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nataliedanovelist · 3 years

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C-137 Vs. 46'\

C-137 Vs. 46'\ = A Gravity Falls & Rick and Morty crossover fic for @stephreynaart! I meant to finish this, like, forever ago, but I did my best and decided this has stayed hidden in my files long enough. I hope y’all enjoy it!

Stanchez for life!!!

~~~~~~~~~~

Episode Placement: GF = after the finale (season 3) R&M = Between S1E10 and E11 (In S2E2, Rick dates 1/12/2015 on the drop-off papers for Jerry. Though Alex hates dating cartoons, it can be estimated that GF took place during 2013 thanks to Sev'ral Timez, so the next summer would be 2014. So… yeah. I put way too much thought into this.)

The vast galaxy in front of them was an endless sea of stars and space-clouds of many different colors. Some were green, some were blue, some were magenta, it honestly looked like a generic Hot Topic galaxy t-shirt.

But Rick didn’t give a shit about some fucking space-clouds or some fucking shop for teenagers who were trying too hard to be goth. Rick didn’t give a shit about the fact that Morty barely knew how to drive the fucking spaceship. Rick only have a shit about getting away from the other fucking spaceships that were after the humans, but he couldn’t drive because Rick had to repair the fucking weapon to kill those fucking bastards. Fuck.

“Aw, geez, Rick, hurry it up!” Morty yelled.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Morty!” Rick snapped back as he tinkered with the huge ray-gun that laid by his feet.

The spacecraft jolted to the side as a beam just barely missed it. Rick caught his screwdriver as it flew in the air for a second and he finished the final turn. Rick grinned maliciously and aimed the newest invention out at the enemy. He pulled the trigger and rather than a beam of light or a bullet escaping the gun, it appeared that nothing happened, until each spaceship seemed to be covered with blood and guts from the inside, covering the windows and halting the enemies’ spaceships.

“Oh my God, Rick, what the hell?!” Morty screamed.

“Relax, Morty, you’ve seen worse. It’s just a gun that released microscopic ninjas that slice people up from the inside until they’re nothing b-b-but guts.” Rick burped through the alcohol and leaned on the big gun proudly with a monotone voice and facial expression.

“No, Rick, what the hell IS THAT?!”

Rick looked ahead to see a wormhole of pink, blues, and whites glowing brightly in front of them. Morty was trying to turn the spaceship away, but they were being pulled in by gravity.

“Well, fuck.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Mabel was bouncing like she had springs on the bottoms of her shoes as she held her Grunkle Ford’s hand. They were both wearing ponchos and on their way to the magical part of the forest. Mabel, Dipper, Stan, and Ford had only been back in Gravity Falls for two days and Ford wanted to start off this summer right by bonding with his favorite grandniece in the Multiverse.

Ford felt guilty of the little time they had spent together the previous summer. True, he had arrived home a little late in the season, but he had spent plenty of time bonding with Dipper, leaving not nearly enough for Mabel. Ford loved her very much, but with Dipper things were more predictable. The boy was a lot like him, so Ford knew what to expect and how to bond with him, like playing Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons or working or investigating an anomaly together. Ford had no clue what twelve… thirteen-year-old girls liked and Mabel’s overwhelming flood of love and affection had startled Ford like an old alley-cat.

Still, he admired her positivity and loved to do arts-and-crafts with her. They had captured time last summer for her to make a beautiful hand-turkey on Ford’s six-fingered hand; she had said that the extra feather made it special. The old scientist had no idea what he had done to deserve Mabel… no, he didn’t deserve Mabel, but she seemed to like him, so he owed her some alone-time. Mabel seemed to like the supernatural almost as much as Dipper (Dipper took a more serious approach to it while Mabel seemed to accept everything with loving arms), so Ford offered to take her out to the magical part of the forest over breakfast and Mabel nearly choked on her Stan-cake out of pure joy.

Now, as the morning sun rose and was nearly above their heads, after about an hour of traveling and quietly talking, they were starting to reach the magical part of the forest.

“So, why do we need ponchos, Grunkle Ford?” Mabel asked as she used her free-hand to play with the yellow hood that was over her beautiful brown hair.

“Because the fairies we’re going to investigate are… rather messy.” Ford landed on. The Barf Fairies used to turn his stomach, but after traveling through dimensions for over thirty years, Ford’s stomach had hardened and since Mabel also seemed to have a strong gag-reflex, he decided that he would try to learn more about the less-than-pleasant type of fairies. “I would hate for them to ruin a Mabel Pines original.” Ford added with a smile down at the young teenager.

Mabel grinned braces-free (she had them removed back in February) up at the old scientist, loving it when he called one of her sweaters a Mabel Pines original, and her eyes twinkled when she saw the blue sweater through Ford’s poncho, the one she had made for him with a golden six-fingered hand on the front, like his old journals. “So, these are…”

“Barf Fairies.”

“Right. What do you already know about them?”

“Only that we should avoid whatever they eat.”

Mabel laughed along with him and said, “Okay. Well… I’ve actually never talked to or met a fairy before, so looks like we’re both starting from square-one. Did you meet any fairies out in the Multiverse?”

“Yes, but they were very different than the one here in Gravity Falls. I once landed in a dimension where the seasons changing was caused by the fairies, and in another dimension I met a giant fairy-queen that looked more like a slug with wings covered in glitter.”

Mabel opened her mouth to contribute to the conversation, but they both heard a noise and stopped walking in the woods. The sound had made them think of clanking metal and yells. They looked up and around at the trees, but a little puff of smoke confirmed that they had heard some sort of machine.

“What was that?” Mabel asked quietly.

“I’m not sure.” Ford said honestly and started to walk them to a clearing.

The two Pines left the cluster of pinetrees so they could look around the skies more clearly. It was a beautiful cloudless early-summer day. As they looked up at the heavens above, a flying-disk of a spaceship was whizzing over their heads, having trouble staying up in the air. Ford held Mabel close in fear of it crashing down near them, but the spaceship staggered over the woods and crashed landed from a safe distance.

“Aliens!” Mabel gasped. “Dipper told me about the one under the town! Do you think this is like that one?”

Ford, whose mind was racing, shook his head to try to think straight, and he said, “No, I… I think I know what it is, but… Mabel, I’m afraid the Barf Fairies are going to have to wait.”

Mabel peeled off her poncho and shook her hair free, revealing her purple sweater with a heart and sunglasses on it that matched her red skirt and headband. Ford also took off his poncho, pocketed both of the big yellow articles of clothing in his trenchcoat, but then pulled out his gun. He opened his mouth to tell Mabel to stay close, but she already pulled out her grappling hook and was standing behind Ford, waiting for him to lead the way.

Ford crept back into the woods with Mabel behind him. He had a good idea of what had crashed into Gravity Falls, but he had hoped that he was wrong. He didn’t want Mabel to meet him. Ford was hoping he would never show up in this dimension, but if he was still traveling around the Multiverse…

A low hissing noise from a busted engine told Ford and Mabel where to go. They only had to walk a minute before the spaceship came into view, landing in between two trees and leaving a trail of up-turned dirt in its path before coming to a halt. Ford and Mabel slowly moved towards the ship with their weapons in hand, but they found it unnecessary as a boy stumbled out and coughed into a fist, on his hands and knees and ruffled from the crash.

“Oh geez, oh man, we’re dead. We’re dead. We survived, but we’re dead.” The boy moaned as he slowly stood up. He looked about Mabel’s age, had short brown hair, and wore jeans and a yellow t-shirt with white sneakers.

Mabel pocketed her grappling hook while Ford let his arms fall to his side, but he kept the weapon in hand, just in case. “Huh. That was… not what I was expecting.” Ford said, more to himself than to Mabel.

Mabel stepped forward with her hands up kindly and she cleared her throat, gaining the boy’s attention. He blinked at the two humans and Mabel said in a soft voice, “Uh, hi, I’m Mabel. Are you hurt?”

“What?” The boy asked. He seemed jittery from the crash, his eyes darting and his forehead glistening with sweat. “Uh, n-no. No, I’m fine. I’m…”

“MORTY!”

The boy groaned and squeezed his eyes shut as he tilted his head upward. “Yup, that’s my name. Morty.”

An older man in a white lab-coat with blue-white hair stumbled out of the spaceship, and not out of drunkenness for a change. “Morty, you little…”

“Sanchez.” Ford growled and covered Mable’s ears. He knew this guy had a foul tongue, and while Ford and his brother might have sailors’ mouths, at least he and Stan knew to censor themselves around the kids. Ford’s old friend didn’t.

The old man in the lab-coat looked at Ford and his eyes widened in shock before he grinned. “Oh, no way! Good to see you again, Fordsie!” He laughed, amused by the scenario in front of him. “Great, another genius. Mind giving me a hand with this piece of… erm, crap?”

Ford groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine, the sooner I can get you out of my home dimension, the better.”

The man Grunkle Ford had called Sanchez appeared shocked again and he dug around his coat. “Wait, wait, wait. Your home dimension?” Sanchez pulled out a white flat gun with a green bulb on top and he seemed to be reading off a tiny screen. “Huh. Dimension 46’\. This one’s way out of the loop. There’s no way I could’ve gotten you home with this thing. How did you manage to pull that off?”

“Long story.” Ford said and pocketed his hand in his trenchcoat.

“Grunkle Ford,” Mabel piped and smiled up at the visitor. “Who’s this?”

Ford looked down at his niece and decided to share this piece of his thirty-year-long journey in the Multiverse with her. “Sweetie, this is my old acquaintance, Rick Sanchez. Rick, this is my great-niece, my brother Sherman’s granddaughter, Mabel.”

“Oh, hey, nice to meet you, little lady.” Rick said with a small smile and then jabbed a thumb back at Morty. “That little screw-up is my grandson, Morty.”

“Oh, yeah, like you could do any better, Rick.” Morty huffed with crossed-arms over his thin chest.

“I could do better, Morty,” Rick said and rounded on his grandson. “You know what else I can do? I can also leave you behind on Asteroid 3924987, but I won’t. I can also feed you to a five-headed mega-bird from Bird-Person’s homeworld, but I won’t. I can also send you to the citadel and trade you in for a new Morty, but I won’t, as long as you quit being a pain in the ass.”

“Rick, please!” Ford hissed.

“It’s okay, Grunkle Ford, I heard worse when I went to get a snack and Stan was watching football.” Mabel giggled, remembering the other night when Stan’s team was losing and he let out a long stream of colorful swears that made him turn red when he realized Mabel had heard him.

“Of course you have.” Ford groaned and shook his head. “Well, let’s see what the damage is, Sanchez. What caused the crash? Did your micro-verse battery finally start a rebellion?”

“No, because they know if they do, I’ll get a new battery, Genius. When we came to this dimension through a wormhole we hit a mountain side and a part broke off here…”

The two old men examined the spacecraft and were discussing ways to fix it, meanwhile Morty walked up to Mabel and rubbed an arm nervously. “So, uh… I guess they met out in the Multiverse, huh?”

Mabel nodded; she didn’t know how these two old men knew each other or why these two humans were in a spaceship, but based on context clues, Morty’s guess made the most sense. “Wait, so you two are from another dimension?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” Morty said with a shrug. “This is 46'\, right? My dimension is C-137.”

“Wow, cool!” Mabel said with shining eyes that threw Morty for a loop. “So, what’s different over there? Was Benjamin Franklin a man and never accomplished anything? Are dinosaurs still alive? Oo! I bet your sky is lavender-purple all the time, right?!”

Morty laughed a little and rubbed his arm again. “Uh, no. It’s, I think, pretty much the same as yours. My Grandpa Rick says there’s an infinite number of realities that are just slightly different from one another. M-M-Maybe the difference between C-137 and 46'\ is so small and unimportant it’s not obvious.”

“Oh, okay,” Mabel peered over to watch Rick and Ford work together for a little bit and then she smiled back at Morty. “So, do you always go on adventures with your Grandpa Rick?”

Morty sighed in a shaky puberty-voice and nodded. “Yeah, he’s always making me go on these stupid adventures with him.”

“What?” Mabel gasped with a smile. “They’re not stupid! I’d love to go to a different dimension with my Grunkle Ford! I’ve already been on one with him and Grunkle Stan when they had to rescue me from Dimension Mab3L. The other mes were a little self-centered, but it was a lot of fun to punch myself in the face and rescue my great-uncles.”

“Yeah, but from the sounds of it, your - what did you say, Grunkle Ford? - is nice to you.” Morty pointed out. “My Grandpa Rick treats me like garbage all the time, but then again he treats everyone like garbage, so at least he’s only signaling me out to stay hidden from the Federation or whatever.”

“Oh.” Mabel said quietly and held her hands behind her back bashfully, unsure of how to respond, but she decided to try to make Morty feel better. “Well, my other great-uncle, Grunkle Stan, is a little tough sometimes, but that’s only because he cares about his family and is toughening us up for a tougher world. He’s my hero!”

“That sounds nice.” Morty said with a small smile. He didn’t think Rick cared about his family like this Stan guy, but Morty wasn’t in the mood to kill Mabel’s optimism. “I like your sweater, by the way.”

“Thanks!” Mabel grinned proudly. “I made it!”

Morty’s eyes widened. “Wow, really?” Mabel held out her arm so Morty could feel her sleeve. “Oh my God, that’s amazing! You’re really talented.”

“Hey, thanks! If you want, I can make you one!”

“R-R-Really? You’d do that for me?”

“Sure! What’s your favorite color?”

“Uh… y-yellow.”

“Got it!”

Ford and Rick walked up to the teenagers and the six-fingered researcher said, “Well, I’m afraid the ship lost a part we need, but luckily I have the materials we need to build one in the lab back home.”

“Great!” Mabel said and grinned. “Let’s go! So, how did you two meet, anyway?”

Ford and Mabel led the way with Rick and Morty closely behind. “We met about twenty years ago in a high-security prison. I remember feeling relieved to see another human. I had been without human contact for a little under two years at the time since I had been stranded on some desert planet.”

“Yeah, this nerd got into big trouble for the extinction of a few million species on Planet 8824816.”

“What?!” Mabel gasped and looked up at her great-uncle, unable to believe that he would cause such mass genocide. “Grunkle Ford, you didn’t?!”

“Of course I didn’t, Mabel.” Ford quickly reassured his niece. “That was the planet I thought was a sandwich. Anyway, at least I didn’t do what Rick was in for…”

“What did he do?”

“I purposely caused mass genocide on Sector 56, Dimension “”113.” Rick said in a scaringly monotone voice.

“What?!”

“Rick!” Ford and Morty both scolded at the same time.

“Hey, it was either me or the Valakawns!” Rick snapped back. “Those bloodsucking leeches didn’t see what hit them, until the Federation caught me hanging from a tree upside-down, passed out and drunk.”

“Alright, enough!” Ford said firmly. “Let’s just build the part we need so we can get you two back to your home dimension. And, Mabel, once they’re gone we’re going to patch the wormhole with alien adhesive.”

“Okay. Last thing we want is for Dipper to get stuck in Dimension Dipp-3R or something.”

“Who’s Dipper?” Morty asked quietly.

“My twin brother!”

“Oh, cool! I don’t have a twin, but I have met multiple versions of myself.”

“Hey, me too! I’ve met Table-Mabel, Explainble, Threebel, Military-Expert-Mabel, Brainbel, T-Rex-Mabel, Fire-Mabel, and even Anti-Mabel!”

“I’ve met an Evil-Morty with one eye-patch who worked for the worst Rick in the Multiverse. I’ve also… Well, let’s just say I’ve met a lot of mes.”

The two teenagers talked while the two old men chatted on ways to fix the ship as they got closer to the Mystery Shack. Rick looked up and down the place and then snorted, amused. “Huh. Not the kind of place I’d expect from Mr. Stick-In-The-Mud over here.”

“My brother had to make some… changes in order to pay off the mortgage.” Ford explained and led the way to the back door. He opened it and said, “My lab is downstairs behind the vending machine in the gift shop. I believe Soos is giving a tour, so it should be safe to enter.”

“Gift shop?” Rick laughed and poked Ford’s shoulder. “When did you get so soft?”

“I am not< soft.” Ford said dignified.

“You’re wearing a blue sweater with a gold six-fingered hand.”

“My niece made it for me!” Ford said proudly and puffed out his chest.

Mabel rolled her eyes with blushing chubby cheeks and a smile and decided to let the old guys fight. She took Morty’s hand and said, “Come on! I’ll show you my room! I have a huge sticker collection you’ll love!”

“Oh, okay!” Morty said and allowed her to drag her up to the attic; it was nice being dragged to something nice and safe rather than some new monster of a different dimension.

“But hey, you turned your lab into a gift shop.” Rick was saying while the teenagers did their own thing. “Least you’re making a profit.” Ford wasn’t sure if Rick was being sincere or not.

“Actually, it’s all my brother’s.” Ford said and waved the subject away. “We’re getting off track. Let's just get you and your grandson out of my dimension.”

“Geez, you used to be way more fun.” Rick said with sagged shoulders. “What happened to the guy who ranked up million on Lottocron Nine and got tattoos with octopus-armed piglets? What happened to the interdimensional criminal who once shot fifty Bureaucrats to save a fellow scientist’s ass?”

“He discovered what was most important, Sanchez.” Ford growled with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Oh, HO!” A voice laughed as he shook his head and left the kitchen. “I know this guy isn’t talking about Mr. Goody-Nerds-Shoes!”

Ford pinched the bridge of his nose. The last thing he wanted was for his twin and his old friend to meet, but it seemed like some greater being(s) really wanted this to happen, so here we go.

Rick grinned at the sight of a conman in his suit and fez, with a can in his hand, instantly giving Rick the vibe that this guy couldn’t be trusted but would be a hit at parties and wasn’t a total snitch. “Now THIS is what I’m talking about! Name’s Rick, Ford Two.”

Stan barked a laugh and shook his hand. “The name’s Stan, Genius. And please for the love of Moses you weren’t just talking about my brother?”

“Are you kidding, this guy was a total badass!” Rick jabbed a thumb back at the fuming scientist. “He was a total idiot, had no clue how the Multiverse worked, but he was always willing to barrel into whatever crap was out there and destroy some shit!”

“Okay, you and I need to talk.” Stan tossed him the can of soda and went into the kitchen to get some snacks. “I wanna hear more about what kind of crazy violent nomad Ford was back in the day!”

“You got it! Just tell me how the hell he ended up with a cool twin? What, did you inherit all the fun traits leaving him with hobbies like collecting alien stamps?”

Stan barked a laugh and was back, looping an arm around his skinny neck. “I love this guy! Now, please tell me you were there when he got his stupid tattoo.”

“Stanley,” Ford scolded. “We’re supposed to be working on building the part he needs so he can go home. Rick and his grandson are stranded here…”

“Please, I can make that piece of shit from scratch in my sleep.” Rick said. “And Morty’s fine. That niece of yours will keep his small brain entertained for hours.” He turned to Stan and asked, “You got any booze, we had a rough crash here and I need a drink.”

“I got a secret stash in my room,” Stan muttered. “I don’t like drinking with the kids here, but I guess you can have a shot of whisky to relax. Want some soda?”

“Sure, why not. There’s a bit in my flask to last.”

And the old men walked away for the ‘Employees Only’ part of the house, leaving Ford to grit his teeth in annoyance and then bite his lip in discomfort. This could only end one way and he was not looking forward to it.

To be continued...

#gravity falls #rick and morty #stanchez #gift #fanfiction

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letterboxd · 3 years

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Sick Beats.

Blade-reboot director Bassam Tariq talks to Alicia Haddick about partnering with Riz Ahmed on Mogul Mowgli, how to open a film, the clash of colonialism and art, and the escapist joys of comic-book movies.

“We’ll make films, we’ll die, who gives a shit? Right? But how we lived and all that stuff, I feel like that matters.” —Bassam Tariq

Standing alone on a dimly lit stage in a New York music venue, Zed appears to have it all. He’s on the brink of a musical breakthrough in his rap career, with a growing legion of fans and fellow artists inspired by his work. Yet at this moment, on this stage, with the audience barely visible in the shadows, there is so much more going on.

Riz Ahmed has had a couple of blistering opening performances in films this past year, but where Sound of Metal’s first moments track his character’s hearing loss, the opening scene of Mogul Mowgli—written by Ahmed and director Bassam Tariq—feels like a physical manifestation of the emotions that come with tackling what it means to be a London-bred, Pakistani-Muslim rapper.

Zed is unsure where he belongs in a complex web of cultural and social ideas defined by a family that raised him, a religion he treats with skepticism, and a country that colonized his parents and their ancestors. Transforming these questions into art won’t make them disappear, but music at least gives Zed a measure of indirect control over his problems. That is, until the diagnosis of a degenerative autoimmune disease puts the brakes on his career.

As Zed’s father struggles to reconcile his own past with caring for his son, Zed’s illness manifests itself in apparitions of a mysterious figure, whose face is veiled by a sehra (the decorative groom’s headdress worn at Pakistani weddings). The man refers to himself as Toba Tek Singh, which is both a reference to a city in Pakistan named after a Sikh religious figure, and the name of a satirical story about Partition.

Mogul Mowgli is Tariq’s debut narrative feature. It had its premiere at Berlin in 2020, winning the FIPRESCI International Critics Prize and gaining notice for its director, who has been confirmed to helm MCU’s Blade reboot, with Mahershala Ali in the leading role. Tariq previously co-directed the highly rated 2013 documentary These Birds Walk, and the 2019 documentary short, Ghosts of Sugar Land, each centered on Muslim life and experiences, one on the streets of Karachi, the other in Texas. Mogul Mowgli is a more introspective—and more surreal—exploration of these ideas, couched in the dingy halls of a UK hospital, and in the lyrics of a rapper searching for himself.

Tariq chatted with us over Zoom about his friendship with Ahmed, the production challenges of keeping a set alive, and his film inspirations, from Abbas Kiarostami to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Riz Ahmed and Bassam Tariq on the set of ‘Mogul Mowgli’.

I know that you and Riz worked together on the film for a number of years while you were coming up with the story, and there was also a lot of mutual respect for each other’s work. How did the two of you first meet? Bassam Tariq: We met through my co-director of These Birds Walk, Omar Mullick, who introduced Riz and I to each other. At that time, I was running a butchery in the East Village in Manhattan. That’s where Riz and I met and we just became fast friends. Things kind of took a few years for us to figure out what the project would be that we would do together, it took me about three years, four years. But you know, he was shooting The Night Of, and then slowly his career was skyrocketing and it was like, “oh, great, we’ll probably never see him again”.

Yet he would always stay in touch because I think he had a desire to tell something that was very specific to him. All I knew was how to tell things that are specific to me, I didn’t know anything else. So I think that’s why it kind of worked really well for both of us, because he became quite great at playing other characters, but to do something that was very close to him, I think that was quite new.

And it gave you both the opportunity to tell your own stories through that. That’s the exciting thing. It’s so exciting when you’re able to pull from some unique things that only you can tell, and particularly working with actors that also share that part and then bringing it alive through them. It’s just gold, it’s such a gift. Why would you try to hide that from them or mask that from them?

Speaking of These Birds Walk, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between how you observed and captured the work going on in Karachi and the intimate filming style used in this movie. What were the challenges in jumping from documentaries to this film, and were there any lessons you learned from that field of work that then factored into the production of Mogul Mowgli? I would say that the big learning curve for me was timing, like, you’re burning money as you have a day of production. Every day that you’re in prep and every day that you’re in production, you’re burning money. So the financing is very different because there are stakeholders involved. We were blessed with amazing partners with BBC and Cinereach that weren’t the crazy ones that you would expect when you think of stakeholders, they were amazing partners. It was more of a family vibe than anything. But you’re still burning someone else’s money, right?

I think that was something that I didn’t take stock of and I wish I was a little bit better with, but I think I finally realized what it means to “make your days”, to “make your minutes”. How do you keep everybody engaged? How do you keep your crew engaged? Is this going to be a long production? How do you do this? How do you keep it all alive? And we’re doing it in the thick of winter in London, you know, we couldn’t afford heaters and stuff.

And we were just blessed with such an amazing crew. I didn’t have a crew with These Birds Walk. It was just me and my co-director, and then I had an editor, Sonejuhi Sinha, who came on board for free. It was just people out of the goodness of their hearts, whereas with Mogul Mowgli, it was both the goodness of their hearts and they were getting paid a little bit. No one was getting paid great money. But it was still this desire to make an excellent film.

I think what I had to learn was to communicate clearly what this film was with everybody involved. That was a really exciting and new thing for me, because it wasn’t just me and a co-director. We have a ship and everyone on the ship needs to know what this film is and how we’re going to make it look, how we’re going to make it feel. These are friends I care about, I care about Riz, he’s a dear friend of mine. And I wanted to make sure that he was being respected, that I was being respected and I was doing right by everybody on my team.

And I think that’s really the most important thing for me, because man, who cares? We’ll make films, we’ll die, who gives a shit? Right? But how we lived and all that stuff, I feel like that matters. You could give somebody a very empowering experience.

Riz Ahmed as Zed in ‘Mogul Mowgli’.

While your own experiences were a major inspiration on a number of areas of the film, what research did you do for the medical aspects of the movie, especially with how crucial it is to telling this story? Oh, it was massive, we did a lot of research. We pulled a lot from our own families’ histories, but we never named the illness. That was quite important to us. It was quite allegorical, but also based in a very real concern, a very real thing.

I think something that I will say that is true is that a lot of first-generation immigrants have autoimmune illnesses, and it’s because of the body coming into a new terrain and new climate. Sometimes there’s trauma in the body from past generations. The Body Keeps the Score is a book that I think everyone’s been reading these days, but it’s about epigenetics and this idea that the psyche doesn’t know time. It doesn’t understand time, so you can’t hide it.

We have this false idea that time will heal wounds, but it’s such bullshit, because if we don’t confront these traumas, we can then pass those traumas onto our family members, which is something that I think is very real.

There are a few moments while Zed’s coming to terms with his condition in which he encounters the image of Toba Tek Singh. What inspired their appearance in the film and their place as a confronting figure for Zed? I think there’s a few things. One is that he’s an allegory, he very much symbolizes the illness, he is the illness. But then there’s another part of it where, like, I feel that I never know how to connect with our culture. I’ve always had a hard time understanding how to connect with it. So that’s the reason why he’s almost veiled from us as well. It’s like I don’t want to be able to see him—I don’t know what he is.

We have this very social-realist film, and we filmed the movie chronologically. So what I remember is that in the prayer scene, the first time he looks over and he looks back and then we have the guy in flowers I was like, “I can’t believe I’m making this movie, am I really doing this?” And you know, good on Riz. This is why having good partners along with you to be like “yeah, this is what we’re doing and we’re committing to this”, because there’s a version where they didn’t exist.

I also have to ask about the opening scene with the concert. I know that you had originally taken footage from one of Riz’s own concerts, but then you re-recorded it. How difficult was that scene to put together? It was scary! It was our first day of shooting, it was the first day of Riz and I working together. I’d filmed him a little bit here and there, like in a hotel or this or that, I filmed him in Pakistan when we were having fun, but it was all fun. Now we’re putting on the concert, people are there to see Riz perform, it’s the first day of filming, you know what I mean? The crew doesn’t have the language yet, we’re still figuring out who we are, how we’re all going to speak to one another, and then we have to do this big concert scene.

I will say that it was so important to make it feel like he is a real performer. I think I wanted to see him unleash a bit, because I wanted that energy from Riz to be real. I want him to unleash in a way that we haven’t seen him perform in concerts before. We did a few takes on it and then it was like, no, we got to go further, now we got to go further. And that was great to see how both of us were egging each other on to go further with it.

It was a really powerful introduction. It’s something that makes you sit up and take notice, if that makes sense. Thank you. I love openings of films. I remember my co-director on These Birds Walk, they taught me that how you open is everything. So I always knew that I wanted to open with a concert and then end with the concert. But I wanted the last concert to be in the bathroom. And I’m happy they were able to bring it to life.

‘Mogul Mowgli’ director Bassam Tariq. / Photo by Ryan Lash

Were there any opening scenes that inspired you when thinking about that scene? One of my favorite movie openings is Under the Skin, because I think it tells you very clearly what the film’s about, it grabs your attention. You’re about to watch a story about humanity and about, you know, what does the construction of a human look like, which is phenomenal, like, what is under the skin? Literally, what is under our skin? There are others. Narc has an incredible opening.

What were the films that most inspired the overall production of Mogul Mowgli? You know, there’s this one film by Alonso Ruizpalacios called Güeros. It’s one of the best debut films I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s so radical. It’s so singular. It’s so special. It’s so specific. And there’s probably a thousand things I don’t understand about it, but I love that about it. I’m walking into a world that I haven’t seen.

I would also say that the TV show Atlanta is a deep inspiration for me. Another film that I’m just so in love with that I watched a few times with Omar Mullick was Ida. Then I would say Son of Saul, and how that dealt with trauma, was really powerful. And all three of these films were also shot in the Academy ratio, which is the 4:3 ratio that I think we unwittingly decided to do.

Were there any particular filmmakers that really inspired you growing up or that made you think “yeah, this is what I want to do”, and pushed you to make the films you are today? No, I don’t think it was in the filmmakers I looked at, but more just the wonder of film that I loved, the escape of film. So my earliest films that I always loved were, like, Back to the Future. I watched a lot of, it’s weird to say, but even the bad Marvel movies I’ve seen, like The Punisher, Captain America, those early ones, I would watch those because I loved the comics. So for me, the comics were an escape, and ’90s X-Men, the ’90s Spider-Man, that was my life. My first introduction to Blade was that bit when Blade [appeared] on Spider-Man in one of those episodes of the animated series. And then, of course, the movie Blade.

I will say that one filmmaker I’ve come to who’s given me permission to make films is Abbas Kiarostami, the Iranian filmmaker who died a few years ago. He’s just a phenomenal voice, a singular voice in Iran. And Mohsen Makhmalbaf and then his daughter Marziyeh Meshkiny, who made the film The Day I Became a Woman. But these are films that are so unapologetically unique and of them. I want to be able to do that as well. They’re not in response to, or reacting as a discriminated member of some community, but instead they’re like, “no, I exist and I am”.

I feel like so much of the content that comes from communities that I’m a part of can sometimes feel like we’re sloganeering to white people or to the heteronormative or whatever. It’s just, like, come on. Andrew Haigh’s Weekend is one of the films that really moved me and made me be like: “Oh, wow, this is uniquely queer, it could only be two queer people having a one-night stand. It couldn’t be anybody else. And it had to be made only by that filmmaker.”

That’s it, that’s filmmaking, that’s cinema to me, that’s exciting. Just like the movie The Fits, where it could have only been written by women, directed by a woman, edited by a woman, it’s so specific. It’s one of the films that I also look to that I’m, like, what she did in that film, I’m still in awe. I can never have that experience, but I can relate. I can connect to something so vulnerable and so true. Because when it’s true, it’s undeniable.

Just one last question, the obvious question: top three films of all time, what would you say they are? I’m going to go with Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky, and I will say The Matrix because, you know, whatever, I’m lame like that. Then I’ll say another very expected answer, City of God. If I could add two more to the list, though, I would say Güeros and Dog Day Afternoon, for sure.

They’re all very different from one another. Yeah, but that’s what’s so great about cinema. You’re fluid. Genre, it could be anything.

Related content

Citizen Bane’s list of films and shows that pass the Riz Test

Hip Hop Hooray: Darren’s comprehensive list of hip hop and rap films

Best Directorial Debuts of 2020: as voted by Letterboxd members on Twitter

Follow Alicia on Letterboxd

‘Mogul Mowgli’ is currently screening at Film Forum (NY) and Nuart (LA), and coming to more screens soon.

#mogul mowgli #sound of metal #riz ahmed #bassam tariq #blade #marvel cinematic universe #mcu #mcu blade #mahershala ali #pakistan cinema #pakistani cinema #bipoc filmmaker #the riz test #muslim film #south asian film #letterboxd

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chemicalarospec · 4 years

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A Look At Dan’s Recent Branding

AKA I Make Up a Bunch of Stuff About Media and Perception and Promotion and Branding and Say the Same Things Over and Over

I’m so sorry this is actually horrendously long. I’m a loquacious a$$hole.

So I started rambling in the tags of this post began thinking about Dan’s presence recently. The reason so many of us fell for the red chairing was because it actually seemed possible -- perhaps not a proper joint video, but a cameo or side role.

Now that the video’s out, I can see it has very strong Solo Phil vibes, but I can still imagine a few different ways Dan could have been in it if he wanted to be. (Side note: It also feels like a run-of-the-mill, everyday, video, though seasonal, and not a festive special, despite the content. idk, I blame it on the lack of decoration and boring grey wall. cue clowning for more spoopy content though.) Dan is not in the video, so he must not have wanted to be in it. Why?

Before I talk more, let’s just talk about “branding” for a bit. I use it interchangeably with “image”/”public image”/”public persona”/”common connotations”/”associations” here (kinda wrongly), but I default to “branding” because it’s what the phandom (possibly even Dan and Phil themselves?) use the most frequently -- “image” is perhaps the best-fitting term. Regardless, in a very general example, if Stephen King wrote a fluffy teenage romance book, it would be “off-brand” for him. That’s what we’re talking about here. Except with Dan and smaller differences.

It’s also worth noting that Dan and Phil were not always Dan-and-Phil -- I remember seeing an early liveshow clip where Dan says they’re not a double act. I’m pretty sure the radio show in 2013/early 2014 followed by the launch of the gaming channel in 2014 is when they became a “double act” -- the BBC absolutely billed them as such.

You can see what I’m getting at here: Dan is trying to drop the “and Phil” in a softer way than he dropped the “isnotonfire” back in 2017. However, it’s definitely worth noting that he had already distanced himself quite a bit from it before the official name change, with first the shorter fringe and then the curls being a visual representation of that. And it’s probably just a mental thing on my part, but curly Dan now looks different from curly Dan-with-Phil.

Okay so first, why is he trying to change his image? Like his first evolution, a major component is being more mature -- llamas and malteasers didn’t simply not represent Dan anymore, they represented a younger, less mature Dan. He didn’t like it anymore. Does Dan not like who we view him as now? My first instinct is “no,” because his current connotations are fairly empty, but I don’t really know, so I’ll just move on.

What do we associate with Dan right now? i. e. what’s “on brand” for him? Well, again, there’s not a lot of strong specifics, at least for me. After two years for being nearly absent from the internet and very clearly growing a lot as a person, Daniel hasn’t talked enough for there to be only the basics left: tall, British, memes, and gay.

Okay, but the gay. Dan and Phil have been out for one year, but being part of The Gays is a pretty big part of their branding. This is because of their already long-standing reputation, more specifically their attachments to the community -- all those teenage girls turning out to be lesbians and, of course, the shipping.

The Gay is also an answer to the next question: What different aspects of his image is he pushing? Again, that he’s more mature and serious -- the UN talk, for example. I’m not counting the book here because that’s the product of the changes, not content being used to create a shift.

The big thing I want to focus on is the attitude video series. I’m very curious as to how this came about to be and don’t know enough details to say some things, but one thing I can note is that the plug for You Will Get Through This Night is a really small part of it. It’s literally the last thing he says, and they don’t even show the cover. It’s so skippable, and while it’s good that means they all really care about the important content of the series, it does create some questions.

To be honest, all of the attitude/This Night content is kind of strange to me. For example, the quote they used to promote it doesn’t mention the book, which just looks bad. This Night isn’t really the center of the collab -- it’s more general mental health awareness and activism.

So that’s the first thing Dan’s trying to put into his image. The podcast (Get Britain Talking or something like that) is, I feel, more directly part of marketing This Night, though of course, like with the video series, the content itself is emphasized and important and I should treat it as such.

Back to attitude. attitude is “the UK’s best selling gay magazine.” Why is Dan trying to build connotations to things he already is? No, but actually this gives insight on how he’s trying to be perceived: he’s a confident gay man. This magazine with its connotations (formal media, queer, well-established) will come up should someone new search up Dan -- obviously that’s not the direct reason; it’s a representation of his public image.

Why is he trying to create this image? Right now, us in the phandom are probably 90% of the people tuned into Daniel’s actions. We’ve already built up a lot about him, and though we don’t want to admit it, we do like Dan-and-Phil, the double act. Overall, I do think Dan will not change our image of him as much as he’d like, but he has changed it more than we might think -- for example, people talking about how “mature” and “grown-up” he is in new photos.

I think I’m just stupid, but these pushes don’t seem to be needed for You Will Get Through This Night. Okay so the problem here is “how do you get people to buy a book?” An author’s broader public persona doesn’t really impact this. I’m not going to hear about a mental health book written by an ex-Youtuber and search up the author. I’m not going to hear about a mental health book written by an ex-Youtuber in my normal book searching, period.

You know where I could see myself finding out about a book like this, and what would get people to buy the book? Doing mainstream interviews specifically about it; I’ll read TIME interviews with anyone, so long as it seems mildly interesting. But Dan’s not doing that, not a lot, not yet. (I bet he will later.)

I guess what I’m saying is the attitude video series is periphery media that impacts his branding but does not reach a large audience; it’s impact is atmospheric, not promotional.

(Dude it’s 10:30 at this point I’m not sure what I’m saying.) (also I rearranged these paragraphs sorry if it reads poorly)

Dan is a private person. He has made this extensively clear throughout the years and in the most recent content. What this means is I don’t believe he wants to update his branding just for the sake of accuracy to self.

So it’s (partially) for something else, but the public framing clearly goes beyond This Night. The obvious answer is that Dan’s just trying to return to the public eye, but then I still ask why???

The attitude series is not an end goal -- i. e. it is a building block for something. I mean, I just don’t think Dan’s like “yeah I want to create content again and this is the content I want to create,” simply because it started out seeming like an extension of the interview and now it’s clearly more than that, but it’s still like, for the magazine. It’s not his.

So what’s Dan going to do with this status of being a queer content creater and mental health advocate he’s curating? So remember how there’s a 99% chance he’s doing something w/ television but there’s been no official announcement? Yeah, that.

I had a few paragraphs talking about book-adjacent media (interviews, reviews, ect.) vs television-adjacent media but all of it was me 100% making stuff up so it’s gone now. Basically, I *think* if he were to make a show, fiction or non-fiction, people would search him up and write a small description of him, and I *think* this is less likely for You Will Get Through This Night, so I *think* this reputation-building is in preparation of the former, not the latter.

Isabelle, you spent over an hour on this, do you actually have anything interesting to say?

Freaking *waves hands* promotional-- social dynamics-- what the heck actually is branding at this point-- Dan show.

TL;DR: It might just be the French in me (or just *my* French relatives?), but life is manipulation and Dan is trying to drop “and Phil” from his name and is manipulating his public image to be more mature, with a focus on being one of The Gays and a mental health advocate. Because it’s not vibin’ as This Night promotion/set-up, it is likely setup for promotion for another project, probably the TV one.

TL;DR 2: Just read the tags on the original post I literally didn’t have to say any of this except for “television theory”.

#dnp #dan howell #daniel howell #you will get through this night #dan and phil #sorry dan #but i know our people lol #u can't escape i apologize #I said this #things I've said #my writing #god why the frik i hae al;flkajdsf;lkj acan't type 100 million tags #dan #dan book #this night #hey actually just reaidng the bolded parts and skimming the rest words well #that was a smart move on my part #for readability

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ceealaina · 4 years

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Title: Time May Change Me Collaborator Name: ceealaina Card Number: 3088 Link: AO3 Square Filled: Adopted - Time Travel (to the past) Ship: Stony Rating: E Major Tags: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame, Endgame Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Summary: A slight shift in timing during the time heist mission leaves Tony and Steve trapped in 1970. Stuck together while they try and work out a new plan, they instead start to see each other in a whole new light. Word Count: 13,609

It started to go wrong the way these things usually did for them — the second they split up. (You’d think by now they would have learned.)

Tony’s timing (hah, how fitting that time was working against them) had been off by seconds. He was just about to cut into the appropriate container, grab the Tesseract and get the hell out of dodge when he’d been interrupted. It probably could have been worse. At least he hadn’t been cut red -- or blue -- handed. But he was caught so off guard by being met with fucking Howard of all people that he hadn’t been able to find an excuse to stay, walking his father out and making bullshit conversation and feeling his heart sink deeper with every step further he took from the Tesseract.

Steve hadn’t fared much better. He had, initially, gotten his hands on the Pym particles. But, distracted by a glimpse of Peggy, of seeing first hand the life she’d lived without him, he had hesitated a moment too long before leaving. He thought he’d made it out. He was outside and had signalled to Tony -- who was talking to his father, no way that was a good idea -- and was just waiting for him to join him when he heard shouts. Steve had to make a quick get away after that, leaving Tony to extricate himself as quickly and unsuspiciously as possible, and hope they’d manage to find each other again. Steve got away, but somehow the Pym Particles were lost in the process. Because that just seemed to be how their day was going.

Tony found Steve a couple hours later, sitting forlornly on a bench in some little park. He’d abandoned most of his borrowed uniform in an attempt at disguise, leaving him in a white t-shirt and a pair of alarmingly high-waisted bell bottom pants that he’d gotten from god knew where. There were a few birds scattered by his feet and Tony resisted the urge to make a crack about old men feeding pigeons in the park as he flopped down onto the bench beside him.

“Cheer up, Cap,” he told him, giving him a conciliatory pat on the shoulder. “It’s not so bad.”

Steve lifted his head to glare at him, but it was half-hearted at best. “Not so bad?” he repeated. “Tony, I lost the Pym Particles.”

“And I didn’t get the Tesseract.”

“Oh, great, things are going to be just fine then.”

“Wow. Sarcasm is not a good look on you, Rogers.”

“I’m not in the mood, Tony. We’re trapped here, and apparently we don’t even have the thing we came for. It’s over, we lost.”

“Well... Not exactly.” At Steve’ confused stare, Tony gave a half shrug. “The good news is, we technically have all the time in the world. Once we get the particles, we can go right back to where we were when we left.”

“We still have to get the particles,” Steve pointed out, but there was something almost resembling hope on his face. “And the Tesseract. And they’ll have stepped up security, if they think there was a breach.”

“Yup,” Tony admitted. “And since bouncing in as Captain America Iron Man could probably result in some catastrophically timeline-altering bullshit, we’re probably going to have to play the long game.”

“What do we do in the meantime?” Steve asked. “It’s 1970, and we didn’t exactly come prepared. You technically haven’t even been born yet; I don’t think your driver’s license is going to fly. We’ve got no IDs, no money, and no place to stay -- SHIELD's list of safehouses isn’t going to cut it right now. How are we playing the long game?”

Tony gave him a crooked grin. “I’m gonna tell you something, and I really need you to not judge me over this, Cap.”

“Oh, this should be good.”

“So back when I was thirteen and in my last years of high school, I was young, and bored, and…”

“A pain in the ass?” Steve supplied.

“Precocious.” Tony gave him a dirty look. “Point being, I may have run some scams, started selling fake IDs… Pre technology era, it was surprisingly easy, actually. Which probably doesn’t say much for the security of our country, but works out well for our purposes.”

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. “You want to run scams selling IDs?”

“Well, the IDs would be for us, but basically… Yeah, at least until we get ourselves situated. Unless you got a better idea? I mean, stripping usually pays under the table. Not sure how prominent male strippers were in 1970, but I’m sure you could fetch a pretty penny with that ass.”

Steve gave a long, pained sigh. “Nope. ID scams it is.”

THREE MONTHS LATER

Steve padded down the hall and into the avocado green kitchen that never failed to make his soul cry a little. Tony was already there, sitting at the kitchen table with a legal pad and a mechanical pencil, muttering to himself as he sketched out equations that Steve couldn’t even begin to process. Steve arched an eyebrow at him, beelining for the coffee pot; Tony’s bad habits were starting to rub off on him.

“You get any sleep last night?”

Tony waved his free hand in a so-so gesture before scribbling a few more numbers and looking up to give Steve a slightly crooked grin. “Couple hours.” He made a show of looking Steve up and down, and even though he should have been used to it by now, Steve felt a shiver run up his spine. “Cute shorts, Cap.”

Steve rolled his eyes, shifting to tug at the super short hemline for the umpteenth time. “It’s July, Tony. It’s 90 degrees out there. And apparently this is what the 1970s have to offer for running shorts.”

Tony leaned back in the chair, balancing it on the back two legs. “Hey, I’m not complaining.” He gave him a wink. “Seriously, Steve. You look good.”

Instead of answering, Steve turned to the refrigerator, pulling out a carton of eggs. Since they’d been stuck here, there had been a million little things that Steve had barely even noticed in the future that he missed terribly now, and currently his Super Special Super Soldier Protein Bars (Tony’d had them patented in 2013) were topping the list. He was sure someone, somewhere would have Thoughts on his shifting priorities and how they reflected the Decline Of America, but energy bars were infinitely preferable to having to mix raw eggs into his orange juice, and there was no way around it. He had to pinch his nose as he knocked the drink back, trying to swallow as quickly as he could, but it didn’t do anything to mask the texture.

The sentiment was apparently shared by Tony, who made a face as he watched Steve3. “I could probably reverse engineer some kind of protein bar that meets your super soldier needs,” he offered.

Steve gave him a fond smile. “I’ve had worse,” he told him, which was true, but not by much. “And I don’t think I’d trust your cooking. Anyway, I think I’d rather you reverse engineer a way for us to get the Tesseract.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tony frowned back down at his legal pad and aggressively scratched out a few numbers. “I’m working on it.”

Steve arched his eyebrows at him. “And I’m going for a run.”

Tony waved him off, but as Steve headed back into the hall, he heard him call, “Bye, Cap! Hate to see you go, but love to watch you leave!”

As he started his regular run through the winding streets of small town Jersey (ew), Steve’s mind started to wander the way it always did when he worked out -- even if he had to hold himself back to keep from attracting unwanted attention. And, the way it seemed to be doing more and more lately, as his worries took a backseat, his mind drifted to Tony instead.

Steve couldn’t say exactly when things had changed between them. It had been the same as usual, at first, the two of them poking and prodding at each other. Steve respected Tony, always had after New York, and he was pretty sure Tony felt the same way about him. But they also knew how to push each other’s buttons, and didn’t seem to be able to stop doing it.

As the spring had dragged on, and their plans to get back into Fort LeHigh went exactly nowhere, and frustrations grew, Steve had expected things to get even worse between them. But instead the exact opposite had happened. Maybe it was the fact that he had a kid now, maybe it was the fact that it felt like the whole world was against them right now, nothing going right, and they were the only ones who had each other’s back. But Tony was different now, and Steve had a feeling that he probably was too.

They had talked about it, once, after yet another tossed out plan. Tony had admitted how much this was weighing on him, how scared he was that this would fail, how many people were counting on them -- Morgan most of all. And then, in a voice that broke Steve’s heart, Tony had admitted that making the effort to get along with Steve made him feel a little bit better about failing to get them out of there. Steve had tried to reassure him that it wasn’t his fault, that coming to 1970 may have been Tony’s idea, but that he’d also been right about it being their only chance. But he knew Tony enough to know that that guilt wasn’t going to stop no matter what Steve said. So he made the effort to be kinder to Tony in turn. And somewhere along the way, it stopped being an effort and just became their relationship. They still teased and prodded at each other, but instead of antagonism, it was all fondness, Tony looking delighted every time he’d get a smile out of Steve. They argued too, sometimes, because they were still them, but the arguments were fewer and farther between, and more often than not they’d just fizzle out entirely until they could come back to it later and have an actual conversation instead.

The team was his family, he loved and trusted them with every ounce of his body. But the little house he shared with Tony was starting to feel like home in a way that he hadn’t found since 1942. Steve knew he shouldn’t be getting too comfortable, that he was probably getting too complacent about their lack of progress. But it was easy to take heart in the fact that they’d be able to return to the same point in time. And he was enjoying the familiarity of their little life here. Tony had gotten a job at a local garage, kept making jokes Steve didn’t quite understand about how he was an actual mechanic now, and Steve had managed to pick up some freelance work drawing cartoons for the local paper. On the mornings when Tony hadn’t stayed up all night, Steve would start the coffee pot, making sure there was a fresh mug waiting for him when he dragged himself out of bed for his shift. And in turn, Tony would prepare dinner, because apparently cooking was a thing he’d learned in the past five years, more often than not making Steve’s favourites. They just knew each other now, things easy and familiar. Steve had expected to be bored, to be slowly going crazy with all the sitting around and waiting. But instead it was almost pleasant, like he’d been able to press the pause button on his life for one damn second.

Apparently Steve Rogers was the domestic type, who knew?

And then, of course, there were the other ways that Steve was starting to know Tony. Over the past few weeks, Tony’s teasing ogling had turned a little less… Teasing. Several times now, Steve had caught Tony staring at him when he thought Steve wasn’t looking, his gaze soft and heated and wanting in a way that made Steve squirm. And his comments on Steve’s body had an edge to them, a bit of truth to the words that hadn’t been there before.

And, well, the house wasn’t big. Steve wasn’t going to pretend that he hadn’t heard Tony jerk off on multiple occasions, that he hadn’t strained his ears to listen for the whisper of his name on Tony’s lips, that he hadn’t then jerked himself off with a little more noise than he would normally, picturing Tony do the same. Maybe it was just the fact that it was only the two of them here together, but Steve couldn’t escape feeling that there was something building between them.

***

The day had ended up being scorchingly hot, and Tony had picked up an extra shift at the garage, so Steve had cooked dinner. He’d never really bothered to learn to cook properly -- Tony liked to joke that his taste buds had been so ruined by Depression era food that not even the serum could save them -- but he could manage a few staples. He’d burned the first attempt at cheeseburgers, but the second set were better, and all the chaos was worth it when Tony shuffled into the kitchen, looking exhausted, only to inhale deeply and then positively beam.

“Steve,” he declared, still in his mechanic’s coveralls as he slumped into one of the kitchen chairs with a cold beer in his hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I think I love you.”

It was fully dark by the time they finished their meal. The windows and the kitchen door were wide open in the hopes of catching a breeze, and the sounds of the crickets outside filtered through the house. The heat hadn’t dissipated at all with the disappearance of the sun, giving everything a hazy, dreamy feel. Tony had unzipped the top half of his coveralls, leaving them hanging around his waist with only a threadbare white muscle shirt covering his chest. Steve kept having to look away but couldn’t seem to keep his eyes from drifting right back. Those coveralls were his number one weakness right now; he’d had multiple filthy fantasies about peeling Tony out of them.

“Fuck, it’s hot,” Tony muttered, knocking back the last of his beer. His legs were spread on the chair, posture loose and easy, and Steve watched his throat bob as he swallowed.

“You could go and change,” Steve pointed out, even as his dick screamed at him to shut up, that was the last thing he wanted.

Tony sighed. “Yeah, but then I’d have to move,” he complained, offering Steve a grin. “Anyway, it’s my turn to do the dishes,” he added, not seeming to care that he’d just negated his last point entirely.

“No, hey. You've had a long day,” Steve said. “I’ll do them.”

Tony hummed, considering. “You wash and I’ll dry?”

“Done deal.”

Washing the dishes with Tony was one of his favourite chores, and tonight was no exception. They alternated between companionable silence as they worked, broken only by the gentle splash of water as Steve rinsed another dish, and easy chatter, nohing of importance, just dumb jokes and mindless anecdotes.

“So then,” Tony concluded, giving a glass a half-assed swipe with his dishcloth and putting it away mostly wet. Steve thought about calling him on it, but didn’t. “It turned out that he’d somehow wired the radio to the headlights? And every time they came on, the radio would turn off. That’s why it wouldn’t work at night.”

It wasn’t even that funny of a story, but Tony’s laughter was contagious. Steve turned to smile at him, and something in his chest caught. Tony was grinning, face lit up with humor and a hint of anticipation as he stared back at Steve. He had a lock of hair falling over his forehead, curling in the hot summer air, and he was still wearing those damn coveralls, biceps on display. Hardly aware of what he was doing, Steve let the dishcloth slip into the sink and curled a soapy wet hand around the back of Tony’s neck. He had a brief moment to notice Tony’s tiny shiver at the water on his skin, and then Steve leaned in and kissed him. Tony’s lips were warm and soft and slightly parted, practically inviting Steve to deepen the kiss, to suck gently on his upper lip. Tony made a soft noise in response, barely more than a huff of air, and all of a sudden Steve realized what he was doing.��

With a start he pulled back, almost immediately missing the touch of Tony’s skin beneath his fingers. “Oh god, I’m sorry,” he burst out, staring at the floor and pressing his fingers gingerly to his own lips, like he could hide what he’d done. “I don’t know what that was. It’s just the heat, and, and… You…”

Stomach twisting with nerves, Steve chanced a glance up at Tony, expecting him to be upset, or angry, or even hurt for some reason. But instead Tony was just staring back at him with a soft, pleased smile on his lips. “It’s okay, Steve.”

And sure, he probably just meant that he was forgiving Steve’s lapse of judgement, Steve knew that. But he could also be giving Steve permission, and so he leaned in, kissing him again. And when Tony didn’t shove him away, only sighed against his mouth and pressed his palms against Steve’s abs through his tight, white-t-shirt, Steve deepened it once more, pressing his tongue past Tony’s lips to taste him. His hands shifted to grip at Tony’s hips, thumbs sliding over the bare skin where his shirt didn’t quite touch his coveralls, and he was only half-aware of turning them until he had Tony pressed back against the counter, Steve looming over him and holding him in place.

They were both breathing hard by the time he pulled back again, and Steve couldn’t stop staring at Tony. His hair was more mussed now, though neither of them had touched it, little strands curling around his neck and ears. His lips were red and swollen, eyes dark and heavy, and he was still giving Steve that soft smile. He tilted his head a little, squinting like he was trying to read him, and then he grinned.

“Close the door, Steve.”

Steve blinked at him, wondering if he was somehow so horny for it that a little kissing had completely fried his brain. “What?”

Tony laughed softly, the sound sending something warm and pleasant furling through Steve’s stomach -- though that may have been helped by the way that Tony slid his hands up Steve’s chest, dragging over his tight nipples in the process, and fiddled with the collar of his shirt.

“Shut the kitchen door, Steve. So we can go to bed.”

Steve nodded, a little dazed, and reluctantly let go of Tony’s hips. He didn’t know if Tony meant to go to bed because if they’d reached this point it was time to call it a night, or to go to bed, but he moved over to the kitchen door. He could feel Tony watching him with every step, his gaze heavy on his back and setting Steve’s nerves into hyperdrive. He shut the door firmly, the click of the lock seeming thunderous in the weighted silence of the room. Swallowing thickly he turned back to Tony.

“So, uh…” His voice sounded strange to his own ears and he trailed off, not sure what he even wanted to ask. Tony seemed to know though, giving Steve an amused smile. He held out his hand toward him.

“Come on, handsome.”

Steve moved back across the room, and curled his fingers around Tony’s. There were calluses on Tony’s hand, dragging against his own smooth skin, and Steve shivered at the sensation. There was a soft huff of laughter from Tony and then he was tugging gently on Steve’s arm, leading him down the hall toward their bedrooms. It felt hopelessly domestic, and something that had nothing to do with sex tugged at his heart. They didn’t speak, not even when they reached Tony’s bedroom door. Tony didn’t hesitate, his hand still clasped around Steve’s as he pulled him inside, and Steve was helpless to do anything but keep following.

Tony led him over to the side of the bed, angling himself to face Steve as he sat down beside him. Steve’s breath caught as Tony locked eyes with him, running his hand lightly over his chest before he curled his hand in the cotton of his t-shirt, tugging at him gently until they were kissing again. Steve let himself melt into it, hyper-aware of every point of contact between them as heat flooded through his body. Steve let his hand slide over Tony’s ribs and the two of them tipped back against the mattress until they were lying side by side, sharing kisses so sweet they almost ached. One of Tony’s hands came up, running through Steve’s hair, and he shuddered against him, pulling back to look at Tony with heavy eyes.

“Tony, what…” Steve tightened his hand against Tony’s waist, not wanting him to pull away. “What are we doing?”

Tony huffed out another soft laugh, shifting closer until his chest was pressed to Steve’s. “I think that’s kind of obvious, Cap,” he told him, voice low and rough.

Steve whined softly, his hand clenching against Tony’s side before he forced himself to loosen his grip. “What… What about Pepper?” he asked, because he couldn’t not.

But Tony just smiled, unperturbed. “Don’t worry about it. We have an understanding,” he told him vaguely before pressing in closer. Steve could feel their lips brush against each other, unbearably intimate. “Just relax, Steve,” Tony hummed. “I want this. I think you want this too, right?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah,” he said, voice rasping over the word. Tony beamed.

“Then don’t worry about anything else.”

Tony kissed him again, soft and slow, and Steve let himself sink into it, everything that wasn’t Tony’s lips on his fading from his mind. Tony shifted against him, pushing himself up on one elbow so he could press Steve onto his back, leaning over him. He moved his hand up under Steve’s t-shirt, and Steve gasped a little, abs flexing at the touch of his cool fingers. Tony grinned against his mouth, tugging at his lower lip.

“There we go,” he hummed. “God Steve, you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to touch you like this?” He pushed at the fabric, movements getting a little sloppy. “Come on, gorgeous. Let me see you.”

Steve felt hot all over, could feel his cheeks flushing red. He pushed himself up far enough to haul his t-shirt off over his head.

“Oh yeah,” Tony breathed. “There we go.”

Steve rolled his eyes, not bothering to hide his fond smile. “You know, you have seen me shirtless before,” he pointed out. “This morning, even.”

“Yeah,” Tony agreed, but he sounded distracted, eyes locked somewhere around Steve’s nipples. “But it’s different now.”

Steve arched an eyebrow, peering down his chest skeptically. “I didn’t run that hard,” he told him, voice teasing.

Tony shook his head. “You’re not different. It’s just… Knowing I actually get to touch you, get to have you?” He visibly shuddered at the thought, and the idea of Tony wanting him that much sent something hot and squirmy rolling through Steve’s body.

“Tony, fuck,” he muttered, hips rolling up as he yanked Tony back down on top of him. Tony made a startled noise that shifted to groan as he ended up with Steve’s cock pressing into his hip.

“God,” he breathed, breath hot on Steve’s skin. He dragged his teeth over the tendon in his neck. “The things I wanna do to you.”

“Please,” Steve moaned, sliding his hand down Tony’s back to squeeze at his ass through the coveralls. “Whatever you want, anything.”

Tony grinned into his neck. “Whatever I want, huh? Never thought I’d hear those words coming from you, Cap.”

Steve opened his mouth to offer some kind of retort, but bit out a string of curses instead as Tony’s thumb found his left nipple, rubbing over the pert flesh. Tony was barely touching him, just flicks of his fingers and teasing little brushes of skin on skin, but every point of contact was setting Steve on fire, feeling like it was on the cusp of too much. He let his eyes fall shut, hands clenching periodically over Tony’s ass and side as his cock throbbed in his shorts.

“Tony, god, please. I want…”

“What?” Tony asked, and his voice was thick and rough. Steve opened his eyes again to see Tony staring down at him hungrily, biting down hard on his lower lip. “What do you want Steve?”

“Please,” he whined, dragging his hand back up to Tony’s hips to hold him in place while he rocked his hips up against him. “Wanna… Touch. Please.”

He could feel the hot air of Tony’s breath as he laughed against his neck, and then he slid lower down Steve’s waist, sucking the nipple he’d already been teasing into his mouth. Steve didn’t even try to hold back his shout as Tony bit down on the tender skin. His body arched up into the touch, nearly unseating Tony entirely.

“Christ,” Tony muttered. “You’re so fucking sensitive.”

Steve whined as Tony’s warm heat left his body, but when he opened his eyes in protest, Tony was grinning at him as he stripped off his tank top. Steve let his eyes drag hungrily down Tony’s chest, noted the way he flushed a little in response, and then scrambled to arch his hips and kick his shorts off down his hips. Tony was doing the same with his coveralls, and distantly Steve felt a little disappointed that he hadn’t had the chance to peel him out of them himself. But then his cock was springing free, resting hot and hard against his belly, and Steve couldn’t stop himself from curling his hand around it, groaning in relief.

It took him a minute to realize that Tony had stopped undressing, staring at Steve’s cock with heavy eyes and his lips parted. “Holy shit, Steve,” he ground out. Then he was kicking off the last of his clothes and moving to lean over Steve again, covering his hand with his. Steve gasped at the sensation -- he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had someone else touching him, and this was Tony -- and his cock grew heavier in their shared grip. “Fuck, Steve.” Tony bit down on his earlobe, hard, tightening his grip around him. “You gotta let me taste you, honey, please.”

There was suddenly nothing that Steve wanted more and he whined a little desperately, catching Tony’s lips in a desperate, sloppy kiss before Tony moved down his body, kissing sporadically over Steve’s chest as he went.

From the first flick of Tony’s tongue against the head of his cock, Steve was lost. He rolled his head back, knowing if he tried to look at Tony now he’d last all of five seconds. He panted up at the ceiling instead, body thrumming and over sensitive. The hot summer air was giving everything a dreamy, dazed feel, not quite real, and he gave himself over to the sensation, losing sight of time and what was happening, but hyperconscious of how good he felt, the way his skin lit up everywhere that Tony touched him. His mouth was hot and wet, swallowing around Steve over and over again, until he couldn’t focus on anything else.

Steve had no idea how much longer it had been when he felt his balls draw up tight, his orgasm suddenly right there. He gave a ragged moan, patting clumsily at Tony’s shoulder.

“Tony,” he mumbled, and he hadn’t thought he’d been screaming, but his voice sure sounded like it. “Gonna…”

But Tony didn’t pull off, just swallowed him deeper. Wondering if maybe he hadn’t understood, Steve dragged his eyes open only to look down and find Tony staring back at him intensely. There was a look in his eyes like making Steve feel good was the greatest thing he had ever accomplished, and Steve couldn’t hold on any longer. Clenching his fingers in the sheets hard enough to ache, Steve spilled down Tony’s throat, cursing when that only made Tony swallow harder around him.

When he’d finished, Steve collapsed flat on his back on the mattress, body limp and ears ringing. For a long moment he was only aware of his own breathing, his heart racing in his ears. And then he felt Tony shifting against him, opened his eyes to see Tony on his knees beside him, jerking off frantically. He was running his mouth again, but Steve couldn’t seem to focus on what he was saying, only catching bits here and there as Tony rambled about how gorgeous he was, how hot that had been, how he couldn’t wait to do it again, and again, and again. Steve couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from the sight of Tony’s cock moving through his fist. He was thicker than Steve had expected, the tip wet as it poked between his fingers over and over again. He wanted to touch him, taste him, but he could seem to find the energy to do much more than reach up, mirroring Tony’s earlier movements and curling his hand over Tony’s, feeling the rhythm of him jerking himself off.

Tony’s eyes snapped to his, his face looking almost comically startled, and then he was making a strangled noise before he came across Steve’s chest. It seemed to go on forever and then he was collapsing onto his side, not quite touching Steve but close enough that he could feel the heat from his skin anyway. It was like second nature for Steve to shift his arm, stroking his fingers feather light up and down Tony’s back.

He drifted for awhile, everything still having that hazy, unreal feel. At some point he’d been aware of the mattress shifting, Tony getting up only to return a few moments later, giving them both a cursory wipe down with a damp cloth. Distantly Steve had thought that maybe he should get up, return to his own room, that maybe Tony wouldn’t want him actually sleeping beside him. But before he could make a move, Tony had tossed the cloth in the direction of the bathroom and flopped down beside him again, this time slinging an arm across Steve’s waist. His skin was hot and sticky, but Steve couldn’t bear the thought of getting him to move.

He must have slept, because suddenly he was awake again, aware of the crickets chirping outside the open bedroom window and Tony breathing into his neck. His breathing was steady and even, but somehow Steve knew he was awake anyway. He wondered what he was thinking of, if he was just riding the high of an amazing orgasm, or if he was thinking of home, of his family. That made Steve think of Pepper again, wondering what exactly ‘an understanding’ meant, and he felt guilt twist low in his stomach.

“Tony?”

“Hmm?” Tony’s voice was soft but alert, and Steve drew in a deep breath.

“What’s your ‘understanding’ with Pepper? Did you, I mean… You didn’t just say that so we’d keep going, did you?”

Tony made a disgruntled noise and pushed himself up with the arm not draped over Steve. He stared down at him, eyes slightly narrowed, although he didn’t actually look offended. “What, you think I was so thirsty for it that I lied so you wouldn’t stop me from cheating on my wife?”

Steve winced; put like that, it sounded really bad. “Well, no. And I don’t know if you noticed, but I wasn’t exactly putting much effort into stopping you, I just…” He trailed off, giving him an awkward, helpless shrug. Tony blinked at him a moment longer and then flopped back down on the mattress, fingers drawing idle patterns over Steve’s abs. The silence dragged out between them and Steve was just about to do something to break it when Tony spoke, the words mumbled against Steve’s shoulder.

“Pepper and I aren’t actually together anymore.”

Steve blinked. “Oh,” he said, a little dazed. He didn’t know what he had been thinking, but that was the last thing he had expected. “Oh shit, Tony. I’m sorry.” He felt his heart sink. “Was it… Was it because you came back? To help us with the whole time travel thing, I mean?”

“What? No! God no, nothing like that! Pepper was actually the one pushing me to do it. No, we, uh... actually... haven’t been like that for awhile.”

He sighed, flopping onto his back and slinging an arm across his eyes. Steve immediately missed the weight of his arm across his middle, but he curled his hand around the back of Tony’s neck instead and waited patiently for him to figure out what he wanted to say.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “After I came back from… From space, things were different. It wasn’t anything she did. It probably wasn’t even anything I did, it was just… Different. Whatever we had wasn’t there anymore. She knew it too. But then she told me she was pregnant, had been before that squid-faced fuck arrived even. And I…” Tony pulled his hand away and rolled his head so he could look over at Steve. “I don’t know, Steve. For the first time since we lost, I remembered what hope felt like again.” He smiled, completely different from how he had smiled at Steve earlier, but just as warm. “She wasn’t even born yet, but Morgan was already saving my life. I wanted that baby more than I’d ever wanted anything in my entire life.” He snorted, his smile going uneven. “Even my dad’s approval,” he added, and Steve winced but Tony’s eyes were dancing. “So Pep and I talked and talked and talked and talked, and eventually we decided… Fuck it. We may not have been in love anymore, but we still love each other. We’re always gonna love each. And with all the shit we’ve been through together, we figured we could totally platonically coparent a baby.” He shrugged. “It’s been working out pretty fantastic, actually, but uh… Yeah. We haven’t been together in like five years so… You’re off the hook.”

“Oh.” Steve nodded. “That’s good.” He knew he should have felt better knowing this and he did. But he also felt weirdly bad about it. He thought every day about what had happened when Thanos’s minions had arrived in New York, replaying it all over and over. This felt like just one more thing that he could have stopped, like maybe if he’d just been there they could have ended it before Tony ever went into space, and maybe Tony and Pepper would still be together.

He didn’t say any of this out loud, of course, but Tony seemed to know something was up anyway. His eyes narrowed a bit before he rolled back onto his side, hand resting comfortably on Steve’s stomach like it belonged there. “Hey. Whatever you’re thinking? Stop. This really is for the best, I’m not lying. We still love each other, and it’s working really well this way. Honestly, I’m not sure what would have happened if we tried to do this as a marriage, but I don’t think it would have ended well. And anyway, the past is the past Steve. There’s no point in worrying about it because we can’t go back and change it.”

Steve gave him a look. “We’re living in 1970, Tony.”

“Okay, but we’re not changing the past, we’re just… Borrowing from it. Well, if you ignore the idea that we’re making minute changes in time just by our ongoing existence here, and that the longer we stay the further those ripples will travel. But we’re not actively trying to change the past, and anyway, all of that should be negated when we eventually return the stones to their original point, so…” He waved his hand, giving Steve a sheepish smile. “Point being, I think we both did things we regret. Going over and over them isn’t going to help anything. Just gotta… Stop thinking about it and move on.”

Steve was quiet for a long moment, combing his fingers absently through Tony’s hair; it was oddly soothing. “I don’t think I can,” he admitted quietly. He gave a short laugh. “Tactical mind. I keep running through scenarios in my head. All the things I could have done differently, all the ways it could have played out instead… I can’t stop it.”

Tony lifted his head to stare at him, eyes wide and horrified. “Still?” he demanded. “You’ve been carrying that around for the last five years? Jesus, Steve.” He shook his head, blowing out a long breath. “Okay, well. I know I can’t make that stop for you, but I can promise you that even if we can’t change the past, we are going to make up for it. We’re going to fix this, Steve. You and me, together.”

Steve nodded, curling his arm tighter around Tony’s back as something in him eased a little. “Together,” he repeated quietly.

***

Steve woke up the next morning alone in Tony’s bed. The air filtering through the window was already hot and humid, promising another sticky day. For a brief moment he was a little disappointed that he hadn’t woken up with Tony beside him, but he could smell bacon and coffee drifting down the hall from the kitchen, so he slid out of bed, hauling on the boxers that he’d left on the floor and padded down the hall to the kitchen.

Like most mornings, Tony was working at the kitchen table, but he looked up as Steve came in and his expression went a little dazed as he took in Steve’s barely dressed state. “Uhh.” Tony made a punched out noise before he seemed to get himself under control, offering Steve a broad grin.

“Morning, Cap,” he said, voice sounding a little raspy like… Well, like he’d been sucking cock. Between that and his obvious appreciation of his body, Steve felt his dick twitch in his shorts. He shifted a little, giving Tony a bright smile in return.

“Hi Tony,” he said, moving over to the coffee pot. He could feel Tony’s eyes on him as he poured the mug and when he turned back around it took a minute for Tony’s eyes to drag back up from he’d been staring at his ass. Steve couldn’t help his pleased little grin as he sat across from Tony at the table. “Any progress?” he asked, nodding at the legal pad covered in Tony’s weird shorthand.

Tony shrugged, but he didn’t even glance at the paper, eyes trained on Steve. “Same as usual,” he told him, taking another swallow of coffee. “Surprisingly hard to hack a security system that hasn’t been automated yet. And they’ve really stepped up their shit.” He eyed Steve, tilting his head a little. “You going for your run this morning?”

Steve shrugged, glancing down at his mostly naked state and grinning ruefully. “I mean, I might put on a few more clothes first, but yeah, probably…” He eyed Tony, who was ogling him again. “Why?” he asked, voice a little lower.

Tony slunk a little lower in his seat, eyes going dark as they locked with Steve’s. “I don’t have to go to the garage until a little later this morning, since I worked late yesterday and everything.” He grinned then, eyebrows waggling. “Wanna do a different kind of cardio this morning?”

They didn’t actually make it to the bedroom this time, only getting as far as the kitschy sunken living room before Tony got his hand in Steve’s boxers and the two of them collapsed to the ground in an uncoordinated heap. Tony jerked him off right there, whispering filthy things into his ear until he came. Steve had barely caught his breath before he was shoving Tony onto his back so he could return the favor.

Afterward, they both lay splayed out on their backs, panting up at the ceiling. Steve hummed, vaguely aware of Tony squirming around beside him. “I never noticed that crack on the ceiling,” he said. “Should have asked for a discount from the realtor.” Tony giggled, right in his ear, and Steve realized that all the squirming had been so he could move closer to Steve, pressing up against his side despite the heat and slinging a leg over his hip.

“I’ll keep that in mind the next time we get trapped forty years in the past and have to buy a house together,” Tony promised, giving a contented little sigh against Steve’s neck. It was strangely comforting having him close like that, leaving Steve feeling settled. He curled his arm around Tony, rubbing over the bare skin at his hip.

“It this… A thing now?” he asked.

There was a long moment of quiet from Tony before he answered, like he was choosing his words carefully. “It’s… Whatever you need it to be, Steve,” he settled on at last. Steve wasn’t entirely sure where that left them, but for now he would take it.

***

Tony whistled to himself as he rooted around in the engine of the Dodge Challenger, in a ridiculously pleasant mood. He was genuinely enjoying working as a mechanic; it was good hands-on work, helping to keep his brain calm, but there was a simplicity to the older engines that he had always preferred. There was a reason he’d kept so many classics in his own garage. It was more than that too though. Since he and Steve had started sleeping together, things felt brighter somehow. The urgency that had been plaguing him since they had fucked up their first time heist, the sense of panic that he had been trying to hide, it had all faded. He was still worried, of course, still working on a new plan, but it didn’t feel so hopeless now. Between the two of them, he knew they’d get it done.

Tony had moved to grab a wrench from the workbench when Joe wandered out of the office, leaning against the doorway. “Barbecue and beers at my place Saturday night. All the fellas are coming. You in?”

“Oh.” Tony couldn’t help his grin. He still wasn’t entirely used to his coworkers seeming to just like him, not wanting anything from him because, as far as they knew, he didn’t have anything to offer. “Yeah, sounds great!”

He turned back to the car, but Joe didn’t move away. Tony could feel his eyes on him, and he turned back, eyebrows arched expectantly.

“You know…” Joe hesitated another moment. “My brother never married. His roommate comes with him to family dinners and for Christmas. Charlie’s a great guy, and he and my brother have a really nice life. No one here would give you grief if your… roommate came along for a drink, is all I’m saying.”

Tony blinked, not quite sure what to do with that. “Oh. Uh, thanks. I will… Let Steve know.”

Joe gave him a warm smile then, followed by a quick pat on the back before he headed back into the office without another word. Tony turned back to the car, utterly nonplussed.

“Steve’s not my boyfriend,” he grumbled at the engine, but even as he said the words, his stomach twisted a little and a voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Pepper yelled, ‘liar!’ He blinked down at the mechanics beneath him, thought of how they ate dinner together every night, how long they could spend talking and laughing together, the animosity left over from the last few years faded entirely. How the sex they had could just as often be considered, well, love making, as much as he hated that particular phrase. Tony felt something catch in his chest. “Oh shit, is Steve my boyfriend?”

When he laid it all out like that, like an equation to be solved, it definitely sounded like a relationship. But even bigger, when he focused on Steve’s face, really pictured his smile and his laugh, he felt something in his belly go warm and soft. He didn’t know how he had missed it before, but it was the same feeling he used to have when he thought of Pepper, and Rhodey before that. Tony groaned, sinking forward against the edge of the car.

“Oh god,” he muttered. “I’m in love with Steve Rogers.”

The rest of his shift passed in a blur, Tony caught off guard and a little overwhelmed. The thing was, when he really stopped and thought about it, these feelings weren’t exactly new. In fact, he had a feeling that even while he’d been completely in love with Pepper, and even when he and Steve had been at their absolute worst, there’d been a part of Tony still a little in love with Steve. The way they’d worked so intuitively together, even when they were at odds, the way they’d be so in sync over the weirdest things… there’d always been a spark there. And now alone together, able to talk, and relax, and really take the time to understand each other, he supposed it made sense that that spark would grow into something real.

When he finally wandered in the front door, mind still a bit of a wreck, Steve was standing in the kitchen, cooking them dinner, which looked like it consisted of panned fried hamburgers and… Tomato soup, for some reason. He must have heard the door, but he didn’t look up, humming to himself as the meat sizzled in the frying pan. His hips were swinging a little in rhythm to whatever song he had playing in his head, and his shoulders were loose and relaxed, carrying exactly none of the tension that Tony typically associated with Steve. The whole scene was hopelessly domestic, and Tony wanted nothing more than to step up behind Steve, wrap his arms around his waist and kiss the back of his neck, just to see the squirmy little ticklish shoulder shrug that he would get in response. He was totally gone for the man.

“Aw, fuck,” Tony muttered to himself.

Steve did look up at that, looking over at Tony with a bright smile. “Hey Tony.”

“Hey honey, I’m home,” he answered automatically, getting a chuckle out of Steve before he frowned at Tony a little.

“Hey, you all right? You’re looking a little stressed.”

Tony waved him off, stripping off the top of his coveralls and noting the way Steve’s eyes went dark at the sight -- it hadn’t taken him long to realize that Steve had a thing for this particular look. “Just a long day,” he reassured him, hopping up on the counter beside Steve. He made a grab for some of the cooked burger and got his hand swatted with the spatula for his trouble. “Wow, domestic abuse,” he deadpanned.

Steve rolled his eyes. “What a drama queen,” he retorted, equally dry. “They’re almost done, just a few more minutes. Then we can sit down, and you can tell me allll about your long day.” He looked back up to give Tony a lecherous look. “Or not, and we can just skip to the part where I make you feel better,” he offered, waggling his eyebrows and looking pleased when Tony snorted.

Tony was quiet a moment, watching Steve’s hands manipulate the food. “Hey, Steve?” he said finally. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

Tony fluttered his eyelashes at him, not wanting it to come across too seriously, in case he was reading everything all wrong. “Are you my boyfriend?” he sing-songed.

Steve choked on his own spit, coughing for a minute, but when he’d caught his breath back he was grinning like an absolute idiot. “I mean, I guess, sure,” he offered. “I hadn’t given it much thought.”

Tony arched an eyebrow at him; he knew Steve well enough to know that the flush on his neck said otherwise.

“Okay, I’ve maybe thought about it once or twice,” he admitted sheepishly. “We can be, uh… Boyfriends, if you want. Like you said, this is whatever we want it to be. I know these are weird circumstances, but if we want to, we can call it boyfriends for now.”

For just an instant Tony felt his smile freeze on his face, but he masked it quickly, leaning forward to give Steve a sloppy kiss on the cheek before he could read the look in his eyes. “In that case, boyfriend, call me when dinner’s ready. I’m just gonna wash up.”

He slipped off the counter and headed down the hall for the bathroom, adding an extra wiggle to his walk to make Steve laugh. But once he hit the bathroom, he shut the door behind him and leaned back against it with a sigh. Boyfriends for now pretty much said it all. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised. These were wild circumstances. There was nothing wrong with Steve wanting to take a bit of comfort where he could find it. And if Tony had been hoping for something more, that could stay between him and the bathroom walls.

***

They didn’t talk about it again, at least not in so many words, but they talked about everything else under the sun and that was somehow even better. Steve loved sex with Tony, really truly did. Just a look from the other man could set him shivering, heat spiking up and down his spine. Tony seemed to take special delight in finding all the ways he could make Steve fall apart, surprising him over and over again. Steve had all but given up his own bedroom, spending his nights with Tony instead and they’d spend hours lying there sometimes, Steve splayed out and feeling like he was slowly going out of his mind as Tony kissed and touched and teased every square inch of his body.

But afterwards, when Steve had come more times than he’d thought possible, when Tony’d had his fill and would slide off Steve to stretch out beside him instead, for Steve that was almost better than the sex. They’d talk well into the early hours of the morning. Steve had told Tony how desperately lonely he’d been for the past five years, how nothing he’d done seemed to ease that ache inside him. Tony talked about Morgan, how completely he missed her, telling story after story about how brilliant she was already, putting him to shame, but also how creative and sweet and kind. He’d sound awed when he talked about her, which had led to confessions about how his own father had been. Steve had been horrified, hands tightening around Tony like he could somehow make up for it. And then next night, when he told Tony how proud he was of him for letting the bullshit die with Howard, that even from the brief interaction he’d witnessed, he could tell Tony was an amazing father, Tony hadn’t bothered to hide the way he’d choked up a little.

Nothing was off the table (except, perhaps, their exact feelings for each other, but neither of them brought it up so it was fine), the darkness, and the heat, and the fact that they were the only two here who could understand their situation making it easy for secrets to spill out. Maybe it was just the fact that they were caught in a bit of a limbo, that deep down Steve knew that nothing they did here would really matter once they got back to their proper point in time. But his time with Tony was easing something inside him that he hadn’t even realized was aching, was making him feel whole again. He wanted to get back, to make things right, of course he did. He just also couldn’t help thinking that he wouldn’t mind being stuck here with Tony just a little longer.

They slowly settled into even more of a routine than they’d had before. They ate dinner together every night, talked about their day before they’d slink off to bed together. Some nights they wouldn’t even do anything, just sprawl out on the bed, touching despite the heat until they drifted off to sleep. They went grocery shopping together once a week, and one day Tony came home with a second hand badminton net that he’d found somewhere. Steve had never played badminton, but they set the net up anyway, and Tony had showed him how to play. There were more barbecues, with the guys from Tony’s work, mostly, but there were a couple for the paper that Steve worked at too. Nobody seemed to look askance at Steve bringing along his roommate. Maybe it was just an extension of fighting side-by-side for so long, but having Tony with him here just felt right in some kind of visceral way that Steve couldn’t put a name to but that he loved anyway.

***

Steve was once again going over the Fort LeHigh plans that they had managed to cobble together, when the front door slammed open. “STEVE!” Tony hollered at the top of his lungs.

“I’m right here,” Steve answered, turning to meet Tony as he heard him rush up the hall. “What’s wrong?”

But even as he asked, Tony came into view, an enormous smile on his face, and it was pretty clear that there was nothing at all wrong.

“What?” he asked again, because there still had to be a reason that Tony was home hours early, grinning like an idiot.

“I can’t believe I forgot,” Tony told him. “Do you know what tonight is?” he added, even though he knew perfectly well that Steve didn’t. “Planet of the Apes comes out. In theatres!”

Steve blinked at him. “Is that all?”

“Is that all?” Tony repeated incredulously. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

Steve cracked then, laughing. “Tony, you’ve seen that movie more than a hundred times. Which I know because you’ve made me watch it a hundred times.”

“Yeah, but this is different,” Tony insisted. “It’ll be in theatres, Steve.”

“You’ve done that before, too,” Steve pointed out. “Remember? That 45th anniversary theatre showing or whatever? I distinctly recall you and Colonel Rhodes talking about it.”

Tony just shook his head. “It’s different,” he said again, making a face at Steve. “Just hurry up and get dressed, you damn dirty ape.” He waggled his eyebrows, making a show of staring at Steve’s bare chest; he hadn’t bothered getting redressed after his run. “I’m taking you out.”

And really, Steve was helpless to resist that thrilled look on Tony’s face. And even though he had to pinch Tony several times to keep him from whispering the lines along with the characters, it was a very enjoyable evening. They’d sat at the back of the theatre, Tony claiming it was because Steve would block the view for whatever poor asshole got stuck sitting behind them, but halfway through the movie, when their shared popcorn was gone, he curled his greasy fingers with Steve’s, rested their joined hands on Steve’s knee, and snuggled into him a little, resting his head against Steve’s shoulder. He could smell the faint, pleasant scent of Tony’s shampoo, and couldn’t resist turning his head a little to press his face against the soft curls of his hair. He pressed a soft kiss against Tony’s scalp and in return received a soft little content sigh from Tony.

Abruptly Steve realized that, for all the activities they’d done together, they hadn’t been on an actual proper date before -- and that’s what this was, whatever Tony’s original intentions had been in dragging him out.

Settling a little more comfortably against Tony’s side, Steve decided that was something he was going to fix immediately.

So the next morning, after Tony had made their customary Saturday morning pancakes, and they were sitting around the kitchen table, pleasantly full and content, Steve curled his hand around Tony’s. “So listen,” he said, doing his best to ignore the way Tony gave his hand a heated look before glancing up to meet his eyes. “I’ve been thinking, and we’re under a lot of stress, with working and trying to find a way out of here and everything.” Admittedly, it wasn’t his best excuse; the stress was real, but he felt a step removed from it, and was pretty sure Tony did too. Even from a purely business perspective (if you could consider the Avengers a business), this had definitely become the easiest mission he’d ever been on. Tony seemed to agree, giving him a mildly skeptical look but gesturing for him to continue. “So I was thinking that it probably wouldn’t hurt for us to plan to take a break regularly,” he said, feeling his cheeks starting to glow. “And I had a really fun time last night, so I was wondering if you’d let me take you out tonight? Repay the favour?” he added, all in a rush.

Tony tilted his head at him, curiously, and then he was beaming bright and wide. “Steve. Are you asking me out on a date?”

Steve shrugged, but he was helpless not to return Tony’s brilliant smile. “I mean, I guess?”

And just like that, Saturday night date night was born.

Steve knew he shouldn’t get too complacent, that getting used to this was only going to end in heartbreak. Tony had said this was whatever they needed it be, just whatever it took to get them through. The implication was pretty clear that once they got back home -- and they would, eventually, Steve had to believe that or else what were they even doing anymore -- things would go back to something like normal. He probably wasn’t doing himself any favors, giving himself this glimpse of what they could really have. But he knew, deep down, that he wasn’t going to be able to forget it either way, so he figured he might as well enjoy it now.

***

Tony actually happened to think vegetables were delicious. But there was something about the very specific look of consternation that Steve would get every time he found another box of poptarts or gummy candies or whatever hidden in the cart that Tony couldn’t get enough of. He was feeling punchy today for some reason, snickering to himself with everything he managed to slide into without Steve noticing. There was a good chance that Steve was just humoring him, since Tony couldn’t imagine anyone actually sneaking something past the man, but then again he’d worked with the STRIKE team for almost a full year without realizing they were literal Nazis, so who knew? Either way, he was having a stupid amount of fun with it.

“Oh my god,” Steve groaned as he realized that under the loaves of bread and packages of pasta, Tony had managed to fill the entire bottom of the cart with bags of jumbo marshmallows. “You are literally five years old,” he added.

Tony just shrugged, giving Steve a sugar sweet smile, and Steve fought back his own laughter.

“Make you a deal,” he offered. “You can keep three bags of marshmallows if you stop adding in everything else you see.”

“Oooh.” Tony eyed him; he didn’t actually care about the sweets, but tormenting Steve was its own brand of delightful, especially now, when Steve took it as the gentle teasing it was meant to be, didn’t get his back up about it. “Throw in some chocolate and graham crackers, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

Steve stared blankly back at him. “What do you need graham crackers and chocolate for?”

“Steven Grant Rogers,” Tony hissed. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t know what s’mores are?”

Steve didn’t even last a full second before he was breaking, snickering to himself. “You’re so gullible sometimes. I may not have ever had them, but I do know what a s’more is, Tony.”

Tony frowned, tilting his head before shaking. “Okay, nope, I give. I can’t tell -- are you telling the truth, or are you still fucking with me?”

“The… Truth?”

“You’ve really, honestly never had a s’more before? How is that even possible??”

Steve gave him a fond eye roll, even as he added the extra ingredients to the cart. “Contrary to what you seem to think, I wasn’t ever actually a boy scout. There weren’t any camping trips in 1930s Brooklyn. Where do you think I would have melted the marshmallows? On the heater? Admittedly, I spent a lot of time in the woods during the war. But that wasn’t exactly a romp with campfires and ghost stories, what with the whole hiding from the Nazis and Hydra thing.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Tony muttered. “But after that? You’ve really never had s’mores since? With the team or something? Nat seems like she’d enjoy a good s’more.”

Steve just shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you. Never had ‘em.”

“Well, that changes tonight, Rogers. We’re having a bonfire.”

Tony had added three packs of hot dogs to the cart -- Steve would eat them, he knew -- and after they got home, relegated him to the kitchen while he got everything set up in the yard. Steve had looked skeptical, but when Tony finally called him out to where he had a bonfire burning brightly and a blanket spread out on the ground (because some of us have minor grass allergies, Steven), he looked impressed.

“Wow. Tony, this is… Really nice.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to sound so surprised,” he grumbled, offsetting his complaint by wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist and kissing him on the cheek.

“No, I’m not,” Steve said, holding Tony against him a moment longer when he started to pull away. “You just… Don’t really seem like the camping type,” he added tactfully.

Tony snorted. “I’ve camped! … Once… Okay, a camper I am not. But Rhodey and I used to have bonfires on the beach when we were at MIT, and I was the designated fire starter. And when I was a kid, Jarvis used to let me help set up the fireplaces in the old house. I don’t know why, that was one of my favourite things.” He hummed, quiet and contemplative for a moment, and then pulled away to grab a package of hot dogs, slamming them into Steve’s chest. “Now grab a stick, Rogers, and start roasting.”

They sat out there for hours, cooking, and talking, and laughing. The sun had faded and the stars had come out long before Tony pulled out the s’mores ingredients, the two of them getting in a sticky mess as they squashed together the sweet treats.

“So?” Tony asked when they were full and satiated and sitting back on the blanket. He arched an eyebrow at Steve. “What’s the s’more verdict, Captain Handsome?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know, I think they’re kind of overrated. I prefer the marshmallows alone,” he told him, popping one of said marshmallows, unroasted, into his mouth.

Tony blinked at him. “Overrated?” he repeated incredulously. Then he saw the way that Steve was grinning at him, lips twitching up in a smirk. “You are such a troll,” he grumbled. “I’ll show you overrated.” Without any further warning, he launched himself at Steve, feeling a little gratified at the almost inaudible grunt that Steve made as he took his weight. He knew Steve could take him easily, especially when he didn’t even have an Iron Man suit, but Steve pretended otherwise for a minute, letting Tony knock him back as the two of them rolled around on the blanket and then into the grass, each trying to get the upper hand.

It didn’t take long before their movements shifted, less wrestling, more sliding up against each other with purpose. Tony could feel his cock thickening in his pants, sparks of pleasure going through him every time Steve’s hand would slide over his skin just right. He shifted a leg, getting it between Steve’s knees, and when he pressed up he could feel Steve hot and hard against him, the feeling made better by the sharp, needy little gasp that he made in response. They ended up with Tony spread out on top of Steve, the two of them rubbing off against each other as they shifted and rolled in the grass, stifling their noises against each other’s skin so the neighbours wouldn’t hear. Tony had his hand shoved down Steve’s pants, jerking him off with quick, sharp motions, and his face buried in Steve’s neck. He could smell wood smoke in his hair, and when he pulled back a little, he could see the starlight reflected in his eyes before they clenched shut as Steve came over his hand. Steve lay there for a moment, panting, and Tony took a moment to look him over in the dim light from the fire before Steve pulled himself back into awareness to roll Tony over onto his back and pay him back in kind.

It was up there with some of Tony’s best memories.

He should have known it wouldn’t last.

***

They were at the grocery store again, goofing off and being idiots, probably laughing too loud, when all of a sudden Steve froze, going pale. Before Tony could ask him what was wrong, he was grabbing Tony’s arm and dragging him around the corner and down an aisle, leaving their half-filled cart abandoned in front of the cereal.

“Steve, what?” Tony finally managed to hiss as Steve pulled him past the baking supplies and then zig-zagged ridiculously through the produce section. He half expected Yakety Sax to start playing over the loudspeaker.

“I just… I saw someone I recognized. Like from the forties recognized,” Steve answered vaguely, aiming for the front door.

“Do you think they’d recognize you?” Tony asked a little stupidly, although his behaviour made the answer pretty obvious.

“Uh, yeahhhh,” Steve answered anyway. “I think so.”

They made it out of the building without being caught though, Steve looking over his shoulder as they headed down the street. He made Tony cross the road, turning down a side street they wouldn’t normally take, and he was just breathing a sigh of relief when they rounded the corner and were met with Peggy, standing there waiting for them with a furious expression on her face.

For a long moment everything went almost comically still, Peggy and Steve standing frozen, staring at each other, Tony looking back and forth between them in a mild state of shock. Then the anger seemed to fade out of Peggy all at once, shoulders sagging a little as she took a half step forward, making an abortive gesture like she was going to touch Steve’s chest before she remembered herself.

“It is you,” she breathed.

Steve opened his mouth to say something, anything, but before he had the chance he was interrupted by Tony, still staring at Peggy with wide eyes. “Aunt Peggy?!” he blurted out, because he knew Peggy had cofounded SHIELD, and he knew she had worked with his Dad, he just somehow hadn’t expected her to be here, looking almost exactly as he remembered her from when she’d come visit when he was growing up. She used to spend hours sitting with him, listening patiently as he explained the workings of all his machines and inventions. She’d always encouraged him, and he found himself getting choked up seeing her now.

And then he glanced over at Steve, saw the look on his face as he stared back at her, and Tony felt his heart sink a little.

Peggy had turned sharp eyes on Tony at his outburst, looking him over, but now she looked back to Steve and without hesitation poked him square in the chest. “Explain,” she told him. “How are you possibly here? And why is this man who looks exactly like Maria Stark calling me ‘aunt?’”

Tony would never fully understand how, but somehow Steve managed to convince Peggy to come back to their place. And then he sat her down, and told her everything. How he’d been found in the ice, how the avengers had formed, about Tony being her ‘nephew’ and also Iron Man, and then about Thanos, how they’d lost everything and were doing everything in their power to make up for it now.

The one thing he didn’t mention, Tony couldn’t help noticing, was the relationship they’d developed over the last few months.

Peggy took it far better than Tony would have expected. Although, he supposed, if she’d helped found SHIELD, she’d probably been dealing with far crazier shit than this for years.

“So if I’m to understand correctly, you two are from the future. And you,” she turned to Tony here, “Are my godson. And you used Hank Pym’s… science experiment to figure out time travel and come back here and get that cube that Howard found in the ocean. To save the world.” She drew in a long breath as Tony and Steve both nodded, waiting for her to process the information. “God, Hank is going to be impossible to live with when he finds out,” she muttered. She drew in a deep breath, smoothing down her hair -- a move Tony remembered from when she’d try to keep her cool with Howard when he was a kid -- and then looked back over at Steve. “I take it you two are responsible for the breach a couple months back?” She didn’t wait for their confirmation, the question rhetorical. “Well, I suppose once again it’s up to me to clean up your messes, eh Captain?”

The smile she gave Steve was a little dry, but fond and familiar in a way that made jealousy twist low in Tony’s stomach. But even worse was the way Steve smiled back at her, sheepish and full of so much history and love that it almost ached to see. For a moment Tony felt like he had disappeared from the room entirely, the two of them only having eyes for each other. Somehow Tony managed to act normal as Steve and Peggy made plans for when and where they’d meet and how they’d stay in contact, even though it felt like he was losing a little more of Steve with every word that passed between the two of them. And when Peggy had left, and Steve turned to him with the broadest grin Tony had ever seen, still looked awed and dazed and delighted in the wake of her presence, the smile Tony gave him in return was almost genuine. He waited until Steve had left the the kitchen, wandering down the hall for something, before he pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and whispered a very quiet, very heartfelt, “Fuck,” into the empty room.

***

Tony wanted to go home. More than anything in the world he wanted to see Morgan again, missing his little girl a constant pit in the bottom of his stomach, even in his happiest moments. But being here with Steve was easy in a way his life had never been before, no stressors, no superheroing, no being recognized on the street… No end of the world barreling toward them faster than they could stop it. Now that they were close to going home, he couldn’t seem to appreciate the last few days they had here together, just he and Steve alone. They still talked, and fooled around, and did all the things they’d been doing before, but the time was passing in a blur. It didn’t help that Steve had been distracted since they’d found Peggy; more than once Tony had caught him staring into space with a soppy smile on his face. There was a growing feeling creeping through his stomach that he might be making the return trip solo.

And then he was out of time entirely, the two of them meeting Peggy in some back alley for the hand off. It had, she assured them, gone off without a hitch, but that wasn’t a surprise. Peggy had always been strong and brilliant, confident and capable. On some level it probably should have been weird that he was jealous of his aunt, but mostly Tony was just resigned to the fact that this was it. Peggy and Steve were staring at each other again, couldn’t keep their eyes off of each other, and Tony felt like his heart was somewhere around his ankles.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll let you two… Chat,” he mumbled, uncharacteristically awkward as he took the two briefcases that Peggy had brought and headed for the main road, forcing himself not to look back at them.

In a weird twist of deja vu, he ended up sitting on the same bench where he’d found Steve on that first day, after everything had gone tits up. He sat there, staring off into space and thinking of a million things at once, and it hadn’t been a full half hour before a shadow passed over him and then Steve took a seat on the bench beside him, their thighs not quite touching.

Steve was staring forward, maybe trying to figure out what Tony was looking at but he hadn’t spoken, so Tony didn’t either. Eventually, though, he couldn’t stand the silence any longer, clearing his throat.

“You, uh… You don’t have to come back with me, Steve,” Tony told him, giving him an out. He felt Steve snap his gaze to him, heard him make a strangled sort of noise, but he narrowed his focus to a tree in the distance and kept going. “If you’re finally happy… We can do it without you. Probably. Maybe. I don’t know, we’ll figure it out. I know you’ve already sacrificed a lot, more than anyone ever should have to, really. You can be selfish, for once.”

He turned to face Steve then, because he really didn’t want Steve to stay, but he needed him to know that he truly meant the words he was saying. He had fallen in love with Steve, and because of that he couldn’t bear to stand in his way.

Steve was staring straight again, leaning forward with his elbows braced against his thighs, hands clasped together between his knees. He blew out a long breath, and Tony tensed, bracing himself.

“You’re right. I am selfish, Tony. I’m real fucking selfish.”

Tony bit down hard on his bottom lip; expecting it didn’t make it hurt any less. But then Steve was turning to face him, a shy, hopeful smile on his face offset by the determination in his eyes.

“And no way in hell am I giving this up. Giving you up.”

For a moment Tony was actually rendered speechless. “You… what?”

Steve shrugged. “I’m in love with you, Tony. It’s as simple as that. And I know you said this was whatever we needed it to be, and maybe that means you don’t have the same kind of feelings, but --,”

“God no, are you kidding?” Tony burst out before he could even stop himself. “I was already half in love with you when I said that, and it’s just gotten... more since. I just… I know that extreme situations aren’t the most conducive to long-term relationships, and I didn’t want you to feel pressured, so…”

He trailed off helplessly and Steve chanced a quick look around before darting in to kiss him. It was quick, because it was still a public place in 1970, but full of love despite that. When he pulled back, Tony shifted his hand to curl over top of Steve’s, squeezing tight.

“What… What about Peggy?”

Steve’s eyes were dancing. “What about her? She’s married, Tony, happily so. I just… I wanted to see first hand that she was okay, and she is, more than. She’s moved on, and… And so have I.” He grinned then. “She did tell me I was an idiot though, if I didn’t say anything to you because she’d never seen two people more obviously pining for each other. And uh, then she threatened that if I didn’t treat her godson right she’d be bringing me a wealth of pain.”

“Oh,” Tony said faintly, but he was laughing then too. “Well alright then.” He leaned in to give Steve one more quick kiss. “I love you, Steve,” he told him, because it seemed important that he say the actual words. “Now let’s go home and save the world. Again.”

THREE DAYS LATER

Tony snapped back to consciousness all at once with a sharp gasp, blinking his eyes open. The first thing his gaze focused on was Pepper and Rhodey, standing at the foot of his bed with watery, relieved smiles, Pepper holding Morgan in her arms.

“Daddy!” she shrieked. “You’re up!” She started wriggling frantically, attempting to leap onto the bed and making Pepper wince.

“Morgan, sweetie, remember how we talked about how you have to be careful with Daddy for a bit?”

“I don’t know.” And that was Steve’s voice, sounding gruff, but when Tony snapped his head up to see him leaning against the doorway, he was beaming brightly and looking just a little smug. “I think he can take it.”

After solemn promises from Morgan that she would be careful, Pepper finally set her down and Morgan scrambled up on the bed beside him. With strength that he knew he shouldn’t have had, he wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight enough that Morgan protested a little. She smelled fresh and clean and like her apple honey shampoo, and it was quite possibly the best thing that Tony had ever smelled. God, he had missed her so much.

Morgan settled onto the bed beside him, telling him stories about everything he’d missed the past few days, everything she’d been doing with Uncle Happy. Tony did his best to follow along in his shell-shocked state, because the last thing he remembered was snapping his fingers, all of the infinity stones in his hand, and he was pretty sure that meant he wasn’t supposed to be here now.

Eventually it was decided that Tony should get some rest, and so with a final, clinging hug from Morgan, Pepper escorted her gently off the bed. Her hands shook a little as she closed them around Tony’s, leaning in close to place a soft kiss against his cheek.

“I’m so glad you��re here,” she whispered softly, a slight tremor in her voice.

They headed for the door but Rhodey lingered a second longer to lean in and give Tony a hug. “Gotta stop doing this to me, man,” he told him, and Tony could hear the tears in his voice, felt his own throat close up as he hugged Rhodey as tight as he could manage.

“I know,” he mumbled, burying his face against his neck. “I’m sorry.”

Rhodey pulled back just a little, enough so he could meet his eyes and give him a pointed look. “And sometime soon,” he added, “You are going to sit down and tell me exactly what the hell happened between you and Rogers while you were getting the Tesseract.”

Then he was moving away, leading Pepper and Morgan out the door with a hand on the small of Pepper’s back. Steve had moved out of the way to let them pass into the hall, but once they were gone he moved back into the room, coming to sit on the side of Tony’s bed now that it was just the two of them. For a long moment they just stared at each other and then Tony shook his head.

“Steve… What did you do?”

Steve shrugged, feigning casual. “Funny thing about spending so much time together. I knew exactly what you were planning with the stones. So I just stepped in and… Helped.”

Tony stared back at him incredulously, still half feeling like he was dreaming. “Right,” he said, voice a little faint. “Okay. And we’re alive and healthy and whole… How?”

“Uh, Carol brought a special something from somewhere. I didn’t catch the details; I was pretty fucked up for a bit too. But…” He gave Tony his best innocent, hopeful smile. “As you can see it did the trick.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tony muttered. Then he was lunging forward, practically crawling into Steve’s lap in his haste to kiss him. Steve took his weight easily, pulling Tony the rest of the way toward him as he wrapped his arms around his back, mumbling soothing words and stroking a hand over Tony’s spine. “You absolute idiot,” Tony gasped, allowing himself the comfort as he buried his face in Steve’s neck. “You could have been killed too. What the fuck were you thinking?”

Steve huffed out a laugh, but his voice was rough and thick when he spoke. “I thought I told you, Tony. I’m real fucking selfish.” He pulled Tony back so he could see his face, see how absolutely serious he was. “No way in hell am I giving you up.”

@tonystarkbingo @not-close-to-straight

#tonystarkbingo2020 #stony #steve rogers #tony stark #time travel #endgame fixit #friends to lovers #canon divergence #romance #fic #my fic #lemon

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disneydreamlights · 4 years

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i did not realize tippi/bleck was your OTP please tell me more about why you love them (i also like them but its been years since i played spm so i need to renew that love)

(It’s been years for me too and I’ve been meaning to replay I will just never tire of them.)

So I’m actually going to break this ask down into two parts. The first just talking about their relationship in general and what the game presents, the second actually getting into how they are the ship that very much defined what I consider a lot of my personal ship tropes today. This also isn’t the first time I’ve gone off about them either so I’m going to link this post from 2013. (It’s not my best analysis and I don’t necessarily agree with everything in it now but I mean I was 17 so for a seventeen year old who had no critical thinking skills, I think it was good for what I wanted to convey at the time. XD)

So with that out of the way let’s talk about those memories.

"I remember that day well... The room was warm. The whole place was at peace."

This is the introducing line to the first memory, to the story of Blumiere and Timpani that serves as the foundation for the story of the game, and it shows how much this day meant to Blumiere that even lost in the shadow that became Count Bleck, fallen into darkness and depression and utter self loathing, that he remembered this day as a positive despite it being, as he himself says, “the day that our tragedy was set in motion.” The memories are fond to him and his small bits of happiness, and the idea of that is heartwarming to say the least. It also gives a very early establishment on why their interactions are significant. A lot of the lore is read between the lines, but the game establishes quickly that humans and the Tribe of Darkness do not like each other. So when Timpani shows that she doesn’t care what he is, just that he needed help, it very quickly establishes both her character and why we should empathize with this unknown, and it establishes her bond with Blumiere.

She saved him without knowing who he was. Her kindness and empathy is what draws Blumiere in. And it proves a very strong foundation for their relationship as it progresses. From here in story, we’re only given snippets of who they were before. They give further background on the prejudices against them, how Blumiere’s father is working to keep them apart, and how they seem willing to overcome the obstacles at every turn. Despite the warning from the first memory, you cheer for these unknowns and hope for their happiness, it’s what they deserve. The memories where they’re happy (Blumiere proposing to Timpani, the one with them under the stars, even them just getting to talk again) are wholesome and heartwarming. And the one where Timpani tries to leave after Chapter 3 is heartbreaking. Because you want to believe in their happy ending.

Which of course gets taken away in the Chapter 6 interlude. Watching Blumiere learn that Timpani is gone, well...I’ll grab the dialogue exchange here:

"Timpani! What did you do with her? I must see her!" "Still your tongue, Blumiere... Can't you see you've been duped by a dirty human? You have brought shame to my name...and to the entire Tribe of Darkness!" "And so what if I did? That doesn't matter to me! She's my entire world!" "Well, then it will interest you to know...that she no longer resides in this world." "What... What do you mean by that?!" "This is the price those who resist their own fate must pay, my son." "She... No... It can't be so!" "Someday you will see, Son. Our kind and humans must never mix."

Yeah, it’s pretty depressing honestly. Blumiere is so clearly heartbroken and destroyed to the point that it basically convinces him that nothing matters. That he’s willing to destroy his home and everything else in the entire universe because he has nothing. This is a broken man, and it’s why he finally heeds the Prognosticus’s call in the final interlude before the main fight to become Count Bleck.

Now granted it’s not a sucker punch to see the interlude unless you haven’t been picking up the hints in the Castle Bleck scene (Chapter 6 does a fantastic job of hammering in who Blumiere is) watching Blumiere in desperation turn to the book right before you lead into Chapter 8 really hammers home how little he had to live for.

And this is double if you take a lot of the popular fan headcanons (his mother being dead, often times at the hands of humans. His father being abusive. That kind of stuff) as fact for Blumiere’s story. This was quite possibly one of the only people to ever show him kindness, and he lost her, for as far as he’s concerned, forever, and it destroys him.

Which takes us to the timeline of the main game which does an equally good job of fleshing out their love. While the game first points Count Bleck out as an absolute madman and threat with a desire to do nothing more than destroy and recreate the world however he wants, he doesn’t stay that way. The game first foreshadows that something happened to push him over the edge early on and his interactions with Nastasia where he even lets her back out show that he’s fully aware of his actions and not some delusional monster, but chapter 6 in this exchange really drives everything home.

Count Bleck: You QUESTION Count Bleck?! This worthless world's destruction matters not! Far better for Count Bleck to wipe it out of existence than let it remain! Tippi: How can you say that? That's...horrible! Count Bleck: Count Bleck scoffs at you! An insignificant Pixl lectures Count Bleck on what is right and wrong? Tippi: This is not up for discussion! You're wrong...and sick! All living things have a heart. They're all priceless. You can't just...erase them! Count Bleck: Of all things, you defend the heart? Nothing could be more worthless...All things...are meaningless. Aside from Timpani, no treasure mattered in the least to me...

First since this happens before the memory I put earlier this is your first sign that something awful happened to Timpani, but it also just really drives home just how the loss of Timpani drove the hopelessly in love Blumiere into depression and sent him spiraling. All you know is that Blumiere lost Timpani, and he might as well be dead for what’s left of him, and it’s heartbreaking.

But then Tippi remembers, and Count Bleck realizes exactly who she is. Blumiere learns his quest for destruction of the worlds that took her away from him and of himself is meaningless, and Timpani learns that the madman she’s hated, wanted desperately to stop, is the one person who means the world to her. And the result when they reunite is absolutely devastating as Blumiere attempts to play the part the prophecy sets out for him, and Timpani just wants her husband to stop. Blumiere is throwing the battle because now that he knows she’s alive, he can’t hurt her. He doesn’t want to win. He wants to die, and he wants the world to be safe for her, because all he wants is her happiness and her ability to live. The final boss sequence is absolutely killer if you have any investment in their relationship for that reason at all because they’re so in love and both know what they want can’t happen. And it’s heartbreaking.

Then Dimentio happens and in a desperate attempt to save the world, they confess they love each other and use the power of the Pure Hearts and their love for each other to destroy the Chaos Heart. The lines like actually made me emotional now and I’m reading them out of context in a script and not after the about ten hour journey of the main game.

Count Bleck: There were so many things I wanted to say to you...but I could not find the words. Tippi: Oh, Blumiere... Only one thing matters to me now. I never had the chance to return your question... Blumiere... Do you still love me, as well? Count Bleck: Of course... I have thought about you every moment since you disappeared... But I have caused you so much suffering... Tippi: Perhaps...my life would have been more carefree without you, that is true. Count Bleck: But I had to be with you, Timpani. I will never apologize for that... Tippi: I know, Blumiere. And I love you... Count Bleck: And I love you, Timpani... Hundreds of thousands of years from now, that fact will not have changed...

Like look I’m not here to provide an emotional analysis I don’t have to this is just very good. “And I love you, Timpani... Hundreds of thousands of years from now, that fact will not have changed...” is just honestly a beautiful line and I honestly cry just reading it now. (I’m not joking I have fangirl grin on my face just from reading this I miss these two so much.)

And to get their final dialogue, much like the memory scenes from earlier in the game, the conclusion to their tale immediately after this:

"Timpani...do you remember the promise we made to each other that day?" "Yes, I remember..." "If there was a place where we could be happy together, we would find it." "Will you come with me to that place now?" "Blumiere... Of course... I will always be with you..."

It’s just very sweet and satisfying after going through the story. You’ve spent so long rooting for them to have their chance (since the moment you understood what was going on in the memories) that it makes the conclusion all the more just wholesome and satisfying that after everything they’ve been to, they finally get to be together and happy, as shown by the scene in the after credits where they walk down the hill together.

So to tie all this part together, the brilliant writing of SPM is really what gives this ship the chance to shine. By giving us time to get attached to Count Bleck and Tippi first before revealing who they are, we already have a baseline investment in their happiness and thus in the ship. The ship comes secondary to their characters so you have these two already very enjoyable characters (Tippi’s sarcasm and interactions with the heroes of light are a a lot fun, and Count Bleck is so charismatic that whenever he and his minions are on screen they dominate) and then you add in ship that makes an enjoyable build up to the game with good chemistry and mostly heartwarming moments, and make it a tragedy, and it becomes very easy to get invested in it, and to love. And it makes for one of my personal favorite love stories I’ve seen in gaming.

The rest of this essay is more to do with my personal taste and less objectivity so I’m going to throw it under a read more but oh boy did this ship either literally shape my ship tropes or just hit almost every single one of them I have that well.

So needless to say I have loved this ship since I first beat the game probably about thirteen years ago so it’s hard to say whether my ship taste came first or this game defined my ship taste but let me just list all my tropes and you’ll see what I mean:

Light/Dark Dichotomy - From looks to roles, these two embody this trope to a tee. Timpani is light, she’s a descendant of the Tribe of Ancients, the guardians of the Light Prognosticus, and in game is represented in the rainbow butterfly form, who while angular her colors and overall form (butterflies) tend to give her this general association of friend. She fights for the heroes and radiates a presence of general light. Blumiere is her opposite, a member of the Tribe of Darkness, the guardians of the Dark Prognosticus, and in game is represented by mostly darker colors. He is the main antagonist and his presence in game is often tied to some of its darker moments. They embody this contrast.

Opposing Sides - I need to preface the way I’ve phrased this. In most instances I would call this “Enemies to Lovers” however because of the storyline of this game it’s not quite enemies to lovers but it sure does embody the spirit of the trope where two people are fighting against each other despite loving each other and spend the majority of the game not in love with each other because Blumiere has no idea who she is and Timpani has zero memories. The important thing is that they are working against each other, and the tension of going against somebody you love is wonderful. The scene preceding the Count Bleck boss fight embody everything good about this trope.

Forbidden Love - I mean this is literally obvious but Blumiere’s father is literally against the pairing from minute one and literally tries to kill Timpani over it this pairing is as forbidden as they come.

Tragic - I don’t need to define why Timpani and Blumiere are tragic but boy do I love me some good angst and these two are legitimately swimming in it it’s very very good. My favorite thing about the angst is that it never affects the overall tone which is a testament to how well the game is written. Slight tangent but like SPM as a whole gets very very dark, partially due to the Timpani/Blumiere elements and their tragedy but also in part due to the last three chapters of the game. Like Chapter 6 is definitely the heaviest hitter but there’s a lot to unpack in Chapters 7 and 8 as well. But despite this the game’s atmosphere never feels oppressing, it’s still fun with lighthearted moments and it’s still a game that won’t make you feel super depressed. It balances its darkness with the bright colors and the tone of the writing very well. And because of that, despite the fact that they literally destroy a world while you’re on it and then send you to the Mario version of hell, the game never feels too dark to be enjoyable.

The rest of these aren’t as clearly defined by words but I am very much a sucker for the idea of “my love for you is my one weakness” and the one thing that could be used to bring somebody down and drag them to hell. But also being the one thing that’s keeping them out of going down and the one thing that can bring them back out. It makes me emotional and I love it. I would also like to propose the idea that Timpani and Blumiere are soulmates since they’re most definitely true loves but things like soulmates are kind of subjective in the first place.

To tie it all home you can see the elements of my long standing SPM obsession littered in my fandom tastes today if you look hard enough for it. This game had a major part in forming my tastes because before Kingdom Hearts, even before Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, this was the game that captured my heart and attention. It’s the only game to have an amount of (sadly unpublished and lost on old devices that no longer work) writing to rival the amount of things I’ve written for KH over the years. And at the heart of the phenomenal game is a wonderful ship that, years after my last playthrough of the game, still holds a spot in my heart reserved for it.

Timpani and Blumiere are a fantastic ship and between its wonderful writing and its effects on my taste, it has a lot of reasons to still be my favorite ship of all time.

#Paper Mario #Super Paper Mario #Tippi #Count Bleck #Timpani #Blumiere #I love these two beyond words #taliaxlatia #Heather Answers #Heather Does Something #Forgot to add my analysis tag to this post

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lovemesomesurveys · 3 years

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“Like ships in the night, you keep passing me by”

Do you own a black leather jacket? A pleather one, yes. Something badass about wearing one haha.

Do you find musicians or athletes more attractive? I’ve been attracted to more musicians, but that’s cause I’m more familiar with them. I don’t see a lot of athletes as someone who doesn’t watch or care at all about sports. Although, guys in baseball uniforms are nice. haha. Oh, back when I was like 13 or 14 I remember thinking Andy Roddick, a tennis player, was hot. I saw his photo in a magazine. Are you better at spelling or writing? I think both. How many siblings do you have? Two. If you could have an ice cream sundae right now, would you? No.

Do you use emoji's? Yeah. I don’t go crazy, but I like to use them as I see fit. When was the last time you lost a tooth? I broke a tooth like 10 years ago and had to get it pulled. You ask this question like it’s the norm to loose a tooth when I’m pretty sure the people who take surveys are past the ages where you lose your teeth. Do you like bendy or regular straws better? I like to use coffee stirrer straws cause the holes are small. If someone signed you up for karate lessons, would you take them? Uh, no. What's your favorite song? I have numerous favorite songs.

Click shuffle on any music device. What's the 12th song that comes up? Nah. What's your most used website? Tumblr and YouTube. Do you come on this website as much as you used to when you first found it? Not as much, no. I used to spend like all day on Tumblr back in the day. Now I typically just get on at night as part of my nighttime routine of Tumblr and surveys. That’s also when I watch the most YouTube cause I like to listen to ASMR at night. I feel like I probably go on YouTube more now than before or perhaps it’s about the same. Do you drink hot tea? Once in awhile. It’s usually when I’m feeling really anxious or really sick.

“& it’s too cold outside for angels to fly”

Is there anyone you want to see in concert really bad? I’m sad I never got to see Linkin Park. I don’t know if they’ll decide tour now, but it wouldn’t be the same without Chester. :( Do you like Abercombie? Nah. Do you still take a survey even if they don't capitalize letters? Yeah. Does your computer have word correct on it? It’ll do the red squiggly line if something is misspelled or it doesn’t recognize the word and if I hit control and click on the word it’ll offer a suggestion if it’s a recognized word. What's one of your wishes for 2013? Well, we’re towards the end of 2020 now and I just pray we’re able to get through the rest of the year without anything else crazy coming at us. Do you fight with your mom often? No, my mom is my best friend she and I very close. We just bicker sometimes. Would you rather have your son have the name Daniel as first or middle name? Sounds more like a first name to me, but meh I don’t really care for the name at all. I don’t even want to have children so it doesn’t matter lol but if I did I’d go with another name. Have you ever made up a food combo & everyone tired it & loved it? Pizza rolls and mustard. What was the last movie you watched? Would you recomend it to people? Bringing Down the House the other day cause I happened to catch it on TV. It came out in like 2003 so it’s not new, but I’ve always liked it. I think it’s funny. What is one word you cannot seem to spell? Every time this question comes up I always say “onomatopoeia” for some reason and damnit I have yet to spell it right without having to look it up. I don’t know what it is about that stupid word that I just can’t seem to remember lol. It’s a word I never use unless this question comes up, so I guess maybe that’s why, but still. I should be able to spell it. Were you born on an odd or even number? Even. Do you like Ed Sheeran? I like several of his songs. When you type, what hand & finger do you use to hit the space bar? I use my right index finger. I don’t type the proper way, I use my index fingers lol. I type really fast that way, too. Do you like to take pictures of you in the mirror? Only if I want to show the shirt or outfit I’m wearing.

“you are the best thing that’s ever been mine”

Have you read the book Lord of the Flies? Yeah, it was required in my 10th grade English class. Would you rather type or hand write notes? My handwriting is trash, but I feel like handwritten notes are nice. Do you like the number seven? I don’t have anything against it. Do you believe that when you go to heaven, you become an angel? No. I believe in angels, but not that we become one. Angels are another of God’s creations. They’re ministering spirits. They’re their own thing and humans are another. How much money do you plan on spending tomorrow? I don’t plan on spending any money tomorrow. Are you good at writing poems? No. I dabbled a bit with it when I was like 16 and angsty, but they’re so cringe. I still have the journal stored away with them and I’ve gone back to read them as an adult and yikes. Do you come on here daily? For the most part, unless I’m really not feeling well. What's one thing you wish you were perfect at? No one is perfect, but it’d be nice to be a functioning adult. Can you play the saxophone? Nope. Does it bother you when people breathe loud? I will say I feel uncomfortable when someone has a breathing problem because it makes me hyper focused on my own breathing and I end up feeling like I can’t breathe. Are you going to any concerts in 2013? Can you believe it's going to be 2013? I didn’t. The last concert I went to was back in 2009. Were you in love with the movie Mary Poppins? Not in love with it, but I like it. Do you like breadsticks? Yes. Have you ever been on a mountain? Yeah, I took a gondola ride up to one. If you had to get rid of one of your sense, which one and why? I’d really rather not.

“the first cut is the deepest”

Can you swim? Nope. Do you usually wear shorts around your house all year long? No, I wear leggings all year long. Do you remember Sesame Street? Of course. It’s also still very much a thing. Do you believe every word that comes out of peoples mouths? Of course not. You have to take some things with a grain of salt or healthy dose of skepticism. You gotta gauge what is being said and who is saying it, too, and make the judgment. That doesn’t mean I don’t trust my loved ones or that I think everyone is a liar or something, but people can give misinformation unknowingly, so it’s not always being done intentionally. It’s just not a good idea to believe every single word that comes out of people’s mouths. Do you like the questions that really make you think? Depends on my mood. What are you asking for for Christmas? Just a few little things. What time do you plan on going to bed on Tuesday? I don’t have a set bedtime for any given day, I go to bed whenever. I’ve talked a lot about my messed up sleep schedule in surveys. It’s certainly not planned. How many of your friends are online right now on here? I have no idea who’s currently on. I’m kind of the night owl of the survey community who’s up doing surveys while everyone is asleep like normal people. When they’re getting up in the morning, I’m going to bed, ha. :X Do you know what Je means in French? I do, actually. How often do you write in red pen? I don’t recall the last time I used a red pen. Do you cut your own hair? No. I used to trim my own bangs back when I had ‘em, though. Do you have any pictures in your room from concerts? No. Would you ever name your son Harry? Again, I don’t want to have children, but Harry is another name I don’t particularly care for. Have you ever had your nails done in french tips? Yeah, the one and only time I got my nails done, which was for my 8th grade promotion. Is it harder for you to type on a keyboard that isn't yours & not used to? Yes, for sure. I also don’t type as fast on my phone than I do on my laptop.

“I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller”

What shoe do you take off first? Hm. I think my right. What do you think a good teen couple name would be for a story? Uh I don’t know? If you were coming to the states from another country, where first? I’m from the states. Would you pay $82 for facial products? No. Do you get a lot of compliments often? Nope. It’s rare. Was Mean Girls one of the best movies in your opinion? I wouldn’t say it was the best movie, but it’s a favorite of mine. It’s just a classic, ya know? One of those nostalgic movies with a lot of memorable quotes. If it was Sat, 2 in the afternoon, what would we find you to be doing? I’d most likely be asleep. Do any of your best friends have red hair? No. Would you like to be on the cover of Seventeen magazine? No. Or any magazine. Would you rather go to an Adele or Bruno Mars concert? I mean, I like songs from both so I wouldn’t be opposed to either one. Would you like to live in Sweden? No, but I’d love to visit. Are you concerned about your weight? Yes. I’m too underweight. Do you know anyone who has the middle name Sebastian? I don’t think so. Do you remember where you got your first kiss at? Of course. Did you ever watch the show 8 Simple Rules? I watched it here and there cause it was part of the TGIF lineup that had other shows I liked.

“I hope you’re in the mood, because this is going to be a long ride”

Does your computer need to be cleaned? Underneath the keys badly need to be cleaned. Would you ever name your child Sushine, Raine, River etc? I kinda like Raine. Is it any of your friend's birthday today? No friends. When is the person you like birthday? I don’t like anyone in the romantic sense. Do you like yogurt? Nah. When you type, do you ever mix letters around by accident? (EX: ot - to) Yes. Do you like butterflies? No. I’m afraid of ALL bugs/insects, even the ones people think are cute like butterflies and ladybugs. Nopeee. Do you consider the tomato a fruit or vegetable? Tomatoes apparently can be referred to as either one. I always thought they were a vegetable. Does it rain over where you live? Yes. It hasn’t rained since like March or April, though. We Californians get excited when it rains cause it doesn’t happen often lol. I hope we get some soon. It’s been cold now at least, which I love. Is there any snow on the ground? It doesn’t snow in my city. :( Do you like soup? I only like ramen. When's the last time you made cupcakes? It’s been a few years. How many lamps are in the room your currently in? My lights are off. Have you talked the person you like today? Have you ever been bullied? No.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

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i-just-tardis-blue-myself · 4 years

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Hello, anon!!

I’m guessing you’re asking me this because of the post I made regarding ff the other night. The truth is, I didn’t get to read many whouffaldi fics in ff and I haven’t read a whole lot whouffaldi fics since then. I always circle back to the same authors and stories, because when I tried to read new stuff after it didn’t affect me the way they did back in the day.

So the four authors I mentioned in my early post are the ones I would recommend you to check out. They were, I dare say, the hottest whouffle writers at the time. They all started by publishing Eleven/Clara (good old souffez) and Other Doctors/Clara fics, so if you ship “whouffle” and not only “whouffaldi” you’ll find a gold mine worth of fiction. They all ended up writing Twelve/Clara stories, but not as many with the exception of maybe C1araosw1ad who posted her last whouffaldi fic in 2019.

So that being said, here are my recomendations:

Frombluetored

Heartlines (rated T)

An unknown threat sucks the Doctor and Clara into a parallel universe and leaves them stranded. While biding their time, they encounter the Clara of that universe and her achingly familiar husband.

This story has an especial place in my heart because Heartlines takes place in the same universe of “Of adoration and chaos” an Eleven/Clara fic written by the same author. I’d say “Of adoration” is one of the best souffez fics out there and you don’t need to read it to understand Heartines, but you’ll be missing a great piece of fiction.

Everest (rated T)

AU. The Doctor, recently promoted to CEO after the early passing of John Smith, enters his new job with short-lived surety. And then he meets the COO, Clara Oswald, who's just as determined to show the Doctor who's really in charge as she is to show him he'll never live up to his predecessor. Unfortunately for them, control doesn't exist in matters of the heart.

This one contains heavy subjects, so if you aren’t comfortable with high rates of smut and unhealthy coping mechanism this story isn’t for you. This fic wasn’t an easy ride, but it was worth the effort.

Banged up ( rated M)

There were many things Clara Oswald expected when she entered prison. Catching the eye of the prison's most notorious inmate was not one of them.

I remember this fic being really, really sexy, but also sad and angsty af. It is also unfinished and you might want to avoid that level of masochism, but hey, where is the fun in that?

Paper machine (rated K+)

Clara Oswald's timeless relationship with the Doctor, as seen through the eyes of her smitten student.

This fic is so precious and adorable. I love it to pieces. It contains a bit of 11/clara too, like most of frombluetored fics.

E1evenc1ara

In another life (rated M)

A collection of AU one-shots featuring Clara and the the Doctor (Ten, Eleven, and/or Twelve). These are all written in response to prompts supplied by my tumblr users, which will be displayed at the top of each story.

Listen, the second story broke me in million little pieces. I’ll never over that pain. Totally worth it tho.

Again, If you dig Eleven/Clara, I would recomend you to check out The IT guy and its sequel Postcards from New York by the author.

Dreamcatcher (rated T)

This is supposed to be a doctor x clara but I couldn’t picture any other Doctor than Twelve. I’ll die on this hill.

Happy Endings (rated M)

The Doctor and Clara attend a Royal Wedding in the thirty-first century where they have a bit too much to drink.

They get drunk, they bang, the Doctor is a wrecked mess after, but everything turns all right. Pure bliss, my dudes.

D Veleniet

Hold onto me (rated K+)

Clara stood frozen, reeling from too many emotions to even name. All she could do was stare. "Doctor?" She approached him slowly, carefully. "What's happened to you?" She swallowed against the grief that threatened to cloud her voice. "Why are you acting like this?"

The author wrote this fic in 2013, before series 8 aired and reader, the way she was on absolute point with Twelve’s characterization. I mean, Twelve being a grumpy old Scottish lil shit pointing out Clara’s physical “flaws” to deflect from the fact that he’s absolutely in love with her check. Twelve being a huge ass softie for Clara check. My heart being compromised by their dynamic and how much they love each other CHECK (also I’m so greatful Twelve never called Clara “wee” in the show, I would have slapped him)

Untouchable (rated M)

Clara stopped missing the touches, stopped smarting from his flinches when they would accidentally brush up against each other or bump arms. She stopped wondering what had changed so much inside him that had made her physically repulsive to him now. Then one night she agreed to a set-up on a blind date.

This is a sexy sequel for Hold onto me in which everything hurts, but also everything is very hot. So yeah, yeah.

This author wrote, problably the most famous eleven/clara fic back in the day : The other has my heart and its sequel More than you know They were litsed in every fic rec and rightly so.

C1araoswa1d

The Tethers Between Hearts (rated k+)

On a quiet little planet, the Doctor shares something very important with Clara.

If I could cover myself with this achingly soft piece of writing, I would. Because I can’t, I do the second best thing which is rereading it over and over, until I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Waking Dreams (rated T)

(Doctor Who AU) Life is complicated enough for Clara after an accident puts her young daughter in a coma, but through her only means of communication with the girl - an in-dream interface system - she's meets an odd company representative who promises to help her along, quite possibly in more ways than she could ever imagine.

Welcome to Angstown, populatiom : THIS FIC

A Mirage in Time (rated M )

After Clara, the Doctor seeks out an Echo to help him move on… and finds himself just as perplexed by her and possibly just as in love.

I love C1araoswa1d’s writing so much, specially the way she depicts Clara. IDK man, part of my undying love for the character comes from the way she characterizes Clara in her stories. So yeah, please go and read all her fics. They are amazing, specialy How to fall in love with a time traveller and A path out of the dark

Bonus track, my dudes.

Anon, I know you asked me for my favorite ff.net whouffaldi fics, but I cannot left twelveclara out of this list. Her fics are iconic and you have probably read them, but fuck it.

History, like love

There are planets orbiting her eyes and her mouth tastes like the ocean; in her head she hears a shatter, like her soul has pried her ribs apart in a desperate, aching attempt to reach his. “If I could have picked anybody,” he murmurs, “it would have been you.”

My favorite soulmate au ever written in any fandom. periodt

But we’re so happy

from the outside looking in; so, maybe river’s right. people always stare at what they can’t touch.

punk rock au. Perfection in all its unfinished magnificence.

#whouffaldi #whouffle #souffez #fic rec

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daybreak-academy-fanfic · 4 years

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Daybreak Academy: Chapter 56

New Student, Familiar Face

Summary: In which my dumb af ship from 2013 can once again set sail. Word Count: 1,674 First | Previous | Next ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆ ⚬ ☆

There were going to be about 50 new First Year students this year- Ven did the headcount. Was it a bad turnout? It seemed like a low number to him, considering how large the school was. He couldn't even remember his student orientation to recall the amount of students there. But weren't all the students cherry picked from around Departure County? Maybe this count was right after all.

'She's not here.' Vanitas grumbled somewhere to the left of Ventus.

“She is.” Ven mumbled back, making a vague motion to the sound of Vanitas's voice. “She promised she would be.”

Yet, despite telling himself otherwise, Ven still couldn't see Sabrina in the crowd. Right now, the new First Years were taking their house tests en masse in the auditorium. When they were done, they were to give their tests to the headmasters -all five sitting on the stage itself at a very long table- and wait for the others to finish. Once everyone had their tests reviewed, each headmaster took turns in announcing who was a part of their house. It was a very nerve racking time; it almost rivaled the stress during finals.

Ventus had thought that choosing to hide out in the balcony seat would have helped him see Sabrina better. He had been quickly proven wrong in that regard. Sure, he could see everyone, but he couldn't see them clearly. From the back you couldn't tell who was male or female- you only got a very good look at the back of their multicolored haired heads. Sabrina's hair was a raven black. He's never forget that. Too bad she wasn't the only new student with black hair, though…

“There she is!” Ventus declared, almost a bit too loud, when he saw Sabrina head up on stage to hand her test in. It took all it had in Ven to not shout her name and wave over to her in hopes of getting her attention. But it was a massive relief in knowing that she was attending Daybreak Academy; he didn't have to call for her because she'd be on campus from now on. Maybe if the orientation finished quick enough, they could have lunch together.

Ven let out a sigh of relief as he relaxed now. Knowing that Sabrina was here led him to wait for the orientations to finish. He was so relieved that, when Invi stepped forward to announce the students coming into her house, Ventus almost didn't hear Sabrina's name among them. It took a solid minute for the realization to sink in, and when it did, Ven's heart nearly stopped.

He and Sabrina were not going to be in the same house. Okay, yeah, sure, it had been a one out of five shot. They wouldn't be sharing many classes, but they could still see each other after. It could still work. You know, just like it did with Ephemer and his other friends. Nothing to freak out about. It was just… disappointing. Yeah… Really disappointing…

The orientations finished up about 30 minutes after the house results were announced. Ven had snuck out just before the stream of new students came out of the auditorium. He waited at the front entrance for Sabrina to come out- idly passing time by watching the clouds roll by.

He only had half a second to register the happy exclamation of “Ven!” before being tackled from behind. A loud, undignified shriek escaped the boy's lips as both he and his tackler crashed into the ground. Ventus blinked for a moment, waiting for his senses to come back, before realizing who had now pinned him to the ground.

“Sabrina!” he rasped. “You… you're…!”

A wide smile stretched onto Sabrina's face. “Lemme guess,” she said, “I'm a huge surprise! Or the best thing you've ever seen! Or, or…!”

“You're crushing my ribs.”

“Oh.” was the small answer. “Sorry about that...” and she quickly got off of him soon after. She even helped him get back onto his feet.

“So now what?” the girl asked him. “Classes start tomorrow, right? So what do we do now?”

Ventus blinked. There was no stopping with this girl, huh?

“We could go get lunch.” he offered. A nervous laugh escaped the corner of his lips. “The cafeteria isn't that far from here.”

“Sounds great!” Sabrina agreed with a cheerful nod. Ven smiled and before he was able to tell her anything else, Sabrina quickly grabbed him by the hand and led them both to the cafeteria.

. . .

“I can't believe we won't be in the same house.” Sabrina pouted. “What a bummer.”

“Yeah...” Ventus agreed with a little nod. “It'll be a bit harder to get together, but not impossible, I don't think.”

“Will the schoolwork be the same?”

“Should be. I'd have to ask Brain or Lauriam about that.” After a short pause, Ven then let out a small sound of remembrance. “Oh!” he exclaimed, “That reminds me...”

Ventus reached down into his backpack and pulled out a three-ring binder filled with paper.

“I, uh, I wanted to give you some of the notes I made last year.” he nervously said to her. “We won't have the same teacher for a lot of classes because we're in different houses, but it should still help. I think.”

“Sweet!” Sabrina declared, taking the binder without a second thought. “Thanks Ven!”

The boy bashfully smiled while scratching the back of his neck as Sabrina poured through his notes. They weren't the best, but they would still work for studying. Ven watched her- he was quick to notice the faces she made as she tried to make sense of curriculum she had yet to learn. Her eyebrows were knit together and her nose was scrunched up, almost like a little rabbit.

“What was it like being adopted by rabbits?” Ven asked her- not at all realizing what he said before it came out of his mouth.

“Hmm?” the girl hummed. It took her a moment to realize what he was asking; when she did, she looked up at him with her nose even more scrunched up in disgust. “Ortensia's a cat. Oswald's the rabbit.”

“O-oh...” Ven stumbled, “I didn't mean...”

“'S okay.” Sabrina told him with a little wave of her hand. “I know what you're sayin.' It wasn't bad, honestly. Can't complain. They had a lot of money that they didn't know what to do with. Such as it is when you've got a multimillion billionaire to call a brother, and he's one of the slightly more generous ones. Or maybe he has a really guilty conscience? Old Ozzie was cut off from the money for years, so I've been told.”

Then Sabrina's face softened a little. She looked Ventus over with a curious eye before asking, “What about you? What's your family like?”

If it was possible, Ventus's face went from a bright red to a ghost-like white. “M-my family isn't special.” he sheepishly claimed, averting his eyes from her. “My parents are nice. I've got some siblings, but it's not...”

“How many?”

“Huh?”

“How many siblings do you have?”

“I have… four.” Ven confessed. “Last year, just before I started going to school here, my mom had a pair of triplets. Sora, Roxas, and Xion. Roxas, he… he looks a lot like me. It's really weird. I haven't gone to see them in awhile though- I plan on doing it soon. I've kinda been waiting for Mom or Dad to give the okay. Gets kinda hectic raising three babies at once, or something.”

“And what about the other one?”

He didn't mean to, but Ventus flinched. “What do you mean?” he asked her. But Sabrina wasn't having it; giving him an impatient click of her tongue.

“You said you have four siblings,” she pointed out, “So what about the other one?”

“It's a long story.”

“I have time.”

But Ventus shook his head. “I can't tell you.” he told her in a quiet voice. “You'll never want to be my friend again if I did.”

Sabrina raised a bemused eyebrow at this. She's probably only known Ventus for a full day now and she had massive doubts that she would suddenly decide not to like him. Family was family- how bad could it really be? And, by golly, was she a stubborn one.

“Can I have a name, at least?” she asked him- she even put on her best puppy pout. Ventus made the mistake of looking at her for half a second and immediately gave in.

“Vanitas.”

Without wasting a second, Sabrina followed up with another question. “What house is Vanitas in?”

Ven shrugged as he looked back down at the ground. “He's, uh, he's in An… guis...” He paused, only know realizing what he had said. He looked up at Sabrina with wide, fearful eyes. “Oh no.”

“Oh yes.” the girl snickered. “So he's here, at Daybreak, and we're in the same house! That's so awesome! I can't wait to-”

“But you can't!” Ventus quickly told her; he almost leaped at her to take her by the shoulders, but just barely stopped himself in time. “Vanitas is… Vanitas is…!”

His new friend was giving him a weird look. “Vanitas is…?” she repeated. She even rolled her hand at him- a not very subtle hint that he just needed to spit it out and get it over with. Ventus once more averted his eyes.

“You'll hate me.” he mumbled. Ven's fist started to clench as he thought about Vanitas. He couldn't tell Sabrina about his brother. She wouldn't understand. She just wouldn't…

Ven jumped when he felt Sabrina calmly place her hands into his. He looked up at her to be met with an unreadable expression. His heart leaped into his throat in realizing how much older she looked when she wanted to be dead serious; it was like the ten year old had switched bodies with a thirty year old instead.

“Ven,” Sabrina then said, her voice quiet and still, “Is Vanitas even real?”

#daybreak academy #chapter 56 #kingdom hearts fanfiction #Ventus #Vanitas #Sabrina #Season 1

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bambigoose · 4 years

Text

Doing Just Fine

An: This has been edited after posting. Thank you to those that reached out to help me correct the ranking changes throughout the story.

Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts 2013

Staff Sergeant Jessica Ham exited the executive office of Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence and Networks located on base completely unsure how to tell her airmen deployment was inevitable. The 66th Air Force Group would be oversees shortly after the New Year. Locking eyes with her fellow Staff Sergeant, Andrews, before placing her head into her hands with a sigh, “Give them the next few hours. If we tell them before this visit it’ll hang over everything and ruin everyone’s time.”

Sergeant Andrews nodded along with Jessica’s call, “I’m going to send out word about a meeting before we all head out for the day. You want me to schedule the other room for you and your boys?”

“Yeah.” Jessica nodded at him before they went their separate ways. Three years ago, at eighteen, Jessica graduated high school. With no idea what to do with the rest of her life, and a lack of financial means to go to college while attempting to figure it out, Jessie as her friends call her attended a military interest conference at her school. The Air Force was never something she had previously considered, but after a discussion with an intelligence officer her interest was piqued. The rest as one might say was history. In the course of the past four years she’d busted her ass to prove she could handle it and the rank recognition followed. Clearly her superiors trusted her; Jessica was in charge of one of the largest groups of airmen of any Sergeant. Trust among her men however was a little harder to earn, but once she had it Jessica quickly came to the realization there were plenty of men she was now stuck with for the rest of her life.

Moving quickly through the base, nodding quickly but politely at those who acknowledged her, Jessica rushed to the base entrance. Generals didn’t care what news you were given, you showed up when expected or your ass is reamed. After the previous news of the day so far, that would officially send her into a tailspin pulled by currents. Approaching the group and falling into line Jessica took a moment to observe their guests.

The 2012-2013 Boston Bruins were a formidable team, growing up in Southie rooting for the black and gold was a fact of life. Jessica was pretty sure she knew how to explain the offsides rule before she could do simple addition. An electric energy surged through the base when knowledge of their visit began to spread. The veterans, Patrice Bergeron, Andrew Ference, Shawn Thornton, and Milan Lucic would thrill the long term fans. Young guns Brad Marchand and Tyler Seguin would flirt through half of the medical division before the day was out she was sure and rookie Dougie Hamilton was making quite a name for himself at nineteen as a solid defenseman.

“Is he always doom and glow like that?”

Jessica heard behind her. Turning she was meet with the six foot six frame of Dougie Hamilton. Years ago the hairs on the back of her neck would have been standing up, now she yelled at men twice his size half the day and knew for a fact she threw a better punch then every member of the team. Smirking Jessica couldn’t resist the urge to chirp, she’ll forever blame it on being surrounded by guys day in and day out, “I imagine he and coach Julien would get along, I mean he screamed at you for how long after fanning on that shot last game.”

“Ouch Dougie, not impressing the pretty girl.” Seguin chirped with a smug smirk a head of them.

“I don’t know Mr. Seguin, at least Dougie here knows what an alarm clock is.” Jessica snapped back almost immediately after watching Dougie deflate as Tyler attempted to pull him down. Seguin’s eyes widened as Jessica dead stared at him; a move those under her have repeatedly said is increasingly unnerving. He turned quickly, shoulders pulled up to his ears while Jessica nudged Hamilton next to her.

He stood just a little straighter after her quip. Leaning in quietly, “I know you’re a rookie kid, but there’s a difference between being a doormat and becoming one of the guys.”

“And I suppose pretty girl is an expert?” Hamilton responded smiling, eyes crinkling, and an eyebrow raised.

“Pretty girl has name. Staff Sergeant Jessica Ham. Besides, do you really think there’s that much of a difference between military barracks and hockey locker rooms?” She responded in similar fashion.

Laughing he responded “Probably not.”

Smiling while shoving him forward, “Go entertain my men rookie.”

Throughout the rest of the afternoon, Jessica watched her men and the Bruins interact. Spirits we high and she could feel the weight of this afternoon's meeting beginning to feel like a physical pressure on her chest. Inhaling deeply but still feeling like she couldn’t breathe Jessica headed toward the doors before her panic attack could start. Never realizing there were concerned eyes following her progression across the room, before he rose to follow her.

Briskly moving out the door and around the building, Jessica sank down against the wall. Pulling her knees up to her chest and gasping for air. Jumping as someone sank down into a squat in front of her, Jessica looked up at Dougie, concern shining in his eyes. “Hey pretty girl, breathe.” Attempting to match her breath to his, the pressure on her chest finally felt like it was loosening. Dougie smiled, rubbing up his hands up and down her upper arms. “There we go.”

Rubbing her face, Jessica visibly flinched before lowly spilling everything to a relative stranger. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell them. This excitement and good spirits you all brought to base will be erased before they all go home. We’re shipping out in February. I know we all joined the military but it never seemed like this was going to happen.”

Dougie’s eyes went wide, practically bulging out of his head. “I’m sorry.” Instinctively left his mouth, “There’s nothing I can say that’ll make this better I don’t think.”

Sighing, Jessica rose back to her feet. “No there’s not but I appreciate the attempt.” Pulling his elbow and heading back towards the rec hall, “Better get back in there while I can still pass this off has taking a phone call.”

Dougie planted his feet and pulled them to a stop right outside the door. “I can’t make it better, but I could take you out for a distraction this weekend.”

“You do remember the shipping out in a few months part of our conversation, right.” She replied, waving her finger around in a circle between them like it was going to rewind his memory.

“Well, I figure I’d be pretty stupid to let that stop me from asking out the pretty lady Sergeant.”

“I can meet you at Faneuil Hall, Friday at seven? We can go from there Rookie.” She says, throwing her hip into his like a mini check.

Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, taking a chance and dropping a kiss on her cheek he hoped would be well received. “Sounds like a plan, Jessica.”

Over her shoulder while walking through the door, “Friends and cute boys taking me on a date can call me Jessie.”

__________________________________________________________________________________

Saddledome, Calgary Alberta Canada 2017

Sergeant Jessica Ham smiled walking through the under belly of the Saddledome. Granted a short furlough she came to surprise her boyfriend of almost three years after his game versus the Bruins. As luck would have it, she remained close with many members of the Bruins and their wives after Dougie signed with Calgary and during her deployment. When her furlough back at Hanscom came up she took it immediately, the fact that the Bruins were heading to Calgary at the same time. Coach Cassidy had graciously allowed her to tag along with the boys on the plane, though she suspected it might have something to do with Stephanie badgering Patrice to make it happen. It was nice to see some of the boys again and meeting some of the newbies.

Feeling stares on her, Jessica just continued on with a smile. The pass Zdeno presented her with before the game wrapped around her neck, clinking every step against her dog tags. Pulling up outside of the locker room she leaned against the wall anxiously waiting for Dougie to appear. She didn’t have to wait long. Dougie was the next person out of the locker room, “Jessie.” Gasped out of him in surprise, “What are you doing here?”

Eyebrows furrowed, Jessica was surprised. That was his reaction? They hadn’t seen each other in almost a year. Writing it off as maybe just shock, she stepped forward to hug him. His arms barley wrapped back around her. “I was granted furlough for a few days, figured I’d come out for a surprise. They boys let me tag along on the team plane.”

“Babe!” A voice explained from behind Jessica. A blonde little bit of a thing, in sky high heels with make-up caked on her face brushed past Jessica before throwing herself into Dougie’s arms and laying a kiss on him. Separating the definition of puck bunny asked Dougie who this was.

Jessica smirked at Dougie, laughing harshly. “I’m an old friend for Boston. Figured since the boys were out here I’d tag along to see mister big shoot, but it was nice to see you Douglas. I better get going so I don’t miss the bus.” Turning on her heel and all but sprinting down the hall Jessica ignored all calls of her name while losing Dougie in the after game commotion. Crashing into the Bruins newbies Sean Kuraly and Jake DeBrusk while staring at the ground, she looked out at them as they both went white. Yells left them both for Z, Bergy, and Marchy. It was the longest plane ride of the season for the bruins and to this day the only one where the unassigned assigned seats were blatantly ignored as the veterans crowded the Lieutenant in the back.

—————————————————————————————————————————---

2019 PNC Arena Raleigh North Carolina

Dougie Hamilton was furious, down four to nil in the third period he could feel his teams Stanley Cups hopes exiting them. Coming to the realization that there run was over it became apparent that they would do everything they could to rough up the Bruins instead. Not all that difficult of a task for him. The resentment he felt for the team grew every time they played each other. He blamed them for the disaster end of his relationship with Jessie, added on to the pitiful offer they made him to resign the anger was real. Scrumming with Sean Kuraly in front of the net was a natural progression. The refs separated them while Chris Wagner braced Kuraly to make sure he didn’t hit the ice, not that Dougie saw. He was to focused on the silver rectangles that popped out of Kuraly’s jersey before he quickly removed his glove and made sure they were secured underneath it again.

Dougie saw white, “Are you serious dude!” he exclaimed trying to puss Jordan Staal out of his way to jump Kuraly.

Kuraly’s eyes light up at the chance, “She’s doing great man!” he yelled out taking his seat on the bench.

The laughter of some of the Bruins ringing in his ears, Dougie’s eyes cut to where some of the Bruins wags were seated that he noticed earlier. His eyes were met by the infamous dead stare. Dougie gulped before she disconnected their eyes as the buzzer rang. Instead she was smiling as Stephanie Bergeron through her arms around her. Blowing a kiss out towards the ice, Dougie was forced to watch as Sean Kuraly laughed and waved back at her.

Master Sergeant Jessica Hamm, the future Mrs. Sean Kuraly if the shine the light of the arena caught coming from her left hand wasn’t just his imagination, was doing just fine.

#nhl fic #nhl imagine #nhl hockey #nhl imagines #dougie hamilton #dougie hamilton imagine #carolina hurricanes #canes #carolina hurricanes imagine #calgary flames #calgary flames imagine #boston bruins imagine #boston bruins #bruins #sean kuraly #sean kuraly imagine

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mikasfangirlmodeison · 5 years

Text

Avengers Endgame - Let’s untangle the time travel mess! *SPOILERS AHEAD*

EDIT 1: Added some things about the Power Stone and Thanos travelling to the future.

EDIT 2: Changed some things in the diagramms. Added the missing year.

EDIT 3: A little something about Steve. (This is getting longer and longer.)

Shout out to @darth-darling for pointing out some things and telling me the missing year ;)

First things first: I have watched the movie and I loved it! It made me laugh, cry angry and happy - which is what a great movie should cause in the audience. Also I watched it only once so far - I’d like to have watched it at least 3 times by now, but I live in Germany and OV Versions aren’t that often shown in my local cinema - and I can’t stand the synchro. So yeah, they’re will most likely be some mistakes in this and I appreciate it if you guys would point them out so I can correct the diagramms and explanations along the way ;)

Also this will be a long post, but pls stay with me, as you might be less confused after reading this - no guarantees though.

Now the first thing we have to look at is how time travel works in the MCU.

I think this was pretty well explained by the conversation Bruce had with the Ancient One. Time is basically created by the infinity stones and can only be altered by using, removing or doing anything with them.

So while the original time line of 2012 looked like this:

it changed, when Bruce took the time stone from the Ancient One. But as was also explained, changing the past would not result in a change in your future but only in the future of the people in the past. Therefore, a new, diverging timeline was created, where the Time Stone wasn’t in New York anymore - directly effecting the upcoming events - of mostly Dr. Strange’s movie. Now, the original timeline, however, would still be there. So, we’d have two realities: one in which Dr. Strange’s events would happen as in the movie and one where they didn’t - nobody knowing exactly what would occur in this reality. The timeline would now look like this:

However, taking the stone back to it’s original time in the past would basically erase the alternate timeline along with anything that happened in it - only leaving the original timeline as we know it. Looking at the diagramm, this is what’s left:

It basically looks like the first one.

Now, we have to apply this logic to every infinity stone and the events in Endgame.

Therefore, let’s first look at the timeline for when every stone is where it should be. For clarity, I only included the events which were directly important and shown in Endgame - leaving out the rest like Ultron or Guardians 2.

Edit 2: The missing year is added now.

Now, let’s have a look at the events when our time travelling heroes took the stones. I’ll leave the battle of New York for last as it gets the most complicated there.

Let’s start with Thor 2. In 2013 Jane Foster came to Asgard cause she fused with the Aether - which is as we know - the Reality Stone. Taking that from her, Rocket and Thor create one new timeline directly affecting the events of Thor Dark Kingdom. Now they also take Mjölnir with them which you could see as a problem. But with the explanation from above, we know that this only affects the new timeline. In this one there’s no Reality Stone, no Mjölnir and Frigga still dies cause Thor didn’t tell her it was her death day. So, basically everyone’s fucked in this reality. The original one. however, still happens as seen in the movie.

Next is Guardians 1 in 2014. On Morag our heroes knock Star-Lord unconscious and then proceed to take the Power Stone back with them to the future - creating one new timeline. In this new timeline Star-Lord is basically fucked - which will however be reverted once the stone is brought back. However, this timeline brings a new problem, as Thanos and his crew hack into future Nebula’s brain and learn everything - resulting in them coming to the future. I heard people say they were confused about how the Snap would happen if these guys get killed there. But we have to remember that they’re alternate versions, so the original ones are still in the original timeline, doing their thing - which includes the Snap later.

Still 2014, Nat and Clint make their way to Vormir. Events happen as seen in the movie and there’s one alternate timeline in which Gamorra doesn’t die cause the Soul Stone is already taken. Here might lie a problem, but more on that later.

Sometime after Captain America, (as said above if anybody knows the exact year pls tell me) Tony steals the Tesseract, and therefore the Space Stone, from S.H.I.E.L.D. resulting in a timeline where Howard Stark met his own grown-up son. Luckily, he didn’t realize. However, this was only necassary since our heroes “slightly” fucked up in 2012.

Which leads us to the battle of New York in 2012 and the events of the frist Avengers movie. This is where things get complicated as we have 3 Infinity Stones here: Time, Mind and Space (again). If we assume that everytime a stone is taken, a new timeline gets created, we should now have a bunch of them. There should be timelines where only 1 stone is missing, where 2 are missing (depending on which stone was the first one taken) and there’s also 1 timeline where no Infinity Stone is left in New York. And some of them are branching off from the others. I’m too lazy to do the math right now, but yeah, you should get the gist of things being messy here. For convenience, I’m only including the important divergent timelines in the diagramm, which are 2: The first one being a reality where all 3 Infinity Stones are gone and the second one where only one - namely the Tesseract/Space Stone - is missing, cause our favourite trickster god took it. Which is also the reason Tony had to take the detour above in the first place.

Now, let’s take a look at the diagramm after the whole time travelling business. I present to you a whole mess of alternate realities:

Are you still with me? We’re halfway, now it’s time to get those stones back to their right times - more or less erasing the mess we created before.

While everything should theoratically be fine after Steve took the stones back, there are some issues we have to adress. But let’s start with the easy things first. Therefore, I should say that I don’t think it’s important in which order Steve travelled, although it’s save to assume that he brought the Tesseract back last.

Actually, the only EASY thing here is the Reality Stone. Bringing this one back just erases the alternate timeline and there are no other problems. Taking Mjölnir back is basically pointless since it’s alternate Mjölnir and it will get erased together with the other timeline anyways. But well, maybe Steve wanted to carry it around a bit longer.

Next thing I’d like to adress is the Soul Stone because I’ve seen questions about why they couldn’t bring Nat back. This is easily answered when looking at the explanation of the Ancient One again. Bringing back the stones erases the alternate timeline and everything that happened in it after the stone was taken. Now the important thing here is AFTER. Nat died to create the Soul Stone, so before Clint took it with him. Therefore, she died before the alternate timeline was created and there is no way to bring her back by erasing it. Now the real problem here is Gamora. As the Soul Stone was already gone in the alternate timeline she wouldn’t have died in this one. But she theoretically should be dead in the original one. The problem about that is however, that the Soul Stone is already created. Sure, it is in the hands of the guardian, but it is already made so there should be no need to sacrifice another soul. Unless the guardian is just cruel and likes to see that happen - but that would go against his whole purpose. I guess, he could just destroy the stone. But I don’t think it’s that easy to recreate it again following the procedure just the way as before, as it was obviously quite the deal when Thanos destroyed all the Infinity Stones after the Snap. So we might still have an alternate timeline here which wasn’t erased and which might affect Guardians 3 in the future.

Adding to the mystery of Gamora are also the events surrounding the Power Stone. Bringing this one back basically erases the timeline of Thanos and crew coming to the future - these guys basically never existed then - which should include Gamora. This might be underlined by the fact that the Guardians’ ship can’t determine her location at the end. So maybe she really was erased by bringing the stone back. But then again the eventual alternate Gamora from the Soul Stone timeline could still exist somewhere. However, this Gamora wouldn’t have been in the future, but should on the other hand be a part of the Guardians. It’s also unclear whether the snap would have happened in that reality, as Thanos couldn’t have gotten the Soul Stone by sacrificing her. Maybe he killed the Guardian though and took it from him? So yeah, this whole Gamora business really confuses me.

Edit 1: Regarding the confusion about Thanos learning everything and then disappearing into the future, it’s important to know the exact time he hacked into Nebula’s brain. If I recall correctly, the movie showed us this scene between Star-Lord getting knocked out by Rhodey and Nebula and them getting to the Power Stone. But I think it’s supposed to be simultaneously to Rhodey and Nebula taking the stone which would mark it the beginning of the alternate timeline. Resulting in it getting erased by taking the stone back, which means Thanos never getting to know anything. That way everything will happen as it’s depicted in the movies.

Here’s another diagramm for that:

Know that everything connected by a purple line belongs to the alternate timeline and will be erased by putting the Power Stone back.

On another note, if alternate Gamora exists, how would she get to the original timeline? She’d need to travel from another reality, another dimension, to this one. And the only way that MIGHT be possible would be using the Space Stone but oh wait, this one’s either destroyed by Thanos OR taken by Loki - which brings us to problem No. 2.

The whole reason Tony had to travel even further back in time was that Loki got away with the Tesseract after the Batte of New York in 2012, creating some of the confusing alternate timelines. While most of them - including the one where all 3 stones are gone - get erased when taking the Time and Mind Stones back there, we’re still left with that other reality where only the Space Stone is missing. So even if that whole Gamora business turns out that she’s just dead again and nothing happens after that, alternate Loki is still a thing unresolved. Which might be a problem since we’re talking about crazy Battle of New York Loki here and not precious Thor Ragnarok Loki. So this timeline might get fucked later. I hope the MCU does something with this - or else I’ll be very disappointed and slightly mad.

What’s left is the Tesseract Steve has, which he brings back as well - resulting in him staying in the past.

Well, lets look at the timeline after bringing back the stones, before we adress Steve:

As we can see most divergent timelines got erased again - only definitely leaving Loki’s, and additionally maybe Gamora’s alternate timeline. And I sure hope the MCU will do anything with that or else I’ll be very disappointed and slightly mad!

Edit 3: Now let’s adress Steve. While I loved the idea of him staying in the past and finally being able to be happy with Peggy, there are some problems with that.

As we all know, by 1970 she’s already married - to Daniel Sousa as we can see in the Marvel series Agent Carter. Now there are two possibilities:

1. Steve stays in 1970 woos Peggy again, resulting in her getting a divorce. Steve than marries Peggy herself. However, the problem with that is the end scene of Endgame where you can see Peggy and Steve dancing together. In this scene they’re both still fairly young - which shouldn’t be the case for Peggy in 1970. So this possibility is pretty much ruled out.

2. Steve leaves the Tesseract in 1970 and travels back even further to 1945 shorty after the plane crash in Cap 1. He then goes on the promised date with Peggy - resulting in the dancing scene we can see at the end of Endgame. Now, the problem with this is, that this rules out all the events of Agent Carter. Meaning this must be an alternate timeline as well. Now if that’s the case, how exactly is it possible for Steve to be on that bench later in the future as his old self? He would have to travel from his alternate dimension to the original timeline - only possible by using the Space Stone. Even leaving aside the how and when of him doing that, the usage would probably create some further alternate timelines, which would mostly likely result in some sort of mess again. Furthermore, he would have to sit still doing nothing while knowing about Hydra’s actions in the past and Bucky - making him kind of an asshole. Needless to say, I’m not that fond of this possibility either.

Which is why I thought about it some more and came up with a 3rd option. Now this is just my own assumption and there is no proof or anything for it.

But let’s say Steve goes to 1970 and leaves the Tesseract there. He then travels to 1945 and goes on that date with Peggy and they dance. But instead of staying, he leaves and disappears after that, staying in hiding. Now it’s safe to assume that Steve knows about Peggy’s family situation and her later husband Daniel - I mean he hooked up with her niece. As we find out in the movies, Daniel is already dead when Steve wakes up and Peggy is old and sick with Alzheimer’s. Now, the question is: When did Daniel die? For this theory to work out his death must have been a while before Peggy becoming ill. It would then be possible for Steve to return to Peggy after Daniel’s death, helping her through her time of grieve and marrying her way later - maybe even after her illness broke out. Of course, Steve would still be an asshole for letting things happen with Hydra and Bucky, but we shouldn’t forget that he knows it wouldn’t change anything in the future. And at least we wouldn’t have any more alternate timelines.

Let’s incorporate this option into our diagramm from before:

Now, I’m at the end! I hope I could get rid of some of your confusion - writing this surely helped me at least. As said before, I’d really appreciate you pointing out mistakes and the like. And thanks for reading this hella long post!

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llawlietofficial · 5 years

Note

What type of characterisation do u like for fics? I do find that fic from back in the day is mostly 1 dimensional but I was curious what ur issues w it where?

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to answer this but I’m gonna be real my opinions on stuff like this have led to me being labeled toxic to the point where people have literally implied they want me and people who share similar opinions with me to leave the fandom, so I’ve been kind of hesitant to answer something like this bashing some recent characterization again. So if you’re one of those people I’m sorry and you should probably stop reading now.

opinions under the cut with some lawlight characterization stuff I don’t like + some stuff I do like:

Honestly? I try and read at least the first chapter or so of every new lawlight fic in the tag and recently it’s been impossible for me to enjoy a lot of it because when I read it it just doesn’t feel like L and Light to me at all? Like it feels like someone at some point wrote a big fic with strong characterization and interesting characters, except they weren’t much like L and Light and they acted in ways L and Light wouldn’t act. And a lot of fics now are based off that same characterization, which in turn inspires fics with that characterization, rinse and repeat. And that’s just not enjoyable to me when I’m looking to read lawlight fanfiction.

Obviously old lawlight fanfiction wasn’t all 100% perfect and there were a lot of doozies in that mix too but it felt like there were more really solid multichapter fics that might have been messy and toxic in ways but they made sense with the canon characters. And fics that did have a happy ending and some fluff thrown in were still written using circumstances that could be believable, even if it took a long time or a slow burn to get there.

To answer your question more specifically, here’s some common tropes that feel out of character to me (and I’m not calling out any specific author or saying fics that do any of these things are poorly written because they’re not and we have a lot of talented and dedicated people here):

Either one of them changing their principles and switching sides within the first 20k words and without a LOT of persuading. IMO “we’re two sides of the same coin and not that different despite both being hugely stubborn” is shit I love, “actually I’ve sided with you secretly the whole time/your magical dick has cured me of disagreeing with you/I’m willing to sacrifice the principles I literally died for in canon easily because I want to be with you” is shit I don’t love.

“We suddenly agree and work super well together as partners now that we’re in an AU and there’s no death note” doesn’t feel authentic to me because death note or no death note their entire outlook on the world is different. Light would think L’s methods are disgusting. L would think Light’s initial idealism is naive. Light believes mankind is inherently good and once you get rid of the bad that can shine, L…doesn’t seem to share that. That’s not to say they can never work together but the good shit is when it’s a long journey into understanding each other and where they’re coming from and slowly making compromises and falling in love.

L being a naive uwu tries his best baby who’s being taken advantage of by Light. Light being a misguided uwu baby who tries his best and is being taken advantage of the whole time by L. They’re more complex than that and they’re both bad people but they also both have good sides so any sort of simplification of the characters into one being a villain and one being a victim is uninteresting to me.

They shouldn’t work but somehow despite everything they do, because they’re alone and because despite disagreeing and being enemies by circumstance and by beliefs, they know without the other they’d never really be challenged or fulfilled. That’s neat. I like that. It’s messy. They’re drawn to each other even as they’re disgusted with each other.

It’s more interesting when they are their own conflict rather than the conflict solely coming from outside sources.

The 500000 fics where Light is a rebellious and progressive omega who actually secretly wants to be protected by L and feels grateful that they’ve found each other? don’t love that. I dislike omega fics in general even if there’s a couple I’ve thought were pretty alright so that doesn’t help either. It is kind of interesting that despite their differences this could be an in-universe reason to force them together. It just seems like omegafic is the lawlight default right now. Like even fics where the plot doesn’t revolve around omegaverse stuff is sometimes omegaverse and that’s ? hard for me to wrap my brain around? that’s not just a lawlight problem though that seems to be happening in a lot of fandoms

Similarly to point one, either of them being okay with losing like lol what.

yotsuba can be difficult to tackle because there’s so much going on there with the characters, but there’s so many interesting layers to explore and dive into that sometimes get ignored in favor of fluffy hijinks and that’s boring to me. from Light’s perspective L took everything from him and has made his life pretty miserable because of this whole Kira thing and catching the real Kira is the only real thing that could totally clear Light’s name and L just sort of….gives up, for a lot of it. mopes about and acts unmotivated and uninterested because Light isn’t Kira. that’s probably very frustrating for light! and fun wacky fluff or hijinks can happen, but I love when it happens in the “we got so distracted being the smartest people in the room we forgot we’re supposed to be enemies” way because that’s juicy to me

sometimes it’s the little things, too, that bother me. stuff that’ll happen and it’ll completely pull me out of the story. like L Lawliet made Naomi Misora destroy her whole damn computer after he slid into her DMs and you really think there’s any way in hell he’d have any sort of google home or siri or alexa? or casual social media, even under fake names? facebook knows everything. or light saying something or making a joke that i could never in a million years see him saying in canon because the author thought it would be funny or cute.

anytime Light is suddenly some kind of beacon of goodness champion of justice just because he didn’t find the death note. the death note didn’t make him a completely different person, he’s bitter and jaded and thinks some people would be better off dead even before getting the death note. self righteous yeah totally but actually righteous? nah man

or Light just being a fucking awful person who kidnaps and r*pes L because he lusts after him but it’s okay because somehow in the end they end up together ? i’ve seen that trope a few times and i know it existed in 2007 too i just avoided it like the plague then also.

I see a lot of AUs that are less “what would L and Light legitimately do if this was the situation or universe they were placed in” and more “i want to write this situation happening like this and i want to make it lawlight because that’s my main ship”

like, the characters that are being written are fine but if you want to write OCs right OCs. I know all of this seems really harsh which is why I put a warning about it at the beginning, and of course I know some of these problems were also prevalent between 2013-2017 and there’s tropes here that have been happening like this since the dawn of lawlight fanfiction, but since it’s happening now and now is when i’m frustrated by it now is what i’m complaining about, it could be the reason i go back to older fanfiction so much is because i had lower standards back then and it was easier for me to wade through the ones i hated to get to ones i liked and now it’s easy for me to find those again. who knows. Also I agree most fanfiction from 2007-2009 were pretty 1 dimensional.

And like, fuck me I guess but I actually like the canon characters and I joined the fandom to experience more of them and apparently that makes other people feel unsafe.

I’m not saying people aren’t allowed to express opinions that are different than me or that I Know Better Than Everyone Else or that I don’t like people posting their own headcanons or ideas or things they wish were different about the series, it’s just not my cup of tea and it’s a little frustrating that fanon is mostly all I get in fics now and that people are allowed to express opinions but only if those opinions are “people who stick too close to canon are elitist and should die and are sticks in the mud and need to leave the fandom to stop ruining things for everyone else” because like, we’re people too?

Anyway sorry this veered in a bit of a different direction and I hope I don’t lose followers over this because it’s sad to see people go but I’ve been blogging here for over 5 years and I’m not going to stop anytime soon. I also wrote most of this while having bad anxiety at like 3am last night so it’s all over the place and i’m probably going to think of like eight things in the shower later I forgot to mention because i’ve been thinking over this ask for like two weeks now.

#this is a LOT and i'm sorry #please don't all hate me for this #i promise i'm not trying to ruin anyone's fun i'm just bored of what's out there right now #and there ARE some good works too that i have enjoyed a #it's just.#hhhhh #death note #discourse

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ulookgoodtoday · 6 years

Text

This is gonna be a long rant

No need to say this but I am a CS, I strongly believe they were in love and actually believe they still are. If you don’t see it I’m sorry for you bc it means you’ve never been in love and seen someone staring at you like they do.  Plus our captain Dinah (and her aunt) made it pretty clear. If you’re in doubt it could also be bc of the narrative stupid managers tried to pull, but honestly anyone can see through it. I suggest you read Emisons Camren theory and post about synchronization (which I found out after I made my mind clear ab Camren) which makes perfectly sense and was confirmed to be true at 98% by ExposingLaucy.

Let me say that of course this is just my opinion and I ALWAYS take into consideration that it could be not real. I respect L and C personal life and never dare to intrude or comment their post on social networks. I want them to be happy and if they are now (I believe they are) I am happy. They can be whom whoever THEY want.

Said so, here’s my delusional Camren theory. It’s not about proving Camren is real but an analysis of their relationship (I tried to be accurate, considering songs, interviews, trustworthy sources, timing).

I believe they had feelings for each other since the beginning (2012-3), especially C, but they genuinely thought they were just friends or that it was nothing serious (ExposingLaucy said C was the one to fell in love - “Mine is Lauren” “Who are u kissing under the mistletoe?” Her obsession with “Normani”- and L slowly fell in love w her). That’s why L gave birth to Camren “it’s Camren yo” (16 oct 2012) and why they were so explicit in the interviews, on camera, tumbrl, twitter, bc they thought it was a joke and were really close. Then ppl started to see what basically they couldn’t see or admit to themselves yet (love in their eyes), ppl started shipping them and assuming they were together but again they brushed it away and even invited us to float that f boat (Nov 2013). I believe if they ever kissed before 2014 it was as a joke, at least for L (“What happened in the elevator?” Feb 2013 DinahJane on twitter. #camrenfeels 28th June 2013 and the photo of them cuddling, L saying “Thanks babe” Feb 2014 and being totally chill with it) and above all they never talked about it.

I know C said back then that her first kiss was at 17 (and everyone assumed it was with Austin but could have been with L - April 2014) and then in a recent interview ab her album she said she was 16 when she had her first kiss so it could be 1) they kissed before 2) they kissed before but as a joke and then, after realizing how they felt for each other, she reconsider that kiss 3) she messed up with her memory, she gets confused by all the bs they made her say during these years. In the same interview she said she had her first breakup at 17, which could be her telling bs and alluding at her breakup with Austin (even tho in other interviews she dismissed that relationship) or what I’ll explain later about her relationship with L.

I think C was the first to realize she had feelings for L and that’s when she wrote “Only told the moon” (where she’s scared ab her emotions and afraid the other person won’t feel the same way) even though she wrote a tweet “only told the moon” in Jun 2015. What we know through EL is that they were both each other’s first kiss and everything. [plus I’m still not over Sep 2013 when C cries singing Who are you and L glances at her every other second].

We assumed Camren real first kiss was in April 2014 (1975 concert) and it is rumored that L broke up w Brad in Dec 2014 after 8 moths. Now, I don’t believe they had an actual relationship but more a fling and not that long (L was supposed to be w Luis Felipe right? They broke up Aug 2014. And in July we have the suspicious Camren’s moans in the bunk). ANYWAY the import part is that Brad wrote I found a girl that goes "she said that she tried but she's not into guys". So now what I think is that that's basically L freaking out about the kiss she had with C because she realized she had feelings for her (so more than friendship), trying to convince herself she's not into girls, rushing into Luis and then B to prove herself wrong, then again going back to C still confused until she figures it out later. Especially when you are bisexual the process can be hard because you try to understand where you stand, if you like boys OR girls, so it’s confusing when you have feelings for both and u try to deny one or the other until you realize bisexual is A THING. The Vamps made it clear that the song is for L and then took a photo with a “Camren is real” sign in the back (well done Brad, you’re an asshole). In the song he also said that this girl started to talk to him about the other girl she was involved with, so he knew who L was in love with.

In 2014 C is in a PR relationship with Austin Moron and I think C wrote The Exchange song (unreleased as well) about that period. I came up with the timing according to a period when they were both dating others; after Chocolate by 1975 was out - we’re dressed in black, head to toe, it’s from that song while C wrote “we’ll be dressed in, all black from head to toe” and twitted it in apr 2015; also C’s tweets with the lyrics of the song - “there’s nothing like me and you and you know it” Apr 2014 - and L indirects. I think it’s ab Lauren also bc she wrote “there’s beats I’ve been skipping when my head is on your chest” and I‘ve never seen C doing that with a boy. Plus the part where she says the other person knows there’s nothing like the two of them and “you’ve been trying to say it ain’t true” so again L rushing into L/B.

Also you can tell that their relationship was never defined properly by the fact that C many times during interviews referred to a relationship she had and described it as “sort of friendship “ or “romantic relationship or whatever that was”( also look for unreleased song of C, she said she wrote it when she was 17, “Like friends do” = I’ll sit straight it the couch like friends so. And I’ll stop kissing your mouth like friends do. Cause I can’t look at you quite like friens do. You don’t say my name quite like friends do).

I think after Brad and A, they were together, during 2015 (that’s when C appeared with the ring - EL said L gave it to C in Feb 2015 - and when they try to hide and look distant in front of the camera, yet close behind cameras) but still in a confused way during all that year, with ups and downs. I’d say C was pretty cool with her sexuality while L had more difficulties; and that explains to me why C cries singing Who are you basically every time (remember the girls co-worked in writing this one, if you look up on google you can see how Camila and Lauren’s names are the first ones written). Also that’s when she could have come up with IHQ bc she said she started writing it two years before it was released (May 2017). “My name was safest in your mouth”, “your voice, it was the most familiar sound” “i was there when no one was” and in the end - this part could have been written back then or in 2017 but either way express a miscommunication- “How do I fix it? Can we talk? Can we communicate” and “Do I wanna fix it? Is it my fault? Do u miss me?”.

I think that Lauren was the one that struggled the most (from the beginning 2013), she also said in an interview (2017) that when she was little was very confused and that people calling her bisexual/gay made her angry because she couldn’t understand how they figured it out and what was about her that made them think that. It’s also tricky was she said just after that. The interviewer asked her “Did your parents know before you came out?” ab your sexuality and she said “yes, they knew before, I was dating a girl AT THE TIME so they had to know”. So ok, who was she dating tho? Lucy? Yeah right.

I think that they had a shit load of pressure from managers to not be together and at least behave in front of the camera. I remember L (think it was Sept 2015) in an interview she said “when life hits love sometimes you just die”, i mean that’s daaark, girl! Anyways, that must have led to a lot of fights between the two of them especially because you can see how in a lot of interviews C kept staring L or doing things that were pointing obviously to Camren while L was trying harder to hide it. I think C might have felt rejected and they didn’t talk about all of this (and you can tell again by their songs that they had relationship where they didn’t comunicate - expectation, something’s gotta give, in the dark, IHQ.. someone put also In your phone but L didn’t write that one).

I think that’s when C wrote Must be love, this songs screams Camren like maybe no other and describes this period. In fact she says she fell hard, that she gets mad and puts on a show, there are highs and lows, everything gets real after two am (secret relationship), that she’s gonna look at her right back and “I promise you won’t like that” (L pissed every time C is explicit) and they fuss and fight but yet she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Also it’s a link to Consequences, which is in the album (in Must be love she goes “I guess everything has consequence”) and this song has no straight-relationship explanation. Through Consequences C describes her relationship w L and what had caused. I believe she is telling us all that she loved L so much she didn’t care about the consequences that came with it, which is f managers treating them like shit, make them hide it and led to them fight as well. It is not coincidence that she wrote this in Jan 2017 after she was out the group. It is not a coincidence that in concert before playing Consequences she always sings Falling in love (“Wise men say only fools rush in” is also the beginning of Must be love). And there are links to “She loves control” in my opinion which I think describes L and maybe the role she played in all this Camren shit. (Ok C has stated that she has OCD but she doesn’t go to club and when she’s in love she fell hard so u know, so much for the control). In Must be love says “you control me more than you’ve ever known” and in Sangria Wine “yo so que tu quieres controlar mi mente” that made me think the person she’s talking ab in She loves control might not be herself but another person. Many were shook about L singing “she doesn’t let me have control anymore” in Strangers which is a HELL of a coincidence but I think Halsey wrote it so I’m not sure whether we should consider it or not.

During 2015 to 2016 we saw a lot of things that suggested the ups and down. Remember that 2015 C had major anxiety problems and a lot of trash was thrown from the fandom (especially after IKWYDLS). C saying she rather date someone out of the industry but “you can’t decide who you fall in love with, UNFORTUNATELY”. Or when they fought in another interview when C was being too obvious bc she said she would marry her celebrity crush (or any crush) even if their parents did not approve, tho she didn’t say who her crush was but “it’s important” and “i’d be in love with my celebrity crush” (she always said it was Lauren). Or when they tried to make each other jealous.

Then 2016 is tricky. They started the 7/27 tour and again we see ups and downs but mostly L more at ease with her feelings for C. I think C was still struggling with her anxiety problems and all the narrative the managers were forcing the 5 of them to follow (they were prep C’s departure). I remember how L broke down 8 Sep 2016 singing No way, she always said that it was her fav song and described it as a dialogue happening in a couple; a toxic situation, two people who wants to be together but know shouldn’t be together and also ppl from the outside telling them they shouldn’t be together (she was so into this song that during a soundcheck she said she actually could imagine a visual and music video for it). She also cried during Scared to be happy and then tweeted after the concert the she got emotional because of the LYRICS. This was in Phoenix after the show in Texas where we saw Lucy. So that made me think she was struggling back then (remember that 4 days before, C left the stage in Missouri for anxiety), trying to figure out what to do between what she felt and also the pressure for the outside (maybe C, sure as hell managers and the PR ready to come).

I think that L in 2016 realized that she wanted to commit, as I said she seemed more at ease with her sexuality. She was happy during photos with CS, she danced with the pride flag, we have the blurry kiss in London (May 2016) in front of Lucy (!!), L even interacted with C during sound-checks and sang Dope to C (who was pretty surprised), she protected her from those balloons, C and L staying one more day in Barcelona, we had the VMAs (August 2016), she called her baby and so on. She seemed very protective. I believe that’s bc they were prepping the Laucy thing and her coming out. EL said they began the process leading to Laucy in June 2016 (remember the two of them in Colombia for L’s birthday, the videos of L dancing BBW to Lucy and so on - Emisonme explained perfectly).

I think that is why she came out in the end, after all this struggles, bc she felt ready, I don’t think she was forced to. Let’s be honest, if she didn’t want to she could have said it wasn’t her in the Laucy photo or she’s not so dumb, you’re at a family wedding and you get caught kissing a girl and the photo got leaked?! I say BS. And then she decided to make a photo book with Lucy as a coming out statement?! If she wasn’t ready to do it, none of this would have happened. I think she did it for two reasons: 1) Trump was pissing her off 2) to tell C that she was ready; they let her do it bc it was convenient for her image and 5h. At the beginning of Havana - the music video - there’s an awkward scene, completely out of context. A guy comes out of a closet and says “I was in the closet” and C “so now, you’re out of the closet?” And he goes, a bit confused, “yes, for YOU”. Like wtf? C, was it necessary?! And don’t let me start with that video. C is watching the tv and you can here a woman saying in spanish “I want to be with Carmen but I can’t “, you can see a figure very similar to L and in the end C said “I love you, but I love myself more” which again made me think she’s the one that walked away in the end. Camila is giving us so many signs if u don’t see this you’re really dumb.

L obviously couldn’t come out without saying there was another girl, otherwise Camren was automatically confirmed in our mind. And who better than your best friend to help you do so and make it believable? Honestly it was a smart move and all the hate, slut shaming and shit Lucy received, she didn’t deserved it. I believe it was PR and that C was aware of this and supported it but it could have also been difficult for her. Even though she knew it wasn’t real, she might have been scared L might get involved for real, especially if you consider the fact that Camren could never be proud and loud, idk. Emisonme on tumbrl explained the Laucy shit so perfectly that I suggest u read it, I agree with everything she said. Again Emisonme explain PERFECTLY why L could come out as bi while C can’t (and she’s so gay she’s shitting rainbows).

I think shit went down tho, and they fell apart. I don’t know if it was bc of management’s pressure or miscommunication or whatever but apparently C walked away (as she said in many interviews that the situation was toxic - not the relationship - in something’s gotta give and Havana music video and in concert before singing Scar Tissue). I think that their break-up happened during that period of L coming out and C leaving/kicked out fifth harmony but that is so messed up I’m not elaborating [Theory: C leaving 5h was always supposed to happen]. Just remember how Dinah’s aunt said that Lauren would be devastated by the fact C left (”I’m pretty sure Lauren is heartbroken and shook, she is probably crying her brain away. But she already knew. If anything Lauren is leaving too. You gotta have your girl’s back. Of course I’m sure they are going to do a duet like on their own, you know, in the bedroom.”)

That’s when L was reaaally pissed at Camren fans (the tweet in Feb 2017), went a bit sassy in interviews avoiding to talk about C, and after “leaving Lucy” she “started dating Ty” (I call PR huge af). The reasons why she was pissed ab CS could be many, for starters I believe they broke up (so that’s one), n2 she came out and faked a relationship with another girl to protect C’s straight image and yet everyone kept believing in Camren, n3 her managers made her pull her straight image as well starting dating Ty to shut us up BUT I believe the real reason is n4 managers wanted to kill Camren (to launch C’s straight image) and destroy her image (as they did with the marijuana shit they pulled) bc even though i think the first three reasons are true and that’s what was going on in L’s mind I don’t think she would attack her fans and C like that. Anyways L tweeted “eyes on the moon” the day the Grammys (Feb 2017) were held and we know who the moon is.

I think C’s the one who walked away also bc of “Make u mad”, which was written mostly by L and she’s pissed y’all. There are also links btw this song and C’s songs. L also sang Back to me, she collaborated in writing the text but I don’t know to what extent but still a HELL of a coincidence.

I think they first met after all this shit at the Grammy’s after party in Feb 2017 but didn’t interact. Camila was there and she said that “In the dark” is about a boy she met there; then we have L who tweeted just the day after the Grammy’s after party ab waking up with hang over and understanding what’s fake and real. Funfact: read the lyrics of In the dark. “Vampires at the same places” we know Lauren is Lamp. L is running and “making rounds with your fake friends” and again “i can see u’re scared of your emotions, i can see you’re hoping you’re not hopeless” “who are u when it’s 3am and u are all alone” “secrets, endless”. Basically she’s asking this person to show her her real self.

Ppl said they met in March/April 2017 (i think) in studio (Diplo’s?) and I think that’s when C came up with All these years (L had longer hair - she had it cut in 2016; she had gained a bit of weight - that’s for arms stronger; her eyes, I mean WE BEEN KNEW; C was not prepared so she didn’t know L was going to be there; it was a quick hello bc they were not fine back then; “sounds like you’re happy with her” could be L’s PR; “wish I loved u like I miss u” implies that she had a relationship with that person but maybe not loved her in the right way or enough to make it last - she confirmed in an interview that this song is about an ex; who does C knows from YEARS? If I hear another SM shipper I’ll throw up)

Anyways I think that towards the mid of 2017 they kinda reconnected and now they’re in good terms. Remember how C said multiple times how even though it was a toxic situation she’d do it all over again. So that makes me think that they loved each other and the problem was mostly all the environment they were into (if the relationship was trash why on earth would she do it again?!) and C is trying to say to L: baby come back to me.

Since this is not a post w the intent of explaining why Camren is real I won’t elaborate.

In conclusion I think they are still in love (C sang it in every possible way) and probably a couple or working on to be one and the problems in their relationship were due to miscommunication and pressure from the outside.

—> Again Emisonme made super clear why they couldn’t be together in the Music business.

Stay strong in this PR shit and let them be. Even if they don’t tell us, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

Just remember EL said 2018 would be the year of the commitment, 20gayteen everybody.

“I am a lover and a fighter. I will fight for what I love” Go get your girl Lauren

#camren #camila cabello #lauren jauregui #camren is real #camren is love #camren is life #camren is endgame #camrenisotp #camila #pr #20gayteen #lgbtq #rainbow #camren theory #theory #delusional

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