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itsthenovelteafactor · 3 years

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Fall of the House of Hargreeves

So I mentioned a while back in my Superhero Gothic meta that there were a number of parallels between the season one finale of The Umbrella Academy and the Edgar Allen Poe short story The Fall of the House of Usher and that I could probably write a whole meta on that if anyone was interested. Shout out and love to the anon who requested that I do that!

It’s been a minute since I’ve done one of these long form metas, but I am very excited to get back to writing about two of my favorite things: gothic literature and chaotic superheroes.

Part I: The Fall of the House of Usher

The Fall of the House of Usher (which I’ll call House of Usher for convenience for the rest of this meta) is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe first published in 1939. It is considered a classic gothic short story, and deals with themes of family, madness, inheritance, and isolation.

Since it’s in the public domain, I’ll go ahead and link a pdf to the story here. If you aren’t interested in reading, though, or just want a refresher, the story follows an unnamed narrator going to visit his ill friend, a man named Roderick Usher in his isolated (and very spooky) family estate. Upon arrival, he discovers that Roderick’s sister, Madeline Usher, is also ill, and has a tendency to fall into dreamlike trances.

Over the course of the visit, Roderick confesses to the narrator that not only does he believe the house is alive, but that it is connected to the fate of the family which, at this point, only includes Roderick and Madeline. He later comes and tells the narrator that Madeline has died, and enlists his help in order to bury her in the family tomb beneath the house. They do so, but for the next couple of days Roderick is suspiciously...on edge.

Then, one dark and stormy night, Roderick shows up in the narrator’s room incredibly worked up, and throws open the window, and starts low-key (read: high-key) having a breakdown. The narrator is unsure as to why until he hears ripping and tearing sounds coming from somewhere in the house. These ripping and tearing sounds are revealed to be Madeline whom Roderick and the narrator buried alive whose appearance scares Roderick to death, right before she collapses, also dead from the strain of tearing through the foundations of the house.

The narrator decides this would probably be a good time to leave and is very much right about that because as soon as he leaves, the house (which was already in pretty bad shape) splits in two and collapses into the lake surrounding it. The end.

Part II: Umbrella Academy as Gothic

So, there are probably a couple similarities between House of Usher and The Umbrella Academy season one that stand out right off the bat, but I’d like to start by taking a step back to talk about thematic parallels between the two works. If you’d like to read a very long winded explanation of why I consider The Umbrella Academy to be a modern gothic tale, I have a really long meta about it.

If not, here’s a quick overview:

Gothic does not have a clearly defined set of requirements as a genre, but its purpose is to explore the contradictions and the failing edifices of convention in a way that is dramatic and often fantastic.

Gothic fiction plays with reality, but usually in a way that is representative of the characters and story.

It often situates itself during times of great change, as there is something haunting about the irreversible passage of time, particularly for those that struggle to acknowledge it and hide behind conventions that have grown increasingly irrelevant.

Poe is considered one of the classic authors of gothic fiction (though the genre significantly predates him), and is decidedly one of the best well-known examples of it.

The Umbrella Academy is a family drama about former child superheroes dealing with their trauma while trying to prevent an apocalypse that their every move seems to set further in motion. It explores the messy and complicated relationships between siblings who have been abused and pit against each other for years. And yeah, it’s fun with great music and talking gorillas and dance sequences, but the premise is kind of hard for me to read as anything other than gothic.

Part III: Parallels

Like House of Usher, the first season of Umbrella Academy takes place in a massive, largely empty mansion where siblings gather with disastrous consequences. Both works explore a family that is past their prime and disconnected from the present. They also both explore the psychological toll of isolation, the consequences of tyrannical family rules, and why it is a really bad idea to lock your unstable sister in a basement and just leave her there.

Let’s start with some thematics parallels. Everyone in House of Usher is extremely isolated, and the absence of anything resembling the modern world amongst the house full of relics is part of the horror. All of the siblings in Umbrella Academy are defined by their isolation as well, physically (Luther, Five, and Ben), socially (Vanya, Diego, Klaus, and Allison), and emotionally (legit all of them). It is this isolation that drives the conflict of the story, feeding into every characters’ choices.

In both House of Usher and Umbrella Academy, the main characters are trapped in this isolated state as a direct result of their familial legacy. In House of Usher, the titular house is a character itself, a manifestations of the obligations Madeline and Roderick hold as members of an aristocratic family that is so far divorced from wealth and status that it keeps them from ever fully moving on and rejoining the real world. In Umbrella Academy, the characters are similarly trapped by their familial legacy, this time in the form of the specter of their abusive father, and the roles he created for them. Like the Usher siblings, the Hargreeves have no way of maintaining the roles their family left out for them – they were never given the tools to function in the real world and it cripples them – but are trapped in them regardless.

Part IV: The Woman* in White

*As of the time I am writing this, nothing has been said regarding Vanya’s gender identity being written to match Elliot Page’s. I am using she/her pronouns for Vanya, as that is what has been used for the character thus far.

Aside from thematic parallels, however, the most direct connection between the short story and series, and in fact the reason I was inspired to write this meta in the first place is the way both of the stories end: with a sister trapped beneath the house clawing her way out to face her brother(s and sister) and creating a disruption of the family legacy so great that the entire estate crumbles.

Madeline Usher is described at this point as wearing a white dress, strained with the injuries she sustained from physically breaking herself out of the basement tomb her brother buried her alive in. Vanya, of course, becomes at this moment the White Violin, and though she has not yet had the epic violin-music-so-powerful-it-changes-the-color-of-her-clothes scene, the principal still stands.

As characters, there are also a couple of noteworthy parallels between Vanya and Madeline. The narrator at one point describes “the illness of the lady Madeline had lone been beyond the help of her doctors. She seemed to care about nothing” (Poe, 27). The reader never knows what illness precisely is the cause of Madeline’s apparent madness, but we see the effects. It dulls her emotional responses to situations and leaves her withdrawn and powerless. Similarly, we learn over the course of the first season of The Umbrella Academy that the medication Reginald Hargreeves prescribed Vanya for her anxiety is actually a power suppressor for her abilities that has much the same effect – because they are strengthened by extreme emotion, the drugs numb Vanya’s emotional responses and deprive her of the ability to access her powers.

Additionally, the final scene of the story story shows Madeline escaping her tomb during a great storm and going to face her brother who put her there, the storm itself being a metaphor for her anguish that tears the house apart. Vanya’s connection to the destruction of the house is a bit more literal, but it is similarly a manifestation of her anguish and trauma. She sees flashbacks of her siblings being distant and rude to her in their childhoods and the anger she feels rips the foundation apart.

It is not entirely clear in the short story why Roderick buries Madeline alive – there are a lot of theories: he genuinely believed she was dead, he wanted her out of the picture, he himself was succumbing to the madness of the house, etc – but the guilt he feels for doing so manifests as him hearing her scraping her way out for several days preceding her escape. The justification for Vanya’s imprisonment is more clear in text, but the series of flashbacks make it clear that it is not just the imprisonment that has driven her over the edge. It it guilt for her sister, anger at her abusive upbringing that is much more easily directed at her siblings than her father, the newfound emotions experienced by being off her medication for the first time since childhood, Leonard’s manipulations, etc.

In both cases, amidst a spiral of emotions and experiences folding in on themselves, Vanya and Madeline experience a single, cold moment of clarity that drives them to escape, and it is that moment of clarity that breaks the shadow of the family legacy. They observe the situation as it stands and realize that it is completely unacceptable, and it is the realization that leads everything to crumble. Because gothic literature is focused on the complexities of maintaining that which is out of date, the realization that things must change can break the spell.

Part V: Conclusions

As per usual, I have no great theories on why this is or what it means. One of the reasons I love gothic literature is that it is rife with meaning that can be more easily felt than deciphered. I welcome any and all interpretations, theories, (politely worded) disagreements, and comments.

Thanks for taking the time to read; I have a lot of fun doing these. Enjoy spooky season, y’all. 💛

#The Umbrella Academy meta #TUA meta #The Umbrella Academy #TUA #The Fall of the House of Usher #House of Usher #Edgar Allen Poe #back here with the long metas on gothic literature and superhero tv #Vanya Hargreeves #Madeline Usher #happy spooky season y'all

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lovelyirony · 4 years

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"a single thread of gold/tied me to you" for ironhusbands?💛

If there is one thing that James Rhodes cannot stand, it is “love at first sight.” In his professional and personal opinion, there is no such thing. It is simply a concept that Disney invented so they could make cutesy stories about princesses finding their princes immediately and give people hope about love, but in the end it is all about the money.

“You’re a cynic,” his sister Jeanie tells him over breakfast. She flings a stray Cheerio at him. “You are a cynic and you’re never gonna date someone because they’re going to think you suck.”

“People are going to date me and realize that I’m a good, realistic choice,” James responds, sticking his tongue out and stealing a drink of her orange juice. “People are going to date you and you’ll be disappointed because you watched too many romantic movies and you let it taint reality.”

“Loser.”

“Dork.”

And then he’s in college.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t meet Tony Stark for two years despite the fact that every single year, they live in the same building on different floors. He has had to evacuate about twenty different times because Tony cannot stop himself from doing experiments in his room.

The third year, James is an RA and required to live with one of the residents because of “experimental tendencies.” They don’t elaborate on why he’s stuck with a roommate, what the tendencies are, or who he is.

“You’ll know,” comes the email from the coordinator, and he has never wanted to curse so badly in an email before, but here he is.

But he’ll deal with it. Just like how he’s going to deal with everything this year.

He thought he would get the room to himself for a little while before everyone moved in and brought everything and he would check them in.

But no.

There’s his roommate, lounging on a bed, and grinning.

“Simply enlightening to meet you, James. They told me I could come back if I had a trusted roommate.”

“And they stuck you with me?”

“Well they were going to stick me with some dude who got the email, and then immediately transferred to Dartmouth. So I think you were the second option.”

“Great.”

He hates life, maybe just a little bit.

Tony wants to do things. Which is fine, but he isn’t really in the mood to have the conversation of the fact that he can do things, but he doesn’t want to do them. He has to focus on being an RA and preparing for the Air Force.

“Why prepare for that when you could be living?” Tony asks, lounging on Rhodey’s bed.

Oh yeah, that’s new too. Rhodey. Apparently, “Jim,” “James,” and “Rhodes” were unacceptable nicknames.

What is acceptable is Rhodey. And of course, the “honey bunches of oats” and “loveliest RA of all time in the history of MIT” and “sugar-puff” and “sweetness overload”

He’s responding to all of them, by the way.

Rhodey didn’t think his mental health would get this bad by the beginning. He had actually scheduled it to be around October.

And then the students come. There are nervous freshmen, the sophomores who don’t say anything as they move in and get settled, and the returning juniors and seniors greet Rhodey and Tony with familiarity and laugh about the posters that Rhodey’s worked hard on.

“So, we’re having joint-RA’s or something?” Miles asks, throwing his comforter over his bed.

“No, we’re not,” Rhodey says, hoping his expression is somewhere along the lines of not-showing-emotion. “Tony’s just...”

“I’m simply too exhausting for Housing to deal with anymore, so I have a babysitter,” Tony says with a wink. “And who better than our lovely Rhodey?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Sugar-puff?”

“Still no.”

Miles snorts.

“This year should be good. Tony, you gonna pull any fire alarms this year?”

“Rhodey has expressly banned experiments in the building, unfortunately,” Tony sighs. “It’s like he doesn’t want everyone to bond over having to leave at two in the morning...”

“Nothing says bonding like hating a rude wake-up call,” Rhodey says, and Tony nods. “We’ll let you get all moved in, Miles. Remember that floor dinner is at six!”

“You got it!”

Rhodey gives Tony a look.

“You know, I can do this on my own.”

“Aw shutterbug, I’m not gonna let you.”

“Are you really this intent on following me around?”

“Well, what if I want to overtake your position next year? What if you tragically get a raging headache and it’s up to me to know what to do? What if your mother kidnaps you and never lets you come here again?”

“I’m sure the college kids will be fine,” Rhodey stresses. “And I’ll still have access to email and the groupchat, genius.”

Tony just laughs.

“Alright, okay. I gotta go get some shit for my new class. The teacher sent out an email stating that the textbook is mandatory, and we have to do book work. This feels like eighth grade all over again.”

Rhodey snorts.

“Is it for Professor Casper?”

“Yeah, did you have him?”

“Yeah, you don’t need the book. You can find it online for free, and he never collects the book work. It’s a waste of time to get the book.”

“You’re an angel-and-a-half, love of my life,” Tony says. “And for that, I’ll snag an extra pudding for you at the dining hall.”

“Is it vanilla or chocolate this time?”

“Chocolate with cookies in it.”

“Oh my god, seriously? Already?”

“Guess they must have had a jump,” Tony teases. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Tony has a specific way of getting people to open up and actually talk with others that Rhodey envies.

If Tony wasn’t so hellbent on convincing the group that if Miles and Kamala create a distraction, they could totally sneak out one of the pictures of the mascot.

“We are not doing that the first week,” Rhodey says. “Maybe the last.”

“It’s a beaver,” Tony whines. “Who’s gonna miss it, a Canadian?”

“It’ll be the floor bonding activity,” Gwen says, finishing off her fifth (maybe sixth) slice of pizza. “Better than talking about your feelings about the campus or whatever.”

“No.”

“We’ll convince him soon,” Tony whispers conspiratorially. “Also, who here is a freshman? I have some advice regarding the math classes and which teacher you want...”

Rhodey does have to admit, that sometimes it’s easier to have Tony around, who is so willing to stay up until the late hours because of some stupid drama or to help Peter at his chemistry homework and also ease his anxiety about leaving his Aunt May all alone.

Tony isn’t all wild and crazy as stories have led him up to be.

"I wore out all my crazy freshman year after going to two frat parties and deciding that no one knew anything about how to have fun,” he declared. “I mean, come on. Why have beer pong when you could quiz people about obscure fashion facts?”

Rhodey snorts.

“Don’t make that the next game night. Hey, what do you think about having a movie night this Friday? I’m thinking something not scary, we’ve been doing a lot of those.”

“It is October, what do you mean not scary?”

“Some of our residents don’t like scary,” Rhodey reminds him. “Honestly, I think we could do with a bit of Halloween fun.”

“Hocus Pocus? Double Double, Toil and Trouble? If you want to be slightly scared of old women and clown parties, I’d recommend it.”

“You weren’t scared of clowns beforehand?”

“Of course not, I wanted what they have; the ability to fit eighteen people in a car.”

“Couldn’t you just gut the car?”

“Not the same effect, honey-pie. Not the same effect.”

Miles and Peter both end up lobbying for Hocus Pocus, with little to no competition other than a promise that the other choice would be shown later on in the semester.

They’ve shoved all the chairs together and multiple people have brought out their own chairs, and Tony saves a seat for Rhodey under the premise of “Rhodey organized it, he gets a seat.”

It’s a tough squeeze, and Tony and Rhodey get all tangled up together.

Tony smells like expensive cologne and coffee, and he grins up at Rhodey and maybe the lights from the TV aren’t bright enough, but for a moment his heart skips a beat.

Well. Shit.

When he goes home for Thanksgiving break, Tony seems a bit...sad.

“What, your mom cook the worst turkey in the world?” he jokes.

"Sure,” Tony says, eyes unfocused. “Yeah.”

"Dude, you okay?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, turning. His smile brightens, eyes crinkling. “Why wouldn’t I be fine, buttercup?”

Rhodey gives him a look.

“I’m gonna call you when I get home, okay? You better answer.”

“I always answer to you,” Tony says, and damn Rhodey’s mind shouldn’t be going where it is.

Rhodey waves, gets in his car, and thinks about how Tony most likely has a problem on his mind, how he should probably not room with him, and his Aunt Ada’s green beans.

God, he loves those green beans.

Tony is alone for Thanksgiving. Jarvis and Ana got an opportunity to visit Aunt Peggy in England, and he knew that they hadn’t seen her in two years. He didn’t want to be selfish, have them stay just for him.

So, it looked like deli turkey sandwiches were in his future. If there’s still some soda in the fridge, maybe that too.

He sighs, and turns towards the lab. Dum-E’s not even here, as he didn’t fit in the travel car, so Tony let him loose on the floor to “keep guard” over the dorms and make sure that no one broke in or stole the cords that he knows he accidentally left in the common room.

The odd thing is, he had almost told Rhodey. Almost let him know that he’d be alone for Thanksgiving, but is that weird? That’s weird, right? To tell people your emotions just...it’s so messy.

They have to deal with it, you have to deal with the fact that they’re dealing with it, and then other people know that you both are dealing with it and it’s just a whole mess of epic proportions, you know?

Rhodey finds out on Thanksgiving, when they’re doing the parade on the TV and there’s a new snippet on the gossip channel when they go on commercial break.

Howard and Maria Stark, vacationing off the Mediterranean Coast.

“It’s reported that Tony Stark has preferred to spend his time in the vacation home,” the news reporter said, her smile wide and placid.

“Tony’s lucky,” Mama says, wrapping golden yarn around her fingers as she works on another sweater. (A small one, a tiny one. It’s for the new baby in the family for Christmas.) “He tell you about it?”

“He’s not there,” Rhodey says numbly.

“He’s not?” Dad says, eyes raised over the newspaper.

“No.”

“He didn’t tell you, did he?” Dad asks.

“No, no he didn’t.”

“Well then. Next time he’ll come with us.”

Rhodey nods.

“Christmas?”

“Clear it with his parents if they’re not spending time together.”

“Got it.”

Rhodey’s Thanksgiving is...nice. He can’t stop thinking about Tony going alone.

So he calls him. It’s two in the morning, he might be asleep, and Rhodey’s not sure if he got the “eight” in the last four digits right or not.

“Howard’s out, who is it?” comes a sleep-addled voice.

“Good thing I’m not looking for Howard, Tones.”

“Rhodey? Why are you calling me?” Tony asks, and Rhodey can imagine his eyes lighting up and that’s...that’s something.

“You spent Thanksgiving alone, I wanted to see how you were.”

“Aw, checking in your residents?”

“Checking in on you.”

Tony stills for a moment at the phone.

Besides Jarvis, no one had ever really checked in on him.

“Um, I’m fine?”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I mean, it sucks to be alone on Thanksgiving, but I don’t really like any of the foods that people usually have, so I’ve been fine. I ordered wraps from my favorite place.”

“Good to hear, good to hear.”

There’s a silent pause for a moment, the one where they both try to find something to say.

“Listen,” Rhodey says. “If you’re ever stuck for a holiday alone, you’re coming with me, okay?”

“I don’t want to intrude on your family,” Tony says softly.

“They all wanna meet you. Jeanie says she can kick your ass at ice hockey!”

“You guys can actually play ice hockey?”

“With limited degrees of success.”

“Oh, now that I gotta see some time.”

They come back to college, and Tony is back to his usual antics, greeting everyone who comes through the elevator with a shower of shredded paper.

“Welcome to Winter Wonderland! Next stop: suffering through finals!”

“Ugh,” Kamala groans, “stop it. Stop making me think. I have to memorize Byronic poetry. Do you know how boring that is?”

"Speak for yourself, I have to build a wooden chair,” Riri whines. “Who works with wood these days? It’s so old-fashioned.”

“Create the most bitching chair alive,” Tony says. “And I’ll help you with the necessary tools. Your professor isn’t expecting much, mainly just that it can support the weight of two people, you’ll be fine. Kam, Byronic poetry is not that bad, you will be good. We will bake cookies.”

“Can we even bake cookies? I thought our floor got banned from kitchen usage,” Peter says. “Hey Rhodey.”

“Hey kiddo,” Rhodey says. “First of all, yes we are banned from the kitchen. Second, we’re only banned and get in trouble so long as they know we’re there. And since more than half of us are nocturnal creatures and I am willing to wake up to help, we can bake cookies.”

There are cheers around the room, and Tony mocks offense.

“You don’t trust me to help the future youth?”

“Given that we’re not allowed to rent out any more equipment from the front office? Yes.”

“You wound me, darling.”

“Only as much as kitchen equipment goes, sweetheart.”

Tony grins.

“Aw, you missed me.”

“Yeah, I did. Now come on, you gotta help me with a billboard about the movie night this Friday. We thinking a romantic comedy or something mildly terrifying but probably won an award?”

“Mildly terrifying!” Gwen calls from her dorm. “If we watch two people falling in love I’ll choke! We’ve been doing it all year!”

“We’ve only watched, like, three rom-coms?”

Gwen rolls her eyes, as if he’s missed something completely obvious.

“You don’t get it. I’ll try again later. Hey, are we doing floor dinner tonight?”

“They’re serving pizza sandwiches, so obviously,” Tony says. “We will feast like kings.”

Christmas is a festive time for Tony. He loves it, and goes overboard with decorations. Rhodey lets him, because you can’t stop Tony once he loves something (and Rhodey is kind of. Fond of him).

Pepper comes up from the fifth floor, whistling.

“Damn, Jim. I knew you would do a good job with decorations, but not this good. Is this...did you buy a miniature village? How was this budgeted?”

“It wasn’t,” Rhodey says. “Tony’s really into Christmas and the floor convinced him that the theme should be Christmas Village. He’s been crafting identities for each villager instead of studying for any exam. The craft store employees know him by name now.”

“Well, we all have our vices. You two seem to get along well. Housing is pleased that he hasn’t blown up anything yet.”

“If they try to serve cheese ravioli again, he might.”

“That’s a problem for Dining,” Pepper reminds him.

“Still, it’s abominable. Where did they get them, bottom of the Hudson River?”

She snorts, adjusting her shirt.

“Probably, but hey. They still got eaten, even if that one freshman threw them all back up at the entrance.”

“It was payback, they were vile.”

Tony waltzes into the lobby, arms filled with glittering tinsel.

“We are not letting you hang that,” Pepper says, gaping at it all. “Do you know how hard it is to get rid of tinsel?”

“We’ll manage!” Tony says. “Also, are you free at six-thirty?”

“No, that’s when we’re getting dinner on my floor, what do you need?”

“Just that little tidbit of knowledge,” Tony says, looking down at his phone.

A message buzzes from the groupchat, and Rhodey glances at it:

We are a go for the real Christmas tree. I have the vacuum, and a believable lie. Rhodey’s gonna tell us when the RA on duty is gonna come so we can hide it.

Rhodey looks at Tony, grinning. He smiles right back.

“Is there some weird roommate telekinesis I’m missing here?” Pepper asks.

“Yes,” Rhodey says. “We’re discussing dinner plans.”

Another text from Harley:

I’m already picking one out with Peter. I have good taste. When is the ornament-making party?

Pepper looks at them.

“You’re planning something that I probably would have to disapprove of. I’ll tell people I got your floor watched tonight.”

“Pepper, light of my life, my absolute sunshine? You’re the best,” Tony says, grinning. “Rhodey-darling, help me with tinsel?”

He can’t say no. Simple as that.

That is how tinsel gets strung throughout his hair as he’s watching Tony climb onto chairs that shouldn’t be climbed on to hang it from everywhere.

“People deserve to have a good-looking Christmas,” he says. “Besides, I wanna win the decoration contest.”

Rhodey laughs.

“Okay, okay. I think we got it in the bag.”

Later on in the week, Tony can be seen flitting about from room to room with help and jokes to lighten the mood.

Rhodey has to admit, being an RA with Tony around is...nice. Better than he thought.

And maybe he has feelings. He’s not going to say anything about it. After all, they’re roommates. He also isn’t allowed to have a relationship with anyone on the floor, regardless of anything.

It doesn’t mean every RA follows it. God knows Sharon’s snuck down to the fourth floor to see Sam near-about every night, and her residents usually keep it a pretty good secret.

Still. There’s also everything else to consider, and the fact that he doesn’t even know if Tony likes him like that.

He doesn’t have to focus on it.

At least, not until the week of finals when he’s dying and Tony’s made him peppermint hot chocolate and sits on his bed, just about an inch away from his notes for his history class.

“Do you remember what you told me on the phone?” Tony asks softly.

“You up to compete against Jeanie for this year’s ice hockey championship?” Rhodey asks, smiling.

Tension releases from Tony’s shoulders.

“Only so long as you’ll have me.”

“Always, genius. Always.”

After the last resident leaves for the holiday and Rhodey checks in with those who are staying, he and Tony hit the road, dragging suitcases behind them.

“Are you sure I’m allowed?” Tony asks. “I can always find a hotel along the way...”

“Mama wants to meet you, I keep telling them a ton about you,” Rhodey says, laughing. “They told me they want to hear your side of the great Glitter Debacle.”

Tony laughs.

“You mean the truth?”

“Uh, I’m sorry, how are you going to convince them that green glitter was needed? And that you could clean it out of carpet?”

“Determination and grit?”

Rhodey laughs again as they pull onto the highway.

After a couple of hours, they make it to Rhodey’s home. His sister comes out, hugs for both.

“Good to meet you Tony,” Jeanie says. “I’ve heard a lot, and I think we’re going to get along awesomely after I tell you every single embarrassing thing that Jim’s ever done.”

“Only if I get to share stories too,” Tony teases, grinning. “Aw, they call you Jim?”

“What do you call him?” Jeanie asks.

“Jim-Jam, angel-dear, sugar-puff, Rhodey. You know, the usual.”

Jeanie snorts, taking one of Rhodey’s bags.

“Calling you the first one from now on.”

“Tony did you have to let her hear any of those?” Rhodey asks, exasperated in a teasing manner.

“Of course I did,” Tony sing-songed. “Now after you, I’m sure your mom is waiting to hug the living daylights out of you.”

It’s not until Rhodey gets all settled in and Tony is downstairs competing with his dad in a round of chess that Jeanie sits on his bed, the intention to annoy.

But it’s...different. She looks at him.

“You love him a lot, don’t you?”

Rhodey stills.

“You wouldn’t have told him he could come here if you didn’t.”

“You’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Jeanie says, flipping braids over her shoulder. “Nice of you to finally realize that I’m the smart one.”

Rhodey doesn’t say anything as she saunters out of the room.

He makes the decision not to tell Tony.

If it goes wrong and if Tony says no, he doesn’t want it to be an awkward family event but more importantly, the most awkward rest of the year ever. He can say it as they’re moving out, and that’s that.

He tells Jeanie as such.

“I thought you didn’t believe in love,” she says as they’re preparing the soup for dinner.”

“I don’t believe in love at first sight,” Rhodey says. “I do believe in love. There’s a difference.”

There’s a hell of a difference.

First sight, you don’t know everything. The second, third, fourth, fifth, and so on? Oh you learn so much more, and they become that more important.

He learns that he doesn’t mind picking up tinsel, so long as Tony is laughing and singing along to all of the worst Christmas songs ever, and maybe. Just maybe he could picture looking at Tony underneath the fairy-lights that they hung in the dorm room for all time.

Love is terrifyingly exhilarating, even when it isn’t supposed to be.

Rhodey did not think his heart would race so much as Tony listened to his Mama talk about her wedding china, about the utter disaster that his father was.

“He forgot his tie,” Mama said, smiling. “Oh my lord, my mother had a cow about that. I thought he looked kind of dashing.”

Tony’s eyes drift towards the wedding pictures, which are slightly shaky, but everyone had such wide smiles.

It’s a far cry from the publicity photos from the Stark wedding, Rhodey remembers the solemn expressions, the stuff tuxedos.

“I love it,” Tony says softly. He looks at Rhodey across the table, setting down the final plate. “Tell me more, Mrs. Rhodes.”

“Call me Mama, honey, Mrs. Rhodes is for people I don’t like that much. I think you’re gonna be my new favorite.”

“Even over me?” Jeanie says, grinning as she kisses Dad on the cheek. “I’m your favorite.”

“You’re my favorite until now,” Mama says. “Don’t think I don’t know that you skipped out on setting the table because Tony was here and graciously offered.”

“It was nothing,” Tony says. “Just happy to help. Thank you for letting me stay at your home for the holidays.”

“We’re always lucky to have guests,” Dad says, setting down the main dish. “Now let’s eat.”

Family dinner is a brand new concept to Tony. He’s had maybe four or five of them, and the majority of which were staged for some holiday shoot or some “celebrating American values” shoot.

It was awkward, weird, and he didn’t get why.

Now, he does. Jeanie has been steadily moving mashed potatoes away from Rhodey’s plate, and Mama caught her eye and winked, distracting him with talk about his college major and news about the neighbors.

Mr. Rhodes watches it all with a careful eye and a lax smile.

After dinner, they play cards.

It should be boring, but Jeanie puts on an old record and Rhodey keeps trying to count cards, and Tony didn’t think you could count cards in a game of Spoons.

“You can’t, he’s just a try-hard,” Jeanie stage-whispers.

“You-”

Jeanie laughs, rolling herself out of Rhodey’s grasp as he chases her around the family room. Tony leans back into the couch, and shouts with surprise as Jeanie trips Rhodey into the couch.

His body twists, and Rhodey’s facing him on the couch and they’re close and with the fire roaring in the fireplace and the Christmas lights outside shining through the windows, it’s almost magic.

It is magic, but Rhodey is kind of terrified of that.

Tony breathes in, breathes out.

“Hello sugar-puff,” he says.

“Hello genius,” Rhodey says, a smile on his face.

Oh.

The night does not get much sleep.

Tony doesn’t sleep anyway, but Rhodey finds that quite often he can’t sleep without some softly-playing rock in the background, doesn’t matter if it is a highly-questionable AC/DC song. That and Tony softly murmuring about his plans, and it’s like a personalized lullaby.

Rhodey cannot sleep. Tony’s in the guest room, and he can’t sleep.

There’s a soft knock on his door.

Tony’s there in shorts and a t-shirt that’s probably expensive, but he’ll never say if it is or not.

“Can I...I can’t sleep.”

“Get in here, Tones. I can’t sleep either.”

The bed is a tight squeeze, but they make it work.

Rhodey whispers until he drifts off to sleep about Christmas and school and everything else.

Tony watches with quiet eyes, interjecting with his own stories occasionally.

They fall asleep tangled up together, and Rhodey doesn’t mind it one bit, not as he pulls Tony in closer.

Waking up is bittersweet, honestly. Rhodey has Tony in his arms, and that’s...that’s perfect. He thinks this is going to be the best thing that’s ever happened in his lifetime.

“It’s too early, darling,” Tony groans. The light from outside is already peeking through the blinds, and he has stuffed his head right back into a pillow.

“Jeanie’ll be here soon to bother us for Christmas breakfast,” Rhodey says. “And unless you want her pouncing on the bed and landing on wrong everything, we better get down there.”

Tony smiles sleepily, stretching.

“Thanks for letting me sleep in your room, honey-bunch.”

“No problem,” Rhodey said. “Missed the constant AC/DC and late-night discussions about robotics.”

“Not like I did much talking, Mr. Sap,” Tony teased. “Or was it me who mentioned that they had a favorite plate for dinner?”

“Listen, it’s superior and you did not once interrupt that story to complain. I think I did a great job explaining it.”

Tony laughs.

“I’m gonna go get dressed, okay?”

“Not until after present unwrapping,” Rhodey says. “We stay in pajamas.”

“I’m cold,” Tony whines.

Rhodey chucks his sweatshirt at him.

“Then here you go.”

Tony’s eyes light up as he shrugs it on, wiggling as he brings it up to his nose. It shouldn’t be that cute. But it is.

“You are the light of my life.”

Rhodey laughs, rolling his eyes.

“Maybe. Now come on.”

They head downstairs together, and they both get swept up into the speed of things, with Jeanie racing around the house and telling Tony that he got treats too, they just didn��t have a back-up stocking.

“Hush,” Mr. Rhodes says, handing Tony a carefully wrapped gift. “After breakfast, we’ll go ahead and open it.”

He smiles, and Rhodey thinks it’s the best thing he’ll ever see.

Christmas gifts, Rhodey thinks, are his new favorite thing to see Tony interact with.

It’s painfully obvious that he’s never really had any personal gifts, anything that reminds people of himself. He carefully unwraps the paper, careful not to rip it.

“You nerd,” Rhodey says, grinning. “Come on, show us what you got.”

Tony laughs as he opens a box with two coffee mugs from the rest of the family, emblazoned with “Rhodes” on one cup, and the other being a simple red with gold trim.

“They’re perfect,” he says. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re feeding his coffee addiction,” Rhodey answers.

“Like you aren’t doing the same,” Jeanie teases. “You made him his cups of coffee this morning.”

“That is because I have trained him well,” Tony says, grinning. “Rhodey, here’s my present to you, open it.”

He’s nervous.

Both of them are, but Tony especially so.

He told Rhodey once that he’s not good at shopping for other people. He tends to have the phrase “go big or go home” permanently circling in his mind, and it can lead to...complications.

(Rhodey remembers the overhaul of his closet for his birthday, complete with a visit from a rather well-known designer.)

Inside is a beautiful jacket. It’s all patchwork, artfully sewn together with embroidery thread spelling out “James” at the lapel.

“I commissioned Janet,” Tony says, smiling softly. “She wants you to still walk in her fashion show, by the way. Says you’re a model.”

Rhodey snorts, shrugging on the jacket.

“You helped with this, right?” Rhodey says. “I can see it in the gold thread you got on the sleeves.”

“I may have had some creative input.”

“I love it,” Rhodey says. “Now here’s mine.”

Tony breathes, and Rhodey wonders if this gift will be enough. He feels a bit stupid, it doesn’t seem like that great of a gift, in retrospect-

It’s a puzzle.

A puzzle of their favorite cafe and restaurant to go to at MIT. It was in a shop window, and Rhodey could tell that Tony would love it.

On top is a scarf, since Tony gave away his last one to another student in their philosophy class.

“I love it,” Tony breathes, tackling Rhodey in a hug. “I love it, I love it! We have to do the puzzle after this.”

Mrs. Rhodes sends her husband a look.

Yeah, Tony would be around for a long time.

They set up the puzzle on the floor of Rhodey’s room, clearing away any luggage. It’s silent for a while, Tony moving around the pieces and Rhodey looking for edge pieces.

They work closely together, side by side.

Rhodey can’t stop staring.

He should be able to. He’s stopped himself before, but now?

Sunlight is coming in through the window, playing around Tony’s fingers as he nimbly picks up puzzle pieces, and this is the eternity that Rhodey wants so badly. If he died right now, he thinks he would choose for Heaven to look like this.

“You okay?” Tony asks, eyes looking up. He took his contacts out, and now he’s just in his tortoiseshell glasses, the ones that he secretly likes more and Rhodey loves.

“I’m in love with you,” Rhodey blurts out, because he can’t stop thinking about how beautiful Tony is and how much he loves him.

He realizes that this could very well be considered a mistake. Because they still have to live together and drive back together and it won’t be the same, and the residents will notice no matter how well they both act--

Tony pops his head right under Rhodey’s chin.

“Kiss me?”

That’s all it takes.

They mess up part of the puzzle, but that’s okay. They find they don’t mind it too much. They can work on it later, when Tony’s done getting Rhodey out of his new jacket and Rhodey works his hands underneath Tony’s sweatshirt.

Mama takes one look at them for dinner and grins.

“Jeanie, you owe me a night of dish-washing.”

“Seriously?”

“Mama!” Rhodey hisses, embarrassed beyond belief.

Tony just cackles, and elbows Rhodey out of the way so he can get to his chair at the table.

“Couldn’t have fooled you for a second, could we?” Tony teases.

“Not at all,” Mama states proudly.

Rhodey rolls his eyes and squeezes Tony’s hand under the table. All will be well.

When they both get back to college, none of their residents are surprised, at least not until they have to have a “knocking before entering” policy put in place after one particular late morning.

#lovelyirony writes #jeanie rhodes #mama rhodes #rhodeytony #ironhusbands #pepper potts #harley keener #gwen but i can't remember her last name #spidey gwen #gwen spider-man #kamala khan #peter parker #tony stark #rhodey

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mego42 · 3 years

Text

Shamelessly stealing @foxmagpie’s monthly rec thing without the ability to get my life together to do these on a monthly basis so, seasonal recs! So excited to see if I manage to do this again with anything remotely resembling consistency but i’ve been keeping the notes for approximately 43 years (or since ~september, whatever that means) so by god i’m gonna use them.

found my thrill - s_t_c_s / @sothischickshe

Turner POV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

guys turner is SO OBSESSED with Beth and Rio

both canonically and in this fic

it’s gr9

also features a weirdly soothing and relatable cord untangling moment as a metaphor

truly disturbingly relatable turner pov tbh

relentless boomer disdain, always a plus

led to the creation of this monstrosity, not sure what kind of a monster would do that

War In My Mind - mintletters16

Backread!!!!

post-213, gorgeous character study

guaranteed to make you feEl stUfF

I really love the like, cyclical, fractured pattern of Beth’s internal monologue, it gives the whole thing a really affecting at times dreamy, at times haunted vibe

the end twist is *chef’s kiss*

mourning bells - Ejunkiet / @ejunkiet

Backread!!!!

Later s2 era, Rio’s at a funeral, gets drunk and calls Beth

V short, kind of…..mmm, not sweet, but almost? Idk

It’s got a wistful sort of almost/i can be quiet with you vibe that i go extremely bonkers for

delinquents - foxmagpie / @foxmagpie

Lol are any of you actually not reading this yet?

g o d ch 8 where do i start

First off how ABSOLUTELY VERY DARE for the tragic angst that is delinquents!beth boland. This poor baby, this precious bean. MUST PROTEC

SHE’S TRYING HER BEST AND I LOVE HER

zero percent deserves dean’s clammy hands, no i have not forgotten, tattooed on my brain, will never forgive

I also love love love love LOVE the ruby/stan subplot happening

(and ruby’s mom!!!!!) (seriously though you write the best moms)

oh god and baby beth starting to have confusing feelings about rio?????? *chef’s kiss*

p sure i was just like, straight screaming the entire end of the chapter

the dugout is like, pure serotonin

I can’t even talk about the closet

tHe teNsiOn

thank you i will take eleventy billion

don't give it a hand, offer it a soul - medievalraven / @medievalraven

am a desperate heaux for any fic that features rio and mick friendship

you are all incredibly shocked i know

still would not be mad if this swerved into rio x mick fake dating but beth x rio is cool too i guess

Speaking of things i am a desperate heaux for: DIANE!!!!!!!!

and DATING ANNIE???????????? Blessed

honestly this fic is worth it purely for the assertion that mick watches queer eye

Why don't we go to Venus? - watermelonriddles / @bensonstablers

another grief study!

apparently i was working through some stuff in september, idk, that was like 4 years ago

considering it’s the premise of the fic, i don’t think it’s a spoiler to say this fic is canon divergent and working with the premise that rio killed beth in 302

he is uh, not coping well

extremely haunted you might say

lots of marcus and rhea which is a delight!

rhea is to good for him tbh

i said what i said

truly top notch dream (nightmare?) sequences

the conversation at the end is extremely uncalled for

drop the game - Ejunkiet / @ejunkiet

Backread!!!!

Am going to die mad Beth and Rio didn’t hook up in 211 but luckily this fic scratched the itch

(temporarily, it’s a fairly permanent itch)

Bonus rec: missing scene series i wanna do bad things to you featuring 2x02 and 2x04

Viva Voce - zetuslapetus / @querenaxx

Whoops we woke up married Vegas shenanigans!!

So cute!!!!! So sexy!!!!!

What more do you want?

am desperately obsessed with how beth can’t help stalking rio

feels right, feels organic

this makes me feel a lot of stuff about how they could be without their canon garbage between them

🎶 we could’ve had it aaaaaaaaaaall 🎶

you showed me colors (i can't see them with anyone else) - gild_fire / @gild-and-fire

really into the use of color to illustrate beth’s emotional state, i feel like there’s a word for that but idk what it is

UNIMPORTANT

really nice job capturing beth’s inner vulnerability balanced by her outer stubbornness

am DESPERATELY into Mick playing matchmaker

more please???????

Both Sides of the Law - JoeyLee / @joeyjoeylee

LAW SCHOOL AU! I suuuuuuper love Beth and Rio here (alt pov!! a gift!!!!) I love how initially prickly they are, I love how it’s evolving into a grudging respect, I love how INCREDIBLY AND HILARIOUSLY OBSESSED WITH EACH OTHER THEY ARE and neither one of them seems to see it

listen I know we’re all already foaming at the mouth over this one but as it’s gonna go down as one of my all time favorites it bears repeating/rereccing

cannot stress enough how masterful the use of POV is here, both voices feel completely true and distinct and I love how the alternating chapters revisit, reveal and emphasize pieces of each other

i can’t talk about this fic without hyperventilating

I LOVE IT SO MUCH YOU GUYS

the slow burn is going to ACTUALLY KILL ME

rip, no regrats

Earned It - wakeupflawless / @wakeupflawless

spanking

that’s it that’s the pitch

H O T

living for beth’s exit in the first chapter, rio and i are both incredibly into it

second chapter also features violently possessive Rio who cannot deal with anyone messing with his girl so if that’s your thing boy howdy get on it

shake, baby, shake - openhearts

backread!!!!!

according to my bookmarks this was a reread but ???????

must’ve read it in the fugue state that followed reading for a moment we were strangers which is gr9 and I believe I have recced it before. If not, horrible oversight, reccing it now

beth and Rio POV lead up to the bathroom break, beautifully done, low-key feel bad reccing it bc the end point of both chapters makes me want to throw things but it’s super worth it for the tEnsiOn. ENJOY

What the Sea Wants, the Sea Will Have - flashindie / @pynkhues

I’m assuming all of y’all are already reading this

If not OH MY GOD FIX YOUR LIVES

P I R A T E A U

I’m sorry maybe you didn’t hear me piRaTE aU

meticulously researched, brain-meltingly vibrant, already painfully sexy slow-burning PIRATE AU

god where to start okay so first off, the world-building here straight up breaks my brain, sophie’s put in the work and it SHOWS

second, the atmosphere. i’m generally a pretty like, vague mental picture sort of reader but the sensory detail here grabs you by the throat and like, forcibly hauls you in whether your brain’s wired that way or no

and hey speaking of throats if you, like me, go a little funny about the knees at the idea of beth holding a knife to rio’s throat (he’s fine, calm down), there’s a v excellent beth-in-a-barrel moment for you

oh christ and the sexy tension

it’s gonna be a race to see which slow burn takes me out first, this or law school

Stunner - foxmagpie / @foxmagpie

Another high school AU, this time with baby Rio absolutely head over heels for his older sister’s bff

stunner!Rio has an emotional earnestness about him that I feel like delinquents!Rio has already outgrown and it’s so SWEET I can’t get enough

Desperately cute!!!!!!

alL he waNts iS foR beTh tO bE hiS girL

also unreasonably angsty???????

ANN ARBOR IS NOT THAT FAR MEGAN

A Heart's A Heavy Burden - tooshyforthis / @bathroombreaks

Howl’s Moving Castle AU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love Howl’s!!!!!!!!!!!

perfect opp to roast Rio for being a Dramatique Heaux

and it’s gonna be 9 chapters?????? H Y P E

author’s note boldly presumes I did not know I needed this AU when the reality is I did in fact know I needed this AU, I just wasn’t expecting anyone to deliver

so blessed

author also claims to not be team nose stud and yet it features prominently in all its magnificent glory

what is the truth dot gif

A Bit of a Stretch - septiembre / @septiembur

SO????? CUTE?????????

would be on this list for Rio calling Beth E alone tbh

really really really really really love this Rio POV of being settled into a relationship with Beth

It manages to be sweetly domestic af while still holding the edge that makes brio brio which is a neat trick

@septiembur may be a witch

beth’s approach to getting rio to do yoga with her is hilarious and exactly right, canon-typical amounts of subtlety

1000000/10

Post Break-Up Sex - femalegothic / @bethsuglywigs

stg this was called Hit Shuffle

no matter

h O T

with a side of damn i’ve made some questionable choices in my life haven’t i introspection

(no regrats tho)

(esp not with this fic)

not the point of the fic by a long shot but i’m also extremely obsessed with Weed Eddie, so real

She drains my soul... she drains it not - niham87 / @niham87

ABSOLUTELY OBSESSED WITH THIS CONCEPT

am a complete sucker for paranormal world building that satirizes bureaucracy

Is that a trope? If so that’s my favorite

I did it. I’m picking a single favorite. You know what that is growth dot gif

ANYWAY i love the concept, i love the humor, i love beth instantly clicking with annie

I love her and mick’s sort of grudging professional courtesy

Love beth as a champion of environmental responsibility and all of the underworld being like …...okay??

cannot wait to see where this goes

Nine-Tenths - riosnecktattoo / @riosnecktattoo

*INCOHERENT PTERODACTYL SCREECHING*

sometimes i think about rio putting beth’s hair in a ponytail and have to go lie down

science please explain why this rUinS mE

wait hold on i skipped ahead

HEY KIDS DO YOU LIKE UNBEARABLY CUTE DOMESTIC TENDERNESS

opens with rio sleepily holding beth’s hand to his heart so that’s the kind of thing you’ll be dealing with

uGH theY’RE sO CUTe

idk why precisely but rio adding hair ties to his bracelet collection is my undoing every time

Missed Call - foxmagpie / @foxmagpie

Rio doesn’t come home from a job when he’s supposed to. Beth (and I!!!!!!!) slowly loses her mind

Truly a masterpiece of rising tension

Will literally never forgive her for calling this light angst

I was SO STRESSED OUT

The first person to point out there was an author’s note at the beginning I obvs didn’t read is getting blocked

crush - foxmagpie / @foxmagpie

Listen even though this is centered around two OCs, they are OCs FROM a (n iconic) brio fic AND Beth, Ruby and Rio all make cameos (I mean, Rio’s pretty present since he lives in Mar’s mind rent free bc they are THE SWEETEST MOST ADORABLE BEST OF FRIENDS so idk if i’d call it a cameo but whatever)

and even if it didn’t feature any official GG characters I’d still rec is bc that’s mY SON AND this fic is TOO CUTE

I have so many feelings over mar and rio growing up and not knowing how to cope with girls becoming a Thing in their life and how it affects their friendship and mar feeling left behind but (SPOILERS) at the end of the story rio starts feeling that too and it’s so poignant knowing how that’s going to continue in delinquents

while mar may be my son, i also claim elena’s #1 stan status

before you’re like meg you’re only reccing it bc it’s a bday present ask yourselves do i really strike you as the kind of person that wouldn’t be equally obnoxious about this either way?

truly cannot fathom how hard i have fallen for these OCs i don’t normally do that

@foxmagpie is definitely a witch

The Ottoman - Niham87 / @niham87

look i will be the first to admit that i don’t go near as bonkers over the ottoman line in 308 as y’all do

(don’t get me wrong, i love it!!! I love that he laughs and i love that she’s pleased it just doesn’t hit my lose my whole mind button like idk, the dubby or the 306 convo, idk why)

BUT i v v v much love the context this delightful Rio POV pwp gives it

am also absolutely feral for 209 missing scene fic

and anything that captures the complexity of Rio’s s3 feelings for Beth and how twisted they’ve become

so this scratches a bunch of itches, is what i’m trying to say

Bet On It - zetuslapetus / @querenaxx

*INCOHERENT PTERODACTYL SCREECHING*

That’s what my brain does when I think about Beth and Rio meeting in ch 1

am DESPERATELY OBSESSED WITH the tension between the two of them in this fic

I love how it plays with the ways they have to rely on but don’t trust each other

plus FAKE DATING and BED SHARING (fair warning hasn’t happened yet but the set up is there)

originally supposed to be 2 chapters, already up to 4, prayer circle it goes on forever

do you like drugs (tonight) - s_t_c_s / @sothischickshe

v important focus on hydration, other fic should take note

extremely about the use of cut to and then flashback to enhance the ‘we were on drugs’ vibe

speaking of, beth and rio absolutely would take ecstasy to prove they are fun bc they are the exact kind of idiots that would peer pressure themselves

so glad beth kept her purse, got a bit stressed there for a second, clutches in that kind of circumstance are A Risk

not that i would know

FLAWLESS USE OF VOICEMAIL TBH

really love the ongoing denial that they are remotely into each other while proceeding to demonstrate how they are in fact, extremely into each other, great vibe

rio dances

I know my brain broke too

mmmm bacon

Navigate A Broken Path - flashindie / @pynkhues

*INCOHERENT PTERODACTYL SCREECHING*

I have a long standing tradition of getting unreasonably obsessed with side characters so i’m not like, entirely surprised by how obsessed i am with both Mick and Mary Pat but i never in a million years considered them as a ship

AND Y E T

they fit????? so perfectly?????? It’s amazing how she developes them individually enough that i look at them together and think ah yes this makes perfect sense for both characters

and they’re such an amazing foil to Beth and Rio?

can ships have foils? do i know what a foil is?

unimportant

GUYS you dON’T uNDERStAN d

hell i don’t understand

how absolutely very dare you make me care about YET ANOTHER set of gg ‘verse children

do not read this fic if you have no interest in feelings you zero percent asked for

wHA t hAPPeNED iN aLASkA?????????

A Moment’s Silence - femalegothic / @bethsuglywigs

*makes sign of the cross*

y’all are gonna make me rediscover religion

extremely appreciate the author’s note approach to backstory top notch prioritization

listen it’s basically 3k of beth deep throating rio idk what more you need me to say about it

it is…..good stuff

bless the kinkmeme or fest whatever we’re calling it

praise - civillove / @blainesebastian

I mean you had me at “three times rio calls beth a good girl and one time he really means it”

ephemeral rio

I left that note for myself in here in the middle of the night and haven’t the foggiest what i was thinking but i stand by it none the less

okay okay i think i know what i meant, this fic (as do all of my fav civillove brio fics) has this sort of like, liminal, in the quiet moments feel to them that makes the moments and feelings somehow feel like i’m catching a glimpse of something secret and precious???

idk i just really like it okay

Heart and Soul - riosnecktattoo / @riosnecktattoo

oh look more unbearably sweet domestic tenderness, this time to music

thank you ma’am for my life

rio remembers beth used to play piano and gets her one and revoltingly cute shenanigans result

also hilarity

and sexiness

this fic has it all, truly

shout out to mick who sees no reason to keep rio’s feelings to himself

good girls tumblr fic - prettylittlementirosa / @hypermania

cheating and reccing a whole series

It’s my list and i can do what i wanna

stop crying about it, it’s four fics and they’re all AMAZING absolutely impossible to pick a fav

truly flawless characterization, next level ability to capture evocative mood, cannot get enough

three’s a crowd: who knew ballroom dancing while dean watches and grinds his teeth could be so sexy

(trick question everything about that premise sounds A++++ and boy howdy does it live up)

feel it on the way home: rio tries to break up with beth, it goes about as well as you’d expect

(thE angSty tenSioN)

i want to play the game: [from the floor] i’m still not ready to talk about it

(rio/turner, missing scene, 10000000% a taste of what went down in that hotel room)

june after dark: pitch perfect annie pov, really really love the take that Annie is the baby whisperer, can’t fully explain why but it feels incredibly right

(ANNIE X NANCY COULD WORK SO WELL YOU GUYS)

#fingers crossed these links are right i did not double check #i like to live on the edge #truly mind boggling amount of fluff on this list i surprised myself on that one #no i will not at any point get my shit together enough to write out thoughtful commentary this is a shit posting blog first last and always #fic recs #gg fic #nbc good girls #i'll come up with a tag for these if i ever do them again #check back 37 years from now #or ~~~~~~march #whatever that means

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groovegalaxxxy5 · 3 years

Text

The Art School AU nobody asked for

I’ve had this idea for an emercury AU fic kicking around in my head for a while now, but I have so many other projects on my plate rn and nowhere near enough time or energy to write it. So instead I’m just gonna post all the deets in the hopes that one day I’ll be able to come back and actually do something with it.

Emercury Art School AU Summary:

“Emerald Sustrai may have managed to get into the dance program at one of the most prestigious art schools on Remnant, but she has one big issue – after just one year of study, she’s barely managing to stay afloat even with two part-time jobs and her grades have been suffering for it. Fortunately for her, her school offers extra credit to any students who are cast in the school’s yearly exhibition performance. Unfortunately, this year’s production’s theme is “passion” and the only spot up for audition for sophomores in the dance program is for a couples’ dance performance based on said theme.

Enter one Mercury Black—a fellow dance student with a reputation unsavory enough to overshadow his considerable talent, and quite possibly the last person on Remnant Emerald would ever want to work with…He also happens to literally be the only other person she can find to pair up with her for the show. Somehow, improbably, the unlikely duo actually make a pretty good team once they finally start to work out their differences, but as they perfect their routine for the big audition, Emerald finds herself in a whole new predicament: She may have set out to steal the show, but if she’s not careful she might just end up getting her heart stolen in the process...”

So yeah…as you can see, the basic premise is that Em and Merc are classmates at this school for the arts, but both of them are having trouble earning passing marks in this one foundation course they both need to graduate—Emerald because she is completely on her own and has to work a lot to pay for her living expenses and studio fees and stuff even though she has a pretty decent scholarship, and Mercury because he keeps really odd hours and misses class quite a bit for unexplained reasons. Noticing that she’s struggling even though she is a gifted dancer, one of Emerald’s teachers suggests that she try out for the big show that their school puts on every school year, since anyone who makes the cut receives a bunch of extra credit and each faculty also gives a grant to the students who they judge to have put on one of the top three best performances. The problem is, there are only a limited number of spots up for audition for each graduating year of each concentration course due to time and resource restraints, and this year’s 2nd year dance spot happens to be billed as a couples’ performance.

Emerald hits up everybody she can think of, but they're all too busy or can't commit to the project for other reasons. Pretty much out of options at that point, she’s just about ready to give up when she has a chance encounter with a classmate, one Mercury Black, after school. Through some sort of clerical error they managed to book the exact same practice studio for exactly the same time, and since they both really need the extra practice time and neither one is willing to back down, they end up sharing the room for a few hours. When they do, Emerald is really surprised to find out that Mercury is actually a really talented dancer, she just never noticed before because even though they have some classes together he comes in very irregularly. After a long, sleepless night contemplating doing something really, really ill-advised, she ends up approaching him at school the next day to propose that they team up and audition for the big show together since they appear to both be failing the same class and need the credit really bad, and to her surprise he agrees rather easily.

Thus, the two of them become reluctant accomplices. However, once they start working out the choreography together, they just can’t seem to see eye-to-eye on anything, which doesn’t bode very well for their performance considering that it’s supposed to embody the show’s theme. Emerald is more of a ballet dancer, while Mercury is more of a street dancer, having started out with breaking and had almost zero classical training before starting school. After a while (with a lot of practice and a LOT of unsolicited intervention from their nosy friends) our two favorite mayhem children finally start to bond and find some common ground, and naturally, lighthearted romantic hijinks ensue and sparks fly between the unlikely duo as they struggle to cooperate and put together a passionate couples’ dance good enough to get into the final production.

The Supporting Cast:

Em’s peeps -- Cinder (in the class above, sort of her mentor and was the one who encouraged her to apply to school in the first place), Weiss (met in freshman year, in the same ballet, jazz and contemporary classes this year, snarking buddies), Blake (ended up in most of the same classes together this year), Coco (upperclassman in the design course, loves dressing Em in different outfits and often forces her to stand in as a house model for her when she needs to work late into the night to meet a deadline)

Merc’s peeps -- Sun (met in class in freshman year, breaking and sparring buddies), Neptune (met thru Sun, in pop class together this year), Scarlet (ditto), Blake (in a few classes together, waits tables at the same diner where he works), Yang (met at a stunt training camp the Summer of freshmen year, waits tables at the same restaurant, fellow gym rat and occasional sparring partner)

Salem -- Headmistress of the most prestigious arts school on Remnant; has a bitter love-hate (mostly hate) relationship with her ex

Oz -- The headmistress’ ex-husband who runs a very successful Circe du Soleil type show and recruits a lot of his performers from her graduating classes

Glinda -- Chair of the dance department; Contemporary and ballroom dance instructor; is so so weary of her faculty’s incessant bickering

Winter -- Ballet instructor; came up in a rigid traditional Atlesian ballet school and generally looks down on all the other dancing disciplines and their instructors (”What they do can BARELY be described as dancing”); wishes the dance department were as disciplined as the music department

Qrow -- Jazz and tap dance instructor; doesn’t think that what his sister does really counts as actual dancing; jazz hands, rain hands and double dream hands and he’s dead serious about em

Raven -- Acrobatic and contortion instructor; thinks jazz hands look really stupid, just like Qrow and his corny, goofy ass dancing; was actually trained extensively in traditional Mistralian Highlands step dancing from childhood alongside her brother and used to perform internationally before switching disciplines

Tai Yang -- Hip-hop and pop dance instructor; specializes in pop and lock; Raven's ex; constantly catching strays from Qrow and Raven’s feud; just happy to still have a job tbh

Arthur & Tyrian -- Co-chairs of the theater department; Arthur teaches classical acting and Tyrian teaches method acting and they both think the other doesn’t teach “real acting”; somehow their department is actually really popular and all the students love the yearly musical theater production, which is the only time they ever seem to agree on anything

Hazel -- Long-suffering theater production instructor; works really hard to keep things running smoothly in the background despite the department heads' antics; hates the headmistress’s ex with a burning passion

Ironwood -- Chair of the music department; runs his department like a well-oiled machine and has put the fear of god into all his students; has won the national marching band championships seven years running

All the other students are in various departments at their school—e.g. Ruby plays the sax, Yang and Jaune are both acting majors, Oscar plays the cello, Nora and Ren play the tuba and the erhu respectively, Pyrrha is a triple threat etc.

A bunch of random plot points:

-Merc, Em and their friends are all in the same foundation classes together and the two of them start off vaguely aware of one another mostly owing to the fact that all their friends are friends, but they don’t really know each other (…or DO they??? *DUN DUNNN DUNNNNN*)

-Most of the faculty at their school can’t stand each other and the different departments have been engaged in bitter rivalries for years but somehow they all work really well together because at the end of the day they’re all professionals who are good at their jobs

-All of their friends are convinced that they’re secretly dating or hooking up at the very least, because they suddenly start hanging around each other a lot, holing up in the practice studio together until all hours of the night and showing up school at the same time the next morning and are constantly snipping at each other whenever they interact. Merc’s squad is actually v supportive and (against his wishes) are doing their very best to try and help their boy lay down the mac (Sun: “Hey Merc! Thanks for letting me drive the convertible last weekend!😉👍”) , even though they all generally acknowledge that he’s way out of his league and is headed down the path to utter destruction. Meanwhile, Em’s friends are pretty appalled by her abysmally low standards (Weiss: “Emerald, you’re dating down....WAY down.🙁”) and think that shes going thru some kind of self-destructive phase or something. They’re convinced she’s about to have her life absolutely ruined by that one smirky fuccboi type from their grade who has super sus habits and “reeks of criminality” (also Weiss).

-Almost everybody including most of his friends are convinced that Mercury is doing something really, really shady for cash on the low because he keeps super odd hours, misses class a lot and is always showing up with all these bizarre, unexplained injuries. In reality, Em finds out that it’s all because he’s been training as a stunt-man outside of school and works a lot of weird hours at his part-time job so that he can pay off his prosthetics, finance his extra courses and pay for his own living expenses, etc. Although he actually was involved in some serious criminal activity in the past, he’s been trying his best to stay on the straight and narrow ever since he finally cut ties with his scumbag dad, and now just works a lot of nights and weekends as a short order cook at the local greasy spoon.

-Once Mercury realizes that Emerald is like...constantly on the brink of starvation because she’s a destitute vagabond baby but has too much pride to ask for help, he starts subtly bringing her leftovers from work, which she grudgingly accepts (because he owes her for putting him onto the whole extra credit thing, so it’s not really charity...definitely NOT because she is extremely susceptible to offerings of food and her partner also happens to be a surprisingly good cook).

-Cinder is in the year above them and has known Emerald since they were in the foster system together as kids. She’s a prodigy at ballet and also a very accomplished acrobat and contortionist (as in, like, can easily shoot an arrow into a bullseye with just her feet while her legs are bent backwards all the way over the top of her head and stuff). At some point she sits in on one of Em and Merc’s rehearsal sessions and ends up dragging the hell out of them both for being way too stiff and exhibiting almost zero chemistry despite the “obnoxiously obvious sexual tension” between them. She basically ends up barking directions at them until they alter their choreo a bunch and finally start to look somewhat like an actual couple ("For fuck's sake... Lift her like she's the most precious thing you've ever laid eyes on and you're about to make sweet love to her, you idiot, not like she's a frigging sack of potatoes you're bringing home to peel!!!" "This man is supposed to be the moon to your stars...if you don't loosen up and melt into his arms like your soul is on fire, I will flip ALL this shit over and burn this wretched studio to the ground with both of you trapped inside!!!" ), after which things gradually start to get all awkward and messy between them because they start thinking about one another differently.

-They get into a bunch of compromising situations by virtue of the fact theatre and dance people are just kinda naked a lot and don’t care. At various points in the story their friends will walk in on the two of them in some sort of really eyebrow raising situation, get the complete wrong idea and run away, which in turn makes the two of them start to feel awkward as hell toward each other.

-Coco forces them to wear matching outfits that she made just for their performance.

-Their act ends up being this spicy contemporary couples’ dance that incorporates a lot of elements of acrobatic dance, breaking and ballet, essentially blending together both of their unique dance backgrounds.

This story idea has absolutely nothing to do with canon and Remnant is a lot like modern-day Earth with some exceptions, so there are no semblances etc. There’s no antagonist; in fact everyone around them is generally supportive and wants them to succeed--the main conflict comes from Emerald and Mercury only having three brain cells between them and not being used to caring about someone else in a lovey-dovey sort of way. I got the idea when I was watching dance videos online and started remembering all those cheesy dance-themed teen movies from the 90’s and early 2000’s. It’s pretty much just a wholesome little meet-cute/will-they-won’t-they type school romance in that same vein, where Em and Merc are forced to team up out of necessity, start to fall for each other and then have to deal with all the awkwardness that ensues...all with a bunch of help from their extremely eccentric, meddling-ass friends who are all convinced that the two of them are either already dating or about to be and are trying to keep them both from getting their hearts broken lol

Whew! Guess that’s about it for now...I’d like to try and flesh this one out more and maybe even publish it as a legit fic one day, but first I’ve gotta get back to work on *signal lost*

#rwby #emercury #emerald sustrai #mercury black #fic ideas

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elliewan · 3 years

Text

Boom Boom - Behind the Scenes

Hi everyone! As hinted in Chapter 14th notes, here is a (long?) tumblr post for some behind-the-scenes trivia about Boom Boom! I’m sorry it took me some time, but I’ll probably develop my HC for Thermite and Ace in another post :]

So. Here’s a small table of contents for this post. And of course, massive spoilers incoming! haha

Origin of the Title

Chapter and Rhythm building

Thermite’s friendships

Interviews with Harry

IQ/Kali’s background relationship

HC Timeline

In a nutshell

1. Origin of the title

The initial placeholder title was “Norwegian Dynamite”, then “From Texas with Norway”, then… “Boom Boom”. I’m still not happy with the title, but I think it’s good enough. And funfact, it’s kind of a mistake, but not so much. In French, my native language, heartbeat’s onomatopoeia is “Boum Boum”, while I read that in American English (the English I tended to use for my fanfic), it’s supposed to be “Thump Thump” or something like that. But I also read than in most of Norwegian dialects, “Boom Boom” could be understood as a heartbeat too. So anyway, Boom Boom refers both to the beating of their heart and to the explosions of their hard-breaching gadgets. It’s also dual, meaning that each of them is a “Boom” haha And it’s also a cute Mika song about two people being totally in love despite what their families think, and making love everywhere haha (cause in French “Faire crac crac boum boum” [“doing crac crac boom boom”] means “having sex” haha)

2. Chapter and Rhythm building

Unlike most of my fanfics, Boom Boom wasn’t written “as it goes”, I didn’t “discover” the fic while writing it. In fact, I hadn’t contemplated writing a multi-chapter for them until some comments on my Siegetober Ace/Thermite one-shots where people showed interest in the ship and a potential multi-chapter or longer story for them.

So after the Siegetober rush, while I had several wips ongoing, I started working on it. The first blank page was basically: Ace/Thermite – how do they get together for real and a series of bullet points for potential scenes. Then, I opened a PowerPoint file and started filling the following diagram:

Though this is now a bit obsolete, this was the first foundation. Thanks to this diagram, and the several bullet points for potential scenes I had brainstormed, I started building the story in a (ugly) board. Once again, several things are obsolete and I never really updated it – it was more of a working document for the “pre-writing” of the fic, to see if the story really made sense:

And one thing that really didn’t help was Ubisoft releasing the cutscene about Aruni out of nowhere haha. At the beginning, I panicked a bit because I thought it changed several things in my Thermite HC, but it happened to eventually fit quite well and even help adding more drama haha

And once I was ok enough with the board, despite it having several plot holes, I tried to measure the intensity of “love” and “dramatics” to see what kind of rhythm the fic was going to follow and check if I found it entertaining enough:

3. Thermite’s friendships

In the initial draft, Castle had a MAJOR part as Thermite’s best friend. He would help him sort his feelings, see the evolution of his relationship with Ace, and even go to Texas with him to help him face his family. But when re-reading for the umpteenth time Thermite’s file, I realized there was not a single mention of Castle, contrary to Hibana, Twitch and Thatcher. Not to mention Harry’s board where it’s written Thermite has a “sibling” relationship with Ash.

And that’s when everything ticked: Thermite is surrounded by great women. Sisterhood is part of who he is, how he was raised, how he lives. And this is why those women should have a stronger place in the story. So Hibana, Twitch, Aruni and Ash became real sisters to him. Hibana and Aruni being more like the big sisters – they’re reliable, sturdy and coolheaded, they provide him with advice and comfort; Aruni especially is quite similar in temper to his biological sister in my HC. Twitch is more like his same-age sister (though she’s younger), they see eye-to-eye but there’s no authority nor “big sister” feels between them; she’s the confident. As for Ash, she’s more like that distant sibling that has evolved a lot in life to the point where they don’t talk as mush as they used to… but who could move mountains just to get to him if she hears he’s in trouble. This is what I tried to convey :’)

4. Interviews with Harry

Honestly, interviews with Harry were my ultimate cheat code to give more information regarding Ace and Thermite’s psychological statuses, and various hints regarding their mental health. Though I sometimes prefer to bring this sort of nakedness and vulnerability throughout conversations with close friends, it wasn’t very possible here because: 1. Ace had no close friends with whom he could be this vulnerable, and he’s still new at Rainbow. (and he’s not even aware of his coping mechanisms and insecurities) 2. I kind of wanted Thermite to be incredibly good at clouding his issues, changing subjects and rejecting any kind of help, meaning that only Harry could get him to openly talk (or so he thought haha) about his mental health.

As for Harry’s behavior, I tried to render him as this kind of smooth, yet not evasive, therapist. One that wouldn’t be in the judgement, and who could wait whole minutes for the person to take their time to open up, and slowly but gently poking at the aching spots, and providing various resources to help them :)

Also, since in most of his psychological reports he seems to be very aware of friendships at the base, and to push some operators to meet some others, I tried to convey this vibe too. Just like when he says that he finds similarities with Ace, Dokkaebi and Sledge. Or when he offers Thermite to ask Lion and Meghan about their tattoos etc.

Also, here’s a bit of HC on how each of them deals with Harry haha

5. IQ/Kali’s background relationship

I have to admit I may have accidentally mirrored a lot Ace/Thermite’s relationship with IQ/Kali’s. Thing is that I wanted Kali to change too! I wanted her to be this impartial and authoritative bossy businesswoman that would slowly change into someone, though still sharp and arrogant, more human. I wanted Jaimini to show up a bit more. I have given veeery small hints to offer some glimpses at her true self, at what’s behind that mask. For instance, there is that moment in the fic where Ace and Kali argue, and he tells her:

“Jai, you and I both know very well that you didn't take this contract just for the money.”

Which makes Kali pale a lot, because he’s hitting a good nerve. In fact, I kind of headcanon Kali having softened enough around him, throughout their collaboration, to have confided a tiny bit about why she created Nighthaven, and all the frustrations she had grown up with. And thing is, Kali created Nighthaven because she wanted to be a hero too, just like him. She wanted to be at the heart of the battle, to protect people, to save lives, and she dreamed of a soldier life, of self-sacrifice and heroism. She just slid the wrong way, and her childhood dream turned into a private corporation of which she became a ruthless tycoon. Just like Ace, I think things went out of control at some point for her, and she just lose connection to reality and morals.

And the thing with IQ happened quite naturally. At the beginning, once I was okay with the three main squads (especially Alpha and Bravo), the relationship just happened on itself. While Montagne and Twitch were just those lovely and patient sweethearts, IQ was the one that had the hardest time with the Nighthaven folks, whether it were Ace or Kali. Both because she didn’t trust them and their secrecy, and because she has very little patience for people with difficult tempers in general haha

So, Kali being that bossy and defiant puzzle, refusing to let her see Nighthaven’s gadgets’ blueprints, things were just meant to sparkle between them. And Kali just couldn’t resist teasing IQ and reminding her she was untouchable. And through the teasing, the premises of a relationship were born. But unlike Ace/Thermite, I don’t think it followed a Colleagues to Friends to Lovers progression, but more an Enemies straight to Lovers progression haha

So anyway. I wanted to give a little boost to Kali, so that she opens up a bit more with Rainbow, and to bring a truce between Rainbow and Nighthaven’s disputes. And love just happened, once again, to be the perfect last push <3

Another thing that could have helped her would perhaps have been some true challenging from an authority she does respect, but I found it difficult to stage and Kali wasn’t the focus of the fic anyway – perhaps another time ;)

6. HC Timeline

And here is the ugly timeline I worked with haha It’s still probable that there are some inconsistencies, but I tried to avoid them as much as possible and I’m sorry if you find some! I’m horribly bad with figures, years and stuff haha

I used most of the canonical dates, except for Jordan’s mother and sister deceases, which weren’t accurately dated in his biography and which I reinterpreted a bit to fit my story.

Also, isn’t it absolutely lovely that their birthday is only 1 day apart? u_u #ProudPisces!

7. In a nutshell

So, those were my major documents that helped me build the foundations of the fic. What happened next was some drafting and pure writing, following the publishing tempo. I think the gist of what I wanted to convey through the story is still there, even if I reworked some chapters entirely. The journey (and the destination <3) is still the same.

+ I want to once again give a proper shout out to all the wonderful readers of the fanfic, whether they’re anonymous or not! I had never received so much feedback, and so many sweet words on any work before, even back in my time on fanfic.net. I feel so grateful for that, and though I already answered to everyone who commented, and wrote many notes, I still can’t find the way to properly translate just how much it means to me. So once again THANK YOU :’D

And thank you for reading this post too, if you did haha <3

#long post #ace/thermite #iq/kali #writing fanfiction #r6s fanfiction #my hcs #my work

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thefirstcourtesan · 3 years

Text

First Love and Other Complications: A My Two First Loves rewrite Chapter 1

First Love and Other Complications

By Misha

Disclaimer- Not mine.

Author’s Notes- This chapter combines the first 2.5 chapters of MTFL and introduces all the LIs but changes things around a bit as we set up the premise. The MTFL timeline sucks (like every choices book), so I will be playing around with that too.

Pairings- Mason/MC, eventual Noah/MC

Summary- Jess and Mason take a big step but not everyone seems thrilled and Jess is saved by a mysterious stranger.

Rating- PG-13

Chapter One- The Beginning of Everything

“Mason, I like you.”

I practiced it out loud and then groaned. “Ugh. That sounds stupid. Of course he knows I like him.”

I took a deep breath and tried again. “Mason, I like like you.”

Another groan, that was even worse.

“Mason, I—“

My final attempt at preparation was cut off by a sound at my window. He was here!

Mason had been crawling in my window for years, although it was a little harder now that he lived a few blocks away instead of next door, but it felt right. Especially tonight.

I let him in and drank in the sight of him. Tall and muscular with a friendly grin that melted my heart. Thankfully he didn’t seem to notice me staring, instead he seemed just as focused on me as I was on him and my heart skipped a beat. Could he feel the same?

I stepped closer, almost hesitantly, and Mason immediately wrapped me in a warm hug. Instantly everything felt right again. Mason’s arms had always been my safe place. Suddenly I felt doubt about my decision. What if he didn’t feel teh same and I lost him? Could I handle that?

I pushed that thought aside. No, I had to do this. I had to know.

“Mason-“

“Jess-“

We started to speak at the exact same moment.

“Great minds, I guess,” Mason said with a laugh as we stepped back from the hug, “you first.”

Great. I could do this. I had to do this.

“Mason... I love you,” the words came out in a rush and I could feel the heat rushing to my cheek, “and not... not as a friend.”

There. I had done it. After three years of bottling it inside, I had told Mason Jennings how I felt and now it was out of my hands.

Mason looked stunned by my words and he was silent for a long moment, long enough that dread started creeping in and I wished I was anywhere else. Why had I said that? What had I done?

Just as I was about to tell him it was a joke or something, I felt Mason’s hands on my waist and realized I was being pulled into his arms, pressed right up against his muscular chest.

“I have wanted to hear that for so long,” Mason said, “I feel the same way. It’s you, Jess, it’s always been you, I have just been so worried about losing our friendship, afraid that you didn’t feel the same way.” He gazed at me with wonder. “But you do.”

I nodded shyly. “Yeah.” My hands rested on his shoulders, wondering what came next,

I didn’t have to wonder for long because Mason lowered his head and his lips met mine. I had spent all of high school daydreaming about kissing Mason Jennings and the reality was better than anything I could ever have imagined. It was easy to lose myself in the kiss, the feel of Mason’s arms around me and i could have stayed like that forever, except for the sound of footprints coming up the stairs.

Mason and I broke apart in a hurry.

“My dad!”

“I guess I should go,” Mason said reluctantly, moving towards the window, he turned back to smile at me, “Jess, I am glad we’re doing this.”

“Me too.” I told him, though I wasn’t quite sure what he meant. Kissing? Talking about our feelings? Where did we stand?

The footsteps got louder.

“Mason!” I whispered urgently.

He grinned. “I’m going. After all, it would be a bad start to Senior Year, if I got murdered by my girlfriend’s father for being caught in her room after curfew.” He said the words so easily and I felt warmth rush through me again.

Girlfriend.

Just like that I was Mason Jenning’s girlfriend. I had everything I had ever wanted and as I watched Mason climb out the window, our eyes meeting to share one last smile, I was confident that Senior year was going to exactly the way I planned.

I was so naive.

The next morning I was floating on air when I went for breakfast but that faded fast after a fight with my dad over my outfit. A fight that left me standing in my room trying to figure out what to wear that wouldn’t make me look like a soccer mom.

I was weighing my options, these jeans weren’t too bad, when my door opened.

“Coast is clear, Dad got called into work,” my sister Mackenzie told me from the door way.

I sighed with relief. “Oh thank god.”

“Yeah, now you don’t have to show up your first day as Mason Jenning’s girlfriend dressed like you are 40,” she teased.

I turned to look at her. “How did you...?”

“Thin walls,” she answered with a shrug, “besides I spent the entire summer watching you obsess over your cell signal and waiting for texts from him, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out there was something going on.”

Before I could think of a response, my phone went off and Mack slipped away as I checked the text.

Forgot to ask last night, do you need a ride?

No, I am riding with Ava, but thanks for asking. ❤️

See you at school then. Bet you look beautiful. But then you always do. 😘

I was smiling widely as I read Mason’s texts. He really was such a sweet guy and officially mine. If it was a dream, I never wanted to wake up.

I was back to feeling like I was floating on air when I ran out the door to meet my best friend, Ava Lawrence, the Cheer Captain to my Vice Captain and my partner in crime since Freshman year.

“Jess, you look amazing!” She exclaimed, taking in my short skirt and pink crop top, “two months in the wilderness obviously agreed with you!” She wrapped her arms around me in a quick, enthusiastic hug before we got in her car. “I am so glad hare back!”

“Me too, fill me in everything I missed,” I encouraged, “the parties, the fights, the breakups.”

Ava laughed, “that will take more than 5 minutes but I will give you the highlights.” She gave me a quick rundown on the most intense hook-ups and break-ups and then gave me a sly smile, “what about you? Did you fall madly in love while in the middle of nowhere?”

I laughed, “not while I was in Wyoming, no, but I do have news.” I smiled widely, unable to contain my happiness, “Mason and I... We’re together.”

Ava froze as she was about to get out of her car, her hand on the door. “You and Mason?”

I nodded, “yeah, I know we have been friends for so long that it might seem surprising, but I have been in love with him forever and I finally got the guts to tell him.”

“That’s... great,” Ava told me, though her expression was more surprised than thrilled, “I’m really happy for you.”

I would have questioned her reaction, but as soon as I stepped out of Ava’s car I was wrapped in strong arms.

“Hey, you.” Mason told me, smiling down at me.

“Hey,” I said softly, leaning into him. I let myself melt into the warmth of his embrace and bask in the fact that this was my new normal. It was a long moment before I even realized that Ava had slipped away.

I wondered a little bit about her strange reaction, but then Mason tilted my face up to his and all thoughts of anyone else faded as I gazed up at him. “We need to plan a first date,” he reminded me, “I have football practice and I know you have cheer, but after that?”

“I’d like that,” I told him, leaning against him for another moment before sighing, “but first I guess I should go to class.”

“Yeah, my dead would murder me if I skipped,” Mason agreed, he kissed the top of my head and let me go, giving me one more heart-melting grin before we parted ways.

“Oh look who it is, Jess Price. Looking hot as usual, Jess.”

I groaned at the sound of the voice. Darren Hastings was Eastridge’s resident creep and he had been harassing me since Freshman year.

I shoved my books in my locker and turned around. “What do you want Darren?”

“Since you’re asking so nicely, how about a date?” He said with a slimy grin, leaning in and pinning me against the locker.

“Not in your wildest dreams.” I told him, trying to push him away. I was strong from four years of cheerleading, but not strong enough.

Darren took it as a challenge and leaned in closer. “Oh come on, you don’t mean that.”

Just as I was considering my options (including a kick to the groin), someone pulled him away forcibly.

“I believe the lady said no.”

I looked up into the incredibly handsome face of a boy I had never seen before.

Darren was scowling. “Noah Harris, they let you come back, huh? I thought this school had standards.”

Noah, if that was his name, looked unphased by the insult. “Apparently not, since the let you attend.” He shot Darren a decidedly unfriendly look. “I think you should find somewhere else to be. Pronto.”

Darren took the hint and scampered off, after giving Noah one more nasty look.

“Are you ok?” Noah asked, turning his attention to me for the first time.

I smiled. “I am. Thanks for that, I have been telling Darren no for years and he just never stops. Usually, it’s more annoying than anything, but...”

“No, I get it,” Noah assured me, “you shouldn’t have to put up with that.”

“Are you new here?” I asked after a moment, “I thought I knew everyone.”

“Not new, exactly,” Noah answered slowly, “I’ve been... away.”

That sounded mysterious but at the same time I didn’t want to pry. “I guess I don’t need to offer a school tour then?” I teased.

Noah grinned. “I don’t know, a tour could be nice, re-acquaint with me all the hot spots. If you are willing, of course.”

The offer had been in jest, but he had done me a favor, so... “of course, follow me.” I laughed. “I guess I should introduce myself first, I’m Jess.”

He took the hand I held out and shook it. His grip was warm and firm. “Noah.”

“Well, Noah, follow me and I will give you the official Welcome to Eastridge tour.”

#playchoices #my two first loves #misha fics #first love and other complications

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fiction-in-my-blood · 3 years

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Switching Sides: Part 13 (HLITF)

if anyone possibly wants to get on a tag list I’d be happy to make one

👉 @theshove 👈

If you wanna catch up, Part 12 is right here! Happy reading :)

Premise: Growing up in a life of crime in a Japanese mafia, Atsuko Motomori has seen enough injustice to last her a lifetime. To try and give back to the universe her family has taken so much from, she dreams of being a detective from a young age. Her twin, sharing her disgust for her father and many uncles, just wants an ordinary life away from the crime, paing and suffering. Instead, she wants to be in the spotlight with the soft notes she makes with her cello. In their escape of 2015, on their coming of age birthday, they must split ways, never to be together ever again. If one was found, they didn’t want the other dragged down with them. Atsuko, having changed her name and appearance as best she can without a scalpel, sets off to start her life of car chases and arrests.

Four years in a seemingly dead-end police station in the middle of nowhere, being passed over time after time for promotion, Atsuko finally gets a shot at her dream, having been sent to an academy for the best candidates in the country by her boss who had always kept an eye out for her. After discovering her boss may have made her bite off more than she could chew, Atsuko must become the slave of a dominating instructor!? Who so just happens to be the captain of the most famous police unit in Japan? Not to mention a total knockout! Will Atsuko finally achieve her dream? Or will her new instructor put her through the wringer?

Warnings: Language, Reference to sexual activity, Forceful nature, Abuse, Kidnapping, Torture.

~~~~~~

A week and a half had passed since I awoke in the hospital. My recovery was slow, painstakingly so, and I found my thoughts trailing back to every painful memory I had. But, no matter how scared and depressed I got, Kaga would always somehow show up, explaining he had more questions for me, and I would be able to slowly explain to him the same story I had been repeating for days at that point. It was almost comforting and with the silent stare he showed me every time I was able to complete the tale, I felt myself connecting with reality a little bit more. It showed me, reporting to him, that I had lived through it.

~~~~~~

"He's being sentenced today," Juna announced as she sat on the couch in my room, eating some noodles she had bought on the way over. We both stared out the window, the sky raining down hard pellets on the city below. It was a soothing sound to fill the silence that followed her announcement.

"What... What if he doesn't get imprisoned?" I couldn't help my imagination get the better of me. What if he was set free when all the evidence magically disappeared? What if the defence was able to create enough reasonable doubt for the jury to deem him innocent? What if he didn't get a long enough sentence?

I had filmed a video of my witness statement for the courts several days ago, and that was traumatic enough. If I had to do it again in an appeal the defence made up to weaken the case, I wouldn't be able to go up in front of the world and tell my story. I couldn't share with them all my years of weakness as I allowed myself to be abused by the man who was meant to protect me.

"He's going to be put away, Katsu. Don't even put that into the universe." A displeased expression flew over Juna's face as she turned to me, cringing even at how I could think of that happening. I knew it was irrational. The case was solid. There was no way for him to snake out of this one. But, still... I couldn't help but worry.

"Oh!" Juna suddenly gasped, placing a hand on her bursting belly. She was a matter months away from the due date, so the gasp in surprised caused fear of a miscarriage to circulate my brain. I called out, questioning her what was wrong as I lifted the sheets off my legs. She laughed, jumping up and pushing me back on the bed before I could even rest my covered feet on the cold floor. I was only allowed one assisted lap around the hospital floor a day, and I had already used that token up.

"It's fine. I'm fine. Here." She smiled, taking my hand and placing it where her's had previously been. There, I felt a pressure poking from her belly and recoiled in uneasy disgust. She laughed at my childish reaction to her baby kicking and went to sit down again.

Biting the tip of my thumb, the reality of her birthing a child of her own hit me again. At least, for this one, they might not have to worry as much as we did growing up. They would still be hidden from the world, hidden from what remained of my father's mob, but maybe they would have some freedom to be happy and childish for longer than we did.

"That smells really good." I sighed, trying to distract myself from those lingering thoughts, referring to her takeout food. It felt like years since I had swallowed something solid. My stomach felt empty most of the time, but thanks to the IVs, I never felt truly hungry. Just a little uncomfortable.

Juna laughed at me, explaining that she knew I wasn't really allowed solids yet. "I had pudding yesterday! Come on, just a noodle." I pointed one finger up to show how little I needed. My jaw almost felt weak; not using it for so long. She laughed again, picking up a strand between two fingers and dropping it into her mouth teasingly.

The more we talked and she teased me, the more relaxed I became. It was only when she left did I ever let my thoughts return. Let them consume me the way they did. As she told me what romantic thing Kanto had done this morning, a knock came to my door. We both turned and my eyes grew at who stood there.

For a moment, I saw the man that fed me when I was in captivity. He smiled, holding a bag of candies in one hand, showing it to me like it was a prize. I yelled, screaming as I jumped out of my bed and pushed myself to the back corner.

"No! Go away!" I cried out, him watching my reaction made his expression fall.

"Katsu! Katsumi, calm down! It's just Noburu." Juna ran to me from the other side of the bed and held my shoulders to try and stop my kicking. Tears streamed down my face as I begged for the man to leave. I didn't want the kindness he showed me, I was so sure it was what made me feel the true extent of the pain I felt.

Soon enough, nurses came rushing in, pushing passed the man that stayed in the doorway, face blank with shock. When they couldn't calm me down, I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder and my consciousness quickly faded.

~~~~~~

"This is the worst day she's had so far." Katsumi's doctor told the man and woman that stayed in her room as she slept in the bed. After her breakdown, the surgeon was called to help explain why she had reacted so vividly and check up on her condition. Luckily, she hadn't ripped a stitch from her surgery.

"But she knew Noburu before it happened. Why would she think he was one of her captors? She hasn't seen him in weeks!" Juna fretted, sympathetic worry spreading across her face as the bartender looked at the sleeping beauty guiltily.

"I don't know, but you can't come again. Not until she's healed. She still has weeks of rehab ahead of her." The doctor turned to the young man and he nodded solemnly.

"Surely she'd learn to remember what Noburu really looks like?" Feeling sorry for the man she knew loved her sister, Juna pleaded his case.

"It's too risky when she's still in this vulnerable stage. When she can fall asleep unaided and have a peaceful night, then you can try. I'm sorry, but you need to leave." Doctor shaking his head, Noburu left, leaving the treats he knew Katsumi would have loved on the table at the end of her bed.

~~~~~~

"What's this?" Instructor Kaga asked as I laid in my bed, staring intensely out the window. When I was sleeping, I had another dream about my captors, but this one seemed so surreal, it had really shaken me up. I hadn't talked to any of the nurses and my mood, not to mention my mental stability, was completely at rock bottom.

"Juna left it for me. You can have it, I'm not allowed to eat." I groaned, shuffling onto my back and sitting up to see Kaga already sifting through it. From what I suspected, he had come to tell me the result of my father's hearing, but all he had done so far was steal my-get-well-soon presents.

Sitting in silence, I bit the tip of my thumb to distract the nerves in my stomach. Kaga seemed very content with chewing on the soft sugary treat gifted to me.

"Will you tell me already?" I called out, throwing my fists into my mattress in irritation. Kaga looked at me with a raised brow, his demeaningly concerned look replaced on his face. "My father's trial. You came to tell me what happened, right?" I asked again, needing to know. The anticipation was too much.

"I don't know yet," Kaga grumbled and returned to the squishy cake in between his fingers. I frowned, crossing my arms and turning to look out the window again. It was still raining, even though a day had passed since I was last awake.

The silence was almost too much to bear, so, with a desperate need to cover my thoughts, I grabbed the remote controller on the table beside my bed and pointed it to the radio on the counter across the room. Classical music with a leading group of strings burst from it and I closed my eyes as I tried to drown out my thoughts and every sensory memory I had of weeks prior.

Suddenly, the volume decreased significantly and my gaze shot open to see Kaga standing beside it.

"Are you 90?" He frowned, throwing the pink packaging of the cake in the trash can by the door as he returned to the couch.

"It's my sister's. She helps me calm down." I sighed, turning it up again, although keeping it lower than before as it seemed to annoy him so much. Then, Kaga sprung up again, approaching my bed.

"You won't be able to recover if you just block it out." He placed a hand on the bar above my head and the other on the guarded rail on my bed, leaning in close so all my senses were enveloped by him. His smoke and cologne scent. His face was all I could see. His words repeated over and over again in my head. The warmth of his chest emitting onto my slightly cooler body. My eyes grew wide and I felt my heart stop due to the proximity.

"You need to learn to deal with that if you want to return to the academy." His voice was low and the comment made my head jerk in surprise. He thought I was going to return to my old life? After all the trouble I caused?

"There's no chance I can get back in. My entire resume is fake, let alone my application. I thought I was going to get kicked if I didn't work for you." I frowned my brows, saddened to have to admit I would never be able to complete my dream. Looking down, I found the arm he had encompassed over me. Running my gaze down to his hand, I noticed his knuckles white with pressure.

Before Kaga could retort, a small voice came from the doorway. "Instructor, I have the files you asked for."

Watching Kaga draw back, my eyes locked with a girl I once had a close connection with. She looked tired, a little worse for wear, but most of all, she was teary-eyed.

"Naruko," I uttered under my breath, honestly shocked to see her here. She just stood there, holding onto a beige folder. Kaga stormed over, snatching it from her.

"You're late." He grumbled, taking it and reading through it. I gulped when Naruko's gaze didn't fall from mine.

"Would you come here already? I can't exactly get up." I smiled through blurry vision, trying to reconnect with the girl I left behind. Her shoulder slumped and she ran towards me, wrapping her arms around my neck.

"What the hell, Atsuko! I thought you were dead! I mean, you were dead! How could you betray me?" She shouted in my ear the name she knew me by, tears flying down her face and onto my shoulder. I bit my lip guiltily.

"I'm sorry but... How did I betray you?" I laughed when she pulled back and showed me an out of character frown.

"You said we would graduate together! Why did you leave?" She frowned and my breathing stopped. The happiness I nurtured from seeing her slowly died as I was reminded once again of what I couldn't accomplish.

"He's got life." Kaga suddenly announced, drawing both of our attention towards him. He still had his gaze in the folder, but I knew what he was talking about. My father... He's going to die in prison?

"What?" I asked, feeling Naruko's confusion as she was pushed further into the unknown of my situation. Even though I had an idea of what he was on about, I wanted to make sure. I wanted to make sure I wasn't being hopeful.

"He's got 100 years in jail for ratting some of his partners. He’ll probably be dead by the time that’s up." Kaga seemed hesitant at first but still told me. I gripped the sheets by my leg and reached for my phone on the table.

"You, go back to the academy." Kaga shot a glare at Naruko and she quickly followed his order by running to the door. Before she left, she passed me a meaningful smile and closed the door behind her.

"You're going to recover and you're returning to work," Kaga announced once he was sure Naruko was gone as I stared at my phone, desperately trying to make sense of the clusters of blur in front of me. My vision still hadn't corrected, but I was growing a sense of understanding when I could see the characters. It was so frustrating, trying to see when I knew couldn't. No matter how hard I squinted or how sternly I stared at the object, I couldn't make sense of anything. I couldn't even see my sister's face when she hugged me. I couldn't see myself in the mirror. Just a blur of skin and the white of my hospital gown.

"I can't! How am I supposed to be a detective when I can't even stop this from happening?" I shouted, suddenly enraged by how poor my eyesight had gotten, throwing my phone into the wall of my hospital room to dismiss my problems. It fell into reconnectable pieces at the force.

"I became a cop to protect us, but I failed at that. Juna got kidnapped and I put her baby in danger. All I did at the academy was make mistake after mistake. My recklessness put complete strangers in danger! A boy almost lost his mom! How can I work when whatever I do gets people hurt?" I shouted, tears spilling from my eyes when I didn't care who heard me. I was angry and sad and broken and I just wanted to cry.

Suddenly, I felt arms around me. My head was pulled against a soft, hard surface and I felt a warm breath on my hair. My eyes widened when I realised Kaga was holding me, trying to calm me down.

"You're always so damn loud." I heard him mutter as more tears spilt from my eyes. I clutched the arm around my front for support, needing to know that I wasn't in that room. I needed to know this was reality because lately, I've been having trouble differentiating.

“Just shut up for a minute and remember where you are. Forget the past. It won’t do you any good.”

At some point during my pathetic weeping, with the little sleep I had been getting, I slipped into unaided unconsciousness, something else I’d been struggling with since I was saved.

#HLITF #hlitf ayumu #hlitf kaga #hlitf goto #hlitf ishigami #hlitf soma #hlitf shinonome #hlitf fanfic #voltage games #voltage fanfic #oc #ooc #her love in the force #crime #mafia #mob #police #detective

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jazy3 · 4 years

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Thoughts on Grey’s Anatomy: 16X19

I loved this episode! I was really excited for it based on the promo information I saw and I was not disappointed! This episode is a partial standalone that focuses on a small handful of characters while also showing us what the other characters are doing and providing more background and insight on a select few. Standalone episodes are not my favourite, but I really liked this one. Let me set the scene. Richard, Maggie, Teddy, and Cormac are in Los Angeles for the LA Surgical Innovation Conference. Richard is excited because he’s there to present his PATH Pen to the world. Maggie is there to support him and loves these things so she’s pumped. Teddy is excited to have some kid free time to herself and Cormac does not want to be there at all.

We see Richard arrive at the Conference and meet up with Maggie. He calls her Meredith by mistake which is the first sign of trouble. He blames it on the long flight and tells her he’s rewritten his speech at least 20 times. Maggie tells him that she’s happy to be there and support him and that Meredith says she’s sorry she couldn’t be there as planned because her sitter got the flu last minute. I liked that they addressed why Meredith couldn’t be there. That really bothered me about the dinner party episode. The premise was that both Maggie and Jackson thought the dinner was for Catherine and Richard’s anniversary when in reality it was to tell them they were getting a divorce yet the fact that Meredith wasn’t invited or present was never addressed. Which to Maggie should have been the first clue that something was up, but it wasn’t addressed at all which made no sense because Meredith is the main character.

This episode went from zero to sixty real fast! Following this exchange we see Catherine appear at Richard’s hotel room and they make up. He spends most of the episode in his hotel room with Catherine writing and rewriting his speech and have a jolly good time doing it. I knew right away from how quickly they made up that something was wrong, but I couldn’t tell what it was. The reveal about Richard was the most shocking to me by far. My best friend, who I watch with, picked up on it way faster than I did. Next we see Teddy and Maggie meet up at something called Heart Valve Happy Hour. They’re talking about why they like these kinds of things when Maggie notices a guy named Winston from across the room. It turns out Winston was one of her residents at Tufts University when she lived in Boston. He’s very handsome and it turns out he had a crush on her but never did anything about it because she was his boss and he was resident.

He planned to ask her out when he became an Attending, but then Maggie moved to Seattle right before that happened so he never got the chance. It turns out the attraction is mutual and major sexy times ensue! Get it girl! After all of the BS that Jackson put Maggie through these last couple of seasons I am here for it! Get yours girl! Maggie deserves a hot hookup with a hot guy who’s into her and doesn’t try to change her and boy does she get it. They sleep together and then spend the remainder of the Conference having one long date where they talk by the pool and bond over having both lost their mothers in the last 2 - 3 years as they share their favourite movies and ideas of a perfect day. It’s super adorable and totally cute.

Everything is going great until Winston suggests that one of them move to either Seattle or Boston to be with the other. That was sudden! Maggie thinks so too. She tells Winston she likes him, but she needs time to weigh and measure and think. Winston says that’s fine and to take all the time she needs, but he doesn’t think he’ll feel any differently in the future. He’s into her and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make it work. My first thought when Winston said that was, “Well they definitely haven’t talked about the sister house! ‘Cause there’s no way Maggie is leaving her sisters, nieces, or nephew for a former resident of hers she reconnected with at a Conference. Maggie’s not leaving her crew for that. Uh ah.”

I like that Winston within one episode is already 100 times better for Maggie than Jackson ever was. Jackson was always trying to change her and make her into something she’s not. Maggie deserves someone who loves her for who she is and doesn’t want or expect her to change. Winston is one of those characters that I think could go either way. Either this is a one time thing and this will be the last we see of him or he’ll pop up again later on as a recurring character after he moves to Seattle. Honestly, Winston really grew on me this episode and I’d love to see him again. Maggie deserves to have some fun with a hot guy that’s into her and likes her for who she is!

And Maggie’s not the only one who bumps into someone from her past. While sitting at the hotel bar Teddy bumps into Claire who it turns out is an old friend and former roommate of hers who also knew Teddy’s best friend Allison. And plot twist it’s surprise bisexuality that you never saw coming! Yes it turns out after six non-consecutive seasons of being on this show and never once showing the slightest bit of interest in women Teddy Altman is bisexual. I was shocked. This show never ceases to amaze me. We find out that Allison, Teddy, and Claire were roommates back in New York and that Claire and Teddy worked together. Claire and Allison were a couple, but we find out through a flashback that at the time of Allison’s death she and Teddy were having an affair behind Claire’s back. Claire tells Teddy that she suspected something was going on at the time but didn’t know for sure until she requested Allison's phone records. It turns out Teddy was the last person she tried to call as the Twin Towers collapsed around her. Not her parents, not Claire, but Teddy. This news leaves Teddy gutted and utterly devastated.

Here’s something interesting that I caught on re-watch. In the flashback to 2001 after Claire leaves for work Allison says she’s disappointed to hear Teddy has to work tomorrow because she wanted to invite her to breakfast at Windows on the World. I didn’t recognize the name so I looked it up. Windows on the World was a fancy restaurant that was part of the North Tower of the original World Trade Center complex. It’s a small detail but I thought it was a nice touch. I also thought there was something heartbreaking about Allison inviting Teddy to have breakfast with her at a restaurant that was part of the complex she worked at that would eventually become the site of her death.

Towards the end of the episode Teddy sees Claire sitting by herself in a quiet corner of one of the halls and decides to try and make amends. They both apologize and Teddy tells her about meeting Owen and how he saved her from a grief so big that it almost killed her and that for years she felt guilty for loving him half as much as she loved Allison and because he was with someone else and because she wasn't capable of letting someone love her fully. She realizes now that Allison loved both of them: Teddy and Claire. At the time, Teddy didn't believe it because she thought you couldn’t love more than one person at a time, but she does now. She tells Claire how very sorry she is for the betrayal. Claire says she could never stay mad at anybody for loving Allison and they hug it out.

Kudos to Claire for being such a good sport and being so amazing! I don't know if I would take what Teddy had to say that well. While the fact that there was more to Allison’s story and Teddy’s relationship to her was always implied I never saw this coming. I think if maybe they had dropped some hints now and again it might have been less shocking. They’ve dropped hints and made comments over the years about Amelia being bisexual, but never Teddy so I thought that was odd. I got the impression that they might have been trying to imply that what happened with Allison was so traumatic that Teddy stop dating women after that point, but it felt like they could have explained or explored that a little better.

Also they never established if Allison was the first woman Teddy dated. If that’s the case it’s possible that Teddy fell in love with Allison only and apart from that has only ever dated men which does happen. I hope we get some clarification on this in future episodes and they explore this more. There’s something else I want to point out about this storyline which is the stereotype of bisexuality and being unfaithful. As a straight person I didn’t pick up on this at all, but my best friend whose queer did. We watched the show together and afterwards she pointed out that more than one of the queer characters on Grey’s Anatomy seem to fall under the stereotype or misconception that bisexual people are more prone to cheating which in reality simply isn’t true.

She pointed out that we’ve seen other examples of this with Arizona and Callie. Arizona was a lesbian who cheated on her partner and was blatantly bi-phobic and had a real problem with Callie being bisexual. Callie was a bisexual woman who got cheated on by all of her partners gay and straight. As Grey’s is known for being progressive about a lot of stuff, including LGBTQ representation, I don’t think this is intentional, but I do think they could be more sensitive to it. Especially because there are still so many myths and misconceptions about the LGBTQ+ community out there and not everyone has someone in their life who is a part of that community.

I was surprised that Maggie and Teddy were so happy to see each at this Conference and were hugging it out like old friends. Last time we saw them together Maggie made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with Teddy’s drama and could she please stop confiding in her? Maggie and Teddy aren’t the only ones who receive a blast from the past this week! My new favourite character Dr. Cormac Hayes does as well. Cormac hasn’t been to a medical conference in a while and being there brings back memories for him of when he met his late wife Abigail. Lucky for us the audience gets to experience these moments as flashbacks which are by turns both hilarious and heartbreaking.

Hayes arrives at the Conference with his two teenage sons in tow. He flashes back to when he was younger and first saw his wife across a crowded room. He was a young doctor attending the same medical conference at the same hotel and she was handing out pens in the hotel lobby. Later on we see Teddy and Cormac having a drink at that Heart Valve Happy Hour event which apparently has free booze. Teddy comments that he doesn’t seem happy to be there. Cormac says he’s not and doesn’t really want to be, but Bailey asked him to come and represent Peds and he’s the new guy and it felt more like an instruction than a request so he came.

He tells her he brought his boys with him so that they could see their aunt who lives in LA. A sales rep comes over to talk to them. Cormac dislikes him instantly and we soon see why. We then see a flashback of Abigail approaching Cormac at a hotel bar. She’s handing out pens. He asks if she knows how they work and if she’s aware that the company she’s working for makes erectile dysfunction medication. It’s a great comedic moment and you get to see why they fell for each other. Abigail tells him she didn’t know that and that it’s no wonder none of the guys there will take the pens. She admits that she knows nothing about the company and she’s only there because her friend told her they would pay them $500 each to go hand out some pens at a Conference. She says that while that might not mean much to a big fancy doctor like him to a starving artist like her that’s rent money which is why she took the job.

She tells Cormac about her work and says that she’s a mixed-media artist. She tries explaining it to him but it’s clear that he doesn’t get it which she comments on. He says that all of the words make sense just not in that order. She says she has to get back to handing out pens. Cormac doesn’t want her to go so he takes all of them saying he uses a lot of pens. He offers to buy her a drink which she accepts. Years later we see Cormac, Abigail, and their boys in a hospital room. She’s sick with cancer and is anxious because she’s about to have a hysterectomy. Cormac sits next to her and does his best to calm her down. He reminds her that it’s a routine procedure and that the surgeon he found for her is great. Abigail is afraid that she’ll die. Cormac laughs because it seems impossible. To try and cheer up he makes a joke about how if she dies he and the boys will move on. He says it’ll be a tough couple of days, but then everything will be fine because as a surgeon and a sexy widowed father of two women will be lining up to go out with him and bringing him casseroles. He won’t have to work for it at all. They both laugh.

Time moves forward. We see that Abigail’s condition has worsened and things aren’t looking good. They’re on their second clinical trial and she’s now wearing a head wrap because she’s lost all of her hair to chemotherapy. The boys do their best to try and cheer her up. She asks them to go find her a ginger ale. They leave and it soon becomes clear why she wanted to speak to Cormac alone. She knows she’s dying and there’s a good chance that this trial won’t work which means he’ll be on his own soon. Cormac doesn’t want to believe that and tells her to stop talking like that because he can’t bear the thought of losing her.

He cries and tries to get her to stop, but she persists so he listens. She gives this gut wrenching speech about how he has to make sure the boys know it's okay to cry and feel everything and fall apart and be a mess. She doesn’t want them to bottle it all up and have their grief eat away at them. That it’s okay for him to fall apart too and that he needs to let the boys see that. She makes him promise to let the boys see her sister. She says she’s crazy, but she’s not a bad person and she loves them. This line cracked me up! She tells him that if he has trouble with the boys he should call his mother because Cormac is proof that the woman knows what she’s doing. Cormac cries at this and does his best to hold it together. She tells him it’s okay if Austin quits piano. She told him he’ll get better if he keeps practicing, but she’s pretty sure it’s hopeless. She also tells him to keep an eye on Liam's temper because he gets that from her and they’ve both seen the trouble that can cause. And one last thing, Cormac has her permission to fall in love again. She says he deserves to be happy. He says he doesn’t want that at all.

Abigail says she knows that which is why he needs to hear her say it. She doesn’t want him to feel guilty or beat himself up about it. She repeats his own words back to him from before she had her hysterectomy and reminds him that since women will be lining up he won't have to work for it. In the scene that follows we find out that Abigail has died and we see Cormac and the boys in the process of cleaning out her hospital room. Austin sits down on the bed crying. He doesn’t want to leave. Cormac goes and sits with him and says they can stay as long as he likes. Liam says the whole thing is stupid and you can tell he’s trying to be strong and hold it in. But in honouring Abigail’s wishes Cormac motions for Liam to come and sit beside him. He does and begins crying in Cormac’s arms. He comforts them and holds them while they grieve the loss of their mother and fall apart.

As soon as Cormac said that line about being a sexy widower I knew they were going to bring it back. It was too good not to. It also gives me hope for Meredith and Cormac’s budding romance. To me it’s the only thing that makes sense. Cristina sent Cormac as a gift to Meredith, multiple people in Mer’s life have commented on the sparks between them and how great they’d be together, and she’s the only one we’ve seen Cormac spend quality time with or show a romantic interest in. To me there was no point in including that line if they’re not meant to end up together. We saw across multiple seasons how Derek felt about Meredith and he was adamant that if something ever happened to him that she should move on and find love again.

He brought it up multiple times while he was alive and it’s a big part of why he encouraged her to connect with her sisters and his and why he pushed her to open up to the possibility of having kids. And once those kids were there he wanted them and Meredith to be surrounded by as much love as possible. He was adamant that if something ever happened to him he didn’t want Meredith to be alone and she’s not. These flashbacks with Cormac and Abigail and the boys provide us with similar information. We get to see how they fell in love and how he supported when she was sick. We get to see the love they had for each other and how much they love their sons.

We also get to see that both Abigail and Derek wanted similar things for the loves of their lives and their children in the event of their passing. They wanted them to find love and be happy because they deserve it. There are so many parallels here between Meredith and Cormac’s stories it’s mindboggling. To me this is the perfect set up for Cormac to finally pluck up the courage and ask Meredith out. He’s obviously wanted to for a while now, but I think he’s been reluctant up till now because he’s been grieving and wasn’t sure if he was ready or if she was. Then with the whole DeLuca situation he’s likely been wondering if it’s the right time or if it’s too soon. I think going to the Conference and reflecting on the time he spent with his wife will make him realize that it’s time to move on. Because at this point he’s done everything else that Abigail asked of him before she died. He let his boys know it’s okay to cry and fall apart and feel everything. He let them see him be weak and miss her and be a mess. He’s taken the boys to see their Aunt like he promised.

Although we don’t get confirmation on this he presumably keeps in touch with his mother. No word yet on whether Austin quit piano but it’s safe to assume that he did. He’s doing his best to keep an eye on Liam’s temper and make sure that he looks after Austin. But the one thing Cormac hasn’t done is let himself fall in love again until now. As Abigail said Cormac deserves to be happy and he shouldn’t feel guilty or beat himself up for moving on. I think spending time reflecting on that will help him see that it’s time to move on and move forward and that Meredith is a wonderful person who has the potential to be an amazing partner if he’s willing to take the risk and go for it.

When they first introduced Cormac as a character I had hoped that we’d get to see Meredith ask him out as we’ve never really seen that before. She’s usually the one who gets asked and we’ve never really seen her take an interest in someone of her own volition. All of her past romantic partners have all been people who either pursued her relentlessly even when she told them repeatedly to stop (which still bugs me) or people her friends pushed her into dating that she wasn’t really into. While I’d love to see her ask Cormac out on a date I think with everything that’s been going on with DeLuca she’d be reluctant to. DeLuca has had several very public meltdowns at this point. Most of which Cormac was present for. On top of that her best friend, Cormac’s co-chief, just up and left and the man whose been like a father to her since she was three is gravely ill.

Cormac knows all of that because he was either there at the time or heard about it after the fact. Meredith asking Cormac out with everything that’s going on could be seen by some as insensitive or too soon or inappropriate and I think Meredith is sensitive to that. People have been talking crap about her since Addison showed up in Season 1. She knows that which is why I think Cormac is going to have to be the one to ask her out. I have a feeling he’s been waiting for the right time, but as we all know with Meredith’s life there’s never a right time. Her life is always chaotic and there’s always something going wrong. I hope that with what he’s witnessed recently and the memories the Conference brought back Cormac can see that now and decides to go for it.

Back in the present, we find out why Cormac hates the sales rep so much. Cormac knows all about the firm's devices because their most popular model is used for minimally invasive hysterectomies. It turns out the device has little spinning claws that chop up fibroids, but the problem is that what looks like fibroids can in fact be cancer in which case the device spreads countless cancer cells to metastasize everywhere. Was anyone else horrified listening to Cormac describe that thing? It sounds terrifying and according to Cormac it’s just as deadly and awful as it sounds.

Yes it turns out the device this clueless sales rep is peddling is the device that killed Cormac’s wife Abigail. While explaining this Cormac takes the ice out the drink the rep gave him in order to illustrate his point. At that point I knew something was wrong and I think the rep should have too. Cormac was clearly agitated and the rep failed to pick up on that big time. That man should have read the room, apologized, and left. Instead he kept prattling on to Cormac and put his foot directly in his mouth by telling him that less than 1% of benign fibroids turn into uterine sarcomas.

Cormac says his wife Abigail was one of those 1%. That device took the mother of his boys and the firm is paying to suppress the proof that it kills people. He passes on the drink. The sales rep finally gets the memo and hightails it out of there. Cormac apologizes to Teddy for his outburst and leaves. And that’s what I like about Cormac. He gets loud and takes a stand when it matters, but he’s also quick to apologize for this behaviour. Not because he’s out of line but because he knows that behaving like that can be upsetting to other people and he knows that’s no fun to be around.

The big reveal about Richard comes towards the end of the episode shortly before Richard goes on stage to give his presentation. We see Richard in his hotel room, but as he looks back at Catherine she disappears. It turns out that she was never there to begin with. Richard’s been hallucinating all day and judging by his comment at the beginning his memory’s going as well. Which means it’s not just his hand and the problem is worse than we thought. Right at the end of the episode is when all of these worlds collide. We see Maggie wish Richard luck before his talk. Before heading into the lecture room herself she talks to Winston who talks about moving to Seattle or Boston to be together. Maggie, Cormac, and Teddy sit in the audience together and wait for the talk to begin. Back in Seattle we see Catherine pacing as Jackson sets up the live feed so they can see Richard’s presentation. It begins and Catherine says he looks handsome. Bailey joins them.

We see Meredith at her house sitting down on the couch with a bowl of popcorn. Zola gets the livestream going and Meredith asks how she knows how to do that. To which she replies, “Mom, Everyone knows how to do this.” Haha she cracks me up! Richard takes the stage and his talk begins and that’s when everything goes awry. He says he’s not going to talk about his PATH Pen anymore because this morning, with his brilliant wife's help, he has found a way to cure cancer. It quickly becomes clear that something is wrong as Richard starts talking about curing cancer and flipping through slides with hand drawn pictures of hearts and lungs and an atomic explosion. Maggie turns to Cormac and tells him that something is wrong and to help her get a gurney and get him off the stage.

Back in Seattle, Catherine tells Jackson she thinks he’s drunk. Zola is confused too and asks her Mom what Uncle Richard is talking about. Meredith says she doesn’t know and realizing that something is wrong asks her to get her phone for her. Back at the Conference Maggie tries desperately to get Richard to leave the stage with her. He says he’s fine and tries to continue. And that’s when things go from bad to worse because he looks at Maggie, his own daughter, and asks who she is. Cormac tries to help guide him off the stage and in response Richard becomes uncharacteristically aggressive and pushes him telling him to get his hands off him. Maggie and Cormac forcibly remove him from the stage against his protests. Maggie tells them to cut the feed which they do and yells for someone to call 911.

As the episode ends, we see Maggie walking with the paramedics who are wheeling Richard out of the hotel on a gurney. Richard is confused and asks what's going on. As they leave they walk past Winston on their way out. This scene absolutely gutted me! It was so hard to watch! Also where does Catherine get off saying he’s drunk? That man has been sober for years. He’s not cheating on her and all of their problems are in her head goddamnit. My heart broke for Maggie as she realized something was terribly wrong. My heart broke again for Meredith as she sat at home and realized the same thing but was unable to help from so far away.

Until next time!

#grey's anatomy #Meredith Grey #cormac hayes #maggie pierce #teddy altman #richard webber #zola grey shepherd #catherine fox #jackson avery #16X19 #love of my life #lgbtq representation

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maddie-grove · 4 years

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Little Book Review: Mansfield Park

Author: Jane Austen.

Publication Date: 1814.

Genre: Classic literature.

Premise: Fanny Price, the sickly eldest daughter of a poor retired naval lieutenant and his once-genteel wife, is brought to live with her wealthy relatives at age ten. Although most of them are not actively malicious, their general superiority and selfishness put her in a perpetual state of anxiety. The only exception is Edmund, her thoughtful first cousin who dreams of being a clergyman. Then the scandalous Crawford siblings, irreverent Mary and womanizing Henry, roll into the village and shake everything up.

Thoughts: I didn’t expect to love Fanny Price. I expected to feel bad for her and find her unobjectionable; I don’t really understand the impulse to actively hate put-upon, not particularly colorful heroines. But I didn’t anticipate that she’d become one of my favorite Austen heroines. She’s not stupid, or boring, or even that unreasonable in her moral judgments. In fact, she’s one of the smartest Austen heroines. Accustomed to witnessing people on their worst behavior thanks to her low and uncertain status, she’s the only one to take Henry Crawford’s defects seriously. He’s callous in his flirtations, bordering on cruel, and he blames the women he hurts for their lack of character instead of acknowledging his own faults. His pursuit of Fanny even starts as a joke, one that seems especially mean-spirited in light of her dependence, poverty, painful shyness, and physical frailty. (That’s like if Jim from The Glass Menagerie knew all along that he was supposed to be a Gentleman Caller but thought it would be fun to torment some girl with an anxiety disorder and a bad foot. What the fuck, Henry.) Once the joke becomes real and he falls for Fanny, though, everyone (from Fanny’s high-minded but mercenary uncle to the overly fond Mary Crawford to the besotted-by-Mary Edmund to Henry himself) buys the fairy tale of the the bad boy who was reformed by the sufficiently pure and sweet woman. Everyone, that is, except for Fanny, who refuses to throw her (not particularly nice) female cousins under the bus. Who correctly discerns that Henry doesn’t regret his shitty actions. Who doesn’t fool herself that she’s changed Henry in any real way. She withstands enormous pressure from Henry, who enlists the help of her entire family to push her into marriage.

That’s extremely hard, and admirable, and intelligent. I literally do not understand why the popular image of her is so negative. I mean, sure, general misogyny. I think there’s also an expectation that an Austen heroine is going to be witty, which Fanny absolutely isn’t; if she were a Brontë or Eliot heroine, her earnestness and introversion and tendency to stare thoughtfully at trees would play a lot differently. Maybe she comes across as too perfect? I get how people might get that impression, but that’s not how she struck me. Her dislike of Mary Crawford is peevish and unjustified, at least before Mary starts pressuring her to accept Henry’s shitty affections. I don’t say this because I’m less shocked by Mary’s distaste for going to church than Fanny is; Fanny, while pious, understandably seems more concerned that the equally devout Edmund is overlooking the very real difference in values between him and Mary. I say this because Fanny’s hostility is 99% the result of jealousy over Edmund. She knows it, and she feels kind of bad about it, but it’s still there. Ain’t that always the way. She’s also overly judgmental when she goes to visit her much poorer parents and siblings, but (instead of replicating the lack of empathy her own richer relations had towards her as a child) she’s able to gradually understand that her siblings’ behavior is a necessary response to the chaos of the home. I love her so much.

The other characters are great, too, because they’re flawed in such recognizable, human ways. It’s an excellent demonstration of the importance of striving to be kind, patient, and thoughtful, because everyone’s motivations are understandable. Even such a consistently unpleasant character as Mrs. Norris isn’t a melodrama villain. In her indulgence of Maria and (to a lesser extent) Julia, and in her efforts to keep Fanny down, I saw a scared, insecure woman trying to avoid being classified as a poor relation by her sister’s family. Everyone in the wealthy Bertram family is motivated by a desire to avoid inconvenience and challenges to the status quo; Sir Thomas won’t look too deeply at his eldest daughter’s engagement to a wealthy man, Tom and Maria and Julia avoid thinking about the realities of Fanny’s life or showing active kindness to her because it’s not fun, and even Edmund will ignore every troubling incompatibility between himself and Mary Crawford because he’s attracted to her. (Lady Bertram has this whole attitude down to an art; she just wants to get high and hang out with her pug.) Mary Crawford is one of the most fascinating supporting characters. I’m not sure that she’s witty, exactly; she’s funny, and she might be witty in another setting, but her jaded remarks often go over like a lead balloon in the presence of Edmund and Fanny. She can’t, or won’t, modify that part of herself for Edmund. That’s admirable and honest, but it’s also sad when combined with her belief that she can change him into someone who doesn’t want to be a clergyman. She’s both cynical and romantic. And, despite her faults, she’s kind. Her concern over Fanny being left out or berated by Mrs. Norris seems like more than a way to impress Edmund, given her refusal to hide her irreverence. Her worst quality is her wholehearted support of her shitty brother, but I even get that; he’s her brother, even if he’s shitty.

One more thing: there’s a lot of off-kilter sexual energy in this novel, particularly among Fanny, Edmund, and Mary. It’s very weird, yes, but it makes for a fascinating read.

Hot Goodreads Take: I don’t feel like diving into Goodreads discourse on Mansfield Park, so I’m just going to say a few words about the 1999 movie. As a movie, I like it. As an adaptation...folks, that’s not Henry Crawford. That’s a James Dean bad boy who’s capable of remorse and sympathy and humility. Book!Henry is, like, a George W. Bush bad boy. Remember that before you bash Book!Fanny for not wanting to bang him.

#books #reading #little book review #mansfield park #jane austen

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oceanmonsters · 5 years

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thoughts on “tall girl”

I’m gonna make another post actually going into detail (edit: made post here) about some of the points that really bothered me (because I had a Lot of thoughts while watching this) this is just an overview & what I was thinking while actually watching the film:

movie about a straight white girl opening with Make Me Feel by Janelle Monáe playing...........

the movie is going so hard straight off the bat with the “Jodi is alienated and unaccepted by society because of her height” with the parallel being made between Jodi and the character in the book

“You think your life is hard” god I was really trying to go into this movie with an open mind but literally within the first 5 minutes they’re doing exactly what I predicted and making it seem like being tall is literally the biggest source of oppression ever. Like yes, her life is harder than it would be if she was average height but she’s still a rich cis straight white girl. That doesn’t mean she can’t have problems but there are SO MANY people with lives harder than hers. This line was so tone deaf that it’s so hard to give the rest of the movie a chance.

“How’s the weather up there” is literally being treated as if it’s a slur. Like yes it’s annoying but it’s really not that deep.

this school seems very racially diverse which is usually a good thing but when you’re framing the white girl as having the biggest problems and being picked on / harassed by everyone else, it’s really not...

the scene with the mom taking about her “problems” in high school for being so beautiful and popular and asking Jodi if that counts as adversity and her being like ‘what the fuck, is this what she really thinks adversity is’ is literally a metaphor for me watching this movie rn

her friend Jack is Sam from American Vandal and that’s not relevant to the plot but I keep thinking of his name as Sam now

Sam: He might not even be smart

Stig: *writes the molecular formula of the molecule drawn for which literally all you have to do is count the number of atoms of each type, and happened to recognise the molecule

Sam: oh NO what’s he DOING fuck I’m screwed he’s a genius he’s literally the PERFECT GUY

also is the movie really trying to tell me Jodi is the tallest person in her whole school? There are NO guys taller than her? Because my school was definitely smaller than most American schools and there were definitely at least 5 guys in my year taller than 6’

most of the mean girls making fun of & laughing at Jodi are WOC which really feels wrong...

why is he talking about c-sections what the fuck that was so creepy!

why is Jodi acting like just because she’s tall she somehow has some sort of claim to Stig over Kimmy... like I know Kimmy was horrible to her and now she’s dating the guy she likes which sucks but Jodi’s not entitled to Stig’s affections and he clearly likes Kimmy back but she’s acting like Stig is rightfully hers or smth

Sam is the best thing about about this movie so far, like his character is annoying but he’s actually not bland and is somewhat amusing to watch

also I literally can’t remember his character’s name, they just call him Dunkers or Dunkleman, they haven’t mentioned his first name since they first introduced him so I’m just gonna keep calling him Sam

he just kissed her even though he has a girlfriend... Jodi, run away girl

why is she enabling her sister’s extreme dieting?? This is a teen movie, they should really not be normalising this

I don’t know if it’s because of Griffin’s acting or because of how bland the other characters are so far but Sam is actually my favourite character so far even though he’s annoying and is actively trying to sabotage their relationship... like at least he has personality

also she keeps going on about how tall girls never get the guy or aren’t considered attractive or whatever but she’s had 3 GUYS be interested in her throughout the course of the movie

this kissing scene is making me very uncomfortable... like it’s sooooo zoomed in on their faces to show how they’re all looking at each other

who let Sam just come into her room while she’s sleeping???

he’s sitting on her bed and watching her hello????

he’s now weirdly touching her hair

SHE FUCKIN DECKED HIM SHKSHDKSJ and he deserved it

also this has been bothering me for a while but why does this kid wear so many rings. Who made this style choice bc it adds nothing to his character and imo just looks weird

I’ve also been noticing this for a few scenes but her house is SUPER nice, damn. Like she’s definitely rich, which makes the “You think your life is hard?” comment even more tone deaf.

okay Sam’s actually redeemed himself, if your friend wouldn’t charge at someone way bigger than them with a fucking crate for being an asshole to you are they even your friend

although DAMN if he’d actually hit him with that crate he could have seriously injured him, he was going straight for the head

why was everyone cheering so much for that bland, cheesy speech that was all about her. If I were in that crowd I’d just be like “girl get down & let us enjoy our dance, jesus.” Like realistically hardly anyone would be invested or really care about what she has to say because they literally don’t know or care about her. The movie’s acting like she’s known by everyone in the school, when in reality while people would recognise her they probably really don’t care that much.

also yes, some people in her school are assholes but I refuse to believe that the majority of her school constantly going on about her height - especially if she’s been at the school for a long time, they should be well past used to it by now. Most people in the crowd probably literally just don’t care about her at all and just want this to be over

this guy carried his shit around in a milk crate for all this time JUST IN CASE she ever wanted to kiss him?? I honestly don’t know how to feel about this because on one hand that’s a really extra level of dedication, which I somewhat respect but on the other hand... it’s just way too much

I literally feel nothing for this couple at all - I like Sam but as a couple, I wasn’t rooting for them or particularly happy or satisfied when they got together. Also, they didn’t show Jodi liking him at all up until this point. He was in love with her but there was no indication that she had any kind of feelings for him whatsoever. I guess it could be one of those situations where something happens and you see them in a whole new light and realise that you’ve been overlooking them the whole time but I feel like the timespan between her realising this and then getting together was way too short for me to actually care about them as a couple because for like 98% of the movie the attraction was completely one sided. If they’d shown her starting to have feelings for him earlier in the movie, e.g. when he started dating Liz, and shown her feeling jealous or upset or anything that indicates she actually does have underlying feelings for him but is scared to date him because of the height difference or whatever, I think I would’ve found the romance way more believable.

Also the characters of colour are so underdeveloped & sidelined in this movie - there’s Fareeda, who is literally just a walking “angry black girl”+”sassy supportive black friend” stereotype. She has no other development throughout this entire film. We literally know nothing about her other than that she’s Jodi’s best friend and always sticks up for / supports her even though she’s clearly ungrateful. Kimmy is a one dimensional caricature of a Mean Girl with apparently nothing else that matters to her but being a dick to Kimmy for no reason and being popular and being Homecoming Queen. There’s literally no reason given for why she hates Jodi so much either, because she’s never shown being awful to anyone else - she just really has it out for Jodi. And apart from Fareeda, the only named characters of colour only exist to be rejected romantic interests for the white characters and have no purpose or personality beyond this.

Overall I wouldn’t say this was the worst movie I’ve watched but I disliked it more than a lot of objectively worse movies I’ve watched - it was definitely one of the least enjoyable and most frustrating movies I’ve ever watched. I was hoping that even though the premise seemed dumb it would still be a cute, enjoyable teen movie - but they focused so much on how much supposed adversity she faced and how difficult life is for a tall girl that it’s hard to focus on anything else. Honestly I think that if they’d just cut out all of the dialogue about how hard life was for her, about adversity, about how “tall girls don’t get happy endings” or whatever, the movie could actually have been somewhat enjoyable with the rest of the plot being the same. It could’ve just been about a taller-than-average girl who feels insecure about her height trying to date a tall guy but realising her best friend is actually the right guy for her - and realising that it’s not the world that’s holding her back, it’s actually her own insecurities. My opinions on the quality of the plot and romance are obviously just my opinions and you obviously don’t have to agree with them but I don’t think you can deny how objectively tone deaf the premise is and how the characters of colours are basically sidelined and only exist to support the white character’s storylines, which is why I’m definitely putting this movie in the Never Watch Again pile.

#tall girl #tall girl spoilers #movie review #kind of #it’s not really a review it’s just an outpouring of my thoughts but it’s still Reviewing the movie

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smallblueandloud · 3 years

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B, F, H, I, J, M, R, S, T- oh my god that is so many!! sorry!

you’re good!! for this ask meme! under a cut because i like to TALK.

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?

answered here!

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

i am not gonna put that one conversation between donna and helen santos again but THAT ONE’S STILL MY FAVORITE. another scene though. hmm.

“Right, because you didn’t spend much time with her?” It’s a question, because Miriam is trying to confirm details. Lyra thinks back to her life story. She’s kept it as close to reality as she can, which makes remembering harder - but makes her feel better.

More importantly, it makes Pan feel better. She’s realized that it’s a good idea to compromise with Pan on easy things so that he’ll let her do the difficult things. Not that there’s much of those these days.

“Right,” says Lyra. “Oxford College was taking care of me, mostly. Mrs. Coulter - my mother,” she amends. Pan puts his paw on her bare neck. “My mother couldn’t be too involved, because of- well. The scandal.”

Miriam laughs. “Yes, of course. My friend Lyra, the scandal.”

Lyra grins. “One does one’s best.”

This makes Miriam laugh even harder.

honestly i’m really really proud of bodies fashioned out of dirt and dust in general, but i LOVED talking about lyra and the careful way she lies. when she was a kid, she used to invent stories like nobody’s business, but now that she’s older she has more moral qualms and she’s trying to be more of an adult while also not giving up the vibrant bits that made her lyra? idk how much sense this makes, but this fic was VERY MUCH a reaction to the secret commonwealth.

i loved the way i could imply so much about her feelings about mrs. coulter just by that one hesitation. i loved how easy it was to show her lying, because we KNOW the story and we KNOW lyra lies to people. this was such a fun fic to write and the dialogue was kind of the central way i contrasted her childhood vs early adulthood.

i’m also really proud of that toby/andy scene.

H: How would you describe your style?

uhhhhh i think i try to focus on making things as real as possible? you can feel like you’re the pov character because their emotions are real. vivid is the right word. i’m aiming for vivid.

i also really like describing people’s mannerisms and trying to be as in-character as possible. i haven’t gotten to the point of coming up with NEW mannerisms yet (except with fitz’s stutter in the magnum opus) but i enjoy writing lines that you can hear the characters say.

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)?

angst? definitely MCD angst. i can’t even READ it most of the time because it makes me so SAD but i’m just. yeah. give me the mourning. logan/jean really came for me personally. i’m also a big fan of protectiveness - daisy’s speech to jemma in the magnum opus, about “i will come and get you”, was COMPLETELY self-indulgent and i enjoyed it WAY MORE than it served any character development or plot.

J: Write or describe an alternative ending to [insert fic].

uhh i think i wrote a long thing about this for like half my fics a few months ago, but in another world i wrote a lot more for keep on keeping on and it had more about blue pearl’s feelings about the terrifying renegade pearl that was helping rose quartz. also, there’s an alternate ending where the crystal gems arrive on homeworld in less pleasant circumstances - basically “the trial” if pearl was there, let’s be honest - and blue recognized pearl and it was. A Lot. it would’ve been a lot. i still kind of want to write that fic, tbh.

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

currently the fic i’m most excited about is for a fandom i’ve barely talked about before, where [name redacted] is stuck in a time loop and keeps trying to save [name redacted] and in the last loop, which takes place right after [title redacted], she takes him and [names redacted] on a desperate road trip where, among other things, we find out that her sister actually dated BOTH [name redacted] and [name redacted] in high school. also both her love interest and [name redacted] are autistic, because i make the rules and the rules are that lesbean says they’re autistic.

i’m also TEMPTED to start a giant project of creating my own xmen canon, in the style of unpretty’s sorrowful and immaculate hearts, because i don’t have enough to do in my life apparently. polyamory would abound. if anyone’s interested in this PLEASE ask me about it because i have THOUGHTS.

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

my entire sense of humor stems from douglas adams and in an ideal world i would be able to write comedy and it would just be his style. uhh i’m sure i have other influences but it’s hard to think of any at the moment. i know which writers i ADMIRE but i don’t know if they’ve INFLUENCED me, if you know what i mean? dirgewithoutmusic, i would say, and probably also. uh. this fic right here influenced me when i was YOUNG and IMPRESSIONABLE and it still takes me out at the knees.

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

protectiveness! reveals in the middle of action! someone’s found family meeting their friends and realizing they (the found family) is REALLY IMPORTANT to their person actually! cool powers! characters being clever! jokes that are very specific references to canon! worldbuilding! longing!

T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

changing people so they’re less scary and more “normal” (this is specifically about fic written about natasha romanoff). people being ooc. a couple’s friends seemingly being entirely dedicated to the couple’s wellbeing and relationship and not having lives of their own. shipping a young (usually female) person with their father figure. buying into canon’s infidelity storyline when it’s ooc and could just as easily be polyamory (this is specific but i’m Right). every fanwork focusing on a white minor character instead of the main character of color.

thank you for the ask!!

#claudiasjeancregg #sb and l rambles #sb and l answers #sb and l is writing #fic: bodies fashioned out of dirt and dust #fic: keep on keeping on #fic rec #su ideas #xm ideas #thank you for the ask this was a lot of fun!!

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dachi-chan25 · 4 years

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How do months in 2020 manage to last years and yet end in the blink of an eye???

Anyway I did finish my TBR so...

1 -The Vampire Armand (The Vampire Chronicles 5) by Anne Rice

🌟🌟🌟

Sooo, this one was my least favorite the 1st time I read this series and I hoped to like it more since I wasn't finding Armand as annoying in the first 4 books but gosh I really feel Anne Rice doesn't have much love for characters that are not Lestat, cuz I feel Armand could have been intresting but the book lacks the passion and wit Anne adds everytime she writes Lestat so yeah it was pretty meh. I love the cover tho.

2.-Dead and Alive (Prodigal Son #3) - Dean R. Koontz

🌟🌟🌟🌟

I was plesantly surprised. I hadn't very high expectatives for this one cuz even though I enjoyed book 2 I thought the pacing was waaaaay too slow, the plot wasn't advancing much. But this one was super cool, it picked up inconcluse storylines from the 1st book and that CLIFFHANGER!!!! The romance between the detectives was meh, like I wish I had liked them both more but the Erikas have my heart and I want to see more of Deucalion.

3.- Wild Cards I - George R. R Martin

🌟🌟

I was so disappointed. Ok so the concept is pretty cool. Like an alien virus is set loose and it causes some people to have amazing superpowers and other people gets terrible mutations, What's not to like??? But oh my fucking god. The mysogyny of this book. I can usually read books with mysogyny like I enjoy classics like 1984 despite the rampant way in which the protagonist hates woman. I couldn't handle it here. The female characters have less dimension than a sheet of paper and they depend entirely on the male characters it ruined the whole thing for me, and the writing was mediocre at times (I mean I know this was written by multiple authors but at points the quality of the writing droped like super hard) I am not picking the next one.

4.-My Sister the Serial Killer - Oyinkan Braithwaite

🌟🌟🌟🌟

I just love horror stories where a pretty girl is the killer. Like they are so enjoyable. And this particular story is so good because we have this 2 sisters, they are very different, one is like the epítome of beauty and the other is an average woman. The pretty one literally can do no wrong in everyones eyes and that’s just fine cuz she just so happens to kill her boyfriends. Her sister who is a nurse helps her clean up and get rid of the bodies because at first she believes they were abusive towards her sister but then she starts to get suspicious and things are super cool and intresting. I feel it could have gone deeper with some stuff but it was a great and quick read.

5.- Moloka'i - Alan Brenett

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I cried so much. This book is about Rachel, a girl diagnosed with leprosy at 7 years old during the 1890's and is sent away to live at the leprosarium in Moloka'i, Hawaii. We follow Rachel as she makes friends and family and loses them all over again to the sickness as she grows older. This book was so beautiful and pretty diverse (I loved Leilani I had never seen trans representation in a 19th century book) full of history and humanity. An amazing read I fully recommend it.

6.- New Suns: Original speculative fiction by people of color - Nisi Shawl.

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I Loved it. One of my main problems with anthologies is that inevitably I find some stories better than other but that was not the case here, every story had an intresting premise and amazing writing (my fave was maybe the one with the lesbian mermaid or the one were a woman raised the death to get rid of colonizers) like I need to read more from all these authors ASAP.

7.- Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevski

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I love me some good classic. This one is really amazing , I love how much we get into Raskolinov's psyche and the things that lead him to comit the crime and the effect it has on him once he does. And all this conversation about morality and if it's ever valid to commit a crime even if it's for the "greater good" and all that good stuff about how people trapped in poverty are more likely to fall down the rabbit whole of prostitution and crime and yassssss it was good,

8.- A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess

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I struggled like I should have known they would use the slang like in the movie (but I watched the movie in Spanish) so I was just vibing in the first few pages of the book barely understanding shit, except those words in other lenguages and then I started to pick it up and the book is so good??? Like Alex is awfull but the book actually makes a compeling argument about free will and the concept of choosing between good or evil. In general terms the movie is super accurate tho and yeah I really enjoyed this read.

9.- The Winter of the Witch (Winternight #3) - Katherine Arden

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I LOVED it. This book absolutely messed me up. Like I suffered a lot for my girl Vasya. And then all the stuff with the Bear and Morozco and the war, ahhhhh it was a LOT, but the ending was pretty satisfying, I cried tons and I am hoping we get another saga maybe following Marya this time????? I will just read anything Katherine Arden writes tbh.

10.-Lifestyles of Gods and Monsters - Emily Roberson

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It was ok??? I wished it had been more about the sisters together as opposed to make Ariadne "not like the other girls" I am sick of that trope, and the "beautiful but doesn't know it" and less about the romance. Like the premise of retelling this greek myth as a reality show actually picked my interest but the execution wasn't that great it had lots of clichés I hate and mentioned before, what I kinda liked was that even though Ariadne had a romance she decides to start over by herself when things kinda fall apart and she is maybe open to dating another dude at the end, which honestly was a relief for me cuz I feel a lot of time YA pushes this idea that your first love is the only love you'll ever feel and that’s dumb .

11.-The Glass Menagerie - Tennessee Williams

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I really love this play, well Tennessee Williams plays in general, and aire felt like re reading this one. I love Laura so much and it was a pleasure to read this again.

12.-In the Miso soup - Ryu Murakami

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This is a very gorey book. Lots of graphic murders and violence, mentions of the sex trade in Japan. This was a very intresting read, lots of insight into the japanese society and how this very cliché image people have of it is completely wrong. Again sex trade is heavily discused as our protagonist makes a living out of taking foreigners to experience the sex clubs in Tokyo he meets this sketchy american guy who hires him, our protagonist has a feeling he might be a murderer and it goes from there. I really enjoyed it a lot and might consider reading another book by Ryu Murakami.

13.- The Downstairs Girl - Stacey Lee

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It was amazing to read about an asian girl in the post-civil war era, and how this minority kind of lived in a limbo cuz white people didn't think much about them when making up all this crap ass rules about where PoC where supposed to live in or sit. And our protagonist Jo, is really a charming girl with a lot of opinions and so passionate I loved her so much. It was a bit cheesy at times, and I saw the book's big reveal coming but still it was a pretty good read.

14.-En el bosque bajo los cerezos en flor - Ango Sakaguchi

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Me gustaron mucho las historias, todas realmente te meten a una atmósfera japonesa: las imágenes como las flores de cerezo, los kimonos, templos, budas. Y las mezclan con un terror por lo desconocido y lo no visto que encaja tan bien en cada una de las historias. Realmente lo disfrute muchísimo y me gustaría leer más trabajos de este autor.

15.- Agamemnon - Aeschylus

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I am weak for the greek plays. And this rocks so much. Chlymenestra is a queen, I stan her so hard. This play always makes me feel so bad for Cassandra, like how shitty is it to have the power to make super accurate predictions but no one ever believes you???

#july 2020 wrap up #booklr #dachi reads stuff

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takaraphoenix · 5 years

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35,18,3,7 (on the original Charmed)

Thanks for playing! ^-^

3. rant. just do it

Okay, here goes nothing.

Americans annoy me with their high hourse TV plot writing these days. Like, yeah, just as any other sane person, I know that your guys’ government putting human beings into cages and separating children from their parents and basically Third Reiching it up in there is really terrifyingly bad - as a German, I might even get that a little bit more than some others.

But I’m... I’m really tired of them doing this “what is happening right now is Really Very Bad and we will whack you over the head with that in your fun escapism TV show”.

Because look. If I’d... If I’d want to engage with this terrifying shit going on, I’d be right now watching the news. Not Supergirl. Not Legends of Tomorrow.

I, like many others, watch TV as a means of escapism. Especially shows about idiot timetravelers and aliens who are unrecognizable when they put on glasses.

That a show like Orange is the New Black that is set and grounded in this reality and actually deals with prison conditions and has tackled these type of injustices from the get-go addresses it makes a whole lot of sense and fits the theme.

But every single show turning into “we shouldn’t treat other beings who are just like us but have slight differences and may come from a different place like they are below us!!!” is... it’s exhausting.

Not everybody watching this is American. It’s not like we can do anything to help. And, let’s be really really clear: A show that is so damn heavy on feminism and LGBT themes has long since lost any of the viewers whose hearts and minds these kind of plotlines are meant to change. No Straight White Male Republican Racist is still watching a show with half the cast being POC and LGBT and female. The only people you’re reaching are the people who absolutely know that what is happening is wrong and terrifying.

And what makes it more frustrating was that Supergirl in particular was always very out of this world; quite literally. They opted, after Trump was elected, to put a female president onto that Earth. A reasonable, wise woman who works for the rights of others. And that made this show all the more wonderful and all the more escapism from this reality because it was literally presented as a better alternate Earth to ours. That they had to get her impeached to replace her with a Straight White Male Racist so you can hammer the metaphor of aliens = immigrants in was... not necessary, not on that world.

And especially not with the exact same message running course on three different shows that share one universe - because yeah, the whole “metahumans are different than us and are being murdered” thing is the same tune, you just exchanged alien/magical creature with metahuman there.

I just... It’s too much. I get tight-chested every single time I have to face another horrible, inhumane, Hitleresque thing that Trump said or did. I don’t need you to whack me over the head with thinly veiled metaphors.

Especially since you’re not even doing it in a creative way. The bad guy is the Old White Man, while most of the aliens and magical creatures that are prominently features are played by actors of color, just in case anyone was still missing the metaphor. It’s... It’s not even clever writing.

And I don’t... I just... Honestly, I actually find it kind of offensive that writers think we need a metaphor where the immigrants are literal aliens. Like, humans do this shit to other humans. That you’re pretending that “oh no they are doing this to aliens while all humans hold together” is... even more unrealistic than the whole premise of Supergirl to begin with, to be quite frank.

It’d even be... fine. Durable. If it were one show only but to be whacked over the head with the exact same message on multiple shows running parallel is really tiresome actually.

I get it. I know what you’re saying. I agree. And so does the whole entire damn rest of the audience. Because if they didn’t get the whole point of Superman and Supergirl literally being refugees on Earth and them LITERALLY being created by Jewish men during WWII and if they weren’t racist enough to stop watching when two black men became superheroes and if they weren’t homophobic enough when one of the main characters came out as a lesbian and started very explicitely to have a relationship with another woman and if they weren’t transphobic enough to quit when you introduced a trans character to the main cast and if they weren’t misogynistic enough to just straight up quit this majorly female-led feminist show on season one, then honestly you’re barking up the wrong tree there.

7. opinion on… Charmed

THIS WAS MY FIRST BIG OBSESSION! *^*

Oh, I loved Charmed - literally all of my walls, including my ceiling, were plastered with posters of the show! I did the puppy-dog eyes at anyone who bought teen magazines back then, I got cut-out articles about it every time it was somewhere, I still have self-recorded VHS tapes with the entire show in my closet.

I even wrote my very first fanfiction for this show, back then ink on paper in a journal because we’re talking pre-Phoe-is-allowed-on-the-internet-age, I had my first next gen OC line-up for that show.

And it was, to date, the only ever where I actually also got invested in the actors. Particularly Alyssa Milano. And if I saw anything where Alyssa Milano or Julian McMahon were in, I watched it, not even caring what it was, because I loved them so much.

I mean, I’ve always loved witches, you know? But this show just hit everything for me. Back then I really related to Phoebe the most, because she was the youngest and thus most relatable for pre-teen me, she was kind of a screw-up who didn’t really know what she was doing. I always wanted big sisters like Piper and Prue.

Many of my favorite tropes were first introduced to me there. Seriously, this show is why I love a good “everybody lives together”. A team as a family, by blood and also beyond that.

Them killing off Prue killed me. I cried so hard so long back then.

And also this is like the only show ever where I got incredibly invested in the canon ships. Leo/Piper, Cole/Phoebe, Andy/Prue. All. The. Way. Obviously, canon broke my heart twice but that doesn’t mean I can’t live in eternal denial.

It’s also the first time I encountered a TV show overstaying its welcome, because that last season was absolutely unnecessary, start to finish. The season before that had the perfect finale - the sisters, getting to live a normal life, then that little wink by the door closing just like Prue’s powers used to close it, it put tears in my eyes and had me incredibly content. Then they had to add a blonde Mary-Sue to the mix and go on for another season and just nope.

And yes, you notice my focus on Prue. I love her. She still remains my second favorite after Phoebe and I will admit I never quite warmed up to Paige and would have preferred if the whole... actor fall out hadn’t happened and Prue could have continued on in the show. So, that’s my favorite part of it; back when Prue was alive and Cole was also still alive.

18. rant about your favorite musician

...At this point, I am thinking that maybe you should have asked each number in a separate ask because this thing is long.

But okay, I actually do have something to rant about there!

HOW DOES THE YOUTH TODAY NOT UNDERSTAND PUNK. URGH.

A few weeks back, my favorite musician was on TV. There was a music event, I think it was a benefit and also a peaceful protest, led by him, among others, and before it, he stepped up to the mic to say a few words and I was watching that with my grandparents and my brother and he just went “Urgh, that guy again. Why does he have to be everywhere? And why is he talking about this? It’s none of his business, he should just do music”.

Like.

No.

Campino is a punk. Die Toten Hosen is a punk rock band.

Protesting the government and what is wrong with society is literally what punk does. Punk is only secondarily a music genre. First and foremost, it is a means to be loud and vocal about politics. So to organize a peaceful protest and to speak up about the mistreatment of immigrants in our country is literally what punk should be.

The fact that there’s younger people who don’t know that is terrifying. The fact that younger people in Germany just know Campino as an old musician and not as a punk is also terrifying. Go listen to DTH and study up on punk, please.

35. what does home mean to you?

Ah, finally a short one! xD (Just kidding, I do love ranting!)

Home is where I feel at ease, where I can be myself, where I’m happy. These requirements can be fulfilled outside of my own four walls - it’s like, when I am in London, this incredible sense of home fills me too, surprisingly enough. Gods, I wanna go back to London...

Unusual Ask Game

#About Me #Random Rants #lots of ranting #Unusual Ask Game #send me asks #shadowruned

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