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roxtron · 2 months

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Day 5: Rabbit, Reclaim

AGJGDFJF FINALLY IT'S DAY 5 SO I CAN POST THIS

For some reason everytime i draw him he looks so young because i'm accidentally overcorrecting since i'm used to drawing older characters. So unfortunately he looks way younger than i meant him to lol, whoops.

But wait there's more- AHAHAHA

While I did initially plan this for GGY week I eventually got the idea to use this as an excuse to draw other GGY designs, soo..

(Not sure why tumblr formatted it that way with 1 of them big but it doesn't matter lol)

I've been wanting to do this for a while, I put the tags of each person next to their design but ofc I'm still gonna tag them in the post itself so you can see their art for yourself if you haven't already. But I enjoyed each of these in their own ways so if you don't mind I think I'm gonna type a bit of text next to them..

@chipistrate This was one of the first I drew out of these, the design was pretty fun to draw but sorry if I messed up a few details, it was a bit difficult lol. The mask and goggles are really fun to draw and they make for a cool design, along with all the glowing blue. (and yes, I tried to subtly include the heelies lol)

@lunzi0 This was the first fursuit one I did lol. I adore the little stars in the design, they personalize it so well and make it really unique. I wanna try this design again since I feel like the other ones show my improvement a bit better, but I hope you can appreciate the effort I put in on my first attempt <3

@carouselrabbit This one was really fun to draw, I absolutely love the eye shape/lashes, it stands out and I always love drawing eyes with a bit of eyeliner lol, the daycare theme legwarmers is a cool nod to the balloon boy arcade machine being connected to them, and was just a fun addition in general lol, I like the style of legwarmers what can I say, fnaf changed my fashion sense a bit. also the subtle paraells to freddy's design is a nice way to connect a bit to gregory himself.

@puhpandas I can't remember if I talked about this design last time I drew it but, overall I'm really happy with how this came out, it's such an indicator of improvement since I started drawing this and I'm glad I was able to draw it better than last time lol. All the patchwork and similarities to Vanny's suit work really well, and the rabbit you chose to base it off of was a good fit, the colors make it a bit more difficult to shade for but i like detail lol, hope you like it too :)

@dykevanny I knew I wanted to do this since I started but I wasn't sure if I'd have time, and I'm glad I did! I hope you don't mind I combined aspects from the first design I saw and the second one you replied to my ask with, I liked the big purple sleeves lol. (I just realized after doing all the shading I forgot to include the oil splatter on his jacket, sorry!) It was definitely a bit difficult due to the head shape being so different but.. fluffy. i love drawing fluff. And the glowing swirl on the goggles, the shape of the ears, I love a lot about this design. :D

I have a hard time with writing compliments but I wanted to get some of those thoughts out, some of the things I like about these designs apply to multiple lol. I adore every one of these designs but I find it hard to put into words what I enjoy about them, hope the original creators are happy with these. <3

I also kept the ggys without as much lighting effects on a separate file, I felt like I should add them since they're a bit brighter lol, makes them look different.

Okay now that I've gotten all that- Sorry this post is so long! I didn't think it'd end up taking up so much space lol. Buut.. working on this drawing and thinking about it and potential context behind it gave me an au idea for it, but I'll put it under the cut since I understand most people probably won't care and just wanna see the drawings lol.

Idk if I'm confident enough to write for it but I'll give a bit of a summary.. I'll keep it under the cut for people who aren't interested and just wanna see the art though lol.

After the main events of SB and Ruin, now that the mimic's been set free, Cassie's taken control of by what's left of Vanny, using her as a new host. But with Cassie being the only human left alive down there, after being reawakened, Dr. Rabbit has nowhere left to go but back to his old host.

Vanessa, Freddy, and Gregory hadn't gone back to the Pizzaplex after ruin, but they were trying to figure out a plan to get Cassie back safely. One night after Freddy and Gregory disappear, Vanessa leaves to go find them. As dangerous as the pizzaplex is, it's her best guess for where they might've gone. She doesn't want to think about what could've happened to them, in denial for the worst case scenario. She tries to keep herself calm by telling herself they probably just left to go back for Cassie, maybe they didn't want her stopping them.. but deep down she knows it can't be that simple. She knows something's off, even if she's not ready to admit it.

When returning to the pizzaplex, she brought along her own V.A.N.N.I. mask, though unlike the one Cassie used, it was clear of the mimic's influence. After all, she was going to need some way to travel through potential blocked routes.

By the time she found Gregory, she'd still been wearing the mask, seeing him down the end of a dark hallway. He looked confused, afraid, his mind was a wreck of conflicting emotions. She started rushing towards him, happy to see him okay, until he finally spoke.

"You need to get out of here."

She stepped back, taking off the mask, only to be faced with the worst case scenario.

It was a wreck, covered in stains and tears, but it was still recognizable. He was wearing that old suit again.

As he waved, she could see Freddy's claws peeking out from the doorway, as the two stepped closer towards her.

So, she did what he told her to do, and started running. She could hear a faint voice coming from the mask, and put it back on before finding somewhere she could hide.

It was his voice again, telling her which way to go.

I guess that was the dramatic way to summarize the main idea behind it, lol. Basically Gregory and Dr. Rabbit work the way Sun and Moon work in Ruin, whichever one is in control in the real world, the other is left behind in the AR world. Or at least that's my interpretation of how they worked, considering Sun was always in mask-on scenes and moon was mask-off. I'm not too sure where the plot might go from there, and maybe I'll consider writing for it, I dunno. I've never wrote fanfic before because I get deadly afraid of writing them out of character lol, but maybe?? I have ideas for scenes and premise and stuff but I don't know if I have the confidence to write it.

But anyway! That was just more of a fun side-idea I came up with while working on this, if you read this far thanks, hope you enjoyed :)

here's some silly little lineless doodles as a reward for making it to the end hehe

now that's what I call an art dump

@ggyweek2024

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alister312 · 1 year

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If you have anything more to tell us about Selkie Christophe and Merman Gregory I’d love to hear, perhaps some headcanons of them!! I am obsessed with the idea of them atm, so tempting to draw… perhaps soon.. 😈

YES so aside from this whole post detailing the basic AU plot/set up, I do indeed have other headcanons and stuff

Gregory definitely has a beautiful singing voice. It suits him, it’s a fun merfolk trope, and also it just further drives that “very similar yet vastly different” dynamic that I love him and Christophe having (since Christophe is mute due to being separated from his coat his whole life).

Additionally, Gregory is very talkative. He has to be, but he and Christophe sort of figure out their own way to communicate. No one’s really made that effort before with Christophe so that’s sort of when he realizes he likes Gregory.

Since Gregory doesn’t really want any humans learning about him and other merfolk, he usually only meets Christophe when his boat is way out at sea. Sometimes at night though he comes a little closer to the shore and they hang out in the shallows near an alcove.

One of the main things they like doing is swapping information. Christophe loves hearing about what actually living in the sea is like and Gregory is happy to prattle on about it. Gregory also wants to learn more about humans but since he can’t interact with them, he always asks Christophe to get him books or items to teach him. Sometimes Christophe brings interesting items but usually he brings random stuff he found earlier that morning around his house. He gets a kick out of hyping up a mystery item and exciting Gregory only to produce his dish towel and Gregory’s like “Christophe this is the third time you’ve brought me a dirty towel there’s nothing more I can learn from it 😒”

I think Christophe doesn’t actually know how to swim very well. He can doggy paddle and tread water a bit, but his mom was very determined to cut him off from his selkie heritage so she never let him swim in the actual water. Gregory tries to teach him but merfolk swimming is very different from human swimming (and Christophe is unfortunately stuck in his human form). Since they’re probably definitely in this AU, either Kyle and/or Stan ends up teaching him.

Of course if/when Christophe is finally reunited with his coat and can transform into a seal, he’s an extremely good swimmer. Making up for lost time or something like that.

I don’t really have actual fish or seal species in mind for either Gregory or Christophe, but Christophe is probably an eared seal on the slightly larger side (maybe actually sea lion?) and Gregory’s fins are kind of flowy like a beta fish.

#IF YOU DO DO ANYTHING I WOULD LIKE TO SEE…. 👁👁#south park #gregstophe #should this au have a tag… is there enough of it to justify it…..#gregory of yardale #christophe delorne #gregstophe mer/selkie au

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randfnafideas · 1 year

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So idk if anyone who draws/writes fnaf fanfics will ever see this but I need this in my life somehow, anyways here’s my idea

Gregory shows back up at the repaired pizzaplex after being homeless for 2 weeks(or more) and is both malnourished and sleep deprived, Freddy freaks out and tries to take care of him himself while filling a father role for Gregory and hiding him from the others and succeeds for a week till Gregory suddenly gets very ill.

Now before saying anything else for that let’s get to the other animatronics they all have been repaired and have only fractured memories of the whole thing(for how they felt during the event would be described as completely aware but somehow compelled to do what they were doing with no feeling of it being unusual for them to think/act that way) they’ll all take it in slightly different ways

The daycare attendant(using that to refer to both sides) since they would only need their code repaired(maybe more depending on the ending they decide to go from) is partially wiped to get rid of the virus and since sun just needed a few adjustments they remember the whole thing leading to moon being internally scared every time he interacts with kids that he might hurt them like he almost did with Gregory, I see them as the first to become aware of Gregory being back due to Freddy having Gregory get in his chest cavity and rushing to them at night since they have more medical knowledge and experience with kids due to their role, they’d eventually become the crazy uncle with the other being the chill uncle

Chica will have most her memory’s intact due most of her head/body repairs being either separate modules from her essentials so just a full virus check was needed and a replacement jaw, shell and joints, onto her trauma from it: she doesn’t fully remember being crushed she does remember trying to talk and the inability to feel if her jaw was connected(I feel like while they probably can’t feel pain specifically, they probably have the ability to “feel” pressure to ensure they don’t hurt a kid while interacting with them) so she doesn’t talk as much, when she eventually learns of Gregory she’ll probably be that one aunt that’ll ensure that he gets some healthier food because we all know that till that happens he’ll probably been living off of left over pizza and she’d probably go off on Freddy for a bit about how he’s still growing and needs more nutrients

Roxanne wolf would probably have her self worth issues and such(this will come into the story in a sec) she probably has the least recovered memories from that time(I mean she was hit full force by a speeding cart) but she definitely remembers the blackness of being blind and while she doesn’t remember what happened specifically she probably remembers the “pain” of so many components being ripped/broken at once, I can’t think of what she’d contribute to the story but I do know how she could end up meeting Gregory: she might go to Freddy to try to talk to him about her problems(either remembering the incident and before or for her self worth issues) and ends up walking into Freddy and Gregory(and whoever else has met Gregory by then)

So what do ya think? (Also in case anyone sees this and also see this on a different account by the name Yukurie that is also my account I just wanted to make a new blog cause I think imma make more of these and have this be the one for that and have the other be a all rounder for reblogs)

#fnaf #security breach #security breach au #fanfiction #fnaf fanfic

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mythicaldemigoddess-of-deltarune · 2 years

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Crossover Friendship (With Twins Vanessa & Vanny)

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Credit for The Powerpuff Girls goes to Craig McCracken

Credit for Five Nights At Freddy’s goes to Scott Cawthon

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the only romantic ship (even if it is one-sided) is Gregory x Bubbles.

if Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup (who look like younger versions of their teenage fusion fall selves but in a more of a FNAF Security Breach style)

ended up in the Pizzaplex, Bubbles would end up becoming smitten with Gregory and call dibs on him being her boyfriend.

Princess and Blossom having a Best Friend Enemies aka Best Frenemies,

is just one of the ideas I liked in that reboot of the Powerpuff Girls,

though some ideas might of not been perfect, but it’s too bad they didn’t make anymore episodes.......even if there were some cringe, some episodes were still good in my option, though I still think Jared should stay in the friend zone,

and I can’t really see Princess being truly evil, in the original series she was a brat and the only reason she might of wanted to be a Powerpuff Girl in the first place, was because she admired and looked up to Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup.

even if Princess is a selfish and a brat, she didn’t become a villain on her own, she became that way because of Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup.

not everyone has to agree about my point of view, that I view Princess as more of a Tragic-Villain, who was a brat but that didn’t mean she was evil from the start, her dad just gave her everything and spoiled her, and she might have money and a mansion, but that will never fill the loneliness in her heart that she she might be suppressing.

how she treated Robin, and even tried to use her, showed she has no idea about friendship, but that doesn’t mean she can’t learn.

if there is a future reboot, maybe they can keep the idea of Princess and Blossom becoming best frenemies.

I know that not all villains are tragic villains, and there are some who are just too far gone to be redeemed.

anyway this drawing also has Vanessa and Vanny as Twin Sisters.

even if this would be Fanon Only, but I like the idea that Vanny’s

real name is Vivianna Y. (the “Y” part standing for her family name.)

we know that Vanessa’s original look was a little different, before it was changed a little bit.

Vanessa and Vanny being twins, could be interesting.

the only way to tell them apart would be to look closely at the eyes,

as well as look at the freckles on Vanessa’s face.

Vanessa’s eye color in this is Light-Green,

and Vivianna eye color is Lime-Green, but as “Vanny” they are Purple, but you can’t tell when she wears her rabbit mask.

Gregory being Vanessa’s Son & Vivianna’s Nephew, would just be fanon...

unless it turns out that Vanessa is Gregory’s Mom, and the reason why he didn’t trust her in the first part of the game, was because he knew something was wrong with her and she didn’t seem to remember that he was her son.

the “A” that could be the first letter of Vanessa’s Family name that she was either born into or the name she took when she got married,

possibly to Micheal Afton before he disappeared and leaving her all alone to raise Gregory on her own.

and if it turns out that somehow Glamrock-Freddy is technically a reincarnation of Michael Afton, like his Soul becoming fully part of the Glamrock Endoskeleton and ending up with amnesia of his past life as a human,

well I guess that could make some fans happy to know that theory is possibly correct.

if Monty, Roxy and Glamrock-Chica had Human-Souls in them that had fully reincarnated into them.

I think the Soul in Chica, would be named Claire,

the Soul in Roxy would be Rosie, and the Soul reborn in Monty,

would be Marvin or Reggie.

Glamrock-Bonnie would just have a A.I. Soul, at first....

but if the Vanessa in the game, was a evil twin of the original Vanessa...

then Vanny would have to get rid of her twin, to take her place, plus it could turn out that Vanessa made sure to keep her having a son named Gregory, a secret from her sister.

even if this would be more of a FNAF AU idea,

if Vivianna (as Vanny) killed Vanessa, and took her place and even pretended to be her....

the soul of the original Vanessa, would not just leave the Pizzaplex but would end up in the Glamrock-Bonnie, but the A.I. Soul of Bonnie would be more dominant and the two would of not fully merged like the other A.I. & Human-Souls.

if there were Human-Souls that ended up in Freddy, Chica, Roxy and Monty,

they would end up merging with the Glamrock-Animatronic’s A.I. Souls,

and having amnesia.

Bonnie would get memories of two people he doesn’t know,

like one of them being Vanessa and the other being Michael.

this idea would be Fanon only, but not everyone has to like the idea.

but I hope some like the idea about Vanny and Vanessa being twins,

pretty sure there was a theory about that, it be interesting in a plot twist

it turned out to be true.

#buttercup utonium #bubbles utonium #blossom utonium #princess morbucks #vanny fnaf #vanessa fnaf #bliss utonium #crossover fanart #sunny fnaf #moony fnaf #spoilers

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pastelwitchling · 3 years

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Cosmic 🌌 Happy Malex Remix Day! 🌌

My malex remix piece is a sequel to @captainsassmanes‘s super angsty, super heart-wrenching, super lovely fic; Gravity.

Alex decides he’s done with Roswell, but Michael doesn’t want him to go.

You can also read it on ao3, if you’d prefer! I’m so glad I joined the challenge this year, it was an interesting experience. If you enjoy reading, even a little bit, please comment and share/reblog, it always makes the world of a difference ❤

***

Alex opened his eyes to a still-dark sky outside his window. He reached for his phone on the nightstand, checking the time; 4:30 in the morning.

He rubbed his eyes and heaved a sigh into his palms. He wouldn’t be getting anymore sleep, he knew that much. He forced himself up, swung his leg over the edge of the bed, and reached for his crutches.

His morning went by like clockwork. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, did his morning stretches, tried to ignore the constant ache in his leg, and sat down on the little stool in his shower to clean himself off. By the time he was in his kitchen and the sun was starting to rise, not even the steaming cup of coffee in his hands made the realization that he’d been stuck in a loop ever since he’d come back to Roswell any better.

The silence of his living room was palpable, the faint snow falling outside and glittering in the morning light. Alex imagined the snow had reached a good three feet by now, and was glad for the excuse not to have to leave his house today.

Home, he reminded himself, though nothing about this place had felt like home in too long a time. He was so tired of looking around and feeling more and more distanced from everything – the chairs and couches to the trees and birds. None of it had any meaning, none of it gave him comfort. It was just stuff. He didn’t think that was how it was supposed to feel.

He thought of that conversation he’d had with Michael two weeks ago, felt like months ago now, when he’d followed him out of the bar. When he’d told him that Forrest was an idiot for breaking up with him. When Alex had confessed that he couldn’t trust his feelings, couldn’t trust that Michael chose him.

That was why everything but a single piece of furniture was covered in white sheets now. That was why he had a plane ticket to New York booked for tomorrow night. Forrest had ended things for good reason, but Alex wasn’t going to go running back to someone who didn’t want him. He would go somewhere else, start over. He’d been saying that it was time for years, but stayed back. Because Michael was here, and he wanted to be where Michael was. Even when he’d dated Maria, even when he’d made it clear that he didn’t want Alex near him. Even after everything, Alex stayed, because he’d hoped.

Then he’d found Forrest and learned what it meant to actually be loved, to be cared for. It made him realize just how hard he’d been trying to find love in everything Michael did and said to him, from even the cruelest words.

His phone buzzed with another text. Alex glanced just at the name before he sighed, and deleted it, not bothering to read what it said. He couldn’t remember Michael ever texting him this much before he and Forrest had broken up. Six months ago, his heart would’ve fluttered at the idea that Michael was trying so hard to be with him. But the more cynical part of him saw the attempts for what they were; guilt, and a desire not to be alone for the night.

No. Alex had had better, and he’d lost it. Forrest, he had decided, would be his last loss.

It wasn’t until a little after noon, when Alex had finished making lunch, that he realized just how little say he would actually have in that. He’d expected the calls and texts to his phone to stop in the morning, after he’d ignored enough of them, but as Alex fished one of the few bowls he hadn’t packed yet from the pantry, a knock came at the door.

His brows furrowed, and he checked his phone. Kyle and Gregory weren’t scheduled to come over until tomorrow, because of the snow, to help him pack the last of his things. No one had given him a heads-up that they’d be checking in on him.

When he opened the door and found Michael on the other side, his shoulders slumped.

“I need two minutes,” was his greeting. Alex looked over Michael’s shoulder to see the snow around his blue truck had moved aside for him, giving him room to drive.

Alex should’ve told him to leave, that he didn’t have the time, that they had nothing to talk about. But he just sighed and moved out of the way.

“You shouldn’t have used your powers,” he said as Michael took the chance and stepped inside past him. “Someone could’ve seen you.”

He closed the door and Michael shrugged. “You were ignoring me.”

“I wasn’t,” Alex lied, leading the way into the living room. “I’m just really busy, Guerin.” He stopped, and turned to face him with his arms crossed. “So whatever it is, make it quick.”

But Michael wasn’t looking at him anymore. Instead, he was taking in the packed, cardboard boxes, the furniture draped with sheets.

“You goin’ somewhere?”

“Yeah,” he cleared his throat. “New York.”

“For how long?”

He stuck his hands in his back pockets. “For good. Did you want something?”

Michael stared at Alex like he was waiting for him to laugh, to tell him he was joking, to say he was just doing some very intense spring cleaning in the middle of winter. When Alex didn’t, Michael scoffed, the hurt evident in his eyes.

“So that’s it, huh?” he said. “You’re just going to leave? Run away again?”

Alex clenched his jaw. “Did you want something, Guerin?” he said through grit teeth.

Michael seemed to realize what he’d said, and his face fell. “I – Alex, I didn’t mean that –”

“If you’re done, you can go.”

“No, wait, listen,” he said, grabbing Alex by the elbows as he turned away, keeping him close. “I didn’t mean that, Alex, I’m – I’m sorry.”

“Yeah,” Alex stepped out of Michael’s hold, hugging his arms to shield against him. “Seriously, why are you here?”

“You weren’t answering,” he said, still looking around at the boxes a little helplessly. “I just . . . I wanted to see you. Why are you leaving?”

“I need a change,” Alex said. “Roswell hasn’t felt like home in such a long time. I don’t have a reason anymore to stay.”

Michael swallowed. “Roswell was never your home.”

Alex stilled. Michael said it like it should’ve been obvious, like he had always been Alex’s home, Alex’s only safe place, like it was some unspoken truth. Alex thought that some truths should’ve been spoken a long time ago. They just felt like meaningless words now.

“Then I guess,” he said quietly, “I want a home that wants me back.”

“Alex –”

“Look,” he scratched under his eye, “I leave tomorrow. I have a lot of packing left –”

“Alex, please –”

“And I just don’t have the time to play this game.”

“I’m trying to tell you I love you!”

Silence. Alex couldn’t look away from Michael, his glistening eyes. But it was too late. No matter how badly his heart wanted to believe it, he had to keep reminding himself that Michael hadn’t felt this way a year ago. He hadn’t wanted Alex when Alex had begged for him. He’d made his choice, and even though Alex had chosen him time and time again, Michael couldn’t do the same. He was done.

He stepped closer to Michael, his hands clenched to fists. “And I don’t believe you.”

Michael wouldn’t look away, his jaw clenched so tightly that Alex worried, despite himself, that he would draw blood.

He didn’t say that. Instead, he said, “You need to leave.”

“No,” Michael said at once. “No, I don’t want to.”

Alex opened his mouth to argue, but the ground started to shake. Michael didn’t seem surprised.

“Stop it!” he demanded. Michael said nothing, and the ground shook more wildly. Furniture started to fall over, floorboards creaked. “Guerin, stop!”

“You’re not leaving me, Alex,” he growled. “Not again.”

“Guerin –”

A sound like a heavy blanket falling came from outside, and the windows turned dark. The house finally stopped shaking, and Alex looked around. Even Michael looked confused at what had happened.

Alex turned to a window and pulled back the curtain to reveal snow, covering most of the glass.

“No,” he breathed, and headed for the front door. “No, no, no.” He opened it to reveal a wall of snow. He checked the backdoor and found that sealed, too, as well as every single window.

Michael sniffed as he set his cowboy hat down on the couch. He didn’t seem as bothered by what he’d done as Alex thought he should’ve.

“Gear up, Private,” he smirked humorlessly. “Guess we’re stuck here.”

“No,” Alex demanded. “You used your powers to drop the snow on us, just – just use your powers to move it!”

He sat down, his arms stretched out on the back of the couch. “Can’t.”

Alex clenched his jaw. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Both.”

“Guerin –”

“I shook the house,” Michael said. “And I used the earth to move the snow back on my way here. So unless you want me to uproot every nail and window in this place, I’d get comfortable.”

“You won’t even try?”

“Nope.”

“You’re such a . . .” he pulled out his phone and looked for Kyle’s name. No signal. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Michael huffed, pushing back the white sheet that covered the couch, and gesturing at the empty space next to him. “C’mon, Private,” he said.

“I leave tomorrow, Guerin,” he argued.

Michael leaned forward, any amusement in his expression gone. “Then that gives me a day to change your mind. So stop fighting me on this, because I’m not letting you go again.”

Michael had to admit; locking both himself and Alex indoors had been a happy accident, but when he’d made it clear that he wasn’t letting Alex go until he absolutely had to for his flight (honestly, he was reconsidering that part of the deal, too), he’d expected the airman to secretly be pleased, to find any excuse to be near him, the whole oh-no-there’s-only-one-bed-and-we’ll-have-to-share kind of situation.

That was definitely not what ended up happening. Alex continued to pack what little he had left, pretending Michael didn’t exist as he walked in and out of the living room.

“You gonna look at me anytime soon?”

Alex said nothing, kneeling down in front of a cardboard box. Michael hated the sight of those damn things; blatant reminders that his Alex was leaving. For good.

Michael crouched down beside him, his arms folded on his knees. “At least talk to me, Private. What’s so great about New York anyway? Is it just to be as far away as possible from me?”

Alex’s shoulders slumped, exasperated. He didn’t have to answer, but Michael had always known that if he asked softly enough, Alex would tell him anything he wanted to know. Pride bloomed in his chest to know that only he had this power over Alex’s heart, only he could tug enough to get what he wanted from him. Alex would’ve been able to resist the world, but not Michael. And right now, Michael was desperate enough to take advantage of that.

“No,” Alex relented. “It’s not because of you.”

He smirked. “Got you to talk to me.” Alex glared, and his smirk widened. “Got you to look.”

Alex shut his eyes and turned away, and Michael couldn’t miss the blush on his cheeks. Alex’s hands were clenched to fists on his lap. Michael licked his lips and carefully reached out, tracing his finger along the back of his hand.

Alex flinched away from him the second they touched, and he stood. “It’ll get cold tonight,” he said. “I’ll go get you some blankets.”

Michael stood after him. “Alex –” but Alex had already disappeared into the hall.

That night, as he lay on the living room couch, Michael couldn’t help but stare down the dark passageway to where Alex was, sleeping soundly in bed. He imagined his soft hair splayed messily on the pillow, his body stretched out underneath the blanket, probably colder without Michael there to warm him.

The silence of the heavy snow should’ve been warning enough not to move off the couch, but Michael couldn’t help it. He pushed himself off and, as quietly as he could, made his way to the bedroom. He just wanted one look at Alex, to make sure he was resting, to know he was safe and asleep and finally at peace, but instead, he opened the door to find Alex sitting up in bed, a book in hand.

Alex raised a brow at him. “Everything okay?”

But Michael couldn’t hear him so much as stare. His hair was sticking up in perfect, messy strands. His cheeks were rosy, his lips red, his muscles evident under his short sleeves.

“Uh,” Michael started. “I – I was just . . . really cold.”

Alex began to get out of bed. “Oh, okay, I can get you another blanket.”

“Actually,” Michael said, already making his way to the bed. “I think I’ll just be warmer in here.”

“What – Guerin –”

But Michael was already sliding into bed and pressing the length of his body against Alex’s. He turned his face into Alex’s arm, inhaling his scent.

“G-Guerin –”

“Just for now,” Michael told him. “If you’re gonna leave me tomorrow, then I just want you now.”

He thought Alex would kick him out, snap at him to leave already, but he only sighed shakily in that way he did when he was preparing to do something that scared him, and set his book down on the nightstand.

Michael watched, his heart hammering in his chest as Alex slid down to lie beside him. He pulled the hem of Michael’s shirt up, and Michael let him take it off him. His eyes darkened and his mouth hung open as Alex leaned in close. He put his hands on Alex’s arms, feeling his muscles and wrapping one leg around Alex’s hip.

“I want you now, too,” Alex murmured before he let Michael pull him down on top of him and kiss him.

It all felt like something out of a dream, being allowed to touch Alex like this, to run his hands up his shirt and taste his nipples, his chest, his stomach, his cock. He couldn’t get enough. Every moan Alex made into his ear spurred him on, made his thrusts more erratic. Every plea made Michael groan, his body hotter, his length harder.

By morning, he was still feeling the electricity in his spine, the heat in his gut. He woke, already reaching for Alex, eager for more of him. When he felt the empty space beside him, he opened his eyes and sat up. Because of the snow, it was hard to tell exactly what time it was, but he guessed it was late morning.

“Alex?” he called, and heard shuffling inside.

He picked up a blanket, wrapping it around his shoulders to shield against the cold. He stepped into the living room to find Alex piling boxes into one corner. His heart fell into his stomach.

“What’re you doing?”

Alex didn’t seem surprised that Michael had woken up. He stood, hands on his hips. “Making it easier for Gregory and Kyle when they come over. They’re supposed to help me get the last of this packed. They’ll be able to tear the snow down, too.”

Michael swallowed the bile that was starting to rise up his throat. “Y-You’re still leaving?”

Alex finally turned to look at him, but said nothing.

“What about last night?”

His brows furrowed. “I thought we agreed that last night was a goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” he demanded. “No, Alex.” He shook his head, helpless. “When – when are you gonna stop punishing me for what I did?”

He frowned. “Guerin, I’m not punishing you. I just don’t trust you anymore.” Michael fell silent. “I did everything I could for you, and you chose someone else. You know I can’t eat or sleep or think because I can’t help but wonder whether or not you would even care that I was leaving if Maria hadn’t ended things? That’s the worst part of it all. She ended it. Not you, her.”

“Alex, that’s . . .” he shook his head. How could he have screwed up this badly? How could Alex – his Alex – have the tiniest doubt that he was everything to Michael? “Stay,” he demanded. “S-Stay for me.”

Alex looked pained. “That’s not going to work on me anymore, Guerin.”

Michael stepped forward as Alex turned away, taking him by the shoulders. “Look at me,” he said. “You know who I love.”

He sighed. “Guerin –”

“Let me try!” he pleaded. “We’ve been pushing each other away for over a decade, Alex. Let me just try to fix things. Give me one more chance, just one more!”

Alex bit his lower lip, and looked at the boxes like Michael had; like they were threatening to separate them forever.

He took Alex’s face in his hands. “Look at me,” he said. “I love you. I could give you a million reasons why I wanted to try with someone else, a million reasons I thought it would make me better for you, but . . . you do know me, Alex. Better than anyone. You know the real me, you know it’s you. It could only ever be you, and you know that, so please, stay.”

“I . . .”

Michael pressed their foreheads together. “We’re cosmic, baby. Remember? Stay with me, Alex. Stay with me.”

#alex manes #michael guerin #malex #malex remix #malex fic #malex fanfic #malex fanfiction #roswell new mexico #roswell nm #malex angst #malex fluff #tyler blackburn #michael vlamis

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cricketnationrise · 3 years

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quarantine reads part 4

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

76. The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan: book 3 of the brothers sinister romance series. you absolutely DO NOT need to read these in order. i certainly didn’t. also. its a romance novel. there is sex.

77. Joy: And 52 Other Very Short Stories by Erin McGraw: short story collection. some of these are less than a page long. ideal reading for only having like 5 mins.

78. One Good Earl Deserves a Lover by Sarah MacLean: did i get this from the library because of the title? yes. is it a fantastic story? also yes. book 2 in the rules of scoundrels series. romance novel. there is sex.

79. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman: magical library world at the heart of multiple universe has agents that retrieve unique works. featured universe is a sort of victorian england plus elves and werewolves and vampires and dragons and magic and this book is FANTASTIC. still need to get the others because IT IS A SERIES BUCKLE UP BUTTERCUP

80. The Rogue Pirate’s Bride by Shana Galen: book 3 of the sons of the revolution series. look i like romance novels. i especially like that you don’t have to read them in order. its a romance novel. there is sex. also PIRATES and the leads saving each other’s lives.

81. The Queens of Animation: The Untold Story of the Women Who Transformed the World of Disney and Made Cinematic History by Nathalia Holt: non-fiction look at the history of disney animation via the women who worked there. lots of details i didn’t know. chapters are movies rather than years.

82. The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett: bit of a misnomer since the guy is straight up stealing rare books with credit card fraud. he just thinks he’s being gentlemanly by amassing these books. it started off as a feature article and it shows.

83. We’re Here, We’re Here by KM Szpara: tor.com short story, 2 members of a boy band fall in love. management doesn’t like that so starts to control/manipulate the implants they put iN THEIR VOICE BOXES AHHH

84. The Night Soil Salvagers by Gregory Norman Bossert: tor.com short story, cool story telling form with in-world songs/poetry/recipes, very poetic writing

85. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt: two brothers are hitmen get hired for a job. one of the brothers is really excited, the other starts to contemplate a different life, gold rush era california/western USA, horses, violent, seriously at least one person is killed in every chapter. at one point they burn down a whole lodge. cw: harm to animals, murder, starvation

86. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin: classic piece of writing about the Black Male experience in the united states

87. The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick: lonely old man goes on scavenger hunt to find the meanings behind the charms on a bracelet he finds in his dead wife’s closet. travels all around UK and paris and makes friends near and far.

88. The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep by HG Parry: some people can read characters out of books. i repeat. CHARACTERS CAN COME OUT OF THEIR BOOKS. theres a whole diagonalley esq space that houses characters that can’t go back. chaos and danger ensue when uriah heep refuses to go back into his book. magic!

89. Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett: #11 in the discworld series, DEATH gets tired of doing all the things and decides to retire.

90. Death and What Comes Next by Terry Pratchett: discworld short story

91. Love and Other Foreign Words by Erin McCahan: girls life is about to change when her sister is proposed to, very gifted, coming of age, crush on her teacher, endgame is her/her best friend who is a guy and has clearly been pining THE WHOLE TIME

92. Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder: i love the little house books and this was the first non-fictionalized account of her life i’ve read. the introduction by the editor was especially cool/helpful to read, lots of photos and drawings

93. Exhalation by Ted Chiang: this might be my favorite book of all quarantine. and i read a lot of books. a collection of short stories that all fucked me up, but in a good way? title story contains the sentence, “It’s no coincidence that “aspiration” means both hope and the act of breathing.” which like, how dare you sir

94. Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell: book 2 in the simon snow series, which is a fantasy series created by rowell in her novel Fangirl. She then proceeded to write fanfic of this already fictional series. i’m in love with the meta. 3rd book out in 2021.

95. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward: set in mississippi before/during/after hurricane katrina hits, follows one family through the eyes of the daughter. tw: sexual assault, dog fighting, harm to dogs, death of dog

96. The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce: was still doing my Emelan reread. 4 protags reunite to help out Sandry as she goes to Namorn to deal with her estate and her cousin the empress. whether they will be allowed to leave is another story

97. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner: book 3 in the queen’s thief series, seriously, go back and read from the beginning. political machinations of the king from a (Mostly) outside POV. the gods are always closer than you think

98. The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson: a very Spanish vibe fantasy novel. book 1 in a series. chosen one trope. new queen stumbles into the resistance. magic!

99. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley: first book in a mystery series. a young teen girl is super into chemistry in 1950′s england countryside. someone is murdered in her garden. she tries to figure out what happened because her dad is still shell shocked. cw: kidnapping, harm to children

100. A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe by Alex White: first in the salvagers trilogy. motley crew turns into found family on a space ship. in this world almost everyone has magic. older female protagonist. queer representation out the wazoo, SPACE. boots just wants to brew her beer and be left alone.

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invisibleinorange · 3 years

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Chapters: 6/? Fandom: Bridgerton Rating: T Warnings: Presumed Character Death Relationships: Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington(besties), Bridgerton Family Dynamics, Simon Hastings/Daphne Bridgerton Characters: Colin Bridgerton, Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton, Anthony Featherington, Benedict Bridgerton, Portia Featherington Additional Tags: Bridgerton, Polin Summary: Unexpected bad news arrives for the Bridgerton Family (and friends) regarding Colin's travels. This will be a series that is set after "The Duke and I" or season one of the show. It is a companion piece to "Goodbyes". (#I’mHereToKillYouAllWithFeels)

Getting Eloise to leave her alone again had been quite the task, especially after she went catatonic upon being handed the letter. She’d had to promise that there would be no further rash actions.

Her brain simply ceased to function because Colin Bridgerton writing her any letter felt beyond the realm of possibility. She wasn’t the kind of girl that any guy wrote those kinds of things to much less someone as perfect as Colin.

That was precisely the way she thought of him. He had been so perfect.

She couldn’t recall the first moment he transitioned from Eloise’s brother to the object of her every waking desire but that was because she’d felt that was as long as she could remember.

Not once in all those years did she allow herself the indulgence of believing that he could ever feel the same. His cordiality was the most she thought to hope for.

The only place that more could existence was in her very vivid imagination.

It was disorienting to go from extreme sadness to near ecstasy and then back to sadness once the reality set back in. Had she had any inkling he was still alive, she would have run away from home and used her Whistledown earnings to find him.

It was those thoughts that comforted her once she was tucked in her bed and left to her own devices. It played out so easily imagining arriving in Greece, tracking him down at some beautiful seaside inn.

She could almost imagine him scandalously shirtless on some beach, body glistening with the water from the sea and his trousers damp from having just taking an unplanned swim. She could picture his handsome, charming smile and his eyes widening in surprise at the sight of her.

She would have started to run to him and finally said the words that she’d wanted to say before he left. The words that she knew now could have prevented his trip to begin with.

His response in her imagination was enough to leave her aching. She could almost feel the warmth of his hand pulling his closer, his mouth scandalously close to her own. She could hear the chuckle from his lips and some teasing remark.

Her imagination dared not let it go further though.

The dream was what made her turn in her sleep, cry when she woke up in the morning and the reality sunk back in. Whatever he felt for her, losing him had made her see the depth of her own feelings all the more. She truly had loved him.

“I promise I’ll give him up forever if you just let him come home,” she uttered to an invisible God, knowing as soon as it was from her lips that had it ever come to fruition, it would be beyond her abilities to do. She would never give him up, never stop loving him. She loved him so much that she’d sacrifice her own happiness a million times over just to know he was alive and well. “I promise I’ll do whatever you want. You can’t possibly be this cruel.”

After a particularly intense debate, it was Benedict who ended up winning the battle of who would be the one to sacrifice on behalf of the family this time. He and Anthony agreed that it was vital that they ensure that his brother’s last known wishes were addressed.

Gregory was far too young to be considered a vital prospect so it had been between the two of them. Anthony had to sacrifice enough for their family. As much as Benedict desired a different kind of life and he wasn’t quite certain marriage was a part of it. The only way to be assured that Penelope was cared for was for her to marry one of them.

He admittedly didn’t know the girl as well as some of his siblings. Eloise had always been his favorite though and as such, he knew that his sister wouldn’t have chosen an unworthy best friend. He also knew that Colin wouldn’t have been quite so worked up over a no one.

He’d shared a few dances with Penelope during the year mostly at his mother’s urging as a mercy. When he looked at her, he thought of her as the little girl she’d once been instead of the woman. There wasn’t attraction there but he found her congenial and kind.

While his parents had shared a great love story, his mother had never been shy to tell her children that not marriages were born of love. Sometimes, they were born of necessity. There was always room for companionship and friendship to grow into love.

He was uneasy about the whole ordeal but he was a man of his word. Once it was settled, it was simply a matter of approaching the discussion with Portia Featherington. If he were honest, such a conversation was far more frightening than the prospect of a marriage that wasn’t born of some unrelenting love.

He was almost grateful when Eloise brought news that she’d shared the letter because it had bought him more time. He had to let the dust settle before he could even think to approach such a thing. He nearly lost his nerve as he crossed the way to the Featheringtons and requested an audience with Lady Featherington.

It wasn’t the right season for callers, especially for her daughters. The assumption when the staff announced Benedict Bridgerton had come to speak with her was that this was a mourning visit. She couldn’t logically think of any other reason for such a visit.

She’d had her staff bring him to the drawing room, standing once she saw him in the doorway.

There was a quiet exchange of bows, her eyes appraising before gesturing where he might sit. He had flowers in hand.

“Can I offer you some tea, Mister Bridgerton?” she asked.

“It won’t be necessary.”

“Well then, I must admit I’m most curious for the reason for you visit,” she said, eyeing the flowers with curiosity. “As you know, the season has been over for some time now and our home is in mourning. As it yours from what I hear. We’ve all been so truly sorry to hear about Colin. It’s such a tragedy.”

Benedict wasn’t quite sure she was actually sorry about the loss of his brother. He remembered himself and presented the flowers though. The whole conversation so far reminded him why he tended to avoid any interaction with the women. He hoped Penelope wasn’t horribly attached to her mother because while he was perfectly fine accepting her as part of his life forever, he wasn’t quite willing to accept her mother.

“Well it’s quite indelicate but it is of the utmost importance that I seek your … permission,” he tried to explain, coughing into his hand to try and find words that felt unnatural. He’d always desired a different kind of life than this. “Both of our families have experienced loss lately and it is my … wish to ease some of the pain both our families are feeling. I would like to ask your daughter … Penelope to wed – clearly an extended engagement – respectful to our losses but a proposal none the less.”

If he could have grown a second head, Portia Featherington wouldn’t have looked at him any less bewildered and startled by this turn of events.

“It would be inappropriate to allow any wedding for the foreseeable future,” she started. She then began to try and manipulate the situation to better her situation. The money wasn’t there to pay for a dowry. She’d honestly not been prepared to have to pay a dowry for Penelope since she assumed she’d end up as a spinster. “I wouldn’t dream to deny you a dowry –“

“It won’t be necessary,” he said, trying to keep polite. The point was to assure Penelope got the happy ending Colin desired for her and frankly, he wasn’t sure someone else was going to come along and offer it. If that meant not receiving a dowry, so be it. “I really must have your blessing in the matter though.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have Prudence? – Or Felicity in a few years even?”

“No.”

“Well then,” she said with a hand gesture. “Help yourself to it then.”

The woman then proceeded to yell for her daughter so loud that it was any wonder that half the Ton didn’t hear her yelling.

Benedict hadn’t quite expected the whole thing to happen quite so… quickly. If he must do this, he’d hoped to at least given it a bit of finesse.

Penelope did enter the room as requested though.

The two exchanged looks.

Penelope looked particularly meek and perhaps a little sad from where he was sitting. He’d never quite spent more than a passing second looking at her. There was no time like the present to begin though. Penelope bowed slightly in greeting. Had it been outside the formality of her mother’s drawing room, she might have greeting him by name. Formality always seemed to slip away with Eloise’s siblings.

“Penelope, Mister Bridgerton and I just have the most peculiar conversation,” she said gesturing to the space next to herself so that her daughter would come sit down. The confusion on Penelope’s face became all the more clear.

“I wanted to seek your permission to court with the intention of marriage,” he said awkwardly. “I know that it’s off season and our families are in-”

Penelope was to her feet at once. Her face twisting in fury and confusion all at once.

“Are you drunk?” she couldn’t help but ask.

“Penelope?!” her mother bellowed, clearly not charmed by the outburst before she lowered her voice and murmured under grit teeth. “That is not way to talk to your only prospect of marriage.”

“It’s quite okay,” Benedict offered, excusing away the behavior. “I know that it’s sudden but I assure you that my proposal is sincere. It’ll be a strike upon my honor should you refuse.”

“I refuse,” she said sharply.

Benedict had never quite seen the normally meek girl quite so riled up. The red of her hair seemed to spread across her skin. He seemed to take that as a sign she was quite angry.

“I cannot accept that answer,” he told her, unsure whether to laugh or be afraid.

“And I cannot accept your proposal. If this is about your brother, he would think you an idiot.”

Portia Featherington looked unsure whether to tell her daughter to stop being insolent or enjoy the front row seat to the drama. While she preferred when the drama stayed away from her own family, she did very much love to see it. Clearly her daughter had forgotten the fact she was even there.

“My brother wanted you to be happy and cared for,” the Bridgerton countered. “I simply wish to ensure that happens.”

Portia let out a soft ‘oh’ as if it suddenly made sense why a perfectly decent eligible bachelor would choose Penelope over one of her better daughters. Though, she was also semi-impressed that Penelope had somehow convinced someone to look out for her.

“I can look after myself,” Penelope argued, rising to her feet. “I’ll never marry.”

Portia finally decided to interject. “Not on my watch,” she told her daughter. “You best accept this proposal or you’ll end up on the streets. I won’t have you rejecting a Bridgerton.”

“This isn’t for negotiation,” Penelope said looking murderous as she stormed her way out of the drawing room, slamming the door on her way out.

Benedict, despite being a bit shellshocked, could only laugh.

“Well, that went well.”

#⚜ writings — polin #bridgerton #penelope featherington #colin bridgerton

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alipeeps · 3 years

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New tag game: Post pictures of your first ever (fictional/celeb) crush to the latest one and tag five others to continue the game

Thanks to @minmoyu for tagging me and ooof, are you sure you’re ready for this?!! :D I have been around/in fandom for a loooooong time and at first I thought, okay, no way I can list all my crushes, there have been SO many and we’ll be here all day but then as I started compiling a list I found I was having fun reminiscing and decided, what the heck, yeah, let’s do em all... or at least all I can remember! :D

There have absolutely for sure been other more minor crushes and passing fancies along the way, but these are the big ones that I remember (and that, in more recent years, I can track by going through my posted fanfics on AO3 and even *shudder* FFNET and seeing which shows I was into enough to want to write fic about the characters).

[Quick note: with rare exceptions, for actors I am listing them by the character they played rather than just the actor. Whilst there are actors that I like in multiple roles (and conversely, characters who on paper I would normally be into but are played by actors who do nothing for me, and hence the character generally does nothing for me either), for the most part it is the character I really have the crush on.]

I’m going to put this under a readmore cos it has gotten ridiculously long:

So... without further ado:

1. MORTEN HARKET from a-ha - OKay so, dating myself badly here but... I had the *biggest* crush on Morten Harket when I was a teenager. Pretty much the entirety of my side of the bedroom I shared with my sister was covered in posters of a-ha, and Morten in particular. I even had a heart-shaped Morten Harket pillow! :D I loved a-ha’s music (still do!) and I wanted to go see them in concert when I was 14 but my parents wouldn’t let me (*sob*). I did finally get to see them in concert in the early 2000s and they were BRILLIANT live (and Morten was still very very pretty)!

2. RICHARD DEAN ANDERSON as MACGYVER - MacGyver is the first tv character I remember being really into and having a crush on, to the extent that I would record episodes of the show off the tv (onto VHS tape - yes, I am *that* old!) so that I could rewatch them (especially the ones where he got hurt - yeah, I was a whumper even then! :D)

3. KEIFER SUTHERLAND - One of my rare exceptions. I think I first saw him in Lost Boys (and loved him in that film) but it was his role as Doc Scurlock in Young Guns that really made me fall for both the character and him. I definitely remember seeking out any and all films he was in and buying any magazine he was interviewed in (and knowing far more facts about him than was probably healthy! :D) and even drawing a fanart portrait of him. :)

4. KYLE MACLACHLAN as SPECIAL AGENT DALE COOPER - I remember hearing about Twin Peaks before it started airing in the UK and it sounded so different and interesting... I watched it from the very first episode and very quickly developed a crush on Coop.

5. BRENT SPINER as DATA - I think ST: TNG had been airing for a while before I stumbled across it but I quickly became hooked and Data was my favourite character right from the start. I definitely remember at one point buying an (unofficial) episode guide book so that I could look up which episodes were good Data-focused ones (especially ones where he got hurt! :D) so I could go out and buy the videos that had those episodes on (at the time the show was available to buy on VHS-tape with 2 episodes on each tape).

6. DAVID DUCHOVNY as FOX MULDER - Another show that I heard the buzz about and started watching right from the start and, like so many others, I immediately developed a crush on the snarky, enigmatic, troubled FBI agent with the weird name. The X-Files was the first show I ever tried writing (one, never-finished) fanfic for.

7. PAUL GROSS as BENTON FRASER - Man, Due South was such a good show! It was so quirky and clever and funny and Benton Fraser, with his huge heart and his serious demeanour and his gorgeous blue eyes, was just so darn attractive! He also got whumped a fair bit too! :D Due South was also the show that introduced me to the music of Sarah McLachlan (I was enough of a fan that I bought the show soundtrack on CD).

8. HUGH LAURIE as DR GREGORY HOUSE - This was a bit of an odd one for me because I had grown up knowing Hugh Laurie solely as a comedian/comic actor, known mostly for playing buffoons and genial idiots. And suddenly here he was with stubble, an American accent, and a limp, and he was hawt AF! :D It caused quite the feedback loop in my brain for a while which pretty much went “Wow, House is hot.... but it’s Hugh Laurie... but he’s hot... but it’s HUGH LAURIE!!1!”

I *loved* House (the first few seasons, at least) and oof a character with persistent pain (and a self-destructive streak a mile wide!) was a whumper’s dream. House was the first show for which I wrote - and published online - completed fanfics.

8. JOE FLANIGAN as JOHN SHEPPARD - Stargate Atlantis was my first proper online fandom, the first show I prolifically and repeatedly wrote fanfic for, and the first time I ever met in person an actor I was a big fan of (and while the show was still airing, to boot!). It was also my first introduction to the online community of whumpers! A bunch of us from the Shep Whump thread on Gateworld heard that Joe was going to be at a convention in London and we decided to book hotel rooms and meet up and go to the convention together and it was AWESOME! I can still remember seeing Joe *in person* for the first time and just,,,, struggling to believe he was actually here, in person, in front of me! He was super super lovely and humble too and took time to chat to everyone at the signing table and I clearly remember my brain just pretty much fritzing out during the photo session and being intensely aware of the sensation of Joe’s hand on my shoulder....

It was also super lovely to meet fellow fans, and online friends, in person for the first time and we had so much fun, and it kickstarted me going to lots of other conventions, including specific Stargate/SGA ones where I got to know lots of other lovely fans and online friends. I’ve met Joe about 4 or 5 times in total now and he’s been lovely every time.

9. PAUL BLACKTHORNE as HARRY DRESDEN - Gosh I loved the shortlived tv adaptation of The Dresden Files. I loved the fantasy aspect, the stories, the humour, and I especially loved Harry Dresden and how often he got whumped! :D

10. DAVID TENNANT as THE 10TH DOCTOR - I had watched the Christopher Ecclestone revival of Doctor Who and enjoyed it well enough but I can clearly remember watching David Tennant’s first episode as The Doctor - on Christmas Day, at my brother-in-law’s house - and being aware, as I watched it that... ooookay, yes, I’m in trouble here... I like him... I like him a lot... :D I mean, I’m sure the fact that he got whumped so thoroughly in his very first episode had nothing to do with how quickly I fell for him... right? :)

11. ALEX O’LAUGHLIN as MICK ST JOHN - Another show that ended far too soon and just as it was getting *seriously* good. But also a prime example of my point about having a crush on the character not the actor. I looooooved Alex as Mick St John... and yet in Hawaii 5.0 he pretty much does nothing for me (the character is too stoic and the whump often too unrealistically glossed over). Anyway, in Moonlight he was my favourite kind of character - angsty, brooding, dangerous AF when he needed to be... and essentially immortal so you could whump the heck out of him and he’d recover so you could whump him again! :D

12. SIMON BAKER as PATRICK JANE - There is so much to love about Patrick Jane... his smarts, his sass, his angst... and Simon is a rare “against type” blonde crush for me (you may have noticed by now that most of my crushes follow a similar physical aesthetic - tall, slim/wiry, and dark-haired) and again here I think my crush is almost all to do with the character rather than the actor.

12. BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH as SHERLOCK HOLMES - I’m almost ashamed to admit it, given the clusterfuck that both the show and its fandom became, but in the earlier seasons I had quite the crush on Benedict’s Sherlock (and okay, a little bit on Benedict himself - I did definitely enjoy some of his other roles too). It helps that I was already a huge fan of the Sherlock Holmes character (I’ve read all the stories and novels multiple times and was a big fan of the Granada adaptation starring Jeremy Brett - whose Holmes would definitely count as one of my more minor/passing crushes) already. Benedict is another crush that I have met in person, at a (actually, the first!) Sherlock convention and he was lovely in person - very genuine, very articulate and thoughtful.

13. TOM MISON as ICHABOD CRANE - I was excited for Sleepy Hollow as soon as I heard about it and I was SUCH a fan for the first couple of seasons (before TPTB completely destroyed it and it inevitably got cancelled (I didn’t even watch the last season and a half)) and Tom’s Ichabod (and his amazing chemistry with Nicole’s Abbie) was a large part of why. I also quickly became a big fan of Tom himself as he came across as so witty and self-deprecating and *fun* in all the behind the scenes/convention clips etc. I was lucky enough to also meet Tom at a convention and he genuinely is that witty and charming and lovely.

14. TOM WISDOM as ARCHANGEL MICHAEL - I think Dominion was possibly the first show that I got sucked into by seeing whumpy gifsets on tumblr! :D It was such a great show and also to date the most immersive, welcoming, cast-and-crew-interactive fandom I have ever been in. The cast and crew regularly live-tweeted the episodes, and interacted with fans on Twitter, and it was SO much fun. And Tom’s Michael was my favourite character right from the start - seemingly aloof but so much going on under the surface... and some really nice whump, especially in season 2! I was heartbroken when it was cancelled after only 2 seasons (and just as the plot was getting *really* interesting).

15. OLIVER JACKSON-COHEN as LUCAS - I was hooked on Emerald City right from the first episode. It was visually stunning, so atmospheric, and really intruiging. I love love loved Adria Arjona’s Dorothy (ngl, I had a bit of a crush on her too) and she and Lucas together were just... *chef’s kiss*. I mean... what an introduction to a character... she finds him crucified, bleeding, his wrists tied with barbed wire, and amnesiac.... and the whump only gets better and better from there on in! Like the entire first two episodes are just... Lucas whump! :D And his devotion to her... Emerald City was honestly the first show where I really got into a ship. I was *invested* in Dorcas, dammit! Aaaand sadly another excellent show that never made it past its first season.

16. JASON RALPH as QUENTIN COLDWATER - Another show that I watched right from the start, was heavily invested in.... and that the writers absolutely tanked and destroyed in later seasons. *cries* Quentin was such a brilliant viewpoint character for the show and I loved his awkwardness, and his angst, and his enthusiasm, and his adorable floppy hair... and how often he got whumped!

17. COLIN MORGAN - I fell for Colin in Merlin (which I stumbled upon late, long after it had finished airing, and hence was able to binge-watch the entire 5 seasons!) and liked him enough to seek out his other works, such as The Fall, and Humans, and The Living and the Dead, and he was brilliant (and very pretty) in all of them... and his characters also seem to get whumped quite a lot! :D

18. MATT LANTER as WYATT LOGAN - Wyatt was another of my favourite archetypes... absolutely badass and competent... but also tortured and angsty and capable of intense devotion. Another show that I watched because of whumpy gifs on tumblr and the second ever show where I actually got invested in a ship - Lyatt all the way, baby!! :D - aaaaaand yet another show cancelled before its time.

19. NOCTIS LUCIS CAELUM from FINAL FANTASY XV - my very first video game crush! I was recommended to play FFXV by fellow whumpers on the whumpshire discord because it was whumpy... and they were not wrong and I loved the game and I absolutely adored Noctis. FFXV is one of very very VERY few video games that I have actually played right through to the end. And possibly the only video game that has ever affected me to such an extent... I became so invested in the characters and their world and I actually found the last couple of chapters really hard to play because it was actually upsetting me emotionally. I had to take a break for a couple of weeks before I could go back and finish it!

20. CONNOR from DETROIT BECOME HUMAN - and from there I jumped straight into another video game crush! DBH was another game recommended to me for its whump potential and I, and many others, immediately fell in love with the quirky, sassy, self-sacrificing (if you play the game right!) “android sent by Cyberlife”. The game itself is really good too... although, I have tried to play through all the different endings to the story but have never yet managed to make myself play the machine Connor storyline.... I want to complete all the story branches... but I also just want Hank and Connor to be friends and to be happy! :D

21. ZHU YILONG - Ahhh... the beginning of the asian drama arc of my fandom life! I first came across Zhu Yilong after getting sucked into watching Guardian because of pretty (and whumpy) gifs on tumblr... and I’ve never looked back. He is one of the rare entries where I am pretty much guaranteed to like him in pretty much anything he does and my crush extends beyond Shen Wei, or his other characters, and into reblogging his fashion shoot photos, and keeping up with news of his work in general. He’s just... so darn pretty! And also so... blur! :D And the behind the scenes stuff and interviews of him with Bai Yu, during the Guardian era, just made me fall for him all the more. He’s also ridiculously talented - not only a fantastic actor, but a really good singer (I love his singing voice), he plays guitar and piano, and he can paint too!!

He’s also pretty much what made me start learning Chinese... because after Guardian I went seeking his other dramas to watch... only to find that many of them are only partially, or not at all, subbed. So I thought... why not try learning Chinese and then I’ll be able to watch his other shows? :D

21. JI CHANG WOOK - My first kdrama crush, and what a good one to start with! Healer was the first drama I ever watched and can you blame me for falling for JCW... especially when I followed up Healer with The K2?! I’ve liked him in pretty much everything I’ve watched him in. Although I do wish he would go back to doing more action-based shows as he is sooo good at them... but he seems to prefer the romcom genre these days, which is something I am nottt always a fan of tbh.

22. JAKE HSU as MENG SHAO FEI - Yet another show that I got sucked into by tumblr - and also one with a great, fun fandom through which I met lots of lovely people who I still follow/am mutuals with to this day. I just *adored* Jake’s character in History and I also loved the ship - Tang Fan and Meng Shaofei were awesome and adorable together and I was totally invested in both the ship and the gangster/cop/what happened years ago story happening alongside the ship. And Jake is just all kinds of cute.

23. XIAO ZHAN - Aaaand we are pretty much up to current day now... where The Untamed took over my life in the summer of 2019 and has yet to let me go. Xiao Zhan is another disgustingly talented human being - a fantastic singer and a really good actor, and also an artist - and he also just comes across as a genuinely sweet and charming person, and a very thoughful and earnest one too. And lbr he is ridiculously pretty, and his smile is just pure sunshine.

24. LEE DONG WOOK as LEE YEON - The most recent entry to the charts.... a Korean actor I was aware of but whose work I hadn’t watched and whose looks didn’t particularly seem to grab me... until I watched Tale of the Nine Tailed and fell head over heels for Lee Yeon (and daaayum does red hair suit LDW!!) and very quickly began to find LDW’s looks very appealing (and oh my, does Lee Yeon whump well!!). And yes, I have now started watching Goblin. :D

Phew! Aaaand we are done! I’ll admit, I did think of a few more as I was compiling this list but I decided to categorise them as more “minor” crushes and not include them... otherwise we really could be here all day!!

I’m going to tag: @sarah-yyy, @arlothia, @howdydowdy, @thepromiseweheldforlife and @the-wandering-whumper!

#meme #fandom #crushes

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harryissuchalittleshit · 3 years

Note

Reflections sounds great. I hope you do figure out how to edit it because I’d love to read it. Why does Padma leave Theo? Also, I’d lii ok ve some headcanons on the kids.

I might look into it this week and just post the whole thing on Ao3, we’ll see.

Also I have to keep some thing secret, it just makes the stories more fun!

Devansh “Devon” Theodore:

Born August 30, 2000

He pushes Padma and Theodore together

Padma moved in with Theodore when she was about halfway through her pregnancy

Devansh is a really clingy baby and Padma adores him, he is a complete Amma’s boy

Dean and Parvati are his godparents

He’s really upset when Padma and Theodore break up, he doesn’t like his parents fighting

When they get back together and he finds out about Anamika, he is so excited

He didn’t think he would get anymore younger siblings and he loves being an older brother

He’s really close to Hajari and also Anamika and Minali

They were all born before he went to Hogwarts

He’s sorted into Ravenclaw at Hogwarts and Padma is so proud

He feels a bit disjointed from his three younger siblings because he was at school when they were born, also because he’s so much older than them

He has a great relationship with his older cousin Naveen and his too younger cousins Sasha (same age as Hajari) and Anika (three years younger than Hajari)

The five of them get along really well and make time to hang out while at Hogwarts

Devansh is really worried when Anamika starts at Hogwarts, but he keeps an eye on her as Head Boy

He decided when he was fourteen that he wanted to be an Auror after Harry and Ron came to speak in his DADA class that year

Hajari “Jared” Raavi:

Born January 19, 2002

Padma and Theodore were barely talking when he was born, but it changed how the co-parented Devansh

He’s their troublemaker

Pansy and Gregory are his godparents and it honestly adds into his chaotic nature

They all kind of expected Sam and Hajari to get together, so it was a bit of a shock when it was Devansh and Sam

He is very easy going and part of that is growing up between homes for his first five years or so of life

His best friends are Sam and Sasha, they keep him from causing too much trouble

He loves being an older brother, especially to his baby sisters, he loves them soooo much

He’s sorted into Gryffindor and it’s a bit conflicting to Theodore, but he knows that Hajari will do well there

He starts up a rivalry between himself and Veronica Finnigan, though it’s sort of half rivalry/half friendship depending on how much they annoy each other

Seventh year they’re made Head Boy and Girl and they hook up quite a bit

Mutual attraction, stress of being heads and leaving that year, and the added family pressure

Hajari has always loved visiting St. Mungo’s, and having so many younger siblings becomes very familiar with the maternity ward

He becomes an OBGYN/Pediatrician Healer after graduating

He helps deliver Ernika!! His goddaughter!!

After a few years he sees Veronica in a pub and they drink and have some fun and hook up again

Veronica gets pregnant

With triplets

TRIPLETS!!!!

Hajari doesn’t even know what to do or say, and he just shuts down

Luckily he can’t be her Healer

He’s always known that he loved Veronica, but more in a friendship way, not in a really romantic way (denial at its finest)

They both mature though and Hajari realizes that she is what he wants in life

They get married when the triplets are four and their next daughter is two

They have one more baby, a little boy when the triplets are eleven and their daughter is nine (they are not happy about it, but grow to love him)

Anamika “Mia” Parvati:

Born July 29, 2007

The first Nott daughter to be born (and survive) in seven(?) generations

Theodore cries so much when he holds her for the first time, he never imagined that he would get to have a daughter

She looks just like Padma and Parvati when she’s older, she could pass off as their triplet if they were the same age, but she has Theodore’s green eyes

She’s exactly 22 days older than her best friend (and godsister) Lyla Zabini

Their godparents are Draco and Astoria

Because Anamika and Lyla are so close, they count Lyla as their second daughter and she is the first honorary Nott child

She is the oldest of the younger five and the one who always bridges the gap between the older brothers and the younger siblings

She and Lyla are sorted into Slytherin and share a dormitory room together

She’s very shy around new people and it makes most think that she’s standoffish or judge mental, but she’s really not

She starts writing for the health and beauty section of the the school paper her first year and is welcomed back the next year

Her seventh year, she and Louis Weasley are asked to be co-head Editors and it’s not what either wants, but they are a great team

They both have strengths the other doesn’t have

Anamika kisses him one night while their working and Louis is just shocked that she felt the same way he did

They get very close after that (they have “relations” on the Editor’s desk)

When they graduate, they move into a little cottage in the middle of nowhere by the water

Louis stays home and works on his art while Anamika works at the Prophet as an editor on the health and beauty section

They elope when their nineteen and have their first baby about a year later

They have three kids and then twins nine years after their youngest

Louis actually becomes quite successful after doing a few portraits of different Ministry officials, but landscapes are his real speciality

Anamika though, is always his favorite subject and he never tires of drawing or painting her

Minali “Ali” Theresa:

Born February 3, 2011

She is born nine months after Padma and Theodore get married

Millie is her godmother and she makes sure this kid is independent

All three of her older siblings couldn’t wait for her to be born!!

Devansh cried when he left for Hogwarts because he knew he would miss so many of her firsts

But Padma and Theodore take so many photos to send to him (and you know, to keep for themselves)

She an Appa’s girl, she loves Theodore and follows after him everywhere (and he loves it)

She is his first child to actually look like him (like it’s eerily similar, more than either of the boys) and he loves seeing himself reflected in someone

She grows up very independent, but she also loves and adores her family and falls on them when she needs too

She’s sorted into Slytherin and doesn’t take shit from anyone

When Anamika graduates and moves out, Minali takes Vee under her wing as Anamika did for her at school

She is Navya (Anamika and Louis’ first daughter) godmother

When she graduates, she goes to the Ministry and floats from department to department

She meets a man named Adrian Pucey at the Christmas Eve party and gets knocked up by him

He’s eleven years older than her, married, and wants her baby

She’s hounded by a lot of powerful men who tried to get her to give up her baby and Adrain decides to propose to her to get her under his control and Minali says no

She doesn’t want a life like that

She has her daughter in secret and moves to a cottage on the Nott family manor property

(They don’t live in the manor, in fact it’s rented out to visitors for weddings)

Minali takes over managing the property while raising her daughter and helping with the Society

It’s simple, but she feels like she has a purpose and Adrian can’t find her there

Vinanti “Vee” Padma:

Born May 1, 2013

The day after she’s born is the first time that Theodore goes back to Hogwarts after the war

He just wants to tell his sons about their new baby sister

It causes a lot of stress and anxiety for him, so he brings along Anamika and he feels a little better

Seeing his sons thrive does also

Daphne and Blaise are her godparents, and they’re very hands off with their own daughter so it’s the same with Vee

They show their love in weird ways and with over the top gifts

She’s very shy and loves the protection of her older siblings, especially Hajari and Anamika

Anamika is in her seventh year when Vee starts school and it reminds Anamika of when she was eleven and Devansh was seventeen

She’s sorted into Ravenclaw!

Her best friend going into school is Ellie Davies, Cho Chang and Rodger Davies only daughter

Vee can’t imagine havin her parents be her teachers (Cho teaches Charms and Rodger is the flying instructor) or her parents divorced

But she is there for Ellie through everything

The summer between her sixth and seventh year is very complicated, mostly as she realizes she might be gay (she is)

She has a long talk with her cousin Sasha (who is out) and comes to realize that she’s very attracted to girls, more than she could pretend to be to boys

She comes out to her family in stages, first to Minali who she’s closest too, then her younger siblings, then all of her three oldest siblings (she had been most scared of what Devansh and Anamika would think of her, not so much Hajari) and finally her parents (they knew)

It’s such a relief to finally admit this to herself

You know who has known that they were gay since they were thirteen and was in love with Vee?? Ellie Davies!

She’s not out to her parents, but Cho catches them snogging in a broom cupboard and Ellie cries while Vee comforts her

Cho makes sure that her daughter knows that she loves her, Rodger kicks her out of his life, so does her oldest brother Conrad, her other brother Mason showers her in love

Ellie gets signed on to play for the Tornadoes!! Her favorite team!! And Vee becomes a writer for Quidditch Weekly and follows the Tornadoes everywhere

Vee has both of their daughters (thanks to Mason) and they just live a happy little life

Tarika “Taylor” Millicent:

Born February 9, 2016

She is the older twin!!

Padma and Theodore were not prepared to have another baby let alone TWO

Her godfather is Marcus Flint and he teaches her how to lie and she runs after it

She is very close to her twin brother, even if she teases him all the time

She loves her older sisters and thinks they are all so glamorous and cool

She is really close to Hajari though, especially when he has the triplets, even if she’s at school for the first few months of their life

She’s sorted into Gryffindor just like Hajari and writes to him often about it

When she graduates, she gets a job writing about new/up and coming Quidditch players

It’s how she meets Ollie Jay

He’s the new Keeper for the Magpies and the attraction is instant

About five months into the relationship, Tarika decides that she wants a baby, and Ollie Jay is so for it

Exactly a year after they meet, they get married while Tarika is six months pregnant

They’re really happy together, despite both of their families concerns

And the bridge the Nott and Wood families, which means that their kids have soooo many cousins

Rishi “Ray” Terrance:

The younger twin!!

He is the absolute baby of the family and hates it!

Padma gets postpartum depression after having the twins and it takes a few months (and some therapy) to break out of it

She had been so happy to have them, but knowing that they were her last babies (after accepting that Vee would be her last baby) was really difficult for her to accept

Theodore is really supportive, but it’s not easy to care for the four youngest kids by himself

Rishi’s godfather is Cassius Warrington and he is so happy to even be considered let alone actually a godfather

Rishi struggles a little being the youngest and with such a big age difference between him and his brothers

Theodore sees this and they often go out just the pair of them, and it’s really good for both of them to not only get time together but also away from all the girls

He is so happy when Ernika is born because he thinks that makes him not the baby of the family, but it’s not how that works

He’s sorted into Hufflepuff at Hogwarts and he likes that he’s completely by himself and none of his siblings

When he’s fourteen, a new family moves into their building, and Rishi meets Eliza Russ

She’s a year younger than him and they start as friends, but they are so in love within hours of meeting each other

Padma and Theodore know that something is up within two days and they’re happy to meet Eliza

(It was not complaining when Tarika teased him about being the baby, the usual bait)

When he graduates, he starts his training at St. Mungo’s and it’s interesting working with his Appa and brother (at least in the same building)

He goes into Oncology (cancer treatment)

When Eliza graduates he proposes and they move in together

They get pregnant within a year with triplets

Eliza wasn’t very happy at her job at the Ministry and is just happy to be home with their kids

They adopt a little girl after struggling to get pregnant again, and a month later Eliza finds out she’s pregnant

They have three more kids

I just love Padma and Theodore and their big happy family!!

#head canons #harry potter #family #theodore nott #padma patil #Nott children #ask game

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swanqueeneverafter · 4 years

Text

Sins of the Past Pt.13

Wonderland. Whispering Woods. (Ella and Will walk through the woods.) Ella: “What do you know about the Grendel?” Will: “Nothing pleasant. Only a few people have seen him and lived to tell about it, and what they tell is nasty.” Ella: “What would a creature like that want with the Forget-Me-Knot?” Will: “I suppose he wants it for the same reason the Caterpillar does, Ella. There's power in knowing things other people don't. Knowing their secrets, things they've tried to hide, mistakes they've made.” Ella: “So we're going to make the most cruel and powerful insect in Wonderland even more powerful and therefore even more cruel?” Will: “That looks to be the size of it.” Ella: “There must be a way to get what we want without just putting our troubles onto others.” Will: “Well, what if I was to tell you you could be with your mother and be happy forever, but somebody else had to suffer because of it? Would you do it?” Ella: (Hesitates:) “Well, that's not an option-” Will: “Maybe it's not an option today, but it could be tomorrow. How much is she worth to you, Ella? Don't forget what we're doing here. It's thieving.” Ella: “Yes, I'm getting that.” Will: “Yeah. You wanted a thief well, you got one.” (Through a break in the trees, they arrive at the Grendel’s house.) Ella: “Do you think the Grendel's in there?” Will: “Doesn't matter. We don't have a choice. We're going in there either way. (Ella draws her sword and walks towards the house:) You gonna challenge him to a duel?” Ella: (Stops, turns to him:) “I've fought monsters before. Have you?” Will: “I've stolen from them. And what my experience has taught me is, the only thing better than defeating a monster is never having to fight one in the first place.” Ella: “Well, how do you propose we get the knot from him then?” Will: “Simple. I'll create a diversion. Once I've drawn the Grendel out, you go inside, grab the knot, and run. If we lose each other, meet at Greener Pastures.” Ella: (Impressed:) “That plan is actually quite sound. You really are a thief.” Will: “Aye. Follow me. (They continue walking to the house:) The trick is poise. Keep your cool and always stay one step ahead of your mark.” (At that very moment, Will and Ella literally fall into a trap. Landing hard at the bottom of a pit, they are both knocked unconscious. Looking down on them from above, the Grendel surveys his captives.)

Outskirts of Valencia. (Having bumped into Richard and Roberta, Henry relays his plans of joining Ella's quest in Wonderland.) Richard: "Well, obviously I'm in!" Henry: "Really? That... that would be-" Richard: "Just like old times!" (Happily, Richard grabs Henry and pulls him in for a hug.) Roberta: "I'm sorry to break this up, but Richard, we already have a quest remember? We have to save our Kingdom from being stolen out from us by that odd Catrina woman." Richard: "Oh come now, surely we can do both! I mean how often does an opportunity like this come along?" Henry: "Actually... I wouldn't mind the company." Richard: "There now, you see? How could we leave Henry in his hour of need?" Roberta: "Oh I don’t know, Henry didn't seem to have a problem leaving Ella to get on with things. (Turns to Henry, with a false smile:) Did you, Henry?" Henry: "Er... Hey! There's Jasmine arriving on a flying carpet!" (Although normally this would be seen as a pretty feeble way of avoiding Roberta's question, Queen Jasmine does in fact arrive, floating down to them from atop her magic carpet.) Jasmine: "I got your message and came as soon as I could. (Senses the tension in the air:) What's going on?" Henry: (Innocently:) “Nothing.” Roberta: "Henry was just going to explain why he abandoned Ella and now wants us to help him find her again." Richard: "Well that's a bit harsh-" Roberta: "No, no. I think we'd all like to hear his explanation." Jasmine: (Her arms now folded:) "I'm quite curious, actually." Henry: (Sighs:) "Look I know I messed up and I'm trying to make things right. If you don't want to help me, I completely understand." (Richard pouts at Roberta, who finally relents.) Roberta: "All right, fine. You can go with Henry." Richard: "Excellent!" Roberta: "I'm flying to Agrabah with Jasmine to come up with a plan to save our Kingdom. When we've thought of one, I'll come and find you." Richard: (Kisses her:) "Thanks, baby, you're the best." Roberta: "Mm alright but remember that Catrina has sent men out looking for us. Promise me you'll stay out of trouble." Richard: "I promise. (Giving Henry one last dirty look, Roberta climbs aboard the magic carpet beside Jasmine and flies away:) This is going to be so much fun!" (Hoping that he doesn't regret his decision, Henry smiles and together they set off on their journey.)

Camelot. Council Chamber. Night. (Guinevere shakes her head while watching from the window as a vast army gathers outside the city walls.) Guinevere: (To Soldier:) “Those are Bayard’s colours, aren’t they?” Soldier: “Yes, Your Majesty. They intend to attack at first light.” (The soldier leaves as Morgana enters.) Morgana: “Guin?” Guinevere: “All is lost. We’ll be massacred, every last one of us.” Morgana: “No one has to die.” Guinevere: “What do you mean?” Morgana: “Those that defy them, those that choose to fight, they will surely die. But those who do not resist, those that choose to welcome change, they will have a future here. Everyone has a choice, Guin.” (Realising that she’s been duped, Guinevere bows her head for a moment then gives Morgana a forced smile.) Guinevere: “What choice would you have me make?” Morgana: “Boyard is sympathetic to our cause. He signed a treaty with Uther and would see his rightful heir on the throne. If you were to step aside, quietly, then there needn’t be any bloodshed.” Guinevere: (Hesitates, then smiles:) “You know I have always been loyal to you, Morgana. And I always will be.” Morgana: (Morgana smiles and takes her hands:) “Then have no fear. No harm will come to you, I promise you that.” (Guinevere smiles and nods. Morgana hugs her. Guinevere looks uneasy, Morgana smirks while looking out at the army.) Woods. Lady Helen’s Tent. (The singer for Elsa’s party, Lady Helen, camps in the woods.) Lady Helen: (Humming to herself, she hears a noise outside her tent:) “Hello? Gregory?” Gregory: (Poking his head inside the tent:) “Lady Helen.” Lady Helen: “Is all well?” Gregory: “Yes, ma’am. With luck, we should reach Arendelle late tomorrow.” Lady Helen: “That’s good.” Gregory: “I’ll be outside if you need me. (He leaves the tent. Also hearing a noise, Gregory draws his sword:) Who’s there? Who’s there?” Lady Helen’s Tent. (An unseen figure enters the tent, holding an effigy of Lady Helen.) Stranger: “Akwele seo magdp. Akwele seo magdp. Akwele seo magdp. (Standing, Lady Helen watches as the figure stabs the effigy several times, killing Lady Helen. Standing over the dead woman:) Ghefrolinz grimpoxin kouata.” (The stranger transforms into Lady Helen.)

Neverland. Night. (Regina and Emma sit by a warm campfire under a blanket of stars, waiting for them to fall.) Regina: "I believe I was promised falling stars, and yet just stars.” Emma: (Whispers:) “Be patient. It's almost time.” (As if on cue, the star-fall begins. The stars float down like snowflakes.) Regina: “That's incredible.” Emma: “You know, they say, one kiss under the falling stars, and it brings you good fortune.” Regina: “If you want to kiss me, you don't have to make up a story.” Emma: “It wasn't a story.” (Regina gives Emma a look as if to say ‘Really?’ To which Emma replies with a shrug and a look that says ‘Alright, but can you blame me?’ Laughing, Regina leans over and kisses Emma. A kiss that Emma receives and responds to most eagerly. Eventually, after momentarily quenching their thirst for each other, they settle back down and stare up at the sky.) Emma: “I’ve always loved the stars.” Regina: “Mm. Me too.” Emma: “Back when I was living on the streets, I met this kid who couldn’t have been more than a few years older than me. He taught me about the stars, the constellations, the planets. On the last night I saw him, he gave me an old compass. (Laughs:) It never really worked, you know? It would spin in all different directions, but I kept it with me for the longest time. (Regina watches Emma lovingly, utterly engrossed in her story:) I used to pretend that the compass had great magic and that every time I looked at it, it was pointing me towards home, back to my family. It was the only thing that kept me going for a long time. The promise of something better, just waiting for me to find it.” Regina: “What happened to it?” Emma: (Shrugs:) “I lost it. I must’ve dropped it somewhere along the way between foster families. It provided me a sense of comfort, believing my family was still out there.” Regina: “I’m sorry. (Leans up to kiss Emma’s cheek, then hears something. Whispers:) There’s someone in the bushes.” Emma: (Whisper:) “I know.” (In a flurry of movement, both women are on their feet, ready for action.) Regina: “Come out, come out wherever you are.” Emma: “Ooh nice! Creepy and intimidating, I like it.” Tiger Lily: (Still cloaked in darkness:) “Please, I mean you no harm.” Regina: “I’d have a better time believing you if you weren’t hiding in the shadows.” Emma: “Show yourself!” Tiger Lily: “I’m coming out.” (Slowly, the woman steps out of the darkness into the light. While Regina remains cautious, recognition dawns on Emma’s face.) Emma: “Tiger Lily?” Regina: “You know her?” Emma: “She’s a fairy. (Looks her up and down:) Or was.” Tiger Lily: “Please, you’re both in great danger. You must come with me.”

Wonderland. Grendel's House. (Waking up on the floor of the kitchen, Will looks beside him to see Ella still unconscious. Both are bound with rope at their hands and feet.) Will: "Ella. (Nudges her awake:) Ella." Ella: (Waking with a start:) "Will, are you all right?" Will: "I've been better. Where are we?" Ella: (Looking around:) "I think we're in his house." Will: "Actually, I think we're in his kitchen. (The Grendel enters, carrying firewood:) Excuse me, sir?" (The Grendel growls at them, picking up a large knife before walking over to the wheel to sharpen it.) Ella: "There has to be a way out of here." Will: (Staring at a pile of human bones in front of him:) "The only way out seems to be through his digestive tract." Ella: "You said you were such a great thief. Maybe it's time you show what you can do." Storybrooke. Bakery. (Hook and Rumplestiltskin enter while the woman behind the counter is putting on the finishing touches to a gingerbread house.) Hook: "'Scuse me, ma'am. Are you, uh, Hilda, the proprietor of this bakery?" Hilda: "Mm-hmm. This is delicate work. I will be right with you." Hook: "Actually, we're here to pick up a cake. For Queen Elsa's birthday?” Hilda: “Ah yes.” Hook: “My wife was supposed to be collecting it herself, I don't suppose you've seen her today?" Rumplestiltskin: "Tall woman, blonde. Likes to wear black and has breath like brimstone." Hook: "Oi." Hilda: (Chuckles:) "I remember. (Turns to face them:) But I didn't see her." Hook: (Realises she's blind:) "I... I apologize. I didn't-” Rumplestiltskin: “Bit off-season for gingerbread, isn't it?” Hilda: “Never. It's my number-one seller. As it was for my predecessor, before the unfortunate incident.” Rumplestiltskin: (Explains as Hook looks to him, confused:) “Somehow there was a mix-up and one day the baker, or Muffin Man, as he liked to be known, made a batch of gingerbread men who came to life. It was an unusual, albeit delicious couple of days spent tracking them all down.” Hilda: “That’s not the incident I was referring to.” Hook: “No?” Hilda: “No, I meant the reason the Muffin Man decided to sell up in the first place. Involving the Mayor and the Sheriff?” Rumplestiltskin: “Ah, yes. That incident.” Hilda: “The poor man never got over those imprints he saw in the flour.” Hook: (Clears his throat:) “That must’ve been quite the sight. Now, the cake?” Hilda: “Oh, yes. It’s back here, if one of you gentlemen would lend me a hand?” Hook: “Of course. (Hook walks around the counter, lifting the large box and walking carefully towards the door:) Thanks for your help.” Hilda: “Cookie for the road? They're fresh out of the oven.” Rumplestiltskin: “Oh, no, thank you. Though, they look delicious. Have a good day.” (Having retrieved the cake, Rumplestiltskin and Hook leave the bakery.)

Arendelle. (Elsa smiles as she watches Lily organise the servants.) Lily: (Running a hand through her hair:) "Everything that could go wrong is going wrong! The cake's not here, the singer hasn't arrived. The decorations aren't hanging right." Elsa: "Lily, Lily stop. Relax, everything is going to be fine. I love what you've done here. It's magical." Lily: "It's a mess." Elsa: "I love it. Come here. (Pulls the stressed out woman to her:) Nothing in this world matters to me more than being able to spend my birthday with the people I love." Lily: "Yeah, but-" Elsa: (Forcing a chocolate treat in Lily's mouth:) "I already have everything I could want for my birthday, right here. Okay? (Unable to form words due to the caramel filled candy in her mouth, Lily nods:) Good, now that's settled I think it's time we get ourselves ready. The guests will be arriving soon along with the cake and the singer and everything will be just perfect." (Playfully patting Lily on the butt, Elsa leads them out of the room, grabbing a chocolate treat for herself on the way.) Storybrooke. Past. (During the honeymoon stage of their marriage, Regina and Emma walk lazily down the street together. With Henry off finding his own adventures, the pair have been getting to know each other better. Sharing hopes, fears, dreams and of course, sexual proclivities. Lately their mutual yearning for each other has resulted in some close calls in some very unusual places. After almost getting caught in the Charming's hayloft, they've agreed to play things a little safer, for the time being. Arriving outside the bakery, Regina reads the sign in the window.) Regina: "Typical. I haven't been able to come here since the Muffin Man took over and now he's out to lunch." Emma: "They say his stuff is pretty great. I'm glad someone finally bought the place. Just seeing Ingrid's shop all boarded up made me a little sad." Regina: "Mm. Well as Mayor, it's my civic duty to make sure his goods are up to standard." Emma: "Still keeping your hands in everything after all this time?" Regina: "But of course. (Regina uses her magic to unlock the door:) Shall we?" Emma: "You know that's breaking and entering. You could get charged for that." Regina: "There was no breaking. Just entering." (Regina enters the shop and Emma follows.) Emma: "Very clever, but you could still get caught." Regina: "Oh it's fine. I'm friendly with the Sheriff." Emma: (Already checking out the sticky buns behind the counter:) "Uh huh. So, see anything you like? (Turns to see Regina has vanished:) Regina?" Regina: (Calling from the back room:) "I'm in here." (Following the sound of her wife's voice, Emma gasps at the sight that greets her. Clad in only her underwear, Regina stands behind the large table, kneading dough in her hands.) Emma: "What are you doing?" Regina: "There's nothing quite like a fresh loaf of bread and, seeing as no one's here to make one for me, I thought I'd do it myself." Emma: "Okay, but why are you in your underwear?" Regina: (Calmly:) "Two reasons. One, I obviously don't want go get my clothes covered in flour. And two, (She pauses her kneading of the dough and leans over the table:) I thought you'd appreciate the view." Emma: (Sparing a backwards glance to the shop:) "We don't even know how long he's gonna be gone for." Regina: "Well then I guess, (Regina smooths her hands over her chest, leaving traces of flour over herself:) we'd better not waste any time."

(Regina picks up a dishcloth from the bench and twirls it, pulling at the ends sharply for effect.) Emma: (Her eyes widening as Regina approaches:) "What are you going to do with that?" Regina: "We're going to have some fun." (Regina raises the makeshift blindfold towards Emma who protests.) Emma: "What, I don't get to see anything?" Regina: (Pursing her lips:) "Fine. (Putting down the dishcloth, Regina reaches behind her back and unclasps her bra. Her red lace panties are removed next. Standing with her hand on her hip:) Better?" Emma: (Smiles:) "Much." (Picking the dishcloth back up, Regina proceeds to place it over Emma's eyes, fastening it around her head. Leaning in, Regina tastes Emma's lips, pulling back slowly to pepper kisses along the blonde's jawline.) Regina: (Whispering in Emma's ear:) "No peeking." (Regina begins by removing Emma's jacket. Then, running her hands up underneath the hem of her shirt, rolls the offending garment up Emma's body. With Emma's helpful raise of her arms, the shirt joins the other items of clothing currently strewn across the bakery floor. Casually pushing the straps of Emma's bra down her muscled arms, Emma trembles at the touch of Regina's practiced hands.) Emma: (Sensing Regina step backwards:) "What do you have in mind? (Without replying, Regina reaches into the barrel of flour, grabbing two handfuls and tossing them on top of the wooden bench behind Emma. Feeling Regina's silky, flour-covered hands run up her bare back to unclasp her bra, Emma moans at the soft caress, nuzzling her lips against her wife's neck. Emma cries out at the sensation of Regina's thumbs lightly brushing her nipples:) A-again." Regina: (Chuckles:) "Soon." (Regina's hands slide to Emma's waist and unfastens her jeans. Tugging them down over her hips along with Emma's underwear, Regina kneels before her nearly naked wife. Running her fingers up Emma's legs and over the contours of her waist, Regina squeezes the right cheek of Emma's ass, leaving a floury hand print on her perfect behind. Lifting her gently onto the flour covered table, Regina kneels once more to remove Emma's boots. As Regina begins a tender massage of her feet, Emma sighs contentedly, laying back on the table. Stepping back, Regina allows Emma to take in her surroundings as she gathers a few items from around the kitchen. Curiously relaxed, given the circumstances, Emma allows her mind to wander.) Emma: "I wonder what would happen if someone were to walk in right now?" (Emma's mind immediately refocuses on the here and now at the touch of soft bristles making contact with her left nipple. Enjoying Emma’s gasp of delight, Regina returns the pastry brush into the bowl of melted butter and applies another liberal coating to Emma's other nipple.) Regina: (Leaning over her:) "I guess they will see their beautiful Sheriff, being ravished by one very attentive Madam Mayor." (And with that, Regina descends upon Emma, determined to devour every inch of her.) Wonderland. Present. Grendel's House. (Will attempts to free Ella and himself from their bondage using one of the skeleton's fingers.) Grendel: (From the other room:) "Fire's ready." Ella: "Will, did you hear that? I think he's talking to someone." Will: "Brilliant! Because one bloody monster isn't enough.” Grendel: “What's for dinner?” (Will leans over to get a look at who the Grendel is talking to but sees the man sitting alone at the table.) Will: “He's alone. The crazy bloke's talking to himself.” Ella: “Will, come on. He might see you.” Will: “Well, hello.” Ella: “What is it?” Will: “The knot. It's right there. (Ella inches forward to see for herself when a young woman appears inside the knot:) Bloody hell.” Grendel: “Mmm. You smell lovely.” Ella: “Will, we've got to get out.” Young Man: (Appearing inside the knot beside the woman:) “Fresh meat, my dearest.” (They kiss.) Young Woman: “Mmm. Thank you.” Young Man: (Holding her in his arms:) “Did you have a good day?” Young Woman: “I did.” Young Man: “Did you go for a walk?” Ella: “Those two must have been the last ones in the room. What did he do to those poor people?” Will: “I don't think he did anything to them.” Ella: “What?” Will: “Ella, I think there may be a way for us to get everything we want today.”

Neverland. Cave. (Checking that Maria is settled and happy, Emma turns to face Tiger Lily.) Emma: "All right, enough with the secrecy. Tell us what's going on." Tiger Lily: "Camelot has fallen and I fear its new Queen brings great darkness on the horizon." Regina: "What about Guinevere. Does she still live?" Tiger Lily: (Nods:) "Guinevere stepped aside so that Morgana could rule." Emma: "Listen, we're on vacation. We'll congratulate the new queen when we get back." Tiger Lily: "You don't understand, Morgana is guided by her sister Morgause. It is their belief that unless their brother is avenged, Morgana cannot truly take the throne." Emma: "Their brother? You mean Arthur?" Tiger Lily: "Yes. Within an hour of taking power, Morgana and Morgause issued a reward for your capture. The word has spread quickly throughout all the lands, including Neverland. You are not safe here." Regina: "The hideout. We could-" Emma: "No, I'm not hiding in some glorified tent the rest of my life. If they have a problem with me, I'm not that hard to find." Regina: (Rolls her eyes:) "Why is it every damn time we get involved with Camelot, you end up being persecuted?" Arendelle. The Palace. Banquet Hall. (Celebratory horns signal Queen Elsa’s entrance and everyone finds their place at the tables.) Anna: “We have enjoyed many years of peace and prosperity thanks to the leadership of my sister. Tonight, we honour her on her birthday. To Queen Elsa! (She raises her glass and toasts her sister, the members of the court follow suit:) Now, for tonight’s entertainment, it gives me great pleasure to introduce the renowned singer, Lady Helen of Mora.” (Applause. The music begins and Anna takes her seat beside Elsa on the dais. Sitting on Elsa’s other side, Lily raises Elsa’s hand to her lips and kisses it. Lady Helen sings. While she continues her melodic tune, the court members begin nodding off to sleep. Cobwebs begin forming over the enchanted sleepers. Lady Helen is staring at Lily as she walks forward, pulling a dagger from her sleeve.)

#sq #swanqueen #swan queen

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hearthhhh · 4 years

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Black Butler Matchup please ^_^ Hiya, I’m Chu (She/her - Heterosexual- INFJ- 17 years ole) I’m an extremely introverted person and would go as far to say social interaction intimidates me.. well except with people I’m extremely close with I’m super soft and referred to as the mom friend but I actually have a pretty dark sense of humour aha, I enjoy drawing, painting and anime oh and video games

I love you Chu marry ME first 👀

I’ll just pair these asks together, and since I already started with the Black Butler ask, I’ll leave you with an extra character 😉

I pair you with...

🥢 It’s a little headcanon of mine that Finny would be best with someone more on the quiet side! Since he’s pretty loud and excitable, so introverts would be able to balance this and be sort of grounding in a sense. I also think Finny would just find girls easily flustered and quiet cute.

🥢 You become a maid for the Phantomhive household. Finny thinks you’re cute immediately, but it takes him a really long time to realize it’s love at first sight.

🥢 He’s taken by your introversion, and goes as far as to comment on your small voice. It probably flusters you, but he just thinks that’s even cuter.

🥢 On top of our passive voice, you’re so motherly, especially over him. It’s practically impossible not to dote over him, especially when he’s eating. He loves it when you wipe his face after he’s made a mess, teasing him playfully. While the other Phantomhive servants have taken to looking after Finny like they would a little brother, Finny feels like he’ll combust into flames whenever your eyes zero in on him and you move to help him out.

🥢 One late night Finny’s kept up by thoughts of you, a dopey smile on his face. Baldroy decided enough was enough. Finny was obviously enthralled with you. This is where Finny, with the help of Baldroy, figures out he’d loved you all along. And so Finny was given the worst advice of his life along after midnight.

🥢 Finny does his hair in a well kept way that’s totally uncharacteristic of him. He even tries to tone down his excitement, though he’s practically vibrating with unspent energy by the end of the day. He even talked in a more professional tone, which slipped pretty easily, so it was obvious trying to keep up some sort of act. You realize very quickly that something was off.

🥢 Before Finny went off to his quarters for the night, you pull him aside and question his behaviour. You try to be as nice as possible, smiling encouragingly, but Finny is still brought to tears.

🥢 Finny tells you everything about his hopeless crush in one quick breath. You console him for almost half an hour until he can fully process that you feel the same.

🥢 You guys have the purest relationship. You baby him and call him sweet knicknames, and he tries to do the same to you. He’s not too good on the spoiling part, but he makes up for it with tons of affection.

🥢 You two practically radiate romantic PDA, not so much that it’s uncomfortable, just mushy and cute. You two are so childish with each other and fit together like puzzle pieces, and you both wonder why you hadn’t gotten together sooner.

I pair you with...

🥢 I think you’d hit it off pretty quickly! You both work for Ciel and sort of flunctuate towards each other, especially in social situations. You and Snake stay pretty close to each other’s sides.

🥢 After you guys get to know each other for a bit you realize you’re both introverts, and notice you’re both equally uncomfortable being a spectacle. So you take comfort in staying close to each other.

🥢 Both if you are pretty introverted! Snake is so introverted he literally speaks through his snakes. A little later in your friendship, I bet he’d be totally chill with you leaning over to whisper in his ear, then he’d repeat exactly what you said to someone in the room.

🥢 You both stay as friends for such a long time it became hard not to see one of you without the other. You were so close, it was kinda unsual to onlookers.

🥢 Then the other servants started to point things out. They thought your feelings were obvious, so they’d just assumed you two were already together. But you weren’t, so all three of them didn’t miss the chance to tease and pester you two.

🥢 Eventually you have to clarify. You two spend every waking moment together, and sometimes spend nights in each other’s room because you were talking too long and fell asleep in the middle of your conversations. You’re the one to ask Snake what exactly your relationship was.

🥢 Snake was under the assumption that you two were already dating. If you’d like to have a conversation about your relationship he’ll answer whatever you ask or purpose, but otherwise he doesn’t really need to ask about what you two are. All Snake needs to know is that he loves you, and as long as he’s by your side as much as he can, he’s content with whatever you’d like to be.

I pair you with...

🥢 Your introversion is pretty refreshing to Jumin. He does get along with you pretty quickly, although he comes off as indifferent. But Jumin likes that you’re quiet and come off as well kept.

🥢 Meeting him for the first time, Jumin would treat you like a friend. I’d imagine he’d invite you to dinner for two reasons. One being he can’t believe you don’t eat the same high quality food as him, and he found this really expensive restaurant for the two of you and paid for it just so you could have the experience. That other reason was a little for selfish... Knowing Zen he came off as flirty, and Jumin asks you out to tease him. It’s a win win for Jumin, he gets to meet his good friend face to face and fucks with Zen.

🥢 Jumin is pleasantly surprised when you meet. You came off as timid and formal over text, and come off the same earlier on in the meal. Gradually you unwind, and your sense of humour shines through.

🥢 Jumin loves how you speak of the things you like. You talk in a soft loving tone, and he almost thinks of you as childish in a sense. You talk of video games which Jumin knows nothing of, though chose to remain silent. If it were anyone else bringing up video games of all things at a five star restaurant he’d have up and left out of spite. But it was you.

🥢 Everything goes downhill from there, in a good way.

🥢 Jumin’s magically online whenever you are. He’ll postpone meetings to call you on the phone. The day after he sends Jaehee to make a shit ton of reservations at different restaurants for the two of you.

🥢 Jumin asks you out privately, maybe some really romantic reserved back room in a restaurant. Candles lit, rose petals on the table. When he starts speaking it’s as if he’s asking you to marry him, it’s so extravagant.

🥢 Once you’re in a relationship Jumin really likes the way you motherly dote on him. He’s used to people tending to his every need, but you’re different. He loves watching you cook, and doesn’t even care if it’s bad, he eats it anyway. If he doesn’t like it he doesn’t tell you, though he wouldn’t openly give bad critiques. Maybe just stay silent and shrug, but he’d shower you with praises when he likes something.

🥢 Jumin especially loves the way you treat Elizabeth the third. It’s really important that his partner gets along with her. He loves watching you stroke her fur casually, or when your voice pitches up to coo at her in a doting voice. Sometimes it comes off maybe as a bit freaky, with him watching you two intently and silently.

🥢 The other members of the RFA are pretty surprised when you get together. Zen and Yoosung team up together and say that Jumin doesn’t deserve you in a joking manner, though they’re still glad that you’re happy nonetheless. Jaehee probably would end up telling you over the phone that if she could ever imagine Jumin with someone beside Elizabeth the third, it’d be you.

Alternate Matchup: Gregory Violet

Alternate Matchup: Zen

#chu #black butler #matchup #black butler matchup #mystic messenger #jumin han #mystic messenger matchup #snake #black butler snake #finny kuroshitsuji #kuroshitsuji #finny #finnian #finnian kuroshitsuji

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thecastingcircle · 4 years

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‘A Goofy Movie’ at 25: An Oral History of “I2I” and the Powerline Concert Scene Posted on Friday, April 24th, 2020 by Ben Pearson

Part Two

Kevin Lima: We storyboarded the entire sequence first, so we had a very intricate sense of what we wanted from it.

Gregory Perler (Editor): Brian Pimental, who was in charge of storyboards, he and his team boarded it. The way they used to do it in those days was pin every single storyboard up, play the song, and then run with a little pointer and point out the beats. The one unique thing about that song, though, was that there was live-action reference done for it.

Kevin Lima: It was actually one of the very last sequences to be finished in the film. We found that we were up against a huge deadline with the movie. I actually asked a good friend of mine, who was a storyboard artist on the movie, Steve Moore, to go to Australia and the entire sequence was animated in Australia.

Steve Moore (Storyboard Artist and Sequence Director, Sydney): [Kevin] called and said they were behind schedule, and said the concert sequence at the end had a ton of effects and it was more than they could do to hit their deadline. So he said Disney had a studio in Australia that does a lot of their TV stuff, one of their top outsourced studios down there, and would I want to go down there and supervise this sequence? I was like, “Yeah, sure. Go to Australia for six months? What’s the problem?” (laughs) They were in such a hurry that they were like, “Tomorrow, can you meet with the choreographer?”

Kevin Lima: We choreographed the whole [scene] based on the storyboards.

Steve Moore: We met, looked at the storyboard reel, and talked for a bit, and then two or three days after that, we were in a little soundstage in Burbank. We’d hired a guy to video record [the choreographer] and his dancers, and they did the “I2I” dance. From the boards, he came up with the “I2I” dance, and that’s why you can actually do the dance – because it wasn’t left to animators to come up with, it had actual moves to it.

Kevin Lima: I wanted to create a dynamic that separated Powerline being more grounded in the choreography that he does, as opposed to Max and Goofy, who can slide across a 50-foot stage, fall from the rafters, blow up, and who can do The Perfect Cast. Which, I don’t know if you’ve ever tried it, but it is quite difficult.

Gregory Perler: In the old Disney films, they filmed the actors moving in live action and then the artists literally traced over them. If you look at Snow White, for example, who is human, she moves exactly like her live-action reference. But with Max and Goofy and Powerline, they’re not the same proportions. So you can’t do that.

Kevin Lima: We knew that we wanted The Perfect Cast to be the center of the whole thing…we used that, as a lot of animation does, to be an influence for the animators. They didn’t copy it, exactly, but they certainly used it to get a real sense of continuity and an overall sense that there was a beginning, middle, and end to the piece.

Gregory Perler: Kevin thumbnailed every single shot from the live-action reference that he wanted to include in the song, and he spaced it out in the middle of the storyboard sequence that Brian had done. We incorporated that into the shoot.

Steve Moore: I had this one animator, he kept pulling out Paula Abdul videos. I said, “We have reference.” He goes, “Yeah, but she does this really good – ” [And I was like] “The reference!” He just wouldn’t do it. I finally had to boot him off the crew because I couldn’t get any work out of him. He was so obsessed with Paula Abdul. (laughs) He was a good animator, too! But I was like, “Look, if you can’t do this, I have to move on.” I warned him, and he just wouldn’t listen to me. He thought, “Ah, what’s he going to do?” Well, I put him back on the series stuff [like Goof Troop], because the studio was doing series work for Disney at the same time. They were not so happy with me because I was getting all their best people. Once I let that guy go, they were very happy. They said, “Thanks for doing that! We got a lot of footage out of him last week because he’s so mad!”

Gregory Perler: It cuts from Max and Goofy very high up at the top of the waterfall where the little rescue has happened, and a map flies in, and the map transitions you to the concert. So then you have that music start, you have a couple of establishing shots of a stadium, and people arriving. Then these roadies throw these cases in, the cases open up, and Max and Goofy come out. And you just go with it. It may have been one of the later sequences that was boarded, so there wasn’t a lot of time. Early on in the process, a sequence can be overthought. And I’m sure if we had done this one very early on, someone would have said, “Well, how did they even get in the cases?” (laughs) But we didn’t, and it’s such a treat to watch it and you just buy it.

Kevin Lima: I was always fascinated with David Bowie, and the way that he became characters. He put on a theatrical version of himself as he performed. I thought, “How can we do this with Powerline? Is there a way to give him a visual identity that makes him ultimately super theatricalized?” That’s where it all came from. That’s where the atom came from, the electricity. It was really about creating this identity that could live within the world of Goofy and Max.

Bill Farmer (Voice of Goofy): When you do a take and they say, “OK, be electrocuted,” then you just let your mind go with it. What’s it like to be electrocuted? Sometimes you go, “Whoa!” or grab your throat and kind of shake it, like, “Whoa-oh-oh!” High ones, big yells, all that. Then they pick the best ones and put them in. But when you do those yells and things that are rough on the vocal cords, they always save those for the end of the day, because if you strain your throat you don’t have anything else to do after that.

Bambi Moé: Up until this pandemic, I think going to see live music was – there’s nothing like it on the planet. I think what Kevin and his team did was to visually animate something that we could all relate to. The experience of it. The way it was communicated. It wasn’t just seeing the character performing. I think what really makes it so special is that it felt to me that there was an intimacy. You were a fly on the wall in the middle of this unbelievable concert. You were seeing it through the eyes of the lead characters – in this case, Goofy and Max. It was less about Powerline and more about them.

Gregory Perler: You’ve got to be on certain things on certain times within the song. All the backstage stuff that involves Goofy getting separated from Max, Max being chased by a guy – they’re cut within an inch of their lives. Because you’ve gotta be back on stage when you’ve gotta be back on stage. I do a lot of movies that have songs that have performance stuff but also story stuff, and this was a great first one to do because it really works.

Kevin Lima: Because we were all separated – we were all in different parts of the world – I would do videotapes in which I acted out all the scenes. I may have gone through that scene with them. I didn’t dance it, but I did do the acting that the characters would have done. So all of the surprises, the double-takes, Goofy holding his face when he sees Trini in her dressing room, all of that stuff are things that I actually was doing on my videotapes to help the animators understand what I wanted from the scene.

Bill Farmer: The heavyset woman who sings with Powerline in that scene was a character who was in the “Open Road” scene, traveling along with a little nebbish kind of a character. She had a lot more in the movie that got cut out, except for her in the scene of “Open Road” and then as one of the backup singers that Goofy sees in the dressing room and has the most weird look on his face. (laughs) He’s all embarrassed. She’s the one that’s vocalizing with Powerline on “I2I.”

Steve Moore: It was pretty tight. We had it down to what it needed to be, and there was no time to waste on anything. The only thing that still had to be worked out when I got to Australia was how the lighting was going to work. Because there was so much concert lighting to figure out…one of the concert scenes had so many different light things going on that we had like 32 levels of animation. Because we were shooting it all in a camera back then. They had given up their conference room for me to have an office, and the entire conference room floor was covered in layers of this scene while we were checking it before it went to camera…In CG, you would just set the lights. But we had to figure it out. We had one thing where it was flashing overhead, and another thing going around the sides of them when they were dancing. So the source of light’s coming from here, and we had to draw a rim matte kind of thing, and they would paint that. It was a lot of stuff to figure out like that.

Gregory Perler: It was one of the first scenes I ever edited on the Avid, digitally. Prior to that, we were editing on film. When we started the movie, we were on 35mm film that was shot and edited on an editing table, and then after about a year, Disney said, “Hey, we’re thinking of switching to these digital editing platforms. Are you interested?” And I said no, because we were already halfway through. Then I realized it wasn’t really a question. (laughs) It was, “OK, you’re going to get an Avid and you’re going to learn how to use one.” Even though I was reluctant, I admit that “I2I” was the perfect sequence to cut on the Avid because A) you were integrating another source medium, which was 30 frame per second video of the [reference footage of the dancers], and B) you have to be able to react so quickly and extend a drawing, take away from a drawing, or repeat a drawing so much more nimbly than you could if you were working on film.

Kevin Lima: With film, you have to pull it out of the gate, cut it, splice it, and put it back into the flatbed. With Avid, you could do it seamlessly without physically having to handle anything. I remember when they told us they wanted us to do this, and we may have been the very first to do Avid work at the studio. I remember us looking at each other and saying, “Oh man, we’re in for it now, because we’re going to be working out all the bugs as we go along.” But really, it was kind of seamless.

Carole Holliday (Character Designer, Roxanne and Stacey): It wasn’t until maybe about ten years ago that I found out that people your age love A Goofy Movie. Because it was the movie of their childhood. I had a girl that I went to church with who was like, “Can you draw Roxanne and Max on my Keds?” She bought brand new Keds so I could draw them on her shoes. I was like, “OK!” (laughs)

Gregory Perler: I don’t even know how long the song is. It might only be three minutes, but there’s so much jammed in there. You’ve gotta see the kids watching them on TV.

Kevin Lima: I don’t recall when we actually pulled in the idea that they were going to be on television. The concert being on television gave us the ability to cut around the country, or cut to the different players within the movie. We knew that we wanted Roxanne to see what had happened, we didn’t just want her to hear that it happened. So that’s where this idea of being on television came into play. We knew that was really the crux of it: Roxanne seeing Max and recognizing that he wasn’t just pulling one over on her, that he wasn’t lying to her because he was afraid – he was actually there.

Carole Holliday: I was always drawing Roxanne because I [joined the production in] France hopefully to animate the character that I designed. I didn’t realize until I got there that she was popular. At one point, I had done a doodle of Roxanne with an Eiffel Tower hat on. I drew another picture over it, so I took the rough, crumpled it up, and threw it in the trash can. The next day, I came back to my desk and my desk mate had pulled it out of the trash can and put it on his wall. I was like, “What?” It was very touching…I went there, and all of the French guys were like, “I want to draw Roxanne!” I think that’s the thing: she’s innocent. She was just this schoolgirl. People like innocence. They’re drawn to innocence. Even though in her biography, her favorite song was The Police song “Roxanne,” a story about a girl who’s not innocent. But Roxanne was. At the time, I was working with teenagers through my church, and I just treated her like the kids that I knew, and I think people saw that in the character.

Gregory Perler: If I remember correctly, it’s Bobby who sees him first. It’s treated as, not a joke, because it has real importance for [Roxanne]. And it sets up the fact that [Max] has to go back and tell her the truth, even though he actually completed his whole deception.

Carole Holliday: The ending doesn’t work unless the director and his head of story and the story crew have set up from the beginning what the character’s emotional want is. The fact that Max thought he wanted one thing and was fighting the very thing that Goofy wanted through the whole thing, and at the end, gets the relationship with his father. It’s like, “I’ve missed out on everything else, but I got this one thing I wasn’t expecting.” Then the Powerline concert at the end becomes the cherry on top. It’s like, “Oh my goodness, you get your dad and you get this! You were a bad kid, but you won because you actually acknowledged your foolishness!” I think that’s why it pays off, is because he repents. He gets what’s important, and then he gets given this other gift on top of that.

Kevin Lima: I was really wanting to make a John Hughes movie in animation. That was really my goal. Can we tell a more contemporary story with contemporary characters than had been told in animation up to that point? So at every turn, I was trying to make it feel like it was happening today. Well, 1995 “today.”

Gregory Perler: I don’t remember how the whole thing with Bobby and Stacey came about, but I think the music is vamping a little bit there, so there was time to play that out. Kevin and Brian came up with that, and we made it fit as best we could.

Kevin Lima: We felt like we should wrap up all the other stories that we’ve been telling. Pete, especially, being just flabbergasted and spitting out his beer on the television screen. I think maybe we’re the only Disney movie to have a character drink a beer. But he spits it all over the television because he is just amazed that what Goofy said was going to go down, went down. The concert really gave us a way to tie everybody’s story together. It’s amazing for me how, in animation especially, you can use music or a song to tell so much of your story in a really economic way.

Gregory Perler: It really does feel like the climax to a movie. You’re putting this thing together sequence by sequence, not always in order. Everybody loved “Stand Out” at the beginning of the movie, but by God, [“I2I”] is a climactic musical number, and it has real scope and scale that maybe the rest of the movie didn’t. You’ve got wide shots with crowds and things we take for granted today.

Steve Moore: We’d hear that song every day. It was like, “Here it goes again.” But for me, it never got to a point where I didn’t like the song anymore or couldn’t stand to hear it anymore.

David Z.: It’s funny, but those songs really lasted. Actually, the whole movie has taken on a second and third generation. My kids loved it when we did it, but then all these other people, I guess it was just the time where a lot of people had kids. But it was for grown-ups, too, because we didn’t make the song as a kid’s song. We made the songs as a sophisticated, radio-friendly groove.

Gregory Perler: It’s the culmination of this little movie that people have really grown to love and become invested in. It feels like this is the most satisfying way the movie can end. It feels inevitable in the best possible way for a movie. When it takes two, two and a half years to do a movie like that, and you don’t necessarily work in order and we have other songs that we didn’t use and stuff, you just never know.

Kevin Lima: I think the scene resonates because it’s backed with a powerful emotional through line. I think you get to see the culmination of a very difficult journey for Max and his dad come to a very rewarding end. Max fulfills a dream in some ways. Not only does he get to go on stage with Powerline, but he gets the girl at the end of the day. I think those are all very powerful themes wrapped up in one big song that echoes those themes. The song truly echoes what is happening in the plot. I think that’s what makes it truly stick in a real way.

David Z.: That was one of the hippest movies to come out, musically. There hasn’t been anything as cool since maybe an old Betty Boop cartoon where they used Cab Calloway. That was some great music. But cartoons didn’t have great music until then – not that I can remember. It was sort of a brave statement for me to make because it hadn’t been done.

Patrick DeRemer: My kids, who are adults now, they still have this song in their playlists. As do their friends. This generation of millennials – late twenties to mid-thirties – love this song. It makes me very proud as a writer to be proud of, first of all, the Disney movie catalogue. But then to be a part of such a popular song that’s touched so many people, it’s really exciting to me. It’s one of my favorite moments in my career, being able to touch that many people so deeply. It’s an emotional thing. It’s that magic relationship when lyric, music, emotion, and film all comes together, and it fits. It’s kind of hard to describe exactly why or how it happens, but when it does, you know it.

David Z.: It expanded so far, and had such a big audience. And still has a big audience. I didn’t realize people were so dedicated to it. We went to a screening, a 20-year celebration, and it was packed to the gills. I couldn’t believe it. People were running on that memory for a long time. The popularity of it has exploded.

Steve Moore: For people today, they grew up with it. This was the age of the VCR, and kids watched this over and over and over again, and now they’re in their thirties, and you mention A Goofy Movie and they get gooey about it. It’s in their hearts from their childhood, and they can watch it today as adults and still enjoy it. It still holds up, and I think that has to do with the emotional quality of the film, how it draws you in, how the song was part of the story, it’s the climax of the movie, and the father and son are dancing together. It’s just a nice sentiment and a nice way to end the movie.

Roy Freeland: I’ve been watching the TikTok dance challenge. I’m OK [at it] now. I tried it. I decided not to post my attempt. (laughs) But it’s so much fun to see people get up and do it. There was a high school principal, there was a doctor in New York wearing his scrubs with an inspiring message on top of that about good news of how the curve is flattening. It’s a contemporary message, of the moment right now – that hopefulness and connection between people.

Bill Farmer: I have tried to get that [dance] down as close as I can. I’ve tried to remember how it is, and I actually found my old script. “Ten o’clock, two o’clock…” I’ll attempt it, but it’s not really a video-worthy thing. (laughs)

Patrick DeRemer: If you know Bruno Mars and any of the people at Disney live action, they should put a live stage version of this together with Bruno as Powerline. That would be great! Can’t you hear him singing this?

Bill Farmer: Over the years, many fans have come up to me – probably more than any other project I’ve ever worked on, and I’ve done close to 4,000 projects for Disney – and A Goofy Movie stands out among all of them with the fans. They always come up and say, “I couldn’t talk to my dad, but we saw this movie, and it became our movie.” They’d watch it every year or listen to the soundtrack together, and “I2I,” it encapsulates the whole theory of the movie. They can see eye to eye without seeing eye to eye on everything. A father and a son can find common ground and be buddies, even though they’re separated by one being Goofy and one being embarrassed of his dad. And everybody’s been embarrassed of their parents, so it really strikes a note that you can relate to.

***

A Goofy Movie is currently streaming on Disney+. All screengrabs are either from that presentation or from this “Making Of” documentary about the movie found on YouTube. Tevin Campbell’s representatives did not respond to our requests for an interview, but if you’d like to read his reflections on his contribution to the film, you can do so here.

The End

#Disney #a goofy movie #powerline

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roguesandsaviors · 4 years

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A Different Sort of Case

Fandom: House, MD

Characters: Hattie (OFC), Greg House, James Wilson, Ducklings

Pairing: House x OC (platonic)

Summary: Hattie ends up at PPTH and comes across someone that she thought that she would never see again.

Word Count:2,120

Rating: SFW

Warnings: Hospitalization, cancer mentions, illness

Author’s note: This was spawned during a re-watch of House and thanks a certain someone spamming me with Hugh Laurie. I forgot how much I enjoyed this show. I don’t know how long this fic will end up being, It has sort of taken on a life of it’s own since I had planned on it being relatively short. Hope everyone enjoys. Unbeta-ed so all mistakes are my own.

________________________________________________________

The lights above and all around me faded in and out of focus. My body wasn’t responding with anything that I asked it to do. I tried, with some amount of desperation, to move my fingers, move my legs, anything but nothing was coming of it. People were talking around me but the words were completely muffled. Nothing was making sense and a swell of panic hit me. I didn’t know what was going on but before it could get any worse, the blackness enveloped my vision and I passed out.

There was pain everywhere. I still couldn’t move my arms and legs. Something was very wrong. The sounds around me were still muffled. No one was talking but there was an annoying beep. I felt exhausted, that was what registered the most. I huffed and gave over to the exhaustion, losing all sense of what was happening around me; of what I could and couldn’t do.

*************

James had all intentions of stopping in the office and talking with House. Everyone had noticed the man cooped up more than usual in his office. His reaction to his particular case was unusual, even by House standards. There was a different level of grumpiness to the man and he was all but sleeping in his office. Which was how he found the man in question when he stopped in front of the door. He thought he was asleep; feet propped up and his head tipped back. Wilson spotted his lips moving despite his position. it was as simple as he was thinking about his current case.

Wilson stepped into the office, his first instinct proven right. House was, in fact, asleep. He crossed his arms over his chest as he observed his friend. Wilson wondered if it was worth waking him up or letting him get the rest that he likely needed.

His answer became clear to him when he heard the woman’s name mumbled. That had to be a first. House dreaming of a woman? The name repeated itself and he was quick to realize that it was the name of his current patient. That was something that he had to figure out.

Wilson slammed down one of the books that was on the desk and House jolted awake. Wilson wanted to tease the man. It wasn’t often that he got the opportunity but he wanted to know more about what was happening. That overrode his desire to tease the man.

“I hear that you have a new case.”

“We already ruled out your specialty sorry. I didn’t know you were going around poaching cases now. Is it getting that slow in oncology?” House cocked his head to the side and pulled his feet off of his desk.

“Yes, because I desperately want my department to be busy. I wish it was overflowing with people who I get to tell they are dying.”

“You said it, not me.” Under normal circumstances, Wilson would have been a bit exasperated by the comment. This was not one of those times and he let it roll right off of his back.

“You were dreaming about the patient.” Wilson pointed out, able to keep a smile off of his face by the skin of his teeth. House was obsessive yes but not that sort of obsessive. He didn’t dream about his patients.

“I was dreaming about closing the case. There’s a difference. Or do I need to disclose all my dreams to you now Mum?”

“You said her name.” Wilson pointed out. “You never know a patient’s name. And you’ve been in her room. Without her being awake.” If it wasn’t relevant in a medical sense, House didn’t bother learning it. He was sure that the man wouldn’t know if his patient was male or female if it didn’t affect the possibility of a diagnosis. He rarely, if ever saw patients either. That was a big deal.

“I needed to do an exam myself.” It was a bullshit excuse and at that moment, they both knew it. James knew better than to push his friend though. If he wanted to get this figured out, he couldn’t have the man completely closing off. It was a tendency he had when things got a little too personal. House didn’t ever, ever bother respecting personal boundaries. This was going to be the one time that James paid his friend back with a taste of his own medicine. He was going to figure this out one way or another.

*************

There were people around me. The words this time came much more clear than they had the previous times I had woken up. Several voices all spoke though I couldn’t make out what they were saying exactly. I opened my eyes and it took several long seconds for the people to come into focus. One was at my arm, drawing some blood. Another was standing looking at a vitals screen. The third had a chart in hand. They were talking to one another, not realizing I was awake yet. That was until the person at the monitor turned and saw me.

“We weren’t sure you were ever going to wake up.” A light shone in my eye without warning. “How are you feeling?”

“Give her a second to breathe.” The female was the one that spoke. I looked towards her and then the other man at my side. Not that I could move my head all that much. I realized that I was stuck in a collar. It wasn’t comfortable in the least. He didn’t say anything right away but smiled at me.

“Feel like shit,” I mumbled, trying to catch up to what was happening. I didn’t know how I ended up in the hospital. The last thing that I remembered was being on the highway, heading towards New York. “What happened?” I didn’t care who answered me, all I wanted some answers.

“The rest of you, out.” That was a familiar voice. It wasn’t like I could forget the one that I had spent the better part of my first twenty-four years on this Earth with. Of all the hospitals I could be at, it had to be Princeton-Plainsboro. We may not have talked in almost twenty-one years but I had kept up with his doings. He was a top diagnostician, something that hadn’t come as a surprise. He had needed to finish med school in the formal sense the last time we saw or spoke to one another.

“But…” All three wanted to argue with him on that front, though none of them seemed all too willing to take on the man.

“Out.” I risked looking towards one Gregory House. The cane and the limp were new. The drawn, weary, pained face was out of place on his face. Both made up a different man standing in front of me than the one I had known. He had aged well. That much I could say. I had thought about the possibility of meeting him again. Though I never imagined that it would be under these sorts of circumstances. Everything that I had come up with faded on the tip of my tongue. All those things that I had wanted to say after he had upped and left vanished. He had demanded that I leave his life but he had made the decision for me.

He moved over to the edge of the bed, not saying a damn thing to help move this along. It felt uncomfortable though what more could be expected? He was the one who had upped and left. He didn’t want me around when I had been ready to follow him wherever. Like I always had. It was a pathetic thought and one that I hadn’t grown out of despite the therapy.

“Your kidneys are failing.” Right down to business.

“That still doesn’t explain how I ended up here in the first place.”

“You’re also anemic.” I wasn’t going to get the answers that I wanted out of him so I was going to have to wait and play his game. He wasn’t going to acknowledge that he knew me, he wasn’t even looking at me. I didn’t understand why he had asked the other doctors to leave the room. He was going to pretend that I was another patient. There was nothing for him to hide and if he didn't want to say anything then I wouldn't. I couldn’t push him for it since it would only make him shut down ten times faster. House worked at his own pace and everyone else around him needed to be able to adapt to it. If they didn't, they ended up left behind in the dust.

I waited, quiet, for him to continue with whatever else he wanted to tell me. There was more there.

“And with a fever, none of that makes sense with a car wreck.” He finally looked up at me, leaning with a heavy stance on the cane, tipped to a hint to his right. There was my answer and it made sense given the last thing that I remembered. “So, the question is why.” He was asking me like I knew the answer to that. He was the one that had taken an interest in medicine. I was the one who loved history. He moved to the side of the bed, allowing me to track him with my eyes. It was a weird sensation, not being able to move the neck.

It was that moment that I tried to move my arms and legs but found that I still couldn’t.

“That should wear off in another few days.” He said as he poked at my arm. I could feel that at least. “At least in your upper half. There’s no real telling what will happen with your legs.” He was never one to pull punches. Others would have panicked about it and lashed out at him. I panicked but was grateful to know the sort of road of recovery that I was looking at. I could digest the information later and mourn for whatever I had to when I was on my own. I wasn’t about to cry in front of the man.

“I take it you’re asking why because nothing has come back conclusive?” He was silent as his eyes moved over me again. I could see that I was right though, there was no denying the twitch of his lips. “But everyone lies so it’s not like you can trust anything I have to say.” Maybe it was a subtle dig at the man, one that he wasn’t going to overlook. I knew that it had to be the last one that I threw at him.

“What are the differential diagnoses?”

“Cut them in half. Stopped the antibiotics and you aren’t getting any better. There wasn’t a hint of cancer anywhere on your scans. We were waiting to see if you took any medications but even if you did, you have been here well over a week. Anything that you take would be out of your system by now.” He wasn’t answering me about what he thought it was. Having cancer ruled out was at least reassuring. Not like I wanted to go through with that again.

“Done the cancer thing once. Nice to hear that I don’t have to do it again.”

“What?”

“Leukemia. About ten years ago.” I offered without needing him to prompt further. “Had about six months worth of radiation. A year's worth of other treatments after before they found a matching donor. Been fine since the bone marrow transplant.” He frowned and the wheels in his head were turning like that. It was as simple as a snap of the fingers.

“Should be on the bracelet that I wear.”

“You didn’t come in wearing any jewelry.”

“There’s a card in my wallet too.”

“Destroyed in the wreck, so they said.” That was sort of crucial information for any doctor to know. It was why I tried to make sure that it was available in as many different forms as possible. The bracelet must have broken off in the crash. I couldn’t do much anything about a wallet ending up destroyed in a wreck. There was no point in hiding or lying about any of that. It would be necessary if he was going to figure out what the hell was going on with me.

“Bone marrow transplant…” He muttered before leaving the room without another word. Judging by the look on his face before he left, it was enough information to trigger whatever was happening in his brain. That was good enough for me. I wasn’t sure if I would see him again.

#my writing #my fic #House fanficition #house md #Gregory House #my oc #my fanfiction

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the-canary · 5 years

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Wednesdays - L.T (7/10)

Summary: Only you had the balls to deal with his outrageous order on that day. You just didn’t know how bad it would get. (Barista!Reader/Lance Tucker).

A/N: omg, they shared a room and stuff happens <3.

Feedback is always appreciated.

It takes you a week and a half to have everything settled. You talk with your professors and they give you a pass or more work to do on the side. Madison smiles and tells you to do a good job, you are representing her brand off-course. One of the other teachers at the ballet school will cover you for the weekend that you are gone, much to your students’ annoyance. Micah and some of the other baristas agree to pick up your shifts.

It’s difficult and it’s annoying, and you know that Lance Tucker would never appreciate all that you are willing to go through because of his one fucking ask, but the girls’ smiles when they see you walking towards them in the early hours of that Wednesday morning make it all worth it -- then they proceed to hound you about everything while complaining that it's too early and the ride with Tucker killed them.

Lance doesn’t seemed to be doing any better, running on protein bars and there is an annoyance in his eyes that you have never seen before -- quite different from the one that you usually are able to draw out of him. He doesn’t look at you, but the flight delay doesn’t help when you see him coming close to killing the poor flight attendant when they make that announcement.

“Hey,” you call out to him, as he almost punches one of the pillars, “Have you had any coffee or anything real to eat since last night?”

“Are you a fucking Starbucks advertisement?” Lance growls out in annoyance, as blue eyes met your own but you just shrug it off. You knew that even now Lance kept his physique in top shape, but you knew from your own personal experience that it wasn’t the best, so you grab his shoulder softly.

“Look, I’m gonna get some breakfast...maybe buy something for the girls,” you explain calmly and clearly ignoring his temper tantrum, “Do you want anything or not?”

“Decaf,” he states as you give him a cheeky grin, “Maybe a sandwich.”

“Got it,” you smile and pat his shoulder, “And don’t worry so much. It’s bad for your blood pressure, champ.”

You laugh and turn around before calling out to the girls on who wanted to get something to eat with you. You don’t ever see that Lance’s eyes were on you the entire time as you moved away from him. The place you had touched him scorching like he had never felt before.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fucked.

Lance knew he was fucked the moment Sally --his previous video girl-- threw him out for yelling another name when they were together. Your name, to be exact.

He hadn’t slept with anyone in the past three weeks as a result, as he tried to realize what the hell was going on in his head as it keep going back to you. Utterly annoying you who smiled liked you didn’t give a damn in the world, who worked so hard doing all your things without a care for what anyone else thought, but who made his girls laugh and could put them in order when need be -- who looked down on him and just seemed to move forward and faced him head on.

Maybe, Lance Tucker was turning into a masochist in his old age?

“Coach,” Katherine’s voice breaks his thoughts as he turns to look at the young woman, “You need to stop looking at her and just say something already.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lance answers back as he glance down the hall once more to see your head moving about once more. He was sure that you had fallen asleep after being up so early, taking care of the girls, and eating such a heavy breakfast that consisted of airport food.

“You’re doing it again,” Katherine states in a sing-song sort of voice that makes Lance look at her in annoyance, “Just tell her how you feel or bang her...since that’s what you always seem to do.”

Lance just glares at the teenager, as she simply shrugs and puts on her earbuds once more. Lance tries his hardest to not look at you for the rest of the flight, he fails a couple of times.

However, there are bigger fish to fry than his questionable feelings -- like the prelims and as he stand in front of the hotel room door with you at his side, on who was going to sleep on the couch and on the bed.

“So, this is what you do with the video gal, huh?” you question with a raised eyebrow as Lance rolls his eyes and opens the door -- your suspicious of what the girls had told you being true and while Lance did in his personal time didn’t bother you --- he was a grown man after all-- that you had to deal with the aftermath of it all going sour did.

Lance doesn’t answer. He had yelled enough at the poor staff already, but there wasn’t anything that could be done at the height of tourist season for the area and that some other teams were staying at the same hotel as well. It was the best situation, but you were going to have to make due with it.

“Take the bed if you want,” Lance states without even looking at you, though his annoyed gentleman behavior bothers you for just a moment. That is quickly pushed out the window when you notice said man is taking out clothes and bath items.

“What are you doing?” you can’t help but ask as he pauses for just a moment.

“Airplanes are always disgusting,” he explains, “I’m gonna take a shower.”

“Oh okay,” is all you manage to say, unsure and a little weirded out that Lance could be so comfortable around you already, but maybe he was used to strange woman being around him all the time, “I’ll go check on the girls then.”

You get up and leave your things on the bed before rushing out. It wasn’t that you weren’t used to seeing the male body, but after so many years of putting off dating and being with others for your on personal endeavors -- it came as a bit of a shock how easily the situation changed. It might seem a bit prudish but you were going to give Lance his space during this time and you could only hope he did the same as well.

Lance couldn’t help but smile and laugh at just a little at how quickly you ran out the room.

This was going to be an interesting week, was all he thought to himself before checking out the bathroom.

@TUCKERGYM: TEAM GOLD AT IT AGAIN!

[inserted is .gif of Lance, Katherine, and the rest of the team imitating the Tucker money sign]

--And it certainly had been an interesting week between Katherine getting first place and the rest of the team making taking in some solid scores, you were starting to think that something had changed between you and one Lance Tucker. However, the question was why.

Maybe, it was because you were the only other adult on this trip when dealing with bunch of teenage girls that were excited to be in a new city -- it called for some “co parenting” from the two of and you were pretty sure that Lance didn’t usually let them go out, that was a different story --just a bit-- with you around. It also might help that the two of you were watching the same videos over and over again in the hotel room for training purposes and you were making shorter videos and stuff to post on social media.

Lance tended to curse at the screen a lot, as you shook your head though the creakiness of the old mattress when you moved about tended to bother the man in a different way.

All in all, the week was uneventful between the two of you. Lance kept his distance from you when you were in the room together and while some part of you knew Lance Tucker wouldn’t give you a second glance --he could do so much better-- there was a part of you that wanted to know the Tucker charm as you watched in from afar during the tournament talk and laugh with other women.

That's the part that was slowly coming to the surface that was scaring you the most out of all this.

However, it wasn’t due to Lance’s lack of trying that you didn’t see that he actually was trying to get a rise out of you. He didn’t wear his USA jacket in doors, biceps fully on display when you guys were alone in the hotel room. He made you sit with him from time to time to see the videos, sometimes a little too close for comfort but still no reaction. He had even tried the towel around his waist when coming out of the bathroom, only to be thwarted by either you already being asleep or the girls dragging you away.

Lance didn’t know if he was just out of his element, or if he has finally found a woman that didn’t see him of all people in that way. It was killing him, so he goes to his last resort on the last day you are together -- the good old wine and dine ‘em.

“A dinner? Just the two of us?” you can’t help but question just a little, as he nods thinking deep down that you are going to turn him down, “What about the girls?”

“They’ll be doing their own thing for once. I’m allowing it,” Lance explains as you stare at him in momentary shock. He was normally strict about the girls’ schedule from what you had seen, “But, think of this as a thank you...for going the extra mile for us.”

“Sure, I’d love to,” you smile and it dazzles him for a moment.

The Grotto Ristorante was a cute little Italian place just across the street from the hotel and while you didn’t have any great attire for a sudden evening dinner, you tried your best with a black skirt and a fancier blouse that you had brought for professional purposes. However, the real shock came in seeing Lance, who always walked around like a USA Gymnastics billboard, dressed in a simple button up blue skirt ands slacks.

You cursed at your momentary breathlessness as he reached and said: “Let’s go.”

Laughing and drinking over pizza has you sharing stories that you aren’t usually inclined to share though it does have Lance laughing once you tell him about the summer you spent in a cast due to a dare with some older kids and a pond you used to live near. You laugh at some of his riskier escapades, especially the one that had him running around naked after getting caught with one Hope Ann Gregory.

Maybe you have one too many drinks at the restaurant, but the mood continues into your hotel room as you bat your eyelashes for him to order room service. You let out a giggle when he does and while you are usually more reserved than anything else when it comes to this sort of thing, the bright look in Lance’s eyes does something to you that you haven’t felt in a very long time.

“Okay, tell me one thing I don’t know about you,” Lance asks, as he watches sway back and forth for a moment, at awe in your tolerance level.

“It might not look like it,” you start off as you lean in a bit more, “But, I teach ballet. I almost went professional a long time ago.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“That’s two questions,” you sigh out, somewhat more somber about this than anything else you had been talking about, “And because I got sick, I starved myself after I got injured. I need to stay away from ballet a long time after that.”

“Show me something,” he states almost as if he doesn’t believe. You don’t blame him, but you do plan on proving him wrong.

“Okay, okay,” you laugh just a little trying to get into formation and do a simple pirouette. However, the alcohol in your system causes you to get dizzy for more than a moment, as you are close to falling -- Lance rushes to grabs you causing you both to fumble onto the bed.

Lance, the more sober of the two of you, rolls over so that he’s on his side while you are laying your stomach. You let out a laugh and turn to meet his blue eyes that don’t seem to let go of you for an instance.

“Tada,” you let out in breathless chuckle as the man just shakes his head.

“You’re really something else, you know that?” he questions as you turn to face him. You blink in confusion for a moment, unsure of what Lance is trying to mean though it becomes a little clearer when he cups your cheek softly and leans in a bit more.

“Always running around, talking to me like you own the place,” Lance keeps going. His own lips lose from the alcohol now, “But, you’ve been in my head for days, maybe since the first time you glared at me.”

“Lance,” you question softly but instead of fighting back like you would with him, you match his stride and pulling in his shirt just a bit. The look he was giving you was once that you hadn’t seen in a very long time and you were sure that in this state you weren’t in the mood to fight back for once.

“Just once,” he breathes out, while staring at your lips and at your eyes.

You’re sure somewhere in the back of your mind you are going to regret this later, but you’re too lost in the moment and the alcohol to ignore whatever is drawing you in as you hook your hand over his neck and bring him in. Soft plush lips met your own in a quick peck, but he is quick to bring you back in a longer kiss as Lance moans a little when you place your hands over his cheeks and move in closer to place your body over his the best you can. His hands end up placed on your hips, thumbs rubbing circles where your skirt meets your blouse.

“Fuck,” he sighs out when you two finally break apart for air. His eyes closed as he relishes in the feeling of finally having you this close, of being able to move into something else. However, that thought quickly disappears at the sound of soft snoring.

Lance groans in utter frustration and annoyance as he realizes that you have fallen asleep, as you move about for a moment—seeking out his warmth— before leaning into his shoulder and letting out a small sigh.

A sigh that did things to Lance and once again he has come to realize — he was fucked.

#lance tucker #lance tucker fanfiction #lance tucker x reader #lance tucker fic #lance tucker drabble #The Bronze #the bronze fanfiction #series: Wednesday #fabiola trying to write

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slothcritic · 5 years

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Dragon Ball Z Abridged - Episode 5 Review

Weird yet creative cutaways with strong overarching momentum.

Vegeta: Kills Bugs Dead opens with Goku finally reaching the end of Snake Way and the end of his journey to reach King Kai. The "nice job, jackass" as Goku literally craters into the planet sets the tone for this character in a big way. We're also treated to the incredible hijinks of Vegeta and Nappa.

[Title Sequence]

The pit-stop at Arlia at least receives a well-fitted and rather hilarious incarnation in this series. Even though the episode alternates its focus between King Kai and Arlia, I'm going to talk at length about Arlia first, and then move onto the King Kai segments.

I'm already going into this scene with some personal bias, as the "stronger guy playing along with the weaker guy because it'd be funny" trope is one of my favorites. And here we have exactly this. Vegeta and Nappa allow themselves to be captured and thrown in jail by the Arlians, where they meet an assortment of varied bug characters.

"Don't drop the soap" seems a little outdated for the modern style of TFS, as I feel they've leaned away from really older, cruder, less PC subject matters like calling someone retarded or insinuating prison rape, etc, but it fits Nappa's character completely as someone who is childish, crass, annoying for the sake of being annoying, and kind of a jerk. TFS has at least acknowledged the idea of possibly re-dubbing Season 1 with better equipment and perhaps a more refined script, and I dearly hope they keep this line unedited simply for the sake of nailing Nappa’s character identity.

After very nearly becoming a prison bitch, Vegeta decides he's had enough and promptly kabooms his way out of prison, landing smack-dab in the middle of a coliseum with the king of Arlia and his queen.

Nappa's blunt manner of introducing himself with simply "Hi." will never age.

It’s noteworthy that scene is also the first moment we get a good look at Vegeta as a character. Nappa was firmly established as the goofball from the start, but Vegeta's portrayal has more depth to it than could be conveyed in one-liners. Most of which is just sass, smug pride, and anger, but still.

It's also made clear very quickly that despite their bantering idiocy and gruff talk that they're not just for show, as Nappa no-diff's the thirteen elite Arlian guards with a massive shock wave that we later see level a city.

The king and queen are then more or less blackmailed into fucking. Nappa's eager fascination during this whole scene, the descriptions, visual edits and sound design are... Well, there's no other way to put it, it's fucked up. And it is hilarious! These are some very creative takes and decisions that were made entirely for internal experience of the show itself rather than as a parody of something else. Nappa even takes a photograph of it and sends it to Vegeta, since he's abstained from watching.

The comedic jabs don't stop there either, as Nappa tries to adopt the Arlian Rancor, but just like the kid who can't sit still, Nappa ends up breaking everything he plays with. Just as Vegeta is about to kill the king, rocks begin flying around the coliseum.

"What are you doing?"

Vegeta smirks. "I'm about to rock you, like a hurricane." And then boom, he hurls a rock into the king and kills him. Let's put a pin in that brick joke for later.

The long flashback scene doesn't play any music, which feels like a weird editing misstep after a series of home runs. They leave the planet as heroes, and Nappa sets Vegeta up for another predictable bit of mood whiplash, where Vegeta obliterates the entire planet. This is a huge escalation in power scale compared to everything else we have seen thus far. But then, this is Dragon Ball Z. We've already reached “destroying planets” at only the fifth episode, and everyone knows that it only goes well past 11 on the dial from here on out.

Granted, there is controversy in the official version about whether or not this would’ve been possible for Saiyan Saga Vegeta, considering Arlia is not canon, but I will not be considering that simply because DBZA contains no filler. Everything shown in the flagship series (not counting movies, DBZA Kai, or other shorts) is presented as being canon to DBZA. Also, Vegeta and Nappa are shown standing outside of their pods... in the vacuum of space. Series veterans will understand the massive can of worms this opens. I'm looking at you, Battle of Gods.

Once everyone, including the people that they JUST SAVED from a tyrannical king, have been reduced to space dust, Nappa closes off this scene nicely.

Now that we've discussed Arlia, let's focus on King Kai's role in the episode.

He explains to Goku that the planet has high gravity due to it's small size. Gregory from off-screen pipes up that this doesn't make any sense. I suppose "higher planet density" wasn't considered when writing the script - or perhaps it was, and they just decided that the easy answer wasn't the funniest one. Maybe “there’s an incredibly powerful pirate trapped in the core of the planet, which is why the gravity is so strong" was deemed better for a parody.

Honestly, I agree. Bojack works as an in-the-know reference, and is also fleshed out enough within the show that a newcomer would understand what's being discussed.

At the time of this review, the Bojack Abridged movie has not yet been released, but this is easily one of the longest brick jokes in all of DBZA, since Episode 5 was released in 2008 and it is my expectation that Bojack Abridged will be released within the year, leaving in its wake an 11 year old callback.

When King Kai asks Goku why he had been sought out, Goku explains that the Saiyans are coming to Earth and he requires training. Excellent fade-in and musical choice for Goku's uncharacteristically serious speech to King Kai.

Of course, it gets cut off at the peak swell with King Kai's indifferent "sure", leaving Goku gobsmacked.

In this series, King Kai's indifference and easy acceptance of Goku is attributed to the mind-numbing loneliness of only having a monkey and a grasshopper (cricket, sorry) to talk to for the last 500 years. Goku agrees, as he couldn't imagine anything more boring.

Major flash-forward to Namek. Just this scene being here at all is a major instance of a sequence break. But it is the introduction of another exceptionally interesting character in the series.

In terms of placement, this works as a long-term cutaway gag and reminiscent humor but not much else. We're still about half a season away from even considering Namek within the story, and the Saiyans haven't even arrived on Earth yet. The decision to slide this segment into the middle of this episode leaves some serious questions in my mind. But at face value, it's not that bad.

We're treated to a solid ten seconds of just staring at a massive fat green alien while birds chirp in the background. We hear a fish go "plonk!" in the water, and Lord Guru calls for someone named Nail, who looks a lot like Piccolo, to approach him.

"I saw a fish. That was all, you can go back outside now."

Definitely reinforces the point of boring. And while Nail is lamenting how boring his job is, Lord Guru tells him that he saw a bird and then promptly instructs him to "kick its ass."

But we’re not Nail, are we? We’re the viewer, and for some reason in the human mind, segments of extremely boring content usually pique our interest even more, because we have it drilled into our psyche that something is going to happen to break the tension sooner or later. That notion, the idea of slowly leaning closer to the monitor during the ten long seconds of a single still image, both conveys the boring tone of Namek, but also leaves the reader waiting in anticipation long enough for these dull scenes to just fade from their perspective and only latch onto the climatic moment. In this case, Guru commanding his apparent servant/bodyguard to assault a fish.

Not to overstate the obvious, but if it’s not the viewer’s own sense of tension and curiosity, it’s the pure absurdism and characterization of Guru that carries this scene. Disregarding source material, the design of Guru is meant to make him look old, wise and compassionate. Making him a lazy, annoying, verbally violent fatass is a near-infinite cash cow of writing material. It’s very difficult for me to judge this scene unbiased, knowing what comes next, but I imagine this would be a tryhard non-sequitur at worst, or promising potential for the future at best, with regards to this scene on its own, within the context of this episode and nothing more.

This episode also saw the genesis of perhaps not the first, but one of the most popular jokes in all of DBZA: Piccolo just jobbing the shit out of Gohan. DODGE! The scenes chosen and the delivery are outstanding compliments to this cheesy, simplistic joke. At this point I feel it's important to address that my editorial reflections or descriptions of these skits are relative to the context of these episodes. Even with the best of what this episode has to offer, we're still in peak 2008 internet humor era. The use of the word "outstanding" here will not carry a similar significance should I use it to describe a later episode.

Also the most random cutaway in all of DBZA, full-stop, is the brief look into the Hall of Justice, as Superman, Batman and Aquaman debate how they will stop the approaching Saiyans. This is humorous only in its absurdity, but less-endearingly than Guru was. Even if this scene makes zero sense, and relies upon an almost lower form of comedy than slapstick, Aquaman's voice is still just Krillin's voice. At least Superman and Batman sound different than the main cast. I'm really tempted to dislike this more, but the lackadaisical attitude and context of the whole scene definitely draws your eye more than a lot of the sensible but base-line plot progression of the story. I don't know if it belongs. To me, this scene just screams out that TFS is flinging spaghetti wildly at the wall, any and everything that might be funny, and while some of it sticks for one reason or another, (Jadoshin as Solid Snake, Antics on Arlia, even Guru's abrupt cameo) some of it flops. If anything, this show builds upon the corpses of its failures, and learns what works and what doesn't work surprisingly quickly.

Conclusion

Bizarre, but I liked it. Nothing in this episode that's bad is memorable. I might criticize the Namek cutaway for being out of place, but after letting this review sit for a few days, I just remember Goku saying "Man, nothing could be more boring than that!" and the immediate cut to Namek, and Nail pleading for the love of his sanity for something to happen. I might criticize the Justice League cutaway for being wildly out of the place, but I just remember "WHAAAAAALES!"

The meat of the episode was also decent, as it establishes Goku training under King Kai, and Piccolo's continued training of Gohan, the origin of DODGE! and the realization that Gohan can transform into an Ozaru. And you can nod your head and say that these may be necessary to the story all day, but they're also presented with... let's call it a clumsy grace. It's not bad, but it's miles away from official dub quality. This is in essence what the benchmark or gold standard was for early abridging back in 2008. The quality that TFS will continue to evolve the series into simply defies all logic or explanation, and in comparison makes these episodes look downright crude.

But let's face it, if Episode 1 began with a person lying on the ground and shot in both kneecaps, Episode 5 shows that same person at least hobbling down the street to the hospital.

It might not look pretty on the whole, and some of the dialogue might be clunky, but it seems like a lot of the flaws in this episode are simply caused by being products of their time.

Whether we're looking at Namek or The Hall of Justice, even the most outlandish oddities of this episode have still made me laugh. That's really the end of it.

Score: 75

Passing Thoughts

"I hope something exciting happens around here soon. I don't care what it is." - Ominous!

"You're surrounded by my thirteen elite *KABOOM* ...dead guards."

"SUMMON THE RANCOR!"

#slothcritic #DBZ #Dragon Ball Z Abridged #TFS #teamfourstar

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