#yes if I write a martin story I can have him notice things

[ingravinoveritas]

So came I came across this repost from Al that a fan posted yesterday to which she reposted and to have her say and ad I much I can see she trying to defend ms with the radio getting his name wrong it a common thing for poor ms and I don't think this personally was the guys fault and I think they was reading from a script which I think most radio presenters have I think.

But the thing I noticed also was yes she was trying to defend her parter but also seems complaining that she and the children have to endure listening to the station in the car all the time and that like a another red flag like they literally have nothing in common and I'm still wondering why they still together. Cos I've noticed since michael been London he seems alot happier and heathly cos he closer to his best friend and beaming also. Can we have him stay permanently in London and not go bk to Wales in May.

What ur thoughts on this repost for Al I would to hear

(Grouping these together for ease of answering.)

I had this sent to me a little while ago and I'm...well, it takes a lot to floor me these days, especially in this fandom, but...I think this did it. Because there is so much going on here, and almost none of it is good.

On the surface, I know this very much looks like AL defending Michael, but I do not think that's what this was about at all. I think she saw BBC Radio 6 tagged in the original tweet and saw an opportunity to gain attention due to the proximity of a high-profile account. The way she did it, however, was by making something related to Michael about her. Again. And again, the wording of this retweet takes it from AL defending him to something else entirely.

Saying that she has to "endure" Michael listening to this radio show in the car is just a terrible look, as if listening to something he enjoys is so unbearably awful, and that she only puts up with because she's stuck in a car with him. It feels like she's literally complaining about Michael under the pretense of defending him, and I don't know how she (or anyone else) thinks this is okay.

The thing is, the whole "Martin Sheen" thing has become a running joke precisely because Michael has been dealing with this not just for his whole career, but his entire life. It's something he has frequently talked about, and I can imagine that it has been challenging on so many levels, but Michael also knows that Martin Sheen has been in the business for 60 years, and more than that, he is also a fan of Martin's. He's even talked about being introduced to him at a party years ago (I can't remember by whom, but Michael described the person as saying "Mr. President, meet Mr. Prime Minister"--referring to Martin and Michael's roles in The West Wing and The Queen, respectively).

So yes, the overarching point is that Michael doesn't blame Martin Sheen for these repeated mix-ups, and actually respects him as an actor and person. And when he has felt annoyed about this happening (as he did in 2020 when an ITV announcer called him the wrong name prior to a new episode of Quiz), Michael has had no problem calling it out himself on his own social media. Which speaks to your point @thetardisisblueandroseistoo about her trying to speak on Michael's behalf, and again doing a miserable job of it.

Also, what Michael hasn't done--and I suspect would be horrified at Anna doing--is go after the hosts of a show that he just appeared on yesterday. Particularly a show with hosts he is a tremendous fan of, as he spent a good portion of his appearance gushing about them and how much he enjoys listening to the show. I think he would more than understand the one host making this mistake--given his age and how much more embedded Martin Sheen is in pop culture--and would certainly exercise a lot more graciousness than to write a nasty tweet like the one AL did above.

That's the best way I can describe it: Shades of what we saw in the Insta story from last week, with that same self-aggrandizing, passive-aggressive (and now also kind of bitter) tone. There are a hundred other ways she could have responded to this, yet what she chose was to get in a dig at Michael, plus QT a fan tweet so that it could be misconstrued as her yelling at the fan. And again, in the cases where Michael has called out announcers or others for getting his name wrong, it's because he felt he deserved to have his name said correctly. In this case, however, it seems that AL wants the presenter to get Michael's name right because not doing so is an inconvenience to her.

Those were my impressions of AL's tweet, at any rate. All I can say is that from my perspective, if this was her attempting to defend Michael, it could not have been more backhanded. Glad to hear from my followers as well about your thoughts on this. Thanks for writing in! x

#angel19924 #thetardisisblueandroseistoo #reply post #michael sheen #welsh seduction machine #at this point i honestly do not understand why she is even still with him #when it seems like she can't stand anything about him #also every time she posts something now it just seems to get more awful #i don't even know anymore #there was just no reason for any of this #and yet #anna lundberg #discourse

[brighteyedbushybrowed]

𝐀 𝐍𝐨𝐭-𝐒𝐨-𝐊𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐒𝐩𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 (𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏)

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 (Koner x Spellcaster!GN!Reader) When Koner turned up at your door asking to do business with you, you didn’t expect your agreement to turn into something more. 

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 No smut but the next part(s) will have 18+ only content so MINORS DNI SOD OFF AWAY FROM ME AND THIS BLOG. A little bit of angst if you squint, brief mentions of sex, more of the lead up to the relationship than anything, barely proofread because it’s the middle of the night and I’m tired lolol. 

𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 Yes, I bent the lore of GoT for magic because I say magic rights and don’t care what George R.R. Martin says. The next two parts will be smut and will also be the same as each other but one will be written for v owners and the other will be written for p owners so that I’m not limiting it to a specific set of anatomy. I didn’t feel up to writing smut, so I wrote this instead with the intention of writing smut in separate parts. Honestly I’ve had to take a short break from writing because doing smut all the time can be a bit draining for me for personal reasons. 

The quiet and solitude of your little home you’d made for yourself in the small village a few miles from Winterfell was something you’d grown accustomed to. You’d lived with your parents for most of your life, but when the time came you built up a life away from them, although still in the same village so that you could be there for them if they needed your help.

Your house was a simple one and resided at the outskirts of the village. Your parents visited from time to time, but apart from that you never had company over. If you were to meet your friends and spend time with them, you did it in the local tavern or at their house. Of course, you were questioned about why you never invited anyone into your home, and you would wave it off saying that it was simply too small to adequately entertain guests. It was a believable enough excuse, and one that meant you were never bothered by anyone unless it was your parents wanting to catch up or spend time with you. However, the true reason behind you never having guests was nothing to do with the size of your home.

You were a spellcaster.

You had known from a young age that you were able to use magic. However, your parents made sure that you only ever used it within the family home so as to not raise suspicions. Magic wasn’t banned as such, but it was long thought to be dead and nothing but fanciful stories and old wives’ tales. If anyone thought there was even a chance that they could use magic and obtain the kind of power that could be utilised by an enemy to overthrow Winterfell, you and your parents would never have heard the end of it. So, you kept it hidden and only used it in the safety and privacy of the family home. Now, as an adult, you practiced your magic in the solitude and emptiness of your own house. It was difficult, of course, because you still weren’t sure of the limits of what you could do even after growing up using magic. You could do small things like summoning small flames into your hands and lighting fires with the blink of an eye, but when you tried to venture into other possible disciplines of magic you just didn’t seem to be able to do anything else.

It was while you were practicing your magic, trying to see how large of a flame you could conjure into your palm, when you received a knock at your door. You swiftly extinguished the fire you’d created and wrapped yourself up in your moth-eaten blanket then opened the door. Before you stood a man wearing the uniform that the Winterfell soldiers donned, confusion etched onto his features as he tried to look behind you into the house.

“Can I help you?” you asked, a polite smile on your face as you tried to close the door a little to stop him being nosy.

“Didn’t you just have a fire lit in there?”

You shook your head. “A fire? No, sir. I’m sure you’re mistaken.”

He fixed his eyes on you and you noticed immediately how dark they were. If it weren’t for the lighter flecks of hazel mixed with the brown, you’d have thought they were black.

“No, I definitely saw a fire. Why did you put it out? Are you trying to freeze to death in there?” he said, clearly determined to get an answer out of you.

“Instead of arguing about this imaginary fire you claim to have seen, why don’t you tell me why you’re here? What brings you to my home, soldier?”

As if remembering that he wasn’t there to ask about fires, his frown morphed into a smile that you had to admit was rather pretty. “I was told I could find herbal remedies and medicines here for a reasonable price if I asked nicely enough.”

You narrowed your eyes. “And who told you that? What’s wrong with the remedies and medicines up in Winterfell?”

His eyes raked up and down your body, making you let out an involuntary shiver. “None of them are as easy on the eye as you are, pretty thing. Who told me where to find you is none of your business. I have my ways.”

You let out an indignant huff but opened the door a little wider and stepped aside. “Get in, before I change my mind. Quickly now, you’re letting out the warmth.”

He smirked as he brushed past you and entered your home. You slammed the door, irritated, and made your way over to the fireplace. If he knew about the herbal remedies and medicines that you crafted, that meant he likely knew about your use of magic and there would be no point in hiding it from him now. However, that didn’t mean you weren’t going to make sure you didn’t need to start preparing to leave at a moment’s notice.

You gazed down at the kindling in the fireplace and clicked your fingers, delighting in the gasp the man let out when it caught alight and began to warm up the room. You quirked a brow as you turned to look at him and took in his expression of amazement.

“Don’t act so shocked. People don’t come to me asking for my services without knowing first at least a little about what I am, and aside from my parents nobody else knows the truth of why I live out here alone. So, tell me the name of the fool gawking at me like I’ve just grown a second head and then tell me who directed you to me.”

The soldier was quiet for a moment before he responded. “Koner.”

You nodded as you moved over to the shelves filled with remedies and medicines you’d concocted and perfected over the years. “Is Koner your name or the name of whoever needs flaying for putting both of us at risk?”

“That would be me.” You heard the man – Koner – pull out a chair from the table and assumed he’d taken a seat there. “So, is it true what they said? You make your own medicines and sell them to other outlying villages to make some coin?”

You glanced over your shoulder at him. “Yes, that’s the long and short of it. I suppose they also told you what I am as well, did they? That I use magic once thought to be extinct to concoct my remedies?”

“Yes and no.”

You picked up a couple of potions you’d put together that took care of one’s general health and placed them in front of him on the table before taking a seat opposite him.

“They told me about your business. I’ve come by here more than once but ended up never knocking on the door. I’ve seen you through the window a few times making fire out of thin air and realised that must be part of how you make them.”

Admittedly, that wasn’t the answer you’d been expecting from him. You were concerned that you would need to track down whoever had discovered your secret and put an end to their rumour spreading in order to protect both yourself and our parents. However, Koner seemed to be telling the truth, though you didn’t completely trust him yet. If he became a regular customer, you would have to see if his words were true or if he was lying to cover for someone else. One thing was for sure: you were going to need something to cover up your windows if you wanted to keep your secret exactly that.

You lifted one of the potions and observed him as he watched in interest. “This takes care of general health. Think of it like a tonic or a pick-me-up. As long as you promise to keep your mouth shut about what you know, I’ll provide you these for free if and when you need them. Other remedies and such will still cost you.”

Koner nodded, a stray brown curl slipping from beneath his hood. “Of course. Will I need to arrange with you a place to meet and trade?”

“And risk someone catching me in the act and following me home? No. You will come to me when you need something from me,” you told him, placing the potion back down on the table.

“And if someone sees me? Asks questions? What shall I tell them?”

A playful smile teased your lips. “That you’re getting an easy fuck from the village hermit.”

You laughed when he choked on his own spit, his eyes wide with shock.

“I’m joking,” you told him. “Nobody would be mad enough to come to me if sex was what they wanted, although I certainly wouldn’t say no to you given the time to get to know you better. Just say to them that my parents have asked you to check in on me regularly. I’ll make sure they know to corroborate your story should somebody discuss it with them.”

Once he agreed, the two of you spent another hour or so becoming better acquainted with one another. You found out that Koner was an only child and both his parents had died five years prior not long after he’d turned twenty. After that, he’d become a soldier of Winterfell to keep himself afloat and had been welcomed with open arms. He’d grown up in the North, but a couple towns over from the village you lived in. Frostbite had almost taken his fingers of his left hand in his first year as a soldier, scars from the ice adorning his fingertips. In turn, you’d told him about growing up as the only person in your family who had magic and how you’d found that other kinds of magic had escaped your capabilities no matter how hard you tried. You regaled him with tales of close calls and the time you’d accidentally burned your mother’s best dress when you panicked as a child, unable to control your magic as effectively at such a young age. You showed him the scar on your knee from when you’d fallen out of a tree when your childhood rival Bram bet you a fresh loaf of bread you couldn’t climb to the top.

When Koner left with the potions you gave him, it was with the promise that he would be back soon if he needed anything else. You bid him farewell with a smile, knowing that he would keep his word and likely return before the week ended.

 ***

 As weeks passed, you and Koner settled into a routine. Every Friday, once the sun set and never a minute before, your curly haired soldier with his chocolate button eyes would rap his knuckles against your door in the pattern you had both devised so that you new who was at your door: two short knocks, a pause, two more, another pause, and then one last knock against the wood. Then, you would let him in and swiftly shut the door behind him before proceeding to close the shutters on all of your windows. He’d then tell you what he needed, you would put the requested items in the satchel he’d bring with him, he’d pay you, and then you’d spend the next couple of hours talking. Sometimes it was about something that had happened that week. Other times it was more questions so that you could become more familiar with one another.

What hadn’t been planned as part of your routine was falling for him. Koner was undoubtedly a handsome man, but his personality – his kindness, the strength of his spirit, the softness behind the hardened exterior of a soldier – was more handsome still. You would spend your days apart hoping that he would drop in unexpectedly one night to spend more time with you, always keeping your home more organised and tidier just in case. The money he paid you for your homemade remedies and medicines had been enough to keep you better fed and you had even given some of it to your parents so that they too could live a better life. Even when you told him he didn’t have to pay you as much as he did, that you would reduce the price just for him if he wished, he would always pay you the full amount.

One evening, when your mother came to visit your home, she’d asked you about your relationship with Koner.

“When are you going to tell him, love?” she’d enquired.

You gave her a frown in return. “Tell him what?”

“That you’re in love with him.”

Those six words had hit you harder than you thought they would. You merely shook your head.

“He doesn’t see me in the same way, mother. Besides, he’s a soldier. He could have anyone he wanted. Why would he want the lonely village hermit with their little parlour tricks and potions?”

You glared at her when she smacked your arm.

“I will not have you speaking of yourself in such a way! If he cared so little for you, would he still insist on paying you no less than the full amount of what your potions are worth? Would he bother to stick around after getting what he needs? Would he try so hard to get to know you better and treat you with such kindness? I think you underestimate him and his feelings.”

“And what if he really doesn’t care for me at all?” you murmured, your head bowed to avoid her gaze. “What if all of this is him being polite? He’s a soldier of Winterfell, mother. There must be countless men and women who would do anything for him at the tip of his hat. What makes me so special?”

Her arms wrapped around you from behind and pulled you into her warm embrace. “You always were too stubborn to take mine or your father’s word for it. If you asked Koner how he felt, I know that he would say he feels the same for you that you do for him.”

Even with your mother’s reassurance, the voice of doubt still lingered in the back of your mind.

 ***

At the four month mark of yours and Koner’s friendship, he knocked that now comforting rhythm at your door and you opened the door with a smile to be met with a sight you weren’t expecting.

He’d brought you flowers.

“I hope you don’t mind, pretty thing,” he said sheepishly. “I saw them on my patrol when I walked past the flower stall and thought of you, so I bought them. If you don’t like them, I can always throw them away. It was a bit forward of me really and I wasn’t thinking when I bought them. I apologise if –”

You took the small bouquet off him before he could change his mind and stepped aside for him to enter, inhaling the scent with a grin. “They’re beautiful, although I’m not sure what I did to deserve such beautiful flowers.”

Koner closed the door as soon as he was inside and shrugged off his cloak. “That’s why I’m here, actually. Tonight will be the last of our business together.”

His words filled you with ice cold as you stared at him. “Oh. I see.”

He continued. “I’ve been considering this for a while. I can’t continue pretending anymore.”

At this point, you could feel a knot forming in your stomach. “Pretending?”

“Pretending that I see you as a friend.”

Your hurt must have shown on his face because he quickly backtracked.

“No, wait, that came out wrong. I meant pretending that I see you as just a friend.”

You licked your lips and placed the flowers down on your table, busying yourself afterward by closing the shutters of your windows so that nobody could look in. A jolt of shock ran through you when a pair of firm hands turned you around once the last shutters were closed, those same hands coming to rest on your hips as you gazed into his eyes.

“And how do you really see me?” you whispered, your heartbeat hammering in your ears.

“Something I don’t have a word for.” His thumbs caressed your sides soothingly. “You are all I think about when I’m on patrol and carrying out my duties as a Winterfell soldier. I work as hard as I can, hoping to be paid extra if I work hard enough, in the hopes that I can buy even more from you and have an excuse to stay here longer every Friday. It never works, and the lads tease me relentlessly for it, but I don’t care. When my comrades boast about the latest whore they’ve laid with in the brothel in the next town over, all I’m able to think about is how I wish I could lay with you. One of them tells me a joke and I think about whether you would laugh at it too. I see Lord and Lady Stark and the love they share, and I feel a need rooted deep inside me to have that with you regardless of what others would think or say. I dream of you some nights, dreams that I dare not repeat out loud, and when I wake up you occupy every inch of my brain until I swear that I’m about to lose my mind.

“So, you see, I can’t continue to see you every Friday without hoping that you feel the same way. If you can see me only as a friend, then please tell me. Tell me now so that I don’t keep getting my hopes up and deluding myself into thinking that you care for me as much as I care for you.”

Speechless and unable to think of the words to say, you cupped his face and brought his lips to yours in a kiss that you hoped conveyed just how deeply you felt for him. How hard you’d fallen for him over the past four months. He pulled your hips flush against his and you started to relax when he returned the kiss, lips moving over yours messily as you tilted your heads for better access. You hadn’t even realised you were both moving until your back hit the wall. Your fingers buried themselves in his hair and tugged at his brunette curls, his soft moan making you smile against him.

Your lungs crying out for air, the two of you parted and broke the kiss but still held onto one another as if one of you were about to disappear.

“Fuck, I wanted to do this properly,” he muttered, making you laugh.

“Koner, you still have the chance to ask if you so wish. I won’t stop you.”

He blushed as his eyes flickered to and from your lips. “Very well. Y/N, would you do me the honour of blessing me with your presence on a horse ride away from the village, lest I corrupt you and ravish you here and now?”

The thought of him having his way with you had you biting your lip, but that could wait for a later date. He wanted to romance you properly, like a gentleman, and who were you to deny him that?

“I would love that, my sweet man.”

Beaming, he pulled you in for another kiss.

#game of thrones #koner #koner x reader #koner x gn!reader #koner x spellcaster!gn!reader #fanfic #my fanfic #mine

[esther-dot]

If I remember correctly there was a scene where Missandei was taking care of an injured Greyworm. She kissed him as he told something about being scared to not see her again. Then also there was scene about Missandei saying goodbye to GW saying same line which was told by Jon to Dany. Compare these scenes to similar Jonerys ones where the latter lacks warmth. I don't know if it was deliberate or not. What do you think?

I can't find a gifset of it at the moment, but yes, Missandei (who is alive and well on Naath, thank you very much!) does sit by Greyworm when he is injured. Jonsas compared/contrasted Greyworm/Missandei with Jonerys and Jonsa a lot because they had so many similar scenes, but unfortunately, I'm not finding all those posts rn. Although, I have to point out @ladyandtheghost 's parallel in which she argued that just as Greyworm declared Missandei his weakness, Sansa was Jon's ( this post ) -- all the way back in 2017. Everyone who noticed the parallels was quite frustrated with how the show failed to offer adequate payoff for them, but seeing as Sansa was the trigger that got Jon to stabbity stab Dany aka her treason for love, I think the Greyworm x Missandei and Jonsas parallels were part of how D&D were laying the groundwork for the finale from s6 on. As pathetic as the the end product was, there were a few throughlines.

As for the Jonerys parallels...as you point out, the similar scenes make Jonerys look horrible. I assume they were actually meant to be contrasted with a couple that truly knew and loved each other which is why they paled in comparison. Greyworm and Missandei obviously had a lot more time to develop a dynamic which makes their love far, far more compelling (the actors are gorgeous and talented which helped too!), but in s7-8 there were a number of relationships that we can contrast jonerys with and inevitably, D&D put more time and effort into the side relationships than the “point of the series” (as everyone told us JonDany was). Since they were also running a storyline about protecting Sansa being more important to Jon than his own life or Dany's, about jon's love for Sansa being more important to him than his honor and duty, I have a hard time swallowing that they even intended Jonerys to be seen as an epic romance.

Often people blame the actors for the failure to make the relationship work (which is a pretty universally accepted sentiment, ), apparently Kit was having personal struggles at the time which fans have pointed to as an explanation for his poor acting. But he delivered in other dynamics, his face and eyes were alive in s7 when interacting with Gendry and Tormund, so I don't think that was the issue. I pointed out how the writing of Jonerys created no potential to make it compelling as D&D carefully included the fact that there was no obstacle to their relationship back in s7, so I have a few different explanations.

D&D were wanting to end the show, HBO/Martin wanted more seasons, so s6- s7 could have been written to allow for a quick closeout, or room to grow certain strorylines into 2 more seasons worth of content. If they didn't know if they'd have 8 or 16+ episodes to wrap things up, maybe they were trying to leave different paths open hence some odd writing.

Perhaps Jonerys was fan service, and they didn't want to do it but did it at HBO's behest or whatever so they didn't put in the effort that Greyworm/Missandei got, or Sam/Gilly, or even Gendry and Arya who all had recognizable beats progressing the relationship to an inevitable end. That's why there was a sex scene, but none of the compelling emotion we would expect from a love story that was so anticipated.

The last is the hotly contested, deeply unpopular belief that Jon will not love Dany, but will betray her in the books, and Jonerys was D&D romanticizing the plot points Martin gave them, just as they romanticized Jongritte and changed the point of that relationship. The theory for show verse had a lot of different names, political Jon being the most popular, and seeing as how Jon did betray Dany in the end, and for Sansa, which was the predicted endpoint (although as far as I can recall, none of us at the time speculated that he would kill Dany), I think that explains the oddities of Jonerys. That's the way I interpret it, and I think D&D were either pressured by HBO or their own fear of audience reaction led them to soften the dynamic/Dany's ending further because again, I do not think they believe they delivered a grand romance.

Obviously, the bad writing in s7-8 make most fans reject a lot, or all, of the developments hence the above being an unpopular stance, but I actually do think D&D were relaying in a very confused, contradictory way, some of Martin's plot points. The fact that so much in the end matched earlier ideas/themes...I don't buy that it was all D&D. I tried to wrestle all of that and Jon's love vs duty stuff in a very long post here .

What do you think?

#dot chat #jonsa #anti jonerys #<< for filtering

[alarrytale]

Anon mentioning Ricky Martin´s She Bangs, just yesterday I watched that video after like 22 years(?) and I remember when I was a kid and Ricky Martin was sold as hot sex god and I also had crush on him a bit because of his image and I how remembered that video was very hot and full of sex. Okay, those years takes toll on that video especially when it comes to effects haha but still, he´s so ripped there and sexualized, it´s full of sex, hot bodies and obviously he´s making out/dancing there only with women. Maybe Harry doesn´t have to do this (thank God) but still the fact as his image is sold is equal to that RM´s videos full of sex.

Second thing when you mentioning how harries and antis should realize that closeting exists - amen to your answer! I don´t have time now but one day I would like to share my story how I met 2 closeted gays - they are long time friends of my dad and my step mom - who both have families ( you know, real grown-up children, one is still married and probably won´t get divorced because of safety), they are over 50 and if I didn´t know about closeting thanks to Larry, no way I would notice it in my real life when I met them during one family event. And I and them live in Europe and yet they have to hide from society and most friends and my dad+step mom are one of those who give them safe space. So yes, closeting EXISTS and you don´t even have to be world known singers.

And third thing, Marte, please don´t take it in offensive way but how you write that you find lyrics analyzing pointless, how do you know then that most of Harry´s songs are about Louis?

Hi, anon!

I haven't watched that music video in ages! Did you notice him trying not to giggle when the women are roaming their hands over his naked chest? H or L could never pull something like that off.

To your last question. I don't think that most of H's songs are about Louis, but many are. Just because i don't care for lyric interpretation and analysis doesn’t mean i don't do it myself. It just means we'll never come to a consensus. I don't think us larries disagree on Sweet Creature or Two Ghosts being about Louis for example. I usually agree with general themes, but when you break down the individual lyrics to mean this or that to me it's comparable to finding meaning in an abstract painting or cloud watching. Some see elephants and some see cars. Some see dispair and some see happiness. A song can be a happy song for some and a sad song for others.

For this reason i also have a huge problem with people using lyrics as evidence for this or that. They broke up because that lyric in that song implies it. They hate each other because the car in that song is a metaphor for a fight. Larry is real because Louis wore something yellow and Harry wrote Golden. I see things like that everyday. Then it turns out that song was about Kid Harp*ons wife forgetting her wallet in her car or something. When it comes to H's songs if you think it means something, it most likely isn't what you think it means. The metaphors are layered too deep to get real meaning out of it.

#ricky martin #lyric analysis #solo harry

[hislittleraincloud]

Hello, first and foremost, I would like to thank you for giving the community Under Virgin Circumstances. I have been a very big fan of Martin Freeman ever since. I have read many MANY fanfics with MF characters in them. But when I read UVC, your characterizations are very on point, and I can imagine them saying, thinking, and behaving in your UVC. What I can't get over is the audio you've provided. It promoted it to the very next level. I love reading fanfics, but hearing them in their "voices" hits very differently. Thank you so much, and please do not tire of giving quality fics.

I think you're the first friendly stranger (apart from the fic wives) to appreciate the audio enhancements.

I did longer ones for my Wednesday Afterburn series, and the UVC one would've been longer if not for my character limits on the AI (yes, I paid for access, but I'm poor af and can only afford the basic with limited characters per month 💀). If I ever get a better package heh package, I can do more in less time and I would LOVE to make the entire thing an audio book. Programming doesn't take me too long, I took less than a day to do the one I posted...ofc me being me, I did The Kiss in a day as well, but left the foley out for a couple months before I finished it up for publication.

I have lots of Jairo (and Fill It Black/Willmore) story to write (including their Gap Year), but I need to work on and finish the last chapter of Satisfying Afterburn within the next couple of months. Howeverrrr...I often get wild hares [sic] up my ass and will suddenly publish a surprise or an extra (like the UVC audio! TOTALLY out of the blue because I was curious to hear how good Freeman's voice would be and I was checking up on my AI sites for updates).

I've always thought that Freeman is a great actor, but dang all of that Johnlock stuff back in the day saturated my fyp (I wasn't in the fandom at all) and had me tuning him out for a bit. But now he's got the beard and 🫠💦 I just wish he had been directed to do more during the fantasy scene in MG. Not because of MY fantasies, but because of hers/Cairo's. She wrote some SEX in that thing and what we got was Lifetime 'erotica'...BUT I will say that this was very hott (the fluid movement of those fingers is 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥)

Hnng. And of course on the flip side, her hottest moment was

But I digress. And am not ttly looking at his hand on her ass....

As far as characterization goes, thank you. I try. The popular media that grabs my attention tends to envelop my brain. My favorite thing to do is bring secondary characters to the forefront and tell their stories, since everyone has a story.

I love doing the audios and consider myself more of a multimedia fan fiction artist these days, I won't tire of that, but I do wish I had a better system (than programming each individual line and then having to save each one, then stringing them together...my Download folder is a mess of all of their voices)...thank you for noticing, and thank you for your readership. I feel so welcome in Freemanland thanks to Miller's Girl/UVC.

🥹🫴🏽💖✨

Ha ha, we just had an earthquake...New Yorkers sending it back to us Californians

ETA: My manners got swallowed by the appreciation of the praise, so you're welcome. (I often forget to say that.) Fans/readers are always appreciated, regardless.

#nice anon #nice anons #anon response #greyface #🥹 #ai audio #ai audio plays #elevating fan fic to the next level was my goal so #miller's girl #martin freeman #jonathan miller #cairo sweet

[frosteee-variation]

5: have you ever made a playlist about something you were writing as an elaborate means to procrastinate when you could have been actually writing and if yes drop a link, son

7: what is your favorite line you’ve ever written?

5: Have you ever made a playlist about something you were writing as an elaborate means to procrastinate when you could have been actually writing? And if yes drop a link, son

This is something I do, uh. A lot. I would send the Missy playlist if there wasn’t like, sixteen hours of songs on there, but I remember a specific instance that I did to procrastinate was with Drafty!!

Most other instances for characters were just because I wanted to think of their vibes, so it was sort of a side-way to develop them? Drafty specifically was to try and nail down their perspective so that way I could actually know what to write for sleeping with the fishes. It’s mostly got shanties and such on it!

7: What is your favorite line you’ve ever written?

Oh god I’ve got a lot of these. I’ve got a habit of rotating lines that I know I’ve written in my head for no discernible reason other than the fact that I’m So Normal About Them. Technically not the question but now that I’ve been given the opportunity I’ll just throw out several of my favorites methinks

a lot of these are going to be about missy i realize but i write about her. so much actually. so

…[H]er dress was as scarlet red as the blood she spilled, her business as black as her pumps. If Direction was a demon, well…

K. Ritz was the devil in dame’s clothing.

- something I wrote a while back to figure out backstory for miss direction (OC) and the relationship with her former employer (WHICH I HATE BY THE WAY. IT’S SO TOXIC BUT ALSO LIKE WE’VE GOT A WHOLE CAMPAIGN TO DEAL WITH ALL THAT I GUESS?)

That was another thing, she noticed, savoring her final sight before she got mauled; her voice seemed to have a lilting quality to it, as if every word that she said was part of a song. And it wasn’t a cheery tune, either. It was like a funeral dirge, slow and solemn, filtered through a jazz singer’s cadence in the corner of a dimly-lit speakeasy. There was no music to accompany her, no swinging tempo or big band orchestra - there was nothing but her words. A siren’s song; a low, ebbing tide that, with just the right phrase, could convince you to walk right in and drown yourself in the current.

- another story for figuring out the same thing as the line above! Just a bit earlier when missy was in her “pathetic wet dog sitting out in the rain” phase. I don’t think I can describe it in a way other than that

Rath pulled himself upwards with one arm and left her to finish the arc with the other. He landed with tact on one of the ornamental lamps above; she didn’t have the same luck, feeling herself loop back around to dangle upside-down from one leg.

“Are you INSANE-?!” Rath snapped, bristling. Spinning, crossing one leg behind the other, Missy considered his words. She looked him over for a moment and smiled.

“That’s the general consensus.”

He grimaced. “You’re even worse than I remember.”

- this one WIP that I keep returning to around the winter season where miss direction gets thrown off of a balcony by the guy she hates

“You know--” her arm jerks back and forth, missing once more--

“I just want to say that I don’t blame you.”

She takes another stab at it. “But I did warn you.” And another. And another. And another.

- Man in Black / Woman in White, a story i wrote because i wanted to practice fight scenes/first person narration and i knew that both martin banner (another OC) and missy in an arcade would be so fucking funny because they both 100% tried to out-quip the other

“And if you died, they’d kill ME. And if you didn’t die, they’d kill both of us. I can see what you mean and you’ve actually got a good point, Fortune favoring the bold and more chance being involved when you involve yourself so often, but for Her SAKE, there is absolutely NO WAY that I’d let my baby sis--"

Cinis looped around and pressed something in her hands before she could retort.

“(Heads, we do it, tails, we don't.) --jump HEADFIRST INTO A BLOODSPORT, OF ALL THINGS, WITHOUT TRYING TO STOP HER. Crowd as my witness, I just CAN’T tell you that it’s a good idea in good conscience. This conversation is OVER, we’re leaving, don’t even bother saying otherwise.”

- a WIP that I still need to name with Vindi and Cinis Sacare (OCs/characters for a campaign I’m in)

Its majesty was triumphed only by its desolation.

To behold it was to haunt it, to be present wrought much of the same. It was quiet. Liminal. Even walking through caused echoes to reverberate through the space, desecration within a temple not yet ruined.

- Algebraic Notation (WIP)

Wood and words meant nothing to the sea. Blood and bone held the very same weight. In the end, it would all be reclaimed by the depths, and that was just the way that things were.

- sleeping with the fishes

Introspection aside, it was impossible to ignore. There was some sort of shuffling, more tinny protests, and a persistent stream of curses from under someone’s breath; finally turning nyr attention to the culprit, ne saw a shadow sprawled out on the ground, desperately reaching for a bat that was continuously rolling away. Somehow, they missed every swipe. It was about a foot away from them. It wasn’t even rolling that fast. Ne was almost impressed at their ineptitude.

- that one WIP about Rachel Saucers and Batley No-Hitter that I have yet to name

So, it noted, that was the Who and the What. (The What being the ambassador, the anomaly out of many, the one with electric blood, the one so jittery that the amount of energy made them relatively good at pitching - this they knew, because the What was so innate that it somewhat contributed to the Who and the subsequent Why. The Who being Twitch Variation, of course - the Why being because of a rift that had happened by the Where. A lot of Whos, Whats, Wheres, Whys, Whens, but why there were so many wasn’t of much importance.)

- a short story I wrote for an OC of mine, mostly trying to get backstory and general vibes down (one of my favorites solely because of how confusing it is)

#frost answers #uhhh i need to tag these don’t i #miss direction #martin banner #vindi sacare #cinis sacare #the knight/the trojan horse #drafty shipshape #rachel saucers #batley no-hitter #twitch variation #WHOUGH #A LOT #most if not all ocs. oops (I do not apologize) #anyways MY BELOVEDS <3 I LOVE ‘EM #technically more than the question asked for but fuck it we ball!!

[yellowocaballero]

ok so I know you said you weren’t gonna explain daisy and then you did, and I want u to know I love when you explain your stories, almost as much as the stories themselves. I both envy and admire the way you think about characters and the way you build your stories and put all these elements together. bc this was a silly story and I laughed almost the whole way through, but there were moments with genuine meaning (ok gertude and jon conversation and about being a very nice boy and all that really got me bc like when am I not having feeling about jon lmao). So then I have Many Feelings about this silly story that are both heartfelt and just pure amusement and I go to you tumblr and then you talk about this story in a way that just makes me love it more. I think it’s bc you write stories where the pov is generally from only one character and when I read the story it’s like I can tell the other characters are having thoughts and feelings deep enough as the pov character, but for the most part, these rich inner lives or just lives separate from the pov character can’t really be perceived. Like it’s all there, but bc we are only seeing it from one characters pov, then there are things we aren’t going to see. And that’s really cool bc like, your characters are real enough that even tho things aren’t outright stated, I can tell there is so much happening “behind the scenes” so to say. It’s neat bc to read what your processes that went into writing a story is satisfying bc it’s like, ok here is what’s happening without the unreliable narrator. Idk as someone who is perpetually confused on why people do what they do (even myself sometimes lol), I like coming here where you explain things so well. Idk this is getting too long so just gonna say that I just really like what you do haha

;_______; Thank you so much. I’m always stressing out that I talk too much and go on too long about stuff nobody cares about lol. I’m also always pretending that I’ve thought stuff out or that I know exactly what I’m doing when I really don’t. I do objectively talk quite a bit about stuff here, but in my defense almost nobody irl knows that I write, at all. They think I don’t have hobbies. 

I’m glad it heightens the experience, though, I didn’t think about it that way. Rise of Skywalker Rule: people shouldn’t need to hear your word of god to understand what’s going on. But I really do hate writing multiple POVs (I only do it when it’s absolutely necessary) for a lot of reasons, but definitely it means that a lot of the behind the scenes character work you do goes unseen. But...even if you don’t see it, you know when it’s not there. A lot of technique in art is like that - invisible unless it’s bad lol. Take Daisy in TCF - it is blindingly evident that I did not really know what was really going on with her until much later in the story. My #1 frustration with that fic - just because Daisy will never tell Jon what’s going on, that’s not an excuse for me not knowing. 

But I do think a lot of a story is a supporting cast. I really sincerely hate it when a story is winnowed down to Main Character and Love Interest, and everybody else is a flat prop for that. I was reading a super fabulous Stucky fanfic the other day that was gorgeously written, but...none of the supporting characters had conversations with Steve that weren’t about Bucky. It was like some kind of terrifying Lotus Eater Machine hellscape. Imagine if nobody around you had rich inner lives, that they didn’t have their own rationales for what they did, that they had lives outside of you - that literally their only role in your life was to get you together with your boyfriend. Disturbing. (This was another parodied thing in Sucker’s Bet) A lot of Jonmartin fics are guilty of this too, frequently even worse. 

So, it’s kind of this dual thing for me - I have to know 10 things about a character and only 1 of those things will appear in the story. This is why I spent so long going on about how I know character’s religions lol. And even if you don’t know these things, it’s obvious when it’s not there. My stuff gets bloated because I insist on giving every major character a character arc and it is terrible of me (Solitaire was a hellscape). Even in the joke arson story - Jon, Sasha, and Tim all needed their individual character arcs, and even though Gerry and Daisy were more plot based characters you still got a strong sense of their lives. 

But the flipside is that as I’ve mentioned I don’t do OCs and I just adjust everyone based on the needs of the story.  Character is fluid and flexible for me so rarely anything is set in stone. I’m always spinning a ton of plates. I think when you know too much about your character and their background you end up stubbornly forcing a square peg into a round hole sometimes. For all I’ve talked about knowing characters - sincerely please don’t think about it too hard it’s useless. I don’t get too attached to any one characterization. Most of the time, the characterization in the story organically grows as the story develops. Some of the time I only really get a character as I write the final scene, then I have to go back and rewrite a bunch. There is a tremendous amount of characters who only really clicked for me as I wrote a final climactic scene (HR!Jon, TCF!Daisy and Web!Jon but specifically in Evilcon are the worst offenders, but also TCF!Annabelle, BBC!Gerry, SC!Daisy...). 

Anyway if you want the reason why I write so many side stories it’s because I finish a story and I just GOTTA tell you EVERYTHING I know about Agnes and Gerry or whatever (how did they meet? Jon will never know!). Legitimately for anyone who’s read Solitaire I highly recommend the Tim side story because Melanie is probably the most unreliable narrator I’ve ever written and there is this entire fucking storm of shit going under the surface of that Tim. Just because he got so complicated. I’ve been churning out a shitton of HR!Jon stories just to fucking try and get the character to click for me. It just goes on and on. As usual I’m both putting too much thought and not enough thought into things - the only way I really hammer out these things is by writing just an insane quantity of words, which is not the most. efficent way.

Sometimes I feel as if I’m hindering myself by not writing multiple POVs but also fuck that. Thank you for the super sweet ask I loved it!

#my writing #me crying over being validated for my insanely long posts: #yeah honestly the best POV characters are the ones like Melanie and Jon who are just so oblivious to everything #yes if I write a martin story I can have him notice things #but where's the fun in that #Melanie is the single most influential person in her universe and she has no idea #she has an archive defense squad and she has no idea #every time she talks daisy is standing behind her flashing her gun and she has no idea #tim and sasha individually swear loyalty to her WHILE SHE'S BULLYING THEM and she has n oidea #solitaire was so traumatic it burned out all desire to write side space cadet stories but #haha unless?

[dathen]

Going to try to type up my “why both Jon and Martin think they kept their own promise during the TMA finale while thinking the other broke theirs” meta (tumblr ate it the first time but I am tryiNG AGAIN)

I’ve noticed since the end of TMA, because Martin is the only one who made the accusation of a broken promise, that’s generally taken as fact: in TMA epilogue fics Jon is made to apologize over and over again for it, and never brings up Martin’s promise.  At first I just thought it was him being in-character and non-confrontational, but the more I see it the more I realize that it’s just general fandom perception that Martin kept his promise and Jon broke his.

Meanwhile, I feel the truth is much more complex because of the vastly different perspectives of the characters themselves during the TMA finale.  It all comes down to whether other worlds count in the equation.

Martin’s promise

Martin:  When we defeat the Eye, the fears...what happens to you?

Jon:  Nothing good. [...]  Martin, when the time comes, I need you to promise me that you won’t try to stop me.

Martin:  I promise.  I love you, Jon.  But I’m not going to doom the world over it.

From Martin’s perspective, the danger other worlds would face is hypothetical and shouldn’t be counted in the equation.  He promised not to doom “the world”--speaking of the only world they’re aware of at this point.  The plan the group came up with in 199 was a win/win scenario for him: save this world, without needing to sacrifice Jon.  He gets to keep his promise and he gets to keep Jon.

However, from Jon’s perspective, the other worlds exist and matter, too.  The spirit of what he asked Martin to promise here wasn’t a technicality of “as long as this world is saved, it’s fine,” but if the cost of making things better is his own life, that Martin won’t stop him from paying it.  In Jon’s perspective, Martin admitted to going back on this promise in TMA 199:

Martin:  I try, but I can’t actually imagine ever making a decision that I knew meant losing you.

Here, Martin admits that in the end, what drove his decision was exactly what Jon asked him not to do: prioritize Jon’s life above all others.  He may not doom this world over it, but will risk dooming thousands of others.

Jon’s promise

While he went back on the plan decided in TMA 199, from Jon’s perspective, he kept the promise he made to Martin: 

Martin:  And you have to promise me you’re going to do everything in your power to live. That you’re not going to sacrifice yourself at the first opportunity, just because you feel guilty about what happened.

Martin is afraid that Jon is just looking for an opportunity to martyr himself.  Because worlds outside their own aren’t included in his equation, that’s the only explanation he can come up with for why Jon would be willing to become the Pupil--and the explanation he sticks with and insists on no matter how much Jon tries to explain.  As we hear in the finale, Martin believes Jon broke his promise, throwing his life away for no reason.

Meanwhile, from Jon’s perspective, he is going back on a plan that already betrayed him, but he isn’t throwing his life away for no reason: he’s protecting infinite worlds, foiling the Web, destroying once and for all the fears that caused so much torment, and shortening the hell this world has to suffer through to a single lifespan instead of a billion.  He feels desperately guilty, yes, but this is no empty self-destruction, no pointless martyrdom.

I feel the key to writing the conflict between them is to not hold up the loudest accusations as the Ultimate Truth.  Jon didn’t accuse Martin of breaking his promise, so Martin is rarely held accountable for it, and stories/meta where they survive that moment focus in on Jon as the only one who went back on their word.  I’m not saying that Jon has to be held up as the Correct One in this conflict, but that understanding and sympathizing with both perspectives is key to writing a well-balanced portrayal, even if you don’t personally agree with one of those perspectives.

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #tma finale #tma epilogue

[cuttoothed]

@jonmartinweek day 5! For the prompt: Poetry.

*

It’s Martin’s birthday in a couple of weeks, and Jon has no idea what to get him.

The problem is, Martin is a very good gift giver. He notices things about people, little habits they have or things that inconvenience them, and then he goes out and buys thoughtful presents they never even realized they needed. On Jon’s last birthday, for example, Martin presented him with a miniature reading light that clips onto the cover of a book, because he noticed that Jon likes to read late, but always insists on switching off the bedside lamp when Martin wants to sleep.

(“And it doesn’t produce blue light, so you won’t be up all night,” Martin teased him.)

Until that moment, it hadn’t even occurred to Jon that there was a problem to be solved, yet here was the solution right in his hands. Now he could stay up and read—which he does enjoy doing—without worrying about disturbing Martin’s sleep. It wasn’t a fancy or expensive gift, but it was exactly what Jon needed without even knowing it. How is he supposed to compete with that?

It would be fine if he could just ask Martin what he wants. But that’s not an option either, because Martin will just handwave it away. “Oh, I don’t need anything,” he’ll say, or: “Whatever you get me will be great.” And he’s not being disingenuous, he’s always enthusiastic about any gift Jon gets him. So much so that it’s impossible for Jon to tell if he actually likes it, or if he’s just happy about the effort Jon’s made.

Jon’s tried pressing him on choosing a gift, but Martin always ends up suggesting something practical and dull, like socks. And yes, fine, everyone needs socks, but it’s not the thoughtful, tailored gift Jon wants to give him. A gift that says: I know you to your heart, to your soul.

Unsurprisingly, the Beholding is supremely unhelpful when it comes to knowing about that sort of thing. And now it’s Martin’s birthday in a fortnight, and after weeks of agonizing over it, Jon still has no idea what to get him.

Inspiration comes to him in a flash one evening. They’re on the sofa together after dinner, and Jon is working on a case file while Martin is reading a poetry collection; the author is called Octavio Paz, according to the cover. Jon knows that Martin’s been reading a lot of Latin American surrealism lately, because Martin’s told him as much, though Jon couldn’t say much about the genre beyond that.

“How’s your book?” he asks. Martin looks up at him, beaming with enthusiasm.

“It’s amazing!” he says. “There are some poets, y’know? Who just sort of…speak to your heart and soul. As if they know you. It’s like that.”

“Oh, that’s—that’s great,” says Jon, and in that moment he decides: he’s going to write a poem for Martin’s birthday.

It can’t be all that difficult, can it? It’s just words, after all. Jon’s good with words. Arranging them in a particular order, with rhyming—though that seems to be optional a lot of the time—should be manageable.

He starts with research. Reads about the building blocks, stanzas and rhyme schemes and iambic pentameter. Considers all the different available forms. Odes are too flowery and limericks too silly; a ballad won’t work, he’s trying to tell Martin how much he loves him, not write his life story. (Oh yes, that covers the subject matter, doesn’t it: tell Martin how much you love him. Though perhaps he’ll need to be a little more specific.) The sonnet is a classic form for love poetry, but it feels a touch stodgy; perhaps a villanelle? Martin enjoys free verse, Jon knows, but the lack of structure is frankly rather intimidating.

Jon spends so much time researching that before he knows it, it’s two days until Martin’s birthday and he still has nothing concrete to show for it. As it turns out, the more he learns about poetry, the more he realizes that there is a lot more to it than arranging words in order with rhyming. And the more discouraging a prospect it seems to write some himself.

“Right,” he tells himself at last. “No more fooling around, you just need to write it.”

He flips his legal pad to a fresh page, the paper clean and crisp. Takes a pen in his hand and holds it poised over the page, ready to let the words flow, and—

—an hour later he’s still staring at the blank page as if he could glare it into submission.

“How on earth does Martin do this?” he demands. How does Martin simply…write poetry? Just lay himself out on the page like that, completely unselfconscious?

(“I’m actually really nervous whenever someone reads my poems for the first time,” Martin told him once. “Especially you, since I knew you didn’t like poetry much.”

“Well, it wasn’t actually the first time I’d read your poems,” Jon reminded him, and Martin laughed.

“True, but it was the first time you’d read them without looking for hidden clues about my murder of Gertrude Robinson.”)

He could ask Martin, but that would rather ruin the surprise. So instead he googles for tips on avoiding writer’s block and getting started on a poem, and there go another two hours. The best advice he finds is just to start writing idly about a subject that interests you, without intending it to be poetry, and try to get into the flow of things. It’s worth a try, at least.

“Right, here goes.” Jon puts his pen to the paper and begins to write, haltingly at first.

Martin is my husband and it’s his birthday and I need to write him a poem because he likes poetry and I’m terrible at giving presents. He’s good at giving presents, and he’s good at poetry. He says he isn’t, but his poems are good because he puts so much of himself into them. I don’t know how to put myself into a poem, I’ve never been very adept at expressing my feelings. My therapist says that I’ve gotten much better at it over the past couple of years, but I still have to try at it a lot. Martin’s not always great at talking about his feelings either, but when he writes it seems like his hand knows how to speak for him. Like it comes from his heart, which is probably why he talks about how poets can speak directly to your heart, heart-to-heart communication.

Jon stops, lifts the pen, and reads back what he wrote. Well, it might be cute if a six year old wrote this for you, but it’s certainly not poetry. Still…there’s something there. The germ of an idea, if not its shape.

“Starting point,” he reminds himself. “This is just a starting point. Keep going.”

He skips a few lines, sets his pen back on the paper and begins writing again.

The night of Martin’s birthday, they go to dinner in his favorite restaurant, a cozy little Italian place not too far from their flat. They drink wine and share tiramisu for dessert, and it’s lovely. As they’re lingering over coffee and the dregs of the Barolo, Jon feels nervousness winding up inside him, tight as a spring. The fingers of one hand drum distractedly on the table, while his other is in his pocket, clenched and clammy around an envelope. Martin looks down at his anxious hand, then up at him.

“Everything all right, Jon?” He says it lightly, easily brushed away if things are fine, but with the implicit promise that if things aren’t all right, he’s here. Jon nods.

“Fine,” he says. “I just, umm, I wanted to—god, this was a stupid idea. I just…here.” He takes the now slightly creased envelope out of his pocket and pushes it across the table towards Martin, who looks curiously at it. Jon had considered various ways to present the gift: in a coiled parchment scroll, perhaps, or printed out and framed. But it had all seemed far too grandiose for what the gift actually entailed. So he simply wrote it out—careful of his handwriting, which he knows can easily stray towards incomprehensible—folded it up and put it in an envelope.

The envelope that is now in Martin’s hands, and Jon resists the urge to snatch it back, tell him it was all a mistake and go out tomorrow and buy him a hundred pairs of socks. Everyone needs socks. But Martin is already opening the envelope and unfolding the sheet of paper; Jon can see the faint lines of his own writing through the page as Martin’s eyes move over them slowly.

“Happy birthday,” he says.

Martin doesn’t say anything for several long, long seconds, but when he finally sets the paper down and meets Jon’s gaze, Jon can see his eyes shining wetly. He gives a slightly wobbly smile, and one of his hands comes to cover Jon’s on the tablecloth.

“Thank you, Jon,” he says softly.

“Sorry it’s not very good,” Jon says, and Martin shakes his head, grasping Jon’s hand firmly.

“It’s you,” he says, sounding close to overwhelmed. “You put yourself on the page for me. Nobody else has ever done that for me, not even close. It’s the best present I’ve ever gotten.”

“Oh,” says Jon. He’s feeling a bit overwhelmed himself. “Better than socks, then?”

“Better than socks,” Martin confirms, and leans across the table to kiss his cheek. Jon feels his face going hot, feeling embarrassed and pleased all at once. Poetry, he now knows, is far more difficult than he could have imagined when he started: putting yourself on the page, making yourself vulnerable like that. Jon still isn’t sure how people do it—he’s not sure he ever could again—but for the look on Martin’s face, it was more than worth it.

*

(I did consider attempting to write Jon's poem, but honestly I couldn't have come up with something with the right level of heartfelt emotion, so I figured it was better left to the imagination!)

#the magnus archives #jonmartin #jonmartinweek 2022 #tma #my fic

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Ineffable Con 2020 Fun Facts

Fun facts from the Ineffable Con 2 (2020) guest panels :): 

Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon and Rob Wilkins

David G. Arnold (the music composer)

Claire Anderson (the costume designer)

Peter Anderson (Peter Anderson Studio created the opening title animation and in-show graphics)

Paul Adeyefa (Disposable Demon)

Jeremy Marshall-Roberts (the owner of Mary the Bentley)

1. Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon and Rob Wilkins

What do they have from Good Omens:

Rob has the statue from St. Beryls, all four motorbikes from the four horsemen, Crowley’s Devon watch, box signed by David Tennant with Crowley’s sunglasses and Aziraphale’s cocoa mug with Michael Sheen’s DNA :).

Douglas has the playing cards from Episode 1 and heavily annotated Good Omens book they used for filming with inscription by Neil: ‘For Douglas, make us love, make us cry, 3rd August 2017’.

Neil has Aziraphale’s chair from the bookshop that he bought from the BBC and he uses it for Zoom meetings.

What is their favourite thing that was not in the book and was added to the TV show:

Neil: all of the first half of Episode 3 - an absolute joy.

Rob: also the beginning of Episode 3.

Douglas: David Arnold’s music and Peter Anderson’s front titles.

Could Aziraphale get out of the Bastille easily if he wanted to?

Neil: if he could: absolutely. Did he have any conception of the mess he was in: probably not. It’s one of Neil’s favourite pieces of acting - the absolute delight on Aziraphale’s face when he realizes that Crowley’s there and then he turns around and rather petulantly, grumpily goes oh it’s you - that moment of joy on Aziraphale’s face when he realizes that he’s been rescued is one of Neil’s favourite things. 

Neil and yoghurt starter: I had this slightly mad thing where I would explain to everybody that fans were yoghurt starter. And I said, ‘Basically you start out with yoghurt starter and you put it into your warm milk and you leave it, and the yoghurt starter goes off and turns the entire thing into yoghurt. 

Neil realized that there was a cat in his house (Neil doesn’t have a cat :)). After the panel Neil said that he was going to look for the cat with a can of sardines and Douglas joked that he would find Michael Sheen in a cat costume.

What was the best and worst about making the series:

Douglas: the best - the camaraderie, getting to know the people, the cast and crew. 

Rob: the best - realizing that the book could be translated to the screen and watching it happen. The worst - coming to the end of the shoot and saying goodbye to everybody.

Neil: the best - the amount of love from everybody, the worst - fighting budget battles (producers wanted gone all of the cold opening and the death of Agnes Nutter).

Did they expect that Good Omens would attract so many LBGTQ+ people and how they feel about that:

Neil: Yes, absolutely. There are definitely people out there who seem to think that I accidentally wrote a love story with all of the beats of a love story including a break-up halfway through, without somehow noticing that I’d written a love story. And I may not be the brightest candle on the candelabra, but as an author who’s been doing it for a long time, I’m very well aware of when I’m writing a love story, thank you very much. And so from my perspective I knew that the love story would be one of the driving things that would get us from the beginning to the end. And I also made a bunch of decisions about our angels and our demons in terms of casting, in terms of gender that everybody backed me up on, which I loved. You know, the idea that the archangel Michael is played by Doon [Mackichan] is something that is... or Beelzebub is Anna Maxwell Martin, whatever, there’s... it’s not like we are going: these are women, there are men, we are going: these are demons, these are angels. They... this is not a thing. And also doing something like Pollution, where you go in and go: okay  well if we were doing this in... if 1989 was now, if there were they pronouns, we probably would have done that. We didn’t think of it at the time but that’s no reason why we can’t do it now. And we did and I remember having a... not exactly a battle, but a... my very tiny skirmish with one of our execs who was very nice and very bright and was like: ‘Why are you saying they?’, and I’m like... and I... explaining, and he’s like: ‘Well I’ve never heard of that before.’, and I’m like: ‘Oh, okay, but trust me, just trust me, it’s all fine, just trust me.’

Douglas: And you know I have to say, just following on what Neil’s saying, I’ve been directing for quite a while, and I tend to notice if characters are falling in love, I tend to notice a love story happening in front of me, and I think it’s there, and everything is meant, guys, everything is meant.

Neil added: I would just say, there are some things that you do while you’re writing a script intentionally. The fact that... I wanted to do this, well, it was a thing I did that I really enjoyed doing... where whenever people accuse them of being a couple: they don’t deny it, they don’t argue, there’s no flustering on their part. They absolutely… you know, everybody… what I’m trying to say is:  yes, other people in the story are perceiving them as a couple too. And here is Uriel perceiving them as a couple, here is wonderful Dan [Starkey, playing the passerby] …and you know, you do scenes like that because that’s... you are trying to make a point here and you’re trying to make a point on how people are perceived.

Season 2, yes or no [fiends, all three of them!]:

Douglas: What’s that?

Neil: Of what?

Rob: Is it muted for me as is for everyone else?

Neil confirmed that they are going to be Funko Pops. [yay!]

2. David G. Arnold (the music composer)

He didn’t read the book before he was approached to do the music. He was asked to do it by Douglas Mackinnon he knew from the Victorian episode of Sherlock and he said yes before even knowing what it was about because he wanted to work with Douglas again.  

The first piece of music he wrote for the show was the brass band doing the Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon [Episode 6, in the park before the kidnapping].

The second piece of music he wrote was the lullaby that Crowley sings to Warlock. He always liked the lullabies like in Mary Poppins so he said to Neil: Why don’t we do it like Walt Disney, but if Walt Disney was possessed by Satan? That was about 7 months before he needed to write anything again while they were shooting and it kept going round his head the whole time - the melody stuck with him and when it came to the Opening Title of the show, this became the middle bit.

The original opening title was Everyday by Buddy Holly and each episode was supposed to be closed with a different version of it: a death metal version, an angelic choir version, a carmina burana version... and he actually made all those. But he likes to find the musical identity of the show and put it in the opening titles because it’s important and it tells you: ‘This is the word you’re going to experience’, so he wrote his own opening title with the lullaby in the middle and played it to them [probably Neil and Douglas] with Buddy Holly as the backup and: Neil just turned around in his chair and said, ‘That’s Good Omens.’. From that point the instructions were with no rules, just to create whatever he wanted: the further you can go the better, the weirder and the stranger you can think the better. It’s a rare thing to be shown a world like Good Omens and be let free to run around in it. 

His favourite ending title is the Queen one in Episode 1.

One of the reasons he didn’t do a theme for Crowley and a theme for Aziraphale is that the theme of the show is theirs - it’s theirs and they share it and it’s both of theirs and there is no separating in that regard. 

About Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship reflected in the music score: It’s interesting isn’t it, because the relationship changed in a way slightly frequently and majorly infrequently. It seemed right from the start that their relationship was somehow seeded and planted and had begun by the time we saw them even though they may not have realised it themselves, you know, with the pair of them on the wall, considering one is a demon in the Garden of Eden and one is an angel. They act very charitably towards each other and they act with a lot of things you might not expect. And underneath that there is a sort of sense of togetherness and support even though they both know that their paths are going to diverge and they have different responsibilities. So I always felt like, right from that moment, when the wing came up on the wall, that there was something special about their relationship. Three moments that stuck with him: in Episode 3 saving the books in the church when they completely rely on the other for survival in the way that they were very open about, one in the car outside the nightclub in 60s Soho - the Holy Water, you go too fast for me, that genuinely tearing, that there was reluctance in those words that he spoke and that sort of things as a composer is gold, it’s about making those moments more, and in the last episode in a scene they’re not event in when we see Adam and Dog in the fields and Anathema that music there which celebrates Crowley and Aziraphale’s music which is the theme of the show - their shadow has passed over everyone’s emotional journey, and everyone’s emotional journey is theirs as well. The argument in the bandstand was important as well.

His favourite leitmotif from the series is the lullaby.

About the scene in the car in episode 2 when Thomas Tallis changes into Queen: Terry’s favourite piece of classical music was the Thomas Tallis piece [Spem in Alium] so Neil asked if they can go from Thomas Tallis - a choral piece from 16th century - to We Will Rock You, and: ‘You never say no. You don’t say that you can’t do it. What you have to do is to be the first person who solves the problem.’ In the end it was a two-days work just for this little bit and he mentioned that he never had these sorts of challenges anywhere else before.

His favourite non-musical detail in the show - the crucifixion, how the scene was shot, how it was upsetting, and how it was made more effective by Aziraphale and Crowley’s inability to stop it, that they had to observe and watch it, that it had to happen. I remember seeing that at the time and thinking, I wasn’t expecting that level of brutal honesty, in terms of the pictures that I was looking at and what they chose to show. And I think all the more effective for it. 

3. Claire Anderson (the costume designer)

When creating the costumes for the characters she started with mood boards. 

Aziraphale - she knew that he needed to have something winglike in his collar so that’s why there are sweeping lapels very often. Using velvet [for the waistcoat] because that was nice and soft and had all the appropriate qualities. His watch and fob that has little gold wings hanging from it and other tiny bits of symbolism. Tartan bow tie. Beautiful cashmere checkered trousers - not quite tartan but a nod to it. A mid to late Victorian coat, Michael only made his decision on the coat a couple of days before the filming. Aziraphale in the present settled on a ring with angelic symbol and harp cufflinks, earlier his ring in ancient times has got a much more roughly hewn set of wings on it, so before jewellery making became sophisticated he modernised slightly - he magicked it up to be a bit more modern, more gentleman signet type of ring, but he never modernises entirely. His heart is much more in the past.

After they began to define Aziraphale they started to look at how the Heaven army of angels might look - the element of tartan came sort of from Aziraphale and the angels have a not-tartan kilt with a semi military type jacket and a military band across that might hold arms or not, because they are not really violent. She used spats to make them look quite neutral and genderless so hiding fastenings and concealing little details like that seemed a way to do that.

Gabriel doesn’t wear spats because he’s on Earth such a lot. His shoe has a cover with two buckles on the side giving the same neutral element. He wears a cashmere light-as-air suit.

The other angels are all in bastardized versions of what era they may have died in, so they could have died in the 1930s or the 1800s and the costume would have an element of that era about it - though of course as an angel you can change things.

The Quartermaster Angel - the costume is a combination of slightly Indian type military, maharaja pants, longer spats from another era, all combined pieces of military tailored to be magical and slightly nonsensical, as Heaven might be.

Crowley - she felt that he wrapped around like a snake sheds its skin so she wanted something double breasted because that seemed to envelope his snakey charm. David wanted to be more casual than wearing a suit. Under his collar he always has a flash of red like the snake that he comes from - the red belly. They put a red seam into the sole of his boots so always there is a hint of where he came from. The red tie in the blitz. He was more rock and roll than Aziraphale and modernised more to a snakehipped rock and roll star really. His present jacket - the fabric there is quilted, they found an 80s jacket that had elements of things they enjoyed - part of that was that it had a slightly quilted quality to the fabric which was like a textured snakeskin. It took quite a long time to create the fabric and then to make the jacket from that - they quilted some fabric and washed and whooshed it repeatedly to create a bit of puckering in it. He has a snakey scarf around his neck like a chain mail linked scales of skin scarf that he wore that complemented his neck chain. The trousers he wore in Victorian times are the same he wore in the 60s when he meets young Shadwell. His present trousers - slightly waxy denim - we just were looking for a slithery finish. Crowley’s neck chain - there is only one in the world - her tailor has a Gothic church full of interesting stuff like busts and drapes with old things, this chain mail scarf was there and David was looking for something to complete his costume and liked it. 

Hastur and Ligur are her favourite characters - they were so enjoyable to create. She had an amazing book of 1920s and 30s criminals and they used that as a starting point, because they were all quite worn out and bedraggled and poverty stricken and like hell might be ideally. They burnt and decayed the bottom of them as if they were rotting from the Earth and rotting back into the ground - all demons have sort of gators as if they were rotting from the ground up.

One of the most difficult things was the demons - when they realized they had a few days to create hundreds of demons in South Africa (4-5 days for almost 200 demons). It was as if I had been dissolved in holy water when they asked me for another 150 costumes.

The sleeves of Anathema’s coat have been inspired by a Victorian cycling coat. 

The historical costume that Newt’s ancestor wore influenced his and Shadwell’s costumes - they used elements of the historical costume to put a little cape on Newt and Shadwell and their wax coats to give them the quality of that look. Newt's costume has a lot of mustard to make him feel a bit awkward and uncomfortable - it's not the most flattering colour on a northern European complexion.

The nuns’ headdress needed to look a little bit demonic - she bought a whole book on nuns’ headdresses for research. They also used the V in the nurse's apron because that was nicely demonic. The nurses' watch has got this Satanic symbol at the top - a little take on the medical since old nurses’ uniforms used to have watches.

For Madame Tracy she went back into the 70s, slightly Biba-esque makeup and a cape. They had only one pair of her goggles so it was always a nightmare to find them.

Which part of the cold opening is her favourite: I love ancient Rome because there is at least 6 to 12 metre of fabric in a toga and that was quite fun wrapping that around the boys and creating those., and her favourite was the Globe.

The lapels represent wings in every way and every shape and every form. Wings are very important.

4. Peter Anderson (Peter Anderson Studio created the opening title animation and in-show graphics)

The first thing that the director Douglas Mackinnon (with whom he worked on Doctor Who and Sherlock) said to him was: for all the graphics, for all the title sequence, for everything, I want you to promise me one thing, and that is very, very simple, promise that you send me emails that say: ‘this might be absolutely nuts, but my idea is...’.

The opening title it’s full of easter eggs - it’s a type of sequence that’s been designed to watch a thousand times, for example: on the escalator down to Hell there is one character running up deciding that he doesn’t want to go to Hell or the sea is full of plastic bags because we don’t look after the planet.

Every single face in the title sequence is either Crowley’s or Azriphale’s, they are repeated all the way through - inspired by Neil saying that there’s good and evil in all of us, so there is a grand procession of people of all the characters from the story - marching towards Armageddon - but all the characters have been taken over by good or evil. And along the way our two heroes are kind of playing tricks on each other, doing good, doing evil

The opening title combines multiple elements - two dimensional animation elements, three dimensional animation elements, CGI and live action (the people in the procession were created by live action on a travelator). So the result is a kind of strangeness - such as 3D figures with 2D animated tracked heads - which makes it unique.

Their first idea and version of the opening title was based on tapestries of old, subverting them, but then they wanted something more new and fresh.

Both Douglas and Neil were an important part of the opening title creation process.

The opening title sequence took about a year to make from the creative start with four intensive months towards the end.

One of things that inspired him was a Bauhaus theatre image from 1930s.

Question if the hand-drawn font for the graphics will be a purchasable font: no, because it was original and it’s unique and it was created just for this - it was for the love of the show and the story and it will be kept there.

In the scene where there are three photos of witchfinders - Neil and Douglas revealed in the DVD commentaries that two of them are their grandfathers - the third one is Peter’s great uncle.

Originally the signs telling us things like ‘Thursday’ or ‘Mesopotamia’ - were done as if somebody (who was living inside the television screen) ran up close to the screen and showed us the sign. In the end they simplified it, only showing the signs. The one time that it was sort of left in the show was when in Episode 5 a little demon in the video game shows a sign ‘GAME OVER’.

Outside of his work on it, what was his favourite thing on Good Omens: spending time with Douglas and Neil, and also working with Milk VFX - I think I can honestly say it's the best job I've ever worked on with the nicest people. 

5. Paul Adeyefa (Disposable Demon)

He first read the book when preparing for the audition - the character wasn’t in the book but he got into it, loved it and couldn’t put it down.

He didn’t know about the name Eric until the script was published and people started calling the demon that, he really likes the name and thinks it fits.

There was a version of the script where the demon was going to be dressed in different costumes each time he was discorporated (for example one in long hair wearing a dress) - they would be all the same but different incarnations, in one version they had different accents. 

The first scene he shot was the one where the demon goes to Heaven to deliver the Hellfire (and also wants to hit ‘Aziraphale’ which was cut). That first day was also his favourite moment of shooting because there was an immediate welcoming atmosphere and everyone was lovely and in love with the production.

Disposable Demon is like a permanent intern, running errands for the higher ups in Hell.

His favourite part of the costume were the eyelashes (though he loved the whole costume).

If he could change anything about the costume he would also want cool contact lenses - some brightly coloured ones.

Question what animal (like other demons have on their heads) comes to mind when we see the Disposable Demon: he didn’t think about it at the time, but later he saw people talking about his horns as bunny ears and found it interesting, and also the facts that there are so many of him and that he is quite happy and friendly for a demon so the bunny makes sense, so he might be a sort of a rabbit. Or perhaps something goat type because of the horns.

Question if there is another role in Good Omens he would have liked to have played: he always thought that the four horsemen were very cool and Pollution was his favourite so probably Pollution (also was the most jealous of Pollution’s contact lenses). 

If there were a season 2, he would be there in a heartbeat.

Question about Eric’s feelings on Crowley, if he’s a bit of a Crowley fan: I think he might be. There is something about Crowley and how he is somehow a little bit different from the rest of the demons. - and the Disposable Demon has, much like Crowley, interest in the human world. He could well be 6,000 how many years old, the same as everyone else, but he seems to have this younger vibe and I think he thinks that Crowley is quite cool.

Good Omens fandom is his first experience with a fandom of this scale. It speaks a lot, the fact that this kind of very, this minor character, a character who is only on screen for a very short amount of time gets any kind of attention at all, it's quite amazing really, it goes to show how big and enthusiastic the fans are. I never experienced anything like that.

6. Jeremy Marshall-Roberts (the owner of Mary the Bentley)

When Crowley used a miracle to switch off the Bentley lights in Episode 1 at nuns manor it was done by: there was actually a very small guy called Louis turning on and off the switches quickly.

David Tennant was allowed to wear the snake eye contacts for only 3 hours a day otherwise they could damage his eyesight.

For Mary, the Bentley, it was the second time she was ‘blown up’ on film - first being in the Endeavour with Inspector Morse about three years earlier.

He was a bit nervous during filming the bookshop fire scene because the Bentley was so close to a real fire - not wanting the paint to blister. The car was moved off after a few minutes of filming but still.

About the damage to Mary: Unfortunately, we overran, and Rob my stunt driver had already booked a holiday and off he went and so when he returned in January, on the 10th of January, I had this new driver who really had no clue how to drive old cars, so I showed him around, I showed him to go around corners. He came around the corner, the door was not closed properly for some reason and the door flew open as he went around. And instead of slamming on the brakes which is extremely efficient and would stop him straight away he kept on going, hit another car and really smashed the door quite badly. It did take the car off the roads for 10 months. The door was completely remade because of this accident and it cost the total of  £24 000 to rebuild the car to get it back to running as it is today.

The Bentley’s part most difficult to maintain and service is the engine. 

Would Mary be available for a potential season 2: definitely!

#good omens #ineffable con #neil gaiman #douglas mackinnon #rob wilkins #david g arnold #claire anderson #peter anderson #peter anderson studio #paul adeyefa #disposable demon #jeremy marshall-roberts #bentley #ineffable con 2 #ineffable con 2020 #bts #fun fact #costumes #music #opening title #long post #finally finished this post #can I hear a wahoo? :)

[andreafmn]

I'm Not Afraid - Chapter 1

Word Count: 3,325

Characters: Female Reader Argent Character, Original Male Argent Character, Derek Hale, Allison Argent, Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, Isaac Lahey, Lydia Martin, Chris Argent, Jackson Whittemore

Story Description: (Y/N) Argent arrived at Beacon Hills to put to rest her father's sister, Kate Argent. For the first time, her family has decided to settle down and sustain a life in this interesting small town. After 17 years, (Y/N) has the opportunity to establish interpersonal relationships but will she be ready to face the complications that come with relating to her cousin's, Allison, friends; especially, the infamous Derek Hale. She will face the adventure of being associated with the Derek and McCall pack as well as being faced with the discovery of certain aspects of her life she never imagined.

*DISCLAIMER* I do not own in any way Teen Wolf, all credits of the pre-established characters, script, and storyline belong to Jeff Davis and MTV Network. The only thing I own is Argent Reader insert, her immediate family, and her storyline, as well as her effects in the others' storyline.

Chapter: 1/?

Chapter Description: (Y/N) finally arrives at Beacon Hills for the funeral of her aunt and meets a certain wolf to which she feels a special connection.

A/N: Second fandom I'm writing for. I love Teen Wolf so much and the trope of hard Derek but only soft for you makes my heart sing. If you enjoy my writing I’ll also be posting them in AO3 and Wattpad along with other stories (I also hope to start taking requests if ya’ll want) Hope you enjoy and all constructive criticism is encouraged.

Next ->

Chapter 1

I hugged the black coat to my body as hard as I could whilst pushing through the sea of press. Our family's last name became quite known after the reports about my aunt, whose burial we were attending. She had allegedly burned down a house with people in it.  She killed them in cold blood. I hugged my grieving uncle and his less grieving wife, then my cousin who had a painful look on her face. I hugged her the longest. She let herself crumble on my arms, sobbing uncontrollably. Even though she was a horrible person she was still our aunt, family.

I took my seat behind Allison when my father, my mother, uncle Chris, and aunt Victoria stood up. Allison didn't lift her head and neither did I. I just tried to comfort her.

"It's been such a long time I don't expect you to call me grandpa." We both looked up to see a white-haired man who resembled the Argent features. "Don't worry about it, just call me Gerard." He hugged both of us, an overpowering aura emanating from his being. When we were engulfed, I looked to the side and saw two boys squatting behind a gravestone. If they were hiding, they were doing a horrible job at it.

"But I prefer Grandpa," Gerard said walking to his seat. I sat back down and drifted off during the whole ceremony. Once it was over, I joined my parents and we drove to our new house. I have a feeling that life here will be very interesting.

That weekend I decided that I had been putting working out off for too long. I changed into comfortable workout clothes and gave food to my dog, Brody. I headed out the door, put my earbuds on, and started to jog. I really didn't know where I was going since it was a new place for me, all I know is that I kept running until I reached the woods. The bad thing about this, I had no idea how to get back home. Even though I knew of this sidetrack and I knew I would be late to get back home, I kept running, needing a release from the mundane feeling of being new in town and having to reunite from our estranged family in a funeral.

I had gained a lot of momentum. God knows how fast I was running at this point that is until I hit something, it almost felt like a wall. When I looked up, I saw a very handsome guy. Spiked hair, green eyes, and slight stubble. If it weren't for the fact that I was already sweaty I would have started to sweat showers of how nervous I was. That is until he opened his mouth.

"Watch where you're going." He growled at me.

"How about you fucking move and not be a prick?" He looked at me with big eyes, probably in surprise, but quickly changed to his menacing look. Who was he trying to fool?

"Well, this is private property, which means that you're trespassing, meaning you should pay more attention to your surroundings."

"I'm sorry but a burnt-down house with almost no walls or roof is barely a property. So, how about you stop being an idiot and I can be on my way." I started to jog once again but he gained my attention once more.

"You're new here, aren't you?" I turned around to face him.

"What's it to you?" He raised his eyebrow.

"I'll take that as a yes." The cockiness oozed out of his pores.

"And why the hell should that matter?"

"Because no one would dare talk to me that way."

"Who would be afraid of a little sour wolf?" He tensed up. "Dude, chill. I'm just kidding. But I doubt anyone would be afraid of Mr...."

"Hale. Derek Hale." He said extending his hand to me. Gee, after screaming at me he wants us to be acquaintances. I thought about not shaking his hand, but I didn't want to be rude. Well, more than I have been already.

"(Y/N). Argent." I shook his hand. Strong grip. Suddenly I felt a rush of déjà vu; I had met him the day before. "Wait, aren't you that guy I accidentally hit with my grocery cart yesterday?"

"Yeah, that really hurt. You hit my ankle. You could've had me limping."

"But you're not, so be grateful I didn't break your ankle." He laughed. "Damn, if I had known how cocky you really were, I would've hit you harder."

"So, you admit that you hit me?"

"Oh yeah, of course, I hit you. Accidentally that is."

"Yeah, yeah."

I looked around trying to find where the hell I had come from but there wasn't even the slightest trail as to where I was to go.

"So, miss (Y/N). Do you even know your way home?"

"No, but I'm sure I can find my way back." Then, he took keys out of his pocket and pointed to his car.

"Come on, I'll drive you around and you just tell me when something seems familiar."

"And why should I go with the guy that almost ripped out my throat for bumping into him? For all I know you could be driving me to my death." I crossed my arms over my chest, and he let out a loud sigh.

"Look, I'm sorry for snapping. But I'm trying to be nice. That doesn't happen very often."

"Alright, Mr. Hale. I'll let you take me home just because you are being nice now, after being a prick, and I'm exhausted."

"See, no one can resist me." I rolled my eyes at his cockiness. Seriously does he buy cans of it on eBay?

"Don't get cocky with me. I can punch the living daylights out of you." He chuckled and started to drive.

We drove for about 20 minutes until I finally recognized the curb that led to my house. Upon arriving at my driveway, I got out of the car and walked to the driver’s side.

"Give me your hand” For some reason, I felt compelled to do so. He took a pen and wrote down a number. "Call me if you ever need a tour of the town."

Three weeks later, I walked inside the school to meet up with Allison. I moved here with my family since dad had some business taking float. Being the new kid in town is never fun. I would know. I switch schools almost every year. The pro and con about this would be not being attached to anyone. Usually, I'm the one who doesn't talk to anyone and is called a freak. A derogatory term given to people who are way too different from others, but a title I wore proudly.

"Oh my gosh, (Y/N)! How have you been?" Allison wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly. It was as if she hadn't seen me just three weeks ago.

"Hi, Allison. I've been good, getting acclimated to the new town. You?" You would think that because we were cousins, I would be more affectionate towards her but honestly, I wouldn't see her again for like three more years, so what's the point?

"I'm good. A little rocky at the start of coming here but good." Then, a boy with a buzz cut and one with great brown hair walked by and smiled at Alli. "Ooh, you should come meet my friends. Stiles, Scott!! Come here." The boys turned around with goofy grins on their faces.

"Hey, Allison. Who's this?" Buzzcut kid said.

"This is my cousin, (Y/N). She just moved here from Virginia."

"Pleasure to meet you. I'm Scott." The one with the great hair said.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Stiles." I shook their hands and smiled.

"Nice to meet you, too, buzzcut." Allison and Scott laughed but Stiles only ran his hand through his hair, suddenly becoming hyperaware of his lack of locks.

"Allison. Who might this sexy lady be?" I rolled my eyes. The last thing I need is a narcissist with a god-complex trying to get close.

"Oh, Jackson, this is my cousin, (Y/N)."

"Hi." He extended his hand and looked me up and down.

"Hi." I smiled sarcastically, and when I didn't extend my hand, he dropped his.

Finally, after standing awkwardly behind Allison whilst her friends talked, the bell rang. Talk about saved by the bell.

"Hey, (Y/N), what's your first class?" I checked my schedule.

"Um, chemistry."

"Oh, good, then you're coming with us to Mr. Harris' class," Scott said pointing towards him and Stiles. I smiled and walked behind them.

Once we got to the classroom everyone turned to me, the ever-present sign of being new in the class evident in the stare of my classmates.

"Um, hi, my name is (Y/N) Argent and I'm new." The teacher, whom I guess is Mr. Harris, turned around to face me.

"Oh, yes, Miss Argent. Welcome. You will be sitting next to Isaac Lahey. Lahey, raise your hand." Once Isaac raised his hand, I noticed he was sat near Stiles and Scott. Two people I was trying to avoid. As I walked past, I accidentally pushed Stiles' book on his lap, startling him, resulting in an awkward descent from his lab stool onto the floor.

"Hi, again. I guess we are gonna see a lot of each other for the rest of the school year." I nodded and he scratched the back of his neck. "So, um, what school did you come from?"

"Lancaster High," I responded whilst writing down what Mr. Harris was writing on the board. Stiles kept trying to talk to me, but I would only give him short, cold answers or just ignore him. That is until Mr. Harris called our attention, that's when he finally got the memo to shut up.

"I'm sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to introduce myself since we're gonna be seated next to each other all year. I'm Isaac."

"I figured." I tried giving him my best smile. The vibe he was giving off seemed like he needed it. "I'm (Y/N)."

"Well, nice to meet you, (Y/N). Now I'll leave you to the class because if I don't I know I'll be failing even more than I am."

"Oh, well, maybe I can tutor you some time. I'm actually really good at science. My mom was a chemist professor once upon a time so I'm bound to understand all this."

"Really?!" His puppy eyes seemed to light up and I nodded. "That would actually be amazing."

"Sure thing. Now let's get back to class."

After Chemistry finished, I put everything in my bag as quickly as possible and sped to my next class, Math. Thankfully, none of Allison's friends shared this class with me but I did share it with Isaac.  I didn't consider him much a friend but more an acquaintance in desperate need of help.

As the day progressed, I noticed the rest of my classes were shared with one or more of Allison's friends. They all tried to strike up a conversation but were quickly discouraged when met with my one-worded or vague answers. Especially, Stiles. He tried especially hard to get answers out of me, only being met with the occasional laugh or stare at his comical occurrences. He seemed like the kind of person you could just open up to. The same could be said about Scott. His shy nature was alluring, and he portrayed himself as a very trustworthy and loyal being.

But I would not allow myself to let them in. My whole being yearned for a real friendship, someone to share nothing and everything; never again.

At lunch, I sat outside and ate my food quietly, a book in front of my face to shield my eyes from the sun the prevalent stares of my peers. After some minutes of appreciated loneliness, the empty table was filled with conversating teenage bodies. I smiled politely but, in my mind, I was cursing them out.

"So, (Y/N), how's your day been?" Allison asked whilst munching on an apple. I swallowed what was left of my bite and answered.

"Fine, thank you." This time no one pressed on after my short answers, finally getting the hint of my disinterest. In the corner of my eye, I saw Isaac sitting under a tree munching on half a sandwich. I excused myself and went to join him, heavily enjoying his tranquil aura.

"Oh, hi, (Y/N)." He smiled sheepishly.

"Hey, Isaac. Is that all you're eating?"

"Yeah. I'm not very hungry." He looked down as if he were ashamed.

"Nonsense! Here," I gave him the other half of my burger and another bag of chips I had in my bag. "You can't tell me you're not hungry. You're a boy in peak development."

"Thanks." He smiled as he continued munching on his food. I put on some music and we continued eating in silence. No conversation required.

The day went on smoother than it started. Classes flew by fairly quickly and the incessant chit-chat seemed to diminish. During last period I was like every other student, anxiously waiting for the bell to signal the end of the school day. When my pleads were answered, I packed the necessary book into my bag and left the rest in my locker, expertly avoiding any more social encounters. Quickly, I made my way to the waiting open car door of my father's car, ignoring Allison's beckoning me t.wards the small group of friends.

"How was your first day, darling?" My father spoke up breaking my attention from the scenery.

"Like any other first day I've had." I smiled. "The towns might change but school is always the same."

Finally at home, we were greeted with the sight of my mother cooking; people were coming over.

"(Y/N), honey, Chris, Victoria, and Allison are coming over tonight. So, go do a quick workout and come back to get ready." I nodded and ran to my room to change into workout clothes.

My routine would normally consist of waking up, working out, go to school for a dreading eight hours, come back home, workout again, do my homework, eat, and go to sleep. I lead a very monotonous life and it had been this way since I could remember. One of my earliest memories was of my father teaching me archery alongside Allison, a great distraction to our always disrupted home life. As I got older, my father started training me in boxing and knife maneuvering. How would these skills help me in life were still a mystery but I felt safe knowing them.

I got changed and decided to take Brody out with me on a quick jog through the woods. "Hey, boy, ready to go?"

He jumped on me which I took as a yes and started for the woods. We ran down the same trail I had been going on for the past three weeks. Mostly, I went down this track in hopes that Derek would make an appearance, and today was not the exception. As the ruins of his house came to view so did his tall figure.

"Trespassing again?"

"It doesn't count if I know the owner." During our greeting, Brody's leash slipped out of my hand and he ran to jump on Derek, leaving slobbering licks on his cheek. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't worry about it." He chuckled and helped me bring him down.

"I guess he likes you, even though he doesn't like anyone but me. Guess you're special."

"Maybe." He grinned.

Out of nowhere, I hit him in the shoulder. "What was that for?!"

"For trying to run me over with your shopping cart two days ago. It was uncalled for."

"No, it was revenge. You hit ME first. In the ankle."

"You're still on with that. Come on, sour wolf. That happened three weeks ago, and it was an accident."

"Whatever. Come on, I'll give you a ride home. It's getting kind of dark." This had also become part of my routine. After "bumping" into Derek he would offer to drop me off at my house, claiming it was for security.

"Okay, we're here. By the way, the offer to show you around town is still up. Just call me whenever." He said as he stopped the car in front of my house.

"Alright, will do, and thanks for the ride, Derek. I'd invite you in, but my family is coming over."

"No worries, maybe another time."

"It's a date. Anyways, thanks again. See you when I see you."

"Okay, goodnight."

"Night." He waited until I entered the house and drove away.

"Munchkin, is that you?" My father screamed from the kitchen.

"Yeah!" I screamed back.

"Okay, well, go take a shower and get ready your uncle will get here soon."

I hurried up the stairs and hopped in the shower letting the hot water stream down my body calming any aching muscle that was palpitating. In my room, I searched through my closet for an acceptable family dinner outfit, deciding a grey sweater and black jeans would be enough. I braided my hair out of my face and went downstairs to help my mother set the table.

After we put the last plate the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it!" I ran to the door and was greeted by my uncle. "Uncle Chris!" I jumped and he hugged me. There was no doubt that he was my favorite family member, his presence was always welcoming. His wife on the other hand was as cold as the winters we spent in New York. She was nice but absolutely scary. "Hi, Aunt Victoria."

"Hello, (Y/N)." I hugged her and said hi to Allison.

"Come in, guys." They walked in and I closed the door behind them.

"So, (Y/N), how have you been?" Uncle Chris asked while stuffing his mouth with mom's famous lasagna.

"I've been good. I mean, moving all the time takes a toll on you at first, but I got used to it. It's easy now to pack it all up once the school year ends."

"Oh, honey, that must be so hard on you," Victoria said. I could not read her tone, her words spoke in sympathetic notes with an underlying melody of sarcasm.  Not knowing what to answer, I bit my lip and nodded.

The whole evening was spent on us catching up and eating, laughing, playing games, but the good times came to an end when the clock hit 9:00 pm. It was stupid to set a curfew, but my mom usually had everyone in bed at this time, 10:30 as of late.

"You better come around the house more often." Uncle Chris demanded and hugged me.

"Yes, sir." I raised my hand to my eyebrow and saluted, as did he.

"Let's go, Chris. And thank you for the lovely dinner, Rebecca," Victoria said linking arms with my uncle and smiling at mom.

"No problem. Come by any time." They talked for a bit more and after they left, I went upstairs to change for bed.

"Momma, I'm gonna go to sleep."

"Okay, honey. Goodnight." I went upstairs, brushed my teeth, and put my hair in a ponytail.

Before bed, I made sure everything I would need for the next day was packed into my bag and made sure my alarm was set. I pulled all the throw pillows from my bed and set them aside, then making my way to the window to draw the curtains. Something caught my attention in the backyard, though. My eyes squinted trying to make out the figure in front of me. Blinking the confusion away, I made a double-take and looked back at an empty yard. I laughed to myself as I crept into bed. Why would Derek be in my backyard?

Next ->

#derek hale #derek hale imagine #stiles stilinski #derek hale x reader #teen wolf imagine #teen wolf smut #derek hale smut #scott mccall imagine #scott mccall #lydia martin #allison argent #chris argent #jackson whittemore #fanfiction #ao3 #wattpad #writing #isaac lahey #isaac lahey x reader #reader insert

[wenellyb]

My journey in the MCU fandom on Tumblr: Sharing my thoughts on the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, racism in the MCU fandom and the best and the worse of the fandom

I wasn’t going to write this much but here I am… I don’t even know where I’m going with this but since The Falcon and the Winter Soldier just recently came out, I wanted to share some thoughts.

I joined Tumble because of a show I loved but most of you don’t know it “ Hit the Floor”

I stayed on Tumblr for two reasons only, Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan.

Before the Captain America:Civil War premiere, a friend sent me the link to the Sebastian and Anthony ET interview, and I was hooked. In just one interview. I discovered Anthony Mackie. The guy was hilarious!!! I just couldn’t get enough and I knew I had to know more about him. How could he improvise so many funny lines on the spot? He was just amazing.

I had pretty much watched all the avengers movie but that was it. I was not involved in the fandom. So I knew Sam Wilson’s face, but I couldn’t even remember his name if my life depended on it. That’s how much the MCU treated him as a side character.

I was like how the f*ck don’t I know this guy?

His talent reminded me of Eddie Murphy, Jim Carrey or Robin Williams, like yes they can make some emotional or serious movies, but when they want to make you laugh, you will laugh. Whether you want it or not.  I kept wondering how this guy wasn’t more famous.

And the banter with Sebastian Stan? Wow, you could tell their friendship was strong, the way Sebastian lighted up when Anthony was talking, and keep bouncing off his jokes. It was art. the way Sebastian said “ I love you” at the end of the interview. Pure gold.

I then started to watch some of the interviews and boy was that a mistake!!! I literally couldn’t get enough. So I watched all and I say all their interviews, it was the best. We got some gems:

“Why aren’t you looking at me as much”

“Which way is the beach Seabass”

*Them saying nonsense in Spanish and then Sebastian Saying Papi Chulo*

 ¨And so many more, ....

I watched other solo Anthony interviews and he was still HILARIOUS, but you could also tell he felt a little bit more at ease with Sebastian around. I won’t pretend I know him or his personality, but Sebastian seems like a little bit more of an introvert and looks like he doesn’t enjoy the interview experience unless Anthony id around him. Just my thoughts

I watched the interviews before I went to see the movie, I even cosplayed as the Winter Soldier to the movie premiere and I was IN!!! When I saw Captain America Civil War, I became a SamBucky shipper, these two were hilarious and I really so the potential for a great realtionship I love enemy to lovers stories.

I also shipped Stucky because, to me, the trope of the movie was Superhero gives up everything to protect his long term friend” Hollywood movies have some codes and if Bucky were a female character, there is no doubt in my mind that the movie would have been marketed as romance.

Stucky really was an easy ship! But then the MCU fandom of Tumblr fandom messed up everything for me. You see I really liked the CACW and I I liked Stucky, I liked Sambucky, and I loved the introduction of t’Challa’s character, but one of things that affected me the most in the movie was that it was the first blockbuster I watched with 3 black main characters, Rhodey, Sam and T’Challa. That, and the fact that they were planning to realease a Black Panther movie in two years, I was super excited, and that’s the main reason I got involved in the MCU fandom so much, when before, I was just a casual watcher.

If this seem weird to you, then you have no idea how we were only getting crumbs before. For me it was soo huge, I even told all my friends, and they were laughing at me. But usually blockbusters, especially superhero movies get one black character and that’s it, usually the best friend or something and never the leads. So, for me it really was a big deal. How sad is that by the way…

I became more involved in the fandom and, at first, I wasn’t focusing on anything special, Sambucky, Stucky, Stackie, the Black Panther, and even Zemo, whose character I really liked.

But soon I noticed that the CACW tags were always flooded, and I mean flooded with the same two white characters: Steve and Bucky. I told myself, ok that’s fine Steve is the lead after all, but it would be good to see the other characters too.

And then I noticed another interesting trend: Evanstan…. Wait what?

Chris Evans, and Sebastian Stan… did I miss something? Listen, obviously I’m sure they must be friends or something, but you’re going to tell me you watch all MCU the actors and you’re going to focus on Steve and Sebastian? I’m sorry what?

Sebastian and Anthony are right there… Or Chris and Anthony, they even have a secret handshake, only the 2 of them do… what more do you want?

Tell me one iconic Evanstan moment… go ahead tell me… See??? There isn’t.

Because of this and because of how badly some Stuckies were treating Sam and Anthony. I became less and less of a stucky shipper . I mainly focused on SamBucky, Stackie and the Black Panther,

And then the Sebastian Stan stans saw how popular Stackie, Sambucky, were becoming and I started to see some problematic stuff in our fandom too.

I don’t want to generalize, but when you go into the Stackie tag, and you see cropped pictures of Sebastian without Anthony, it’s easy to assume that a Sebastian fan did that. And we know damn well you cropped out Anthony because we watched all Stackie interviews and know exactly which interview your picture was taken from. We know that Anthony was sitting right next to Seb.

You post a picture of Sebastian laughing but you crop out the person who was making him laugh??

“but it has nothing to do with race” How do you know that?

“Sebastian had more screen time” More screen time than Anthony in CATWS or CACW? I don’t think so.

“I have been a fan of Sebastian for longer”, that’s fine but don’t go out cropping Anthony, just post gifs of Seb in his usual, sad, and Anthony-less interviews, not the ones where he’s smiling because his best friend is next to him.

Some of you really are the worst. And just so you know, your fave Sebastian is Anthony’s biggest fan, if he saw pictures where you cropped out Anthony, he would block you on the spot.

When I realized that Anthony Mackie would be the next Captain America I was screaming, no actually, I was crying, Sam Wilson will be Captain America, and Anthony would finally get the recognition he deserves.

You would think that the MCU fandom would focus on Captain America or at least one the two leads, instead of just Sebastian? Right? Right? WRONG.

Anthony is handsome, he’s funny, he’s a great actor, he went to freaking Julliard, he’s at the top, I don’t see what else the man can do??? He should already be a superstar, but no, you will side-line him even to he is the lead of the show.

Even when they are the actual leads, you guys would do anything to bring up the White characters even if it means ignoring the Black characters.

I remember I was having a conversation about Black Panther with my friends and I asked one of my white friends who was his favorite character in BP was and he told me Martin Freeman (don’t even remember his name in the movie) Martin Freaking Freeman, there are half a dozen of great characters and your fave is the only white man??? Ok, ok, that’s great.

Don’t give out automatic reply like “It has nothing to do with race, if you haven’t thought about it first”, because there’s a high probability that it is indeed about race. Stop saying it isn’t, sit down and ask yourself, “Am I biased?” “Why am I reblogging only stuff related to the white characters”.

One of these days you guys are going to make me hate Sebastian with the sh*t you are pulling.

I looove the Stackie friendship and the Sambucky dynamic but after seeing the way some of you treat Anthony and Sam’s character, it make me want to focus on Sam’s character and forget about the rest.

 I remember they were some posts about how Anthony was problematic, and I just lost it. Apparently, there was an old article that resurfaced were Anthony was making a joke about women making sandwiches or something.

If you were offended by the sandwich joke, that is totally ok, and I can understand that.

But if you were offended by the sandwich joke, and saying Anthony is problematic BUT you still stan Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, ScarJo or even Sebastian Stan, just know that there is a high probability you’re racist.

They have all said or done problematic stuff, and people only seem to remember stuff related to Anthony, which was probably just a joke by the way.

Chris Evans and Jeremy called Black widow a wh*re, ScarJo took roles that she maybe shouldn’t have and I didn’t forget Sebastian shady Instagram post, when Kaepernick was kneeling. There are so many more things to be said about Jeremy Renner but google is your friend.

Anthony also got hate for hating on Tom Holland? Like what? Do you guys even hear yourselves? Don’t you have any friends you like to tease? If you hate someone, do you go around talking about him every chance you get? It was obviously friendly banter but some people wanted to turn it into something it was not. Sigh.

I really cannot with this fandom

 The stackie fandom was small at the beginning and the Sambucky fandom even smaller, but we were there and it was amazing. Sebastian and Anthony received the same amount of love from the fandom and I wish we could go back to those days.

Stop pretending the fandom isn’t racist. Stop saying “it isn’t about race” when you haven’t even thought about.

Saying “it has nothing to do with race” only shows that you haven’t thought about anything but don’t want to be called a racist.

There is racism in this fandom and it will always be there, but if you guys want to do anything about it, you have to acknowledge it first.

You can’t be pulling off stuff like “I don’t see colors”, “ it has nothing to do with race”. Stop, sit down, think about it and then we can have a conversation.

If you’ve made it till the end, I apologize for the typos and grammar mistakes, I wasn’t planning on writing this much.

#tfatws #anthony mackie #Sebastian Stan #stackie #sambucky #Chris Evans #captain america #CACW #fandom racism #I didn't mean to write this much #my posts

[dickwheelie]

Uhm, I don't know if you're still taking requests, of course you can just, not do it, but I was thinking, maybe jon touching star!Martins face littered with stars for the first time? 👉👈

this is based on @flamingfinch's and @tired-dummy's star!Martin au which you can find more of on their blogs :) I loooove writing about this dude so this was a great request to get, thank you Teo and I hope you enjoy!

_____________

Most of the time, Martin looks at least passably human. Perhaps he takes up a little more space in a room than he should, perhaps the air around him glows with a barely perceptible aura, and perhaps his skin is just a little too hot to the touch. Most people overlook these things, choosing not to question them or simply unable to notice them at all.

Jon is different. From the moment they met, Jon knew Martin was something otherworldly, though he wasn't yet sure what. When Martin told him he was an ancient being who crafted stars and arranged galaxies, Jon wasn't even necessarily surprised. It explained Martin's strange amber glow, his perfectly white eyes, and how impossibly large he seemed, even when he was at his six-foot human height.

Neither of them know, even after months of being together, why Jon can perceive Martin so clearly, as he does. Jon is grateful for it, because it was what brought the two of them together. He doesn't like to think about a world in which Jon had just let Martin pass him on the street, completely unaware of his otherworldly beauty, and the magnificent heart that lay underneath.

Jon thought he had seen all that there was to see of Martin's true form, until today.

They're sitting out on the back porch of Jon's tiny cottage, stargazing, as they always do on clear nights. Jon loves listening to Martin talk about the stars; he points each of them out and tells Jon their true name, and a story about them. Martin remembers them all, even the smallest, most distant ones. Some of the furthest stars have already died, their light reaching earth millions of years late, and when Martin speaks about them it is as though he is looking at a photograph of an old friend. He has moved Jon to tears more than once.

That night is more joyful. Martin is telling Jon about two stars in Orion's belt, young troublemakers who were best friends and completely incorrigible. "I kept trying to separate them," he says, "but they'd have none of it. They loved each other too much."

"What did you do?" Jon asks.

Martin shrugs. "In the end, I let them be. They orbit each other now. They're a little older, a little wiser. They've stopped causing so much trouble, but they love each other just as much."

Together they stare up at the stars in silence. Out here, in the countryside, there's not an inch of sky that isn't full of them.

"Do you miss them?" Jon says after a few moments. "The ones that are still up there, I mean. Do you wish you could be up there with them again, all the time?"

Martin looks at him, sensing the unspoken question in Jon's words. "I like being down here with you, Jon. You're as precious to me as any star. I'd never trade this life for that one." He smiles at him. "And I know you'd never ask me to."

That much, at least, was true. Whenever Martin had to leave to complete his starbound duties, Jon missed him, yes, but never resented it. He'd often use his telescope at night to try to see if he could spot Martin making new stars, but Martin had the whole universe to travel through, and he was so rarely working anywhere near the Milky Way.

He always came back, though. Jon is no longer as surprised by this as he was in the beginning, but sometimes his heart still leaps in his chest when he sees Martin's amber glow pouring through the gap under his front door.

"That's very sweet, Martin," Jon says coyly. "But you didn't answer my question. Do you ever miss them?"

Martin stares up at the endless expanse of stars. Jon can see they're reflected in his eyes, their usual white glow replaced with an inky black pool of tiny lights.

"All the time," he says.

As Martin stares up at the night sky, something in his face changes. Not his expression; his face itself. Jon blinks, thinking it might be an optical illusion, but no--there are tiny, glowing silver lights appearing across Martin's face, dotting it like freckles.

Jon sits up, leaning across the bench they share to get a closer look, and when Martin turns his head to look at him, the pattern of the lights on his face changes, mirroring the pattern of the stars behind Jon, a perfect projection of the sky. Jon gasps, and Martin gives him a puzzled look. "What is it?"

"Martin," Jon says breathlessly, reaching out towards his face but not touching it, "your face is covered with stars."

It's one of the most beautiful things Jon's ever seen. Martin's face, already lovely, is incandescent as it glows with pinpricks of starlight, peppering his cheeks and nose and forehead and lips, and Jon has been privileged to see Martin as he truly is, but he's never seen anything like this. Never before has Martin appeared so entirely other, so completely, obviously inhuman. Jon can't look away. He never wants to, ever again. He wants to reach out and touch, to run his fingers through the stars mapped out on Martin's cheeks, to kiss them from his lips, but he doesn't move forward.

"Oh," Martin says, realizing what Jon is seeing, "I'm sorry, I didn't know I was doing that. I can make them go away, give me a moment--"

"No," Jon says, his hand darting out to hold Martin's, as though that might stop him, "no, Martin, they're--you look--"

Jon stutters, not knowing how to describe to Martin how little he wants him to hide his stars away again. Martin quirks an eyebrow at him, perhaps a little confused, but thankfully the stars remain.

"Please don't get rid of them. Just . . . let me just . . ." Jon leans in close to Martin's face, examining the stars as they wink and move, ever so slightly, across it, as though alive. Which, Jon supposes, in a way they sort of are. Looking closely, he thinks he can see galaxies slowly turning at the corners of Martin's eyes, in the divot of his lips. Tentatively, as though they were fish in a pond that might dart away, Jon reaches out and places his fingertips on Martin's cheek. The stars don't move under his touch, but Martin shivers slightly, causing the projection to wobble. Jon quickly moves his hand away and glances up into Martin's eyes. "Is this alright? I'm sorry, I should have asked before."

"I . . . yes. Yes, it's alright," Martin says, quietly, staring down at him with wide, starry eyes.

Jon places his fingers once again on Martin's cheek, then traces a line down to his chin. Martin's face is warm, but the stars are just slightly hotter, sparking under Jon's fingertips. He places his other hand gently on Martin's other cheek, swipes a thumb across his nose, as though to scatter stars across it, though of course they don't move. Jon traces the patterns of stars that have gathered on the hills of Martin's lips, and then slowly, giving Martin the chance to pull away, he leans in to kiss them.

Martin does not pull away, and in the moment before he deepens the kiss Jon can feel every pinprick of every star that adorns Martin's lips, as though he is kissing each one in turn. Jon closes his eyes against the divine beauty of it all, the wonder that lies across his lover's face that Jon is able to touch, however briefly or distantly. Some of the stars under his hands and lips are gone, will never exist again except in memory, and some have only just been born a millennia ago, and all are important, and have been loved.

Then, as though strings have been cut, Martin surges forward and captures Jon in a searing embrace, kissing him so deeply that for a moment Jon half-believes he might walk away from this with stars of his own dancing over his lips. Jon does not let go of Martin's face, his palms against his jaw and thumbs stroking across his cheeks and under his closed eyes, feeling the stars dance across his skin as the two of them push and pull against one another. Behind Jon's eyelids there is the silver glow of a million stars less than a breath away.

When they part, breathless and clinging, Jon still does not open his eyes. He just presses his cheek to Martin's, feels the stars moving beneath it in time with his breaths. He turns and presses a kiss to it, then another, and another. Martin holds him so closely, a hand gently running through his hair.

"I love you," Martin says, softly. "As much as any star."

Jon laughs a watery laugh. "I know." When he finally opens his eyes again, he can see that Martin's face has dimmed back to its usual form, though his eyes are still dark and full of stars. Jon knows he could look up and see the same image in the night sky above, but he gazes into Martin's eyes instead. "I love you, too, Martin." He pauses, then smiles into those boundless, reflected depths. "As much as any star."

#the magnus archives #tma #jonmartin #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #gwyneth writes #i have 3 more of these which i will get to! #sorry it's taking so long lol

[voiceless-terror]

More than Enough

For @tma-mspec-week Day Three: Polycule

Characters: Jonathan Sims/Sasha James/Tim Stoker/Martin Blackwood

Rating: Teen

Summary:

“But what if-” Once again, Jon struggles to find the right words. He knows their situation is unorthodox to most people, and the thought of Martin looking at him differently is too much to bear. “What if he doesn’t understand?”

“Then explain it to him,” Sasha relays patiently, her hand never leaving his. Things are always so clear to her, Jon envies that. “You’re my partners, you’re dating Tim, sometimes me and Tim have-”

Or: How One Became Four.

It starts with Sasha and Jon.

She’s fresh off six months in Artefact Storage, shell-shocked and stand-offish. Jon starts a few months later and they learn the ropes together. She warms up, divulges little tidbits of her time in the other department that Jon devours. He’s young, hungry for answers and Sasha’s already jaded by her few years in academia. This is just a transitional job, she assures him. It pays better than most research gigs and allows her to keep up a certain lifestyle. 

“I’m looking at other places, putting out feelers,” she confides in him one day over coffee. It’s become their daily ritual, a mid-morning break where they can commiserate on the staid academics that ask too much of them and the fanciful statements that end up on their desk. “Whatever you do, don’t get stuck here.” She leans back in her chair, gives a cynical little smile. “Or maybe you should. It’ll be different for you, you’re a man.” He starts a protest but she cuts him off. “It’s an old boys club and you know it. Besides, I know all about your extra meetings with Bouchard. He’s never done that with anyone else. Who knows - in a few years you might be my boss!”

He scoffs at that. Jon feels like he’s treading water. He’s a great researcher, sure, but he hasn’t exactly made himself popular among the others. He’s quick to bite, dismissive, blunt. It’s why he and Sasha get along so well, tucked away in their own little world. Of course she would notice the attention from Elias; Jon’s flattered by it, even if he stammers his way through every interaction. Elias seems to find this amusing, but Jon wants to impress him. 

Though not at the cost of his friendship with Sasha. “I always mention your work to him. I’m rubbish with technology, but you-” She rolls her eyes.

“Don’t, he’ll see right through that. Manipulation’s not your strong suit.” Jon stares down at his rapidly cooling drink, an embarrassed flush spreading across his features. But her hand reaches out to grasp his and a fond smile lights her features. “Thank you, though. It’s sweet of you.”

Jon likes Sasha. Their personalities occasionally clash, but never for too long. Jon’s quick to forgive and Sasha’s too fond to hold a grudge, though she’s loath to admit it. So when her roommate suddenly moves out and she’s left in a bind, it’s only natural for Jon to take her place. He’s been rent-poor, living paycheck to paycheck in a shitty studio that’s still an hour’s commute. Sasha’s closer and her flat’s substantially nicer; she offers and he accepts, easy as that. It’s a practical move, and Jon has to admit his lonely little flat is starting to feel suffocating. 

They fit together easily, like pieces of puzzle slotting in place. Sasha’s brutally efficient in her personal matters; bills and maintenance that Jon finds overwhelming and confounding she takes care of with ease. He’s heard her on the phone in that light, practiced tone of hers as she casually threatens the landlord for necessary repairs. Jon finds himself relaxing bit by bit, feeling comfortable in his own skin as she snarks at the dinner table over a dish he’s made. He used to cook for Georgie like this. Now he cooks for Sasha.

“You’re good at this,” she comments one night over chana masala. “Loads better than the frozen meals I’m used to.”

“It’s nice, having someone to cook for. Harder to do it for one.” He feels a bit uncomfortable with the admission, though he knows he shouldn’t - this is what it’s like, when you love someone.

He’s never said that to her, of course. He gets attached too easily but never knows quite how to show it. And it’s not his usual sort of love, he doesn’t want to date her. She’s more than a friend, and Jon’s never had many of those; he has no metric to measure this against. He thinks he could stay in this flat with her forever, so long as he could see her smile every morning and yawn every night. 

On a Saturday morning she stumbles out of bed and makes her way over to the kitchen. “Morning,” she grumbles, as she reaches for the coffee pot and kisses his forehead. Jon doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.

On a Wednesday night Jon drinks too much. 

“Sasha,” he slurs, her arm the only thing keeping him from falling off his stool. “I want you t’ know…”

She smiles indulgently, takes a sip of her drink. “Yes, dear?”

“I-I love you.” She pauses and Jon’s heart drops. “N-Not like that, but like friends. Good friends. Very good friends. But m-maybe not.” She’s still smiling, that’s got to be a good sign, right? “I-I just love you, okay?”

And then she laughs, puts an arm around his shoulder and pulls him close. “I love you too. Stay with me forever, okay?”

He takes her hand between his and promises, with all the solemnity a drunken man can muster, that he’ll stay with her forever and then some. The next morning, while they’re both nursing massive hangovers, Jon broaches the subject again.

“Did you mean it?” he asks tentatively, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. “What you said last night. Do- do you want me to stay forever?” She turns to look at him, bleary eyes suddenly alert.

“Yes.” There’s no tease in her words as she leans into his side, a warm weight on his shoulder. “I don’t think I’ve ever meant anything more.”

Jon stays.

______

Two years later, Tim joins the Institute.

He’s handsome; charming, but subdued. He’s been assigned a desk near theirs, invading the quiet little corner that had become their world. Tim greets them both with a smile and a perfunctory handshake before settling down at his desk and powering up his laptop. He doesn’t speak to them again.

Jon watches as he goes back and forth between circulation and his desk, building an impressive stack of books- The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi, The Congress of Clowns and Other Russian Circus Acts. Sasha told him he worked in publishing, Jon knows she got that information through her usual nefarious means. Perhaps he’s writing a book, Jon says. Sasha thinks otherwise.

“He’s one of those,” she says over sandwiches and tea. She invited Tim, but had been turned down with an apologetic smile. 

“Hmm?”

“Like you.” She sets her drink down, eyes him with her steady gaze. “He’s got a reason.”

Mr. Spider doesn’t like it.

Jon shivers at the reminder. Sasha never brought it up after he initially confided in her one vulnerable night last year; she just held him through the shaking and the tears. He’s only told the story twice; once at eight, again at twenty five. It never got easier.

“No one believed me,” he whispered, tucking his face into her shoulder as his body itched from phantom legs skittering across skin. She squeezed him back.

“I do.”

They’re friendly enough to Tim, giving him his distance while still trying to be helpful. Jon points him in the direction of texts and scholars who might be useful, Sasha teaches him a few of her more invasive tricks that Jon refused to learn. Slowly, bit by bit, he opens up. Never shares his story, no- but he smiles, jokes around with them, accompanies them on their lunch breaks and eventually entices them to after work drinks. 

He’s handsome when he smiles, Jon thinks to himself as Tim regales them with stories of dates gone wrong. Sasha catches his eye and winks. He wonders if she’ll tire of Jon now that Tim’s around. He’s everything Jon’s not; good-looking, confident, secure in his intelligence. Sasha laughs so freely around him. He could ground her where Jon cannot- they can be a chaotic force, the two of them. It’s why they keep to themselves.

But at the end of the night it’s Jon’s hand she takes, swinging it gently with hers. “Stay with me forever?”

He smiles. “Forever.”

They invite him over to their flat one night in spring, when the trees are blossoming and Jon’s allergies are acting up. He’s sniffling miserably on the couch, Tim sprawled next to him as Sasha pours some wine. Despite his misery, Jon’s content.

Tim nudges him with his foot. “So what’s your deal?” he asks in a wheedling tone, though his smirk betrays an almost imperceptible anxiety. It’s strange. “You and Sash. Dating, roomies…?”

It’s Sasha who answers, handing Jon a glass of wine and standing before Tim, tall and proud. “Jon’s my partner.” It’s matter of fact, and Jon can’t help the warmth that floods him. “We’re not dating. I’m not interested in that.” She hands him his glass with a smirk. “But if you want to romance Jon, feel free.”

Jon sputters as she laughs- he’s transparent, as usual. They’d talked about it briefly- Sasha’s fine with him dating other people, but Jon’s never felt the need to. Sasha’s enough. She still is, but he can’t deny the way his heart swoops whenever Tim aims that smile in his direction. Sasha likes him too, in her own way.

Tim’s still gaping at them and Jon can’t help but join in on the laughter, as embarrassed as he feels. “Is the great Timothy Stoker nervous?” Sasha says in between giggles. “Guess we know how to shut him up now.”

“L-Look, can you blame me?” Tim says, a smile growing on his face. “You two can be very intimidating, not to mention gorgeous-”

Jon kicks at his leg. “Don’t joke.”

“No, we are.” Sasha interrupts, daring him to disagree. She turns that deadly smile back on Tim, delighting in his falter. “So what’ll it be, Stoker?”

There’s silence, Jon can feel his heart racing. They’ve got this all wrong, Tim doesn’t want him, Tim’s going to leave, Tim doesn’t understand-

“Can I take you out to dinner tomorrow night?”

Jon blinks. “Uh, yes?”

“He likes Thai!” Sasha calls as she walks over to her bedroom, leaving the two of them on the couch, laughing nervously. 

“So you’re bi, then?” Tim asks, scooting closer to Jon and throwing a blanket over their legs and an arm around his shoulder. It’s warm in all the right ways and Jon leans closer, the awkwardness dissipating at the touch of his hand. 

“I prefer pan,” he replies. It’s the first term that felt right to him. Georgie used to make some stupid joke about a ‘gender buffet’ and him ‘having one of everything.’ It still makes him smile. “And- and you should know I’m also ace. So there’s some things I won’t be able to do for you.” He looks for disappointment in Tim’s eyes and finds none. “I hope that’s alright.”

“Of course.” Tim smiles like he means the words and Jon feels light, almost dizzy. “Are kisses alright?”

He nods shyly, and Tim takes this as his cue to pepper him in obnoxiously loud smooches- one in his hair, another on his nose. Jon manages to bat him away after Tim almost gets him in the eye. 

So Tim and Jon are dating. Tim takes him out to dinner, the movies, one memorable night of karaoke. Sasha joins in when she wants; they go to museums and lectures. One night she laces her fingers through Tim’s, smiling at his wide eyes.

“What?” she says innocently, doing the same with Jon. “I’ve got two hands.”

On Wednesday nights Tim goes to the gym. Jon sits at the table, passes Sasha a bowl of reheated spaghetti before settling down in his chair. He fidgets, not touching his fork.

“What is it?” Sasha asks, setting her own fork down. “You’ve got that look on your face.”

“I-” he stutters, sighing as the words won’t come. Just tell her like you practiced. “I’m not trying to, well- hmm. I don’t want to insinuate anything-”

“You would never.”

“But, I’ve noticed- I’m not- Tim is very handsome.”

Sasha smiles indulgently. “Mhm. Go on.”

“And I’ve noticed. I don’t- if you wanted to-” Goddamnit. Pull yourself together. “I wouldn’t mind it, if you were to - that is, if you’d like to engage in-” He closes his eyes, purses his lips in frustration. “Please stop me.”

“Why Jon,” she replies, her voice coy and teasing. “Are you giving me your blessing?”

Jon sighs, his face warming as he opens one eye- she’s grinning, just as he expected. “...Yes?”

Six months later, Tim moves in.

_______

“Jon wants to bring a boy home!”

Jon smacks him in the arm and scowls. “Tim, don’t-”

“What, it’s true!” He leans back in his chair, a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Jon wants to knock the smile off his face and maybe onto the floor, if he can get a good kick in. “I don’t blame you and in fact, I encourage it. Martin’s a catch-”

“Martin?” Sasha perks up. “Finally!”

“Not you too-”

“Jon, he’s a very sweet boy-”

“-good-looking, too!”

“And if you want to bring him over, please do.” She reaches across the table to give his hand an encouraging, if condescending, squeeze. “I’ve seen the way you look at each other.”

“But what if-” Once again, Jon struggles to find the right words. He knows their situation is unorthodox to most people, and the thought of Martin looking at him differently is too much to bear. “What if he doesn’t understand?”

“Then explain it to him,” Sasha relays patiently, her hand never leaving his. Things are always so clear to her, Jon envies that. “You’re my partners, you’re dating Tim, sometimes me and Tim have-”

“I don’t think I’ll need to go into that much detail just yet,” Jon cuts her off, ignoring Tim’s snicker. “It’s just...what if he thinks it's weird?”

“Weird can be good. And if he doesn’t agree, well - he’s not worth your time.”

If only it were that simple.

It’s been about three months since he first ran into Martin in the break room. He’d seen him around plenty of times, but despite his hulking form, the man can make himself very, very small. It wasn’t until he quite literally ran into him, causing him to drop his newly organized files, that Jon got a good look at his face.

It was a nice face. Soft, kind, with big blue eyes and curly red hair that fell across his forehead. He wanted to touch it, tuck it behind Martin’s ear and he almost did, despite the man’s rambling apologies and meek demeanor. He stood there, frozen, even as Martin handed back the file with a bashful smile.

“Sorry, I’m pretty clumsy. Are you alright?”

Jon was fine. He should probably say that.

“Y-Yes. I’m Jon.” Wow. Smooth.

“I know.” Martin put a hand behind his neck, nervously chuckling. “You’re quite known around these parts.” His eyes widened and his face turned red. A nice red. “N-Not in a bad way, of course! You’re- you’re just very smart and- and direct- and oh Lord, that’s not a compliment, is it-”

“Thank you for my file,” Jon replied robotically, his eyes trained somewhere over Martin’s shoulder and not on his very, very blue eyes. “I have to take my leave now.” Why are you talking like this?

Their next few encounters were similarly stunted and awkward. Martin made tea at ten every morning, coincidentally when Jon got his yogurt from the fridge. He started making Jon a cup as well; he wasn’t sure if Martin was particularly excellent at making tea, or if it just mattered that he was the one making it. Jon tried not to dwell on the sentimentality of it all. 

He shouldn’t want another partner. He’s got Sasha, who he loves, and Tim, who he also loves, albeit in a different way. They should be enough for him. They are enough. But Martin makes him tea and asks him how his day is going and smiles at him and people don’t do that. He tells himself he just wants a friend, but he finds his mind wandering- Martin’s hand in his while they walk down the street, Jon nestled into his side on a movie night and Tim’s there too, because Martin is very comfy and handsome and warm. Sasha’s in her armchair reading a book because tonight they’re watching a romantic comedy and she hates those. Jon hates them too but Martin likes them, of course Martin likes them-

No. He’s getting distracted. And he’s standing in front of Martin like an idiot, saying nothing. This is going terribly. Why did he ever think this would not go terribly-

“Jon? Are you alright? You look like you’re about to have a stroke.”

“I’m not having a stroke,” Jon responds on auto-pilot. “I’m trying to think of a clever way to ask you out but you are very distracting.”

Shit. Martin stares at him, mouth open in shock. He’s got nice teeth. Very straight.

“Um- I-I thought you were with Tim?” Martin squeaks out. Oh God, I’ve scared him. Do I keep going? “Or- or Sasha, oh! I’m not accusing you of -”

“No, you’re correct,” Jon grinds out, willing himself to be calm. He doesn’t want Martin to think his frustration is aimed at him. “Sasha’s my partner and I’m dating Tim, and sometimes Sasha and Tim-” No! Abort! “-sorry. We’re together. But, um, I-I also like you, and I think Tim likes you but he hasn’t said- I’m sorry, this is going all wrong.” He looks down at the floor, clenching his jaw. “I understand if you say no.”

“I’m not saying no,” Martin’s voice is lower now and Jon feels a hope rise in his chest. He’s not? “So it’s, it’s like an open thing? You’re accepting applications?” Jon would laugh at the joke if he weren’t so paralyzed with fear.

“Not really? It’s, we aren’t dating around or anything, but I suppose it is open, in a way.” He pauses, takes a deep breath. “Open for you.”

Martin’s smiling like he can’t believe his luck, and it confuses Jon because who wouldn’t want him? Kind, handsome Martin who makes him tea and doesn’t laugh at his stupid jokes but rolls his eyes affectionately and tells his own in turn. Jon doesn’t think he’ll ever understand his humor but it makes him smile and that’s important. And now Martin’s taking his hand and he- oh fuck Martin’s taking his hand Martin’s got his hand and it’s warm, just like he knew it would be-

“I-I think I’d like that.” A squeeze. Jon dies but only a little. “Wow, this is sort of crazy for me, y’know? You’re all so, so intimidating and good-looking-”

“Yes, we are,” Jon agrees, squeezing his hand back. “But we’d like to buy you dinner, if you’re amenable.” Martin laughs and says yes, he’s very, very amenable. It feels right holding Martin’s hand. It feels right to see him with Tim and Sasha, smiling and joking. It feels right to lean into him at the end of the day, to nudge his side in the night and apologize in the morning.

Martin’s lease expires in seven months. They start looking for a new apartment after three.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29032062

#tma #the magnus archives #tma mspec week #jonmartimsasha #archive polycule before there's an archive #jonsasha #jontim #jonmartin #timsasha #jonathan sims #tim stoker #sasha james #martin blackwood #jon is pan #tim is bi #sasha is aro

[hepaidattention]

I just want to know how people think Lydia didn't have feelings for Stiles until s6

Like. How?

The thing is the creators didn't want their relationship to be this big, dramatic side story with Lydia pining over Stiles and Stiles pining over Lydia. They just wanted them to be friends, and that friendship turning into something so much more.

Once we hit s3 you can literally watch Stiles no longer crushing on her. Instead its a pure love for one another. They care for one another deeply, and it doesn't have to be romantic and that's good. It started out pure and platonic and yes Stiles always loved Lydia, but he never pushed it because he valued their friendship more.

One of the first ever Stydia scenes is when Stiles is standing there telling her they have an unspoken connection and Lydia ignores him. It was like the writers were telling us what was to come for the next 6 seasons.

They state that Lydia and Stiles have an unspoken connection numerous times. Stiles is clearly aware of it, and Lydia too, but they don't speak of it. They ignore it.

Deaton flat out says they have a connection. Scott (twice) and Malia straight out say they have a connection.

They imply they have a strong connection in scenes throughout the show. The most implied being the scenes in 3b when Stiles is going through hell and Lydia is too, emotionally and mentally. And in s6, when she can see and hear what Stiles hears and sees when he's missing.

They didn't just write that Stiles and Lydia had a connection all of the sudden in s6. It was there when Lydia screamed in her car because Stiles was struggling with the nogitsune, or when Lydia knew Stiles was in the basement of Eichen House literally because HE WAS DREAMING THAT and HE THOUGHT he was there. She wasn't connected to his physical location like most her banshee moments. She was connected to where he was mentally and emotionally.

In 3a we watch Lydia literally kiss Stiles because she was so freaked over his pain she didn't know what else to do. There's very little evidence that holding your breath would help someone with panic attack, and doing something even more surprising and making his heart rate spike probably wasn't the best method of helping. However, she wasn't thinking. She acted like she was because she's Lydia. But Lydia kissed him because it was instinct, because they have a connection, and when they pulled apart her face said so many things. All of which pointed to love, not indifference.

Lydia's love for Stiles was slow and gradual. That was the point. Their connection led to her love for him, and I think Stiles' love for her led to their connection.

Most importantly, after episodes upon episodes I could name of them worrying for each other, (for Lydia making it clear she doesn't want a serious relationship with anyone after Jackson, after clear flirting with Parrish because well Stiles had moved on in her eyes and also they could relate to each other on another level - plus he was hot I meaaaaan) after episodes of them holding hands, after episodes of them going to each other for comfort first, after episodes upon episodes of them looking at each other like they hung the moon and stars, and episodes upon episodes of a drift between them that was not just hard for us to watch, but clearly hard for the characters to endure, we finally get s5. How could anyone watch this season and say Lydia didn't have feelings for Stiles?

Before then I get it, it was all subtext. But s5 literally had Lydia and Parrish always flirting, but Lydia never taking any initiative. S5 has Stiles and Lydia teaming up again, and constant worrying for each other. S5 has Lydia being taken to Eichen House and Stiles rescuing her. (Notice how Stiles would do anything to save Lydia, a human, while Parrish, a cop and a hell hound, was iffy on trying to save her). S5 has Lydia in torture and still telling Stiles to go because he could get hurt. S5 has Lydia seeing Stiles come rescue her and her face not screaming thank God I'm saved, but how much she loves him. She looks at him like she had been dreaming of this rescue for weeks, and it felt like a dream. She looked at him like he was the stars and she was the scientist studying them. She looked at him with pure love and admiration. And she still told him it was too dangerous. She still wanted him to be safe before herself.

The rest of the episode is the same way. People act like Lydia realizes she loved Stiles out of nowhere, just all of the sudden in s6. Lydia loved Stiles for a while, stated in s6 that she started having feelings for him in 3a when she kissed him. You can see those feelings when she's jealous of Malia, or worried for Stiles. And you can see her realizing how much she loves him in s5, when he rescues her from Eichen.

The thing is Lydia's character was never the type to be outwardly emotional about that sort of thing. They made it clear the whole show she hated being vulnerable, and Stiles made her feel vulnerable, so she put up her guard when it came to her feelings for him. She also made it clear that Jackson broke her heart and love was hard for her now. He was literally abusive, she needed time. And Stiles knew that. She dated Aiden but it was hardly a relationship at times and she knew that. Yes she cared for him but it was never serious. Yeah she had a crush on Parrish but she never even acted on it because that kind of stuff wasn't her concern and honestly love had been hard for her. But those were crushes, attraction. Lydia could voice she was attracted to a guy. But voicing that she loved them? The last person she told she loved abused her emotionally and physically at times, and then moved off to London. Love wasn't an easy thing to confront.

After he saves her things change between them. Yes they're still friends but their relationship feels different now. More vulnerable. More open. More loving. Once we get to the premiere of s6 we literally find out that they spend most their nights together with Stiles dragging her out of bed for some "supernatural" thing that they both know isn't really anything to concern about. She knows they're not something real, and she goes along with it anyway because it's Stiles and they're both single. God I wish I could have seen that summer of them bickering and flirting all those nights.

They even spend walks outside together apparently, discussing supernatural things as they literally just walk outside during a night time stroll? Like they literally weren't going anywhere. They were just walking together. And their relationship had advanced so much at this point that Stiles had the guts to not only tell her he wanted to kiss her but actually kisses her on her cheek, considering she literally told him not to and he still had the guts to do it anyway. And Lydia's face when he does kiss her on the cheek? It's like a light bulb hits. It's like suddenly she realized she kinds wanted him to kiss her cheek again.

The thing is s6 was setting up for a season of Lydia realizing, fully, that she loved Stiles and that she wanted to be with him. I believe that if Stiles hadn't been taken, the season would have gone down more like a slow burn. Because yes Lydia loved Stiles, but it would take a lot for her to fully admit that. When he tells her he loves her she doesn't say it back, and part of that if because she doesn't have time but a huge part of that is because Lydia is a stubborn ass that had commitment problems and she had a hard time admitting they were true. That she loved Stiles Stilinski. Her best friend.

However, when memories of him are taken, the only thing that's holding onto him for her is their connection and their love for one another.

There's no more doubting-Lydia over Stiles because the only thing that she can remember is that she loves him. Something she always knew, but refused to admit. But now it was all that was left. How was she supposed to know she was supposed to pretend she didn't like him? She couldn't remember that. All she remembered was how he made her feel, and how she felt with him no longer here.

The story line of Lydia and Stiles is literally that Lydia was too stubborn to admit she had feelings for Stiles, feelings that we see glimpses of all the way back to s3, and the only thing that made her admit them was literally everything being stripped away but her feelings.

Lydia Martin was in love with Stiles Stilinski for much longer than just s6. She just needed a push to realize/admit it.

#stydia #Here's another one of my long rants about Stydia #I'm just very passionate about them #And I get mad when ppl act like Lydia's feelings came out of no where #They loved each other so friggin much #teen wolf #Just me and my rampant thoughts

[adventseven]

MORBIUS FILM REVIEW          

Today, I risk my reputation by writing a mildly positive review of a flawed but entertaining movie. Did I like it? Morbiyes I did.

          Morbius stars Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius, Matt Smith as Milo, Adria Arjona as Martine Bancroft, Jared Harris as Dr. Emil Nicholas, and Tyrese Gibson as Simon Stroud.

          Before I go into the pluses and minuses, what I enjoyed, and the misfires I noticed, I want to address the elephant in the room. The second end credits scene is as dumb and nonsensical as everyone says it is. It raises unneeded questions and is a complete character shift for Morbius. Even though the first one is silly, it at least kind of makes sense, and if that would've been the only end credits scene then I think there would be one less problem with Morbius.

          Morbius is nowhere close to the best comic book movie of all time. None of Sony's recent Marvel films have been. One thing Morbius isn't is an unwatchable shit show. Is the script imperfect? Yes. Is every performance great? No. Were the references to other Marvel characters a little corny? Absolutely. Did I enjoy watching the movie? Yes I did, quite a bit at times.

          The core performances of Morbius and Milo were the highlights of the film. Jared Leto's performance as Morbius was better than his performance as The Joker in Suicide Squad. It was still cool to see him do vampire stuff and learn how to hone his powers. The theme of all of Sony's Marvel films is that each hero has a dark side and Morbius fits that theme about as well as you'd want.

          Matt Smith stole just about every scene he was in. His character was basically Morbius if he turned off his morals and boosted his ego. The personal connection between Morbius and Milo did help with the story. Does it follow the trope of a hero's first villain basically being an evil version of himself to a T? Yeah, you bet, but it didn't detract from the film in my opinion.

          The secondary characters in this film, are relatively unremarkable but are not unimportant to the plot. Gibson's Simon Stroud and his partner Alberto Rodriguez, played by Al Madrigal (who is a really good stand up comedian–check him out sometime) are pretty one dimensional. They're your usual FBI guys trying to figure out what's going on with Morbius. They also know about what happened in the Venom movies, so I'll bet they'll be showing up in future Sony Marvel films like the next Venom movie and/or Kraven the Hunter. Dr. Nicholas exists to be the father figure who dies. Dr. Bancroft is the Betty Ross to Morbius's Incredible Hulk. These characters aren’t useless, but are about as interesting as a freshly sharpened pencil.

          It's films like Morbius that point out what I dislike about Rotten Tomatoes. Morbius is not a really bad movie like RT implies with its score. I'd say the C+ CinemaScore is a more apt rating than a 16% splat. To be even more defensive, I'd say that the effects are cool, only some of the performances are mechanical, and the plot is more by the books than nonsensical. Morbius happens in a just-fine way, and a film about a man cursed with vampirism should be a little dark and depressing. I might make some people mad by saying Morbius is of the same quality as 2008's The Incredible Hulk, which has a fresh Tomatometer score, but damn it, I'm gonna stand by what I think.

          To bounce off of that thought into the conclusion of this article, I'd give Morbius a 7/10. It's flawed but fine and definitely not unwatchable. I would rent this film from Amazon when it comes out and not feel bad about it. I still want to see where this franchise goes and what will become of Sony's Spiderman Universe. The only direction the Morbius series can go is up, and–thanks to his power set–he isn't vertically challenged. Just no more end credit scenes please, especially ones that are really stupid.

SCORE: 7/10

By Julian Hayden

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#morbius #spider-man #sony's spider-man universe #Marvel Studios #jared leto #venom let there be carnage #Amazing Spider-Man 2