#or that i want every post-canon harry to *not* be sober.

[volitioncheck]

does near every single post-canon DE fic out there need to be tagged ‘Sober Harry Du Bois’? i’m getting so tired of it.

do i expect every single piece of fan content to have to fully delve into the often-depressing always-complex topic of addiction? not really. sometimes you just want to write/read a silly fluffy romance one-shot, whatever. i get it. but i think my issue is specifically with the fact that for nearly every sillyfluffy au out there, there almost must be a ‘sober harry du bois’ tag. and it does feel very slapped-on more often than not.

i think to me it is an unconscious statement that nothing *good* can ever happen to harry du bois until he is completely and permanently sober. before solving the next big case, he has to be sober. before quitting the force, he has to be sober. before falling in love with kim, he has to be sober. before accomplishing anything, starting any sort of recovery, making any life improvement, he must first be sober.

sobriety as a goal, as a journey, and honestly as a concept in of itself is not as cut and dry as so many people think it is. and i think it would serve a lot of people well if they did some introspection on the implications of how nearly every single post-canon fic that isn’t dealing directly with harry’s addiction have him as completely sober instead.

if the plot of the fic isn’t going to touch directly on harry’s substance use (and again, i’m not demanding that every single fic should), why does that mean that sober!harry must be the default?

i think i am just tired of reading a casefic, a smutty one-shot, a fantasy au, whatever, where it almost seems that before getting on with the plot, the author feels obligated to first assure us that the harry we’re reading about is a Sober Harry. it’s established with a couple lines in the exposition, probably about his improved appearance, a tag up top, and then never brought up again; a checkmarked box. like the societal image of An Addict has completely prevented people from being able to imagine a person just, continuing to live life, while still struggling with addiction.

life happens, with all of its backslides and achievements, mundanity and changes, to people with drug addictions just as much as people who don’t. is a post-canon harry who isn’t sober not worth writing about?

i think so. i think the game we all played thinks so too. in fact i think that sentiment is woven into the game’s very core. i just wish i saw that reflected in our fan content more.

#i really hope my point is understandable in that it isn’t that i think that stories where harry *does* become sober aren’t also valuable. #or that i want every post-canon harry to *not* be sober. #but rather questioning why there seems to be a subconcious necessity for harry to be sober to have kind things happen to him. #disco elysium #harry du bois #also obligatory because i am putting this in the main tag: #this isn’t a callout or vague on any one person/creator/group of people in particular #it’s more of a prompt to discussion on a very broad trend #one informed by insidious biases that live in all of us because we live in a society etc #that none of us are immune to but all of us have a responsibility to acknowledge #if there is goal to this post it’s to provoke introspection. not individual attacks #anyways i love quietly consuming fan content until something annoys me enough to make my own post about it #i do wish i Participated in fan communities more tbh especially this one i’m just shy lol #most of the time. #me talking

[pa1nkill3r]

It’s My Party [F.W]

[Pairing:] Fred Weasley x GN!Non Gryffindor!Reader, (slight) Fred Weasley x Angelina Johnson

[Summary:] Y/H has won the 1993 interhouse quidditch cup as Y/N, the house’s keeper, gleefully shoved it in their boyfriend, Fred Weasley’s face. Prideful as ever, Fred decided that he can’t be the only sore loser between the two of them.

[Warnings:] angst, Fred being immature, off canon, mentions of smut, not a happy ending, swearing, (please lmk if there’s more :)

[Word Count:] ≈1.4k

[Song:] It’s My Party- by Lesley Gore

[A/N:] please no Angelina slander. Y/H = your house. The first fic I will be posting will be ANGST?? idk what to think about this tbh but i just really want to post a fic out of the many in my drafts so let’s hope this goes alright :D

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Gryffindor’s are chivalrous. Evident in the way Fred Weasley has mastered the art of seduction as he made gallant efforts of persuading the inhospitable Y/N to be his. 

Gryffindor’s are courageous, as he and his brother gave their all into their final game that would lead Gryffindor to victory. Hitting bludger after bludger and making sure they do not give Alicia Spinnet another nose bleed. 

And Gryffindor’s are determined, so much so as their loss has made them into sore, sore losers. 

The Gryffindor’s are pissed and Oliver Wood took to punching the soil. Harry Potter let go of his firebolt and covered his face in frustration. Angelina Johnson took the same approach, aggressively wiping sweat off her face and crouching down to her knees. Not a single damn in the world if her trousers get grubby. Alicia Spinnet and Katie Bell held onto their broomsticks as they placed their foreheads on its end, frustrated tears trickling down their faces. 

The sound of wood plopped down onto the dirt as Fred and George Weasley threw their beater's bats and clean sweeps aside. A deathly look splattered across their once haughty exterior.

All of their vigorous training, late nights and early mornings, all of their valiant efforts, all for nothing. They have lost.

What’s worse was that the opposing team was dripping with ecstasy rather than tears or whatever’s on Johnson’s slacks. 3 houses were beaming, but not for the house of red and gold like they wanted. 

It pained Fred that they lost. It hurt him to feel angry and resentful of the prideful smile that graced Y/N’s beautiful lips. Those sweet sweet lips he kissed once, twice, a hundred times now looked so pungent. The fact that the smile he's looking at was full of mock instead of sincerity for his loss made every drop of his blood boil.

Y/N's eyebrows raised once they saw their lover, giving him a cheerful smile and a shoulder shrug. Their hand gripped onto their broom as the other held their soaking leather helmet. They shook their head in celebration, droplets of sweat shooting from the ends of their hair.

They truly looked beautiful, especially with the warm rays of sunlight gracing their skin and robes; Fred was breathless. His heart was thumping so hard from rage as his breathing was suppressed.

He didn't think losing to his partner's house ESPECIALLY if his partner is part of the competition would affect him so negatively, but it did. He wanted to feel happy for them. Genuinely happy for them. But he couldn't, or at least at that moment.

And before he knew it, Y/N was being dragged away by their teammates, whilst roars of celebration followed suit. He wouldn't have a chance to be with them alone now, and probably for the better.

The tension in the Gryffindor common room could be cut smoothly with a butter knife or Colin Creevey's safety scissors. The silence was uncomfortable and Fred's lips were all pouty, leg bouncing up and down, and arms wrapped around his torso.

His mind was clouded with rage as well as a longing to see them, to enrage them like what they did to him, he wanted them to feel how he felt the moment they gave him a cheeky smirk knowing, KNOWING how much Gryffindor wanted to win. To be the one to give their head of house the cup they utterly deserve.

He stood, grabbing a girl's wrist, "Angelina. Come with me, will you?"

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"Kind of weird not seeing you grinding on Weasley right now, Y/N." Y/N's teammate joked, making Y/N choke on their butterbeer. "Like— he looked pissed. Every one of them did. But like— I dunno, I expected more from angry Fred, y'know? Maybe like angry fucks or something?—" Their teammate continued, making Y/N chortle even harder. If there was such a thing as getting drunk on butterbeer, this would be it.

"—maybe even a heated make out session?"

"Fucking hell, why in the world are you talking about my love life? MINE?" Y/N asked light heartedly, getting a shoulder shrug and a mocking glance of their teammate's eye.

"All seriousness though, Y/N. It's weird not seeing him here. He'd still appreciate you, you know? You did amazing!"

Y/N thought about it, but knowing Fred's quick temper, he's most likely cooling down before he meets them at their house party. "He's probably just pissed off. Or maybe they’re trying to stop Wood from drowning himself again, I don't know. There's endless amounts of possibilities when it comes to Gryffindors." Their teammate nodded in agreement and went back to the usual chatting.

Every minute that passed by without Fred showing his freckled face felt like a stab in the chest. They've never ghosted him when Gryffindor won against them, why's he doing this to them now?

╰┈➤✎*+:｡.｡⋆·˚ ༘ **ੈ✩‧₊˚ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

"Fred?! Or is this George? OY WEASLEY? WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU TAKING ME?" yelled Angelina, being dragged out by an angry red head with a face redder than his hair.

"Just trust me, Johnson." he said breathless, speed walking his way through the halls, Angelina in toe. Dragging her towards the Y/H common room.

He reluctantly took off a wire wrapped ring Y/N made for him and placed it on the pads of his fingers. "Wear this."

"Why?!" asked Angelina angrily. "What are you on about Fred? Didn't Y/N make this?!" Not answering or even giving her words a single thought, he put the ring on the nearest finger he could reach, held her hand, and made his way into the entrance.

╰┈➤✎*+:｡.｡⋆·˚ ༘ **ੈ✩‧₊˚ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

The party was going beautifully, just like every single one that preceded it. It was going as smoothly as a butterbeer running down a drinker’s throat. But something is wrong with the butterbeer. It hit hard. It was bitter. It was burning.

Y/N’s shoulder was tapped by the person next to them, their finger pointing towards the entrance of the common room.

Who in their right mind would put firewhisky in a place no one asked it to be in?

“This party’s beautiful! How come you don’t make Gryffindor party’s this nice?” Angelina said, fingers relaxed in the hand of Y/N’s boyfriend. The man they’ve been with since third year. Now holding onto a pretty girl’s hand instead of theirs. 

And to add insult to injury, a bronze glint shone on her finger, as well as a purple bead. Angelina’s wearing his ring loosely on her thin, nimbly finger.

Y/N froze in their seat, simply staring at the two of them. They looked like they belonged together really. They really did. They looked like royalty, and every time Angelina pointed at something it looked like she was giving a wave. 

It broke them. It finally broke them. The cold Y/N, the stony Y/N, the frigid fucking Y/N broke as a tear ran down their cheek. Shit. He broke them.

“Hey Y/N!” The beautiful Gryffindor chaser waved cheerfully and innocently as she spotted the beater’s partner. But they didn’t respond cheerfully back. Instead, a half empty mug of butterbeer was left at the place they once sat and a fuming Y/N walked away. 

Angelina stood confused until she felt a weight in one of her hands. “What the hell, Fred?” She let go of his hand as soon as it hit her. “Are you using me to make Y/N jealous?! What the fuck is that for?!”

He didn’t answer. It was as if at that instant his once clouded mind became sober. Once drunk with rage now sober with guilt. Yeah, what the fuck was that for? 

“I’m going to find them because apparently you don’t have the fucking decency to do so.” She spat to his face, taking off the ring he put on her finger, throwing it to his face, and following the sounds of sorrow. 

And there the red head stood, face as pale as a ghost and as guilty as a criminal awaiting his charges, knowing, KNOWING that no one would bail him out now. Several heads were looking at him at that moment, but he couldn’t give a single fucking damn.

#fred weasley #fred weasley x y/n #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley x ravenclaw!reader #fred weasley x slytherin!reader #fred weasley x hufflepuff!reader #fred weasley angst #fred weasley fic #angelina johnson #i'm scared this isn't that good but kjsdnfjbdj

[hehron]

Golden Trio Midlife Adventure!

Hi, just trying my hand at post-canon HP to participate in the happy birthday harry writing fest by @fightfortherightsofhouseelves !

“What’s the birthday boy doing sitting all alone?” Ron asked loudly as he plopped down in the armchair in Harry’s study.

“Not brooding, I hope.” Hermione added, shooting a disapproving glance at the glass in his hand.

“It’s just pumpkin juice.” Harry told her, then a little defensively asked. “And why would I be brooding?”

Ron and Hermione gave him knowing looks.

“Harry, Harry, Harry,” Ron tutted in a dramatic fashion. “The fortieth is an earth-shattering explosion, like our new Fakequake Wheeze, especially for the faint of heart such as yourself, who don’t have all my hard-earned wisdom.” Ever since his great leap into the forties, Ron, heavily influenced by George, had leaned into the whole ‘Wise Old Dumbledore’ talk, despite Hermione’s reminders that he was nowhere near half of Dumbledore’s age or have half his wisdom for that matter, she added to Harry privately one day.

“Like I say every year, I feel lucky to have lived this far.” Harry insisted, though the churning in his stomach told him otherwise.

“Then why did you make Ginny exchange that comfy armchair she bought you for that new Dragon Taming Kit?” Hermione asked slyly.

“I need it! It could be useful on a case.” He defended.

“Yeah, right.” Ron snorted. “Unless you have the sudden desire to go on one of Luna and Rolf’s expeditions or developed a sudden, secret crush on Charlie-”

“Fine,” Harry cut him off. “Maybe I am a little upset but it’s still nothing compared to your I’m-Still-Not-Minister-Yet or Where-Did-My-Thirties-Go crisis.”

“It was a very understandable crisis!” Hermione said indignantly. “I was behind on my life plans by two months!”

Harry and Ron shared a look. Hermione’s life plan had been the catalyst to many fights and the butt of many jokes over the years.

“Love, you know our plans never really work-” Ron began.

“You mean your plans. My plans work out perfectly as long as you two don’t interfere.” She said with a pointed glare at Harry.

“No work talk on my birthday.” He grinned.

“Fine, but I want those papers back first thing tomorrow morning.” She said with a half smile.

“We should start our plans for today though. Don’t want to be late for Ginny’s big party.” Hermione said briskly while Ron’s face broke out into a huge grin at Harry’s confused look.

“What plans?”

“This is ridiculous!” Harry spluttered as they stood at the entrance to Honeydukes. A few people were milling about the streets but it was nothing compared to Hogsmeads’ usual bustle during the school season.

“Come on, it’ll be fun. Just like old times.” Ron chuckled, pushing him forwards.

“I can’t believe you’re going with this.” Harry said to Hermione.

“It was her idea.”

“What?!” Harry exclaimed as Ron burst into laughter.

“Don’t look so shocked, Harry. I’ve come up with just as many silly ideas as you two. Or have you forgotten about Christmas 2002?” Hermione asked with a self-satisfied smile.

Harry shook his head, grinning.

“Still seems a bit childish.”

“It’s supposed to be childish, mate.” Ron said, slapping his back.

“So you don’t forget what it’s like to be young.” Hermione said, before rummaging through her bag and pulling out a silvery cloak.

“Where-” Harry began.

“I borrowed it from James. What’s an adventure without the invisibility cloak?”

She threw it over them, and they trued to squeeze themselves together. Harry suddenly had a flashback to the last time the three of them had been in a similar position in the town and felt a rush of gratitude that the two situations couldn’t be more different.

“Our feet are still outside.” Ron grunted, trying to stretch the cloth.

“Don’t rip it Ron!” Hermione exclaimed. “We can just cast invisibility charms on our feet.”

“Yeah, now it seems like a good thing that you quit the Aurors. You’ll get your feet blown off with those kinds of ideas.” Harry teased.

Ron made a rude gesture before Hermione dragged them both down the hidden one-eyed witch passageway. It was a lot longer but considerably less dirty than they remembered it.

“Must be the kids. They sneak out to Hogsmeade at least twice a week.” Ron whispered.

“If they ever found out about this after all the grief we gave them about sneaking out-” Harry started.

“Bit rich coming from you, isn’t it?” Ron snickered.

“As if you’re one to talk.”

“Yes, yes, we were rule breaking hooligans and have descended to stuck up hypocrites. But what they don’t know won’t hurt them.” Hermione said.

“You’ve been spending way too much time with politicians.” Harry said to which she rolled her eyes.

Ron suddenly yelped as he knocked right into the exit. Harry cracked the door open and peered outside. Now that they were actually there, his heart was thudding frantically, a sort of exhilaration and nostalgia hitting him. A part of him had always missed it, the adventures with Ron and Hermione.

Hermione laughed quietly as Ron made an exaggerated show of tiptoeing outside. It was strange. They were adults, getting older by the second but at that moment, it seemed as if time had been reversed back thirty years, and they were the same giggling children they had been when they had first set foot in Hogwarts. That inexplicable feeling of remembering all the moments of happiness, bitter sweetness and everything in between, and knowing that they had not only made it out together but were still as close as they were back then, closer even, and that despite everything Hogwarts would always be there to welcome them home was all he needed.

The halls were just as Harry remembered it. This time tough, they brought back more than just their memories. They were mixed with several new anecdotes of the children and their escapades, with the three of them convincing themselves that they were definitely not hard teenagers while struggling to maintain straight faces. They had just entered the courtyard when they bumped into Neville.

“What are you guys doing here?” He asked, surprised.

“Oh, just, reminiscing.” Hermione said nonchalantly.

“By breaking into Hogwarts?”

“That’s the way we did it back then too, wasn’t it?” Harry grinned.

“How’d you know we broke in, by the way?”

“The Headmistress said the portraits said something about a secret passageway. I was just dropping off some forms for Hannah’s potions and said I’d check it out. Didn’t expect to see you guys.” Neville laughed.

“Oh, Happy Birthday, Harry!”

“You already wished me at midnight.” Harry said amused.

“Yeah, but I was knackered after the party. Can’t say I remember it.” The other man grinned.

“Particularly strong firewhiskey, mate. I had to take two doses of sobering potion in the morning.” Ron said sheepishly.

“You really shouldn’t have done that, Ron.” Hermione admonished.

“I know but...” Ron argued.

“Merlin! It’s like we’re really back at school again!” Neville exclaimed.

“Tell me about it.” Harry muttered, with an exasperated look at his best friends. 

“Oi! We’re here to celebrate my birthday. You can have your weird foreplay after the party.”

“Ha ha, very funny.” Hermione rolled her eyes.

“He’s not wrong about the foreplay though.” Ron said, kissing her cheek.

“See what I have to suffer through?” Harry sighed to Neville.

“Like you haven’t done worse with my sister in front of me.” Ron said with a mock-glare.

“Why isn’t Ginny here, anyway?” Neville asked.

“She’s making the last minute party arrangements.” Hermione said.

“She’s going berserk trying to make it perfect.” Ron added. 

“Funny she says it’s for me but threatens to hex me if I get five feet near the decorations. I’d have hidden in the attic with a butterbeer if she hadn’t invited the whole PU team.”

“Harry has a crush on their seeker.” Ron teased.

“Who doesn’t?” He shot back, knowing Ron had Quidditch Weekly articles stacked away in his trunk.

“Well, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you at the party.” Neville waved.

“Don’t rat us out, Neville. Or Hermione’ll have to stun you again.” Harry called, earning him a light shove from the brunette.

They made their way down to Hagrid’s hut and Harry was reminded of the many afternoons spent in a similar fashion.

“Looks like he’s not home.” Hermione said, noting the relative silence, that was only broken by a flutter of wings.

Harry whipped around to find Buckbeak standing there, looking at them curiously. He bowed and slowly egged his way closer to the majestic creature.

“Hey Buckbeak.” He said softly, petting the hippogriff. “Want to go for a fly? For old time’s sake?”

Harry turned around to find Ron sitting on Featherwhite, another hyppogriff, Luna had gifted to Hagrid, trying to get Hermione to get on as well.

“Come on, Hermione.” Harry called, mounting Buckbeak. “It’s my birthday.”

“There really should be a limited number of times you can use that to convince me.” She said, waving a finger at him but wearily got on behind Ron.

They took off and their laughter, and in Hermione’s case, shrieks, filled the air. Flying over the Quidditch Pitch, Harry promised himself to have a hippogriff race with Ginny as soon as they both had time.

They landed by the lake with Hermione swearing that she was never getting on one of those again.

“That’s what you said last time.” Harry reminded.

“And the time before that.” Ron added.

“And the time-”

“All right. All right.” Hermione laughed, shaking her head fondly.

They plopped down by the lake and watched the squid make a strange clapping motion with three of its tentacles.

“Even the squid’s wishing you a happy birthday.” Ron snorted.

“Even the squid wouldn’t believe a forty-year old could fly like that.” Harry boasted.

“Even the squid can’t handle two generations of Potters and Weasleys so close together.” Hermione said solemnly.

They chuckled and then descended into a comfortable silence, just enjoying the sunlight glinting over the still water. Harry thought back to the sunny days with Ginny in sixth year when the future he now had seemed like something out of a dream, and he realised that he was lucky, not just to alive but to be surrounded by the people he loved and who loved him.

A little while later, they strolled by the edge of the forest, talking about nothing and everything until they reached the whooping willow. Hermione was searching his face nervously while Ron casually suggested taking another exit. He knew they didn’t want to bring the mood down, especially on that day, and there might have been a time when he would have been too caught up in bad memories to even consider it. But now, all it reminded him was the thrill of flying a car to school in second year and the time he first met Sirius and the many, many, stories told by his kids. After all this time, he finally knew when and how to look for the silver lining until it outshone the black. They made their way out of the Shrieking Shack and walked towards the apparition point.

“That was...” Harry began.

“Oh, Harry! We’re so sorry if you didn’t like it. I just thought you would because you missed the field work so much and-”

“Hermione,” He cut her off. “It was amazing. The best birthday present I could ask for.”

“Don’t let Ginny hear you say that.” Ron interjected.

“Seriously, I loved it. I didn’t even know I needed it. Thank you.” He said, hugging her.

“A bit too sentimental, don’t you think?”

“Oh, get in here, Ron!” Hermione laughed as they pulled him into their embrace. It really was one of Harry’s best birthdays and it was only going to get better.

#happy birthday harry writing fest #harry potter #hermione granger #ron weasley #golden trio #post hogwarts #harry james potter #harry’s fortieth birthday #humour #romione #hinny

[thatdamnokie]

so, as everybody knows, our man, the lovely mark strong, turned 57 this past august 5th

since the kingsman films have had a huge influence on several aspects of my day-to-day life (gee, wonder what group of people i could be referring to...), i decided to sit down and do something i’ve been thinking about since getting my medical card earlier this year: getting high as a kite and watching them back-to-back.

to celebrate mark’s birthday, i decided to do another running commentary post like the one i did for rocknrolla ages ago, under the cut. it’s a pretty similar style, which is to say not necessarily super coherent and might be hard to understand if you’ve never seen the movies. D:

there are some mentions of the roanoke society, but not many.

if even just one person finds this mildly entertaining for four seconds, then i’ll have done my job. there is a lot of cursing and this is NOT spoiler-free.

enjoy~

edited 9.1.20 to correct typos and such, please remember that i was Not Sober while i wrote this lmao

how many times have i watched these movies at this point? i don’t even know.  

i always liked the nifty like—retro arcade marv opening animation

and the thing with the tapes! we love book-ending devices!

kingsman: badass motherfuckers worldwide incorporated

like why was merlin even with them? i understand why lee and james would be there, but merlin, was he not acting quartermaster then?

i have SO MANY FEELINGS about lee unwin

i think it haunts harry and merlin more than anyone thinks, but these are fun spy movies so we just don’t talk about trauma and shit, don’tcha know

don’t look at how merlin tears up and tell me he doesn’t drink about it *HEAVILY* later

it’s such a stark contrast to see the 1990s interior vs. what it’s like when eggsy’s grown :(

michelle baby i’m so sorry. you deserved better than this.

and BABY EGGSY

omg. like this scene is both heartbreaking but is also adorable.

colin firth has gd anime legs, that dude had to straight up unfold himself as he stood up lmao

aaannnnd swooping logo, whooooo, goin’ over some mountains~

and mark hamill, ladies and gentlemen!

this whole thing with james deciding to kinda go rogue makes me wish that we knew more about his backstory as well. like, is this james being james, or was this a weird one-off situation and he was just unlucky?

YES unlucky. nobody could plan for the hurricane of sleek destruction that is gazelle

who has one of my favorite aesthetic designs as a villain (although i guess i’d put her more on maybe henchman level? but idk, it seems like valentine looked at her more as a partner, less like an assistant? and they had a very interesting chemistry together too, like i would’ve added more valentine x gazelle scenes)

i would LOVE to be this chill about just—draping blankies over bodies

blankies over bodies sounds like a cool band name

DIBS you guys can’t have it

i am SO GLAD samuel l. jackson gave valentine a lisp!

valentine, to me, does fit a lot of the usual spy movie villain tropes

but since this movie doesn’t take itself super serious, it’s more fun than annoying

and we never hear about any of the other knights?? like

half of this is just gonna be me whining for additional footage that there just wouldn’t have been room for realistically lmao

michael caine, you are lovely

MARK STRONG, LADIES AND GENTLEMAN

WITH LEGS THAT DON’T QUIT AND AN ACCENT THAT I’D DIE FOR

i’m an embarrassment

like let’s all stop and thank god that mark didn’t have time to learn the welsh accent

not that i would’ve been disappointed, because all accents are good accents on this blog

but at this point i can’t imagine merlin as—not scottish

“try picking a more suitable candidate this time”

arthur you DICK

like were you this cold-blooded when lee died, you fuckin’ reptilian-ass son of a bitch

no wonder you were charlie’s pledge person thing

and enter the fabulous taron egerton, stage left!

DEAN you are DISGUSTING

god, michelle, you need better friends, if you were my bro this entire relationship would’ve never happened

;-; and eggsy’s so sweet with his sister! i know there probably wasn’t “room” for it but i AM glad that there are scenes showing that family is one of eggsy’s kinda “core values”or whatever you want to call it

dude is a hufflepuff through and through imo

can you imagine eggsy as a villain? we would be so fucked. he’s sly, he’s smart, he could’ve made life v e r y difficult for lots of people if he really wanted to

but look at him with the squad!

eggsy’s just like the british version of a good ol’ boy

this car scene is some dukes of hazzard bullshit (ramp-jumping and fun car horn aside)

if butterflies are harry’s main symbolic critter, would foxes be eggsy’s? or would it be a pug instead? i guess that’s like asking if harry would be either a butterfly or a cairn terrier, like mr. pickle. let’s say both.

this fandom is pretty on top of character associations like that

you get symbolic associations! YOU get symbolic associations! EVERYONE gets symbolic associations whether they’re actually in the canon or not! don’t have any? don’t worry, we’ll assign you at least one!

the guy playing the interviewing officer is ALSO the patriarch in the witch which i didn’t realize until—like, a while after

and it was while @circlesofbone​ was visiting, and we were just “oh, okay, guess we can’t escape this cast at all, this is fine”

“your father saved my life.”

harry you’re such a fucking peacock, waiting all posted up and posing so you’ll look cool

you big doofus

i’d kill to be inside his head during this first conversation with eggsy though

like is eggsy like lee? is harry seeing lee the entire time he’s talking to his son, in his mannerisms, how he carries himself, how he speaks?

or is eggsy the opposite? which—i don’t know if that would somehow be sadder?

there’s just a lot going on in the background of this bit that’s left up to interpretation

“although i’m sure it’s well-founded—“

harry’s just so casual about this entire thing, nobody’s that casual without practice

harry you rabble-rouser, what kind of life have you led

“manners. maketh. man.”

our timeless motto, my flowers

kingsman STILL to this DAY has some of the most well-choreographed fight scenes i’ve ever seen??

like yeah the church scene but even just this initial bar fight

harry could’ve been a dancer

in a way i guess he already is

like he moves so fluidly and gracefully, it is BONKERS

colin you did so good! i’m so proud!

the way eggsy’s just O.O

whether or not you ship hartwin, like, you gotta admit, that was hot

and his BODY LANGUAGE, he’s sitting like RAMROD straight, this poor dude lmao

nobody prepares you for a situation like that in public school is all i’m saying

harry, exiting stage left like a suave, smooth motherfucker

remember when iggy azalea was relevant

ugghhhh i hate this part

“I WASN’T WITH NO ONE”

can you imagine being harry hart listening to your dead friend’s son getting the shit beat out of him

like, surely he heard the cleaver, he knows dean was going to fucking gut eggsy right?

listen to how cold and icy his voice gets, oof

yeah, he’s pissed, and dean is lucky

PARKOUR

ugh, i want to go to london ;-; i want to walk in front of the shop and visit harry’s house and kiss cute english boys

i’d like to think harry’s super excited to show eggsy everything but he’s gotta keep it dialed back because “decorum”

the way eggsy pauses though

“come on.”

and he says it so softly.

if i was eggsy, i’d be nervous, too.

but i didn’t realize how quickly harry tries to give off signals like “hey there’s no reason to be scared.”

“like my fair lady?” “well, you’re full of surprises.” <3 one of my favorite sceneeesss.

harry’s voice is so soothing but eggsy is so freaked out by the elevator that he’s just—there’s no room for anything else beyond processing the elevator lmao

“how deep does this fucking thing go?” asking the real questions

aannnddd KINGSMAN BULLET TRAIN

i’d like to think they have like soft jazz or something playing in there

and then they get to the hangar and there are obviously a buuuuunch of people out on the tarmac that we just—never hear about? i just assume they’re all like technical officers or maybe other agents

“your father had the same look on his face. … as did i.”

harry is already rooting for him.

“late again, sir.”

that. brogue.

fuck, i could listen to him talk for hours, scottish accents are my favorite thing

#squadgoals

not a very diverse cast :/

the body bag speeeeech

and of course nobody was in any actual danger, but merlin doesn’t want them to know that so he becomes mr. hard as steel, i am emotionally stoic at all times, do not test me you bunch of rugrats

“classic army technique.”

ROXY

ROXY I WANT TO JUST HOLD YOU IN MY ARMS TT.TT

aannnnddd charlie, also

who we might’ve found sympathy for if we knew aaannyytthiinnggg else about his backstory

like, could he just be Like That, yeah

but most people i know who are assholes like that are that way because their parents were first /shrug/

can hardly fault the dude for turning out like that when poison was all he was given to drink

anyone else a hundred percent positive they would’ve drowned in the first trial

i would absolutely have panicked and bit it

but then again, i’m not kingsman material, i’m roanoke

and if this is the exact same test that merlin and harry went through, does that mean there might be some weird drowning trauma hidden back in there that’s just ANOTHER thing we’re not gonna talk about?

(yes the correct answer is yes)

god that’s such an american response to the problem though

glass can’t cause problems if it’s in a million pieces!

“yeah you can wipe those smirks off your faces…”

i wonder if there was ever a situation where a trainee actually drowned

and i don’t mean like amelia, i mean some poor kid who just failed the test

merlin knows how to put the fear of god in people though!

and mark strong, very handsome, yes, very scary, also yes

he and colin both look like they’re 80 percent leg in every single scene

harry literally had brain matter smatter ALL OVER HIS FACE and still somehow had the mental facilities to be aware of those dudes, leave a bomb and dive out of a window (and then escape said dudes)

billy badass, y’all

“just get it done.” okay, i took back what i said earlier, maybe he does see her as more of an assistant, less than a partner. their relationship is weird.

the puppy scene!

“it’s a bulldog innit?”

YASSSS the golden trio

because of what happened with our other canon charlie has become a weird character for me to watch, like, yeah, i “watch” charlie be himself in tss but the charlie i “see” is like—”our” charlie.

“bollocks!” and then he just runs with jb in his vest, makes me smile

aannddd we see valentine’s super cool factory

harry your hair gets so long <3

“water!” wow, who wants to bet that the fact he was instantly screaming means that maybe he’s gonna have some stuff to talk about in therapy later

roxy baby i’m sorry they made you hold the balloon and have to trust these dumbasses to not shoot you on accident

i would trust roxy to not shoot me

i love, love love valentine’s house

it’s gorgeous

set design is always such a cool way for filmmakers to include details about a character using pure aesthetics and i’m such a slut for it

tilde!

see also: one of the characters done the WORST by these movies imo!

the fact that she not only says no, she says no with enthusiasm and gets blatantly pissed, is one of the best insights we get into tilde’s character and then it just—gets wasted

like it takes three steps and then gets mowed down in the hallway like her guards

i would never be given the opportunity to be asked if i wanted an implant but i draw the line at having stuff put into my neck

awwww harry’s so proud!

that finger point “yeah, see, be more like your uncle”

merlin is SO TALL

“a bit much innit?”

he’s just—tapping a normal clipboard

… nobody wanna talk about how that’s a normal clipboard

anyway

i also love how they show him in professor sweaters for the beginning acts of the movie

definitely a softer aesthetic than one would guess for a dude who apparently did field missions sometime within the past decade or so, but i also have a theory that lee’s death directly contributed to merlin maybe being the man behind the screen as opposed to afield

because trauma is a thing but this is a FUN movie so we’re NOT gonna talk about it

“you’re gonna be all right. you’re top of the class!” this was the scene that made my mom a reggsy shipper

regardless of how you feel about them as a couple, their friendship is one of the best things about this movie, along with their dynamic with charlie, asjdnaskdjna WHY could we not have had a trio movie instead

eggsy you show-off “lemme just throw my arms up and dip outta this plane like it’s not a big deal”

roxy you can do it!

ugh, there goes my baby, off to have a near-death experience under merlin’s immediate supervision lmao

“good girl, rox, glad you made it!”

guys, they’re just kids.

i love this big group scene because it reminds us that these are just young folks, still

“my, my, you’re all very cheerful...”

“rufus, come on!” dude eggsy—and not even just eggsy, charlie and rox too--at least made an attempt at teamwork. you get points for that bro

but man, for all they know, they’re about to beef it in a very permanent way, i’d be freaking out too

merlin getting caught up in the drama

because again, he’s supposed to know that eggsy has a parachute

i think he wasn’t prepared for these two to get that close to not making it and that’s why we see him break face and drop his mug

*WHAM*

i HATE the sound of them landing

it’s not like you can hear bones breaking but it hurts me, guys

and then there were three

plus one daddy long legs quartermaster

“if you have a complaint you come here and you whisper it in my ear.”

yes SIR

“you need to take that chip off your shoulder.”

merlin coming’ in with the tough love portion of the kingsman core squad

there’s no reason for me to think harry’s persona was inspired by cruella de ville somehow but i do anyway

she reveals the mcdonald’s and valentine is just :D

idk if he was expecting a specific reaction or was just excited to see a reaction period

valentine is definitely a fun villain, which, given the tone of the movie, makes sense, it’s all supposed to be fun

one of the reasons i love kingsman is that it’s like, this golden ray of goofy cinematic fuckery in a world of grim!dark remakes and other superhero/spy films who are presented as more serious stories

“and thank you for such a—happy, meal.”

harry got a puppy smile

but see, then, here at his house he’s a lot more relaxed with gazelle! like, patting her butt, etc.

maybe what we see of their relationship is dependent on setting, because valentine himself has it compartmentalized?

perrrrrrhaps

“and i am never, EVER GOING TO AGREE!”

tilde, you deserved better, and i think all the weird hate you get from our ohana is unfair

you don’t twist a runner’s ankle before the race starts and then get mad when they don’t win

your story was mishandled from the beginning

asmr: hanging out with the golden trio watching worrying news in the kingsman trainee bunker room

the way he says “biblical sense” lmao

i have never been able to figure out if the way he says that line is supposed to infer spiritual respect, or lack of it, but i might be looking too into it

“it’s an acquired taste, mate.”

what—what would you even do if you were at a club and three people as hot as taron, ed and sophie all came up and start talking to you at the same time

like i know the target got up and left pretty quick because of the training exercise

but i’d be doing it because i’m ugly and if three hot people are all talking me up at a bar something is Bad and Wrong

which—the CAHONES on both eggsy and roxy

they both literally said “yeah i’m willing to die for this organization that hasn’t even given me a permanent place yet, what of it”

look at harry’s dimples in this scene, he is fighting a huge grin, he’s SO PROUD

i know that charlie’s response is supposed to be just more fodder into the “charlie hesketh is a tool” fire

but given that i’m not unconvinced that his home life wasn’t super shitty, like—

idk, this makes this scene a lot less fun to me. it makes it sad.

like, maybe charlie didn’t even want to be there deep down, maybe this was all for like, arthur, or his dad, or some other person he looked up to

and the way merlin looks when he tells charlie to go home, the way that he’s kinda grimacing? i’m wondering if he’s along the same kind of feeling. he’d know more about charlie’s history

have i also mentioned how much i love harry’s war room?

“YES harry!”

an evil plan is being born!

“true nobility is being superior to your former self.”

eggsy is still in his club clothes, so like—has he slept? y’all let those kids sleep after fucking drugging them, right? … guys?

“—when one is popping ones cherry.”

and eggsy is just CHEESING he is SO EXCITED

am i the only one who wants to learn more about the store clerk guy though?

he’s like the one person around who’s legit just there to run the shop

has no idea about any of the spy stuff happening

his name is donald, he’s married with three children and has two spaniels he loves

“THAT is sick.”

i would KILL for this room.

i don’t need anything in here for any reason but still

foreshadowing, foreshadowing, foreshadowing, more foreshadowing—

harry is such a NERD

“put it back, eggsy.”

the amount of self-control it would take to not have a sudden change in expression in that moment, omg

i wonder how THAT gets trained up in kingsman

“i guarantee it.” ha, get it, it’s a reference to that one commercial

“y’all—talk so funny.”

and this all means that they had a contact at that hat shop and got all that info to them before valentine got there, and somehow made sure he did end up buying a hat that they could also successfully put a bug on, how deep does this goooooo

“jack bauer?”

it says a lot about eggsy that out of all the jb’s it could’ve been, it was jack

uggghhhhhh of course they HAD to do this scene with eggsy with arthur

obviously harry couldn’t do it

i just think most of us would NOT be fans of arthur at this point in the movie, we’re all rooting for eggsy, like, he needs this moment with this other character because we gotta drive home that he’s an asshole

also—would have absolutely failed that test

and i’m not sorry at all

“welcome to kingsman--lancelot.”

i was really happy that it was a female agent who ended up getting the handle

aannddd more echoes of past scenes, man, nobody can say that this crew wasn’t intentional with their cinematography

when eggsy rolls the window down you can see his chest moving up and down, like, he is MAD

dean you asshole

so no wonder he gets so pissed that the car suddenly decides “nope, no, we’re not doing this, c’mon”

this entire conversation at harry’s house is—tense

and you don’t pick up on it the first time, i don’t think, but uh

i’m seeing it now

harry’s not just mad, he’s hurt, and eggsy’s furious but he’s also maybe regretting his actions.

it’s these two men who are rapidly trying to figure out their headspaces and trying to figure out how to navigate this situation with each other

and the way eggsy tries to apologize ;-;

kentucky is a beautiful state, actually

ohhhhhh y’alllll

we’re at the churrrccchhhh

we’re gettin’ closer to the coolest part of the movieeeee

it’s telling that gazelle was trying to make sure that they’d be safe

“… so hail satan, and have a lovely afternoon madame.”

the most metal lines colin firth has ever uttered on camera

the siren noise after it’s switched on bothers me in a way i can’t quite articulate

it might be because i have silent hill-colored trauma, who knows

FREEEEEE

BIIIRRRDDDDDDD

THE GREATEST ACTION TRACKING SHOT IN THE HISTORY OF CINEMA

but then eggsy and merlin are reacting aaaanndddd it’s—a lot less fun

because you realize that they’re watching their bro mercilessly slaughter innocent people and not stopping

and still not stopping

and still not stopping

but plot twist, i’m really glad they kept the track going, because if they’d suddenly picked *this* part of the scene to get serious, that would’ve brought the mood down so low that i don’t think there would’ve been any bouncing back

i just

how do people exist who aren’t attracted to harry hart

that man is a machine

and colin worked so hard to be able to do the scene himself, and that work SHOWS, that man cuts a FIGURE

i don’t know how they managed to somber it up just the right amount, either? maybe because they waited for the “fun action sequence” to be over so there wouldn’t need to be noise that had to be masked by a fun rock track?

“… what did you do to me.”

i cannot imagine what harry was feeling in that moment.

the way he spoke it was like he didn’t even have time to be afraid to die

“that tends to happen when you shoot somebody in the head. feels good, right?”

“no, it does not feel good!”

i love that exchange because we normally hear the opposite.

also—whiplash.

mark has this way of expressing grief without showing any—blatant signs.

like merlin’s not especially tearful, or crying, but his eyes look MASSIVE. and SAD. and he has just the tiiiiiniest tremor in his voice.

and eggsy, dude, like, we’ve all had it come on us really quick and suddenly it’s like your chest is pumping like a piston and when did it get so hard to breathe?

ARTHUR you REPULSE me

like look at how egssy’s shoulders sag when he realizes that arthur isn’t on his team

and in a way, this is eggsy’s final test as a kingsman trainee, imo

do you realize how quickly he had to assess what was happening and figure out what to do, all without arthur noticing?

“you are all alone. it is all up to you. remember all you have learned. good luck.”

it’s a very—almost horror-esque situation from that pov

and he passed with flying colors to go on his first true mission, because after he puts on the suit, that’s his visual cue of graduating, if that makes sense

that’s the knight putting on his armor.

“i’d rather be with harry. thanks.”

“so be it.”

*click*

me: *laughing at arthur’s big dumb stupid head*

… man i’d love a replica of that decanter and glasses set though

not to mention that eggsy recognized the flaws in arthur’s character and weaponized them, which is a whole other level of shit that isn’t necessarily easy; he knew that arthur carried the kind of pride that would leave him open

god, he looks so exhausted though when rox has him at gunpoint.

i think he was being pretty serious, about harry

sick helipaaaaaaad

that thing looks vaguely like a rock-‘em sock-‘em robot but in pieces though

more grandpa sweaters <3

man. you can see roxy swallow, you know she’s scared, but then she just sets her jaw and—

roxy baby you are the best i love you

i like the vintage vibe of the mountain lair

i think that’s another visual poke at the aesthetic themes of some of the older, og spy flicks out there

merlin looks SO LANKY walking back to the plane for some reason??

he stays until the last second for roxy. that’s love right there.

“a bespoke suit always fits.”

which can be good spiritual life advice too but that’s a separate conversation

“what the fuck is WRONG with you people?”

and his fuckin’ disco ball

uuggggghhhhh his speech reminds me of so many… “public figures” that i dislike

even though it’s obviously a bad thing that the chips are everywhere, i appreciate that phones and such are being shown in a positive manner (like, michelle talking to someone in the park, people at a ball game taking selfies, people at the beach, etc.) because i get so sick of that anti-tech boomer humor tbh

and the big reveal of eggsy in his suitttt

A KNIGHT IS BORN

“how’s the view?”

“hideous.”

you’re allowed to be crabby baby, you just let it out.

“lookin’ good, eggsy.”

“feelin’ good, merlin.”

merlin is so calm heading into the fortress and i don’t know if it’s because he’s very, very good at compartmentalizing and that’s genuinely how he is at the moment or if he’s that way through extreme self-control and effort

he can rock a pilot’s uniform though

just like eggsy can rock a suit

they’re both so handsome, help

i also wonder how eggsy’s feeling right then

like, i’d imagine that the pressure of having to perform a role to literally save the world would be enough to distract him from the bite of grief

that’s—probably enough to distract everyone, tbh

i a hundred percent believe there are breakdowns we don’t see

i wonder if eggsy told tilde he’d spoken to lindstrum(sp?) after everything was said and done

like, that’d be some kind of weird foreshadowing in hindsight

this scene is anxiety-inducing in a big way so to distract myself i imagine roxy as a mech pilot

dude i’d totally watch sophie in a role like that, like, let her be in a movie like pacific rim, she’d kick ass

and now we have The Chaos

otherwise known as that point when Everything Is Happening All At Once All The Time

also a thing that doesn’t exist in spy movies: hearing damage

because like his voice is right in eggsy’s ear and without it he’d have a LOT harder time surviving

imagine being an agent, merlin trying to talk to you, but something either hits your ear or goes off right next to it and suddenly it’s just silent

SYSTEM FAILURE

YAAASSSSS

WE WIN

GGOOOAAAAALLLLLL

THE AUDIENCE IS DOING THE WAVE

except JUST KIDDING

The Chaos 2 Electric Boogaloo!

merlin with a huge gun: hot, also, very scary

eggsy is just 10000% done

“this is mine. i’ll show you yours.”

i wonder who e man was supposed to be that valentine called.

like is that a reference to a real person that i just did’t catch?

… elon musk? maybe? idk

eggsy slides like a gd anime character

when he uses the rainmaker, it’s just like harry’s protecting him from somewhere else

(oh—wait, technically kentucky, i guess)

“merlin, i’m fucked.” you can hear the anger there. not only did he fail, but he—and everyone else—is about to die

but this? this is the pinnacle of eggsy showing himself as a kingman agent

he was staring death straight in the mouth and STILL

SOMEHOW

REMEMBERED THE IMPLANTS

so i guess if i say that the moment when he puts on the suit is when he becomes a true agent, then maybe this is the moment when he becomes galahad.

*bobs head to pomp & circumstance*

i remember getting a huge kick out of how colorful they made this

because in real life you know a bunch of people literally blowing up would be like—DISGUSTING

viscera everywhere

no fun rainbow mushroom clouds

“i’ve always wanted to kiss a princess.”

ANOTHER knight reference, very clever matthew

mmmmm Do Not Like that noise

aaaannndddd *that* line

which—maybe that’s mr. vaughn’s sense of humor, or what he thinks the sense of humor his core demographic has, idk

but it always kinda rubbed me the wrong way

the mass brawl scenes are edited so like--jarringly compared to the other fight scenes in the movie

that’s probably for a reason

also, a showdown to the tune of something disco: kind of another trope homage

this shot of gazelle is so sick, i love everything about it, she is so cool

this entire fight with eggsy is awesome tbh

we got a little bit of what gazelle can look like in combat earlier with tilde’s guards, but now we get this epic showdown seeing her at her full potential against someone who’s actually a challenge

and the way valentine is shouting for her to kick his ass from upstairs and yelling encouragement lmao that’s how real friends act when there’s a fight

daisy ;-; ugh, that’s the visual gutpunch that makes it juuuuuust serious enough by reminding us of the stakes

which is why it’s fitting that then we see the Slo-Mo K.O.

and that smile with the fun little chimes in the back, lmao

and eggsy, quick on his feet again byyyy being quick on gazelle’s feet—foot—whatever

man, impalement deaths are always fun.

coulda done without the vomiting but that’s also one of valentine’s quirks that makes him different from a cookie cutter villain

aaannddd have a heavy sigh from merlin

that dude needs a full-body massage and a drink

“is this where you say some really bad pun?”

reminder: i love that this movie is self-aware! i could not picture a super serious kingsman movie! i just picture something depressing!

there had to have been a better option besides—this, for this eggsy/tilde ending scene

i’m not saying i’m mad it ended with them fucking, i’m mad that the extent of the joke was anal and that was it.

also the idea of my boss possibly seeing me having sex would have me a little more concerned about the hardware on my face, but okay??

aannddd the tapes.

gah, we love visual throwbacks!

we love being able to see that despite all this growth and change, family remains very important to eggsy—he hasn’t changed into a different person, he has grown more into himself than ever before! THIS! THIS is eggsy unwin!

… GET READY FOR IT

time for tgc! (and to get into my roanoke feels, maybe, this is the nexus where our canons connect)

the BAGPIPES

okay

i did not stop to consider how unpleasant this was going to be to watch stoned but we’re gonna power through it and get through it together

if i cry i cry

the way the music swells into the main theme <3

and the perfect reveal for our boy eggsy!

reflected in gold, looking sharper than broken glass

and SUDDENLY CHARLIE

the pacing in tgc leads me to believe that matthew had huge plans for this movie, and a lot of cool stuff probably ended up on the cutting room floor for time

i also love that they brought charlie back

i love his voice box and his cool robot arm

and i’m not just saying that because it made it super easy to blend him into our canon, either, this is like—charlie’s evil twin in terms of his new aesthetic, the contrast is really cool

YYAASSSS THIS SCENE

WITH PRINCE PLAYING??

*CHEF’S KISS*

like we are IMMEDIATELY thrown back into the gold parts of it all, like how physics is a little broken so we can do cool shit like have a knockdown drag-out fight all within the space of a small cab

i wonder what would’ve hurt charlie worse—being thrown onto his organic side, or having all his weight land on his metal arm if it hadn’t disattached

but then he’s up and standing so i guess we’re fine?

MERLIN! <3

otherwise known as the character entrance that literally changed my life

i try not to think about it too much or i get weirded out

ANYWAY

(and to think i almost never even saw the movie)

Sick Car Chase, Bro

and as an american, like, everything’s on the opposite side to me, it’s stressful to watch a little bit

“i seem to remember in your training you were rather good at holding your breath.”

man, that’s uh—kind of a macabre thing to say, merlin

just a little bit

i’m not even gonna attempt to hold my breath to see if i’d survive this scene just assume i’m dead in that universe

we all live in a kingsman subarmine, a kingsman submarine, a kingsman submarine~~

“not boasting, but i trained him well enough that even he wouldn't mess that up.”

merlin are you okay??

gah, i love that chest-deep laugh though.

is it real love if they won’t crawl through the sewer to get to your house in time

i love that harry’s house looks basically the same

i know they talk about eggsy not wanting to change anything in the novelization but i haven’t read it yet so I’m not a hundred percent sure what all is in there

and we still get to see him hanging with his friends, and his girlfriend, like, this dude is still all about the family

“wwwwOOOOO!”

i love this group so much omg

for as much as he’s galahad, he’s still eggsy

the transition in the weed bag looks super cool

… oh, i guess watching this while high makes the main storyline hit a bit different

welp

i love that poppy is an aesthetic slut and really doesn’t give a shit about anyone’s opinion about how she makes her space

like, “i want a big 50s-style diner with a gourmet kitchen that i can cook people in, soooooo i’m getting one”

it’s also refreshing to see julianne moore in a bad guy role!

not that i’m super familiar with her filmography but i feel like i’ve mostly seen her cast as like a good guy?

i could be wrong

awwwww jet and bennie!

there’s so much to love about this set

cannibalism and the fact that she bulldozed jungle to build all this aside (suspend that belief!)

the breakfast sceeeeeene

it’s so bittersweet, for obvious reasons

and it’s more evidence that he’s not super ready to move on into new territory yet, like making new memories with tilde that ring close to home

“i wish i could have met him.”

and the way he has to turn away, ugh.

eggsy. i’m sorry.

tilde, i’m sorry, too. you had good intentions, but they lost against his pain.

michael gambdon! the new arthur we didn’t know we wanted until we got him.

charlie had a moral glo-down, it’s fine, happens to everybody

FFFFFF his imitation of merlin lmfao

man, poor charlie, like

you wake up, you can’t make a sound, your arm has been blown off and your family’s dead

like his reaction to that entire scenario isn’t entirely unrealistic, i’m just saying

also LOOK AT ROX

omg everyone in this movie can wear the FUCK out of suit, y’all

man, i’ve gotten a few tattoos that were exquisitely painful—i can’t imagine how much it would suck to do it with literal molten metal

dude this means clara laid on her stomach and probably screamed at the floor as she got hers D:

this kinda—riffs off of hannibal, a teeny-tiny bit

like we’re so overloaded with the aesthetics and behavior of a certain character so it’s like, we forget about the much darker parts untillllll there’s a mood change and we’re looking at that dude’s legs, to the burger this other dude puts in his mouth, and thinking “oh, oh dear, ew”

i love eggsy in the orange jacket <3 snaps for the wardrobe crew across this series.

tilde’s face, omg, she was heart-eyeing so bad. and like, that little proud nod at her dad (who was of course being Like That on purpose)

and roxy, coming in in the clutch, you are tonight’s MVP

uggghhhhh i hate this part

because again, it’s just--a bunch of bad shit colliding outside of anyone’s control

(it was also really jarring seeing the war room with blank walls the first time i watched this)

like—granted, you should maybe not touch stuff that’s not yours, but…

like we *just* saw eggsy and brandon in a very casual, intimate scene with each other, how can anyone get angry with brandon?

this is all stress-inducing

i remember being in the theater watching this and feeling like i was watching some awful slow motion car wreck and i couldn’t look away

idk what other story i would’ve wanted to see but i was NOT a fan of Sudden Death For Christmas, especially concerning roxy!

and poppy is such a *bright* villain, not just because of taste but because of her personality, which is another weird thing to have next to the cannibalism

gaaahhhh charlieeee your arm is so cooooool

this shot is gorgeous and incredibly depressing.

what do you do?

gah, and the way merlin comes out of the dark, like

i probably would’ve drawn a gun on him too

“you think *i* would?”

this scene shows 1. how much he trusts eggsy to not shoot him, and/or 2. how good merlin is at compartmentalizing, because this is an even bigger blow than harry’s death, and he’s following the protocol like it’s an art form

i hope that we see some reference to this safe in the next movie, that’d be a cool way to tie the narratives all together

“i suppose that must be upper class humor. … i don’t get it.”

reminder, merlin is working class.

if you’re a ho for this fandom and went and bought this whiskey specifically because of this movie clap your hands *clap clap*

and they proceed to just get HAMMERED

“country rooaaddsss… take me hoooooome…”

another reminder: kentucky is a beautiful state!

i would love to tour a whiskey distillery, that’d be super cool

“shame it’s not scotch”

again, with his weird night vale clipboard.

who would win: two highly-trained kingsman agents vs. one (1) cowboy

channing tatum, ladies and gentlemen!

“y’all look damn sharp!”

i am forever gonna be mad we didn’t get more of tequila in this movie, and not just because of roanoke either, but like, “that dog don’t hunt,” whatever he has in his mouth sealed a leak in a barrel, and it took him all of two minutes to incapacitate both eggsy AND merlin? hello??

i’m glad we’ll get to see more of him in the another movie.

“you know why the measurement of alcohol is called proof?”

just dumping it on their laps, so disrespectful

“—and you can go fuck yourself.”

eggsy fucking just giggling.

these two doofuses

also it’s hot to see merlin be sassy ngl

“HARRY!”

these guys have been fast thinkers in stressful situations but as it turns out, people being unexpectedly not dead can kinda fuck with your day

aaannddd halle berry, everybody! i love ginger ale omg

(and so does merlin, he is instantly enchanted)

;-; this reunion scene

i don’t know how colin manages to be two completely different people at once

like there’s a huge difference between former agent galahad and harry hart the lepidopterist and i can’t explain it

i really, really hope we see at least one little hint at kinsman’s relationship with statesman in the new movie, i just think it’d be really cool

in roanoke canon, there’s an office rumor that the nanobot tech used by statesman was influenced directly by the same technology developed by dr. wernicke in the outlast games. i still think it’s one of my better crossover ideas.

also

god bless whoever decided to get elton john involved with all this?? because i was DELIGHTED

i love poppy’s wardrobe as much as i love her weird 50s-land in the jungle

i also really love the main statesman theme? it reminds me of all those fun epic westerns

jeff bridges! :D

champ vaguely reminds me of my dad

“can you imagine us in the tailor business?”

and he’s super quick with the questions. my headcanons for champ are all over the place but one that i really like is that he was maybe a sheriff or in law enforcement before being recruited by statesman.

aaanndddd pedro pascal, everybody!

otherwise known as *another* character that this movie did dirty, that’ll probably come up in this later

imagine being harry hart, not remember all of yourself, and suddenly your entire room just—fills with water

that had to have been so terrifying, and it was just as hard for merlin to watch (and possibly remember something unpleasant)

and like

that sounds like SUCH bullshit, too, like “yeah we thought if you came close to drowning it would help”

which, is that what merlin meant, no, but is that what harry heard, probably

enter jb the second ;-; <3 sweet baby

tilde’s trying so hard. i see you!

aha, penis jokes.

and all of the unnecessary weird festival stuff, uuggghh

there are so many different things they could have done, like, all of this is just weird from the get-go

first of all, whiskey striking out? hello?? saying no to a man like mr. pascal???

not realistic

the way whiskey takes a shot as he walks away lmao, relatable

and poor clara, like, it’s not like she was asking for any of this D:

hmmmmmmm don’t know how i feel being a stoner watching other stoners get this blue rash thing when i know it kills some of themmmmmmm

i love charlie in his newsboys cap!

poppy has a little bit of a point. like, booze is way more dangerous than pot, as is tobacco. like i would never advocate anyone try meth or heroin, but i think weed and some hallucinogenics get bad wraps.

seeing a dude get torn in half in the reflection of elton john’s sunglasses is the surprising bit of gore we need to remember that oh, yeah, the villain isn’t fun, she’s a murderer

uuggghhhh the TENT SCENE

and, look, i’ll defend tilde forever, but i did NOT like the weird marriage ultimatum. i still think it’s a dick move, like, in that situation either decide to trust your boyfriend or break up with him

the tent interior is super cool-looking

and like, man, he tried, he tried to bounce D:

/sigh/ work hazards, i guess

mmmmmm we don’t need any of what’s happening on screen right now so i’ll just sit patiently and wait for it to be over

and like, there’s nothing funny about merlin and ginger being able to hear everything that’s going on, it’s so grosssss, poor ginger has to have heard some shit before to be so nonchalant about it

everything about this sucks

and then he tries going to the one person who he needs the most and having to deal with him still existing in some state between alive and dead

his body is here

but harry is not

“maggots turn into flies, perhaps you mean larvae!” :D he is SO CUTE

but this entire conversation, with harry still not remembering and eggsy trying so hard to reach him through the fog, is so depressing

like, i’d need a drink too

*and* a joint

i’m seeing my coping mechanisms on screen here folks

the way he comes up with the idea is kinda ingenious though

like, he’s looking at stuff to make himself bummed on purpose, but therein he finds the thing he needs to fix the issue

harry’s smile when eggsy hands him the puppy TT.TT

and then eggsy just becomes a stone cold motherfucker with no emotions

“no one’s sick enough to shoot a puppy!”

hi, flashback!harry

and as SOON as he remembers himself, it’s like his eyes are different, something about him looks like it did before kentucky

“… eggsy.”

one of my favorite movie hugs

and eggsy has to stand on his tiptoes because harry’s so tall

like yeah merlin and harry’s reunion isn’t as overtly emotional, but there’s definitely a sense of joy and relief there.

harry my baby ;-; much better with the sunglasses (and merlin was so close to telling him he looked spectacular)

“now is that any way to welcome a visit from outta town, moonshine?”

he! tried! to! defend! harry!

i hate that jack got a villain story line!

we could’ve had something so much better and infinitely more compelling!

“hurrrr durrrr morgan you just like redemption arcs because you don’t want anybody being a villain permanently” i also like them because sometimes that’s better writing, y’all sit down

“that is NOT what i call a kentucky welcome.”

i love so many things happening in this scene, like

we get to see whiskey kick ass, like yassss gimme those sweet action sequences and give us some character development by showcasing his fighting style

and also NOBODY shits on harry for not being able to handle the situation. both eggsy and merlin were like “dude we’re still celebrating the fact that you’re alive tbh it’s fine if you’re not back up to speed right this second”

you can really tell that this was penned by british people writing american slang because having grown up in the southern half of the u.s. i have never ONCE heard ANYONE say shit like “i feel like a tornado in a trailer park” lmao

and poppy’s fun little death threat infomercial, so great

“what have you done to me you FUCKING BITCH” oof, that’s a mood

!!!!! gonna be honest i kinda forgot that bruce greenwood plays the president

okay but save lives, legalize isn’t an entirely bad idea tbh

hnnnnnnng the scenes about people not being able to get into the hospital hits different in the year of our lord 2020 huh

… y’all i’m being weirded out by all this hospital scenes, this is unpleasant

i, too, wish i could pull a tequila and just be slipped into a chilly coma until shit wasn’t so fucked up

“the fact is, this presidency has won the war on drugs!”

THIS SCENE!

look, y’all can come into my inbox and call me a pothead, or a lazy stoner, or some third insult, but this dude’s VP is bringing up some very, VERY important points when it comes to any kind of discussion about drug use in the u.s.

am i drug-friendly, sure, but i’m more friendly to the notion that we stop demonizing addicts/users

harry looks fucking SCANDALIZED when he sees champ spit into his spittoon thing

i don’t think whiskey even brought up harry not being ready to return to the field in an insulting manner, he literally just saw him get his ass beat in a bar, but eggsy’s faith and loyalty are up there in the category of unstoppable force/immovable object, so here we are

am i the only one curious about the whole charlie x clara thing? because he’s definitely grown up a bit by tgc, and i wanna know how much of that might be because of clara

and he MISSES, e for effort harry

“so sorry about this—“ WHAM

and now that guy can say colin firth busted his face with a fire extinguisher, which is very cool

“*you’re* wu ting feng?” “… yes?”

“you motherFUCKER” ohhhhhh charlie maaaaaad

ginger and merlin though, #couplegoals

the only person more pissed off about the hallucinations than everyone else is harry

imagine remembering that you’re one of the top people in your field and you just keep seeing imaginary butterflies everywhere

like, yeah, i’d be pissed at not being able to do what i knew i was capable of, too

if it wasn’t careening towards a random retirement center, getting stuck in a wildly rotating gondola thing could be fun

nice tuesday afternoon activity

i would loved to have seen more galahad/whiskey field stuff

“you’ve got to be fucking kidding me—“

meanwhile, in the continuing adventures of eggsy and jack: shit goes from bad to worse like a formal spiral only going downward

their expressions as their both just SCREAMING always make me laugh

”that’s the first decent shit i’ve had in three weeks.” <- as does that line, that old dude’s just telling it like it is

eggsy’s comment about the antidote just reminds me of when boromir looks a the ring and says something like “all this for such a tiny thing”

dun dun DUN what are THOSE? hints that whiskey may not be who we think he is??

great. so excited about that. i say, rolling my eyes into the sun

“i’ll fix their wagons.” no one says that matthew!

i. love. this. scene. because now we get cool gun tricks AND the second most metal thing that happens with a lasso in this movie (we’re coming up on the most metal thing)

like please please PLEASE show us more lasso tricks in the statesman movie

“well thank fuckin’ christ i didn’t need any backup.” i wonder if whiskey’s acting angrier than he actually is to throw off the fact that he might’ve caught harry’s glance at him betraying suspicion

RIP jack

imagine the timeline where whiskey was never a bad guy and harry hart just blew a dude away for NO REASON

now THAT would be an interesting movie

because harry and eggsy, for all they went through in the first film, never had a conflict where it was harry in the position of mangling the ropes up

but of course eggsy would never, never tell merlin what happened because he’s still ultimately on harry’s team

damn, charlie, literally blowing up your girlfriend seems kinda extreme

“THIS is vital!”

and here we get to see the biggest difference between merlin and ginger

now, i know there’s extra stuff in the novelization about their relationship and i can’t talk about it because i have no idea what’s in the book

but!

i DO still headcanon as merlin quitting fieldwork after lee’s death

his comment is either what he genuinely believes, or maybe what he fashioned his beliefs into after stepping down from his field role, and ginger is just as sincere in her desire to break into that aspect of working for statesman

it’s like seeing the same character but in two points in time, and it’s really cool

that balance would’ve also been a fun aspect of their romantic relationship to explore but alas! ’twas not to be

colin and mark could both play slenderman

look at those limbs.

gracious.

also this facetime scene with eggsy and tilde T.T

that has to be so terrifying to watch when you know the steps of death and what they look like as they get closer

but it also puts a fire under eggsy though

“i’m leaving with, or without you.”

and of course they’re both gonna go because that’s NOT characteristic eggsy behavior based off of how we know he views family/squad

that’s how they know he’s being for cereal

uugggggGGHHHH and THAT FORESHADOING

stacey pruitt, attorney at lawwwww

hmmmmmmmmm

what does this conversation between poppy and the president remind me of

gonna just sigh into the void

and now we have harry and eggsy on the jet along with the BIGGEST LIE harry hart has ever told in his LIFE

kingsman and statesman aesthetics at least tend to be the same color schemes. lotta golds, yellows. browns.

eggsy, yeah, it’s a bummer your gf dumped you, but this relationship wasn’t very well-developed or written so i’m not as bummed as i could be

“… and in that moment, all i felt was loneliness and regret.”

harry shut the FUCK UP

you felt NOTHING??

you weren’t thinking of, gee, i dunno, EGGSY? or MERLIN?? your MOM???

like these lines from him just seem to come out of left field and i can’t even halfway suspend my belief long enough to come close to believing him

like mr. hart you just gonna be like that in front of jesus and everybody????

so, yeah, of course he’s on board with saving tilde! because he recognizes (apparently just right that second) that “having something to lose is what makes life worth living”

and i don’t know if they felt like there need to be some weird, deeply contrasting reason for harry to swing around to being in support? or something?

like

i’m forever pissed about this characterization and i don’t even know if i’m expressing my anger in a way that makes it easy to understand lmao this is fine, i’m fine, literally not a single person in this fandom ever believed those lines anyway, it’s fine

moving on

... and even if they WERE true then honestly that just makes me more excited about butterfly knife, because that means that harry acknowledged both the bad side of the coin, and also the side with rae on it (which would mean seeing her for who she was and also recognizing his feelings for what THEY were) and drew the ultimately correct conclucision that love! is! always! worth! it! let that shit in like a welcome guest in the home of your heart, and they will stay as long as you let them!

as SOON as he wakes up ginger looks a thousand percent done lmao

and the “process” that they use to wake people up or whatever is—interesting

because all it is, is trauma turned into a tool which is kind of a weird concept to see in a “fun spy movie” imo

and this is one of what i feel were like only what, two? glimpses we get into whiskey’s Tragic Backstory

and the other scene isn’t a glimpse it’s just straight up exposition in his dialogue :/

jack, i’m sorry, you deserved better than this as a character

i’m sure the name “silver pony” is a reference to something but i don’t know what

“lookin’ GOOD merlin!” “feelin’ good, eggsy.”

ladies and gentlemen when i tell you that i lost my pool-noodle mind seeing him put on that suit watching this in a theater, i--

ANYWAY

because now that i have the horrible burden of having seen these movies a million times

i know it’s more symbolic

he stays in sweaters so long, as an agent of the background, because he walked a man to his death

so it figures when he puts the armor back on for the first time in ages

he walks to his own

uuuggghhhh the minesweeper

i hate this

i hate it

i hate everything about the feelings i’m having while this is happening

*beep-beep*

“you move, we die.”

i HATE IT

but like, i don’t know, how preferable is this to the end scene we almost got, which was merlin dragging his newly-legless corpse through a doggy door?

because it’s been literally multiple years and i still have no fucking idea

they’re both horrible in their own terrible, awful ways

damn, matthew, it’s not often someone manages to come up with multiple versions of a thing and have every version be so gut-wrenchingly horrific, i’m truly impressed and completely disgusted

“do as your told!”

god

everyone just going through twenty shades of Bad Feelings in the space of fifteen seconds here in the jungle

and colin and taron do this thing where it’s like—their eyes go dead? like, there was a light here, it’s gone now

it SUCKS

oh

oh no

ALMOST HEAVEN

WEST VIRGINIA

… fuck

LIFE IS OLD THERE

OLDER THAN THE TREES

“… singing?”

this sucks.

this sucks this sucks this sucks

MOUNTAIN MAMAAAAA

TAKE ME HOOOOME

COUNTRY ROOOADDSSSSS

*THUNK*

and he even took off his glasses before he hit him, he had his end coming towards him and he was still a gentleman

TAKE ME HOOOME

COUNTRY RROOOOAAAADDDSSSSS

his EYES AT THE END

FUCK

… okay i had to get up and go for a lil’ walk

anyway

(and again, roanoke canon, fucking fixing’ shit left and right, because we’re the goat)

harry and eggsy look MURDEREROUS

MERLIN SAID KNOCK YOU OUT

it DID make the grand ending fun action scene a lot more satisfying

because like, without merlin there, that means harry and eggsy get to go full feral

poppy you big idiot you just robbed them of all their motivation to show any kind of restraint and now everybody’s gonna get blown up

except for those dudes who get kicked by elton john

which would be an HONOR first of all

(the part where eggsy’s using his gun and shield vaguely reminds me of the specialist, @bloodofthepen​)

and harry and eggsy just—they’re drift compatible! that’s it! the teamwork! the grace! the flow! my god!

eggsy vs. charlie: round like 4 if you count the first movie

it was also satisfying to see charlie’s new arm in action

we love fun robotics and gadgetry in this house

colin firth is really just not afraid to throw himself full force down a bowling lane huh

ugh, seeing charlie slam eggsy over and over again makes my chest hurt

the sound mixing on all these films is top notch which isn’t always a good thing T.T

ROCKETMAN~~~

that shit will never NOT be funny

a wild elton john appeared!

eggsy is indestructible, he can walk off anything

but charlie, charlie i feel really sorry for, imagine being attacked by a superior version of your own limb, i.e. something that you can’t exactly quickly remove from yourself, that would be TERRIFYING

harry + elton = dream teaaaammmm

“darling if you save the world, you can have a backstage pass.”

i love you elton john :(

i would have been the most OBNOXIOUS hype man in the background of the entire kingsman vs. poppy land face-off

“let’s make this fair.” eggsy you’re fuckin’ cheeky

and poor harry, all that lank just getting tossed like noodles

i thought the robot puppers were very cool

“for the record charlie i’m more of a gentleman than you’ll ever be.”

mmmmmm do NOT like this death for charlie

SUPER glad we fixed it

and another scene where i can’t stand the sound mixing T.T it makes me cringe every time

“i don’t consider genocide especially lady-like.”

and are we gonna talk about how merlin knew how to make heroin?

… no?

nobody wanna talk about that?

ugh that houndstooth dress is so PRETTY though

high!poppy is weirdly comedic for all of two seconds and then it stops being funny real fast

whiskey D:<

this is so dumb

this is all so, so dumb

“our agencies were founded to uphold peace, to protect the innocent—“

there’s that nobility again

is what happened to whiskey fucked up, yes

i’m not saying we have to completely remove that from his story

i just

literally anything but this would have been preferable

and then HOT DOG it’s one of my favorite shots in the movie with the whip where harry’s just chucking it away from his face like a bamf, YES

how great is this cover, let’s be honest

like, i’d be lying if i said i didn’t enjoy this scene visually

plus

HARRY GETTING PEGGED RIGHT IN THE FACE WITH A FRYING PAN

gracious

it’s one fluid tracking shot, so kinda in alignmentment with what we’re used to

some people get annoyed with repeated junk but when you can do it THIS WELL you can get away with anything

D:

but then jack

you did NOT desert that

yes, you were in dire need of an attitude adjustment but jesus

“this is for you, merlin.”

/ugly sobbing/

and tilde is all betterrrrrr ;-;

you guys did itttttt

COUNTRY ROOOAAADDSS

TAKE ME HOOOOOOMMEEEE

TO THE PLAAAAAACCCEEEEE

I BELOOOOONNGGGG

and the scene with jamal and liam T.T #wholesomecontent

poor tequila, after i knew that you would have a bigger role in another movie, i was less annoyed by the fact that they iced you so quick into the story

#FOX2020

“… now we’re brothers, working side by side.”

spoiler alert i actually love champ’s toast

“y’all shittin’ in high cotton now” WHAT DOES THAT MEAN???

and ginger becomes the new whiskey like she always wanted T.T

merlin is proud from heaven (or london, depending on which canon)

iiiiiii have mixed feelings about the whole wedding scene, which is probably because i take HUGE issue with the weird proposal ultimatum thing that happened earlier

but the way eggsy says “not a doubt in my mind,” he says it so seriously and i remember that tilde almost died

there was such good intention packed into this couple that was so badly written that i just

augh

“but it is perhaps the end of the beginning.”

there’s ***merlin! lmao i see you dude, they did you dirty

look

i was pissed off about a lot of things that happened in this thing but i was honestly hype seeing tequila at the very end walking into the tailor shop

like, yeah, i’ll stick around to see what happens in this universe but i’m gonna complain the whole time

GO JACK RABBIT

RUNNING THROUGH THE WOODS

and again, i almost didn’t see this movie.

… i think about that morgan sometimes.

hope she’s doin’ okay.

…

she’s probably not. D:

#kingsman #kingsman: the secret service #kingsman: the golden circle #kingsman tss #kingsman tgc #the roanoke society #kingsman: tss #kingsman: tgc #taron egerton #mark strong #colin firth #edward holcroft #sophie cookson #mark hamill #samuel l. jackson #bruce greenwood #pedro pascal #jeff bridges #halle berry #juliann moore #sofia boutella #hanna alström #statesman #weed mention #kingsman the secret service #kingsman the golden circle

[iamnmbr3]

Quarantine Fic Rec List Part 1

Since we’re all bored/stressed in quarantine, I thought I’d do a couple of rec lists. For this one I’m mostly doing some very well written but more unusual fics that you might not have come across before. I’ve listed the fandom and ships for each.  

So Much More Than That by brocanteur (complete | 4,005 | T | Mean Girls; Regina George/Cady Heron ) 

"And she missed Cady Heron. She missed her and blamed her for everything." Post-film.

The Richest Men In Town by copperbadge (complete | 2,476 | G | It’s A Wonderful Life)

George Bailey, a year after meeting the angel Clarence (second-class), gets a message from Clarence via an unlikely third party: H.F. Potter.

A Marital Education by Yahtzee (complete | 12,707 | M | Pride & Prejudice; Elizabeth/Darcy; period typical) 

Darcy's impotent.

The Kindness of Men by debit (complete | 2,476 | G | Black Beauty; Fixit)

The last time Ginger saw Black Beauty, she'd said, "I wish the end was come, I wish I was dead. I have seen dead horses, and I am sure they do not suffer pain."

Once Around the Block by ecouterbien (complete | 1,134 | M | The Drop; Bob Saginowski/Nadia Dunne)

She was shaking when he let her out of the bar, and it wasn’t because of the cold. It wasn’t even a long walk to her house, a block and a half at most, but it was the longest walk she ever remembered taking. She counted every breath, every footstep, all the time listening for his steps on the sidewalk behind her. He wouldn’t just let her go like that, would he? Not after what she’d seen him do.

You look so Seattle by chaosmanor  (complete | 8,955 | T | Venom )

Eddie and Venom are in Seattle chasing leads. Shit gets blown up. And there's fish.

A Princess And A Guy Like Me by Yahtzee (complete | 7,107 | T | Rapunzel/Flynn Rider)

“Rapunzel has never had choices before. I want her to have choices now.”

I nodded. “Absolutely.”

He meant, at least in part, choices of guys to marry who were not impoverished orphans/recently reformed thieves.

gunna pass me to that house above by deadendtracks (amonitrate) (complete | 625 | T | Peaky Blinders )

This wasn’t the trenches but it was the closest Alfie’d been to pinned down since he got back, and while Tommy wasn’t exactly a friend, that didn’t make him an enemy, now, did it.

A Broken Soul by wheatear (complete | 4,529 | G | Harry Potter)

What exactly is the nature of a soul? And when Lord Voldemort so willingly split his own soul in half, what damage did he do to himself?

dying out on burnt rage by lunaskeeper (complete | 2,576 | M | Peaky Blinders; Tommy Shelby/Alfie Solomons; period typical attitudes, POV outsider )

John hadn’t seen the same, trapped look in Tommy’s eyes in his office. And all of a sudden it was bubbling out of John’s mouth, a question he'd been pondering since he’d met Stefan’s shaky gaze with his own.

“Have you ever sucked cock?”

Rara Avis by Coryphasia (complete | 14,854 | G | My Fair Lady) 

The night after the Embassy Ball, Eliza Doolittle walked out on Henry Higgins and disappeared. Three years later, she returns to see if wrongs can be made right

'til the walls did crumble by arahir (complete | 3,742 | G | Game of Thrones’ Jon/Tormund) 

Jon Snow and Tormund Giantsbane and their giant dog go camping with a bunch of Wildlings. What happens next will SHOCK you. (They are buddies who fall in love lmao.)

“Not worried, are you?”

“For a crow boy? Never.” Tormund looks away, off toward the mountains in the distance where the Fist of the First Men sits as a jut of stone in the ice fields, which are turning greener day by day. “Don’t let them keep you down there, Jon Snow. Don't die in the South."

Be Careful What You Wish For by The_Necroposter  (complete | 225,838 | M | Twilight; very dark, spitefic, horror, proceed with care; skip to the end for an author’s note in which the writer epically calls out the problematic aspects of the original canon ) 

What if Breaking Dawn wasn't a Mary Sue fantasy, but a story with a plot, character development, and consequences? What if Bella's transformation actually was a sacrifice, and not only her getting used to an alien body was a challenge, but also staying alive in a world filled with enemies? Find out how a naive, selfish girl grows up and copes with the biggest mistake of her life.

Naming of the Beast by NeurotropicAgentX (complete | 1,316 | T | Venom; pre-canon symbiote world building) 

Consciousness hit like a wave, like a signal, like an attack. There had been nothing and now there was a jumble of concepts and thoughts and impulses. It writhed and thrashed, at once realising that it had a body that could do this, that could express this new consciousness.

It screeched.

Sequence by NeurotropicAgentX (complete | 2,882 | E | Venom; sort of Venom/Riot - pre-canon symbiote world building) 

I’ve never encountered anything like those blades you formed during your hunt, Venom sent, carefully, cautiously.

I acquired them on a mission. There’s a lot of interesting information to be found out there. Riot’s close-range chemical messages carried strange accents of complex biomolecules Venom had never felt before. The taste was a clear indication of just how much of Riot must have been shaped by past hosts and alien genetic information from beyond the stars. Venom wanted.

Show me? it asked.

No Living Man by ElanaBrooks  (complete | 732 | G | Lord of the Rings; Parody) 

In which the Witch King learns that, for an inhabitant of Middle Earth, the knowledge that no living man can harm you is no reason to get cocky. AU, Humor.

Here is a truth (here is another truth) by SecondStarOnTheLeft  (complete | 2,012 | M | Pirates of the Caribbean; James Norrington/Elizabeth Swann ) 

Here is a truth: James Norrington loves his wife, but he is completely incapable of believing that she might return the compliment.

Here is another truth: Elizabeth Norrington, née Swann, is a much more patient woman than she has ever been given credit for.

Bahamian-Style Mooring by syllic  (complete | 10,370 | G | Shawshank Redemption) 

Five times Red got things in Zihuatanejo (and one time he didn’t need to get anything).

Lunch and Other Obscenities by Rheanna (complete | 9,717 | G | Star Trek 2009; background Spock/Uhura)

Nyota liked her roommate just fine until she met her.

Nom de Coeur by Dorinda (complete | 12,725 | G | Casablanca; Rick/Louis)

This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship--but beginnings are only seeds, and it's a long way to Brazzaville.

Five Ways to Stop Being a Princess by igrockspock  (complete | 3,560 | T | Star Wars; Han/Leia )

1. Spend a night in the smuggling compartments of the Millennium Falcon 2. Learn to fire a blaster without closing your eyes 3. Get drunk and go to bed with an unsuitable man 4. Yell at people who ask if you're okay 5. Go to bed with an unsuitable man even when you're sober

elioenai by Anonymous  (complete | 6,002 | G | MCU Daemon AU )

Tony falls through the space between worlds. As a result, he can see daemons. It kind of freaks him out. (It's stranger and more beautiful than he could have ever imagined.)

The Sergeant and the Captain by OddityBoddity  (complete | 7,316 | G | MCU )

The Sergeant and the Captain, or, The True and Accurate Reports Chronicling the Well-being of the Shield-brothers James Barnes and Steven Rogers, Faithfully Submitted by Thor Odinson to Maria Hill, Director.

Special Circumstances Questionnaire for Sexual Partners (Male): Long Form by coruscera (impractica), linbot (complete | 1,320 | E | Fandom Culture Parody )

Does having sex with you entail becoming married, whether legally, magically, physiologically, or some other de facto permanent relationship? Y/N If Yes, please describe our new life together.

#fic rec #fandom #fanfiction #random musings #quarantine rec list #coronavirus #quarantine #Star Wars #Star Trek #classical literature #classics #MCU #Harry Potter #Marvel

[ifyoulikedhl]

if you liked: Hiding Place by alivingfire

main tropes: canon compliant, friends to lovers, soulmates/soulmate-identifying marks, pining basics: louis and harry are soulmates, as told through the early to mid-years of one direction.

then you may like:

All That I Could Never Lose by Chelsea Frew (145k)

One Direction takes on "The X-Factor" with a twist: Harry Styles was born blind.

Just Ask Me To by TellMeThisIsNotLove (120k)

the X Factor era canon fic where they learn how to be a couple and that not everyone is going to be on their sides especially those with plain white t-shirts and saccharine smiles.

May You Enjoy Your New Life by aimmyarrowshigh (264k)

When One Direction begins, Harry Styles is a sixteen-year-old boy foundering under the pressure of impending fatherhood. His ability to balance the sobering responsibility of caring for his tiny daughter, Millie, and the exhilaration of seeing his own dreams coming to fruition affects not only his future, but those of Liam, Zayn, Niall, and Louis, who never expected fealty to be the key to their success. But Liam is the first to show him how to grow up without growing old, and Zayn is the first to defend from the public what is private and precious. Louis -- Louis is the first for a lot of things; for most of the moments of Millie's life and for the moments of Harry's that matter. And Niall is the first to toast when Millie is born: Go maire sibh bhur saol nua -- 'may you enjoy your new life.'

my heart is breathing for this moment in time by usedtothebeach (159k)

When Louis first saw Harry at the 2010 X Factor Auditions, he thought he was watching a peculiarly special stranger. But Harry has known Louis ever since he was five years old.

Because Louis has a rare genetic disorder that causes him to Time Travel to important moments in his past and in his future - and to Harry, always to Harry. When they're put into a band together, it seems like everything Harry has been waiting and wishing for has finally come true. Except for the small fact that Louis doesn't know that Harry is in love with him- that Harry's always been in love with him. Fate, it would seem, is just getting started.

A story about growing up and growing together, and the impossible love that makes it all worthwhile.

you’re the one that i want at the end of the day by hilourry (41k)

Everyone is born with part of a tattoo on their body. It grows every year until the person is 16 and it becomes complete. When they meet their soulmate, the tattoo becomes colorful. Louis' tattoo happens to be colored in when she meets Harry in the toilet at their X Factor auditions.

more ‘if you liked’ posts / more ‘if you liked: hiding place’ posts / request a rec

#larry fic rec #larry stylinson #larry fanfiction #one direction #hlsource #requested #iyl: ours #fic: hiding place

[fortysevenswrites]

11/11 Writing Tag

Tagged by one of my fav Rogue One writers, @theputterer, and I’m glad I came across it on my dash because I didn’t get the email about the @, so…thanks Tumblr…

I was also tagged a couple weeks ago by @incognitajones, so I’m going to answer their all 22 questions in one long post, so—be aware of that.

Rules: Answer the 11 questions of the person who tagged you; make up 11 questions; tag 11 people to answer them.

@theputterer’s questions:

What is your favorite fandom to write for?

I think my favorite fandom to write for would have to be whatever fandom is in the forefront of my mind. I’m not exactly one to hop from fandom to fandom. It’s more - here’s the current fixation, watch how it takes over my life. It’s how it’s been since…as far as I can remember.

So, I guess for an actual answer, it would mean The Punisher, which—I’m not going to lie—I started about thinking about writing for before I watched anything from either Daredevil or The Punisher. And I thought to myself, I have to be good and start from the beginning, but I didn’t feel like slogging through DDS1 (still don’t), so I said fuck it and started season two. Best. Decision. ever.

Remember - do whatever the hell you want.

What is your most “hot take” of a headcanon?

Hmmmmmm. That’s a good question.

For Star Wars, I’d say that Padme is definitely force sensitive as fuck (which also probably explains why I bring her in as a Force Ghost in all my Sequel Trilogy fic. Also, Leia Fucking Badass Organa is more force sensitive than Luke.

For Daredevil/The Punisher, I head canon that Karen doesn’t actually think of Matt as her ex-boyfriend. I really don’t. They went on a date and a half, and made out once. (I will give them credit for having a nice make-out scene, even though I definitely do not ship them and Matt’s not high in my hierarchy of favorite Netflix-MCU characters).

Is there a trope you just can’t stand?

I’d have to say a tie between ABO and Poly, but now that I’m typing it, ABO definitely comes out ahead. I just can’t. For poly ships, it has to be written REALLY well for me to be about it.

But mostly just, no.

In what writing area or style would you most like to improve?

I’d love to get better at action scenes. I’m great at exposition and dialogue, and dropping epic plot-twist bombs, but fight scenes are hard, yo.

What’s an AU you’d like to write but haven’t, and why haven’t you written it?

Since binging Star Trek Discovery this year, I really want to do a Kastle/Star Trek Disco AU, and that’s if I have to pick an AU. I’m really best served in the canon-divergence side of fandom, but if there’s one I’d like to try to tackle eventually (like after The Big Indulgence), it would be that one. Especially after how ST:D pulled off the season 2 finale, because holy shit.

Describe an OC you created for a fic in five sentences or less.

From my stilllllll unfinished MCU AU, Just Fake It (And No One Will Know You’re In Over Your Head) Charlotte Lewis:

1. Darcy Lewis’ younger sister.

2. Adorable genius.

3. Insomniac.

4. Badgers Bucky until he agrees to teach her Russian.

5. Is very, very, very (SPOILERS).

I promise, I’ll finish it someday.

What is your best writing tip?

Just write. Inspiration isn’t going to hit every single day, but if you want to be a consistent writer and churn out fic at whatever pace you want (or even your own original fiction work), then you have to just write. It doesn’t matter if it’s shit, as long as you get words on the page, you can go back and make them suck less.

Name a writer who has influenced your writing style, and how.

That woman who wrote Harry Potter (whose name I do not like using anymore, because reasons) inspired me to be interested in fantasy, and open the door to my love of reading and creating stories (including stories that are, you know, better).

Which character do you wish you wrote more about, and why don’t you?

I want to write more Mitchell Ellison, specifically Ellison interacting with Frank. The stories I read where they meet are some of my favorites. The only thing stopping me is that I haven’t had the chance to fit him into any of my current plots…yet.

How do you deal with writer’s block?

I have 2 favorite things to do. One is to just talk out the overall plot of the fic or story with a friend (that usually helps me fill and plot holes and get around blocks), or I go on a walk and run through the story in my head. That’s a great way to go about it.

If you wrote a story that was a fusion of two separate fandoms, which would they be?

Well, I’d also like to write a Kastle/Veronica Mars fusion, and damnit now I have another potential plot bunny to throw into my ALREADY FULL HUTCH DAMMIT.

@incognitajones’ questions:

What was the last book you read, and what did you think of it?

Fiction-wise, I recently re-read my one of my favorite easy reads, The Givenchy Code by Julie Kenner. It’s The DaVinci Code, but with fashion.

Are you a multishipper or an OTP type of fan?

It really depends on the fandom, but I tend to lean more toward OTP.

What’s a song you always sing along to?

Throwing it back to 2006: Call Me When You’re Sober by Evanescence since

If you could be adopted by a Star Wars character, who would it be?

None of the men.

But probably Padme or Sabe (#HandmaidensForLife)

A movie you can’t help but stop and watch when it’s on TV

Battleship. It has its problem, but it also has Taylor Kitsch.

What city/country would you really like to visit?

Japan and Australia. I’ve committed myself to traveling more now that I’ve left my job and started my own online business that lets me work from wherever I want.

If you had to live in a historical era (i.e. more than 50 years in the past), which would you choose?

Oh god, I don’t know if I could live without my laptop.

Would you rather be rich or have amazing talent in your chosen field?

You can have both.

That one little pet peeve you know is irrational but still bugs you

We don’t have time to list them all, but probably people who are bad at reading aloud. That’s been a big one since I was in school.

What’s a favourite small indulgence when you want to treat yourself?

Since cookie dough shops (like, places that are just like ice cream shops, but they sell edible cookie dough instead) are super in right now, there’s a shop around the corner from my place, and it’s super dangerous. I try to go only when I have something big to celebrate.

As a child, did you have a favourite toy or stuffed animal?

I had (and still have) a yellow blanket that’s super worn and threadbare and soft. It still lives with me in my bed. I’ve also had a stuffed cow since. Was 17 that’s traveled with me wherever I’ve lived. Including 10 months in Alabama.

And now, I’m going to tag for my 11 questions: @ck90, @the-restless-brook, @nxbodygoesafterher, @arms-and-arrows, @tuntematonkorppi, @heidiamalia, @ninzied, @thevampirecat, @ejunkiet, @kteague, and @jynirso (and anyone else who wants to answer.

Are you more of a Crowley or more Aziraphale?

What is your favorite fic you’ve ever read? (Give me recs, people!)

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve ever written?

If you had 8 million dollars to spend on your dream home, where would it be?

What is your Oh-Hell-No-est of NoTPs?

If money was no object, what would your career be?

What is a fandom you’ve never written for, but would like to?

One shots or series?

If you walked into a library and could not find a new book to read that tickles your fancy, what would your default be?

Are you afraid of clowns?

Do you prefer writing short-fic or long-fic?

#writing meme #ask me anything #and i promise to respond to your questions eventually #i should be packing #and working #but i'm answering asks instead #i leave for the airport in less than five hours

[daniellelarusso]

No Time For Us - Parksborn fic

Happy birthday @lorvstyrell. I love you! I wrote this in less than 24 hours (but thanks to my phone it isn’t posting til today), but I hope you like it anyway!

This is a mix of verses, with no real point of canon. I just took things from a variety of versions of the two and hoped it worked out to be perfectly honest.

--

There is no feeling like slowly losing yourself to something in your head, to coming undone and knowing it with no way of stopping it. It was mostly due to this feeling that Harry Osborn had picked up drinking the way he had. There was nothing else to get him through the day.

And since he had found out that Spiderman, who he had been obsessing over for so long that it had become all consuming, was his best friend, he hadn't stopped drinking. Perched on the kitchen counter, Harry refilled his glass of scotch and took a long drink, dark eyes fixated on one spot on the wall across from him. The anger inside of his chest, that had been inside of his chest for months, felt foreign. As if it was someone else's. Perhaps it was because the person he had wanted dead was suddenly Peter fucking Parker, the only person who had ever seen him as enough.

Yet, the knowledge did nothing to quell his rage, to calm him or to make him forgive. It did nothing to halt the ever growing madness inside of him. Instead, his brain felt on fire. Everything was worse, stronger, angrier, crazier. The closest thing he could get to calm was detached. It was like it was someone else’s life, someone else’s best friend. 

This was his fault. He wouldn't have known at all if he hadn't used his father's resources to release Doc Ock to bring him Spiderman. Bring him to me and you're free. And when the supervillain brought Spiderman to him and Harry unmasked him… It was an indescribable feeling that had easily been the worst of his existence. His shock had been what led to Peter leaving to find and stop Doc Ock, as Harry hadn't been able to stop him, hadn’t even been able to voice anything but Pete’s name. And then Harry had started to drink.

Hours later, however, Harry had stopped (honestly, only because he had sat in his living room and found time passing without noticing at all) and was nearly sober when the curtains started flapping from a rush of movement. It wasn't wind, he could tell that quickly. Which meant it could only be one fucking thing. He turned quickly, spotting Spiderman standing against the wall opposite said window. They stared at each other for a moment before the masked “hero” collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Part of Harry said good, and wanted to leave him. Wanted to walk away and make another drink while he watched him struggle. And it was in those moments of rage that Harry realized that Peter was bleeding profusely from his abdomen, that he could possibly die. Let him die on the carpet. Watch him struggle for breath until he gives up, whispered Norman's voice in his head.

But he couldn't ignore the memories in his brain. Sneaking their first beers on his roof, talking about girls even when Harry had only wanted the boy in front of him, sitting outside Peter's room for a whole day after Uncle Ben was shot until Pete finally let him inside. Whatever Spiderman had done, it was still his Pete in that goddamn suit. Isn’t it?

He didn't remember making a decision, but the next thing he knew he was kneeling on the ground by the man in a heap on his floor

Harry removed the mask, almost tentatively, still finding himself somehow surprised at who was underneath the mask. His eyes went over his friend's exhausted and sweaty face, and then down his body and over the bleeding wounds. “Fucking hell, Pete.”

“Didn't know… where to go,” the brown haired man murmured under his breath, and, even as Harry wanted to not care, the weakness in his voice hurt.

“Get out of the suit,” Harry said stiffly. If he was going to help him, he sure as hell didn't want to do it when he was dressed as him.

He watched as Pete got to his feet slowly, swaying a little as he stood as if he might fall. Good. Let him,  he could hear Norman’s voice whispering. But hat was only one part of Harry, and the rest of him, the parts of him that had gotten his own ass kicked to keep Peter safe from bullies, felt differently. Groaning and grumbling to himself, he got to his own feet and slid an arm around the waist of Peter, ignoring the furious yelling in his head. As usual, his own eyes meeting Peter’s was enough to drown his father out (mostly). But it didn’t take long for his eyes to register the suit on Peter’s body and he pressed his chapped lips together in a thin line. Harry despised the suit he was touching, hated who was under it almost as much as he loved him.

“You killed my father.” Harry's voice was flat, empty, not at all accusing. He stated it like the fact that it was, not anything else.

Peter only groaned. “You don't know…”

“Oh, shut up or I’ll let you die.” 

It was an empty threat, and they both knew it, but Peter shut up none the less. The walk to his bedroom was long, longer than it had ever felt. And it wasn't until they reached his bed and he set Peter on it that he realized he probably should have left him where he was and helped from there since he didn't know just how bad it actually was. But it was too late now. Dumb as it was, he'd moved him.

Following Peter's instructions, Harry proceeded to help him pull the stupid suit off until they reached a point where Peter could get the rest off himself. Watching him pull it off his legs and then toss it to the ground, Harry let his eyes rake over his nearly naked form, to check his wounds of course. There was a deep cut across his stomach, along with several lighter, though not shallow, cuts over the rest of his chest. The chest that Harry had seen a thousand times, getting dressed for gym, or changing after food had spilled on his T-shirt. His brows furrowed as he looked over him again.

“How didn't I know?” he finally whispered. Even with as well as he knew Peter; every line in his body, his lanky shape, his voice and all of its tones, his brown eyes, his smile, he had had no idea at all who he was. He'd obsessed, deeply, over Spiderman for years, and he had still not made any connection. Hardly surprising. You never were one for noticing anything of any importance, came the ever present voice of his father, bringing Harry to squeeze his eyes shut for a matter of seconds while he tried to push it away.

When his eyes reopened, Pete was looking at him. Pain was written over his face, and Harry couldn’t tell if it was from his wounds or the disaster between the two of them. “No one does. And.. Harry, it has to stay that way. No one can know.” A favor. He hadn’t even started cleaning him up and he was already asking a goddamn favor. He was starting to see the resemblance between Spiderman and Peter Parker,

Harry’s eyes hardened instantly as he got to his feet. “Don't tell me what to do,” he said as coldly as he could possibly manage. “You're lucky I’m not letting you bleed out on the floor.” As he turned to get supplies, he could have sworn he saw Peter wince at the words. Good, he thought bitterly, unsure what he was even angriest about. Oh, he hated Spiderman for killing his father, and he hadn't figured out yet if that spread to Peter or not; but that aside Pete had also lied to him for years about this, about something that had started as just being important to Peter but had quickly spread to Harry when his father had been murdered. And those lies had led him down this path, down the path of finishing almost an entire bottle of whiskey just to sleep, of talking to himself and his dead father several times a day, of obsessing over catching Spiderman. Overall, it now seemed that Peter had set him on the path of losing his mind.

Shouldering his way into the bathroom, Harry grabbed every bit of first aid he could find. What are you doing son? He killed me, your own father. And you're helping him? You should be driving a knife further in that wound. You disloyal little rat. Kill him. Or are you too weak to manage that? Another thing Peter’s better at than you- killing. His hand was gripping the edge of the sink, ragged breaths coming from him as he tried to ignore his father's fury. He ran the same sentence through his head again and again before finally whispering it out loud. “You aren't here.” You were never here as far as I was concerned. Peter was.

He slammed the cabinet closed and went back to the bedroom, kneeling down in front of Pete. His eyes raked over him again, taking in the damage (and maybe a little bit of the lean muscle of Peter’s chest). “So Doc Ock did all this? You must have been distracted. Or you just fucking suck.”  Once upon of time, that would have been a joke and he would have looked up with a wolfish grin and Peter would have affectionately rolled his eyes. But things weren’t simple anymore, and it was something bordering on sardonic contempt in Harry’s voice instead of jest.

He could tell Peter was annoyed without looking up, even before he spoke, “Yeah, gosh, I wonder what distracted me. Not my best friend wanting to kill me right before I had to go stop Doc Ock from destroying the city. So, gee, what does that leave?” If he wasn't so pissed off himself, Harry would have cracked a smile at the very least. He had always thought Peter was cute when he was annoyed. He got all antsy, and that got him going on his rambles. But Pete wasn’t rambling, and Harry wasn’t fucking with him. So instead, he bit back the first retort that popped in his head, focusing on pouring the alcohol on a rag.

“Thought heroes were above getting distracted.”

“Thought you didn't consider me a hero.”

Harry cast an irritated glance up at Peter then, only to be met with the brunette's own sour look in return. In the golden days, this banter would have been mixed up with laughs and playful shoves. But they hadn't been themselves in a long time. Between Harry’s growing obsession and desperation to know the identity of the so claimed superhero, he had been distant and angry, particularly with Peter. And the deeper in his obsession that he got, the more distant Peter got in return. That made even more sense now. Before, Harry had assumed that it was Peter protecting the masked murderer, which he supposed was a little true at least. Just not how he had thought.

“Trust me,” Harry muttered darkly, eyes flicking back to the wound before him, “I don't.” He pressed the rag, now soaked in alcohol, to the deep cut and he would have been lying if he said that he didn't get any satisfaction from the hiss of discomfort from Pete. The satisfaction didn't last long, unfortunately, instead replacing with bitter concern. “Didn't know he'd do this much damage to you. How'd he do it?” He was careful to keep his vice as flat as it could be, to not let any worry he might have creep in.

“Looking for tips?” Peter grumbled before hissing again as Harry pressed the rag to another part of the cut, his fist tightening on Harry's black sheets. The sight of it got an immediate internal reaction, as if Harry had been shocked by something electrical, and it caused the muscles in his gut to tighten and constrict. Clearing his throat, trying to ignore how dry it sounded as he worked to refocus himself on the task at hand. After a period of silence, Pete sighed and finally answered, “Shards of glass he grabbed. Hard to dodge that many arms.”

“Glass?” Harry asked skeptically.

“Yeah, a big piece,” Peter snapped back defensively. “It was basically a window.”

“That what you killed my dad with? A window?” he asked in a low tone, eyes darkening, though he didn’t dare to lift them to look at the man in front of him. He didn’t need to, he could feel the shift in Peter without seeing him or hearing his voice. It was immediate, like Pete had only just remembered why Harry was angry at all. And that did nothing except pour gasoline on the fire of rage in his brain.

Who was he to get to forget? To not live with it every goddamn day, to not have Norman whispering in his ear about it constantly? Peter got to go about his life, got to forget about it. Harry didn’t, and he was never going to be able to. Instead, he was left to obsess and turn the details over in his mind when he should be sleeping.

“Harry-”

“I forgot water. To clean the rag,” he said quietly, abruptly standing and walking into the bathroom again. He pulled a bucket from underneath the sink and set it in the tub to fill with water, sitting on the edge himself while it did. His head fell into his hands easily, his fingers rubbing through his auburn hair as if he could massage away the anger by doing it. It wasn't that easy, of course. If it was, he probably would have worked through all of this long ago. Osborns don’t help the enemy. “He’s not my enemy,” he croaked finally, feeling the lines of his face crease with stress against his hand.He hoped to God it could stay that way, that he wouldn’t continue down this path knowing the true identity of Spiderman. He sat there, unmoving for several minutes, ignoring the sound of the water rushing over the edge of the bucket. The sound of his name was the only thing to pull him from the dark thoughts swirling in his mind.

“Harry,” rasped a tired, weak voice from the doorway. Head shooting up, Harry turned to see Peter standing (well, more like leaning) in the doorway. Despite trying his utmost, Harry's eyes moved swiftly over the other's form, taking in the lean muscles that hadn't been there before Spiderman. Another reminder that he should have known, yet it did nothing to ease the desire in his chest. “It's not… what you think.”

“I think,” Harry said in a tired voice, “that you have a death wish.” He turned off the water and got to his feet, gently leading Peter to the toilet, sitting him on it carefully. “But this'll work better anyway,” he said quietly. “Stay here Pete.” He ignored the brunette's quiet but stubborn protest as he moved to the other room and swiftly grabbed the things he needed, slightly annoyed at having to do this all over again. He returned to Peter anyway, setting down the things on the floor as he sat on the edge of the tub, scooting closer to his oldest friend. “Okay. Trying this again then.”

Peter watched quietly as Harry wet a new rag with alcohol again and pressed it to the wound. At the sharp intake of breath from his friend, Harry looked up at him, eyes apologetic this time, and the sad look Peter gave him told him that he understood, that he was under no impression that Harry was sorry for anything more than the stinging of the alcohol or maybe his part in Doc Ock's return. It was a long silence without anyone speaking, just with Harry cleaning out the wound and Peter occasionally making a small sound. He couldn't help but wonder what the other man was thinking about, if it was about Harry's dad or Harry knowing his precious secret or…

Harry, on the other hand, kept thinking that he had always thought that when he was finally this close to Peter's bare chest (let alone nearly naked body in general) it would be for a completely different reason than this. It was these thoughts that led to the silence becoming suffocating, unbearable.

“You're an idiot,” Harry said quietly. “So fucking stupid.” He wasn't sure what had brought it out of his mouth, but it was fueled by many things. One, Peter never once over the years picked up on the evident and blatant torch Harry had always carried for him, unfair as that one might be. Two, Pete was stupid enough to become something like Spiderman- as if he wasn't signing up to be hunted down and nearly killed again and again by doing this. Three, lying to Harry and not telling him everything immediately. Four, not saying anything as Harry obsessed and searched for Spiderman. Five, nearly getting himself killed tonight. Six, showing up here of all places after the fact.

Peter looked up, his brows furrowing in confusion as he stared at him. He opened his mouth and then closed it again, his fingers drumming on his bare thigh. “Okay,” he said finally. “Go on.”

“No, that's it,” Harry said flippantly as he tossed the rag in the bathtub, grabbing a bandage instead. He stayed quiet for a few more beats before losing his self control. “You shouldn't have come back here tonight. I could have killed you.”

Brown eyes stared back at him as he spoke, and Harry found himself forcing his gaze away uncomfortable, turning his attention back to the bandage instead. “No. You couldn't have.”

Harry swallowed thickly, not moving even though he still had to finish. “You don’t know what I'm capable of, Pete,” he ventured quietly, his voice quaking just slightly on the words. After all, how could he know when Harry didn't even have an idea himself?

“I do,” Pete said finally, voice nothing above a whisper. “And it's not that.”

You're wrong, Harry wanted to say, but he couldn't. Part of him didn’t want Peter to understand how bad he had gotten, how angry and even violent, how unhinged. But it didn’t matter because he was suddenly too distracted by the hand coming to the side of his face, tilting it up again. And then, the rest of the world melted away, even Spiderman and Norman Osborn. They were both erased from his mind because his best friend's face was mere inches from his and he couldn't even breathe. Peter leaned closer then, his lips briefly touching Harry's before pulling away a little bit, his eyes opening as he looked at him, brown eyes searching, asking. Harry didn't think, didn't pause. He just lurched in and kissed Peter with everything he had. Peter responded instantly, bringing a soft sound that he couldn't even name from the back of Harry’s throat.

Harry moved a little, readjusting on the edge of the tub to get closer, a hand coming to rest on Peter's thigh and feeling something in him jump as he felt the bare skin. And then the sexiest sound Harry had ever heard came from Pete’s own mouth, something between a sigh and a moan, and he squeezed lightly, prompting more of it. The hunger in the pit of his stomach grew, prompting him to gently brush his tongue over Peter's lips. Peter opened his mouth for him, met his tongue with his own, and Harry was filled with the overwhelming feeling that they should use been doing this the whole time. They should have always been…

But they hadn't. And things weren't simple anymore.

Harry forced himself to pull away from the kiss, his eyes focusing on a spot on the bathroom floor. “Pete…” The words wouldn't come, and he didn't even have a clue what they were supposed to be. “I need to bandage your wound. We're almost done.” Peter closed his eyes, his head hanging just a little for a moment until he nodded and looked up at him.

Pushing himself further back on the edge of the bathtub, Harry unwrapped the bandage and pressed it to the wound before wrapping gauze around it. When he was done with that, he finished it with medical tape. He wet his lips as he leaned back a little. “So… There.”

“Yeah… Thanks.” Peter wet his lips before leaning forward again. “Harry…” It was clear that he was struggling to find the words, something Harry certainly understood. He let out a small, frustrated noise and Harry knew he was settling for something different. Because he knew him. But then the words he did say were all fucking wrong. “I just... I don’t want us to change. Not from...” His voice shook a little when he continued, “Not from Spiderman.”

A cruel scoff fell from Harry’s lips, his eyes darting away quickly as a sneer transformed his lips. To be fair to Pete, he had always thought that when their friendship changed it would be because they had kissed or had sex or... Or were dating. Not because of all of this. “Yeah, well. We don’t get what we want, Pete.”

“We can.” Peter’s voice was soft, urging, and it prompted Harry to look at him, eyes guarded and angry. No, they couldn’t. Peter was naive, he always had been. He saw a world that didn’t exist, people as they wanted to be or should have been or could be. He didn’t live in the real world and it had always felt endearing, like he needed to be protected. But right now all Harry wanted was to hit him. “You're not your dad.”

Harry stood abruptly, eyes hardening even further as he looked at the man before him. “Yeah, well. You know the way out then.” His tone mirrored one he had gotten from Norman again and again, one that stated clearly that the conversation was over, that he was done. He walked back into his bedroom, not even sure why the hell that comment had shoved him over the edge. Norman had never been dad of the year, Harry himself had always complained about him profusely. So being told he wasn't Norman should have been something good.

“Harry.” He didn't have to turn around to know that Peter was following him. He knew him better than he knew himself. Or so he'd thought yesterday, today he wasn’t that sure. “I just meant… I mean-” He stopped talking, made an irritated noise and then tried again, “You're better.”

Harry pressed his lips together and turned around, eyes flashing dangerously. “So you won't impale and leave me then, hm?”

“I told you, you don't know the whole-”

“Then tell me!” Harry roared finally. He set his jaw, eyes virtually begging his old friend to tell him the truth, to vindicate himself. “Tell me if I don't know!” Multiple times, it had seemed like Peter would have, had Harry not interrupted him. But he knew better, knew Pete better. He wasn’t going to tell him anything and whatever reason he thought was so important would be the end of them as they once were.

Peter readjusted, taking in an obviously pained breath as he wet his lips, gaze overwhelmingly sad. “I can't.”

“But you didn't kill him,” Harry repeated flatly.

“No.”

“Can you look me in the eyes and tell me that?” He stepped forward, desperate for this to be over, for them to be able to move past it. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn't kill him.”

Peter looked down, closing his eyes as he let out a breath and Harry already knew what his answer would be. His heart sank in his chest as Peter looked back up and his eyes were wet. He shook his head, voice breaking as he said, “I can't, Harry. I- I can’t.”

Harry looked down and nodded. “Yeah. I know. I figured. Well, until you can… I won't be able to let this go, Pete. I can’t. And if this was reversed, if you thought I had shot Ben... You wouldn’t either.”

“I know.” Peter took a shaky breath before clearing his throat and saying, “Maybe I should go then.” Harry nodded wordlessly, afraid to look at Pete for fear that he might ask him to stay. He couldn’t do that, as much as it pained him to recognize the fact. They were at a crossroads, and it was too late. Too many years, too many secrets, too much hurt. They missed their chance - and that might have been the part that burned the worst.

Yet when he heard Peter cross the room and pick up that goddamn suit, Harry couldn't help it. He looked back at him and met Peter's watery eyes with his own. There had been a lot of lies, secrets, pain. But Harry also remembered playing together as children, remembered Peter crying to him when his parents left, remembered growing older and first noticing how goddamn good Peter's hair looked. He could easily look back on the first time he wanted to kiss Peter, really kiss Peter -like a real grown up kiss. They had been 13, he had just seen an older kid shove Peter to the ground and he had felt like a hero going in there and standing up for him. And he'd sat on the ground beside him and talked to him about how much better he was than any of these stupid kids. Peter had looked at him with a look of such admiration, even love, and Harry had realized then and there what Peter meant to him, and so he had always wanted to keep him safe. And now he couldn't even keep him safe from himself. But Peter made him want to try, he had always made him want to try.

Oh, goddamn it.

Harry walked across the room to Peter, who immediately dropped the stupid suit, and one of his hands fisted into Harry’s shirt while the other cupped his jaw, and Harry cupped  Peter’s face in his hands, pressing his lips to his with an intensity he had never kissed anyone with before. Peter let out a sigh against his lips, moving the hand from Harry’s jaw to his auburn curls and twisting his fingers in it. Harry could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he dropped his own hands then, one exploring Pete's chest while the other tightened around his thin body.

This was never going to work. They both knew it, it was clear. There was too much and they'd waited too long. But damnit if they didn't have tonight.

#parksborn #peter parker #harry osborn #spiderman #parksborn fic #mine #lorvstyrell #happy birthday babe <3

[backtothestart02]

Doorway Drop | Westallen Fanfiction

I fiiiinally got to it. Here is @theflashiswestallen‘s request for a canon divergent fic where Iris takes care of a drunk Barry in 4x05. I hope you enjoy it, hun! And I’m really sorry it took so long!!

*It could be noted that while this fic is canon divergent, it only diverges from the very end of the ep. So, instead of everyone meeting up at STAR Labs at the end of the night, they just all go home and Cisco drops Barry off at his and Iris’ loft.

Enjoy!

(Many thanks to @valeriemperez for being an awesome beta and even crafting the absolutely perfect title for this fic! This girl is amazing! <3)

 At half-past two in the morning, mere moments after the door to hers and Barry’s loft opened, Cisco Ramon shoved a very drunk Barry Allen over the threshold. Luckily for Iris, Barry was just coherent enough to not put his full weight on her as the momentum from Cisco’s push placed him directly in Iris’ arms.

“Heyyy, Iris,” Barry slurred as he fell towards her. “You smell nice.”

Iris gasped, and despite Cisco’s cranky, very tired state, he grabbed hold of Barry and helped Iris land him squarely on the first couch in their living room.

“Whoaaa,” Barry said loudly, giggling as his counterparts attempted to keep him from falling off the furniture. He kept letting his arms fall over the side near the floor, maybe on purpose. “Whoops,” he said every time.

“Barry,” Iris scolded, though she didn’t know why.

Barry gasped. “Is Flash in trouble?” he asked dramatically. Iris couldn’t tell if he was seriously concerned in his drunken state or faking it and planning to fall off the couch at any moment.

“Flash will be if he doesn’t lay still so Cisco can leave,” Cisco snapped.

“Vibe is meeean, Iris,” Barry whispered.

“Please lay still, honey,” she said. “Your fiancée would appreciate it very much.”

“Fiancée,” Barry said reverently and stopped moving, placing his hands neatly in his lap. “I love you, fiancée.”

Iris’ heart swelled despite herself. “Love you, too.”

Then without warning, Barry closed his eyes and fell asleep.

“Thanks,” Iris said to Cisco on their return to the loft’s entrance. “Good night?” she asked, pushing down any minor irritation at Cisco’s impromptu dumping of his best friend at the doorway.

“Eventful,” Cisco said.

Iris raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it,” Cisco said, heading back for the door.

Iris followed, calling out to him just as he stepped into the hallway. He turned back to look at her expectantly, though she was fairly positive he could tune her out if he wanted. He seemed to be in the mood to do that.

“How did you get him drunk?” she asked.

Cisco sighed loudly. “I made a concoction.”

“A concoction,” she deadpanned.

“Yeah.” His hand dragged down his face. “It was supposed to give him a buzz to take the edge off, let him enjoy himself in a way he hasn’t been able to for the last four years. Especially after Ralph dragged us all to a strip club.” He grimaced. “Thank God Harry had hand sanitizer with him.”

Iris arched a brow, folded her arms beneath her breasts and leaned against the doorframe.    

“A strip club, huh?”

“God, Iris, not now,” he whined. She got the feeling he wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been so worn down from whatever had happened that evening. “Nothing happened. I mean, there was that bar fight, and we did end up in jail, but—”

“Jail?” she asked incredulously, her jaw practically on the floor.

“But there was no ogling of strippers,” he emphasized, as if he hadn’t heard her.

He probably hadn’t, Iris mused.

“I mean, maybe minor ogling of one stripper when we first got there. But def no lap dances or sticking bills places where...” He stopped, as if he’d suddenly sobered up and realized what he was spilling to her.

Iris’ eyes were wide open, still gawking.

He cleared his throat. “I think I’ll just… um, I think I’ll go.”

“Oh, no, no, no, you don’t.” She grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “Finish.”

He swallowed hard. “I’m tired, Iris. And like I said, nothing happened. He told anyone who would listen that he was the Flash, but I’m positive no one believed him. He sounded crazy.”

She released him and muttered under her breath, “Good Lord.”

“Iris…”

“Go.”

“Iris, you’re not—”

“Go.” She pointed down the hall.

His eyes widened, suddenly fully alert and panicking.

“Barry didn’t do anything. He didn’t start the fight, and he didn’t participate. And like I said, very minor ogling. Besides,” he suddenly took the defensive, “Don’t tell me your night didn’t get a little riled up at points.”

Iris decided not to respond to that.

“Goodnight, Cisco,” she said instead and closed the door gently but firmly in his face, ignoring his final plea before returning to where her fiancé lay half-draped off the couch, blanket on the floor.

She sighed wistfully. “Oh, Barry.”

…

About twenty minutes later, Barry woke up with a pounding headache and Iris’ fingers dragging sensuously through his hair.

He blinked a few times to get a good look at her.

“Iris?” he rasped.

“Hey, baby,” she said, smiling fondly down at him.

“How…How did I get here?”

She bit her bottom lip, teeth sparkling between ruby lips.

“Cisco dropped you off.”

“He did?”

“More like shoved you through the door, actually.”

“I…don’t remember that.”

“You weren’t exactly all there, Barry.” She laughed lightly.

“Oh.” His brows furrowed together in concern. “He just…shoved me at you? Did you… Was I heavy?” He started to sit up, then sunk back into the couch when his pounding headache intensified.

“Whoa. Whoa. Slow down there, Bear.”

He groaned aloud. “Are you okay?” he asked, the back of his hand draped across his forehead.

“I’m fine.” She somehow managed to suppress her laughter. “Here, just…wait a minute.”

She got up and fetched a wet washcloth from the kitchen then returned to replace the hand on his forehead with it.

“Ohhh, that feels good, Iris.”

She smiled softly. “I bet.”

“How was your night?” he asked after a while, half-asleep again but conscious enough to want to inquire after her.

“Eventful,” she said, amused but not explaining further.

Barry groaned loudly. “Ours too. I never want to drink again.”

She laughed. “You’ll have to tell me about it sometime.”

“No,” he said flatly.

“No?” she teased.

“You do not want to know.”

Iris shrugged casually. “Very well. Cisco told me most of it anyway.”

Barry’s breathing stilled for a second. “Did he?”

“Mhmm.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“What for?” she asked innocently.

He sighed. “To be honest, I have no idea. I don’t remember much after I drank that stuff Cisco gave me and then came to just in time to puke in a jail cell.” He groaned again and pressed the washcloth harder into his skin.

“Oh, honey,” she cooed running her hand along the side of his face.

The concept of her fiancé going from drunk to hungover to drunk again was too confusing to wrap her head around, so she decided to ignore it. The most likely explanation was it was a side effect from the drink Cisco had made for him, so she let it go at that.

“Hangovers suck,” he informed her, pulling her out of her thoughts.

She laughed lightly, focusing entirely on him in the present again.

“That is what they say.”

“Think I’ll have to throw up again?” he asked, resignation in his voice before he answered.

“There is a chance.”

He sighed. “You should go to bed, Iris. I’ll be okay down here.”

She smiled softly at him. “And miss your first and maybe only hangover? Not a chance.”

He whimpered. “Iris, please.”

“Shh,” she soothed. “There’s another couch here that will more than swallow me whole. I’m just going to grab us both some warmer blankets, then we’ll cuddle up and go to sleep on our respective makeshift beds. Kay?”

He sighed again. “Iris…”

She pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll be back.”

True to her word, Iris gathered some blankets, a glass of water for Barry and a pail in case he needed it. By the time she returned to the living room, he was fast asleep and snoring. She stifled a laugh so as not to wake him and draped one large blanket over his long gangly form, setting the pail and glass of water nearby. Then she settled herself on the nearest couch and fell asleep.

*Also posted on AO3 and FFnet.

#westallen #fanfiction #backtothestart02 fanfiction #for theflashiswestallen #the flash 4x05 #westvibe #barrisco #canon divergent

[barisifictionarchive]

Christmas 2017

Make My Wish Come True by notmyyacht

(404|General|Complete)

Sonny comes home to find Rafael singing.

Figurines & Hope by ilovedrwilson

(518|General|Complete)

Sonny gets Rafael a meaningful gift. Christmas presents, religion, adoption and Star Wars. In a universe of my own.

Disfraces y un Ferry by Sherlockian221B

(632|General|Complete)

El viaje a Staten Island normalmente era una pesadilla, ahora sumarle el estar disfrazado, las miradas de los demás y los pedidos de los niños para tomarse fotos con él, este viaje fue el infierno, el cual Rafael estaba dispuesto a cruzar solo para ver la angelical sonrisa que Sonny tendría en su rostro al verlo.

Christmas Engagement by Tubas_Rock1967

(1087|Teen|Complete)

Rafael finally proposes.

Fairytale of Staten Island by mnemosyne

(1444|General|Complete)

Carisi takes Barba home for the holidays and predictably, both of them have Feelings.

My True Love Gave To Me by mrbarbacarisi

(2060|Teen|Complete)

A love story told through five Christmas gifts of ridiculous and not so ridiculous cufflinks.

Christmases, Cannoli, and a Card by Larkin21

(2325|Teen|Complete)

This story isn't meant to fall in any particular year in canon. It's just an angsty Christmas apart for Rafael and Sonny, with a look back on their one Christmas together.

I Won't Even Wish for Snow by chickcheney, rafaelbaseball

(3036|General|WIP)

Rafael’s brow creases as he stares down at his skates with intensifying concentration. “Fine, this is the worst idea you’ve had since we started dating.”

“You know what, though,” Sonny says, pausing to steal a kiss on Rafael’s cheek, “dating you has been my actual best idea since we started dating. That, and the bourbon-spiked brownie cake.”

-

Or: The one where Rafael gets hurt ice skating and Sonny takes care of him. Then gives him a Christmas gift two days before Christmas because he has no self-control.

The Highly Suspicious Loss of Christmas Spirit by cuphugaddict

(3052|Teen|Complete)

When Barba gets called in due to a case on December the 26th, he and the squad meet a completely new version of Carisi: Carisi the Grinch. Determined to find out what had caused the considerable decline in the detective's usual Christmas Spirit, Barba is going on a mission to get to the bottom of this.

If You Say So by Astronaut_Milky

(3969|Teen|Complete)

He leaned casually against the counter, giving Rafael a quick moment to appreciate his long form. “Just because it's the holidays, doesn't mean everything has to be sweet.”

The much younger man smiled, and Rafael's knees went weak once again.

“I don't know about that. There's something to be said for enjoying the sweet stuff.”

OR

Five times Sonny and Rafael weren't a couple on Christmas Eve, and one time they were

Every Mother's Child by Robin Hood (kjack89)

(4069|Teen|Complete)

“Barba, would you just spit it out?” Carisi asked patiently.

Barba looked borderline panicked as he blurted, “Will you have Christmas dinner with my mother and me?”

Carisi was pretty sure his mouth dropped open in surprise. Wherever he had thought Barba might be headed with this, it was not there. “Well, sure—” he started, but Barba cut him off, if possible looking even more distressed than before.

“To be clear, you’d be — well, you’d be posing as my date.”

If You Can't Say it at Christmas by Robin Hood (kjack89)

(5181|Teen|WIP)

“Well, I’m sure we’ll be getting to know each other quite well, Det. Carisi.”

“I sure hope so,” Carisi said, a little too eagerly, and instantly looked horrified by how unreasonably excited he had sounded at the prospect. “Shit, I just meant—” His blush deepened. “And now I’ve said shit. Twice. I’m making a great first impression, huh?”

Barba hid his smile. “It’s fine,” he said. “You could’ve said ‘fuck’ and then we’d have been in real trouble.”

Carisi grinned sheepishly. “Thanks,” he said. “I had the worst feeling this morning that I was gonna fuck up on my first day—” He broke off, and the assembled officers had difficulty hiding their laughter. “Goddamnit.”

Instead of Flying Off, He'll Stay by Syrus07

(5871|Teen|Complete)

Sonny's life was not a Hallmark movie. He just had to get Barba to fall in love with him before Christmas Eve.

Since We've No Place To Go by barbaXbenson

(6036|Mature|Complete)

“Carisi will be there.” Olivia added casually when he didn’t respond.

He forced himself to remain unphased. “I’m not entirely sure why you think that’s going to help your case.”

Liv just tilted her head at him with a “please, I’m not an idiot” look on her face, and that’s how Rafael found himself in the Poconos, checking into a ski lodge with the SVU squad - sans Fin, the lucky bastard - plus Lucy, Jesse, and Noah.

Lawyers' Christmas Party by adrianna_m_scovill

(6972|Teen|Complete)

Carisi feels a little out of place at his first lawyer/judge Christmas party, and he can't help but notice the way Barba seems to jump to his defense all evening.

Santa goes downtown again by SonicGavel

(7102|Teen|Complete)

Based on a Tumblr post AND the original Miracle on 34th Street, a Salvation Army Santa Claus (who really has magic but can't prove it yet because though he uses December magic, it's not completely ready for full use until Christmas Eve) gets arrested for breaking and entering when he's found in the bedroom of a little girl who was desperate for a Christmas present, but the parents just think he was a perv and he gets arrested additionally on charges of attempted molestation. Barba takes the case to prosecute, but Carisi, because he's a kid at heart, and with Liv's permission because she and Amanda had just taught the kids about Santa, takes time off SVU to defend him to prove his competency. The case gets dropped because the kid testifies despite what the parents think what's best and because the judge (let's pretend he's a Harry Stone at heart) listens to all ages and has grandkids of HIS own, Rafael has no choice but to drop the incriminating charges against him and the parents have to treat the kid to whatever she wants for dinner and dessert, but there's still the deal with Santa's competency...Wait and see for THAT!

The Holiday by tobeconspicuous

(14687|Explicit|Complete)

“Fine, sign me up.”

“Pardon?” Rita couldn’t quite believe the words that fell from her friend’s mouth.

Rafael gestured to his laptop before he picked up his glass. “Now, before I sober up and change my mind.”

“To Staten Island,” Rita raised her scotch with a refined cackle.

Rafael clinked his glass against Rita's before he gulped down the rest of his scotch.

“Staten Island.”

Step Into Christmas Town by rai87

(13387|General|Complete)

Sonny's plans to coast through the Christmas season untouched by holiday cheer are disrupted when he inherits a Christmas tree farm and finds himself falling for the handsome lawyer managing the estate.

Barisi Advent 2017 by jamesgatz1925

(18821|General|Complete)

My now annual Barisi Advent! This year every fic is based on a Christmas song. 

#barisi #themed list #christmas #Less than 5k #less than 10k #10k to 25k

[deathnoting]

i'm new to the death note fandom, and everyone seems to have vastly varying interpretations of L's character do you mind talking a bit about how you interpret him?

hi anon! first of all: welcome to the fandom! we’re not dead but we’re close enough that you could bury us by mistake. always good to have new people. :-) as for your question…. *cracks knuckles* i’m so glad you asked.

thinking about it, i guess i interpret/have interpreted L in a lot of different ways since i first got into death note. of all the main dn characters, he invites the widest range of interpretations. not only did ohba state that much (most?) of what L says is a lie, L also refers to himself as a liar on at least one canon occasion. add to that the variation in his characterization between the early manga chapters (scenes where he is alone) and the later ones (scenes where he is around other characters), the ryuzaki alias and mannerisms being used by b in labb in such a way that calls into question their origin and authenticity, and the general tilt of facetiousness to most of his dialogue (depending on who’s playing him. alessendro juliani’s L constantly talks like he is lowkey making fun of everyone), and it’s no big mystery why there’s so many fanon versions of him. he’s a character that’s enigmatic enough to generate questions in and of himself, and when you give the fandom a decade to stew over those questions, this is what happens.

(small aside: this is one of the things i absolutely love about fandom. the way that one work can spawn so many works, and one character can spawn so many permutations. as someone who spends a lot of time creating and developing characters on my own, it’s humbling and amazing to see characterizations crowd-sourced over such a long period of time from people all over the world. that doesn’t just go for L, but for all of my favorite characters who have enjoyed long and complex fanon careers. i’m looking at you, Every Harry Potter Character.)

as for my personal interpretation of L? if you’re looking for the cliff’s notes, it can be summed up pretty well by this post.

the full earful is:

since i’ve ever been in the fandom (say 2013 ish?), L’s characterization has been a hot topic. this was discourse before it was even called discourse. (rip “fandom wank”.) there was a good portion of people who were big fans of L, saw him as the “good” character to light’s “bad,” and just wanted to fantasize about their anime husbando in peace, goddammit. the backlash to that was the establishment of a long and enduring tradition of posts pointing out all of L’s morally dodgy actions, and tagging pictures of him with #garbage man or something along those lines. that was definitely an aspect of my brand when i was a popular blog. “this is my favorite character in the series and how dare you say that he is a good person!!!!” at the time i was very into squabbling over anime character interpretations. idk what ya’ll were/are doing in your teens, but that’s what i did.

at this point? i see it like this: in the canon, there’s a sharp disconnect between L’s quirky, pun-making, donut-scarfing, face-pulling personality and the insidiousness of his tactics. you can only really read his disregard for the law and for conventional human decency as harmless if you assume he is stupid, and since the very basis of the plot rests on the viewer accepting his (and light’s) genius, then that means he is smart enough to know exactly what he is doing and in what ways it is wrong, and doing it anyway because he believes that it’s necessary to achieve his ends. what’s cool about this is that ohba doesn’t insist on this perception. it isn’t hammered into the bones of the story the way that light’s hypocrisy is (probably because it was more incidental than not) but it is very much there in between the lines: L is not a better person than light, just more subtle.

something that i have always really liked about death note as a piece of media is that, although it is a heavy-handed, cartoonish (literally, yes, but also thematically) shonen jump series where all the characters are caricatures, it occupies this weird space of bleak realism that fits so strangely within its genre that it is almost like the whole world of the story is being pulled in two totally opposite and incompatible directions. light’s bond-villian-esque tirades are bordered by panels of disturbing domestic emptiness. L’s helicopter-flying, ice cream guzzling world’s greatest detective (like, honestly, how is that a real title that exists and is known and cared about by the public?) schtick overlays scenes of him holding suspects for fifty days, limbs bound, without trial. there’s a morbidity to all the fun in death note and i think one of the reasons L is so popular, and so polarizing, is because he holds those two aspects pretty well in balance. after his death, light’s desolateness is the only thing left standing. (i’m not saying mello and near aren’t fun, but i’d argue that their isolation from each other makes it so their morbidity outweighs the level of fun they can produce.)

if you skew a lot closer to the more sober and realistic aspects of death note and further from the hijinks of its genre, that’s where my interpretation of L sits. i think, if this person actually existed, what would he be like? probably unhealthy, both physically and emotionally, but high functioning. desensitized by over-exposure to disturbing stimuli. prone to exaggerating his natural eccentricities in order to throw people off. egotistical, but also preoccupied with things that have the potential to prove him wrong. enamored by the mysterious. terrified of death. disfigured by physically damaging habits but too set in them to want to change. do i see him as a bad person? well, it’s next to impossible to wield that amount of power and not be. L’s power is integral to his character. if he had no money, no handler, no international reputation, or ability to construct a building a moment’s notice, or helicopter, or sway with which to bypass a police protocol—well, then it wouldn’t matter what his ethical philosophy was. (which, the canon suggests, pretty much boils down to: “L always gets his man” *finger gun* *wink*). just like light’s self-aggrandizing idealism would be more or less harmless without the death note, L’s identity is inextricable from his role as the world’s greatest (three) detective(s). without those larger than life roles, light is just the pretentious kid going off in your intro to ethics class and L is just the harried professor pinching the bridge of his nose and wondering how academically scrupulous it is to tell him to shut up. (and yes, please, someone write that au.)

that’s just my canon analysis, though. i think, especially for new death note fans, coming straight from the source material into the world of totally wacky and incongruent fanon ideas and characterizations can be very disorienting. if you want to know all my self indulgent characterizations that i assign to L just because i like them and not because i have any good reason to, that’s a whole separate post. (hint: they involve a victorian gothic childhood and an interest in power-bottoming for the people whose paychecks he signs/prison cells he holds the keys to.)

sorry to go off, anon! i’m not even sure i fully answered your question but hopefully this provided a little clarity as to why this fandom is in disparate characterization shambles.

actually i think it would be cool to hear from a lot of people about their L interpretation. if you asked this q to multiple people, anon, you should amass the highlights into a mega-post of crowd-sourced L characterization or something.

#death note #l lawliet #jaye writes meta #catch me fucking critically examining death note as a piece of media in 2017 #ok not that critically #but still yeah i still have a feeling or 80 about all thus shit #sorry to go so funking off course. like. really if you want an a straight answer just read the post i linked #actually i think beyond or matt would be the best candidate for a crowd source characterization post but i digress #Anonymous #asks

[yoolee]

I love character analysis posts and you always give so much detail and thought about these precious lords. Would you be able to do an analysis on Kenshin? His main story is a bit confusing at points but we know he's depressed either because of the pressure of being labeled the God of War or over feeling guilty over Kagetsugu's sister for some unknown reason. I just wondered what your thoughts were on this?

Ahaahaa a) thank you, both for the ask, and for saying so! and b) I am so sorry. I AM SO SORRY.

Before I do anything lemme link you to THISbecause it’s one of my favorite theories even if we know it’s not canon.

NOW. It’s been awhile since I’ve read his route and he doesn’thave as much content as some of the other lords so my grasp here is LESS basedon little details the story gives us and more on OVERALL IMPRESSIONS and weknow that personal experience colors our impressions significantly, so, yes, yourmileage may vary.

TOO LONG, DON’T WANNA READ VERSION: I think Kenshin’s treasury is a metaphor for his dissonant worldperception – one where he fundamentally viewsneeds  (ie, hunger of these 400 people he has to seefed and the loneliness of a single old man) as equal in value, and the fact heknows other people don’t see it that way, the constant need to prioritizethings he perceives as equal value (because he is a leader and he has to and he knows/accepts this) drives his sense of guilt, as does hisperception of beauty (which, in yoolee’s head, extends to violence) which allin turn fuels his melancholy.

When I think of Kenshin I think: BEAUTY, GUILT, & DYSPHORIA/DISSONANCEIN WORLD PERCEPTION.

Imma work backwards and start with that last one.

Have you ever witnessed or experienced something and had amoment of dissonance where like, literally no one else in the room (in theclass, on the street, etc) realizes the significance of something? Going backto lee-experience here – junior year of high school (age ~16/17), we wereassigned to read The Things They Carried, and I started reading it over lunch.I had never skipped class in my lifebut I was late to my next period because I ended up vomiting in the girl’sroom. I was so shook up. There was this idea of truth that just, wholly and entirely rocked my worldview, and youadd in the idea of war, and what it does to people, and the fact this was validand generally accepted to be autobiographical depiction of it and just—it messedme up. And there was the rest of the class, going on about basketball and Spanishlines and rehearsal schedules and I was like WHY DOES NO ONE ELSE GET THIS. Andthen you wonder—did I interpret it wrong? Is this just me?

I think Kenshin’s entireperception of the world around him is in constant dissonance with everyone around him, and I think he haslong, LONG given up on trying to explain it, because if he is the only one thatsees something, it’s probably him that’s broken and not everyone else, and ifit hurts him so much why would he tryand explain it to someone else when they aren’t hurting now? He’s not going todo that.

(I think to a great extent he would still have this inmodern times, but there would be other outlets and willingness to accept and beopen to it, and probably overall more people like that, and less decisionmaking that would cause this to cause pain, as it does, for reasons BELOW)

SO.

WHAT DOES THAT PERCEPTION LOOK LIKE.

I think, specifically, it’s the perception of value of things where Kenshin radicallydiffers from…like, everyone. It isn’t necessarily that his view is any morepoetic or any less pragmatic than,for example, Kanetsugu – in fact, I think Kenshin sees the world much more honestly than most people. Ithink the world he sees is very real, toa point of being too real. I don’tthink Kenshin can walk away from something and put it out of his mind.

Like, imagine a restaurant. And shuffling carefully, slowly—becausemoving is hard and it hurts—to a corner table, all by himself, is an old man.And there’s no one there to eat with him, and there’s no one waiting at home,and he eats in silence, except for the brief interactions with the harriedwaiter—but his face lights up at even those, until the waiter drops off thecheck, and the man counts out his change, leaves it on the table, and, withoutanyone to say goodbye as he goes, leaves.

For some people, witnessing loneliness is a sting, and thenthey go back to their life. You may not fully register it.

I don’t think Kenshin is capable of going back to his life.I think that stays with him. I think that ishis life. I think he sees the child trip and skin their knee with the same vividness, clarity of detail, and gravity, as he sees the arc of his own sword in war. I think he sees the wife of the innkeeper’s eyes dart to the till in concern with the same perception he sees one of his retainers grimace after a sip of tea. I think he can’t not.

I think the hurt of lonelinessis weighted equally with the hurt of, for example, hunger to him – again going back to how he values things. I don’tthink he is wired to prioritize one over the other, to notice one thing more than another. As a leader, he is forcedto, and he is capable, because heunderstands why others would do that, but it doesn’t hurt his heart any less tosay, I can’t help these 4 people because I only have enough resources for these100 ahead of them.

And he can’t drop it and move in. He can’t file it away somewhere. So it just pilesand piles up, and he does everything he can to make sure no one else has tofeel that weight.

I also think he has convinced himself no one else willunderstand it – nor does he necessarily want them to, because it hurts right? But the fact he viewshimself as such means I think he very, very much doubts himself as a leader. Ithink, honestly, he sees his empathy as making him weak – in that era, wouldn’tyou be told as much?

THAT LEADS US TO GUILT

As a leader you have to make those decisions A LOT.

You have to leave people behind. You have to tell people towait. You don’t have enough time to stop and have dinner with an old man. Justas Kenshin is not capable of ignoring the 4 people he can’t help, nor is he capableof slighting any one of the 100 before them in their favor. To someone whovalues so many things as equal, forced prioritization has to be agony.

BASICALLY, I think his treasury is one giant metaphor forhis role in leadership – fundamentally unable to sacrifice even a torn littleleaf in favor of an elegant swathe of embroidered fabric, nor able to toss outthe fabric in favor of the leaf. But as a clan leader, he has to. And so heretreats to his treasury where he can lament the awfulness of choosing and notbe taken seriously (because being taken seriously would cause someone else tofeel pain, and he would not consciously share that burden).

I DO think he feels particularly haunted by what happened toTsugutsugu’s sister (and I think, perhaps, he valued Tsugutsugu’s sister more,and that was one of the few times in his life he has ever broken hisperception, and of course, it ended HORRIBLY so why would he try it again) butI think he is haunted by much, much more, all the time. Every interaction ofloneliness he has seen, every shadow in someone’s eyes, every dead soldier withtheir hand stiff around a loved one’s momento, every grave marker for a childwho didn’t have enough to eat.

Some leaders are capable of saying “I saved everyone Icould,” but I don’t think Kenshin is wiredto be able to make peace with that. And he knows that, and just keeps doinghis best, and his best will never, ever be enough to save everyone and he also knows that – so he is sortof a self-aware tragedy and hence we get his sweet fluttery humor, I legit thinkit is some straight up gallows humor. This is the other reason why I think hesees himself as a poor leader.

Deep down I think he knows he is not doing badly but surely someone else could dobetter, and they could do so without all this emotion clouding their judgmentetc and so forth.

AND FINALLY BEAUTY

Kenshin finds beauty everywhere. In part, I think, because he looks for it but also just because of his noticing of all the things, and as with needs, all beauty is equal.

One of my favorite, absolutely favorite, things about Kenshinis how het gets when he drinks sake, and when he goes to war.

(oh look, over there are the rails, and here is lee, far,far off of them you’ve been warned).

Violence can be horriblybeautiful. Now before you shudder and berate me for applying poeticplatitudes to something awful, lemme explain. I danced ballet for 18 years,some of them professionally. Ballet is beautiful.

You know what uses the exact same muscle groups and shapesas ballet?

Martial arts.

Like, literally, twisting out of an arm bar, arching yourback, sweeping your foot, throwing—mix it with the science of gravity and thereis a beautiful fluidity to it. Andthere is an amazing, raw humanity to indulging in the thoughtless passion ofit. Right up until someone’s arm bone meets someone’s knee and it snaps, and thenit’s as far from beautiful as it gets—that’s as insane of a juxtaposition as itgets, in seconds. Total synchronicity,and then total destruction.

Those are both realitiesfor Kenshin. I think he lives them both constantly, especially in battle. I do think he probably finds violencebeautiful even if he abhors that fact about himself. I believe part of thereason he is so good at it is because he watchesit with total fascination for the beauty inherent to it. I also think he wants to despise it but rather thanactually hating it and being stuck in hate, he’s actually stuck in a feeling-guilty-about-NOT-despising-it-as-much-as-he-shouldloop when he’s sober.

I think he can let go of the guilt when he’s drunk andindulge his selfishness. I think the ONE thing Kenshin does not view asvaluable is himself and his own wants (but yoolee, I hear you protesting, doesn’the just do whatever he wants and cause his poor retainers grief—YES but, it’snot coming from a place of self-value, it’s coming from his perception of thevalue of whatever it was he was doing) and I think he’s able to indulge a little bit when he’s drunk.  Or like, if nothing else, it dulls the guilt (at least until he’s sober, and he gets to add whatever he did while drunk to his list)

SO YEAH.

I definitely read him as someone who is very, very ground down by his own perception of the world, doing his best to…do his best, despite it. 

And I think the MC bridges his worldview with the worldview of his retainers, and that’s one of the reasons he loves her so much. She’s sort of in between the two extremes. And it scares him, because he does value her over other things and last time that happened it ended BADLY, but it’s also a relief, probably, to have one thing he CAN treasure more than other things, because it quiets the noise–instead of thinking about a thousand things, he can think of her, and just her.

She’s our God of War’s peace!

#to be clear I don't plan this stuff #I just type #so apologies if it's incoherent #kenshin

[serpensthesia]

Tagged by the absolute babe @fizzingwhizweezes for the 11-question meme!

1. Favorite book?

Just one?! That's so hard! Probably Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, but I don't know if I could ever totally decide... other faves: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

2. Most precious memory?

Oh man, what a tough question! When I still lived in Austin, I spent nearly all of my time at a 24-hour coffee shop called Bennu and I think every conversation with every stranger or friend or person that wandered by I had while sitting outside on their patio is a precious memory to me, but I was up there one night, after a break up, at like 3 AM and the barista came out and just talked with me for like an hour? And it was so nice? He brought me tea and just told me about his life and I dunno, it meant a lot to me. I saw many baristas come and go from Bennu, but it was very sad for me when he left. We're still friends on FB tho!

3. What would be one aesthetic you wish you could pull off?

Um... the YouTube glam girl make up pro look of being beautifully made up all the time? But that requires a level of effort that I surely do not possess. Or maybe the aesthetic of very fashionably put together, hair done all the time... I guess any aesthetic where there has obviously been a modicum of effort put into the look, lol. 90% of the time, I am just grabbing whatever is on my floor. OH! Or any look that is very accessory-heavy! I don't do a lot of accessories (and by that I mean that I wear no accessories) and I sort of don't understand how people put looks together like that without the whole thing kind of looking like a mess or very busy?

4. How do you act when (if) you drink?

Um, I'm a little more lovey and possibly even louder than normal? And energetic! I'm very interested in dancing (but I am also this way when I am sober). And usually after a certain point, I'm just sleepy... so not totally unlike my regular self, haha.

5. Favorite character and why?

Oh, this is very hard! I would pick a Harry Potter character, but I think the canon versions of characters and fanon versions are so tangled together for me that I could never unravel them from each other (and I like it that way)... If I go with a favorite character that hasn't been changed for me in some way by fandom, maybe Claire Underwood from House of Cards? She is so... strong, cunning, smart, terrible... she is so wonderfully complex and I love her even more because she isn't nice. And I like to see not-nice women that I still actively want to root for. I want all the things for Claire Underwood. Claire Underwood deserves everything!

6. Favorite TV show?

At the moment: House of Cards, Game of Thrones, Preacher... RICK AND MORTY?!

7. Describe your perfect date

I'm very tempted to say April 25th? Honestly, anything that encourages conversation? Or getting to know each other better? Going to movies, or performances or anything where there will be long periods of not being able to talk to each other has never made much sense to me. I think it's nice to cook a meal together (not to have one person cook a meal for the other) - you can find out if you're able to work well together and there's lots of time to talk! Also all dates should include coffee at some point.

8. If you lived in an Alternate Universe, what would it be like?

Man, can I just say that it would be really, really, really nice to live in an alternate universe where Donald Trump wasn't the president? Like, I'm sad that I even have to say that... I'd just like to live in a world where people were not transphobic/xenophobic/racist pieces of shit? I wish I had a fun high-fantasy answer, but that's the world I would actually really like to live in... one where there was equality and people gave a shit about taking care of each other. If there were mermaids too though, I wouldn't complain.

9. Least and Favorite trope?

Least: I don't know if this is really a trope, but I'm not always that into omegaverse stuff? Like I've read a bit here and there, and I very strongly feel that a good author can probably sell me on just about thing, but it's just not... usually my thing. Favorite: Anything that leads to brutal honesty, I guess. I love veritaserum fics, forced proximity fics, bonded!fics where the person can sense the other's emotions and that sort of forces them to be honest?

10. How do you feel right now?

Ooof. Frustrated with work nonsense but trying to put it out of my mind for a while and just be happy to spend some time fucking around on the internet? Wishing there were more hours in the day. Excited to drink this strawberry banana smoothie thing I bought!

11. What’s your favorite time of day and why?

I am wholeheartedly a nightowl. I live for the night! Anything that happens after... 9 PM is my fave. It's partially because if it's after 9 PM, most of the time, you're completely done with work things, and also because it means the sun has gone down. But there is something I have always loved about both the frenetic nature of the night (if you're out doing things) and also the... stillness of 3 AM, when everyone is asleep and things are very quiet.

(Not tagging anyone but you can see my initial post (or other answers from when @bloodyflammable (link), @deadsdemona (link) or @bixgirl1 (link) tagged me!)

#tagging memes #memes that evolve! #kk's nonsense #fizzingwizzweezes