#and also points at lawrence who I’ve talked about before but. the line ‘he was more of a tool than the sword ever was and now he had no clue

[ariesqueencobra]

what we used to be | lV

Pairing: Eli Moskowitz x Fem!Reader

Summary: Your first lessons at Cobra Kai are what you expected, though, what your boyfriend does was the last thing you thought you'd ever see.

Warnings: bullying, name calling, violence

Word Count: 2.1k

A/N: Hawk has arrived! Make sure that if you want to see more of this story to comment and reblog! Comments let me know what you like about the story and reblogs help others see the story! Thanks!

I don't consent to this work being copied, translated or reposted.

“C’mon you saw Miguel kicked ass,” Eli attempted to get Demetri on board with the whole karate thing.

“It’ll be fun,” you placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder before he had the chance to knock down any positive thought.

You stayed huddled together, your shoulder brushing with Eli’s every so often.

“Quiet!” a loud voice shouted and you all flinched, the dojo dying down. “Face front,” he scanned over the group before he began snaking through, taking a look at all of you. 

You felt a little self-conscious when he approached, your gaze trying not to meet his.

“Nice shirt,” he complimented Demetri and you were taken aback. “I’m joking. It sucks,” he was quick to take it back after Demetri thanked him.

He then went on, telling someone he had terrible teeth and calling another a virgin. 

“When I look around this dojo, I don’t see Cobra Kai material,” he began. “I see losers, I see nerds,” he added.

You glanced down, regretting you showed up. If he was just going to bully you like Yasmine and Moon, then what was the point?

“But in my short time as a sensei, I’ve also seen some miracles,” he looked over to his first two students; Aisha and Miguel. 

You smiled slightly at that, maybe you were too quick to judge just like he was.

“So maybe there’s some hope for you yet,” he did another scan. “But first I need to see where everybody is at, so fall in!” he ordered. 

You all glanced at each other, murmuring in confusion. 

“Line up!” he clarified.

Thinking he meant to lind up behind Aisha and Miguel, you followed the crowed. You stood between Eli and Demetri while you awaited the next orders.

“No lines,” he sighed out, running a hand over his face.

“You mean rows?” Demetri spoke up. 

You stifled a laugh. This was exactly what you expected when you decided to join Cobra Kai.

~

The next day at practice, you all managed to get into rows. 

You stood behind Miguel. Demetri and Eli stood next to you in the row. 

“Fighting positions,” Sensei barked.

You got into position, raising your fists and making sure your stance was proper. 

“Jab punch,” he said but didn’t order to go so you waited, though a few didn’t listen. “No, not until I say go,” he added for clarity. “Hiya,” he gave the all-clear.

You followed through with the motion, left fist then right, making sure you used the weight of your body to help. 

He went around, correcting students until he came to the front. “Hey, Lip,” he called out and immediately your blood rushed cold. “Yeah, you. The one with the freaky lip, who do you think I’m talking about?” 

Eli faltered, his gaze dropping. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Lawrence,” Demetri spoke up. 

You inhaled, not knowing if that was a good idea or a bad idea. As much as you wanted to stand up for Eli, your boyfriend for crying out loud, you also knew Sensei was kind of a bully. You didn’t know how to stand up to them yet…

“Sensei Lawrence,” Aisha corrected. 

“Okay,” Demetri chuckled. “You really shouldn’t make fun of someone’s physical appearance,” he explained.

You agreed wholeheartedly but that feeling in your stomach told you he should shut up.

“Is that so?” Sensei’s brows raised. “So I’m not supposed to mention his lip at all?” he pointed at Eli. 

His brows creased together, biting down when the entire class’s attention fell on him. 

“Well, yeah,” Demetri said point-blankly. 

“Maybe that’s what they teach you in school, but out in the real world, you can’t expect people to do what they’re supposed to do,” Sensei pointed. 

You felt inclined to agree but at the same time, you wanted him to stop making fun of Eli. There was no harm in being nice.

“You hear that lip?” Sensei called Eli’s attention again. “If you can’t handle someone making fun of you, how are you gonna handle an elbow to the teeth?” he asked.

Are those equivalent though? You asked yourself. You bit down on your lip, holding your hands behind you as you watched as a bystander.

“By calling the police,” Demetri suggested.

You glanced at Miguel as he told him to knock it off and you couldn’t help but agree. Still, you didn’t say anything. 

Speaking up will only make it worse.

“Why should I be scared of him? Because he’s got a snake on the wall?” Demetri gestured. “It’s not like he can give us a bad grade, we’re paying him,” he made a note to emphasize. “He can’t actually hurt us”.

The feeling in your gut grew, something bad definitely was going to happen.

You were right.

Sensei stayed quiet but stalked over to your best friend. 

“Are you done?” he came face to face with him. 

Demetri looked confused, the rest of the students circling around. You sent Eli a worried look, one he returned.

“Go on, hit me,” Sensei ordered. 

Demetri got into the stance and attempted to throw a punch but was easily blocked, the hit not even hard.

“Harder,” he said. 

Reluctantly, Demetri did again but failed. The third time, Sensei actually flipped him onto his back. 

Demetri huffed out in pain and most likely embarrassed.

“Let that be a lesson to all of you,” Sensei pointed a finger around. 

You averted your gaze, fidgeting on your feet. You weren’t sure whether or not to call that a close one.

~

“Do you still want to go?” you asked Eli as you sat in study hall.

You felt more at ease now, Kyler not messing with any of you now knowing Miguel would beat his ass if he got caught messing with his friends. 

“Yeah,” he set his pen down. “I think what Sensei says is a little true,” he shrugged. 

“Me too,” you agreed. “I’m not happy about what he did to Demetri though,” you shrugged.

“He quit, so I don’t think that’ll be a problem anymore,” he responded. 

You nodded, deciding maybe it was for the best. He had a bad experience, but it was clear you two wanted to learn self-defense. 

“What about you though? He calls you “Lip”,” you furrowed your brows. 

“I can take it,” he averted your gaze, voice softening. “I want to go back,” he reassured.

You pressed your lips together. 

It was an easy answer, you were going back.

The third time’s a charm, right?

Wrong.

“Okay, everybody, fall in,” Sensei walked out of his office.

You and Eli took your places. 

“Where is everyone?” Sensei glanced around the emptier dojo. 

You glanced over your shoulder as he named out the hurtful nicknames he called out. 

Gee, wonder why they left. 

Part of you was proud of Eli, even after the bullying he received, he had the desire to come back. That took guts and it only made you like him more. 

“They quit, Sensei,” Miguel answered.

“Are you serious?” he dropped his arms to his side. “I mean, good, that was a test,” he recovered. “I wanted to see who the quitters were. Not you guys, you’re in it to win it, right?” he attempted to encourage and you gave in, nodding slightly. 

He went on, saying how you could be doing other things but instead chose to learn how to fight. Which you figured was a good thing.

“Lip. Look. Even Lip’s tougher than those guys,” he pointed at Eli.

You sighed out. This could have been better. 

“Could you please not call me that?” Eli spoke up, which caught you by surprise but your pride grew even though you weren’t sure how this would go again. 

He repeated what he said after Sensei didn’t catch it but Miguel butted in, hoping to diverge the situation.

“No, Lip has something he wants to say,” Sensei brushed off. “Sorry, speak up, Lip. Or is your tongue messed up too?” He taunted.

You saw the way Eli’s demeanor changed but you were unsure how to help. But your eyes widened when Sensei made a comment that didn’t sit well with you.

“Um, the doctor said I could be on the spectrum,” Eli reluctantly responded. 

Your heart fell. He shouldn’t have had to explain himself. 

Sensei made an obscure suggestion for him to “get off it pronto” and then followed with him getting surgery to “fix” his lip.

“I was born with a cleft lip. This is the scar from the surgery,” Eli explained. 

Part of you wanted to go up and kiss him right there to prove to everyone he wasn’t a loser. But you couldn’t find any ounce of courage within you to do it. 

“You mean it looked worse before?” Sensei’s brows rose.

“Can we change the subject?” Eli’s eyes darted across the room, unsure of how to diffuse the conversation. 

“I want to but it’s right in front of me,” Sensei made the situation worse. “If you don’t want to just be a nerd with a scar on his lip, then you gotta flip the script, okay?” He told him, bringing up more suggestions of getting a tattoo or a patch. 

The more he spoke, the more Eli got nervous. Without another thought, he walked out of the dojo through the back.

You hesitated running after him, but you were honestly afraid to face the scrutiny of Sensei. 

You would check on him after class you told yourself. 

And you did. 

You rode your bike to his house first thing after class.

Knocking on the front door, you wrung your lip between your teeth as you waited in anticipation.

“Hi, Mrs. Moskowitz, is Eli here? He left his shoes and bag at the dojo,” you held up his items. “He also hasn’t been responding to my messages,” you pulled your sleeves over your hands after she took his belongings from you.

“Hi, hon,” she greeted. “He’s not really up for company at the moment, I’m sure once he feels better he’ll talk,” she pressed her lips in a reassuring smile. 

“Okay, thanks. Can you let him know I just hope he’s okay?” you asked.

“For sure, but can you tell me what happened? He won’t talk,” her face pinched in concern as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“The teacher is a little tougher than we thought,” you shrugged, not wanting to give too much away since you knew Eli’s mom would blow things out of proportion.

You also knew Eli would rather forget about this ever happening. 

“Thanks for stopping by,” his mom nodded before shutting the door.

~

He wasn’t at school the next day either. 

You stared at your phone, going through the unreceived messages before locking it and throwing it in your bag. 

A few minutes later, class started. 

You were lined up next to Miguel when Sensei walked out in front of you. 

“Three more absences,” Miguel sighed.

“A bunch of pussies,” Aisha mocked.

“No, it’s my fault,” Sensei admitted and you were shocked. “Since you joined, I’ve been hard on you. But Cobra Kai is about strength. If you’re not strong on the inside, you can’t be strong on the outside,”

He went on to say that he once used to be a loser until he shed his skin and became badass.

You nodded along, each word hitting. You knew he was right and maybe that’s why you decided to come back even though your friend and boyfriend decided to quit. 

You didn’t want to be a loser anymore that was an easy target for Yasmine or Moon. You wanted to be the badass who knew how to stand up for herself. 

You knew deep down this is what you needed to do to get to that point.

Just then someone entered.

Your eyes widened in shock, heart rate rising as you stared at the boy with the blue mohawk. 

He radiated such confidence that you gravitated towards him. When you glanced into his eyes, that’s when you realized who it was.

“Eli?” you furrowed your brows, staring at the boy you fell in love with in kindergarten who looked entirely different.

“I took your advice, and decided to flip the script,” he smirked.

The tone of his voice, his stance, his gaze—he was an entirely different person.

You were taken aback…in a good way. 

“Woah, you’re the kid with the lip?” Sensei Lawrence pointed at him. “You see, this is what I’m talking about,” he smiled as he pumped his fist. “Hawk,” he snapped his fingers. “Fall in”.

The name was fitting.

He stood next to Aisha.

Sensei scanned across the room before he opened his mouth, standing in front of Hawk.

“Fear does not exist in this dojo, does it?” he asked him.

“No, Sensei,” Hawk squared his shoulders. 

“Pain does not exist in this dojo, does it?” 

“No, Sensei,” Aisha shook her head.

“Defeat does not exist in this dojo, does it?” 

“No, Sensei,” Miguel affirmed.

With approval, Sensei turned around before he shouted, “Class, are you ready to learn the way of the fist?”

You all responded firmly.

“Yes, Sensei!”

#eli moskowitz x reader #hawk x reader #eli moskowitz imagine #eli moskowitz #cobra kai

[cheesybadgers]

(GO TO PART 1 AND PART 2)

PART 3

74. The poets listed in the epilogue refer to a few names I’ve mentioned before in this fic, plus a couple of new ones:

Federico García Lorca (see point 17 and also Sonnet of the Wreath of Roses, Night of Insomniac Love, To Find a Kiss of Yours and Blood Wedding)  

Jorge Gaitán Durán  (in particular, see I Know I’m Alive… and Death Could Not Beat Me)

Jotamario Arbeláez (in particular, see After The War and this article about the group of poets from Medellín who called themselves the Nadaistas)

Pablo Neruda (in particular, see One Hundred Love Sonnets and Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair)

Octavio Paz (see Touch, Counterparts, Colophon and Sunstone/Piedra de Sol)    

Rosario Castellanos (see point 8, plus there are several poems here, I particularly like Amor, Telenovela and Pasaporte)

Gabriela Mistral (see Drinking, Slow Rain and Gabriela Mistral's Letters to Doris Dana (Doris Dana was Gabriela Mistral's alleged romantic partner – see more here and here)

75. In the epilogue, there is a reference to Operation Orion (more info here as well) which was a series of controversial military operations in Comuna 13 in 2002.

Although the Colombian military and government declared it a success, there were questions raised about disappeared individuals and an Army General, who allegedly colluded with far-right paramilitaries (including none other than one of Don Berna’s underlings) and the CIA to bring down FARC. It’s also worth noting Plan Colombia existed at this time as well, which was a US initiative to provide foreign aid to Colombia.

Here are also a few articles about what became of Comuna 13 in the subsequent years and the regeneration of Medellín after so many years of violence:

Medellín: Front Line of Colombia’s Challenges

History of Comuna 13

Medellín, Colombia: reinventing the world's most dangerous city

76. I mentioned in point 69 about the INS re-branding as ICE. This happened in the wake of 9/11 when ICE was brought under the Department of Homeland Security, and this is what Javier alludes to in the epilogue.

Speaking of 9/11…here are a few articles about the impact it had on everything from the War on Drugs, the DEA, the immigration system and illegal border crossings:

The Costs of Homeland Security

Narco-Terrorism: The Merger of the War on Drugs and the War on Terror

How September 11 Changed the U.S. Immigration System

9-11 and the US-Mexico border: New challenges 20 years later

77. The Supreme Court decision referred to in the epilogue is Lawrence vs Texas (see point 62 above), which was heard in 2003 (the epilogue is set on 15th December 2004), which struck down America’s remaining sodomy laws.

It wouldn’t be until 2015 when the Supreme Court heard Obergefell v Hodges that same-sex marriage became legal in all 50 states (Texas was one of the last to legalise it off the back of this case).

I didn’t want to skip that far ahead in the epilogue, but I shall leave readers to draw their own conclusions about what they think Javier and Horacio might have done in 2015…

78. The inscription on Javier’s ring is, of course, the same one as Elena’s ring from chapter 22. I couldn’t really mention this when I talked about that chapter, as it would have been a spoiler for the epilogue lol.

The epilogue is named after Suerte by Shakira (the Spanish version of Whenever, Wherever). The lyrics of both the English and the Spanish versions are just so very them. And obviously, Shakira is Colombian, the story ends in Colombia...I had to make it happen lol.

79. I had always intended the epilogue to be all about the callbacks, especially to chapters 1 and 2, so I hope people spotted some as there are a few in there. Tolú is where the story started and it’s where it ended ❤️

I randomly remember dyeing my hair at some point in 2023 and it just came to me over my bathtub that “Old habits die hard, he supposed” was going to be the final line. It’s a thought Horacio expresses in chapter 1 but in a very different context and with a very different meaning. But that line was where the fic title came from, so it just felt fitting for it to be the last line as well. They’ve come full circle, but everything is different. I’m such a sucker for that trope lol.

And I think, that’s all folks! If I think of anything I’ve missed off (which is a distinct possibility), I’ll add them as and when I remember.

Thank you to anyone who has followed me down these rabbit holes of absolute insanity. I don’t think I even put this much effort into my degree tbh lol. But I’ve had a blast learning so much, challenging my ideas and expanding my understanding of countries and cultures other than my own. If I’ve encouraged anyone to go off on and explore, then I’d be thrilled and would love to hear from you 😊

#Narcos #Javier Peña x Horacio Carrillo #Javier Peña #Horacio Carrillo #OHDH Trivia #OHDH #My Moodboards

[itwoodbeprefect]

belated writing emoji asks, if you still feel like answering

🤡🦅👀

(these look weirdly big for some reason, apologies!)

ooh, this looks like an interesting horror story. a GIANT clown is about to be attacked by a HUGE bird but unbeknownst to either of them... disembodied eyes (BIG ones)... are watching... 👀 (but bigger)

🤡 What’s a line, scene, or exchange you’ve written that made you laugh? & 🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

hee, you and @luredin had similar brainwaves it seems, because she also started with both of these in the same order! i answered them here, but i can come up with another example for the clown: in Johnny Lawrence vs. The Computer: A Tale of BOOP (a cobra kai fic) i was definitely cackling while writing some of johnny’s internal monologue around tech. he’s canonically awful with it to the point of parody (he's never owned a computer before! he's not a nerd!), which is obviously a great starting point, and this fic is essentially about johnny (briefly) drunkenly trying to catfish daniel and then getting mad about it, while he also just doesn’t understand how anything works:

The thing that makes the internet so great and also so much worse than the real world is that everything is really impersonal. You don’t hear people talk, you don’t see their faces, and you sure as hell can’t kick their ass through a wifi. So who’s gonna know if Johnny decides to play a prank on LaRusso and pretend he’s someone else? Who’s gonna figure out he’s not Jennifer Smith, a hot single mom with really great honkers who’s looking for a strong man to sell her a car?

Johnny types the email, sends it, laughs to himself about it for a bit (LaRusso is going to look so dumb if he thinks Johnny is actually a hot single mom with great honkers) and then wakes up hungover the next day and forgets all about it.

Until his computer goes BOOP.

There’s a fresh email in his internet.

there’s also a bit where he feels pretty smart for knowing that his email adress has a typo in it, because even he knows it’s email, not gmail - and a reference at the end to johnny having ongoing email exchanges with “half a dozen African princes with really naïve ideas of money management” (because there’s a scene in canon where he gives his information to all kinds of spam/conspiracy websites, iirc), which is of course a very obvious joke, but i just like the idea of that a lot. everyone’s wasting their time in those interactions, and they probably all deserve it.

👀 Tell me about an up and coming wip please!

well. for the starsky watches westerns fic i’ve recently been googling pretty cowboy hats, and it led to what’s probably going to be the first kiss scene! i keep changing the color of hutch’s hat though, so that’s yet to be decided.

also, yesterday i finally watched 1971’s zachariah, which was exciting because a) i learned i should have done that much earlier (not the painful warhol-esque experience i was dreading at all!!! honestly an almost perfect movie! and oh my god, that poster) and b) it (arguably together with blazing saddles, and maybe one or two others i still need to actually watch) throws a delicious spanner in the works for the central thesis of the fic so far, which was something like “if you’re a queercoded cowboy (in the movies), you’re probably going to end up dead (so what does that mean if i see us in them)” - and i’m sticking with that, but it’s great to be able to paint in more than one shade. (not only does zachariah not die, he gets a happy end! with his cowbff boyfriend buddy partner! after they start the movie by shOOTING A HOMOPHOBE. like i said, an almost perfect movie, and very exciting stuff to me.)

i also wrote some louise content (the guinea pig, i’m stubbornly keeping her as a part of this) that i could probably have used for the clown answer. while they’re watching red river:

“That’s a nice-looking gun you were about to use back there,” says Cherry Valance, and Starsky, his eyes newly opened, is left almost breathless from the impact.

“Don’t look,” he says, and cups a hand over Louise’s little face, because what’s happening on screen - those guys fondling each other’s guns, making them go off - it’s downright indecent.

send me emojis (if you want)!🌈  

#thank you for playing!! 🎉 #ask #* #by the time i'm posting this the emojis seem to have shrunk for me so i have no idea how these will post #but for anyone reading this later. they definitely were very big. can confirm #cowboy fic tag

[the-heart-of-leo]

AO3 First Lines

Rules: post the first lines of your last 10 fics posted to ao3. if you have less than 10 fics posted, post the first lines of all your fics.

(I dislike tagging people but if you want to do this, go ahead! Also, I might end up using the first paragraph rather than the first lines as I tend to start my writing simple. I’ve also listed warnings pertaining to the fic)

1 - The Improbability of a Long Life -  Stranger Things/The Old Guard crossover

Eddie knew he thought about death more than the average teenager. Not in a goth ‘life is misery and death is the only escape’ kind of way but in the ‘if the party dies, what’s a good plot point to let them come back’ or, if he’s feeling bit evil, ‘how cool of a player death can I come up with’.

2 - The Stars in Their Eyes - The Sequel to ‘For Want of a Home’. The Old Guard, Joe/Nicky, Omegaverse Crusaders Era Fic, Non-graphic/implied rape and non-grapic/implied forced breeding toward the end of the fic

Al-Quds was burning.

Even now, with the sky as bloody red as the bloody sand beneath his feet, he could see the smoke rising up behind what was left of the walls.

Al-Quds was lost.

Yusuf sat on his knees and stared up at the smoke, the dark stain of it cutting into the sky as the city glowed in its fiery death. The air stank with the smell of blood, of smoke, of burning flesh…

3 - What is Lost and What Can Be Found -  The Old Guard/Diabolik fic that I probably should update sooner rather than later... as such, I can’t give any real warnings at the moment

Nicky hated interrogation rooms.

They were always cramped, cold, and incredibly boring, no doubt in the hope that when the security officer finally came around to ask their questions, their suspect would be eager to talk if only to break the silence.

Airport interrogation rooms were somehow worse. Smaller, duller, and made all the worse by the inconvenience.

4 - Before the Fall -  Waves/Wolf/Diabolik Kenzarelli crossover - Majid/Gabriele

Getting stabbed was one of the worse experiences Majid had ever had and that was saying something.

The wad of bandages pressed to his stomach and taped in place were doing a decent enough job of keeping his blood in his body but it did nothing for the pain.

"Your dad's a fucking psycho," he hissed at Gabriele. He pressed a hand over the wound to try and keep the bandage tight against his body, to staunch the blood more. "Who the hell just fucking stabs someone! He didn't even say anything!"

5 - For Want of a Home - The Old Guard, Joe/Nicky omegaverse Crusaders Era fic

The fabric was a deep burgundy, stuffed, quilted, and lined with beaded gold edging with tassels at the corners. It was a work of art and far more expensive than anything Nicolò could ever afford. Still, he gently ran a finger over the stitch work, following the line as it crossed over stitches until they formed a diamond in the fabric.

It was so soft…

It could be used as the floor of a nest or maybe even the ceiling if he found a way to hang it up so that it acted as a tent... but that would be so wasteful, not to feel the soft fabric, not to wrap it around them to keep the safe and warm and...

6 - The Sun and the Rose -  Lawrence of Arabia, Soul mark AU, has a graphic rape scene in later chapters

His soulmark was fairly small, only as big as the length of his thumb, but he always thought it beautiful in its simplicity. Gracefully arching lines wrapping around an empty center that made him think of blooming flowers — roses to be specific. Something beautiful and fragile that Ali never tired of seeing.

It was a shock to see the familiar design, pale on his dark skin, reflected in contrast on the sleeping man’s chest. The dark lines against skin still pale thanks to the unflattering uniform, so different from the pale pink, almost scar-like lines marking his own breast.

Lawrence was a confusing creature. Passionate, kind, and foolish in his determination and will. A creature the desert both loves and loathes…

And the one the desert has decided his soul belongs with.

7 - Of Truth and Blood - Lawrence of Arabia, Mild Ali/Lawrence, Character Injury, Past rape, trauma concerning everything really

The blood was spreading.

Ali was sure of it now.

It was on his side, easily hidden by his bisht, by the table, and now by the dim candlelight as the power had finally gone out. The dried blood on the filthy white thawb did a good job of covering most of it and, he was sure, no one else noticed it but him.

Aurens certainly gave no indication of being injured.

He never did.

8 - Persistence of Memory - Power Rangers: Dino Charge/Shattered Grid, Implied Koda/Phillip, Character Death, Character’s unhealthy coping habits

Once something is broken, it can never be put back together exactly as it was.

That was the warning they had all been given when the multiverse was reinstated and when those who had been lost had found a way to return. Those whose power was stolen were given their second chance as well as something close enough to home to return to. The Solar Rangers, their purpose complete for now, had disbanded and joined their first families where they belonged.

For the most part.

9 - Propriety, Modesty, and the Lack Thereof - Power Rangers: Dino Charge, Koda/Phillip, Short fluff, play fighting turned fade to black times.

Prince Phillip had been taught many things growing up as a royal: proper etiquette, modesty, propriety, manners – whatever you wanted to call it, it was how he was raised. Always be well-dressed in flattering but neutral colors, always been well-groomed, to never raise one's voice, always present one's self as being in control: someone trustworthy and regal.

Princes did not rough-house. They did not allow themselves to be manhandled, carried, dragged, pushed, pinned, or any other thing that would insult the dignity of his station.

Which only made the embarrassed flush of arousal worse.

10 - Flowers Bloom in the Scars Left Behind - Detroit: Become Human, Simarkus, Kinda slowburn romance, a year in the life kind of deal, too many pairings to name, drug addiction, etc

It had been a little over two years since Simon had last celebrated a Christmas. His former owner, Amy, had loved Christmas and Halloween and any other holiday that required decorating the house. As soon as it became socially acceptable (and sometimes not), she would start setting things up.

To be honest, Simon had enjoyed it too.

At Jericho, there was no reason for celebrations, nothing to decorate or to decorate with. The holidays were a melancholy time for them all, bringing with them memories that were a mix of good and bad, depending on their previous lives.

#My Writing #Fanfiction #I won't spam the fandom tags with this

[toomuchdickfort]

*over-analyzes the stories of my OCs at bedtime until it makes me want to cry while I wait for the Benadryl to knock me out*

#it doesn’t happen too often but. it’s happened often enough that it’s like. Hm. #and like. it’s just Bc I make myself feel bad at bedtime anyways if the brain is left to it’s thoughts and also sometimes I need to know Ill #get sleep so I take smth to knock me the fuck out. and in this case it’s also Bc allergies are kicking my ass #but anyway. looks pointedly at the characters who’ve come close to self inserts and how their lives only get better after some tragedy if #they get any better at all. #looks pointedly at arson sitting curled up on the floor of their room having their third cry of the week and Derrek laying on the floor #trying to kick the ‘experiencing another universe instead’ thing into gear because existing is so much energy and he doesn’t have the energy #to do anything and he also doesnt have the energy to sleep #points at Eri who killed his brother in an act of self-vengeance and immediately regretted it when he had time to think and when he left a #note he chose to paint himself as villainously as he could without lying because he figured it would be easier on his mother #and synaelia who is slowly like. actually being hit with the fact that she’s dead and is most likely going to stay that way for a very very #very long time and part of her wants to ask a father figure how he handled that but he’s ditched town and she blames herself and instead of #dealing with any of that it’s time for a revenge road trip with a sword that needs therapy #and also points at lawrence who I’ve talked about before but. the line ‘he was more of a tool than the sword ever was and now he had no clue #what he was’ with a side of ‘this man came to two different conclusions about who he fundamentally is and then got all his memories back and #those ideas do not remotely align and he feels lost’ #and I could keep going on but the meds are kickin in and I think that this is probably more sharing than I’ll be comfortable with in the #morning anyways. if I remember about it #don't mind me #i’m just complaining

[suna-reversed]

Hello :)

Sukuna. fluff. Pretty please.

Could you write something about sukuna falling for itadori's best friend. You can throw some angst in there too because I am a masochist❤️

Sukuna x F! Reader 

oh god, this turned purely self indulgent halfway through. low key thinking of turning this into a series to give you the angst you deserve.

A/N: (reader is Itadori’s senior and is 18) (loosely inspired by the song “me and my husband” by mitski)

“And I am the idiot with the painted face

In the corner, taking up space

But when he walks in, I am loved, I am loved”

——-

- You had been one of the few poor senior students who had been victim to what had been Itadori’s “elevator pitch” for more people to join the occult club early back in high school. [the said “elevator pitch” being him jumping out at random people with a white bedsheet over his head saying “boo” as he handed you the club form]

- You didn't end up joining the club. But you somehow did end up getting joined at the hip with the chaotic mess under the white sheet.

- Whether it was you two rushing to the theatre to watch Jennifer Lawrence’s new movie,  or going to a revolving sushi place [only to get pocky from a nearby vending machine instead because revolving sushi is apparently expensive], Itadori Yuuji had become a comforting and very important presence in your life.

- So of course when he suddenly dropped out of your life, being the worried friend you were, you decided to poke around a little only to find out that he was...dead?

- Maybe a few months down the line, you would’ve started to slightly recover from the tragic news you had just gotten. Instead, what you got was your supposedly dead best friend popping up days later to tell you that he ate a finger and now he was the vessel for some centuries old curse,,,

- Um yeah...safe to say that Yuji did not expect you to go into the fit of emotions that you did [boy had the audacity to call you dramatic for fainting and then crying while hugging him once you gained consciousness] 

- some time passed and Yuji and you didn’t see each other much with him practically training to be the strongest jujutsu sorcerer. Still, simply happy to have him back alive, your brain managed to convinced itself that everything was still the same. 

- And it was when he’d sneak out a day or two from his heavy schedule and you’d be back to your normal routine of watching movies, stuffing your face with snacks, getting your face licked by the mouth on Yuji’s hand…

- ,,,wait what

- The first time the curse had made contact with you was simply out of annoyance of why the stupid brat even took the time to see someone as mundane as you so often.

- His plan was to simply scare you into leaving, knowing it would cause the brat pain.

- So he grabbed the opportunity when Yuji moved forward to brush off some popcorn dust on the side of your mouth, not only licking the side of your face but also being successful in slightly grazing his teeth against your tender skin. 

- Yuji had mentioned that being a vessel had caused some weird physical “abnormalities” for him. you didn’t understand it back then but at least knowing that had sort of prepared you for such an instance.

- So imagine the curse’s surprise [and an even further growing annoyance] when your eyes barely widened for a second before you burst into laugher, 

“Didn’t you train your dog to not bite?”

- by now, Yuji had jumped 5 feet away from you and was still halfway through his string of apologies, but upon hearing your reaction, he mused on your fake calm while letting out a chuckle himself, 

- “Guess I’ve got to get a leash for him” 

- By this point, the ever so indifferent curse had taken two teenagers talking about him like a mere annoyance as a personal challenge.

- And that’s how it started.

- He’d come out every now and then, licking your fingers as Yuji passed you something or making lewd remarks on anything and everything that you ever started a conversation about. 

- But you and Yuji barely paid him attention and it was an understatement to say that it infuriated the living hell out of him.

- Particularly you, who wouldn’t even be annoyed or sarcastic about his tactics anymore. Instead, treating him like a friend who was simply joining you and the brat to hang out. 

- He hated it. Hated how bright your laugh was. Hated how you made them stop every time you saw a stray animal just so you could pet it. Hated how your skin was as soft as a cloud and how you sometimes smelled like cherry blossoms. He’d kill you in an instant if he could ugh.

- it was a weekend and Yuji and you had been watching a movie, even though Yuji was barely paying attention. You knew he was tired as his large frame slumped over your shoulder. Pulling the blanket up to his face, you once again felt the wet feeling of the assaults you had grown familiar with on the side of your hand.

- “You could’ve just asked for a pocky if you wanted one, no need to lick it off my fingers you grumpy little thing”, you laughed as you stood up to go to the bathroom

- that snapped the final string. 

- Coming back into your living room, you wondered if Yuji had somehow gotten up in his sleep and managed to draw weird black lines over himself all in the span of 5 minutes. 

- ‘Yuji, what the fuck?’

- ‘Well well, now who’s acting like a grumpy little thing’ 

- The deep voice sent rumbles down your spine and you knew in an instant what had happened. 

- Even though your breath hitched in your throat and your body begged for you to run as fast away as you can, you held your ground as you simply tilted your head at the curse 

- “Well, I’d like my best friend back if you don’t mind.”

- You saw the smirk on Sukuna’s face falter for just a second before he crossed the space between the couch and you.

- Now as strong of a front as you managed to hold up until now, watching something like that stride straight towards you would have had even the strongest of sorcerers shitting bricks.

- Instinctively, you took a few steps backwards, but he simply continued to close the distance between the two of you until you were backed up against the wall.

- You flinched as he slammed a hand right next to your head and he seemed to gain immense satisfaction from that as he looked down at your startled face with a smirk plastered on his tattooed face. 

- Sukuna was sure that you’d be begging for his mercy any second now. His smirk widened and he was ready to mock your pleas as he saw you open your mouth to say something, 

- “ ...so much for a damn pocky.”

- All those other times you had caught the curse off guard were nothing compared to the “partially-confused partially-baffled” expression that he held on his face now. It almost made him look human. Almost.

- You didn’t realise just how long you were holding his gaze until Yuji took back control and apologized like a million times over, reassuring you that he would’ve never let you get hurt. 

- The curse didn’t show up for almost a week after that. And while you were grateful for not having to wash off your hands or face 14 times a day, you somehow felt anxious about its sudden disappearance. 

- All those worries were thrown out the window as he once again showed up while Yuji was passed out on the couch after a particularly tough session with Gojo sensei.

- Looking at the curse, you felt anger more than anything, how could he just drop out on you with no warning and then show up in the middle of your living room- ...wait a second, why the hell are you mad at a literal curse for not telling you he was taking a mental health break or whatever it was that he was doing? 

- While you sorted out through these conflicting thoughts in your mind, the curse seemed to be going through a similar crisis. 

- Having woken up in the brat’s fragile human body with no warning whatsoever, Sukuna wasn’t in the mood to see your face so soon again. He didn’t know why your physical presence unsettled him so much. All he knew was that he hated it. Even more now that he knew what you looked like all scared and small compared to his vessel’s towering build, and how you smelled even sweeter than what he had tasted, and how despite all that you still had the courage to stand up to someone as dangerous as him. Ugh, disgusting. 

- “The stupid brat passed out.”

- Such a simple statement caused you to snap your head up at him. But he didn’t wait for your reaction as he somehow managed to plop down on the couch while still looking graceful. Picking up the half eaten box of pocky, he warily pulled one out, eyeing it as if it was  a poisoned dagger before breaking off a piece and placing it on his tongue.

- “This is what you would risk your life for, brat?” 

- He turned his head slightly to look at you still frozen in place, staring at him with that doe eyed look that made his chest burn a little. Isn’t this what he wanted all along?

- “Are you simply going to stand there and gawk? I don’t bite-...well, not unless you ask me to.”

- He knew that would set you right back to your usual self,

 - “...maybe we do need to get a leash after all.”

- Sukuna internally grinned as he saw you move to the other side of the couch, ready to hear whatever more of the snarky comeback that you’d have (not that he was anticipating it, it was just the better alternative to being gaped at. Or so he told himself)

- “You ate the non chocolate covered part of the pocky by the way-”

- “As if a layer of this disgusting brown substance can make the rotten stick taste bette-”

- “Well aren’t sticks all you had to eat in yOuR TiME anyways?”- 

—-

- You somehow managed to fall asleep after the bickering, proceeding to sit in silence after you told him to not bother you while you tried to read. You wouldn’t admit it, but you were a little disappointed when he actually didn’t. Instead, he sat on the couch with a slight smirk still plastered on his face, continuing to simply gaze at you. your heart did lunges every time you slyly looked up from your book to take a peak at him. you wondered how many ways he had come up with to kill you so far. 

- On the other hand, the curse sat idly, watching you while his thoughts rumbled in his mind. Maybe killing you can be pushed off the agenda for now. There are much better ways to hurt the brat anyways aren't there? Perhaps he could use one of these brownish covered sticks to-...what is he thinking?

- He ultimately deems it stupid brat’s humane emotions and sheer stupidity that must be interfering with his thoughts.

- A loud sneeze snaps him out of his daze as he sees you slumped against a pillow, your book falling off your lap. And then he does something that he immediately decides that he would pretend to have not done for the rest of his existence. Luckily, the brat takes back control right after he does it anyways.

- But that thought slips his mind as he finds himself replaying the serene look on your face as he gently pulled the book out of your hands, and how his hands shook a little as you nuzzled your nose into the fabric of the blanket that he pulled over you. How could you have felt so calm around him?

#jujutsu kaisen #jjkxreader #jujutsukaisenxreader #yujiitadori #sukuna fluff #sukuna x reader #itadori x reader #sukuna #sukuna headcanons #jjk headcanons #sukuna smut #gojo saturo x reader #jujutsu Kaisen headcanons #jujutsu kaisen hcs #sukunafluff

[woulddieforperrytheplatypus]

I've been rewatching all the Loki content to get ready for the new show and I have thought of A Phineas and Ferb AU™ for your viewing pleasure (and if anyone wants to turn any part of this into an actual fanfic I would owe you my life)

this post was brought to you in partnership with @dumbausfromdanville

You know how the first Thor movie ends with Loki yeeting himself off the Bifrost and falling to earth? What if, instead of going after the Tesseract, he falls straight to the Tri-State area?

Jane, Darcy, and Selvig all seemed to be on vacation, right? So Thor presumably took place during the summer — say, perhaps, ending on June 3? So he falls right onto Phineas and Ferb's rollercoaster just before it goes down that ♫ three-mile drop straight down ♪. He has no idea wtf is happening so it's not like he gets the chance to sit down and put on a seatbelt, so he's stuck holding on for dear life for the entire rollercoaster ride which Phineas and Ferb find weird but they're not really concerned bc they're chill lil dudes and tbh this isn't too far off a normal day for them.

Phineas and Loki strike up a none-too-pleasant conversation (not that Phineas notices Loki's bad mood; he's too Him to realize not everyone is rainbows and sunshine all day, every day), and our favorite lil disoriented demigod has to figure out where the fuck he is now ("You there. What realm is this?" "Danville 🙂" "Wut da fuk?") and what the fuck he's supposed to do now that he's here.

Phineas ends up inviting him to hang out for the afternoon, and Loki is about to turn him down but then he smells the pie. He's never had doonkleberry pie before so obviously he has to try it. Then, when Loki's no longer hangry, they can hold an actual conversation. It's lowkey more Loki wallowing in his own self-pity than anything else, but Ferb recognizes Asgard when Loki mentions it so he and Phineas piece together that he's a god pretty quickly.

More importantly, though, they figure out that he's completely alone, and because Loki never mentions trying to, you know, murder his brother and lowkey overthrow the monarchy, they just kinda assume Loki's family sucks (Ferb is completely prepared to start the anti-Thor club but Phineas stops him because he doesn't want his brother to get struck by lightning) and adopt him (without his consent, but it's not like he has anywhere else to be -- and he did like that pie).

Loki has no desire to build anything with the boys He thinks the idea of a backyard beach they make the next morning is stupid — even more stupid than a regular beach, and that's saying something. But over time, he gets more involved -- not just with the boys, but with the entire family. He helps the boys build their inventions. He talks about human history with Lawrence and corrects much of his knowledge on mythology. He lets Linda teach him how to bake seriously, her pies are so good. He even suffers through Candace's mall trips as long as he gets to go to that fro-yo place on the second floor (though he draws the line at any conversation involving romance).

He's still a little skeptical of the platypus (and he feels like the platypus is a little skeptical of him, too) but Phineas insists that he's "just a platypus" and he "doesn't do much." Loki doesn't realize that Perry's keeping an eye on him for OWCA, nor does he know that Monogram has absolutely no idea what to make of the dude so he hasn't actually told any of his superiors about him. As far as the government is concerned, after the fiasco in New Mexico, Loki just disappeared.

This makes it fucking hilarious when the boys accidentally steal the superheroes' powers in Mission: Marvel and the superheroes show up at the Flynn-Fletchers' front door only to see fucking Loki. Loki just shuts the door in their faces without a word because what the fuck?, but eventually Phineas and Ferb go check the door and they agree to help the heroes (much to Loki's chagrin), which, of course, isn't complete with Candace fangirling over them (also much to Loki's chagrin; she never fangirled over him). At first the Avengers are fully convinced that Loki is responsible for stealing their powers, and Loki never actually denies it because he's a little shit but Phineas, Ferb, and their friends are very insistent that Loki didn't do anything (except a little bit of manual labor putting together the satellites because they're 10 and he's a whole-ass demigod).

At some point, Thor and Loki have a very heated discussion about the events of Thor, and it's pretty much all news to the Flynn-Fletchers and their friends. They're not really sure what to make of it so they basically glue their mouths shut and watch it all play out. I'd like to think it goes something like it does in The Avengers and that a) Thor is pissed because what the fuck have you been up to Loki you fucking dumbass, b) Thor has been in mourning since Loki yeeted himself into the abyss and he wants to make sure the guy knows it, and c) Loki does not take it seriously at all he's being antagonistic the entire time because he is so sick of Mr. High-And-Mighty's shit. In the end, Loki storms out of the SHEDquarters and Phineas doesn't even think to try to stop him until he's halfway out the door and it's too late.

He shows up again when Phineas, Ferb, and the Avengers try to fight the bad guys in the mall with the wrong powers and he basically singlehandedly saves their asses until superhero Perry shows up. As everyone's favorite shapeshifter, he has absolutely no problem figuring out that this beaver duck dude is the Flynn-Fletchers' platypus. He has no idea what to do with that information, but it sure is information that he now has apparently. (At this point, poor Loki has a very warped sense of what earth is supposed to be like lmao).

Phineas tries to get Loki to come back with them after superhero Perry grabs them and carries them home. Instead, Loki cuts himself loose and falls like 30 feet straight down (and tbh after falling from the Bifrost, that's nothing to him) and peaces the fuck out.

Loki ends up accidentally bonding with Candace and Isabella over feeling useless and unwanted (and he absolutely gets his own verse in Only Trying to Help because it's what he deserves), but unlike the two girls who are hell-bent on changing that, Loki is content wallowing in his own self-pity. He's tried this whole "being important" thing before and he ended up in self-exile for it. He's not putting himself through it again because he really doesn't expect it to end well. But then the powerless heroes decide to face the villains again, and with Candace and Isabella in space and Perry nowhere to be seen, he realizes it is once again up to him to keep the tri-state area safe (which he knows is a stupid priority but he's gotten kind of attached to these stupid little humans and he wants to keep them safe).

Then the heroes get their powers back and they join Loki (and Perry and the mysterious waffle gun in the sky) and beat the shit out of the villains. Thor and Loki work together in the heat of the battle which serves as a Great Bonding Moment™, and once the villains are gone, they have a nice lil heart-to-heart where they both apologize for their past. Thor remarks that Loki seems to have grown a lot over the last couple of months and tries to bring Loki home with him, but Loki refuses. He'll never be welcome back into Asgard, no matter what Thor may say.

But he is welcome with the Flynn-Fletchers, who are completely over the fact that he tried to ruin Thor's life and take his not-so-rightful place on the throne (except Candace who's very skeptical about having him back but it's not like Linda will believe her if she tries to tell her what Thor and Loki talked about so her opinion is unfortunately as irrelevant as it usually is on the show).

And early the next morning, before anyone else is awake, Perry gets an alert that he's needed in his headquarters (presumably to talk to or about Fury). He quietly sneaks off, only to find Loki waiting at the bottom of the stairs for him. They have a very nice "conversation" (not that Perry speaks) about the superhero Ducky Momo they saw the day before, and Loki assures him that his secret is safe, thus starting a much-needed bromance between Loki and Perry because it's what my babies, goddammit!

Anyways yeah if anyone wants to write a fanfic about Loki hanging out with Phineas and Ferb during his self-exile I would give you a socially distant high-five because I want to read it but I have too many other fanfics on my plate to start this one for at least a few months. It doesn't have to follow this prompt literally at all (I swear I wasn't trying to get this in-depth with it but this is what I do apparently) or it can follow this prompt exactly idc i just want a PnF/Loki fanfic 🥺

#marvel #mcu #loki #phineas and ferb #pnf #fanfic idea? #mission: marvel #mission marvel

[wecantseeyou]

a word on color - how line of duty series 6 uses wardrobe color to frame narrative (pt 4)

Author’s note: this is the conclusion to my essay on wardrobe color and how it’s used to inform narrative in series 6 of line of duty. Previous parts can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. This part covers episodes 5, 6, and 7. Heads up, my analysis of episode 7 is actually quite short because of my focus on Jo, but I have many, MANY thoughts on Kate’s second to last scene and the general wardrobe choices for Kate in this episode.

Thank you to everyone who has been willing to entertain my ramblings here. While I have a background in theatrical production, this kind of meta analysis was quite new for me. I was relieved to see (most) of this theory actualized in the finale. Now, this part is nearly 8k words, all four parts together clocked in at over 20k words and nearly 40 pages, single-spaced, so I’ve officially written a third dissertation (after the other two took me 10 months…). 

Regular warnings apply: I’m American and therefore may be missing certain cultural context. Spoilers abound, but I stick to Jo’s storyline for the most part, and don’t include my thoughts about the finale writ large (I may write an analysis of the series 6 storytelling separate from this, if there’s interest).

Read on below the cut.

EPISODE 5

Episode 5 opens with Lomax briefing Jo and Kate about connections between the armed robbery and Gail Vella's murder, showing them results for an industrial estate that matches the description given by one of the robbers. Jo is wearing the same outfit she ended episode 4 in, the orangish brown sweater and navy suit, while Kate is wearing a grey jacket over a white shirt, buttoned all the way up. A side note - this grey jacket does not fit in with the rest of the wardrobe Kate has been in all series, and from a meta perspective, this is because they have to conceal the firearm Kate is now carrying. Ryan watches from the other room, again in a call back to the way Jo was watching Kate in episode 3.  Kate tries to talk to Jo, but she's quickly brushed off, much to Kate's chagrin.

Jo’s outfit, which we’ve seen her in numerous times, again demonstrates her pull between what’s right and pressure from the OCG. After all, Ryan has just threatened her twice. She knows that the investigation is heading in the right direction, which she both wants and is afraid of, and she is panicking. At the same time, she’s wary of letting Kate get too close lest she suspect something and acts on it, putting them both in danger.

Kate’s outfit actually shows some of that forced distance Jo is causing. We’ve seen her wear a white shirt buttoned all the way to the top once before - when she spoiled the raid of MIT by AC-12. That outfit showed her pull between Jo and AC-12, and we’re seeing that here again. This time though, the grey jacket shows that she’s leaning AC-12.

We see this in the next scene where Steve, in his grey suit with a white shirt and red tie, is directly paralleling his former partner’s wardrobe. Kate visits AC-12, and it's been revealed that she has permission to carry a concealed firearm because of the threat Ryan Pilkington poses. Now, call me crazy, but I believe we’re meant to understand he’s a threat to her at least in part because of her relationship to Jo, but I’m uncertain. When Ted asks for an update, Kate notes that Jo has become "cold and distant" toward her, and the team reveals Jo has been put under surveillance, which Kate isn't happy about. It's then revealed that Jo is related to Tommy Hunter (from series 1 and 2) through incest, which is of course horrifying, though we don’t know the full story of it quite yet.

Back at her apartment, Jo checks the laptop to find out the OCG won't let her go because of AC-12's continued investigation, which she promises to take care of. She’s surrounded by her blue flat, in her navy and orange outfit, her actions and heart still at conflict with one another. She’s distraught, and stuck.

Later, Kate and Steve meet in an underground car park in their matching navy coats. Steve shares that Lakewell gave him information off the record, which is that Gail Vella had been looking into the death of Lawrence Christopher at the time of her death. He also tells Kate about his discovery that Hastings gave Steph Corbett the missing $50k of supposed bribe money (from series 5). The former partners match here because they are coming closer to being full partners again, working in tandem and trusting one another with information. They have been at odds this series, particularly when it comes to Jo, but they have remained on the same page in their disappointment in the gaffer and belief in finding justice for Gail Vella.

Back at MIT, Kate is looking into the industrial parks that may hold an OCG workshop.  As she researches, she repeatedly looks over at Jo in her office and seems to have an idea. She then steps out of the office and calls Steve, though we don’t see the details of their conversation. Kate returns to the office and goes into Jo's office, telling her that they may have found the OCG workshop. She asks to brief the team immediately to avoid leaks, which Jo allows while glancing out at the bullpen. We can see once Kate leaves that she was looking at Ryan, who is watching her closely.

We don't know it yet, but Kate has found a way to test Jo’s loyalty and her belief that Jo isn’t bent. She tells the team about 1 location, makes them hand up their phones (which pisses them all off), and Jo makes them all stay within the MIT offices just as Ryan is about to step out. As the briefing ends, Kate goes to Jo’s office once more and demands to speak with her, despite Jo’s rude and annoyed response.

It’s later revealed that Kate then tells Jo there are 3 total locations to be looked at, but they’re starting with just one. Meanwhile, AC-12 surveillance teams are stationed at all three locations to see if people are tipped off and by who.

In these scenes, Kate is wearing a navy suit with a light blue shirt buttoned to the top, while Jo is wearing a grey suit with a grey turtleneck. For both women, the high necklines that fully encircle their throats indicates their discomfort and their desire to have a wall up for their own protection. We see Kate in all blue as she’s on a crusade to prove the truth - Jo isn’t bent, and this will reveal who is (as she suspects Ryan). Jo, meanwhile, is uncertain, and her monochrome grey outfit reflects that. Normally, this is the type of thing she would be expected to tip off to the OCG (as she did with Carl Banks), but Kate has cleverly made it so she can’t. She’s trying to push Kate away, but Kate keeps pushing herself right back in. She’s meant to be wary of Ryan, but she stopped him from an opportunity to send out a warning - and that’s before she knew there were three potential locations. All Jo knows is that she wants out from this lie and constant threat she’s lived under. She’s in all grey, not true blue but certainly not a warm tone, because she hasn’t decided what her next step is yet. Temporarily neutral.

The initial raid is not a success, so Jo informs the team that they'll move on to the other locations instead, revealing that she and Kate did not give them all of the information. Lomax is pissed off, and directs that anger at Kate. From his perspective, the boss just told them she doesn’t trust him or the team and treated them all like a potential rat, and he chalks that up to the former AC-12 officer’s involvement. In an interesting parallel, Jo and Kate are wearing the same outfits under their body armor that we saw them in during the raid in the first episode - Jo in her black jacket and Kate in her green jacket. 

During this raid, Ryan snuck out to call in the danger to the OCG from a burner phone, an act which was recorded by Chloe “the only real detective” Bishop. Steve, at the real OCG workshop, rushes in with his team which results in the deaths of two suspects. Jo and the MIT team arrive on the scene not long after, and Jo and Steve come to disagreement over jurisdiction, and she ultimately forces him to stand down using her rank (which we’ll see her flex once more later in the episode). I have to say, I have loved watching Jo and Steve come to blows in this series in part because Jo is so much better at it than he is. Steve truly has been Jo’s foil, contradicting her at every point. We see this even in their clothes in this scene. While Jo is wearing a grey turtleneck (typically in the AC-12 color palette), it is hidden under her black jacket, and Steve is wearing a blue shirt under his body armor. On the visual face, they appear to be working at opposite ends to one another, and in this moment they are.

Back at AC-12, Kate debriefs the team on what happened and let's them in on the honey trap* (*not really) Kate set for Jo, which she didn't fall for (but Pilkington did).  The team is taken aback, and Hastings points out how risky a move that was. "As far as I'm concerned, that's proof she's not bent," Kate replies, stubborn to the end. Steve has a different interpretation - Jo assigned herself to the raid on the location with the workshop, and took control of the crime scene from him. "That doesn't fit with what I've witnessed firsthand. I needed to know one way or another."  Kate will not back down from her staunch belief that Jo is not bent, an unfortunate foreshadow to Jo’s eventual betrayal. Hastings sides with Steve, but Kate clearly still disagrees. However, Steve does believe Ryan should be removed from MIT, even as Hastings wants to keep him there. This raises their suspicions because Kate had originally talked the gaffer out of bringing Ryan in, but the reality of the matter is that Ted feels he’s on a ticking clock with his forced retirement, and wants to handle this fourth man situation before he goes. 

Kate and Steve are again in coordinated outfits here, dressed head to toe in blue. We’ve seen this before, the former partners in clothes that parallel one another while seemingly at odds. Sadly, this is because they’re again both right about Jo. She is using her position (and even Kate’s trust) to manipulate the investigation, but that manipulation stems from fear for her own safety as she herself is being manipulated and doesn’t want to do what she’s done. She’s like a cat stuck in a box - bent and not bent.

On the Hill, Kate gives the team the low down on the OCG warehouse and their next steps. Jo congratulates the team and tells them to get to work collecting forensic evidence while Pilkington sends laser eyes her way. This time it’s Kate wearing a turtleneck, this one in black under an olive suit jacket, while Jo wears a grey suit with a grey-green sweater and a blue shirt buttoned all the way to the top. Again, the high necks of these outfits demonstrate the discomfort and reservedness both women are feeling, but we also see a subtle connection with the green tints of their clothes. As usual, green represents the pull between two different compelling interests. For Kate, the pull between Jo and AC-12, for Jo the pull between Kate and the OCG. 

Wearing these same outfits, Jo catches up with Kate outside of Hillside, where she confronts her about AC-12's knowledge of the raids. Kate tells her she tipped them off because they're making a lawful inquiry. "Look, I'm telling you the truth Jo, because I trust you with it." Jo takes advantage of Kate sharing the information with AC-12 and tells Kate to put in a transfer request, saying, "I wouldn't want to harm your career, Kate. It's best if you request a transfer." Kate is taken aback and asks "You've been distant with me for days. Is this personal?" Jo denies this, pulling rank the same way she did with Steve, "I'm your senior officer, I should be distant." Kate seems confused and concerned with her response of "But I thought we were friends. What's happening here?" And here we see Jo’s fear crack through her irritation, just for a moment, when she says, "So you can tell AC-12?" As much as Jo is pushing Kate away in order to get her out of the picture, she also has a real fear that Kate continuing to share information with Steve will get Jo killed. She’s playing up Kate’s betrayal to explain her anger, but she’s also hurt and she wants her to know that. Jo trusts Kate, even if she doesn’t trust her enough to tell her the truth on her own. Up until this point, Kate has worked with her and told her about AC-12’s work, even helping her get a leg up on Steve. Now Kate’s helping AC-12 get a leg up on her.

But Kate is nothing if not determined. "No, I wouldn't tell them personal stuff." Kate refuses to take the transfer, and Jo leaves in frustration and anxiety, leaving Kate confused yet again. 

Back at Jo's flat, she's on the OCG laptop again. She tells the user she can handle AC-12, but they claim she can't because of Fleming. Jo tries to ask for more time to sort it, but time's up. "Get rid of her." Get rid of Kate, the last person Jo trusts, the one who just broke her trust.

And here is Jo’s betrayal. "As long as it's my last job." She looks devastated after she sends it, and she is. What she’s about to do is unforgivable. But scared and vulnerable people often do unforgivable things to save themselves. Jo just wants to be free, and she’s willing to pay a price for freedom. 

Steve, in his iconic grey suit and navy tie, goes to visit Ian Banks in prison and learns that Ted is the one that disclosed John Corbett's identity that later got him killed. He later calls Kate to tell her the news. Matching Steve, Kate is in a navy shirt, but is wearing a black suit, only the second time we’ve seen her in this suit. The first was in episode 2, when she gave Jo the information about AC-12 and they later had dinner together. 

Kate heads back into Hillside after her conversation with Steve and runs into Jo in the hallway, who asks to meet with her outside of work to discuss their 'personal issues'. Jo specifically looks at officers further down the hall to confirm they're leaving before speaking to Kate. She also lowers her voice at her own mention of personal issues, adding an extra layer of privacy to an already empty hall. 

Checking to make sure there alone is something that Jo and Kate have done frequently throughout this series. In the handhold scene, they break apart when officers step into the hall. They mention how it’s easier to talk outside of work during both of their dinner scenes. When Kate tells Jo about Ryan’s spying, she dismisses Chris first, and later in that conversation when Jo puts her hand on Kate’s arm, they pull apart when they hear officers approaching. 

Kate is surprised at Jo’s sudden change in behaviour from the past few days, but she agrees to meet with Jo after work. As Jo walks away, Kate clearly knows that something is up with her, but seems willing to find out what it is when they speak.

What Kate is sadly unaware of is that Jo walks away to lock herself in the bathroom and have a breakdown, distraught at the machination she has set in motion against Kate. Her hand shakes as she locks the stall, she falls to the ground, she looks around desperately for salvation. Jo’s mask, one that she maintains so strictly, falls for just a moment (not dissimilar to her breakdown in her car after framing Farida). Thirty seconds in a toilet stall to breakdown, to think about the consequences of her actions, about what she’s done to Kate. But she takes a few deep breaths, wipes away her tears, and we watch as her mask slips back into place.

Back at AC-12, Chloe “my back is worse than Steve’s from carrying this investigation” Bishop has uncovered more about the racist gang that attacked Lawrence Christopher, including the investigators, Buckells and the current Chief Constable. This was the story Gail Vella was looking into when she was murdered, and appears to be the reason for her death. Steve is wearing the same grey suit and navy tie as when he spoke with Kate, and while he’s grateful for Chloe for digging everything up, he’s also concerned that the young Black woman had to learn so many details about the lynching of a young Black man. [Note: to be incredibly clear, the death of Lawrence Christopher as described by the script was a lynching, and the narrative did not do enough to reckon with that fact for anything more than relevance to the global racial justice uprisings reborn in late May of 2020. More than willing to discuss this further if anyone cares for my thoughts.] As they discuss the case, Patty Carmichael walks in with gusto (and damn if that voice isn't an incredible acting choice). She’s taking over AC-12, and she’s cancelling the surveillance on Jo and Ryan.

That night, Kate arrives at Frederico's to meet Jo, who calls her the moment she’s locked her car to ask to meet somewhere less public, for claims of privacy. Kate is immediately on alert, especially after her attempts to convince Jo to stick with the original plan. But after a small plea from Jo, she acquiesces, but not without caution. Kate immediately knows something is off - this is not how Jo interacts with her. Little do we know, Pilkington is skulking in Jo's backseat, coaching her actions.

As an aside, this is also the only time we see them meeting out of work while they're both wearing casual clothes, not just the clothes they wore to the office. 

Kate drives to the lorry park and calls Steve, because she's both an idiot and a genius. He’s wearing the same suit as before, grey with a navy tie. She learns that surveillance was pulled on Jo and Ryan, and explains Jo's odd behaviour, forwarding him the address. Unfortunately, their conversation is cut short by Carmichael, which immediately sets Kate on high alert and she ends the call. Just as Kate is about to leave, Jo pulls into the lot, and the tension escalates.

Steve receives the address and immediately informs Hastings and Chloe, ordering the team to get a unit ready. The team starts to rush out and Carmichael asks for calm, which Ted isn't gonna do when one of his people is in danger. AC-12 isn’t about to let Kate down.

At the lorry park, a distraught Jo gets out of her car and approaches Kate’s car. Kate tries to convince Jo to go somewhere else, but all Jo can say is that she's sorry. Kate is confused, but that goes away pretty quickly once an armed bent bastard steps out of Jo's car. He gloats to Kate, saying "Jo wanted to give you a way out. Should've put in for that transfer." Kate tries to convince Ryan to put the gun down, that the authorities will find him, but it doesn't work. Which is when Kate makes a gamble - she tells Ryan about the surveillance on him and Jo. Ryan tries to blame Jo for their situation, but she acts none the wiser (even though Kate told her about Ryan’s surveillance in the previous episode).

"Why would she come here otherwise?"

Sure, Jo is playing down her relationship with Kate for Ryan’s sake, but it isn’t quite that simple. Jo doesn't want to believe Kate had any faith in her. She wants to believe she was pretending, because she has no faith in herself. Her reaction does provide enough of a distraction for Kate to be able to pull her own weapon, and the most tense standoff ever begins...

One of the most key color choices of any outfits so far on the show are the clothes Jo and Kate wear to the lorry park where Jo sets up Kate to be killed by Ryan. Jo is wearing her grey coat, a blue sweatshirt, and a red top. Kate is wearing a blue coat, and a blue striped sweater with a band of red in the middle. These two outfits are ultimately the thesis statement between these two women. Jo is wearing red as her last layer, the one closest to her, but is surrounded by cool tones through her sweatshirt and coat. Meanwhile, Kate’s sweater has a stripes of red and orange surrounded by shades of blue. 

But it doesn’t matter that Kate is being visually connected to Jo, because Jo is about to be responsible for her death via Ryan ‘the bent bastard’ Pilkington.

EPISODE 6

Nevermind though, no death for our beloved Kate!

Now, I’m going to take the next parts of the episode slightly out of order in order to tackle Kate and Jo together before their ultimate confrontation with Steve and AC-12. First, a run down of the AC-12 crew: Hastings is in full uniform, which represents his ultimate faith in the system, despite the bad actors and groups that try to destroy it. Carmichael is wearing a grey coat, aligning her with anti-corruption, but it’s piped along the edges with red, which shows how she’s opposed to AC-12 (though not necessarily corrupt). Steve is in his classic blue on blue on blue under his body armor, which shows his dedication to justice and also his faith in Kate. Carmichael confronts him directly about Kate’s whereabouts, which he fastidiously denies having any knowledge of, but unfortunately Hastings is forced to admit that Kate was permitted to carry a concealed firearm for safety. Steve doesn’t trust Carmichael, and this is shown back at the office when he tracks what Patty C is up to, mobilizing Hastings when she’s on the move.

At first glance, Kate and Jo’s red and blue outfits read as a visual metaphor for AC-12 closing in on their location, but I posit that these outfits are also indicative of Kate's belief in Jo, despite her anger that Jo has just set up her death. It’s clear at this point that their simple flirty banter from the beginning of the season has evolved into a deeper connection, which is part of what makes Jo’s betrayal so painful - Kate has been on her side the whole time. Jo just didn’t know it. [note: wrote this before the finale so guess who has egg on her face now…]

After a time jump (of nearly two hours, based on someone else’s analysis of time stamps and radio calls), Kate and Jo arrive at Steve's apartment. Jo asks if Steve can be trusted, and Kate leaves no doubt. Jo also asks why the surveillance got pulled, and Kate informs her about the chief and Carmichael. Jo denies having any part of it, but Kate isn't sure if she can believe her given the whole, you know, attempted murder thing. In a desperate bid to prove her loyalty to Kate, Jo asks for her gun, intentionally putting her prints on the murder weapon. Again, their coordinating outfits are the outward manifestation of their connection. Kate, while still angry, seems to accept what Jo is offering to her, but is clearly trying to maintain distance in the moment.

Jo then tries to see if things between them were real, but Kate refuses to entertain the conversation. What Jo is completely unaware of at this point is the lengths to which Kate has gone to prove that Jo isn't bent, up to and including risking a crucial raid on the OCG workshop. To Kate, it's a question that doesn't need to be asked, [the egg on my face remains] but Kate is also in disbelief that Jo would question her feelings when she's the one who was nearly killed by Jo. It’s an inappropriate time to have this discussion, and Kate lets that be known. They find Steve's personal car, a slate grey Mazda because this show is nothing if not subtle with its vehicular choices - even their personal vehicles tie in to their allegiance with AC-12’s mission.

Driving in Steve's car, Jo asks again if Kate was pretending with Jo, and Kate diverts the conversation away from herself. Was Jo lying to her when she hired Kate because she was ex-anti-corruption? No, she was hoping Kate, with her anti-corruption background, would stop her. Would save her, really. They discuss Jo's ongoing work for the OCG, and Jo's fear that she'll be killed if she turns, just like Tommy. She insists that she's not bent and Kate implores her to prove it.

Kate is pissed [for the non-Americans, she’s very angry, not drunk…] in this scene, as she should be. She believed in Jo, she still believes in Jo, but she betrayed her in a major way. And now, when Kate is sticking her neck out for Jo again, she's still too scared to reveal what she knows. Jo does reveal that Tommy was her uncle, and that her father was a bent cop, which of course doesn’t align with what Kate knows. At Kate's further insistence, Jo directs them toward Gail Vella's house, and finally to the old print shop the OCG had used in the past that is across from Terry Boyle’s flat.

Kate and Jo arrive at the print shop, and Jo is finally about to reveal the truth to Kate. This act, coupled with putting her prints on the gun, earns Jo back a little bit of the trust she lost, and this is shown when the two women share the same shot. Most of the scenes between Jo and Kate have been over the shoulder shots where one woman is the primary focus, and this scene pivots to end with both of them together as the focus. This change happens in time with Kate dropping some of her much-deserved hostility toward the other woman.

But before they can step out of the car, flashing lights and sirens appear behind them - they've been found. The fact that they've been tracked shocks Kate, but she spends no time dwelling as she throws the car into drive and speeds away. AC-12 AFOs have set up an intercept point, which Kate ignores in a truly badass handbrake turn, no matter if it makes any sense that they could have possibly known the route Kate would take in order to set up a kind of road block.

Handbrake turn or no, the Mazda has been intercepted and Kate and Jo are stuck. Kate is still confused that they've been found, but Jo knows the jig is up and tells Kate she's going to say she forced her to drive. It isn't until Jo tells her they have no other choice that Kate gets out of the car. Once out, Jo puts her hands up, but Kate refuses. Just then, AC-12 arrives with Carmichael, and Kate is in shock. "Jesus Christ, Steve's in on it" - cut to Jo's panicked face. This is the man Kate said they could trust, and now he's after them too.

What follows is a very tense standoff between the two fleeing detectives and AC-12. Jo surrenders, but Kate refuses. First Carmichael tries, then Hastings (at which point Kate tells Jo she learned some shady stuff about him), and then finally Steve walks up to them. Jo begs Kate to surrender repeatedly, but the DI believes she’s onto her second major betrayal of the night and she isn’t willing to give in that easily. She thought she could trust Jo, and she nearly killed her, and to her mind she trusted Steve and he turned her over to Carmichael.

Kate is prepared to tear him a new asshole, but he swears up and down that he has no idea how they got tracked, he wouldn't do that to her. Once he promises to get the two women into safety, Kate surrenders. As he walks them in, Kate shared Ryan's confession of murder and Jo's clue about the print shop. To the end, Kate believes in justice and will pursue it.

We then see a disillusioned Kate in her all grey Fruit of the Loom being walked into her jail cell. She sits down on the plastic mattress, looking at a total loss.

Later that night, Steve and Hastings are discussing the events of the previous few hours. Steve is in a grey suit with a blue shirt and tie, same as he had been wearing during the chase. The gaffer questions why Steve didn't tell him about Kate, and Steve claims it was to prevent putting him in a difficult position with Patty C, who walks in with the same question. Apparently, the former partners have keys to each other's houses and vehicles, in case of emergency. Carmichael taking Steve's phone would've read to Kate as an emergency. Steve refuses to back down, and she appears to drop it for the moment.

Now, onto Jo’s interrogation. A lot happens in this thirty minute scene, but to boil down to the important points: Jo is wearing her best Fruit of the Loom, stripping her of her identity and any affiliations she has. The lighting in this scene is cold and sterile, completely cool in tone. Steve sits with Carmichael and Hastings on the other side of the table, dressed in a navy suit, white shirt, and red tie.

Something very important to note in this scene is Jo’s reliance on Steve. He speaks with her gently, acknowledges her pain, and encourages her to be truthful even when it is clearly very difficult. She takes Kate’s trust in him at face value and decides to trust him too. His outfit actually reflects this truth. He’s wearing the same red and blue that Kate and Jo wore while they were on the run - blue surrounds the red. As much as Jo is trusting Steve here because of Kate, Steve is being kind to Jo here for the same reason. His partner and friend does the right thing nearly always - if she was willing to go to these lengths to defend Jo, he owes it to her to learn the truth. Nothing exemplifies this more than when the conversation turns to Pilkington’s death.

Jo refuses to answer at first and actually waits for AC-12 to show its hand first. She notices that Steve hesitates when Carmichael instructs him to talk about the evidence regarding Kate's gun, and she realizes this is her in, this is how she can prove herself to Kate once and for all. It's only after this that she claims to have shot Pilkington and completely shifts the blame from Kate to herself. This catches both Steve and Hastings up, and they react in obvious shock, which changes how Hastings treats her through the rest of the interview and cements Steve’s belief in Kate’s trust. Afterwards, she looks to Steve, who nods. He understands what she just did for Kate, and Jo is relieved to see his comprehension. The questioning continues, and Jo only admits to what she can take direct responsibility for, but nothing that involves the larger network.

Once Carmichael and Hastings leave, she quickly turns to Steve and says a desperate "I'm so sorry." Sorry for hiding evidence in Operation Lighthouse. Sorry for framing Farida. Sorry for what she’s done to Kate.

And Steve, gentle when he can be, gives her a kind "Yeah, me too," in reply. I’m sorry you were groomed into the OCG. I’m sorry you were scared for your life. I’m sorry you hurt Kate, too.

Patty C goes to talk to Kate, and lets her know she won't be charged for Ryan's murder - Jo will be. Kate has a look of relief on her face as she processes the information. But Patty C notes Jo isn't firearms trained, and Kate is. She's telling Kate she knows what really happened, and she's letting it slide. This time. Kate is well aware that Carmichael isn’t stupid - she knows Jo was lying and is only letting Kate get away with it because it better serves her interests. Kate is free, and she sighs with relief and the knowledge of what Jo did.

Steve, still in the same outfit from the interview, and Kate, in a navy pea coat and yellow sweater, meet in an underground car park. once she's been released. A quick note on Kate’s coat: I’d love to say there’s a deeper meaning for the shift in her coat, but I genuinely think it’s just because filming was originally in the spring, then was moved to the fall and continued until November, so it was simply colder. The cut and color of the coat are generally the same, despite the style changing.

Steve offers to lend an ear about the shooting, and then Kate asks about Jo's interview. Steve tells her they didn't get enough information out of her, and Kate tells him that Jo told her that her dad was an officer. "She's scared, Steve. After what happened to Tommy, Dot, Lakewell, nevermind John Corbett". Kate’s anger seems to have dissipated at least a little at this point, because here she is, defending Jo by explaining why she wasn’t forthcoming with a lot of information. This is most obvious through her yellow sweater - still affiliated with Jo, even through everything else. Steve lets her know that Jo is in a secure cell with extra monitoring, which seems to appease her. Kate then informs him she's been made SIO at MIT, and will guarantee cooperation with AC-12. Lomax calls Kate, and the two partners are back working together.

Kate and Steve meet Lomax at the OCG workshop, where he goes over the forensic findings so far as MIT’s resident plot reciter. Kate tells him they need to look further, and orders him to dig up the floor, ruining the poor man’s plans for the evening.

Chloe calls Steve with an update on Thurwell. Then we get a weird scene of darkvision Spanish police apprehending Thurwell. Truly hate it. He's dead. It's a deadend. Clever writing, Jed.

The episode ends with Jo in her navy blue jumper being put into her cell at Brentiss. Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, Lindsay Denton’s besties, walk up threateningly before Jo is led into her cell and the door is shut. I do love the shot here of Jo through the door, caught in a small tight space that’s almost closing in on her.

EPISODE 7

Before I fully jump into Episode 7, please be aware that I am doing a textual analysis. I’m not going to go into the fourth man reveal and its logic or even greater meaning (particularly because I’m looking at this show from a different political context as an American), and I’m not going to speculate on things not seen, at least in this analysis, because the focus is on wardrobe. You can trust I have many thoughts, particularly around race and the writing around female characters, some of which I’ve included but most of which I did not. It took me 9 full days to write everything for this one episode, and was shockingly exhausting. Forgive me if it doesn’t live up to my other ramblings.

We’ll jump right into things. I'm gay but Steve looks so good here in his AC-12 uniform. Anyways, Steve is watching Hastings' old interview with Carmichael about Ian Banks. His concern about Hastings is clear. He’s in pursuit of justice, even if justice puts him up against the gaffer.

Later, Steve and Kate discuss the gaffer and his suspicious behaviour, and he informs her that Ted is slated for retirement. Steve wants to let it go, but Kate refuses. She asks if Steph Corbett knows anything more, and suggests she may be blackmailing Hastings, but Steve is dismissive of it. This causes Kate to raise an eyebrow - oh god Steve's done it again. Steve pleads "It's not like that, mate, it's different," and Kate has never looked more disbelieving and annoyed. She responds, "She's a person of interest,” and their conversation is cut short when Chris calls Kate with an update. Steve is still in his navy suit, and Kate in her yellow sweater. The lack of coordination in these clothes show Kate isn’t quite on the same page as Steve yet, but they’re getting there.

Lomax tells them there was a case found in the floor of the workshop, much like the one holding Gail Vella's computers at the abandoned print shop that Jo led them to. No comment on the OCG’s evidence techniques.

Steve, who kept skipping his occupational health warnings, is in therapy. I didn't cover the OH stuff throughout this analysis since it didn't relate to Jo, but this manages to tie in later so here it is now. It ends in him agreeing to temporarily give up his firearms license. I'm not going to discuss the rest of the meeting, given that Steve seemed to kick his pill addiction and reliance on alcohol and pain relievers to deal with his back pretty damn quickly and it's a storyline of entirely no relevance except as something Ted holds over Steve in a moment of manipulation later. Steve also admits this to Hastings before Occupational Health can tell him. This entire storyline is frustrating. Moving on!

Kate is watching Jo's AC-12 interview at her desk on the Hill, specifically rewinding to parts concerning who Jo believed her father was. She pauses it on a frame of Jo’s face, the terror clear. Kate is dressed in a black suit and a light blue shirt, back on the side of AC-12 and in pursuit of justice, not only with regard to the OCG, but for Gail Vella and Jo.

Steph calls Steve again, and he ignores it, because he's being a bit of a dick. Then he steps out of his car and has a back spasm. This only comes up so Kate can ask about it later and show that Steve, wearing a blue jacket, listened to what she said about getting close to a person of interest. Would truly love to know why Steve parks by an underpass by a river for this scene, but needs must, I guess.

Back at Hillside, another Lomax briefing! Because Chris, Chloe, and sometimes Kate are truly the only people who do any detecting in the entire series!!! Anyways, Chris tells Steve and Kate about the contents of the box under the floor of the workshop. Conveniently, it held four murder weapons (can Jed Mercurio spell deus ex machina?) and neatly tied a bow on Corbett, Bindra, and Vella's deaths, and in a nice series 1 throwback, Jackie Laverty's murder! Kate is wearing a grey turtleneck which coordinates beautifully with Steve’s grey suit, blue tie, and blue shirt. This shows that they’re back on the same page and on the same team, despite their ups and downs this series.

Kate and Steve return to AC-12, where Kate in her new navy pea coat shares that the proceedings against Terry Boyle will be stopped. Except, to my knowledge, Jo already handled that...? They literally made a point of it in her interview. Anyway, Chloe, like Chris, did all the detective work and tells them that the IP of the OCG laptop is in the UK, not Spain as previously believed. Amanda from forensics, the only other person who does any real work, interrupts with a message that shows Jo is about to be targeted. Definitely is spelled wrong. I give up. They feel the need to spell out what JD and BP mean, but spend 3 episodes never explaining what a CHIS is. Sure. Chloe is tasked with finding the fourth man via spelling.

Also I'm truly not being funny by why is Kate on the investigation board in AC-12. Like. What. Was she a suspect? She’s not with the other victims!

A very forlorn Jo in her blue Brentiss jumpsuit is sitting in her prison cell before being collected for transport to Hillside. Jo is very aware that something must be wrong because she’s a damn fine detective. She's mad suspicious as they head out to the van, and lo and behold, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are on the transport team.

En route to Brentiss, they learn that Lomax and Kate's signatures were forged on the production order for Jo. Meanwhile, Jo is too smart for her own good, and questions the guard during the transport about the requesting officer. Tweedle Dee plays dumb.

And then… nothing happens. They intercepted the van in advance, removed Jo, and planted Steve and Kate on the van. Because Steve is such a great choice what with his being an UNARMED OFFICER AT THE TIME. They arrest everyone.  Steve ends up with a gun. Ok.

In an interrogation room, Kate and Steve explain what happened to Jo. Hastings looks on. Kate tells Jo she can apply to witness protection, and that all of her notes will show that she was under coercion from others, giving her a shot at the life she never had, but only if she reveals who the top man is, aka her father. Jo begins to cry, and Steve reminds her those OCG men were sent to kill her - this man doesn't care for her. Jo begins to tell them that she had no reason to believe Tommy was lying to her, all while speaking only to Kate. Steve encourages her further, telling her she's not bent. Kate asks her one last time for the name, and we see Jo resolve to say something before the scene cuts. Heaven forbid we show something happening instead of faking built suspense.

Now, I need to pause here for a small moment of rage. Kate should have been the one who got the call back line by telling Jo she's not bent. Not for any romantic reason, but because their little run from the police stunt was done at least in part under the auspices that Jo could prove to Kate that she wasn't bent. In fact, Kate pleads with Jo to do so. It's just frustrating, and gives Steve an emotional beat he hasn't truly earned with Jo, or at least hasn’t earned as much as Kate.

And Jo gives them a name! They search a prison cell, and find nothing. It's really built up to seem like it's Fairbank, who is revealed to be a confused old dude. Why Jo thought she was communicating with him this entire time is simply never addressed. Whatever. They ask about the murders and cover ups, and he offers nothing. Kate asks about Jo, and after some more pushing, Fairbank implicitly agrees that he and Tommy Hunter convinced Jo he was her father.  Hastings is pissed, but Chloe calls to save the day (again).

Chloe "I should be Chief Constable" Bishop brings the team up to speed on the text search for incorrect spellings of the word definitely. Which they've apparently managed to do in a matter of hours, even on handwritten reports from 17 years prior! Because Jed has definitely never needed to do a text analysis by hand before. They then proceed to NEVER NAME THE SUSPECT. FOR 1 MINUTE AND 10 SECONDS.

Oh but don't worry, because this is the perfect opportunity for our realigned partners to confront Hastings about the bribe money and his conversations with Ian Banks. Can't reveal who the fourth man is when the head of the investigation is also a bent cop, silly audience. And it's revealed that Ted leaked Corbett as a UCO because of Corbett's role in the attack on Hastings' wife. But it's okay because he's sorry about it!

To be hella clear: Hastings, an anti-corruption officer who prides himself on following the letter of the law, took actions he knew would result in the death of John Corbett and Kate later forgives him for it. Jo was under threat of death from the OCG and tried to get rid of Kate via transfer and then led her to an empty lorry park to be killed while she thought Ryan was under surveillance that could likely intervene, and we in no way see Kate react to that experience in this episode. Cool!

Finally, we get the interview with the fourth man, which is revealed 8 minutes and 32 seconds after the characters themselves learn the information. For some reason unknown to God or man, Kate is there despite not being involved in Buckells' case since she works for MIT, not AC-12. Frankly, not gonna delve into it. Kate is wearing a sweater we've yet to see her in, a blue crew neck that is frankly more feminine than anything we've seen this series so far, and moreso matches what she's worn in previous series. It’s unsettling. Steve is in his classic AC-12 uniform.

Just a quick q for the kids at home - if Buckells only ever communicated with people via a secure browser on burner devices, how in the hell did he get a laptop in prison? Also, why did he not break himself out of prison by having someone else plant evidence of some kind, especially since he supposedly had a lot to blackmail Jo with?

At what I can only assume is their local, Steve and Kate congratulate themselves on doing nothing beyond sit in interview rooms to catch Buckells. Kate might go back to AC-12 - even though she left because of the gaffer's actions which turned out to be WAY WORSE THAN SHE PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED? Sure, Jed. They have a chat about what's been happening with Steve and his painkiller addiction. Kate implies he should drive up to Liverpool to see Steph, which he doesn't think is a good idea. But don't worry, they've got each other, mate. Platonic soulmates forever (no romantic underscoring in this analysis).

And then, with no previous discussion in the script or even telegraphing by the camera, Kate is in therapy. Which is great, because she truly needs it, girl has been through a lot. She mentions her ex, and Josh who is apparently her reason for living but she's texted about him once and mentioned him offhand to Jo to tell her he'd be with her ex, and then her great friend and partner, Steve (which is true, but the romantic framing is gross and out of character).

Not being funny, Kate is wearing a truly horrendous mauve top here, over a white shirt. We've never seen her in a color like this, it doesn't fit in with the rest of the color palette in her wardrobe, up to and including all of the orange and brown she wore at MIT. It's honestly frumpy, and in no way aligns with the characterization shown to us through her wardrobe in the rest of the series. The last time we do see her in an outfit like that is during the interview with Jo. Jo left and took Kate's excellent sense of style with her.

Kate and Steve meet with Patty to discuss Darren Hunter's involvement in the murder of Lawrence Christopher, and discuss how there's more corrupt officers to be uncovered. Patty C isn't gonna do anything about that tho. Hastings strolls up to chat with Patty C, and we learn that Buckells will get immunity. The trio are about to leave when Ted storms back into her office to confess to his actions leading to John Corbett's death. He gets one more speech about carrying the fire and bad apples in policing before they all leave.

For the final outfits we may ever see them in, Hastings is wearing a blue shirt, Steve is wearing a grey suit, white shirt, and green tie, and Kate is in a white turtleneck with a navy pea coat. Again, this turtleneck is more effeminate than anything we’ve seen her in this series. Hell, even Patty C is wearing blue to show she’s aligned with anti-corruption and just kind of a bitch, not actually corrupt.

Finally, to the blessed epilogue. Shoutout to Terry and Farida for getting some closure to the bullshit they’ve been through.

Jo steps out of her little stone cottage in the country, dressed in a casual sweater of grey and blue, breathing in the fall air deeply. Her layers of clothing are gone, her hair is down and soft. Her Icelandic sweater shows that she’s finally free to honor her heart, and no longer feels trapped by her family and who she thought they were.

And then, a dog trots out after her, and we see Jo bend down to hug the retriever and kiss its head. This is the most free affection we have ever seen Jo give. A set of legs appear in the doorway behind her, and a redheaded woman steps out of the cottage to meet Jo and the dog. Jo smiles at her, oh so freely after the tension she carried for 21 years, and they clasp hands, walking down the country road away from their home. Because Jo is free, and she can freely love and live without fear in her new life.

Now, from a purely logistical standpoint, very little affection between anyone could be shown from episodes 3-7 because of COVID filming protocols (which seem to be far more strict on physical distancing than American and Canadian productions). The production team actually did a brilliant job using forced perspective and interesting over the shoulders to make people seem like they were closer together than they were. From a film nerd perspective though, they broke the 180 rule so frequently that I nearly lost my mind (glass boxes are great but they ignore all rules of perspective).

All that aside, the logistics of filming in COVID mean that moments where we do see physical distancing broken are all the more important. Kelly filmed this scene with an actress who she has not been working with for months, because it is so, so important to see Jo come out of the other side of her tragic life intact. It also matters that her partner is wearing a warm hat and has red hair (intentional casting or otherwise) and that their home has a red door, because it shows that those warm tones represent something different for Jo now. They don’t represent fear and betrayal and being trapped - now they represent home.

Additionally, there are a lot of comparisons made between Jo, Dot, and Ryan. All three had been groomed by Tommy Hunter since childhood to work for the OCG, all three were put into the Central Police to act as inside men, and all three committed terrible acts in their own interest. But there are differences here. Ryan was a little shit as a kid and he clearly had a terrible home life - his mom was the worst. He gravitated to an authority figure who offered him something different and who gave him power. He is a victim of circumstance - but he also found power and enjoyment in his terrible actions. He gloated about Maneet Bindra and John Corbett’s deaths, and he enjoyed wielding power over Jo when he was threatening her.

Dot is the blend between Ryan and Jo - he too was groomed by Tommy to enter this world of crime, and did many awful things without regret, including killing people who threatened to expose his identity as the Caddy. It’s not until his friendship, and burgeoning relationship, that his behavior changes. He almost gets away from the Central Police, despite Kate hopping on a lorry for a free ride to track him down, but when faced with the reality that this would mean Kate’s death, he sacrifices himself and gives her a final clue to dismantle the OCG within the police.

Jo, from what we’re shown, felt regret after everything she did, and the show made it a point to demonstrate Jo as a victim of her family and genuine fear for her life if she didn’t continue following the actions of the OCG. We never saw Ryan or Dot with a gun to their head or with a dozen locks on their door. We never saw them break down in bathroom stalls, or even framing people and discrediting them instead of killing them. And it’s ultimately her relationship with Kate that changes things for her - she tries to use Kate at first to get caught, and when they get close she tries to push Kate away in order to protect her, right until she thinks she has no other choice but to let Ryan kill her.

It’s interesting that all three characters meet their end with Kate (and a damn shame the show never chose to address that fully). She quite literally kills Ryan, has a standoff with Dot that ends with him sacrificing himself for her and giving a dying declaration, and goes on the run with Jo to give her time to prove she isn’t bent and who plants evidence against herself to protect Kate. Later, it’s Kate who convinces Jo to give up everything she knows about the OCG and the man who claimed to be her father, and Kate who offers immunity and witness protection. Finally, in their last scene together, Kate manages to save one of the people corrupted under the thumb of the OCG. She completes a task she first set out for in series 1, the first time she interviewed Ryan and tried to get him to realize there’s a better life out there for him.

Kate does what Jo was hoping she would: she saves her, and gives her the life she never thought she could have.

I wish I could end this with a perfect bow that ties the wardrobe threads of this series together, but frankly I can’t. On a macro level, cool tones remains the symbol of anti-corruption and the pursuit of truth and justice, and warm tones represent any force opposing those ideals. On a micro level, Steve’s clothing choices and what they represent remain consistent throughout the series, as do Jo’s. However, the character that ties Steve and Jo together, the person who believed in the truth of Jo despite what face value was saying, that person’s wardrobe gets thrown to hell in the final episode. Kate’s colors remain cool, and it’s understandable that the warm tones that represented her connection to Jo disappear as Jo turns on the OCG, but the actual physical clothing is completely different from what she’s been wearing before and doesn’t fit her characterization.

I think it’s crucial to note that her femininity is only played up when she’s back on a team with men, where her earlier androgynous dress became suddenly unacceptable. It’s a damn shame, because the emotional payoff for Kate’s growth outside of AC-12 could’ve been really spectacular, and she was stymied in the end in favor of her male colleagues.

#line of duty #kate fleming #jo davidson #steve arnott #flemson #kate x jo #lod spoilers #line of duty spoilers #It took me a long time to finish this because I struggled with the absolute 180 degree turn the show took tonally in the final episode #It honestly threw off quite a few of my conclusions #and I had to rethink the analysis #but thank you to everyone who stuck with me #enjoy!

[dallonm-archive]

HOW TO SWALLOW MATCHSTICKS | SHORT STORY UPDATES #5 & COLLECTION INTRO

[image description: a pale orange sky with dark orange clouds. In the middle, in white text, reads “HOW TO SWALLOW MATCHSTICKS”. /end id]

Hello y’all! Since I already mentioned this briefly, and I’m in a really good place with it, I thought I’d quickly actually introduce my collection title and talk about what it’s about!

Originally, I was going with the working title “How I Break My Bones”, but I didn’t like that the “I” suggested a singular POV in a title for the collection. Whilst brainstorming titles I came up with the line “I swallowed your matchsticks but you still set me alight” and was like what the fuck, that sounds like a poem line [I didn’t wrote poetry back then :)] but I loved the imagery so I just! Smacked them together! Also matchsticks apparently matchsticks are poisonous and that really enhanced the meaning. Funnily enough, the fact that matches start fires isn’t central to the title; fire isn’t an important image in the collection (except for one story), however burning is? But the burning imagery usually comes from mentions of sunlight rather than actual fire, which I think is very interesting and fitting for the collections Vibe.

I’m letting the collection grow thematically with the stories I write, but the central idea is self destructive behaviour, and decisions that are very very irrational to literally anyone except the main character(s). Some of them get to this from being pushed to their limit, but for others there’s a more continuous sense, that what we see is just part of a chain of self destructive behaviour that’s their normal. Lemon Teeth especially is interesting in that sense because there’s this general idea of “hey how the fuck are these two still alive”, whereas with, Tabby, the narrator is pushed to a limit they’re not even aware of until there’s consequences. The title plays with this idea of self destructive behaviour that’s actually out of defence: someone swallows matchsticks so they can’t be burnt, but the matchsticks poison them (the severity of that is also dependent on how many you swallow! I think my google history is really concerned that I’m eating matchsticks!). Your perception of reality tells you to do this irrational action so one consequence can’t happen, but you snap back into reality and realise the consequence of that action is actually far greater than the original fear, but it’s too late to reverse it. Also! A lot of WLW/femme NB characters is the goal, on the grounds of Haha I Do That. 

I try to keep this collection very fluid where all the stories are very individual, but are similar when it comes to core themes and it’s been very fun to develop! I also feel like visually this collection is very orange and red? Do NOT know what that means yet <3 but a lot of the stories are visually very hazy and sometimes dreamy, but the content itself is very dark. I’ve been playing around with this idea of “injecting” haziness into a narrators POV so their perception of reality warps and intensifies as the story progresses and we end up in High Reality Territory. I’ve talked about some of these before, but I’m going to go through the current stories I have in here in their current order under the cut - mainly because I find it very interesting to actually see them all in one place and how they function as a collective, and also to see how much it changes!  I also won’t have a taglist for this WIP, as I just use my general taglist for short story updates, so if you want updates then you can join that!

general taglist ; ask to be + or -! @kowlazovdi @avi-burton-writing @ryns-ramblings @kitblogsthings @ezrathings @aetherwrites @radiomacbeth @bijouxs @bookphobe @haldimilks @alicewestwater @bookpacking @shaelinwrites @harehearts @amnestys  @onlyganymede @theelectricfactory @write-like-babs @oceancold @veiliza @sidhewrites @wolf-oak @feverdreamwritings @oasis-of-you @coffeeandcalligraphy @cecilsstorycorner @howdy-writes @keira-is-writing @flip-phones​

content warnings for the stories in order that they appear: murder (ammonite) / fire (lemon teeth) / car accident (how to relax on class A) / toxic relationships (the name i gave her) / cults (and saturn, too + church mud). nothing is talked about in detail.

Disclaimer: These stories are my original work - plagiarism and any form of copying will not be tolerated.

[image description: two large rocks in the ocean, with waves crashing over them. in the middle, in white text, reads “AMMONITE (LAND’S END)”. /end id]

After finding washed up bones on the beach, Dennis pretends they belong to his missing wife Melody - and as he continues to talk to her, his innocence is brought into question.

This story means a lot to me because it was the first one I drafted post writing hiatus that felt like it actually resonated with the way my writing has changed. It was one of the easiest first drafts I’ve done, and editing is going pretty smoothly as well! I loved playing with the moral ambiguity element and creating this very eerie balance between “cold blooded killer” and “grieving husband” and as the author! I do not know whether he actually killed his wife or not! This is one of three stories that I should start submitting this month. 

[image description: a black background with 4 lemons in the centre - 3 whole, one cut in half. In the middle, in white text, reads “LEMON TEETH”. /end id]

A house narrates the night its inhabitants burn it to the ground, and tries to understand the human condition from their toxic, tangled relationship.

I drafted this after Ammonite and it ~sucked~. I went to edit in January because I wanted to submit it to a magazine ( <3 missed the deadline <3) and ended up rewriting the whole thing and it is SO much better. It’s gotten quite surrealist but I’ve never written surrealism so I don’t want to call it that yet? But I mean, some of the imagery + the fact that the narrator is a house experiencing complex thought is v surrealist! I want to fine tune that element more because when it comes to submissions I’ll need to actually determine whether it’s surrealism or not but I’m very excited to because out of all the stories this is the one I want published the most! I love it so much. I loved turning a bunch of wood into a character (they’re so sarcastic and mean?? love it), and Lawrence and Frances are perhaps one of THE most fucked up relationships I’ve written so far <3 

[image description: a silhouette of a cat against a dark orange background. In the middle, in white text, reads “TABBY”. /end id]

A reclusive man who’d rather exist as a phantom than a human notices the neighbours aren’t feeding their cat, and is sucked into a world that breaks the stillness of his own.

This is the only story here that has an update post that’s not outdated so you can check out more about this story HERE. In hindsight, I think this is the one that really drove where this collection is going the most; I had a lot of different thematic ideas in my head and drafting this naturally organised my thoughts and highlighted the most important ones to me. This also really helped me figure out the perception of reality in this collection and that’s also a central idea (and one of my favourites to explore). I’ve always said I love writing things that feel hazy, feel dreamy, but this story took that took a new level and I feel there’s a lot more depth now? Tabby felt neither like high realism nor realism,  it felt like reality with this “glow” that only the narrator seemed to be aware of. This glow reels the narrator into this dreamlike perception of reality to the point where he can’t distinguish the real world from his perception of it, and ends up doing things that he otherwise wouldn’t do had he had a clearer perception of what’s going on. It’s like dreamy reality: make it insidious! I read back on this draft the other day and I’m really excited to start editing, this is the third out of the 3 stories I’m aiming to get published first!

[image description: a single car in the middle of the road on a foggy night, with bright orange headlights. In the middle, in white text, reads “HOW TO RELAX ON CLASS A” /end id] 

Whilst trying to manage a bad trip, our narrator makes an unlikely friendship with the driver who just hit his best friend.

I’m currently drafting this, and will likely make an update post for it soon so I won’t talk to much about the story itself here. But if you want to know how the draft is going: it’s sure going! This is in 2nd person instructional which I’ve never written before and it is very difficult at times but also very fun. I can already tell this is the story that’ll need a lot of fine tuning and editing but I really love the premise and where it’s going. This is sort of an evolution of a short story I wrote in 2019 that sucked <3 but I only got the actual idea for the plot a couple months back. My only complaint right now is I’d like a new title because I don’t like this following the “How to __” structure when the collection already does that.

[image description: A black night sky. In the middle, in white text, reads “THE NAME I GAVE HER”. Below the text is 6 moons in different phases, all glowing yellow. /end id]

A woman tries to see her relationship outside of the rose-tinted glasses the night her and her girlfriend fake their deaths.

I wrote this around October but never finished it, and I think I still haven’t figured out the crux of this story or even how it’s meant to be told but I love it too much to let go and really wanna make it work. This is the first WLW story I wrote that’s like, clearly a WLW couple but it’s not about that, and that meant a lot to me. Like I always knew I could just write WLW characters existing but to actually write that, especially with such emotional complexity and also pain that’s not tied to their sexuality was really freeing for me. Also lesbians really are like “damn I need symbolic imagery in my queer story :/” and just write about the moon like the way this story is JUST a bunch of moon imagery and is also structured around the phases? Very sexy

[image description: the view of an orange and purple sky, with the sun rising behind a darker purple mountain. A tree’s shadow takes up the right side and bottom left corner. In the middle, in white text, reads “AND SATURN, TOO”. /end id]

I haven’t drafted this yet (I plan to after HTROCA) but it’s lived rent free in my head long enough to know I want it in this collection. This story chronicles our main character - an ace lesbian who might not know she’s ace yet?? - as she spends the summer on a commune her parents sent her to and I for one am loving having a second cult-y story to explore (although this isn’t explicitly a cult, it just has the undertones and the narrator makes it very clear how she feels about that). This was originally going to have a romance, but lately I’ve been really into the importance of presenting lesbian and sapphic identities beyond the relationship aspect and the element of personal/individual identity.  Like HTROCA, I want to have a full update post on this story one day so I won’t talk much about it now, but I am currently brainstorming it and I’m! Very obsessed with it!

[image description: a close up photo of an eye rotated sideways. The photo is filtered red and repeated and on the left hand side, flipped the opposite way. In the middle, in white text, reads “CHURCH MUD”. /end id]

We’ll pretend I didnt spend the last month talking shit about this title BUT for those who don’t know the origin story of my novel Revelations, Revelations is that it was meant to be a short story for my dissertation that quickly unravelled into what it is now. Since I’d already presented the concept to my advisor, I decided to turn it into a sort of “RR But With An Alternate Timeline/Inciting Incident” where Felix and Dorothy escaped the cult at the same time, at the height of their conflict and it got fucked up REAL quick. It was actually so fascinating because whilst it was definitely intentionally heightened, it felt like I was exploring both of their “dark rooms”, exploring a possibility that they would both happily ignore, but was very much almost a reality. I’m no longer doing Uni this year because of covid (I couldn’t stand another zoom lecture), so I don’t know if I can use this story next year but I really want to turn it into something. I just have to strip the RR elements from it and turn it into its own - my <3 third cult story <3. 

And that’s where we currently are! I’m not sure if I’ll do collection driven updates, since I just write whatever short stories come to mind and if they fit then great and if they don’t then great, but I might do one say 6 months from now just to see how much it’s changed. This is my primary WIP this year, as 2021 is the ~year of submissions~ for me and hopefully I’ll be able to share some of these stories with y’all soon!

#short stories #atlastracking #wip intro #how to swallow matchsticks #me introducing my collection after roman introduced theirs i am just a SHEEP!!!!!!

[litafficionado]

Four Questions with Garielle Lutz:

I’m extremely beholden to Garielle who took the time to respond to my silly, garbled, childish, intrusive questions. You can purchase her latest book Worsted here and here, among many other sites.  --------- Q.  You've attributed the resuscitation of your literary career in quite considerable measure to your teacher and editor Gordon Lish. It seems like you guys are particularly close, even as you seem to have largely confined yourself to Pittsburgh(mostly driven by your erstwhile teaching career but also by your liking the city over time). How does it feel to hear someone like Gordon speak so highly of you, “I think there’s more truth in one sentence of my student [Lutz] than in all of [Philip] Roth. Lutz gives [herself] away. “The speaking subject gives herself away,” says Julia Kristeva. I thoroughly believe that. What you see in Lutz, [her] lavish gift, is [her] refusal to relax [her] determination to uncover and uncover. It is, by my lights, quite wonderful, quite terrific.[…]Lutz is entirely the real thing?” Does one feel vindicated? How do you navigate the waters of self-effacement and self-indulgence as a writer and as a person? A.  I haven’t had a literary career before or after studying with Gordon Lish.  I don’t think one finds one’s way to him in hopes of launching a career.  Anyone with vulgar ambition along those lines would have been shown the door pretty quick.  I would never presume to be close to Gordon or to feel that I am part of his life other than in my role as a student. He dwells in another realm entirely. I attended his classes and tried to grasp, to the best of my abilities, the things he was saying about how to get from one word to the next.  He also talked about how to free a word from the constricting range of its permissible behaviors, how to drain it of every sepsis of received meaning, until there is nothing left of the word but the skeleton of its former self, just the lank, gawky letters sticking out this way and that, and then how to fill the thing up again, to the point of overspilling, but this time with something that would never have been allowed to belong in there before, and then see whether the word, now close to bursting, can hold up and maybe have a new kind of say.  I’m always surprised and relieved whenever Gordon says anything approving about anything I write.  I think that for a lot of his students, his opinion is the only one that counts.  

Q.  You've said, "A typical day goes like this: noon, afternoon, evening, night, additional night, even more night, furtherest night, then bedtime, though I don’t have a bed or furniture of any kind.” Have you always been a lychnobite, sensing the overwhelming superabundance of life after the sunset or is it a relatively recent development facilitated by your retirement from teaching? Do you consider yourself in any way to be a minimalist? Does your room bear any resemblance with a sparsely lit opium den where all exchanges happen at the floor level?

A.  I think the pandemic has had a lot to do with it.  Lately I’ve been up until five, sometimes six.  But I’ve always found mornings the harshest and ugliest part of the day (maybe it’s just because of the place where I live, but I never open the blinds anyway).  There can be something awfully scolding about a sunrise the older you get  Evening seems to extend every form of leniency, and in the dead of night, expectations go way down, which is where they maybe ought to stay.  I do spend all of my time on the floor, but my apartment doesn’t bear any resemblance to an opium den.  It’s more like a crawlspace or the back of a  dollar-store stockroom.    

Q. Even with your reputation of being a page-hugger than a typical page-turner, how do you decide which books to read apart from your line of work? Do you try to keep it largely in the familiar territory, like exploring the oeuvre of a time-tested writer? How does one unshackle oneself from this constant niggling that one ought to read so many books? Here's Ben Marcus: “When I was in graduate school, there was this sort of cautionary adage going around by the poet Francis Ponge that we can only write what we’ve already read and one way to hear that is you’re just sort of doomed to kind of regurgitate everything you’ve read and so if you’re just reading all the popular books, the books everyone else is reading, in some sense you’re maybe unwittingly confining yourself to a particular literary practice that’s gonna look pretty familiar. I remember at the time thinking, okay well if that’s true, if I’m just fated to that, then I’m gonna read things that no one else is reading. I loved to just go to the library and pretty randomly grab books, because I think for a little while, and I’m kinda glad this passed, but I really just had this feeling that a writer just consumes language and just sort of spits it out. So it didn’t matter. Like it didn’t have to be a great novel for it to be worth-reading. And I still read very little fiction in the end compared to non-fiction, essays, works of philosophy, science. And the other sort of dirty secret is: I don’t finish a lot of books. I just don’t care enough. I only finish a book if I have to or if I really want to. And, often, I’ll stop reading a book three pages from the end. I think that as writers, we probably feel a lot of pressure about what kind of a reader to be, what kind of a writer to be in, and we feel this shame, like “I haven’t read DH Lawrence, I’m such an asshole.” You begin to feel like you’ve these deficiencies and you gotta make them up and you never will and a lot of it is just kinda tyrannical. Of course, obviously, we must be naturally motivated to read and read and read and read but I guess I just started to notice that…I got a lot of my ideas by just reading…e.g. a gardening book…like the weird way a sentence was structured.” Then there's Moyra Davey: “Woolf famously said of reading: “The only advice … is to take no advice, … follow your instincts, … use your reason.” A similar thought was voiced by her elder contemporary Oscar Wilde, who did not believe in recommending books, only in de-recommending them. Later, Jorge Luis Borges echoed the same sentiment by discouraging “systematic bibliographies” in favor of “adulterous” reading. More recently, Gregg Bordowitz has promoted “promiscuous” reading in which you impulsively allow an “imposter” book to overrule any reading trajectory you might have set for yourself, simply because, for instance, a friend tells you in conversation that he is reading it and is excited by it. This evokes for me that most potent kind of reading — reading as flirtation with or eavesdropping on someone you love or desire, someone who figures in your fantasy life.”“What to read?” is a recurring dilemma in my life. The question always conjures up an image: a woman at home, half-dressed, moving restlessly from room to room, picking up a book, reading a page or two and no sooner feeling her mind drift, telling herself, “You should be reading something else, you should be doing something else.” The image also has a mise-en-scène: overstuffed, disorderly shelves of dusty and yellowing books, many of them unread; books in piles around the bed or faced down on a table; work prints of photographs, also with a faint covering of dust, taped to the walls of the studio; a pile of bills; a sink full of dishes. She is trying to concentrate on the page in front of her but a distracting blip in her head travels from one desultory scene to the next, each one competing for her attention. It is not just a question of which book will absorb her, for there are plenty that will do that, but rather, which book, in a nearly cosmic sense, will choose her, redeem her. Often what is at stake, should she want to spell it out, is the idea that something is missing, as in: what is the crucial bit of urgently needed knowledge that will save her, at least for this day? She has the idea that if she can simply plug into the right book then all will be calm, still, and right with the world. […] Must reading be tied to productivity to be truly satisfying […] Or is it the opposite, that it can only really gratify if it is a total escape? What is it that gives us a sense of sustenance and completion? Are we on some level always striving to attain that blissful state of un-agendaed reading remembered from childhood? What does it mean to spend a good part of one’s life absorbed in books? Given that our time is limited, the problem of reading becomes one of exclusion. Why pick one book over the hundreds, perhaps thousands on our bookshelves, the further millions in libraries and stores? For in settling on any book we are implicitly saying no to countless others. This conflict is aptly conjured up by essayist Lynne Sharon Schwartz as she reflects on “the many books (the many acts) I cannot in all decency leave unread (undone) — or can I?”” What way out do you suggest? Do you deem it worthwhile to eschew any shred of obligation and be propelled in any direction naturally? Like you said you found grammar books and lexicons more engaging and enjoyable than the novels.

A.  I seem to remember that in some magazine or another, James Wolcott once said “Read at whim.”  That has always sounded like the best advice.  And I assume it means to feel free to ditch any book that disappoints.  Like Ben Marcus, I’ve had experiences of abandoning a book just a few pages from the end, but I often don’t make it that far in most things anymore.  I came from a long line of nonreaders, so I’ve never felt any guilt about passing up books or writers that so many people seem to talk about a lot, and I don’t expect other people to like what I like. Some books I’ll start about halfway in and then see whether I might want to work my way back to the beginning.  Others I’ll start at the very end and inch my way toward the front, one sentence at a time, and see how far I can go that way.  I seem to remember that in The Pleasure of the Text, Roland Barthes recommends “cruising” a text, and maybe something like that is what I’m doing at least some of the time, if I understand what he means.  And every now and then I’ll read  a book straightforwardly for an hour and afterward wonder whether the time might have been better spent staring off into space. Too many books these days seem ungiving.  It’s the ungivingness that disappoints the most.  A lot of contemporary fiction has the gleam and sparkle of a trend feature in a glossy magazine, and I can appreciate the craft and the savvy that go into something like that, but I am drawn more toward stories and books that demand being read slowly and closely, pulse by pulse, the kind of fiction where everything--what little might be left of an entire blighted life--can pivot on the peal of a single syllable. Q.  I'd like to ask you so many questions. But let this be the last one for matters of convenience. Also, in a capitalistic world, one's enshrouded with guilt for taking one's time without being remunerative in any way. Among the books and films that you recently encountered, which ones do you think deserve rereads/rewatches? A.  I used to feel like the woman you’ve described so movingly above, someone who questions her choice of books almost to the brink of despair.  At my age, though, I no longer have a program for reading, a syllabus or a checklist, and I’m okay with knowing there’s a lot I’ll never get around to.  I’m happy being a rereader of a few inexhaustible books and chancing upon occasional fresh treasure.  The one book that has shaken me the most in the longest time is Anna DeForest’s  A History of Present Illness, which will be out next August.  It’s a blisteringly truthful novel written with moral grace and unsettling brilliance and an awing mastery of language.  A couple of recent books I have read in manuscript, books that totally knocked me out with their originality and uncanny command of the word, are Greg Gerke’s In the Suavity of the Rock (a novel) and David Nutt’s Summertime in the Emergency Room (a short-story collection).  I haven’t watched many movies in the past few months, and the ones I watched aren’t ones I’ll probably be rewatching anytime soon.  

#Garielle Lutz #lit #Worsted #Moyra Davey #Ben Marcus #Gordon Lish #Anna DeForest #A History of Present Illness #Greg Gerke #In the Suavity of the Rock #David Nutt #Summertime in the Emergency Room

[alittlebitgoofy]

late night calls (taywhora)

The finale just aired, Tayce just finished filming the reaction and A'whora has been having a little party on her own. She's been drinking and talking to Tayce is the only way to ignore the longing in her heart. 

ao3 link

“Tayce,” A’whora whined down the phone, moving closer to it in a futile attempt to feel closer to her roommate. “I miss you.” She added quietly, huffing at Tayce’s laugh coming down the line.

“I’ve been gone for less than a day, you hound.” She’d left to film the finale reaction, the first time she wasn’t watching at home with A’whora as it aired. It felt weird not having her there but the feeling of excitement that filled the air as she, Bimini, Lawrence, and Ellie watched it together was enough to keep her mind off it.

A’whora hadn’t been as fortunate. Just the sound of her voice was enough to tell Tayce she was drunk, without even seeing her face she knew her roommate would be sprawled out on her bed, head shoved in her pillows thinking too hard about things and missing her best friend on the big night.

She heard movement, A’whora hummed in acknowledgement before the call abruptly ended and a facetime call rang out from the phone. She wasn’t in the most presentable state, still in drag from the morning, but A’whora had seen her in worse states. This wasn’t the worst she could look.

Her face lit up the screen when Tayce accepted the call, grinning widely at the sight of her friend.

“Tayce! You’re still in drag?”

“You called me just as I got back to the room, of course I am.” Tayce shook her head with a laugh, concealing the way her heart squeezed at the pout forming on A’whora’s face.

She was also in full drag, amusingly wasted and looking way messier than she’d ever admit to. Her eyes looked messed up as if she’d been rubbing them, she seemed to have thrown her lashes off at some point, natural eyelashes small in comparison to her usual look. Her lipstick was a bit smudged around the edges, like she’d been eating or just not paying attention.

“You’re actually a mess, what have you been up to apart from missing me?”

“Mcdonalds sent us some food, I got into drag because I had to shoot some photos and yeah,” A’whora cocked her head to the side at the question, tapping at her chin in what should have been an exaggerated way to signal she was thinking but was all too genuine in her intoxicated state.

“No alcohol? Girl, we both know you’re gone just admit it.”

“Maybe I had a little to drink, who’s to know?” A’whora snickered, her dimples showing through her smile in a way that melted Tayce just a little.

“Me, because you look a mess and you’re sat here at night in full drag when you could have taken it off by now.” Tayce looked at her blankly before erupting into laughter that led to an overdramatic huff and pout from her roommate. “You hound! Don’t mock me!”

“Oh, you hound! Don’t make fun of me!” Tayce pitched her voice up, whining in imitation. A’whora pouted more, her head falling into her arms with another whine.

“Don’t be mean, I miss you,” A’whora spoke quietly, looking at Tayce while tearing up. That explained the eye smudging. She sniffled slightly, rubbing at her eyes to keep the tears away. “When will you be back? We need to celebrate together.” She added, eyes pleading at Tayce to stay serious for just one minute. To let her vulnerability be okay and let out the softness she reserved for their most private moments.

“I’m leaving at one, so around four or five depending on traffic. I’ll grab some alcohol on the way back, and maybe some percy pigs? We could do with some snacks.” Tayce mused, smiling softly as A’whora giggled in delight at the idea, quickly moving from her sudden sadness.

They stayed talking for all too long, Tayce’s body screamed at her for staying in drag for so long but she couldn’t pull herself away from the giddy drunken giggles from the softie on the other end of the phone. She watched A’whora clumsily attempting to make getting out of drag sexy, pouting when the only response she got was a laugh.

“Don’t you think I’m sexy?” She whined petulantly, huffing as Tayce only laughed harder.

“Right now? You’re all sweaty from being in drag too long and stumbling around trying to get your outfit off. Not quite the sexy show you think it is, babe.”

“You thought I was when I was sweaty from you fucking me, what’s the difference now?”

Tayce stared at her blankly, hand over her mouth in genuine shock. She tried to stammer out a response as A’whora grinned deviously, taking pride in breaking her.

“George,” Tayce warned, voice devoid of its usual humour to the point A’whora felt a shiver travel its way down her spine.

“Why can’t you talk to me like that when you’re here? All stern and domineering. It’s hot.” A’whora took a complete 180, voice familiarly low, telling everything she needed to know. Tayce knew what she was looking for but she wasn’t about to do that. Not when she was drunk, half in drag, and still stumbling around attempting to get her outfit off.

“Maybe I can, but save it for when we’re in person? You’re sure giving me a lot of ammunition tonight it’d be a shame if I didn’t get to use it.” Tayce spoke cooly, barely containing her racing heart at the comment. A’whora would have seen through it had she not been so drunk, it was the only time she was thankful for her current state.

They’d ended the call not long after, A’whora finally managing to get out of everything as Tayce did the same. It felt oddly domestic, the two of them doing it together despite being hours apart. Tayce resolved to do that when they were busy later in the year. She didn’t know how being so far from one of her closest friends would go, they would do shows together sure but it would be different. They’d be tired and on the road and with Lawrence and Bimini. The Scottish queen wouldn’t let anything slide if she saw it and Tayce didn’t have the energy to deal with the cries of “sexual tension” every day.

A’whora was gone, George sleepily stood in her place. He bid Tayce a goodnight, murmuring something about wanting to stay on the call until he fell asleep. It confused Tayce how he managed to be so openly loving. He never hesitated to bear his full emotions to Tayce. They were yin and yang, one so open and one so private. But they complemented each other so well. Their energies merged in a way Tayce knew was once in a lifetime. He’d struggle to verbalise it but it was like they were soulmates. So easily intertwined that they were permanents in each other’s lives shortly after getting to know each other.

“Goodnight Tayce, see you tomorrow.” A sleepy murmur came from the other end of the line, followed a few minutes later by soft snores. Tayce hung up the call with a warm feeling in his chest.

He stared up at the ceiling of the hotel room, spreading out in a way that reminded him of the comments about how he slept from the interview a few days ago. Every part of him was so deeply intertwined with him, a year ago the thought would have shaken Tayce to his core but it felt like nothing new now. There was still a lot to unpack and communicate in their relationship but it could wait.

That was for future Tayce to deal with. For now, he tried to sleep thinking of the giddy smile that would be on George’s face as he came through the door, snacks and drinks in hand ready for their celebration. Together.

#taywhora #tayce x a'whora #tayce #a'whora #rpdr fanfiction #can't believe i wrote canon compliant omfg #i like it a lot tho

[inkabelledesigns]

Bendy: Dreams Come To Life, but as an Isekai?

Okay, so I’ve had this idea for a few weeks now, and I want to ramble about it. So late one night, I was chatting with my friends, and I threw something down in our ideas chat that a lot of us jumped right on. 

What if you had a story where someone from modern times woke up in the body of Sammy Lawrence, within the context of DCTL? 

This lead to a long series of discussions, and I think I have a grasp on what I want to create now. I’ve got a prologue ready and a first chapter in the works for a fanfic, but I need to go and reread DCTL to make sure I’m remembering the details right. 

https://www.definitions.net/definition/isekai 

So what is an isekai? I wasn’t too familiar with the term before chatting with folks about it, but this link should give you an idea as to what it is. Some isekai stories focus on a character that is transported to a fictional world, but others will put them in the role of a character that already exists in that piece of fiction, which is closer to what I’m doing. You ever heard of that manga where some guy was reincarnated as Yamcha in Dragon Ball Z, and then drastically changed Yamcha’s role throughout the series because he knew everything that was going to happen? That’s kind of what I’m doing here. 

My story focuses on 24 year-old Samantha Lorenzo, an animation nerd who obsesses over BATIM with her roommate, Janet Fey (credit to @fiddle-dee-dee777 for the names, it’s a clever parallel!) Sam is an active theorizer who loves picking apart the Bendy lore, while also being a huge nerd for stuff like DnD and classic films. She’s read up to the ending of The Illusion of Living and is currently working to pick apart the details, when out of nowhere, her life is flipped upside down. She wakes up one morning in the body of Sammy Lawrence, within the time that DCTL takes place, a little before Buddy shows up. Once she realizes that this is in fact not a dream, she tries to prevent Sammy from getting drenched in ink and protect Buddy from his inevitable downfall, but that’s far harder than it seems. 

On the flipside, 1946 Sammy Lawrence wakes up in the body of a recent college graduate, confused as to where he is, why he’s wearing a nightgown, and generally having an existential crisis until Janet comes to his rescue. Jan takes care of Sammy while he’s in Samantha’s body, which forces him to acknowledge that, as far as they’re concerned, he’s a fictional character. So while Samantha is trying to save everyone, Sammy and Jan are unraveling the mystery of how this happened, how to fix it, as well as indulging in various shenanigans. 

Bottom line: It’s a damn fun story, and I don’t want this one to be something I fizzle out on, because it’s just such a good time. But in order to be confident in it, I need to really hammer down what happens in DCTL, it’s been so long since I’ve read it that I forgot some things. Like I’m here questioning if I’ve put the infirmary in the right part of the building, the building layout is so hard to keep track of for someone as directionally challenged as me (and if you know of anyone who’s mapped it out, please send it my way, I’d really appreciate it). Obviously I’m not gonna be completely canon compliant, it’s a fanfiction, I’m allowed to have a little fun. But at the same time, I wanna make sure I’m doing this media justice.

There are a few things I’d like to get out of the way. Big one: I’m including Jack. I don’t know at what point Jack is out of the picture, since we get no mention of him in DCTL, but we know he’s alive in 1943, which is only three years before. I want him to be there, hell, I’d love to have a moment where Samantha unknowingly prevents his death, but we’ll see. That’s the other thing about this fic. I dunno if you guys have noticed, but I’m a nutcase when it comes to Bendy. A lot of what I’m putting into Samantha definitely comes from my own over-analysis of this world, where she’s looking at it as trying to give these characters the best ending possible. This girl is packed with all the knowledge that I have of this franchise, and she’s gonna use it to her full advantage to manipulate the outcome. But knowing the world of Bendy does not mean knowing the day-to-day lives of these characters. As I’ve discovered in starting to write this, Sammy Lawrence not knowing where the bathroom is in a place he’s worked at for a long time is kind of sus. XD So part of the challenge is getting Sam to accept that this is more than a story, these are real people in-world that she’s tampering with the lives of. 

The last thing to note is that I want to make it hard for Samantha to prove she’s not Sammy. At first, I want her to just appear to be a bit off, but hey, Sammy’s quirky, so it could just come off as him having an off day. But part of living in Sammy’s body means dealing with some lingering things from him, such as his skills as a musician and feelings towards some of the characters/subjects. So when asked to prove that she’s somehow not Sammy, it’s really, really hard to be convincing. One moment I had in mind was Jack coming out and asking her the time signature on one of his favorite pieces to prove it, and she blurts out the right answer and quickly covers her mouth in horror. 

I’ve also considered playing with other characters having nightmares of things they couldn’t possibly have experienced, which starts to put some things into question. And this has its pros and cons. Buddy having nightmares of being Boris? Oh god that would be fun to write. But then possibly having Joey learn what’s coming? Oh that would affect things a lot. That’s one of the things I’m eager to play with: Sam has to be careful of who has what knowledge when it comes to what’s going to happen in the future to these characters. Certain characters learning things and sharing them with others could be incredibly dangerous. 

So yeah, that’s my rambling about a fanfic idea that’s currently in the works. Thank you for indulging me! I’d love to talk about it more and bounce ideas around, so hit me up if you’re interested in chatting. Goodness knows I’ve had fun sharing it with my smaller groups (and a huge thank you to all of you for indulging my craziness on this, I really appreciate having you along for the ride!) 

But of course, I gotta tell you the title. Right now, I’m calling it Nightmares Are Reality, a nice parody of Dreams Come to Life, I think. I look forward to exploring this nightmare with you!

#nightmares are reality #bendy and the ink machine #batim fanfic #bendy fanfic #dctl #bendy dreams come to life #sammy lawrence #buddy lewek #Jack Fain #samantha lorenzo #janet fey #also if anyone can guess the animation reference in Samantha's last name I will be impressed #isekai #bendy isekai

[you-cant-spell-subtext-without]

hello hello hello!  and welcome to Season 12 of Supernatural. 

I admit that initially I STRUGGLED WITH SEASON 12.  I LOATHED the British Men of Letters (other than Lady Antonia Bevell; her hot working mom energy can get it); I have...mixed feelings about Mary; overall it was not a stellar season for me the first go-round.  HOWEVER I shall now give it a second chance,  and look for the subtext within the bad (and if my theory tracks, there will be much subtext as...there is much bad).  Maybe I’ll even develop Ketch appreciation.  **ONWARDS ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH, MY FRIENDS:

When we last left Dean, I neglected to mention that Amara brought his mom back (this is how much I repressed Mary Winchester I guess?)  We cut to Mary, confused, in a nightgown (I get this is part of the character and that’s why she is wearing it sO wE kNOw iTS rEAlLy MaRY WinCHEstEr because of her nightgown and not Sam Smith’s exquisite face, but honestly WHY - LIKE DID SHE WEAR THE DAMN THING IN HEAVEN THE ENTIRE TIME TOO?).

DEAN [breathing heavily] 

Mom. Listen to me. Your name – your name is Mary Sandra Campbell, okay? You were born December 5, 1954, to Samuel and Deanna Campbell. Your father, he bounced around a lot for, uh, work, and you bounced right along with him, and you ended up in Lawrence, Kansas.

MARY 

How do you know all that?

DEAN 

Dad told me. March 23, 1972, you walked out of a movie theater – Slaughterhouse-Five. You loved it, and you bumped into a big Marine and you knocked him flat on his ass. You were embarrassed, and he laughed it off, said you could make it up to him with a cup of coffee. So, you went to, uh, Mulroney's and you talked and he was cute and he knew the words to every Zeppelin song, so when he asked you for your number, you gave it to him, even though you knew your dad would be pissed. That was the night that – that you met –

MARY 

John Winchester.

DEAN 

August 19, 1975, you were married... in Reno. Your idea. A few years later, I came along, then Sammy.

***DEAN DESCRIBING EVERY DAMN DETAIL OF THIS HAS MURDERED ME.  Also, I know John Winchester “told him the story,” but something about this retelling - these are NOT John Winchester’s words (other than maybe “big Marine”).  The emotions, the feelings, the “you talked and he was cute” Dean is describing is Dean’s retelling, the version he created in his mind of this damn meet-cute, this little love story he played over and over in his head, and that makes me feel warm and tingly and also want to ingest sharp knives.  

***Everyone already knows about the damn Zeppelin reference but just in case you wanted to be tortured, please recall that later on we will get

THIS FUCKING SHIT

Nothing to see here other than Dean using a reference from this LOVE STORY on Cas.  I HATE it here in super hell.  Next rounds on you, Sam.

Anyway, Mary has caught on:

I paused here just now because I had a tHoUGHt.  This season is all about exploring Dean and Sam in their role as sons (this is discussed at the SDCC panel prior to the season; btw they are all free on Prime and I recommend watching before you start each new season for little “reveals” behind some of the plot lines).  We know Sam has no relationship to Mary really, he was a baby when she died, but Dean was a little boy - with a personality, character traits, identifying characteristics that his mother probably knew like the back of her hand.  That’s why my first run-in with Mary left a bad taste in mouth during this season - LIKE THIS IS YOUR KID, and there is NO inkling or recognition until THIS moment?  In a show that just spent an entire season exploring the “unexplained connection” between Dean and GODS SISTER, there no immediate “OH” from his own mother?!

But then I realized why she only connected at this very moment.  This particular moment - and not the moment where he lists the factual details about her before the story of the night she met John.  That little story with all those cute details - that’s the part of Dean that Mary knew before she died - when that part was ALL of Dean.  Before hunting, before John’s quest for revenge turned him into the person he is today, before he saw himself as a blunt little instrument.  That’s why initially Mary has no recognition that this is her son - because the Dean she knew was sensitive, and kind, and OPEN, and liked love stories, and laughing, and warm hugs and maybe flowers. Because if you think about it WE DONT KNOW THAT DEAN.  We only know Dean AMD. (After Mary’s Death).

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

So maybe Mary represents Dean Before Mary’s Death, and whatever part of that Dean remains, no matter how deep he has been buried.  The part that connects with people; the part that doesn’t want to be alone.  The part that helped Amara.  The part that loves Cas.  And that’s why Amara brought her back.  

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

Ok, if I think of it this way, I may like Mary a little better now.

BUT ALSO MY BABY:

Cut to Cas.

[THE MAN WALKS OVER TO THE EDGE OF THE CRATER MADE BY THE LANDING AND SEES CASTIEL PULLING HIMSELF OUT.]

MAN 

Holy mother.

[CASTIEL STANDS UP AND LOOKS AROUND]

CASTIEL 

Where am I?

MAN

Uh...Earth?

CASTIEL 

No. How far am I from Lebanon, Kansas?

MAN 

Uh... Th-three hours, maybe. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Who – What are you, man?

[CASTIEL WALKS TOWARDS THE MAN AND TOUCHES HIM ON THE FOREHEAD. THE MAN DROPS TO THE GROUND. CASTIEL LEAVES HIM THERE AS HE DRIVES OFF IN THE TRUCK]

***I spy a Season 11 random parallel

And Cas says, “Earth - 

***Also, I often wonder if in his mind’s inner GPS, Cas bases distances on how far he is from Dean. 

In the meantime, Bad Things Are Happening to Sam.

***Toni Bevell, don’t join the British Men of Letters you’re so sexy hahah

Other than noting that this is yet another too oft- repeated Sam, the Victim, Always Gets Tortured scenario, I see no point in recapping these parts.

I will just continue to post Toni Bevell hotness for these portions of the episode. Ok?  Ok.  You’re welcome.

BACK TO THE BUNKER:

I already posted this sweet baby reunion in my final Season 11 analysis/recap, but lets see it again at another angle and from Mary’s perspective CAUSE CLEARLY she has...*thoughts*

Poor Cas had no idea he was about to MEET THE PARENT 

It melts my little heart that Dean uses Cas’s full name to introduce him to people.  Especially members of his family who are trying to kill him.

Anyway, then we get a much longed for gem of typical Cas deadpan:

(*I still miss Casifer a little bit though*)

And then we have 

A MOMENT OF CONNECTION!  

At the SDCC panel, Misha specifically noted that both Mary and Cas are outsiders, so this tracks. 

They head to the garage:

[Exhaling sharply, Mary walks towards Baby. She runs her hand lightly over the car.]

MARY This was John's car. Oh, she's still beautiful.

DEAN Hell, yeah, she is.

MARY Hi, sweetheart. Remember me?

[MARY LEANS DOWN AND LOOKS INTO THE CAR SMILING. SHE STARTS LOOKING AT THE FRONT SEAT BUT HER EYES AND HER THOUGHTS LINGER ON THE BACK SEAT. DEAN LEANS DOWN LOOKING AT THE INTERIOR OF THE CAR WITH PRIDE. DEAN LOOKS AT HIS MOM AND REALIZES SHE’S HAVING VERY SPECIFIC MEMORIES OF TIME IN THE BACK SEAT. DEAN LOOKS AROUND THE CAR, AND LOOKS AT HIS MOM.]

***this is where you truly see that Sam Smith is a genius because she took those directions and put them all into THIS:

And then THIS:

DEAN 

Oh…

[MARY LOOKS UP AT DEAN. DEAN REALIZES HE MIGHT HAVE BEEN CONCEIVED IN THAT CAR, STANDS UP QUICKLY AND LOOKS OVER THE CAR. DEAN SWALLOWS HARD, AND GLANCES AT CASTIEL WHO GIVES HIM A QUIZZICAL LOOK.]

DEAN 

We should go.

***At this time I would like to remind everyone that Cas is also generally in the back seat of this car.  

MOVING ON

Meanwhile-

Back at the bunker, Cas is Continuing to Connect with his boyfriend’s mother:

[EXTERIOR DAY; INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS AND THE NOISE OF VIDEO GAMES ARE HEARD. THE CAMERA PANS TO MARY WHO’S WATCHING THE SCENE. CASTIEL IS PICKING UP COFFEE.]

CASTIEL 

Thank you.

[CASTIEL TAKES THE COFFEE TO MARY AND SITS DOWN.]

CASTIEL

This must be difficult for you. I remember my first moments on Earth. It was jarring.

MARY 

One word for it. I grew up with Hunters. I've heard of people coming back from the dead before. But to actually do it... after 30 years. A lot's changed.

[MARY LOOKS AROUND.]

MARY A lot.

Cas:

This is usually a look Reserved For Dean, so its interesting Cas is looking at Mary here [they also weirdly joked about Cas hitting on Mary at the SDCC panel and now I'm giggling because if Mary represents the soft part of Dean this all makes PERFECT SENSE).

BONUS

Actual footage of Sam in super hell

The Cas/Mary bonding worked BTW:

[INTERIOR: GREGORY IS SITTING IN FRONT OF HIS DESK WITH CASTIEL, DEAN, AND MARY STANDING BEFORE HIM.]

DEAN 

So, you dug the bullet out of his leg, no questions asked?

GREGORY 

She offered me 100 grand.

MARY 

And you took it?

GREGORY 

Student loans were a bitch, okay?

[ANGRILY CASTIEL STARTS TOWARDS GREGORY.]

DEAN 

Cas! Cas! Cas! Don't hurt him. Not yet.

**Disclosure: I do not accept the “Cass” spelling and take creative license to change it in the script whenever it appears**

GREGORY 

All right, look, she didn't give me her name. When we were done, the driver bailed, I got paid, and then some other chick shows up, and they all drive away.

MARY 

And that's everything you know?

GREGORY 

(insincerely) Yeah. Totally.

****Um, Mom that’s my boyfriend you don’t order him around like tha-

Oh, well, ok then.

***This is important, because Cas doesn’t obey anyone (other than Dean) blindly ever since he invented free will and all that.  Hence Dean’s surprised/impressed look to Mary above.  

Meanwhile:

I recall that I spent most of my first watch of Season 12 gushing over Toni Bevell, so I’m glad to know this won’t be changing.  You’ve been warned.

Next up, Sam is again sex tortured, Cas is a Helpful Boyfriend, and for some reason, Rick Springfield.  

#spn #spn meta #spn analysis #spn recaps #season 12x01 #season 12 #supernatural #destiel #dean cas #spn fandom #toni bevell #sorry this is long af #but not really sorry bc its mainly due to the additional pics of Toni bevell #and you need her in your life #myspnmeta

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Things I hope we learn in ‘Wizards’

Steve’s mom’s name. 

Tales of Arcadia has focused on Steve growing to accept Coach Lawrence as a father-figure while leaving Steve’s relationship with his mother off-camera, except for that one scene where they were arguing inside while the camera watched the outside of their house. Coach Lawrence’s relationship with Mrs Palchuk (or has she gone back to her maiden name? I don’t know, because she is never named) is also kept off-camera. 

Steve is seen in promo images for the new series, so there’s acceptable odds his mom will at least be mentioned. 

(Of course, I thought that about 3Below, too ...)

Nomura’s full name. 

The fandom uses ‘Zelda’ as her first name a lot - I’ve heard that it started with somebody putting said name on a fandom wiki; I started using it because she was called that in so many fanfics I assumed there was a canon source I hadn’t seen yet - but there is no canon source for it. In the show, end credits, spin-off novels, and spin-off comics, she’s only ever ‘Nomura’ or ‘Ms Nomura’. 

Nomura is not in promo images for the new series, so this may be left unknown. 

What inspired AAARRRGGHH to change sides. 

The comics show the moment it happens, but frame it as an impulse decision in the middle of a battle, which is kind of unsatisfying for a major turning point in a main character’s life. A bit of set-up, please, besides “it has to happen because we already know it does happen”? 

Promo images imply that the new series will include scenes from before the Battle of Killahead Bridge, so hopefully AAARRRGGHH’s redemption arc backstory will be fit in somewhere. 

What the blue stone in the Amulet is.

It also seems to be the stone in Douxie’s staff on the poster, so it’s obviously important. Was it in the staff before and taken out to make the Amulet, or is it taken from the Amulet (since Jim’s only using the slotted half of it anyway) to make the staff, or are there two stones of that size and shape and colour and glow?

Whether Not Enrique is still going by ‘Not Enrique’ or has a new name.

Like Nomura, he isn’t in the new promo images, and so may not actually feature in the new series. If he does appear, I hope someone addresses him by name, so we can learn what he’s calling himself now.

Alternately, Claire could mention him while talking about her family.

What Troll!Jim looks like without armour.

How fluffy he is, what new outfit he’s chosen or if his old sweatshirt and jeans magically still fit him, whether the different number of fingers on each hand is permanent or if that was just to re-use the gauntlet animation model and he actually has four-digit hands on both sides when the armour is off, that kind of thing.

What Deya the Deliverer was like.

Promo images imply that the new series will include scenes from before the Battle of Killahead Bridge, so she should at least have a cameo appearance. She appears in the spin-off comics but that’s not the same. Animation and voice acting give different impressions than illustrations and speech bubbles.

As a bonus, I’d like to see how she locked the Bridge to only open for the Amulet, since it’s implied that before she did that, the Gumm-Gumms had control of that portal.

(I’m actually in two minds about whether ‘more Deya’ is something I want, because it could turn into a “never meet your heroes” scenario, but I’m willing to take the gamble.)

What year the Battle of Killahead took place. 

I feel like there’s a pretty good chance of this question being answered. It’ll be useful for composing timelines and working out how old to make characters. 

How old Nana Domzalski is.

As pay-off to her line in 3Below about spying in World War 1 (when World War 2 would’ve made more sense given the show’s time period and the average human lifespan), she might turn out to be immortal or otherwise long-lived.

How AAARRRGGHH knows what a ‘Familiar’ is in the context of ‘wizard assistant/associate’ rather than ‘human linked to a Changeling as an anchor for said Changeling to take on human shape’, which would be the context in which he was more likely to encounter that word before, considering his species and backstory. Are all Changelings considered wizards or something?

Who the first Trollhunter was and when they got the job.

According to one of the spin-off novels, there’s been a Trollhunter for at least 5,200 years. That may not be all that long in a trollish reckoning of time, but is still further back in history than Camelot is typically described, so this may or may not be addressed. 

#Tales of Arcadia #trivia #do want #toaWizards #Speculation #Trollhunters #3Below #names #Nomura #AAARRRGGHH #backstory #Amulet of Daylight #rocks minerals crystals and gemstones #Not Enrique #Troll Jim #armour #hands #Deya the Deliverer #Nana Nancy Domzalski #immortality #Familiars #TOA novels and comics

[matchasprouts]

Listen Closer - Chapter 15

[ can't wait for Strahm to get pegged <3 we have so much more pining to get through first though ]

First || Next || Previous || Last

It took some doing, but the water box was done by the start of the next month. It was… rough figuring out how he was supposed to get Strahm into the box without needing to weld it back together on his head.

Eventually he just settled for a metal bottom that he would clip back together when it was on him. They were locked, so he couldn’t just undo them and escape. No, if he wanted to live, he would have to get hurt.

Once it was finished, he got the trap set up in one of the rooms of the packing plant, one that wasn’t currently in use. It took some doing to get it hanging and attach the pipes that would fill it with water, but he managed it with a little bit of help from Lawrence.

Next was the trap for one Ivan Landness- and, as excited as he was for it, it was going to be difficult. He couldn’t build it all together, and it had to be made with the bed it was going to be attached to in mind.

Luckily, Garrett loved a challenge.

The only problem was that he was now legally Mark’s specialist, meaning he had to be brought in for every Jigsaw case.

So that’s why he was, very unwillingly, standing over a crispy corpse.

This was one of Amanda’s traps, he remembered seeing her pack up the chains surrounding the body to bring to the room they were standing in. He’d been told that they had to burn the door open, meaning the player had no chance to escape whatsoever.

“Who do you think put this one together?” Strahm asked when he realized Garrett was there, gaining a soft, thoughtful hum from him.

“Looks like Amanda Young,” he replied, lightly kicking one of the scorched chains. “I heard the door was welded shut. He couldn’t have escaped it even if he won. He was always doomed to death.”

Was he lowkey calling Amanda out on her bullshit when she wasn’t around? Yes. He was still pissed about Kerry’s trap.

“How many of her traps have you seen?” Strahm seemed at least a little bit concerned that he could guess who it was almost immediately, but Garrett just shrugged.

He brought a hand up to his face to lightly scratch at his scar before responding. “Not many. This is a new development, to be honest. But any trap put together by Kramer is escapable, if not difficult.”

“There’s also the third unknown apprentice,” Strahm offered, and Garrett genuinely found it funny that he was talking about this mysterious third apprentice to one of the longest standing ones.

Garrett just hummed again, taking another look at the body, before looking up at the ceiling and finding more chains hanging from the ceiling.

He should probably make his sketch so he could get out of there. He found a comfy spot on the floor that gave him a good view of all the chains and got to work in his Official Work sketchbook, vaguely noting that people were staying out of his way whenever he looked up.

Man, being an actual specialist was pretty fucking cool.

“Okay, I’ve gotta head out, but give me a call if you need any clarification,” he said as he finished the sketch, ripping it out of the book and handing it over to Strahm. “Try not to find another- whoa, did this scar?” He had meant to run out of there, but he got distracted by Strahm’s hand when he reached up to grab the sketch,

Garrett immediately grabbed Strahm’s hand to check out the bite scar on it, grinning at the idea that one simple bite from one very feral man was enough to scar him.

Strahm fucking froze at the contact, and Garrett could feel his arm tense up where he was holding it. Of course, this just made him want to fuck with him.

So he put Strahm’s hand in his mouth, perfectly lined up his teeth with the scar, and gently bit down.

It wasn’t enough pressure to pierce the skin, but Garrett could feel Strahm shaking at the feeling. Garrett grinned, pulling back only to bite down on the agent’s exposed forearm, leaving him with another bleeding bite mark as he made his way out of the room, licking his lips clean of the blood.

At this point, the only way Strahm would escape his teeth is by arresting him.

Unfortunately he couldn’t go straight home. Part of being an official specialist meant that after he looked over every trap, he had to go down to the precinct to file his own report about it. Apparently that was the easiest way to ensure that no information was missed in the file.

Luckily, it was only the trap that he had to report on, nothing about the victim or anything that would lead them to Jigsaw. Just the trap. Thank god, because he straight up didn’t pay attention to crime scenes.

He did, however, have his own mini office now! It was small, but that was okay, because it had windows so he could watch everyone passing by. It was a simple and easy way to get to know people without actually talking to them.

Also having an office was fucking banger and anybody who didn’t like him before was now stuck with him.

Upon arriving at his little office (he had his own keycard to get into this part of the building now- a keycard! He was growing too powerful) he immediately tossed his bag onto the ground and started up his computer, as well as grabbing the blank form he had to fill out every time he looked at a trap.

Apparently, they liked to have a physical record as well as a digital one. This was very unfortunate for Garrett, because he hated doing the same thing twice, and he hated waiting for photos of the trap too.

To distract himself from how much he hated paperwork, he got to work on the paperwork. He started with the physical copy first, just because it would be easier to type it word for word and not worry about losing what he’d already written.

He was just about to start on the digital copy when there was a knock on his door. “You better have my photos,” Garrett said when he noticed who it was, and Strahm took that as his invitation to come in.

His arms were completely covered now, probably to hide the fresh mark Garrett left him with. That made him smirk a little, before sticking his hand out and making the grabby hand motion at him so he’d hand over the photos.

Once they were in his grasp, he immediately took out a sharpie and began to label the parts of the trap. He was allowed to do this solely because they made extra copies separate to the ones he used.

“How’s your arm doing?” Garrett asked, keeping his focus on his work but also incredibly aware that Strahm was just standing there. At the promise of conversation, Strahm finally sat down.

“Did you have to do that? Like, really?” Strahm replied, and Garrett could vaguely see him reach up to loosen his tie, even undoing a few of the buttons on his shirt.

“Yes, I did,” Garrett responded without a moment’s hesitation, flipping to the next photo he needed to label. “I’m not sorry for scarring you, by the way. I’d only known you for, like, an hour and it freaked me out.”

Strahm just hummed, a sort of non-verbal way of saying he understood. Garrett flipped to the next, and last, photo and finished up his labelling, moving back to the computer to finish the digital version of the report.

There was an awkward silence- well, awkward on Strahm’s end. He clearly had something he wanted to ask, but was seemingly afraid of doing. Garrett, on the other hand, was just vibing.

And finally, he asked his burning question. “Do you think Hoffman is Jigsaw?”

Holy SHIT.

Garrett almost choked and the suddenness, suddenly very grateful that Strahm couldn’t see him behind his monitor. Did he… really just ask… if he thought his boyfriend was Jigsaw…?

He wasn’t sure whether to tell him straight up that they were both Jigsaw, or fuck him on the spot for being a fucking idiot.

After a moment of deliberation, he decided he was going to give him another gay panic attack. “Why would I think that? I live with him, I think I would have noticed if he was running off to play Jigsaw.”

Strahm tensed up a little at that, apparently not having processed that Garrett and Mark weren’t just… hanging out when he showed up to check on him after he left the hospital.

“I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but there’s just- I don’t know how to describe it, it’s just how he acts with Jigsaw cases and how he’s one of the only members of the task force left-”

He was rambling now, giving Garrett ample time to get up from his desk, walk around it, and plant himself behind Strahm’s chair. When he placed his hands on the back of it, his knuckles brushing against the agent’s back, that was when he shut up, freezing suddenly.

Garrett took his chance, leaning down until he was right next to Strahm’s ear. “You shouldn’t worry yourself with that sort of thing, Special Agent,” he whispered, noticing a minute shiver from Strahm at the feeling of warm breath against his neck. “We know who Jigsaw is. And I would tell you if I suspected Detective Hoffman.”

His hands had moved to Strahm’s shoulders, one toying with the collar of his shirt and the other messing with the top most button.

Strahm was so easy to rile up. Garrett could tell he was trying not to make a sound.

“But… you’ll keep me updated on this theory of yours, yes?” he asked, and Strahm stiffly nodded. Garrett smiled, leaning close enough that his lips brushed against Strahm’s neck. “Good boy.”

He pressed a kiss to Strahm’s neck, trailing his tongue over the spot before biting down gently- still hard enough to leave a mark, but not enough to bleed-, and then pulling away and sitting back down at his desk. “Could you take this up to Mark for me?” he asked, holding the file out to Strahm, who was flushed down to his neck.

The agent stood up quickly, grabbed the file, and left without another word.

Yeah, Garrett could use this attraction. Besides, it made working with him so much more fun.

#story tag: listen closer #self ship fic #self shipping #self insert #scrap.writing #scrap.ships #s/i: garrett whitlock #mark hoffman #lawrence gordon #peter strahm #romantic: 🦿🩺 #romantic: ⛓🕵️‍♂️ #romantic: 🖊💧 #(poly) romantic: ⛓🩺🖊 #chapter 15

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

I read the book a while ago and DCTL!Sammy was so frustrating that as a Sammy fan, I need to rant about him.

The man in the book may have had his name, but that thing was not the Sammy Lawrence I knew and loved.

First off: What the fuck? No seriously, what the actual fuck. Who the fuck is this man and what has he done with Sammy? Lets take all the Sammys we’ve seen in canon and compare them:

Tapes!Sammy: A tired, annoyed and bitter musician who is done with the shit his boss is putting him through. He sounds like he has bags under his eyes and is wearing a perfected a Customer Service Smile(TM) during work hours. 10/10 would pay to listen to him bitch about Joey in the break room.

Chapter 2!Sammy: Creepy, dramatic, stupidly trying to get a demon to notice him, and a ham of a villain. Judging by the phrase “He will set US free” pared with the fact we find out he lives in the village built by the searchers and lost ones and that he appears to he their leader, it seems like in universe, he’s the only one who cares about these miserable, once human creatures enough to actively help them. Even Allison Angel and Tom Boris, the ‘good’ guys, slaughter them mercilessly in their own home after they kill their leader. 10/10, fucking superb you funky little cultist man. (Henry gets a pass because he’s just trying to live and appears to show more empathy to them/guilt to them: ‘I’m sorry I had to do that, nice hat though’, ‘please don’t cry’, to himself: ‘you bring death’ ‘once people, now fallen into despair’) 

Hot Topic Q&A!Sammy: still creepy, but this man is a delight. He’s kind, he’s encouraging, he praises his fellow employees often, he’s passionate about his work and he has a wonderful sense of humor. We learn that he has memory problems but he’s trying his best. If this is what he’s normally like then I’m not surprised that the searchers/lost ones are willing to risk their lives to avenge him and I feel bad for him. 11/10, best sympathetic villain I’ve seen in years, would take him on a date to Coney Island.

Chapter 5!Sammy: Full of unbridled rage and pain after being betrayed. Attacks Henry on sight and we learn that he doesn’t like being seen without his mask. I don’t know what set him off this badly but I wish I did. 7/10, could’ve been better.

Employee Handbook!Sammy: Calling people sheep pre-ink is pretty weird to see from him considering that it’s an insult here and a term of endearment during the Q&A and I hope he’s either being sarcastic or is being blackmailed by Joey. 7/10, stop simping for Drew’s dick, king you deserve better wages, a better workplace, and a better boss.

DCTL!Sammy: I legit cringed every time he showed up and had to put the book down for a bit because he was just that unpleasant. Like Chapter 5!Sammy he is full of rage, unlike Chapter 5!Sammy he’s just lashing out at absolutely everyone and is a complete jackass who is also implied to be a bigot. The only thing this Sammy has in common with the other Sammys is his name, music and calling people ‘sheep’. If nobody said his name I’m pretty sure we’d all 100% accept that this is an entirely different character and that Sammy died before Buddy showed up. He’d be a terrible character who I’m pretty sure everybody would love to hate, but a different character nonetheless. His only redeeming quality is that he drinks ink and I think that’s kinda funny. -100/10, who are you and what have you done to my himbo ink husband?

Apparently, according to themeatly, DCTL!Sammy’s bad behavior is the ink making him more aggressive, and he disrespects Tom’s Job, not his skin color. I could buy those two points out of context as Sammy hates the pipes and pump switch in his office, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he took his anger out on Tom because he can’t do shit to Joey and Tom’s the one who installed the pipes/pump switch in his office. And I assume getting your flesh slowly but steadily transmuted into ink feels terrible and therefore, more likely to lash out more often.

But then why do we get the lines “What’s the matter Mr. Lawrence? Not used to giving someone like me respect?” (when Tom is talking to Sammy) and “I remembered Sammy calling the man from gent “Tom” and not “Mr. Conner” and I wondered if this was a habit of his. If this was what he did with everyone. Or maybe...how had Jacob put it in the bar about women and black people not getting the same respect” (Buddy thinking while watching Sammy talk to Abby)

How come we don’t get a non-inked DCTL!Sammy to compare to inked DCTL!Sammy? Why do we ONLY get the vile-behaving venom-spitting DCTL!Sammy? The audience might see the change in behavior and automatically think “Oh fuck something supernatural is going on” but this is a prequel story! we already know shit’s gonna go down! In story the characters could chalk it up to “Oh he’s probably being shitter than usual because he’s under a lot more stress than usual.” Or something like that.

What especially pisses me off is how EASY it would be to fix the bigot problem! What if we took the lines and changed them to: “What’s the matter Mr. Lawrence? Not used to giving a blue collar like me respect?” (So that it establishes that it IS the job and not the skin Sammy has a problem with like themeatly had wanted us to read it as apparently.) and “I Remembered Sammy calling the man “Tom” and not “Mr. Conner” and I wondered if this was a habit of his. If this is what he did with everyone. If it was, then how come he never calls me by my name?” He’d still be an asshole but at least he’d be a less shitty one.

Speaking of which, lets talk about something that I’ve never seen anybody else comment on: the fact he treats our protagonist Buddy with so much more disrespect than I’ve seen every other character in the book. It’s not just me, right? Was I really the only one who noticed this?

While Sammy does call everybody by their first names, (Joey, Tom, and Abby) the exception to this rule appears to be Daniel “Buddy” Lewek, whom he instead calls “Art Department”, while the other characters are referred to casually instead of properly, they at least are called their own names, poor Buddy gets a nickname based off of which part of the studio he works in.

Right off the bat, when Buddy helps DTCL!Sammy get the ink out of his face do you know what he immediately does afterwards? Does he say “Thanks for the help”, “Oh hey, you’re new.”, “I swear those pipes will kill me one day, good thing it wasn’t today” or anything else like that? nope!

He just drags Buddy to the closet and he forces him to clean up the ink. In the employee handbook, we know that only Wally is allowed to clean up ink-related messes and it’s fair to assume that Sammy knows this so why is he breaking the rules by forcing Buddy to clean the ink for just being at the wrong place at the wrong time? He didn’t even apologize for his behavior anywhere, he just intimidates Buddy and later in the book attempts to kill him for Bendy.

In conclusion: I am frustrated and this is not my inky himbo music man.

#sammy lawrence #buddy lewek #dreams come to life #dctl spoilers #bendy and the ink machine