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#if anything this post is to show just how fucking ridiculous sams point is in comparison to ya know. not fucking torturing ur friends
age-of-greta · 11 months
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The Moon
The Moon represents illusion and deception, and therefore often suggests a time when something is not as it appears to be. Perhaps a misunderstanding on your part, or a truth you cannot admit to yourself.
Author’s note: hi!! Welcome back to The Moon. Sorry it’s been a few weeks, life has been busy. As always I proofread, but typos happen. No posting schedule, but all parts will be posted Wednesdays at midnight EST. There are only a few more chapters left eeek! Thanks for reading along :) enjoy!!
Paring: Sam x reader & Jake x reader
Warnings: cursing, alcohol consumption, sort of angst, adult content
Word count: 3.7k
PART 10:
“Hey, there is nothing to be nervous about babe.” Sam says, rubbing his hands on your shoulders.
It was the night of Danny’s big party. You were uneasy to say the least. You and Sam had decided to come out of hiding and announce that you were together. Not like making a grand announcement or anything, but allowing yourselves to hold hands and be as touchy as you liked. Danny and Margo were still the only ones who knew. You knew they would keep it a secret for as long as you wished. Tonight was a gamble. You would be staying the night at Sam’s house because everyone would be drinking. The party started ten minutes ago and you were still at your place, dragging out the inevitable. Sam noticed and tried to comfort you.
“I know. It’s just going to be… weird?” You say, unsure of how he might react to that.
“We don’t have to tell anyone if you’re not ready.” Sam says, lightly.
You shake your head. “No, I want to. It’s just- fuck it. Can you pour me a shot of tequila before we go?”
Sam laughs. “I can do that.”
After your shot you collected your things and got in Sam’s car. You had an overnight bag packed and ready. Currently you wore a strappy black bikini top with frayed jean shorts and sandals. Your hair had a nice beach wave and you wore natural makeup. You felt cute, but you were still ridiculously nervous. You had gone over a million scenarios in your head as to how this evening might play out. The shock that would grip the twins. How Jake would react. Of course it’s not like you didn’t want to tell Jake because you feared it would diminish your relationship. It was more because you were scared that what happened between the two of you might come out. You never wanted Sam to know that. In that moment it’s like Sam could sense your tenseness, because his hand found your knee and he lightly rubbed his thumb on you.
When you pulled up, you decided to take a deep breath and put on your big girl panties. The last thing you wanted was anyone to see that you were anxious and think Sam was holding you hostage or something. You giggled at that thought.
“You good?” Sam asked with a puzzled smile on his face.
“I’m great Sammy. Let’s do this.” You muster up and say, taking his hand.
There was a considerable amount of cars already outside. Knowing how these things go though, you knew more would show up. Sam left your bag in the car for now focusing only on holding your hand and getting you inside. It smelled like beer, hotdogs, and rum when the door opened. You heard Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner inside and you could already see that there were more people inside than you had thought there would be. Your eyes scanned the room, so far no familiar faces. You really didn’t recognize most of these people at all. They had more friends than you thought. Then your eyes landed on curly hair bouncing through the crowd heading straight towards you.
“Well look who finally showed- No fucking way!” Josh yelled through the house.
Then all eyes were on you and Sam.
“Birdie? Samuel?” Josh questioned with a huge smile on his face as he approached you two. “Is this why you haven’t been around much these days Birdie?”
You feel your cheeks turn pink and you start to answer but are cut off again by Josh.
“And you!” Josh says, pointing at Sam. “Is this where you’ve been running off to after sessions? Holy shit! I cracked the code!”
“Settle down Josh. You’re going to bust a blood vessel.” Sam says, nonchalantly.
“Settle down? This is a revelation unfolding before us!” Josh shouts. “Daniel, did you know?”
Danny just raises his eyebrows and his cup.
Josh scoffs. “Jake?”
Then you find yourself flicking your eyes over to Jake for the first time. His hair cascades down an off white linen shirt. Sunglasses dangling around his neck next to his silver necklace. His stance becomes abrasive. He looks pissed. There is a scowl on his face and he’s gripping his glass so hard you can see the white of his knuckles. He just shakes his head at Josh’s question.
“Well I’ll be damned! Congratulations you two. I think I already hear wedding bells in the distance!” Josh continues.
Sam laughs and shakes his head at his brother’s antics, giving your hand a squeeze. “I’m going to go grab us some drinks and say some hellos. Are you okay here?”
You shake your head. “Yeah I’m going to go annoy Danny.”
Sam kisses your cheek before he takes off through the house. Then you feel a hand grip around your wrist.
“Can I fucking talk to you?” Jake says, with annoyance in his tone.
You suck in your cheeks and nod your head. Jake never lets up on his grip as he leads you through the house. He takes you downstairs and inside of the recording space, shutting the door.
Then he turns around and glares at you. “What the fuck?”
“What?” You say back, crossing your arms.
Jake lets out a dry laugh. “Don’t fucking do that.”
You stay quiet.
“So what, you’re just with my brother now? Like you two are together or something? I mean you show up here with him holding hands and then he kisses your cheek. What are you in eighth grade?” Jake spits.
Now you’re irritated. “Oh Jake will you just fucking spare me?”
He scrunches up his face. “Spare you? You’re walking around publicly all cozied up to my little brother.”
“Oh would you prefer I do it in private?” You ask, condescendingly.
He scoffs. “Are you really going to act like nothing happened between us? Like nothing is here between us?”
You feel a hot bubble of anger rise. “Are you fucking kidding me Jake?” Then you laugh. “You must actually be joking.”
“I’m not, and I’d love to know what’s so fucking funny.” Jake says, crossing his arms.
“Oh fuck you!” You yell. “Jake I have been pining over you for half of my fucking life! Yet time and time again you gave me nothing except little shreds of hope. Leading me on, flirting. Then you pop back into my life like Freddy fucking Kreuger and what do you do? Continue to flirt with me, touch me, kiss me, oh and fuck me! Then say oop nevermind! I don’t want to be with you, I just want to fuck you.”
Jake is quiet for a moment. “Birdie… I- it’s not like that. I’ve felt things for you for years. I always thought you would be who I would settle down with. But it’s just… it’s not necessarily what I want right now. There’s just so much going on and traveling and-“
You cut him off with a laugh. “So you want me to be the person you end up with, but only when you’re ready right? So you can travel the world and fuck whoever you want. And I’ll stay here like a good little girl and wait for you to return in the hopes that one day I’ll be your fucking girlfriend?”
Jake sighs. “No, that's not what I meant. I do care about you.”
“Save it.” You say spitefully. “I’m not someone who is just here out of convenience anymore Jake.”
He then takes a deep breath and runs his fingers through his hair. “Fuck. Birdie will you just listen? I’m not just saying all of this shit to you. I’m not blind, I’ve always seen this thing between us.”
“But you’ve ignored it because you want to fuck other people?” You spit.
“No- I. Goddamnit okay fine. Here you go.” He pauses and paces around the room for a moment before continuing. “I care about you. I do. Hell I even think I might I lov-“
“Stop.” You say shaking your head and putting your hand up. “Stop. Do not say that to me. I’m not doing this with you. I am with Sam. I’m happy with Sam. I’m going to continue to be with Sam.”
Jake clenches his jaw. “I don’t want that.”
You feel the threat of tears brimming in your eyes, you need to get out of there. “Well this is what I’m choosing. So you’re going to just have to come to terms with it.”
“My brother? Really? Is this your way of getting back at me?” Jake says, absolutely dumbfounded.
“Fuck Jake not everything is about you!” You say, storming off.
You climb up the stairs as hot tears stream down your face. As soon as you emerge upstairs you beeline to the bathroom. You give yourself a few minutes to cry, before cleaning your face up. You know by now Sam is looking for you and you pray to god Jake doesn’t do anything stupid. Finally your face has returned to normal, so you clean yourself up and head back out to the party. You see Sam talking with Danny and his face lights up when he sees you.
“There you are. Here’s your drink.” Sam says, giving you a cup.
“Thank you.” You say with a smile. “Sorry Margo had called me.” You lie.
“No worries. Care to go for a swim?” Sam asked.
You nodded your head and took Sam’s hand as he led you outside.
Sam introduced you to a few people along the way, but no real conversation stimulated. Surprisingly, no one was in the pool. There were a few people outside, but no one was actually swimming. You stripped out of your shorts and Sam winked at you. You laughed and took his hand as he guided you in the pool.
“Fuck it’s cold.” You said as you submerged your legs.
“Aw Birdie, don’t worry, I’ll keep you warm.” Sam said, pulling you further in.
You giggled. “Sam!”
Then you’re almost all the way in. Sam grabs you by the waist and sits you on his lap as he squats in the shallow end. You wrap your legs around him and he keeps his hands on your waist.
“Told you I’ll keep you warm.” He says with a smile.
“Oh you’re too kind sir.” You jab.
“Sammy sweetheart right?” He jokes.
You laugh. “I never saw myself dating a comedian.”
You didn’t really even think about it before you said it.
A smirk spreads on Sam’s face. “Date huh?”
Your cheeks turn pink, but you don’t back down.
“Yeah.” You say, wrapping your hands behind his head.
“Now I like the sound of that.” Sam says, kissing your shoulder.
You bite your lip and your mind slips elsewhere when his lips touch your skin.
“Um, excuse me? PDA take it upstairs!”
You look up and see Danny grimacing in your direction.
You roll your eyes at your cousin.
He walks over and starts fumbling with the grill that’s next to the pool. “Josh! The grill is on. Tell Jake to get out here.”
You see Josh walking around with a cocktail, but nods his head to go retrieve his twin.
You decide to get off of Sam, but he halts you.
“Hold up baby. Let me adjust myself.” Sam says, almost in a whisper to you as he fixes the bulge in his shorts.
Right on cue Jake walks out and locks eyes with you still on top of Sam. He clenches his jaw and looks away. Well.
Jake heads to the grill and begins working on burgers and hotdogs for the party.
“Hey Jake, did you grab those veggie burgers I bought?” Sam asks.
Jake doesn’t look up from the grill or respond.
Sam makes a face. “Hello?” Then he cups his hands around his mouth. “Jake! Veggie burgers!”
Jake spins around. “No Sam I haven’t seen your fucking burgers.”
Sam sighs. “I’ll be back. I’m going to go grab our burgers and give them to captain pleasant while he has the grill on.”
You nod your head. The air is thick with tension when Sam leaves. But you nor Jake speak to each other. Jake lets out a snicker, but no words. You suck in your cheeks and let out a deep breath.
Well, this was awkward.
**
“Guys food is ready!” Josh yells.
You were sitting on a lounge chair with Sam, securing your spot for the fireworks.
“Hey I’ll go make our plates and get drinks. You stay here so no one steals our spot.” Sam says, rubbing your back.
You smile and nod your head, then Sam disappears. A few moments later Josh saunters by with Jake behind him.
“Birdie, you aren’t eating?” Josh asks with a puzzled expression on his face.
“No I am. Sam’s getting plates. I was instructed to save our spot.” You say, meekly.
Josh grins. “Aw Sam is making your plate. How cute. Danny and I are starting fireworks as soon as it’s dark. I’m excited to play with fire!”
Then Josh jets off. Jake pauses and looks at you. “So cute.” He says flatly, then follows his twin.
You take in a deep breath and close your eyes.
“All good?”
You open your eyes and Sam is back with plates in hand.
You give him a smile. “Yes, everything is great. Thank you for making my plate.”
He sits down next to you. “Of course babe.”
That made you feel warm inside. Sam kissed your cheek and you two ate while you waited for the show. It had just begun to turn into the beginning of dusk and you knew fireworks would follow shortly. You also knew Josh was itching to play with lighters. Sam laid back on the lounge chair with you in between his legs. You were laid back into him and his arms were wrapped around you. You felt comfortable, secure, and happy. You would stay wrapped in Sam’s arms forever if given the chance. Just then, you were jolted out of your thoughts when a flare of red shot up into the sky and sparkled.
“Woooooahhhhh.” Sam said, being a little cheeky.
You giggled. “Horrible for the environment, veterans, dogs, and generally all other creatures that don’t understand what’s going on. But yes, woah.”
Sam let out a laugh and rubbed your arm. “There’s my cynical girl.”
Then you caught a glimpse of Jake heading back towards the house.
“Jake!” Sam yelled.
No response.
“Hey Jake! Come watch with us!” Sam continued.
Jake threw his hand up and continued inside.
You could feel that Sam was furrowing his brows, even though he was behind you.
“The fuck is his problem?” Sam asks, with a hint of nastiness in his tone.
You swallow slightly hard and then shrug.
**
After the fireworks, a lot of people had cleared out. Only a few stragglers remained, and it seemed like they were just waiting on their rides. Josh was positively buzzed while simultaneously high on his firework display. You were currently sitting in the kitchen nursing a margarita with Sam by your side, listening to Josh ramble to the remaining guests. Jake and Danny were still cleaning up outside.
“Tired?” Sam asks, wrapping his arm around you.
You look up and nod.
“You better not be! The night is still young and we are playing poker!” Josh says, entirely too loud.
Sam groans and you sigh.
“No no none of that now! I’m going to grab the other two and I’ll meet you guys in the living room. Sam get the poker set from under the table.”
Then Josh pads off while the last of the guests exit. Sam takes your hand and leads you into the living room.
“One game.” He says, trying to reason with you.
You nod. “One game.”
Josh returns with the other two and they all plop down on the floor. Jake makes a point not to look at you, in fact he looks bored or annoyed.
“What kind of poker are we playing here?” Danny asks.
Josh lets a smirk creep up on his face. “Strip poker?”
Sam shakes his head. “I’m going to go ahead and veto that one.” Then he puts his hand on your leg.
Jake scoffs.
“You’re no fun Samuel. Texas hold ‘em it is then. Jake you’re dealing first.”
**
One game turned into about 6. Danny had won the most, he was a card shark.
“Okay okay I think we’re out.” Sam says, placing his cards down.
“Aw, how come?” Danny says with a laugh.
“We are ready to go to bed and I’m tired of getting my ass kicked.” Sam replies.
Josh whistles at that. “Uh oh! Try to keep the noise to a minimum please.”
Your face burns red at that. Jake crosses his arms.
“Didn’t need that visual, Josh.” Danny says lightly.
Sam takes your hand and leads you upstairs to his room. Already you feel as if a weight has been lifted off of you. It’s been so full of tension, but you persevered for Sam.
“Fuck.” Sam says with a chuckle sitting down on his bed.
You laughed and sat down next to him. “Tell me about it.”
Sam wrapped his arms around you. “Shall we have a shower?”
“Hmmmmm.” You contemplate. “I’m game but we have to be quiet, remember?”
Sam smirks at you. “Oh baby I’m going to have you screaming my name.”
You let out a laugh and lightly smack his chest. “Yeah right loverboy.”
“Okay, maybe just lightly moaning my name then?” He suggests, cheekily.
You get up and take your shorts off. “Maybe. If you work hard enough.”
Sam smiles at you and follows you into the bathroom, undressing himself as well. His mouth meets yours before the water is even turned on.
**
You awoke the next day wrapped in Sam’s arms. You smiled to yourself. You loved waking up this way. Sam was still peacefully sleeping, but woke up when you began to stir.
“Good morning, beautiful.” Sam said, in the raspiest voice you had ever heard. Then he planted a small kiss on your jaw. Your heart swelled at that.
“Morning Sammy.” You say softly.
“Did you sleep well?” He asks.
You nod your head. “I did. Did you?”
He grins. “Best sleep of my life.”
“You’re so cheesy.” You say, joking while getting up.
“I’m going to pee and brush my teeth. Do we have plans today?” You say stretching.
Sam eyes your body before responding. “Babe, we always have plans.”
You let out a laugh. “Thought so.”
When you came out Sam went in. He needed to shower, so you decided to get dressed. You threw on a black tank top with the same shorts and sandals from yesterday. Then you slapped some makeup on your face and decided to go find Danny. But, to your dismay when you came down the stairs all you saw was Jake sitting at the counter with a mug.
You chewed on your lip for a bit before finally deciding to say, “Morning.”
Jake glanced up at you. “Morning.” He replied flatly.
It was quiet for a few minutes and you were plotting ways to get out of this situation, but then Jake spoke again.
“Coffee?”
It was good he was talking to you, you guessed.
You shook your head. “No thanks. I think we’re about to go get breakfast.”
Jake looks at you blankly before letting out a snarky laugh. “Right.”
You were annoyed with his attitude. He had no right to be acting like this, and you were about to let him know.
“You know Jake you don’t have to be such a fuckin-“
“Ready babe?” Sam cuts in, entering the kitchen.
You take a small breath and smile. “Yes.”
Jake smirks at you and raises his mug.
Asshole.
You walk over to Sam and grab his arm while he leads you to his car. Your inkling was correct when you pulled up outside of a pancake house. Sam grabbed your hand and took you inside to your table.
“So.” You say, sitting down.
“So.” Sam replies back.
“Did you have fun last night?” You ask.
Sam smiles brightly. “Oh I had a lot of fun last night baby.”
You snicker at that. “No I didn’t mean that. I meant at the party.”
Sam shrugs. “Yeah I guess so. I wouldn’t say I’m the most patriotic guy out there, but the red, white, and blue shots were damn good.”
“I know what you mean.” You say through a chuckle.
“Jake seemed weird though.” Sam said, grabbing his coffee.
You felt your blood run cold a bit at that, you have no idea what to say so you just nod.
Sam looks at you. “I mean I’m not crazy right? He did seem like something crawled up his ass last night.”
“Yeah, I noticed too.” You say.
Sam nods his head. “Oh well. He’s probably just weirded out about us. But I’ve got to say, they all took the news pretty good. Josh was annoying, but that was to be expected.”
“Feels good just to get it out there. Not have to hide or keep some big secret.” You say.
Sam smiles at you. “Birdie, are you getting soft on me?”
“Never.” You reply back with a smirk.
**
After breakfast Sam took you home. You two spent the day cuddled up on your couch watching movies. Then Sam put on some records and you two cooked dinner and baked cookies. While the cookies were in the oven Sam slow danced with you in your kitchen to John Denver. It was a perfect day. One of your favorite days. That night you couldn’t sleep though.
You glanced over at Sam. He was sleeping so peacefully. He was so beautiful, inside and out. You wished you could engrave this view into your brain forever.
You weren’t sure why you felt this impending doom sensation in your chest. You were prone to self sabotage, but you didn’t want Sam to go anywhere- ever. He made you happy, deeply happy. But there was that part of you that still deep down felt something for Jake. You weren’t sure what that something was, and it wasn’t close to being on the same caliber as to what you felt for Sam, but it was there. You let out a small sigh and stared at the ceiling until you had fallen asleep.
The sensation of impending doom had faded.
Eventually you would find out why it was there.
But that’s a story for another day.
***
• the next chapter is…. well just buckle up!!
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youchangedmedestiel · 3 months
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Confession time
It has been 6 months (more or less) since I joined Tumblr and AO3 and I finally told my friends. I couldn't not tell them because it has become a big part of my life now, especially writing fanfics. A year ago I wasn't even writing a single word in my native language. And NOW I can't stop writing. Like it's a new hobby. And I think I just can't live without it anymore.
It took me a long time to tell them because I was scared of their reactions to be honest. I know they are open because otherwise we wouldn't be friends but still. I was scared they find that ridiculous or worse that they didn't understand how important it is for me and how much it changed me.
And man, they reacted sooo well. One already read fanfics since high school and loves Dean and Destiel. Plus I already send her some of my fics. The second one hasn't watched SPN and doesn't know a thing about Tumblr and fanfiction. And the last one is a Sam girl and is not really into reading fanfiction but still wanted to read what I wrote about Destiel. So I picked one, that wasn't easy to choose but I did and I hope she likes it or at least doesn't throw up while reading it.
Anyway, their backgrounds might be different, but all of them found it awesome and asked me why I haven't told them before. And I told them that it was also because I had to process the whole thing on my own, because it FUCKING changed me and the perception I had of myself. But that's also why I had to tell them, because it changed me that much and if they didn't know about it, it's like they would know me anymore.
So if you don't know how to talk about it to your friends but want to and you need inspiration then here below, this is what I sent them to explain. It might not be everyone's experience though but there this is mine:
"I should tell you because it's been 6 months now, so I've had plenty of time to accept it. You know how abnormal I am about Supernatural and especially Dean and Cas. Like, it never did that to me with any show before and when I say THAT you don't know what I'm talking about because I didn't tell you. The THAT: I created a Tumblr account, where I follow people, people I don't know follow me and I post stuff on it on SPN, on Destiel. I also created an AO3 account. Where I read fanfics but not only. Hold on tight. Me, who didn't like French or English classes when we were at school. You know me, I've never been literary, let alone in another language. But now I write fanfics in English and I LOVE it. It's my new passion, it's become a big part of my life and I think it helps me on a daily basis, I'm sure it does, like it helped me a lot especially when I had nothing to do all day when I was unemployed and it still helps me. Because it's a way of expressing myself and when I'm inspired it's an incredible feeling, I've never really known that before (except maybe when I was drawing) and I can't live without it now. I spend a lot of my free time on it and it's still not enough, which is also why I get frustrated when my weekends feel too short. It's because I'd like to take more time off to work on all the fanfic ideas I have. Because I can't always write between my evening shower and preparing dinner because it's too short, sometimes I need to take time to be able to sort out my ideas. But sometimes it just comes to me, like Saturday morning when I was just waking up in bed, I wrote a few hundred words because an idea popped into my brain. So I wanted to tell you because it's important to me. It may sound ridiculous to some, but I don't care because the feelings it gives me when people like what I write or comment that the characters sound like themselves or that I've made them cry make me happy (yes, I do like making people cry, apparently lmao). Yesterday I wasn't doing too well, I couldn't get any work done. I must have PMS going on or some crap like that, I felt empty and I didn't feel like doing anything because I couldn't see the point, whatever. I wrote a few cute words about Dean and Cas, my loves, and it made me feel better. It's kind of magical. I feel like my writing has improved a bit in 6 months. I don't think I can live without writing anymore anyway, and I never thought I'd say that one day. Here you know everything, it frustrated me that you didn't know, because it's cool to share it with strangers online but if my friends don't know about it, it doesn't make sense 😘 especially given the role and place it has in my life."
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romirola · 2 years
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Fragment Friday
I’m queuing this one up because I promised the lovely @ejunkiet that I’d post a snippet of the Milo’s chapter of (It Was the First Time) Things Felt Normal Again sometime this week. Hope you enjoy! 
Tagging anyone who would like to participate, including @taelonsamada, @glassbearclock, @ejunkiet, @floofdeloop, @haradasaya, and @onesmallcentury. (Please tag me so I can read anything you share, but no pressure to share anything, friends!)
Click here to read the previously posted chapters of this story, featuring David, Sam, and Asher. 
Rating: T, Written in Sweetheart’s POV
Milo let out a huff tinged with a growl. “Fuck these D.U.M.P. clowns!” he burst. “This is too much. It’s just too much! I’ve seen them work you into the ground before, but this is ridiculous! It’s not enough they’ve got you working double overtimes so that you can work on your normal caseloads, which, by the way, were already way more than one person should handle, while also smoothing over the fallout of this Inversion shit, but now they’re assigning you so much work that you’ve literally got to work at…” He craned his neck to check the clock on the wall. “3AM on a Saturday to finish your paperwork? This is nuts, Sweetheart! I know the Inversion has the Department stretched thinner than ever before, but I presumed by now things might’ve calmed down a little bit for you. But they’re just getting worse! You can’t be doing this to yourself. They can’t be doing this to you. I have half a mind to go down to headquarters myself and have a little chat with your sergeant to say‒”
“It’s not D.U.M.P. who gave me this work to do, Love,” I quietly interrupted. My eyes stayed trained on the screen in front of me. “I finished my caseload for the week.”
“What?” Milo gaped. “But then, what are you doing?” He made his way over to me, snatching a chair along the way so he could take a seat.
“I’m checking through any violent complaints involving vampiric suspects from the last six months.” I pointed to my screen, showing him the column of reports. “And then I’m comparing those reports to the little information that David gave me about Quinn’s possible whereabouts. To see if there is any crossover. I told David I’d have this done by tomorrow,” I answered. “Err, today, I guess. It was my own fault that I’m so behind. I miscalculated how many cases I’d get assigned this week. By the time I finished, I was already trying to play catch up with trailing that CloseKnit contact you wanted me to check out, and like I told you, that took up a chunk of my time this afternoon, though it was well worth it. And you were absolutely right! We’ve now got a possible lead into infiltrating CloseKnit’s online platform.” I shook my head to get myself back on track with answering Milo’s question. “Anyway, umm, just seems like I didn’t plan well enough this week,” I shrugged, trying to downplay how overwhelmed the thought of continuing all these inquiries made me feel. "My own stupid fault."
“Oh.” Milo straddled the chair, angling it so that he faced me. It almost looked like his eyes took on a hint of embarrassment, but I figured I must’ve been wrong because Milo had nothing to be embarrassed about. “I… I guess I didn’t realize how much time the CloseKnit stuff has been taking up.” His front teeth caught his bottom lip. “Nor did I realize you were still working that Quinn-thing on the side at David’s request.” Milo took the liberty of straightening out the piles of papers that precariously sat upon my desk before they fell onto the floor in a haphazard cascade. “I mean, I remember you were doing that. I guess I just forgot.” He tapped the stack of papers as he pushed them into the middle of the desk so that they wouldn’t have a chance to tip over the edge.
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golbrocklovely · 1 year
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You hit the nail on the head with that ask. We never hear Colby complain just show hes tired, yet Sam literally is seen out more and has commented that he has panic attacks and Colby has to come help him out with that. I just had a talk about this with someone on reddit and we were saying how as soon as they returned from Europe, Sam left to have another trip with his siblings while Colby stayed behind to edit. Yet when he returned it was Sam who made the post about not needing to vacation and preferring to work than have time off. When Colby is finally seen out, Sam always has to post some version of a story or snap to show hes editing yet all we see on the screen is the thumbnail. Colby looks so down and depressed sometimes it worries me and where is Sam? Golfing? Or taking Katrina to Hawaii? Colby barely took time to see his family in Arizona because he needed to get back to editing. Just know many of us don’t say this because parts of the fandom are so toxic you cant get a word in but we all see it, and many of us feel it. You though hit the nail on the head.
my thing is, i'm not saying he doesn't deserve time off. if anything, i would love for him to find someone that could take some shit off his plate. both him and colby work their asses off, they BOTH deserve to have editors do their parts so they can focus on other things. my issue is that when colby edits, he sits in his room and does nothing else but edit. maybe you see him go out at night, maybe he goes on a walk or something. but even that's rare. sam on the other hand…. he's out with kat, or her group of friends. he's out drinking. he's doing a bunch of stuff. but then comes back and complains on not having enough time to edit. in one breath he will say he loves editing and it's his favorite thing to do, but in the next breath complain about needing an editor or showing all the shit he had to do just to get to the point where the video is almost finished.
both of them do a lot of editing all the time, but only one complains about it. and then that same one complains about not finding an editor that can copy his style, or that he has to give notes and 20 page documents on how to do his style. and it also seems like at times that he "deserves" an editor bc he has a gf and since colby doesn't, that's why who cares if he has to do his part in the end regardless. that's my issue.
and as i've said before, usually when snc are in a time crunch is when sam likes to pull out the "let's try something different with the editing", and it usually just makes the video feel a bit off, even if the thing that changed seemed somewhat interesting. there was just no follow-thru bc YOU DIDN'T HAVE TIME.
again, i don't care if sam wants time away from work. i IMPLORE both of them to take breaks. but do not come back from a 5 star vacation talking about "i love working, idk why anyone would want a vacay, you shouldn't live for them".
some of us only work to live here, samuel. you think i love working in retail for slightly above minimum wage? fuck no lol
yo highkey i think my issue with sam is that he is just such a capitalist and i'm just… not. this man wants to be rich like elon but doesn't realize what that means to get that rich. but then it's funny bc he doesn't even realize looking up to assholes like elon or bezos is ridiculous bc neither one of those fuckers are working. they just profit off of those that work under them without lifting a finger. they exploit which is why they make so much fucking money. they care about no one but themselves and their fucking pockets. money makes them soulless.
okay i'm gonna stop ranting now.
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lucascecil · 1 year
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Something I read - War of the Daleks
This is going to be a bit different from the previous posts as 1. I haven't tweeted as I read as I did with The Bodysnatchers annd Genocide, so it's not something I have already written neither real time comments and 2. I have finished reading Alien Bodies already minutes before starting this "review". So let's do it.
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I was positively surprised while reading because I heard so many bad things of War of the Daleks that I expected the worse. This book is not at all perfect, I don't know if I wouldn't even call it good really, but I had a decent time with it.
I want to talk about Sam first, because she is one of the downsides of this book. There is barely anything nice or cool or whatever told to us about her, instead she spends most of the pages being jealous as fuck of any woman she meets, focusing on her crush on the Doctor (which I don't like at all) and being a (not in a good way) weirdo.
At some point I was so irritated with Sam that I started saving the bits where she being jealous got in my nerves. I didn't do it for the whole book and still I got like 15 bookmarks. My favorite because of how fucking stupid it's is this one:
Three troopers, all male, entered the room. Like Ayaka, they seemed to be physically perfect. They were all blond and blue-eyed, like Hitler’s dream of an Aryan super-race. But these were real, not an ideal. And they all had weapons held ready.
Sam is not completely void of interesting traits in this book. She has been trying to map out the TARDIS but it seems an impossible task. The Daleks scare the Doctor, and anything that scares the Doctor scares her. She is not going to die screaming. There is a nice scene where she briefly takes control of the situation that shows she is coming around since she joined the TARDIS. Sam has become familiar with almost all kind of jails. But it's just not enough. For the most part Sam is a pricky teenager, annoying as hell, a huge hypocrite and all around not a nice person. She tries to tell the Doctor that they need to get the fuck out of this situation, which would be smart for most stories but this time it sounds mean spirited as if she is trying to get him away from other female characters. To prove my point:
The thought of the Doctor and Chayn together for a couple of hours, repairing stuff and getting friendly, was not particularly appealing. ‘Doctor,’ hissed Sam, ‘this isn’t our problem. A quick cup of tea, and goodbye, remember?’
And she is like that the whole book. I guess the author was trying to get Sam to be a flawed character but honestly it's just sound what it is: an adult man trying to write a teenager girl no matter he has no ideia how to do so. It's not the first book Sam is depicted as insecure, but when you compare how she is written here to, let's say, Vampire Science - it's ridiculous.
I want to comment on that Hitler paragraph because I saw it coming. In the start of the book it's mentioned and highlighted how "perfect" the Thals physically are, how they are the perfect human being while the text describes the whitest people ever and I was like - I know what you are trying to insinuate but you won't dare to say it like that. Then it did, and it's so absurd I can only laugh.
I get where I came from, okay? The Daleks are a nazi/facism metaphor and therefore the author is trying to set the Thals as an equivalent of the "ideal" germans that the nazi screwed over but it's so insensitive and so bad thought out I'm apalled. I just can't believe that was published.
But let's move on to another topic. I don't like the Thals. They do nothing for me in most stories they are a part of and honestly even in the ones were they are significative I never felt it obligatory needed to be an alien race that shared their planet with the Daleks. The Daleks work better as a concept isolated from them. They are fine, here. The writer tries to do something out of them - there a lot of scenes that are written to question their morality and ask if they are really any better than the Daleks. For example, when they wipe out a native population of a planet they were fighting on without remorse because they would be dead anyway - but at least they would die taking some Daleks with them:
‘Haven’t you looked behind us?’ she demanded. ‘There’s a native village there. And they don’t have hardened armour.’ ‘Then they’ll die,’ Delani said, unconcerned. ‘If the Daleks get past us, they’ll die anyway. This way will be quicker and a hell of a lot less painful for them. And it’ll give us a chance to live. Maybe you can avenge them.’ Ayaka didn’t know what to say. To deliberately order a strike that would kill civilian targets… She couldn’t think straight. All she could do was fire at the oncoming Daleks, blanking out her mind.
There is even one scene Eight tells a Thal general that the man had already become a Dalek himself.
Ayaka is perhaps the most interesting character in this book as she is the Thal who is there to question her own place in the military and ask if they are right and eventually reach the conclusion that the Thals themselves are becoming monters as she faces morally corrupt oficials and then ends the book promising to fight for a better world. It's nothing stellar and Doctor Who did it a million times before, but it's consistent.
Every Thal soldier must have one child before joining the fight. Probably with a partner they never met before and will not meet again. The mothers depart from their children as soon as they can - and the thought that they are fighting for their future have to be enough. Ayaka fights for her little girl.
One of my favorites scenes from the book is when Chayn, the only truly relevant character from the Quetzel, talks to Ayaka about it:
Chayn cut across her, her voice bleak. ‘My father was a soldier,’ she said. ‘He fought the Daleks, along with other races. He hired himself out to kill for money. I only saw him three times in my life. The last time, he was in a medlab, strapped to a bed, dying. His body had been shattered, but he wanted to tell me that he loved me before he died.’ Her voice became very quiet. ‘He did. And I couldn’t believe him. If he’d loved me, he’d have been with me, raising me.’ She glared at Ayaka. ‘I hate war, not because of what it does to my enemies, but because of what it does to those I love. It took my father away from me and killed him. But before it did that, it made him forget about everything that was important – really important – in life. He told me that he loved me, but by then he’d forgotten what love is.’ She swallowed. ‘I’ve heard it said that the first casualty of war is the truth. That’s not so. The first casualty in war is love.’ She looked into Ayaka’s eyes. ‘Perhaps your child will be able to forgive you for not being there for her. Perhaps she’ll even grow up thinking you’re some kind of a hero. She may even be right. But that doesn’t matter. Because war has already killed everything important inside of you. You’ve lost your love.’ She paused, waiting for that to sink in. Ayaka said nothing. ‘Your little girl isn’t a real person, with needs and hopes and fears. She’s simply a symbol of what you’re fighting for now, a sacrifice you’ve made. A part of you you’ve chopped off. Like your conscience. You know what Delani did was wrong, and yet you said nothing.’
There are some nice descriptions of Eight that I like, for example:
[...] Despite the dab of dirt on his nose, he still looked like some disenfranchised nineteenth-century poet – a naive soul out loose in the cold hard world, and struggling to make some sense out of it. His fine features, curled hair, and turn-of-the-century costume all contributed to the feeling, but it was the Doctor’s mannerisms themselves that made you realise there was a poetic heart – hearts! – and soul within the sensitive, attractive frame.
He says for him it's hard to recall some info after two or three regenerations. He tries to protect Sam when they first encounter a (dead) Dalek even though it would be an useless act. He mocks when they are found in the Quetzel that it's that time of the day when they are accused of commiting a crime and get in "jail" - it doesn't happen this time tho, for a change. If he sabotaged the ship, he would have done it more elegantly.
And, more interesting, the idea that it was his intereference over Thal story that made them into warriors, into the monsters he met, terrifies him. He is forced to face sins of the past even if the book doesn't use this idea to the fullest. It happens a second time, when Seven (not) destroying Skaro becomes a problem.
‘No,’ Ayaka answered. ‘But we are what we must be. And what we are, you created.’ ‘I?’ The Doctor frowned. ‘You were the one who taught us to fight, Doctor,’ Ayaka informed him. ‘What we have become is what you helped to make. If you dislike what you see, you have only yourself to blame.’
And:
‘The Daleks were coming back to life,’ he explained. ‘The Thals were simple farmers, looking for fresh sources of food. They had low levels of technology. The Daleks wanted to murder them, and they had stolen a vital piece of the TARDIS from me. I needed to get it back, but I couldn’t manage it alone. So I had to persuade the Thals to help me. I forced them to fight. I made them stop being pacifists.’ He thumped his chest bitterly. ‘I’m responsible for what they’ve now become. I’m responsible for Balatan’s death.’
There is also this moment when Davros says the Daleks were built without weaknesses, but the Doctor disagrees: without strenghts, without a future, without a hope. While I strongly dislike Sam characterisation in this book, Eighth was alright. Nice, even.
The actual Dalek plot is decent. It's an excuse in form of a book to retcon Remembrance, but while it could've been better I can also think of a lot ot ways I could have been worse. I even like the Dalek Emperor in this story as we actually see him making strategies. Even Davros going to trial so he can lure out non loyal Daleks and using the Doctor as a plan b if it goes wrong is nicely thought out. It works. Dalek Prime is even the only character besides Eight that don't understimates Davros even though he despises him. I am a bit tired of "Dalek factions fighting" stories but this one is good in that aspect.
Skaro is the Dalek word for home, which I didn't know. There is a page or two dedicated to explain what the different colors in the Daleks cases mean and it was nice because while I wondered about it before I never researched what they meant. There is also this cool chapter where this random character goes to a Dalek base to it can sabotage it and then he fights this huge marine monster native to Skato that's pretty cool.
He realised he was wrong. This was no creature native to Antalin. It was wide, about six feet across, and two thick at the centre. It swam by undulating its entire body, like a ray. Twin stalked eyes stared at him, malicious intelligence evident. A Slyther… This was a creature from the Daleks’ home world. They must have released one to patrol the sea about the platform. It would envelope its prey like a jellyfish, grabbing hold and then absorbing it through its membranes. It could pump stomach acids from the underside of its body to weaken its prey and partially digest it. Those acids would be able to penetrate his suit if it enveloped him.
There is also a bit that caught my attention: if I understood it right, the Second Doctor fought (in Power of the Daleks) the Dalek factory that Eight sent through the time vortex at the end? It didn't get on my nerves like the retcon fest of The Eight Doctors, I just thought it was random.
There is also a phrase when Sam reflects that she may be a bit desinsitize by death now which stuck for me because I have a lot to say about how that's a recurring theme for audio Eight and it was nice to see it here so I can fit it all in while talking about that topic.
So yep, the weakest book so far apart from The Eight Doctors but I was surprised that for the most part it was a decent read. ★★☆☆☆
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synchlora · 3 years
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was texting a friend abt this but im gonna post my thoughts bc fuck dude
ponk and sam weren't fighting over the prison keys.
sure, that's the source of their argument and the physical items that were being traded in exchange for ponk's safety/life, but it wasn't abt the keys in the end. they were fighting to prove their own point to the other.
sam was trying to prove to ponk that nothing, even overall harmless thievery, will be accepted when the security of the prison is at stake. he was willing to go to the lengths of literally torturing someone he loves in order to show that security breaches are not something he takes lightly. and so he tried to get the keys back, even though in the end they were functionally useless and entirely harmless for ponk to have.
and ponk was trying to prove to sam that what he was doing was drastic and fucked up. he was trying to convince sam that the prison has changed his behavior, changed his morals, and that he was a very different person than the sam he used to know and love. so he held onto the last key as way to basically be like hey are you really willing to mutilate me to prove a point? to get back a key that you have admitted is useless???
and he got his answer.
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bottoms-movie · 3 years
Text
SAMBUCKY FIC RECS
so a lot of people seemed interested this so here it is! if ya’ll like this, i can make more parts! this is split into three categories: based on tfatws, canon divergence, and au. all fics are on ao3. all of the fics are complete. some fics do include smut, but i included the ratings, so make sure to check for that based on preferences!
also, feel free to send me asks on your thoughts on any fics or if you’re interested in another sambucky fic rec post!
BASED ON TFATWS
Fill the Hole in my Heart | Not Rated | 4,848 words
Bucky dives into the world of online dating. The girls are nice, but there seems to be something missing. When he goes to Louisiana to meet Sam and his family, he realizes what that something was.
Skip, Reverse | Explicit | 7,945 words
Sam stood in the middle of their local Target with a throw pillow in each hand. The one in his left hand was butter-soft and matched the drapes in the living room, but Bucky had walked by five seconds ago and declared the one on the right “absolutely fucking hideous,” and so now Sam kind of wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything.
Sometimes romance is just bickering with your superhero partner/roommate at several different Target locations.
just won’t do right | General | 7,524 words
Sam's eyebrows go up, impressed, and he reaches over to squeeze Torres' shoulder, "This is amazing, kid. Thanks, really."
Bucky sits and watches in utter horror as the pink darkens on Torres' cheeks.
Oh, he realizes. Oh. Fuck.
body language will do the trick | Explicit | 12,598 words
“There’s no way you’re going to win this,” Bucky tells Sam. “I am going to love language the shit out of you.”
Sam gives him a considering look. “You do seem like you’d be really good at that.”
Bucky’s cheeks flush with heat. “Thanks, pal, I—”
Sam smirks, and Bucky’s eyes narrow. He shoves his elbow into Sam’s side and stalks off, leaving Sam cackling behind him.
“Your ass looks great today!” Sam yells.
Bucky reaches up to flip Sam the bird, and he definitely does not feel grateful that he wore his good jeans today. Bucky’s ass looks great every day.
checklist | General | 4,716 words
Bucky Barnes keeps a mental checklist of things he knows to be true at any given moment. Sometimes the checklist changes, because he's learned something else about himself. It changes, for example, when he starts realizing that maybe he would like to kiss Sam Wilson. Maybe.
best laid plans | 3 parts | 26,808 words
part 1: baby you’re the wave and I’m ready for the crash | Explicit | 6,616 words
Nah, my plan’s better,” Sam declares, before clapping Bucky on the shoulder.
“I’m sorry, what plan? Was that a plan? It didn’t sound like a plan to me, it sounded like a vague intention,” says Bucky, still scowling, and Sam grins.
“We’re winging it, the plan is a work in progress! Now c’mon, we gotta make some wardrobe adjustments if we’re gonna get into that club.”
Sam and Bucky have some unorthodox methods of going undercover in a club.
He Doesn’t Deserve You! | Teen | 5,154 words
Sam and Bucky have an argument that results in Bucky being left at the bar. A group of drunk strangers assumes Bucky just got dumped and quickly adopt him for the night to make him feel better.
Reconstitution | Not Rated | 10,228 words
“I didn’t back Steve on the Sokovia Accords,” Sam says unprompted one day. They’re so close to apprehending the Flagsmashers and wrapping up this ridiculous saga.
“I don’t follow,” Bucky says.
“I was the one who refused to sign it first. Not Steve.”
Sam says it so softly that Bucky has to strain to hear him. Sam is loud and chatty and half the time he keeps up a constant stream of chatter just to get on Bucky’s nerves, but Bucky’s coming to realize that when he really wants to make himself heard, he’s soft spoken and mild. Bucky doesn’t entirely follow his train of thought, though.
Or: a breaking down, remaking, and coming back stronger than ever before
Stuck On You (You Suez, You Luez) | Explicit | 10,136 words
Sam and Bucky’s mission was simple: stowaway on a ship suspected of weapons-smuggling in the Suez, gather enough intel to report back, and hop off again in Port Said. Something gets in the way, and a day-long recon session turns into a week of chess, bickering, semi-successful movie references, and trying not to go slowly insane.
His Touch | Mature | 1,006 words
When Baron Zemo touched Bucky’s face, Sam Wilson saw red.
Bucky just wants Sam to comfort him.
rusted | Teen | 2,358 words
Bucky doesn’t grace him with a sound of acknowledgement. He’s been quiet, ever since that night with Zemo. Well. Quieter. It’s almost like. Every time he opens his mouth, he’s half-expecting the Winter Soldier to come out.
He hasn’t, yet. Won’t, ever again. Not unbidden. Sam’s sure of that. Bucky, not so much.
‘You busy?’
‘’m scouring the—’
‘Good,’ Sam cuts the idiot off, ‘I need you to help me shave.’
advanced therapy methods for large adult men | 2 parts | 11,717 words
part 1: The Gottman Method for Dealing with Conflict | Mature | 4,187 words
Bucky and Dr. Raynor have a follow-up session and two entirely different conversations about his relationship status.
Or: Let's do more couples therapy, James.
it’s always Bucky’s Fault | 3 parts | 20,089 words
part 1: Did you see it? | Explicit | 3,905 words
In which there's supposedly a viral video of the Winter Soldier on his knees sucking off Captain America.
Everything is, like always, completely Bucky's fault.
CANON DIVERGENCE
Even in the Present (I Am Living in the Past) | Teen | 16,977 words
Sometimes Sam still questions everything about his ability to shoulder the 80-year legacy he now bears. His history, and the history of his loss, sticks with him and even in healing he doubts whether or not he is able to fulfil his purpose, and whether he may find lasting peace and happiness.
Told in fluid-fragments, the story moves between his therapy sessions after his return from active duty and the post-Endgame present.
You never forget your first | Teen | 3,650 words
The story of Bucky and Sam getting together in a series of firsts.
leftovers | Mature | 19,249 words
With the New Avengers up and running, Sam finally has time to start dating again. Unfortunately, it's not going as well as he'd hoped.
Partners | Explicit | 7,235 words
Sam's not sure if he can be Captain America. He's not a supersoldier. He can't throw the shield. He's just a dude.
And Bucky Barnes is just a nuisance, albeit a pretty good-looking one.
I’ll explain everything to the geese | Explicit | 50,949 words
Bucky is so competent that it hurts my feelings is not a rational complaint to have about a person, and yet, after a year of being Captain America and partnering up with Bucky for the new and improved, post-Blip Avengers, that’s kinda how Sam’s feeling.
It’s not great. It maybe leads to Sam making some rash, ill-advised decisions like claiming he has a previously undisclosed superpower, and then getting caught in a web of lies when he ends up actually developing that surprisingly inconvenient superpower. Talking to birds had seemed like a harmless superpower, but it turns out that birds have a lot of opinions, and they don’t hesitate to tell Sam about them, especially when it comes to his supposedly subpar courting skills. Which is ridiculous, because Sam isn’t courting Bucky. Right?
Night Swimming | Teen | 2,056 words
“Come on. The princess has a new arm for you and I gotta see if there’s a barber around here willing to tackle your…” Sam waved a hand at Bucky’s face.
“I don’t want a new arm,” Bucky immediately bit out.
And then -
“I can cut my own damn hair.”
Sam just raised both eyebrows. Crossed his arms over his chest again.
Dared Bucky to prove him wrong.
AU
Cpvert Coffee & Flirtation Specialist | General | 5,542 words
The reporter says "—for Captain America to—"
And Bucky rolls his eyes. "Oh, here we go."
Sam looks at him then tips his head sideways, got a weird grin on his face. "Not a fan?"
"Not that. Just… the guy seems too good to be true, right? Wings and a shield?? Come on."
"Uh, is that why your eyes are like glued to the screen whenever he's on?" Kate says. "Is that why you call him Captain Tight Ass?"
"He's a goddamn show-off, and you know it. Tight ass or not."
Just then Sam snorts, real loud, grabs his coffee and suffers a horribly controlled laugh on his way out the door.
Stolen Moments | Teen | 98,767 words
“No,” Sam said, chuckling. “I don’t cheat,” he swept his gaze up and down James’ body, “even with guys who look like you. But, I’m bored and a little pissed, so if you wanna sit here and shoot the shit ‘til my man shows back up, I’m game.”
Never one to back to back down from a challenge - especially a challenge who looked like Sam Wilson - Bucky took another swig from his bottle and replied, “Sure, doll. I’ve got nothing but time.”
Steve has Sam. Bucky wants Sam. Sam wasn’t expecting any of this.
Such a Whirlwind Since I Saw You | Teen | 10,871 words
The Men of Letters turned Bucky Barnes into a weapon. Hunters Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov are determined to save him, but they're going to need Sam Wilson's help.
“So you want me to ditch work, drive across America with you until you find your friend, who you thought was dead - all while avoiding some high-tech hunters who are out for blood?” Sam is asking.
Steve shrugs a shoulder, looking a little sheepish. Natasha almost laughs at the dry tone of Sam’s voice, but he's not wrong.
You Got What I Need? | Explicit | 37,588 words
Sam and Bucky are both in a bind, professionally. Nat points out a solution that neither men like. To save their careers they play along or rather, stop playing all together.
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mickey-henry · 3 years
Text
𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐲
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pairing: bucky barnes x reader
summary: bucky’s been flirting with you, but hasn’t taken it further than that. frustrated, you decide to take matters into your own hands.
word count: 2.1k
warnings: occasional swearing (but not much) and frustrating flirting (I’d be melting if it was happening to me). besides that, this fic is pure fluffy fun.
author’s note: hello there! this is my second fic; I’m very excited to post it! I found the header image here, and if you want to listen to the song I reference in this fic, you can listen here. bold text indicates singing, while italicized text refers to inner thoughts. likes, reblogs, messages, replies, and comments are cherished! I hope you like it! 💖
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Bucky Barnes is an acquaintance at best. The two of you rarely work together, and with conflicting schedules, you see little of each other around the compound. On a random Friday in April, however, something changes in you. The moment is nothing out of the ordinary. You’re sitting on the couch in the main living space, re-reading one of your favorite books. Bucky has just returned from a mission; you glance up to see his exhausted expression. He catches your eye, winking with a smile, before walking to his room. Your heart flutters and your head freezes at the response. “Oh, no,” you think to yourself. “Maybe that was a one-time thing? I don’t actually like him, right?” Wrong. 
Ever since that night, the mere presence of Bucky Barnes drives you crazy: his stunning blue eyes that squint ever so slightly when he smiles, his adorable nose that crinkles when he laughs, his pillowy lips that you lose yourself in, his  fluffy hair you can’t help but imagine running your fingers through, his scruff speckled jawline that you wish would brush along your hands, cheeks, anywhere really. He occupies your dreams; you can’t escape this man even if you try. Today, he drives you crazier than usual. He stands in the compound's kitchen in a tight black t-shirt, one that leaves nothing to the imagination. This is the first time you’ve seen him in short sleeves, in anything other than tactical gear. You can’t help but stare as he prepares his lunch. The shirt hugs his frame tight, accentuating his biceps that had no right to be that big. “Gosh, he must spend hours in the gym to look like that.” You then notice the vein in his right arm protruding from his skin, tracing it with your eyes. You didn’t think he could become any more beautiful, but here he is before you, incredible as ever. 
You’re pulled from your reverie when Bucky calls your name. “Yeah?” you reply, barely masking the startled stutter in your voice.
“Pass me the salt?”
“Oh! Sure, of course,” you muster, taking a sip of water from the glass in front of you as you hand him the salt shaker. 
“Thanks, doll,” he flirts with a smile, the same one he gave you that night when he got back to the compound. You nearly choke. “Bucky Barnes called me a term of endearment?!? Holy shit.” Your heart swells and you look down at your glass in a desperate attempt to hide the blush creeping its way across your cheeks. “Goodness gracious, I respond this way from a simple word?” You couldn’t imagine how you’d feel if he touched you. 
It didn’t take long to find out. The following day, you stand in the kitchen prepping your lunch, singing softly along to the song playing from your phone. Bucky appears soon after. He stands close to you for a moment, closer than necessary, but of course you don’t mind. He has just showered; his cologne lingers in the air, intoxicating you. Somehow, you keep singing along, showing no sign that your mind is elsewhere. 
“Ugh, he smells amazing. This man has too much power over me; this is ridiculous! I don’t even remember what I was doing—”
“You have a beautiful voice,” he compliments.
“Thank you, Bucky,” you softly reply, your heart racing at his praise.
“Let me get by you real fast, doll,” he says, moving to walk behind you. 
“There he goes again with the pet name. My god, could this get any worse—” 
He places his hands gently on your hips as he moves beside you. Electricity travels through your whole body; you’re internally screaming at his touch. His hands feel better than you imagined. Even though the contact lasts only a moment, the effects of his touch linger after, leaving you speechless. 
You hear a musical chuckle from the man behind you. “Is he teasing me? It sure feels like it,” you wonder. There is no way that he can’t see the effect he has on you. Before you can even formulate another thought, he touches you again as he moves back to the other side of you. “That was definitely on purpose; certainly he wouldn’t do this by accident. Right?”
Your eyes linger as he finishes putting together his lunch. He catches your gaze and smiles. “See you later, sweetheart,” he says with a wink before leaving the room. “Okay, that answers my question; that was very intentional. What am I going to do with myself?”
You don’t know how much longer you can take his teasing. Throughout the week, he ups his antics, calling you pet names more than your own, stealing touches whenever he can get away with it, smiling whenever you make eye contact. The tension is insatiable; thoughts of Bucky follow you everywhere. You decide to take matters in your own hands; Bucky did not seem to be planning to make a move anytime soon. If he is going to tease the hell out of you, you might as well get some payback. 
───────────── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ・ ─────────────
Tony’s announcement of Friday night karaoke gives you a wicked idea. However, for it to work, you need to recruit help. You know just who to ask. It doesn’t take long to find Sam and Steve; they spent a ton of their free time sparring in the gym. They seem to be at the end of their workout, their movements slow and sloppy, relying on witty retorts to throw off the other. They stop when they notice your arrival. 
“Hey!” Sam says with a smile, hugging you as you approach. You squeeze him tightly, even with his sticky sweat coating his arms. You greet Steve with a hug too.
“What brings you to our neck of the woods?” Steve asks as you let go.
“Can I ask you guys something? And you promise you two won’t laugh at me? Especially if I'm reading this wrong?”
“Of course,” answers Steve. 
“Yeah, for sure,” replies Sam. 
You hesitate for a second, taking a deep breath. “Does Bucky like me? I swear he does. He keeps teasing me, and I don’t know how much longer I can take it. I think I am practically in love with the guy at this point, he’s so beautiful and—”
You stop as the boys exchange glances and begin laughing. 
You cross your arms, hurt. “You said you wouldn’t laugh at me! I can’t control how I feel.”
“No! Wait! We aren’t laughing at you!” Steve says between giggles. 
You furrow your brows. “Then why are you laughing?”
“Bucky’s obsessed with you,” Steve answers after calming his laughter. 
“God, yes, you’re all he talks about nowadays,” Sam adds. 
“What?! He does? Why? Are you shitting me right now? Because that would be really freaking mean—“
“No! Of course not,” Steve insists. “Don’t you see the way he looks at you?”
“And the pet names he gives you?” Sam adds.
“And how he can’t seem to keep his hands to himself lately?” Steve finishes. 
Now you feel stupid for even asking. Of course you noticed all of those things. They were all you ever thought about. “Well, yeah, but maybe he does that with all the girls.”
“What girls?” Sam retorted. “The only women who are here often enough to cross paths with him are you, Natasha, and Wanda. Wanda’s with Vision, as weird as that is, but love is love. Natasha shoots daggers at anyone who looks at her with love in their eyes. That leaves you.”
“Why in the world would he like me? Of all people? He’s out of my league,” you sigh,
Sam’s scoff pulls you from your thoughts. “Bucky? Out of your league? He’s a crazy ex-assassin with emotional issues! If anything, he's out of your league.”
“You’re a catch, why wouldn’t he like you?” Steve assures.
Steve and Sam always know just what to say to make you feel better. “I guess you’re right,” you admit with a defeated grin. 
“So, you know how Bucky feels. What are you going to do about it?” Steve asks. 
“I have an idea, but I need your help.”
“We’re listening.”
You divulge your plan to them. They smile, hyping you up. 
“Dude, I’m so down!” Sam exclaims, clapping his hands in excitement. 
“You think this will work?”
“Definitely,” Steve assures. “This is going to be amazing!”
“Okay then, we’re doing this. Let’s go find Bucky. Time to initiate phase one.”
───────────── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ・ ─────────────
Bucky is sitting on the common room couch, flipping through a book when he sees you, Sam, and Steve enter. He exchanges a glance with you, smiling as your eyes light up. The three of you sit down. You’re sitting next to Sam, closer than usual. There’s a brief moment of silence before you speak. “Sam, are you going to karaoke night?”
“Of course! Wouldn’t miss everyone’s drunk-ass singing for the world.”
“Will you be my duet partner?”
This catches Bucky’s attention. He looks up from his book. Why the hell were you asking Sam to sing with you? You normally ask the girls...
“Sure thing, baby. It’ll be a ton of fun!” Sam smiles. 
Baby?! What?! How dare he call you a pet name, his girl, right in front of him? Well, you may not be his girl yet, but Sam knows how he feels about you. What the hell is he thinking?
“Yay! This’ll be so fun!” You hug him, grabbing his hand before continuing, “Wanna practice with me in a bit?”
“Find me when you’re ready, sweetheart,” Sam answers, kissing your knuckle before letting go of your hand. 
Sweetheart?! What the fuck was going on? Did he miss his shot? Would Sam really do that to him? Bucky can barely handle his swirling thoughts. He storms out of the room without looking back. 
Steve can’t help but laugh once Bucky is out of earshot. “That worked a little too well, wouldn’t you say so?”
“That wasn’t too far, was it?” you ask with a worried expression on your face. 
“Nah, don’t worry about it. He’ll just come on even stronger now. He won’t give up on you that easily,” Sam assures you. 
───────────── ・ 。゚☆: *.☽ .* :☆゚. ・ ─────────────
Bucky can barely contain his anger as you step on the stage with Sam, giggling and smiling at your karaoke partner. Jealousy engulfs him. He can barely listen to the start of the song, ignoring the catchy beat blasting through the speakers. He doesn’t recognize the song, but looks up from his drink when you sing, “Hey Bucky boy, what you doing tonight? I wanna see what you got in store."
He looks right at you. Did she just say Bucky?
Sam echoes, “Hey, hey Bucky!” Well, that answers his question.
“You're giving it your all when you're dancing on me. I want to see if you can give me some more,” you continue, twirling your fingers through your hair.
“Hey, hey Bucky!”
“You can be my man, I can be your girl, and we can pump this jam however you want,” you sing, swaying your hips to the cadence of the lyrics.
“Hey, hey Bucky!”
“Pump it from the side, pump it upside down, or we can pump it from the back and the front,” you wink as you finish the line. Bucky sits up suddenly, crossing his legs, his face turning beet red. You smile, knowing the plan was working. Steve laughs from beside him. He keeps his eyes glued on you as the two of you continue the song, utterly entranced. You look him right in the eye as you end the song, “I want you tonight.”
You saunter over to where he is sitting after high-fiving Sam, confidence filling your chest. “So, what did you think of my performance, Bucky?”
You yelp as he grabs your hips and pulls you down to sit on his lap. His voice deepens, “you’re such a tease, you know that right?”
You laugh. “I’m the tease? Really? You’re the one who just pulled me onto your lap and taunts me with flirtatious remarks and smiles all freaking day. My god Bucky, make a move already—”
He cuts you off, pulling you in for a kiss, his flesh arm grabbing the back of your neck. The team whoops and cheers. 
“Glad you finally made a move, Bucky,” you pant as your lips part from his.
“Best decision I ever made in my life, doll.” Before you can respond, he kisses you again, the karaoke bar fading in the background as you finally embrace the man of your dreams.
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googledocsdyke · 3 years
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thinking incredibly earnestly about like why i unironically love bite me (a google slides social media au) as much as i do and why it’s so fucking funny and i think a huge part of it is that it lays bare the process of total decontextualisation that generally is at work within the self-contained world of like, fic in general. like, in many ways most fic is the same fic. i think we can generally agree on this. obviously there are like fics that transform the way you view the source text, or fics that generate their own world and fandom (down to agincourt), or fics with profound complex thematic engagement (so says the sword) or fics that have their own specific cult status (my immortal, twist and shout). but like the reason the fic ecosystem chugs along, the reason bajillions of fics are posted to ao3 every day, is because of the kind of fic that is so clearly based off other fic, maybe just shifted 2 degrees to the left.
like fanfiction IS by and large a repetitive medium that is often primarily interested in working off and re-articulating very widely accepted tropes. think of all the largely identical 15x20 fix-it codas you may have read. or this harry potter au i wrote when i was fourteen years old that could not have ANYTHING less to do with the actual characters dean, cas, or charlie as written in-show, or even like, anything to do with hogwarts as a setting. there was NO reason it needed to be a harry potter au. why the hell were the x-men there? there was no characterisation. the presence of potions homework, and gryffindor dean, and “charlie ships it,” were all just empty signifiers towards a narrative that i knew better from reading other fics than from watching the show itself. actually, i think at this point i hadn’t even watched any charlie episodes, but you wouldn’t be able to tell! because i lifted my concept of charlie wholesale from other fics that asserted that this was her “characterisation” and her place in the story. like it Was a 1600-word exercise in copy-paste, which is what large amounts of fanfiction are and historically have been. and is so fundamental to why we keep coming back to them
and i’m not saying this as like. a normative or “judgmental” statement in any way! i think there’s no point in insisting that all fic be like. deeply grounded in discrete characterisation or a sincere engagement with the complex themes of the original text, or whatever. firstly because a) most people writing fic ARE young teens/young adults who do so as a kind of participatory gesture, a low-effort way to signal their earnest investment in a particular ship or imagined narrative, and b) decontextualisation is like… at the beating heart of what fanfiction is. like most fanfiction is not “literary” (in huge skeptical quotes bc of how contested that very term even is) but it also feels like it’s a mistake to… ask it to be? i’m thinking along the lines of this post, where gothhabiba asks that we “articulate an actual theory of how and why fanfiction is created, its relationship to other kinds of media and writing, and what it does for the people who write and read it,” rather than “arguing about whether or not it’s ‘good’” . because that is truly a moot point!
i think as most of us return for the renaissance, some 6-7 years older, we’re now at the point where we’re able to engage (more) critically with the substantive text of the show, the actual themes it engages and (mis)handles, the cultural context in which it was produced, the texts it builds off of, intentionally or unintentionally, and the critical frameworks we can apply to it. and all of that is like overall a very good and interesting thing!! but it’s also so interesting when paired alongside the decontextualising impulse that drives a LOT of fandom engagement
ANYWAYS. all this to say that like 95% percent of the joy of bite me is how unapologetically ooc it is. like this is the continuous thing i’ve been talking about other people with. you could copy-paste any characters from any broadly popular media into this situation and the characterisation/speech would be no more or less jarring; it would still make the same amount of “sense” from an in-universe perspective. nothing about this au is really about dean and cas so much as it’s about decontextualised figures LABELLED dean and cas (and again, this is not some literary condemnation or smth, the majority of fic does this in some way! i’m just using bite me as an example). we are told to believe that sam winchester, a grown white man & published author, says “yall wildin” unprompted and that kaia nieves tweets things like “oomf famoose” and it’s fucking hilarious. it’s so good. because intentionally or not, it DOES reveal how much of fic, as a genre, is utterly separated from the characters they propose to be telling a story about.
i said earlier today that bite me is a social media au written in a riverdalian fashion, and i don’t just mean that in a general “it’s bad but good but outrageous” way, but more specifically that both bite me and riverdale decide on something objectively absurd and instead of shying away from it or trying to cover up the writer’s lack of knowledge, it faces it head on. like we ARE told unapologetically and continuously that actors live in their trailers when they’re filming a movie, that a hashtag trending for one day is enough to get a magazine writer that hasn’t been accused of sexual misconduct fired, that dean and cas are starring in a gay romantic comedy called fucking trainspotting. and the writer doesn’t/won’t/shouldn’t apologise for a word of that. in the same way that riverdale will look you dead in the eye and say “archie is going to war and world war ii-era combat aesthetics never ended even though it’s 2020” or “jughead got into the iowa writer’s workshop despite never having been an undergrad” and like what are you supposed to do? make fun of it?? the text doesn’t CARE if you make fun of it! it’s light years ahead of you! it’s so totally unconcerned with this “realism” you’re supposedly chasing that the joke doubles back on you.
so like tldr: bite me is emblematic of the decontextualising urge at the heart of your average fanfiction, lays bare its own ridiculousness, and raises genuinely fascinating questions abt what fanfiction as a text is meant to be or do. also kaia and claire fall in love on stan twt. UNPARALLELED media experience
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Hi, Ary, very inactive ex-mutual(i think???) here. Good to see you thriving! ♥ It's been a while since I've dipped my head into cockles stuff. Could I perchance maybe ask uuuuum tf is going on??? lol I see Mish apparently confirmed he used to stay over at Jensen's in Van, and heard newbs were apparently freaking out about it and getting a bit messy, which I get that, business as usual. But I'm also seeing shit about spin-offs? And Jared getting in a twitter fight with Jensen, causing/resulting in stans to going feral and sending hate?? I know you're not as big a fan of Jar, but that's part of why I figured I'd ask you, you usually have a really level head about this kinda stuff. If you don't wanna answer publically, or at all, that's totally chill!
Hey, Rhi! We're still mutuals! Of course we're still mutuals! When I saw the notification of your ask, I was like "Hey! I haven't seen you in a while!" and my husband was like "???" and I said "Tumblr" and he said "Oh."
It was a wild time haha.
In any case, welcome back to the dumpster fire! We are obviously still a mess. So to catch you up, I guess I will start by summarizing both before and after the finale (not sure where you left off so this might be redundant for you) ... basically, it became obvious as the end of the show neared that Jensen was not on board with the plan for the finale; although Jared never stopped singing its praises.
We got confirmation of this during a zoom interview where Jensen said that he actually went into the writers room as well as called Kripke to basically voice how he didn't agree with the direction the final season was going, but he was shot down on all fronts. In another interview, he was asked "What would you tell your younger self going into this career?" And Jensen responded with: "I would tell myself to just keep your head down and do the work" meaning, "Don't try to change things because you can't." I also think that this whole situation is what he wrote "Let Me Be" about for his first Radio Company album, but that is just my own speculation. All of his reluctance, even though he always followed it up with "But I eventually saw the value in the script" or "I came around in the end" (which never sounded sincere, and I don't think he was really trying to sound sincere) made us all very nervous about what was to come for 15x20; and of course, when the last two episodes aired, we saw just how badly they fucked it up.
After the awful finale, the entire fandom became aware of the CW's heavy handed role in the thing, basically squeezing all the life out of SPN to shape it into a ramp from which Walker could launch itself. They not only erased all the love and joy and representation that Cas's love confession gave us, they also tore apart the things that made sense about the bond between Sam and Dean, making it really just about Sam-- and therefore Jared, which of course, Jared seemed to be fine with ... even though no one else was. Misha barely said anything during the finale, and a few of the other actors talked about the show ending in various posts, but Jared tweeted up a storm ... and Jensen? Jensen just sat in sexy-silent resentment of the whole thing. He didn't tweet, he didn't post, he didn't say a word once he no longer had to, and I think that's because he was already going full-steam-ahead on his plans for redemption.
Which brings us to Chaos Machine-- Jensen and Danneel's new production company that is being run by a queer creative director and has a mantra of inclusivity and representation woven throughout it's fabric; and apparently, the first story that Jensen wanted to tell through this new platform is the origin story of Sam and Dean's parents; so last week (?) he announced the upcoming production of "The Winchesters" -- the untold love story of John and Mary. Obviously, John is not the most likable character from the show, so the idea was met with a lot of resentment when it was first announced, but Jensen has gone on to say that he is excited to take on the task of telling the "true" story behind these characters-- the one that makes sense with the pre-established canon and doesn't reject it. So, given that, the idea is being mulled over with a bit more optimism from the fandom.
Who isn't being optimistic though?
Jared Padalecki.
When Jensen made this announcement on Twitter, many of his friends and coworkers congratulated him, but not Jared. Jared responded with a passive aggressive: "I'm happy for you, man, but I wish I didn't hear about it through Twitter." This of course, sent all the die-hard Jared fans into a tizzy and they immediately began asking him if he was serious (hoping it was just a joke-- we all hoped it was because there would be fallout no matter what one's opinion on Jared is). Instead of leaving it there though or just deleting that tweet, Jared went on to tweet some more, saying that he was being serious that he didn't know about the plans for the prequel, and that he was "gutted" that Sam apparenlty wouldn't be included (mind you, this a prequel to SPN... meaning BEFORE Sam and Dean were even born, so how could Sam be included? But Dean is apparently narrating this story so maybe Jared thought Sam should be helping to narrate it? I don't know). But Jared being Jared couldn't just leave that there, he then went on to tweet at Robbie Thompson who was announced as a writer for "The Winchesters" so then Jared went off on him too, calling him "Brutus" and a "coward" acting like Robbie betrayed him (speculation is-- Robbie refused to write for Walker, so Jared is pissed that he essentially chose Jensen over him). He did fairly quickly, remove that tweet attacking Robbie, but of course the damage was done at that point. And it truly only took his first tweet calling out Jensen for some people to be like "Jared-- that sucks if you didn't know but why are you saying any of this publicly?"
As you might know, Jared has had issues in the past with posting hurtful things on social media, and has even used it as a tool for attack before-- calling out customer service agents and public workers that he felt have wronged him, which is bad enough ... but for him to then do the same thing to his best friend of well over a decade? Many people who had once liked him or at least gave him the benefit of the doubt (I used to ...) stopped after this latest twitter tantrum.
However, some people have suspected for some time that J2 had a falling out either shortly before the finale or just after. Their public/social media interactions have seemed awkward, stilted or even non-existent in moments that they normally wouldn't be. In the past year, when Walker premiered, Jensen didn't say much about his friend's new venture other than a "Congrats. buddy" here and there. Later, we learned that Jensen refused to work on the show ... Jared said he make him do it, drag Jensen to the set "kicking and screaming" which made many fans quirk up an eyebrow because, why would Jensen put up a fight unless the two weren't as close as they used to be? And then Jensen moved his family to Colorado (either permanently or for an extended period at least) which is notable considering how he moved to Texas seemingly to be closer to Jared, even buying a house that was near his. All this was just speculation though; but it wasn't until Jared's tweet complaining about not knowing about the prequel that the theories behind them falling out, became less theory and more fact.
The day after his twitter tantrum, Jared tweeted again-- not retracting his statements or apologizing, but instead saying that he and Jensen "talked" and were "all good". Jensen then tweeted too, parroting this statement to some degree, which only made the whole thing even more sour in the mouths of the fans. The fact that Jared didn't apologize for his outburst and throwing his friend under the bus, and also the fact that Jensen-- Mr. Sexy Silence, Mr. Never Tweets, Mr. Tech-Ignorant-and-Proud, actually had to POST SOMETHING saying that he and Jared made up, it just screamed OPTICS. It was obviously the work of agents and PR firms and lots of people going "Look, if you two keep beefing, that will mean the death of both of your projects. Even more people will stop watching Walker, and this SPN prequel will never get picked up due to the scandal." So, the two "made nice" publicly to quell the chaos, but in my opinion, it's all too little too late. Jared started a storm that he can't contain now with a little tweet, and it seems like he knows that too because before he talked about him and Jensen making up, he asked that people "not send threats". He could have just as easily said that he shouldn't have made this a public issue and that he's sorry, but instead, he continued to play the victim and stoke the flames by alerting us all to the damage he's done.
Now, like I said before-- I used to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't think he's an awful human or that he deserves to be attacked or anything, but he is an adult man with very poor judgment and an obvious selfish-streak a mile wide. He should know better, and he should have more respect for his so-called "friends" and "brothers" than to make them targets to public ridicule. I have a hard time believing that Jensen still sees Jared the way he used to, and I wouldn't blame him a bit for wanting to pull away-- especially when he's moving on to so many new and exciting things. Jared certainly deserves happiness just as much as anyone else, but he went on twitter and basically asked for a scandal, and he got one.
The question is now-- was there a motive behind it? Was just looking for a reason to bring his and Jensen's falling out to light-- while making himself looking like the victim in the process? Or did he genuinely not know about the prequel and just decided to go about "not knowing" in the most toxic and hurtful way he could manage?
In any case, that is the drama ... that is the J2 insanity in a rather lengthy nutshell ... that is the tea ... and I hope it all makes sense.
But the good news out of all of this is, Cockles is thriving-- they are happy and in love and Jensen calls Misha "Babe" and Misha misses waking up to see Jensen in the morning, and they are just as cute and wonderful as can be.
So, I will end that there. I am so glad to see you back, and I hope I answered all your questions in a way that made sense ... I tried anyway!
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marvelousescapism · 3 years
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ik its not a big deal but its so infuriating to me when ppl completely miss the point abt what made EG steve so bad which is that he literally does not act like steve and steve wouldnt have ever done all that in the first place. like stop doing all the 'steve needs to get whats coming for him for what he did' bs! the whole point is that realistically he wouldnt have even fucking considered doing any of it and any 'fix-it' that insinuates he wouldve is completely missing the point!
like its just my opinion but if you acknowledge anything abt EG steve as being a genuine part of steve rogers' whole arc over the years then youre not much better at understanding it than the shitty writers lmao. even if it was supposed to be character degradation its garbage character degradation bc it comes out of nowhere and serves no purpose therefore i genuinely just think nothing abt EG steve should be acknowledged just bc theres no way to make it make sense other than the imposter theory
so true nonny, it's not just about Steve leaving Bucky and everything that entails - Steve stopped being Steve in endgame the moment he shaved that glorious beard, and all hope was lost when he pulled out that ridiculous compass for no goddamn reason.
should've been a picture of Sam and Nat and Bucky goofing around in Wakanda in that compass. losing Sam and Bucky should have been his motivator. he should have been talking about Sam and Bucky in that therapy group with Gay Joe Russo. but I guess we can't have The Captain America imply that he cares about his ride-or-die male best friends more than a past potential female love interest! Disney is a nuclear family show!!! no found families allowed!!!
like, Steve was completely tamed and neutralized in Endgame. Steve goes to Tony once and asks "please can we make it so the snap never happened in the first place rather than bringing everyone back today please" and when Tony shoots that idea down Steve leaves with his tail behind his legs. like??? what happened to Plant Yourself Like A Tree, Steve???
don't even get me started about the bullshit elevator scene and "I can do this all day" / "yeah I know, I know". they honestly took an iconic scene showing just how badass Steve is and an iconic line that tells us so much about Steve's character and... laughed at them. laughed at him. laughed at people who love his character. I hate it here.
anyway, yeah, I often avoid post-Endgame fix-its nowadays (unless it's from a fic writer I know and like) because I'd rather just... pretend it doesn't exist at all. Endgame isn't canon, guys ✌
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bisamwilson · 3 years
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uno reverse star trek aos bc im curious
i love aos with my whole entire heart (to the point that i’ve unfollowed otherwise good trek blogs bc i got tired of seeing so many posts ragging on aos rip). aos got me into trek and i’ll be thankful for it for that forever
like first off the casting is fucking perfect. you can tell all of them love star trek so much. like pegg wrote beyond (which was the most “trek like” of the aos movies imo) and put so many cute little nudges towards the originals in there that i loved. quinto and nimoy were good friends and it was obvious quinto just wanted to do right by nimoy’s legacy. any time i see karl urban as bones i think about that story of how nimoy got teary eyed watching him bc of how much he acted like de. john cho is a badass sulu, anton was a major part of the heart and soul in those movies, and i love just how dedicated zoe saldana is to showing off uhura’s incredible competency.
i haven’t mentioned pine yet, for good reason, and that is because, despite how a lot of trekkies i know feel, i love aos kirk. i love just about everything about who he is as a character. i’d even venture to say i love him more than tos kirk (though i love tos kirk more than life too). pine pours so much life into him as a character. here’s a kirk that’s every bit of the genius he is in tos, but he’s at his youngest, most reckless, most cocky. he’s a twenty something who’s spent his entire life being left behind (by his hero father who follows him everywhere he goes, by his mother who is reminded of her lost love every time she sees him, by his piece of shit uncle, and perhaps most importantly, by sam. we’ll come back to sam later.) he decides it’s easier to throw up a facade, a cocky devil may care attitude supplemented by his pretty blue eyes and his frankly ridiculous aptitude scores, and spends his life pissing people off from the get go so he never has to feel the hurt when they leave.
which brings me back to sam kirk. (this bit gets negative @ jj specifically despite the ask prompt, fair warning.) as both a trekkie and a star wars fan, there are many things i will never forgive jj abrams for, but at the top of that list is deleting the scene where sam leaves jim behind. because that, in my i’ve-spent-way-too-much-time-thinking-about-jim-kirk opinion, is what defines jim, even more so than the dead dad who died on his birthday. that’s the final straw. his big brother, the one who was supposed to be with him no matter what, tells him he’s leaving bc jim’ll be fine. he’s a goody two shoes with perfect grades who always follows orders, but sam’s a kirk. so he can’t stay where his uncle is. up until this point, jim’s done what he’s supposed to do. he listens, he does his chores, he minds, he does well in school. he keeps quiet as much as he can. until his brother leaves and so he decides to steal a car and drive it off a cliff. he decides to become what sam says is a kirk, and fuck the consequences. being good and mindful got him a family who didn’t want him, so he’s gonna be a delinquent instead, bc then at least he doesn’t have to worry about getting left behind again.
and despite whatever womanizer image jj was going for, chris pine got /this/. you can see it written all over his face: the wonder at looking up at the enterprise in the iowa shipyard, the dedication to beat a test to prove people didn’t always have to die, the way he looks so shocked when spock prime treats him with such kindness, tells him how much of a great man he is and will be, that he was such a fantastic captain. even in stid (which isn’t my favorite by a long shot) you can see kirk struggling with his own self worth, see how much he feels like he was just living up to everyone else’s shoddy expectations when he lost his captaincy. see how much he feels like martyring himself is the only way even though he doesn’t want to die, bc if he doesn’t someone else would have to. and his crew means more to him than he does.
most importantly though, we get to see kirk work through it. he relies on bones, to the point that uhura is basically holding him up when it looks like he might die via missile explosion in stid and to the point he trusts bones to just be there on his birthday in beyond. he openly admits to spock in beyond that he wouldn’t know what to do without him (despite never letting himself need anyone at all since sam). he jokes around with uhura, saves sulu. trusts chekov to take care of things when scotty quits. assures scotty he’ll take the blame if things go wrong in beyond. he is close and in sync enough with his crew by beyond that his security on the bridge know exactly when to hand him a phaser when he rushes off. he’s dropped his cocksure attitude and grown into the captain he was always born to be, that spock prime told him he was. for the first time since he was like nine years old, he’s let people in.
and that, more than anything, is why i love aos so much. the cast is wonderful and the storylines are (mostly) entertaining to watch, but more than anything, aos jim’s journey is just so relatable to watch. it’s heartbreaking in its infancy and so incredibly satisfying by its end. tos kirk seemed louder than life to me always, which is maybe why i gravitate to aos jim more. he’s got so much in him that he has to find a way to let out. and he does
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shurisneakers · 3 years
Text
shut in [3]
Summary: When your high profile mission goes terribly wrong, you’re forced to hide in a safehouse with a man you’ve never met before. With seemingly nowhere else to go, you’re forced to work together to figure out who is trying to have you assassinated before it’s too late. (Sam Wilson x Reader, Hitman AU)
Warnings: cursing, implied abuse, ptsd, fighting over beds
Word count: 2.2k
A/N: every part i introduce more anonymous characters smh. i also appreciate feedback so if you would like to, please consider dropping me an ask or comment ly guys!! also if you want to be on the taglist, it’s mentioned at the bottom of the chapter.
here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <333
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Previous Part || Shut In Masterlist
“Don’t make me shoot you, Wilson.”
“It doesn’t have to end this way, agent.”
“How’s it looking out there?”
“There’s been some talk. Apparently Serpentine isn’t very happy that their intel is dead. They’ve got people looking out for you everywhere.”
A frown adorned your face. Sam was leaning forward on his arms, head turned down as he listened to Ransone.
“How dangerous is it?”
“I would say that everyone’s a little wound up. Best not to go anywhere even a little populated.”
“Noted.” It would blow over in a while. The media coverage of Pierce’s assassination would die down with the changing news cycle soon.
“I can have someone pick you up wherever you are. Just tell me where.” 
“Don’t bother. We won’t be here for too long,” you responded, Sam nodding in agreement. Once it quietened down you could leave, go back to Ransone without blowing your cover.
“Whatever makes you happy. Just let me know when you’re out.”
The click of the call ending took with it the only noise in the room.
Sam picked up the phone to remove the battery, discarding it to maintain your security. Burner phones were useful, but you didn’t want to take any chances.
“Wait,” you cut in, holding your hand out for it, “I need to make another call.”
The both of you were seated at the dining table. A piece of paper lay in front of you, playing the dangerous role of being the mediator. 
You were trying to ration out your supplies and create a schedule as a way of finding middle ground. Things were more or less calm for the last two days, but the fight over the bedroom was wading into territory that could only be solved by a good old middle school fistfight.
Currently you were figuring out a meal plan so that you could establish some kind of routine. With bread as the only uniting factor, the other three components were going on a rotation. You had reached all the way till Saturday before running out of possible combinations.
“I’m just saying-”
“Don’t.”
“We’ve exhausted all edible options, it’s the only combination left-”
“I will not hesitate to fatally wound you.” You were only half kidding. The ridiculousness of the ideas he was proposing was entertaining, and you knew he wasn’t being serious. It was hard to catch a moment where he was. 
“Fine. But in case we get to the point where peanut butter and jelly is the only thing that’s left, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”
“I would rather die than shovel spoonfuls of plain jelly and peanut butter into my mouth.”
“Your survival game is weak,” he chided, tsk-tsking at you.
You only rolled your eyes at him, moving on to the next subject.
Bed.
“Easy, we just alternate days. You got the last two days, so I get the next two and then we just switch everyday.” Sam eased back in his chair, arms crossed behind his head leisurely.
“How long do you think we’ll be here?” you asked, writing down the plan he had just presented. The bed wasn’t queen sized with memory foam or any kind of privilege like that, but it definitely beat the couch with its odd lumps and depressions.
“A week tops. Anything more is just excessive.”
“Hello,” you said, voice low, even though you were well out of earshot of Sam. He was eying you from the living room window. If he was as good as he claimed he was, he’d know how to read lips and you couldn’t afford to have him do that.
“Code?”
You turned your back to the window, facing the large trees that loomed before you. “1993. It’s me.”
“Y/N?” He sounded suspicious, a little shocked, and you understood why he would be.
“Living and breathing.” You toed at a rock that lay ahead of you.
“Word on the street is that you’re dead,” he pointed out dryly.
“Not me; Pierce. I escaped. It was a trap.” When the rock you were playing around with escaped after a particularly hard kick, you started pacing up and down instead, “Ransone put a hit out on him because he thought he was leaking information.”
“How on earth did he come to that conclusion?”
“Don’t know. He was dead before we got there.”
“Who is ‘we’? You got someone there with you?” You didn’t realise it had slipped out during your conversation. 
“Another one of our guys. Apparently I was a backup in case he didn’t show up, but he did, so now we’re stuck together.” You averted your gaze to Sam who was still observing you from the window brazenly, intently. 
“Where are you?”
“We’re safe.” 
“Alright.” He sounded like he understood, albeit not entirely convinced. “Stay low.”
“Will do.”
With that you hung up the call, dropped the phone to the ground and crushed it under your boot heel. When you were convinced that it was sufficiently useless, you turned on your heel, making your way back.
You walked back into the house, beelining to the kitchen to make up for your missed lunch, only to be greeted with Sam sitting on the couch looking at you inquisitively.
“Who was that?”
“Nobody,” you answered straightforwardly, opening the cabinet to get two slices of bread.
“If it has somethin’ to do with this situation we’re in then I need to know who you’re talking to.”
“Just drop it. It has nothing to do with you.” You found the jar of peanut butter he had already opened, using a butter knife to spread it along the bread.
“Somehow I’m finding that hard to believe.”
“Believe what you must. I’m going to take a nap,” you answered evasively, chewing absentmindedly on the sandwich you had just made. You didn’t bother to look at him as you headed towards the bedroom.
“Hey now, hold on a minute. Who said you had bedroom privileges? You’ve been using it for two days.” You stopped in your tracks, face scrunching in annoyance. “If you’re keeping vital information about my life from me, then I think I deserve to not have a fuckin’ backache when I wake up in the morning.”
You quickly weighed the pros and cons in your head, imagining how the next few minutes would pan out if you just said ‘no’ and left. But in every imaginary argument you proposed, the bottom line ended with him prodding at you until he either got the information that he wanted or the bed.
Frankly, the bed was something you were willing to sacrifice to get him to stop meddling in your business. It seemed like the only reasonable way to get him off your ass.
“Fine.” You spun around to face him. “We’re making an arrangement.”
“Whoever has the bed has to forfeit TV privileges for that day.”
“Sounds reasonable. None of those three movies can be played more than twice in a row.”
That was more to preserve your sanity than anything. You had already seen each of them once, bordering on thrice for Die Hard. Sam’s fault, not yours.
“We should have a codeword. In case there's danger or something. Or maybe if you just want to be left alone,” Sam suggested, finger pointing to the blank space left at the end of the paper. “But it’ll be like solitary confinement since it’s so fuckin’ quiet here.”
Almost on instinct your mind flashed to images of dark cells. Quiet sobs. Blood stains on the wall, originating from clawing at it. Sunlight through one small window at the top. Utter loneliness except for yourself.
You could remember the soreness in your legs from curling up into a ball for hours, rocking back and forth. The smell of drain water collecting in the basement where the cell was.
Isolation.
“You got any suggestions?”
“Huh?” You forced yourself back to the present. Your knuckles had a dull ache in them from holding the pencil too hard.
“Do you have any ideas for a codeword?” Sam repeated, looking at you intently.
“No, nothing off the top of my head.” You shook your head, trying to regain focus. You loosened your grip on the pencil, letting it fall to the table.
“We’ll just leave it at ‘Brooklyn’ for the time being.”
“Yeah, okay,” you agreed to whatever he was saying. It was just a precaution in case something major happened. It was rather unlikely that you were going to use it anyway. 
Codewords weren’t uncommon in your business, but it was mostly used for missions or other professional standings. Regardless of being less adventurous than what you tended to work on, this was work at the end of the day. 
“Is that all?”
“Yeah, I think we’re done.” His chair scraped loudly against the ground as he got up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going out for a while. Need to shake off the possible osteoporosis.”
You didn’t bother asking where he was going, ears following his footsteps as he walked down the hall to the bedroom, probably to get his jacket that he hung up in the drawer.
You left the paper on top of the mini fridge, alongside the car keys and a few dollars you had nabbed in the hurry from Pierce’s house.
Staring around you at the silent room, you realised that there really wasn’t much to do. It wasn’t like you to have so much time on your hands. You could always go for a run or test out some of the weapons hidden here. 
You had the rest of the house to explore, plans to draw up, a post mortem to assess what went wrong on the mission, even though the last option wasn’t possible without Sam’s cooperation.
Fuck it, you decided. Couch it is.
Kicking your feet up, you grabbed the TV remote to flip to the news station. The town rarely had anything to report on but it would be worthwhile to know what exactly was available around. Possibly assimilate in the crowd in case you wanted to be hidden.
It took you a few minutes of mindless surfing through static channels till you found it. It seemed like a scene right out of a Hallmark movie; the reporter was holding a microphone to a child who looked like he understood nothing of what was going on.
You were barely paying attention as it flipped from segment to segment, other things taking precedence in your mind even though you willed yourself to relax. There really wasn’t much to make a note of other than a few good samaritans and how utterly boring the lack of content was. A few occasional glimpses of stores and other resources available in the background were the only interesting part.
You were starting to drift off by the time it reached the breaking news of the evening. Sam had already come back when the sky slipped into twilight. He barely acknowledged your form lazing on the couch, only offering you a greeting and a goodbye as he made himself his dinner to take to the room.
Your eyes were just about closing when the breaking news of that evening came in. It was all politics. People you knew from old missions waving and smiling their way to lead their country as if the dubious acts they committed behind the scenes to get there was erased.
Until you suddenly jolted awake, eyes wide open.
“Wilson. Wilson!” You hit the cushion furiously to get his attention when he didn’t respond the first time around.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
“What?” he yelled in response, mild irritation in his voice. You knew it sounded like you were shouting bloody murder even though no one was around other than you two, but you didn’t care.
“Look at this!” You couldn’t stop gawking at the screen. “Fuckin’ unbelievable.”
“What? What do you wa-” He stalked into the room, ready to tell you to stop yelling but stopped mid sentence when he finally saw what you were so concerned about.
“Reports claim that the victim was attacked early in the afternoon at his villa. Officers say they found multiple signs of a forced entry, following which he was shot dead. So far no arrests have been made but the police have since released photos of two suspects of whom, they claim, have reason to believe orchestrated the attack.”
On the right side of the screen flashed yours and Sam’s picture side by side. Old mugshots from a petty offence you committed years ago for which Ransone bailed you out.
“The pair are said to be on the run after escaping before law enforcement arrived. If you have any tips on the whereabouts of-”
You turned to look at Sam. His stare didn’t budge from the TV as they once again reminded the public what you both looked like.
Years of anonymity, working in the shadows and creeping around to avoid being recognised only to have the entire country know what you looked like.
“Well, shit,” he finally exhaled. “Somehow I think our stay here just got extended.”
Part 4
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jiskblr · 3 years
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Doylist History of the Chainsword
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What is a chainsword? It’s a chainsaw used as a weapon. Sometimes literally just a chainsaw used as a weapon, sometimes reshaped into a sword as above (or if you want to be extra, and brütal, an axe). This Is Awesome. However, it’s also extremely stupid. A chainsaw rebounds when you cut with it wrong, and it’s very easy to jam with impact against the flat side. It’s a terrible fucking weapon.
However, from the post-apocalypse wasteland to Warhammer 40,000 to S-Mart and back, people keep saying “Fuck that, I want to slice open villains with a goddamn chainsaw and I do not care about this being ‘stupid’ or ‘ineffective’.” Which, to be fair, is an entirely legitimate point.
But how did we arrive at this state of affairs?
I’ll be honest, I thought that Warhammer invented the chainsword and everyone else copied them. They certainly are the ones who made it the biggest part of their brand, to the point where the biggest fan community is named after it. (Bolter & Chainsword - the other part being their most iconic gun. Which is, if anything, even more idiotic than a chainsword. That’s a story for a different time.)
But! They did not. The very first 40k book, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, in 1987, contained the chainsword both by name and in illustrated form - look at this dwarf space pirate and try to say it’s not Rad As Hell:
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However, it was not the first one! The franchise which made chainsaw weaponry the second biggest part of their brand was also a going concern. While Army of Darkness and it’s tagline “Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.” didn’t show up until ‘92, Evil Dead 2, in which The Guy With the Gun first affixes a chainsaw to his stump wrist as a weapon, also came out in 1987.
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And by April of 1988, Dragon Magazine had gotten in on the fun:
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Now, Dragon probably didn’t have a ton of lead time, especially for its April Fool’s issue, so it could totally have been copying off Warhammer, Evil Dead, or both. But Games Workshop and Sam Raimi needed more advance planning. They clearly didn’t copy off each other. So, either there was a big damn coincidence, or they got the idea somewhere else, decided that it was Awesome, and ran away cackling with it. What could that be?
(Hint: I gave it away back in paragraph two.)
That’s right! The kingpin of post-apocalyptic fiction: Mad Max. Specifically, Beyond Thunderdome: released in 1985.
That was nearly forty years ago, so I hadn’t actually watched Mad Max when I stumbled on this whole thing, except Fury Road. Chances are decent neither have you. Should get around to that some time, though I may skip the first one where the apocalypse is still in-progress, it’s not quite the same.
But in any event, a chainsaw does get used as a weapon. In a pretty iconic scene, namely the duel in the Thunderdome. Two Men Enter, One Man Leaves. And one of the means by which you may prevent One other Man from Leaving is a chainsaw. (Also, the duel is fought while bungee jumping from the dome. What? Stupid, but, again, This Is Awesome.) Max does in fact take the chainsaw and wield it as a weapon against Blaster.
So: This is the lineage of the chainsaw sword.
‘85: Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome: Provides a chainsaw among a selection of weapons in the iconic fight in the Thunderdome.
‘87: Evil Dead 2, at the climax of the movie when Ash has to cut off his hand, replaces it with a chainsaw and declares it Groovy. This is a pretty ridiculous thing to do, but it’s a horror-comedy, not straight horror.
‘87: Warhammer 40,000, which debuted as a very silly setting, simultaneously borrows the chainsaw-as-weapon for their rustpunk grim darkness of the future, which isn’t strictly post-apocalyptic but borrows a lot thematically. They give it the name “chainsword”.
‘88: Dragon Magazine, copying at least Warhammer and probably also Evil Dead and Mad Max, includes a ”chainsword” as a magic item.
‘92: Army of Darkness: Good. Bad. He’s the Guy With the Goddamn Chainsaw Hand. Solidifying its place in the pantheon of Awesome Stupid Hilarious Bullshit weapons.
And the rest is history.
Or at least, that’s what I thought last week when I first wrote this. But my mistake was corrected: A New Challenger Approaches.
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When the going gets absurd, the absurd gets revving. The Rule of Cool cannot be beaten by ordinary effectiveness. You need something even Cooler. And if the Cool threat is also completely ridiculous, you need something even more ridiculous.
The only solution to a tornado full of sharks is to whip out a chainsaw.
Or a double-bladed parallel chainsaw.
Or a chainsaw prosthesis which can also plug into your real hand prosthesis.
Or a laser chainsaw. (Substantially less stupid than a normal chainsword TBF.)
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I don’t know for sure, but I think that the Sharknado franchise - six movies but they put The Last in the last one so probably no more - will have less lasting impact than Warhammer or Mad Max. It’s probably a bigger cultural phenomenon at the moment than Evil Dead, and it’s an entirely respectable inheritor to the comic-horror chainsaw-hand crown. Give it another twenty years and we’ll probably see a new chainsword in town.
Or, hell, a crossover.
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byler-blush · 3 years
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This is @your-local-bi-disaster aka Sam, and I've come across a Homophobic hardcore Mileven shipper who literally wrote 10 paragraphs on every canon Byler scene that's ever happened, those paragraphs are contradicting every Byler scene and most of this bullshit is , and I've compiled some of them, which were quite obnoxious and Ridiculous so let's start off by the first one
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1) Yeah Byler isn't gay, it obviously just us getting the satisfaction of two straight boys holding each other's hand for absolutely no reason. How tf can you even say They're not gay? The homophobia is showing up miss ma'am. If you're saying they're not gay, Explain.......
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2)
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Okay what the fuck is this? Mike said asking Will was the best thing he's ever done. So why wouldn't he be Pell-mell about Finding and worrying for Will 24/7 ? Also, Finding Dustin, Lucas, Hopper was his top priority? What... Weren't they always together, them being together was literally the point of season 1.
Mike was looking for El because she was filled with clues, she had tea regarding Will Byers and Mike's only best friend Will Byers, wouldn't Mike fish of information about Will from El. Bestie it's not that Mike developed a crush on El. But Caring for Will.
3)
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I don't even know what to say. Didn't Mike Lie to will about making excuses for not playing DND in season 3. Honey, if that's not lying I don't know what's wrong with you.
The rule of the party is to tell each other truth? What about Mike lying to a member of the party El? That's not lying? Pfft........This makes no sense whatsoever.
4)
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Okay what the fuck? Suppose you are Mike wheeler and you're seeing your friend choke? Would you fucking let her die by choking? What the fuck is this, Mike wheeler is a human and Human's do anything to Save other humans. Don't even bring up about girlfriend boyfriend. This is clearly saving a person's life.
Oh and yes Mike was being protective of Will because he loves him.
5)
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Yeah Mike is encouraging El because he cares about her. She's a human isn't she? Isn't that waht humans do? Help other people?
Also, Mike could've gone to the Snow ball with Will if he had come out as gay. Even this doesn't make any sense
6)
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What the fucking hell is this I- . When they talked about being crazy together they were literally personal about themselves. And there was no bullshit about El in this. Goodbye-
And these are the MELVINS we hate and don't like. This post is filled with Homophobia
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st4rlabsforever · 3 years
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post-episode 3 fix-it
words: 2.9k
notes: i started a long fic based on this post after watching ep 3. i cannibalized some snippets from another fic i wrote last week so if you see similar scenes, that’s why. i think this will end up being 12-15k words endgame sambucky by the end, but i refuse to post on ao3 until it’s complete. this is the first 3 scenes. feel free to comment and message me your thoughts since i’m still very much in the writing phase :)
summary: “It’s the kind of statement that should be screamed into Bucky’s face, but he’s learning that when Sam’s angry – when he’s truly angry – he’s just as soft-spoken as he is when he’s in one of his pensive moods. And he lets his anger build and build and build until it bursts in spectacular fashion.”
“I didn’t back Steve on the Sokovia Accords,” Sam says unprompted one day. They’re so close to apprehending the Flagsmashers and wrapping up this ridiculous saga.
“I don’t follow,” Bucky says.
“I was the one who refused to sign it first. Not Steve.”
Sam says it so softly that Bucky has to strain to hear him. Sam is loud and chatty and half the time he keeps up a constant stream of chatter just to get on Bucky’s nerves, but Bucky’s coming to realize that when he really wants to make himself heard, he’s soft spoken and mild. Bucky doesn’t entirely follow his train of thought, though.
The thing is, Sam is unreadable when it really matters. He offers words of comfort where needed – in Germany, after seeing Walker with the shield that wasn’t his, knowing that it had affected Bucky just as much as himself; in Madripoor, Bucky’s hand on the throat of some henchman or other, Sam’s hand on his when the Soldier’s memories threatened to overtake him; even in Riga, when Bucky’s guilt over releasing T’Chaka’s killer bubbled to the surface and Sam had checked in with him even though he couldn’t have possibly known about Bucky’s meeting with Ayo. Sam speaks with his eyes, always a searching look that leaves Bucky raw and feeling like he’s been x-rayed. I see you, is what those eyes say.
In contrast, Bucky’s words of comfort feel hollow. He knows that Isaiah is still a live wire for Sam, checks in with him after Madripoor when he can tell the conversation with Nagel weighs heavy on his mind. But he doesn’t see the way Sam does. He knows he’d missed something important because that conversation had ended in an argument and a threat from Sam to destroy the shield.
He never gets a chance to ask Sam what he’s getting at, because Torres signals to them that they’re at the drop point before all hell breaks loose.
***
In the end, after Karli and the Power Broker and whoever else decides to show their head from the emporium of supervillains are dealt with and they finally have a moment of peace, Bucky says, “The shield looks good on you.”
Sam freezes a few paces ahead of Bucky, the shield strapped loosely to his wrist.
“We make a good team,” Bucky says softly.
What he doesn’t expect is for Sam to whirl around suddenly. The look of barely restrained fury is enough to nearly knock Bucky off he’s feet. They fight without ever really fighting all the time, squabbles over who went left and who went right and who was supposed to lead and who was supposed to follow, but never has he seen Sam look like this before. The fury verges on hurt and it’s so fucking visceral that Bucky can barely breathe.
“You don’t get to say that,” Sam says quietly. His voice shakes and he closes his eyes like he’s steadying himself.
“I said I’d squash it until the mission was over, and I did. But you know what? I’m not doing this anymore.”
“Sam–”
“You don’t get to tell me what a good team is. Not after all the shit we just went through. You invited yourself to Munich, and I thought, ‘Fine. I could use the extra set of hands.’ We went through it together against Thanos and I respected that.”
Sam shakes his head. “But then you went off on some lone wolf woe-is-me bullshit, and look at where it got us. You broke Zemo out without even asking if I was down with that. You knew I wasn’t and you forced my hand. Now I’m an accomplice.”
“He was our only lead–”
“Bullshit. That field trip to Madripoor led us right back to Karli. Torres ended up tracking them to Riga anyway.”
“But the Power Broker–”
“–showed his ugly face in the end. All we got out of Madripoor was you digging up your trauma and us getting our faces plastered all over the internet. I promised Sharon one goddamn thing and I can’t even deliver on that now.”
“But I went along with it, fine,” Sam continues. “I knew it couldn’t have been easy reaching back into that headspace, doing what you did to Selby’s men.” The memory blindsides Bucky. “So I tabled it.” Sam taps out a tally with his fingers. 
“And back in Baltimore, you’d been too keyed up about Steve being wrong about you to even listen to what I had to say. Again, I tabled it.” Another tally. 
“I’ve been meeting you halfway this entire time, man, and I’ve gotten near nothing in return. You kept Isaiah a secret from me, and at first I thought you were just clueless about how damn significant it would’ve been for me to know about him.” Sam shakes his head. 
“But then we met him. You saw what they did to him. The one Black supersoldier – a fucking hero – and look what they did to him. You saw it with your own eyes and you still sat there and lectured me about what you thought I should’ve done with that goddamn shield.” 
“There’s precedent for it, you know,” Sam says. It takes Bucky a moment to realize Sam is expecting an answer.
Bucky doesn’t know, is the thing. He feels like he’s all of five years old again, put on the spot. He’s reminded of when Zemo just had to let him know about the African American experience; he’d felt chastised and embarrassed enough to pretend like he’d had any clue what themes lurked in Marvin Gaye’s work. Sam just searches him with those eyes, searches Bucky for something yet unfathomable and decides he hasn’t found it. That hurts more than anything else; Bucky wishes he could sink into the ground, make himself as small as possible. Sam doesn’t notice, or else doesn’t care, and just plows on with a scoff. 
“You don’t even know the true history of the country you’re living in. Figures.” He shakes his head. “You’re not ever going to be able to separate the shield from the history Black folks have endured at the hands of this country. Not now, not ever.”
Sam doesn’t even look angry anymore. Angry, Bucky can deal with. It would be a relief, even. 
Instead, Sam looks at him with a disappointment that somehow surpasses what Steve could have ever accomplished.
“Whatever. I tabled that, too,” Sam says. “And then after Madripoor, after we heard that doctor go on and on about Isaiah’s blood like he wasn’t even a real human-being? I said my piece and all you did was throw that shield bullshit back in my face.”
“Sam–” Bucky tries again. He’s mortified to hear the crack in his own voice.
“It’s honestly breathtaking,” Sam says with something that might be akin to genuine wonder, or maybe even morbid curiosity in his voice. “We saw the same things in Baltimore and Madripoor, but your head was so far up your own ass that you never once stopped to think all of it was just proof to me. That the shield in the hands of a Black man wouldn’t make any damn sense.”
It’s the kind of statement that should be screamed into Bucky’s face, but he’s learning that when Sam’s angry – when he’s truly angry – he’s just as soft-spoken as he is when he’s in one of his pensive moods. And he lets his anger build and build and build until it bursts in spectacular fashion.
Sam’s not even done yet. “And that’s another thing. Stealing the shield from Walker…” Sam rolls his eyes at the memory. “You want to run around with that giant frisbee, fine. That’s your business. But then you forced it on me–”
“That’s not fair,” Bucky says immediately. Desperately. “You didn’t have to accept it.”
“The whole damn country was watching,” Sam says hotly. “It was either accept it, or shit all over Steve fucking Rogers’s legacy and make myself into the villain half the country was already hoping I’d turn out to be.”
“You were dead wrong for that,” Sam says. “I stuck around until we took down Karli because it was the right thing to do. After Munich, though, this little adventure was all you. Zemo, Madripoor, the shield.”
Sam shoves the shield into Bucky’s arms, the impact so sudden that it forces him back a step.
“Since you’re so obsessed with this thing, it’s yours. Congrats,” Sam says sarcastically. “I’m sure you’ll do it proud.”
Bucky lets out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.
“For what it’s worth,” Sam says, “Steve might not have understood everything about me. But in Vienna, when it came time to sign the accords? He was considering it. I put my foot down first and he listened.”
Sam shrugs. “Whatever you thought we were, it's not a team.”
Bucky knows where to drive the knife in to kill a man in as few twists of the wrist as possible – a brutal economy of movement and technique. But Sam...it pales in comparison to what Sam’s capable of. His weapons aren’t knives and his targets may not be made of flesh and blood, but he knows exactly where he needs to strike to rip Bucky open raw. Bucky feels like he’s been flayed alive.
“How about that long vacation?” Sam says, and claps Bucky on the shoulder. 
And we’ll never have to see each other ever again goes unsaid.
Fuck.
***
The thing about ignoring Sam’s texts was that Bucky responded if they were actually important. It just so happened that most of the nonsense Sam sent was inane prattling about his day, about his job, his sister, his nephews. Now that he’s on the receiving end of it, though, it feels awful.
3/25/21, 2:58 AM
I’m sorry.
Delivered
3/28/21, 1:51 AM
Can we talk?
Delivered
3/31/21, 3:05 AM
Let me know what to do and I’ll do it.
Read 3:34 AM
4/1/21, 12:42 AM
Or if there’s anything you need.
Read 1:05 AM
Yesterday, 1:00 AM
I’m available if you need another body for a mission.
Read 1:02 AM
A week into the admittedly one-sided exchange, Sam turns his damn read receipts on. It’s ridiculous and it’s fucking asinine and it gets under Bucky’s skin immediately. It’s a form of twenty-first century psychological warfare that he’s unfamiliar with and already can’t stand. Mainly, he hates that it makes him seem desperate (he’s not), needy (he might be, especially when he realizes with horror that he actually misses Sam’s rambling texts), and ridiculous (he definitely is, because he’s letting petty mind games get to him).
Normally, Sam would send him nearly daily updates on his comings and goings – whether he’d been in New York, D.C., or New Orleans. The radio silence is unsettling. Bucky wonders if Sam made good on his promise to take a long vacation. And then....
The thing about apologies is that Bucky isn’t sure he’s ever done a proper one in his entire life, at least nothing beyond a rote “I’m sorry” with the “let’s move on” part left unspoken. But it stands to reason, Bucky thinks, that a proper apology can’t be given if he’s not completely certain what he’s dealing with. That’s all well and good because he’s got the world at the tips of his fingers, is what Yori always said. And when he grows frustrated with reading on his tiny phone screen, the New York Public Library is only a train ride away.
Sam had mentioned precedent, so Bucky’s first search is for medical experimentation. He knows for a fact he was good at this once, a memory of Steve whining about him being too good at exams coming up unbidden. He reads voraciously. Anything and everything that might offer a clue on what he’d missed. And it doesn’t take long for him to find what he’s looking for. 
He reads with dawning horror. The Tuskegee syphilis experiments. Eugenics. God, the fucking Nazis had even modeled their race science on the American school of thought. The things that the history books left out. Some of it was even happening under his nose in the 30s, he’d just been blissfully unaware. He somehow ends up down a rabbit hole where words like `prison industrial complex’ and `school-to-prison pipeline’ make increasingly more persistent appearances. New Jim Crow. COINTELPRO. War on drugs. The way all of these horrors reached their long arms into the twenty-first century.
Bucky’s going to be sick. The memories come up one after another.
Just give him your ID so we can leave.
You think you can wake up one day and decide who you want to be? It doesn’t work like that. Well, maybe it does for folks like you.
So you’re telling me that there was a Black supersoldier decades ago and nobody knew about it.
This is what you’re not going to do. You’re not going to come here in your over-extended life and tell me about my rights.
The shield wasn’t yours to give away.
He spends the next week in his downtime reading. With the mission being over and his parole in jeopardy, his downtime mostly coincides with every day of the week.
Had Steve known?
No, he thinks. Steve was compassionate, but he wouldn’t have known because he’d taken one look at the problems of twenty-first century America and decided he’d had enough. Then he’d ran back to the 40s to live out some fantasy that simply didn’t – couldn’t – exist anymore. Had he eventually become aware of all the issues plaguing this country that they’d been able to ignore as starry-eyed kids in Brooklyn? Bucky hopes not, because that would mean he’d...no. 
A part of Bucky thinks he’s so surprised because he’d thought things – race relations, civil rights, not things, his brain amends – had been getting better in the 40s. Deep down, though, he knows that’s a lie. A 2 AM read through Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States confirms it. Shady politicians. Klansmen who went back to their day jobs as cops, judges, firefighters. Mass incarceration taking its place as the new king on the throne of segregation. Evidently, 
There had been plenty of folks – white folks – raising an uproar about these hidden horrors back then. The seeds of those movements had even been there in the 30s. Bucky tells himself that he’d been raised during the Great Depression, that his family had been too focused on putting food on the table to focus on social movements, but that, too, ends up being a lie. The poorest and working class whites – some, at least – in movement and solidarity with civil rights. Not him, though. Apparently he’d had his head up his ass back then, too.
Bucky can see the bigger picture a tiny bit more clearly, now. 
Fine. So he’s been disarmed of the little lies he’d used as shields, and he also owes Sam one hell of an apology.
Somehow, he doesn’t think “I’m sorry, I was ignorant then but I read some books and now I know better” is going to cut it. Maybe a commitment to do better would work? Perhaps after Baltimore, but not now. That ship had long since sailed. Some grand act of service, then? He’s sure he can think of something Sam needs in this post-Blip world that he can provide. He vaguely remembers Sarah mentioning something about a ship and bank loan. That could be a starting point.
It doesn’t take much time to find the public records on the Wilson family business and then the not-so-public records on the denied bank loan. It wouldn’t take much for him to pry a little, not when seedy bankers were astonishingly amenable to the threat of violence. But he’s reminded of Zemo and figures that he ought not to do anything so drastic that could jeopardize Sam’s family situation further.
He snorts. Did growth that came several months late still count?
In the end, he decides to rip the bandage off quickly, which is how he finds himself in the sticky Louisiana heat with his hands shoved deep into his pockets, staring back at an incredulous Sam through his open door.
“I did some reading recently,” Bucky says. 
“Hmm.”
It’s not outright refusal, so Bucky continues.
“About, um, the things you mentioned last time. Precedent.”
“Huh.”
For someone who’s normally so expressive with his language, Sam’s one-word answers as nerve-wracking as anything.
“I didn’t fully appreciate the situation that you were in. That you’re still in,” Bucky amends.
Sam shrugs. “It’s cool,” he says in a way that doesn’t sound like he really believes it. Bucky wonders if this is a test; he feels just as lost as he did on that plane a week ago.
“Let’s do this outside,” Sam says, closing the door behind him and ushering Bucky away from it. “Walk with me.” 
They head down to the pier mostly in silence until Bucky breaks it. “I’m sorry for making it all about me,” he says.
Sam stares at him. It’s true Bucky might stare a little too much on occasion, but Sam’s stares are utterly unnerving in the way he seems to see right through Bucky when he really wants to, like he’s already mapped out all there is to know.
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