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#they were helping me figure out plot stuff earlier too.... ive been wanting to start illustrating it for forever
bbeelzemon · 2 years
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frill got me excited about my comic and characters again so.... keep an eye out for potential content on the horizon
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meltwonu · 3 years
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| 🍒 CH-CH-CHERRY BOMB! 🍒 |     [CHAPTER 20] FINAL
pairing; dom!seungcheol x camgirl!reader
this chapter’s notes; camshow, sex toys, shibari, dom!seungcheol, dirty talk, overstimulation/forced orgasms, squirting, degradation, name calling, daddy!kink, gags! 😍💕 ✨HAPPY NEW YEAR!!✨ Here’s to more fun fics in 2021! I can’t believe this is our last chapter though omg 😭 It’s been suuuuch a journey and a privilege to write this little series out! I’ve honestly thought about a camgirl/boy series for like, over a year now, and I’m glad I finally did it! I completed one of my goals! 🥺💕 2020 was definitely a wild one, but I want to thank you all so fuckin’ much for supporting me and stickin’ it out with me all year! Here’s to more in the coming year!💕 Also I was proofreading this at the dining table last night thinking my roommate wouldn’t come out of their room but they did(while I was making dinner and my hands were dirty so I couldnt close my laptop ☠️) and they walked past my laptop and now I’m convinced they saw my fucking smut fic right in the open so yes my little mini-break next week is MUCH needed cause I am ✨embarrassed✨ 🤣 I’ll still do my inbox roundup tomorrow and probably answer a bunch of small thirst posts ‘n stuff throughout the week but there won’t be any drabbles! For now, enjoy chapter 20 🥺, have a safe weekend, and remember that I love you~ ❤️🍒💕
chapters; 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 COMPLETE
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Seungcheol wakes up much earlier than you do the next morning; pressing a kiss to your forehead as you groan and snuggle deeper into your pillow.
“Baby, I need to go run some errands for a little bit, okay? Just keep sleeping, you don’t need to get up yet. But, I made breakfast and put it in the microwave for you when you decide to get up later.”
His voice is muffled and you can barely understand what he’s saying but you nod; a soft sigh on your lips when you drift back into dreamland. He takes his time getting ready, checking his phone notifications as he gets dressed and places a note on the nightstand knowing that you didn’t catch a single word he said.
‘Hey, did you get everything I asked for?’
Jimin🧍🏻: of course, who do you think I am? Jeongguk?
Jimin🧍🏻: and btw, i’m just giving you a crash course okay? We don’t really have a ton of time
Jimin🧍🏻: did you watch those tutorial videos I sent you?
‘Yeah, I did some practice on my breaks, but I guess you can tell me if I’m doing anything wrong.’
Jimin🧍🏻: okee, i’ll be waiting. Don’t get here too late!
‘I’ll be otw soon. Thanks again, Jimin.’
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“Ow--damn, okay, you don’t need to tug on it so much!”
“Sorry, I’ll be careful! And why are we practicing on you anyway?! Couldn’t you just have shown me pictures or something?”
“How else will you learn if not on an actual body? It doesn’t work the same way, Seungcheol.” Jimin pauses, checking himself in the mirror. “Also, keep in mind she does have boobs so just… go slow, okay? It’s not gonna sit like this on her.”
Seungcheol blushes a crimson red; biting the inside of his cheek at how amateur he was at this.
“Okay…”
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Seungcheol is gone for a lot longer than you anticipate and although he replies quickly to your texts, you can’t help but be curious about where he’d gone and what he was doing.
Especially knowing that the two of you had to film tonight and knowing that everything was up to Seungcheol.
A shiver rolls down your body at the thought and you quickly try to shake off the nerves that seem to slowly invade your body when your mind starts to wander.
“It’ll be fine, I’m sure…”
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“I’m home!”
“Where have you--oh, that’s… a b-big box? Um, should I be concerned...”
Seungcheol grins, shrugging as he sets it onto the kitchen counter. “Just some supplies for tonight. I had to go pick them up from a friend but I had to make sure everything was right.” He notices the way you can’t seem to take your eyes off of the box; eyes twinkling when he makes his way towards you.
He tilts your head up to meet his in a searing kiss, lips easing into a smile when you wrap your arms around his neck and melt under his touch. You moan against his lips just before he pulls away; staring dreamily at him while his hands start to roam over your clothed body.
“We have a long night ahead of us, sweetheart. Let’s pamper you a little before then, hmm?”
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j__min: ??? where’s the loverboy
j__min has donated $200
angelhan has donated $75
therealchan99 has donated $50
xcaliburDK has donated $75
xcaliburDK: is that the sybian? Haven’t seen that in a looong while
You bite your lip and nod, somewhat shy as you sit alone in front of the camera. “Seungcheol’s still… setting up but he told me to start! I’m a little nervous, to be honest…” Your eyes flit to Seungcheol who rummages through the box in the kitchen and from the angle you’re sat in, you can’t see a single thing he takes out.
Earlier, he’d cooked you your favorite meal and even took the time to give you a full body massage before the two of you cuddled on the sofa and watched a movie. To you, it seemed a little too suspiciously tame and you only found yourself more nervous when he made you drink two glasses of water and ever so quietly announced it was time to start getting ready for the camshow.
“He’s being so suspicious! He was even gone for a few hours earlier today…” You mumble; brows furrowed at the camera before checking the comments.
It still amazed you every time with how much money you and Seungcheol made from the camshows and videos and it made you feel even better knowing that everyone loved the chemistry the two of you had together. There were a lot of video requests and ideas mixed in with the comments at any given time and you were definitely ready to pitch some to Seungcheol now that you’d rebranded your channel to be a couple’s channel instead.
“Almost done, sweetheart!”
gc__koo: he told me to watch cuz he was being suspicious with me too 
gc__koo has donated $50
alphagyu97: what is he even plotting
alphagyu97: i am excited to see the sybian again tho ngl
artist8hao: pretty baby gonna squirt for us again?
universe_WZ: hell fuckin yea let us see how fuckin wrecked you get on that machine
You feel your pussy clench around emptiness at their comments; already feeling yourself getting wetter and wetter with the anticipation.
Movement out of the corner of your eye catches your attention and Seungcheol walks towards the bed with a wide smile and the same box in hand. “Ready?” You can only nod back slowly, watching as he dumps the contents of the box right next to your body.
gc__koo: oy
chwenon: oh shit
sleepy_wonu: oh baby, you’re in for it now
sleepy_wonu has donated $100
Your entire body fills with warmth as you look over the various objects; unsure of where to really look first. “I, um--”
A stack of red ropes sits next to a small bullet vibrator that sits next to a ball gag that sits next to a pair of EMT shears and your eyes immediately flit up to Seungcheol who only smirks back at your shocked expression. “I had some other toys I wanted to use but I figured I should go easy on you, y’know? Since you showed me some mercy last night.”
Nodding, you reach out towards the ropes, touching them shyly. “Why red?”
“Thought they’d be on theme for you, babygirl.”
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Seungcheol takes his time; remembering Jimin’s words when he tugs the ropes around your wrists.
“Colour, babygirl?”
“G-green… daddy…”
He nods, sitting up on his knees behind you as you sit on the sybian and face the camera. You bite your lip, somewhat embarrassed that you were already soaking the toy underneath you as Seungcheol worked to bind your arms behind you.
“D--daddy, where did you l-learn this?” You whisper, somewhat curious if this had anything to do with why he was gone for so long earlier in the day.
“Mm, daddy’s friend Jimin was kind enough to help me get the tools and teach me a few tricks to make sure I kept my babygirl safe. Wasn’t that kind of him?” You nod gently, gulping when you shift atop the machine slightly in hopes of relieving some of the growing sexual tension in your body. “Why don’t you thank him properly, sweetheart?”
Your hazy eyes make eye contact with the camera, head tilted slightly. “T-thank you, J-Jimin… for--for helping daddy…”
j__min: omg a shoutout ive made it
kitty_junjun: we never thought we’d see the day
tangerine_kwan: and here we all thought you were gonna be the bad guy huh
hoshi_tiger_xx: like when u only see previews of the book online but the rest of it is different ykwim
Seungcheol makes sure your arms are bound snug enough but not too tight; leaning away slightly to admire his rope work. “Feeling okay so far, babygirl?”
Nodding, you whine back slightly. “Y-yes, daddy… But… my--my pussy wants s-something…” He laughs in return, readjusting so that he’s sitting on your side this time to give himself easier access to start the rest of the bindings.
“Is that so? You’re gonna have to be a little more patient this time ‘cause daddy’s not done yet.” He starts working on the rest of the harness; going slow and checking in with you often to make sure none of the ropes were digging into your skin or making you uncomfortable. “You’ll have to forgive me a little though, I’m admittedly a ‘lil inexperienced so our pretty babygirl is only going to be tied up in this pretty harness for tonight.”
gentleman_josh95: the fact u even took the time to learn just for her
gentleman_josh95 has donated $100
artist8hao: seriously, the dedication
kitty_junjun: we stan a man who knows safety and etiquette 
Comments of reassurance and donations flood in at Seungcheol’s small apology and although the two of you are in your own world; you can tell from just the amount of pings coming from your laptop that they all seemed to be encouraging him.
The two of you fall into a comfortable silence as Seungcheol continues to move around you on the bed to finish the harness and a smile graces his lips when he starts to secure the last knots in the back. He can’t help but mentally pat himself on the back at how neatly he’d done it for his first time.
“There. All done, baby.”
Your eyes flit to the laptop’s screen to see yourself; cheeks hot when you see how fucked out you already look and he hadn’t even touched you properly or turned on the machine.
The star harness Seungcheol had tied looks pretty with red ropes and you can’t hide your smile at how good it looks on you too either. “Ah, daddy made it really p-pretty… Thank you.”
This time, Seungcheol nods, letting you admire yourself as he silently reaches for the small remote for the sybian, switching it on.
Your entire body lurches forward as soon as the vibrations attack your clit and you immediately find yourself moaning and grinding down onto the machine as he gives you some relief.  
“You’re welcome, babygirl. Now let’s really have some fun, huh?”
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You need to cum.
Badly.
“Awww, is my pretty baby drooling? Does it feel that good on your sensitive ‘lil clit?” He teases, smoothing down your hair as you cry around the ball gag in your mouth; drool seeping out from the side of your lips when he raises the vibrations a setting higher.
You don’t know how many times he’d played with the settings and edged you by now, but all you do know is that the urge to cum only grows stronger as you grind against the machine, soaking it with your wetness as you chase the pleasure building up in your body again.  
Surely cumming was okay, right? He never said you couldn’t.
You whimper around the ball gag, eyes fluttering shut when the tension in your body snaps in the blink of an eye and your thighs clamp down onto the sides of the machine. Throwing your head back, you moan against the gag and ride out your high as Seungcheol watches you from the side.
“Mm, bet that felt good, huh? But I know you want something in that greedy ‘lil cunt of yours, don’t you? You want daddy’s cock slamming into your tight ‘lil hole ‘til it’s full of my cum, right, sweetheart?” He licks his lips, turning off the sybian as you slump forward.
universe_WZ: shit shes so sensitive
chwenon: especially with her arms bound like that i bet she’s on cloud nine rn
gentleman_josh95: her cute lil head is probably all fuzzy already from all the sensations
therealchan99 has donated $100
gc__koo has donated $75
j__min has donated $150
All you can do is whimper and nod; teary eyes blinking back at Seungcheol as he smirks and leans in towards you.
“Mmm, you’ll get what you want eventually. But for now, you’re gonna cum again.”
He turns the sybian back on, licking his lips when he sees your body tensing again. It was always easier to get you to cum a second time and his point is proven when you mewl around the ball gag a few minutes later; chest heaving in stuttered breaths as you try to shy away from the toy still vibrating against your overly sensitive clit when you’re quickly thrown into another orgasm.
“You always cum for daddy so easily, don’t you, babygirl?”
Your head feels fuzzy after already cumming twice in such a short span of time but you nod, head lolling to the side as Seungcheol finally turns the sybian off for good.
Seungcheol gives you a second to catch your breath before he’s scooting in and fiddling with the clasps at the back of your head to take the ball gag off.
A thread of saliva connects your lips to the gag and you whimper at how good it feels to be able to actually speak again. “D-daddy…” Drool drips from your mouth as your lead lolls forward and Seungcheol is quick to bring a hand up to keep your head up as he looks into your lust filled eyes.
“Colour, sweetheart?”
“Still g-green…” He nods back, checking to make sure none of the ropes had shifted. “Would you like some water before we continue, baby?”
“Yes, daddy…”
He fetches you a glass of water, tilting it against your lips as you down the entire glass and you find yourself a little surprised at how needed it was. “Thank you, d-daddy…”
“You’re welcome, babygirl. Ready to keep going?”
You nod, a little bit more energized. “I hope everyone, mmh, l-likes the show so f-far~” Your teary vision prevents you from reading the comments and before you can even make an effort to, Seungcheol is already helping you off of the machine and helping you sit on the bed across from him.
alphagyu97: ugh she looks so fucking good in that harness
angelhan: right? That shade of red looks so good against her skin too
angelhan: so fuckin pretty
tangerine_kwan: pics for the private room later? Plz i beg
Seungcheol takes this time to take off his boxer briefs, cock curving up against his abdomen when he’s fully naked across from you. He wraps a hand around his cock, moaning and spreading the precum down his shaft as you watch. “D’you want this, baby?”
Your lips fall open in a silent moan as you watch Seungcheol jerk himself off and you can’t help but squirm. “Y-yes…”
“Tell me exactly what you want then. Let them hear what a filthy little slut you are for me.” You can’t help but feel miserably empty watching him and despite having already cum twice, you want his cock fucking you open and making you cum again.
“I--I--”
“Yes, babygirl?”
“I, ngh, I want d-daddy’s cock… Please? Ah, I--I wanna feel you fucking my--my pussy into the, mmh, s-shape of your c-cock… And I w-want you to c-cum inside my--my slutty little h-hole…”
Seungcheol scoffs, hips shallowly thrusting up into his enclosed fist. “That’s right. You’re just my slutty ‘lil babygirl that lets me use all her tight holes how I please, right? You like it when I cum down your throat and in your pretty ‘lil ass. But we all know you like it best when I cum in your hot ‘lil cunt. Makes you feel all warm and full, doesn’t it? You like it when my cum is dripping out of your spent cunt and sliding down your shaky thighs.” This time you nod furiously as you whine back in response.
“P-please… Can’t wait any--anymore!”
This time, the impatience takes over as you slightly tug on the ropes; whining when they don’t give. “Daddy!”
And this time, he gives in quicker than he anticipates, growling as he reaches for the EMT shears to cut you from the harness. “Don’t let your arms down, no matter how much you want to. You’re going to strain your arms if you move too fast so let me handle it, okay, sweetheart?”
The sudden gentleness in his voice has a giddy warmth pouring over you as you nod and sit still while he cuts at various points of the harness to make the ropes fall loose around your arms and chest. You keep your arms in the same position like he requested and you soon feel his hands roaming your skin and massaging your arms to get the blood flowing again.
“You’re so good for me, baby.” He whispers against your hair, leaning down to kiss your shoulder before he slowly easing your arms down from being folded behind your back.
He continues to massage your arms for a few more minutes before it’s you that’s getting impatient. “Daddy… Can you fuck me now?” Whispering, you slightly turn your body to the side to meet his gentle stare.
Seungcheol laughs under his breath, nodding. “Lay on your back for me, legs spread.”
You follow his orders as you quickly scramble to get into position; legs spread wide for him to situate himself between.
“Mm, your pussy is still so fuckin’ wet. I wanna taste you on my tongue, baby.” Whines spill from your lips as you shake your head ‘no.’
“No! My p-pussy feels empty, I need y-your cock, daddy… ‘n I’m so wet, you can probably, ah, just s-slide your cock in…”
He wraps a hand around his cock just as you wrap your legs around his waist and he guides himself until the head of his cock is right at your entrance.
Neither of you say a word as he slowly starts to sink his cock in; guttural moans on his lips when he meets no resistance and bottoms out in a singular thrust. “Holy fuck, your cunt is so fuckin’ wet. Shit, and so t-tight!” You clench around him, already feeling good with his cock inside of you as you beg him to fuck you hard and fast.
“Ngh, p-please fuck me like--like I’m your, hah, c-cocksleeve… I want it f-fast, daddy!”
He grits his teeth at your words; drawing his hips back before snapping them into you just how you wanted. “Fast, hmm? All you think about in that pretty head of yours is my cock pounding you open, huh? Slamming into you so fuckin’ good, it makes your toes curl when you cum.”
Seungcheol starts a quick pace, already feeling the pleasure building up for himself when you’re reduced to garbled noises and broken cries of his name. The heels of your feet dig into the small of his back as you try to press him in closer and he’s quick to reach for the small bullet vibrator left on the bed next to your body.
“Your body is so fuckin’ sensitive, I can already feel how tight you’re getting around me. So fuckin’ greedy to cum too. Already came twice and you still want more. You’re not satisfied until your whole body is shaking underneath me, huh, sweetheart?” He turns the small toy on, pressing it to your clit as you yelp and let out choked sobs.
“Ah, ngh, d-daddy, my--my clit’s t-too sen--sensitive! I--I can’t--!” Squirming, you feel the pressure building up obscenely quick; bottom lip quivering when he takes one of your free hands and makes you hold the toy to your swollen clit.
“Just a little more, sweetheart. Don’t you wanna cum?”
He angles his thrusts to graze against your g-spot and loud cries of his name leave your lips in a hurried, jumbled mess when he only doubles his pace.
The sound of donations and comments pour in like water and get lost within the ringing in your ears; unable to even warn Seungcheol that you’re about to cum when you feel your entire body starting to lock up underneath him.
Your lips part in a silent scream and your back bows off of the bed, thighs shaking uncontrollably as you cum for the third time. Seungcheol growls, fucking you through it as you squirt all over his lower half.  He finds it harder and harder to thrust into you as you cum, but he feels himself quickly following suit with your warm walls fluttering around his cock.
“Fuck, baby, that’s right. Squirt for me, get me fuckin’ soaked while you cum.” He uses a free hand to make sure you keep the toy pressed to your clit, growling when he starts to unload his cum inside of you. “Mmh, gonna fill your cunt up with what you want, baby.”
A shaky moan leaves your lips as you feel him throbbing inside your pussy; walls clamped down onto him in a vice grip as you ride out the remnants of your orgasm.
“Ah, d-daddy’s cumming suh--so much inside of my p-pussy…”
Whining, you feel Seungcheol’s grip on your hand give way as he rides out his pleasure and you take the opportunity to turn off the small bullet vibrator while he doesn’t notice.
You watch his face contort in pleasure, hips still shallowly thrusting into you as his entire body shivers above you.
“D-daddy’s so h-handsome...” You mumble, cheeks hot when he cracks a smile through the pleasure wracking his body and chuckles under his breath. 
“Thank you, babygirl.” 
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After you end the show, Seungcheol makes sure to cuddle with you on the bed for a little while longer.
“One more glass of water, baby.” You whine in response, pouting up at him before he gets up from the soaked sheets. 
“But I already had a glass! If you have a piss kink just say so, ‘Cheol!”
He lets out a boisterous laugh at your comment, trudging back to the bed from the kitchen with another glass of water for you. “You need to be hydrated, sweetheart. You came three times and we played a little more rough today. I just wanna make sure you’re okay.” 
“Fine, but you didn’t deny my comment.” You snarkily reply, taking the glass from him as you down the water. 
“Don’t make me have to punish you again! I’ll have you know I still need to get you all washed up and change the bed--”
A faint pinging has the two of you turning to the laptop; still on your camming homepage from where you’d checked the revenues from tonight’s show. 
A small [1] sits above your inbox and Seungcheol is quick to turn to you with an eyebrow raised. “I thought you turned off the messaging system on your profile?” 
You tilt your head in confusion, handing him the emptied glass. “I did. The only messages I should get are from, like, the actual system admins or other creator accounts which, I haven’t received any ‘til... now, I guess?”
Seungcheol sets the glass down onto the nightstand before he takes a seat next to you, dragging the laptop closer as you go to check the notification. 
“’Love&Letter Films’? Aren’t they one of the biggest adult film companies?” Mumbling, you click on the message, giving yourself and Seungcheol a second to process the message that stares back at you; a shocked smile on your lips.
‘Hello!
I hope this message finds Cherry and Seungcheol well. 
We, at ‘Love&Letter Films’, have really enjoyed the shows and videos from your channel throughout the years and we really have enjoyed watching the growth of your channel and the addition of Seungcheol to it. The dynamics between the two of you are rare in this industry and we’ve yet to see anyone like the two of you in this market. 
The shows from the last two nights have proven that the two of you have the right kind of chemistry to film together for bigger productions and we would love to hire you for a few film productions we have planned in the upcoming weeks as a feeler. Of course, all expenses paid by us if you would kindly take our offer. 
We love the various scenes and roles that the two of you take on with ease and we would love to help propel your careers forward, should you pursue a career in the adult entertainment industry. 
Please don’t hesitate to contact me as I’ve listed my contact information below. I’m excited to hear from the two of you and hope to work with you in the future on many projects.
Respectfully, 
Kwon Soonyoung, L&L FILMS CEO’
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harrytpotter · 4 years
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RIGHT PLACE, WRONG TIME — Part IV
Plot: Y/N finds herself trapped in a time in which she doesn’t belong only to learn that maybe that was her place all along.
Pairing: James Potter x Fem!Reader
Warnings: Slightly sexual scene with mild cursing.
A/N: Gif isn’t mine (took it from google, so please, if it belongs to you let me know so I can credit) and since my mother language isn’t English, I apologize for any mistakes in advance! :)
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As the weeks went by and you still haven’t heard back from Dumbledore, you did your best to avoid James. You hardly even saw him and when you did, you barely spoke two words with him. You knew he had asked Lily why you were shutting him down because she told you and did ask that herself. You couldn’t exactly explain the reason why it was better for everyone and why it was the right thing to do, so you started shutting her and all of your friends down as well. Not as hard and as completely as you did with James, though. You were growing more miserable and lonely every day, wishing you could just go back to the future time where life was way more gentle and kind at you. It was the fourth night in a row that you had purposely skipped dinner to avoid seeing James. You were at Hagrid’s cabin, paying a visit to your dear friend and trying to cheer yourself up a bit.
“Yeh sure yeh don’ wanna eat anythin’, uh Y/N?!” Hagrid offers you a plate full of homemade cookies.
“I’m still stuffed from lunch, but thanks Hagrid!” You politely decline his offer, a warm smile on your face. Hagrid excelled in many things, but cooking wasn’t one of them.
“Alright, then! So yeh gonna tell me why yeh look so bummed?” He shoots a concerned glare at you.
“Just stressed out with school stuff, no biggie,” you smile reassuringly at him.
“James was just here the other day an’ he didn’ look quite alright ‘imself as well,” he shrugs.
“School is particularly hard this year I suppose,” you frown, getting up. “I should probably go, it’s getting quite late. See you, Hagrid!” You hug him goodbye.
Despite clearly having more to say about the previous subject, he hugs you back, leaving you breathless for a while given the strength he put into it. “Take care, Y/N!”
On your way back to the castle, you decide to make a little detour to the kitchen so you could help yourself of some leftovers from dinner.
“You’re one hard woman to track, love,” James’ voice startled you in the middle of a pitch-dark hallway.
“Merlin’s beard, James! Do you always have to sneak up on me like that?!” You whisper, taking your hand to your pounding heart.
The moonlight suddenly flooded through the windows, as the moon came out from behind a particularly massive cloud, and you saw a piece of paper clutched on James’ hand.
“I thought you had swore you’d never use that to keep tabs on me,” you point at the marauder’s map with your head.
James sighs heavily. “I know, but that was before you shut me down completely out of your life for no good reason. You’ve been even distancing yourself from Lily, Marlene, Sirius, Remus, everyone, Y/N! I’m worried about you. We all are. What’s going on with you, babe?” He cupped your face with his free hand and stared worryingly into your eyes, frowning. You could tell his mind was racing, trying to figure out what could possibly had happened to you.
You look away from his gaze and close your eyes, trying to come up with an excuse. Despite the little moment you two had shared in the astronomy tower, none of you had exactly being vocal about your feelings.
“You know what? We should make a trip to the kitchen and steal some chocolate pudding, what do you think? I bet some sugar in your system will make everything better!” He smiled brightly at you, starting a warm wave inside your chest.
“I believe it’s worth a try,” you smile sweetly back at him, unable to turn his puppy eyes down and doing your best to ignore the annoying butterflies in your stomach. You see, that’s the problem of finally admitting your feelings to yourself after keeping them hidden for so long: despite your best efforts to brush them off and hide them again, your body keeps giving you constant and awfully vivid reminders that they’re there.
***
The house-elves were happy to give you some snacks and sweets as the two of you entered the kitchen. You and James sat next to each other on the big island that laid in the middle of the room, eating, joking and throwing food at each other. Just like old times. The two of you didn’t leave the kitchen until you were both feeling stuffed.
Heading back to the Gryffindor tower, you were giggling at something James had said when you both heard footsteps nearby. Realizing he had left his invisibility cloak back in his dorm, James quickly pulled you to a very dark and hidden spot in the nearest corner of the hallway, behind an armor and beside a large shelf. Amidst the rush of having to improvise, he ended up with his both hands on your waist and his face almost glued to yours, since the space was limited and neither of you could move. His breath was uneven, just like yours, as he stared at your lips with a longing look on his eyes. Without thinking, he crashed his lips into yours, beginning a fueled, passionate kiss. You were immediately sent at a state of pure euphoria, all of your senses intensely and solely focused on this moment. Every inch of your body felt ecstatic, as if it had been waiting for this to happen for your entire life. As the boy deepened the kiss with a burning roughness you were already out of your mind, intoxicated by the feeling of having him touching you, kissing you. James slid one of his hands to your thigh and squeezed it slightly whilst taking his lips to your neck, leaving a trail of kisses, light bites and soft hickeys.
“Fuck, Jamie...” you suck the air between your teeth trying to suppress a moan, for James’ amusement. You could feel the satisfied grin he gave whilst his lips still sucked the skin of your neck, this time a little harder than before.
“Do you want me to stop?” He asks you mischievously, even though he already knew your answer.
“Don’t you dare to!” You shot desperately at him and pulled him closer, tangling your hand in his hair and pulling it roughly. You heard him gasp in surprise and pleasure and you bit your lower lip satisfied.
You honestly didn’t know what would’ve happened if it wasn’t for Filch’s interruption. “I know there are students out of bed! I heard giggles! And I bet it’s Potter, Black and Lupin!” He exclaims, breaking you and James out of your desire-driven trance. You quickly took James’ hands from your body and recomposed yourself.
“Argus, please, we’ve been looking around this hallway for the past fifteen minutes and didn’t find anyone! Just go to bed for Merlin’s sake!” You heard the annoyed voice of a sleepy Minerva McGonagall.
You and James stayed behind the armor for a little while after the two of you had heard their voices fading away, just in case.
“So, I think we need to talk about what just happened,” he says with a wide smirk, scratching his head.
“Nothing happened,” you’re quickly to point out. The guilty was eating you alive as you thought about Harry and Lily.
“Oh, but it would’ve, love. It really would,” he shoots you a cocky grin.
“Look, Jamie...” you start, lowering your head as you were unable to look him in the eyes. “That can never happen again, okay? Never.”
“Come on, love...” he says, getting closer to you and holding your chin gently between two fingers, lifting it so you could look at him. “You can’t deny that something is going on between you and I. And it has been for quite some time now,” he says tenderly, leaning in slowly.
You frown sadly and turn your head away, holding back the tears of hopelessness that were starting to form in your eyes. “What’s wrong, love? Don’t be afraid,” he cups your face with both of his hands, leading your gaze back at him.
Seeing the hopeful look he had in his eyes nearly broke you for good. “I can’t do this, Jamie...” you whisper weakly, not even remotely resembling the strong and fiery girl you’re known to be.
“Why not? Look, if that’s because of Lily, you have nothing to worry about. I never really liked her and I know you know that. In the beginning I was motivated by the challenge and a bet Sirius and I had made, of course, but then... about two years ago I realized who my heart had really chosen. I did nothing because I was too much of a coward, I’m afraid,” he states.
The tears were now rolling furiously down your face, despite your best efforts to control them. “James, please stop talking.”
“I need you to hear me, love. Just listen to me, would ya? Please,” he smiles nervously at you.
“You’re not making any sense, for Merlin’s sake! You belong with Lily, that’s how it’s supposed to be! You’ll fall in love, start dating, get married and have a kid!” You frown hopelessly.
“Y/N, did you hear what I just say? I can’t be with someone I don’t love! And I know you’re not saying that for Lily’s sake because she doesn’t fancy me either!”
“You wouldn’t understand, but believe me when I tell you this, Lily is your soulmate! Besides, I’m seeing someone,” you didn’t wanna lie to him nor hurt him like that, but you had to take his mind off of this somehow.
His face dropped as he let go of you. “Oh... That makes sense. You don’t want anything to do with me because you’re already in love with somebody else. I don’t blame you, I knew you wouldn’t wait around forever for me to man up,” James shrugged. “But you could’ve just saved your best mate here the embarrassment by mentioning it earlier, couldn’t you love?” He grins sadly, putting his hands at his pockets, and turned around, leaving you alone with an aching heart in the middle of the dark.
***
It had been a week since your little episode with James and now he was the one avoiding you. You knew you should clear the air with him, but you thought you could use this time to get your head straight and focus on what you really needed: finding a way out of this pace of time. Despite the fact that you were making things right with Lily and Marlene, your friendship with the marauders was going downhill. Sirius and Remus barely speak to you anymore since they were always by James’ side and you did break their friend’s heart. You sigh whilst looking yourself in the mirror after getting ready for your classes: you were the perfect depiction of misery. Heading down the stairs to begin your day, your feet suddenly stop when you hear a familiar voice coming from the common room. You didn’t mean to eavesdrop but you couldn’t face them right now.
“Come on, Prongs. Lighten up a bit, would you?” Sirius’ voice sounded concerned.
“I am very good Pads, can’t you see?” James answers him bitterly.
“I think you should talk to Y/N again, tell her how you really feel. You should try to work this out with her, mate,” Remus advises.
“I’ve already tried that, Moony! She didn’t care!”
“From what you’ve told us, you just reassured her that you don’t have any feelings for Lily. Have you tried telling her exactly how you feel about her?” Remus asks wisely.
“What good could it possibly make? She‘s already in love with someone that’s not me,” James sighs.
“I find it hard to believe,” Sirius states. “It’s just so obvious that she has feelings for you, I don’t know how your blind, stubborn self can’t see it! Plus, we’re her best friends and she never even once mentioned some guy she fancied to us.”
“That’s not the kind of thing a girl discusses with her male friends, Padfoot,” Remus says as if it was obvious. You imagined him rolling his eyes at your friend at the end of that sentence.
“No, but she would’ve mentioned it to Lily and Marlene...” James says with a realization tone.
“What are you waiting for? Go ask them then and find out who’s your competition!” Sirius exclaims vigorously. “That, of course, assuming that he’s real and Y/N isn’t making it up just so she can get herself rid of you.”
“I thought you said she had obvious feelings for me a while ago,” James says nervously.
“Don’t mind him, Prongs. He’s messing with you. Just go find Lily,” Remus says and you can hear the three of them exiting the room through the portrait hole.
“Bloody hell!” You curse at yourself, knowing very well that Lily would cover for you, much for her dismay, but you’d need to come up with a plan soon because James wouldn’t be fooled by that forever.
You wandered through the castle’s hallways with your mind racing, deciding to skip breakfast so you could think about your current situation. That seemed to be all you were doing lately. In fact, all you really wanted to do was scream in frustration and punch someone in the face. It was beyond unfair having to choose between a kind of an all-consuming feeling that happened once in a lifetime and the sake of your friends and their future as individuals and as a group. Being here was becoming heavier and heavier each day that went by. How much longer will you be able to resist James and deny your feelings? How much longer will you have to torture yourself? What if Dumbledore couldn’t fix whatever caused the time-turner to malfunction? What if you were bound to be trapped here for good? All of a sudden you felt sick to your stomach as a last and despairing thought crossed your mind: what if you had to witness James and Lily fall in love with each other? You felt like throwing up, so lost in your own distresses that you only noticed you had stumbled upon someone when you were both on the floor.
“Merlin’s beard, I’m so sorry!” You say whilst getting up.
“I think you forgot your head back in the tower, L/N,” Amos Diggory joked, sitting.
“I suppose I did,” you smile sheepishly at him, offering your hand to help him stand on his feet. “Again, I’m really sorry. You okay?”
“I’m fine, don’t worry,” he winks casually at you. “You don’t seem quite alright yourself on the other hand,” he adds, noticing the worried frown on your face.
“Oh, about that, I...” you start, stopping suddenly when you noticed James standing at the opposite end of the aisle, frowning at the sight of you and Diggory alone in an empty corridor, your hands still in the Hufflepuff’s. “Please just go with it, I’ll explain everything in a minute,” you whisper to Amos, as you grin widely whilst staring into his eyes and resting your wrists on the back of his neck, pretending you hadn’t seen the marauders glancing at your direction.
“Alright, I think I can carry on with whatever this is, but I have to say I’m genuinely intrigued,” he lifts a brow at you, grinning and leading his hands to your waist.
Before you could say anything else, James passes by the two of you like a hurricane, Sirius and Remus on his trail. You swore you could catch a disappointed look from Remus as they followed their friend.
“Potter seems to be in a bad mood today, doesn’t he?” Amos drags your attention back to him and you’re met by a suspicious look on his face. “I’m willing to bet you know why.”
“I really am sorry, I didn’t mean to suck you into my personal drama, I just... I don’t even know what to say,” you lean against the wall, sighing heavily.
“Try me, L/N. I’m a pretty good listener if you ask me,” he shrugs, leaning next to you. “Besides, you can trust me not to spill your secrets around,” he winks at you.
“I know you’re trustworthy, Diggory,” you smile at the thought of how much he reminded you of your late friend Cedric Diggory, who also happened to be his son. “You’re a Hufflepuff.”
He laughs genuinely at your joke. “Bring it on then, L/N.”
“Alright,” you sigh. “So, I don’t know if you can tell, but I kind of have feelings for James...”
“Yeah, I might have noticed that. And so did the entire school,” he bumps his shoulder into yours. “But go on.”
“I thought you had said you were a pretty good listener?” You raise your brows, crossing your arms in your chest.
“Sorry, please, continue,” he encourages you.
“Anyway, I do have feelings for him but I can’t act on them for a number of reasons that I can’t really talk about,” you close your eyes, resting your head on the cold wall. It felt good to take it off your chest for once, and opening up about this felt liberating.
Diggory stared at you confused. “Pardon me if I’m intruding, but I’d say your chances with the guy are pretty good. I mean, it’s quite clear that your feelings are reciprocated. For example, that day during quidditch practice when he saw the two of us talking... he did look pretty annoyed to me and today, well, you just saw what happened,” he shrugged.
“I know that he harbors feelings for me as well, and that’s the point. He can’t. We can’t have feelings for each other. I’m not his destiny and neither he is mine,” you tilt your head to your right a little so you could look at Amos.
“How can you possibly say that? We never know what tomorrow has in storage for us,” he states.
“Except that I do, and that’s exactly why I can’t encourage his feelings nor my own,” you sigh hopelessly.
“I suppose that’s the part you can’t discuss?” He smiles sympathetic at you.
“Exactly,” you frown sadly.
“How can I help you?” He asks suddenly. “Well I suppose that’s why you flirted with me a while ago, right?! You don’t strike me as the kind of girl who’d randomly throw her arms around a guy’s neck in empty hallways. Specially having told the guy in question that she has feelings for another one moments later,” he adds mockingly after seeing the confused expression on your face.
“Right,” you frown sheepishly. “I kinda told James a few days back that I was already seeing someone, right after he kissed me.”
“Wow, harsh,” he frowns playfully.
“Yeah, I know. I just didn’t know what else to do, I sort of panicked,” you shrug.
“You can count on me. But before I leave to class, I just need to ask you something. Is this secret motivation of yours really worth the trouble of sacrificing a potential relationship and a few friendships over? Think about it, L/N. See you in transfiguration in a few,” he says before disappearing into the castle, leaving you alone with your thoughts.
——————————
Taglist: @treestarrrrrrrr @fanfic-enthusiast-collector
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comradeocean · 5 years
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I haven't read Arya x Gendry in like ... 6 years. I caught up a bit this week. Here are some I really like! 
[30 some fic recs after the jump]
post 8x01 Arya keeps looking for reasons to visit Gendry in the forge. - mmh post episode askbox fic
Somewhere to Begin, MissAtomicBomb (mrs_nerimon) The Stark sisters share a moment in the wake of some impactful reunions. - lmao my most frequently used GoT tag was "westeROS" (remember Ros???) followed by "Stark famly dynamics." So Stark sisters hashing things out... my kryptonite
Beautiful & Deadly Sharp, vlaurie17 Learning to fight with a sword were some of Arya's best memories. Sansa, however, was hesitant. “What do I do with it?” “Stick ‘em with the pointy end,” Arya smirked. Sansa just rolled her eyes, “Obviously." - also Stark sisters revisiting being Vengeance-made-girls together and practising to knife someone
I'll sing for you, Ravenclawpride06 Set post 8x1. Gendry wants it bad. Arya wants it worse. Was going to more explicit but I left it vague, felt it fit better in the end. All the pining! - I’m soft for the pining
This is my wish, crazychipmink "As he studied the drawing she had given him, he slowly began to let himself believe that she was real and alive and well. He had thought about Arya so many times that the memory of her was worn in his mind. Fragile and faded, like a piece of parchment that had been read too many times. To tell the truth, sometimes, he couldn’t even remember what she looked like, only that she was the only thing he ever wanted, ever wished for.” - season 8 episode companion fic series - ao3 tag: weapons design processes are long and require many iterations - “Davos assumed he was waiting to play his part in the great war to come, but in reality, Gendry was waiting for the next remarkable thing to happen to him. Perhaps if enough remarkable things happened to him, he would finally let himself believe that the most remarkable thing that had ever happened to him had happened.” wow ok
Who are you waiting for? crazychipmink [incomplete] "She had Arya’s face and Arya’s voice and even Arya’s smile. But despite all that, he felt like he had just spoken to a ghost. An unnatural ghost of Arya, pretending to be the girl he was in love with. Gendry had traveled to the end of the world to find her, but now that he finally had, she was gone." - the angst universe evil twin version of the fic above - we will take it bc we love to suffer - and also bc the author promises "fluff" and "eventual romance" ok sounds real but ok
the thing with feathers, yanak324 If anyone is capable of bringing the old Arya back, it’s this man in front of her, which is precisely why she must walk away. - a more (immediately) optimistic read of how Arya's in episode enactments of being No One might have gone
and in the end, jeeno2 [incomplete] Five times Gendry Waters is an idiot and the one time he figures things out. - Gendry being dumb is kind of a thing and I'm not always the biggest fan of how it plays out in fanon but this is sweet!
 The She-Wolves of Winterfell, vixleonard The pack survived. So has the Stark habit of keeping secrets. - 2nd generation Stark girls. Arya's daughter matter-of-factly saying "Stark women don't get married" - a whole ass mood.
Mid-Battle, Mary_West Sandor has something important to say to Gendry - if only Gendry can live long enough to hear it.
season 8 AU My Lady sanctuary_for_all Gendry and Arya find each other again. (AKA the plotline Gendry deserved in 7X07) - fic convention I am 100% here for: Arya scrabbling around Gendry's face looking for the seam. fic convention I am 100000% here for: Arya throwing off her glove in order to do so and then holding her hands against his cheek
Nights are for You (or Five Times Arya Visits Gendry in the Forge and One Time Gendry Visits Arya in the Castle) ASwornStark She hasn’t visited the forge since Jon returned home with the dragon bitch (the Stark sisters’ favored name for her) and him in tow. - reunion fic
season 7 Before We Jump, MissAtomicBomb (mrs_nerimon) Arya Stark's bastard boys bond on their way to the Wall. - anything for some good rowing references and bastard subjectivity
earlier laughing 'till our ribs get tough (that will never be enough), belasteals "Gendry took one look and laughed so hard that wine came out of his nose, until Harwin gave him a thwack alongside his ear." - A Storm of Swords, Arya IV (or, Gendry's POV on Acorn Hall) - real ones can't get enough of book canon and Acorn Hall.
Butcher, elephant_eyelash Gendry and Arya by the fire, discussing jacket potatoes and thinking murderous things. - perfect meditation on food and hunger and care
Dissimulo, Somnio, jeeno2 She is no one, now. But still the boy with the black hair haunts her dreams. - honestly the showrunners are cowards for not going there. let No One be Vagina Dentata Personified 2kwhenevertheBraavosiseasonsaired
post canon/canon divergent Charcoal, elephant_eyelash All about winter and feeling the cold. - weird how I'm obsessed with self-loathing and wintry alienation and the weight of history and ancestry but also devotion also love. super weird totally unexpected
Five Things Gendry Only Says in the Dark, jeeno2 Where no one else can hear him. - loneliness, shame, self-loathing. the important emotions. oh and spoiler alert some joy.
Like Wenda, Furious_Winter "...she could ride with Gendry and be an outlaw, like Wenda the White Fawn in the songs." - my favourite canon AUs are Arya and Gendry with the Brotherhood and my absolute favourites of those are when they are apart (who's ever heard of a marauding smith??) but have some of miserable bittersweet understanding and they glower at each other and make each other jealous and everything is unspoken but this is it this singular love they have for each other that doesn't quite work out. I've just realized that most of these recs are highkey angsty oops. anyway, this fic is like the most complete and perfect distillation of everything I want. - also this is so richly detailed and complete in itself. immensely satisfying. - yeah ok Furious_Winter is actually the master of post canon together but not Arya/Gendry love is not always enough fics. I'm just going to recommend all of them: - The Wolf's Head Helm [The Starks are back in Winterfell and Sansa is Queen in the North. One day, Arya receives a gift from an old friend... - Arya is in Sansas's queensguard.]  - A Means To An End (incomplete) [Arya Stark has returned from Essos and has been staying at the Inn at the Crossroads. Things are not nearly as simple as she sees them. - fuck this one hurts so good] - A Bastard At Heart [Arya and Gendry marry other people for the good of the kingdom 'cause they're self sacrificing like that. the last line took me outtt]
the truth is, baby you're all that I need, belasteals “You were jealous,” he laughed, almost shocked. “Arya Stark of Winterfell, jealous of a whore.” - sirens This One Is Not Angsty sirens
A Girl Meets a Boy, Hotpie A girl takes a face; a girl takes a lover. - possibly my favourite Crossroads Inn fic. love the Faceless Man stuff. love the detail of Needle having a smallest spot of rust, from Braavosi Steel Pox and Arya feeling a ways about it. love picking up the Melisandre thread.
So Easy To Love, Val_Creative She misses Gendry's complaining, too enthralled with staring. "You smell like Dennett's underarms," Arya murmurs, leaning in, going for blunt honesty. Gendry opens his mouth, beginning to laugh, turning uproarious and smiling. She's never seen anything more beautiful than this. More kissable than Gendry's mouth. - the summary makes it seem like it's all kissing when there is actually a big chunk of plot - in service of eventual kissing, yes, - but! spoiler alert! they don't even get to it in this fic! not exactly - maybe why I love it a lot??
With Bells in Her Hair, semicolonlife [incomplete] The further south they travel the more Gendry starts to wonder if he truly knows this woman who wears Arya Stark's face. As he begins to doubt himself more and more, Gendry becomes obsessed with the strange bells she wears in her hair. - ruthless slightly wonky Arya is my favourite Arya.
Wayfaring, Rainfallen An accidental series centered on the same basic headcanon of how Gendry found himself in the North and how Arya found her way back to it. - wolf girl Wolf Girl WOLF GIRL
Seen, sanctuary_for_all Being important matters less than who you're important to. - He wasn't sure what that verdict was, however, until she returned the unfinished sword to rest position with a deeply satisfied expression. "I am going to kill so many people with that sword." It was probably a bad sign for his long-term sanity that Gendry felt deeply complimented by that. "Happy to help." my useless heart: pikachu face - see! I like fluffy HEAs too
Hearts, sanctuary_for_all Arya comes home to her family. (Future flash) - look, I just think it's really important that even married and with children, Arya continues murdering people uwu
other AUs/misc I'll Run (Run To You), belasteals “You would rather marry a lowborn knight than a high lord, then?” She grinned, all bared teeth and sharp eyes. “I’d rather marry no one at all, else I'd not play at this mummer’s farce.” “What about the man who outruns you?” “Nobody outruns me.” (Greek mythology fusion: Arya as Atalanta, Gendry as Hippomenes. Arya vows only to marry the man who can outrun her in a footrace) - Atalanta, Mononoke, Arya. same energy.
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bladekindeyewear · 5 years
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Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 10 - Candy Part 1 again
I was told that finishing the epilogue MAY make me feel better by some with opinions, with some vague hints that the ridiculous start of Candy may have underlying reasons, so now that I’m awake again (though my stomach is roiling a bit again) I’m gonna take another crack at it.
Alright, so I was also hinted that this Candy part ends with a different cliffhanger, so maybe those two will cancel out?  That’s my hope anyway.
Reading page 1 again since I didn’t finish the very tail end of it... alright, so WHY IS ROXY CRYING again????  Was she just PRETENDING that she didn’t know it might turn out bad for John if he went at the end of the last one?  Was there some weird mind-rewriting going on?  Is the crying a symptom of this whole thing potentially being an our!Callie fanfic and she knows what’s being dodged??  Don’t know.
Alright, let’s have him save Gamzee and... is Vriska going to get saved in this version?  Or is that descent into the black hole without seeing what happens her well-deserved comeuppance while only the ghost version of Vriska truly figured out how to be happy?
==>
Dirk acknowledges him when he zaps back, but it’s YOUNG Dirk so hopefully there isn’t any stupid Meat stuff going on.
...Yeah, Gamzee immediately being repentant is weird as shit.  Maybe he Chucklevoodoo’d Callie into escaping him into this whole candied mess so he could start shit, I dunno.  That or this isn’t really Gamzee or someone’s manipulating him or etc etc etc.  The hint I got earlier was that if I thought Calliope wanting to bring Gamzee back and everyone just rolling with it was a little out of character, there are “reasons”, so I’m just going through all of this under the assumption that some emotion-manipulating weirdness is going on regardless.
Oh shit, Gamzee’s going to start recounting his character reasons for doing bad stuff in a surface-hope of justification and understanding.  All the characters immediately recognize how painfully groanworthy this is going to be.
GAMZEE: AnD sUcH iS wHy I’m GrAbBiNg HoLd Of My RePeNtAnCe As FiRm AnD sErIoUs As I wOuLd A wHoRe’S tItTy!
Yeah, that really encapsulates how “serious” all of this is.  And of course, John’s not having any of it.
Yeah, Terezi wouldn’t have any of it either, remotely.
Something feels different, but he can’t put his finger on it.
Hm.  The aforementioned manipulation-weirdness?
==>
Okay, so it’s kind of Dirk who notices something different and is cancelling his stupid villain plans, got it.
Volatility of causality, huh?
(I’m going to be going through these parts a little faster than the Meat section, unsurprisingly.)
==>
Okay, Rose and Kanaya, are we gonna cure her substance abuse or--
With all the distance between them lately,
God damnit, have Dirk’s manipulations extended that far OFFSCREEN or is this legitimate character distancing???? Because either is BAD.  >:(
Right, now that the plot and “relevance” has been sidelined over to a different timeline, Rose can now breathe easy free of her condition.  And whichever parts of her condition were, perhaps, IMPOSED on her.  Fuck.
I’m going to try my fucking best to cling to this, hope I can carry on a memory after this is over that DOESN’T imagine Rose trapped in a fucking existential dying villain coma with a hard fucking cutoff that promises nothing is ever coming to resolve it ever.  (Or Jade in a somewhat-similar sidelined situation, or Jane doomed to fuck herself over and everyone else too, or...)
What’s slipping away instead is the feeling that any of it mattered at all. Was she insane to be so consumed by such lofty concerns, and is she only beginning to experience clarity today, for the first time in ages?
Yeah, you’re no longer in a timeline of Light and relevance.  And that’s not so bad, which is something you never expected to be true given your derision of the concept.  Void is pretty goddamn alright.
--Oh right, the illness and substance abuse probably caused plenty of distance between them.
KANAYA: There Was A Feeling I Couldnt Shake That Something Terrible Was Going To Happen To Us KANAYA: Something That Neither Of Us Could Stop KANAYA: A Powerful Outside Force That Would Take You Away From Me KANAYA: And I Couldnt Stop Myself From Thinking That Maybe KANAYA: Maybe That It Would Be For The Best ROSE: Kanaya... KANAYA: I Can Now See That This Is Completely Ridiculous
For some reason, this doesn’t settle my stomach much?  It’s clear Andrew wove this in here so that if you read Meat first, you’d be able to acknowledge readily how this diverged in a way the characters kind of recognize, and... I’m not sure what I’m even saying.  It’s like there’s hope that this is TRYING to take the bad taste out of my mouth, but I don’t believe it overly much.
ROSE: What a relief, considering that we are both going to be young and magically fit literally forever.
Wait, so they DID find a way to extend their non-ascended friends’ lifespans to practical immortality?  Jane’s Life powers?  Something else?
==>
yay jade.  more extended dave metaphors.  calm down stomach.
JADE: i never thought id be thinking of you as my weird nerd friend by the time we were in our twenties
Heheheh.
DAVE: yeah well i never thought youd be like the premiere woo girl on the planet
Had to look up what a “woo girl” was.
Yes Jade go flirt them to death
What she’s planning isn’t a seduction. It’s a public service.
Pff
(And yeah, she’s being pushy but at least she doesn’t go DIRK FAR about it.)
DAVE: its incredible hes driven at least ten people off the site by creating thinly veiled parody accounts of their usernames
Oh my gosh, Karkat’s good enough to ANDREW HUSSIE them?!???  :D
That’s incredible.
Karkat knows damned well what a husband is. He’s been force-fed enough bad movies from Dave to pick up any human euphemism you could name. He still plays dumb sometimes, for comedic effect, to irritate his friends, or simply to avoid a topic of conversation altogether.
Yeah, it was always pretty clear that about HALF of the trolls pretended not to understand something human that they knew about just for comedic effect and they knew it.  :)
It would be pretty easy to mistake his reaction for arousal, so it’s understandable that Jade is extremely surprised when Karkat snaps his jaw shut and chomps down on her hand.
PFFFFHahahahah :D
And yep, Jane cancelled her run at Dirk’s direction.
DAVE: lets all just thank whichever christ was responsible for making whatever decision resulted in her deciding not to do that
*nod nod*
JADE: well i hope she gets a better hobby JADE: there are a lot of less ominous things she could do with her time KARKAT: WHAT, LIKE FUCKING HER WAY THROUGH HALF THE POPULATION OF EARTH C?
Jade pinches his ear and twists hard, smiling pleasantly.
JADE: get fucked karkat
Yeah, this is about the level of violence/threat I’d expect from Jade when anyone slut-shames her for perfectly acceptable behavior.
==>
There is almost no crime on Earth C, and so almost no one locks their door.
Huh.  I guess post-scarcity might do that.
Alright, we get to see Jane being less of a fuckass.
Dirk was the one person on Earth C who took the state of the locksmith industry with the seriousness it deserved.
Pffff
JAKE: Thats my theory at least. Maybe its tommyrot but i have faith that dirk will be back. After all where is he going to go?
Good question that wasn’t answered in Meat, so of course Jake says it here obliviously.
JAKE: I must admit i am rather half rats at the moment. JANE: You’re what? JAKE: Haha sorry that was a pretty obtuse way of putting it wasnt it. JAKE: What i mean to say is that ive been powdering my hair quite a bit today.
Andrew is SO good at making Jake sound completely incomprehensible.
...Ouch, Jane, don’t drink so hard! D:
The “morbs”??
JAKE: Dirk has that manner about him does he not? JAKE: A way about him that makes you feel like whatever you do as long as it does not involve him it doesnt count for dick.
Yeah, fuck Dirk.
Hm... is the absence of relevance affecting them, or some other manipulation? It’s not just the LACK of Dirk’s manipulation.
JAKE: Except of course for that time when you were under mind control and had me trussed up in your lair as you pontificated villainously about using me as a breeding stud to create a blood lineage for your incumbent corporate space empire.
A fate Dirk seems to agree with, judging by Meat.  Let’s sidestep that fucking entirely, thank you.
...yeah, I didn’t expect Jake’s response to be any less oblivious than exactly that.
==>
So why DID Callie bring Gamzee back, anyway?  Is there some secret use for him in mind?  Was she manipulated into it?  Maybe BY Gamzee?  Hm.
...alright, priestly with followings.  That ain’t good.  Is he aiming for Clown President MK2?
Everything Callie and Roxy have done and said in this Candy section so far seems creepily contrived, possibly by design.
...okay did they have some kind of weird agreement? Like, “okay John is gonna make his choice, and if he chooses to stay i try dating him instead of you, Callie”???  That’s... no that can’t be it.  Roxy’s NEVER acted THIS oblivious before.  What’s she playing at?
GAMZEE: mY fUcKiN *gUy*. :o) JOHN: ... GAMZEE: My DuDe AnD mY nInJa AlIkE. GAMZEE: mY *hOrN* dOoOoG. JOHN: ... GAMZEE: mY hOrN tO tHa MoThErFuCkIn DoG. ;o) JOHN: waiter! help!
I’m imagining Gamzee now as a sweaty and homeless, unkempt Guy Fieri.
Yeah, this doesn’t look like it’ll be fun.
==>
...Swifer Eggmop.  ¬_¬”
There’s a third member of their social group who definitely hasn’t arrived at the conclusion that his power and influence should be meted out responsibly either. Neither of them speak his name, however. For some reason, it feels like a shadow passing over the sun. A brief spike of pain flickers through Rose’s head, a bolt that strikes between her eyes and splinters out. There is color and light behind it. A vision that tears through the material reality in front of her and gives her a brief glimpse into a parallel reality where things are very different.
Yeah, fuck Dirk.
...Pff. Yeah, Rose WOULD mimic the record-scratch gesture.
Don’t invoke “never seeing Vriska again” like that, you’re really tempting fate.
Heh, Rose is finding some Light in the darkness, wanting to do something that’s meaningful on an expressive level with this Vriskgrub business.
Hm... why is my stomach a little less uneasy?
I sure hope it stays that way.
==>
KARKAT: OH MY GOD, ARE THE MECHANICAL GLUTES ON THAT BILLBOARD ACTUALLY PADDED WITH PLUSH TO MAKE THEM MORE LIFELIKE?
Heck Yes
...Yes, touch the butt, Karkat.
Jade, pouting a bit, glides in between them and uses her Space powers to teleport Dave’s phone out from the center of his traumatized palm and into the pocket of her sweater.
Hm!  So she still has teleportation abilities over a limited range even without her Green Sun boost, that’s nice.  :D
After all, where would these two pitiful beta boys be without her?
Oh my fucking god stop being Dirk, Jade.  And never use that narrative language again, even in your head.  Heck, even if Dirk’s the one WRITING this still, don’t even think CLOSE enough to think those words.
...yeah this sounds like an Active player class taking things slightly too far.
Thank you, Karkat, for drawing the consent-line in the sand.  Looks like Jade’s backing off a little.
--hold on, wait, Dave kissed him? He did, so why is-- let me read back up--
Dave doesn’t answer. She answers for him by leaning down and planting a dry, affectionate kiss on Karkat’s cheek.
Okay I misread this line earlier.  Jade kissed Karkat when neither of them were looking and is BLAMING Dave.  Hmm.
Alright, Dave ollies outie.  Karkat tumbles down some hillstairs.
Jade could probably catch him. Actually, she could easily do it, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of favor you should do in a fledgling kismesissitude.
Thaaaat’s a little presumptuous??
JADE: well i guess im eating grub spaghetti alone JADE: *again*!!!
:C
I’d be sadder if you didn’t bring it down hard upon yourself but
:C
==>
Yeah, John, better clear up this Callie business because it’s muddy as heck why Roxy would just drop everything to try things out with you.
Ah, we’re bringing up the gender identity thing on this side too, hm?
More serious talk, this is good, reading reading...
The glasses clink together clumsily, and water gets all over the complimentary breadsticks.
Oh no.  This had better not be Olive Garden.
ROXY: no one else has ever made me feel like this
--not Calliope???
What the heck is even going on.
Dave’s coming for some bro help it looks like.
==>
It’s hilarious how much Dave is freaking out about this, and how completely in-character it is.
JOHN: holy fucking shit. JOHN: there’s a gay snooze button? DAVE: yeah man theres a gay snooze button JOHN: wow.
I love these two’s conversations
......wait, Dave’s been holding off on kissing Karkat because of what he thinks JADE might think???? D:
JOHN: i almost managed to forget that she was trying to fuck you and karkat.
Pfffffffff  :D
Yep.  I love it being put so bluntly.
Reading on... yeah, for some reason I also always figured that the end result of a nice three-way relationship between those three people would be Jade and Dave essentially both just glomming onto Karkat more than each other?  Hm.
JOHN: i mean... it doesn’t sound... JOHN: *canon*?
...I hope you’re just talking about his coin flip explanation and not DaveKatJade.  >:(
John wonders when talking to Dirk has fixed anything for anyone.
Nod nod.
She grins up at John with shimmering, adoring eyes. They’re reflecting every star in the sky, all for him.
Seriously, what the hell.  Is Roxy hypnotized?  Putting on an act?  A voidy act??
I’m not doubting that Roxy COULD feel that way about John, I’m doubting the suddenness and the way Calliope is being deliberately ignored in the situation, which is so goddamn obvious that JOHN is uncomfortable about it.  There’s something seriously strange going on.
It itches at the back of his head, the idea that he might have just fucked up Dave’s entire life.
D:
Alright next post after a bit of breakfast.
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lanasaved · 5 years
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cue me, clanking noisily at a nearby manhole as i attempt to scrabble my way bk out of the sewer like the stinky little rat tht i am. enchanté, ghouls! some of u might remember me (nai/from manchester so i pronounce things like a gallagher brother n i’m profusely sry abt it) bt if nt i hd to drop off the face of the Earth rp wise fr a hot minute there bt now im bk n i couldn’t resist reviving lana so???? here we r. u kno the drill more abt her under the cut!!
( cis-female ) haven’t seen LANA JAMESON around in a while. the KRISTINE FROSETH lookalike has been known to be (+) VIVACIOUS & (+) ALLURING, but SHE can also be (-) UNRELIABLE & (-) CARELESS. The 22 year old is a SOPHOMORE majoring in BALLET. I believe they’re living in AUDAX but I popped by earlier and no one answered the door. ( nai. 22. gmt. she/ha/the beast from split. )
some random aesthetics: a red water pistol topped up with caribbean rum and covered in stickers of cartoon pin up girls, a vinyl record whirring silently because you got too distracted by a stranger’s hands to reach over and flip sides, giant inflatable flamingos floating in the aftermath of a pool party, smudgy lipstick kisses left like an autograph on someone else’s mirror
SO i think in terms of explainin where she’s been fr the past month i’m gna say tht she didn’t rly.... tell a lot of ppl??? probably only a select few bt to others im guessin she was pretty vague bc she hates discussin anythin serious/personal. anyway essentially she’s been back @ home helpin her brother out n i won’t elaborate much more bc im a thot
frm this point on ive jst pasted her old intro bc im the laziest woman alive n that’s jst life Babey
she’s local to the ny area i jst havent decided where exactly she grew up tbh. probably somewhere upstate
okay so her mum is an old money socialite / three time campaign model way back when n her dad is a big record label mogul. he owns a label called jameson records n they repped a few rly big rock bands back in the eighties, altho they’re mostly known for ‘poppy injects’ whose lead singer had a big heroin scandal tht brought down his career. lana p much grew up around musicians snorting lines instead of spooning down cereal fr breakfast n her parents were v much absent her whole life
they’re pretty well off obviously n bc of her relation to such a big music industry figure she’s hung out w a fair few relatively high rep ppl thru her teens. she amassed kind of an instagram following mainly fr her style (v penny lane-esque in some aspects aka lots of fur cuff trimmed jackets bt then also jst.... a wild combination of everything honestly. pastel faux fur coats, seventies style platforms, flame red cowboy boots, pastel coloured fishnet tights n glitter used like highlight Everywhere) n bc she’s undeniably very pretty
her parents always kind of jst… didn’t like her. it was v clear that she was an accident after her older brother caleb n that even when they just had him alone they weren’t cut out for parenthood. they always kind of jst… ignored her n hoped she’d go away. she had to mke herself microwave meals when she ws only like 12 bc they’d forget to get her anything. once she went like 6 days without her mum even looking her in the eyes once
despite this tho!!! she’s always been insanely close w her brother caleb. he’s her whole world. thts why when he decided to sign up to the army she ws understandably scared bt supported him regardless. bt then he wound up getting discharged under grounds of severe ptsd when he witnessed his best friend die in an explosion tht took place in a shock raid. caleb returned home n he was never the same n lana kind of felt like he’d died out there too. he’s in n out of hospital a lot n it’s rly hard on her bt she doesn’t tlk abt it to anyone rly
growing up lana was always a huge social butterfly. jst literally…. knew everyone n everyone definitely knew her. she ws one of those girls tht ws kind of impossible to ignore or forget. very animated, always made u feel like u were the centre of the universe whenever she spoke to u, always made it feel like u were best friends even if ud only spoken to her once. she has this magnetic way abt her tht is kind of hard to find in real life. it’s something ud only rly expect out of a movie character
she’s always been insatiably spontaneous n adventurous. always doing something weird n wild every weekend. she has ten thousand stories tht always earn a laugh or a gasp over how ridiculously absurd they r
anyway so after caleb got back he was rly withdrawn n depressed. he shut lana out n was kind of harsh to her a lot of the time, always telling her to leave him alone or pushing her away. it didnt help either tht lana had a rly traumatic experience w some of her dad’s colleagues at the label when she ws 16 n he was away n she cldnt even tell him abt it once he was bk bc of his own traumas. she kind of jst shut it all in n kept it to herself
this obviously?? made her spiral a lot. she was already a girl tht loved sex (she’d only rly done foreplay before tho) but since her trauma it got…. completely out of hand. it got to a point where she couldnt rly go 2 days without it, probably not even 1. her lowest point has probably been scrolling thru craiglist for anonymous encounters n meeting up w strangers on there fr a quick fuck jst for the thrill even tho it’s insanely dangerous n she cld wind up getting herself killed. it’s v clear at this point tht she has a sex addiction whether she’s ever admitted it or not. in fact she’s so… shameless in her endeavours tht she’s actually currently having an affair w her ballet instructor tanya who’s engaged to b married
she also currently? is working as a cam girl. she found this website bc she trawls… porn stuff a lot n she wound up applying to work as one bc she thought it’d b fun n wld earn her some disposal income (even tho she frankly doesn’t need it bc she’s already well off). the guy tht manages all of the girls on the site is kind of suspect n it’s a whole plot i’m gna unravel where it’s actually like the front for a cult or something wild so. stay posted ig. kgjdkgjh
new development!!!!!!!! cue me trottin around doin jazz hands. she’s actually been cut off by her dad so she’s….. living off the money she has left n has to look to find a job which is jst. a nightmare fr someone like lana bc she’s insatiably irresponsible n destined to be fired from anything she tries to hold down bt. it’ll be interesting bc this means she genuinely has to keep on camming even tho she’s starting not to want to any more bc of other circumstances i won’t elaborate on jst yet winks
personality/some fun facts: uncontrollably flirty. boundlessly confident. cld make a joke out a paper bag n her comedy is sometimes surreal / absurd. she tends to laugh when she feels like crying n has a smile brighter than a ray of texas sunshine. always dapples her fingers thru the breeze when she’s driving in a car w the window down. her fav book as a child used to b alice in wonderland n she’d fantasise abt having her own little wonderland too where everyone knew her name n asked her things n took her on adventures. at the time it didn’t rly strike her how evident it was tht that was bc she was so lonely. she almost always has some sort of sweet on her, whether it’s strawberry laces or gummy bears or cherry lollipops. she adores david bowie n prince n madonna n anyone tht’s a vintage style icon w little care fr what ppl think. wildflowers r her favourites bc they’re the brightest and u can’t buy them. she’s had like 8472493874 ‘relationships’ n none of them hav lasted beyond a month / hav been terrible / hav seen her being treated badly / she’s cheated on them. i dnt think she’s actually been w anyone she hasn’t cheated on in some form or another
plot ideas: exes tht lana’s fucked over hideously. she’d probably cheat a lot and it’d be a whole…mess. mayb someone tht flipped the switch and cheated on her? a cousin plot cld b fun too. a friend tht lana fel out w bc she slept w their significant other. someone tht’s getting lana into drugs?? she’s kind of impressionable/down for anything so tht’s a likely scenario she’d get into tbh. an unrequited crush!! (either way is cool). someone tht is just hanging out w her/using her bc she has a lot of instagram followers or they want to b signed to her dad’s label. someone in a band!! she’d probably make like penny lane n b their groupie/sleep w them all fgjkshgkh. umm a good influence too mayb? oh and a past summer romance/fling tht cld either have meant a lot or not have meant anything at all. bonus points if both of them hav a diff viewpoint on it. honestly?? anything is fine i cld ramble for days. let’s get wildt!
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tessatechaitea · 7 years
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Dark Nights: Metal #2
I could tell this cover was by John Romita Jr. because of Batman's stupid batarang. I believe that's the specialized batarang used for attaching trees to super-villains¹.
This is just cruel. Stop manipulating Swamp Thing into doing your dirty work, Batman!
Now that I know the Batmen were all members of the Bat-family, I want to know which jerk was captured by Aquaman. So embarrassing! I bet it was Red Hood. It turns out Batman was in Robin's VW Minivan which is what they all should have guessed because I guessed it but forgot to mention it. Now you're probably thinking, "Oh right! I bet you did! What a liar!" But you should know I'm telling the truth because I could have just as easily (and more believably!) gone back and edited the review by saying what I was going to say before I got distracted! You know what? I'm going to do it anyway! Fuck your sense of reality! Anyway, Superman figures it out and swoops down to threaten Batman. He picks him up and flies him into the sky saying, "All I have to do is barely squeeze. You can't even imagine how little pressure I need to add to my grip before your torso just rips like wet toilet paper. I mean, it's difficult not to explode you! You realize how many mathematical calculations I'm doing every minute just so I don't destroy everything I touch?! Imagine walking around a world built out of tissue paper and trying to navigate it without destroying it completely?! To me, you Earthlings are less substantive than a jelly doughnut!" But Batman is all, "If you squash me, you'll die because I drank a gallon of Kryptonite after getting out of the shower this morning! I'm like a deadly piñata!" Fun Fact #1: To get the "n" with the tilde on it, I looked up "jalapeno" on Google so I could copy and paste the ñ. I don't know why I didn't just look up piñata!" Fun Fact #2: When I just went to past in the ñ in piñata in the previous sentence, instead of typing CTRL-V, I typed CTRL-N and just about shit myself when my entire review disappeared! Luckily I realized pretty quickly that I'd just opened a new browser page. Batman finally decides to explain everything to Superman instead of being killed by him. It's a simple choice, really. But it's not a simple explanation! On no! The explanation is going to go pretty deep into Scott Snyder's previous story arcs to try to explain the most glaring errors in each of them.
This is even more convoluted than I was expecting! Perfect!
Now it's time to speculate on the fifth element! I bet it's Plasticmannium! Or maybe whatever shit the Orb of Ra is made from. Oh! Maybe it's Kryptonite and Batman doesn't realize he's already become the doorway because he drank that gallon of it earlier! Wonder Woman arrives to make Superman doubt Batman is being honest with him. Only Superman would ever believe anything out of Batman's mouth! He's so credulous! Even Ma and Pa Kent were fond of saying, "That boy'll believe a sack of worms if they told him they were a vagina!" That is so a Midwestern saying. Since Batman is obviously lying, Superman takes a drastic measure.
Superman didn't do this to save the world. He just did it because he's fucking sick of Batman.
Before you start sucking your own dicks (both figurative and literal ones so that all genders are included!) everybody at Marvel thinking DC has just flushed itself down the drain by killing the only one of their characters anybody really cares about, it turns out it wasn't actually Batman. Superman just killed Clayface. Although Clayface can't really die, I don't think. He's like an Oompa Loompa: immortal and weary of life. Meanwhile in Antarctica (unless it's actually the Arctic, seeing as how DC has had some poor history with keeping the two places straight), the Legion of Doom's headquarters rises from a lava pit. The Legion of Doom is currently staffed by all of DC's immortal characters. There's Vandal Savage and The Phantom Stranger and the other immortal guy and that other one plus the one that's immortal and also Cain and Abel and Lady Blackhawk and Morgaine le Fey and Shazam's wizard and all the other ones I can't think of. Their plan is to shoot the astral brain of the Anti-Monitor through the Rock of Eternity and into the core of the Multiverse. I don't know if that will save the world or it's just something they want to do for the lulz. Superman and Wonder Woman finally track the real Batman to the tomb of Prince Khufu. Just before they get there, Dream gives Batman a little advice about how to find his way home when this shit all goes wrong. And it all goes wrong pretty quickly. After Batman pulls Baby Darkseid out of his backpack and threatens Superman with it, I think, "Wait. What?" Um, anyway, it's all a trap! Batman knows everything except where to find the tomb of Khufu because he actually entered the tomb of Hath Set! I know, right? What an idiot! Now the Strigydae are about to mantle the fuck out of him! It's not as confusing as I make it sound, I assure you! I mean, sure, the Court of Owls shows up and some black squiggles take out Superman and Wonder Woman after which the Court pours a substance called Batmanium all over Batman so that the doorway can open for Barbatos. But that's not technically confusing! It's just, um, ridiculous! Batman turns into a cosmic doorway through which steop out eight Dark Batmonsters. One is Aquabat. One is Doomsbat. One is Cybat. One is Wonder Bat. One is Flashbat. One is Green Lanterbat. One is Jokerbat. And the last one is probably BarBATos. Unless he's The Phantom Strangebat. In other words, the Earth is fucked. Because if the Justice League can't even beat one Batman, how are they going to beat however many I just said stepped through the gate? What was it? Seven? Eight? So that's the story of Metal! I bet you all wet your pants over it like I did, right? I mean, I think I just wet my pants because I took too long writing this and didn't get up to go to the bathroom. But I probably would have from the excitement and intrigue and Batman's ultimate failure! That part was really great! ________________________________________________________ ¹I didn't just make that up. See whichever stupid issue of All Star Batman had that bit in it.
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johnnythirteenguns · 7 years
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logan, not spoiler free thoughts (it got long):
anyways i saw logan yesterday and im still sensitive from it and i wouldnt know where to begin having a conversation about it with people who want to see it
as a film it’s pretty good. i didnt feel too much time was wasted, if any really, it’s tropey though. so like once it gets going it is point a to b to c to d with no variation and you spot the chekov’s guns right away and you can figure out how it’s going to end half way in. which im fine with as long a movie doesnt patronize me, and i didnt feel logan did. it was just formulaic. but it was good and watchable. there is a lot to be said for exploiting a tried and true formula for story telling but fitting it to the aesthetic of the characters therein.
also although i dont talk to movies i have realized that i am increasingly more involved with reacting to them and i dont know if this means i am more empathetic with the characters on screen because i am becoming more empathetic or if im more emotional and have nowhere to direct that emotion in my real life so i put it all into relating with the characters on a given screen and so when stuff happens to them i just really React.
that being said like im really. tired. of white characters being allowed to use brown bodies as stepping stones and footstools. there are a lot of dead brown people in this film. the main characters are all white. although dafne did an admirable job as laura, if i had the chance id recast her immediately. i wouldnt have cast her at all to be honest. i hope that when an older or adult laura shows up that they cast an actual mexican actress (not a white one). in logan they imply that the babies are clones, but there’s also implication that it was actually just in-vitro using the stolen dna the way you would use donated sperm? unless i watch it again i wont know because the language seemed unsure of itself.
but yeah. i dont. know. it’s literally too much at this point like we’re just constantly thrown under the bus so to save, create, or help white characters. for example, you know the horse family is gonna die, you know it because it’s a Trope. but it’s a black family, and they die gruesomely, which okay, everyone that dies in logan dies gruesomely and violently. but theyre the only black characters with speaking parts, and there is a dearth of them elsewhere in the fox marvel universe. rictor, one of the escaped 23s, is mexican in the comics, apparently so in the movie, and i can safely assume his actor is latinx as well (but he’s a baby and so doesnt have a ton of stuff on his imdb). he’s also the only one of the kids who is shot when they’re being chased through the woods.
i honestly dont know if i would have preferred they keep it on screen or leave it off screen. clearly brown children are afterthoughts anyway? to be used as plot devices and target dummies as needed. i dont know. i do know that i was waiting for it and i thought he was going to die. they do have a line of dialogue immediately after rictor is shot to reassure you that he isnt going to die, which is something i guess.
at any rate i really cant with child death or child abuse in media lately. i dont know how i feel about laura’s self-harm scene. not good but self-harm in media in general needs to be looked at in a case by case basis i dont know about this one.
which btw wow the actress that plays gabriela is straight up from the bronx born and raised in new york and i knew she couldnt be a primarily spanish speaker that accent grated on my ears so badly  i would have preferred they find a way to have her speak spanish and english at some point to illustrate their point because whenever she spoke that accent made me desperately wish she would shut the fuck up or get to the end off her sentence if i could somehow physically share how fucking tired i am of fake mexican accents like youd faint for ten seconds from the force of my anger.
like of all the things to be that angry about but it’s honestly just One More Thing at the point and im so tired.
im really over the disposability of brown bodies and i wish it would stop.
all that being said ive been listening to this podcast and my love for the x-men and x-men adjacent characters has grown immensely over the last year and going in i was emotional about film history, about the x-men cinematic history (honestly hugh jackman has brought his a-game every time when playing logan and i thank him, even when the films themselves were lackluster), i was emotional about x-men comics history, like. i really loved how they all chose to portray the characters and the relationships between them and it was really hitting a lot of perfect notes like.
it turns into a really rough father daughter story really quickly and it got to me because of my own father, because of my possible future, it was a lot of deeply personal levels being affected. um, there’s a lot of symbolic stand-in stuff, like the canadian border, brown children crossing it alone (all their caregivers are implied to be dead to the point that they pretty much are dead due to their absence, so more dead disappeared mexican women, along with the dead teenage girls we’re told about much earlier).
i think i may have just gotten too sucked into it and too emotionally invested and am maybe looking at it through too much of a like film student lens because i was studying it for form and execution obviously and i dont feel like tropey is bad, and i say this because there were moments where most of the audience was laughing but they werent particularly funny? like haha funny moments they were a little more light-hearted (and i mean a Little, not much, to me they illuminate how very tired and hopeless logan is in comparison with other characters and the rest of the world) but because the rest of logan is couched so firmly in the same sort of world weary americana (despite none of the main characters being american, which is neither here nor there) that a film like hell or high water is that i didnt find them Funny. theyre still painful moments meant to illustrate a turning point in the characters’ relationship.
i do say this as someone who at this point just completely started crying for the rest of the movie. i was holding it back since close to the beginning because i Do like these kinds of films and stories and so im already primed to get really invested and then it just kept hitting me and. even gabriela running away with laura and how desperate but fierce they as the characters being in that situation really got me.
also there is no stinger scene so dont wait unless you want to listen to the man comes around which i love so i was fine with waiting anyway. also you see a special thanks given to all the comics creators that had a major hand in shaping laura kinney which got me and marjorie liu is listed.
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cwalshuk · 4 years
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Doctor Who review - Praxeus
Spoilers! Obviously.
If you haven’t watched the sixth episode of the 2020 series, then go watch it now. Seriously.
This episode is a globetrotting story, which sees the Tardis Team split up to try to get to the bottom of some mysteries involving a missing astronaut, a stricken submarine and some angry birds.
There are basically only two ways to start a Doctor Who episode - with The Doctor, or without. If you start it with The Doctor, then we're probably following the events at the same pace as the companions (if there's any). If we aren't, then we really have to care about whoever’s on screen instead.
In Praxeus, we are introduced to a whole bunch of people across the planet, some of whom eventually get picked up in the Tardis. If you can remember everyone’s names after one watch, without subtitles, then congratulations. But for me it was a little disorientating. Now, last week’s was quite a lot too, but at least it had calmer points. With Praxeus, you have to keep everyone and everywhere you see in mind from the second the title sequence ends to the second the credits roll. As it turns out, this jumping around the Earth, meeting others on their own travels, helps disguise the villain of the episode. So, to summarise - clever, if you can keep up.
I do have an issue with the companions though, and it's one the series has had before. After a while traveling with The Doctor, they can get used to the adventures. They can start picking up Doctorish habits, which can lead to dangerous consequences. In short, they get cocky. But even when this happens, they still have to ask questions. Sometimes it's fine, like asking who the Cybermen are, because that allows you to build tension, as with the exchange last week with Captain Jack. But when you are trying to convey the idea that the companions are experienced, giving them lines like ‘What's pathogen mean?’ ruins the illusion. How many unseen adventures have this Tardis Team been on? And they’ve not had that word mentioned once? I understand that the point is to get some Science into the show, so younger viewers learn a little. But it's inelegant. A minor quibble perhaps, but it took me out of the show. (I’d probably enjoy the show if I could watch it vicariously through a young relative, but they’re all too young at the moment.)
Anyway, back to the plot. We're introduced to British European Space Agency astronaut Adam Lang (Matthew McNulty), on a rough re-entry returning from the International Space Agency, travel vloggers Jamila and Gabriela discovering a Peruvian beauty spot is now full of rubbish, and ex-cop Jake Willis played by ‘that guy from that thing we watch’ Warren Brown, who's just learnt that Adam is missing, presumed dead, but then gets a text, apparently from him. That's four characters in three locations already before we see The Doctor.
Now, as I’ve said, one watch, quite confused. Perhaps we see The Doctor before Jake gets the text message, I’m not sure. In any case, Jake hops on a plane from the UK to Hong Kong as a result, where he meets Yaz and Graham. Meanwhile, Ryan’s in Peru investigating the bird attack, whilst The Doctor pops up in Madagascar, where she tries to help a US Navy Officer who has washed ashore with the same infection that killed Jamila. We don't really introduce the two characters who help The Doctor with poor Zach Olson, but this is deliberate because we're supposed to not notice until later. And anyway, Olson dies, so the fam start using their comm dots (remember those?) to share what they’ve discovered. Y’see, The Doctor had been trying to locate the source of some weird energy readings, so she sent her companions out on errands to help figure it out. Now they've got some information, The Doctor can start putting it all together. If only she had access to a well stocked laboratory…
Oh, wait! The Hong Kong bits! Yaz and Graham help Jake into a locked building (are those skeleton keys Yaz’s or The Doctor’s?), and we learn that Adam the Astronaut is being held there, by some shifty types in gas masks, and that he has the infection too! Also Jake and Adam are married but going through a rough patch. The gas mask people are aliens with deadly guns, but Jake has no trouble fending them off, even stealing a gun from one to shoot them. Having freed Adam, and with The Doctor and her Tardis turning up to investigate/save Adam, everyone piles into the Tardis. Ryan promises Gabriela that they'll stop whatever killed Jamila. Yaz makes a decision. She wants to stay in Hong Kong to investigate the aliens’ tech, having deduced its value during the earlier skirmish. Gabriela volunteers to stay too, as she's up for a fight. Everyone else pops back to the lab in Madagascar to help Adam.
I like that Yaz uses her skills, reading the aliens’ body language despite being under fire, and that she has the guts to stand up to the Doctor. Her little smile of pride when The Doctor agrees is lovely. It doesn't bode well though - see earlier about confidence in companions.
So now we’re cutting between the alien tech in Hong Kong and the lab in Madagascar. The rest of Team Tardis are put to task, with Suki Cheng (Molly Harris), the lab’s owner, deciding with The Doctor on a means of battling the infection. The ‘pathogen’ exchange happens here. Ryan gets to dissect a dead bird he’d picked up in Peru, Graham gets to show off his ability to set up an IV (presumably gained during his treatment with Grace), and Jake is there to support Adam emotionally (as best he can). All this business happens whilst Yaz and Gabriela decide to use a teleport they discover, assuming that a fleeing alien will be going somewhere worth investigating. Again, big, potentially dangerous decision there Yaz, and putting newbie Gabriela at risk too. But they do run it past the Doctor first, thanks, comm dots!
With all that going on, the Doctor’s less action-oriented lines are easily overlooked, especially when they are mostly asides to Suki and humblebrags. Sneaky stuff from writers Pete McTighe and Chris Chibnall. I must say, having Chibnall as a co-writer on this, having co-wrote last week's episode too, makes me wonder if some elements of this story are more relevant to the series plot than might first appear. Three new friends are waved off at the conclusion, promising to protect Earth, so probably.
But we’re not at the end yet! Yaz and Gabriela arrive in a weird, alien-looking location, the second of three places indicated by the alien tech. The fleeing alien got here, but no further. Somehow, Zach Olson’s submarine is here too.
Back at the lab, The Doctor’s piecing things together. Microplastics in the dead bird have an alien pathogen on them, which has spread among the world’s birds, causing them to attack Jamila, passing on the infection. There are great patches of rubbish floating in the oceans, says The Doctor, presumably that’s how Zach got infected? And Adam? Or did they get it via the birds? In any case, Suki and The Doctor have made a potential cure, it could stop the infection from killing more people, but they've no idea if it’ll work without testing it. Adam volunteers. Jake protests. Adam convinces Jake that it's the right thing to do. The Doctor realises that this is what the aliens were doing, using Adam as a guinea pig, a lab rat. Only without his permission. And the Madagascar lab has all the right equipment. It's the third location the aliens were using!
The Doctor confronts Suki, who, under questioning, reveals that she is one of the aliens, from a lab ship that crashed on Earth. They’d decided our plastic-filled world was an ideal place to grow the infection for testing. Planet as Petri dish! They’d tried to save their species but nearly wiped out ours in the process. Suki produces a device to teleport away, and everyone left at the lab pursues in the Tardis.
Unfortunately for Suki, she's tested the potential cure in herself, but not being human, it kills her. She doesn't get to escape in her ship, instead leaving The Doctor and crew with a useful cure-dispersal device, since Adam’s up and about again, cured!
Of course, it is Adam’s husband Jake who ends up at the ship’s controls when autopilot fails, feeling he needs to prove himself. Luckily, The Doctor can save him when the ship explodes.
Big hugs and goodbyes (and no mindwipes), leave Earth with a new trio of protectors, since Gabriela invites herself to Adam and Jake’s belated honeymoon.
With the confirmation of UNIT and Torchwood being gone, and Captain Jack off wherever after last week's episode, perhaps we’ll need them sometime soon.
(Presumably, going by her Tardis’s interior, The Doctor formerly known as Ruth thinks of the 60s or 70s as The Present when she’s on Earth - so could we count on her?)
This episode was a grower for me, looking back over this review from Friday’s perspective (and having seen it anew from various podcasters’ eyes).
I’m intrigued by the ancient setting teased for Sunday's episode, see you sometime next week!
No wait! Aramu, we hardly knew ye! As has been pointed out by other reviewers, it wasn't clear if he was an alien like Suki or not, and whether that matters is up to you, but it was cool to see what actor Thapelo Maropefela can do.
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