#do it for the thousands of fans who have latched onto this show and had it help them through thr pandemic.
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Part 1 Part 3
The F-slur is mentioned here but only mentioned, not used to attack or demean.
“I don’t have a wife. I have… I have a husband.”
Future-Eddie slapped him on the shoulder. “Hell yeah you do.”
“They legalise it? They-” Robin looked over at her future self, her eyes glossy. “W- they can get married?”
“Yeah.” Future-Robin squeezed Steve and Robin closer. “Yeah. They can get married. Just in a couple of places to start but then country-wide.”
Nancy nodded along as though this was all tactical information useful for defeating Vecna. “Is anyone else going to come through?”
Future-Eddie shrugged. “Not sure. I think Robin and I were zapped here because our past and future selves were in the same geographical location when there was a pulse. So, sorry to say, Nance, but you’re definitely not about to pop in.”
“Why? Where am I?”
“Still on a plane back from Alaska last I heard.”
“What on earth was I doing in Alaska?”
“Spy shit.” The two time travellers said in unison.
Nancy uncharacteristically stumbled in surprise. “Spy shit? Seriously?”
“Well, personally I believe you’re an international 007, Agent Wheeler, but most of the rest think it’s just plain old boring investigative journalism.” His future counterpart clearly hadn’t lost any theatricality with time.
In fact it seemed to have gotten worse as he waved his arms around. “You’re like, the top dog at it, dude. Literally so good at it that barely anyone knows your name which you definitely use to your advantage. You’re super cagey on details.
“But this time around, you were in Korea when shit hit the fan. Again, don’t know what you were doing there but I did hear Pyongyang mentioned once so you were only a jump away from Kamchatka when Ellie felt a disturbance in the force so you volunteered to go see if it was the Ruskies again, but no dice. Completely filled in with concrete. We have no idea how you got there so quickly but my money is on spy shit.”
Nancy stared at him open-mouthed as he spoke.
“So… So I do it? I make it? I succeed?”
“More than succeed.”
“And,” Nancy bit her lip, like she didn’t really want to ask the question but she was burning to know nonetheless. “The whole… marriage and kids thing?”
Future-Eddie glanced toward Steve, occupied by Future-Robin who was trying to distract him from the conversation and Eddie’s heart sank.
“Nance, don’t take this the wrong way but I don’t think you ever wanted that. I think you were told to want that, as a woman, but it was never you. You don’t have any kids, you’re not married and I don’t think you ever want to be.”
Nancy looked almost relieved at the information and Eddie was so confused.
He still had a thousand questions firing around his head so he decided to latch onto something mentioned earlier.
“Who’s Cassie?”
Future-Eddie smiled softly. “She’s my youngest.”
Eddie choked on thin air. “Kid?!”
“Yeah.”
“Your youngest kid is my age?”
“God, dude. Don’t remind me. You’ll make me feel so old.”
“You are old.”
His future self shoved his arm. “Watch it, whippersnapper.”
“Who’re your other kids?”
“Here, let me show you.” He pulled a slab of something out of his pocket before shaking his head and pulling his wallet out instead. “I think a phone would be a bit too much, so we’ll do the wallet.”
Eddie blinked. “Right.” Like he knew whatever the fuck the guy was on about.
Future-Eddie pulled some photos loose and in the pile Eddie caught sight of a hairy muscular thigh and a torso littered in old scars stretched obscenely out on a bed and dressed in black lace before the photo was swiftly snatched out of sight and Future-Eddie stuffed it down his pants.
“Woah, whoops! You don’t need to be seeing that!”
“Eddie!” Future-Robin called, staring at him wide eyed. “Oh my god, you keep that photo in your wallet?!”
“It was an anniversary gift!”
“He’s going to rip you a new asshole once he finds out.”
“God.” Future-Eddie breathed. “I hope so.”
Eddie knew his face must be lobster red. From what he had just seen of his future husband, he was hot, metal as shit with those scars and willing to do things like… that?! He’d hit the damn jackpot.
If only he’d seen his face.
“Moving on!” Future-Eddie called brightly. “My girls.” He held out a photo of three teenagers backstage at some kind of concert. It looked like they were laughing at something that had just happened behind the camera, their backs to the stage. They all looked wildly different from each other.
“They’re older now, obviously, but this photo… It’s my favourite. Rhea, Poppy and Cassie." He pointed at each of them respectively
The girl on the left looked to be the oldest, blonde and short with glasses, dressed in oversized flannels and baggy ripped jeans. Her mouth was wide open in what must have been a cackle, nearly bent double with one hand on her sister's shoulder, keeping her balance.
The girl in the middle was taller, her hair was dyed a dark purple colour with two piercings over her black painted lips, dressed in flowing black lace. She had both hands up as if she’d just been hiding behind them, her eyes wide and incredulous, seeming to only really let out a giggle.
The third was a similar height to the girl in the middle, black haired and freckled, dressed in bright pastel colours with a cast on her arm. She was half hiding her face behind her hair, turned towards her sisters but her smile was so wide her eyes all but disappeared.
They all looked so happy together.
Holy shit.
He only ever had Wayne and now… well, in the future he has a husband and three daughters (holyshitholyshitholyshit), he’d built a family.
“Pretty unbelievable, right?” Future-Eddie smiled across at him, warm and content.
“Just wait ‘till you find out what he does for work!” Future-Robin shouted at him from up ahead.
Work? Eddie had never had a job before and everything in his future seemed so perfect, maybe this was the downer. God he hoped it wasn’t some corporate bullshit.
“What do you do for work?”
Future-Eddie blushed which was very fucking odd and scratched at the back of his neck. “I’m retired.” He shrugged.
“Eddie. You’re not going to tell him?”
“How can I tell him? Look at him! He’s having the worst week of his life! He’s being hunted by a town full of evangelical nutjobs, you think he’ll believe me if I tell him I have two Grammys and a Tony?!”
“Okay, pause.” Eddie put his hand to his future self’s chest, stopping them both. “I’m gonna need you to run that by me again.”
Because no fuckin’ way, man.
Nuh-uh.
Not a chance it meant what he thought it meant.
Not him.
Not some little rat goblin from rural Indiana.
“Two Grammys.”
Future-Eddie nodded. “Two Grammys and a Tony.”
Eddie wrinkled his nose before scoffing. “Why a Tony?”
“It’s called branching out, dude. Don’t gatekeep, it’s not a good look.”
Future-Robin grimaced from up ahead. “Sorry, he’s sensitive.”
“Yes, I’m sensitive, Rob! Lloyd Webber can suck my dick!” He grumbled and muttered in a way that was clearly supposed to be an imitation, “Not built for writing a broadway musical my asshole.”
“So…”
“So.”
“You’re… we’re like, famous?”
Future-Eddie shrugged. “Yeah. Kinda.”
“With two Grammys.”
“We would have more if we didn’t get banned.” He muttered again, clearly not supposed to be overheard.
Eddie just stared. “Dude! How the hell do you get banned from the Grammys?”
Future-Robin faltered in her steps ahead, stuttering in the middle of her answer to Robin about her work as a translator in Geneva.
His future self started to walk again, trying to brush him off. “Uh… You know what? It’s a long story, I don’t think we should-”
Eddie caught up. “No, no. This is my potential future right? I should know, maybe I can avoid it?”
Future-Eddie raised his hand to his jaw again, almost unconsciously, like those words hit him on multiple levels.
“Some things can’t be avoided, I don’t think.” He sighed heavily. “Alright. I got outed. Publicly. It wasn’t pretty. And it wasn’t just me, my husband got outed too. We called a blackmailer's bluff and they followed through.”
Eddie shook his head, disbelieving. “They banned you because you got outed?”
“No… not exactly. Okay, listen. I was in a really dark place at the time and I was so, so angry and you know what we’re like when we’re angry. It was incredibly controversial at the time and still is, kinda. Like a black stain on the band's past but I wouldn’t take it back if I could, you understand me?
“When I wrote it I was feeling super toxic and bitter and I’m not excusing it because it was so personal but the younger generation have picked it up again and they’re seeing it like it was meant to be seen. Like it’s about having to hide and live in fear all the time and how stressful and unfair it is and-”
Eddie sped up his steps just a little so he could look at his future self. “What did you do?”
“I…” Future-Eddie twisted at his wedding band. “I released a song called ‘Faggot’ and it’s exactly as painful as you think.”
Eddie sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Listen, I don’t really know how this whole divergent paths thing will work, how much of my life you will or won’t experience after this. But everything I went through, everything, made me who I am today. It’s going to be really hard and it really fucking sucks sometimes. But it got me my girls. It got me my husband. I wouldn’t give it up for anything, you understand me?”
He looked back down at the ground, contemplating. Even though he’d just heard of some truly awful shit that might happen to him at some point, he couldn’t help agreeing with his future self. He had the girls. They seemed happy. He had a husband and he seemed truly content with him, even if Steve’s shadow was still overhanging. But he didn’t really know that for sure. He wanted to know about who he was married to, even if he didn’t want to know who.
“Tell me about him?”
Future-Eddie’s face split into a wide grin. “I thought you’d never ask. He’s the biggest fucking dork I know. The sweetest guy in the world, kindergarten teacher, little league coach… he sees everything. Self sacrificial streak a mile wide, giving me grey hairs.” He laughed.
“Sounds like a normie.”
“The normiest. It’s adorable.”
“Eddie!” Future-Robin called, waving him over from up ahead. “I need you, c’mere.”
“That’s sweet, baby. But it would never work between us.”
She rolled her eyes. “Jesus Christ, do you have an off switch?”
Future-Eddie’s grin turned feral. “I-”
“No!” She held up her hand. “Stop. Just come here, fucking hell.”
Eddie watched his own future counterpart practically skip over to the others, throwing his arms around both Robins and Nancy while his mind spun like a record without the needle down.
Fuckin’ time travel, man. What were the odds? But what were the odds of an alternate dimension and demon bats and demon dogs and just general demon fuckery?
And he was fucking married? What the shit. Like he’d pretty much resigned himself to short term secret shameful relationships or quick encounters in whatever club bathroom he ended up at in the city.
Some kind of life of settling down, with kids no less, was not something he’d ever dare believe…
“So.”
Eddie looked over. Steve was walking beside him, staying remarkably steady despite his wounds.
“So.”
He smiled at him but it was a little strained at the edges. “You have a husband.”
“I have a husband.”
And it was only really then that it hit him. Those words. Those words felt so… fantastic to say.
It wasn’t just the fact that he’d come out.
It was the fact that the words ‘I have a husband.’ meant that he had a husband. Someone who loved him unconditionally. Someone who stuck with his eccentricities and his trash panda tendencies. His parents were a terrible example for marriage and he knew, he knew that he would never allow himself to end up that way.
So this had to be it.
This had to be real.
“I don’t think I’d mind a husband.”
Eddie stopped dead.
Steve turned to look at him, a small smirk on his face. He strode two steps in front, continuing to walk backwards, keeping pace before placing a finger under Eddie’s chin and pushing his jaw back up. He hadn’t even realised it was hanging open.
“But… but you’re…”
"Yeah, I'm attracted to girls, I can hide if I want to and have an easy life. But boys are an option for me too. Don’t tell me you think I should play it safe because society tells me to. I thought you’d be better than that.” Steve slowed to keep pace with him again, knocking him with his shoulder and the barest hint of that smug smile on his face.
“Wh- I- I am. I am better than that. I’m sorry I just didn’t expect- you don’t-”
“I don’t look queer? Or act queer?”
“No! No, I didn’t mean…”
But he did mean that. He had thought that. And his shit had now been completely rocked because of it.
His jaw had fallen open again, he just realised. He snapped it closed and his mouth felt so fucking dry. “I think you’d make a good husband.”
“Are you asking?” Steve quirked an eyebrow at him and flashed his teeth with a grin.
Jesus H. Christ he was so pretty.
Fucking hell. Was this what it was like to be on the end of the Harrington charm? God, he was in so much trouble now.
And Steve was still grinning at him, like a cocky little bastard. “I don’t think anyone would want me as a husband anyway.”
“I’m sorry, I’m lost. Who the fuck would ever pass you up for a husband?”
Steve shrugged, a little more subdued than he was before. Eddie only barely caught the glance in Nancy’s direction.
“Wheeler’s loss.”
“No, I mean I get it. I have a lot of baggage and I feel like these bites aren’t going to just smoothe over. What happens then? What’s my spouse gonna do with me once I don’t have my looks anymore, you know?”
“Fuck your looks man, that’s not why people get married. That’s not why I’d get married.”
“It’s why my parents got married.”
“And you wanna have a marriage like theirs?”
“No! God, no. Never.”
“Exactly. So why do you think you’d allow yourself to get tied down to someone who only cares what you look like?”
“Maybe that’s the only reason they’d have me.” Steve grinned as if what he was saying was just fact. “Like I said, I’ve got baggage.”
Eddie shook his head. “We’ve all got baggage, man. I’m not trying to like, invalidate yours or whatever, but everyone has their shit. Yeah your shit is fucking intense, I mean look around, but that won’t matter to the right person. They might have their own. Might not be alternate dimension time travel shit but could be something similar. Maybe you’ll marry a veteran or a refugee. Or maybe you’ll marry someone who’s never experienced anything worse than a paper cut and when they stub their toe they only say ‘oh dear’. Relationships… marriage is a partnership, their baggage, your baggage, it’s there to be shared. It wouldn’t matter to me. I’ll take on my husbands shit and I’ll marry a man who’ll take on mine too. I know I will. I’m sure of it.”
Steve was staring at him like he had six heads.
Fantastic.
After he’d just spilled himself out of his mouth and everything.
But he wasn’t gonna back down.
It’s what he believed in his heart of hearts.
“I just-” Steve started. “I’ve never heard anyone describe it like that.”
“Like what?” To him, it just seemed like common sense.
“Like a partnership. You know like people always say relationships are commitment and dedication and selflessness.”
“Well yeah, they are but it has to go both ways. You can’t have one side putting in all that effort.”
“Partnership.” Steve muttered quietly, considering. “It has to be equal, right?”
“Yeah, now you’re getting it. It has to be equal.”
Steve’s smile was softer now, to go right along with his eyes. “You’re gonna make someone a really good husband one day, Eddie.”
Fuck, wasn’t that just a cupids arrow straight to the heart. And now Steve was looking at him all tender and it was driving him insane.
“You gotta at least cook me a nice dinner first before asking for my hand, there, Stevie.”
Steve shrugged. “Okay. What do you like?”
“Wha- I… What do I like?”
“What do you like to eat?”
Wait.
Wait.
His mind was blank. He should really be able to improv his way out of this but his head was completely empty.
“Italian, I guess?”
Steve’s grin almost turned conspiratorial. He reached up and lightly tugged at one of Eddie’s curls. “Fuck, you’re perfect, aren’t you?”
“I’m on the run from the law at the moment, sweetheart.”
“Not for much longer if I have anything to say about it.”
They were interrupted by raised voices ahead of them. There was a brief moment of panic before he and Steve realised it was just the two time travellers bickering loudly as the trees started to thin and houses began to come into view.
“Well, why can’t we remember any of this then?” Future-Robin asked.
“Because it hasn’t happened to us in our past. It’s happening to us in our present. And their present. How can we remember something that hasn’t happened yet? Because it’s happening now. To four different people. Their timeline has already diverged from ours just by us turning up. This isn't our story anymore, it's theirs.”
She looked at him in disbelief. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Future-Eddie waved his hand at her. “Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.”
Future-Robin reached out and swatted him over the head. “You’re such a dork!”
“Hey!” He shoved her. “I only got into sci-fi because of you. Before you I was blissfully existing in a fantasy only realm.”
“Yeah.” She shoved him back. “You’re fucking welcome.”
They kept pushing and prodding at each other before it descended into chaos, devolving into some kind of childish slap war until eventually she had him in a headlock.
“Aaagh, Stevie! Help me!”
Steve just blinked at the two of them, probably trying to figure out how he was supposed to corral two adults who were nearly triple his age.
“So in the future, you and Robin seem to have some kind of… friendship?”
“Friendship?” Future-Eddie squawked. “No friendship here. She’s my soulmate by proxy. My sworn fuckin’ enemy.” From his bent over position he managed to grab her behind the knees and haul her over his shoulder.
“Barbarian!”
“Buckley, my tabletop wife, you know I’m a bard.”
“Would you two shut the fuck up?!” Nancy hissed. “You’re gonna get us eaten.”
Future-Robin was let back onto her feet, quietly.
“Sorry.”
“Sorry.”
It was objectively hilarious, watching two grown adults who could technically be their grandparents mutter their apologies as if they’d just been chastised by the school principal.
It was even funnier watching them punch each other in the arm as soon as Nancy’s back was turned.
“We’re here.” Nancy said, staring out at the houses. “C’mon.” Without a backwards glance, she took off running.
“Nan-!” Robin lowered her volume as they all chased after her. “Nancy!”
By the time Eddie and Steve had followed them through the front door, the rest of them were disappearing upstairs.
“Why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” Nancy was asking, holding what looked like a diary.
“Would you have believed us? You need to see evidence for yourself, you know that.” His future counterpart answered.
“What did I miss?” Eddie wheezed, placing his hands on his knees.
Fuck, he needed to give up smoking.
“It’s 1983.” Robin answered, patting his back.
“Is this more time-travel fuckery?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Future Eddie and Robin spoke at the same time.
“The Upside-Down is stuck in 1983. The day Will Byers went missing.” Nancy clarified.
“Right. Okay. 1983. Cool.” Eddie gave a thumbs up, leaning heavily against the doorframe. He glanced around. “Hey, where’s-”
He was abruptly cut off as the entire house around them shook, sending him tumbling back into the hallway. The sounds of photo frames and Nancy’s knick knacks crashing to the ground surrounded him but underneath it all his blood ran cold when he heard a pained shout from downstairs.
“Steve?!” He called out, panicked, trying to get to his feet but being defeated by his own severe lack of athleticism and the incessant shaking of the very earth beneath him.
He crawled towards the stairs, thankful that the shaking had stopped by the time he reached the first step.
He flew down them, nearly landing square on his ass again before catching sight of Steve, leaning heavily up against the wall and clutching his sides.
“Steve! Are you okay?” There were red patches starting to bloom under the makeshift bandages around his waist and he hissed in pain, as Eddie took hold of his arms, pressing his forehead into Eddie’s shoulder.
“I just… I just need a minute.”
There was the sound of something ripping beside him.
“Shit. Things move fast in this timeline, don’t they?”
Eddie turned his head and froze, staring wide eyed at the third figure standing next to them.
Part 1 Part 3
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I'm thinking one more part for this auspicious anniversary/time travel fic. I'll update the posts with links and the AO3 link too.
Thanks everyone for your sweet comments and tag requests! Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside. 🖤
Tags: @epiclazersharkshark, @estrellami-1, @swimmingbirdrunningrock, @addelyin
#steddie#steve x eddie#steddie fic#stranger things fic#ficlet#fanfic#stranger things#steddie fanfic#penny00dreadful#ao3#archive of our own#steve and robin#eddie x steve#eddie and robin#time travel au#steddie time travel#37 years to the day#steve harrington#eddie munson#rockstar eddie munson#robin buckley#nancy stranger things
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“Triangles are the strongest shape there is. Any weight placed on them is evenly distributed on all 3 sides. They represent geometric sturdiness; no matter how much weight you put on any side, it will not break.” With this science fact in mind,
let’s talk about ObiAniDala
(a ship manifesto brought to you by the joined forces of my silly brain and my much smarter besties at the discord server)
Also known as “Prequel Trio”, this is the triad ship for Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala (Naberrie), our main protagonist characters of the Star Wars prequel films (Episode I, II and III) as well as the subsequent shows, comics, and novels.
Most of the basis for this ship is centered around their interactions and established dynamics within the films canon more than any other piece of media but fans do not neglect the rest, as it also expands on their relationship. It also presents, as most polyam-oriented ships, a solution to fandom phenomenon known as shipping wars, in this instance mostly between the Obikin (Obi-Wan/Anakin) and Anidala (Anakin/Padmé) fans.
Obianidala is, as of January 2023, the second most written trio relationship in the Star Wars fandom on Archive of Our Own, with 536 works on their tag. They’re only topped by the sequels trio, Poe/Finn/Rey, who have over one thousand works.
Their nature of being the protagonist characters in two of the three films of the prequel trilogy is enough to warrant some people would’ve shipped them, but the special interest fans have in them has to do with the fact that they are intrinsically connected, even if only by proximity (in Obi-Wan and Padmé’s case). Anakin is the protagonist -turned antagonist-; Padmé is his love interest; Obi-Wan is his mentor/brother/best friend figure. Each of them have a loud presence in each other’s lives and thus, the importance of the others in each of their stories is pivotal.
What’s established in canon?
While I’m not a firm believer that we, as a society, should be bound by the shackles of canon, I also understand sometimes knowing you’re not picturing things in your head feels very vindicating. It’s good to know creators are onto something you’re digging with your little fan goggles. And Obianidala is no exception to that.
As I mentioned above, they’re all connected. Narratively speaking, Obi-Wan and Padmé pose two opposing forces for Anakin, even though some fans even see them as foils of each other (as they do with Obi-Wan and Anakin as well); yet it is evidently clear that he loves them both deeply and strongly, equally. They are the most important people in Anakin’s life.
In fact, Anakin’s personal view of Padmé and Obi-Wan as opposing roads for him to take and the amount of love he feels for them is something that contributes to his falling to the dark side, aided by Sidious latching on his weakness and exploiting this internal turmoil he has.
From Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith novelization:
Now, this quote infuriates me for several reasons but mostly because people see it as an ‘end it all’ to arguments of how much more Anakin loved one or the other. Personally, I see it as Palpatine pushing Anakin to his already preconceived idea that he had to give one up (and a perfect showcase of his reluctance to do so, too). Anakin ultimately had to make a choice, yes, but saying he loved one more than the other based on that is very debatable.
Throughout the films it is established that Anakin gravitates around them both, but the novels take a very special dive into this, often highlighting how Anakin’s mind seems to have Padmé and Obi-Wan as a single unit:
(From the RoTS novelization)
(Both from Wild Space by Karen Miller)
(I’m personally insane about that last one because sure, that’s a TOTALLY normal thing to think about. ‘I wish me and MY WIFE would make my BEST FRIEND be less alone’. Anakin Skywalker, I know what you are)
As for Obi-Wan and Padmé, the same thing goes, albeit in a more reserved and collected way – as it is their nature. While Anakin is constantly struggling with how much he loves the both of them and how he suffers because he eventually will have to make a choice, Obi-Wan and Padmé are at peace with their affection/love for Anakin AND the presence of the other in his/their lives.
In fact, they also care and deeply trust each other as well.
Padmé is the one who decides to go to Obi-Wan’s rescue in Attack of the Clones, and she also suggests they could trust him to help them with the whole pregnancy ordeal.
Then, there’s also this from the RoTS novelization:
Which even goes on to suggest Padmé might’ve even trust Obi-Wan more than she did Anakin.
She accepts, willfully and unreservedly that they both love Anakin and therefore will always be present in each other’s life. And she spares some affection, warmth, and yes, perhaps even some love for him, too:
Obi-Wan, the super-ego character of the trio, also cares for them very deeply, even past his otherwise private and reserved nature. It’s established in an episode of Clone Wars (7x02) - as well as a deleted scene from RoTS- that Obi-Wan is aware that Anakin has a relationship with Padmé and has been for quite some time yet he never tells the Council about it and he only ever tries once to talk to Anakin about it, trying to remind him that attachments are forbidden for the Jedi. Yet, Obi-Wan doesn’t press on this because he himself is attached and Anakin’s happiness is more important to him than Jedi rules. (Ok, maybe I’m interpreting it but, it’s true, I’ll show you).
Snippet from the RoTS novelization because the screenshot was gonna be too big:
"Senator-Padme. Please." He gazed into her eyes with nothing on his face but compassion and fatigued anxiety. "I am not blind, Padme. Though I have tried to be, for Anakin's sake. And for yours."
"What do you mean?"
"Neither of you is very good at hiding feelings, either."
"Obi-Wan-"
"Anakin has loved you since the day you met, in that horrible junk shop on Tatooine. He's never even tried to hide it, though we do not speak of it. We... pretend that I don't know. And I was happy to, because it made him happy. You made him happy when nothing else ever truly could." He sighed, his brows drawing together. "And you, Padme, skilled as you are on the Senate floor, cannot hide the light that comes to your eyes when anyone so much as mentions his name."
From Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View:
What I find interesting in this quote is the fact that Padmé is paired with Obi-Wan’s canonical love interest and the other two characters Obi-Wan has a more canonically familial bond with. So, yes, I do have the receips when I say Obi-Wan loved Padmé as well as he did Anakin.
This is from the RoTS screenplay, and it’s also RoTS canon, it just didn’t make it into the final cut but it’s very important to point it out because while here it’s explicitly said, in the film it’s implied, so it still counts:
“I know you both too well” // “We’re all friends, I care about both of you”... Obi-Wan Kenobi, I SEE you. And so does Padmé:
(I’m adding this one simply because it’s very inch-resting to me that both Anakin and Padmé seem to be very concerned with Obi-Wan’s loneliness... THAT’s suspicious)
Even going to present content, the Obi-Wan Kenobi show very clearly establishes that Obi-Wan is mourning both Anakin and Padmé as they were the closest people to him in their last days.
He sees Padmé in Leia (”Nothing, you just reminded me of someone” -1x02- “When I look at Luma, all I see is her mother’s face” -1x03-) and he finds a new life purpose in looking after Luke simply because he’s Anakin’s son (”To keep watch over Anakin's son-" Obi-Wan sighed, finally allowing his face to register a suggestion of his old gentle smile. "I can't imagine a better way to spend the rest of my life." -RoTS novelization-).
It’s also very evident how much he loved and how high he regarded Padmé and Anakin when he’s listing the qualities of them that he finds in Leia:
“Both were exceptional people who bore an exceptional daughter.” (From Obi-Wan Kenobi (TV series) – 1×06)
What about them from a meta point of view?
Now that we talked briefly (and I do say briefly because I could’ve gone even deeper with the canon stuff), let’s dive into this ship from a meta lens. What’s the REAL juice in this one true threesome?
Well, we talked about this in the Obianidala discord server a few days ago, prompted by me asking why they shipped the trio, mostly because I couldn’t believe no one had written a ship manifesto yet, and as acting CEO of this OT3 I felt it needed to be done.
Here’s the masterpost of all their valid and incredible answers:
Pluto: Poly. I’m biased bc im poly, but like, I love poly ships
Saathi (@saathi1013): The balance among the three of them! How each pairing has its own dynamic but the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts! It's because it feels like any of the other pairings are incomplete and/or unstable comparatively? They're def enjoyable and I throw no shade to ardent supporters of the sub-pairings, but in MY head:
-Padme/Anakin are the impetuousness of youth, passionate but not grounded;
-Anakin/Obi-Wan carries the tension Anakin feels about the Order (and the War), lacking the outside perspective Padme brings;
and any way I slice it, Padme/Obi-Wan are either clinging together out of grief post ROTS or I have to mentally rewrite AOTC so she & Obi-Wan get together instead of Padme/Anakin, which might either precipitate Anakin's fall OR they end up like Obi/Satine so however I slice it, it's kind of heartbreaking.
Bere (@bereweillschmidt): Because they complement each other and are a perfect balance in their relationships. Both O and P are perfect pillars for Anakin. Also they’re all beautiful af
Ash (@cypanache): Okay so I’m coming at this from the perspective of an obidala shipper first but here’s my view on them.
Both Obi-Wan and Padme’s relationship with Anakin is flawed and doomed to fail on its own. Not just for the fact that the act of trying to love both of them separately tears Anakin apart because he simply doesn’t know how to love in moderation and the resulting sense of being forced to choose us what contributes to his descent. But also for the fact each only speaks to one half of Anakin and it’s weakness is the other relationships strength
For Obi-Wan his ability to set boundaries to hold Anakin to a standard of expected behavior Padme has never been able to maintain.
For Padme her ability to make Anakin feel unconditionally loved in a way Obi-Wan has never been able to get him to believe
At the same time I truly believe Obi-Wan and Padme’s relationship that love is the missing piece of what they all need. And the lack of it is why they all fall apart
Obi-Wan’s respect for Padme and his willingness to challenge her is what would give her the strength to hold her own in a relationship with Anakin without losing her sense of self
Padme’s caring. Her compassion and heart and her passion is what would pull Obi-Wan out of his rigid ‘perfect Jedi’ persona and allow him to feel free to love and be loved he couldn’t do with just Anakin alone because of their history and the tempestuous nature of their relationship.
You need all three pieces for them to work.
Loki (@chaoticdumbassrogue): Polyamory for the win
Jeka (@darlingamidala): There are countless reasons why I ship these three characters together. I don’t feel like I need to go into the reasons anidala, obikin, and obidala are all fantastic pairings on their own, and it goes without saying that they all have chemistry with each other. So instead, I’ll focus on why I love them so much more as a polyamorous triad.
A large part of it is the way they balance and complement each other. Any two of them have the potential to bring out the worst in a each other, but when you put the three of them together, they bring out the best in each other. They balance each other in ways that allow their relationship as a triad to be greater than the sum of its parts.
Anakin and Padme are rather hopeless romantics, and they can get swept up in their relationship to the point where it almost becomes an escapist fantasy. Obi-wan is more practical and pragmatic, he keeps them grounded in reality, which is important for maintaining a healthy relationship in the long term.
Anakin and Obi-wan have such a complicated relationship, where they know each other on an incredibly intimate level and yet also struggle to see eye to eye. And Padme I think understands them both where they fail to understand each other. She helps them fill that gap and communicate their feelings when they don’t know how.
Padme and Obi-wan are deeply dedicated to their duties and responsibilities, often to the detriment of their personal lives. Both of them would feel like pursuing a romantic relationship would be a neglect of their duties. But Anakin is passionate and stubborn and devoted, and he pushes them not to neglect their own happiness.
There’s so much history between the three of them, their fates are woven together from beginning to end. They’ve been through a lot together, and they care about each other so much. They trust each other so much, and they love each other so much. Even when everything falls apart in Revenge of the Sith, and they’ve all broken each other’s hearts and can no longer trust one another, there is still a deep love between the three of them that can never be broken.
Jui (@nicolos): Like yes balance, and their delicious delicious dynamics, but also I got into OAD first bc I kept getting annoyed at one or other character being fridged or vilified in fics. Which is a fandom answer not a canon one, but it did get me thinking about it
Leo (@anakinkshamer): I ship OAD bc it’s hot, I love polyamory, and the ✨chemistry✨
Vic @//vesper29: 1. Anakin is the chosen one. Very powderful. Fight of the immediate people he loves (padme and obi). 2. Because Obiwan and Padme if you look into their personalities and life purpose, they are cut out of the same paper. And to balance the raw force nature of Anakin, we will need both Obiwan and Padme. One show him way of life (career, life goal); the other love, family.
Joey (@alabama-metal-man): it's all about how they dull each other's harsh edges, and temper their more more bullish traits, while also honing their strengths and hearts, thus creating this incredible balance.
In summary, they balance each other, just like the triangle is meant to spread all stress equally to make up for the strongest of supports. In a perfect world, them together would’ve saved the entire galaxy from a lot of troubles.
So, if you’ve made it this far, I hope we got you at least quirking an eyebrow at the way Anakin stares intensenly into both Padmé and Obi-Wan, or Obi-Wan’s ridiculous use of plurals all the time, or how obvious Padmé is that even Yoda can tell:
#obianidala#obi-wan kenobi#anakin skywalker#padmé amidala#obikin#anidala#obidala#meta#long post#LONG LONG POST THIS IS 2K WORDS OK#sw#star wars#huge shoutout to my peeps at the discord server ily all sm
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Hi Kenna! I was wondering if maybe you could explain the difference between AA and the RR stuff you were talking about in your posts? I'm a big Mike Flanagan fan and loved Midnight Mass, but I've never heard anyone talk about either in the context of the show.
so AA (alcoholics anonymous) was founded by these two super-religious guys who belonged to this religious foundation called the oxford group, which basically pushed (among other things) that everything wrong with the world can essentially be boiled down to selfishness, and that the only way to fix yourself and the world over was to form entrenched ties with your community and "surrender yourself to god's plan for you," which was essentially more about like, selflessness. you had to put love for others above yourself.
the two founders of AA were both members of the oxford group (which isn't particularly weird or anything, it was super popular in the 30s) and noticed that it helped them to get sober from alcohol, so they take the tenets of the oxford group and create this program to help other people get sober, which is why the 12 steps are Like That. it's basically literally lifted from the tenets of a religious organization.
RR, on the other hand, was essentially founded as the antithesis of AA, and in direct opposition to it, and specifically to the religious nature of it. it's secular, and one of its core principles is that AA sucks. which, sure.
between the two of them, there's a lot of disagreement about how to approach addiction recovery, and also just some organizational differences—AA is free, charity-based, and focused on building a supportive community with other addicts to help you, while RR is hyper-individualistic and super focused on "self-efficacy," and also it's for-profit: you have to pay hundreds (even thousands) of dollars for the program.
(more under the cut)
AA's basic gist is that you have a disease that makes it hard for you to make good decisions about alcohol in a self-preservation sense, which means you need to find another reason to stay sober that you can latch onto. god, family, love, the greater good, whatever: you need to find some motivation to not drink that isn't just you. this is something that you will probably deal with for the rest of your life, and you will probably have some slip-ups, but by forging these community ties and finding reasons to stay sober, you can just take it one day at a time.
RR's basic gist is that you do not have a disease that causes compulsions beyond your control, you have autonomy over your decision to drink, and you are making bad choices. you can just stop doing that at any time (AA sucks). you read the book and learn what AVRT is and then you can just not be an alcoholic anymore. you can choose to do that. you don't need any community ties or anything (AA sucks), you just need to recognize why you drink and isolate "the Beast," or the voice in your head that pushes you to drink, and learn to ignore it. this is a personal choice that you are responsible for (AA sucks).
i could honestly write an essay about midnight mass in the context of this, but suffice to say, after watching the show and then reading some stuff about mike flanagan, it's pretty clear to me that mike was a guy who got into RR because he resented the religious nature of AA as an atheist, and also that RR kind of fucked him up a little, as it is wont to do lmao.
a lot of the depiction of addiction-as-horror in the show (specifically the way it depicts the hunger for blood) comes off to me as literal manifestations of the way RR talks about addiction, which is that there is this monster inside of you that wants to hurt people and do terrible things, and you have to fight it. riley's arc and eventual death are (imo) manifestations of flanagan's anxiety over the "beast" being too strong, and him being unable to stop himself from hurting people, which he is admittedly deathly afraid of and would rather die than do. hence riley's choice to retain his autonomy in the face of an addiction he cannot control and kill himself on the boat rather than go through the pain of hurting people again.
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ORBIT
Name: Jovian “Jovi” George
Birthdate: December 27, 1994
Years on Meridium: 2
Attunement: Fire
Gender: Cisgender male (he/him)
“And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.”
– “Coming Home,” Mary Oliver
BIOGRAPHY
Some people might mind living in the shadow of a planet. You were not one of those people. In spite of the unfortunate circumstances of your birth – an ordeal that killed your mother for five seconds – your bond with your only parent was strong. Your crippling shyness as a child kept you distant from many, but it was around your mother that your personality shone. And then around the rest of your family, when your step-father and younger sister entered the picture. And then to an online audience on your family-led paranormal investigation show who heard your occasional comments from behind the camera and wanted more. Time brought with it boldness, togetherness... and then tragedy.
Apparently killing your mother once wasn’t enough. It was your curiosity and prompting her toward an old bridge that led to disaster: the bridge broke and your mother tumbled into the white-rushing water and out of sight. It was all caught on film, every last moment eternally preserved in every way it could be – except physically. No one ever found her body.
The emptiness was profound, like you had been sucked into a black hole rather than being happily tugged along by your mom’s gravitational pull. So maybe it was inevitable that you picked up your old patterns – with a potentially troubling twist. You were always a snarky voice of reason behind the camera but now crossed a threshold, indulging in conspiracy. Days were spent on online message boards of web show fans who had their ideas about what might have become of your mother. Where she might be if she wasn’t dead. Because maybe, possibly, hopefully, she wasn’t dead. A person so bright, so in tune with the other side, doesn’t just die... does she? You couldn’t help it. You latched onto the theories of far-off places and the transportive power of water, especially after the mysterious disappearance of Flight 441 and despite the pleadings of your family to let it go, let them grieve, let yourself grieve. You simply couldn’t. They would never understand.
Your departure to Meridium was live-streamed: just you on your phone, showing your entire Instagram following your descent into the river. You were so sure that you’d unearth something. And you did. You washed up on the South Beach phoneless, waterlogged, and confused, but with a strange sense of accomplishment: you’d wanted to find something other than the darkness of death beneath those waters. And you did. In the form of this ageless island, albeit seemingly without your mother.
South Beach quickly distracted you – there were new people to meet, new things to learn... new people to indulge in. But that was all taken away, too. First in a horrible act of violence between people. And then, when you were still reeling from the first act of violence, in the coming of the beast. Somehow you evaded the creature by fleeing far enough into the jungle to lose it. It has been a dark and lonely stretch since. But a strange sound and a flash of light have prompted you back toward the South Beach. You already expect to see some old faces. Little do you know.
STATUS
Orbit is taken. His FC is John Boyega.
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Hey Netflix, I’d like to offer you this on the 9 month anniversary of JATP:
That’s it. Should be enough, right?
Image IDs under the cut.
Bonus meme under the cut that might be a mix of something too real and also something that makes me happy to be a part of this crazy corner of the internet.
For real tho. Seeing everyone still make content for this show even after nine freaking months makes this whole “no renewal announcement yet” just a little better. Honestly thought the fandom would lose steam at a certain point, but we’re doing pretty well on our own and I think that’s just really lovely. I’ve made some wonderful friends and also got back into some hobbies that I hadn’t found creative energy for in years, and for that, I’m thankful 🧡 so like, yeah, it’s been 9 months, but this community of people is something I didn’t think I’d find again as an adult and that’s been the coolest thing.
[image id 1: trade offer meme with "i receive season 2 of jatp" on the left and "you recieve less threats of no substance about me fighting a streaming service" on the right as the trade offer. the guy in the middle who is making the offer is labeled as “someone who just really wants their comfort kids’ show back”.]
[image id 2: hard to swallow pills meme with the first panel showing a finger pointing at a bottle that says “hard to swallow pills”. The second panel shows a hand holding the pills and is labeled “it’s been 9 months since jatp was released and there is a real fear that it won’t be renewed even though the fandom has stepped up and has been creating content to keep the hype around the show alive” with a finger pointing towards the pills.]
#julie and the phantoms#jatp#anyways this seems like a shitpost but this is all i have to offer on this lovely 9 month anniversary.#for real. ive been sending mental threats to netflix and im ready to fight them at all times and yet i still continue to use it.#do it for kenny ortega#do it for the cast#do it for the thousands of fans who have latched onto this show and had it help them through thr pandemic.#JUST PLEASE 😭#this kinda got sentimental??? im sorry???#the constant battle in my head is literally ‘being grateful for jatp’ while also simultaneously going ‘screw netflix for not renewing it!’#anyways not sure what this is.#throwing this into my queue to churn out on the 9 mth anniversary#also first time writing image idsso like let me know if anything needs to be added!!#sunset queue#text post#memes#is this even proper grammar ohmygod its gonna haint me#hope yall know what i mean#9 month anniversary
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'Loki' takes over: Tom Hiddleston on his new TV series and a decade in the MCU
Ten years after Hiddleston first chose chaos in Thor, Marvel’s fan favorite God of Mischief is going even bigger with his time-bending Disney+ show.
Tom Hiddleston is Loki, and he is burdened with glorious purpose: After playing Thor's puckish brother for over a decade in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, no one understands the mercurial Asgardian God of Mischief as well as the actor. He can teach an entire seminar on Loki if given the opportunity — which he actually did during pre-production on his forthcoming Disney+ show. In conversation, Hiddleston quotes lines from his MCU debut, 2011's Thor, almost verbatim, and will playfully correct you if you mistakenly refer to Asgard's Rainbow Bridge as the Bifrost, which is the portal that connects Loki and Thor's homeworld to the Nine Realms, including Midgard, a.k.a. Earth. "Well, the Bifrost technically is the energy that runs through the bridge," he says with a smile. "But nine points to Gryffindor!" And when he shows up to the photo shoot for this very digital cover, he hops on a call with our photo editor to pitch ways the concept could be even more Loki, like incorporating the flourish the trickster does whenever magically conjuring something. The lasting impression is that playing Loki isn't just a paycheck.
"Rather than ownership, it's a sense of responsibility I feel to give my best every time and do the best I can because I feel so grateful to be a part of what Marvel Studios has created," the 40-year-old Brit tells EW over Zoom a few days after the shoot and a week out from Thor's 10th anniversary. "I just want to make sure I've honored that responsibility with the best that I can give and the most care and thought and energy."
After appearing in three Thor movies and three Avengers, Hiddleston is bringing that passion to his first solo Marvel project, Loki, the House of Ideas' third Disney+ series following the sitcom pastiche WandaVision and the topical The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Led by head writer Michael Waldron (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Heels), the six-episode drama sees Hiddleston's shapeshifting agent of chaos step out from behind his brother's shadow and into the spotlight for a timey-wimey, sci-fi adventure that aims to get to the bottom of who Loki really is. "I wanted to explore slightly more complex character questions," says Waldron. "It's not just good versus bad. Is anybody all good? Is anybody all bad? What makes a hero, a hero? A villain, a villain?"
Even though Loki — who loves sowing mayhem with his illusion magic and shapeshifting, all with a major chip on his shoulder — has never been one for introspection, the idea of building an entire show around him was a no-brainer for Marvel. When asked why Loki was one of the studio's first Disney+ shows, Marvel president Kevin Feige replies matter-of-factly, "More Hiddleston, more Loki." First introduced as Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) envious brother in Kenneth Branagh's Thor, Loki went full Big Bad in 2012's The Avengers. That film cemented the impish rogue as one of the shared universe's fan favorites, thanks to Hiddleston's ability to make him deliciously villainous yet charismatic and, most importantly, empathetic. The character's popularity is one of the reasons he's managed to avoid death many times.
"He's been around for thousands of years. He had all sorts of adventures," says Feige. "Wanting to fill in the blanks and see much more of Loki's story [was] the initial desire [for the series]."
The Loki we meet on the show is not the one who fought the Avengers in 2012 and evolved into an antihero in Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok before meeting his demise at the hands of the mad titan Thanos (Josh Brolin) in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War. Instead, we'll be following a Loki from a branched timeline (a variant, if you will) after he stole the Tesseract following his thwarted New York invasion and escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. custody during the time heist featured in Avengers: Endgame. In other words, this Loki hasn't gone through any sort of redemption arc. He's still the charming yet petulant god who firmly believes he's destined to rule and has never gotten his due.
Premiering June 9, Loki begins with the Time Variance Authority — a bureaucratic organization tasked with safeguarding the proper flow of time — arresting the Loki Variant seen in Endgame because they want his help fixing all of the timeline problems he caused while on the run with the Tesseract. So there will be time travel, and a lot more of it than in Endgame. As Loki makes his way through his own procedural, he'll match wits with new characters including Owen Wilson's Agent Mobius, a brilliant TVA analyst, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw's Judge Renslayer. The question in early episodes is whether Loki will help them or take over.
"One of the things Kevin Feige led on was, 'I think we should find a way of exploring the parts of Loki that are independent of his relationship with Thor,' or see him in a duality or in relationship with others, which I thought was very exciting," says Hiddleston, who also serves as an executive producer on the show. "So the Odinson saga, that trilogy of films, still has its integrity, and we don't have to reopen it and retell it."
Yet, in order to understand where Loki is going, it's important to see where he came from.
Hiddleston can't believe how long he and Loki have been connected. "I've been playing this character for 11 years," he says. "Which is the first time I have said that sentence, I realize, and it [blows] my mind. I don't know what percentage that is exactly of my 40 years of being alive, but it's substantial."
His time as Loki actually goes a bit further back, to 2009 — a year after Robert Downey Jr. big banged the MCU into existence with Iron Man — when he auditioned for Thor. It's no secret that Hiddleston initially went in for the role of the titular God of Thunder, but Feige and director Kenneth Branagh thought his natural charm and flexibility as an actor made him better suited for the movie's damaged antagonist. "Tom gave you an impression that he could be ready for anything, performance-wise," says Branagh, who had previously worked with him on a West End revival of Checkov's Ivanov and the BBC series Wallander. "Tom has a wild imagination, so does Loki. He's got a mischievous sense of humor and he was ready to play. It felt like he had a star personality, but he was a team player."
Hiddleston fully immersed himself in the character. Outside of studying Loki's history in the Marvel Comics, he also researched how Loki and the Trickster God archetype appeared across mythology and different cultures. "He understood that he was already in something special [and] it was a special character in a special part of that early moment in the life of the Marvel universe where [he] also needed to step up in other ways," says Branagh, who was impressed by the emotional depth Hiddleston brought to the part, especially when it came to how isolated Loki felt in the Asgardian royal family.
There was a lot riding on that first Thor feature. For one, no one knew if audiences would immediately latch onto a Shakespearean superhero movie partially set on an alien planet populated by the Norse Gods of legend. Second, it was integral to Feige's plans for the shared universe. Loki was supposed to be the main villain in The Avengers, which would not only mirror how Earth's mightiest heroes joined forces in 1963's Avengers #1 but also give Thor a believable reason for teaming up with Iron Man, Captain America (Chris Evans), and the rest of the capes. Feige first clued Hiddleston into those larger plans when the actor was in L.A. before Thor started shooting.
"I was like, 'Excuse me?' Because he was already three, four steps ahead," says Hiddleston. "That took me a few minutes to process, because I didn't quite realize how it just suddenly had a scope. And being cast as Loki, I realized, was a very significant moment for me in my life, and was going to remain. The creative journey was going to be so exciting."
Hiddleston relished the opportunity to go full villain in Avengers, like in the scene where Loki ordered a crowd to kneel before him outside a German opera house: "It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation," says the Machiavellian god. "The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."
"I just knew that in the structure of that film, I had to lean into his role as a pure antagonist," Hiddleston recalls. "What I always found curious and complex about the way Loki is written in Avengers, is that his status as an antagonist comes from the same well of not belonging and being marginalized and isolated in the first Thor film. Loki now knows he has no place in Asgard."
Loki did find a place within the audience's hearts, though. Feige was "all in" on Hiddleston as his Loki from the beginning, but even he couldn't predict how much fans would love him. Feige recalls the reaction at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con: "Did we know that after he was the villain in two movies, he would be bringing thousands of people to their feet in Hall H, in costume, chanting his name? No, that was above and beyond the plan that we were hoping for and dreaming of." It was a dream Feige first got an inkling of a year earlier during the Avengers press tour when a Russian fan slipped past security, snuck into Mark Ruffalo's car, and asked the Hulk actor to give Hiddleston a piece of fan art she created. "That was one of the early signs there was much more happening with this quote-unquote villain."
Despite that popularity, the plan was to kill Loki off in 2013's Thor: The Dark World, but the studio reversed course after test audiences refused to believe he actually died fighting the Dark Elves. Alas, he couldn't out-illusion death forever. After returning in Taika Waititi's colorful and idiosyncratic Thor: Ragnarok, Hiddleston's character perished for real in the opening moments of Infinity War. In typical Loki fashion, before Thanos crushed his windpipe, he delivered a defiant speech that indicated he'd finally made peace with the anger he felt toward his family.
"It felt very, very final, and I thought, 'Okay, that's it. This is Loki's final bow and a conclusive end to the Odinson saga,'" says Hiddleston, who shot that well-earned death scene in 2017.
But, though he didn't know it yet, the actor's MCU story was far from over.
Credit: Charlie Gray for EW
When Hiddleston returned to film two scenes in Avengers: Endgame in 2017, he had no idea where Loki portaled off to after snatching the Tesseract. "Where'd he go? When does he go? How does he get there? These are all questions I remember asking on the day, and then not being given any answers," Hiddleston recalls. To be fair, it's likely the Powers That Be didn't necessarily have answers then. While Feige can't exactly recall when the writers' room for Endgame first devised Loki's escape sequence, he does know that setting up a future show wasn't the primary goal — because a Loki series wasn't on the horizon just yet.
"[That scene] was really more of a wrinkle so that one of the missions that the Avengers went on in Endgame could get screwed up and not go well, which is what required Cap and Tony to go further back in time to the '70s," says Feige. Soon after that, though, former Disney CEO Bob Iger approached Feige about producing content for the studio's forthcoming streaming service. "I think the notion that we had left this hanging loose end with Loki gave us the in for what a Loki series could be. So by the time [Endgame] came out, we did know where it was going."
As for Hiddleston, he didn't find out about the plans for a Loki show until spring 2018, a few weeks before Infinity War hit theaters. "I probably should not have been surprised, but I was," says the actor. "But only because Infinity War had felt so final."
Nevertheless, Hiddleston was excited about returning for his show. He was eager to explore Loki's powers, especially the shapeshifting, and what it meant that this disruptive figure still managed to find a seat beside the gods in mythology. "I love this idea [of] Loki's chaotic energy somehow being something we need. Even though, for all sorts of reasons, you don't know whether you can trust him. You don't know whether he's going to betray you. You don't why he's doing what he's doing," says Hiddleston. "If he's shapeshifting so often, does he even know who he is? And is he even interested in understanding who he is? Underneath all those masks, underneath the charm and the wit, which is kind of a defense anyway, does Loki have an authentic self? Is he introspective enough or brave enough to find out? I think all of those ideas are all in the series — ideas about identity, ideas about self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and the difficulty of it."
“The series will explore Loki's powers in a way they have not yet been explored, which is very, very exciting.”
The thing that truly sold Hiddleston on the show was Marvel's decision to include the Time Variance Authority, a move he describes as "the best idea that anybody had pertaining to the series." Feige and Loki executive producer Stephen Broussard had hoped to find a place for the TVA — an organization that debuted in 1986's Thor #372 and has appeared in She-Hulk and Fantastic Four stories — in the MCU for years, but the right opportunity never presented itself until Loki came along. "Putting Loki into his own procedural series became the eureka moment for the show," says Feige.
The TVA's perspective on time and reality also tied into the themes that Waldron, Loki's head writer, was hoping to explore. "Loki is a character that's always reckoning with his own identity, and the TVA, by virtue of what they do, is uniquely suited to hold up a mirror to Loki and make him really confront who he is and who he was supposed to be," says Waldron. Hiddleston adds: "[That] was very exciting because in the other films, there was always something about Loki that was very controlled. He seemed to know exactly what the cards in his hand were and how he was going to play them…. And Loki versus the TVA is Loki out of control immediately, and in an environment in which he's completely behind the pace, out of his comfort zone, destabilized, and acting out."
To truly dig into who Loki is, the creative team had to learn from the man who knows him best: Hiddleston. "I got him to do a thing called Loki School when we first started," says director Kate Herron. "I asked him to basically talk through his 10 years of the MCU — from costumes to stunts, to emotionally how he felt in each movie. It was fantastic."
Hiddleston got something out of the Loki school, too. Owen Wilson both attended the class and interviewed Hiddleston afterward so that he could better understand Loki, as his character Mobius is supposed to be an expert on him. During their conversation, Wilson pointedly asked Hiddleston what he loved about playing the character.
"And I said, 'I think it's because he has so much range,'" says Hiddleston. "I remember saying this to him: 'On the 88 keys on the piano, he can play the twinkly light keys at the top. He can keep it witty and light, and he's the God of Mischief, but he can also go down to the other side and play the heavy keys. And he can play some really profound chords down there, which are about grief and betrayal and loss and heartbreak and jealousy and pride.'" Hiddleston recalls Wilson being moved by the description: "He said, 'I think I might say that in the show.' And it was such a brilliant insight for me into how open Owen is as an artist and a performer.'"
Owen Wilson as Mobius and Tom Hiddleston as Loki in 'Loki.'| Credit: Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios
Everyone involved is particularly excited for audiences to see Hiddleston and Wilson's on-screen chemistry. "Mobius is not unlike Owen Wilson in that he's sort of nonplussed by the MCU," says Feige. "[Loki] is used to getting a reaction out of people, whether it's his brother or his father, or the other Avengers. He likes to be very flamboyant and theatrical. Mobius doesn't give him the reaction he's looking for. That leads to a very unique relationship that Loki's not used to."
As for the rest of the series, we know that Loki will be jumping around time and reality, but the creative team isn't keen on revealing when and where. "Every episode, we tried to take inspiration from different things," says Waldron, citing Blade Runner's noir aesthetic as one example.
"Part of the fun of the multiverse and playing with time is seeing other versions of characters, and other versions of the titular character in particular," says Feige, who also declined to confirm if Loki ties into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and/or other upcoming projects.
Making Loki was especially meaningful to Hiddleston because they shot most of it during the pandemic, in late 2020. "It will remain one of the absolute most intense, most rewarding experiences of my life," he says. "It's a series about time, and the value of time, and what time is worth, and I suppose what the experience of being alive is worth. And I don't quite know yet, and maybe I don't have perspective on it, if all the thinking and the reflecting that we did during the lockdown ended up in the series. But in some way, it must have because everything we make is a snapshot of where we were in our lives at that time."
While it remains to be seen what the future holds for Loki beyond this initial season, Hiddleston isn't preparing to put the character to bed yet. "I'm open to everything," he says. "I have said goodbye to the character. I've said hello to the character. I said goodbye to the character [again]. I've learned not to make assumptions, I suppose. I'm just grateful that I'm still here, and there are still new roads to explore."
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I have been watching Don't Say No and reading your weekly reviews of the episodes. And while I am enjoying the show, your criticism and review crack me up. But it got me thinking about the kissing scenes between JaFirst that you mentioned you are not watching. Newer fan of BL but of all the shows I have watched, JaFirst reaches relatively high heat for Thai BL even though they don't handle it as well as MewGulf, Maxtul, or ZeeSaint (although I don't think many can). Do you think a show has to pull off the execution to be remembered for it or can the attempt at doing something help elevate the show?
BL fan psyche & capacity for nostalgia
Do I think a show has to pull off the execution to be remembered for it or can the attempt at doing something help elevate it?
What an amazing question. And it kinda gets at the fan psyche and capacity for nostalgia. Which means to tackle it, I gotta go historical BL for a sec.
Older BL
I think maybe at the beginning (for Thailand 2014-2016) the attempt was good enough. Nostalgia is a very powerful emotion and it makes it nearly impossible to judge a pice of pop culture in hindsight, but it isn’t too much to say that both Love Sick and SOTUS were ground breaking, and that broken ground, while it makes for a rough journey, also made them particularly memorable.
At the time, there was so little content, and certainly nothing like Thailand's style of BL. (Bright, cheerful, happy endings, less yaoi trope reliant.) Anyone who started watching early, or started watching in order, will remember these two shows differently (and probably with greater affection) than someone who watched them more recently after being immersed in the copious modern BL content.
Post 2017 BL
TharnType will always be remembered for the first example of Thailand giving us high heat and amazing chemistry in a way that HIStory Obsessed will not (although it did exactly the same thing for Taiwan, it's because Taiwan already had both chemistry and high heat on the table, so it wasn't as ground breaking).
Until We Meet Again will always have pride of place in Thai BL for its story structure and casting choices and solid pairings all treated with integrity, because it was the first Thai BL to do all this well. A Tale of Thousand Stars had many of the same qualities and while amazing, it will always be dimmer by comparison because it wasn’t first. (At least for those of us who didn’t see it first.)
There is something about “doing it first” that equates with good and worthy in the human brain. Doing it best isn’t necessarily the same thing, although we struggle to separate them. I, for example, will never be able to think of UWMA without seriously rose tinted spectacles. Because, while it wasn’t my first BL, it was the first BL I truly LOVED.
I think we as fans can be this way about any piece of pop culture we latch onto first, I could write a whole essay on BTOB’s WOW and how it’s a terrible representative of their discography, ghastly fashion, and objectively pretty terrible K-pop but I will never stop listening to it... And if you’re Melody your hackles are raised, but if you’re newer to K-pop go watch it and you’ll understand exactly what I mean. Harry Potter holds this place for many readers of fantasy because while it wasn’t the first portal fantasy, nor was it the first magical boarding school, and all its tropes and archetypes are seriously old school for the genre, it WAS the first of it’s kind that many younger readers encountered. And that’s what counts for them and made it stick. In the end, it kinda doesn’t matter whether it was objectively good or not. Quality is irrelevant to its retention power. (Twilight and 50 Shades also fall into this category.)
Despite low viewer numbers and poor distribution, Manner of Death will probably be remembered (rather like HIStory 3: Trapped did for Taiwan) for pushing the boundaries of BL in Thailand and trying to elevate the genre into something more serious, compelling, and capable by inhabiting other genres (romantic success). Despite the fact that as a BL I thought it was ultimately not particularly successful (I did love it though).
Then again 3 Will Be Free was an an insanely interesting and ground breaking piece and I feel like it's utterly neglected and forgotten by all but the most devout fans.
Grey Rainbow was the first Thai BL to go seriously dark (and also seriously domestic), and no one (quite rightly) remembers it. The Effect, was the first Thai BL to tackle the truly damaging nature of many of the tropes we all enjoy so much, and no one remembers it, either. (To be fair... RUN AWAY!)
So clearly this tactic doesn't always work.
Now?
I think if JaFirst's paring and LeoFiat's Don't Say No had really had the courage to go hard into their kink component, whether they were ultimate successful or not (and I suspect they would not have been), they would have been A LOT more memorable.
They teased it a bit at the beginning, but seem to have lurched away from kinky and for that reason, ultimately, there's going to be very little about Don't Say No that remains in the collective zeitgeist. It's going to fall in with A Chance At Love as yet another MAME offering that was ultimate disappointing except amongst hardened fans. And most of us will just be sad because we all remember Love By Chance and what an odd kind of magic that once was and can never not make comparisons. Don’t Say No at least isn’t being directly compared to TharnType as much as it might have been (if that was the origin of their couple, as opposed to TharnType 2).
All of which is to say, in this case, I don’t think the attempt is good enough because what’s being attempted isn’t unique enough to Thai BL.
If it's unique and new to the genre I think the attempt, if genuine, can elevate the show. Or at least make it memorable. But that's because I am personally invested in seeing BL, particularly the stuff out of Thailand, branch out and break ground.
So far as DSN is concerned I think it’s going to ultimately just fall in with the noise of the 34 (yes 34!!!!) Thai BLs we got in 2021 and fade away.
(source)
* as one commenter notes HOW you consume (binge versus weekly installments) certainly makes a difference too. I think I tend to be nicer when rating shows if I binged them.
#thai bl#bl fads#bl trends#bl analysis#industry analysis#what makes it stick#how to judge bl#asian bl#taiwanese bl#love sick#sotus#history of bl#love by chance#Until We Meet Again#manner of death#3 Will Be Free#asked and answered
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Everything I Love About Loser Geek Whatever
So, not too long ago, it was the third birthday of Loser Geek Whatever. Yes, I know the single was released on November 30th 2018 and its considered the song’s official birthday, but the 26th July three years ago was the first showing of the 2018 Off-Broadway revival of Be More Chill and the first time Loser Geek Whatever was shown to the world in any capacity. Therefore, I consider that day to be the song’s unoffical birthday and I’ve been waiting to write down everything I love about it so here I am. (This was originally gonna be posted on the 26th July but I can’t make anything concise so it took longer than that).
I’ve gone on and on about what Loser Geek Whatever means to me personally, how a slew of random chance introduce me to it, got me deep into Be More Chill, introduced me to 90% of my current friends, and overall up-ended my whole life, but now it’s time to dissect the song itself and why it’s so great. As much as I adore Loser Geek Whatever, it could’ve easily been any other song that threw me down a rabbit hole and that I could’ve latched onto- no, wait, it couldn’t have been, because Loser Geek Whatever is unique in that way. I did about a year of music at A-Level so I’m gonna delve into some of the technical aspects here too. I’m chronicling this mostly for myself so I am going as deep as I see fit because this song is a treasure hiding yet more treasures. If you happen to love Loser Geek Whatever as much as I do, this’ll be your goldmine.
So, grab a snack my fellow fans, because here’s a comprehensive list of everything to love about Loser Geek Whatever in roughly chronological order. Long post incoming:
The song starts off strong from the first millisecond - I don’t know what instrument(s) they used but just listen to the single version again - that opening chord blares at you like a siren. It calls for your attention, screaming this is incredibly important, and indeed it is. That chord, an F chord, has no indication as to whether it’s major or minor - it’s just the tonic F with its dominant C and another tonic F above it. In other words, it’s unresolved, it hangs in the air. From a narrative standpoint, Jeremy is at a crossroads, torn between giving into the SQUIP or staying loyal to Michael, and the music paints this. It has the same effect on both the single and album versions - I always hold my breath as it holds, it’s the gap in this crucial transition for Jeremy between who he was and him becoming something he isn’t.
To continue the thread of musical painting, the melody line contains the accidental E-flat which doesn’t belong to the key of F major. This once again illustrates Jeremy’s uncertainty, but there’s more - the whole introduction is a slowed-down version of the Apocalypse of the Damned theme from Two Player Game, arguably the point in the show when Michael and Jeremy’s relationship was at its strongest. Jeremy’s recalling everything he had with Michael, but the slowing down of the melody shows hesitancy, along with highlighting the accidental E flat. These latter points of course aren’t unique to Loser Geek Whatever - they’re also in the section of Upgrade that twins with Loser Geek Whatever. I’m just laying out why they work so well.
I’m glad I waited until after I saw the show in London to finish writing this - I’m something of a Loser Geek Whatever purist, as made clear by my ire at them cutting it in half and tacking the end of Upgrade back on for the London version. I still enjoyed the show in London though and I’m glad I knew about this change ahead of time, because they did change something about the song that I think really worked - they added two notes in the bass to each bar, like heartbeats, which once again signifies Jeremy’s uncertancy and the importance of this major turning point.
It’s been firmly established by this point that Jeremy is a loser and he knows it. He doesn’t want to be a hero, he just wants to survive, but there’s a difference between that and feeling “inconsequential.” Jeremy is basically admitting that, in his eyes, it doesn’t matter to the world or anyone except Michael if he even survives or not. He’s not just a loser, or a geek - he’s a whatever, with no one caring who he is. And he’s felt this way for years - since middle school began. He’s now in his Junior year of high school - that’s five years of being in this state of being unnoticed at best and picked on at worst. He’s “the one who’s left out”. With just one little line, hell, one word, we’re given more layers as to why he so badly wants to change that.
Moving from the first verse to the chorus, we start to see Jeremy’s attitude shift, from being sad to being angry - he’s frustrated, resentful that he’s spent so long in this state (A lot of people have made similar comparisons about Will Roland’s Jeremy as a whole in relation to Will Connolly’s Jeremy and I think this song exemplifies that). He doesn’t deserve to feel this horrible - not now and certainly not for the next two years until he and Michael can be “cool in college.” When you think about it, what options does he really have? He could either give into the SQUIP or reject it and go back to where he was, still miserable and lonely. Yes, he has Michael and Michael is an amazing, kind, loyal best friend, but as many have pointed out, he’s also dismissive of Jeremy’s feelings of inadequacy whether he means to be or not, which only made Jeremy feel more lonely. Should Jeremy just expect to feel better about himself at some point before college? He’s waited for years, why would that happen at any other point?
More layers baby! Second verse, Jeremy rants on about his father’s advice about following his own instincts and how it’s gotten him nowhere he wants to be. Come to think of it, Michael’s advice about staying the same and waiting for their environment to change can be seen as similar - it’s arguably easier for Michael as he has two loving mothers who undoutably give him plenty of positive reinforcement. Meanwhile, Jeremy’s mother has left them, which likely instilled further feelings of not being good enough, and his father has fallen apart to the point where he can’t even put pants on, let alone step up to take care of his son, meaning that Jeremy likely isn’t going to take his advice very seriously, especially after it’s failed him so thoroughly. But to Jeremy, the problem isn’t necessarily the advice itself - it’s that it’s being followed by him. So now he’s going to turn around and put his life and every choice in something else’s hands, even if - no, especially if it goes against his own instincts. It still doesn’t feel quite right, it “feels bizarre”, but it’s getting him somewhere, so it has to be right in the most meaningful capacity, and to Jeremy, the “most meaningful capacity” is any capacity that isn’t his own.
Now the best line - the one about being a “normal, handsome guy”. Let’s get this on the table - Jeremy is trans. Will Roland himself said that he often thinks of the show’s young trans fans when he sings that line. Naturally, societal transphobia plus gender dysphoria would have a pretty catestrophic effect on the self-esteem of any growing teenager, even more so one in Jeremy’s situation for the reasons I’ve just laid out. He’s probably missed out on a lot of things that “normal” guys take for granted, with most girls barely looking in his direction, let alone in any positive manner. Jeremy’s own sexuality aside, it’s mostly society, and the SQUIP by extension, that considers scoring with girls to be a “manly” or masculine activity, and through Brooke treating him as dateable material, Jeremy feels better about fitting into society’s rules of how a man should be and act. This isn’t the only reason he feels good about Brooke finding him attractive, of course, but it’s just another layer that Jeremy sees more value in conforming to how society says he should be rather than in how he actually is.
I know I just said that the last point was about the best line, but honestly, there’s more than one best line in this song. The bridge is where we start to see Jeremy’s language becoming more technologically inclined - “prompt”, “command” and “bandwidth” are all terms used in computing and used to show how Jeremy is likening himself, or his intentions, to a computer, effectivly merging himself and his SQUIP into one entity and Jeremy willingly giving over his own individuality.
And HERE, we get to the kicker. I’ve talked a lot about layers throughout this whole essay, about themes and motifs building on each other. Jeremy is essentially peeling back the layers of his own situation and only finding reason after deeper reason after deeper reason as to why he should follow the SQUIP and not be a loser anymore. Now, he hits the core, the seed, the crux of it all - “The problem has ALWAYS BEEN ME!!” Everything he is, everything that makes Jeremy Heere himself, is and has always been wrong. This line is a gut punch and EVERYONE knows it - the performer always takes a few seconds to let it sink in before continuing.
As an aside, I wanna mention the differences between the single and the album versions of the bridge. The album version starts of quieter after the vocalising of the last chorus, and builds up to the climactic final line, while the single version is loud all the way through but gets even louder and punchier at the end. Both are good, but I personally prefer the single version - the album sounds like Jeremy is broken and desperate and on the verge of tears as he reaches his inevitable but ugly realisation. The single is also desperate, but it’s pleading and all-consuming and a THOUSAND times more powerful, I get chills every time I hear it. (Side note, the London version starts of loud like the single and ends quieter like the album, almost as if Jeremy is reluctant to admit what he truly believes about himself, and it’s easy to see why, it’s a damn harsh condemnation).
“Take a breath and get prepared” - Jeremy sings to both himself and the audience. The first half has been heavy and we need a breather. Yet just before he goes over the brink, he has second thoughts. His conscience, his own voice in his head, breaks through, warning him that his choice will have consequences for other people than himself. People will get hurt - Michael most of all. Not just by Jeremy ditching him; here’s something else - when Jeremy is the “cool dude”, he might end up being a bully to those who are losers just like him, cutting them down just as Rich’s SQUIP made Rich do to him. Who would be the perfect target for Jeremy’s potential future bullying? His former best friend and fellow loser, Michael Mell. It’s pretty damn likely that if the SQUIP hadn’t optic nerve blocked Michael, it would’ve told Jeremy to pick on him, and even though Michael has ostensibly been pretty good at brushing these things off before, the takedowns would hurt a LOT more coming from his former best friend - and we know this because IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS, granted without the SQUIP influencing Jeremy directly (also let’s just clear up that just because the SQUIP wasn’t on doesn’t mean its influence on Jeremy hadn’t disappeared - that’s not how emotional abuse works).
Twelve years of loyal friendship, of borderline unhealthy codependency … can he throw all that away for Christine, a girl he’s thus admired from afar and is only just starting to get to know as a person? Moreover, even if Jeremy gets Christine, what about himself, who he wants to be? He just wants to be something other than himself because he thinks that anything is better but … what? The cool dude, the hero or … whatever. He’ll take anything because he’s that desperate, but what about when he gets it? Will he finally be satisfied? Will it be worth failing his one real friend, an act so scummy that the only way he could possibly stomach it would be to somehow pretend he hadn’t done it?
But none of those questions matter to Jeremy now - he’s fully gaslit into believing that every thought and inclination that comes from himself is wrong and shouldn’t be followed. He needs to sync up with the SQUIP and the rest of the world and mute his own defective inner voice. When you think about it, the relationship between Jeremy and the SQUIP is one of the most intense abusive relationships ever put to fiction - we’ve seen emotional abuse and brainwashing before, but here, Jeremy is literally preventing from THINKING the wrong way because the SQUIP can detect his every thought. See what I mean when I say that doesn’t go away when the SQUIP turns off for a few minutes?!
Throughout all of this is the undercurrent of Jeremy wanting to get better. He’s been trying so hard for so long to have a better life, but nothing has worked. Not listening to his dad, not trying to get closer to Christine through theatre, and certainly not listening to Michael’s advice to wait until college. Why should he resign himself to even more time being miserable with no end in sight? After all, being cool in college isn’t a guarantee. After all he’s been through, it’s his turn to finally be cool, after an eternity of being someone he doesn’t want to be.
Another best line in this song - “I’m Player One.” As mentioned a few times in the show before, like in the Broadway upgrade, Jeremy feels lower even in his friendship with Michael - he’s Player 2 as the more experienced Michael is Player 1. As previously established, Jeremy admits that he’s “not the one who the story’s about.” Now he’s ready to finally take control of his life, be the main character and have good things happen to him, and that means cutting out Michael, the old Player 1. The irony here is that Jeremy is less like Player 1 and more like a video game avatar. In reality, the SQUIP is Player 1, making Jeremy do whatever it demands of him.
More best lines! The slew of insults towards the end serves not just as yet more gut punches for the audience but as a major catharsis for Jeremy - It’s telling that the insults get harsher as his rant goes on, from the “weirdo” to the “weakling freak” to the “failure” to the climactic “please don’t speak”. He’s unloading everything that he’s been carrying over the years, ripping out the bullets that have been embedded in his skin and re-opening all the wounds in the process, but he’s done with the pain and he’ll never ever let himself be hurt like that again, if he follows the SQUIP.
I’ve made a whole post about the significance of the best line “Please Don’t Speak” before so I’ll mostly be repeating a lot of what I said there because it’s been a while since that post and because I want to. Who would’ve said that to Jeremy? Probably not Rich or Chloe, it’s not like them. It had to have come from an adult in a position of authority that could’ve commanded Jeremy not to speak like that - one that apparently did so enough times for him to internalise those words like he did the others. (Even worse if it was more than one adult ...). Out of all of the insults, it’s easy to see how that can easily be the most scarring out of all of them - how would an adult let a child know they’re inadequate? By silencing them. Making it clear that their expression of self not only means nothing, but should be forcibly avoided. Put like that, it makes it much easier to see how and why Jeremy fell under the SQUIP’s influence so easily - telling it was hardly different from authority figures he’s experienced before. In even more sad irony, as Jeremy claims that he’s breaking free and letting go of his past as the “please don’t speak”, he’s just walking right into another, similar trap that he can’t easily escape from. The SQUIP literally vocal cord blocks him during The Play - if that doesn’t say “Please don’t speak,” what does?!
The climax is growing! The music shifts into the relative minor as Jeremy fully gives in to the SQUIP’s evil influence. This is the point of no return, the point where he’s literally being surrounded and overtaken - if you’ve seen this on stage or even just a bootleg, you’ll know what I mean, when the lighting shifts and the circuitry start closing in around him, it’s wonderful. The bass ascends, Jeremy declares once and for all that HE IS NOT THE LOSER, THE GEEK, OR WHATEVER, and he never will be again! As some have pointed out, the sequence of notes on the final “again” is the same as at the end of Be More Chill Part 2, except the last note is different. In BMC part 2, it goes further down by a minor third, but in Loser Geek Whatever, it rises up to the same note it started with. This foreshadows Jeremy’s fate - that he will eventually overcome the SQUIP and that he still has it in him to do so. Man, let me just point out how amazing that last belt is - it lasts for a full 15 seconds in a really high range and takes a LOT of control to bring it back up to the high B without breaking. This song really was written for Will Roland - his voice can pull it off seamlessly, but other actors and understudies have had to find workarounds. No disrespect to them, it’s a damn hard song and it kicks ass all the way through. Scott Folan apparently had trouble with it too, but on the day I happened to see him, he pulled it off without breaking, so props to him!
Overall, Loser Geek Whatever is my favourite song in Be More Chill and not just for its sentimental value to myself. It’s a genuinely deep, complex piece that earned every second of its six minutes. Loser Geek Whatever is definitely the missing piece the show needed - not only is it Jeremy’s solo song, it’s also his “I Want” song and, in a way, his 11 o’clock number all in one, as he’s having a major epiphany after going on a journey, albeit only half of one. It’s easy to see why Joe Iconis dubbed this his anti-Defying Gravity, but it’s also easy to draw parallels to No Good Deed - how both Jeremy and Elphaba vow to become something that society is forcing upon them rather than what they are, even if that society’s will is objectively worse for them. Loser Geek Whatever deserves a thousand times the recognition it has and I still wonder to this day what the fandom reaction would’ve been if it had been in the original soundtrack.
So, that was it. I’m not sorry it was this long.
TL;DR: Loser Geek Whatever is wonderful and anyone who doesn’t think so is wrong.
#be more chill#loser geek whatever#joe iconis#will roland#be more chill meta#music theory#broadway be more chill#be more chill 2.0#be more chill 3.0#musical theatre theory#tw depression#jeremy heere#michael mell#be more chill analysis#tw emotional abuse#trans jeremy heere
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All Night
Jooheon x Reader
Warning: Smut
Word Count: 2.7k
Commissioned by: @h0n3ybr3
A/N: I really hope you like it! Avsjsh
For the last year of your relationship with Jooheon he never let you set foot in any of the concert venues that he was playing. He always told you that now wasn't the right time to tell people about your relationship, or there was always some reason why you couldn't go. You knew he was only trying to protect you but you really wanted to be there for him in person for once, even if he couldn't make any direct contact with you.
"Please. Please please pleaaaaseeee." You beg Jooheon. He had a show tonight and you desperately wanted to attend and show your love and support for him and the boys.
"Absolutely." He grins.
"Really?" You ask, excitedly.
"Not." He smiles, showing off those adorable dimples of his. "Baby, trust me when I say, I'm doing this for us, and for you. You know how fans can get. I just wanna protect you, plus I get all sweaty and gross. You don't wanna see that."
"You know I love when you get sweaty." You pout.
"I know you do, which is why you can't come because then you'll get horny, and I'll get horny and neither of us will be able to get off until after the show." He says, grabbing your arms while staring at you. "It's just not a good time for either of us." He sighs, giving you a pat on the arm before walking away.
"Well to fucking bad, cause I'm going." You secretly whisper to yourself as he walks back towards you.
"What?" He asks. "Did you say something?"
"Me? Ha, noo." You say, turning to walk away. "Enjoy yourself tonight."
"I'll see you when I get back baby." He smiles, giving you a small peck on the lips before heading for the door.
"Or sooner." You murmur under your breath.
"What'd you say?" Hr asks, turning around.
"I said nothing." You smile. "Love you." You say as he closes the door behind him.
How dare he. You wanted to be included with his sweat, why did everyone else get to see him in person at a concert like that and you were stuck watching videos? You wanted him to drip on you from the stage, you wanted to go deaf from standing next to the speaker while he played the rapped and did whatever else he was going to do. And dammit, that was exactly what you were planning on doing tonight.
You happily took your time getting ready, making sure to wear Jooheon's favorite lingerie set underneath your clothes, since you already knew how tonight was going to end either way. You wore a low cut white top along with a black skirt and a pair of flat shoes that Jooheon loved. You knew he was going to be pissed with you when he saw you there, so you figured wearing some of his favorite things would ease his annoyance with you.
Once you were happy with your makeup look you went downstairs, got in your car and drove off to the venue. When you got there you had texted Hyungwon who came and let you in the side door and then gave you a backstage pass to make sure no one gave you any grief about being there.
"Thanks for helping me." You say as you follow him through the narrow halls.
"Any chance I get to piss off Jooheon, I will take it." Hyungwon laughs. "We're heading on stage in about 5 minutes, once you see us pass by then pop out and stand by the speaker, he'll be sure to see you." He snickers.
You thank him one last time before he leaves, leaving you standing there awkwardly while your stomach does flips. You hoped Jooheon was going to be happy to see you.
"Let's do this!" You hear Shownu yell as they all cheer. They all run onto the stage and you can hear the crowd already starting to go wild. You quickly slip out of your spot, moving to where Hyungwon told you too and watched as they started the set.
Watching Jooheon rap in person was a whole other experience in your mind. You had seen his videos, music videos, lives and those things but to see him physically do what he loved to do was amazing. You were annoyed at yourself for taking so long to come to one of these but even more annoyed at Jooheon for keeping you from it. You couldn't be too mad at him though, he looked damn fine doing what he was doing.
You stood there swaying and dancing to the music as the song changed, forgetting that Jooheon still didn't know you were here. You opened your eyes when the music stopped, and looked directly into the eyes of your boyfriend who looked surprisingly happy to see you, but also pretty shocked that you were there. You weren't quite nervous anymore now that he knew you were there and you could enjoy yourself a bit more.
A while later they called for a short 15 minute intermission while other things were getting prepared for their next set. Jooheon rushes over to you, grabbing your hand and pulling you away and into a small dressing room.
"Is this yours?" You ask, looking around.
"God no." He scoffs. "What are you doing here?" He asks, looking you in the eyes.
"I wanted to see you in concert. Real live concert." You whisper.
"I know." He smiles. "Hyunwon told me everything."
"Motherfucker." You growl, knowing you're going to have to torture him later for this.
"I've got to go back on, but come on." He smiles, grabbing your hand and pulling you from the small room. "I've got something to show you."
You run behind him as he pulls you closer and closer to the stage, you think he'll let go of your hand before he goes on but you're most definitely mistaken.
Jooheon pulls you onto the stage where there are thousands of screaming fans. You stand there with your eyes wide as you listen to everyone scream while you're shocked. He leaves you standing beside a drum set, letting go of your hand to sit behind the drums.
Grabbing the microphone, he yells loudly into it. "I want you all to give a warm, special applause to this beautiful lady right here. She is my light, she is my life, and she is mine." He says before putting the microphone down and begins playing the drums.
You stand there with tears in your eyes as you watch the love of your life playing a song dedicated to you, in front of thousands of his fans. As he continues to play, he looks over at you, giving you a side smile with a small wink before going back to concentrating on playing. A few minutes later the rest of the boys come onto stage, microphones in hand. Jooheon steps away from the drums, grabbing his microphone to join them. Someone from backstage runs out a stool for you to sit on as the boys surround you and begin serenading you. You couldn't describe the emotions you were feeling so overwhelmed with happiness. Your eyes couldn't leave Jooheon as he sang to you, his voice so sweet and soothing.
As the song ended, everyone in the crowd began screaming and clapping for them. Jooheon rushed over to you, pulling you into his arms and whispering "I love you." Into your ear. It was the thousandth time he had told you that, but somehow it felt the most special in that moment.
Jooheon walks you off stage, his arm wrapped around your waist as he presses his lips to yours before heading back out to finish the now interrupted concert. You watched them perform, but your mind was more so thinking about everything you were going to do to that man when you got home.
**
The concert ended and the boys were all in the dressing room, getting ready to go home. You walk in as the rest of them are leaving, leaning against the doorway as Jooheon sat in front of the mirror wiping his face.
"Hey you." He smiles, throwing the towel into a basket.
"Hey." You blush, looking at the ground. "I can't believe you did that." You laugh, thinking back.
"I'm full of surprises." He grins.
You walk over to him, he opens his legs pulling you in closer to him. "Thank you." You whisper, leaning down to give him a peck. You move your face away, both of you staring at each other before you lean in again, pressing your lips against his harder this time. Your lips move against his, his arms wrap around you, holding you against him as your kiss heats up.
You pull away, catching your breath and let out a little giggle. "Let's go home." You whisper, grabbing his hand to pull him behind you.
The entire car ride was silent. Your eyes glanced over to Jooheon who was looking straight ahead, his finger tapping on his thigh. You looked up slightly, seeing his semi hard cock bulging against his jeans.
You squirm in your seat as your pussy begins to drip, thinking about his cock sliding in and out of you, and how badly you wanted him to make you cum.
As the driver pulled up to your place, Jooheon threw some money at him before ushering you out of the car, making you hurry into the building. The two of you silently wait for the elevator to come, and when it does you press the close door button so no one else can get on. The moment those doors close, Jooheon has you pressed against the wall, pushing his hard clothes cock into you, his lips latching onto your neck as he grinds himself on you.
He moves up your neck, kissing up your jaw, moving to your lips, pulling you in for a hard, passionate kiss. The elevator dings, leaving the both of you breathless as you stand apart, waiting for the doors to open on your floor. You run down the hallway to your apartment, struggling to get the key into the lock. Jooheon stands behind you, pressing himself into you, his hot breath radiating down your neck. His hands reach around, cupping your breasts, squeezing before groaning.
"Hurry up." He growls.
You finally get the key into the lock, opening up your door. He pushes you inside, slamming the door closed behind him. He stands there, his chest heaving, he licks his lips as he eyes you up and down.
He stalks towards you, his hand wrapping around the back of your neck, pulling you into him as his lips crash onto yours. He slides his tongue in your mouth, deepening the kiss before pulling away, and moving away from you. He stands there for a moment, eyeing you up again.
"Strip." He demands. You're a little caught off guard, but holy fuck, your pussy is dripping. You slide off your shoes, your eyes never leaving his. You hook your thumbs into the waist of your skirt, slowly shimmying it down your legs, revealing your thong. You can hear Jooheon hiss as you pull your shirt over your head, leaving you standing before him in his favorite set.
"Get on the counter." He tells you.
You walk over to the counter, hopping up you sit there facing him, your legs crossed. "Spread em, baby."
You slowly open your legs, your panties barely covering your pussy. Jooheon kneels down, placing your legs over his shoulders before he pulls you closer to the edge. He takes a finger, moving your panties to the side before his two fingers, spreading your pussy lips open, before licking a long strip up with the flat of his tongue, and pulling back. You let out a small moan as you yearn for more contact. He leans in again, licking a strip up again, slower this time, teasing your clit with the tip of his tongue.
Your hands grip the edge of the counter as Jooheon wraps his lips around your clit, very slowly sucking, making you cry out loudly.
"Please.. faster." You beg. Jooheon keeps at his pace for a few minutes, making you moan and beg. He loved to hear you beg.
"Oh god, please." You groan. "Please make me cum, baby."
Jooheon releases your clit, looking up at you with a smile on his face. "Not yet." He whispers, licking your pussy one more time before standing up and pulling you off the counter.
"Suck my cock." He demands.
You quickly turn around, dropping to your knees. You unbutton his pants, pulling them down, allowing his cock to spring free. Precum drips from his red tip, his cock throbbing to be touched. You place your hand on his shaft, pumping his cock a few times, causing him to throw his head back as he lets out a few moans.
You smirk as you open your mouth, taking in as much of him as you could at once, his tip hitting the back of your throat. Jooheon pulls himself out before he thrusts back into your mouth, making you gag on his cock. You look up at him as he continues thrusting his hips, increasing his speed. Your eyes water as his hands get tangled in your hair, keeping his rhythm while fucks your mouth.
“Fuck you feel so amazing" he grunts, his breathing becoming staggered. He quickly pulls out of your mouth, stumbling back. "I can't cum yet." He breathes.
Jooheon moves towards the couch, sits down, ready for you to straddle him. You climb on top of him, lining yourself up with his cock and he slowly lifts his hips, pushing his cock into your pussy, stretching you out in the most pleasurable way. Jooheon reaches behind you, unhooking your bra, sliding it down your arms and discarding it somewhere in the living room. He cups one of your breasts, pinching your nipple before rolling it in between his fingers, making you throw your head back. "Fuck." You gasp, rocking yourself back and forth on Jooheon's cock.
He lets go of your breast, leaning forward to take the other one in his mouth, wrapping his lips around your perky nipple, tugging and sucking. Your rock yourself harder on his cock, you clit rubbing against him perfectly.
"Oh fuck." You cry out, your hands gripping onto his shoulders, your nails digging into his skin. Jooheon quickly stands up, you wrap your legs around his waist, his cock still buried inside you. He moves swiftly through your apartment to your bedroom, tossing you both onto the bed. He lifts your legs straight into the air, and pulls his cock out of you before pounding himself back into you. He wraps a hand around your neck, squeezing tightly as he snaps his hips, his cock hitting all the right spots. You gasp for breath as his grip tightens, his thrusts becoming erratic.
He releases your throat, moving his hand between your legs, his thumb pressing your throbbing clit. He starts rubbing, making you arch your back and moan loudly.
"Please don't stop." You gasp, your hands gripping your sheets as your orgasm builds so quickly. "I'm gonna cum." You cry out as you tighten yourself around his cock.
"Fuck." He groans, thrusting faster.
"I'm cumming, I'm cumming." You scream, your orgasm pulsating through your entire body, your eyes rolling back into your head as you work through your high.
Jooheon moves his hands to your legs, holding them tightly as he pounds into you, chasing his own release.
"Fuck, fuck." He yells as he spills himself into you, filling you up with his warm cum.
The two stay still for a moment as you catch your breath. Jooheon pulls himself out of you, his warm cum leaking out from your pussy onto the bed sheets.
He smiles as he pulls you up, your naked body pressed against his. He takes your hand pulling you towards the bathroom for a shower.
"Baby, I'm gonna fuck you all night." He smirks, dragging you behind him.
#jooheon smut#lee jooheon#jooheon fic#monsta x smut#monsta x fic#monsta x#kpop scenarios#kpop fanfic
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Lights Out: Ch. 16
Summary: Roxanne, recently graduated and unemployed, gets a call from her childhood friend and hero: her cousin James hunt. In need of a social media manager after one too many scandals, he can think of no one better than Roxanne for the position. Excited about a fun job and getting to know more about her cousin, she jumps at the chance. However, amongst all the bright lights of both the circuit and the media, Roxanne falls in love with his rival: Niki Lauda.
Pairing: Niki Lauda (Rush 2013) x fem!OC Roxanne Hunt
Word Count: 3,740
W: language, angst, some slut shaming (we don’t support it folks), explicit sex
A/N: Check out the race report here for more info! We're finally into the 1976/2021 season :) Some slight changes, such as I'm using the blue & orange colors for McLaren just for contrast. Any mistakes are my own, and let me know if you want to be added to the taglist!
previous chapter
Brazil, Interlagos Circuit
Thursday, March 11, 2021
Two weeks after the incident, and every day brought some ridiculous headline Roxanne needed to scroll away from. Ferrari did their best to quell the negatives if a post of Niki and Roxanne walking hand in hand out of the paddock counted, but it was still a juicy tidbit the reporters latched onto like a dog with a bone. Once it got picked up by mainstream media and left the realm of autosport it worsened. Every tabloid, magazine, daytime talk show, late-night talk show, sports headline, and social media account had something to say.
Who is Roxanne Hunt? All You Need to Know!
Niki Lauda’s New Flame, James Hunt’s Old Friend
Our Favorite Drive to Survive Moments Ranked from Craziest to Spiciest!
Lauda’s New Pit Stop
And just when the waters calmed the tsunami crashed on their shore. A Ferrari memo before the breaking news headline hit warned Niki and Roxanne, but it couldn’t prepare them in any way.
FIA Launch Investigation Into Espionage Allegations Over Hunt/Lauda/Hunt
As a swift result, Roxanne was barred from any official team areas including the pitlane, the garage, the offices, and anywhere they slapped a Ferrari logo on the wall and painted it red. Niki, who counted on seeing her when he hopped out of the car, when he sat down for a quick lunch, when he needed a break from a meeting, raised hell to no avail. She could have a paddock pass, be in the fan club areas where people spent thousands of dollars to be near the drivers, sit in the restaurants and coffee shops around, and stay in his hotel room, but she was banned from being near him on track.
Roxanne resolved not to sit around in the hotel room, watching the race on the screens, and feeling disconnected from Niki. No. She’d put on a brave face, sit in the fan club patio, and support Niki. After everything he did, dispelling rumors left and right, making sure she was comfortable, demanding respect for the both of them, it was what she should do. He deserved to know she loved and supported him just as much as he clearly adored her.
After coffee and breakfast in their hotel room, where they strategized for the day, Roxanne felt ready. Since press conferences were held in the official buildings, Roxanne would have to stay in the paddock club patio. His individual moments with the British, Austrian, and Italian press, as well as the Sky F1 interviews, Roxanne could join him and sit just off-camera. During Niki’s afternoon debriefing with the team, she would once again be relegated to the club area.
The morning was tough. She felt isolated in her perch. The club would be filled with excited fans throughout the weekend, but on press Thursday it was deserted. Roxanne flipped through the magazines on the table and cringed when she saw a full spread on her, Niki, and James. Wasn’t there anything else to talk about? Angrily, she turned the page. Roxanne checked the time. Half an hour left.
***
Several of the team members joined them for lunch, wisely using their time, and they made polite conversation. They all thought the morning went well; Niki stayed on task and on point for the most part. Roxanne quirked her eyebrow at Niki to ask “mostly?” He shrugged it off, using a little side-to-side nod to indicate he would tell her later.
They communicated silently throughout his other interviews. Niki would be waiting for the cameras to start rolling, and he’d raise his eyebrows or frown slightly, expressing to Roxanne how tired he was and wished he was done. She would roll her eyes back at him, smiling slightly knowing he didn’t sleep because of the jetlag. Niki winked when he thought the interviewer wasn’t looking, and she blushed.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. It was only the first day of the season, and their first operating under the restrictions, but with Niki around it felt better. He made her laugh with the slightest change of his expression. He made her smile with the simplest of looks. He made her feel safe with a longing gaze. He was simply Niki, and she loved him.
Friday, March 12th, 2021
Friday the stands were packed with excited fans, and the paddock was filled with enthusiastic and entitled supporters. Roxanne stood on the edge of the viewing platform, craning for a look of the pitlane and of the garage. She tried to see Niki, but he must have been in the garage and out of view. The screens off to the side showed the television coverage of the practice session, and she watched the time tick down. Roxanne gripped the railing, her knuckles white, and she took a deep breath in.
Roxanne had been ogled and leered at by countless fans. The bold approached her, asked if she was indeed Roxanne Hunt, and even requested a picture that she promptly declined. The cowardly stared from afar, pointing and whispering, even taking pictures of her when they thought she wasn’t looking. The Netflix camera crew positioned themselves above the pitlane as well, filming the cars and the people below them, but every so often she swore their cameras turned and focused on her.
She felt like a zoo animal trapped in a cage or a fish in an aquarium tank. Kids tapped the glass and threw sticks at her in anticipation of seeing her swish her tail or bar her fangs. Whenever a clearly drunk man gawked at her, not so subtly undressing her with their eyes to see what the world champion’s trophy, as she had been called, was, she wanted to scream. Roxanne wanted to throw a chair, flip a table, smack their cameras to the ground. She wanted to scream at them that she was not their entertainment. She was a person who deserved respect and privacy.
Rather than scream until her throat went dry and there was no more air in her lungs, she quickly left her spot. Several of the other observers murmured and pointed when she did which only added fuel to the fire. Nothing she did was without comment. If she minded her own business and watched Niki, they said sly remarks and raised their eyebrows at her. If she left, as she hurriedly did now, they spoke about that too. Roxanne would never be without rebuke to them. There would always be some flaw to point out, criticism to be had, and unkind words to be said.
With tears welling up in her eyes, not for the first time that day, Roxanne tried to find somewhere away from the public eye. She spotted a storage closet off a hallway and tugged on the door. It opened, much to her relief, and she stepped inside. Amongst the mops, brooms, and assorted cleaning supplies she sat down on the floor and cried her cleansing tears.
***
Niki knew Roxanne should be above the Ferrari garage, so when he finished his session he walked to the pitlane and tried to see her. He shaded his eyes, forgetting his aviator sunglasses in the garage, and scanned the crowd up there. After double-checking, he pulled out his phone and called her.
“Where are you? I can’t see you.”
“Um,” Niki heard her clear her throat and sniffle, and he was immediately suspicious. He started walking back through the garage. Roxanne sniffled again, “If I said I was in a storage closet in some random hallway, would you be mad at me?”
“Mad? Why the fuck would I be mad at you?”
Niki asked her which closet it was, but she couldn’t quite remember. He opened several before he found hers where she sat on the floor, next to a shelf, mascara running down her cheeks, and her face flushed. He sat down next to her and asked in his typical blunt tone why she was crying. Niki knew if it was because of something someone said or did he would be tracking them down after talking with her.
“I feel so alone, Niki,” he grimaced at that, but grabbed her hand. More often than not she took his, but he knew when he remembered to hold her hand it meant a lot to her. “But at the same time, I’ve never been more watched. None of my paddock friends will talk to me, everyone steps back from me when I approach them, but then when I’m like an animal in a zoo to them. Entertainment or a diversion they can mess with.” She tapped the fingers on her other hand anxiously against her leg.
“You need to remember you’re above them, schatz. You’re better than all of them.”
She smiled wanly. “Is that what you do?”
“Fuck, yeah it is.” Niki noticed she laughed just a little as if it was stuck in her throat, but she tried. “I’m serious.”
“You can prove it on the track, with your titles, with your win. What am I supposed to do?”
“You need to hold your head up high. Can you do that for me? You need to show everyone how far above them you are, that their comments and their looks mean nothing to you.” Roxanne looked at him, a question in her eyes. Does that work? ”If you act like it’s true then you’ll start to believe it.
“Can we stay here for another minute?” She started scrubbing at her smudged mascara with a paper towel from the shelf.
“Of course. Whatever you need, Schatz.” Roxanne didn’t need to say I love you for him to know. Niki knew it in the way she squeezed his hand, the way she smiled just for him, and the adoring way she looked at him. He knew it with every fiber of his being.
Sunday, March 14th, 2021
“Welcome to Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the Interlagos circuit for the first race in the 2021 Formula One season, where the main news is that James Hunt has qualified fastest, beating Niki Lauda’s Ferrari to pole position by just two-hundredths of a second.”
Grid girls danced to the music all through the grid straight, mechanics hurried to put the final touches on the cars, and Niki walked with his helmet in hand to the car. James stopped him right in front of his car, the first time the two would speak since the incident. After he told Rox to “get the fuck out”, Niki avoided his friend.
James sighed dramatically. “New car.”
Niki stopped in his tracks and turned towards James. “I noticed.” He tried to walk away, but James continued.
“Pole position.”
“I noticed that, too.” It seemed he would be drawn into conversation whether he wanted it or not, but he still watched the mechanics by his car.
“Level playing field now, my ratty little friend.”
“Yeah,” Niki nodded. After years of being called a rat by James and the press, it rolled right off his back. “Let’s see where we are after lap one.” Niki examined James’s car. “Let’s see where we are in five races’ time.”
He ignored Hunt’s further mockery of him and focused on his car.
“Hunt has the pitlane pole position, which should give him the best chance of out-dragging Lauda’s Ferrari.”
Niki glanced over his shoulder at James to see him laughing and dancing with the grid girls.
“If ever there was a doubt about whether Lauda had a serious challenger to this season, Hunt and his McLaren have certainly given us the answer.”
Sometimes Niki found it difficult to consider James a “serious challenger” when he laughed and danced his way into the cockpit, but he knew James would put up a hell of a fight to win. Win or lose, James would be partying with the girls whose numbers he got while they performed.
***
Roxanne never watched a race anywhere besides the garage, and she later admitted she much preferred to be in the garage. Despite the oppressive heat and flaring tempers, it was more connected. Sitting on her little stool, she had headphones relaying the commentators and the radio, the array of screens showing the standings, the track overview, the onboards, and anything else the team wanted or needed was where she wanted to be. Isolated on top of the pit lane garages, watching the televised screens to the side, and constantly refreshing the app for live updates made her feel much more out of the loop.
Funny enough, after all the talk about James Hunt starting on pole and beating Niki, neither one of them took the lead at the start. It was Niki’s teammate, Clay Regazzoni, who beat both of them off the line from fourth. Niki ran in second behind him, but he had James and Jarier close behind him.
“And there’s a crash at turn five!” Roxanne craned her neck to see and sighed in relief when the commentators spoke again. “It’s Andretti and Peterson!”
“Andretti’s back on track, but it looks like he’s limping his car back to the pits!”
“Ronnie Peterson is as well! You can tell by the huge vibrations that the car will have to retire when he gets back to the pits.”
“Up ahead Lauda and Regazzoni are pulling away from the pack! The two Ferraris are showing themselves to be in a class of their own!”
At the start of the ninth lap, Niki took the lead from Clay. His wheel was broken and he struggled, so he pulled into the pits. Niki showed no hesitation to pull further away and show just how much speed the new Ferrari had. Roxanne felt unashamed to cheer louder than anyone else for Niki. She remembered all the times in the Hesketh garage that she bit her tongue and smothered a smile. Not anymore.
Roxanne checked James’s position out of habit. No matter how much his rejection hurt her, she still worried about him. He ran in second and chased Niki down, but he just couldn’t get close enough. After reminding herself that James was a big boy now and didn’t need her looking after him, she focused her attention on Niki. His violently red car cut a clear path through the track, never straying from the racing line and hitting every apex.
“Niki Lauda has led just over twenty laps here at Interlagos, but Hunt is hunting him down!”
“Oh!” That was never a good sound from the commentators. The cameras cut from Niki leading the race to James’s orange McLaren in the barriers. “And Hunt’s first race for McLaren is over before it’s begun! He won’t be happy about that!”
Three laps after Niki crashed out of the race, a sticking throttle to blame, Jarier spun out after slipping on a patch of oil left by James’s car. Niki’s competition, who had crept to be 2.9 seconds behind him with seven laps left, was now out of the race as well. Niki took his #1 Ferrari to victory, thus starting his title defense with a victory.
Roxanne cheered for him again, her throat scratching and her hands stinging from clapping together again. She didn’t mind. She would simply adapt during the season.
***
“Niki!” With so many people screaming his name, it was difficult to catch his attention. But the post-race interviewer was persistent, trying again after Niki took a swig from his water bottle. “Niki!”
He turned his head and nodded in acknowledgement. Niki took another long sip of his drink before screwing the cap back on the bottle.
“That was a fantastic drive today, Niki! What do you have to say on the win?”
“The car was great,” he ruffled a hand through his hair, the sweat coming off on his fingers. “And I think I would have kept the lead even if Jarier had not stopped.”
Satisfied with his brief answer, Niki made for the rostrum. The sooner they finished the ceremony the sooner he could meet Roxanne. Depailler and Pryce, who finished twenty seconds behind him, joined him on the podium and insisted on covering him with champagne. Instinctively, Niki licked his laps and could taste it, although there was something else he craved after winning.
***
During his evening shower to wash the sweat, champagne, and general grime of the circuit off him, Roxanne slipped into a red lacy number she knew Niki would rip off of her and propped herself up on the pillows. When he stepped out of the steamy bathroom with just a white towel wrapped around his waist, he stopped in his tracks.
“And how does the winner want to fuck me?”
Niki loved that question. It started as a joke after Roxanne beat him in karting, but every so often she would look at him, her voice dripping with honey and the promise of more, and ask him. Already he grew excited for her. The better question would be how didn’t the winner want to fuck you?
He let his towel drop and climbed onto the bed, positioning himself in front of her. Niki pulled her into a kiss, her mouth surrendering to his and letting his tongue explore. Her fingers snaked through his wet hair, no doubt messing up the careful way he slicked it back. The longing moan he released at her gentle touch told her he didn’t mind. His lips wandered from her mouth and to her neck, swiping over the pulse point that made her whimper.
“I suppose you don’t have any reason to hide hickeys anymore…” Niki sucked on the sweet spot, and a sense of need overwhelmed her. Roxanne clenched her legs together, squeezing him between her thighs, and he chuckled. She had been reluctant and avoided his touch after the truth came out, worrying too much about being called slut, whore, harlot, or anything else by the media, but now she needed him. Niki could sense her desire in the way she quivered under him, and he slowly kissed down her body.
He rubbed her nipples and felt the peaks stiffen under the red lace. Cheekily, he pinched one between his fingers before pushing the thin strip of fabric covering her cunt to the side. She was wet to the touch, and he circled her sensitive clit before slipping one of his fingers inside of her to explore. She immediately squeezed his finger, and he chuckled. He added another finger and curled them to massage that soft nerve inside of her while his thumb kept pace on her clit. Roxanne lolled her head back to give Niki better access to her neck, for better or for worse, and he attached himself there where he could not just hear every little whine, but feel it in her chest and throat. After coaxing her to orgasm and continuing to stroke her through it, he removed his lips from her neck and his fingers from her cunt.
“I want to see you on top of me,” Niki gripped her hips and rolled them over. He undid the lingerie clasp as he said “I want to see these beautiful tits bounce.”
Roxanne wiggled her hips, settling into a comfortable position above him. She struggled to remove the little lace thong, so Niki ripped it off with a smirk. He helped position himself for her, and she slowly sunk down on him, not realizing how much of a stretch he would be after two weeks. Her breath hitched as she did, and he moaned lowly at her tight grip of him. His hands gripped her ass while she settled into the feeling, appreciating the soft flesh, not daring to move yet. When she felt comfortable enough to lift herself back up, his hands moved to grab her waist.
Niki bucked his hips under her, overwhelmed by the feeling, and adored the way her breasts bounced every time she moved herself on him. He was mesmerized by the sight, the sound, the feeling, of Roxanne. Niki couldn’t help the grunts that escaped from him when she slid down and took him fully again. He snaked one of the hands that had been guiding her hips above him down to her clit which was still sensitive from her first climax. She moaned above him when he started to toy with it, and he pinched it lightly just to see what she would do. Roxanne cursed and gripped him tighter. He chuckled again and spanked her once for cursing before continuing his torment.
One of Roxanne’s hands balanced herself by gripping the headboard while the other played with one of her nipples. Niki only had so many hands to please her with- she would be reluctant to move either one, teasing her clit or imprinting fingerprints into her waist- so she didn’t mind giving him a helping hand. He noticed her hand on her chest, and he pushed it away with his nose before licking and sucking at the same nipple she had been pinching. That was enough to push her over the edge again, and she squeezed him tighter than he thought possible.
“Take it, Niki,” she panted, “take your victory.”
He didn’t need to be told twice after making her come twice. She was too tired to move on top of him again, but she wasn’t too tired for him. Niki carefully flipped them again, this time with him on top of her. He could have come from just the way she gripped his fingers earlier, but he restrained himself. Now though, now when she told him to come there was nothing to stop him. She felt his cock throb in her and he quickened his thrusts, chasing his victory. Every thrust hit that spot inside that made her crumble, and she wasn’t capable of saying more than fuck or Niki. Roxanne squeezed her eyes, feeling a third orgasm fast approaching, and surrendered to the feeling. The way she clenched around him finally made Niki come, and their releases mixed together. He rested his forehead against hers as he caught his breath.
Still panting, he nuzzled his nose against hers and kissed her again, adoringly and playfully. Roxanne wondered how the hell she went two weeks without seeing his pink cheeks and ruffled curls. He looked oddly adorable after destroying her, and she missed that look. Why she ever let the press get into her head she didn’t know.
Next chapter
Tag list: @apparrio @scuttle-buttle @lieutenantn @fictionlandslanddreams @danielbruhlswife @livvyshmiv @somethingthatsaysbubbles @hardlyinteresting
#daniel brühl#niki lauda#niki lauda rush 2013#rush 2013#daniel brühl niki lauda#niki lauda fanfiction#rush 2013 fanfic#niki lauda x oc#niki lauda x reader#daniel brühl fanfiction#Daniel brühl fanfic
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i keep laughing imagining Al showing up to the Xingese Court and being like "hi Ling!" and all the courtiers are like "GASP" bc that is NOT how you greet His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, Son of Heaven and Lord of Ten Thousand Years. Ling finds it hysterical tho. And if /Ed/ ever shows up to the court... oh boy fgfghfjfh
Welp, I just couldn’t help myself so have little ficlets of Al and Ed individually meeting up with Ling and his court
----
Al shows up to the court, sunshine personality showing into his large smile as we waves enthusiastically at the emperor, “Hi Ling!”
The crowd gasps. How dare this stranger, this foreigner be so casual to their lord! He should be punished for his insolence—
“Al!” Ling cheers as he flings himself off of the throne and rushes to the blonde boy’s side, “How’s it going buddy?”
The court stares in shock and awe. Emperor Ling hugs this foreign boy like he’s a close brother. They chat animatedly. Even his bodyguard Lan Fan goes to the boy to speak casually and politely.
Their shock is amplified as Princess May Chang comes into the room, latching herself onto this “Al,” much to the boy’s embarrassment. Are they an item? Is he Princess Chang’s “prince consort”?
No one says anything, too afraid an outburst would offend their majesty and princess. They just sit back quietly and watch the exchange between foreigner and royalty.
Al is none the wiser that he was almost beheaded where he stood.
——
“Yo, Emperor Freeloader, where’s my feast at?!”
The court gasps dramatically as the doors are kicked inward to reveal a golden haired man. He scowls as he stomps rudely to the throne to exchange words with their Emperor. Everyone is offended on their majesty’s behalf. The guards prepare their weapons--
Only to be thoroughly confused by the jovial laughter coming from Emperor Ling’s mouth.
“Edward! Good to see you, brother! How’s the family?”
The two converse, bickering and bantering like old friends would. The court is baffled. Why would their most prestige lord know someone so...so...uncouth?!
The guards turn to the emperor’s bodyguard, in need of guidance. Should they apprehend the foreigner or not? Lan Fan’s response is to roll her eyes and motion for them to stand down........for now.
As if remembering where he’s at, Emperor Ling wheels around, an arm around the golden haired man’s shoulder as he excitedly proclaims, “This is Edward Elric, the man who saved your emperor’s life during the perilous journey to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone!"
“Eh it was nothin’.“ Edward chimes in a rather bored manner. The court sneers at him in return.
“He deserves to be put into our history books as the man who fed me when I was hungry!”
This gathers the court’s attention as they were now on the edge of their seat. This brash young man saved their lord and majesty?! Pray tell what could he have done?!
Lan Fan holds her palm over her face. Ed does the same.
“Ling, please, not that story! I thought you were kidding--”
“Oh don’t be so modest!” Ling said, though anyone who knew him well could see his face had taken on a mischievous look to it. Oh yeah, Ed was definitely gonna kick his ass later...
“What did he do to feed you, my Lord?” an eager member of Ling’s court inquires. “A roasted duck? Plump fruit from the mightiest of trees? A large loaf of bread baked fresh from the oven?”
Ed blinks at the court in disbelief. Where the hell did they come up with that crap? Did everyone in Xing think of nothing but food?
“Nope!” Ling denies, his voice deepening fro dramatic flair, “Due to the lack of resources of our location which I will not disclose at this time, we were out of luck on more...healthier choices.”
“Here it comes...” Ed mutters.
“Just like a charitable man would give a homeless person the clothes off his back, Edward Elric of Amestris fed the next Emporer of Xing something off his own person...his own leather boot!”
When Winry finally enters the throne room minutes later in search of her husband, she would be shocked to see the court had lifted a very annoyed Edward into the air, cheering their praises while the Emporer himself rolled onto the floor in laughter.
The Fullmetal Alchemist would, indeed, be known a legend and a hero in Xingese history books.
#anon#responses#my writing#i'm sorry did you say you wanted a fanfic of the two brothers coming to visit ling? no? okay have it anyway#ed's is longer because i couldn't help it#i NEEDED to reference the stupid boot and him being in history books XD#originally the xingese people were going to be behead ed for being...well ed but nah it didn't turn out that way#fma#edward elric#alphonse elric#ling yao
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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.
Interview with Penumbra
Penumbra has 9 stories at Gossamer and 1 at AO3. You can find her complete catalogue here. If you’ve read any X-Files fic, surely you have read at least one of her stories. If not, why not? Some wondrous places to start are Parabiosis, Contact High, Black Hole Season, and Heuvelmans’ On the Track. Big thanks to Penumbra for doing this interview.
Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?
In a way, yes. There are no precedents for what happened to us with XF fandom, and in the late aughts it all seemed to be over. I got out and never looked back, haha. What really surprised me was to find, all these years on, that there are still X-Philes, although it does make sense they’d seek out those wonderful old fics we wrote.
What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?
Let's be honest, in my Penumbra days I was in a bad situation, the X-Files was a coping mechanism, and Mulder and Scully's relationship an idealization. I latched onto it as only a lonely obsessive can. The X-Files withholds; it opens up metamagical voids; it isolates while simultaneously plunging one into an ethereal community. It’s the tattoo I deserve.
Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?
The X-Files forced me to get online. Computers weren’t a part of my life, so I sneaked into the local university comp labs and figured it out. It was absolutely terrifying, like landing a space capsule, and I didn’t have ID and lived in fear of being caught. The first thing I typed into a computer was ‘X-Files’. So renegade! My heart was pounding and I thought sirens might sound and fire doors engage.
The Fox site had an X-Files forum that was utter pandemonium. Glorious and scary. At that time, I was one of the many Starbucks. The people on atxc seemed way too smart and opinionated. It was hard to even get membership in forums; they were heavily moderated. Mostly I remember lots of email friendships. Sometimes a kindly mature Phile would reach down from the ether with some words of wisdom. A. I. Irving was one. She was dealing with M.S., and writing fic while she still could. It is with an enormous sense of poignancy that I think of the people who were the ‘adults’ of the fandom then. Now I’m ancient in Phile years, but at the time I was just a clueless twenty-something, looking up to all those greats.
What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?
Wow, as WE ALL KNOW, discovering X-Files fanfic was a revelation. Whew! I thought: stand back, the professionals are handling this. The authors were about as human as Greek gods. Eventually it dawned on me that anyone could write it.
The first fic I wrote was HORRIBLE. I put a link to it on my site, so that people can get a little hit of schadenfreude. Those early stories were on shaky footing. I had no confidence in myself. I felt intimidated writing about sophisticated, highly-educated career people when I was none of those things. Heck, I was cleaning motel rooms. I'm still none of those things, but, through Mulder and Scully, I've lived that life a little bit, and it was fun.
The third story, 'Contact High', was all sex and drugs. I’d done acid and shrooms, so finally, a subject I could assert some authority over! I decided to just go for it. That abandon was a breakthrough, and Penumbra came into being. But there was so much going on inside me, it was hardly harnessable; as stories like ‘Vespers’ and ‘Black Hole Season’ show, it was like getting on a horse that you can't control and just clinging to its neck as it gallops.
This time around, in my latest incarnation, I feel that I have a better perspective on Mulder and Scully, more of an even footing. I’ve been through a lot, and in 'Hotel-Zero', I wanted to demonstrate not just how to survive, but how to survive as yourself. I wanted to maybe create a sort of handbook for how to keep your head above water. Life is hard for all of us, people are hard on us. You need to keep a singular perspective on yourself, and allow no one modify it.
What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?
I’ve had two separate experiences, with a seven-year hiatus, and I wouldn't have missed either of them for the world. Belonging to an obscure hive mind has been one of the most interesting and rewarding (not to mention super-secret) facets of my life, and that will always be my overall takeaway as an X-Phile.
However, as the fandom imploded there was understandable backlash against the whole Penumbra thing. The panegyric was just too much, the style definitely overblown. I posted 'Fathoms Five' as things were melting down, and there was real outrage. People were boycotting it as a political statement. Oh, we were all so raw—the X-Files was ending and IWTB was a heartbreaker. At that point I’d been working on 'Heuvelmans’ for a couple of years and was forced to admit I couldn’t finish it, nor would it be well-accepted if I did. So you can sort of see the baggage I was carrying when I left the fandom, not to mention the creative angst.
Three things brought me back:
1. They started filming the Revival. I flipped out at the thought of seeing Mulder and Scully again.
2. @perplexistan contacted me, and I realized there was a frisky pack of Philes on tumblr. Philes are my people, that’s just a fact.
3. I read @teethnbone’s ‘Das Ding’, which zapped at my temples like thunderstorm electrodes. So, there I was, in a trance, making the Devil’s Tower out of mashed potatoes.
Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?
No, I would consider it a sacrilege. I have loved and admired many other television series, but writing X-Files fic for Philes has been too extraordinary an experience to dilute. I have a zillion obsessions, but for only one am I fannish.
Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?
I just finished up that monster oldie called ‘Heuvelmans’ On the Track’, under the name The Mythopoeic. It’s on AO3. I have a couple of obscure side projects with a writing buddy. And I have another old fic called ‘Blue Ruin’, a cancer arc fic I’d like to finish someday.
What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?
It is very nice. People are gentle and welcoming. Philes used to criticize stories mercilessly and authoritatively, but you don’t see that a lot anymore. I have plenty of outside projects, so I am trying to ease away, you know, like taking off your shoes to slip out of the room after the baby’s fallen asleep.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?
I’d like each one of you to know that your belief in me changed my life and saved me a thousand times over.
(Posted by Lilydale on December 8, 2020)
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29 Things I Love About Dan
1. That he came out to his family via email. Aspirational.
2. Dude really, really loves his grandma.
3. That one time at a book signing when the bookstore overpromised tickets and there was a dad that was really upset because his daughter had been waiting in line so long and didn't get to meet them. The dad was just shouting at Dan and Phil and everyone else was trying to just quickly walk on but Dan stopped, turned around, and talked to the dad.
4. That he's the first person to defend someone he loves in any situation where he even perceives they're being shit upon, but in the same breath will make fun of them himself. He's the epitome of older brother attitude.
5. He spends a lot of money on clothes but then he wears what he buys every single day for a span of at least a year so he does at least get his money's worth.
6. That time on vyou when someone asked him what he looks for in a girl and his answer was the ring that fell off his hand last time that he really wants back.
7. His reaction to the Phil's wife story. I still laugh thinking about Sabrina and Lola. In the process of answering that he made a remark about how Phil leaves to go with his 'real' family and sometimes that just latches itself onto my brain. There was a similar comment during the blue/gold dress debate where Phil referenced Dan in with family and it's just... like, yeah, they're in love, they're in a relationship. But they're not just partners, they are full on out and out family to each other and that Dan found that at a time when he was so scared and felt so isolated with his own family is worth everything.
8. The depth of feeling in his voice during that one "Katie, Katie, Katie... Katie, Katie, Katie. No." liveshow answer. You know the one. He was having none of that and if Katie got verbally incinerated in the process of his answering, so be it.
9. When he'd be doing a liveshow and get on a tangent and end up talking about condiments or dips for like four minutes straight.
10. The way he never minded putting someone on blast that pissed him off but knew that it bothered Phil so he would consult with Phil first sometimes but then if the situation actually involved Phil being hurt in some way all bets were off he Was naming that trainer that made Phil puke he did not Care if Phil gave him an alias for the video Kai deserved what he got for pushing Phil too far.
11. That after a decade he still wants to impress Phil's family by doing things like cleaning before they come and making them all coffee.
12. And yet still made a cake to give to Phil in front of them that talked about wanting to see Phil's ass. The duality of man is real, indeed.
13. Nicer Internet. Young Minds. Make-a-Wish. Mermaids. He only just came into his own with being charity-minded in the last few years and I don't for a second doubt he does more privately than publicly and probably has some mental spirals about using his platform vs being accused of virtue signaling. But this is just one way I love watching him find his footing in the world as an adult with privilege.
14. He introduced an important word to my personal lexicon with Haru and I'd like the rest of the world to catch on because it's just a very specific action of lying while obviously lying and pretending you aren't lying and I love it.
15. When he was fifteen he was so in his emo kid feelings that he wanted black angel wings tattooed on his back.
16. That little tune he'd hum when he was trying to space out thoughts during liveshows.
17. That somehow he beat all the odds and is best friends with the first person he subscribed to (Bryony) and in a relationship with his teenage self's favorite youtuber (Phil, obviously). Teenage Dan had a really shit time of almost everything but in that one specific 'meet your idols' area he was truly blessed with all of the luck.
18. "All I can taste is cherry, all I can smell is cherry, all I can hear is cherry and all I can feel is cherry. Can't really see much though."
19. The fact that he owned up to previous bad takes and opinions and deleted old videos and tweets.
20. Litralee.
21. They originally wanted Phil to run the board at the radio show but he did such a bad job of it after the first episode that they gave it to Dan instead, and I think for someone with zero radio work experience or training Dan did an amazing job. He may spend a lot of time doubting himself but when a spotlight is on him he's clever and confident and adapts quickly.
22. The way when he says 'at all' he still sounds like his five year old self.
23. That he tried to run the marathon last year, and didn't, and tried again this year. When you're someone that fears judgement for your failures and knows everything you do is scrutinized by a very large audience - not just fans but people waiting for you to fail so they can report on that, too - sharing in that way seems like it would be really hard. It was shit luck that he couldn't run it this year either but I have faith he's gonna cross that finish line because the man Dan Howell has turned into goes after what he wants and fuck what anyone else thinks or expects of him.
24. That one liveshow they did without pants. You know that was Dan's idea. Phil is a respectable young man who does not go live on the internet to thousands of people in just his underwear. But Dan? Dan would. Dan does. And Dan is a terrible blerson.
25. That in a video to ten million people he said with his whole chest that his relationship with Phil made him feel safe for the first time since he was a small child. And like, yeah, sure, I'm infatuated with their relationship so it made me happy on a personal level. But beyond that; putting words to things is clearly not easy for Dan. It took him decades to acknowledge he was gay to himself. It took decades plus a little to tell his family. Sometimes it doesn't matter how much people know things, giving it a label is fucking scary and I think his fear of labeling his relationship with Phil (to the public) felt like a different kind of exposure than just his sexuality and he still faced them both.
26. He clearly has a very complicated relationship with his parents and family in general but that one story he told about being young and on holiday to Disneyland Paris and his mum is terrified of roller coasters but went on one with him like six times because she didn't want him to be alone. I'm glad through all the badness and doubt and fear he's had at how conditional his parents' love might be, that he had those good memories as well.
27. It was Dan that coined the phrase 'post-baking universe.' He's very aware of the stages of their life and his growth and he shares that self-awareness with the viewers even if he doesn't share all the depth of reasoning behind them. (He also coined the term 'phan' but in that instance I think uhh he didn't know what he was doing so.)
28. That he's learned better coping mechanisms than lashing out online. That he's got therapy now and the option for medication when he needs it. That depression doesn't go away but he knows he has options and support now.
29. He's given us almost a decade of content to watch and rewatch and enjoy and view through the different lights of his growth and our own growth, and who knows what the future will hold.
Okay, last minute addition - we'll call it one to grow on:
30. That Starcourt selfie.
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All The Things I Didn’t Say
Pairing: Harry Styles x Reader
Word Count: Exactly 3,443
Summary: You and Harry get into a fight and the things he never told you tear him up inside.
A/N: This is my first ever Harry fic, I hope you enjoy it! (Sorry if it sucks I tried) ~also thank you @fancyxholland for beta reading this, I cannot thank you enough love:)~
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*
It had been weeks since you last talked. You had been doing everything in your power to avoid the green eyed devil, scared that one simple glance in your direction could make you fall for him all over again. And that wasn’t something that you were ready for. You weren’t able to willingly put yourself in that position again.
You weren’t going to allow him to demolish your heart like he did the last time you saw him. You were still broken from then, and you really don’t know if you could handle another heartbreak, especially not this soon.
You hadn’t slept right since you split, not being used to his side of the bed being cold all the time. You washed the sheets and everything that smelled like him almost instantly after he left the house. You couldn’t bear to smell him all the time. You knew that keeping the scent of him lingering in your house would make you latch onto him even more than you already were.
You hadn’t eaten a proper meal in what feels like forever, your body barely having enough energy to get you to the bathroom.
It was safe to say that Harry left you broken. But can you really blame it all on him? Was it really justified of you to do so?
Maybe. He was the one that went off on you, yelled and screamed and hit every place he knew would tear you apart.
But maybe not. Maybe it was your fault. You hadn’t paid attention to him, not noticing that he was clearly hurting. You tried to push him into going out when he oh so clearly didn’t want to.
There was also the fact that you kicked him out, told him to get out of your face and to not come back, without even letting him explain himself.
You found yourself in front of the tv most days, not really paying attention to whatever was playing, just needing the background noise now that you didn’t have Harry to hum to you or to strum his guitar while working on new material.
Every single time you found yourself there, you let your mind wander. Let yourself believe that maybe he was missing you as much as you were missing him. That maybe he was thinking about you.
You were aware of the fact that wasn’t healthy, that the last thing you should be doing while trying to get over him was to let him run rampant in your mind, but you couldn’t help it.
He was your everything. He had been since the moment that you met him, his green eyes seemingly brightening every dark corner of your life. He made you feel like you could breathe fresh air for the first time ever. It was like you had always been breathing the same, a little labored but unnoticed because that’s how it always was, but then he came into your life and showed you everything that you had been missing.
It was worse now than it was before. This time, you knew what you were missing. The laboring breaths from before meeting him were coming back, but this time that’s all you could focus on. You were so used to feeling complete that it physically hurt to not be around him. To not have him to keep you company. To not be able to kiss his lips or hold him close.
Your life felt incomplete, so yeah, at times, you let your mind wander to the times when it felt like you weren’t going to fall apart from the slightest breeze.
*
God, he missed you. He pasted on a smile and acted like nothing was wrong around everyone, posing for the media, but the second he got home, everything was different.
Usually, he would either do his own hair - him being a fully capable adult and all - or you would do it for him, letting him enjoy the feeling of your fingers raking through his locks.
But now, the way his curls were done was a completely different story. He either had his hair stylist come over before he went out anywhere, or - more often that not - he went around looking disheveled.
Even though he had tried his best to hide it, those closest to him saw. Mitch caught the dark bags under his eyes. Sarah quickly caught onto the fact that when he was crying during rehearsals, it was because all of his songs were about you.
You had been his muse.
You were the inspiration behind everything that he did, and he no longer felt like he could function. You had been gone for all of a few weeks and he was falling apart, unable to pull himself back together.
The songs had stopped being written, the interviews had stopped being scheduled, his whole entire life came to a screeching halt. All because he no longer had you.
Not that he could blame you. You had every right to make him leave, to look at him and tell him to never think about you again. He was the one who took out all his anger at you, the one person he didn’t want to lose his cool to.
He had tried, he had done nothing but try for the entire time that you had been apart to do exactly what you had asked. To forget about you, to not think about you in the slightest.
He really did. But things didn’t work out that way. Every time that he had tried to write a song, he had ended up writing you a letter. There weren’t many, seeing as he had soon realized that they were going nowhere.
He knew that you didn’t want to talk to him, that you didn’t want to hear a word that came from him. If you really wanted him back, you would make the first move, that’s how you are, how you always have been.
So he wrote them and laid them on his desk, allowing them to haunt him every moment he was in their general vicinity.
*
All you wanted was to hear from him. It had been weeks, if he really wanted you back he would have reached out, Harry wasn’t the guy that just sat back and waited for things to come to him. He knew what he wanted and he went after those things with his eye on the prize, never stopping until he made his goal.
Which means that his goal wasn’t to get you back. Maybe he just really didn’t want you.
You couldn’t blame him for it, you had been distant and ignoring all his signs probably weeks before the fight. You made him think that you didn’t care and he was completely justified in wanting something else, something better, with someone that actually deserved him.
You knew him, however, he was going to make sure that you had moved on before he did, wouldn’t want to date someone else while you’re still heartbroken. The only problem with that is that you don’t know if you’ll ever be okay without him. Not a single part of you can see yourself moving on.
So you do what you do every time something goes wrong. You fake the happiness. You fake the fact that you’re okay. You plaster on a smile and hope that it’s believable enough to make people stop worrying.
A part of you knows that this won’t be enough this time, though, so you go the extra step. You block his number. If he tries to text, it won’t go through. That’s the only way that he can get ahold of you. He never used Instagram, knowing his messages to you could easily get lost in the thousands he gets from fans every single day.
It takes you a pretty long time, and a whole lot of willpower, but after you do block his only means of contact, it feels as if there’s a weight lifted off of your shoulders. It’s a lot easier to pretend to be happy if the thing that’s making you upset isn’t looming over your head.
Everything had been foggy since you made Harry leave, but this made at least one thing clear. You were going to be alright, at least a little more than you had been for the past few weeks. You may have to fake it for a little while, but the first step to feeling better had already been taken.
*
He was not going to be alright. His friends kept telling him that he would be, that she was just another girl in a sea of millions more. But that wasn’t true. They all knew it wasn’t true. They just wanted the old Harry back. They wanted their friend back.
The guy that used to go out every weekend with his friends and celebrate, if nothing else, surviving another week, was gone. Left behind was the shell of a man that was broken into a million pieces and being held together by the scotch tape that he called his fake smile.
He had gone out with his friends tonight, though. He had wanted them to have some fun and knew that they felt bad for doing so if he couldn’t have fun too.
He had filled himself with alcohol, taking shot after shot until your face was blurry in his mind. He had poured liquid courage into glass after glass until he found himself composing text messages to you and sending them. The only things left in his mind were what you would say and him hoping that his autocorrect was working well tonight.
I miss you, shouldn’t have blown up.
I also should’ve contacted you earlier, was stupid not to
God I love you so much, I can’t sleep without you, feels wrong laying in bed without you curled up next to me
He took another look at his phone, fighting to get through the blurr to see if you had received them. And to his horror, they weren’t going through. You had blocked him.
So he had his next drunken idea, he was going to send the letters. Actually, no, he was going to take you the letters.
But there was still one more that he needed to write.
*
You weren’t a good actor. You really tried, but your forced smile didn’t go unnoticed by your friends. They knew you, probably better than you know yourself, so when they look at you and give you smiles of pity and try to get you a new guy to hookup with, you know that you’re not doing well at convincing them in the slightest.
You can’t even bring yourself to contradict them. They’re right. You miss Harry. You miss his hugs and the way that his scent would cling to anything that he touched, even for a second. You missed the way his seafoam green irises would stare into your eyes as if you were the only person in the world. He would listen to you as if your words were more important than anything that he had ever heard.
Why didn’t you do the same?
Why didn’t you pay attention?
Why didn’t you see that he was hurting?
Or did you? Did you see it and just chose to ignore it, too caught up in your perfect little world?
At this point, you couldn’t say, the only thing that you know is you want Harry back. You can’t breathe without him. You’re no better now than you were when you made him leave.
You just wanted him to come back to you.
*
Y/N,
Hello, Um, I’ve never written a love letter to anyone but you, and this is the first one I’m writing with the intent of giving it to you, so I apologize if this sounds crazy.
I miss you. So fucking much. I never knew that someone could miss another person this much. I miss you when I’m trying to sleep and you’re not there to cuddle up with me. I miss you when I’m cooking and you’re not there to sit on the counter and taste test for me. I miss you when I’m getting ready in the mornings, wishing that your fingers were working their way through my crazy hair and not my own.
But most of all, I miss driving with you. I miss having you in my passenger seat. I miss having you there to pick the music and keep everything light and airy. I miss holding your hand and drawing random patterns on your knuckles. I miss the way you would study each of the tattoos that you could see every single time that we would get into the car. You would look over them, trace each little line like it was the first time you had ever seen them.
You make me feel like art, even when I don’t feel so hot. You make me see the best in life.
I’m so fucking sorry Y/N. I shouldn’t have blown up at you. I should have sat down and talked to you like good boyfriends do. I should have just stopped getting in my own head and opened up to you.
We’d never fought like that. Sure, we’d argue over the miniscule things, but we never let it get this bad. I shouldn’t have let it get that bad. I should have manned up and told you why I was being distant towards you.
I never meant to hurt you. I really didn’t. But I know that I did break your heart. I could see it in the way you looked at me.
I’m not asking that you take me back, that would be pretty narcissistic of me, thinking that if I ask, you’ll just welcome me back with open arms.
I don’t expect that of you. I broke your heart. I know that.
All I’m asking is that you give me the chance, at some point, to let me put it back together.
(Hopefully) Yours,
H
He sealed the envelope and worked up the courage to drive to your house. He didn’t even know if you’d be there. Or if you were, if you’d be there alone. You could have easily moved on from him. It wouldn’t have been hard for you. Any guy would be blessed to have you in their life.
He just hoped that you had been missing him even a fraction of how much he missed you.
Before he could overthink it too much, he grabbed the envelopes, sought out his keys, and made his way to the house you used to share.
On the drive there, he left the radio off, not being able to concentrate on anything else besides the worry that you hated him.
You couldn’t hate him. Could you?
Harry couldn’t remember the drive to your house being so long. How did he have this much time to doubt everything?
He was not like this. He never doubted himself. He always had faith in himself. He knew that people liked him, and he took a certain amount of pride in that.
But he was none of those things around you. He was anxious. He wanted you to come back to him. He was hoping that maybe, just maybe, you would give him a second chance.
It’s going to be fine. She’ll read the letters and you’ll at least get to see her face one more time, Harry says continuously to himself as he walks up to your door and rings the bell.
*
You hadn’t invited anybody over. You don’t know who could possibly be at your door. Unless it was those girl scouts coming back to sell their cookies. Little do they know that you don’t even like them. Harry’s the one with the love for them. He’s the one that buys every box that they have on them every time.
You groan and pull yourself out of bed, trudging to the door to break the news to the girls. You expect a few hurt faces that’ll guilt you into buying a few boxes and giving them away.
What you don’t expect is to find the curly haired man when you open the door.
You open your mouth to speak, but he stops you, “Look, I know. You don’t want to see me. I just- I need to give you these. I-I’ve been trying to leave you be but,” he reached his free hand up to run through his unruly curls, “I can’t stop thinking about you. And I know, I messed up, I don’t deserve to even be here right now.” He pauses for a moment to take a deep breath and you try to speak again but he’s faster. “I don’t expect anything, I just ask that you read these letters. It’s all the things I didn’t say. I know that doesn’t make up for it, I just want you to read them. Please.”
“H…” you breathe, trying to find the right words.
“Anyway, yeah. Um, here.” he hands you the letters and turns around, “I’m going to give you time to read them. If you wanna talk, you have my number. If not, I get it.”
You watch him walk for a moment, wondering if what you’re about to do is a good idea. But honestly, you don’t care. You miss him way too much to let him walk away again.
“H, wait!” he stops but doesn’t turn around. “Come back, please. I miss you. I just- I’m sorry.” He turns around and slowly makes his way towards you, as if moving with caution.
“Really? Are you going to read the letters still?” He looks nervous, waiting for you to confirm or deny whether you’re playing with his heart.
“I’m still going to read the letters, I just want you here with me.”
*
He can feel himself relax, his mind slowing down the marathon it had been running since he began his journey to your house.
You were going to read the letters. You missed him. Maybe you would give him a chance.
He hoped so. God, he hoped so. He wanted you back so bad that he would do literally anything in the world to have you back in his arms.
He would spend his entire life making it up to you, whether you were his or not.
*
You open the first letter and begin to read.
Y/N,
So I know we’re not talking, but everyone says maybe this will help me. My therapist says maybe this can make it easier for me to sleep. So here I go.
I’m such an idiot, I messed up the best thing in my life. I see you in everything that I do and everywhere that I go. I’m trying to give you your space. Trying to let you have whatever you want. I’m trying so hard darling. But it’s so hard.
I’m not used to sleeping in a bed without you in it. I’m not used to not having you to curl around and the scent of your shampoo to breathe in.
I can’t leave the house without thinking that you should be coming with me. I can’t drive without wishing that you were in my passenger seat.
I can’t do this without you. I don’t know how I ever lived without you before, and I definitely don’t know how I’m going to do so now.
I guess I’m going to try to sleep now.
Yours
Harry
You look up at him with tears in your eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for? You haven’t done anything wrong?” He questions.
“You haven’t been able to sleep.” You crawl from your place on the couch over to him, looking at him for consent before cuddling into his side.
“It’s alright, darling. I deserved it.” He squeezes you closer to his body and you can feel every muscle in your body relax. “You still have more letters to read.” He whispers.
“Can I read them tomorrow? Missed you too much to be reading anything when I could be looking at your face.” You mumble, causing him to chuckle and look down at you.
“We can do whatever you want, darling.” He says, granting you a small smile.
“Good, because I wanna cuddle in our bed and actually get a good night's sleep.” You yawn, sleep already coming easier to you now that he was back.
“That sounds good to me, love. Come on, let’s go to bed.” He picks you up, carrying you to your room. And that’s when it hits you.
You have Harry back.
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#harry styles#harry styles smut#harry styles x reader#harry styles fluff#harry styles angst#one direction#one direction x reader#one direction smut#one direction fluff#one direction angst#2020
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Winner Takes It All
A/N: so I’m the one doing Shinsou, who would have guessed?;)
Pairing: Shinsou Hitoshi x f!reader
Word count: 1678
Warning: nsfw below cut
Shinsou felt the need to defend himself here, because he had no idea what the prize was before he actually won.
He simply jumped onto it because his housemates was being very loud about it and they flipped him off when he slammed the door opened after a long day of training asking them to tone the “animalistic howling” down. It was only out of sheer pettiness that he looked up whatever gaming tournament they were screaming about and pure dumb luck that he ended up beating many other players probably way more familiar at the game than him.
He was still staring at the blinking screen in utter confusion when his friend barged into his room yelling strong strings of profanities, some he hadn’t even heard of before, leaving like a storm as they did when they come in and told him to “have fun with (y/n) on your face”.
It was only then that Shinsou remembered about how the email telling him that he won mentioned something about a prize and after leaning forward to read the very small lines on his screen, he wasn’t sure if he should be mortified or excited that he got to have a camgirl sit on his face as a reward for winning the tournament.
Now, the right thing and the thing he was going to do was to politely reply to that email saying that while he appreciated the offer and it was not of any disrespect towards ms (y/l/n) but he was simply uncomfortable with the idea of letting a complete stranger sit on his face and he would much rather if the opportunity goes to someone who will make good use of it. But his curiosity got the better of him and he ended up in your streams after typing your name in the search bar. He was supposed to take a small peak and leave, but he stayed through the whole show, and came back the next day
And the next day.
And the day after that.
One slip of the virtue could truly lead to great mistakes and now he was in the elevator, going up to the hotel room that the organiser of the event had booked for the occasion, where you would be waiting for him.
A mistake? Yeah, yeah, he could keep saying that as if it could hide how shaky his hand was when it reached for the door.
The click of the lock had his heartbeat sped up and he took a deep breath, trying very hard to remain his composure when the door creaked open. You peaked out, a bathing robe wrapped snuggly around you and his face heated up when the images of what he had seen through the screen flashed through his mind. But still he was not an animal, and looking at someone who he just met like they were a piece of meat would be the last thing he ever does.
“Hello.” “Hey.”
You hated how meek your voice sounded. You filmed yourself doing far more promiscuous things than this for thousands of people to see on a regular and yet facing someone who you were supposed to get intimate with just like that still managed to fill you with nerves. You were a professional, damn it, you should not be this nervous. Perhaps opening the door to finally see the winner had did nothing to ease your jitters. He was nothing like what you imagined, certainly far more attractive than you had expected. Lean frame but his exposed arms hinted that there was something to look forward to under those layers, and you felt the excitement in you building up.
“Would you like to come in?”
There was a slight tint of awkwardness glooming the room as he walked in and it was just the two of you. He was not as eager as you thought he might be, starting off by a near unnatural attempt at small talk, his expression a very incomprehensible form of stoic. It was rather endearing that he was trying to get to know you beyond the bounds of what he was promised, perhaps it would not be too bold to say that you were starting to enjoy his presence. Before you knew it, you cut off his rambling with a chaste peck at the corner of his lips and pulling him towards the bed. You asked with a teasing smile that “Perhaps we can move onto what you are here for?”, the smile turning into a chuckle when he, whose name was Shinsou as he told you, turned a darker shade of pink and mumbled a soft response.
You enjoyed his reaction when he saw you slowly undid the knot of your bathrob, his eyes widening from where he laid on the bed and his shirt discarted to the ground as you instructed him to. You were wearing barely anything, only a pair of thin lace panties and nothing else. Shinsou’s breath hitched at his throat when you slowly climbed over him, your fingers trailing up his chest as you did so. He seemed to be hesitating, his hands placed at the side as his hot breath fanned your cheek from how closely you leaned down on him.
“Are you really ok with this?” He asked, his eyes darting away from your naked frame to your grinning face.
“Of course,” you said as your traced the muscle on his arm, enjoying the way his throat bobbed at the contact, “you can touch me, you know?”
He tentatively placed his hand on your waist as you hovered above his face. The supple skin under his touch and the sight was enough to send blood rushing to his crotch. With the way his grip on you was so feather light, it was certain that he was still holding back. But the last bit of his rationality holding him back was broke loose when you arched your back at the first lick of his tongue from your clothed slit all the way to where the sensitive nub would be and moaned.
The same sound that rang by his ear every time his desires got the upper hand and clicked into your live streams was so much more tempting when he heard it in person. Reaching down to shove the fabric to the side, this time he did not hesitate when he latched his lips onto your folds. Your hands gripped onto the headboard for balance as you lowered yourself onto him even more, his kitten licks sending you into a frenzy when you felt his fingers digging into the soft flesh of your thighs.
His eyes met yours when you looked down. You looked so good with your face flushed and lips parted, the sight only made him more eager and you mewled when you felt the wet muscle plunged into your tight pussy, his nose brushing at your clit as he swirled his tongue against your walls. The position you were in was supposed to give you more control but it was apparently not the case as his hold on you tightened while you squirmed above him, allowing him better access as he slurped up the juices that was spilling down his cheek.
Trying to get more friction, you attempted to roll your hips against his face but it was no use. You did not need to look down to know that he was smirking all while continuing his devouring of you when you whimpered. It was a wonder how he could switch from the composed persona to this devious smile once he was given the green light.
He licked and sucked on you like his life depended on it, determined to get the most out of you. You could feel the tightening at your abdomen when his hand reached up to grope your chest that was bouncing while the rest of your body shook under the pleasure.
There was no doubt that he was skilled with his mouth, pulling his tongue out of you only to latched onto your clit before you could even made a noise at the lost of friction. With the circling and flicking of the tip, it was getting harder and harder for you to hold yourself together.
With a particularly hard suck, you came crushing down. Your cries and the erotic sound of him lapping at your slit echoed off the walls. Your legs were still shaking when you slowly crawled off of his face only to be stopped by his hand pressing firmly on your back. The clear substances of your high was still dripping off his face when you looked down, his lilac irises a dark shade of lust that had you stopping in your tracks. He looked like he was warning you that you were not going anywhere, and somehow the authority in his eyes sent s throb straight down to your core.
“Do you want more?”
His deep tone did nothing to ease that ache at your pussy and with the way his lips ghosted over your inner thigh, it was like he already know your answer before you could say anything.
“Please.”
Shinsou did not waste another second as he flipped you onto your back, pushing your legs opened with his knee as he kneeled on the mattress. HIs belt unbuckled and pulled down to release his strained erection.
He leaned down to capture your lips while his hand went down to rub at your pussy, the taste of your own essence made you moaned into the kiss and adding to your arousal. The moan turned into a soundless cry when he plunged his length inside of your sopping cunt, your hand holding onto his neck as he thrust vigorously inside of you.
One slip of the virtue could turn a man into a beast, but perhaps the mistake could be far more than enjoyable for two people if done right and Shinsou sure his way around as he brought you to yet another high.
And another.
And another.
Bonus
You fell onto the mattress after you lost count on how many times Shinsou had made you cum. Your body was covered in a disgusting sheen of sweat but it didn’t seem to bother him as he pulled you close, wrapping one arm around you as he pressed you against his heaving chest.
“Why that was fun.” You said, your breaths irregular from the adrenaline and he chuckled.
“Was I too rough on you?”
“No, it was good.” You replied with a smile, enjoying the heat from his naked body. “We should totally do this again some time.”
“That good, huh?” He smirked and winced when you pinched his waist.
“Who knows,” you said with a sly grin that spread across your face, “perhaps I could even get you to join one of my shows.”
“Who knows,” he laughed, mimicking your tone as his hand tilted your jaw so that you were looking at him, “perhaps I would like that.”
#ahinsou x reader#shinsou imagine#shinsou smut#shinsou hitoshi#shinsou hitoshi x reader#shinsou hitoshi smut#shinsou hitoshi imagine#bnha imagine#bnha imagines#bnha x reader#bnha smut
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Loki takes over: Tom Hiddleston on his new TV series and a decade in the MCU
from Entertainment Weekly
Ten years after Hiddleston first chose chaos in Thor, Marvel’s fan favorite God of Mischief is going even bigger with his time-bending Disney+ show.
By Chancellor Agard May 20, 2021
Tom Hiddleston is Loki, and he is burdened with glorious purpose: After playing Thor's puckish brother for over a decade in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, no one understands the mercurial Asgardian God of Mischief as well as the actor. He can teach an entire seminar on Loki if given the opportunity — which he actually did during pre-production on his forthcoming Disney+ show. In conversation, Hiddleston quotes lines from his MCU debut, 2011's Thor, almost verbatim, and will playfully correct you if you mistakenly refer to Asgard's Rainbow Bridge as the Bifrost, which is the portal that connects Loki and Thor's homeworld to the Nine Realms, including Midgard, a.k.a. Earth. "Well, the Bifrost technically is the energy that runs through the bridge," he says with a smile. "But nine points to Gryffindor!" And when he shows up to the photo shoot for this very digital cover, he hops on a call with our photo editor to pitch ways the concept could be even more Loki, like incorporating the flourish the trickster does whenever magically conjuring something. The lasting impression is that playing Loki isn't just a paycheck.
"Rather than ownership, it's a sense of responsibility I feel to give my best every time and do the best I can because I feel so grateful to be a part of what Marvel Studios has created," the 40-year-old Brit tells EW over Zoom a few days after the shoot and a week out from Thor's 10th anniversary. "I just want to make sure I've honored that responsibility with the best that I can give and the most care and thought and energy."
After appearing in three Thor movies and three Avengers, Hiddleston is bringing that passion to his first solo Marvel project, Loki, the House of Ideas' third Disney+ series following the sitcom pastiche WandaVision and the topical The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Led by head writer Michael Waldron (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Heels), the six-episode drama sees Hiddleston's shapeshifting agent of chaos step out from behind his brother's shadow and into the spotlight for a timey-wimey, sci-fi adventure that aims to get to the bottom of who Loki really is. "I wanted to explore slightly more complex character questions," says Waldron. "It's not just good versus bad. Is anybody all good? Is anybody all bad? What makes a hero, a hero? A villain, a villain?"
Even though Loki — who loves sowing mayhem with his illusion magic and shapeshifting, all with a major chip on his shoulder — has never been one for introspection, the idea of building an entire show around him was a no-brainer for Marvel. When asked why Loki was one of the studio's first Disney+ shows, Marvel president Kevin Feige replies matter-of-factly, "More Hiddleston, more Loki." First introduced as Thor's (Chris Hemsworth) envious brother in Kenneth Branagh's Thor, Loki went full Big Bad in 2012's The Avengers. That film cemented the impish rogue as one of the shared universe's fan favorites, thanks to Hiddleston's ability to make him deliciously villainous yet charismatic and, most importantly, empathetic. The character's popularity is one of the reasons he's managed to avoid death many times.
"He's been around for thousands of years. He had all sorts of adventures," says Feige. "Wanting to fill in the blanks and see much more of Loki's story [was] the initial desire [for the series]."
The Loki we meet on the show is not the one who fought the Avengers in 2012 and evolved into an antihero in Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok before meeting his demise at the hands of the mad titan Thanos (Josh Brolin) in 2018's Avengers: Infinity War. Instead, we'll be following a Loki from a branched timeline (a variant, if you will) after he stole the Tesseract following his thwarted New York invasion and escaped S.H.I.E.L.D. custody during the time heist featured in Avengers: Endgame. In other words, this Loki hasn't gone through any sort of redemption arc. He's still the charming yet petulant god who firmly believes he's destined to rule and has never gotten his due.
Premiering June 9, Loki begins with the Time Variance Authority — a bureaucratic organization tasked with safeguarding the proper flow of time — arresting the Loki Variant seen in Endgame because they want his help fixing all of the timeline problems he caused while on the run with the Tesseract. So there will be time travel, and a lot more of it than in Endgame. As Loki makes his way through his own procedural, he'll match wits with new characters including Owen Wilson's Agent Mobius, a brilliant TVA analyst, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw's Judge Renslayer. The question in early episodes is whether Loki will help them or take over.
"One of the things Kevin Feige led on was, 'I think we should find a way of exploring the parts of Loki that are independent of his relationship with Thor,' or see him in a duality or in relationship with others, which I thought was very exciting," says Hiddleston, who also serves as an executive producer on the show. "So the Odinson saga, that trilogy of films, still has its integrity, and we don't have to reopen it and retell it."
Yet, in order to understand where Loki is going, it's important to see where he came from.
Hiddleston can't believe how long he and Loki have been connected. "I've been playing this character for 11 years," he says. "Which is the first time I have said that sentence, I realize, and it [blows] my mind. I don't know what percentage that is exactly of my 40 years of being alive, but it's substantial."
His time as Loki actually goes a bit further back, to 2009 — a year after Robert Downey Jr. big banged the MCU into existence with Iron Man — when he auditioned for Thor. It's no secret that Hiddleston initially went in for the role of the titular God of Thunder, but Feige and director Kenneth Branagh thought his natural charm and flexibility as an actor made him better suited for the movie's damaged antagonist. "Tom gave you an impression that he could be ready for anything, performance-wise," says Branagh, who had previously worked with him on a West End revival of Checkov's Ivanov and the BBC series Wallander. "Tom has a wild imagination, so does Loki. He's got a mischievous sense of humor and he was ready to play. It felt like he had a star personality, but he was a team player."
Hiddleston fully immersed himself in the character. Outside of studying Loki's history in the Marvel Comics, he also researched how Loki and the Trickster God archetype appeared across mythology and different cultures. "He understood that he was already in something special [and] it was a special character in a special part of that early moment in the life of the Marvel universe where [he] also needed to step up in other ways," says Branagh, who was impressed by the emotional depth Hiddleston brought to the part, especially when it came to how isolated Loki felt in the Asgardian royal family.
There was a lot riding on that first Thor feature. For one, no one knew if audiences would immediately latch onto a Shakespearean superhero movie partially set on an alien planet populated by the Norse Gods of legend. Second, it was integral to Feige's plans for the shared universe. Loki was supposed to be the main villain in The Avengers, which would not only mirror how Earth's mightiest heroes joined forces in 1963's Avengers #1 but also give Thor a believable reason for teaming up with Iron Man, Captain America (Chris Evans), and the rest of the capes. Feige first clued Hiddleston into those larger plans when the actor was in L.A. before Thor started shooting.
"I was like, 'Excuse me?' Because he was already three, four steps ahead," says Hiddleston. "That took me a few minutes to process, because I didn't quite realize how it just suddenly had a scope. And being cast as Loki, I realized, was a very significant moment for me in my life, and was going to remain. The creative journey was going to be so exciting."
Hiddleston relished the opportunity to go full villain in Avengers, like in the scene where Loki ordered a crowd to kneel before him outside a German opera house: "It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation," says the Machiavellian god. "The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."
"I just knew that in the structure of that film, I had to lean into his role as a pure antagonist," Hiddleston recalls. "What I always found curious and complex about the way Loki is written in Avengers, is that his status as an antagonist comes from the same well of not belonging and being marginalized and isolated in the first Thor film. Loki now knows he has no place in Asgard."
Loki did find a place within the audience's hearts, though. Feige was "all in" on Hiddleston as his Loki from the beginning, but even he couldn't predict how much fans would love him. Feige recalls the reaction at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con: "Did we know that after he was the villain in two movies, he would be bringing thousands of people to their feet in Hall H, in costume, chanting his name? No, that was above and beyond the plan that we were hoping for and dreaming of." It was a dream Feige first got an inkling of a year earlier during the Avengers press tour when a Russian fan slipped past security, snuck into Mark Ruffalo's car, and asked the Hulk actor to give Hiddleston a piece of fan art she created. "That was one of the early signs there was much more happening with this quote-unquote villain."
Despite that popularity, the plan was to kill Loki off in 2013's Thor: The Dark World, but the studio reversed course after test audiences refused to believe he actually died fighting the Dark Elves. Alas, he couldn't out-illusion death forever. After returning in Taika Waititi's colorful and idiosyncratic Thor: Ragnarok, Hiddleston's character perished for real in the opening moments of Infinity War. In typical Loki fashion, before Thanos crushed his windpipe, he delivered a defiant speech that indicated he'd finally made peace with the anger he felt toward his family.
"It felt very, very final, and I thought, 'Okay, that's it. This is Loki's final bow and a conclusive end to the Odinson saga,'" says Hiddleston, who shot that well-earned death scene in 2017.
But, though he didn't know it yet, the actor's MCU story was far from over.
When Hiddleston returned to film two scenes in Avengers: Endgame in 2017, he had no idea where Loki portaled off to after snatching the Tesseract. "Where'd he go? When does he go? How does he get there? These are all questions I remember asking on the day, and then not being given any answers," Hiddleston recalls. To be fair, it's likely the Powers That Be didn't necessarily have answers then. While Feige can't exactly recall when the writers' room for Endgame first devised Loki's escape sequence, he does know that setting up a future show wasn't the primary goal — because a Loki series wasn't on the horizon just yet.
"[That scene] was really more of a wrinkle so that one of the missions that the Avengers went on in Endgame could get screwed up and not go well, which is what required Cap and Tony to go further back in time to the '70s," says Feige. Soon after that, though, former Disney CEO Bob Iger approached Feige about producing content for the studio's forthcoming streaming service. "I think the notion that we had left this hanging loose end with Loki gave us the in for what a Loki series could be. So by the time [Endgame] came out, we did know where it was going."
As for Hiddleston, he didn't find out about the plans for a Loki show until spring 2018, a few weeks before Infinity War hit theaters. "I probably should not have been surprised, but I was," says the actor. "But only because Infinity War had felt so final."
Nevertheless, Hiddleston was excited about returning for his show. He was eager to explore Loki's powers, especially the shapeshifting, and what it meant that this disruptive figure still managed to find a seat beside the gods in mythology. "I love this idea [of] Loki's chaotic energy somehow being something we need. Even though, for all sorts of reasons, you don't know whether you can trust him. You don't know whether he's going to betray you. You don't why he's doing what he's doing," says Hiddleston. "If he's shapeshifting so often, does he even know who he is? And is he even interested in understanding who he is? Underneath all those masks, underneath the charm and the wit, which is kind of a defense anyway, does Loki have an authentic self? Is he introspective enough or brave enough to find out? I think all of those ideas are all in the series — ideas about identity, ideas about self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and the difficulty of it."
“The series will explore Loki's powers in a way they have not yet been explored, which is very, very exciting.”
The thing that truly sold Hiddleston on the show was Marvel's decision to include the Time Variance Authority, a move he describes as "the best idea that anybody had pertaining to the series." Feige and Loki executive producer Stephen Broussard had hoped to find a place for the TVA — an organization that debuted in 1986's Thor #372 and has appeared in She-Hulk and Fantastic Four stories — in the MCU for years, but the right opportunity never presented itself until Loki came along. "Putting Loki into his own procedural series became the eureka moment for the show," says Feige.
The TVA's perspective on time and reality also tied into the themes that Waldron, Loki's head writer, was hoping to explore. "Loki is a character that's always reckoning with his own identity, and the TVA, by virtue of what they do, is uniquely suited to hold up a mirror to Loki and make him really confront who he is and who he was supposed to be," says Waldron. Hiddleston adds: "[That] was very exciting because in the other films, there was always something about Loki that was very controlled. He seemed to know exactly what the cards in his hand were and how he was going to play them…. And Loki versus the TVA is Loki out of control immediately, and in an environment in which he's completely behind the pace, out of his comfort zone, destabilized, and acting out."
To truly dig into who Loki is, the creative team had to learn from the man who knows him best: Hiddleston. "I got him to do a thing called Loki School when we first started," says director Kate Herron. "I asked him to basically talk through his 10 years of the MCU — from costumes to stunts, to emotionally how he felt in each movie. It was fantastic."
Hiddleston got something out of the Loki school, too. Owen Wilson both attended the class and interviewed Hiddleston afterward so that he could better understand Loki, as his character Mobius is supposed to be an expert on him. During their conversation, Wilson pointedly asked Hiddleston what he loved about playing the character.
"And I said, 'I think it's because he has so much range,'" says Hiddleston. "I remember saying this to him: 'On the 88 keys on the piano, he can play the twinkly light keys at the top. He can keep it witty and light, and he's the God of Mischief, but he can also go down to the other side and play the heavy keys. And he can play some really profound chords down there, which are about grief and betrayal and loss and heartbreak and jealousy and pride.'" Hiddleston recalls Wilson being moved by the description: "He said, 'I think I might say that in the show.' And it was such a brilliant insight for me into how open Owen is as an artist and a performer.'"
Everyone involved is particularly excited for audiences to see Hiddleston and Wilson's on-screen chemistry. "Mobius is not unlike Owen Wilson in that he's sort of nonplussed by the MCU," says Feige. "[Loki] is used to getting a reaction out of people, whether it's his brother or his father, or the other Avengers. He likes to be very flamboyant and theatrical. Mobius doesn't give him the reaction he's looking for. That leads to a very unique relationship that Loki's not used to."
As for the rest of the series, we know that Loki will be jumping around time and reality, but the creative team isn't keen on revealing when and where. "Every episode, we tried to take inspiration from different things," says Waldron, citing Blade Runner's noir aesthetic as one example.
"Part of the fun of the multiverse and playing with time is seeing other versions of characters, and other versions of the titular character in particular," says Feige, who also declined to confirm if Loki ties into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and/or other upcoming projects.
Making Loki was especially meaningful to Hiddleston because they shot most of it during the pandemic, in late 2020. "It will remain one of the absolute most intense, most rewarding experiences of my life," he says. "It's a series about time, and the value of time, and what time is worth, and I suppose what the experience of being alive is worth. And I don't quite know yet, and maybe I don't have perspective on it, if all the thinking and the reflecting that we did during the lockdown ended up in the series. But in some way, it must have because everything we make is a snapshot of where we were in our lives at that time."
While it remains to be seen what the future holds for Loki beyond this initial season, Hiddleston isn't preparing to put the character to bed yet. "I'm open to everything," he says. "I have said goodbye to the character. I've said hello to the character. I said goodbye to the character [again]. I've learned not to make assumptions, I suppose. I'm just grateful that I'm still here, and there are still new roads to explore."
Additional reporting by Jessica Derschowitz
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