#i feel like every time i talk about svu i need to make a disclaimer that it's a bad show. but it can be mindless fun.

[callixton]

hi theo!!!! whats your fave season of svu???

hi penrose!!! tbh the episodes blur together sm bc of how episodic they r but i would say.... s17 was my first instinct bc the finale is a lot of fun (barba gets threatened! and then reveals that less severe threats have been ongoing since he put away a couple of cops. which is so fucked but also kind of sexy of him fuck the thin blue line) & i like some of the earlier episodes tho i physically cannot watch transgender bridge i think it will make me throw up.....

umm but i think the season with the best vibes might be s15.... october surprise is prob my fave barba episode bc we learn more abt his past and how he grew up and he has to break off a decades old friendship when he learns the guy he grew up with is a piece of shit. rollins relapses which means that she meets murphy, who is batshit insane and i'm obsesssed with him. he pisses himself while undercover for no justifiable reason. bradley whitford is there.

#i feel like every time i talk about svu i need to make a disclaimer that it's a bad show. but it can be mindless fun. #if ur able to ignore all of the police brutality etc #ted talks #@penrose #rafael barba #svu #raúl esparza

[queerofdenial]

merry fricksmas

whaddup la-hoo-sers (so sorry that was not hot) I had a brainrot today and couldn’t stop thinking about random hacks shit so here’s a headcanon that turns into a ficlet and then back into a headcanon and then back into a ficlet don’t really know whats going on but there’s mistletoe involved so enjoy kids, @trying-to-get-somewhere-real said i should share with the class 

disclaimer: i kNOW with deb’s big ass fur coat it’s likely mid autumn or already early winter by the time ava’s dad dies but that doesn’t entirely jive with my headcanon timeline and bc JL&P refuse to give us any concrete information about when this fuckin show is supposed to take place, i’mma say it’s further from the holidays than it appears, m’kay?

email? what email?

context: they start touring pretty soon after they return from Boston, doing a handful of major comedy clubs with pieces of the new hour until they can organize a theater tour. the show needs to be worked out a bit more before she can start selling out thousand seat venues, ya know? They spend the rest of the year in clubs while Jimmy and Marcus organize a spring tour, getting a solid seven weeks until the full tour kicks off on Presidents’ weekend. 

Deb hosts a christmas party during the holiday break between the halves of the tour. it’s the friday before Christmas, and ava’s planning on going back to Boston on Tuesday to get to Nina’s before Christmas eve, the first one they’ve spent without her dad. It was in the tiny dressing room of a comedy club in Chicago that Deborah had offered to fly Nina to them for the holiday; Ava smiled when she declined, holding back tears at the fucking kindness of it all but knowing that she was going to be an absolute train wreck the second she stood in front of an empty tree to decorate it. She didn’t want Deborah, or DJ, or anyone else to see that.

Alright I’ve gone way off track here BUT anyways Deb hosts this swanky ass Christmas party, champagne ensues, good vibes all around, by no means a rave, but bigger than DJ’s birthday, and the entire core squad was given an open invite (Damien has friends, who knew?). Marty may or may not be there and seeing his name on the RSVP list that Ava peeked over earlier that morning when Deb wasn’t looking might’ve convinced Ava to wear heels for the first time since her senior prom, just to take Deb’s attention off of him for one god damn minute more. 

Deb looks phenom as always, Ava’s in a vintage red crushed velvet suit that has her looking like a dyke-y mrs claus. It’s way too big on her but somehow works bc there’s no way she was gonna wear a shirt under that. It’s a bolder look than she would’ve gone for six months ago, but spending as much time as she has around Deborah she’s learned to take some risks, and learned to be okay with them.

GETTING TO THE POINT: at some point, as happens in every hacks fic with a party and *vomits* marty, Deb is talking to him, makes intent eye contact with Ava, Ava storms off, upstairs probably or to some fuckin balcony or the pool house or whatever the point BEING, Deb follows her. This isn’t one of those ‘confess your feelings’ moments tho, bc Ava is PISSED—after one crossfaded night on the road and a well timed SVU episode, Deb told Ava everything about what happened w/ marty after DJ’s party, how he belittled her (in general tbh), and Ava cannot believe that after all of that, after kicking him out from the dress rehearsal at the 2500th—that Deb is still willing to go back to him. Ava had hoped that she made more of an impact on Deborah’s esteem/pride than that. Thought that she made a breakthrough with convincing D to do this show, thought that Deb wasn’t going to let mediocre men without any understanding of the shit Deb’s been through take what they want from her without giving her the world in return anymore. 

Deborah is speechless and Ava storms off again (she gets cornered by Kiki and spends the rest of the party trying to help her re-convince Luna that Santa is in fact real after the mayor couldn’t keep her fucking mouth shut about buying presents ‘from santa’ for underprivileged kids). Ava’s busy with this and doesn’t see Deborah come back to the party a few minutes after Ava did, doesn’t see her decline Marty’s advances, doesn’t see Marty leaving in a huff before they’ve even brought out the desserts. It’s not until later when everyone’s starting to leave that Ava finds out, standing over the tray of leftovers in the kitchen when Josefina offhandedly mentions that she was proud of Deb for kicking out that sleaze bag, if only because he never shuts the front door when he leaves. 

Ava puts down the cupcake she was about to devour and goes back out to join the stragglers — a group a bit smaller than the size of the dinner party now, all scattered around the living room and entryway. She makes eye contact with Deb who’s standing above Damien, who is profusely apologizing for his two friends passed out on the couch after too much of the open bar, Deb’s eyes go wide when she sees Ava and Ava feels a flitter in her stomach as she smiles back at her and approaches. But before she can say anything Deb is dragging her by the arm through the small closet/hallway that connects this living room to the kitchen to go get some coffee or a bottle of water for the two stooges on Liberace’s butthole couch. Ava’s got enough of her bearings to stop and grab Deborah’s hand, and now they’re standing in this dimly lit closet/hallway (really, what the fuck is this rich people shit) staring at each other.

Ava’s starting to apologize for what she said earlier and say something about how she’s glad marty is gone or whatever and deborah rolls her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation before she freezes and cocks an eyebrow, looking back at ava. Ava glances up, and there’s mistletoe because of fucking course there’s mistletoe, ava’s life is a bad movie at this point and before she can brush it off with some joke, deborah makes one of her own, something along the lines of “of all the gin joints in town, you stop me to talk about my ex in this spot?” Ava is flustered but she’s learned from Deb and knows her and knows Deb is trying really hard not to keep glancing at her exposed chest and has had maybe one champagne too many, so gets all cocky and “you’re the one who pulled me into the closet, you sure this one wasn’t your manifestation?” (It’s not a closet, deb corrects her). 

Regardless, they’re standing here under this mistletoe making jokes at one another and now Ava’s made a joke about doing it for the bit, so now it’s a challenge and we know how Deborah Vance can’t say no to a challenge so mid-sentence she just yanks Ava by the hand that’s (somehow? how did she not notice?) still in hers, puts her free hand on Ava’s jaw and kisses her, once, light, barely even a kiss, but she pulls away and Ava’s eyes are wide and panicked and her hand is frozen where it lightly brushed deborah’s collarbone, and it makes Deborah panic a bit but she’s gotta keep it together so she drops Ava’s hand from hers, and pats her on the cheek that’s still under her other palm before turning and walking away into the kitchen. 

Eventually, as the coffee she’s making is brewing (right, yes, that’s what they came in here for) Ava makes her way through the door and can’t make eye contact with her, just grabs two bottles of water from the fridge, murmurs something about the boys on the couch and makes a quick exit. At this point deborah is in full internal panic mode; she thought she knew Ava better than this. she thought Ava wanted this, but now Deborah thinks she miscalculated very badly. The lump in her throat keeps growing as she brings out the cups to the two now-awake drunkards. Damien is apologizing again and telling her something about an uber on the way and something about stars and vomiting, but she isn’t paying attention to anything besides the fact that Ava is nowhere to be seen (Damien says she’d gone upstairs after bringing the waters). 

Someone calls her name and she realizes that there are still people here and as much as she wants to go find Ava immediately and apologize profusely and make sure she’s okay and that Deb hasn’t completely fucked up the one truly great thing in her life, she has to stay and ~manage the people~ and it takes her another forty five minutes of getting people out the door until it’s just her and Josefina downstairs, and she bids the woman goodnight before rushing up to the spare bedroom that she knows Ava’s taken refuge in.

She doesn’t know what she’s expecting when she opens the door but it’s certainly not Ava, now barefoot but still in the suit, with a suitcase flopped open on her bed, calmly folding and laying clothing into the open case. 

“Wow, you’re packing three days early, glad to see some of my good habits have rubbed off on you” (or something like that i dont KNOW im not a writer and deborah is too smart for me i’m sorry i literally only understand Ava). Ava looks up at her and stops her folding, wringing the t-shirt in her hands like it’s soaking wet. it’s the first anxiety tick that lets Aeborah see through the mask of calm Ava’s got up. 

“Uh, yeah, not really…I moved my flight, first thing in the morning.” 

Deborah inhales sharply, “Ava…”, and she’s ~still spiraling~ and now she thinks what she’s done is bad enough that Ava is going to leave her and she can’t just leave. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, of course I shouldn’t have done that, but it won’t happen again, take all the time you need” and whatnot, she’s just blabbering and Ava’s more and more confused so Deb just keeps talking hoping that eventually she’ll say something that works but eventually Ava interrupts her, “Wait…what?” Deb just stands there for a second before whispering one more “I’m sorry” and turning around and heading back across the hall to her own bedroom. 

That’s when Ava realizes what deborah must think, how wrong deborah is, and runs after her to correct her. she reaches Deb just as she’s crossing the threshold into her room and puts a hand on Deb’s arm to stop her (the same place on her bicep Deborah was holding Ava earlier) as she calls her name. 

“Deb, wait. I’m not leaving because of what happened in the closet.” Deborah stares at her incredulously, waits a beat. “Okay, maybe I am, but not for the reason that you think. Literally for the opposite of that. You didn’t do anything. It’s mistletoe, people kiss. I would’ve stopped you if it was a problem.” 

Ava calms a bit when she sees the relief in Deborah’s eyes at that, the way the tension in her shoulders dissipates before hiking up again, “Then, why? If it’s not a problem, what did I do to make you willing to wake up early enough for a morning flight?” 

Ava realizes now that she has to tell her. Has to tell Deborah that the reason that she panicked when Deborah kissed her was because she thought she was fucking dreaming. Has to tell her that she hasn’t licked her lips in nearly an hour because she doesn’t want to rub off the small bit of Deb’s favorite Chanel lip gloss that was transferred to Ava’s bottom lip in those brief seconds, those brief few seconds of fucking bliss that Ava’s been replaying over and over like a gif plastered to the wall of her brain. She has to tell Deborah that the reason she’s leaving is for her, because Ava’s been able to successfully avoid dealing with her growing feelings for Deborah since the woman swept in like a gift from fucking god herself and made her mother laugh at her dad’s funeral. Has to tell Deborah that now that she knows what her lips taste like, how soft her skin is, she can’t fucking breathe around her anymore, that she just needs to take some time away to get her shit together before she ruins everything. Has to tell her that she has to find some way to get over her before she becomes another person who asks something of Deborah that Deborah isn’t willing to give in return, because Ava is different than those sleaze bags and she’s not going to throw away their entire partnership over a feeling she knows (wrongly. Ava is wrong about it not being reciprocated, and a gay disaster and i love her) isn’t mutual (honestly, she thinks, fuck that therapist. she’ll kill that guy for Deborah, too).  

“It’s so not a problem that it circles back to being, like, a huge a problem, D.” And Ava tells her. In everything but those three little words, Ava tells her that she loves her. Do I know exactly what she says? No. But it’s good, trust me. It’s enough that Deborah knows that Ava is leaving in order to avoid the heartbreak of Deborah turning her down, that she’s going to go and come back later than she had originally planned but still in January fully ready to pretend this never happened and jump back into the work before they head back on tour because that's what she thinks Deborah needs from her. Deborah just stands there gaping like a fish until the moment is gone and Ava walks away with a tear in her eye, and Deborah couldn’t work up the courage to tell Ava that her most important conclusion was wrong and that Deborah would’ve given herself freely and wholly to Ava had she just asked. Regardless, she just stands there until Ava’s door shuts with a click and eventually she hears the front door lock and signaling Josefina’s exit too before turning around and trying to put herself to bed. 

She can’t sleep though, really tries for an hour or two but the only thing she can think about is Ava and that she’s leaving and yeah, she’s going to come back but it feels so much more profound than that and Deborah has to 4-7-8 breathe herself out of spiraling again, twice. Around 2 o’clock she gives up and throws on a robe and makes a pot of tea downstairs, hatching a plan before finally falling asleep on the least comfortable couch in the sitting room, the one with a perfect view of the stairs and the front door. Deborah’s a light sleeper and her admittedly simple plan goes off perfectly when she’s awoken a little past 5 am to the sound of Ava’s suitcase accidentally tumbling down the stairs when it slips out of her hands. Dawn is just starting to creep in, and it’s light enough with the lamp Deb didn’t turn off before passing out that she sees as well as hears Ava attempt to get her shit together. As she stands up from the couch the motion draws Ava’s attention to her and they make eye contact. 

Ava whispers, it feels almost wrong to speak at full volume when you could still probably see the moon outside. “Sorry, shit, I didn’t mean to wake you up, I didn’t realize you were down here”. She adjusts her bag on her shoulder and glances down at her phone quickly to break their rather intense eye contact and check the status on her uber — still 10 minutes away. Ava hates mornings. 

“I wanted to see you before you left,” Deborah smiles lightly before rounding the couch and coming towards Ava. “I didn’t get a chance to finish our conversation last night before you walked away”, she states pointedly. 

Ava shrugs, “You knew where I was”.

Deborah nods, Ava’s not wrong about that. Regardless, Deb is close enough now that she reaches for Ava’s phone-less hand and grasps it between her own.

Deborah says something along the lines of, “you made an assumption last night that was wrong. I’m not trying to change your mind and I’m not saying this to try and get you to stay, but I want you to know where I stand before you leave with this ridiculous notion that you’re just going to leave and come back and pretend that what you said to me never happened.” 

Ava’s still confused and Deborah does a piss poor job at beating around the bush until she gets fed up and just asks Deborah point blank what she’s trying to say because Pietro is going to show up in his Hyundai Sonata in four minutes and she really doesn’t have time for this. Deborah huffs, takes a deep breath and puts both of her hands on the sides of Ava’s face, exasperated, saying something along the lines of “I don’t want to ignore your feelings and I don’t want to ignore my own”, calling back to something Ava said last night to try and get this Gen Z disaster that she’s somehow falling for to understand that Deborah needs her to come back, that she can’t just leave her, and Ava does finally get it. It finally clicks that Deborah is asking her to be different for her, asking Ava to be the partner for her that Frank didn’t have the balls to be. She’s opening herself up to Ava with a vulnerability she hasn’t had in decades, a vulnerability that, really, Ava is to blame for. It doesn’t take long from this realization for Ava’s furrowed eyebrow to soften and for her to slip her phone in her pocket before grabbing both of Deborah’s wrists, pulling her arms to loop around Ava’s neck as she quickly, but softly brings their lips together. 

Ava’s Uber arrives a minute later, and interrupts them with a honk that is definitely too loud for this early in the morning. Deborah leans back slightly, resting her forehead against Ava’s as Ava runs a hand through Deborah’s short hair. Ava’s surprised when Deborah is the first to break the silence. 

“You should go,” she breathes, nuzzling her nose quickly against Ava’s before pulling out of her embrace. Ava wistfully looks back at Deborah and squeezes her hand gently before grabbing her bag and whispering, “I’ll see you soon” before slipping out the door. The latch has barely clicked before Deb’s cell in the pocket of her robe vibrates. She’s got one new message from Little Shit and it reads,

How do you feel about New Years in Waltham? We could go two-for-two on “socially acceptable ways to kiss your writing partner in semi-public spaces.”

Deborah laughs. Another message comes in. 

That is, if you can make it ‘till midnight, dinosaur. 

Deborah laughs harder. 

#hacks brainrot #apologies but im not going back to fix the capitalization but i promise its worth it a little bit #ava x deborah #avadeb #my writing #i just have a lot of feelings about these two caring for each other so much that they wont let themselves be happy #3k is way too much for a tumblr ficlet thats like 80% paragraph chunks #but its not going to be edited or finished so here it stays #doing a real good job of promoting my work lmao #oc

[plaidbooks]

Can I request a Barba x reader based off Barba returning to SVU? He’s working as the defense in the reader’s coming trial with Sonny representing her. The reader and Barba dates before he left the show. He needed to move on and the reader wasn’t ready to leave New York. Barba genuinely believes the defendant is innocent and is still in love with the reader, but can’t see his friend go to jail for something he doesn’t believe he did. Angst or fluff; however you want to end it! Thank you!!

Time Heals

A/N: Yesssss. I love this; this is one of my favorite things I’ve written in a while tbh. I hope you enjoy, anon <3

Disclaimer: This is written before the episode Rafael comes back, so sorry for any inconsistencies for when that happens!

Tags: rape mention (reader was date-raped), angst with a happy ending

Words: 2102

Taglist: @the-baby-bookworm @beccabarba @thatesqcrush @itsjustmyfantasyroom @stardust-fray @permanentlydizzy @glowingmess @infiniteoddball @ben-c-group-therapy @averyhotchner @mrsrafaelbarba @dianilaws

(gif by @sseureki)

You rubbed your left hand nervously, a tick you picked up three years ago, waiting for Sonny to come back from the coffee machine with a cup for you both. You tried to stop your hands from shaking, your knee bouncing and your breathing picking up as you remembered the night that had changed your life, the reason you were in Sonny’s office in the first place. You had been attacked nearly two months ago; a date that had ended in you being drugged and waking up without your clothes on, sore everywhere. It still made you feel sick to your stomach, even though you had been a detective with SVU, dealt with victims of just this kind of thing for years. Olivia had sent you to a great therapist, and the nightmares had stopped soon enough.

Sonny finally came back, placing the coffee on the table in front of you, and you mumbled a thanks. “How are ya feeling, [Y/N]?” he asked softly, placing a hand over yours. Sonny was your partner once upon a time, and you were still close.

“I wish people would stop asking me that,” you replied, smiling. He still looked concerned, so you said, “I’m fine, Son. Just…a little shaky, still. I just want this over and done with.” You sighed heavily, running a hand over your face.

“I know, doll. Soon, I promise. We got Adams on tape leaving the bar with you, taking you back to your hotel room, leaving the hotel an hour later, and his confession. We got this scumbag,” he said with conviction.

You nodded, taking a sip of your coffee. Kendrick Adams was the man you had gone on a date with…and the man who date raped you. He seemed pretty upset about it, but you had no sympathy for the man who had forced himself inside you. The one silver lining is that he had used a condom; you had no STDs, and you weren’t pregnant.

“Has he got a new defense attorney yet?” you asked, idly stirring your coffee with the small, wooden stirring stick. His old attorney was court appointed, and was not doing a good job representing him. Fin, as much as you loved the man, wasn’t so sure Adams was guilty. He thought that during the confession, Adams seemed confused, upset, and he recanted three days later.

“Call it a gut feeling,” Fin had said, earning a glare from you and Sonny. Both of you were ex-Detectives, and you both knew the accuracy of gut feelings, and while you could admit that Fin was usually correct, you were positive that he wasn’t. Not this time.

“Yeah, I’m meetin’ them today. I’m not sure who it is, though,” Sonny replied, shuffling some papers around. “In 30 minutes, actually.”

“Mind if I hang around? I’d like to know who’s trying to defend that asshole.”

Sonny gave you a long stare. “Technically, you’re not allowed to. But, if you were to, I don’t know, leave 5 minutes beforehand, bump into them….”

You gave him a smirk. “Thanks Sonny.”

 ***********************

You didn’t even get a chance to make your early exit before there was a knock on the door, presumably the defense attorney. You glanced at Sonny, who rose his eyebrow before saying, “uh, come in.” Your breath caught when in walked Rafael Barba. Time seemed to stop as his bright green eyes slid to yours, locking there in surprise. He looked…different. Not just the salt and pepper beard. But he looked happier than the last time you had seen him, more…alive. He still had a deep sadness in his eyes, but the last time you had seen him, he was defeated, a shell. Now, he at least looked like a person again. He resembled the man you had fallen in love with all those years ago. You unconsciously rubbed at your left hand, and his eyes flickered down to the motion. Just like that, the spell was broken, and you sucked in a deep breath.

“Please tell me this is a joke,” you muttered, suddenly remembering why he was there, that this wasn’t random chance. Rafael simply gaped at you. “Are you really a defense attorney? For fucking Adams?”

“Nice to see you, too, Detective,” Rafael said, eyes narrowing. “Yes, I am defending Adams. And you’ll find that my client is innocent.”

“Innocent my ass,” you sneered, standing angrily.

“[Y/N], let’s not—” Sonny started, but Rafael cut him off.

“He is innocent, and I’ll prove it in court. That is, unless ADA Carisi is willing to talk deals.”

You stomped up to Rafael, blood boiling, getting right up into his face. “Fuck deals, Raf. I want that bastard dead. Rotting in a fucking cell.”

“What do you have against this guy, huh? Call you a bad name in the interrogation room?”

Sonny spoke up again. “Barba, don’t—”

“Cause he fucking raped me!” you screamed in Rafael’s face. You watched his face go through every human emotion you could think of in the span of a few seconds, ending with a profound remorse.

“[Y/N]…I’m—” he started, but you shoved past him, slamming the door to Sonny’s office as you left, tears falling freely down your face. This was the first time you had seen Rafael in three years, and this was not how you thought this reunion would go. Your heart still strained when you thought about his bright green eyes. And that beard certainly made him more attractive. But he was defending your rapist, and you didn’t know how you could deal with that. You rubbed your left hand nervously, making your way outside, trying to find some air.

 **********************

Sonny informed you that him and Rafael were unable to come to a deal, and that Rafael was going for a plea of not guilty. You wanted to hate him, to be pissed and to just…hate him. But you couldn’t. You had spent too many years loving Rafael, and a small part of your brain kept thinking that if Rafael thought Adams was innocent…well, maybe something was there. But how could you be so wrong? How could all of SVU be so wrong?

“We’ve been wrong before,” Fin mentioned, shrugging nonchalantly, as if this wasn’t your life. It made you want to scream.

You tried to move on with your life, enjoy your retirement, stopping by One Hogan Place to talk with Sonny whenever he asked you to. He made sure to schedule you on separate days from Rafael, so that you wouldn’t run into him, and you were forever grateful. But just knowing he was in the same city as you made the hairs on your arms stand up on end, and you weren’t quite sure if that was a good thing or not.

Finally, you couldn’t avoid him anymore, not when he showed up at your front door, a bouquet of multicolored roses in his hand.

“Can we talk?” Rafael asked, hopeful.

“Should I have counsel?” you replied, crossing your arms over your chest.

He shuffled awkwardly on his feet. “[Y/N]…please…not about the trial. About us.”

Sighing, you moved out of the way, letting Rafael enter your apartment. It felt small with him there, much smaller than the place you both shared a lifetime ago. He glanced around appreciatively, before turning back to you, offering you the flowers. You took them, closing your eyes at the beautiful scent. He followed you to the kitchen while you found a vase, filling it with water.

“You still look beautiful, cariño,” Rafael murmured as you placed the flowers in the vase. You felt your eyes fill with tears, but you blinked them away rapidly, not wanting him to see.

“Why are you here, Raf?” you asked, trying to keep your voice from wavering. Looking at the sadness in his eyes, it was a struggle to not cross the distance between you, to not hug him until he was happy again.

“I—I wanted to see you. I told you when I left that I still loved you; that hasn’t changed.”

You swallowed, rubbing at your left hand. You looked down at your hand, the faint tan line on your ring finger still visible, even after these three long years.

“Then why are you defending Adams?” you breathed.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Adams is…an old friend.” Rafael’s eyes locked to yours. “I know him, [Y/N]. He didn’t do this. And I refuse to see him go to jail for it. The evidence is circumstantial, at best, and you know it. You’re a detective—”

“I’m not a detective, Raf. Not anymore. I…I haven’t been a detective since you left. I just, I couldn’t do it anymore…” you trailed off.

“Oh,” was all he said. The silence dragged on, both of you unsure of what to say. He confessed that he still loved you, and he did honestly believe that Adams was innocent. Maybe he was right; the evidence was circumstantial…besides the confession, which Adams recanted shortly after. Liv told you he was claiming that you had seemed drunk and that he had helped you to your room. That he had held your hair while you vomited, then helped you to bed, staying with you until you fell asleep, hence why he was there for an hour before leaving. But if that were the case, then who assaulted you? Rollins and Kat already interviewed the hotel staff, the people on the same floor as you, and the security in the hotel, with no new leads.

“Where does this leave us?” Rafael finally asked, eyes searching yours. “Do you still…do I still have a chance with you?”

You swallowed under his intense stare. “I—I don’t know, Raf. I still…I still have feelings for you. I know that we agreed to take a break while you…figured things out. But that was three years ago, Rafael! I just—I don’t…and with all this shit with Adams—”

“I understand. Really, I do. I’m…I’m willing to wait for you. Hell, I’m willing to start all over again, relearn everything about you. Please, just give me a chance,” Rafael pleaded, taking a step closer to you.

“How do I know you won’t leave again?” you murmured, stopping him in his tracks.

His face fell, his hands clenching at his sides. “I’m here to stay; I promise.”

“As a defense attorney?”

Rafael winced. “Not all defense attorneys are bad, [Y/N]. Besides, I’ll only do it if I’m convinced my client is innocent. I’m not in it for the money; I’m in it to keep innocent people out of jail. I’m—it’s still me, cariño…I haven’t changed that much in the past three years. I’ve just…I’ve found myself again.”

You looked at him, really looked. Rafael’s hair had grey streaks, a speckled beard hiding that sarcastic mouth you loved. His bright, seafoam eyes were still alert, intelligent, locked to yours in question. He had more lines on his face, but the dark circles that used to be under his eyes had lessened. Even the way he held himself, the way he spoke, seemed lighter, less stressed. You suddenly wished, for the millionth time since he had left, that you had gone with him. But, at the time, you couldn’t force yourself to leave New York. Even if it meant losing Rafael for a little. Neither of you knew it would be this long. This date with Adams was actually your first date since Rafael left.

“I don’t think it would be good for Sonny’s case if I dated the defendant’s defense attorney,” you said, a soft smile pulling at your lips.

Rafael grinned, coming to you and pulling you into a tight hug, his cologne comforting, even after all this time. He placed a kiss on your cheek, his beard tickling your skin.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you,” Rafael murmured into your ear.

“I am, too,” you whispered back, fresh tears in your eyes. “But, if not Adams…who?”

He leaned back to look at you. “I don’t know…I wish I did, but Kendrick doesn’t know, either. He really did just take care of you before leaving you in your room. My best guess is one of the hotel staff…maybe the bartender? They have a separate elevator; I’ll have Liv check the tapes.”

You nodded. “And us?”

“I agree that we should wait until this trial is over. Then…dinner?”

“Dinner sounds lovely,” you replied, giving Rafael another hug. It would take time to get back to where you were before. But maybe this time, the two of you would get married.

#rafael barba x reader #law and order svu #law and order svu fanfic #fanfic #my writing #I'm not tagging this as spoilers #because this is all speculation #Anonymous

[mileycfan4eva33]

Fandom: One Chicago and SVU

Title: Silence Equals Death

Chapter 1: Dear Diary

P O V: Sylvie Brett

A/N: Boy, I am getting sick of these things. But, I'm too paranoid not to write it down. Here are the usual disclaimers, I do not own any of the One Chicago/Or SVU characters that glory goes to Dick Wolf and NBC. Trigger warning for a sexual assault/ rape towards the end. Whose Point of View would you like chapter two to be in; Kelly's, Matt's, Stella's or Kat's, Or Hailey's? This fic will be told through multiple views and be a joint between PD/ Fire and SVU. Reviews are fires to my soul; please leave one. Thank You.

Gaffney Chicago Medical Center

Dear Diary, today is January 31, 2021; it is 12:56 am; I am in Chicago Med. I have to write this all down before it becomes a twisted blur of fragmented memories. Tonight was a nightmare, and a dream all rolled into one. Sitting here now on this cold steel trap of a bed, I am in disbelief that any of this happened, but it did, and it shouldn't have; if I had been smarter, more robust, less drunk, none of this would have happened. I only have myself to blame. It all started so innocently.

Now everything is such a mess; how did this happen? I am not a lovesick teenager, and I shouldn't be making these types of mistakes. If only I could turn back time and not get so damn drunk, but I can't, so here it is, the sick truth of what will surely end my career. The authentic story as only someone who lived it can ever tell it. No Disney fair-tales here, just honest raw truths, every word you will read is what happened to the best of my recollection someday I will gone, and I want my truth out there, so no woman ever has to bear witness to the pain of being raped, and thrown away as if she is the villain.

I am not the villain, but can I say I was a victim?

Sofitel Chicago Magnificent Mile

20 E Chestnut St, Chicago, IL 60611

January 30th 2021 9:35 pm

"My money's on you finding exactly what you want."

Matthew Casey's rugged, sexy voice purrs in my ear. I can't remember when he said that or why the hell he said it; my mind is toasted with the large amount of alcohol I have poured into my body. I can remember what he said after, though, because it's what I deserve. Matt had no idea back then that all I wanted was for him to say he loved me, to tell me I am beautiful. To reassure me that these butterflies I have been feeling forever are not just in my stomach, not only carrying my heart away, but they are in his as well.

He didn't, not then and never since it's been at least two years since he said those words to me. Two years since I felt a brief flutter inside my heart telling me that my feelings for Matt had changed from friendship to something a little less platonic. "God, there ain't enough alcohol inside this damn hotel to take my memory away from this pain."

"I hear ya' sis." Stella Kidd motions for the bartender to bring us two more rounds as she settles against the counter inches away from me, her elbows propping her up. "You look flushed, Brett. Are you feeling okay?" Stella's gorgeous brown eyes are wide in concern as she glances at my body my cheeks are burning, I can feel the heat descending from my head to my face making me sway in dizziness a little as I try to remember how to breathe. Funny how a normal body function can sometimes take so much damn effort it hurts. I need a minute to do nothing, not to feel, think, talk, react or breathe, but of course, I can't have that minute, not with Stella on the case. "Yeah, girl, why wouldn't I be okay?" I fake a laugh, which I don't think fools her even for a second.

"Uh, I am so over these damn things Sylvie, I thought with COVID we would escape this bullshit this year." Stella slides down my shot glass to me as she tilts her head back and chugs her shot of whiskey with one gulp. "Yeah, I would have thought so too; nothing I hate more than a bunch of grown-ass corporate men in suits pretending to give two craps about us little people."

"Amen, sister." Stella clicks her empty glass against mine before I tilt my head back and swallow the rush of warmth that leaves me dizzier; maybe I shouldn't have skipped two meals today before coming here after having no food yesterday. "So what's up with you and Kelly?" I turn my head to my right to catch Stella's eyes, glued to her boyfriend Kelly Severide, chatting with District Chief Steve Walker. Fire Commissioner Carl Grissom and the Deputy Director of Finance Gail McLeod. "Kelly's looking dapper Stella; I think someone is going to get lucky tonight." I hold my hand up to signal the bartender for another round; he fills our glasses quickly, much to my pleasure. "Yeah, from your lips to Kelly's ears, please, he's barely touched me ever since he found out that some people may take offense to me being promoted because we're together."

"Aw, man, I'm sorry he's probably just worried Stella, he loves you Kelly doesn't want to be the reason you fail because we all know you deserve this promotion. At least he cares enough to say the words out loud." I swallow the shot feeling my eyes burn badly as tears filter out. "Aw man, this shit is strong. Phew!" shaking my body out, I signal for another, hearing Stella laugh. "Still regretting telling Matt how you feel?"

I pause for a moment before I answer; how should I respond? Do I regret telling Matt how I feel? "Hey bitches." I'm saved from answering as Leslie Shay comes stumbling over, wrapping her arm over my shoulder and squeezing between us, holding her phone up with her left hand. "Smile bitches." Stella and I hold our full shot glasses up. I love this bartender; he is on his game tonight; we smile and lean into Shay, who is reeking of Tequila. "Give me some love, sugar babes." Yeah, she is drunk, sugar babes? Where did she even come up with that one? We smile brighter even though neither one of us feel happy at this moment; her eyes are on Kelly, who isn't even looking our way, and I lock my eyes on Matt, who is dancing with some woman I have never seen in my life.

The woman is drop-dead gorgeous though five-foot-nine inches is my guess she appears to be Lebanese or Latino with long caramel hair flowing down her back past her waist the silk wrap dress she is wearing clings to every unique curve on her flawless body. Matt's arms are wrapped around her waist he's dancing close with her, my heart races so fast I feel the room sway. "Love is a journey, Sylvie, don't give up yet. I know this moment sucks. I get it hurts worse than anything you've ever experienced. When it gets too heavy, when it feels like the weight of this pain is crushing you, remember the pleasant moments, the breathless enthusiastic moments. Matt's alive, and so are you as long as you live, there is hope."

I wish I could smile at Shay as a thank you, but I can't muster the strength even to attempt a smile. Seeing Matt dancing with this woman is killing me slowly; who is she? Where did they meet? Why did he choose tonight to bring her on a date? Knowing I would be at this stupid First Responders training shit, is he trying to make me jealous?

"Your Casey is out there, Sylvie, but you don't have to change who you are to find him." Gabby's words from five years ago come back to me; she did not know just how right she was when she said them to me; hell, I didn't even know back then that the man who I would want to be by my side forever, the man who I would spend countless sleepless nights crying my heart out over was her Casey. Talk to God, Sylvie, get your head straight; this is crazy pinning over a man you pushed away yourself.

Sometimes I feel so cold the way steel must feel left outside to fend for itself against the weather elements. Some days I feel broken, I forget what living is for, I forget how to breathe or even why I should keep living. Today is one of those nights; seeing Matt with this woman is breaking me; I can feel every string of my heart aching, pulling, and twisting as it stretches my entire inside into a giant trampoline my stomach turns and painfully contracts reminding me.

I am alive

Every ache and every pain reminds me I am breathing, but why I can't seem to grasp it. I'm not suicidal, but I'm finding it hard to find a reason to keep my head up when my brain is screaming at me to run away, to bury myself in Tequila and cuddle under the covers till all of the daylight fades away into a blur of a drunken haze.

"Another shot, bartender."

"Name is Josh." I turn away, not caring, seeing only Matt as he lifts his finger to wipe out a stray hair off the woman's face. I can barely breathe every effort is a raspy painful burn that leaves me gasping, trying to fight off this fresh wave of tears. "Close your eyes, Sylvie, and fucking hold it together for a few more minutes; for God's sake, don't let the man see you cry."

Shay slips her arm around my back under my armpits, quickly leading me out of the ballroom where the music is playing louder than what you would expect at a training seminar. "Remember what I said to picture the pleasant moments." "I can't, Shay..I... can't breathe." "Shh, hey, it's okay. I got you." Shay gently settles me onto a couch inside the ladies' room, handing me a cold bottle of water, which she's already taken a few sips out. Still, she lifts to my lips before I can stop her; the cool liquid splashes over my chin, dripping down what gets inside my mouth is refreshing and helps cool me off, allowing me to breathe easier. Leaning back against the wall, I close my eyes, trying to regain some gravity; my knees are trembling, leaving me feeling as if I will collapse if I try to stand.

I want to kick myself for falling so hard for a damn guy who I knew would never love me back. I knew I shouldn't have pushed Matt, yet I ignored every one of my instincts and went full sped ahead. God, I will remember that day forever- I had been avoiding Matt for days ever since the accident. Mainly because I had my suspicions that Matt hadn't just been lucky in getting to me so quickly, part of me hoped and yes, as vain as it sounds prayed that Matt had raced to me, that the thought of me being in peril had somehow overcome Matt's heart running his blood in fear.

I told myself I was crazy even to think such stupid school girl thoughts. Matt is our captain; it made perfect sense he would be worried about Gianna and me; we're part of his team, nothing more. The job of the captain is to make sure all of his team comes home safe at the end of every shift; Matt's lost too many people in his days, he fears losing anyone, so of course, the entire team raced to us when they heard 61 was in an accident.

I had myself convinced Matt came to me out of loyalty out of duty, not because he was in love with me, I am stupid for even thinking for one mil-la-second that Matthew Casey would ever love me as anything except a friend. I was doing so damn well, too, until Blake Gallo blew up all my rationalization with his account of how Matt jumped out of a moving truck to get to me. Me, not myself and Gianna but only me. Brett, I have to get to Brett, that's what Gallo recalled Matt saying.

Shattered

Read more and please leave a review at https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13807832/1/Silence-Equals-Death

#chicagofire #fanfiction #onechicago #chicagopd #karakillmer #svu #sylviebrett #brettsey #mattcasey #metoo #rape #leslieshay #kidnapping #katazartamin #amandarolins

[blue-eyes-and-auburn-hairr]

Second Chances Chp. 2

Disclaimer: Okay, I got more notes than I thought I ever would, so while the world is quarantined...I wrote another part. 

Warning: Mention of death

Summary: Can you imagine being widowed at such a young age to a man you thought you’d have forever with? On the anniversary of his death, on top of a mountain, you and Chris begin your new journey together.

I could feel some of the weight on my shoulders disappear as those words left my mouth. I stopped believing in fate and destiny a long time ago, but it felt as though everything was clicking into place. The reassurance from a stranger and his pup seemed to give me the peace of mind that I needed. I am not naive though and have been taught to question everything, but at that moment I truly wanted to believe that this was real. 

I slowly turned forward, with a blank slate in front of me, to a man in a Red Sox ball cap and a pair of glasses. “I would apologize for having it, but honestly I think society should be apologizing to all females that believe they need to carry something to protect themselves when alone.” I honestly don’t know why I said that maybe the SVU marathon that was on last night or simply the need to start having this conversation in a time when many would prefer to ignore the issue. 

But now I am probably coming off as a hostile jerk talking to herself on a mountain.

“Ma’am once again all good, no need to apologize, I have two sisters I totally understand. I am just kind of grateful you didn’t have pepper spray in the bag… that shit burns.” He laughs, for the second time trying to ease the conversation, I don’t even think he knows he is doing it. 

I laugh myself with a smile on my face as I squat down reaching into my backpack. “Well Dodger, I don’t think your pops is a fan of you having some berries, but I do think I have something in here for you.” I find that bag of peanut butter Milk-Bone I usually keep for Kodi when we go for our walks. 

I stay squatted and make eyes at Dodger and his human to see if it is okay to give him a treat. He nods and Dodgers waddles over to me and graciously accepts the treats while laying down for a nice belly rub. 

“My pup is in love with all things peanut butter, so I always keep a bag on me.” I laugh again as the man makes his way over to Dodger and me. 

“Well, Dodger is never one to turn down a sweet treat or making a new friend laugh.”

At this point, I stand up and wipe my hands off on my leggings, “I am Thea by the way, it’s nice to meet you and your sweet boy.” 

He shakes my hand and introduces himself as Chris, which I of course already sort of knew, but I wanted to keep this organic and real. 

“You guys are more than welcome to join me, the sun should be setting…” I look down at my watch “in about a half hour and you do not want to miss all the colors, especially when you have the best seat in the house.”

I sit down again and continue to scratch Dodger’s head and offer him another treat for being so friendly. 

“Now how can we pass up an offer like that? What do you say boy do you want to watch a sunset?” I think Dodger’s kisses all over Chris’s face answer that question.

We drift into a comfortable silence, listening to the nature around us and enjoying each other’s company. I have never been one to be so forward with a guy before, I am very much shy, quiet girl. Typically that’s because I become overly anxious, which is apparent by my Irish skin betraying me making my face flush crimson. I know most people find it cute and sweet but as a twenty-something year old, you do not want to be referred to as cute. or. sweet. 

Once again not reading into anything here, maybe I am simply relaxed because I have truly started to let go and move forward with my life...or its the baseball cap on my head that is shielding part of my face. 

“So how did you stumble upon the best seat in the house anyway?” Chris asked being the first to break the silence. 

“I went to college around here and found this trail in my junior year. I try and make my way back here every year, so many memories I’d like to hold on to.” I cautiously say not trying to overshare, but still being true and honest. 

“Did you go to West Point?” He pointed to my cap and to the school you can see just past Constitution Island in the distance.  

“Oh no, I don’t think I could have survived that place. I don’t think I would have done well at a military academy.” I smiled at him but my chest tightened ever so slightly. “I went to school about 15 miles north,” I said pointing over my shoulder. 

“I am doing a presentation, I think that’s what they are calling it, on campus tomorrow morning” I twirl the claddagh ring that hangs from a chain on my neck. We both sit there silently for a few minutes, there are so many questions I want to ask him and I can tell he feels the same way. He keeps opening his mouth to say something and quickly closing it. I can feel my Jamie laughing at me like, “You are sitting in our spot, today of all days, with Chris Evans and you’re just not going to talk about me? That’s just rude beautiful.” He would laugh calling me a dork, bump my shoulder and tell me to live in the moment and to just breathe.  

“I’m sure the cadets will be extremely excited to see you! I can only imagine the guy on gate duty seeing you pull up tomorrow, you’ll definitely make his day. My husband said that was the worst gig, especially over the weekend.”  

“Your husband graduated from there?” He says while turning his head to look at the sky slowly change color. 

“Mhmmm, almost seven years ago. Crazy how fast time flies when you aren’t sleep deprived and writing papers” I giggly thinking back to all those late nights while watching the sun slowly creep towards the horizon. 

“Well please thank him for his service and thank you as well” he finally says after a few minutes taking off his glasses and truly looking at me.

“Thank you for your support” I smile at him and quickly look away to watch the sun officially set, another day done. 

I stand up slowly and look through my backpack. “Chris, can you do me a favor?” I ask trying to keep my voice calm and swallow the dryness in my throat.  

I pass him my phone, “Can you take a video of this for me?”

He seems confused but stands as well and takes the phone from my hand. He sees the look on my face and responds with a look of concern. I give him a broken smile and ask him to press play.  I pull out the lantern that my mom bought for me and then with shaking hands I take out a lighter and ignite the lantern. I hold it in my hands and quietly whisper the words that were so beautifully written on it. Letting go it slowly drifts into the sky taking with it another year of memories.

From New York with Love,  Three Years of Missing You, Forever to Go

#chris evans #chris evans x original female character #chris evans x y/n #chris evans x ofc #chris evans x reader #steve rogers #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x oc #steve rogers x y/n #captain america #captain america x you #captain america x female reader #captain america x ofc #marvel #ofc #avengers #reader #cevans

[skylarmoon71]

Rafael Barba x Reader Imagine

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but my love for writing fanfiction. All right go to their owners. 

You were the youngest and the last to join the SVU squad. That meant the constant hazing from your coworkers never ended. You loved them, but sometimes the pranks were just a little annoying. Carisi always got a laugh when you would open your desk and yell because of the plastic insect or animal you found. You would just chug the item, staring him down hard as you went about your day. 

The Special Victims Unit was a tough place to be. With all the darkness you saw on a daily, you wondered sometimes if you were even making a difference. There wasn’t much you light in your line of work. 

The one thing that you always looked forward to however was…

“What do you have for me this time.” Speak of the devil. 

Barba came marching in with his tailored suit and briefcase. The guy always looked so confident and put together. Olivia walked into his office briefing him on the most recent case, and you watched through the blinds as they talked. 

You envied their relationship. They both seem to know how to communicate without even saying words sometimes. You talked to Barba too, but you’d usually end up tongue tied when he looked at you with those beautiful green eyes. You were hopeless. With a crush on the lawyer in your precinct, a district attorney no less. When Olivia exited she started pairing you up and you were thankful for the distraction. 

“(Y/N), you and Nick go check out the apartment. Maybe he left some DNA.” 

“Yes boss, on it.” You replied. Olivia smiled at you like a proud mother and Nick just laughed. 

“We’ll get on it.” he said tugging you along. 

~~

On your way to the apartment Nick glanced your way. “Hey, you are a lot more quiet today. Something up?” There it was, that old big brother thing he always did with you. Being the youngest, you had a feeling they all saw you as a little sister they needed to protect. 

You didn’t really mind, it made you happy they cared about you. But somewhere at the back of your mind you felt like they didn’t show the same amount of respect. It was true you were meek and shy sometimes. But when it came to doing your job, you always got it done. 

When you pulled up to the apartment you and Nick didn’t waste anytime scooping through the items. You’d already been given a warrant. The suspect stood in the doorway as Nick rummaged through his room. He looked so sure the both of you wouldn’t find anything connecting him to the victim he assaulted. You watched him keenly. Every once in a while his eyes would move to a painting on the wall. You caught the action, and when his eyes landed on you, you noticed a certain level of panic now prominent. 

“Nick,” the dark haired officer turned to you in question. You nudge your head to the painting and he caught on. 

“Wait a second you can’t-” as soon as he started to walk closer the suspect tried to stop him. You reached over going for your gun. “Stay back sir.” it wasn’t a request, he could tell by the tone of your voice. He stepped back and you kept an eye on him as Nick moved the painting. 

There was what looked like a hard drive taped to the back of it. 

“Well, what do we have here. Seems like you’ve been holding out on us. I wonder what we’ll find on this.” You smiled, as you and Nick moved to escort the man to the station.

As Nick walked past you he gave you a small pat on the shoulder. 

“Good job.” you grinned, following him out. 

On your way to the precinct he insisted that he would cooperate just so he wouldn’t have to be taken away in cuffs. Nick obliged. He'll be arrested soon enough. 

Upon arrival the three of you walked in. What you didn’t anticipate however was the suspect’s plan. He grabbed your gun from your holster, gripping you from behind and he held you in a choke hold, pointing the gun to your head. 

You struggled and every officer present drew their weapons. Barba who was in the other room even walked out, witnessing the scene. 

“Let her go!!” Carisi demanded. Nick, Amanda, Olivia, Fin. They all had their guns pointed. You tried not to move, deciding your best bet wasn’t to agitate him. He grinned, sniffing your neck and you grimaced. 

“I think I’ll keep her. “ he taunted.

“Listen, you're surrounded and outnumbered. You’re already going down for the three women you assaulted. You really wanna do time for killing a cop too.” Nick advised.

“I hear cop killers are like kings in prison.” he deflected. 

“Not if we shoot you right here.” Fin stated. “Let her go.”

You gritted your teeth when he pressed the gun harder to your temple. This wasn’t good. He didn’t seem like he’d comply. You glanced at him from the side. From the look in his eyes you could tell. He wasn’t planning to get out of there alive. You needed to do something quick. 

“Coward.” you rasped out. He loosened his grip slightly to hear you clearer. You could see a deviant smirk on his lips. “What?” he asked. Everything about his tone suggested that he heard you, he just wanted you to repeat yourself. 

“You’re a coward. “ you said more firmly. You just need to get him to lower his guard. Just for a second so you could disarm him. He started laughing loudly, flicking his gun around. As soon as it was away from your head, you bent your head low before pushing back. The back of your head hit him hard in his face and the gun slipped from his fingers. His hold faltered and you dropped low, kicking his feet right from under him. He fell backwards, head hitting the ground with so much force that he knocked himself out. 

An officer closest to him grabbed your gun from his reach and Nick rushed forward cuffing him roughly. 

“Get an ambulance in here.” Fin instructed. They jumbled around you, badgering you with questions.

“I’m fine, I'm fine.”you said rubbing your head. It was throbbing a little, but you would take the ache over a bullet wound any day. 

“Remind me not to ever get on your bad side.” Carisi said jokily. 

Barba’s eyes scanned you and suddenly you felt a bit exposed. 

“That was some move (Y/N). I’m impressed. “ you blushed looking down.

“T-Thank you sir.” he smiled and Nick patted you on the back, almost making you stumble over. 

“There’s the shy kid we know and love.” he said ruffling your hair. You gave a cute frown. 

“Even when I kick ass you discredit me.” you whined childishly. They all just started laughing. 

“That’s our job (Y/N).” Amanda added. 

~~

The day winded down and everyone was heading home. When the incident occurred, Olivia forced you to get your head checked. You did, rushing back to the precinct as soon as you were done to do any pre-existing paperwork. You were still at your desk when she was packing to leave. 

(Y/N), you should be home resting, you can do those later.” you shook your head. 

“I-I.. I don’t want to go home just yet.” Olivia caught the slight tremble in your hands. 

You lived on your own, chances are if you left now you’d just be alone with your thoughts. As brief as the situation was, it left a little terror in you. You could still partially feel the gun pressed to your head. You scratched your head trying to get rid of the feeling. Olivia scribbled something down on a paper, handing you it. 

“It may seem like nothing, but sometimes talking about it helps.” you took the paper gratefully. “Thank you boss.” She smiled, rubbing your shoulder affectionately before walking off. “Don’t stay too late.” you nodded watching her make her way out. 

You rubbed at your eyes standing up. “I could use some coffee.” Making your way to the small kitchen you yawned a couple times. You reached for a cup, filling it up with the dark liquid. When it was filled you took it, moving back to your desk. You sat down placing the cup down. You got back to it, signing some and placing them in a neat pile.  

When you got to one document you realized you needed the district attorney’s signature. You cursed, assuming he’d left already. When you raised your head you noticed he was still there. You just watched him for a few seconds. 

He was on the phone with someone. At this point he’d already taken his jacket off. His suspenders in plain view. You always thought that type of clothing was so dorky, yet he wore it so well. 

“Damn...I’m going to have to go in there. “ you looked down, wondering if you could maybe just skip this particular one and move onto others. To your dread, the ten papers following that one needed his signature. 

“Great.” you waited for him to get off the phone. You were hoping he would take long so you could just give yourself an excuse not to go in. Of course faith would not have it so. In a few short minutes he was back in his chair, combing through papers of his own. 

You worked up every bit of courage you could, taking the sheets of paper with you. You tried to walk as slow as possible. The closer you got the sweater your palms felt. When you were standing by the door you knocked. 

“Come in.” he answered politely. When you did his gaze lifted momentarily. When he noticed you his smile widened. “Well if it isn’t black widow.” your cheeks flushed and you closed the door behind you. He offered to take a seat but you declined. 

“I just came to get these signed off.” you informed. You held them out and he stood, taking them from your hands. Your fingers brushed and you swore your heart gave a level thump at the sensation. He assessed them, putting his signature where needed. 

“I would think after the day you had you’d be dying to go home.” unconsciously, you moved around the chair, sitting. 

“There isn’t anyone waiting for me so I don’t really see the rush.” you spoke absentmindedly. He looked you over and you mentally slapped yourself, wondering why you even told him of all people such a thing. He just gave an understanding smile. 

“I can relate. “ was his reply. You were pleasantly shocked. “You’re single!” you exclaimed. The way you said it almost made it seem like an impossible notion. Barba stopped writing, looking at you with a playful smirk. 

“Is that so hard to believe?” you shook your head. 

“S-Sorry, it’s just you’re, well you. I can’t see how you could be single.” Barba couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him. “Well thank you. I guess not all women are attracted to a snarky district attorney. “ 

Your eyes wandered over him. “I can’t see how, you’re amazing.” you whispered. It was said so softly, almost as if it wasn’t supposed to be spoken aloud. Green eyes watched thoughtfully at the awe in your eyes as you spoke. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t attracted to you. 

You were young, shy, but forward when the moment called for it. And as he witnessed earlier, you didn’t need anyone to protect you. You could handle yourself. Not to mention your undeniable beauty. If anyone was shocked it was him. How had no one snatched you up already. 

After a moment of just zoning out, you finally seem to register what you said. You’d just been staring at him dreamily for a minute straight. You scrambled to your feet.

“I-I’m so sorry that was very inappropriate! I-It’ll never happen again sir I promise it was just..” Barba listened patiently as you continued to babble on. He stood, walking around the desk. When he stopped, he was right in front of you. Your words trailed off at the way his eyes studied you. 

“Sir..” It was cute how you insisted on addressing him so formally. Olivia told him you did the same with her. 

You took a deep breath. “I think I should just come out and say it since I already made a fool of myself. I have a thing for you sir.” you huffed out in one breath. He almost didn’t catch it. He did however see the way your cheeks tinged with red. The sheer innocence radiating off of you made him smile. You were acting like a schoolgirl with a crush. Barba stepped closer into your space and your eyes glued to his. 

“Well, since we’re making confessions. I have to say I’ve taken an interest in you as well.” the sincerity behind his words felt surreal. You reached over pinching your arm to ensure you hadn’t fallen asleep at the desk and conjured this all up in your altered state. He noticed, laughing. You gave a little laugh as well. 

“Just checking.”

“I’d love to take you on a date (Y/N).” Music  to your ears. You always dreamed of him saying those words. Maybe more times than you’d ever admit to him. 

“I would really like that sir.” 

“You know you don’t have to keep addressing me that way. Just Barba is fine. Or Rafeal if you prefer.” He really was a charmer. Of course you wanted to say his name, yet it felt so unprofessional. But he gave permission, so it was okay, right? Your eyes trailed to his lips. It felt as though they were calling you. When he mimicked your action you inhaled. 

“Rafael..” you mumbled out. He leaned in a little closer, handing going around your waist. His other hand reached up, thumb parting your lips. At this point you could practically hear your heart pounding in your ears. His lips brushed yours, in a slow fashion. As if asking for permission. You leaned in, mouth slanting over his. His hands kept you pressed to his body as you responded. He moved in sync, lips dominating yours. You didn’t even realize he was walking you back against a wall. When your back made contact with the hard surface a moan slipped out. 

“Mmmm..” he swallowed up each and every sound. You always assumed Barba would be the dominant type. It was so much better actually knowing than a vague speculation your mind created. His hands moved down, he grabbed both of your thighs, lifting you off the ground. You gasped, a bit surprised at his strength. He held you against the wall with ease. This was by far the most intense make out session you’d experienced. Barba was a master when it came to kissing apparently. After a few more minutes he parted, reluctantly. 

“Dinner..” he muttered. He lowered you to the ground as you tried to get down from the cloud he sent you to with just a kiss. He pulled at his tie, loosening it from his collar. You were still actively panting. When you look back you could see his pupils were enlarged. 

You let out a soft whimper. “One more kiss...”you begged. He gave a half smile, reclaiming your lips. Your hands running through his dark hair. 

Who needed dinner anyway. 

#rafaelbarba #imagine #hostage #shyreader #barbaxreader #office #suspect #olivia #carisi #youngreader #rookie #love #cuteness #law and order: special victims unit #amaro #guns #svu

[winter-soldier-writer-blog]

You Need A Maid? Chapter 1

Fandom: Avengers / Marvel Rating: PG13 Warnings: Swearing Disclaimer: I don’t own Marvel, blah legal stuff. Don't sue me, I'm poor. Songs: Half Life - Whether, I

Chapter Menu

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Checking the time on the LED screen in your SVU you swore under your breath. Where had the time gone? The clock had played tricks with you all day, making minutes seem like hours. Endlessly it dragged on, your list of errands seeming to have no end. Steve had requested five new t-shirts, Tony needed a full restock of the liquor cabinet, and Sam, well, he just wanted more orange juice. On top of that, you still had dinner to make. At least you had that planned already.

Reaching the facility you parked your SUV in the garage, stepping out carefully as to not bump your door against Tony's newest motorized 'baby'. You barely understood why he insisted on getting another car. You had seen him speed off exactly three times in the span of the five months since he had purchased it. Once just because Sam wanted to race it in his wing suit.

It took several trips to and from the car to get all the bags inside. You nearly tripped on the step up into the kitchen carrying in the last brown paper bag of liquor. Setting it down on the marble-topped island you could feel the throbbing ache in your legs and feet. You looked at the sea of bags surrounding you and groaned, knowing if you sat down now there was no getting back up. Things needed to be put away, and dinner needed to be cooked. That was your job after all.

Reaching for a remote on the counter you pressed a few buttons. The stereo kicked on, blasting your favorite songs. Music would definitely make the jobs go by faster and you were certain you would be home alone for a few more hours. You reached for the closest bag, finding yourself getting lost in the music already. Were you shaking your booty a little?

I see your lips are the staircase to your soul Now you're fighting your feelings And fearing the shame that you sown All the times that I blindly followed you Can't believe that I never saw the truth I don't know what to do

You locked your arms around my mouth I don't know what to do, I think I'm turning blue I scream and shout, tear my lungs out I don't know what to do, I can't get over you

They tell you what you want to hear To feed the attention you hold so dear Tread lightly across these lines Playing again and again in my mind

"Hey, need some help?" A voice called out. You looked up, startled. Sam leaned in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, laughing at the sight of you. Arms filled with produce and a bag of grapes hanging from your mouth you balanced on one leg with the other outstretched, keeping the fridge door open. Sam walked over taking the bag from your mouth. "I'm sorry Sam! If I knew someone was home I wouldn't have blasted my music." You hobbled around, making sure everything found it's place before you stopped to finally look up. He flashed his pearly whites down at you and shook his head. "Don't worry about it. You're just lucky you didn't wake Bucky." He turned, reaching for a bag, intending to help you.

"Yeah. Real lucky." A husky sleep filled voice approached from the hall. The sarcasm gave away who it was. Well, shit.

You reached for the remote, frantically pushing buttons until the music died. Silence filled the room, making you feel self-conscious. "I'm sorry Bucky." You apologized, running a hand through your hair nervously. He always seemed so grumpy. Who administered the suppository stick in his ass anyway?

He grumbled something as he pushed past you, grabbing the unopened bottle of orange juice from Sam's hand. "What was that crap?" He asked. "Whether, I." you mumbled under your breath. "What?" He huffed, demanding an answer.

"It's metal."

Bucky twisted the cap off and pressed the bottle to his lips, downing half the contents in big gulps. "That was mine." Sam scolded, grabbing it away. Bucky snorted ignoring him, his attention still on you. "You listen to that..." he paused searching for the right words. "Screaming mess? Nah. I won't believe it." He shook his head, locks of brown hair swinging in his eyes. "You're a bunny." He patted you on the head, careful to use his human hand, and headed in the direction of the living room. "Fluffball bunny." He called out. That was probably the nicest thing he's said since you met him.

You turned towards Sam and he shrugged, his hand stuffed inside what looked to be the last of the grocery bags. "You didn't have to help, you know I-," he cut you off, putting a finger to your lips. "Nah, I don't wanna hear it. Just say thank you." You couldn't help but smile against his finger. Sam was the kindest of everyone at the facility, treating you as a friend.

"Thanks, Sammy."

------------------------------------

You first two months of living with the Avengers was, to be blunt, fucking awful. The only thing that kept you upright was Sam's kindness. He wasn't like the others. He didn't have a robotic arm, super spy skills, and he wasn't a super soldier. Sam was an Avenger in his own right, just like the others, but Sam was just as much a normal person like you. Being an Avenger hadn't made him forget that.

It wasn't as if the rest of the team was mean to you on purpose. They had their reasons to be distant and cautious. You were an unknown. You could be poisoning the food and hiding bombs in the bathroom. Hell, even bugging the TV. What they thought you were doing to their laundry you really weren't sure, though, but you did play with the idea of itching powder in Natasha's underwear after she spilled nail polish on your favorite hoodie. That was almost unforgivable, almost. She hadn't even apologized.

Tony had hired you and had no suspicions, he was just used to being waited on and sometimes talked to you like you were one of his machines. He seemed to forget you weren't a MaidBot but instead were made of flesh and bone. He was dismissive, blunt, and often forgot his please and thank yous. Thankfully, he spent most of his time in his workroom, tinkering away on some new project.

Steve was polite, which you had expected from Captain America. Refusing you call you by your first name, he found it more appropriate to call you 'Miss'. He kept you at arms length just like the others, though. You could see out of the corner of your eye the way he sized you up whenever he thought you weren't looking. Scanning you for potential threats, calculating your every move. Even the way he stood around you like he was ready to pounce if you so much as sneezed wrong. It was really hard to hold in sneezes.

You had hoped Natasha could become a female friend in a house full of males. You had no such luck. You weren't sure if she felt threatened by you, something that was ridiculous. You felt like a sack of potatoes compared to her. Come on, that body, though. Regardless, Natasha remained a blank slate to you, only making the occasional stinging comment. You could see why they called her Black Widow, she was filled with venom.

Then there was Bucky. Bucky was just either stone cold stoic, or rude. Either he rolled out of the wrong side of bed, or the really wrong side. Apparently, his mother didn't teach him to keep his mouth shut if he didn't have something nice to say. Makeup smudged? Bucky noticed. Used too much salt? Bucky complained. Out of cookies? Bucky asked if you were doing your job. Sometimes you wanted to rip his metal arm off and slap him with it. You preferred the days he didn't talk to the days he had a bug up his ass about everything. Those were the easy days.

On the best days, you were exhausted, both physically and emotionally. Most days your body pulsated from all the tension in your muscles. After dinner was served, eaten, and cleaned up, you would ask the team if they needed anything else from you, getting a few grunted no's in return. You would say goodnight and retire to your room, slipping into a hot bath, enjoying your fragrant bath bomb. On the worst days, salty tears would mix with your bath water.

"Should I come back later, or is your moment over now?" Tony called out, a hint of laughter in his voice. You separated from Sam, face turning red. "Tony, I know it's late. I was just about to start dinner. Give me an hour and I'll bring it to your workroom."

"You don't have access to my workroom." Yes, you knew that. Why you had no idea, especially when he complained about coming down for meals. "Anyway, dinner is on me. We're going out, to celebrate!" Sam looked surprised and confused, unsure of what they had to celebrate. Before he could ask Tony spoke again. "Go, Sam, get ready. Wear something nice, no t-shirts and jeans. Go." He shooed him off and turned to leave. Tony looked over his shoulder and winked at you, "Go clean up." He sauntered back to his workroom, and Sam disappeared to his bedroom.

You shrugged and picked up the kitchen a little bit more, deciding to leave the rest for tomorrow. You felt like collapsing. The surprise outing did make things easier for you, now you could settle into your room to relax for the rest of the evening while the team went out. After the long day you had a hot bath sounded like a pretty good idea, and maybe cocoa later. Yes, chocolate would be good. Lots of chocolate.

Your room was comforting, a haven you could retreat to after the day was done. Originally, when Tony had told you about living accommodations you tried to insist on staying in your apartment but it was a twenty-minute drive away from the facility, and he wouldn't let you say no. No was a word Tony Stark just didn't seem to understand. Surprisingly the single bedroom was nicer than the apartment you had lived in for two years. Queen mattress, walk-in closet, and a private bathroom, something that made the team bitter. Natasha and Sam had to share a bathroom, as did Bucky and Steve. Tony had defended it, saying it was only fair for the maid. You preferred the term household manager, like was advertised.

The bath water was running filling the large tub, mixing with the bath bomb you had thrown in coloring the water pale green. Suddenly there was a knock on your door. Not expecting to be disturbed for the rest of the night you had already peeled off your clothes. Thankfully you hadn't taken off your makeup yet. Hastily you threw on a robe and cracked open the door. "What are you doing?" Tony stood dressed impressively in a red button up shirt and suit jacket. You could see Steve walk by behind him, dressed in similar fashion. They must be going somewhere nice.

"I was about to take a bath." You motioned towards the bathroom, where you were sure he could hear the water running. "Did you guys need me for something?" You tugged on your robe, pulling it tighter. They sure had shitty timing, you didn't want to waste a $6 bath bomb. You were pretty sure it was one of the ones with a toy in the middle too. "Aren't you coming?" Your face contorted in confusion. "You're the guest of honor [Y/N], we're celebrating you. Put on a nice dress and get downstairs, we're waiting."

You stood holding the door open for a second, Tony already leaving you to get ready. Celebrating you? What? You shut the door and turned to your closet, going blank. Did you even have anything nice? Frantically you rummaged, pulling out dress after dress, but everything was so informal. Nothing matched how Tony was dressed. "Shit. Why do I never go shopping for myself?" You cursed yourself out loud, reaching the back of your closet. There hung the only thing you could imagine being nice enough to wear.

You slipped the dress on, checking your reflection in the mirror. You frowned at your reflection, prodding at the places on yourself you were less than happy with. You were surrounded by physically perfect super soldiers and spies, you really couldn't compare physically and who wouldn't be a little self-conscious? You snapped out of it, throwing on heels, grabbing a clutch, and heading down the hall to meet the others. Tony had a limo waiting.

#avengers #avengers fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #avengers fanfic #you need a maid? #steve rogers #captain america #tony stark #iron man #bucky barnes #the winter soldier #natasha romanoff #black widow #sam wilson #the falcon #reader x avengers

[1989dreamer]

AO3 Master fic List

These are links to all the stories I’ve posted to my AO3 so far. Ratings are attached. (G=General, T=Teen, M=Mature, E=Explicit)

General Disclaimer: I own nothing but the original characters that occasionally pop up in my works. Thank you for your understanding.

8/25/18 update: All stories are on AO3 and as such the other sites have been condensed to a single link.

3/22/20 update: All stories have been sorted into fandoms and alphabetized.

Fanfiction.net: WalkingDictionary

Fanfiction.net: Scaredbeingsinthedark

LiveJournal: ifihadashoe

Archive of Our Own: Scared_Beings_in_the_Dark

Total Story Count: 146

The Avengers (MCU)

Hope is the Thing Rated T

Criminal Minds

Exodus 21:17 Rated T

One Year Rated G

Random Acts of Kindness Rated G

Red Rain Rated T

The Silence of Our Friends Rated M

Timeline Rated T

CSI: Miami

Charlene Hartford’s Visitor Rated G

Dear Lieutenant Rated G

Everyone is Human Rated T

Everything Rated G

For only Gossamer Rated G

Get Out Alive Rated T

Going Home Rated T

Homecoming Rated G

If I Go Crazy Rated M

Just One More Rated T

Never Be Clean Rated G

Open My Eyes Rated G

Two Sides of the Same Coin Rated T

What I Wouldn’t Give Rated G

You Already Have Rated G

Hawaii 5-0

Ohana Mahalo Rated M

Jackie Chan Adventures

Your Lips Taste Like Sangria Rated T

Law & Order: SVU

but he means nothing to you and you don’t know why Rated G

But I’m More Than Just a Little Curious Rated G

Don’t Say It! Rated G

el sabor de sangre Rated T

The Glass Ballerina Rated M

Green Skies and Ice Cream Rated T

I Don’t Want You to Hear (If I’m Not Talking) Rated T

I Miss You Even Though You’re Still Here Rated T

I’m (Not) Talking Rated T

just a bang-bang rolling off your tongue Rated G

Kare no doku (his poison) Rated M

Knock Me for a Loop Rated T

Mouse Job Rated M

Overboard Rated T

Rafael in Green and Yellow Rated G

Stumbling in the Dark (’cause I can’t find the light) Rated T

Walks Alone Rated G

We passed the Setting Sun Rated T-M

You’re Not Hearing (If I’m Talking) Rated T

The Mechanic (2011)

Should Have Listened Rated M

The Mighty Boosh

Called Simply Pies Rated T

The Prince and the Tailor Rated T

Vince Noir’s Moonlight Café Rated G

Wrong House, Right Party Rated G

The Millionaire Tour

Greg’s Sunset Rated G

National Treasure

Security! Rated G

Who Will Remember Your Last Goodbye Rated T

The New Normal

If It Were Easy Rated M

Prince of Persia (all media)

Dastan’s Fight Rated G

Little Man Rated G

On the Way Rated G

Stargate: Atlantis

Breathe Me Rated T

Most Definitely, But Probably Not Rated G

Suits

Chocolate Cake and Shakespeare Rated G

Teen Wolf

All the Memories I Hold Dear Rated T

 Allegiance to the Enemy Rated T

Always Rated T

And so the years did pass Rated M

At the Dentist Rated G

Baby, you could be my Robbin’ Hood Rated G

Behind the Flash (SRB’17) Rated G

Brave Rated G

Broken & Beautiful (Cover Art) Rated G

Broken & Beautiful (story) Rated T-M

Built a Moon for a Rocking Chair Rated M

Butterflies Turned to Dust Rated T

Cherry on Top Rated M

A Chopped Off Arm Rated T

Don’t Let Me Go Rated M

Don’t Tell Me that I Need Saving Rated T

Every Second Dripping Off My Fingertips Rated T

Everything You Had Got Destroyed Rated T

Finding Home Rated E

Five Little Pumpkins Rated G

Five-Two Count Rated T

Full Offense (no offense) Rated T

Give Me Wings Rated M

Giving You Something to Remember Rated M

Głodny (hungry) Rated T-M (epilogue)

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend Rated T

Hello, Snow White, I’m Talking About a Condom! Rated T

HKN Rated T

Hope Smiles from the Threshold of the [New] Year to Come Rated T

I Could Be Lonely with You (maybe that makes me a fool) Rated T

I Scream God Forgive Me Please Rated M

I Will Rise Again Rated T

An Imprecise Science (SRB’17) Rated T

In Your Little Werewolf Oven Rated T

It Might Be Nice Rated M

It Was My Time Rated M

It’s Your Fault Rated M

ixnay on the ickenchay Rated G

Just a Moment Too Late Rated M

Just Say the Word and I’ll Part the Sea Rated T

Kissed Altogether Wrong Rated T

Labor of Our Love Rated T

Let Me Soar Rated M

Lifejacket Rated T

Looking for a Place to Call Home Rated T

Love is Not Just Looking at Each Other, It’s Looking in the Same Direction Rated G

More Than a Face in the Crowd Rated T

‘Neath the Halo of a Street Light Rated T

No Time Like the Present Rated G

Not as Damaged Rated T

One Step At a Time Rated T

The One Who Helps You from Your Knees Rated T

Only the Moon Howls Rated T

Over My (Not Quite) Dead Body Rated G

Pennies and Dimes for a Kiss Rated T

Perfect Rated M

Pink Ties and Pranks Rated T

Proof Rated T

Raw? No. Rated G

Scars to Your Beautiful Rated T

Scattered Like Lines on a Black and White Screen Rated T

Shattered into Ash Rated T

The Sky is Starless Rated M

SRB’18 Art for Bouquets for Days and Tied with a Red Ribbon (SRB 2018 Art) Rated G

SRB’18 Art for Roll of the Dice (SRB 2018 Art) Rated G

Teal Rated G

Things I Never Told You Rated T

This Feeling Down Deep in My Soul Rated T

This is Going to Hurt (but not as much as losing you) Rated T

This is Your Uber Driver Rated G

To Teeth and Claws and Slamming Doors Rated T

The True Measure of Our Thanksgiving Rated T

Twice Brewed Rated G

Two Someones Rated G

veritatem sol et luna Rated G

vocant mors est Rated G

Voting Roulette Rated Unknown

We Got Together Because of the Dunk Tank Rated G

What If Christmas, Perhaps, Means a Little Bit More Rated T

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? Not I. Rated T

You Can’t Choose What Stays and What Fades Away Rated M

You Pushed Me Rated M

You’ve Got Your Headphones On Rated T

Vikings

On the Grounds Where We Feel Safe Rated T

White Collar

After the Before Rated T

Make Me Better Rated T

Tap-Dancing Elephants Rated T

The X-Files

Cancer Sucks Rated T

Tumblr: 1989dreamer

Unique to Tumblr Stories (3)

Hellbound (Teen Wolf (TV)) Rated T-M

To Honor and Obey (Teen Wolf (TV)) Rated G-T

Your Tired, Unfamiliar Face (Teen Wolf (TV)) Rated T-M

#My stories #Fanfiction #Master Fic List #Links & Ratings

[florrickandassociates]

TGF Thoughts: 1x05-- Stoppable: Requiem for an Airdate

1x05 thoughts under the cut. 

This is big, guys: the first five word title in The Good history.

Did I accidentally press play on an episode of Law & Order? Obviously I didn’t, but TGF isn’t even trying to disguise the inspiration for this week’s case. It’s very clearly about Unstoppable, an unaired episode of SVU starring Gary Cole (yes, Kurt McVeigh) as a Trump-like figure. It’s so clearly about L&O that they’ve used the same font and titled the TGF episode “Stoppable: Requiem for an Airdate.”

In this episode, the COTW explores what it would be like if there were a suit brought against an episode’s writer who leaked the full episode online when the network refused to air it. Julius Cain sees this as confirmation the firm is “anti-Trump.” Adrian believes this is a first amendment issue because, he believes, political pressure is the reason the episode has been postponed. I believe that argument (though I think it would be hard to prove) but I’m not sure how applicable it is to the network suing a writer for distributing copyright material.

“Simple matter of fact, you voted for the man,” Adrian retorts when Julius tries to argue against him. Adrian, you’re going to need a stronger argument than that for court. Also, didn’t you promise Julius you would not treat him differently because of how he voted, and that you wouldn’t tell others? I’m sure word’s gotten around, but a little discretion, Adrian?

Diane walks in late and Lucca explains the case to her. The writer is an acquaintance of hers, and he works on “one of those Chicago shows.” They’re deciding if they want to take it.

Ugh Julius.

“Have you listened to anything the man said?” Adrian asks when Julius tries to defend 45 on the particulars. Thank you, Adrian.

Julius tries the “if it was Obama or Clinton…” retort. Nah, DON’T EVEN. This devolves into overlapping political rants as Barbara tries to get the men to calm down and Lucca quietly explains the case to Diane.

The lawyers have trouble coming up with an actual argument to use against the network. Diane suggests fair use, which seems weird to me because, in my very limited knowledge of legal things relating to copyright law, that’s what people talk about when they make gifsets and fan videos, not when they upload full length episodes. But I will set this aside, because 1) I don’t actually know anything about the law, and 2) The important thing here is that Diane is contributing to the conversation, reminding us all that she’s a good lawyer.

Barbara calls Adrian outside. “Adrian. Why are we doing this?” she wants to know. This is yet another one of those moments where Adrian’s leadership style rubs me the wrong way. He always seems to be making decisions without Barbara, and then catching her up to speed as though none of her concerns are valid and she needs to have everything explained to her. Barbara shouldn’t have to ask the question “Why are we doing this?” as frequently as she does. If they’re partners, she shouldn’t ever be asking that question in this context.

Adrian’s explanation is that he wants to get his foot in the door with all the Chicago TV productions (of which TGF, of course, is not one). I don’t like that he has to explain it to Barbara, but I like this explanation… and for once, it actually feels like the show is kinda sorta tuned in to things happening in Chicago.

Barbara accepts this explanation and changes the topic to Diane’s capital contribution, which they still haven’t received. “Hey, can that wait a week?” Adrian asks. You mean a week on top of the several weeks real time it’s already been? “Not if we want to be consistent,” Barbara replies.

“Okay, I need you to do it,” Adrian says. Oh? “How come I always have to do all the dirty work and you get to go and have fun in court?” Barbara wonders. Good question. Also, how come Adrian gets to assign tasks? “’Cause you’re so good at the dirty work,” Adrian answers. “I hate when you disguise curses as compliments,” Barbara says. I like that line. I don’t like that she’s still saddled with having to do what Adrian says, especially since every discussion between these two tends to end this way.

Kresteva arrives at RBK. He’s looking for Maia, and he wants to discuss the fake news. Yesha is there, which means either Kresteva waited around long enough for Yesha to get to RBK or Yesha was already there talking to Maia. If it’s the latter, again, I ask: DOES MAIA EVER ACTUALLY HAVE WORK TO DO?

“This article is completely false. It is untrue,” Maia insists. Kresteva won’t believe that it’s false, because someone in the article said they sold her jewelry. “Did you try calling the store?” Maia wants to know. This is logical. Who cares what someone said? Wouldn’t there be, you know, a receipt? Some kind of record? Surveillance footage? Kresteva makes me so mad.

“I just don’t understand how this article could get so much wrong,” Kresteva says. Yes, Mike, and I don’t understand how the novel I’m reading right now is about people who never actually existed. It boggles the mind.

“It makes up stories to encourage clickbait,” Yesha says of Fake News, which seems like a weird use of the word clickbait. The stories are made up to encourage clicks, not to encourage clickbait.

Kresteva has more evidence: the story is on 12 other sites, some of which are well-respected. “How do you account for that?” Kresteva asks. Ooh! Pick me! I know! I know! It’s one of two answers: 1) The legit news sources offered proper context for the allegations and said they could not confirm them or 2) The legit news sources only reported on this because the writers needed to say they did (Fake News is a real problem, but to my knowledge, Real News outlets reporting Fake News as fact is not as much of a problem). I guess there’s always a third option, that Maia did go on a spending spree, but I doubt that.

Like, I really don’t think a legit news source would think a fake story is fun and then run it without a disclaimer that it’s probably fake? The main problem with legit news sources in this day and age seems to be how they frame facts and what makes the front page (THE EMAILS, YOU GUYS, THE EMAILS) and what doesn’t.

But even Kresteva knows the jewelry story is fake: once Maia’s agitated enough, he asks her about a different story: one about her visiting her father in prison. Yesha chimes in to say she was there for that meeting; nothing happened. But Kresteva’s ahead of her, somehow (he shouldn’t be, since we know Yesha has a Maia Chumhum Alert!), and he means the other two visits. Yesha denies it, but Maia has to stop her, and Kresteva knows he has something.

And, as much as I hate Kresteva and his smirk and his lies, this was entirely predictable. You don’t have to be a Kresteva-level super villain to question Maia about something risky and likely illegal that she did without covering her tracks well. Hell, there’s probably security camera footage of Maia with the Schtup List! Sorry, Maia. I hate to let Kresteva be right, but… yeah.

Diane observes Kresteva leaving his meeting with Maia, and Marissa observes Diane observing Kresteva. “What’s wrong?” Marissa asks. She also says that “Mrs. Kolstad wants to see you now.” And, yes, Marissa said “Mrs.” Did Sarah slip up, or is Barbara married?!

“Are we in trouble?” Marissa asks. “Because I need this job.” Before I can even think anything snarky about how Marissa could probably charm/network her way into a different assistant job pretty easily, Diane sarcastically replies, “Oh, I’ll keep that in mind.”

“We’ve had to make a difficult decision here,” Barbara begins. “Uh oh,” Diane says. “That’s what we tell associates when we release them.” You’re on the right track, Diane.

Barbara levels with Diane about the capital contribution, and Diane says she understands. If they don’t get the contribution in a week, Diane will have to be “of counsel” which means (I had to look it up because, shockingly, seven seasons of TGW didn’t teach me everything I could ever need to know about the law!) that she’d be affiliated with the firm but not an associate or a partner.

Diane accepts this too, and then warns Barbara they should get a lawyer for the firm because Kresteva’s questioning Maia.

Yesha asks Maia why she went to see her father. GOOD QUESTION. Maia explains the Schtup List.

“So you do know, by doing this, by helping your father, you’ve implicated yourself in wrongdoing?” Yesha asks. I FUCKING HOPE MAIA DOES, BECAUSE I KNOW THAT AND I AM NOT A LAWYER.

“He’s my father. What could I do?” Maia asks. I am sympathetic. But you could, like, not implicate yourself. Why would your dad ask you to implicate yourself for his benefit? Why would he need Maia to get the information? Why wouldn’t his own attorney’s investigator be looking into this?

“You can keep yourself out of jail,” Yesha says, which is more of a warning than an answer. The stakes have changed. Maia’s not looking at bad publicity that makes her look like a spoiled rich girl. She’s looking at jail time now.

I’m starting to have a Maia problem, show! I like the idea of Maia—a privileged young woman who’s gone through life without ever having to worry about making big choices or being able to provide for herself who’s suddenly faced with a scandal that destroys everything she thought she knew about the world, her parents, and the things she’s taken for granted. I like the way Rose Leslie plays Maia. I like Maia’s relationship with Amy (a lot, and I need it to come back on screen soon). What I don’t like is the execution of Maia’s plots. Outside of the first two episodes, where she had scenes with Amy (again, #BringAmyBack), Maia doesn’t seem to have an interior life. She doesn’t like being harassed—okay, but who does? That thread needs to be pushed farther. What is the harassment doing to her? Are her friends calling her up, wondering if all the bad things are true? Is the harassment feeding into the self-doubt she’s experiencing as a result of having her world turned upside-down? Is it making it hard for her to concentrate at work? There are so, so many ways the show could go deeper here.

Instead, we just see the surface. We see that there’s a lot of harassment and fake news, but not how Maia takes it. We see that she’s not working (no, I’m not letting go of this) but we don’t see any plots about why someone in her situation might, understandably, have trouble focusing. We see her getting involved in conspiracy drama a lot, but we rarely see her questioning her parents (y’all, we shouldn’t need to see Lenore fucking her brother-in-law and Henry implicating Maia in the scandal to understand why Maia might mistrust them). We see her sitting in the office, but we don’t see anything about what it’s like to be a 25 year old who’s been in school for as long as she can remember finally entering the workplace in her first job. We see that she and Diane work in the same place, but, outside of Inauguration and that scene in The Schtup List where Diane encourages Maia to talk to her mom, we don’t see Diane mentoring her and we don’t see how they interact.

The writing for Maia is just not there. And that makes me sad, because it’s like the writers aren’t even trying. There are no botched attempts at deepening her character—no, the attempts we’ve seen are actually quite good! The problem is there are very few attempts at all! How can a show that’s so good at characterizations so consistently miss the mark with Maia, and during the episodes where it counts the most?! Maia is always off in her own world, involved in a conspiracy I’ve known about for less than a month and am already tired of, and… why?

(I think I said this last week, but omg, PLEASE PUT MAIA ON A CASE ALREADY. COTWs are wonderful things, structurally, because they necessitate character interactions. Have Maia do some research for Lucca. Or have her in court, observing and offering her recommendations when appropriate. Literally anything that gets her feeling like part of the show and not like a girl who’s never faced consequences continuing to behave like she will never face consequences.)

(I don’t believe that’s necessarily how they’re trying to portray Maia. That’s just what I think the writers run the risk of by having Maia never actually working.)

Kresteva meets with Henry Rindell. Boy, that police brutality task force sure has a wide scope.

The woman representing the network in the COTW is someone that I suspect will become a recurring character if this show runs for longer than these first ten episodes. She feels both pleasant and aggressive. Her name is Amber Wood Lutz.

And the judge is someone who has apparently been in four episodes of TGW, but aside from thinking he looks vaguely familiar, I don’t have any impression of him.

Diane is considering downsizing her apartment again in order to get her capital contribution together. (Doesn’t she only have a week? She can’t sell her apartment in a week, can she?)

Someone’s there to see Diane: It’s Kurt!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Marissa offers to stay and take notes. Heh.

“She’s… chatty,” Kurt remarks after Marissa leaves. “She is that, “Diane replies. Diane doesn’t quite know what to say to Kurt, but she looks happy to see him. I really hope these two can work it out, because they’re so good together.

“You called?” Kurt reminds her. Diane denies it, but Kurt saw the call “last night.” Wait, that call towards the end of 1x04 was the day before 1x05? (I’m really bad at not nitpicking the timeline.)

Diane calls it an accidental dial, but we know the truth. (Last week, I wondered why Diane hung up after only letting it ring once. Guess that was intentional after all!)

Kurt’s there to ask a favor: he’s giving a speech to the police association and wants Diane to take a look at it. Couples revising speeches/pieces of writing is apparently something I am very, very into so this request makes me happy.

Kurt leaves Diane a gift, which she opens, curiously. It’s a gun, and I think she likes it.

Case stuff happens. Amber makes the point about fair use being about brief excerpts. Thanks, Amber!

Now they have a co-exec producer on the stand and there must be some inside jokes going on here. It somehow devolves into writer dude and co-exec producer dude screaming at each other about Yale and Princeton. I’m amused. Especially by the fact that the judge agrees that he hates Yale. For a second, I thought he must be the Harvard judge from 4x02, but he’s not.

Fair use doesn’t work, but Adrian isn’t ready to give up.

The next scene is simply bizarre. Adrian, Barbara, Diane, and Lucca (I guess because they’re ones Kresteva is targeting) interview a lawyer. It’s some white dude who rambles a lot, and then begins to rap??? I’m not sure what’s going on or why it is happening or what the hand gestures accompanying it are, but I’m here for the confused/stunned/trying not to laugh reactions it receives.

It’s Lucca who decides they should call Elsbeth. This is weird, as Lucca has not (as far as I can recall) ever dealt with Elsbeth and Diane has used Elsbeth to help several times. But, whatever.

At the restaurant where the interview takes place (which they’ve filmed at several times), Diane runs into Neil Gross. He calls her over. She asks how he’s doing. “Harried, angry, worried,” he replies. Diane tries to make conversation, but Neil keeps cutting her off—he likes the sound of his own voice; he likes seeming like a friendly guy but ultimately just talking about himself. He is interested in Diane’s firm because it’s all African-American.

Neil whispers to Diane that he’s looking for a “fighter” and wants to come to her firm. This feels very planned out, no? He happens to know where she works and happens to show up at the same restaurant?

Elsbeth is working on her own again, and now she’s rented office space in a children’s dentist’s office. We don’t know it’s Elsbeth at this point, but it couldn’t be anyone else.

Elsbeth still has the same laptop with the foam flower stickers that she’s had since season 1. Does that thing still work? Adrian finds this incredibly weird, which, fair.

And then Elsbeth appears! She greets Lucca like they’ve met before, which I’m 99% sure they haven’t. Elsbeth mentions that she’s been in the hospital, and that there was disagreement over whether or not she was sick. I just rewatched her first scene in 7x15 (skimming through for Elsbeth/Lucca scenes) and she mentions high blood pressure there—a connection?

Then she remembers to greet Adrian, and by greet I mean she says, “God, you’re tall” and while looking surprised.

I love Elsbeth.

“Our firm needs a lawyer, and Alicia once gave me a piece of advice,” Lucca begins. Elsbeth looks so delighted to hear Alicia’s name that it makes me smile even more than hearing Alicia mentioned usually does. Though Lucca is offering Elsbeth a compliment—Alicia’s advice is to hire Elsbeth when you’re in trouble—Elsbeth doesn’t respond to the compliment and instead responds to the mention of Alicia. “Alicia Florrick? I like Alicia. How is she?” Elsbeth asks.

But, TGF is determined to withhold that information. To that point: At the mention of Alicia, Elsbeth’s Alexa-like robot, Ada, begins to play Alicia Keys, interrupting our shot at hearing more about Alicia Florrick.

This moment made me cry when I watched it this morning. Yes—it made me cry. I knew TGF wasn’t going to give us updates on how/what Alicia’s doing, and I also know that’s exactly the approach I want it to take. But what I didn’t anticipate was that Alicia would be referenced multiple times in almost every episode and alluded to frequently. And I certainly didn’t realize that every time there’s a suggestion of an Alicia reference, I would move just a little closer to the screen, clinging to the hope that I’d find out just a little more about my all-time fave.

That’s why this scene hit me as hard as it did: when Elsbeth asked how Alicia was doing, I wanted to know, too. I was even a little hopeful we’d get something and nervous it wouldn’t be an answer I wanted. But before I could fully process my excitement, Ada began to play Alicia Keys. It was unexpected and funny, but it also took me out of the show. On the one hand, it’s Elsbeth quirk. On the other hand, it’s the show clearly maneuvering so that it doesn’t have to answer questions about Alicia. Ada playing Alicia Keys is reminiscent of the car horn that blares just as a witness is about to swear on the stand or the title credits in 5x10 coming in before Robyn can finish saying “holy shit.” It’s censorship on a show that’s uncensored. And it’s entirely self-imposed. Maybe I’ll be wrong about this, but my takeaway from this gag was that nudity’s fine now, the f-bomb can be dropped freely, and cases can be more overtly political: the only thing forbidden is sharing more of Alicia Florrick’s story.

And that’s why I cried, just a little. Because the set-up of this joke made me want more and then the punchline reminded me I can’t have it. And even though I know that’s for the best, I’m still sad.

I may also have cried from laughing at the absurdity.

Fantasia is still Elsbeth’s assistant—yay! I would love to meet Fantasia.

Elsbeth makes me happy.

Maia heads home; her dad’s been released on bail following his meeting with Kresteva. Maia asks why they changed their mind on bail. Henry replies with a lie—that he doesn’t know. Yeah, right.

I don’t know why Lenore is dressed the way she is, but alrighty then.

Henry says it feels like nothing’s happened now that he’s back home. Sure?

Maia says she can’t stay for pizza, she has to get back to Amy. This made think we would get to see Amy in this episode. Sadly, no.

Lenore steps away to answer a call, and Maia seizes the opportunity to tell her dad about her mom’s affair with Jax. Henry doesn’t seem to mind/understand fully. I would love to know what Maia’s relationship with her parents was like before the scandal. Did she always take her dad’s side?

Diane is looking at her lovely house in France again, and at the 1.5 million euro price tag. She then switches over to browsing cheap apartments in Chicago, and Diane, girl, whatever your search terms are, if that’s all you can find, THEY ARE THE WRONG ONES. There is a studio that doesn’t have a full kitchen for $1,500 a month, a room in a cluttered apartment with no furniture that’s $1,800 a month, a black and white picture of an apartment that boasts that it has “freshly painted walls” for $2,000 a month, and other options that are even worse. “Not happening,” Diane says. No, of course it’s not. I don’t know what kind of budget she’d be on after selling her apartment (I assume she owns) but I can’t imagine it would be so strict she’d need to live in a shitty studio that’s $2,000 a month. Try a different neighborhood, maybe?

Diane remembers she has to look at Kurt’s speech. It only takes a few lines before she realizes they’re going to need to talk this through. By the time Kurt arrives, the speech is covered in red marks, most of which say some variation of “SIMPLIFY!”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Diane reassures Kurt as she pours him a glass of wine. Diane explains her changes are all focused on one point: that the speech is too technical. She reminds him he’s able to explain himself well on the stand. What I love about this scene is its specificity. Not only is it a wonderful display of how Kurt and Diane interact—Diane is comfortable challenging Kurt’s opinions; Kurt is a bit obstinate but ultimately able to incorporate Diane’s feedback because he trusts her—but it’s also written in a way that makes sense given the strengths of the characters. Kurt knows how to describe the specifics with the precision required of a ballistics expert. Diane knows how to identify the main theme of a document, simplify it, and spin it into a story—because that’s what she does as a lawyer. And, not only does she know how to rewrite it, she knows how to work with Kurt, like she would if he were a witness, to get him to be the one to rewrite it. It’s collaborative, reminds the audience where both of the characters strengths lie, feels true to the personalities of both characters as well as the relationship they have, and we get to hear enough of the speech that it’s convincing—and apparent—that Diane and Kurt have significantly improved it by working together.

Case stuff happens. Network lawyer Amber ends up saying “fuck you” as she leaves a “settlement talk.” How professional.

Case stuff happens.

Elsbeth is creeping on Kresteva in a diner. Have I mentioned yet that I love Elsbeth? Whatever issues I had with overuse of Elsbeth or the shtick getting tired in the last few seasons have totally disappeared. I! LOVE! ELSBETH!

Case stuff happens and they go after someone important. Also, Colin appears to watch Lucca and he makes silly faces at her. Lucca gives him the finger behind her back, which makes me wonder if anyone sitting in the gallery behind her noticed.

After court, Amber warns Adrian that his strategy about going into entertainment won’t work if he’s going to embarrass important people in the business.

Meanwhile, Colin compliments Lucca and advises her not to be sarcastic in court. “This is so helpful, being graded, thank you,” she says sarcastically. “I think we have a sarcasm problem here,” he replies. Heh.

Colin tells Lucca he tried to get Kresteva not to go after her firm. Lucca just walks away. Colin calls her out on not thanking him, but Lucca explains that things have gotten worse and Kresteva’s still coming after them. Colin is not happy about this.

The TV writer is really pleased that Lucca was awesome in court, the kind of awesome you only see on lawyer shows. Not that we’re watching a lawyer show, or anything.

Adrian’s thinking about settling now, even though everything’s going well. He’s worried about what Amber said.

Meanwhile, Diane spots Marissa chatting with Neil Gross. Of course Marissa is chatting with Neil Gross. If Marissa was comfortable making small talk with Colin Sweeney, of course she’d be comfortable talking to Neil Gross.

“Look at this place! A real African-American law firm,” Neil Gross observes, sounding like he’s looking at a museum exhibit or something. LOOK AT ALL THE CUTE LITTLE MINORITIES, HERE FOR ME THE RICH WHITE MAN TO APPRECIATE! Ugh.

“Everywhere you look,” he adds. Um, just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you can talk about people like that. Marissa unhelpfully but hilariously points out that everyone involved in the current conversation is white. Funny, that. Gross reaches out to the one white lawyer (okay, the one white lawyer who actually does work, NOPE NOT LETTING THIS GO UNTIL THE WRITERS GIVE MAIA WORK TO DO) at the firm when what he’s looking for is diversity. How about that.

Gross likes Marissa and wants her to stay and take notes. I bet he doesn’t meet many people that act like that around him.

Neil Gross uses the word fight five times in this scene—and once in the earlier scene at the restaurant. He says it so many times I was wondering if he’d say “Keep on fighting the good fight” at some point. Anyway, he likes that RBK is fighting against the network in court. So, turns out they weren’t auditioning for the entertainment biz after all. Unfortunately for Diane, Neil is saying this just as Lucca and Adrian are advising the client to stop fighting the network. Diane rushes to stop that conversation.

Elsbeth sits down with Yesha and Maia. Yesha insists that some of Maia’s issues are only Maia’s, to which Elsbeth says, “then she should quit the firm, because her issues are hurting the firm’s interests.” Thanks, Elsbeth! I don’t think Maia quitting would get the firm out of this mess—from what I can tell, Kresteva’s strategy is “go after RBK for anything under the sun until they stop taking police brutality cases and word gets out what the DOJ can do to you if try to go into that business”—but I’m a little surprised Maia hasn’t offered to quit. Maia’s scandal is bringing all sorts of trouble to the people who were kind enough to take her on and it’s jeopardizing the business they’ve put their lives into developing. I don’t know how badly she needs this job (for financial reasons or for her mental health—hey show, if you showed her working you could show that it was a constructive escape for her, just a thought) but it’s almost weird to me she doesn’t feel guilty about the position she’s putting others in. Maybe that’ll come later? Or maybe she’s just having trouble believing she could be that much of a liability? Or maybe that kind of obliviousness is part of her entitlement.

Alternatively, what does it say about me that my first thought in this situation would probably be, “I need to offer to quit immediately”? Maybe I’m the strange one here.

“Why is your dad out on bail?” Elsbeth asks Maia. Maia doesn’t know. Maia tells Elsbeth about the Schtup List. Elsbeth’s next question is if any of the names are connected to the firm. They’re not—Maia already looked them all up (smart! Credit where credit is due—Maia’s first thought was to look up the names and that’s also where Elsbeth’s mind went. If you’re on the same page as Elsbeth that has to be a good thing).

Elsbeth compliments Maia’s lipstick in the middle of a sentence. It really is a nice lipstick. That color looks fantastic on Maia, and it’s just bright enough that I can understand why Elsbeth likes it so much.

As Maia explains that her lipstick is either Dior or Chanel, Elsbeth pieces it together: the names on the list aren’t the connection to RBK—Maia is. She downloaded the list and implicated herself. The only catch, Elsbeth reasons, is that that would “require your father turning on you, and wouldn’t turn on you, would he?” Maia isn’t sure. Arrrrgh. As I said before, I hate that Maia is in the wrong here, because she’s just trying to deal with family drama and it’s unfortunate that these very normal trust issues are playing out in the public and with lawyers involved… but she is in the wrong and did make her choices.

After Elsbeth leaves—after cautioning Maia to be suspicious of her dad—Maia looks upset and Yesha looks like she wants to say something. She decides against it.

It’s time for Kurt’s speech! He has, indeed, taken Diane’s advice. And, even better—Diane shows up to support him! He does a good job and his delivery is great. Diane looks on from backstage, proud. Once the speech is over, Diane compliments Kurt. He kisses her; she kisses back.

Fortunately for Maia, her dad has not turned on her. He still asked her to implicate herself, but he hasn’t given up her name to Kresteva. How do I know this? Because Kresteva says so in a vague, blink-and-you miss it line as he arrives home for the day. “Rindell’s still reluctant to give up her name.” And then, after a response we can’t hear: “No, just a more aggressive posture.” So, sounds like Kresteva cares about the Schtup List and causing panic at RBK than actually getting Henry to turn on Maia. But it also sounds like he strongly suspects that Maia is how Henry got his hands on the list.

So, fun fact about Kresteva’s house: It was once Jonas Stern’s house. I doubt it’s supposed to be that way in-universe, but it’s definitely the same one When Alicia, Will, and Diane went to after Stern died. I recognize the Frank Lloyd Wright inspired décor. (This also makes the show feel more like Chicago than usual.)

Kresteva arrives home to find his wife drinking and chatting with Elsbeth. They just happened to hit it off at Trader Joe’s when Elsbeth introduced herself as a “friend from work.” And now Elsbeth has all sorts of access to Kresteva’s personal life. But access isn’t the point: Elsbeth is showing Kresteva she’s not afraid, that she can make things personal too, and that she’s a step ahead of him.

Well, access might be the point too, since she’s been in Kresteva’s study.

And she left her business card on his desk (she calls her place of work “The Tascioni Firm”) so there’s no way he could possibly miss that she could have had access.

“Stay for dinner,” insists Deirdre Kresteva, who is currently drinking wine and eating ice cream out of the carton. You mean to tell me they haven’t eaten yet?

Mike walks Elsbeth out and threatens to have her disbarred. But Elsbeth doesn’t take uncalculated risks like that: she has something on him.

And, if you need proof that Elsbeth is the best ever (and that she’s perfectly suited to go up against Kresteva), she got an audio recording of Kresteva threatening her, which means he can’t lie about it! FINALLY. I wish everyone could say, “Yes, you did” and whip out an audio recording when Kresteva starts with his bullshit.

Kresteva calls it an illegal recording, and Elsbeth says it’s not because it’s used to contradict a lie. I’m pretty sure that of the three times we’ve seen Elsbeth make recordings, she’s cited three different reasons why it’s legal, but I don’t really care because I’m so excited about someone being able to refute Kresteva’s bullshit alternative facts.

In court, Adrian is now clearly auditioning for Neil Gross. This involves some hyperbolic comparisons that don’t impress the judge.

But the speech doesn’t matter. 45 tweeted about the case, and now it’s a First Amendment case. This is an important case for the show to have its characters win. It sends a clear message: it’s possible to fight back and win. (And the show is practicing what it preaches by being overtly political.)

Amber is pissed about her loss and tells Adrian it won’t help his business. Lucca wonders if that’s accurate—seems Adrian hasn’t looped her in on the Chumhum thing.

Lucca and Colin are having milkshakes, as promised. Colin asks Lucca to tell him about herself. He says he’s shared everything about himself and his family, but knows very little about Lucca. “There is nothing about me,” she replies. Nope, no way that’s true.

“Are your parents happy that you’re a lawyer?” Colin asks. “I guess,” Lucca replies. Colin complains that the conversation feels like a cross-examination. He has to ask if her parents are still alive, she’s that reluctant to share! (They are.)

He asks who her best friend is. Her reply is curiously phrased: “I don’t have a friend.” She doesn’t say she doesn’t have a best friend, and she doesn’t say that she doesn’t have friends (which would be the responses I’d expect). She says she doesn’t have “a friend.” I don’t know where I’m going with this; I just found her use of the singular “friend” weird.

And she repeats it, because Colin doesn’t believe her and makes her say it again!

Colin doesn’t believe her, and starts staring at her oddly. “What? Please don’t say you’re gonna save me,” Lucca teases. “No, I’m gonna kiss you,” Colin replies. “Okay,” she says as he leans in.

“Then I’m gonna save you,” he jokes. Heh. I can’t say I’m interested in Colin or learning more about him, but I don’t dislike him. My only fear about his character is that he’ll share the bulk of Lucca’s non-work related screentime, but that has very little to do with Colin as a character. And, I like that he has a personality outside of “Lucca’s love interest.”

They end up making out against a car, and the alarm goes off. They don’t care.

Cut to a really creepy shot of Lucca kissing Colin in bed. It took me a second to figure out what this was an image of (I must’ve had my screen on low brightness).

She decides to share some information about her life. To be more specific, she decides to share her feelings about her friendship with Alicia. “I had a best friend,” she begins. “Who?” Colin asks. “A co-worker,” Lucca replies. “He or she?” “She.” “Had? She’s not a friend anymore?”

“I think she is,” Lucca states. An odd thing happened when I watched this scene: I realized that the only part of TGF that’s actively harmed by Alicia’s absence is Lucca’s personal life. That’s not to say that Alicia needs to come back in order for Lucca to be complete or that this isn’t the right strategy—I trust that as Lucca and the show both get distance from Alicia, this will become much less of a problem, and it’s not a big enough issue to warrant an appearance from Alicia.

But, seeing how important to Lucca her friendship with Alicia was confirms something that many doubted in season 7: that Lucca didn’t just exist to be Alicia’s new friend without any interior life or problems of her own. Most of the discussion I saw about Lucca last year revolved around whether or not she was the “New Kalinda,” and it drove me crazy. Yes, Lucca was added to the cast because the show needed Alicia to have a female friend to talk to, and yes, she joined the show right after Archie left. But that was never all there was to Lucca. It’s just what dominated the discussion about her.

Watching Lucca in TGF feels like a counterpoint to those arguments. I’ve always thought Lucca’s friendship with Alicia was as much about Lucca as it was about Alicia (my 7x13 discussion of the laundry room breakdown scene makes this point), and I’m happy to see that TGF is embracing that aspect of the relationship. Nothing Lucca’s saying here feels new to me, and that’s fantastic. She’s mentioned before that she doesn’t have friends (she specifically says this in 7x13), and her loyalty to Alicia in season 7 suggested that she doesn’t take friendship lightly. It would be weird if Alicia’s absence didn’t affect Lucca, so I’m happy to give the show a little bit of leeway here. If the show has to be vague about Alicia’s whereabouts in order to develop Lucca without reopening The Education of Alicia Florrick, fine. I get why the writers would want to take that approach.  

“I don’t make friends easily,” Lucca explains. “Why not?” Colin asks. “I don’t like to get hurt,” Lucca says. Lucca’s answer explains something I’ve been wondering about. Lucca is a friendly, nice person. She’ll stick up for others and offer her help. She has a social circle. She’s comfortable talking to people she doesn’t know, and she’s good at banter and small talk. Why, I wondered, doesn’t she have friends? It’s only after watching this scene that it clicked: being friendly and having friends are different things. And there’s a difference between being someone people would want to be friends with and actually being friends with people. I was missing the fact that Lucca intentionally maintains distance. (I know I keep going back to that 7x13 scene, but really: the certainty with which Lucca insists Alicia commit to their friendship is important. “I mean, do you have a ring or anything? I’ll commit,” she says. How fucking huge was that, for both Alicia and Lucca?!)  

I don’t know what to make of “I don’t like to get hurt.” I don’t take that line to be about Alicia, since Lucca does say she thinks they’re still friends (maybe Alicia’s traveling and hard to reach?) and since Lucca’s reluctance to form friendships predates her first meeting with Alicia, so what’s she referring to? Is this a fear or did something bad happen? If so, what was it? Actually—I care less about what it was and more about when it was. Middle school? High school? College? After that? Did a friend actively hurt her, or was it a different type of pain? Some sort of loss? A best friend who moved? A friend who drifted away just when Lucca needed her to be there the most?

“You afraid I’m gonna hurt you?” Colin wonders. “No, I don’t get hurt by boys,” Lucca explains.

If we do have to sit through most of Lucca’s personal life screentime being shared by Colin, at least they’re using it to develop other elements of Lucca’s character, too.

Diane is looking at more real estate postings, and I feel the need to share that her search terms are even worse than I thought, since one of the places she’s looking at is in UPSTATE NEW YORK. It says it’s a 1.5 hour commute to the city, but I don’t think that means Chicago…

Kurt spent the night at Diane’s! He notices the moving boxes. Diane tells him she’s looking for a change. She doesn’t explain the financial constraints she’s under, but he can sense that she’s not packing up because she just decided to. He offers to let her move in with him.

She declines the offer. “It’s my problem,” she explains. Kurt accepts that answer and kisses her goodbye. As much as I’d love for Diane and Kurt to make it work, I’m glad they’re not moving in together out of desperation. They need to keep working through their issues, and I’m pleased (but not surprised) to see that Diane doesn’t want to rely on anyone to get her out of her current situation.

Diane shows up at work with an update on Chumhum. They’re going to get Neil Gross and his $58 million a year. Adrian wants to know if there’s a caveat, and there is. With a smile on her face, Diane explains that there’s a small one. “I like this firm a lot. I think it’s got a great future. But in good conscience, I can’t encourage Neil Gross to come here if I’m only of counsel.” I’m 100% with Diane on this one. Adrian, Julius, and Barbara want to postpone that discussion, but this makes complete sense to me. Why should Diane bother to bring in a $58 million/year client if she’s not going to have any equity in the firm? Out of the goodness of her heart?

It’s Diane’s next request I’m more skeptical of. She asks to be made a name partner. I have three very contradictory thoughts about this. The first is that Diane is not being unreasonable; she is a huge name, she’s landed a gigantic account, and shouldn’t be a junior partner in the first place. The second is that despite this, Diane makes this power play with little concern for the culture of the firm that took her in when no one else would. It’s the lack of awareness that concerns me more than the request. I take no issue with her wanting her old status back and wanting a seat at the table. I just wonder what kind of tone this will set for the firm, going forward, now that Diane’s suddenly gone from a junior partner with a moderate amount of influence to a name partner. As a junior partner, she’s already hired two white people without giving that a second thought; what kinds of decisions will she make as a name partner? Is she aware of how her presence on the masthead will change public perception of the firm? Does she care? The third thought is just that this is so fast. I was hoping to see more than five episodes’ worth of Diane fighting to stay afloat and adjusting to that lack of power. I was particularly hoping to see more plots about her interactions with Barbara, and while those plots won’t go away if she becomes a name partner, they’ll be different than what I was hoping for.

Adrian says they’ll have to check with the full partnership, but the answer is yes. I’ll believe this is really happening and there’s no last minute catch when I see Diane’s name on the wall and not a second earlier. Tbh, with this show’s track record, I might not even believe it then.

“She’s gonna be trouble,” Barbara says as Diane exits. Indeed.

#The Good Fight

[amorremanet]

ten facts about sara grace!

“ten facts about my oc’s” meme // previously on… (+ sara grace’s part one)

—okay, I suck, because I meant to do this on Sunday when I got it, then spent the whole day on TV Tropes, and I meant to do it yesterday, and spent the day with my sister’s dog instead, but anyway.

1. She’d probably tell you that police procedural shows are her guilty pleasure, but it’s really just Law and Order: SVU, and as much as she loves her girlfriend, she tends not to watch it with Lucy because Lucy will probably try to argue about the science, and Sara Grace gets that science is one of Lucy’s Things and she appreciates this a lot of the time, but sometimes, you just wanna ignore real-world science and watch Olivia Benson be a bad-ass, okay

2. Her MBTI type is ENFP (Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving), one of the Idealist types, known as The Campaigner or The Champion. She shares it with, among others, Robin Williams, Dr. Seuss, Adelaide, and Stephen.

3. It’s not that she is completely hopeless at raising plants, but Sara Grace is easily distracted and easily bored in ways that make it hard for her to remember to check in on her plants as often as she needs to, and they aren’t as cute as cats, which makes it harder for her — because she definitely prioritizes the cute kitties over the plants — so, she’s pretty much given up on having any plants.

4. Pretty much everyone who knows her thinks that she is kidding about wanting to learn how to ride a motorcycle. It’s not that they think she can’t (not least since, thanks to her mutations, Sara Grace has a literally superhuman sense of balance), but to her parents, her siblings, her girlfriend, her friends, her coworkers, and her former classmates, the motorcycle thing just doesn’t mix with Sara Grace’s usual femme style and her fondness for the pretty pretty princess aesthetic

Like, when she does get a license and Seb gives her Bettie because he never rides Bettie anymore, several of the other characters are going to go, “What the Hell, Sebastian? You can’t just give a motorcycle to someone like that” and he will have to point out that Sara Grace took the classes and got her license, and he let her take Bettie on a few practice rides so they could figure out how to adjust a few settings to better fit Sara Grace’s needs and riding style, and like??

What do you want him to have done? She was serious about learning to ride, so she learned to ride. Then, she wanted a bike of her own, understandably, and he has a bike in really good condition that he’s no longer interested in riding and Sara Grace liked Bettie, and there was literally nothing underhanded about any of this so what is so hard for people to understand about, “Sara Grace wanted to ride a motorcycle”???

5. All things considered, it’s probably a good thing that most of the, “ancient magical artifacts” that could come up in the prime timeline won’t actually work, because if they did, Sara Grace would probably get curious about what they can do and try to play with them.

She’s a Ravenclaw for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest ones is, “Curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back, and then Sara Grace had to go and figure out what happened because she can’t talk to animals and didn’t understand prrrrfffbt when she asked the cat about what it found out.”

6. Nominally, she’s over the fact that she never got a pony for her birthday as a kid (because, like most people’s parents, hers couldn’t afford a pony, much less the care and upkeep of a pony, especially not if they were also putting money into her dance lessons, and Sara Grace was offered the, “Do you want more dance lessons, or do you want a pony” choice more than once and picked the dance lessons every time). She’s also nominally over the fact that she can’t have a unicorn because they don’t exist in the prime timeline.

—But, when the villains decide to screw around with ancient Celtic rituals they don’t understand and tear a few choice holes in the space-time continuum, thereby allowing a few alternate universes and parallel timelines to dump their contents into the prime timeline, uh…… well.

Sara Grace understands the gravity of the situation and she is very concerned about fixing things, but in addition to getting kind of distracted by things like, “coming up with nicknames for all the AU counterparts who get dragged into the prime timeline because we can’t just call everyone by the same name or it’ll get confusing” and, “the version of Lucy from the AU in which everyone has magic instead of superpowers? Yeah, she came over with a unicorn.”

She is going to be somewhat less thrilled with the fact that some of the Silent Hill-inspired demonic monsters from the canonically designated Darkest Timeline can take the shape of unicorns, and then turn out to be…… well. Nightmarish beasts that were inspired by the Silent Hill series.

The Darkest Timeline earned that title because…… yeah, okay, all of the AU’s have problems, and some of them have it worse than others, and the canon coffee-shop AU is actually a dystopian Hellhole that takes a lot of its cues from Brave New World (like, in-universe and everything; the guy responsible for making the coffee-shop AU what it is cites Brave New World as one of his big inspirations)…

—but none of the other AU’s have Silent Hill-inspired demon monsters on the same scale as the official Darkest Timeline, so…… yep.

7. If she ever challenges you to Dance Dance Revolution, do not accept. She pointedly will not challenge you to a dance-off, because dance-offs are ultimately subjective and there’s no way to know for sure who wins, so she believes that they should only be used for fun and creative expression, not for challenges. But DDR has points and an objective score, and between her reflexes, her sense of balance, and how much she just genuinely enjoys DDR, you are probably going to lose against her.

If you’re okay with that, then by all means, take her up on that challenge. But if you’re a sore loser, just don’t do it. Because she will beat you, and while she won’t intentionally lord it over you with unsportsmanlike gloating, she can be prone to post-victory preening that most people would probably find pretty irritating.

8. Of all the movies she’s watched because her girlfriend likes them, Sara Grace has the most complicated relationship with Blade Runner. Like, she wants to like it, because she thinks that there’s a lot of it that’s interesting and well-done, but she doesn’t feel like she really, “gets it”?

She’s not sure that Lucy really, “gets it,” either, and all of the different versions of Blade Runner floating around don’t help at all. Like, she’s watched all of them with Lucy before, but Sara Grace doesn’t feel like any of them have really cleared anything up so much as they’ve made everything even more confusing, and trying to read Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? just made everything worse because she started comparing it to Blade Runner and looking for what the potential significance of the changes from text to movie could be, and she’s gotten a whole lot of nowhere on that

On thing Sara Grace knows for sure, though? Ridley Scott’s original Alien trilogy might be a good collection of films, but they’re scary and gross and given her druthers, she’d prefer to watch almost anything else.

I mean, she might not really like Todd very much — she doesn’t have much against him, but he also kinda bores her as a person — but she will be so happy to tap out and let him talk about movies with Lucy, because they can talk about gross things and give Lucy an outlet for that while Sara Grace does something else without having to deal with said gross things when she would really, really rather not, and that way, everyone wins.

At least, everyone wins unless Todd and Lucy decide to do more than just talk about movies, like if Todd tries to get Lucy to come along on some harebrained movie-making adventure that neither of them has put any real planning into so they may well end up in some ridiculous, life-threatening situation and/or trespassing somewhere that they shouldn’t, and……

Todd, please do not drag Sara Grace’s girlfriend into something like that, she would really appreciate it if you didn’t do that.

And Lucy, please do not listen to the silly white gay hipster with all the cameras and the delusions of being John Waters, Jean-Luc Godard, Gregg Araki, Christopher Guest, Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, and Tom “Human Centipede” Six all at the same time. Sara Grace supports the two of you being friends and talking about movies, but not anything that involves the two of you getting in trouble while doing something ridiculous and probably dangerous in the name of making them

Which, really, is probably bound to happen at some point, and as tends to happen when people go, “What could possibly go wrong?”, pretty much everything will go wrong, and Sara Grace only won’t say, “I told you so” because:

1. she’ll likely be more worried than smug;

and 2. Margot, Josie, or Pete will probably say it for her

9. She thinks Stephen’s jokes are funny, which will make her one of his favorite teammates.

That said, between the two of them, there is almost no impulse control when it comes to things like:

“Sure, we could Google the answer to our question, but Google is full of a lot of different possibilities and it isn’t really helping, so let’s just do this potentially dangerous thing ourselves in order to find our what would happen”

and, “Omg, an ancient magical artifact, and sure, I can see its disclaimer not to touch it, but I wonder what it does, let’s ignore common sense and touch it,”

and, “Oooooh, what does THIS button do?”

—so, as much fun as the two of them would have together, and as well as they would click and work together, they really, really shouldn’t be paired up with each other for most things unless someone else comes with them

……Strictly speaking, that someone probably shouldn’t be Sebastian, because if this doesn’t end with the three of them at an ASPCA shelter and Stephen totally failing to resist how cute Sara Grace is around the poor kitties who need homes (and yet managing to tell his boyfriend, “I love you, but no, you really do not need another dog, you have SIX already, I know that all the dogs here have sad stories and need homes, but you have six already, you’re good”)

—then it will probably end with the three of them in a situation where Seb has to try and tell Stephen and Sara Grace that hey, guys, maybe they probably shouldn’t touch that possibly very dangerous thing that they don’t understand — or at least, they have to get it back to the others, so they should only touch it as much as they absolutely have to and definitely not use it for anything yet

—and he will probably fail because shit, they’re both so eager and it’s so cute, and his boyfriend is adorable as Hell when he’s curious and excited about stuff, and okay look, Seb tried to tell them, “No” but he just…… completely lost his willpower in the face of them being cute and eager, and yes, he knows it’s sad that he is a thirty-year-old superhero who still has problems with peer pressure, but they made a really good case for why it was probably okay to experiment with the shiny thing a bit first and they did learn things, and he’s really sorry for being easily swayed by the idea of making other people happy but at least nobody got hurt, right???

At least, once Sara Grace figures out that, as much as she likes them, Stephen is easily swayed by curiosity and has an, “Oooh what does this button do?” impulse that matches her own, and Seb has problems saying, “No” to people he likes and/or cares about, especially when they’re being adorable, she’ll have the good sense to go, “Okay, we can have fun together when we’re off the clock, but we really probably shouldn’t be paired up with each other”

She will be much more resistant to the idea of not getting paired up with Lucy on different assignments — like, she’ll go along with it if there are obvious good reasons why she really shouldn’t be on a team with her girlfriend…… but Sara Grace’s idea of, “good reasons” does not include, “The two of you may get distracted from the actual task at hand because you end up looking out for each other.”

Like, “We need your skills and your talents somewhere else on this job”? Yeah, okay, that’s perfectly reasonable to her. But in the face of the other argument, she would go, “Nuh uh, no way, we can totally work together without distracting each other”… and then the two of them would do exactly that

Which? I mean, they’re not the only ones who would do the same thing if they were partnered up with their significant other (I say, pointedly glancing aside at Seb and Stephen) or with someone else they care about (I say, glancing aside at Seb and Todd, though to be fair, Todd has no business being in most of the places where Seb can be and would force Seb to look out for him instead of focusing on the task at hand because he’d be in way, WAY over his head)

But Lucy and Sara Grace are still probably going to end up learning this the hard way, and Sara Grace is going to have the harder time with reconciling the logical, “Okay, I know that this is a fair point and that there are more important things than my personal anxieties and desire to protect my girlfriend” side of her opinion, with the emotional, “But my heart says that I need to protect my girlfriend and I trust her and our teammates but I want to do it myself”

—Not that Lucy won’t have any difficulty with this, but her big issue is more that she compartmentalizes things and then tries to get out of dealing with the emotional ramifications of that compartmentalizing, not that she can compartmentalize but she would really rather not

And in fairness, they’re both 22 (with Lucy turning 23 shortly after their introduction in the first book, and Sara Grace turning 23 in the early parts of book two), whereas Todd is 30 (turning 31 toward the end of book one) and his biggest reason for ever going, “No, I want to be paired with Seb in what is blatantly not a good idea” would be that he’s working on his jealousy over the Seb/Stephen relationship, and he’s accepted the fact that he is partly responsible for this because Seb offered him quite a few chances to talk like adults and go back to being in an official romantic relationship and Todd blew him off, and yeah, he wants Seb to be happy and on one hand, he’s glad that Seb is actually with a good guy for once

(because Todd and Julian are two of Seb’s better exes, and one of them got seduced into working with very literal supervillains while the other is pretty much three bad decisions stacked on top of each other inside a pair of too-small skinny jeans and one of his Mom’s vintage sweaters, wearing a scarf in summertime and Buddy Holly glasses that he doesn’t need)

—but Todd is still jealous of Stephen (and unfortunately, things don’t magically get better after Todd gets the message that he is just jealous and completely wrong in thinking that Seb having dated multiple douchebags before means that somewhere, Stephen must have skeletons in his closet, a Bertha in his attic, an old man hidden underneath his floorboards, and/or an old friend walled up in his basement after being lured there by the promise of tasting a fine vintage Amontillado), and Todd’s being immature about dealing with his jealousy (and he’ll get through it eventually, but it’s gonna take him a while)

So, like…… Lucy’s and Sara Grace’s reasons for wanting to be paired together when they maybe shouldn’t be, and how well they deal with it, are legitimately doing a lot better than one of their teammates

10. It’s probably a good thing for Sara Grace that I cannot have the Star Trek universe in canon without getting sued, because she would absolutely try to have a Tribble as a pet. And whether she got herself an unmodified Tribble and wound up with a few billion of the little shits spilling out of her entire apartment building, or one of the ones Cyrano Jones doctored up in the animated series where they don’t reproduce like bacteria but get really huge instead, this would be really, really Not Good for everyone.

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