#i’m not even kidding that line changed my perspective of the whole show

[iristhedeadflower]

here everyone, you can thank this little exchange and that last line especially, for kickstarting what ended up becoming apigp. yeah. top 10 line deliveries in the whole show for me.

#i’m not even kidding that line changed my perspective of the whole show #since the beginning of the season i was like 😟 but after this i was like 😨 #it goes. so far #and it’s so real and rooted and how do you help someone who doesn’t want to be helped? #ok i’ll stop #iris violetta s3: priscila’s revenge #violetta #ludmila ferro #apigposting #violetta castillo #3x17

[loustyleshtommo]

Taylor Swift’s TTPD Song Theory: The Alchemy

I believe The Alchemy is about Karlie Kloss showing up at the Eras Tour postpartum, while Travis Kelce is another red herring.

He’s a counterfeit; She is 24 karat magic in the air~

This is Taylor writing from Karlie’s perspective:

The Alchemy

This happens once every few lifetimes.

It’s how IVF works. Not all embryos get implanted. Not all pregnancies are viable. (Higher miscarriage rate than traditional conception). It feels like a miracle when it results in a healthy baby.

These chemicals hit me like white wine./He jokes that it’s HEROIN but this time with an ‘E’

Epidural used to assist childbirth can make you feel drowsy. That’s where the ‘E’ comes from. Mama also had to give up white wine due to pregnancy, so she hadn’t felt tipsy in a while.

Heroin + e = Heroine

Taylor in Don’t Blame Me: My drug is my baby I’ll be using for the rest of my life

Reputation muse is her heroine.

Also, how sweet it is to call your wife a heroine for giving birth to your child. I’m grinning from ear-to-ear every time I hear this line.

What if I told you I'm back?

The hospital was a drag

Worst sleep that I ever had

This is Karlie showing up at The Eras Tour concert only days postpartum.

I circled you on a map

Confirming that she was a muse for reputation. (End Game: I buried hatchets but I keep maps of where I put them.)

Or, even sweeter interpretation: They drew circle around their baby in the ultrasound pictures taken during pregnancy. Taylor’s baby in Karlie’s tummy. That’s the most adorable mental picture ever.

I haven't come around in so long

But I'm coming back so strong

Remember Karlie at the reputation tour? That was after kissgate and love blackout. So many people were saying they hated each other then. And so many people mocked her for coming to the Eras Tour. How strong is she that she refused to let anything stop her from coming to support Taylor? Not the public opinions, nor recent childbirth can stop this mother.

So when I touch down

The continuation of Call It What You Want: My baby’s fly like a jet stream

Call the amateurs

I’m biased and think this line is about Swifties who chased Easter Eggs but couldn’t see Karlie embed into the heart and soul of Taylor’s songs.

And cut 'em from the team

bridges burn, I never learned

Ditch the clowns, get the crown

All the jokers dressing up as king

Baby I'm the one to beat

This is so cute. Taylor wrote from Karlie’s perspective here and really said Karlie KNOWS with absolute certainty that she is the King of My Heart.

Cause the sign on your heart

Said it's still reserved for me

Again with the ‘Karlie knows I am in love with her so utterly and completely, always

Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?

And the sweetest thing about this being from Karlie’s pov is that, she already made damn sure Taylor knows, that Karlie doesn’t blame her at all for the bearding/fake love for the crowd. That’s how Taylor gets the confidence to write this whole song in such a way that could be attributed to the guy on the chief. He’s not the real muse, like the alchemy that doesn’t make real gold.

Hey you, what if I told you we're cool?

That child's play back in school

Is forgiven under my rule

This is Karlie at the Eras Tour responding to Taylor’s inability to hide how smitten she was for Karlie, especially during ‘betty’ performance. James is down bad.

I haven't come around in so long

But I'm making a comeback to where I belong

Again a reiteration of Karlie showing up to support Taylor at her concerts since 1989 to reputation tour, and now The Eras Tour. It’s as reassuring as the repeating chorus. But do you know what changes? The two lines about giving birth to IVF baby that she opens and closes the song with. In the beginning, there’s only one leading vocal. At the end, there are two vocals in harmonies. Like how Taylor and Karlie have transitioned from being moms of one kid to two kids. And they’ve been so in love through it all.

These blokes warm the benches

We been on a winning streak

Once again with the reassurance. Karlie made sure that Taylor knows no matter how much bearding they have to do, the love they have for each other never wanes.

Shirts off,

The many outfits change Taylor does in every concert.

and your friends lift you up over their heads

I Did Something Bad Choreography: Go ahead and light me up.

Beer sticking to the floor

Shout out to swifties drunk on alcohol AND fun during the concert

Cheers chanted,

ONE, TWO, THREE, LET’S GO BITCH among many others

‘cause they said

There was no chance, trying to be the greatest in the league

Again, with reference to reputation era and how Taylor was not the mass media’s favorite at all, at the time.

Where's the trophy?

Not Taylor calling herself Karlie’s trophy wife. HAHAHAHAHAHAHSJK

He just comes running over to me

James is still just as down bad for Betty now as ever.

Thank god for Travis’s team winning, otherwise this sweetest song would’ve been scrapped for being too obviously not about him.

#taylor swift #Karlie Kloss #my roman empire #kaylor #the tortured poets department #song analysis #the alchemy #line-by-line #mine

[variousqueerthings]

so the whole thing about BJ for me, is that actually he’s not my favourite character (I was just going through the characters and I’m no good at playing favourites -- purely based on amount of words written it may be Hawkeye, but every one of them, including BJ, has something that makes me go !!!!!!!!!!)

but right now BJ specifically is someone I circle back to a lot, because of the mask of it all. no character on MASH wears masks as well as BJ does

when I first started watching I knew that there was a guy (I at some point had the name “honeycut” and was like... “honeycut? is he a bond girl??” (yes, he is)) who would be there after Trapper and stay until the end of the show

and then as I was watching I got sent some fanfictions and generally got an impression of BJ through the lens of devotion to Hawkeye and overall good guyness, maybe a little bland even

and around s6 I was really wondering... where are they going with this guy? Did learn later that there was something going on on the writing-side of things, so the inconsistencies I was noting were... noticeable, but often that can give unexpected things to work with. at the time I figured “I will wait until I’ve got the whole puzzle” (I say, like I wasn’t writing a dozen BJ-related posts while watching, but I was just... prodding at him: what’s up with you my guy?)

so now I’ve got the whole puzzle and it’s quite devastating. I’ve joked along with others that BJ is the villain of the piece, and it is kind of true that a lot of later seasons inner-MASH conflict comes from him, but the whole thing about the end is of course that none of the people at the 4077th are villains (except for Frank, of course, Frank is a bastard as he was meant to be), they’re just reacting to all the awfulness in different ways 

I feel like Hawkeye, Charles, and BJ react the worst to it (although everyone has their Stuff) and out of the three of them BJ reacts in the most unpalatable ways to a viewer

Hawkeye is Hawkeye -- could go on about him (and have done) forever, but I think I’ll leave it at that here. We have had Episodes Dedicated To Hawkeye Is Being Hawkeye, we Know.

Charles is introduced as intensely closed-off, strongly disliking everything and everyone around him, even casually bigoted -- every example of him growing and changing and allowing his door to wedge open just a bit is bound to be catnip to a certain kind of engager of these sorts of stories (me). and this is also at risk of becoming paragraphs of text, so I shan’t continue for long, but Charles in the last episode was perfectly everything that is Charles, in all his fascinating contradictions -- and in a lot of ways, Charles is quite open with who he is, and who he is is someone who hisses angrily at the idea of sharing his deepest emotions with others and then occasionally he does and I 😭

BJ though!

BJ is introduced as a good guy. he’s the new Trapper. he’s going to be there for Hawkeye. he’s in many ways everything Hawkeye is not (clean-cut, a little traditional in a charmingly white knight kind of way, married to a beautiful woman with whom he has a beautiful kid -- there’s even that line from Hawkeye where he basically says words to this effect, and ends it on “and despite that I still like the guy”) 

so when BJ starts knocking on the walls of being this Type of character --- what if he fully knows the connotations of being Trapper’s replacement and hates it? what if there’s no way to maintain an All-American ideal in a place like this and he’s floundering because he’s never had to consider himself outside of that perspective? what if the ugliness makes him ugly? (in how he treats others, not physically, fully once he got that moustache, the little gay boy from the 1970s inside of me went 😳 oh hello. sidenote, does Mike Farrell know this? surely he must know what he was evoking with all of that??? I hope Mike *I need to talk about gay rights* Farrell got fanmail from gay guys that he cherished). 

and what if he still acts, in many ways... not even so dissimilarly from how he did in the beginning, with the exception of the sudden outbursts and jealous rantings? what if the cheeky smile feels a bit... off now? more like a smirk. what if you go from “aww he’s got a letter from peg,” to “oh no, he’s got a letter from peg”? what if he obfuscates and tells half-truths and outright lies in the exact same tone of voice as when he’s being sincere? what if that means you just never know when he’s being real? what if he’s all-mask and no answers? and when did he start being this? was this somewhat disconcerting man always who he was?

and, like with Charles, there are little glimpses into the answers (I think war co-respondent is a not universally beloved episode, but the stuff about being a prisoner of war and needing to look towards home was wonderful stuff to me, dunno if I can imagine him ever admitting any of that to Hawkeye -- not to mention period of adjustment, in which some bit of truth only comes out after literal violence and binge drinking)

when I was watching s10 I noticed that this got especially intense, not so much in the period of adjustment way, but just the casualness of cruelty. there were barely any examples of BJ really being there for Hawkeye (and I have another post I want to do about times he aggressively projected onto him and how Hawkeye reacted to that within episodes) and I wasn’t happy about it, because I wanted to see mutual support dammit! I wasn’t prepared to consider the tragedy that maybe the ability to do that is just eroding (take away why things were written the way they were and just looking at the narratives themselves) -- maybe all that’s left is the projection and the familiarity and the trudging onwards with bits of mad impulsive abandon the only way of dealing

and after Goodbye Farewell and Amen, I reconsidered (we’ll see if I feel the same way on my second watch though). I do on some level wish that BJ had gotten to be more in the final seasons than mostly petty and mean, but I’m also warming up to the reading of him and the ways that reactions to trauma can be incredibly unkind -- and also that BJ maybe doesn’t naturally come to kindness, but it’s hard to say. I quite like that read, personally, and there are hints of it (the fact that he played tricks on people before he ever came to Korea is one. the fact that he’s an easy-going privileged white guy who was popular in a frat house is another.)

the other thing about BJ is the gradual slide of his character. in the beginning he’s confidently able to play the Role Of The American Hero Man Who Is (kind of bland) A Good Guy Here To Pick Up The Pieces Of That Other Guy Who’s A Mess and we have a clear enemy in Frank. It’s a simpler story, even though it actually gets complicated almost immediately in the first episode by the way BJ starts out in his nice pressed dress uniform and ends it having thrown up, having fallen into the mud, having had bombs dropped on him, having taken a girl who stepped on a landmine to an ill-equipped local hospital, etcetcetc. and at the end getting mind-numbingly drunk. in hindsight it feels easy to see all of this and go: ah yeah, he’s not going to be okay

and yet he spends seasons in which he just seems to continue and then seasons in which he does increasingly unhinged shit, while still acting as if he’s just continuing. masks under masks under masks. 

the first crack might be when he cheats on Peg. it’s totally antithetical to what he believes in. it makes no sense for it to happen. I wrote a whole post about how I didn’t understand the reasons from his side at the time when I was watching it (I believe it was the first episode to really give him a POV), and I’m not convinced that it was intended at all this deep in any way, but through the lens of this read, it’s the first of BJ’s sudden, destructive behaviours -- but he’s still Good Guy BJ, he’s going to explain it to Peg, he’s going to fix it... until Hawkeye tells him not to (and once again obligatory mention of how Hawkeye inserts himself in the Hunnicutt family over and over). Who knows if that was the right decision, the point is that there are no right decisions, but maybe for a man like BJ... idk, maybe it would have been good to let him face the facts and take responsibility. he’s increasingly not very good at that, after all

I also think “BJ Papa San” is one of the most affecting pre-s8 episodes. more scales falling from his eyes, there are no heroes, including him, nothing here matters, why should he try to make things matter? and it’s in s8 when period of adjustment hits and I do think (and again I may find myself reconsidering once I rewatch) that there’s a pre-s8 BJ and a s8-onwards BJ and the changes can be pinpointed down to specific episodes -- those episodes turned a slow slide into a waterfall, until you end up with something like “Bombshells” in which BJ’s hurt leads him to blame Hawkeye (and really himself) for essentially judging the average soldiers who come through, when Hawkeye has never been cruelly simplistic like that in how he fights against the war

*

in GFA BJ finally hits the wall with his way of dealing, and he deals with that really badly too. every bit of how he goes about trying to get home to Erin’s birthday makes me want to shake him. he triggers Hawkeye, he doesn’t consider the needs of the 4077th in terms of surgeons, he feels weirdly manipulative in the way he shows her picture around like, “see, this is why it’s important I leave right now, rather than in idk, two weeks, you wouldn’t break the heart of this little girl, it’s all about her actually and not about me, when you think about it!” -- then he leaves without saying goodbye to Hawkeye or even just leaving him a note (and yeah, sudden short timing, but like... dude... you had time before that and also that’s the thing he’s sensitive about! that’s... that’s literally the thing that happened that meant he met you how he met you, you were there my guy!)

and he gets sent back and once again doesn’t acknowledge that he really may have hurt him. Over and over again in that final story, BJ runs from direct confrontation of how he feels, down to the feelings that must arise from allowing the word “goodbye.”

when Hawkeye confronts him on that (and I love love love that it wasn’t about how BJ might have hurt Hawkeye or about the mutual projection they may have done on each other, or anything about the past time of BJ being kind of a shit, it was Hawkeye asking for the thing underneath all of those things) it’s in a way that’s very raw and puncturing, and feels like slightly to the left of an argument (you know when someone brings something out during a fight that seemingly has nothing to do with what it’s about?) + Hawkeye’s highly sensitive way of dealing with things invoking his actual death to try and get BJ to just do the fucking thing! It was pretty shocking, I will one day rewatch, but I am remembering that feeling of it like a kind of slap to BJ’s face, because he’s trying to not think about things like that!

it reminds me of the example of “times men are allowed to show emotion and be close and be intimate include when a buddy is holding his dying buddy on the battle field,” except in this case it’s fascinatingly meta, because it’s Hawkeye calling BJ out on it through that example, because Hawkeye, as we know, has no problem being emotional (filtering those emotions though... somethingsomething fascinating that we have two examples of Hawkeye being so emotionally wounded that he literally deals with it by repressing the whole memory! ANYWAY!) -- would it be enough then, BJ? would you say goodbye if he was literally dying, or would you be a coward then too? I’m doing some hyperbole and stretching of how Hawkeye says it, but it’s the slightly left to an argument feeling of it all... you’re asking, how much does this question contain?

and hey, what do you know: having to look directly at the violence without a haze of genial “I’m just a blank space where a guy should be”ism, is the thing that BJ is sensitive about! but they’re about to leave and Hawkeye can’t let him not look directly at him anymore, he needs them to say goodbye!

*

BJ is also a guy who’s been really hurt and is continually hurt by all the ways war is a near-constant violence. they’re all just hurt people doing their best, and I like the idea that maybe Hawkeye is quite aware of what BJ is doing and absorbs the blows knowingly, because they’re all just trying their best to get through it okay and Hawkeye’s way is self-sacrifice

at the end BJ does say goodbye

he makes the tremendous effort to do so, and it’s done in a very BJ type way, big and grand. it feels like an acknowledgement that what happened here did affect him, Hawkeye mattered to him, and despite everything and the likelihood that they may never see each other again (or maybe they will, but only once or twice), there was something in it all worth saying goodbye to. in a sea of nothing mattering, that mattered

another thing is that I think if this had been a different show, with more traditional types of masculinity, BJ would have fit right in. Hell, he might even have been “the sensitive one” because ultimately he’s a very passionate healer of people and he’s against war on principle and he’s a wife guy, but this narrative doesn’t let him stop at that point. things that might go under the radar in that type if story become red alarms in this one. maybe the original MASH, full of snark and cynicism would have let him get away with it

but in this one he says goodbye, dammit, he hugs Margaret (twice), he says fond goodbyes to his friends and salutes Potter, and he hugs Hawkeye as hard as he can like he’ll never let go, and he makes the grand gesture! 

and I don’t know, I might reconsider so many things as I go along... like I said, he’s... *pokes and prods* what’s going on here, huh buddy? how can we make this writing make sense now we have all the puzzle pieces we’re going to get?

how hard can I fixate on the act of saying “goodbye”

#bj hunnicutt #MASH #hawkeye pierce #also briefly: charles but mainly just to go *listen I love him* #MASH meta #goodbye farewell and amen

[confinedmadness]

My Top 10 Movies

Chosen based completely on personal preferences, emotional attachment, and life impact, listed in no particular order. Spoiler warning for the movies listed.

------

The Sound of Music

Almost 3 hours long, but I was completely focused the whole movie even as a child. I used to sing along to every song and practiced Edelweiss on the piano because I thought it was the most beautiful song ever. Granted, I used to turn away from the the TV screen during “Something Good” because apparently my kid self had very little appreciation for romance. But re-watching the movie as an adult really changes your perspective and I have even more appreciation for the different parts of this movie.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The whole Harry Potter film series was such a big part of my childhood that there was absolutely no way I wouldn’t list at least one movie. I decided on the first one not only because it started the whole thing, but also because it is the one Harry Potter movie I can recite all the lines for from memory. I watch all Harry Potter movies every year during Christmas with my sister. By virtue of being first, the first movie just happens to be the one we’ve repeated the most.

You are the Apple of My Eye

那些年，我們一起追的女孩

I first saw this movie when I was in college. I think, perhaps, it was the perfect age to watch this because everything was so relatable and so close to my reality that everything just hit that much harder. The story is beautiful and realistic. I just think this was so, so precious. When I’m feeling emotional, I love re-watching this movie and shedding a few tears here and there.

The Kite Runner

I wasn’t even in high school yet when I first saw this film. I remember the rape scene leaving such a big impact on me that “boys can get raped too” and “children can get raped too” was my biggest take away from this movie for the longest time. It wasn’t until I re-watched the movie in my last year of high school that the movie really left an impression on me as a story/film as a whole instead of just that one scene. The ending still gets me every single time.

Enter the Dragon

龍爭虎鬥

One of my first foreign-language films was Enter the Dragon. My dad is a big Bruce Lee fan and when the age of DVDs came, he bought a bunch of Bruce Lee movie DVDs and we all watched them together as a family. Enter the Dragon was probably the one we watched the most times. It was my first time having to read subtitles. I remember having such a hard time keeping up with the speed as a kid. In fact, watching Bruce Lee movies really helped me learn to read fast because otherwise I couldn’t understand the dialogue.

Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

Barbie movies were a big part of my childhood. The Princess and the Pauper was my favorite among all of them and still is to this day. I will never tire of the music from this movie. I still remember all the songs. I even still remember the bloopers scenes they showed at the end of the movie.

Whisper of the Heart

耳をすませば

My favorite Ghibli movie is, without a doubt, Whisper of the Heart. Music and writing, two of my favorite things both in one movie. The lead girl is still one of the most relatable characters in any movie for me and maybe that’s why it is very close to my heart. No matter how great the other Ghibli films are and how much I also love them, Whisper of the Heart is dear to me because of my emotional attachment to it.

Haba-baba-doo! Puti-puti-poo!

A childhood staple, I remember watching this movie so many times as a kid. We have no CDs or DVDs of it, then and now. I only ever saw this when I happened to be watching TV when they showed this movie. But I still saw it enough times for it to stick with me until adulthood. I remember watching this with my siblings, my cousins, and our house helpers. I’ve watched this at our house, my grandma’s house, my aunt’s house, and even at a hotel room. A lot of chaos, comedy, and good feels.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

If I associated the Harry Potter films with Christmas, then New Year was for Narnia. I liked The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe so much that I remember being not so impressed with the second and third movie that followed. As I grow older, I found that I have more and more appreciation for the later movies, but the first one does indeed have a special place in my heart.

Hercules

Another childhood film. To be honest, it wasn’t until after I entered college that I revisited this movie. I knew I enjoyed it as a kid but by then I didn’t even know the story anymore, just the songs that I kept hearing, as you do any other Disney song. I loved it so much on my re-watch that I kept repeating it, until my dad saw me watching it one day and commented how I used to memorize all the lines Hercules said as a kid. I don’t remember, but if dad is to be believed, I guess my taste in movies haven’t changed at all since then.

------

Other movies I love, still in no particular order.

Joseph: King of Dreams was shown in my elementary school and I have loved it since.

White Chicks was a favorite to watch with my cousins at their house and good for laughs.

Rurouni Kenshin is, in my opinion, the best manga/anime live-action adaptation ever.

Heneral Luna is a great historical film with perfectly modernized dialogue, to appeal to a younger audience without destroying its essence.

High School Musical was a huge part of my youth and still a great film musical to watch even as an adult.

#posts #post #film #movie #list #the sound of music #harry potter #you are the apple of my eye #kite runner #barbie as the princess and the pauper #enter the dragon #whisper of the heart #Haba-baba-doo! Puti-puti-poo! #narnia #hercules #The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe #耳をすませば #龍爭虎鬥 #那些年，我們一起追的女孩 #joseph king of dreams #white chicks #rurouni kenshin #heneral luna #high school musical

[itsclydebitches]

Totally agree with your take on The Blacklist “(…) I’m watching the stupidest plot-line man ever devised, or a character suddenly did a 180 with no explanation, and yeah that makes the meta-writing part of my brain seethe and bite her imaginary pillow to muffle screams of rage… but then the characters have A Moment™, or there’s an actually well done twist, or we get an action sequence that yeah, is pretty silly when all is said and done, but it’s fun and I remember why I want to watch this show through to the end.” is exactly how I feel when watching lol

You know, I'm two episodes from finishing Season Three and while killing time today my poor brain was trying to unpack the roller coaster that has been Liz's opinion of Red lately:

Grows quite close while on the run, to the point where she'll impulse hug him and seek comfort in other ways following traumatic situations (like almost being shot). Fantastic. Love to see it. Makes perfect sense given 2+ years of interactions, revelations, and Liz's current circumstances.

Gets her life back and immediately decides that she wants Red out. Okaaaay. I've never questioned the whole 'I want a normal life and you make that impossible' perspective, but you'd think that everything they'd gone through would change her stance a bit from what we've seen in Seasons One and Two.

They settle back into working together non-stop, but Liz simultaneously insists that she doesn't want him around, a contradictory desire that's been a problem since the show's start and is pretty much ignored instead of being resolved. (Which, given the show's premise that requires them working together, should be resolved by Liz changing her stance on what a 'normal' life means. Which is what I THOUGHT we'd accomplished post-fugitive plot-line).

We get a series of episodes where Liz is literally pushing him away in the first half and then, like, holding his hand in the second??

Is completely adamant that she can't have a kid because Red is in her life.

Decides to keep the kid in large part because Red insists she should have the child in her life.

'Omg, Red, you need to stay away you're not safe for my family!'

'Omg, Red, I'm so happy you came to the wedding! :D'

Has pretty normal (for them) interactions surrounding the wedding debacle, including quippy dialogue and making light of horrifying situations. We're on familiar ground.

Is, again, her normal self where she (understandably) is pissed about shit like giving birth in a night club, but ultimately caves to the insanity that is her life.

Takes a hard turn into full-blown fury. No, you can't hold my baby. Get out. Get away.

A few minutes later Liz is falling into a coma and holds Red's hand: "Oh, Raymond. I do love..." Use of 'love.' Use of 'do.' Use of the first name. Supposed last words. Blah-de-blah I'm about six years behind and fans have analyzed that scene way better than I ever could.

Okay so Liz has been conflicted in a lot of non-persuasive ways and yeah, so much of this is contradictory/nonsensical, BUT if we're charitable we can write a lot of it off as traumatic venting and when the chips are down these are her real feelings--

Psych! She apparently faked this whole thing to try and achieve her normal life.

(Don't even get me started on stuff like the long scenes of Tom grieving when, from what I understand, he was in on the plan the whole time? You should only show the audience moments of 'grief' when he's around other people so we can later understand it as an act! Showing the viewer private moments of him talking to Agnus when he has no reason to hide what he really knows/feels in that moment doesn't work!!)

So I'm quietly seething at the absurdity and lost potential, heading home all, "That's it. I've got better shows to watch. I'm finishing this ONE EPISODE and then we are done, Blacklist."

The episode:

[Aram is the cutest cutie to ever cute, adorably blundering his way through working with Tom]

[Cooper stands his ground and announces to friend and enemy alike that he'll never stop trying to get justice for Liz]

[Red pulls a legitimately impressive one-over on the bad guy du jour]

[Unexpected moment of relief when a background character nobody survives a bomb]

[Dembe exists]

"FINE. I'LL KEEP WATCHING. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?"

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

#Blacklist #The Blacklist #mymetas

[feralgodmothers]

Hmmmm. I like Marty. I don’t like how the writing in season seven changed him. Although. I do kinda understand why he pretended to not know Rory. It’s the whole mars/venue double standard thing I hate. So really I’m just miffed that the writing fell back on a tired trope.

Mitchum had a point. And it didn’t really matter if he sugarcoated it or not. Either way. Rory was gonna spiral. Remember the incredible sinking Lorelai’s? She doesn’t like failing. However minor. So yeah. Mitchum had a point. And Rory was gonna go nuts however he said it

I agree about Marty. I liked him, and then s7 made him really weird for no reason. I kinda shipped him with Rory (because he came along when I was still watching the show with hopes that Rory would do what I wanted her to do, rather than just seeing how things played out). I remember thinking that the way they met was really cute, and would be a funny story for their hypothetical future children once they got old enough. Like “You know how we always said ‘we met at college’? Well, here’s what really happened…” 😂 But idk. I liked how chill and straightforward he was, but I guess that’s not Rory’s thing. I think he’s pretty underrated in the fandom. (Like how are there more people who ship Rory with Tristan than with Marty??? If you’re gonna ship her with somebody she’s not into, then the least you could do is ship her with the guy who didn’t bully her, lol)

I kind of agree about Mitchum too. I’ve seen arguments from every side, and I see where they’re all coming from - but my gut says that he was right, and maybe what drew him to that conclusion was wrong. Like - no, I don’t think he needed to sugarcoat it. He wasn’t even that harsh - it was just blunt and seemingly out of nowhere. I don’t know much about the journaling business, so I don’t know how likely it is that someone like Mitchum could discern the “it factor” in interns. Maybe there’s something to it, idk. Maybe it’s true that some interns do put themselves out there and shove their way into places they “don’t belong”, and that that’s a good indicator for success in the field. But I would think that - just like with most fields - there would be naturals, and there would be those who could train themselves to be whatever they needed to be to do the work. So yeah - maybe Rory wasn’t the naturally ruthless go-getter she needed to be for this career, but she had the potential to learn imo (if we ignore AYITL lol). Giving her a head’s up of what was expected might have been nice, but Mitchum’s not a nice guy. And that’s the thing - some people aren’t nice. She had to deal with Paris in school, who (at least in the beginning) actively tried to tear her down, and Rory persevered exceptionally through that. I can only figure that this was the first time Rory had to face someone in authority doubting her abilities, and I can sympathize with her to an extent on that, but… GIRL. Having a full-on crisis over it was insane, and watching her essentially prove him right for a period of time was disappointing. I was very happy to see her return with renewed zeal after she put herself back on track though. That’s what gave me hope that she could eventually become who she needed to be for this line of work. But honestly - the thing that had me doubting Rory’s journaling skills the most, and was never really addressed - was the fact that she would cave every time she was confronted about an article she wrote. Again - I know virtually nothing about being a journalist, so I can’t say whether the pieces Rory did on the ballerina or on trust fund kids were “good” from a journalism perspective, but if I remember right - the kind of journalism Rory wanted to do would have been very controversial, and would have had lots of people become angry with her (including powerful people in authority). So if anything, Rory really needed to develop a crazy-strong backbone, a clear head for what was right to report, and a readiness to stand by the things she wrote. And for me - that’s what she didn’t have, and I’m not so sure she learned it either. I would have liked to see her succeed, but it just… didn’t happen.

#asks #gilmore girls #rory gilmore #mitchum huntzberger

[a-froger-epic]

(Sorry this is long. I just wanted to point out that the reason this is so long is because I wanted to be as clear as possible and give the necessary details. I get that this is a kids show and not important to the real world in anyway. Despite the length of this, I wanna be clear I know this is dumb and im not losing sleep over it. Just thought about it the other day and was curious what you thought lol. Additional Info that may be relevant: I’m 27, have no kids, autistic/ADHD so my brain sometimes works in mysterious ways lol)

basically my niece has been obsessed with this kids show (purposely not saying what it is because its popular and I just don’t wanna open that door I’ve heard the fans are a bit… passionate to put it mildly) and always wants to watch it when I’m babysitting. I don’t mind watching it, it’s silly but pretty cute and wholesome too. Anyway the point being there a character on the show that kind of bothers me, not really because of the character herself, because of how the others react to her. The character is 4(possibly 3 but I’m 99% she’s 4 now, the characters do age in this show) she is extremely funny, energetic, and adorably stubborn. She always needs to have things go the way she wants, to the point of yelling, disrupting/breaking games/breaking items, when things don’t go her way. Example:she once threw a tantrum holding up a game of charades because she didn’t get the card she wanted, and then proceeded to refuse to act it out until she got a costume and music to really sell the performance 😂. Now I don’t mind any of that, I actually find her character really cute and endearing(most of the time). I have younger siblings and nieces and nephews, I’m well aware of how toddlers can be. My issue is that the adults never do anything to correct her when she takes things too far. There was an episode where she acted like a complete brat the whole time, absolutely ruining the game for the other kids, and when they tried to tell the adults about this the only response they got was”well, just let her do whatever she wants.” This is a common theme with her and her parents. They always seem to have a “whatever she wants” attitude. And it shows. I don’t blame the toddler for this, of course kids will be their crazy selves, but from a parenting perspective surly this has to be problematic? She acts like she’s never heard the word no in her life.I’m not suggesting they should be using harsh punishments or anything, but I feel like just simply correcting the negative behavior now and then would really benefit her. I understand that some battles with kids just aren’t worth it but I mean literally just once in a while affirming to her that yes, sometimes we do need to follow the rules. and no, yelling and stomping won’t change that. I just feel like she’s going to grow up thinking that the world is going to bend to her if they keep letting her go on like this.

So I’m just curious as a parent what do you think? Am I overreacting(well yes, obviously) how hard is it to walk that line as a parent?

I think you're completely right. I mean, lol, I deal with at least one meltdown a day from 6yo because something hasn't gone exactly the way he wanted it to. He's extremely willful and will take offence if his wishes aren't met. So he'll stomp off to his room and slam the door and howl for five to ten minutes while we all get on with our lives (I would go and comfort him, but he'll just scream at anyone who comes near to go away).

And we let him be upset and calm down and accept that even though it greatly upsets him, he can't always get his way.

Because, yes. That's a very important lesson to learn in life.

#ask response

[the-cat-chat]

January 27, 2024

Christine (1983)

JayBell: My understanding before going into this movie is that it's Herbie but with murder. And honestly, it's kind of true. I will say this movie actually wasn't as silly as I thought it was gonna be. It could've been wayyyy sillier.

My major issue with this movie is how sharp and sudden the transformation of the main character is. Like the big deal is that he makes a supernatural connection with this car, and the car begins changing him. But because the first part of the movie is from the perspective of the friend, the viewer doesn't actually get to see his change from nerdy dude to asshole. He just shows up one day, already full asshole and lacking glasses and with a new wardrobe. It would be nice to see this as a progression and not a sudden change.

The construction of the plot feels odd. It's broken up into segments. The friend's point of view, and then the main character's, and then it switches back to the friend. I also think the investigator guy isn't as incorporated into the plot as he should've been.

It's basically the plot of Carrie, but focused on a young guy instead of a young woman. Well-meaning best friend, controlling parents, supernatural force (aka car) used as instrument for revenge against bullies. It has almost all the elements of Carrie, but Carrie is way more sympathetic and has a more interesting dynamic with her mom.

Rating: 5/10 cats 🐈

Anzie: I really have no clue what to say other than this is a total experience. And that I loved it while also being simultaneously baffled and cringing bc of the weird behavior or the characters. First off I could see how Arnie was kinda cute (later to realize it’s the younger Matty Healy rat boy look- and then even later to change my mind when Arnie loses his mind). Andrew the old man selling the car?? I’m not saying anymore on him he needs to be forgotten. But let’s divert- the guys at school- ummm they’re all at least 35 right??? Did they really look at them and say sure he’s 17, sure he looks full of youth??? Bc I didn’t. And again the teenagers in this are almost as gross as the Halloween ones- actually grosser maybe. And what they do to Christine?? Annnyway, I really don’t understand his mom’s whole conniption over the car??? And it seemed excessive?? And then Arnie “changes”- can we talk insane??? Love how we get no insight into how he linked up with the girl his friend had asked out- he just shows up at the football game with her. And it’s actually nuts bc his friend gets so distracted he almost, AlllllMoST becomes paralyzed. I think it’s interesting that Christine didn’t do anything but maker Arnie “cooler” I guess until people kept saying that they hate her. Like would everything have been good?? Bc I know she did the same mind control/ killing thing with the guy who owned it before?? But this time it seemed only when there was a threat to Arnie keeping and owning the car. I don’t know cray it’s cray either way. Also???? Just remembered bc the car like bit?? The guy on the assembly line- then killed the other guy that worked there too. So nevermind im wrong I know nothing. And then the murders! And Harry Dean Stanton as the cop?? Who does nothing? And all the other kids that bullied Arnie get murdered too.

I really was wishing that the car was doing all of it alone without taking over Arnie- but alas that’s not what happened and Arnie dies too :( —— I hate how they try fighting the car - and it takes forever- and they’re like Christine will come- ok and your shocked when you kill your best friend??? Why not steal it and crush it with something when he’s asleep, or drive it off a bridge. But nnnoooo. And in the cringy words of the girl - she said it best- and the weirdest/ “we didn’t do so hot” ——- he’s dead!!!! You didn’t do so hot!!!! What!!!! It was his best friend???? And you knew him for what like a month and half that time he was scary/ borderline aggressive and verbally abusive?bc his car took over his mind and soul. Oookkkkk.

Rating: 4.5/10 Cats 🐈

#movie #movie review #film #film review

[fernsam]

Break Up Playlist

Sitting with a tub of ice cream and having mascara run down my face is what I always pictured what it feels like to break up as a kid. I thought it was just sadness and crying. Later on, I learned that it is not that simple. It's a weird feeling. It’s messy and confusing, but it’s usually necessary. My friend just got out of a relationship and I kept reassuring her that everything would be okay. She responded that she knows she will be okay but doesn't feel okay. None of my words could really reassure her, so I made this playlist to just help her go through the feels. I will look at heartbreak from a psychological perspective and categorize the songs into the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. 

Denial:

The first song on my playlist is Step On Me by The Cardigans. Even though this is not a breakup song, I wanted to add it because it shows the effect of being in a relationship. Relationships are very codependent and breaking up feels like the end of something so natural. Denial is all about sock and fear and everything you were used to about the world has suddenly changed. Step On Me stays in that past world and insists that they don’t mind that they’re heart is being broken. In this verse, she sings: “Oh, I think you're holding the heart of mine (my heart is yours), squeeze it apart, that's fine.” Although the lyrics to this song are very simple, it shows how even though someone is breaking your heart, love makes things much more complex. 

ARE WE STILL FRIENDS? by Tyler the Creator is a song about denial. Even though they have broken up, Tyler still poses the question if they can be friends. Like Step On Me, it shows how hard it is to let someone go, especially in the beginning. Interestingly enough, even though the breakup happened in the middle of the album, this song is the last song on the album. That shows that denial can happen at any time and the emotion in this song is insane. Again, the lyrics aren’t too complicated, but the way he basically begs to still be friends makes it so heartbreaking. The “i don't want to add this season on a bad episode” ties into the idea that breakups are hard to just “get over”. Even though this is the first stage, I feel that people forget that some things need time and it’s okay to address the “unwanted” feelings.

Anger: 

Listening to Happier Then Ever for the first time made me think that this was the typical sad song. The soft singing, the ukele, the slow pace. I’m not usually a huge fan of Billie Elish, but I love the transition from the typicall sad break up song to the pop-rock genre. The sudden shift  using the guitar and singing “i’d never treat me this shitty” shows how quickly emotions can change. The lyrics are really impactful and even though it doesn’t sound like a typical angry song, you can hear from her voice and the instruments that she feels frustrated. What I really like is that the whole time she keeps her cool while delivering low blows to her ex. Especially her last line, where she is just screaming “Just fucking leave me alone.”  

Similar to Happier Then Ever, Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo is sung very softly. Through her lyrics, however, you can see the metaphor of how she compares her ex to a greedy vampire: someone who “sucked” the life out of her. She really uses her voice to make the audience understand how predatory her ex was. The raw vocals were very impressive and she raised her voice at all the right points to really emphasize how helpless she felt. Even the dramatic instrumental at the end showed that she's glad to finally get this off her chest and finally put her frustrations into words. Anger doesn’t always have to be a bad thing, and it feel relieving to let off steam. 

Bargaining:

I was having trouble understanding what bargaining was but apparently it is to explain how things could have been done differently or better. The song that reminds me of this is Back to December by Taylor Swift. It’s her typical Taylor Swift vibe, but she talks about how she is sorry for that night and she even says she would “go back in time and change it.” I’m not a huge Taylor Swift fan but when my friends played this song it really stuck with me. I usually hear break up songs bashing the other person, so it was interesting to hear an apology. Reflecting is a good idea and not everything has to be directed towards the other person. 

Another side to bargaining is just straight up begging. A song that reminds me of this is Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want by the Smiths. This is probably the shortest song in the playlist but it matches Taylor Swift with it’s country vibe. He is basically just asking to get what he wants. Although the lyrics aren’t much, I like how short it is. He is straight to the point and is being very apperant on what he wants. In break ups, people may find it hard to think about themself and put them first, but this is very important to moving on. 

Depression:

There were so many songs I could pick for this topic but one that I think has to be here is Mr. Loverman. I think I have cried to this song about a hundred times with nothing close to this happening in my life. The simple beat puts the spotlight on his clear voice. It really forces you to listen to the lyrics and he does a great job of portraying missing someone. The bridge where he talks about being shattered and being helpless followed by the hearwrentching chorus, this song definitely portrays the longing and depression that comes with moving on. 

With similar vibes to Mr. Loverman, I added I Love You So by the Walters. This song is about leaving someone behind even though you love them. This song is actually about going through the process of breaking up because his partner is cheating, but it really conveys feeling of moving on. When he says “this feelings old and I know I know that I’ve made up my mind.” It shows that time really does play a role in moving on. Even though he loves her he is tired of feeling this way. Depression is tiring but sometimes its a good way to show that it is time to move on. 

Acceptance:

Going back to the queen of break up songs, I used We Are Never Getting Back Together by Taylor Swift. This song is a generic pop song and uses catchy beats to show the joy that comes with moving on. To me, this song is a very nostalgic song, and the story can be seen as relatable to many. (i’m assuming) Her iconinc singing of “we are never ever ever getting back together” just make you feel empowered to do the same. Acceptance is all about finally accepting what happened and using that to empower you to move forward in life. 

The last song on this playlist is GONE, GONE / THANK YOU by Tyler The Creator. At first, he mixes into the depressed stage because his love is gone, but towards the end, he realizes that it was good that it ended. He is actually appreciative for the experience he got. The second part of the song (thank you) really adds a new perspective. Even with all the pain Tyler went through, he still thanked him. Of course he is still hurt, saying lines like “i will never fall in love again” showing how impactful a breakup can be. Even though this is the acceptance stage, it’s still hard to completely move on. All that matters is that you acknowledge how your feeling and trust that time will heal you.  

Heartbreak isn’t just about linearly going through the stages. Everything can happen all at once or something completely out of script will be thrown your way. Although it’s messy, that is a part of the process. Even in the playlist, some songs weren’t even about break up and some stages had completely different genres. Regarding the meaning of the songs, there was not much linearity either. Tyler was supposed to be appreciative, but you could tell he was still deeply hurt. Billie’s song sounded soft and composed, but it was filled with rage. Even though it’s complicated that’s okay. It’s okay to miss them even though you’re supposed to have already accepted it. It’s okay to put yourself first even though it seems so unnatural. Sure the stages help frame the grieving process, but grief is all over the place and that’s okay. 

#breakup #playlist #spotify #music #Spotify

[tsarinatorment]

Yk, I really loved your analysis and I'm so glad you agree with everything ive ever thought about., especially the voice related stuff.

Anyway, alot of people don't talk about this but i have thought about this for a while, yk given that will is insecure and thinks so low of himself and never acknowledges his achievements ot how powerful he is I feel like him having impostor syndrome is plausible.

Also ik he has insecurities but I dont necessarily think they are about healing its obvious, like one this that sticks out to me and I would talk for hours is when will was soo so reluctant to glow and did not like that apollo was proud of it and was prumpy throughout the trogs thing. I feel like he feels like a joke cuz there's everyone out there summoning skeletons and creating giant waves and there's will who can just glow

(Mind you this is his perspective not mine I don't think it's just a simple glowing, there's more to that power, I've talked about this before)

Like he is skilled and powerful but I feel like no one takes him seriously, cuz he's the most non threatening, non combatant person at camp and while he is powerful its not "showy" ifyk what I mean?

And being a night light makes him feel like a joke like it is a good power but I just feel like it just goes back to the whole sunshiney goody two shoes happy go lucky softbean will narrative and noone takes him seriously and make jokes about him glowing so given his insecurities and the way he reacted upon asked to glow I dont think the idea is not plausible.

(I just wanna give him a long warm hug and tell him how great he is)

Also with the ability vs skill thing since its all abilities he inherited from his father, I dont think he is ever proud of himself for all the stuff he does, like he could go, "I didnt work hard and get the skills it was just granted to me, I didn't do anything to be worth it". And that one line in TON where he would rather have apollo be proud of him for getting top of the class??instead of glowing?? Thats what made me think if it.

So even no matter how powerful he is and how skilled he is and my many ppl he saved! he still thinks he's not good enough and not worth it and not skilled enough (I'm just a healer is what he says) this is very obvious with his insecurities and it could also be a possible lead to impostor syndrome(its very common in people in the medical field)

Also IT IS CANON that ultrasonic whistle in not the only musical talent he has, it was stated that it is one of his few musical talents

I'm sorry this is so long, I just don't find ppl who are as passionate and invested about Will solace like me in this fandom that often.

I love your writing btw

Oh hey, wasn't expecting to wake up to an essay in my own inbox for a change, nice :D

Will certainly has insecurities by the bucket load, which is very sad but very true. It's primarily shown to us in this passage:

‘I agree,’ Will said. ‘I wish I was a better archer … I wouldn’t mind shooting my Roman relative off his high horse. Actually, I wish I could use any of my father’s gifts to stop this war.’ He looked down at his own hands with distaste. ‘Unfortunately, I’m just a healer.’

It's interesting that despite what he says, though, Will does exactly that - he is the one to stop the Greco-Roman war, using his ultrasonic whistle, which neatly proves his insecurities wrong here and shows him as far more powerful and versatile than he gives himself credit for.

His thoughts about being "just" a healer are understandable, though - his job is primarily after the battle is fought, picking up the pieces of the demigods that (to his mind) could fight and sticking them back together, but being reasonably useless until someone's already hurt. You could argue this was increased back in TLO, because Will would have seen Michael fall. It's never stated (but then again, even Percy doesn't see him fall), but considering all the Apollo kids barring Michael are off the bridge and Kronos himself is bearing down on them... all the surviving Apollo kids would've been watching. They couldn't afford not to be. So Will's seen first hand how quickly a life can be taken, and that no matter how fast or good he is, he still fails to save the most important people to him (we don't know where he was in relation to Lee when Lee died; it's unlikely he was in the fight itself, but regardless, those giant clubs are nasty and Lee's death would've been instantaneous).

Does this translate into imposter syndrome? I am a little hesitant to put that label onto him because something about it doesn't quite seem to fit for me, but there's certainly some indications of a similar mindset, even if it's not the syndrome itself. One of these is how Will talks about the powers compared to how his siblings do.

"My father's gifts", he calls it in that moment of self-depreciation. Not my abilities, or even my talents; he calls them gifts, as though they're not really his, or even as though he thinks he's been passed over entirely for some of them while Apollo chose to lavish them elsewhere.

In contrast, we have the way Austin and Kayla talk about them in THO:

“But you’re mortal?” Kayla asked. “As in completely mortal? Does that mean I’m going to lose my archery skills? I can’t even qualify for the Olympics until I’m sixteen!” “And if I lose my music…” Austin shook his head. “No, man, that’s wrong. My last video got, like, five hundred thousand views in a week. What am I supposed to do?”

My. They have no doubts at all that the abilities they have are theirs. They're aware that they inherited them from Apollo, and they're worried that somehow they might disappear if Apollo dies (in Kayla's case she's literally worried that she, born literally of Apollo, might disappear), but they have no hesitation about claiming their abilities as their own.

(Interestingly, the one time Will calls an ability 'his', it's when he's being derogatory about it. "[...] a truly awful whistle", he says - the one thing he claims as his is the one potentially destructive ability he's showcased that people complain at him for.)

Will's reaction to Apollo's praise about the glowing reads to me like a little bit of shame (because he's comparing it to all the other neat demigod powers he's seen and "oh gods, all I do is glow, really?") but also just straight up insecurity - which Apollo sees and does not rise to the bait of.

‘I’m so proud,’ I said. Will’s face turned the colour of sunlight shining through a glass of cranberry juice. ‘Dad, I’m just glowing . I’m not graduating at the top of my class.’ ‘I’ll be proud when you do that, too,’ I assured him.

Remember that Will, as a demigod, is ADHD and dyslexic - while that doesn't automatically mean he can't be top of the class, it does make it a lot harder to do, so in this instance he's giving Apollo an out of "here's an example that you actually ought to be proud of... even though it'll never happen," because he doesn't actually believe that Apollo's as proud as he is. And yet, Apollo's response is instant, unwavering faith - "when you do that, too". (Obviously, Apollo is currently lacking his foresight abilities, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's forgotten what he has seen, and the confidence with which he says this might just be him reassuring Will, but also empty reassurance is pretty dangerous to do for someone whose self-esteem is so low, so there's a decent chance that Apollo remembers seeing that Will will do that.) He completely turns Will's self-depreciation around on its head like "you're amazing for this, you'll be amazing in the future, you're amazing whichever way we slice this so take the compliment."

And yes, Will is grumpy/unimpressed about the whole trogs thing - it's not just the fact that he's being viewed as a convenient light source by the trogs, he's been vocally opposed to the entire encounter from start to end.

But something I find interesting is that, for someone who's embarrassed about it and reluctant to do it in the first place (and honestly, I get the feeling that Will discovered this power by accident, probably when being dragged around dark places by his boyfriend, and was so embarrassed he never even showed it to anyone else), when we see him again in the tower - he's glowing.

He doesn't need to be glowing in the tower. There's plenty of light around, no-one's been struggling to see. His glow is also being described as bright, this time, rather than the subtle descriptions Apollo applied earlier. This is Will Solace, child of the sun god, using the light to show exactly who he is, and that's such a marked change from his attitude earlier where he was reluctant to turn on the glow even when it was pitch dark and the others (even Nico) needed it to see. This is Will being proud of what he's got. He's showing it off here, really - and the only reason I can think of is that Apollo gave it a solid mark of approval. He got affirmation about this particular ability from Apollo, Apollo explicitly told him he was proud of him for being able to do it, and that seems to have boosted his confidence in it.

I just feel like it just goes back to the whole sunshiney goody two shoes happy go lucky softbean will narrative and noone takes him seriously

This bit I'm gonna disagree with, though. The fandom, from what I've seen, packages Will into this little box (I've seen posts going around about him being exactly this), but in canon there's no evidence at all that he's not taken seriously by his fellow campers (or, actually, that Will is happy go lucky - he has strong morals and does not back down in the face of disagreements or conflict. Look at his interaction with Travis about stealing in TLO, his scolding of Annabeth about breaking the chariot in TLH, his scolding of Nico in BOO, and Apollo in THO; a consistent character trait right from his first appearance is that he's not afraid to stand his ground/disagree with more powerful/older/generally feared characters). In fact, he's probably well-respected in camp.

‘She’s right.’ Will Solace, head counsellor for the Apollo cabin, put his hand gently on Clarisse’s wrist. Not many campers could’ve done that without getting stabbed, but Will had a way of defusing people’s anger. He got her to lower her dagger.

Will has Clarisse's respect. It's shown here, where she doesn't lash out at him (unlike her interactions with Michael in TLO), it's also heavily implied in the fact that Will delivered Chuck - Clarisse is incredibly protective of Mellie and it's Will that she let near her in her vulnerable state. Not because Will isn't a threat, but because Clarisse trusted Will enough.

He has Nico's respect before their BOO encounter, "the camp's best combat medic", he has the respect of all the head counsellors in that meeting (not one of them interrupt him or disagree with him).

He has Annabeth's respect - she backs down and apologises to him even though she's still very wound up about Percy being gone and the Jason hint being a bust.

Hell, he has Dionysus' respect. There are very few demigods whose names Dionysus gets right - Will's is one of them, on more than one occasion.

I'm honestly not actually sure where this "sunshine goody two shoes happy-go-lucky softbean" fandom take comes from, unless it's literally taking one or two lines and twisting them a long way out of context, because that's not the Will we see in canon at all.

I'm pretty new to this fandom, and honestly I stay away from most of it because a lot of the Will takes I've seen around I don't agree with but I also refuse to get involved in anything that might start spiralling into drama (made that mistake in other fandoms, not making it again) so I only lurk on the edge of this one, and that's where I'll stay, but I did latch onto Will and find him fascinating to poke at and see what makes him tick, so I'm always happy to talk about him :D

I am glad you enjoy my writing, though! My plan is to be here to stay at least for a while, and there's a sore lack of Apollo&Will content, or even just non-Solangelo Will-centric content around on AO3 so that's mostly where I'm foreseeing hanging out (although I am also dabbling in Solangelo because while there is a lot of content for that, I find the way it's often portrayed to again not actually go with the canon we have, and as the old adage goes, "if you can't find something you like, write it yourself." So that's exactly what I'm doing!)

#fiftyshadesofdumbassery #will solace #riordanverse #percy jackson and the olympians #heroes of olympus #trials of apollo #tsari analyses things

[wanderingwomanwondering]

Just finished 508 Defend In Place. I have a couple of thoughts at the moment. I’ll probably have more to say later once the ep percolates a bit more in my head.

The fandom exploded over the buddie baby rescue before the ep even aired so I won’t really touch that. I’ll just echo what a few others have said: in bobby’s words, kids are like having your heart walking around outside your chest and we got buddie front and center saving all those tiny adorable hearts. Together.

One thing that stood out in the ep is that eddie’s tough exterior is cracking more obviously. It’s not surprising or unexpected at this point given his downward spiral over the course of the season but still noteworthy. It was the kids that he thought he couldn’t help that got to him. That could speak to eddie’s overwhelming sense of responsibility to save christopher from him. Buck felt the same way as eddie about the kids they couldn’t help but was able to carry on in that moment and towed the usual party line that we see in the thick of a grizzly save: stow it and save the next person in need. That could indicate what buck is going to have to do at least initially in order to help eddie dig himself out of the dark place he’s in.

The other scene that got me thinking was the reflection scene. Eddie’s realization about the reversed image combined with the fact that the person needing saving didn’t know where he was seemed important. Buck helped with the rescue and was off screen in the background when eddie figures out the issue so I’m thinking it was symbolic that neither of them quite knows where they are and neither is seeing things clearly (for themselves or each other). Also, they need to take each other’s perspective and/or change their viewpoint a bit.

It also seemed meaningful that the mirrored reflection eddie used to figure out what was going on was 118 reflected backwards in his own helmet. It could indicate that the firefam isn’t the family he needs to be focused on at the moment but rather the family that’s “got his back” inside and outside of the firefam aka buck, who’s standing right behind him in the scene but isn’t visible in the fractured (3 separate mirrors all showing different images) and reversed reflection. Or maybe stop using work as a cover to avoid emotions. In the middle of a rescue it makes sense to do that but not outside of work. It’s also interesting that buck and eddie think the fire has taken the kids but they’re wrong. Once they realize the issue they have a second chance to make a family whole again. But they have to see things/figure them out first. I think that speaks directly to buddie issues right now.

There’s maybe more to these points I think but my brain isn’t working rn bc I’m tired and haven’t let the ep sink in fully yet. I may have more coherent thoughts later.

UPDATE: Here are my slightly more coherent thoughts.

#911 fox #911 5x08 #buddie #eddie diaz #evan buckley

[chainofclovers]

Ted Lasso 2x10 thoughts

GOOD GOD.

“No Weddings and a Funeral” is like being hungover but also coming out of a hangover. Having a terrible cold but also feeling better and appreciating every breath that comes through your nose. Embarking on an organizational project and accidentally falling into a photo album and crying about the pictures and organizing almost nothing tangible but making a few things more clear in your brain.

So much of this episode is about the AWFUL POINTLESSNESS OF DECORUM. How loud is too loud when you’re drinking stolen wine and shrieking about sex in a church right before your father’s funeral? How should you feel--thirty years later, as an accommodating, anger-averse person--about having been too angry to attend the funeral for your father who killed himself? What expression should you make when you show up really late to a different funeral? Why must you wear uncomfortable shoes just because someone died? What happens in your mind between standing up to give a eulogy for a man you’re still angry with and choosing to Rick Roll your mom and everyone else as an act of complicated love, humiliatingly incomplete until someone else starts to sing? Should you worry about your therapist seeing your normally tidy flat in a full-on state of depression mess? Is it okay to be offended that your boyfriend is so uncomfortable about death that he can’t stop making morbid jokes? Should you care about other people caring that you’re crunching an apple in church or squealing with joy to be reunited with a friend you’ve not seen in awhile? Are you obligated to explain your behavior if your kid doesn’t understand how you could stay with someone unfaithful? How far behind the counter should you sink when your [undefined relationship person]’s mother has just let you know she can see your dick through your underwear? Is a funeral reception an okay place to find a hookup? Is a funeral reception a decent spot for a break-up? Is a funeral reception a good time for a love confession when you know the person you’re confessing to is happy with someone else? And who do you make eye contact with when you can’t look directly at the person asking you if you’re okay when there’s so, so much about you she doesn’t know yet? Even if--for this tiny little moment within a vast swath of many okay and not-okay moments--you’re honest when you tell her that you are?

I fucking adored this episode because it answers all these questions very simply: Show up. Show up for yourself. Show up for your friends. Try not to harm yourself. Try not to harm your friends.

I love that this episode is about the messiness of adulthood and the things we bring with us from childhood and that it takes place partially in Rebecca’s childhood bedroom, and in Ted’s childhood memories. Dwelling in those places (whether physically or mentally) isn’t an automatic recipe for regression, but it does get everyone closer to the things that made them who they are, to the unresolved and half-buried parts of them that still make them tick today.

Forever obsessed with every single detail about Rebecca’s childhood bedroom.

Forever obsessed with Deborah’s decision to Rick Roll herself every single morning of her life.

Forever obsessed with Rebecca’s decision to Rick Roll her father’s funeral as a way to not have to make up a single word about her father and to do something very vulnerable and kind for herself and her mother and everyone.

Forever obsessed with Ted’s decision to Rick Roll Rebecca Rick Rolling her father’s funeral.

Forever obsessed with an entire found family backing it up.

I love that it is Isaac’s leadership that ensures every single member of the team attends the service for Paul.

I am very, very interested in Jamie’s love confession to Keeley because I do think it will spark some reflection in Keeley but I do not think it’ll go the cliched love triangle route.

Each scene with Rebecca and Sam struck (for me, a human being sharing a subjective perspective on the internet) the tender-awkward-beautiful-stressful chord I was hoping it would. I think it’s wonderful that Sam is honest with Rebecca about how difficult it is to keep their relationship a secret, and I love that Rebecca has a million mostly-unarticulated reasons for why she’d much prefer the secret to continue. I like that Sassy, Keeley, and Nora respond to the revelation as friends; they might be tempering their judgments in part because they’ve all gathered to bury Rebecca’s dad, but I don’t think their reactions would’ve been that different even on a happier occasion.

While there are a million and one different reasons why a continued relationship between Rebecca and Sam could cause serious ethical problems, I really love that when people share big news on this show, the people who care about them generally react by trying to see why the person is doing what they’re doing. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t also hold each other accountable, but in my book it’s OK that Keeley’s first reaction was to feel happy that her friend is having some fun.

Also everyone has been making weird judgment calls this season, and this episode felt like a moment of real breakthroughs in terms of people telling the truth about things that happened to them and leaving themselves open to honest responses from others.

September 13, 1991. It’s so tenderly, beautifully, overwhelmingly meaningful that there’s still so much Ted and Rebecca don’t know about the things they have in common in these parallel lives they’re leading. The scene between Sarah Niles and Jason Sudeikis is so beautifully acted, and so is the scene between Hannah Waddingham and Harriet Walter. The way they intertwine to communicate that Ted and Rebecca basically lost the ability to trust their fathers simultaneously, from an ocean away? In the hands of lesser storytellers, it would feel too perfect a mirroring, but here it feels heartbreakingly imperfect. All the things they still don’t know. All the questions they try to ask each other. All the things they don’t dare ask yet. And then the storytellers are holding a candle up to all of it and letting the audience bask in the glow of this connection even if Ted and Rebecca can’t fully understand it yet.

I am so proud that Rebecca and Deborah were able to embark on the beginnings of a conversation about the ways Deborah and Paul’s relationship might have resembled or not resembled Rebecca and Rupert’s. It feels possible that they could get to a point where Rebecca truly internalizes her mother’s pride that she broke a cycle by leaving Rupert, and could maybe even understand why her mother made the choices she made. I love that in the final scene, they’re still relying on their old mother-daughter conversational patterns—the frustrations, the snippy shorthand, the passive-aggression. Mothers and daughters!

I am also proud that Ted—albeit via a joke about Sharon charging him for the house call—indicates that he understands the value of Sharon’s work. He’s changed a lot, all in realistic ways for someone who loves learning and really does want to meet people where they are and appreciate them. I’m very moved that instead of putting himself in a real harmful situation by showing up to the funeral on time at any cost, he did what he needed to do to take care of himself and accept care from someone else. And then Sharon’s suggestion that he think about things he loved about his father? And the way he’s able to share a positive memory of Rebecca’s own father at a time when she really needed it? Gosh.

Awkward, undecorous transition from 1991 to present-day incoming...but SASSY! She’s just, like, a whirling dervish of loyal friendship and not giving a fuck and penis size discussions and being casually, delightfully cruel to Rupert, who so deserves it. Rebecca was going on a real face journey when Sassy goes off with Ted at the end, and I’m sort of *eyes emoji* about all of that, but I continue to feel like Sassy is the most imperfectly wonderful friend-from-the-past kind of person and I love everything she and Nora get to do in this episode.

Keeley saying “That baby is whack” might be my favorite line in the episode? Maybe the whole show? Not really but really.

FUCK YOU, RUPERT. Bex and Diane, y’all are fine. And I truly feel for Nate...whatever scheme he’s getting suckered into. Whatever insecurity Rupert is preying on. I want Nate to go to therapy, too.

I feel like it was an unpopular opinion at the time, but I loved Rebecca’s 2x1 revelation about vulnerability and fear of getting hurt and needing to let someone love her. Sassy doesn’t always word things in the most nuanced way, but I think there’s a real possibility that she did ask Rebecca to really consider what it means to feel either safe or unsafe with a person but to know that in either circumstance, that person could end up causing her pain. Standing in that closet with Sam, managing to make it clear that she’s not asking for a break because she knows he will hurt her but because she has to figure out how to be with a wonderful person who could cause her pain...the growth, man. Makes me emotional.

I emerged from this episode feeling, of course, stunned by all the amazing parallels and revelations and beautiful acting and Rick Rolls and just, everything. I also emerged feeling sad/raw/tender because messiness and decorum and growth and coping mechanisms and death and dramatic irony and not knowing things about people and not knowing what you don’t know...it’s a sad, raw, tender place to be.

To quote a guy who got a whole sitcom (lol) named after him, life is real hard.

#ted lasso #ted lasso s2 spoilers #meta by me #ted lasso 2x10 #a lesbian watches ted lasso #lotta feelings in here y'all #cw suicide

[nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice]

I think my favorite thing abt Zuko is how hard it is to actually hate him once you get to know him. Like idk but he's just trying to hard and he's so soft and you look at him and think "baby 🥺" and that's that. Even when he was the enemy i never really hated him bc like, he never really did anything too bad like?? He didn't burn down the SWT village, and yeah he hit Sokka but not hard bc he got up right after. So idk but he's soft bby and hard to hate and i love that.

Okay I love Zuko as much as anyone but like .... he did some true asshole stuff in this series. Like homeboy burned Kyoshi village 

kidnapped Katara and held her hostage to kidnap Aang 

paralyzed Katara and Sokka with the shirshu 

kidnapped Aang in the North Pole when he was in the spirit world, leaving the oasis temporarily defenseless (indirectly allowing Zhao a window to get in and kill the moon spirit) 

while he was usually ethical with his Blue Spirit crimes, I’m gonna say stealing from these two was a dick move 

ya know....Ba Sing Se

and then the whole Sent An Assassin After Them thing.....explicitly hiring someone to murder a 12-year-old 

Zuko is a lot of things, but “baby” he is not. 

Deep down, yeah he is soft, but for the majority of the show he wasn’t. We saw that he cared, that he was hurting, and we understood that all his actions stemmed from just wanting to please the father that hurt him, but he wasn’t a soft baby by any means. His anger stemmed from an understandable place, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t take it out on everyone around him (especially Iroh in season 1). He was selfish. That doesn’t mean he was a bad person, but recognizing that he did awful things and understanding that he hurt people honestly makes his character better because it makes his redemption arc all the more powerful.  

The reason why we appreciate Zuko as a character so much is because how much he changes. It’s because he does break from the mentality he was stuck in thinking his value rested in Ozai’s approval, his recognition of the suffering of others not just under his nation’s actions, but because of his actions, and the lengths he went to earn forgiveness. 

That’s why his redemption arc works, though. He did do awful things. He did hurt people without caring. He was selfish. He was rude. Just because he was acting that way because of his trauma doesn’t negate the severity of the things he did. 

But he did make up for it. He came to regret all of his actions and did the work to make amends. Not only by internally recognizing that he was wrong and saying he was sorry, but actively making efforts to repair some of the damage at every step. 

And the reason we do sympathize and root for him is mostly because of his motivations in comparison to other characters, namely Zhao, Azula, and Ozai. (And because he loses, a lot.) There’s a post that explains it better, but Zuko’s motivations were completely rooted in his own self-interests, ultimately rooted in just wanting to appease Ozai. And that we can understand. We can’t really sympathize with Zhao, Long Feng, or Ozai because their motivations are political-- they want to exploit people and systems for their own glory and power. They aren’t seeking acceptance or validation like Zuko, they’re seeking control and domination over those who don’t have power. 

But it’s easier to root for Zuko, not because we want him to succeed, but because we want him to change sides. We don’t want him to capture Aang because doing so would validate Ozai, who is objectively awful. We don’t want him to win against the gaang because that’s who we’re rooting for. What we want for him is to change because unlike other villains on the show, he isn’t swept up by an ideology and hasn’t let power go to his head. 

And part of that is us wanting for him to change how he acts towards others. In season 1 he’s explicitly rude to Iroh multiple times. He was an asshole to everyone because he was taking out his hurt feelings on the people around him.

The reason we’re rooting for him to change isn’t that he was a sweet person or because he was “soft.” It was because he was the underdog. 

Those feelings of crushing failure, inadequacy...that’s relatable. It’s certainly more relatable than other villains doing selfish things and hurting people without caring to gain power or to perpetuate imperialism. Those are feelings people can relate to and that makes us want him to overcome those feelings. We want him to realize that his father was wrong and terrible to him and that capturing Aang isn’t the answer. 

We could relate to Zuko even in season 1 because his arc was about the realization of his own self-worth. It was about a kid learning that no one deserves cruelty, even him. That’s something he always knew, but didn’t internalize and apply to the world and himself until he witnessed how the Fire Nation affected the people of the Earth Kingdom. 

From season 1, we know that it was cruel and wrong and hope that maybe Zuko will realize it too. Because no one--  no one earns cruelty. 

And his actions stemming from his hurt doesn’t mean they didn’t hurt others. He did a lot of awful things in this show. His betrayal of Iroh, him putting his own goals in front of people who needed the Avatar to win the war for them, and putting others in danger for his own goals. Zuko hurt a lot of people but he arguably did the work to fix his mistakes. He helped restore the world his family destroyed and made personal amends with the specific people he hurt, Iroh most importantly. He put his life on the line several times, stood up to his father, and protected the gaang from the people he once stood alongside to hurt them (Combustion Man, Azula). We saw his remorse and it wasn’t rooted in being mad at his father, it was upon gaining perspective on the world and realizing how that also applied to him, both in the recognition of the harm he did and the steps he had to take to make amends and the fac that he didn’t deserve the abuse his father delt him. 

We wanted Zuko to break out of his mentality from season 1 not only because we wanted the gaang to succeed, but because we knew that his selfish actions stemmed from hurt and a lack of perspective on the world, both things he comes to understand throughout the series. He’s not Zhao, wanting glory or military ranking for capturing Aang. He’s not Long Feng, wanting control over others to keep his position of power. He’s not Azula, who was successful in a way he never was. And he’s not Ozai, perpetuating suffering because he believes himself to be that important. He’s a kid who was told he wasn’t good enough and was willing to do anything to appease the people who told him that, even if that meant hurting other people. 

We root for him because he really just a kid who wants to not feel like a failure and honestly? That’s one of the most relatable motivations I can think of. 

#tldr #zuko was kind of a dick #but his motivations were inherently different from other villains and stemmed from a relatable place #which is why we root for him not to suceed but to change #he did send an assassin after a 12 year old so I will not be calling him a soft baby by any means #zuko #atla #avatar the last airbender #hot leaf meta #iroh #his unroyal majesty bitchlord ozai #zhao #long feng #aang #katara #sokka

[cizzisblog]

some things about bnha 302:

-endeavor literally just fucked off like “I have work I can’t watch Touya” and left Rei to deal with it herself for five years lmfao??? 1. what a fucking coward and 2. Rei showing again that even if she can’t necessarily do anything to fix it, she’s still more in tune with her children’s emotions than he is, she knows Touya wants Enji’s acknowledgment! I don’t know why people are acting like she just ignored Touya’s existence in favor of Shouto???

-when Touya looked up at Endeavor and Shouto on the balcony he just looked sad?? maybe vaguely annoyed? what is up with the “he gave an evil look to Shouto” shit? Are people just looking to demonize everything this 13 year old did? He’s a kid goddamn

-Also in the same chapter he says he was wrong for going after Shouto??? He didn’t even say anything that was incorrect he is not “manipulating” Natsuo for his evil purposes jesus christ he’s THIRTEEN and Natsuo was his ONLY confidante he’s looking for comfort and crying he’s THIRTEEN JESUS

-On that note Touya isn’t really..being necessarily misogynist by saying “the girls can’t understand”. Like from his perspective they don’t understand why he needs so desperately to gain Enji’s approval and of course he’s going to react negatively to “find something else other than being a hero” no matter what good intentions they have. This isn’t their fault and it’s not his either. (cough it’s endeavor’s cough)

-Rei says “you’re going to the hill again” which leads me to think going to the hill to train is something Touya does often. And he’s very resistant to her asking him to not go, being fairly disrespectful to her (again, not his fault he’s that way) and talking back. Again, Rei is more in tune with what he’s actually feeling, she can see he’s in pain because of his obsession, and I can only imagine what she felt if she talked to him before the LAST time he went to the hill and never came home. (But also Endeavor literally just didn’t fucking go??? He couldn’t get off his ass for five minutes to go see what Touya was up to??? How is he escaping blame for the incident? Rei is shown trying to convince him to acknowledge Touya, so it’s not at all out of character to say she probably begged him to just go. But Enji chose not to.) But still, it kind of blows my mind that people think it’s Rei’s fault that he went. Like, what do you expect her to do? Use physical force to stop him and potentially make things even worse? Instead of taking any responsibility for 1. causing the obsession in the first place, 2. ignoring Touya when he has no use to him, and 3. failing to use any of his actual professional ability to help Touya control his Quirk and prevent disaster, Endeavor just comes home and blames it all on Rei, in true abuser fashion. (He literally just abandoned Touya’s training cold turkey, he didn’t even keep up with trying to at least make sure he could control it? You can’t tell me specialized training or counseling for self destructive Quirks doesn’t exist??) Which is also what the fandom’s doing lmao. She really was out of options at this point...she couldn’t convince Touya not to go and she knew it, and I’m sure she felt like a failure of a mother for it, but Enji really was the only one with any power to sway Touya’s decisions. He could have committed to spending time with his son and taking responsibility at any point, but instead focused 100% on Shouto. Rei was in the very difficult position as a parent that many mothers are put into in real life- parenting their children in an abusive environment is made even more difficult because of both the lack of support from their spouse and their children growing resentful or disrespectful towards them because of the behavior they see modeled by the abusive partner. Enji literally, directly undercut Rei’s ability to parent at all; this is literally not the same as Rei just being “neglectful” and I’m tired of seeing people say she was “passive and complicit” in what he did. Literally this whole flashback she’s been trying to help Touya, but because she couldn’t and acknowledged that she couldn’t she’s somehow taken as this bitch who didn’t try at all. the bnha fandom really takes misunderstanding abuse victims to a whole other level. “She could have told Endeavor” literally as soon as he found out (possibly when she actually did tell him after he found the burns) he just fucking beat her and continued to do nothing about Touya. What options did she have to employ to help Touya when Enji continued to ignore and hurt him?

-This panel is...kind of interesting to me. This is another line people are bashing Touya over for supposedly being misogynist. But I really don’t take it that way? I think he’s lashing out because Rei doesn’t understand him, and yeah he may want to say something to hurt her, but I feel like that’s more of a subconscious urge? It really feels more like he’s trying to say “You’re being a hypocrite, you aren’t using your own advice; you were also used, but don’t understand me.” I don’t think he’s literally blaming her for being “bought” (even though, emotionally, he may place some blame on her for him being born in the first place, because emotions themselves don’t have to be ‘rational’). I think this is just another thing Dabi blames Endeavor for.

-in summary the whole “cancel Touya because he’s misogynist” is both stupid and batshit lmao y’all are wild do you ever go outside have you ever spoken to any 13 year old

-Both Endeavor and Rei mention that they didn’t know how to talk to Touya, but it blows my mind people are treating them the same. Rei acknowledged she didn’t know how to talk to Touya, but she still tried. The disconnect between her and her child was directly caused by her husband. Enji literally fucking ignored him on purpose??? Just because Enji feels bad about it now and wants to make an excuse, doesn’t change the fact he was really just running away all along. Rei literally calls him out on this lmao.

-Literally why are people demonizing Rei for saying the issue is all of theirs to bear? That scene doesn’t read at ALL as if she’s saying “it’s literally all our fault this happened”. She is not blaming her toddler children for past events. She’s acknowledging that they all have to deal with it now as a family, which is just, facing reality to be honest. None of them can just close their eyes and pretend Dabi doesn’t exist. She knows her kids feel guilty about Touya too and is acknowledging that running from it will only make them feel worse. Do you think Shouto would listen or feel better if his mom told him “this isn’t any of your concern, so don’t think about it”???? You know he wouldn’t and she knows that too.

-“Rei didn’t say anything about Natsuo and Fuyumi in this one single conversation when she praised Shouto and used him as an example of a hero (maybe because that’s what he’s trying to become) that means she doesn’t care about the abuse they endured” lmao this is so dumb and the weirdest take I’ve seen I’m not even gonna talk about it. Where is the reading comprehension. Do people know conversations take place off screen too do they know Rei talked to her children when they visited her in hospital. What the hell

-I cannot physically believe people are referring to this scene as a “fight.” “The kids were hiding from Enji and Rei fighting.” Lmfao what the fuck is wrong with you? This is a direct parallel to the other scene involving Enji physically abusing Rei and Shouto being present. You think a woman is cowering on the floor with her confirmed abusive spouse towering over her for fun? No, he fucking put her there. Baby Shouto even says stop bullying mom. People are so desperate to act like Rei wasn’t abused and the misogyny is so ironically clear for people complaining about one or two supposedly misogynistic comments a little boy made. The kids were hiding from Endeavor abusing their mother. They were hiding from Enji.

-In conclusion, I didn’t think the bad takes about Touya and Rei could get any worse but boy I was fucking wrong.

#bnha #bnha spoilers #bnha 302 #rei himura #touya #todoroki family #dabi #shouto

[kuroopaisen]

tiny love || 13

➵ as tooru’s younger sister, falling in love with iwaizumi hajime is easy. your feelings aren’t ignored, either. this time, you both decided to tell your brother the truth. 

warnings: f!reader

wc: 2.8k

m.list | ch. 12 ↞ ch. 13 ↠ ch. 14

Tooru’s beaming face stared up at you from your phone as you get through to voicemail for the seventh time today.

He smiled at you from the walls, a whole range of Tooru of all different ages – all Tooru’s who hadn’t shouted at you for sleeping with his best friend.

You’d come to your room in the hopes that it might bring you some comfort. Stupid decision, really. There was so much of him here, grinning at you from your walls, from your desk. You hadn’t even realised how many damn photos you had of him until today. And he’s in everything; photos with your friends, photos with your family, nice shots of Miyagi that he’s managed to ruin with half his forehead.

God, if Tooru wouldn’t forgive you for this…

No. He’d have to.

Your brother was going to hear you out, and he wasn’t going to speak over or belittle you. He had to recognise you as an independent adult.

You hadn’t told Iwaizumi you were planning on doing this. He’d bore enough of Tooru’s rage today. And besides, this was a conversation you wanted – no, needed – to have on your own.

If only your stupid brother would answer his damn phone.

What’s the bet he’s practicing his serves with all the aggression he’d cultivated in high school? Or maybe he was just watching his own phone ring, staring at it with derision as your name glowed on his screen. Or maybe he wasn’t doing anything, simply passed out on his bed, tuckered out from all the rage.

You took a deep breath as your thumb hovered over the call button. One last try. Just one.

The phone rung once more. You were starting to get sick of the sound – the same number of trills, the same mechanical rhythm.

One more time. If he didn’t pick up now, then—

“What do you want?” Tooru’s voice was sharp, with far more aggression than necessary.

“I need to speak with you,” you said, as much confidence in your voice as you could muster.

“Go away,” Tooru hissed.

“No!”

You didn’t mean to shout. It just came out of you, as if it had been dog rattling at the gates, begging to be let out for the hunt.

“You’re not going to run away from this, Tooru!” You could already feel the corners of your eyes burning, your throat starting to constrict, that awful knot in your stomach reforming.

You didn’t want to do this. But you had to.

Tooru said nothing in response. But the white noise coming through the receiver let you know that he hadn’t hung up.

“What is your problem?”

It was a plea more than a question.

“My best friend is fooling around with my sister,” he hissed.

“Look,” you breathed, your chest so tight it felt like was going to crack your ribs, “you don’t get to dictate who I do and don’t date.”

“That’s my best friend.” Tooru didn’t miss a beat. But part of you is relieved to hear that he still referred to Hajime that way. Maybe all was not lost.

“I know,” you replied, clenching your fist in your lap. “I don’t see what the problem is.”

Tooru scoffed. Every petty argument you’d had over the years comes back to you – Tooru’s dismissive, obnoxious tone, the ache of not being listened to, the frustration at being treated like a little kid.

“What if you break up?” Tooru said, as condescending as if he was explaining how the sun rose and fell. “What if something goes wrong?”

“We’re adults, Tooru,” you rolled your eyes despite the circumstances. “We’re not going to be petty about it if that happens.”

And we’ve already managed to let you live a cushy life after a breakup, you thought to yourself. Though you knew better than to tell Tooru that.

“An adult wouldn’t go behind her brother’s back,” he seethed.

It was really all about him, huh? Your relationship, how much you and Iwaizumi cared about each other… Tooru wasn’t even thinking about that. It was just his perspective, his wants, his needs.

It’s just like it was back in high school. The only difference is that this time, Tooru was articulating these thoughts. Knowing the assumptions, you made all that time ago, in your hormonal, addled teenage brains…

“Look,” you snapped. “I’m sick of losing to you.” They’re words you should’ve said ages ago. Or maybe you shouldn’t have said them at all.

But they were out now, no longer a dirty little secret held close to your chest for who knew how long.

You weren’t just talking about Iwaizumi, either. You’d always felt second to Tooru – second to his fire, second to his passions. Always second over the finish line. Always second best. Always less important.

Fuck, you’d even moved halfway across the world just to live up to his ‘legacy’. How were you supposed to just go to a Japanese university after Tooru had moved to fucking Argentina? No, you’d wanted to prove yourself. To show that you, too, were worth something.

But even after all of that, you’re still just ‘Tooru’s little sister.’

And poor Iwaizumi was all this converged; poor Iwaizumi, stuck between two hearts and shackled by his sense of propriety.

Iwaizumi, who could easily be part of both of you, weaved through both your souls by calloused hands.

“I’m not losing him again just because you don’t like the idea of us being in a relationship.”

Maybe it was an irresponsible thing to say. There’s too much truth in it, too many years of bitterness stored and cultivated in your gut.

But too much has already been said. Nothing could be taken back. And if life wasn’t going to let you have anything of your own, anything you could be proud of, then you sure as hell weren’t letting it take Iwaizumi away from you, too.

You jerked the phone away from your ear and jabbed the ‘END CALL’ icon with more force than necessary.

That… could’ve gone better. Did you even achieve anything? Or had you just added to the clusterfuck? But there was nothing to be done now.

Hajime said he’d stick by you this time. That meant there was no backing out now. Not that you wanted to – not after all of this.

✧ ✧ ✧

I’ll go for a run, Hajime had thought. It’ll help calm me down.

Wrong.

He’d made the stupid mistake of bringing his phone with him.

Oikawa’s unique ringtone blared in his pocket; a little jingle of Oikawa singing ‘Iwa-chan!’ Oikawa had created it one day in their final year of high school when Iwaizumi was taking a toilet break.

Iwaizumi had never had the heart to change it, irritating as it was.

Slowing to a stop, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and brought it to his ear reluctantly.

But this was a new kind of reticence. This isn’t the everyday annoyance he’d felt in high school whenever Oikawa stroked his own ego, or when Oikawa refused to do the bare minimum of looking after himself.

This was something else entirely. Something Iwaizumi loathed.

“Hello?” He answered gruffly, voice terse with both anxiety and exertion.

“What the fuck is going on, dude?”

Cutting right to the chase, then.

“We told you,” Iwaizumi swallowed. “We’re dating.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Oikawa snapped.

“What do you mean, then?” Iwaizumi bit back his temper.

Shouting at Oikawa wouldn’t get him anywhere. That’d just make everything worse; and he didn’t want to do that to you or your brother.

Oikawa was silent for a moment – quiet enough for Iwaizumi to check the connection.

“She said ‘again,’” Tooru murmured.

Iwaizumi didn’t have the space in his heart to get mad at you. Not after years of keeping your feelings locked in your heart, trying to do the right thing by your brother, trying to make all of this work despite the discomfort it brought you.

He took a deep breath. “This isn’t the first time something’s happened.”

A confession. One he should’ve made years ago.

But God, did his soul feel lighter for it.

“Wait, what?” The tone of Oikawa’s voice was unplaceable.

“I kissed her at the beginning of our third year.” The words were out before he could doubt them. Now wasn’t the time to be delicate, to be cautious. If Oikawa was going to respond like this, then you both have to return in full force.

“What the fuck?” Oikawa’s an emotional guy. But those three words had more rage and vitriol in them than Iwaizumi had ever heard before.

“She wasn’t exactly subtle about the fact something was happening,” Iwaizumi grumbled. Looking back on it, he really had been cold. You’d just been reaching out to him, hoping that he’d give you the affirmation you craved. He’d avoided you in the hopes that you’d forget all about it.

God, it had all been very ‘teenage’. Part of him felt like he couldn’t blame either of you for that – you were teenagers at the time, after all – but another part of his heart couldn’t quite forgive himself for what he did.

To you, and to Tooru.

“Was this before summer break?” Oikawa spoke after a long moment, a quietude in his voice that even Iwaizumi wasn’t familiar with.

Iwaizumi swallowed roughly. “Yeah.”

Another silence. But this time, it’s hostile. It felt like the silence before a huge wave crashed, the air thrumming with the tension of what was about to come. It didn’t feel like Oikawa was about to shout; no, it’d be worse than that.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” There’s hurt in Oikawa’s voice, but not the same kind of before.

“Because I knew you’d be mad,” Iwaizumi admitted. And I was scared.

“That’s no excuse.”

It never was.

“I know,” Iwiazumi sighed. “I was a coward.”

“What, so you decided that you’d just go behind my back now?” Oikawa scoffed.

“I didn’t plan for this to happen,” Iwaizumi said, biting back a snarl.

“This didn’t cross your mind at all when I asked you to live with her?”

Iwaizumi remembered that conversation well. The doubt, the fear, the apprehension. He hadn’t wanted to do it – didn’t want to put himself in that situation again. But Tooru had been persistent; kept talking about how someone needed to keep an eye on you.

“I decided to share an apartment with her for you, Oikawa,” Iwaizumi said, voice surprisingly firm and steady. “Because you were the one who wanted me to keep an eye on her.”

“But—”

“I care about her,” Iwaizumi swallowed. “This isn’t all about you.”

“I never said it was ‘all about me,’” Oikawa fumed, “you guys just obviously didn’t think about me at all.”

Iwaizumi took a deep breath, the knot in his forehead getting deeper. Ignorance must be bliss. But Oikawa had no right to think like that, no right to make such accusations.

“We both put you first, you know?” Iwaizumi said, voice tight. “I dumped her in high school because of you. And I bet that she moved in with me because you asked her to.”

“What, so this is my fault?” He sounded bewildered more than anything else.

“Of course not,” Iwaizumi huffed, “but don’t think for a second that nobody in this ever gave a shit about you and your feelings.”

“Well you could’ve asked me—”

“It’s not just about you!”

Iwaizumi didn’t mean to shout. It just came out of you, as if it had been dog rattling at the gates, begging to be let out for the hunt.

He didn’t mean to repeat himself, either. Oh well.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. Some sweat still lingered on his forehead – a damp reminder that a few minutes ago, he’d been on a run. To relieve tension.

Funny, that.

“Look, I know I should’ve told you about it in high school,” he mumbled. “And I shouldn’t have kept it a secret for so long. But you don’t have a right to say that we can and can’t be together.”

Their words he didn’t know he had, solid and strong and steady.

“We’re not doing this to spite you, Oikawa,” he said. “I know she’d want your approval more than anything. But your feelings aren’t going to stop any of this from happening.”

Oikawa was silent. Iwaizumi didn’t need to see him to know the look on his face; pouty, with all the air of a petulant child despite his age.

“Why do you even have such a problem with it, anyway?”

It’s the question. The one that all this mess boiled down to. Part of Iwaizumi felt betrayed; did Oikawa not trust him? Did he not deem him ‘worthy’ of his little sister?

But another part of him understood the anxiety. That’s why he asked gently, with as little antagonism as possible.

It was hard. Much harder than he’d anticipated. But it was necessary.

“That’s my little sister. And you’re… you’re my best friend. If you two broke up, where does that leave me? And I’m sure that neither of you would rely on me if you did break up, and—”

“Why are you so certain we’ll break up?” Iwaizumi nearly laughed.

“It could happen!” Oikawa whined. “Nothing’s set in stone!”

“Exactly,” Iwaizumi nodded. “So, there’s no reason for you to be so concerned about whether or not we’ll break up. It’s just as likely that we won’t.”

Another silence.

“What, are you planning to marry her or something?”

Iwaizumi’s cheeks flared and his stomach swelled. “Wh—I—Don’t get ahead of yourself!”

“Oh my God… you’re planning on marrying my sister…”

“I didn’t say that!”

“But you implied it.”

“No, I didn’t!”

Of course Oikawa would jump to conclusions like this. Shittykawa and—

“Do you love her?”

Iwaizumi was struck dumb by the question.

Does he love you? Well, yes. There’s a space in his heart specifically carved out for you, in your shape. Honestly, it’s been there so long he’s not sure if it could ever go away. Not truly.

But he wasn’t sure if that’s what Oikawa was asking. He meant love in a distinctly romantic way; the sort of love they show in movies and play on the radio. The sort of love that specifically drove romantic relationships.

Somehow, that’s what made him nervous. Iwaizumi knew he loved you – saying it out loud, to your brother of all people, was an entirely different ball game. Different meanings, different layers of love, and you intersecting all of them.

God, he’s got it bad.

He swallowed roughly, clenching his fist at his side. “It’s too early to say, but…”

“But?”

“I… I think I could.”

“God, you’re taking this too seriously…”

“I’m taking this too seriously!? You’re the one who—”

“’It’s too early to say but… I think I could,’” Oikawa parroted in his best Iwaizumi impression. Iwaizumi would’ve given it a six out of ten at best; he’s pretty sure his voice wasn’t that deep.

“You’re a piece of shit,” Iwaizumi grumbled.

“As you like to remind me,” Oikawa hummed in a sing-song voice.

It was strange. Talking in those voices. Saying those words.

It was almost like things were normal.

“Anyway,” Oikawa cleared his throat, snapping Iwaizumi out of his disorientation. “I’ve got to get back to practice. So…”

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi nodded. “Good luck. But don’t overwork yourself.”

Oikawa chuckled with a tsk. “Now, now, Iwa, I’m not the boy I was in high school.”

Iwaizumi could only hope that was really the case.

✧ ✧ ✧

“Hey.”

You were sprawled out on the couch, staring at the living room ceiling. You’d quickly deemed your bedroom far too precarious of a place to be, but that didn’t leave you with much.

And you couldn’t even call Amaya – she’d be (or, at least, should be) asleep right now.

But Iwaizumi was back, appearing in the front home with his hair all ruffled and his cheeks flushed. Of course he made coming back from a run look good.  It’s really not fair.

You sat up, offering him a weak smile.

He returned it gently, making a direct beeline for you.

“Did you have a good run?” You asked.

“Mm.”

You blinked at him.

Iwaizumi looked at you with a certain cautiousness. “He called me.”

Shit.

Tooru must’ve… you must’ve said something that…

“How did it go?” You asked. No point jumping to conclusions.

“I don’t know,” Iwaizumi sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It could’ve gone worse?”

You don’t know what to do with that knowledge. “That’s… good?”

Iwaizumi chuckled, shaking his head.

It was nice, seeing him smile. It felt like he hadn’t done that all day.

“Are you okay?” He asked, a big hand coming to caress your cheek.

You leant into it, pouting. “No.”

He sighed, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Anything I could do to make it better?”

You pondered it for a moment. “You could make us lunch?”

He smiled. “If that’s what you want.”

#iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi hajime x reader #iwaizumi x you #iwaizumi hajime x you #iwaizumi hajime scenario #What Are Tags #tiny love #also can you believe i didn't make you guys wait for all eternity for this chapter? exquisite

[dancingintheraindreamingonday]

You will always be the winter soldier - Chapter 5

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4

Author’s Note: 

This is a flashback of your past with Bucky. Somethings weren’t witnessed by Bucky or you because I just want to give more details about the thoughts of other people as well. So this is definitely written in a third person perspective. This chapter is really long but I hope you’ll enjoy it anyway. 

Bucky sits in a plane to Munich. Sam got information that the leader of the Flag smashers are currently working there. 

Bucky remembers the last time he was in Germany. It feels like an eternity ago.

„Tell me why I need to watch this series again.“, Bucky looked absolutely annoyed. 

„Its a classic. Everyone knows this series. It’s like general knowledge.“ You answered while scribbling something on your paper. 

„ And why aren't you watching this series?“ 

„Well my love, I know this series by my heart.“, you smiled at him and then saying the exact same thing the actor said on the screen proving him that you really do know this series.

Minutes later you closed your math book with a loud thump and throwing it on the ground. 

"I'm sorry. I don't want to torture you with this series. Maybe I can make it up to you." You winked at Bucky and kissed him on his right cheek. 

„Probably you will find a way.“, Bucky smiled mischievously and kissed you right on your lips with both of his hands on your cheeks. 

You and Bucky weren’t virgins but you both never had sex with each other yet. It made you nervous. 

And Bucky was nervous as well.The last time he had sex was an eternity ago and women changed through the times. Now women are so much more emancipated and strong-minded.

You kissed him. On his face, throat, neck and down his torso. You wanted him as much as he wanted you. 

In this night you and Bucky didn’t have just sex- you made love that night. It was something absolutely soft, and warm and caring about it. 

There was no much of talking and there was no pressure- it was just pure love without saying the word itself. 

Everything changed from that night on. From that day on you both were a couple, without labeling it.

Two weeks later Bucky accompanied you to university. It was something he did regularly and you enjoyed it. It gave your the feeling he was just a normal guy spending time with his girlfriend. And James from Bucharest was  indeed almost a normal guy. While you were bubbling about a math problem no one except math students could understand, he noticed a man.

Bucky knew when he was being followed and it agitated him. 

Now that he wasn’t just concerned with his life but also concerned with your safety it made him anxious. 

He grabbed your right arm and pulled you in a small alley.

You looked at him confused and scared. „What’s going on?“, you asked not understanding his sudden behavior. 

„I wanted to give this to you.“ Bucky pulled out a small mobile phone from his pocket. You looked confused because you already had a smartphone in your trouser pocket. 

„It’s a safe line. So, if you’re in danger or you just think you’re in danger- call me and I will come and get you.“

„You’re scarring me. Are you in trouble? Are WE in trouble? Do we need to run?“ You looked at him, touching his face to make sure he calmed down.

„No. Don’t worry. Everything’s alright.“ Bucky lied. „I’m just taking precautions.“

You doubted this reassurance.

„I can ditch university. I can come with you.“

„No. It calms me down to know that you’re safe at university.“ 

„Okay. But don’t forget: If you jump, I jump, remember?“ You quoted the movie you both watched last night. 

„You’re stuck with me. Where you go, I go.“

He kissed the palm of your left hand. „I’m not going anywhere.“, Bucky lied again. 

And with that he accompanied  you to university. As he left, you walked into your class and you took out your phone and your homework. You checked the latest news. The day before there was a bombing in Vienna but on this day there were breaking that there’s a picture of a suspect. The picture showed no other than Bucky himself. Your heart stopped for a moment and you couldn’t think clearly. This explained his behavior and fear. You knew he was innocent- no doubt about that. You knew the man you fell in love with and James would never do such thing. The only conclusion was that he was being fraud by someone else. You decided to skip the class and go home to find James. 

When you arrived outside, the campus was quite empty because the majority of the students were already in their classes. As you walked to the gate a man was calling you.

„Hey! Wait!“ He jogged to you. 

„You’re working with Bucky, aren’t you? You’re his accomplice.“ The man in front of you assumed. 

„None of your business.“, you muttered. You wanted to pass him but he stopped you by grabbing your shoulder. 

„My name’s Sam Wilson and you really need to come with me.“, he said, scarring you with his words.

His grip was so tight that you couldn’t break free.

„Im not coming with you. Who do you think you are?“

„I’m working with Captain America.“ He said. You could hear the pride in his voice.

„So? That doesn’t make you an authority. I don’t trust you.“

„You saw the picture, didn’t you? You saw the picture of him in the newspaper. You don’t strike me as a dumb person, yeah? You know what this picture means. They are after him. They are already here. So I need your help.“

„Why do you need my help? He’s innocent. That picture is fake and I know it. But do you? Do you believe in his innocence or what aim do you really pursue?“

Sam didn’t answer but he also didn’t let go of you. So the only thing that you could do was to kick him between his legs. But your head start wasn’t for long. You can’t outrun an athlete. He caught you with his hand which made you stumbled and you fell face forward on the ground. Your lip was bleeding. 

„Im sorry. I didn’t intend to hurt you.“

As you looked around you saw police officers pointing their guns at you and Sam. 

„You called the police?!“ You asked unbelievably.

„Ey. They’re pointing their guns at me too. So no- I didn’t call the police.“ 

They handcuffed you both and took off. Sam talked with someone via earpiece: „I’ve got her but the police got us both. I’m sorry.“

At the same time, Bucky, Steve and King T’Challa were also handcuffed. Steve looked at his childhood friend and shared the information Sam just gave him: „I’m sorry, but they’ve got her.“ 

To say that Bucky was furious was an understatement: He would burn down the whole city if they’d hurt her. 

When you arrived at the office in Berlin you couldn’t stop all the questions that were floating in your mind. „Why are we here? Since when is Germany responsible for crimes that happened in Vienna or Bucharest? Why were German police officers in Romania? What the heck is going on?“ You asked but everyone was ignoring you. 

Minutes later a man entered the room and you realized that this was Tony Stark. „Who is that?“ He asked, pointing his finger at you. You didn’t bother to answer him. You just turned your head away. „Alright. Kinda mean but we will get the answers anyway.“ He sat down next to Steve. „Is the thing you have with him even legal?“, he asked you again.

„You tell me. He was born in 1917. I was born 80 years later.“

Tony scrunched up his nose. 

The screen was turned on and you saw James. „Why is he in a cage? Why is there no lawyer? Is this how Germany practices its law now? Did you tell him his right to silence?“ You asked almost aggressively 

„You’re audacious and naive.“, said a man in a suit. 

„Stop insulting me. James is as innocence as I am. He wasn’t in Vienna and I told you that from the beginning. And no one in this damn room is listening. You’re just looking for a guy to take the blame. I don’t know how America treats their suspects but here in Germany they have human rights as well. They have dignity and they are still treated with respect and decency. All people have rights. We learned that 70 years ago and we will never ever forget it, understand?“, you spatted. „You imprisoned and treat him as if he’s a monster.“

„My dear child, do you know what he just did today in Bucharest? The damage he caused?“, the man screamed. 

„But it were you with the loaded guns, right?“

„He’s not just a suspect. He’s the delinquent.“

„In some countries there is a trial for this question to be answered, but you seemed to be hangman and judge in once.“ You provoked him. This was so unlike you that you really couldn’t understand the anger that was inside you. 

„I like her.“ Tony said. „She’s loyal like a golden retriever.“

„Stop insulting me even more. I’m defending the man I love that doesn’t mean I’m a puppy wagging its tail.“ 

Before anyone could say anymore to worsen the situation the power was gone for merely seconds but the power was back, Bucky disappeared from the video. Everyone in the room turned around and looked at you. 

„How are you going to explain this.“ Tony asked you 

„Kid, you stay here. Don’t even think about leaving this room.“ As Tony walked downstairs he asked himself if you’re related to a woman he met over 20 years ago who happens to have the same last surname like you did. No, unlikely. Almost impossible. 

Bucky, in his winter soldier mode only had one aim: to kill as many people as possible. But something was off. He hasn’t been the winter soldier for quite some time and the impact you had. The thought that you were hurt made him even more lethal. His priority was to find you and made sure you were okay. So everyone who fought him was a threat, an enemy.

It ended in a cafeteria where Bucky held a gun to the head of a seemingly important man. Bucky was circled with dozen of agents, all pointing a gun at him. 

„Where is she? Where is (y/f/n)?“ Bucky asked

„She’s okay. You don’t need to worry about her.“, Steve assured Bucky

„I don’t trust you. I need to see her.“ 

„We can bring her here. So you can see it for yourself.“ Steve suggested while Bucky just nodded. 

Steve and Tony ran upstairs and Tony grasped Steve by his arm. „What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You can’t bring her downstairs to him. He’s dangerous and she’s just a kid. You can’t control him.“

„He isn’t dangerous and I don’t think he would hurt her. After all they are something like a couple. She knows him. And we will be there as well. Trust me, Tony. Nothing will happen.“

So they both accompanied you downstairs. 

You’ve got nervous, shaking uncontrollably. „You don’t have to do this.“ Tony said. 

„And I’m really sorry that I compared you with a golden retriever. I just think that loyalty is a great character trait.“

You smiled at him. „It’s alright. I’m sorry too. For being so angry and impulsive and arrogant.“

„Are you scared?“ Tony asks. „No, I’m not. I trust him. I trust the man I love. He isn’t the winter soldier anymore. And that he remembers me in this moment- that’s a good sign, isn’t it? So I had a little impact on him.“

Steve opened the door. You felt all the eyes of the agents on you. Thats really made you uncomfortable but you tried to ignore and only concentrate on James. You tried to relax. Your hands where cold as ice- something that always happens when you get nervous. You walked towards him. „You need to let go of this man, James.“, you pointed with your eyes at the man. „I’m alright. I’m safe.“ You approached him. „You really need to let go of him.“ Your voice was firmer. „The agents here are scared of you. They see you as a threat. So I’m begging you: let go of him.“ 

And Bucky let go of him. „They hurt you.“ He stated looking at your bruised lips. „No, they didn’t. I stumbled.“ You reassured him. „James, you need to put down the gun as well. The avengers aren’t the enemy. We can trust them. I do. I trust them and I think we might need their help.“ And you kissed him. Right in front of anyone. You heard the thump of the gun greeting the ground as James let go of it. 

You broke the kiss and caressed his cheek. But before Bucky could say anything you looked to your right and something you saw made you so scared. You pushed Bucky with all the strength you’ve got, making him stumble a few steps backwards. But that was enough to take his spot. 

Bucky saw the redness on your shirt before he heard the bang of the gun. Steve and Tony screamed „NO!“, but it was already too late. You looked at it and all the color of your face vanished. You started to fall but Bucky caught you, laying you softly on the ground. Soon you lost you consciousness.

Steve used the chaos to get Bucky out of there. „They will help her. But you need to come. It’s not safe for you here.“ 

During that time agent Sharon Carter kept Steve and Bucky informed but Bucky had a really hard time. „She’s still sleeping. You are not missing anything.“ She assured him. 

When you woke up you were greeted by non other than Tony Stark itself. He read a German magazine. „Do you understand what you’re reading or are you just looking at the pictures?“ 

He looked up and grinned. „Really nice pictures. But I also get help with the translating.“ He pointed to his high technology-glasses. 

„How do you feel?“

„Exhausted but okay.“ 

You looked around and you saw James standing in the door frame. „James“ you whispered, reaching out for him. „I’m so relieved that you’re fine.“ Bucky looked at Tony who faintly shook his head indicating that you were still oblivious about the fight in Leipzig and the separation of the avengers. 

„What happened after I passed out?“, you asked

„You mean after you got shot.“, Tony corrected you. 

„Why did you pack?“, you ask James, forgetting the last question you just asked. 

„I’m leaving for Wakanda. They offered me to free me from the mind control and I’m gonna take that chance.“

„Take me with you. I want to be with you. I can’t imagine a life without you. Please, James.“ 

He looked you deep in your eyes. You could see how he’s debating on the inside. „Okay.“ And he kissed you passionately. 

Tony didn’t like that idea at all. „Okay, lovebirds. We better should look for a doctor to sign the release papers and you can rest a bit more.“ He ushered Bucky out of your room and when the door closed he let go of his facade.

„You can’t take her with you. Thats really selfish of you. She’s kid. She can’t throw away her life for you. She is not your psychologist. You know exactly what you are. You’re a murderer. Nothing will ever change that. You’re destroying her life. And you don’t care because after all you will always be the winter soldier. Nothing will change that.“

Bucky looked at Tony like he just got slapped. „I know who and what I am. I will never be good enough for her. Yeah, maybe I’m selfish taking her with me but I can’t imagine a life without her. I love her and I will protect her. I promise.“

„But can you protect her from yourself?“ 

As you packed your belongings James waited outside your room. „You don’t have to go with him. You don’t need to throw your life away. You don’t owe him anything.“, Tony stated. 

„I’m not throwing anything away. He’s my future. He’s anything I’ve ever wanted. Wakanda will be an adventure and I’m ready to take it.“

Tony suppressed all the things he wanted to tell you. He hugs you and said instead. „If he hurts you in anyway, call me. I’ll come and get you.“ He caress your hair and without noticing he took a single hair of you. He needed to know who you were to him. He couldn’t ignore his curiosity anymore. 

Chapter 6

@inlovewith3 @jackiehollanderr @homesicam @dreamydreamerwriting @losers-club6 @gengen64 @agentsofsheilds @crimson-darling @akkinda10 @xemine @bubblegumholland @chipilerendi @iamasimpingh0e @bbmommy0902 @madddiiee26 @teenagedreams-bucky @aya-fay @idontknowwhatthisisfam @w-wolfhxrd @useless-creature-213  @angywritesstuff @supernaturalcat7 @harrys-stan @geek-and-proud

#sebastian stan x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barns x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes feels