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whentheynameyoujoy · 3 years

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Yup, Sure Was a Finale

I had an epiphany. The reason why I never re-watched the final two parts of Sozin’s Comet even though I’ve popped in episodes at random many times over the years isn’t that I can’t bear the sadness of seeing one of the best, most engaging narratives out there come to an end.

It’s simply that the finale isn’t all that good.

Some honorable mentions of what was enjoyable.

(+) This

Just this.

(+) The Church of Zutara has another convert

“Are you sure they don’t get together?” Hubster, 2020

(+) The tragedy of Azula

And the fact that it’s acknowledged as such. I hope Zuko will do his best to get her help and have a relationship with her…

(+) Sokka being a big bro

And the whole airship sequence in general. It’s wonderfully paced and plotted, with moments of humor, real stakes, Toph being both badass and a scared crying kid, Sokka strategizing and protecting, Suki saving the day, and non-benders being instrumental in thwarting the bad guy firebender’s plans. Would be shame if Bryke never portrayed them this capable ever again…

And now for the main course.

(-) Blink and its over

The wrap-up feels too quick (hashtag Needs More ROtK-style False Endings). A part of this is due to how fast the story goes from the thick of the action to hastily tying up a bunch of loose ends, but the larger issue is how Book 3’s uneven pacing comes home to roost. After spending half a season on filler episodes that at best subtly flesh out established characters while dancing around a huge lionturtle-shaped hole, and at worst contradict the theme of “no one is born bad” with “you’re a hot mess because your great-grandfathers didn’t get along too well”, the frantic “go go go” rush of the second half screeches to a halt with “they won and everyone was happy because now the right people have power and it will be all good from now on yup nothing more to deal with baiiiii”.

Yes, I know, it’s a kids’ show. But goddamn, this particular kids’ show has proven so many times it can do better than the expected tropiness. Showing the characters in their roles as builders of a new world was the least that could have been done.

Oh well!

(-) Ursa

We’ll never know. There will never be a story that delves into this. Yup. Shall forever remain but an intriguing mystery. Is good, though. Mystery is better than a story where Ursa shares her son’s penchant for forgetfulness. Imagine how embarrassing that would be. Speaking of which…

(-) What does Mai see in this jerkbender?

Look, I like to harp a lot on the mess of inconsistent writing that’s Mai but let’s unpack this scene from her perspective, shall we?

Zuko forgot about her! It totally slipped his mind that the one person who prioritized the safety of his dumb ass was rotting in the worst prison in the Fire Nation—because of him! And she was rotting there long enough after the final Agni Kai for the news of Zuko’s upcoming coronation to spread and her uncle to feel sufficiently secure to release her. But then the coronation scene is attended by every single member of Gaang & Friends that was imprisoned?

So what this tells me is that either a) the invasion force had the ability to break themselves out the whole time and for some reason decided not to exercise it until after the war was over, b) Zuko forgot about them as well and no one thought to remind him there were prisons full of POWs until Mai arrived, or, and that’s even better, c) Zuko took care to free every single resistance fighter while making sure Mai would be the one to stay behind bars.

Never thought I’d say this but Mai? Honey? You deserve so much better.

(-) “What does Katara want?”

Asked no one in the writers’ room ever, apparently.

This is not so much anti Cataang as anti romance stories that pay attention to the needs, opinions, and wants of only one partner in general. Over the previous 60 episodes, Katara actively expressed romantic interest in Aang exactly, wait for it,

Once.

And it got retconned out of relevance by the following two interactions where the possibility of a romantic relationship came up, making the Headband dance pretty easy to reclassify as just one of those examples where Aang “teaches” Katara to have fun (as if one of the main obstacles to her having fun wasn’t him constantly fooling around and offloading his duties). And because the writers not only didn’t succeed in portraying Katara’s internal state of mind, but also failed to root her reluctance to pursue a relationship in outside circumstances that could change, her sudden state of unconfused once Aang steps into the spotlight has a single canonical explanation that as much as approaches coherency.

The fact is, though, that trying to interpret canon Cataang from a Watsonian perspective is an exercise in foolishness. Because there is no Watsonian justification for the ship and never has been. Bryke simply conceived of Katara as nothing but a tropey prize for Aang, never saw her as anything beyond that, and were perfectly happy to go on and immortalize her as a passive broodmare for the rest of her life.

And I fully intend to die mad about it.

(-) Iroh dips

OK, it’s been long apparent that the show doesn’t intend to do anything about Iroh’s complicity in AzulOzai’s regime in any meaningful way, and that his sole motivation for doing anything whatsoever is Zuko whom he views as a replacement son which is supposed to be good for some reason. But the finale has him abandon even that, and instead turns him full-on YOLO, idgaf anymore. It really throws Iroh’s supposed love for Zuko into doubt when his last act in the entire show is to take a half-educated 16-year old with no political savvy or an heir to secure a dynastic continuity and plomp him on the throne of a war-mongering imperialist regime where the entirety of the militarist and ruling class is guaranteed to fight him tooth and nail for power.

(I sure hope Mai’s ready to start popping out babies by tea-time otherwise the whole country is fukd in about a week)

Christ, how hard would it be to have Iroh keep the throne warm for a few years while Zuko is getting ready to succeed him? Not only would it make the whole FN reformation bit quite likelier to occur, it would require Iroh’s hedonistic ass to actually sacrifice something for once. And not having Zuko ascend to power, instead spending some time bettering and educating himself first, would be a wonderful message that no matter what you endured and overcame, you never stop growing. A kids’ show, remember?

(-) The conquering of Ba Sing Se

Gee, I feel so blessed to have my attention diverted from battlefields which actually matter to an old dude vanity project I would have been perfectly happy to assume resolved itself off-screen.

The White Lotus in general just bugs me. I was fine with the individual characters and their overall passivity when they were portrayed as lone dissenters living under circumstances where it wasn’t really possible for any single person to mount a meaningful resistance. But as members of a far-reaching shadowy organization that’s left the real fight to a bunch of kids for 59 episodes straight and didn’t turn up until a perfect opportunity presented itself to take control of the largest city in the world and bask in the spotlight?

Yeah, no.

Similarly to the lionturtle-ex-machina, the White Lotus represents a huge missed opportunity for a season-long storytelling. Here’s just a brief list of what they could have been doing throughout Book 3:

orchestrating a Fire Nation uprising;

gathering those directly persecuted by AzulOzai’s regime to help Zuko keep his hold on power once he’s crowned;

establishing themselves as a viable alternative to Ozai;

sabotaging Fire Nation’s war efforts from the inside;

countering Fire Nation propaganda (Asha Greyjoy’s pinecones, anyone?);

running a supply network to alleviate the suffering of Earth Kingdom citizens.

Instead, they sit on their asses until the time comes to claim personal glory.

You know what, good on Bryke for making me conclude that in comparison, the Freedom Fighters were perfectly unproblematic, actually.

(-) Fire Lord Dead-by-Dawn

Yes, a kids’ show, I know! But ffs, this is the same kids’ show that came up with Long Feng and portrayed courtly intrigue, kingly puppets, secret police, spy networks, and information wars. Was it really too much of me to expect something other than “enlightened despot solves everything”? Especially if said enlightened despot has persisting anger issues, no personal support system, no base of followers, and no political experience whatsoever?

If Zuko’s actually serious about regaining the Fire Nation’s honor (i.e. by dismantling the country’s military machine, decolonizing the Earth Kingdom, paying reparations to everyone and their lemur, and funding any and all cultural restoration projects Aang and the SWT come up with), then there is no way, no way in the universe that he doesn’t face a civil war, deposing, and execution within a month.

One reason why his future as a Fire Lord seems rather bleak is that little’s been shown about the actual subjects of AzulOzai’s regime. While we get a vague reassurance that “no Toph, they’re not born bad” (le shockings), they largely remain a voiceless uniform mass of brainwashed clapping seals. What is their view on the Fire Nation’s crimes? Do they associate their condition with their country’s war-mongering? How will they react when Zuko starts dismantling the country piece by piece to rebuild it, bringing it to economic ruin? What will they do when noble Ozai loyalists come out of the woodwork and begin rounding them up under the banner of “Make the Fire Nation Great Again?”

I have no idea, and Zuko doesn’t either because he’s unironically more qualified to rule the Earth Kingdom than his own people.

You know what would have been better? Fire Lord Iroh, White Lotus pulling the strings to maintain the regime, and Crown Prince/People’s Champion Zuko travelling the Fire Nation with Aang and an army of tutors to promote the new boss, only to realize that absolute monarchy is kinda crap for the people he’s one day supposed to rule and gaining their support by ceding some power to them.

I’d laser holes into my TV due to how much I’d enjoy watching that.

(-) All hail Avatar Rock

Literally and metaphorically. Aang doesn’t sacrifice anything, gets everything, and the clever solution of going about getting said everything is handed to him on a silver platter, requiring no active participation on his part whatsoever.

He doesn’t work to unblock his chakras, spiritually or physically.

He only speaks to his past lives to get a pat on the back and a bow-tied solution he could mindlessly follow.

Energy-bending doesn’t require any sacrifice from him, leaves no lasting marks, and only serves for the narrative to praise him as the rare individual that’s unbendable and thus so very very special.

The most infuriating thing is, however, that Aang is clearly shown as being able to beat Ozai without either the Avatar state, or energy-bending.

And he chooses not to. From this moment on, Aang no longer fights to save the world. He fights to preserve his beliefs, going directly against the instructions of his past lives and effectively reneging on his duties as the Avatar.

Again.

It’s not like you can’t portray Aang’s faithfulness to his spiritual beliefs as the key to beating Ozai and saving the world. But that’s not what the show did. There is no link between Aang sparing Ozai and securing a better future, quite to the contrary—Ozai’s survival ends up being a massive problem for the continuation of Zuko’s rule, and consequently a threat to the world at large. His survival benefits Aang and no one else.

Aang’s spiritual purity and his status as a savior of the world are allowed to coexist only due to a deliberate stroke of a writer’s pen.

And I hate it.

Welp, nothing to do about it now except to bury myself up to my tits in fix-it fics I guess.

#atla #atla rewatch #meta #zutara #anti bryke #anti-kataang #anti-aang #anti-maiko

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thisisthestoryofanotherus · 3 years

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It’s Different

Part 10 of Crash and Burn

SERIES MASTERLIST

Summary: You and Ashton were never on the best of terms, maybe since you guys were so similar: sarcastic, stubborn, protective and had a true love of art. After a misunderstanding and $200 on the line, you find yourself (fake) dating the campus’ most adored (and drooled after) art student… with friendships at risk and feelings emerging it was only a matter of time until the inevitable crash and burn

A/n: This can be read by itself or part of my Ashton social media au! This is nearly 2000 words but after being gone so long figured I needed to do something to bring this series back to life. And what better way to fix this series than with a long drabble hopefully tying things together? Next part will be up Wednesday! My goal is to have this finished by the end of the year so expect frequent updates!

Also with this title couldn’t help but this of THIS SONG (and learn more about Jae lol) that I highly recommend!

As always lmk what you guys think and thanks for reading! -Lydia

You had never been so out of breath from one flight of stairs, unable to control your heavy breathing as you kicked Lisa’s door as your only means of knocking. One flight of stairs should be nothing (even if you could use more time at the gym, pssshhh like that was going to happen) but going up the stairs with the balancing act of snacks filling your arms made things difficult. Kicking the door one more time, your best friend finally opened her door.

“Would you not kick down my door? Gosh-OH you brought snacks!” Lisa practically screamed. She may act like a bad bitch, but it did not take very much to make her happy. Sometimes you just needed several bags of hot cheetos and some ice cream.

“Do you see any available hands? Move! My arms feel like they’re falling off from walking with all this! You just have to live on the second floor…you just thrive on my misery don’t you?”

She giggled as she held the door open, watching as you threw the various boxes and bags across her kitchen counter. Arms finally free, you collapsed onto the floor trying to catch your breath.

“Ugh I’m gonna die” you exclaimed, stretching your arms out above you.

“So overdramatic” Lisa simply rolled her eyes, organizing the snacks you so oh graciously brought. “So what are we watching?”

“Oh I’m fine with anything” you said, quickly standing and heading over to the couch, making sure to grab a handful of items with you.

____________

You were now 6 episodes into the latest Netflix drama and before the next intro is able to start Lisa presses pause.

“WHHHAATTT ARE YOU DOING?!!” You scream. “It was just getting good!”

“We need to talk…” Lisa says, placing the remote on the coffee table and turning face you.

“About what? What is more important than finding out-“

“Y/n….we need to talk about Ashton”

You pressed your lips together and sat up, small remnants of the junk you devoured all night falling down your shirt onto the blanket in your lap. You knew this would come up eventually, just not after a cliffhanger like this. But even that shock factor wasn’t enough to distract your friend’s curiosity. Ashton, of course she wanted to know. Lately things have been…different. It has been nearly a month of your so-called relationship with Ashton. You guys had agreed on two weeks. Two weeks tops of letting the entire campus think you guys were “dating” after he kissed you at that party, saving you from the embarrassment of having your crush all over another girl while you stood there trying not to cry. You thought this might show him what he was missing out on, but the irony is you never even saw (or thought) much of Jae anymore.

Instead your time was spent almost exclusively with Ashton, not that you’d ever admit that. Both of you looking for small excuses to spend more time together. Something needed to be done with the project, studying for class, getting coffee, just wanting to see each other… All leading to hours of just enjoying the others company. The random drives to new restaurants he wanted to try, his dumb jokes, his smile, the way he would stay close, often grabbing your hand, all for show of course until his small touches became something natural… Now, it was weird if he didn’t grab onto your hand or pull you closer, even if you were sitting alone on the couch at his place watching a movie or painting. After the two-week mark, neither of you acknowledged this deadline. As you were approaching three weeks neither of you pulled away or called this off…whatever this was. Because honestly you had no idea. Any outsider believed you guys were the happy couple you pretended to be. In reality you knew this was nothing but pretend, but it felt so real. You almost wished he completely ignored you when he wasn’t forced to put on a show. Maybe then you wouldn’t be lost in this idea that maybe you guys were actually together.

The lines were becoming blurred, more obscure with every moment. Like last night. You didn’t notice the time as you both were crouched over your project, enamored in the painting to notice the sun had long gone down. Ashton refused to let you wander the campus at 4am to get to your place. Said you could just crash in his spare room. You didn’t miss how his hand lingered a little to long against your own as he handed you some clothes. How his bright eyes seemed to be screaming something as he gazed at you…saying something he refused to say aloud, before quickly saying goodnight and leaving the room. How sweet he was the next morning…waking you up with promises of pancakes and waffles from the café down the street.

With moments like this… you had no idea where you stood. How were you going to explain this to even your best friends when you didn’t know yourself?

“What’s going on between you guys y/n?” she asked you. Voice free of judgement, just concern.

“I-…..I don’t know” You sighed, lying back against the couch.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” She asked, placing her hand on you shoulder. “You know you can tell me anything. And I know there’s more going on than what you’re telling me-“

“Honestly Lisa nothing has happened! Without all of this I see him all the time between classes and our project..”

“Y/n you have known him since freshman year… meaning you have had dozens of classes together with him and you never saw him this much. I mean sure there was the whole ‘I hate you Ashton Irwin’ thing but-“

You laughed at this. If someone would have told you a month ago you would be “dating” you long term enemy you would have told them they were on crack. No one, especially you, would have expected the two people who couldn’t even be in the same room as each other without arguing would end up spending nearly every second together. Did you still find him infuriatingly annoying? Of course. BUT you also couldn’t help the feelings you had for him freshman year from slowly creeping yet again into your heart. And that was the most frustrating part of it all. Because just like back then, this was all bound to blow up in your face.

“Look Lisa you’re right. Things are different. Even more so than when he kissed me that night-and before you ask yes it was just the one time. I just don’t know how to explain it…it’s almost like it was back then when he was just there. Always. How I craved his company during the few instances he wasn’t there and just lost myself in him…but now it’s so much more complicated… I don’t know where we stand and I don’t want to know because once I do I know it’s me who’s going to be hurt.”

“Y/n that’s what I was afraid of when you said you were doing this. Last time you guys were this close it ended up with him hooking up with Chelsea and you heartbroken in bed for days. I don’t want to see you go through that again.”

You looked up at your best friend. Really you did not deserve her. Seeing the love and concern in her eyes made you feel the start of tears in your own.

“Give me some credit. I’m much more mature than I was back then…”

“Mmhmm. Says the same person who recommended this be a Disney marathon.” Lisa said, rolling her eyes.

“Hey! You are never too old for Disney movies” you laughed, hitting her shoulder.

“Just be careful ok?” She said giving you a serious look. You nodded and she picked up the remote pressing play once again.

_____________

You woke up to the sound of your phone ringing. Wondering who dare disturb you after staying up all night finishing season one of your new favorite show. About to turn the phone off, you found yourself sliding the answer button when you saw the word Ashton flash across your screen.

“Hello?” You said, voice quiet yet obviously laced with sleep as you turned to Lisa making sure she was still asleep.

“Are you still sleeping? You do realize it’s passed noon right? Even if it is Saturday” Ashton said sarcastically. You could nearly see his smirk you’d bet he had on right now.

“Shut up had a late night. What do you want?”

“You and Lisa party hard with them movies or what?” he chuckled. “Are you home? I forgot some of my brushes at your place and I need them.”

“And here I thought you missed my voice. Fine. I’m not home yet though give me a bit-“

“I have to drive over to your place anyway. I’ll pick you up. Give me like 10 minutes.”

“Well okay then…” you said to yourself as you stared at your now blank screen.

Sure enough ten minutes later you were climbing into the passenger seat of Ashton’s car.

“Good morning beautiful” Ashton teased.

“Shut up” You said, hoping your blush didn’t show just how affected you were by those words, even if he was obviously joking. I mean-your hair was a mess, clothes disheveled from sleeping in them and you barely had time to swish some mouth wash in your mouth to appear somewhat human.

Ashton simply chuckled instead of replying as he pulled the car into drive.

As you walked to your apartment you felt the familiar grasp of Ashton’s hand in your own. And when you reached your door, you couldn’t miss the small pout he had when you let go of his hand to search for your keys.

“I meant to take your brushes with me yesterday, even moved them over here…” You said, walking over to your shelf as Ashton locked your door. You crouched down, opening the bottom drawer searching for the bag you put his stuff in. “Ah! Found them!” You exclaimed as you quickly stood up, turning to show the prize in your hands.

However, you did not realize he was behind you, and just how close you turning around made you guys. Maybe it was the surprise of finding him right next to you. Maybe it was your sleep deprived state. Regardless you found yourself unable to move, breath escaping your lungs as you simply just stared up at him. His hazel eyes shining with the same question he had the last time. Your hand against his chest, his against your hip. You both slowly moving closer together, eyes moving from his deep gaze to his lips…

As quickly as it started, whatever trance you found yourself in abruptly ended with the sound of your phone ringing. You both jumped away from each other, surprise in both your expressions.

“I-um…should get that” You said, quickly grabbing your phone off the counter.

“Ya um, thanks for letting me get my things…I have this project...I’ll umm catch you later?” He said, running a hand through his hair and already walking towards the door.

“Sure” you said with a forced smile, answering the call of your best friend who no doubt was mad you left without telling her anything.

He gave you a small wave, closing the door behind him.

You released the breath you didn’t know you were holding as your friend screamed “where the fuck did you go?!”

#c&b #crash and burn #5sos #ashton irwin #ashton 5sos #ashton irwin smau #ashton irwin drabble #ashton irwin imagine #ashton irwin au #5sos imagine #5sos au #5sos drabble #5sos smau #5sos smut #luke hemmings #michael clifford #calum hood

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drawbauchery · 4 years

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The Classic Idea

(fic by cartoons-tothemoon)

“Skipper! I need you to kiss me right now!“

“What?”

Despite being a bunch of crackpot agents, ready for anything and everything that the world could throw at them, be it torture, babysitting, or that one tenant that poisoned people who made him mad, it could not be denied that they had a specific scene. A niche, if you will.

Nobody could really define what that scene was, but, god, you’d know it if you saw it.

Closer to the point, their scene was not that classic idea of a secret agent, full of fast cars and lavish dinner parties and weirdly formal clothing.

And yet, here they were.

Skipper was staring into space as he zipped up Private’s dress as that was the safest option for the both of them, considering such things, like how he’d gotten to this point in his life, and still debating about whether or not confiding your secrets in your closest nemesis was a bad idea if he was going to do the same.

And while Private tied his tie, Private considered how he was practically born into a life of espionage and was somehow still bad at it, whether or not he’d be more or less conspicuous in a dress, and how hard it was to tie a Windsor’s knot.

A well of insecurity and anxiety seemed to radiate off of them, but in that cool way where they’re just kind of like that, as Skipper patted Private on the shoulder and gave him a thumbs up after zipping up his dress and Private beamed up at him after tying his tie.

The height of casual anxiety, indeed they were.

What made it worse, or better, based on what their plan was, was that none of them looked like they were dressed for the same event.

Skipper wore a basic black tux, Kowalski wore a white tux, generally acceptable, but boring and blasé if not for how they pulled it off. Could belong at some wedding if Skipper could look any more bored.

Private was wearing a short pink dress he’d gotten from Julien and Rico looked more like the slacker stoner teen at prom than anything else.

Luckily, given that their plan was to pretty much separate as soon as they got to the party, it would be a piece of cake.

Two weeks ago, HQ had sent a notice about the fact that they needed their best and brightest field agents to comb the grounds of this party…But they were all busy, and so this note was passed down to them.

They had no idea who was hosting the shindig, or what they may be looking for, but man. Wouldn’t it be nice to know.

It wasn’t their thing, really, but, doing a job that nobody else was super into doing, wasn’t that kind of their thing? And besides. Even if they’re not considered elites among HQ, for whatever reason, a first class mission like this had some first class perks, like the car the agency left for them, which Rico called dibs on driving to and back, despite not knowing where they were going. Luckily, Kowalski was able to snatch the keys from him before they learned the full capacity of Rico’s road rage in something that wasn’t a $2000 coupe.

As Rico claimed shotgun, Private and Skipper sat together in the back seat, Skipper’s eyes facing straight ahead, but Private’s out the window, into an almost invisible horizon at this time of night.

“Okay, so here’s the plan.” Skipper began, pulling a map out of the top pocket of his suit coat. “Kowalski was able to acquire a map of the grounds…Grounds…Grounds is such a rich person word. It’s dumb. I hate it.”

“Skipper, the plan.” Kowalski reminded.

“Right, right. We have a map of the house. We enter in 5 minute intervals between each other, so we can’t be traced back to each other as easily. Kowalski, you’re going to the library and observatory.”

“Yes! Skipper, you have given me a gift.”

“Rico, you’ll be stationed near the kitchen and bathrooms.”

Rico shrugged, as if Skipper didn’t already know he was going to rob those chefs blind of their tiny appetizers and even smaller entrees.

“Private, you handle the coat room, sitting room, and closets.”

“Right.”

“And I’ll handle the bedrooms.” Skipper said. “So we’re all in agreement?”

Private raised his hand, with an apparent query in mind.

“Yes, Private?”

“Who in the world has a coat room?”

“Who has an observatory in their home?” Kowalski shrugged.

“Rich people.” Skipper grumbled. “If we’re all in agreement, when all of this is said and done, you want to come back to throw bricks at their windows?”

“T-Time and place, man. T-time and place.”

And so, they executed their plan, just as Skipper said they would. First Rico, then Private, then Kowalski, and then Skipper himself.

Kowalski was anxious about the idea of having the same car drive up, drop someone off, and drive away for 5 minutes four times over, but the fact of the matter was that nobody was really paying attention, because there was no reason to. They were not as obtrusive as they normally were. They had no reason to garner suspicion. They blended in.

They were professionals.

For once in their lives.

And as Skipper parked the car in a nearby restaurant’s parking space, he couldn’t help but think about what the evening would have in store for them. Enter mansion, search for hostages or secret passwords or weapons or whatever sort of villainy may be oozing behind those gold framed windows, exit mansion, pursued by bear. The dinner party scene was dreadfully tired, and he knew every trope in the book the sinister party planner could throw at him. That wasn’t their fault, of course. He’d just been around the block far too many times.

Nothing this night could throw at him could faze him, surely.

…Probably.

When Private had heard that he was finally going to have that empirical secret agent experience that his dear Uncle Nigel told him of when he was quite young, he was rather enthused by the idea. Sure, he didn’t know how many eyes he’d catch by simply walking into the room, or how many hands he’d grab in suspicious positions in proximity to his personhood, but, hey, he may have been Private, but he was Private, First Class.

All he had to do was walk among the tiny rooms of the house, and if he didn’t find anything, he didn’t find anything.

And yet, the pressure was on.

This was his first mission with the supposedly charming spy life his Uncle had romanticized, and yet, there was something about it that made his skin crawl. Maybe it was because of the noise, it was too loud everywhere all the time. Maybe it was how suspicious it would look to find him poking around where he didn’t belong. Maybe it was the fact that, although these were the missions he was pitched, these weren’t the missions he signed up for. Who was to say at this point what was the true source of his anxieties? He didn’t know, that’s for sure, and that meant nobody else really needed to know either.

As Private wandered into another bedroom, he resigned himself to a search of the closet. He doesn’t know exactly why Skipper gave him the smallest nooks and crannies to search, but maybe it was for those exact reasons. The faster he got done, the faster he could leave. Maybe pick up a pizza and hang out with Marlene for a few hours, why not? She should still be up.

The closet looked to be empty, outside of a few golden wire hangers and the weird amounts of dust and hair on the ground. This must’ve been a guest bedroom, not that he could tell, based on the fact that every other bedroom, and there were others, looked the exact same.

Private slammed the main door to try to permeate the noise from downstairs, but it permeated through, regardless. The sounds were growing to be grating, and Private could have sworn he was moments away from a legitimate breakdown, and the very idea of such a thing frightened him, which only served to fuel his anxieties even more.

So, he did the only thing he could think of. He went into the small, dark closet and closed the door, sinking to the floor. Thankfully, it muffled the sound, but it also meant he’d be able to finish up his assignment without disappointing the team. The last thing he wanted to be was the weakest link, but he was, basically by default. Not doing what was asked of him would only make this disparity in skill and rank even more apparent, and everybody would know. Everybody already knew, but this would just make everything so much WORSE. He didn’t know how, but he didn’t need to. It was apparent. It was inherent.

He felt himself begin to cry, but, this whole episode of emotional lapses felt more of an inconvenience than anything else. Surely he could schedule this for later, right? We could do this later, right?

It seemed it would be sooner than he thought as he noticed, out of the corner of his eye, light peering in. Not from the crack underneath the door. That light was warm and bright. This light felt dangerous and shined a dangerous seeming green. It looked as if it was…Emanating from the left corner of the wall, as if it wasn’t actually a part of the wall, given how it slanted. It must’ve been a door. The light had to have come from somewhere.

Of course he wouldn’t have noticed it when the light was on! The glow was far too low to be apparent in bright lighting, and Private felt a surge of happiness at this, before he remembered he’d probably have to figure out what was behind the door in the first place.

He pulled his phone out of a hidden pocket in his dress, and began to record what was in front of him, as he got as low to the ground as he could and pushed slowly on the door, with great hesitation, as the flash of green grew brighter, and as his eyes adjusted, revealed a long hallway, full of blueprints and Tesla coils and beakers and the like that glowed and bubbled and fizzed violently. The green never went away, and it never felt any less malicious.

Private - unarmed, unmanned, unprepared, and every other un-word he could think of at the moment- felt rather unsafe and uneasy at the idea of actually wandering through this rather sinister looking laboratory, but surely a badly lit video of the entrance and blueprints wouldn’t be so bad, right? They could work with this, right? Surely they could.

They’ve worked with less.

Skipper doesn’t know about the others, but he’s certain that it would’ve been a better use of time for all of them if he told them to get sloshed on the company’s dime, because he’s finding nothing.

Oh, sure, he’s found out that there’s a lot of confidential things going on at these sort of dinner parties, but it’s more of the infidelity ilk than it is doomsday weapons and ray guns. At least he understands how those work, and what he’s supposed to do when he walks in on them.

At this point opening a closed door is just asking for trouble, but, he was the one who planned this, and he has to be thorough. At least this was the last room on his list, then he could hit up one of the local sports bars and try to bleach from his memory the things he’s had to see tonight. None of which has been a doomsday device, much to his disappointment.

However, behind this door, he only sees a fancy musty bed, a window, and a slightly ajar closet door. He closes the door behind him, and jumps when it moves, startled.

The person inside the closet jumps too.

“You scared me!” Private accused, holding his phone in two hands, still clearly shaken. Skipper sighed in relief.

“Nice to see you too, Private.” Skipper said. “Find anything?”

“Yes!” Private’s eyes shined and Skipper could practically feel himself having a heart attack. “There’s something in the closet, there, like…An actual room, with plans and beakers and chemicals and those swirly things Kowalski likes, I have it all on video!” He gestured to his phone.

Skipper pumped a fist. “Nice! At least we’ll have something to show HQ.” Private gave Skipper the phone, for better safe-keeping than a hidden pocket would provide.

“You weren’t able to find anything?”

“Ehhh….” Skipper trailed off. “Nothing important, just rich people getting their rocks off.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah. Yeah…” Skipper said, clearly uninterested in the conversation as he slowly approached the door he had entered through, pressing an ear up against it.

“What is it?” Private whispered, a little confused.

Skipper listened quietly and intently as he heard urgent footsteps coming their way a distant voice saying, “I told you to guard this one-“ That was all Skipper heard before a pang of panic hit him.

“Someone’s coming our way.”

This was a perfect time for the anxiety attack to hit Private.

“What!?”

“I don’t know if they’re coming exactly our way, but I don’t know for certain they’re NOT.” Skipper said, closing the closet door, and approaching Private the same way one would a wounded animal. Private felt his palms begin to sweat, his heart was racing, he thought he was going to cry. They looked suspicious as hell, being somewhere they weren’t supposed to be, together.

…

Or were they?

They needed to be people nobody would pay any attention to. They were only as suspicious as they let themselves be. They just had to blend in.

“Skipper! I need you to kiss me right now!“

“What?” Skipper said, more confused than he had ever felt in his life, his cheeks growing hot in the millisecond he was given to process before Private kicked the back of his knee with the heel of his foot, snaked his arms around his neck, and pulled Skipper into a kiss.

Skipper panicked. He understood doomsday devices. He could not understand this for the life of him, but he’s sure he could learn, given how quickly he closed his eyes, leaned into the kiss, and let his hands wander to Private’s ass, which caused him to jump during the kiss. This somewhat knocked them off balance, but in the best way possible, as Skipper twisted in a weird way, ending up with Private on top, straddling him, causing their kiss to break.

Skipper felt like dying right now, but, as those footsteps echoed in his mind, and louder within his ears, he knew he’d be a dead man if he gave up the charade now, so he pulled Private in by the the straps of his dress and kissed him once more, earning himself a surprised squeak for it.

He felt Private’s nimble fingers pull at the buttons of his suit jacket, unbuttoning each one by one, and although he supported the effort, given that he wrapped his arms around him, he was a little anxious about the thought of how far he’d be willing to go to throw off suspicion. What if this was what made Private figure it out? After all this time too?

And given how his mouth felt on his, did he really care?

Of course, such a splendorous moment had to end, as the doors swung open and both men did literally everything they could in their power not to literally jump at the sound.

“Oi! Privacy please!” Private yelled, the blush from his face being born of pure actual embarrassment, as his voice cracked.

The head servant - Skipper assumed he was in charge based on the fact that he was the one who had opened the doors - at the very least the gall to look a little flushed, but this did nothing for his resolve. “I’m sorry ma’am, but you two will have to take your…activities elsewhere. Will you please exit the room and vacate the premises?”

Private shuffled awkwardly off of Skipper as he re-buttoned his suit jacket and straightened a notably askew tie. He only missed a button here or there given how his hands shook, and he considered that in of itself an achievement as he took Private by the hand, and left the servants to their work, not before yelling, “I guess this means I, Dr. Francis Blowhole and my lovely partner Hans are just never allowed back, huh?”

“Was that really necessary?” Private asked, as the two of them walked together on the sidewalk, 5 blocks away from the mansion they put so much effort into invading.

“I couldn’t resist.” Skipper smiled, and he almost burst out laughing then and there.

Private sighed, but his smile was soft. He wasn’t really angry, in fact he was almost euphoric. He had gotten to kiss Skipper! And Skipper kissed him back! More than once! He’d gotten to unbutton his suit jacket! He got to feel Skipper’s arms around his neck! Oh, it was such a dream…He’d kill for another evening like this one.

But then he remembered his line of work.

He remembered that Skipper and him did this under life and death pretenses. He didn’t even ask him before he really did it, he just went along with it. Probably because he didn’t have any better plans.

But despite everything telling him otherwise, he still had something that might have said otherwise.

“Are you alright?” Skipper asked. “You got really quiet all of a sudden.”

“Oh no! It’s nothing!” Private said, gesturing with his one free hand.

The one that Skipper wasn’t holding.

“That’s good. I wanted to make sure I didn’t make you uncomfortable earlier.” Skipper said, scratching at the back of his head with his one free hand.

“Oh no, I’m fine. Did I make you uncomfortable? I was the one who, uh, started the whole-“

“No, it was a brilliant plan.” Skipper said, emphatically. “You made a split second decision based on applying previous information. Sure, it was information I just told you, but, I didn’t think of it…”

Private let out a sigh in relief. “We’re just lucky we were able to pass as a couple so well, I don’t know how I’d do with Rico or-“

“Maybe we should always pretend to be couples. For missions like these,” He added. “We’d be able to investigate together, I’m sure we both missed things all things considered, and the fake out make-out seems like it could be an effective way of derailing suspicion.”

“Not to mention that we’d be able to have each other’s backs in any possible combat situations.” Private added helpfully. “I would’ve probably made it to the main laboratory if I knew I wasn’t going to get murdered the minute I entered the main wing.”

“Good point. At least that’s HQ problem now.”

“Still, it seems like the fake romance holds some water in some future co-op situations. Would Hans really attack us if it LOOKED like we were on a date?”

“He WOULD,” Skipper laughed, “and YOU know it.” Private began laughing too, and soon they were both laughing like mad men, in the streets, on their way to the closest sport’s bar to grab a pizza, surrounded by thousands of shining stars, both completely convinced that the other sees this as the perfect strategy, both completely oblivious.

(The LONGEST fanfic I’ve written ever at 3K, and it’s for the human versions of the cartoon penguins I watched when I was 10. Go figure, y’all, dreams really do come true.)

#cartoons-tothemoon #fics #pom #UM so #this is my favorite so far #it all took me by surprise and i was bouncing around reading it alksdfn #i LOVE stories where characters have to get all dressed up #and go to suspicious parties and snoop around etc #i mean i've written one with these characters too #they're PERFECT for it #but i love how mismatched and unenthused they are like #no they wanna be out in the field fucking shit up #and you know. i didn't like the fake dating trope until this #maybe because it's so freaking perfect for skivate????#they're so desperately trying to find reasons to be together #that they're not even gonna realize when the 'fake' part goes away #and ok ok i could say more introspective things here but #THE KISSING WAS HOT I'M JUST GONNA SAY #I DIDN'T SEE IT COMING #skipper goes rIGHT for the butt #so DISCREET #kdfnslknd i can't #cAN'T #bold affectionate and clueless is skivate #oh #i mean #francis and hans #duh

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yesanotherimaneblog · 5 years

Text

Being Dustins sister headcanons: Part 5

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Episode 5

You scream as the room goes down

o Steve holds you close by the waist

o You try to hold Dustin but he pulls away quickly to try and figure out the different buttons

o You pull away from Steve and try to help your brother holding Erica steady

o When the elevator stops you fall back with Erica on your chest so she doesn’t get hurt

“My groin! It fell on my groin”

o “Dustin, help me save my future kids please.” You try to joke

o “Ew, Y/N!”

o “Your little shit head of a brother and his friends are all the kids I need”

o You frown at that but know he doesn’t mean it

o He’s so good with them you can just tell he’s going to be an amazing father

“…Your mom isn’t gonna to be able to find us if we’re dead in a Russian elevator!”

o “Steve!” You say, touching his arm hoping it will relax him a bit

o “Erica, your mom knows and likes me, I’m sure we’ll figure something out to say.”

You, Steve, and Robin stay up almost all night trying to figure out what to do

o The only thing you can think of is wait until someone opens the door takes whatever the rest of the boxes contain and sends the elevator back

o They have to send it back right

o At some point you fall asleep on Steves’ chest

o You wake up to your brother shouting, “Code red!”

o You go to stand up but Robin stops you

o “Steves’ got it, plus he needs to let out some steam”

o You nod, knowing she’s right

“Steve, redirect your stream please!” You yell before turning back to Robin and the panel, “So do you think we can somehow hotwire it?”

o You hear a loud bang behind you and turn to see Erica banging the green liquid

o You take it away from her

o “Erica I hate to break it to you but this is not water”

o “But it’s a liquid”

o “A lot of things are liquid, including acids that can burn through bones”

o Robin puts her ear to the door and goes up to tell Steve that you have company

o You help Erica climb up and then Steve helps you get up as well closing the door moments before the elevator opens

o You mention to the kids to be quiet

You go under the door and pull Steve quickly before the tube breaks

o You weren’t really serious when you mentioned acids before

o Seeing the green liquid eat through the concrete is something else

o “Come on, we have a lot of walking to do” you say, mentioning to the kids

o ‘Why me?” Dustin asks and you smile at him softly

o “He’s just kidding”

“Promethium. Prometheus is a Greek mythological figure, he gave fire to humans, promethium was actually named after him in a way because it symbolized both the brilliance and stupidity of the human mind or something like that.”

o They all stop and look at you

o “What I like mythology”

o Steve smiles at you

o Erica whispers “Nerd”

o You start walking again

o “All I’m saying is, it’s probably being used to make something.” Dustin continues

o “... I mean Hawkins of all places…’

o You stop and look at the boys who stay behind with you

o “Do you think they know?”

o “About the…”

o “They could.”

o “So it’s connected”

o “Maybe.”

o “But how?”

o “I don’t know but it’s”

o “Possible” the three of you say in one voice

While Steve is leading you to the comms room you stay behind making sure nothing happens to the kids

You step in front of the kids when you see the Russian

o Robin tries to talk to him but you can see it’s not working

o Steve attacks and at first you think you’re gonna have to watch him get his ass kicked but then he actually wins

o You hug him tightly

o “God I love you!”

o You whisper and he stills for a second

o You haven’t said ‘I love you’ yet

o After Nancy you knew it would take him time

o You’ve been holding it in for the last couple of weeks

o And god damn it you don’t want to die without having told him that

o “Dude!” Dustins’ voice breaks through the silence

o “You did it! You won a fight!” He says and Steve smiles

While Dustin and Erica argue over the best plan of action you follow Robin up the stairs wanting to get away from Steve for a minute

o It’s fine that he didn’t say it back

o It is

You see the gate and immediately get worried about the rest of the kids

o Especially Will and El

Episode 6

“I don’t understand you’ve seen this before?” Robin asks confused

o “To be fair we never actually saw it” you say, hurrying Erica downstairs

o You need to get out of here immediately and warn the others

The alarm starts ringing and you hurry the kids back upstairs

o There has to be a way out from there

o You push a few guards and scientists out of the way

o You help Steve hold the door

o “Dustin get out of here!”

o The Russians keep pushing and Robin comes to help you and Steve hold the door

o “Come on!” Dustin shouts but you know you can’t follow him

o “Dustin get some help ok! Call Hopper!”

o “Y/N I-“

o “Dustin its ok just go”

The Russians break in and throw you to the floor with Steve and Robin

o You raise your hands hoping they won’t shoot

They separate the three of you and ask questions

o “Who do you work for?”

o “No one. Thought to be fair Scoops Ahoy should hire me! I mean I’m there every day and I’m better with costumers than Robin”

o One of the guards slaps you

o “Let’s try again shall we, who do you work for?”

o “Are you guys deaf or something? No one!”

o “How did you find this place?”

o “I told you my boyfriends delivery didn’t come, we went to the loading dock to find it but the room started going down”

They handcuff you and throw you in a room at the same time as Robin and Steve

o Robin seams fine but Steve

o You move as best you can to check on him

o “Steve? Steve, wake up! Steve talk to me!”

o The guy who you think is the general comes in and you stand up

o “What the hell did you do to him you ass-“

o You don’t get to finish the sentence as he slaps you so hard you fall back down

o He says something and the guards pick you up and put you in a chair

o “Don’t touch me!” You hear Robin say

o “Steve! Stevie! Steve come on you have to wake up!”

o You don’t even notice them tying you so concentrated on Steve

o The general picks Steves head up by the hair and you start boiling with rage

o “You touch him again and you will regret it!”

o He ignores you and goes to stand in front of Robin

o “Your friend needs a doctor. Good thing we have the very best.” He laughs

o Robin spits on him and you’ve never wanted to hug her more

Robin starts shouting for help at some point and you consider joining in but you know it won’t help

o Even if someone hears you, they won’t help

o After a few moments you hear Steves voice

o “Hey, would you stop yelling?”

o “Steve, oh my god, are you ok?”

o “My ears are ringing, and I can’t really breathe, my eye feels like it’s about to pop out of my skull, but, you know, apart from that, I’m doing pretty good.”

o Robin lets out a laugh “Well, the good news is they’re calling you a doctor”

o “Is this his place of work? I love the vibe.” He jokes and you’re about to start crying

You formulate a plan to move together and get the scissors

o It works and then it doesn’t

o You fall and you’re on your back looking at the ceiling

o Robin starts laughing and if you weren’t worried about her mental health before you definitely are now

o “I’m sorry. It’s just… I can’t believe… I’m gonna die in a secret Russian base with Steve “The Hair” Harrington and Y/N “Queen” Henderson.”

o “We’re not gonna die. We’re gonna get out of here, okay? You just gotta let me think for a second.” Steve says

o You stay silent for a second

o “You know, they only started calling me that after Steve and I started dating. Until then I was invisible.”

o She stops laughing for a second

o “Do you guys remember Mrs. Clicks sophomore history class?”

o You say yes, the same moment Steve says what

o “Mrs. Clickity-Clackity. That’s what us band dweebs called her. It was first period, Tuesdays and Thursdays, Y/N was always the first one there and you were always late. And you always had the same breakfast. Bacon, egg, and cheese on a sesame bagel. I sat behind you and Y/N was on the same line but a row next. Then when you started dating, she took the seat next to you. I sat behind you two days for a year. Mister Funny. Mister Cool. The King of Hawkins high himself. And then his Queen. Do you even remember me from that class?”

o Steve stays silent and you nod but say nothing, you know she isn’t really talking to you

o “Of course, you don’t. You were a real asshole, you know that?”

o “Yeah, I know.”

o “But it didn’t even matter. It didn’t matter that you were an ass. I was still… obsessed with you.”

o You suck in a breath suddenly worried again

o What if what your suspicions were wrong

o What if she liked Steve all along

o What if the reason Steve didn’t say ‘I love you’ back was because he was falling for her

o “Even though all of us losers pretend to be above it all, we still just want to be popular… accepted, normal.”

o “If it makes you feel any better, having those things isn’t all that great. Seriously. It just baffles me. Everything that people tell you is important, everything that people say you should care about, it’s all just… bullshit. But I guess you gotta mess up to figure things out, right? I mean I’m pretty sure that’s how I got Y/N”

o You smile a little at that

o “I hope so. I feel like my whole life has been… one big error.”

o “I feel the same way!” you finally say

o “At least it can’t get any more messed up than this.”

o �� The three of you start laughing

The door opens and the general comes in

o The guard pick you up

o The ‘doctor’ comes close to Steve holding a syringe and you start moving and screaming again

o “Get away from him you asshole!”

o “Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn as well”

o After injecting Steve with whatever that blue liquid is you and Robin get a shot and then are left alone in the room

o You stay silent for a while, wondering what the drug will do to you

o You haven’t died yet so you count that as a win

o Its Steve who finally speaks

o “Honestly I don’t really feel anything. Do you?”

o “I mean… I feel fine.” Robin says and you nod

o “I feel normal.”

o “I kinda feel good.” Steve confesses and the three of you start laughing

o “They messed up the drug!”

o “Morons!”

o “They messed up!”

o “There is definitely something wrong with us!”

o “You’ve been working with Steve all summer did you just figure that out?” You ask and they start laughing again

o The Russians come in again and you’re too busy laughing to really give a shit

o But then the ‘doctor’ pulls out a big knife and your eyes widen

o They start asking the same questions and Steve gives them the same answers

o The doctor goes to pull out Steves nail and you and Robin reveals that you found the code

o “Uh, well, Dustin knows.”

o “Steve stop talking!” you warn but he continues

o “Yeah, Dustin Henderson knows.”

o “Steve!” Both Robin and you shout

o “Is this your small, curly haired friend?”

o “Oh, curly-haired. Great hair. Small. Yeah. He’s my girlfriends’ brother. Yeah, he’s Y/Ns brother.”

o The guards look at you and you shake your head trying to deny it

o “Where is he?”

o “He’s long gone, you big asshole. And he’s probably calling Hopper. And Hopper is calling the US cavalry. They’re gonna come in here, commando style, guns a-blazin’, and kick your sorry asses back to Russia. You’re gonna be two pieces of toast.”

The sirens start ringing and they leave you with the doctor

o Moments later your brother runs in and electrocutes him

o “Dusty! Did you get help?”

o “No get ready to run!” He says as he frees you

Episode 7

Dustin and Erica hurry you to the cart

o “Are we going for a ride?” Robin asks

o You frown, even drugged you know something isn’t right with your baby brother driving

o “Dusty you don’t have a driver’s license”

o “Y/N sit down and shut up!” he shouts

o “Fine, jeez!”

o He drives like crazy and you think you’re going to be sick

o You laugh with Steve and Robin but then frown and scoot over closer to Steve

o The cart comes to a stop and you fall back

o Dustin pulls you out and you go inside the elevator

o While it’s going up you sit in the corner frowning

o You stand up and go to Steve and Robin who are pretending to surf

o “Steve! Steve!”

o He doesn’t pay attention to you

o “Stevie!”

o Nothing

o You pull the cart from under him and he falls on some boxes

o You go sit next to Erica playing with her hair

o “Can we make a pit stop at the food court?”

o You finally agree with something he said

o “YES! Food!”

When you finally reach the top and the elevator doors open you skip outside

o “Has the air always tasted this good?”

o Dustin grabs you and Steve and shoves you inside the mall

o Erica grabs Robin

o You run thought the corridors until you reach the cinema

o Steve grabs the popcorn from a trash can and you take it from him

o He tries to take it back but you slap his hand

o Dustin makes you sit with Robin and Steve

o “These seats are too close!” Robin complains

o “These seats blow.” Steve agrees and it makes you angry

o “I don’t want to sit with them!”

o Dustin tells you not to go anywhere and you roll your eyes but sit back

o “You sound like dad.”

“I need water!”

o You say and stand up

o “Me too!” Steve says and starts following you

o “Yeah, water.” Robin is the last to stand up

o You drink from the water fountain and then let Steve take his turn

o You go and sit a few steps ahead

o “…I’m pretty sure that mom was trying to bang her son.”

o “Oh yeah, for sure!”

o “Wait, wait, wait the hot chick was Alex P. Keaton’s mom?”

o “Yeah Steve you weren’t paying attention”

o “But they’re the same age.”

o “No, but he went back in time.”

o “Then why is it called back to the future?”

o You turn around to try and explain but the motion makes you dizzy

o You hear Robin explain and then push Steve so she can drink water as well and you stand up

o Steve is standing next to you looking up so you look to see what he’s seeing

o The ceiling is moving and you start moving with it

o Suddenly the dizziness turns to sickness and you run to the bathroom barely aware that Steve and Robin follow behind

You spend what feels like hours puking

o It feels like you’ve puked your guts out when you’re finally done

o You flush the toilet and crawl outside but don’t get too far

o You were hoping you would be able to stand up and wash your face but you don’t have the energy

o You lay on the floor looking into Steve’s and Robin’s stall

o Robin is the one who speaks first

o “The ceiling stopped spinning for me. Is it still spinning for you?”

o You see Steve look up

o “Holy shit. No.”

o “Nope, but I feel like I should be dead.” You say weekly

o “You think we puked it all up?” He asks

o “Maybe.” You and Robin say

o “Interrogate me.” Robin says in a Russian accent

o “When was the last time you peed your pants?” Steve asks

o “LAME!” You say

o “Today!” Robin says and you look at her in disbelieve

o “When the Russian doctor took out the bone saw.”

o The three of you laugh

o “Ok fair.”

o “Steve’s turn!” Robin says

o You act quickly knowing if you don’t ask now that you’re still a little drugged you never will

o “Are you still in love with Nancy?”

o “What? No!” He says surprised

o “Robin then?” You ask

o “No, Y/N why would you ask that?”

o “Because I said I love you and you didn’t say it back. And you and Robin have a lot of fun together and you really seem to like her and she said it herself she was obsessed with you and honestly she’s a lot cooler than me so if you wanted to leave me for her I would totally get it!” You say in one breath

o You can see Robin looking at you and look down

o Steve slides closer to you and makes you look at him

o “I love you! I didn’t say it back because you caught me by surprise and honestly it was an emotional moment so I wasn’t sure you meant it.”

o “I meant it!”

o “Good, and I mean it too! And Robin is cool and I do like her but only as a friend. No offence,” he says turning to her for a moment “and if we hadn’t just puked our guts out, I would totally kiss you”

o You smile and hug him

o A few moments later Robin speaks

o “Y/N, what I said about Clicks class, about me being jealous and, like, obsessed? It isn’t because I had a crush on him. It’s because… she wouldn’t stop looking at him.”

o “Mrs. Click?” Steve asks confused but you think you get it now

o “Tammy Thompson. I wanted her to look at me. But… she couldn’t pull her eyes away from you and your stupid hair. Even when you got a girlfriend. And I didn’t understand because you would get bagel crumps all over the floor. And you asked dumb questions. And you were a douchebag. And- And you didn’t even like her and you had a girlfriend and… I would go home and just scream into my pillow.”

o “But Tammy Thompsons a girl.”

o You touch his arm lightly and whisper “Steve”

o “Yeah?”

o You and Robin both look at him

o He finally gets it

o You all stay quite for a while and you can see Robin getting worried

o “You know, Tammy Thompson is cute and all but… you can do better!” You finally say

o “No, I can’t”

o “Come on she’s a total dud” Steve agrees with you

o “She wants to be a singer! And she wants to move to Nashville of all places.”

o “She has dreams.” Robin tries to argue

o “She can’t even hold a tune. She’s practically tone deaf. Have you heard her?”

o Steve starts singing and you join in

o Robin tries to stop you

o “She does not sound like that!”

o “She sounds exactly like that” Steve says as you keep singing out of tune

o Finally she joins in and the three of you start laughing

o Then Dustin bursts through the door with Erica behind him

o “Okay. What the hell?”

“Uh, Dustin we can’t go home!”

o “What why not?”

o “Cause someone,” you look at Steve, “told them your full name.”

o “What is wrong with you Steve?”

o “Dude, I was drugged.”

o They keep arguing until Robin points out the guards

o You see one of them looking at you and you grab the kids and run

o You push Erica and Dustin on the ‘slide’ before going down yourself

o You all hide behind one of the counters

o You’re next to Erica and you pull her close looking at Steve and Dustin

o You can tell they found you and you’re silently praying for a miracle

o When the car starts honking you smile knowing your miracle has arrived

o You hug all the kids tightly, especially El

o You silently check up on Will while the others catch up

o He sees what you’re doing and nods that he’s ok

o You should have paid more attention to El

o She falls down and everyone is immediately at her side

o You check her leg and see something moving

Episode 8

“Jonathan!” You say knowing he’ll understand

o The two of you have bandaged more wounds than you should have

o He was always getting in trouble and you wanted to be a doctor

o “I know, keep her talking, keep her awake!”

o “Panda express is through there!” You point him to the right direction

o You point Mike and the boys to position her correctly and hold her down

o Jonathan comes back and he gives her a spoon to bite

o You put on a pair of gloves and see him hesitate

o “Jonathan, if you can’t do it…”

o “No I got this.” He says and makes the cut

o He goes to try and pull it out but you stop him

o “Try squeezing it out a little, I’ll pull it out.”

o You do just that but whatever is inside her just won’t stop moving so you can’t get a good grip

o El stops you saying she can do it

o You pull away taking the gloves off

You help Hopper pick El up and lay her on one of the benches

o You quickly gather some stuff from Scoops and go back

o You help clean her face up and bandage her leg as best you can

You go with the rest of the Scoops troop, back to Cerebro

o You laugh a little at Steves reaction to the car

When you finally reach Cerebro you have nothing to do but wait so you pace back and forth

o Steve is doing the same

o “Remember the last time we were pacing back and forth?”

o “I tried to teach you how to swing the nail bat.”

o “You know we could have really used them today!”

o “Yeah, we should carry those more often.”

o You smile at each other and he pulls you in for a hug

o He pulls away after a second and you look up at him

o He’s looking at something in the distance and you look too

o Something is very wrong at Starcourt

When the others don’t respond Steve starts running

o You understand what he’s doing and turn to Robin

o “Go with him! I gotta stay with the kids.”

o “And Robin,” Dustin shouts, “stay in touch!” He says and throws her a walkie

“Y/N do you know it?”

o “I only know 6,62, that’s all we use in school.”

o “Shit!”

o He starts changing up the stations

o “Dustin this isn’t the time”

o “Suzie, do you copy?”

o You’re about to seriously murder your brother when…

o “This is Suzie I copy”

o You’re about to grab the walkie from your brother and give a piece of mind to Suzie but then he starts singing

o You know no one will let him leave that down

You know the moment everything ends

Aftermath

Steve comes with a helicopter to get you

o The medics check up on you and give you blankets

o You ask him what happened in Starcourt and he tells you

o Immediately you ask to be transported to Starcourt so you can help Max out as much as possible

o You know everyone else has family there that they need to check up on

o When you get there Will and Joyce and El and Hopper are hugging

o Fight me

On Friday when Joyce and Hopper finally go on their date you plan a little something for the rest of the group

o You know Will and El don’t need babysitting and neither do the rest of the kids so you get permission from your mom and turn the back yard into a movie theatre

o You invite everyone

o Jonathan, Nancy, Steve, Robin, Mike, Will, Lucas, Erica, Max and El

o Steve is in charge of the barbeque

o It goes surprisingly well

o At first you thought about separating boys and girls but you know that wouldn’t be fair

o In the end couples are just forbitten from sitting next to each other

o Which is fine cause you get to sit with El and Max and they’re the coolest

o Steve can’t stop smiling at you from where he sits next to Dustin and Robin

o You know the date went well cause at the end of the night when Joyce and Hopper come pick up their kids they’re smiling like idiots

o Joyce picks up Jonathan and Will while Hopper picks up El and Max

o Nancy and Mike take Lucas and Erica with them

o Steve and Robin are the last to go

o You were hoping Steve would stay a bit longer but he has to drive Robin home

o Robin being a good friend talks to Dustin while the two of you say goodnight

o He promises to stop by the next day so the two of you can work on his resume

#stranger things #stranger things imagine #stranger things headcanons #steve harrington #steve harrington headcanons #steve harrington x reader #dustin henderson #henderson!reader #steve harrington x henderson #imagine #Y/N imagine

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spidermecc · 5 years

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Is this it?- Ch. 1 (an elu au)

Summary: Eliott is with Lucille, he has his own apartment and he goes to uni. Life hasn’t always been easy on him, but things are finally looking up, and he’s content. So when Lucille asks him to meet her family, he agrees, as is expected of him. But what he didn't expect, was for Lucille's younger brother, Lucas, to take his breath away. ___ “The first thing that catches his eye is the boy’s soft eyes. They were so.. blue. Someone punch him in the face if he ever compares someone’s eyes to the sky or the sea, he will not be that guy. But holy shit, he could really get lost in those eyes”.

”Babe, don’t forget dinner at my parents’ place tomorrow” Lucille says, tying her shoelaces.

”Yeah, don’t worry I didn’t forget. I’ll come over right after uni, okay?” Eliott smiles, trying hard to give her a convincing smile.

Lucille was great, she really was. They had been friends since high school, and she’d always been there for him. Eliott wasn’t stupid, he knew that she’d had a thing for him throughout high school, always hoping that their friendship would blossom into something more. He’d always cared about her, and depended on her, but he also knew that it would never develop into anything further, he just didn’t see her that way.

Well, he thought he knew. During their last year of high school, Eliott had been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, and it had turned his world upside down. He’d successfully pushed all of his friends away, not being able to deal with them walking on eggshells around him, always afraid that they might say or do something that would push him over the edge.

He had enough of that at home. His parents would always keep an eye on him, treating him like an infant, worrying when he didn’t answer texts right away or didn’t pick up the phone on the first try. After he was diagnosed, it was as if they’d forgotten that he was still a regular person, still the same son they’d always known. It was as if, his disorder had taken away his right to have bad days, and good ones for that matter. Always having to explain himself, reassure his parents that no he wasn’t having an episode, he was just really fucking tired.

After a year of being constantly watched by his parents, he finally convinced them that it was probably be for the best, if he moved out. He needed his own space. They’d reluctantly agreed, after settling on a few terms, one of them being, that they’d have dinner together at least once a week.

Lucille had been the only friend he wasn’t able to push away. She was simply too stubborn. No matter how cruel he was to her, no matter how much he ignored her or told her he didn’t need her, she kept coming back. She’d leave him be for a few days, but then she’d be back, assuring him that she wasn’t going anywhere. At first he had truly resented her for it, simply wanting her to leave him the fuck alone. But over time, as he realized she wasn’t going to leave him be, he began to embrace it. She’d become his rock, his safe harbor. No matter how bad he fucked up, he knew she would always be back, and Eliott found some comfort in that – having a constant, in his messy and sometimes chaotic life.

She’d even helped him reconnect with Idriss and Sofiane. After months of radio silence, he’d finally mustered up the courage to contact them again, and they’d been understanding and supportive, just like Lucille said they would. He could never thank her enough for pushing him to contact them again. He doesn’t know how he’d even survived those months without them. But then again, those first few months, after he got diagnosed, were still somewhat blurry in his mind.

Now, both in uni, they’d found themselves in some sort of comfortable routine. They’d never really discussed what they were, simply drifting into a relationship over time. But they were comfortable and he was content, he could only assume that Lucille felt the same way.

That is, until last week when Lucille asked him if he’d want to meet her family. And really, what was he supposed to say? They had known each other for years now, she was practically his family, and he knew how much it meant to her. She had been dropping hints that she wanted to introduce him to them, for weeks now, so it didn’t come as a shock when she finally asked. And so, he’d reluctantly agreed.

He tried not to think too much about what it would mean for their relationship, going forward. Would she want to meet his parents as well? Would she start arranging double dates with their friends? Would they become a ‘we-couple’? “We don’t watch TV before going to bed”, “we try not to eat meat at home”, “we can’t come to the party” - we, we we.

Just thinking about it made Eliott’s heart race, and honestly if he was going to survive tomorrow, he had to just.. not think too much about it. Which was practically impossible, seeing as he had a way of overthinking everything. Sometimes he’d overthinking the smallest things, like encounters with the cashier at the supermarket or conversations with his professors. He could be in the shower, when he’d suddenly think of something he should have answered instead of what he did answer. He would create a completely new conversation in his head, replaying it over and over, until he couldn’t remember how the actual conversation had gone. Only snapping out of it, when the hot water betrayed him, finally turning cold.

“I can’t wait” Lucille says, softly yanking Eliott down to match her height, giving him a soft peck on the mouth.

“Although I’m a bit nervous about you meeting Lucas” she smiles, lips still on his.

Lucas was Lucille’s younger brother. She always spoke fondly about him, telling Eliott stories of how brave he was coming out to his family and the entire school. And Eliott had to admit that he sounded like a cool guy.. for a high schooler, that is.

“Why’s that?”

“Let’s just say he can be a bit uh-” she brings her head back, meeting Eliott’s eyes “grumpy”.

“I can work with grumpy” he assures her, as he gently nudges her towards the front door “now go, before you miss your class again”.

“You’re right, I’ll see you tomorrow” she salutes, giving him one last kiss on the cheek and then she’s out the door.

He shuffles into the kitchen, pouring himself coffee that Lucille had made a few hours ago. It’s not even lukewarm anymore, but it’s still caffeine, it’ll suffice.

As he plops down on his couch, he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. The harder he tries not to think about meeting Lucille’s parents, the more he does. It reminds him of something his teacher in kindergarten once said:

“I’m going to make all of you think about the exact same thing at the same time”

That’s impossible, little Eliott thought to himself. She’s no magician, otherwise she’d surely have turned the awful lunch into something delicious, like pizza!

“Okay so listen to me. Under no circumstances, are any of you allowed to think about a pink elephant right now, okay?”

Eliott’s mind immediately started picturing a big cartoon elephant. It was pink, of course.

“I bet you all thought of a pink elephant, didn’t you?” the teacher asked.

All the kids nodded in unison, Eliott included.

“If you want someone to think about something in particular, just tell them not to, and they immediately will. It’s human nature”.

It’s human nature, Eliott thinks to himself. Is it human nature to obsess over every little thing? Sometimes he spent hours thinking whether it was his illness that had made him that way or if it was simply the way he was wired. Was it even possible to separate the two things? If it was his illness, then surely it must also be the way he’s wired, right?

He lets out another sigh, sipping his, now ice cold, coffee.

It’ll be fine he tells himself it doesn’t have to change anything. Maybe if he repeats it enough, he’ll actually believe it. __

His last class ends at 4pm, which gives him exactly one hour before he has to be at Lucille’s parents’ house.

According to Google Maps, their house is a 20-minute walk from campus, so he decides to go the opposite direction, towards his favorite coffee shop.

As he enters the shop, the familiar aroma reaches his nostrils straight away. There’s something about coffee shops, that just screams; home, comfort and familiarity to him. He’d made it his personal mission to try as many independent coffee shops in Paris, as he could. But this one was his go-to, he’d been here more times than he could count, and it had actually gotten to the point where he didn’t even have to place his order anymore. The few baristas that worked there, all knew what his usual was. So he’d simply go up to the register, exchange polite greetings, pay for the coffee and then they’d bring him his drink.

As he makes his way up to the register, he immediately notices that there’s a new guy behind the register. He’s definitely new, because Eliott is sure that he’d remember that face.

The first thing that catches his eye is the boy’s soft eyes. They were so..blue. Someone punch him in the face if he ever compares someone’s eyes to the sky or the sea, he will not be that guy. But holy shit, he could really get lost in those eyes.

The boy has soft brown hair, sticking in every possible direction, as if he’d combed his hands through it one too many times. Eliott really wished that he could comb through the boys’ hair, just once, just to satisfy his curiosity.

The boy is fidgeting with his apron, furrowing his brows, as he tries to tie the apron on the back, around his small waist. Eliott wonders what it would feel like to wrap his hands around that waist.

After a few moments, of what could only be described as staring, he finally walks up to the register, trying to act as natural as possible. As if he wasn’t staring at an actual angel in an apron.

“Hi, what can I get you?” the boy asks, as he finally manages to secure the apron successfully and notices Eliott.

“Salut, I’ll have a latte with soy milk” Eliott announces, not taking his eyes off the boy, who’s actually writing down the order on his notepad. Eliott is pretty sure that he’s never seen anyone else do that, and he can’t help it when a smile forms on his lips.

“Oh, and could I have some cocoa powder on top?” he adds hastily. It’s been so long since he actually placed the order, that he’d managed to forget the most important thing.

“Cocoa on top” the boy says to himself, as he scribbles on his notepad “anything else?”

Please look at me again.

“Nope, that’s it” he answers as he pulls out his wallet.

Instead of settling at his usual table in the corner, he sits next to the window, where he has a perfect view of the register, without having to crane his neck.

And okay, Eliott knows he shouldn’t be staring at the cute boy behind the counter. First of all, he is with Lucille, and he is happy, he really is. Second of all, the boy hadn’t spared him a single glance since he sat down, which was a pretty good indication that he definitely wasn’t interested.

Not that Eliott wanted him to be interested. What would he even say, if the boy did show interest? You’re really cute, but I have a girlfriend. Also, could you please memorize my order so we never have to interact again, pretty please with cocoa on top?

No, definitely not.

As he takes out his laptop from his bag pack, the boy comes over with his coffee.

“One latte with soy milk and cocoa on top” he announces proudly as he sets it on the table, with too much force, resulting in half of the coffee landing on the table.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry!” he exclaims, frantically pulling out tissues from a nearby table.

“Don’t worry about it, I wasn’t even thirsty really” Eliott assures him, pushing his laptop away, before it gets soaked in coffee.

“It’s only my second shift, so I’m still a bit rusty” he explains, as he continues wiping the table “I’ll get you another one, on the house”.

“There’s really no need” Eliott assures him, trying not to dwell too much on the sweet cologne the boy is wearing. He’s not trying to smell the boy, but he’s just so close, leaning in over Eliott, to wipe the coffee before it lands on the floor.

Snap out of it Eliott.

“I actually have to go now anyway, but if I could get the rest in a to-go cup?” he asks, suddenly desperate to get out of the shop. He’s supposed to meet his girlfriend’s parents, not sniff the baristas’ cologne. No matter how cute the barista might be.

“Oh, yeah of course” the boy says grabbing the cup of coffee, which is almost empty by now. But Eliott is really a glass half full kind of guy, so he doesn’t mind it too much.

“Again, I’m really sorry” he says handing Eliott a paper cup with the remaining coffee “next time you come in, just tell them that Lucas owes you a coffee on the house”.

Lucas. That’s a pretty name.

Eliott can’t stop himself from letting out a soft laugh.

“I will, don’t worry about it, really”

He catches the boys’ eyes and suddenly he’s overcome with the urge to compare them to the sea again.

Lucas looks at him expectantly, waiting for Eliott to introduce himself as well.

But he doesn’t, too afraid that if he shakes his hand, sparks might fly, the electricity might circuit and all that, so he simply grabs his bag and coffee and walks out, making sure not to look back at Lucas, whose gaze he feels on his back, the whole way out. ___

As he gets closer to Lucille’s parents’ house, he automatically starts walking slower, trying to steady his breathing. It’s going to be fine, it’s just dinner.

So why does it feel like more? Like he’s reaching a point of no return. If he does this, then they’re officially a couple-couple.

Is he ready for that?

Just 10 minutes ago he was ogling the cute barista shamelessly. A good boyfriend wouldn’t do that.

Fuck, he really needs to get his shit together. Lucille needs this, she needs him to get a fucking grip and do this for her, and that’s what he’s going to do. He owes her that much.

He takes a deep breath before ringing the bell. Here goes nothing.

When the door opens, he almost does a double take. The middle aged woman, with brown hair, cut just above her shoulders, looks just like Lucille. Or rather, Lucille looks just like her.

“Eliott!” she exclaims, reaching out her arms and pulling him through the threshold.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you, I’ve heard so much about you” she beams, “I’m Diane, Lucille’s mom” she continues, still holding on to Eliott’s arms.

She radiates warmth, and Eliott can’t help but return her smile.

“It’s so nice to meet you as well Mrs. Lallemant” he answers genuinely.

“Oh no no” she says, flailing her arms “call me Diane, or don’t call me anything at all”.

Eliott feels a faint blush reaching his cheeks “so nice to meet you Diane”.

She pulls him into a hug, and Eliott automatically stiffens. He doesn’t like to be touched, especially not by strangers. But still, he returns the hug with as much conviction as he can.

When she finally releases him, she gently nudges him into the hallway, and gestures for the coat rack.

“You can leave your bag and coat here, dinner isn’t quite ready yet, and we’re still waiting for Lucas, he’ll get off work in half an hour or so”.

That’s when the smell reaches Eliott’s nostrils. It smells like butter and onions, and he can’t help but let out a faint moan, as he takes in the smell. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t had a decent home cooked meal in, what feels like, months. He’s not the greatest cook himself, and neither is Lucille. They always praise themselves lucky when Lucille’s roommate, Amélie, cooks for them. Sometimes if he’s lucky, he even gets to take leftovers home.

“It smells amazing Mrs – Diane” he corrects himself awkwardly, as he receives another warm smile.

“Hi baby” Lucille says as she emerges from the living room, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. She’s never been a big fan of PDA, and neither has Eliott, they’ve always agreed on that. Never wanting to be that couple, who subject strangers to their affection publicly.

“I take it you’ve met my mom?”

“Oh he has” Diane says, and if Eliott isn’t completely mistaken, giving her daughter a, not-so-subtle, wink.

Guess he didn’t mess up, just yet.

Lucille beams at her mother and gently strokes his arm comfortingly. She knows he’s not a big fan of meeting new people.

“As I just told Eliott, dinner will be ready soon, but we still have to wait for your dear brother” Diane says “why don’t you introduce Eliott to your father and I’ll bring us all something to drink?”

Lucille nods at her mother as she takes Eliott’s hand into her own.

“I know you hate this, but I swear you’re going to love them as soon as you get to know them” she whispers in his ear.

Eliott answers with a reassuring nod, as he places his hand on her lower back. He wants her to know that he’s determined to do this for her. He wants to make her happy, she deserves as much.

Lucille’s dad is sitting in an armchair, in the corner of the living room, reading glasses on the bridge of his nose, seemingly lost in a book. Eliott tilts his head slightly, so see the cover of the book. The Goldfinch, he mentally approves of the man’s choice of book, it’s one of Eliott’s personal favorites.

“Dad, I’d like you to meet Eliott” Lucille says as she takes the book out of his hand and gestures for him him to get up.

“Ah, Eliott!” he exclaims, as he takes off his glasses and places them on the chair “so you’re the guy that stole my little girls’ heart” he laughs, a smile forming on his lips.

A nervous laugh escapes Eliott’s mouth, because what is he supposed to say to that?

“I’m Victor, it’s great to finally put a face to the name. We’ve heard so much about” he says, reaching out his hand, which Eliott quickly grabs and shakes.

“So nice to meet you as well Mr. Lallemant” he says, retrieving his hand and swiftly placing both of them in his jeans pockets.

It’s not that Mr. and Mrs. Lallemant didn’t seem like nice people, because they did. They radiated warmth, but Eliott couldn’t rid the urge of fleeing out of the house. It was all so formal, so serious. He obviously knew that their relationship would come to this one day, but still, he wasn’t ready for this just yet.

If you’re not ready after almost two years, when will you be?

He desperately tries to push the chaotic jumble of thoughts to the back of his mind. He just has to get through tonight, this is the worst part. After this, he will be okay.

It’s just a few hours, it’s just a few hours, it’s just a few hours.

“Eliott dear, why don’t you take a seat?”

Mrs. Lallemant was back from the kitchen, with a tray of glasses and a big bottle of, what Eliott could only assume, was homemade lemonade. She pours everyone a glass, and takes a seat next to her husband, one hand nursing her lemonade, the other drawing circles on Mr. Lallemant’s back.

For the first time in what feels like hours, he realizes that Lucille is still standing next to him, never having left, her reassuring hand still on his lower back. He appreciates the gesture, but it really makes no difference, she could he cooing soft words in his ear the whole time and he’d still feel uncomfortable as ever.

He takes a seat next to her, and starts making small talk with Mr. and Mrs. Lallemant. After a few minutes, he feels himself easing up. They’re easy to talk to, and they don’t ask too many personal questions. Something tells him, that Lucille instructed them, before he got here.

Just as Mrs. Lallemant is telling Eliott about her special lasagna recipe, the front door slams open.

“Oh that must be Lucas, he’s home early” Mrs. Lallemant places her glass on the table as she gets up to greet her son.

Eliott gets up from the couch and wipes his slightly sweaty palms on the back of his pants, as he prepares himself for another round of half-awkward introductions and politeness.

There’s some slight commotion in the hallway, a silhouette frantically trying to hang his coat on the overstuffed rack. Eliott immediately notices that he is very small, compared to the rest of his family.

When the boy enters the living room, Eliott swears his heart stops.

He’s greeted with those baby blue eyes, and recognition washes over the younger boy’s face just as quickly.

It’s him.. It’s the breathtakingly beautiful barista. And fuck, he’s just as handsome as Eliott remembers him. Don’t look him in the eyes, stop staring, stop staring.

Lucas slowly approaches him, almost as if he’s afraid Eliott might bolt again. Fat chance of that happening, seeing as Eliott is practically frozen on the spot.

“Hi, I’m Lucas” he says softly, catching Eliott’s flickering gaze, as he reaches out a slightly trembling hand “you must be Eliott”.

#elu fic #elu au #skam france #elu #skamfr #fanfic #*nervously logs off tumblr after posting this*#*sweats profously*#is this it?

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irondadgroupie · 5 years

Text

Bohemian Rhapsody: Chapter 5

We want to pretend like the week-long hiatus was planned @intoresus but honestly, we would be lying :D First was Easter and- you know what we are talking about.

When May Parker received the call, it had been a bad sign from the very beginning. There weren’t many people that would call her during work. The number wasn’t Peter’s, so it couldn’t be him telling her he was inviting Ned over - or staying for another night at the Stark Tower. It was a stranger talking on the other end of the line, calmly but urgently. He refused to tell what had happened, or why she was asked to come in the first place, just repeated he’d send a driver to pick her up and bring her to the compound.

There she was now, in the back of a small limousine - a little extravagant, as was everything coming from Tony Stark, but at least she was getting where she needed to be and had a little more time to try and reach Peter. A part of her knew he wouldn’t pick up, but the bigger, more optimistic part was always expecting to hear his voice at the other end of the line, or a new message, but nothing. The last one was from eleven this morning:

Dishes are washed. Mr Stark’s picking me up for lunch in a few. Be back tomorrow.

May didn’t exactly dislike Tony, but she wasn’t entirely warming up to him either. She knew he was trying to be supportive, and that Peter had lightened up since Stark had walked into his life. However, she questioned his behavior. What did Tony Stark want? It was a question that didn’t let her go. He appeared as if he really cared for her kid, but so had other people in Peter’s life - people who had ended up using him, in the truest sense of that word. May still felt sick thinking about it. Who was telling her that this was about Peter and not about Iron Man needing a side-kick superhero? Or about having the kid work on some ideas Tony could present as his own in the future?

As far as she’d heard – the man wasn’t exactly a hermit - it wouldn’t have been the first time. Back in 2002, there had been a heavy accusation of Stark stealing an idea for using concepts that were rumored not to be his. The case was dropped two years later due to the lack of evidence, but with the amount of Tony Stark’s wealth, he might’ve just bribed the entire court. Peter could spend a day talking non-stop about how the man had changed over the course of the past few years, but May couldn’t shake off her doubts. No one could make a 180 change after being an arrogant and eccentric millionaire for half of his life. Peter had a general tendency to trust people too quickly and too easily, believing in the good in everyone, no matter if they deserved it or not. The fact that he’d worshipped Tony Stark for most of his life didn’t help with that either. That’s what was getting her anxious about the two of them spending so much time together: If it were really about Stark’s intention to exploit her boy, it would be easy for him, and Peter probably wouldn’t even realize anything until it was already too late.

Twenty unlucky calls later they reached their destination, and May was guided inside the building.

“Mrs Parker?” She heard it before she saw it, her worst fears coming true. The woman in front of her her was wearing scrubs. She was a medic.

“Yes,” May answered tonelessly. “I’m here for my nephew, Peter.”

“Sure. Follow me, please.” The worst part about the entire situation was that May had been working in the medical field for long enough to recognize patterns. They guided her away from the main area, because the news wouldn’t be good. Because they wanted her to have a private room, a place to sit down before they’d fill her in. And that was exactly what was happening.

“I have to inform you that your nephew has been involved in an animal-vehicle crash earlier this afternoon.”

May heard the words, but their meaning didn’t put itself together. As if she was trapped in a nightmare. Getting the gist of a situation, nothing more. “He’s receiving the best medical care in this facility, I assure you.” Yet another typical sentence. Nothing with vital information.

May needed it. Needed some information, at least whether or not Peter was alright.

“How is he?”

The shuffle. A second offer for a glass of water. Again, May shook her head.

“He’s suffered something we call a hypothermia, which is factually a lowered body temperature, alongside a concussion and a splenic trauma. His vitals are stable at the moment. However, I am obligated to inform you that the severity of his injuries had caused a cardiac arrest. We managed to take control of it rather quickly, but Peter has unfortunately slipped into a coma.”

The universe around May Parker didn’t exist anymore. She’d heard all those words before. Screamed along hospital hallways, whispered between some doctors. All of them had a meaning that she was well aware of. The medic offered her sincerest apologies and suggested she’d bring her to Peter’s room whenever she felt ready but May ignored her. She wasn’t ready.

Barely a few years ago she had lost her husband.

And now they wanted to tell her that she almost lost her nephew by the skin of his teeth?

No. This had to be a nightmare, a very, very cruel nightmare.

Peter was at home, with Ned, building Lego sets.

In Stark’s lab, working on some secret inventions.

Maybe outside, as Spider-Man, saving ‘the little people’.

Safe.

Not in the ICU of a high-class medical facility.

She barely listened to the explanation of how it had come to the crash in the first place. The only informations she tried to keep in her mind was how the current prognosis and future treatment looked like. “Tests came back promising, and we assume that his healing factor will continue to have a positive effect. However, we can’t yet tell when he’s going to wake up.”

Her vision blurred by tears that refused to fall and the pain was so awful it literally made her feel hollow, as if she was helplessly sinking into quicksand.

Episodes of sadness had been a constant companion ever since Ben’s death, and usually Peter was helping her out. That’s what they always did: Cheering each other up - balancing each other out. But now? Now Peter couldn’t. Now it was on her alone.

They were about to explain her that he was currently still ventilated, due to his lungs needing to recover from the effects of drowning, when they entered the room.

Her first glance didn’t meet Peter - she doubted she would’ve recognized him under the thick blankets and with the countless wires covering him. But maybe it would’ve been good if that’s the first she saw. It would’ve anchored her.

Instead, the first thing she saw beyond the waterfall in her eyes was Tony Stark - One hand in her nephew’s hair, the other resting on his chest, mumbling something she didn’t comprehend. The first thing she saw was him.

The man who’d driven the car Peter got hurt in.

In that moment, he wasn’t Tony Stark anymore. Not Peter’s hero, not the man who’d rescued him after the crash.

He was the enemy.

“You-“ You did this. But the words didn’t leave her mouth, this cruelty was tying her tongue. She saw Tony looking up in what she believed to be shock and surprise.

“May- I'm sorry-“

“No. Don’t you dare attempt to apologize. This - you did this!”

“May,” Pepper stepped forward and tried to grasp the woman's arm in comfort. “We are all upset and shocked about this. How about you sit down, I'll get you tea-“

“No, no tea can solve this! You people caused this! It was your car he was in and you were driving,” She screamed at Tony. Tears spilled from her eyes and her face was read with rage. “You promised to take care of him and you broke it! Why? Because he had that good idea before you and you needed him out of the picture?”

“What?” Tony whispered and his shock and resentment flushed away to disbelief. “- I saved him! That doesn't make any sense!”

“What do I know about you rich people? Intern in coma sounds better than a dead one.”

Tony opened his mouth and closed it in the same instant, his chest suddenly feeling way too tight to speak, or even move. Somewhere outside of his mind, Pepper was asking him to calm down in a tone as worried as he’d never heard it before - which was huge, given the condition the woman had seen him in already, physically and mentally. But on the inside, there were only two things repeating themselves, one after another.

Peter could be dead.

You did this.

“May, you need to be careful. Tony is also healing. He can't take much emotional stress or his heart-“ Pepper told as she helped her husband to the bed. He wasn’t fighting her, and Pepper realized that she hated this more than him arguing with her. It meant that May’s words, spoken in terrible grief, had left an invisible, but no less painful scar in Tony’s heart.

“Yeah, that can be easily arranged,” May sniffed. “I want you out.”

“What?” Tony whispered, eyes wide.

“Both of you, out. I don't want you anywhere near Peter or me. Only family is allowed and you are certainly not family. Leave us alone or I swear to God I am taking this to the court.”

“A lawsuit? She can’t be serious about that. What’d be the charges? Saving her nephew from drowning? We’re in America, not China, or the middle-ages.”

Pepper kept her voice quiet only to avoid catching another deprecating glare from one of the night nurses. She and Rhodey stood outside Tony’s room in the long hallway. Although being on the possibly highest dose of non-anesthetic sedatives possible, Tony was in a light sleep, and Pepper did in no way intend to unnecessarily wake him. He needed rest, his heart and mind a break from conscious thinking. It had been hard enough to see how much the man had been suffering after May had insisted on him leaving. Doctors from both sides had tried to smooth down the conflict - arguing that it would be beneficial to both Tony and Peter’s conditions to not separate them, but May hadn’t listened. And with her being the boy’s legal guardian, there was nothing they could do about it.

Tony had been devastated, in a way that Pepper had never seen him. He’d been crying, unresisted, the entire way back, and even after they’d shot him the sedatives to lower the risk of a further arrhythmia, he’d still mumbled “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry” until he finally fell asleep.

“She’s in shock.” Rhodey reasoned, and Pepper frowned at him in return.

“As is Tony. We all are. Hell, I certainly am.” Curses weren’t exactly in her typical daily word-repertoire, but this certainly wasn’t a typical day. “Gives her no reason to lash out at us that way. Her behavior could’ve caused Tony a heart attack and god knows I would’ve gone to court if that happened.”

“Pep.” Rhodey sighed. “She’s raised the boy.”

He almost made a step backwards at the ice in Pepper’s eyes when she looked at him. “I’m not saying I understand what she did, I’m just -“ He massaged his temple. The day had been nerve-wracking and horrible, and he was slowly feeling the pay-off. “Just imagine it’d be your kid in there. You, I, we all know Tony the way he is. We’ve seen him grow over the years, we have seen evidence enough that he isn’t the 00’s Tony Stark anymore. He proves that to us every minute of every day.

“For May... For May he’s the man that everyone’s talking about. America’s most criticized person. Everyone who owns a functional TV has heard of him, and the media doesn’t have a reputation of showing people at their best. For May, he’s the billionaire superhero that supports her son fighting crime at night. She has no idea who he really is or how much he really cares. He’s honestly just that guy in the driver’s seat for her, but it’s her son that’s caught the worst of this crash, and she needs someone to blame, because otherwise, all of that might be too cruel to handle.”

Pepper did not answer, but the words stuck with her. After all, Rhodey might be right. From the outside perspective, with just the media as a source of information, she probably wouldn’t trust Tony either, no matter how hard it was to imagine that. To imagine that no one saw her Tony as the gentle, loving human being that he was.

“You’re staying with Tony till morning? I’ll leave her for the night, and hope she’s a little more at ease tomorrow. We can help her through this.”

And Tony’s going to break if she refuses to let him see Peter for longer than a day.

Tony woke up in the middle of the night, feeling like someone had smashed a building right on top of him. He needed a while to recognize his surroundings, and to scan his memory for the reason for his pain. As soon as he did, he wished he hadn’t.

The worst seconds after trauma weren’t those when you’re confused about what’s been happening, but the flashes of minutes - hours even - burning themselves through your mind all at once.

His movie had an injured Peter as the main protagonist, and May’s angry voice as soundtrack. Her accusations stung. They stung, because after all, he’d thought that May would know him better than that.

The story she was referring to had happened years ago.

Some “upcoming star technician”, that had just started his small independent business, had denounced him because some of the blue-prints that Tony had used for filing a patent for his latest invention looked similar to his. It had become a top story; people believed it to be more realistic that a billionaire would steal ideas rather than a small company would use the indictment to sneak themselves some money and attention.

It wasn’t just that Tony’s ego was far too big to ever steal someone’s idea to enrich himself.

He could never do something like that to Peter.

The project the kid had been working on every time he’d been in the lab for the past couple of months had grown into something solid. There were still some edges on it that’d need fine tuning and Tony had gladly volunteered to help fix those, but this would always be Peter’s invention entirely, his baby and he would make sure that he’d get all the well- deserved credit for it.

He wouldn’t take that achievement away from the kid.

And he certainly wouldn’t cause a crash to... he couldn’t even finish the thought without feeling sick. His breathing would’ve quickened along with his heart-rate under normal circumstances, but with the amount of anti-arrhythmias rushing through his system, his body seemed to be stuck in its rhythm.

That didn’t make the idea any less hurtful. The image of how different the day could’ve ended for both of them. A world without Peter Parker would be a gruesome world, without light or colors or sounds, just a hollow emptiness. That’s what Tony had almost pictured hell like: A hollow place.

Sleeping had become impossible now. If he’d close his eyes, he would always see the picture of Peter’s lifeless, pale body in front of him. But staring in the darkness didn’t help the awful feeling either.

Rhodey was sitting in the armchair next to his bed, head hanging on his shoulder, snoring lightly.

For a moment, Tony considered waking him, aware that Rhodey would definitely be mad if he didn’t do it, but he had no intention to have the following conversation about how he felt, or that he should rest and not worry.

He turned his head to the other side, searching for the access button they’d given him that’d give him a light dose of painkillers if his pain became unbearable, but his eyes met something else: a metallic object glistening in the moonlight shining throught the window.

Oh please, let it be.

It was indeed his StarkPad, and Tony suddenly relaxed. This was better than painkillers. This would keep his mind busy enough for a while not to be sucked in the downward spiral of anxiety.

His arms moved sluggishly, and for a moment he feared he’d drop the Pad, but he managed to settle it quietly onto his lap.

A memo turned up.

You should really sleep, Tony.

But I love you, and I know you won’t, so take it easy right now.

Tony let out a breath and smiled weakly. Pepper had put up shortcuts to all his favorite music tracks and some brain-melting arcade games. However, Tony had other intentions. He couldn’t find it in himself to allow the distraction of playing simple mobile games - worse enough that Peter had infected him with that BlockMastery hype a few weeks ago - and music was the last thing he needed right now. He doubted he could ever listen to a rock song again. Not with one of them being so closely associated with this day.

No. He needed to do something else.

The ObserverSystem refused his command.

Access denied It reported, and Tony already frowned, checking the command protocols until he found the error: A foreign protocol called “Recover & Rest” that blocked all functions aside from games, music and video-platforms. Pepper knew him to well. But she should’ve known that this wasn’t keeping him from doing what he had to.

//Override. 496e76656e746f72 He typed, and the protocol was immediately turned off. The next burden didn’t come as a surprise, and the needed code was easier to type.

//Override. 50726f746563746f72

The system needed a few seconds before the medical database was fully loaded. After that, it was a matter of seconds to get the access to Peter’s data and connect himself to the kid’s vital monitors. Audio output was still turned off, and for almost a minute Tony just appreciated the wonderfully rhythmical spikes on screen and the ease that came with not having to wait for the sound underlying one of them.

He changed audio delivery to his headphones and the rhythmic beeps audible were more calming than even the best movie soundtrack could ever be, because each of them meant that Peter’s heart had made another beat, each of them meant that for now, his kid was alright.

It was the soundtrack that guided him to sleep.

#irondad #fanfic #bohemian rhapsody #whump #medical whump

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douxreviews · 5 years

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Cloak and Dagger - ‘Alignment Chart’ Review

"The next time you get mad at me for going out and doing something on my own? Remember this moment."

Cloak and Dagger's second season really starts to gel, in an episode that subverts our expectations in the best possible ways.

Pity about the framing device, though.

It's a difficult trick for a show to pull off, to have a character that the viewers are absolutely convinced is evil suddenly turn on a dime and be revealed to be good. It's an equally difficult task to do the reverse and have a character that the viewers trust completely suddenly be revealed as evil. Because in both cases you have to find ways to convince the audience enough of one thing, but not so much that it feels forced or unbelievable once you reveal that the opposite is true. And you can't hedge your initial impressions of the character too much or everyone is going to see the reveal coming.

The good people at Cloak and Dagger managed both this week, and I never saw either of them coming for even a moment.

Well played, Cloak and Dagger writers' room. Extraordinarily well played.

At the end of the previous episode we saw Connors, the unambiguously bad, comprehensibly evil foe from season one released from the dark dimension inside of Ty Johnson. When last seen, our unrepentant villain was scrambling out of the window of the abandoned church, and enough time had been spent during that episode examining Ty's fears as to whether he'd be able to stop Connors from hurting his family again if he ever got out that we never for a moment questioned that that's what Connors would want to do. The focus was entirely on the question 'can we stop him', nicely misdirecting us from the question 'Is that what Connors is likely to do?'

Because, if you think about it for a moment, Connors has spent eight months trapped alone inside a dimension who's entire raison d'etre is to scare the holy crap out of people with their own sins. Scared straight is what Cloak's cloak does, and while I admit it hasn't been overtly presented that way to a great extent yet in the show, they certainly hinted at it enough in last week's episode for us to put the pieces together when Connors reveals his abrupt about face toward penitence here.

It was a good structural decision as well to only show him collecting all of his things without dialog for the first half of the episode. It very much read as sinister while being totally explicable once we're told that he was collecting the evidence against himself to give to Ty. Gold stars to J.D. Evermore tonight. His ability to simultaneously express that degree of fear and self loathing really sold the reveal.

My only minor quibbles with this side of the story are that Ty and his father were awfully slow to start believing that Connors repentance might be genuine. Which is totally fair and believable, given what he did to their family, but felt a little repetitive as a televised drama. Also, I understand that they're plotting an adventure story, and so the heist to get the magic file of concrete proof to get Ty's name cleared was as good a plot device as any, but even in New Orleans, Connors confession with the items of evidence that he produced to verify his story would have been sufficient.

Besides, I suspect at least part of the point to that plot thread was building up to us meeting Connors' Senator Uncle later on. I can't imagine that he'll be a good guy.

And let's be absolutely clear on one point, because the show went out of its way to be clear. Connors' remorse is absolutely genuine. When Ty shows him his greatest fear it's him putting handcuffs on himself over and over again only to have them fall off over and over again. He's afraid of not being allowed to be punished.

On the other side of the coin, Tandy gets in deep with Lea, the leader of her abuse survivors support group in what can only be charitably describes as a hail Mary attempt to get more information about who's abducting the girls by going after Lea's ex-boyfriend who apparently is untouchable because he grows an extraordinary amount of pot.

And yes, when you lay it out like that, that plot line doesn't really make a fig of sense. But the good news is that it doesn't really have to, since it only exists to set up the reveal that Lea is coordinating the abductions. Well staged, on that particular moment; the ambulance appeared in shot just long enough for the penny to begin to drop before Lea unleashed her taser. Really well structured, and the earlier reveal about Connors secretly having turned good was both a nice mirror for Lea being evil, but also had us wrong footed enough that we didn't see this reveal coming any more than we had the Connors' one. As a group counselor for abused women, Lea had been implicitly 'vouched for' as being a decent person, but of course it makes perfect sense that she would use the group to identify women that no one will miss in order to abduct them.

Which brings me to the framing device of Tandy telling an unseen group of revelers a tedious story about a farmer and a viper. It's a thinly veiled spin on the 'frog gives a scorpion a ride' anecdote, and I can't imagine that anyone was surprised with where the story went or what the moral was. That said, the subtle red/blue lighting notes were a nicely understated clue as to where she really was while she was dreaming this, and in hindsight the message 'people who you are trying to help might turn around and hurt you' was a warning about where Tandy's storyline was going, not Ty's, so that's a nice rug pull. At the end of the day, one thing that this show has difficulty with is it's tendency to experiment with theatrical framing devices that come off as a little heavy handed and forced. Still, 'try's too hard' is hardly the worst sin a show can commit.

Bits and Pieces:

-- Apparently Mayhem is still in the dark dimension, and her absence seems to be making Brigid fall apart. That tracks, if they're sharing a soul.

-- I wonder if Brigid ever wondered why her refrigerator was beaten up and laying in the stairwell when she got out of the hospital. Like, I absolutely would have asked some followup questions about that.

-- The ongoing theme of the last couple of episodes seems to be that Ty and Tandy need to stop trying to work alone and need to start teaming up.

-- Otis is making a new cloak! I love Otis.

-- Tandy is understandably worried about her mother having a couple of drinks, which is fair. But she overreacts to her mother meeting a doctor and tries to turn it into some sort of class issue as an excuse to project some more or her own survivor-anger.

-- Tandy's mom likes Ty. Ty's mom does not like Tandy.

-- Leaving someone who hurts you is not easy.

-- Very nice call back to Maman Brigitte's symbol and the way they use it to bring Ty face to face with Connors.

-- It's totally not safe to do that with bullets though. Under no circumstances try that at home.

-- Connors kept instinctively putting Billy's death in the passive voice and getting corrected on it. To his credit, he seemed to accept the correction and eventually stopped trying phrasing it that way.

-- Otis says he's making the new cloak for himself. That does not bode well for him surviving the season, does it.

-- Lea doesn't know about Tandy's powers. What on earth was she expecting to happen at the big pot warehouse?

-- Fuchs first name was apparently 'Kenneth'. I confess myself disappointed.

Quotes:

Tandy: "Apparently there's no cell reception in your hoodie."

Tandy: "Can I talk to them?" Andre: "The angel and the shadow?" Tandy: "No, the rescued girls."

Lea: "Seems like your ex brought out the worst in you, not the best." Tandy: "Is it possible someone can do both?"

Ty: "Your mom done freaking out?" Tandy: "She was. But then I freaked her out all over again."

Tandy: "In order for her to tell me more, I need to find some common ground." Ty: "So... so, who am I? Your abusive boyfriend or your pimp?" Tandy: "I mean, either one will do." Ty: "So you called your black friend." Tandy: "No, I called my best friend." Ty's right to be angry on this one, but I can't help but wonder if she'd said 'only' friend that his response might have been a little different. Because it's true.

A solid episode with just a few minor quibbles. I'm loving how this season is shaping up.

Three out of four missing refrigerators.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

#Cloak and Dagger #Tandy Bowen #Tyrone Johnson #Brigid O'Reilly #Mayhem #Marvel #MCU #Cloak and Dagger Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

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sceawere · 6 years

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We’ve lost more than just the plot: my thoughts on the season 4 finale

I have a lot of problems with this season. I have problems with characterisation. I have problems with storylines. I have problems with the way things were shown (I’m looking at you, informed consent).

But last episode was so good! The Luca/Alfie scene was one of the best pieces of television I’ve had the pleasure of consuming. So, there were problems, but I went in with high hopes because, you know, it’s Peaky Blinders, and I love it, so I ignored stuff. But how am I supposed to ignore that raging inferno of a dumpster fire that was the finale. Look. I’m so mad I’m using Americanisms. On that note, give me a Changretta spin off because we deserve it.

A lot of the arguments I make here are going to circle back to a few main points which can be covered by various subtitles such as: ‘Holy Fuck, is someone going to jump a shark in the cut at some point?’, ‘Tommy Shelby is a 4D chess master, except he hasn’t told anyone else where the board is kept’, and ‘Why?’.

This is rambing and probably at times confusing but bleh. Let’s begin.

Major shout out to dorahog for her comment where she said that it seemed very truncated – I think the events of the finale should have been spread over at least two episodes, and maybe three. A lot of the tying of the knots to me still left loose threads and didn’t really seem complete.

I think this, and some of the editing as a result is what causes some of the major problems I have with the episode. Lots of rushed finishing off to introduce too many new lines, idk. Anyway, I’m going to walk through it pretty much scene by scene, so buckle in.

We spend at least the first quarter (in terms of irl play time) of the episode at the boxing match. I was pumped. It was great. The Gold’s are my new faves, and while I may try to present myself as a refined you know, whatever, I love watching two people kick six shades of shit out of each other in a semi controlled manner any day of the week.

Even better when everyone is wearing sharp tailoring and it was someone’s entire job to light the place fantastically. I was about to write an ode to the costumes and props people but then I got a shot of Abbeys wig and the feeling swiftly fled.

Still, I will give the editing people props for this particular section. The pacing was great, the frenetic activity, the flicking back and forth between sets. Here, the editing was spot on. It built up the feeling of not only the excitement, but a sense of panic. Arthurs paranoia really seeped into me and I was on edge about whether Bonnie might be just a little over his head.

Since I’m going to reference pay off recurrently, I want to point out these elements. Arthur is always a paranoid, frenetic, madman. Bonnie has been woven into this season and everything has been building to this moment. The scene with the garotte and Bonnie winning the match – that’s how you do payoff.

Before we move on, I’m focusing on Alfie’s story a lot more later, so I’m skipping over that particular scene for the moment.

I loved the scene in the loos. It was funny, it was an accurate depiction of the politics and preening that goes on, the interplay between the women was indulgent. We got exposition, we got characterisation, we got costumes that made me salivate. More of all of this please.

I’m assuming that Linda is going to get a bigger role in Season 5 – the focus on her descent into Shelby Ladyhood, and the mentions of her past and family (especially her mother) seems to point that way. Which, I for one would enjoy. I think Linda gets a lot of hate because she’s written to. She’s portrayed as the shrew who tore poor little rabid dog Arthur away and leashed him up. I don’t think their relationship is completely healthy, I think there’s co-dependence issues there. But the way I’ve seen her described in fandom is eye-rolling to an extent that I physically injured myself on at least three occasions. So, please, give me more of her as a character and less as a caricature.

I’m so upset that Tommy would lie to Finn about Arthur being dead. Finn, the baby of the family, who wasn’t in the war, and doesn’t think and feel the way they do, was lied to about his brother dying just months after his other brother died. I think it’s sick emotional manipulation and unconscionable on Tommy’s part. If you can’t trust Finn, don’t bring him near the business. You can’t have it both ways. Either he’s in and you bring him in, or you don’t, and he needs to leave. I understand keeping the circle small, but they’ve just learned with the ‘don’t tell Michael about the plan’ plan that it doesn’t really work, and you just end up causing more problems.

Tommy has no consideration for people’s emotions or their state as beings of their own. They’re players to him, pieces on a board, and he’ll move them how he wants. He gets to make all the decisions, they don’t have any real input, and they have no ability to decide if they want to accept the consequences or not, because they’re already five steps deep in the process by the time they learn about it.

Side note: I’m bored of all the plans being made off screen and magically revealed to us later. If you’ve seen the really good video essay about why Sherlock is shitty for doing this, that’s the basis of my argument. It’s not smart or exciting to say ah! Got you! When I never had a chance to work it out in the first place. It’s just kind of lazy and boring.

Also, Tommy lied to a pregnant woman and caused her great distress, so that’s nice.

I cannot believe this is the first proper scene with Isaiah we get, because opening car doors and skulking in the background doesn’t count. Jordan Bolger is a great actor who brings so much to the character and they continually waste him. Isaiah could be so much more – he’s a black, working class kid, with a preacher for a father, in a crime family, and all he gets is a two-minute scene where he’s a bystander to Finn’s character development. Give me his struggle, give me him working through the moral conflicts – even the times they’ve just shown him to be a young lad being a young lad it’s been great, give us more. I assumed with the including of him in the heist plot that he would be stepping up into actual business, but they seem to have abandoned that idea and it’s disappointing. He can firmly join the ‘they deserve better’ club.

Finn should be left to be smol and soft, those are my complete thoughts.

Also, Tommy terrifies and holds hostage a whole room of innocent people as a charade because he doesn’t give a fuck about anyone else’s feelings or autonomy any longer than they are useful to him.

Also, I love Goliath and I’m sad that with Alfie gone we’re probably not going to see anymore of him, my big son, I loved you while I had you.

We move away from the boxing scenes and get Arthur’s ‘funeral’.

I will say, I bloody love the wagons and wish my alternate theory that the Shelby’s did in fact lose everything to Luca and have to start from scratch could have happened because they were would have got more shots of them being ethereal in the forest somewhere surrounded by beautiful woodwork a la the Polly/Abbey scenes, but alas…we get this instead.

The shot of the empty room and the fireplace was beautiful, and poignant, and I’m gonna give them that.

Also, was that Karl? Thank fuck if it was because I had assumed Ada had abandoned him in the states somewhere for all we’ve seen/heard of him so far. It’s not as if any of the children are seen to be particularly important or have any type of characterisation of their own though so why am I surprised?

The way that Tommy treats Michael is ridiculous. You can’t complain about Michael keeping something back from you when you are lying to him about the exact same thing. I am so heartened by Michael saying, ‘I chose my mum’ because it not only shows that Michael isn’t Tommy Jr after all, but also that there’s a chance that the new generation will succeed the old guard after all and that this won’t just carry on forever.

Also, if Tommy can’t trust Michael with his life of all things, why would he trust him to handle the American business alone? How ridiculous. If I think someone was willing to screw me over in a double-cross that led to my death, I wouldn’t hand them the key to my secondary kingdom. Sense – this makes none.

Audrey Changretta turning up at the funeral like the badass she is and I’m so sad that her whole life has been torn apart in order to make Tommy Shelby look like a big man. Honestly, if you ask me, the Shelbys should have lost. Luca should have won. It would have made more sense, and provided such great material for next season.

The Shelby’s, having lost everything and become the people they used to rule, must fight to get back to the top. It should have been everything this season was meant to be, getting back to their roots, scrapping again. It would have provided stakes again. They need to be taken down a few pegs. If I know that Tommy is just going to fix everything off screen at the end anyway and everything turns out the same, then why am I wasting my time?

But that’s what the show has become. It started off as an interesting look at the moral complexities of the family, how they worked together, struggling to be something other than what they were destined for by the people who consistently maligned them. Now it’s a show about how amazing Tommy Shelby is. But the only way they’ve made Tommy Shelby great, is by making everyone else an idiot.

Tommy is a 4D chess-master, but only because no else knows where the table is being kept.

Luca Changretta was introduced as what should have been the most terrifying antagonist yet. And they turned him into an idiot. Luca Changretta, mob boss, doesn’t know to leave men behind to keep an eye on the kingdom? Bullshit.

I understand that Tommy is the main guy and has plot armour, but he doesn’t need to be the centre of the universe to be compelling as a character. This guy has manipulated Churchill and the king, got a city, a country, and an empire revolving around him, been given an OBE and now is an MP. But he can’t count two steps in front of himself and predict that killing a mob boss’ father might bring the mob down on him? He never really sees the consequences of his actions. His wife dying didn’t change him as a person, he just got meaner. His brother dying didn’t change him as a person, he just got reckless. I need a little bit more.

Alfie is such a beloved character not just because Tom Hardy plays him so well, not just because he belts out hilarious nonsense like a slightly faulty spitfire, but because he’s a match for Tommy. A much-needed match. He can go toe-to-toe with him, hell, even half the time get one over on him. He tells it straight when he knows Tommy needs it, and he doesn’t take his bullshit. He’s a breath of fresh air in a show that wants to convince us the literal world (or at least the empire, and America, and the political-social climate of the period, and every woman in sights life) revolves around Thomas Shelby.

Even add Campbell to that pile. He was a shit show. He was disgusting. He was mildly inept at times. But he was menacing. He had political connections. You knew he was the guy they sent out to do the work that everyone turned an eye to, and how much damage he could cause without official recompense. But in the end, it wasn’t Grand Master Tommy who got him – it was Grace, and then Polly. Hell hath no fury like women scorned, and the beauty came so much more from the fact that it wasn’t the person who he perceived as his adversary that ended up doing him in. Someone he trusted, and someone he abused, doing what needed to be done. The priest last season was menacing because of the same, and in the end, it wasn’t Tommy that brought him down, it was Michael. It meant something because it was Michael.

I don’t see how killing Luca makes sense except it as a way to make Tommy look good and have the big Arthur reveal, which was bullshit anyway. There was little pay off there.

And Alfie. Oh, sweet love, Alfie. So, not only do they take what is pretty much the most beloved character in the fandom, even casuals love the shit out of this man, and dispatch of him like a secondary mop up, but they do it in such a shitty way.

When the spoilers came out about Alfie’s cancer I had a personal reflexive ‘well fuck off with that’ having just lost someone irl to a long and messy cancer battle, so mainly I pushed it away and thought ‘ah, that won’t get dealt with yet, they’ve done nothing about it for season upon season, it’s probably just internal backstory bullshit’. Nope.

Alfie has been chronically underused in this show, and I understand it. I think the rare glimpses we get are so powerful that it makes sense. It’s Christmas Day. It’s an island in the sea of winter, and the anticipation’s half the fun. You get presents every day, and you’re just going to turn out to be a spoiled brat. But we spend seasons adoring this guy who lives in the damn shadows, scrapping together parts of his life so that we can better understand him, only to be fed a massive plot point as an offhand spoiler and then have the entire thing resolved in what felt like 20 minutes? There was no anticipation. There were no stakes. There was no payoff. I was just…sighing, mostly.

I knew when he started talking about Margate that I was about to be emotionally ruined, but I expected at least to get a fitting end. But no. We got Alfie screwing Tommy over again in a predictable but fucking useless way. We got Tommy shooting him on a beach and walking away. And that was it.

I think the Tommy breakdown scenes would have had a bigger impact on me two seasons ago when I still had care for his character, but I just used the time to check my messages, so it didn’t really land with me tbh. The whole last segment of this ep just flew over me.

The malignment of Jessie Eden’s character will likely get a post of its own soon. Except I am going to say here that I’m entirely sure that what Tommy is doing counts as sexual assault – see the case of the woman who had a child with someone she didn’t know was an undercover agent in her what I think was also Communist action group, and also the new laws that stop undercover people from sleeping with those they are surveying. Because you can’t give informed consent. But they’re probably not going to address that, because we have a love triangle to deal with now.

Also, Tommy abandoned a dog and tampered with an election so he’s everyone I hate now. You don’t come for the animals or the democratic process. Taking inspiration from my dear love, Alfie Solomons, what a fucking cunt.

But besides that, it was fine.

#peaky blinders spoilers

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briangroth27 · 7 years

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Netflix MCU Wish List (as of 2017)

Since Marvel’s Defenders premiered, I’ve been thinking about how the Netflix corner of the MCU could evolve from here. I can’t wait to see Daredevil season 3 (still my favorite of these series), and Luke Cage & Jessica Jones’ second seasons are also highly anticipated. If Iron Fist learns from its missteps in Season 1—namely, decide whether he was supposed to stay in K’un-Lun or seek out & destroy the Hand and start writing him like he’s had 15 years of training & study instead of playing him like a novice who doesn’t know basic details about his enemies...or that they still exist—the more the merrier. I’ve never been a huge Punisher fan, but I really liked him as a foil for Daredevil and I’ll give his show a shot as well. Here are some things I’d like to see as the shows enter the post-Defenders landscape.

Full spoilers…

Embrace “Filler” Episodes While Defenders makes sense as a single serialized story, the Netflix solo series are feeling increasingly worn thin by forcing a limited number of plots to stretch over 13 episodes. I think these series could break up their seasons and include a few “cases of the week” instead of making 13-hour movies. All four characters have ready-made jobs to provide this structure: Matt’s law clients, anyone needing Jessica’s detective skills, and everyone needing to hire Luke and/or Danny as heroes can open doors to a wide variety of enemies and conflicts. I’m glad Jessica is opening up to the world around her, but I really wish Luke would finally start his own hero for hire agency to embrace his destiny as a helper for his community in an official capacity. Throwing in other, largely unconnected plots can help flesh out the elements of these characters’ worlds more fully than focusing on one group of villains or one plot over 13 hours. You can also explore minor villains’ thematic connections and parallels to the heroes without tying them directly into a season-long arc. “Filler” episodes let us live in the world created by big moments and twists instead of just rushing from twist to twist, and I’d much rather live with these characters as they grow by facing a wide variety of challenges than watch them solve one super-long plot.

One-off cases could also allow for easier connections between the heroes, allowing them to explore the bonds that were forged in Defenders. Matt and Jessica had fun banter and good chemistry I’d like to see explored, maybe even in a relationship. Luke made Danny likable to me and opened his eyes to some truths about the world. Mixing things up and teaming Matt with Luke and Danny with Jessica would also be fun: I’d love to see what wisdom Luke has for Matt (and any conversation between the two of them about the law) and Jessica not having any of Danny’s supernatural craziness will always be entertaining. I don’t need season-long team-ups, but interactions over an episode or two would be welcome. A wider variety of cases could also lend itself to a wider variety of tones, and I’d definitely like to see some Daredevil adventures in the vein of Mark Waid’s tenure on the comic. That optimistic Silver Age-style could make a lot of sense as Matt continues to work out how to be a good hero. A Silver Age-styled adventure could also drive Jessica bonkers, which would be a lot of fun.

Dive into the Marvel Universe While they don’t need to go as far as Agents of SHIELD did in its first season, where The Battle of New York was brought up all the time, the idea that the Netflix characters almost never refer to the Avengers by name has gotten ridiculous. Even moreso, there’s no reason Claire Temple couldn’t just say “Daredevil” when she told Danny Rand about her friend with experience fighting the Hand (or that she wouldn’t try calling him; his retirement explains that a bit but not enough that she wouldn’t ask him to help). Why bother creating a shared universe if proper names can’t even be invoked? On the other hand, I really like how elements of the MCU have touched the four series—the Battle of New York reverting Hell’s Kitchen to its pre-gentrification, crime-ridden identity and bootleg copies of the Chitauri Invasion being sold on the street, for example—but there’s still a palpable disconnect that doesn’t seem necessary and has gotten distracting.

One aspect that should definitely come into play is the Sokovia Accords. As I saw mentioned on IGN, Luke, Jessica, and Danny should’ve definitely been forced to sign them after the destruction of Midland Circle. The Accords’ absence not only feels strange but like a major missed opportunity to increase the pressure on the Defenders and to police what they can and can’t do to help people. Once Matt comes back, Daredevil being hunted by the government (since he’s violating the Accords) could be a perfect way to raise the stakes each time he goes out and to explore Matt’s view of the law when he’s flagrantly violating it for the right reasons.

Get the Villains Off the Ground! I get that the Defenders are designed as the street-level heroes of the MCU. That’s fine, but I’d love for them to face some street-level supervillains instead of just non-powered gangsters. We’ve seen all four heroes outmatch human gangs many times and it feels like it’s time to level-up the enemies, particularly now that they’ve taken down a supernatural ninja cult. Speaking of the Hand, if their agents are still implanted throughout the city, that’s a perfect opportunity for one of them to take control or to have Madame Gao return and attempt to maintain the status quo. And like I realized when writing my Defenders review, there’s no more perfect enemy for heroes who represent the downtrodden than the entire societal system. The hidden Hand agents would personify that perfectly.

Back to supervillains, the Purple Man and The Hand as they appeared in Daredevil are a good start (and Diamondback was a fun example of a villain with tech upgrades), but I’d love to see costumed super-villains. Villains like Bullseye, Mr. Fear (who is also a lawyer, so he’d be able to confront Matt everywhere), the Owl (Junior, here), Typhoid Mary, Echo, Lady Bullseye, Death-Stalker (maybe a former Hand agent with a deadly touch in this version…perhaps he’d be a better enemy for Luke), Ikari, Ox, and even Stilt-man would all provide unique challenges for Daredevil to overcome, necessitating a wide variety of action scenes. Kingpin can certainly try to get his revenge, but I don’t want all of Daredevil Season 3 consumed with just him and it’s time Matt started fighting enemies outside his weight class.

I’m not familiar with Luke, Jessica, or Danny’s rogues galleries, but I’m sure they’re extensive and I’d love to see what unique challenges each of them brings to the table. For example, Danny could and should dig into the supernatural side of the Marvel universe villains. The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s superheroes aren’t a new phenomenon anymore, so there’s no reason not to embrace the proliferation of powers and technology in Netflix’s corner too. In fact, I’d love for the next Defenders miniseries to give us a supervillain team-up after introducing them in the heroes’ solo series!

Play Up the Powers I’d love more scenes from Matt’s point of view with his radar vision, for example (an area Ben Affleck’s Daredevil film outdoes the Netflix series). It’d also be great to really explore Matt’s unique relationship with the world around him due to both his blindness and his powers. How do those unique aspects shape his worldview? While we’re at it, Defenders was a good start, but I’d definitely like to see more of Matt’s acrobatics and parkour travel put to use!

Luke Cage’s potential vulnerabilities were brought up in his first season, but the villains never tried drowning him, electrocuting him, or hitting him with knock-out gas (though Stick successfully gassed him). As perfect and relevant a metaphor a bulletproof black man is nowadays, I’d like them to challenge his limits through other threats as well. Matt and Danny have distinctive fighting styles; can Luke and Jessica develop their own as well? I do see the connection with Luke’s unbreakable status with him just letting guys get tired hitting him or just barreling through legions of enemies, so perhaps that works for him as his style.

Jessica could stand to get a style of her own, however; maybe she could start tearing up the environment around her and using it against enemies. Furthermore, I’d love clarification on what Jessica’s limits are. Two seasons in, we should be beyond “vaguely strong and can kinda maybe fly.” Perhaps this stems from her disdain for her abilities, but with Jessica opening up and letting people in, perhaps she’ll also want to know just how much she can do.

Can Danny focus his chi to do anything besides punching hard and healing himself? Does he have villains that use supernatural forces in different ways than chi manipulation? Are there literal monsters he needs to vanquish?

Support the Supporting Characters Now that the Defenders have come together and her purpose as their foundation is fulfilled, what new role is Claire going to take on? Where does she go next? I’d like them to find something totally distinct for her instead of becoming a hub of information, since that seems like such a stock superhero position these days. I love that she’s always there to talk sense into these heroes and ground them, so something that incorporates that is a must.

I’m eager to explore the dark past Karen’s hinted at. Her reporter career could also open up interesting avenues; it might be cool if she hunted down the embedded Hand operatives throughout the city now that Matt can’t fight them. Maybe not the full-on Death’s-Head, but if Karen’s father appeared as a villain, he’d be a cool foil for Matt’s mom in Daredevil Season 3. I hope that Matt’s supposed death doesn’t drive her or Foggy—especially since he gave Matt the suit—into darkness. It might be cool if Kristen McDuffie from Mark Waid’s run on Daredevil appeared and somewhat replaced Matt as the defender of the downtrodden until Murdock gets back; maybe Foggy will go back to that style of law too to honor his friend.

Will Trish take up her Hellcat mantle as a superhero? Trish reporting on the earthquakes in New York felt like a classic superhero/journalist connection for Jessica and I’d like to see that played up in Jessica Jones Season 2 whether Trish becomes a superhero or not. I wonder if Malcolm will have a larger role at Jessica’s detective agency than her secretary too. It’ll be interesting to see how he and Jessica work together once she’s more open to the business.

How will Harlem react to a Luke who doesn’t have to look over his shoulder to watch for his past coming for him anymore? I love that he takes the time to get to know the people he helps; aside from a great character trait it’s an easy way to flesh out his neighborhood and I hope it continues. What have Mariah and Shades been up to in his absence? Even if they’re lying low, they’ve got to be planning something.

What hijinks are Misty and Colleen going to get into as Daughters of the Dragon? I like both of them a lot and I’d love for them to team up! I hope we get to see Misty getting used to her robotic arm instead of jumping to her being even somewhat experienced with it. Will Misty become a vigilante, and if so, how will she balance that with her job as a police officer? How extralegal can she let Colleen get without feeling she’s aiding and abetting her crimes? Will Colleen take down the Hand assets she helped to train? Does she feel responsible for putting them into the world where they can harm others?

New Series I’m sure the Netflix world will extend beyond The Punisher, and I’ve got a few ideas how. They don’t have to join the Defenders full-time and solo “one-shot” seasons would be fine too, though it’d be cool if they did get to interact with Matt, Jessica, Luke, and Danny.

Steve Rogers: Nomad The Captain America films are among my favorites of the MCU, but one thing I wish we’d seen was a deeper exploration of Steve as a man out of time. With Infinity War looming (and Kevin Feige saying endings are coming for the heroes), I’m a little worried we won’t get a chance to see Steve trying to make a life for himself in the present without some MCU-shattering event happening. I’d love a miniseries set between Civil War and Infinity War that explores Steve’s time on the run as a fugitive. Let’s see him really experience the differences in our era from his beyond pop culture. Would he help superheroes (and Inhumans?) escape the Sokovia Accords, like an Underground Railroad? What does he think of our current political climate (or one similar to it)? Does he struggle to reconcile the idea from Age of Ultron that he can’t live comfortably in peacetime with his generally peaceful and optimistic nature? I’d love to see a show where Steve just travels the country, getting reacquainted with the world and helping out whenever he comes across trouble. If he’s going to call himself Captain America, he should know what and who he’s standing for; do the people live up to—or even just aspire to—the ideals he embodies anymore? The movies have touched on several of Steve’s comic book villains, but they could be fleshed out—and the rest of his rogues gallery could come into play (Red Skull could finally return!)—in a miniseries like this. Perhaps Nuke shows up here and his pills are revealed as part of a modern super-soldier project. I’d design the plots as intentionally low-key, because Steve would be concerned with the people on the ground, not on the global implications. Maybe Sharon Carter comes with him to develop that relationship beyond what little we got in Winter Soldier and Civil War. Maybe Sam Wilson comes too, to give Steve an insight into the modern world and its problems that a white guy from the 40s simply can’t fully understand (Sharon can provide him with a woman’s perspective as well). Luke Cage could also add to any discussion about modern society, and I’d love to see these similarly good-natured heroes meet and bond! Captain America’s one of my favorite characters and I’d love to see what Chris Evans could do with him if given a broader, more personal canvas to play with.

Black Widow This is so far overdue it’s ridiculous, especially with Jennifer Lawrence seemingly playing a Black Widow character in Red Sparrow. If they won’t give Scarlett Johansson a movie, give Natasha a Jason Bourne-esque miniseries! Since all her information was released in Winter Soldier, let’s see all her enemies come after her at once, so we get to learn her past through flashbacks and see her clear her Red Ledger once and for all. There’s still so much story to her and I can see her leaving the Avengers to finally settle her past on her own terms, by herself. Maybe let Hawkeye come along, since they have a well-established friendship. Natasha had a significant partnership/relationship and eventually friendship with Daredevil in the comics, so getting to see her meet and interact with Matt would be excellent.

Elektra Elektra killed both her mentors in Defenders, clearing herself of her past and symbolically readying herself for a new future. I’d definitely like to see her forge this new path in a Netflix season (if not in Daredevil Season 3)! I suppose she still wanted to stay immortal and lead the Hand, but I’d like to see what her endgame was. Was she just out to maintain the status quo, only with herself in charge? If so, leading the Hand’s remaining hidden army within New York (if Gao doesn’t do that) would be a cool way to play the Defenders against the system in a literal way. Perhaps Elektra could reshape the way things work in a way none of the Hand’s leaders wanted or even thought of. On the other hand, she could become a full-fledged assassin like in the comics. She could even be employed by SHIELD to take out enemy combatants; making her a government-sanctioned killer could make her an interesting foil to Matt (and the law backing her immoral activities would give Matt a different ethical conundrum than Punisher’s vigilante vendetta). Maybe she could be an asset used to track down those who evade the Sokovia Accords. Whatever they decide to do with her, she’s very deliberately a blank slate and I can’t wait to see what she chooses now that no one is controlling her. Despite saying the fight with Matt and leadership of the Hand was what she wanted, if she saved him he wasn’t completely wrong about her. Perhaps there’s still hope for her after all.

She-Hulk Jennifer Walters deserves to be introduced into the MCU somewhere. There are precious few heroines who enjoy their power onscreen (usually that’s reserved for villains, though The CW has been working to counteract that trend), and Jen would be fantastic here. She’d also provide some levity to the Defenders’ world…though her legal career might be a little redundant with Matt’s in play as well; ditto her super strength with Luke, Jessica, and sorta Danny having that power. On the other hand, that’s just a reason to show how differently they approach their jobs and how she uses her brain as much as her brawn. Jen sees her power as a gift, and seeing your “damage” as an asset could be a perspective the Defenders sorely need. I once wanted Jen to deliver this message to her cousin Bruce in a Hulk movie, but it’d be just as meaningful if she and Jessica met and discussed their powers, which neither of them asked for. My dream casting would be Gina Torres. Play Jen as an Erin Brockovich type, called into a small town where people are getting sick and people are seeing monsters (“but that sort of thing only happens in New York, not the heartland”). I’m definitely thinking a modern take on a 50s/60s monster movie here. Jen’s kidnapped by The Leader and given Banner’s blood, like all the rest of the “sick” people he’s been experimenting on, which can provide not only her origin, but that of any number of Hulk foes. If She-Hulk is allowed to break the fourth wall (maybe explain it as a side-effect of Leader’s tests), it’d be a fun opportunity to put some Deadpool into the MCU and to comment on the restrictions behind the usage of the characters.

Peggy Carter and the Agents of Atlas I’d love to see more from Peggy in any form; she’s one of my favorite MCU characters and there are still lingering plot threads from her series that need to be wrapped up! What about exploring her time with SHIELD in the 1950s? The Agents of Atlas are a lesser-known government team composed of heroes representing classic sci-fi pulp tropes from that period (a Uranian alien, a robot, a siren, a gorilla-man, etc.). Maybe Peggy worked with them back then. This would obviously be a departure from the Netflix shows, both in terms of scope and subject matter (though the Agents do have a dragon advisor…), but a pulpy trip back to Marvel’s past could be a fun way to spend 8-13 episodes. Jimmy Woo—the Agents of Atlas’ leader—is going to be in Ant-Man and the Wasp, but this could be a prequel series. Perhaps Peggy’s seasons could function as an anthology series, with each season taking place in another era of her life. Maybe she met Namor, the robotic Human Torch, and any number of pulpy Marvel vigilantes in the 40s too! That would allow them to finish off Agent Carter’s story threads while fleshing out the MCU’s history.

Blade Daredevil, Spider-man, Punisher, and Ghost Rider have all reentered the MCU, so it’d be cool if Blade got a chance to bring a horror vibe to its Netflix segment. I’d definitely play up scares rather than superheroics with him and they could introduce all manner of monsters for him to protect people from (or begrudgingly team up with). Marvel’s got the Frankenstein Monster, Dracula, a Living Mummy, the Werewolf by Night, and a trans-dimensional swamp monster in Man-Thing (who has been mentioned on Agents of SHIELD), among many, many other creepy creatures! I’d send Blade against all of them. With all the powers of a vampire (including their thirst for blood) and none of their weaknesses, he just might stand a chance against these Marvel monstrosities. Since the supernatural’s been introduced in Daredevil and Iron Fist, it wouldn’t be that big a leap to monsters, even if they are initially presented as more grounded than monsters generally are (to lay low in modern society, of course). Maybe they’d be the logical step up from supervillains in terms of raising the bar on adversaries.

What do you want to see from the Netflix corner of the MCU?

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njawaidofficial · 7 years

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'Awards Chatter' Podcast — Common ('13th')

http://styleveryday.com/2017/08/27/awards-chatter-podcast-common-13th/

'Awards Chatter' Podcast — Common ('13th')

“The biggest blessing is the platform that it creates,” the rapper and activist Common says of the widespread awards recognition that his music has received over the past few years, as we sit down at the offices of The Hollywood Reporter to record an episode of THR‘s ‘Awards Chatter’ podcast. The 45-year-old, whose first album was released 25 years ago, continues, “To win an Academy Award [for writing, with John Legend, the song “Glory” for the 2014 movie Selma]]? To get an Emmy nomination for “Letter to the Free” in 13th? The things that we get to talk about, the people that we get to reach, the lives that we get to change — that’s the most important thing for me.”

(Click above to listen to this episode or here to access all of our 174 episodes via iTunes. Past guests include Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Lorne Michaels, Meryl Streep, Eddie Murphy, Lady Gaga, Robert De Niro, Emma Stone, Will Smith, Jennifer Lopez, Louis C.K., Reese Witherspoon, Harvey Weinstein, Natalie Portman, Jerry Seinfeld, Jane Fonda, Ryan Reynolds, Nicole Kidman, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Taraji P. Henson, Justin Timberlake, Elisabeth Moss, Michael Moore, Kristen Stewart, J.J. Abrams, Helen Mirren, Denzel Washington, Brie Larson, Aziz Ansari, Stephen Colbert, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Warren Beatty, Jessica Chastain, Samuel L. Jackson, Kate Winslet, Sting, Tyler Perry, Amy Schumer, Jay Leno, Mandy Moore, Ricky Gervais, Kris Jenner & Jimmy Kimmel.

Common was born Lonnie Rashid Lynn and raised on the South Side of Chicago. He found his calling when hip-hop blew up in the eighties and he saw people around him rapping and break-dancing. “I related to it so much,” he remembers, noting, “I initially got into music because I was a break-dancer.” As his voice matured, he began rapping, as well, and soon adopted the moniker “Common Sense,” something his mother always had urged him to use more of. At just 19, his first album, Can I Borrow a Dollar (1992), was released and put him on map with the underground hip-hop community, but not with the masses as he had hoped. He named his second album Resurrection (1994), feeling as if he needed to come back from the dead — and he did. On the back of the controversial single “I Used to Love H.E.R.,” which suggested that hip-hop was losing its purity, and which enraged Ice Cube and other West Coast rappers, it proved a hit.

Meanwhile, the rapper, who had been raised with a great “belief in God,” was “reading a lot” and beginning to realize that “music has an impact.” His already existing positive outlook and his growing social conscience combined to steer him in the direction of making “conscious music,” music that informs and enlightens those who hear it. One bump on the road was having to change his stage name, after a group from California that also called itself Common Sense sued him. He reluctantly dropped the “Sense” — “That was the period I lost my hair,” he says, noting he was “stressed out” that his music identity would be lost — and began going simply as Common. With the benefit of hindsight, he says he’s happy the change happened, since Common reinforces the way that he sees himself: as a man of the people.

Common’s fourth album, 2000’s Like Water for Chocolate, proved his biggest hit yet. On the back of the single “The Light,” it went gold, he won a Grammy for best rap solo performance and his public profile changed entirely. “It was a totally different level,” he explains. “It was going from an underground artist that other artists appreciated and getting some critical acclaim, to mainstream people knowing the song, at least.” Shortly thereafter, he and a younger, up-and-coming rapper from Chicago, Kanye West, began working together. In 2003, Common was featured on Kanye’s breakout album The College Dropout, and in 2005 Kanye was featured on Common’s album Be, which eventually became his second to go gold.

Also in 2003, Common began to get into acting, first with parts on TV (starting with Girlfriends in 2003) and then films (beginning with 2007’s Smokin’ Aces). “After the album Like Water for Chocolate,” he recalls, I hit kind of a creative ceiling musically, and I really felt that there was something more for me to do, creative in another way, to dig into the divine aspect of art and expressing myself, but I didn’t know what it was. I started working on trying to play instruments, and it just didn’t feel natural. But I went to my first acting class, and I felt like the heavens opened up. I was like, ‘Wow, I never knew that I could express myself in this way.'” He soon was appearing in roles and films of increasing significance, and winning strong notices for his contributions.

In 2012, having come through a period of being relentlessly slandered by Fox News, generally, and Bill O’Reilly, specifically, with suggestions that he had supported “cop killers” and therefore should not have been invited to read poetry at the White House, as he was in May 2011 (“That was obviously to bring down our president, Barack Obama, and our first lady, Michelle Obama,” he says now), he entered one of the most fruitful chapters of his career, which continues to this day. That January, he attended the Sundance Film Festival and met the fast-rising filmmaker Ava DuVernay, who was there with her film Middle of Nowhere. They hit it off and, not long after, she cast him in her next film, Selma, as James Bevel, a radical member of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s inner-circle.

DuVernay also welcomed a music contribution from Common for Selma‘s soundtrack. He reached out to John Legend about collaborating on a song called “Glory,” Legend sent back his proposed chords and chorus, and then Common, shortly after leaving his father’s memorial service, set to work adding rap lyrics. “I was in a real open-hearted space,” he says, and finished his work within a week-and-a-half, lyrically tying Selma to more recent race-related confrontations, specifically, Ferguson. “We made a period piece feel like now,” he says. “Glory” cracked the top 50 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was awarded Critics’ Choice, Golden Globe and Academy Awards. Common looks back on his Selma era as “life-changing” and “life-enhancing,” and adds, “There’s no other movie or song that I would want to receive my first Academy Award for than Selma and ‘Glory.’ It gave me more responsibility and work to do.”

Legend’s portion of the Oscar acceptance speech for “Glory,” in which he noted that “there are more black men under correctional control today than were under slavery in 1850,” had a profound impact on Common that is visible even in footage of the moment. “It shook me, it really shook me,” he acknowledges, “and from there I started to seek out more information,” including Michelle Alexander‘s 2010 book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. And when he later learned that DuVernay’s next film would be a documentary about mass incarceration, he reached out to her and pleaded for the change to contribute a song to it. “I just wanted to write something that was emotional, something that was spiritual, something that was moving… and gave information but also was hopeful,” he says. The result was “Letter to the Free,” a portion of which he first sang to DuVernay at a White House celebration to which they both were invited near the end of the Obama Administration. “She couldn’t deny it,” he says with a chuckle, adding, “She ended up changing the ending of the film because of the song ‘Letter to the Free.'”

Even with his music being recognized left and right, Common’s focus remains firmly on activism (he jetted off from our recording to a rally in Sacramento) and bettering himself, both as an artist and as a person. “I know I have to grow,” he says. “I’m gonna work and give 150 percent, 360 degrees of me, to grow to become a great actor — but I do believe I can be a great actor,” he says. “I love theater and I really would love to act on Broadway, and write for Broadway, and write music for Broadway and produce for Broadway.” And, he says, in response to a question about the Donald Trump era, he says, “No government is greater than the people, no government is greater than God,” adding, “What I’ve observed is it has awakened a lot of people to want to do more. The pain and the hatred that exists in America — as it’s surfaced, people who want to see good in America and want to see love have surfaced, too.” He closes, “Whatever your passion is that’s spreading love to yourself and other human beings, we have to pursue that with all that we got right now.”

Primetime Emmy Awards

#13Th #Awards #Chatter #Common #Podcast

#13th #Awards #Chatter #Common #Podcast

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carmelacollingri-blog · 7 years

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Folks which today play mobile phone traditional Canabalt and consider this doing not have because of its own simplicity don't understand just what the video game is attempting to do. Canabalt is actually about rate-- the excitement from being scarcely responsible, and also of paying for the gamer just the most basic controls for survival. With evident hesitation the Queen opened the gladiatorial Great Gamings at Meereen along with a symbolic handclap. Having said that; having played the game over a full week I'm observing this Disney/Dice video game falling in demise with an additional when over-rated video game namely Fate. One of the absolute most stunning video games about, FOTONICA at its center mirrors one-thumb leapy activity Canabalt. Effectively, unless the PS5 is actually visiting in the coming year, devs are going to have to bring in the video games team up with just what the console tech specs will certainly enable similar to consistently. Others and educationists have concerned the final thought that this remains in the interest from community in its entirety that ample facilities should be offered, depending, naturally, upon the availability of funds, for games as well as sporting activities for the nation's youth, both children and women. I created that for an activity night just recently with the cashew bitter cream and also many of my non-vegan close friends tried it and also loved this. They all entrusted the recipe for the chili and the sour lotion! Virtually, every little thing concerning this publication failed for me. Every personality was unexciting as well as irritating with no character. Even Arena (Daggerfall's older brother or sister) possessed a stupendous chart, but the vast majority from it was filler; vacant, content-free transitional locations that had no bearing on the activity whatsoever. Part moment activity, part dancing from fatality, that is actually listed below that the beauty from Black Hearts the Parlor game and without a doubt Sulky Souls on its own may truly be actually found - this's certainly not unfair, you only have to pay attention. Having said that this is actually a stunning video game along with or without HDR (yes I attempted that each ways). Since Time 3 isn't really in full development yet, this moment there's no after-credits cutscene at the end to give us a sneak peek for The Strolling Dead Video game: Period 3. But don't stress, the downloadable episodic video game collection will certainly be back for additional along with The Walking Lifeless Activity Incident 12 to 16! I discovered on my own cheering for him regularly throughout the tale, and even when suspicion is cast his way multiple opportunities (which each was actually appropriately as well as mistakenly cast), I couldn't have cared less. Our experts have actually silenced about that. Our experts do not also know which you'll be actually playing as. Our company possess no concept exactly how this will certainly be tying together to Season 2 or even the Michonne collection. Two additional various video games you could not visualize, however with each other succeed to display the numerous components of the console. Moms and dads may secure kids off prospective harm by limiting use of computer game and also having various other common-sense safety measures. I have actually been hiding your blogging site for a couple of months currently, but this blog post produced me speak up. I have actually possess green creatures every morning for numerous months now, they are actually great tasting and I experience so much better!! Treyarch needs to create all games for Phone call from Duty, with the exception of Telephone call from Duty 3, where I began.

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