in one or another, that he belongs to both. Something that is further echoed by the Priest who finds the wolf girl and wonders whether she is “God’s Work” or the Devil’s, and finally decides it is better to show compassion to a suffering creature. Like Rey, Rosaleen ponders about the nature of her adversary, and decides first on hurting him: she shoots him after stealing his own gun (like someone we know who got somebody’s saber and struck thet somebody down). But then, when she sees him in pain and crying, she offers her compassion and realizes they are not so different. Her mother had warned her that there was also a beast in women’s hearts, so the ending shows Rosaleen turned into a wolf, apparently from her own free will. She chose to become the man’s companion. Much like our characters in TLJ who realize they are more connected than they thought, and Rey seeing Kylo differently.

I would like to offer further parallels in themes or scenes between the two movies:

Before meeting the wolf man, the girl has a suitor: a boy she met in her village. She is not romantically interested... and sees him more as a friend.

Meeting in a snow forest, both armed

Blood on the snow.... This classical Snow White reference is also a symbol for loss of virginity or first period... In both movies, the guys are the ones “bleeding” the snow... Can’t get more obvious than that...

The “duel” involves a “red moon”... Before the girl gets inside Granny’s house, the moon turns red, and looks like an eye. Starkiller base has this reddish eye, and it explodes (turns red) after their fight...

Both women wound the wolf... Rosaleen shoots at the wolf and wounds him in the shoulder. Rey cuts Kylo’s face and part of his chest.

High waisted pants...

Do you like subtle phallic symbols? (Remember that in Carter’s short story, he was showing his huge genitals... Well, that’s the best they could do... LOL)

And more of that...

From hunter/prey dynamic:

To real intimacy by the firelight, in “Granny’s House”... Luke is the “Granny” of the story...

The compass... It is the object that the hunter shows the girl as a lure. Compass is a song in Rey’s spotify playlist, and we have seen a compass in Luke’s hut.

The mirror, the eggs, and the nest.... The need to breed. Proof that it is all linked and that Ahch-To was indeed sex-ed class.

A lot of points can be made between Luke and the grandmother. If, unlike Luke, the grandmother is more than willing to teach the girl, they both have magic skills. She turns out to be a (good) witch. The girl loves her grandmother and believes all her stories to be the truth, but her mother warns her at one point about the grandmother’s biased view of the world. Luke’s views also turn out to be partial, and the truth slightly twisted. During one of her strolls, the grandmother encounters a snake...

Remember Luke on Dagobah?

When the wolf faces the grandmother, he shows up with blood on his mouth, implying that he has “enjoyed” Rosaleen. The grandmother asks what he did with her. The wolf: “Nothing she didn’t want”. We find these two ideas first in the smut hut when Luke is shocked to discover that Rey has allowed herself to get this close to Kylo, and then when Kylo tells Luke that he will destroy Rey...  Also, if the wolf kills the grandmother, no blood is shed. When the wolf attacks the grandmother, she breaks as if she were a doll. She is thus a simulacrum: she was not a real person, she was the image of a person. Just like Kylo unable to kill Luke because he is just an image projected from across the galaxy. I think this is a very intriguing point. The point here is to shatter illusions, dreams, and fantasies. The girl in The Company of Wolves is sleeping next to a horror book called “The Shattered Dream”.

Other possible parallel? The pack!

The Snow White references and subversion. From this:

To this:

I was also interested in the little scene when the grandmother explains how the Devil meets a young man in the wolf and gives him the potion that turns him into a wolf. This reminded me of how Snoke ensnared and turned Kylo... Heck, for that matter, Snoke is even like a very grotesque Terence Stamp!

Oh, and the Hamlet scene...

And yes, I can definitely see some parallelisms in the potential ending as well with Rey running away with Kylo... Look at this poster for the French DVD, which fuses the face of Rosaleen with the wolf and compare it with the TFA poster where Rey and Kylo merge their weapons (prelude to sex, right?) and complete each other, as well as the concept art in Art of The Last Jedi that merged their faces for Ahch-To:

The point is not to say that the writers thought of this movie or this set of story to create the ST. Maybe they did, but that doesn’t really matter, anyways. The many similarities, in my view, are mainly due to the fact that both stories tap into similar themes. The coming of age of a girl, the fears and fantasies stemming from the desire for the other, the ambivalence between disgust and attraction about sexuality, the fear of losing oneself and one’s identity (the path, the compass, the metamorphosis). Again, this is a tale as old as time. Which is why it has so much appeal and resonates into our psyche. Maybe this will never be the main event for many people who will just enjoy the cool battles and special effects. Maybe it is this extra depth that irks the discontented fanboys, because, though they don’t fully see it, they still understand that something else is at play there... But this is why this movie will endure the test of time as a story. Themewise, it has universal SEX appeal.

#reylo #reylo fandom #reylo meta #little red riding hood #star wars meta #star wars parallels #cinematic parallels #the company of wolves #the company of wolves and star wars #little red riding hood and star wars #star wars the st #sequel trilogy meta

[chasholidays]

They Were the Best Years of My Life

An And So It Goes timestamp for @matriarchal and @lushatrocity!

i.

It's not like Bellamy wanted to have kids so that he could come up with family Halloween costumes. He loves Clarke, he's always wanted children, and once they've moved into a larger place and gotten their jobs stabilized, they figure they're ready.

It's still staggering and more than little terrifying to start a family, but then they have a baby, and he doesn't really have enough room left in his brain to not feel ready for that. He's too busy making she she doesn't choke on her own hand or something to think about how he's an adult with a house and a wife and a baby.

Cassandra is just over seven months old when October rolls around, and he remembers that Halloween is a thing, and for the first time ever, he has a tiny, living prop to work with.

"I came up with a list of costumes for us during my free period today," he tells Clarke when she gets home.

"For what?"

"Halloween. I'm going to need to get working if we're going to have three costumes by the end of the month."

She bites her lip, trying to hold back either a smile or laughter, he's not sure which. He's a little ridiculous about Halloween; he knows that. And Clarke knows it too. She thinks it’s cute.

“We’re going trick-or-treating with our infant? I think everyone’s going to know the candy is for us.”

“We must have something to dress up for,” he says. “She can come to parties with us. Or help us give out candy. Or just pose for pictures.”

“Maybe we should get into cosplaying or something,” she muses. “So you have more opportunities to dress her up.”

“Or you could just help me pick a family costume.”

“From the list that you made.”

“From the list that I made,” he agrees. “We’ve got years of family costumes to go. We just need to pick what order we do them.”

“I love you,” she says, shaking her head. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Bellamy's favorite thing about Halloween costumes is that there really is no limit. They range from fictional characters to generic professions, inanimate objects to vague concepts, which means he really has a lot to work with, and he thinks he has some great ideas there.

Clarke, however, gets stuck on the first one. "Frodo, Sam, and Gollum?"

"I'm Frodo, you're Sam, Cassandra is Gollum. She's mostly bald and isn't great at communicating. I could make her a One Ring pacifier."

It sounds as if Clarke is actually choking on her laughter, which is always an accomplishment when he can manage it. "Okay, that's--on the list. Pirates is a little vague."

"We're pirates and we rig Cassandra's stroller up to look like a treasure chest. That one might be better when she's a little older," he admits. "It would kill at trick-or-treating."

"Or when we have two kids and Cassandra has her own costume."

"Or that."

"Bat, Super, Wonder?"

"One of us is one of the Batpeople, the other is one of the Superpeople, Cassandra is Wonder Woman."

"I want Batgirl, you can be Superman."

"Cool, write that down."

In the end, they come up with ten potential costumes to do over the next decade, and settle on the Lord of the Rings group for this year, largely because Clarke can't stop giggling about it.

"Besides," she says, like Bellamy hasn't agreed and she still needs to justify herself to him. "That's a much better costume to show off to our friends than to go trick-or-treating in. We'll save the others for wider audiences."

"You know these were all my idea, right?" he asks, with a smile. "I like them. You don't have to convince me."

"I'm rehearsing for when our friends make fun of us. Just let me know how I need to help," she adds, and Bellamy kisses her and gets to planning.

He and Clarke are still the only ones in their immediate friend group with a child, but their friends also love Cassandra and never mind having to accommodate her when they make plans that involve Clarke and Bellamy. He knows the two of them don't go out to the bar to hang out with Gina as much as Monty, Miller, and Raven do, but they've pretty much accepted that. They have a baby; they're drinking at home.

The Halloween party is at his and Clarke's place this year, both because they have the largest place and because taking the baby places can be a pain, but a group costume doesn't have impact unless it's seen all at once, so Bellamy and Clarke both open the door, with Cassandra in her mother's arms.

Monty and Miller take a second to take them in. The costumes are great, if Bellamy does say so himself; they're not leaving the house, so he even made furry socks to give them authentic hobbit feet.

"You know," Monty finally says. They're dressed as Captain Cold and The Ray, which is also a pretty great costume he approves of. "We met playing Hearthstone. It shouldn't be possible that we're not the dorkiest people here. And yet here we are."

"Is that a One Ring pacifier?" asks Miller. "You can't just give Gollum the ring, guys."

"But it makes her so happy," says Clarke.

"I'm just saying, I wouldn't put my kid in a costume that actually encouraged her to bite my finger off," Miller says, and Bellamy shrugs.

"I'm willing to risk it. But I'll take that into consideration for next year."

"This is going to be a thing, isn't it?" Monty asks, wary.

"We've got a list," says Clarke, bright. "It's already a thing."

Monty just shakes his head, but he's still smiling. "Great, can't wait."

"Yeah," says Bellamy. "Neither can I."

ii.

It gets a little more complicated when Cassandra starts developing opinions of her own about how she'd like to dress for holidays, but it's the nice kind of complication. He remembers, a little bit, how it was when Octavia was growing up, what it was like to see her turning into a person before his eyes, but it's even cooler this time, when he's old enough to really understand and appreciate what's going on.

She's three and a half by the time she's articulate enough to express opinions on Halloween costumes, and when he asks what she wants to be, she thinks it over carefully and decides, "Chewbacca."

Clarke's sitting at the table looking at their budget, and he can actually see her trying not to laugh.

"Chewbacca?" he asks. "From Star Wars?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay," he says, inclining his head. "I bet we can do that. But it's going to be a lot of work to put all that fur together. Are you going to help me?"

"Uh huh."

"And you're not going to quit if it's too hard, right?"

"Nuh uh."

"Okay," he says. "Let's get started."

Obviously, he's not actually expecting Cassandra to do a ton of work, but it's never too early to start learning the basics of sewing and construction, as far as he's concerned. And it's not actually that hard a costume, in some ways. He can buy some brown leggings and a top, sew some fur on there, and then make a mask. And his and Clarke's costumes will be easy; Han and Leia is definitely a dream couples costume.

"One of the big Halloween secrets is that you only make as much stuff as you can't buy," he tells Cassandra, low. They're drawing up plans together, which means he's sketching actual plans, and Cassandra is drawing a picture of Han, Leia, and Chewbacca, which is mostly just a bunch of blobs.

"You know you can just buy the actual costume, right?" Clarke says. As usual, she's not contributing to the overall costuming process, but she likes to be close, so she can still be a little involved.

"Mom's right, but it's more fun when you make stuff. But making shirts is really boring."

"Really?"

"Yeah. But making the costume is going to be fun."

"Sure it is," Clarke mutters, and he sticks his tongue out at her over Cassandra's head.

Of course, he's right, and even Clarke gets in on it, as he knew she would, because Clarke doesn't know how to resist a project, especially when both he and Cassandra are involved. She puts her foot down that she wants Leia's Cloud City look, and Cassandra gets really into going to thrift stores with her looking for costume components, which is really kind of ridiculously cute.

It really is a group effort, and when they line themselves up for the first time in front of the mirror, no one's more excited than Cassandra.

"We look so good!" she says, and just like that, she's hooked.

Bellamy's never been so proud.

iii.

The next year, Clarke is visibly pregnant, so they have that to plan around.

"It's too bad she's too young to watch Fury Road," Bellamy muses, drumming his fingers against Clarke's stomach. "She'd definitely be a war boy."

Clarke laughs. "She's four, we're not showing her Mad Max just for a Halloween costume. I don't care how much you want her to ride eternal, shiny, and chrome."

"Which is what I said."

"Sometimes you say things hoping I'll secretly disagree."

It's not like she's wrong. "I just can't think of many age-appropriate characters who are visibly pregnant."

"That's because kids can't know that pregnancy exists, or else they'll ask where babies come from."

"God forbid." He sighs. "I guess she'll have a lot of opinions. You think you're going to be up for trick-or-treating? You've been a little tired."

"I think I'm good." She kisses his shoulder. "I don't want to miss it. And I really want to find out what you guys come up with."

He smiles. "Yeah, I'm looking forward to that myself."

He and Cassandra sit down to talk about it the next day.

"So, I was thinking it would be fun if our Halloween costume this year had the baby in it," he tells her, and she frowns.

"Is the baby going to be born?"

"No. But maybe Mom could dress as someone who's having a baby soon."

"Oh." She frowns. "That could be okay."

"Okay?" he asks, a little amused in spite of himself.

"I wanted to be ponies."

She's been watching My Little Pony basically non-stop on Netflix; he should have seen this coming. "And there's a pony with a baby?" he asks.

"Uh huh. Princess Cadance had a baby. So Mom can be Princess Cadance and you can be Shining Armor and I can be Twilight Sparkle!"

Twilight Sparkle is her favorite, so it's not like this is some great sacrifice for her. "You want to do that?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay," he says. "I bet we can figure it out."

And he really does mean it, but after about half an hour of googling, he'll admit he's not entirely sure what to do with the whole thing.

"I'm worried if we just dress up as ponies, we're going to be furries," he admits to Clarke.

"I think furry is something you already are, not something you become the first time you dress up as a cartoon horse."

"Is that based on something, or are you just guessing? Remember when the dean on Community got that dalmatian fetish? It could be like that."

"Community wasn't a documentary, Bellamy. Except for the documentary episodes," she grants, before he can make the argument himself. "Anyway, did you look at Equestria Girls?"

"At what now?"

She rolls her eyes. "Didn't you have a Navy buddy who was a brony? Why aren't you better at this?"

"I'm okay with not being better at this. What's Equestria Girls?"

"It's the one where all the ponies are humans in high school."

"How is that real?"

She shrugs. "No idea, but it would probably be a lot easier to do those costumes. Regular clothing decorated with, like, their cutie marks and stuff."

"You think that's going to be pony enough for Cassandra?"

"We can do pony ears, just to be safe. I bet you can talk her into that."

"Oh, so it's my job to talk her into it?"

"Halloween is your holiday, babe," she tells him, patting his shoulder. "I'll tell her that Santa's not real, when that comes up."

He laughs. "And you're fine with being a pregnant, anthropomorphic horse for Halloween? Just checking. I want it in writing that you're fine with this and it was your idea, because I don't want you to be complaining ten years later about how much this sucks."

"I promise I will only ever complain about the year you made me a pregnant anthropomorphic horse costume as a joke," she says, and he kisses her hair.

"Good enough for me. I'll see if the kid doesn't mind."

She's thrilled, of course, and Bellamy doesn't worry about it until the night of. It's their first year trick-or-treating with Monty and Miller; they'd only been fostering Dylan for a few months last year, and he wasn't comfortable going out with a big group of near-strangers. Now, he's settled in a little more and sees the wisdom in going on a longer route with nicer houses and better candy.

He's just that he is, unfortunately, also a six-year-old boy, so he looks a little wary at the sight of them.

"What are you supposed to be?" he asks.

"Ponies," says Cassandra, smug. "We always make family costumes."

"Oh," says Dylan. "That's cool."

"I bet Dad would make one for you too," she says, with the magnanimity of a child making a promise she won't have to put any effort into fulfilling. "If you want him to."

"We're not doing a six-person costume next year," Miller tells him, low. "I will actually murder him."

"I know," says Bellamy. He smirks. "We'll have the baby, so it's actually going to be seven people. Unless Raven and Gina want in, and--"

"There is something wrong with you."

"That too," he says. "Happy Halloween."

iv.

Seven people is really a lot to work with, Bellamy has to admit. It's why he and Cassandra decide they should start planning in September.

"It's like Christmas creep, but specific only to our family," says Clarke.

"They're already selling Halloween candy some places," Bellamy points out. "It's not just us."

"Well, I think we should go back to an old classic idea," she adds, which is surprising. Clarke usually considers her role in Halloween planning to be supporting, not leading.

"Yeah?" he asks, "What's that?"

"Pirates."

Cassandra lights up. "Pirates?"

"Yeah. Dad had this cool idea where he thought he could rig a stroller up so it looked like a treasure chest, and then the rest of us could be pirates, protecting it. That would be fun, right?"

"Yeah!" she says. She's practically vibrating with excitement. "Can we do that, Dad?"

"We should check with Uncle Nate and Monty and Dylan," he says. "Make sure they wants to do it too. But even if they don't, we make a pretty good pirate gang with just the four of us, right?"

"Uh huh," says Cassandra. "Well, three of us. Marc is the treasure, right?"

"Yeah. This one's going to be complicated," Bellamy adds, doing his best to bring some real gravity to the statement. "We have to put together the treasure chest. That's construction, not just sewing."

"I like complicated," Cassandra declares. "Let's do it."

Clarke, unsurprisingly, takes point on building the treasure chest; construction and artwork are her fields, and she manages to put together a sturdy cardboard shell that slides over Marc's stroller. For the lid, she finds some cloth to go over the top of the stroller, taking advantage of the part that folds up, and Bellamy has to admit, it looks awesome.

"It's almost like I'm good at things," says Clarke, with obvious smugness.

"It never gets old, finding new things you're good at," he tells her, fond, and leans in for a kiss. "Seriously, this is awesome."

"Of course it is. I love our Halloween tradition," she adds, with a small smile. "Just because I'm not always as involved--"

"I know." He smiles. "Trust me, I never doubted. Now you just have to help me come up with an appropriate pirate costume for you."

"I didn't know it was that hard."

The smile turns into a smirk. "When I think about you dressing up as a pirate, it's not exactly G-rated fantasies."

She laughs, tugs him down for another kiss. Both the kids are actually asleep, so there's an outside chance he's going to get laid tonight. He's pretty sure they can make it happen.

"So tell me about your idea tonight, and I'll help you figure out something appropriate for me in the morning," she murmurs, and he grins and tugs her closer.

"Works for me."

The pirate costume she ends up wearing to trick-or-treat is not, therefore, the pirate costume of his fantasies, but once the night is over and the kids are settled down, she undoes the top few buttons and tightens the corset, so, really, who says you can't wear Halloween costumes all year round?

They're going to get a lot of use out of this one.

v.

At age ten, Dylan is the one who finally says, "I want to be Spider-Man this year," and Bellamy and Clarke exchange a look,

Bellamy doesn't often think of the conversation he and Clarke had during their first Halloween together, all those years ago. He does remember it, but less on its own and more as the first time Clarke confirmed that she wanted to have kids with him, that she didn't just love him and want to stay with him, but that she was planning a future for them, the same as he was.

He did not expect, in any way, to actually have to make Spider-Man costumes for any number of children.

"I wanna be 'Pider-Man too," says Marc, right on cue. He thinks Dylan is the coolest person to have ever lived, which means that everything Dylan does, he wants to do too.

"Is there a girl Spider-Man?" asks Cassandra. "A good one. Not just Spider-Man with a ponytail."

"I think we can probably figure something out," says Bellamy. "But I'm not being Uncle Ben. There's no way I'm jinxing myself like that."

"I think as long as we're all in the Marvel family, it still counts as a theme costume," says Clarke. "I bet Monty will have ideas."

This, as it turns out, is an understatement.

"Okay, so, Spider-Gwen is awesome, Cassandra can be her. She's got a hoodie, it's a really cool aesthetic. And then Dylan can be Peter Parker Spider-Man and Marc can be Miles Morales Spider-Man."

“So they’re not just different costumes for the same person?” Bellamy asks, frowning. “How many Spider-Men are there?”

“How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?” Monty asks. “This is not for us to know. I already have a Black Widow costume, so I’m set. Assuming it still fits.”

His frown deepens. “Why do you already have a Black Widow costume?”

“Because I’ve already dressed up as Black Widow. Nate wants to be Heimdall.”

“Does Nate know that?”

Monty just looks at him, unimpressed. “It’s Idris Elba. Everyone wants to be Idris Elba.”

Bellamy can’t argue with that.

After some googling, Clarke opts for Captain Marvel for her costume, and Bellamy goes with Captain America, mostly because he has a thing for Chris Evans. And Clarke has a thing for Chris Evans. Everyone has a thing for Chris Evans, from what he can tell.

But for some reason, it feels like more work than usual.

“It’s because you’re making fucking armor,” says Raven. She and Gina are coming with them this year, but have opted for DC superheroes. Bellamy’s pretty sure Raven just wants someone to try to tell her she’s a fake geek girl who doesn’t know Oracle isn’t in the Marvel universe so she can fight them. Which he completely supports; he hopes she kicks their hypothetical asses.

“So it’s Miller’s fault.”

“And yours. You want a real shield.”

“What’s the point of having a fake shield?”

Raven rolls her eyes. “So have you always been like this, or is this a weird biological imperative? Like you had kids and decided you needed to disguise them so they’d be protected from predators.”

“That sounds real. I like Halloween,” he says. “Miller and I did costumes together when we were little, and I always liked it. And when O let me dress her up.”

“Masculinity meant you couldn’t play with dolls so you had to figure out another way to do it,” she supplies.

“Or I just like Halloween. Seriously, it’s fun. And I’ve got another five years tops before Cassandra decides she’s too cool to dress up with her family, so I’ve got to milk it while I can.”

“Kids sound exhausting, I’m glad I don’t have any.”

“Yeah, if that's how you feel about it, it's definitely good. You want to be sure about kids. But you’re still coming out with us? Trick-or-treating can be a lot."

"Obviously. I miss having an excuse to get free candy. The costumes look really cool," she adds, bumping her shoulder against his. "You're good at this."

"Costumes? Yeah, my mom taught me to sew when I was a kid."

"Not just that. You guys are good at all of this. I still feel like I'm not used to you being parents, but--you're doing awesome at it."

He smiles, but there is a lump in his throat. Validation never gets old. "Getting sentimental in your old age, huh?"

"Shut up," she says. "Metal-working always does that to me."

He puts his arm around her shoulders and gives her a squeeze. "Yeah, that must be it."

The costumes get done, and by the time Halloween rolls around, Bellamy really does feel like a successful parent. Not, of course, that Halloween costumes are the be-all and end-all of parenting, but--it's not just costumes. His kids have two parents who love them and are able to take the time to do things for them and with them, which is lucky, and they have adopted aunts and uncles and friends who all want to go out with them. When Bellamy was Cassandra's age, he was already taking his sister out alone, and while he could do that, he likes that his kids will probably become embarrassed to be seen with him long before he stops wanting to make them all family costumes.

"Do you think if we do this again next year and I start now, I could make myself web shooters?" Cassandra asks.

"Depends on what you're thinking," says Clarke, clucking her tongue. "You could probably get something that would shoot something out of it, but it's not going to be like real functioning webs."

"I know that," says Cassandra. "But I really like this costume, and it would be cool if we could do, like, silly string! Fwip, fwip," she adds, flicking her wrists at the darkness. Monty loaned her some Spider-Gwen comics, and Bellamy can sense the start of a new obsession. It really might last her all the way to next Halloween. "We could do that, right, Dad?"

"Raven might need to be technical consultant," he says. "I'm not really an expert on web shooting. But yeah," he says, putting his arm around her and giving her a squeeze. "Any costume you want, we'll figure it out. You know that."

"I do know that," she says, easy, and that's his favorite tradition.

After all, he gets to be a superhero every single Halloween.