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curioussubjects · 4 years

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come be a season 12 truther with me; or what if dean and cas got together offscreen

Originally, I wrote this post to celebrate “Galaxy Brain” airing as Berens & Glynn gave us “The Future.” It’s been a while since that episode aired, and some things have changed about this meta. As such, there are multiple versions of this post floating around, so make sure to go back to the source for the most up to date version. For all intents and purposes, this post functions as a meta manifesto not unlike shipping manifestos from days of LJ past. In keeping with that tradition, this post is a close reading of Dabb Era Destiel in which I argue that by using narrative gaps, queer coding, and romance tropes, Dean and Cas are shown to be in an established relationship. Although beyond the scope of this post, it’s worth pointing out that keeping Destiel mostly off screen was a way for the creatives to bypass network censorship while still remaining true to the characters.

This post is divided into three sections. Section I focuses on giving an overview of why earlier seasons of Supernatural aren’t as compelling as season 12 as a turning point for Dean and Cas’s relationship. That said, special consideration is given to 09.06 “Heaven Can’t Wait” as a potential rest stop in our journey due to it’s significantly placed narrative gap as well as themes in the episode. However, this post isn’t going to examine season 9 trutherism in depth, though it does coexist with and allow for it. Section II analyses season 12 and proposes a timeline and justification for the shifting Destiel dynamic. Finally, Section III will offer an analysis of how Dean and Cas’s relationship has changed dramatically from previous seasons in a way that is most like the shift from a “will they or won’t they” pairing to an established one.

Before I move to Section I, I’d like to note something this post takes for granted: Dean and Cas are the main romantic subplot of Supernatural, and, in fact, their relationship is elevated to main plot for both characters in season 15. This post won’t argue about the canonicity of Dean and Cas’s feelings for each other, therefore, and so won’t spend time looking at many Destiel defining moments. I’d also like to make clear that this post also takes for granted that Destiel is being intentionally developed by the writers starting with Carver’s Era, and more so in Dabb’s.

I. Why Seasons 4 through 11 May Not be It

The tl;dr. here is that while there are many moments throughout these seasons that Dean and Cas could potentially get together, none of those moments are ideal for a bunch of reasons that can be summed up as really bad timing. I also think the narrative is actively pushing them towards a moment that works. We get plenty of stepping stones, especially once we hit seasons 8 through 11 (and 11 most of all).

Seasons 4 & 5:

I know there’s been a lot of get together fics over the years set in this time period, but I just don’t see it. Do I see them being intrigued and drawn to each other? Yes. Do I think either Cas or Dean would act on it? Nope. I’m not arguing anything re: Dean’s feelings, but with everything going at the time I find it hard to believe he’d pursue anything with his angel friend. Most importantly here, though, is that during this time Cas was still very alien and other. There was too much angel in him, and while he obviously came to care about Dean (and Sam) very much, I just can’t see him navigating the realm of human relationships. That said, seeing human!Cas in “The End” is the first we see of potential developments for how Cas could behave without his angelness interfering. Being human changes Cas a lot, beyond even his experience existing among humans, though that of course matters too. This development will be important later /wink.

Seasons 6 & 7:

Before anything else let me just recognize that if we could see some sexual tension in seasons 4 & 5, these two seasons come with our first taste of romantic tension. The pining! Also note the difference between season 4 Cas and season 6 Cas in terms of behaviour. He is much less the angel we saw in that barn in “Lazarus Rising.” In season 6, we have a Cas making misguided decisions guided entirely by his emotions – namely, not wanting to involve Dean with the war in heaven – which is peak human, honestly. Put a pin on how sad Dean is in both seasons with Cas’s absence. Finally, put a pin on this being our first moment of Cas doing things on his own to spare Dean and it not ending well (soulless!Sam, Cas “dying” after Leviathan) because this is *the* hurdle in their relationship (along with Dean’s lashing out and self-worth issues). With all this said, the marked distance between Dean and Cas in these seasons negates the possibility of them entering into any kind of relationship. Much like seasons 4 and 5, there’s too much going on.

Season 8:

Ah, yes, the summer of purgatory. If you thought we had pining before…! I think we’re all very clear on season 8 being a turning point for the show, not only because new showrunner, but we also get the bunker. TFW now has an HQ, which pretty soon becomes home. Yes, Baby will always be home, but the bunker becomes the *unmovable* safe haven that Baby couldn’t be. The bunker is a place to coalesce, and for all the amazing things Baby is, she is not that. The acquisition of the bunker marks a shift in the psychology of the show: with the stable home space we can start to imagine domesticity, a place to come home to, the stuff of ordinary living. Most of all, the bunker is emblematic of security, of safety –keep this in mind, as we go forward.

This season also continues to see Cas go down the path of independently solving his problems instead of asking for help from Sam and Dean (his family in a way heaven never was) – note that the better together issue is at play in different ways with Sam and Dean also, but I digress. I also want to point out disastrous instance #2 of Cas’s insistence on figuring it out on his own: he loses his grace, and the angels fall. As for Dean, season 8’s focus for him has much to do with Sam, and them coming face to face with their issues with codependency, which hit catastrophic levels with the gates of hell and Gadreel plots.

So despite all the deliciously angsty get together purgatory fics and spec, there’s too much distance between Dean and Cas on Cas’s part due to his guilt over betraying the Winchesters in s6 plus slaughtering angels plus unleashing Leviathan. We do see Dean being more emotionally open with Cas and continue to voicing his wish that Cas would just stay with him and Sam, and let them help. It’s clear as day how much Dean cares. The timing is still bad, though.

Before moving on to next season, let’s take a moment to appreciate that this is the season Dean admits being kinda done with one night stands because “always with the adios.” Remember the bunker as a sign of stability? Yeah. I wouldn’t say Dean is craving a relationship, exactly, but I think we can see that he does want something more (ahem also I’m nodding to Cas refusing to stay put just cause).

Seasons 9 & 10:

The most important thing to happen between this two seasons is Cas’s stint as a human for an extended period of time. There’s been plenty of spec and meta written over the years about the effects of being human on Cas’s grace (a proto-soul now maybe?). What we can say for sure, regardless, is that Cas is much more humanized once he becomes an angel again. The understanding he gets from being human doesn’t go away once he regains his angel powers. You’ll notice that while we still see some of season 4’s characterization, Cas is not the same as he was – he is alien to angels now and is more intelligible to humans. Additionally, in an interesting reversal from previous seasons, we now get to see the depth of Cas’s feelings for Dean (thanks, Metatron) as well as seeing him be more open emotionally, while Dean does most of the pushing away (first because of Gadreel, then because of the Mark of Cain). In short, the timing is still bad as Dean and Cas are largely kept apart both physically and emotionally.

9.06 Heaven Can’t Wait

This episode is my white whale, friends. While I’ve come to fully subscribe to the idea that something did happen between Dean and Cas during the fanfic gap, I don’t actually think it’s feasible that it marked the start of a relationship -- be it sexual or romantic. My reasoning here is quite simple: the timing is bad. Were it not for external events (Cas regaining his Grace and Dean taking on the MoC), the course would have likely differed. Furthermore, Dean’s guilt over making Cas leave the bunker as well as Cas’s own hurt and self-loathing pose a significant and as yet insurmountable obstacle, which is easily seen with how Dean and Cas’s character trajectories go separate ways.

YMMV on what exactly happened between them in that Motel, but something definitely did. Perhaps one day I’ll have a proper s9 trutherism post to link to here for more details (likely won’t be written by me, though).

10.16 Paint It Black

From the point Dean gets the MoC until the end of season 10, anything between him and Cas is quite impossible due to distancing, to say the least. Again, yes, the fic is really good, but alas. One of the reasons I’m bringing up this episode in particular is because of the confession scene. One, it’s a rare bit of explicit emotional honesty from Dean, and two, it tells me that while he and Cas may be well aware of the Thing™ between them, it’s still uncharted waters. It’s scary, and murky, and they’re unsure how to navigated it or if they should even try. Makes sense, too, there’s been A LOT going on since s6. Anyway, he’s the full confession:

You know, the life I live, the work I do…I pretty much just figured that that was all there was to me, you know? Tear around and jam the key in the ignition and haul ass until I ran out of gas. I guess I just thought sooner or later, I’d go out the same way that I live – pedal to the metal, and that would be it. […] Now, um… recent events, uh… make me think I might be closer to that than I really thought. And…I don’t know. I mean, you know, there’s – there’s things, there’s…people, feelings that I-I-I want to experience differently than I have before, or maybe even for the first time. […] Yeah, I’m just starting to think that… maybe there’s more to it all than I thought.

Can I just say, first, that this confession keeps me up at night because we never actually see anything done with it explicitly? I mean, obviously, I think we do in fact see the effects of this confession in the show, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this behemoth, but still, like. Damn. Ok, so, remember when I brought up that thing in season 7 about Dean being kinda done with hook-ups? Here’s where that led us. We’re seeing a Dean here who wants more than what he has convinced himself he gets to have. He wants more than dying bloody. And when he talks about wanting to experience people and feelings differently, well, that says a lot not just on the queer coding front or the romantic front. I mean, jfc, Dean is accepting the idea that he can have more in life than just hunt until he drops, and he’s specifically talking about experiences at the interpersonal level.

Do you ever see a character having an epiphany and find yourself wanting to cry because this is it right here. Dean is just blatantly admitting he wants more and maybe he can make himself be open to that (!!!), which all culminates in season 11, so…

Season 11:

The pining is still here, but it’s worse now since it’s the whole plot? It’s been *checks calendar* 5 years of this. How are any of us still kicking I don’t know. Your slow burns could never. Cool worth noting points: Cas says yes to Lucifer (bad decision #2.5, lots of mitigating effects_I don’t actually hold it against him that much but Dean is another story & not entirely rational at this point); for the first time since the early days, Dean and Cas are on equal grounds: they’ve both fucked up a lot and have hurt each other. The issues this season are outside their dynamic. Amara and Lucifer here serve as externalizing forces for Dean and Cas’s problems: Cas checks out with Lucifer because he thinks it’s the only way he can help, Dean is caught up in the turmoil of Amara, the emblem of absence and avoidance of struggle. We do get something like an affirmation from the two of them to each other via Dean calling Cas his brother (and I want y’all to consider the historical queering of that statement, and Cas’s “I could go with you.” It feels like we’re headed to them being on the same page. By the end of the season, though, it feels like we’re getting a clean slate: Mary is back, nobody died, no end-of-the-world in sight, no interpersonal crisis. We’re also getting a new showrunner, so. No wonder. We’re gearing up for something, but I’m getting ahead of myself. What this season does that is super important is that it sets up the stage for the possibility of an actual relationship between Dean and Cas, something that has, up until this point, been pretty much impossible.

11.04 Baby

Y’all know what I’m about to quote here, right? That conversation between Dean and Sam about having something with someone who understands the life. Here we still have Dean reverting to the idea that it’s impossible, which is a direct contrast to the openness in 10.16. It’s understandable, though, considering there’s been little reason to think anything like that would be possible (see all the mess and poor timing from seasons past). The quote in question, though, marks a continuing development regarding the issues Dean is struggling with this season:

DEAN: Piper? That’s awesome. Heather. One-night wonders, man. Shoot, we’re lucky we still get that at all. SAM: Really? You don’t … Ever want something more? DEAN: I’m sorry, have you met us? We’re batting a whopping zero in domestic life, man. Goose eggs. SAM: You don’t ever think about something? Not marriage or whatever. But … Something? You know, with a hunter? Somebody who understands the life?

We wouldn’t be talking about this stuff all these years after Sam and Dean had a serious relationship if it wasn’t important, right? Also who else do we meet this season? That’s right! Eileen! And doesn’t that hit different with season 15 hindsight? And who does Dean have that understands the life? Whose stories have been intricately connected to his? Right now, this is all conjecture. A pipe dream Sam is revisiting, and Dean is skeptical about. Except, well. Look at what we get in “Into the Mystic” and “The Chitters.”

11.11 Into The Mystic

I’m bringing up this episode as a cross reference to “Paint It Black” as well as to complement the talk from “Baby,” and to show, again, that, for all the closeness between Dean and Cas, there’s still a marked distance they haven’t yet bridged. There’s still truths they haven’t told each other. Thanks Mildred for the delicious exposition:

Darlin’…If there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years on the road, it’s when somebody’s pining for somebody else. […] Oh, don’t try and hide it now. Follow your heart. Remember?

11.19 The Chitters

And here we see some validation to Sam’s imagining of a possible future with someone else. We actually see hunters who not only are married, but they both make it out alive. Jesse and Cesar get their happy ending. They make the dream come true. And the reality of it important not just for Dean to see, but Sam too.

Dean: [with realization] Oh, so … [points back and forth to Jesse and Cesar] Cesar: Yeah. Dean: Okay, that’s… Cesar puts his beer bottle on the table and looks at Dean, while Jesse is being silent. Dean: What’s it like, settling down with a hunter? Cesar: Smelly, dirty. [turns to Jesse] Twice the worrying about getting ganked.

I’d like to point out, too, that the fear of getting ganked is thematic when it comes to the tension between Dean and Cas. More on this when we hit s13.

Alright, now, having said that, let’s take a look at season 12. Bear in mind, this is the official start of Dabb’s era, even if he kinda began taking over in season 11, and the change in vibes is obvious. In fact, 12 jumped out at me as a turning point, in hindsight, after getting smacked by the domesticity of seasons 13 and 14.

II. Why Season 12

[Out of date section. Update coming soon when spoons. After significant debate, I’ve altered the definitive start of Dean and Cas’s friend-with-benefits-with-mutual-pining relationship to between 12.02 and 12.03. I briefly explained why here, and yes it’s a shitpost--still true tho.]

Finally, the promise land, y’all. Getting right to it: what s11 was for Dean in terms of setting up the relationship stage, s12 was for Cas. In its initial beats, any way. That is, until the Kelly debacle, this was the longest Cas has been around the bunker and with the exception of seasons 13 and 14, it’s one of the first times we get to see how Cas might actually fit into the bunker-as-home. Things seem remarkably chill. Of course, we’ll notice that there’s still a lot of baggage hanging around because despite Dean and Cas being in a more stable place, they haven’t actually dealt with their interpersonal problems. I didn’t single out directly this episode, but do keep in mind Cas’s declaration in 12.09 First Blood as far as how much the Winchesters matter to Cas & how we also see Dean and Cas be particularly singled out with them seating together in the backseat of the Impala. What we also see this season is Cas trying to prove he is worthy of this family, his family. He’s not fighting for heaven or to right some grievous wrong (a la s8). No, this season he’s fighting to spare the Winchester, to bring them a win. To bring Dean a win. The major disconnect is that Dean (and Sam & Mary) already sees Cas that way, he doesn’t think Cas has anything to prove. And just maybe, Cas starts believing that too – or, at least, believing it enough.

12.10 Lily Sunders Has Some Regrets

This episode, oh my god, the goodness. In the wake of 12.09 we have Dean and Cas in a tiff because Cas mistake #3 (killing Billie and “cosmic consequences”), this is a pattern. Twice the worry of getting ganked, etc etc. But where this episode really shines is through the contrast between Ishim’s obsession with Lily and Cas & Dean’s mutual affection for each other. Ishim sees no difference here and, to him, Cas’s feelings for Dean are a human weakness. Returning to my point about human!Cas, this episode underscores that Cas’s increasing humanity is what puts him in the place where he can want what Dean wants instead of either being too alien to get it (see s4 & 5) or unable to experience it properly (Ishim).

12.12 Stuck in the Middle (With You)

Cas’s trajectory culminates here with the whole I love you (@ Dean), I love all of you (@ Winchesters). Let’s note too that Cas is dying here, in a way that is much more human than going up in light. This declaration of different types of love is entirely human. It’s also a definitive step wrt to Cas and Dean’s relationship because of what happens in 12.19. This. is. it. Oh, and, of course, let’s not forget to point to Dean’s face when Cas says that “I love you,” and how terrified he is that Cas is dying. Might make one rethink some things, hm?

12.19 The Future

This episode is simply hella suspicious, and all the kudos to Berens and Glynn for writing it. It’ll haunt me forever. Consider watching it again and just questioning everything. So. Weird things:

1. Dean’s reaction to Cas no getting in touch as opposed to Sam’s. Dean is pissed, which is Dean-speak for worried out of his mind. Sam is very worried, too, and puzzled, but he’s mostly expressing his relief that Cas is back. But Cas has gone awol before, but this time Dean is much more worked up about it; Sam takes note of this, too. Now, let’s imagine that maybe the events of 12.12 led to something happening between Dean and Cas. Then Cas decided to leave to find a lead on Kelly, but eventually Cas decides to work with Heaven and goes radio silent. For days. Having taken a chance, and something having happened between them, how would Dean react to Cas just going poof and not contacting him – despite Dean having called Cas multiple times.

2. Cas knows about the Colt. Ok, nothing off there. But when he goes to Dean’s room to talk, right after Dean leaves we see Cas looking around briefly. Like he know Dean would keep it in there. Maybe Cas had looked other places already. Who knows. What we do know is that eventually he does find the Colt not only in Dean’s room, but under Dean’s pillow. Sam didn’t even know the Colt wasn’t in the safe. So how did Cas know?

3.“He came into my room and he played me.” So, this quote right there, makes it seem like some seduction for personal gain, right? But can you see Cas actually doing that if they hadn’t gone there previously? For Dean not to suspect anything and go with it? There’s plenty of plausible deniability here, but the gaps in time in the narrative make me question what is there in those spaces. The scene where Cas tried to give Dean the mixtape back doesn’t read like “playing,” so it’s about a different interaction. Hm. Hmmm.

4. Dean and Cas’s brief conversation in Dean’s room is clearly Dean just wanting Cas to stay, so they can work (and be) together – because they’re better that way. Which, yeah, truth, but also ow.

5.And most importantly: When did Dean give Cas that mixtape??? How did that happen?

Sequence of events: Cas tells Dean he loves him – Dean is clearly shook by it – Dean gives Cas a mixtape (romantic gesture, often a declaration of feelings; in true Dean speak too lolsobs) – Cas goes awol - Dean acts like he got ghosted by his new bf -?????- Cas somehow knows the Colt is under Dean’s pillow – "He went into my room and he played me."

What am I supposed to do with that, hm? Like. Y’all realize they probably had some emotionally constipated getting together moment, right? Something that Dean clearly initially thought meant things were gonna change, now. Something that Cas couldn’t allow to happen until he could give Dean a win. Y’all are seeing this, yeah? I’m not saying they slept together and were full of feelings, except that’s kind of what I’m saying. But YMMV, there are other possibilities beyond sex. The full of feelings isn’t up for debate, though, even if the whole thing is informed by ridiculous amounts of miscommunication.

III. Seasons 13 through 15 As Established Relationship

Regardless of what happened in season 12, exactly, I can’t shake the feeling that something did happen, and something did change. My reasoning here is actually really simple: in comparison to previous seasons, Dean and Cas’s dynamic shifts significantly come season 13. I know some folks have been disappointed with some of season 13 and then season 14 for having dialed back on the destiel side of things. And, hey, maybe there’s truth to that in terms of backstage stuff, but I also want to point out that...well, the dialing back isn’t quite dialing back is it? Let’s look at 13 a little more closely:

Season 13:

So I said the deancas dynamic changed, right? I also think that change caught us unaware because the pivotal turning point that would cue us in never happened on screen as well as being subsumed by Cas’s death and Jack’s birth. But if I ask you about deancas in season 13 what would come to mind? Grief arc? Brokebacknatural? How domestic Dean and Cas are? There’s just something easy about their relationship after Cas returns from the Empty. The tension we’d grown so familiar with over the years is gone. Actually, it feels like we skipped the getting together bit of their relationship and went straight to established relationship and parenting. Some of the most peak married deancas moments we see circulating? Season 13, (and 12.10). It’s a lot, and it’s different, and it’s amazing.

13.01-13.05

Dean’s grief mini-arc. He was acting like a widower. Here’s me vaguely gesturing towards the mapping of Jonh, Mary, Dean, and Sam onto Dean, Cas, Sam, and Jack. And the reunion? I can’t help but be giddy at the song choice: “it’s never too late to start all over again.” To. Start. All. Over. Again. I’m just saying.

13.06 Tombstone & 13.16 Scoobynatural

I’m not going at length about these episodes, I just want to point out that they reveal that Dean and Cas have a whole thing going on off screen: they watch movies together, Cas knows about Dean being an angry sleeper, Cas seems to have been aware of the Dean-cave before Sam was. It’s little things like this that are examples of the narrative gaps surrounding Dean and Cas that have cropped up over the years. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wonder what else could be hiding there. And when did the movie nights alluded in “Tombstone” happen? Maybe in season 12 when Cas in hanging around the bunker? The same period when Dean and Cas seem to be coalescing into something safer and more stable? Something that we never see come to a head because plot happens and Cas dies? Something that is immediately taken back up once Cas is alive again?

Season 14:

Overall, this season is more of what we got during 13, but it had two high notes I wanted to single out before ending this already too long post.

14.15 Peace of Mind

Look me in the eye and tell me Dean and Cas talking in the kitchen about Jack doesn’t read like husbands talking about their child. Look me in the eye and tell me Cas just texting Dean to gossip about Sam isn’t couple-y as hell.

14.18-14.20

Ah, yes, the divorce arc. Awful. Terrible. The culmination of Dean’s problem in all this: he lashes out, he pushes Cas away, his anger is alienating. Cue all of us suffering. But while Dean is clearly in the wrong in how the deals with his feelings, let’s not pretend some of his anger doesn’t come from a long established, and unaddressed, rift between him and Cas, which had its last traumatic turn when Cas died in s12. Dean isn’t being rational here: he saw Cas doing something on his own, and he saw that his mother is dead. What else could happen? Why won’t Cas just trust they can work as a team? What if Cas died again? And why should Cas put up with Dean’s behavior without knowing the cause? How can any relationship work this way? But notice how caught in the middle Sam was during all this. Notice how Jack is running off and acting out. The whole family is falling apart. Divorce arc, indeed.

Season 15:

But what about what we’re building up in 15? That seems like it could be a getting together plot, too, right? Well, yeah. It could very well be. But I’d argue the tension we’re seeing isn’t a will-they-or-won’t-they because they already have. We’re are watching a getting back together plot! The tension is, instead, will-they-or -won’t-they use their words to talk about the baggage that has kept them from truly being confident about their relationship. That’s the crucial step in their togetherness that they’re still missing, which is also the bedrock of the divorce arc that spanned twelve fucking episodes -- y’all, that’s half a season.

And technically? We’re not even done with yet because Cas never let Dean finish his prayer/confession in purgatory. What’s more, Cas hasn’t grappled with his role in the breakdown of their relationship, either: that he keeps going off on his own and getting hurt (and getting other people hurt), and Dean has to deal with the fallout. The deep emotional understanding, the truly being on the same page is what we’re on the edge of our seats for. We’re waiting to see what else Dean had to say, and what will happen when Cas’s deal with the Empty comes to light.

Finally, could we still have this plot without Dean and Cas having gotten together off screen? Sure, but I think the stakes are higher if they already did have something between them. If they actually have an established romantic relationship going on. Something real and tangible and as of yet much too fragile.

"...you asked what about all this is real. We are."

#destiel #deancas #supernatural #spn #spn meta #this thing is gargantuan yikes #anyway enjoy? let's chat #my writing #this thing is half meta half my adhd unleashed

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hmslusitania · 3 years

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Honestly, I don't hate Ana (Taylor is a different story but we'll get to that later) I'm just not sure about her relationship with Eddie. Like you pointed out before, her way of talking to/about Christopher and her whole limiting of what he could do was a little...I'm not sure how to put into words how it made me feel. Then came the whole thing of Carla and her infamous quote and the relationship just seemed more shakey than before.

Taylor though... 👀 Again, like you said, she is quite derisive and for no good reason. Like I didn't like how they made Buck seem like he was pining after her and that she didn't even care for him. Friendship wise maybe they could work out (she doesn't seem like an asshole) but relationship wise (even without shipping Buddie) she's- I don't think she's good for Buck (and he deserves the world).

Also, I feel like their attraction was sort of forced (especially in the beginning). Buck went to thank her for not showing the whole clip and Bobby's high version and she said that her station stopped her. She had such little regard for the 118 because she wanted to 'be a reporter her whole life' and 'show the true story behind the people that save the city' and Buck calls her out on it and shows he's genuinely hurt, but her cameraman tells them to get a room? I'm sorry? Did I miss something? Like I'm sorry your dreams made you a shitty person.

I had to replay that scene to see if I actually did because what the fuck? Taylor admitted to wanting to hurt his family and air their secrets out just so that she could get a better job at her station and Buck's gonna wanna sleep with her?

Even while she was filming, she had little regard for them and while some of them wanted to talk and actually said really heartfelt and motivating things, Bobby didn't want. But all she could think about was her story.

Why does Buck like her again? Other than the fact that she's pretty and 'exciting'?

Sorry for the rant (though it could be longer but I hate typing on my phone🥴) I just really ha- dislike Taylor and sometimes Ana.

I've said basically everything I can say about Ana at this point without harping on the point. It's a bad match. Eddie's entire goal in life as we've seen it is to create a good life for his disabled son and his current girlfriend is ableist. It's not a good start or continuation for a relationship.

And then there's Taylor.

So here is my honest, possibly least popular opinion: I don't care about Taylor. I don't hate her. I don't stan her. I have...zero investment in the character. For a solid month after the finale aired, I had her both tag blocked and content blocked because I got so tired of scrolling my dash and seeing multiple posts in a row along the theme of "If you hate Taylor here's why you're wrong and also an awful person <3" followed immediately by "Here's everything wrong with loving Taylor" and so I just. Blocked all of it. Because my ideal amount of time spent thinking about Taylor Kelly is zero. Unfortunately, the show and fandom are determined that this is not to be.

I don't think any of her fans are running around being all "yes girlboss girlpower!!" about her actions and commentary about her desire to air the full tapes about Bobby at the end of Dosed (unless they also really hate Bobby, but I don't know any of the people who fall into that slice of venn diagram so I can't say). I recently rewatched the majority of season 2 for a fic and I also spent that entire storyline in Buck, Actually being like "Okay, so you keep saying you like her, Buck, but what, exactly, do you like about her/know about her other than she was going to use your dad for canon fodder?" And then she leaves him with his pants down in a parking lot and we do not see her for two seasons.

And with season 4 Taylor, I think part of the divisiveness comes from her change in character since season 2. For people who are inclined to like her, I think it's really easy to fill in the events that have led to character development, and for people who are disinclined to like her it's equally easy to be disgruntled and miffed about it because in many ways she comes across as an entirely different character. And then for people like me who aren't inclined in either direction, it's easy to be like "huh that was a sloppily executed relationship start they added that also contradicted Buck's character arc for the rest of the season."

But, y'know, it's fandom. There's always going to be a random side character who certain factions will cling to as the light of their lives, and there's always going to be a random side character who certain factions will hate always forever without question. It's just really annoying when it turns out to be the same character.

#I may...blacklist her again actually #anyway #anti taylor kelly #the ghost ship answers questions #fandom discourse #and I appreciate you putting your name on your ask #I know I already told you that #this is not going to be well received is it

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tamiettitami · 3 years

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for this month's recommendations, i decided to go with the theme KISSES GALORE in honour of valentine's day. all of the below works have been posted in the month of february 2021 and hand selected by me <3

Sowing Discord by @chronologicalimplosion

A group of hyper-religious, homophobic protesters on campus ruins David's post-lunch good mood and he sends a half-joking message to the LGBTQ+ Discord server about staging a counterprotest. Constant lurker Patrick comes running.

Rated T for TEEN & UP AUDIENCES; 4,089 words; M/M; TAGGED for Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Original Characters, Alternative Universe, Alternative Universe - College/University, Homophobia, First Kiss, Epistolary, kind of

"This work features the inclusion of messages sent in Discord channels, a social media app I've never seen interrogated into a fanfiction piece before. The perfect balance of humour as well as tenderness makes this the ideal read to round out the month of love."

falling into place like dominos by @davidbrewer

Alexis spins the bottle and Stevie doesn’t know if she wants it to stop in front of her, or if she’s hoping it points literally anywhere else. She thinks she’ll figure it out when it stops moving, but… even with the neck of the bottle unmistakably pointing at her foot, she still can’t identify what the feeling is. Is that happiness or dread settling in the pit of her stomach? Since when do those completely different things feel exactly the same? If she’s being honest, though, it feels like a combination of things. It’s that feeling you get right before you do something you know you might regret later… like throwing back a jello shot (which she wishes she had done), calling an ex at 3am, or maybe jumping out of a plane.

David and Patrick hold a second housewarming party, this time at their newly-renovated cottage. For old times' sake, they decide to play spin the bottle. Meanwhile, Stevie has been wrestling with her feelings for Alexis since she left for New York... and it never occurred to her that those feelings could flow both ways.

Rated M for MATURE AUDIENCES; 4,897 words; F/F; TAGGED for Stevie Budd & Alexis Rose, Stevie Budd/Alexis Rose, Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Post-Canon, Lesbian Stevie Budd, First (Real) Kiss, Alcohol, Spin the Bottle, Queer Themes, Sexuality Crisis, (Although it's more of a frustrated confusing than a crisis tbh)

"The author's ability to voice every character (but specifically Alexis) will never fail to astound me; their inner voice for Stevie is the most notable in this work, however. Even the friendship/sibling dynamics between David and Alexis and as well as Stevie and Patrick are absolute perfection. One of the best 'Housewarming' codas I've ever endulged in and I can confidently says so."

Until I Lose My Breath by @the-kellephant

How could she have missed the fact that she was in love with Twyla?

Rated T for TEEN & UP AUDIENCES; 814 words; F/F; TAGGED for Stevie Budd/Twyla Sands, Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, Femslash February, Bisexual Stevie Budd, Lesbian Twyla Sands

"A lovely introspective piece about sapphic feelings and how they can often be blindsided by denial if not provided with the proper care or attention."

You can Stand Under my Umbrella by @agoodpersonrose

David thought the day couldn't possibly get any worse. But then it started to rain.

43. You both reach for the last umbrella in the store on a rainy day.

Rated T for TEEN & UP AUDIENCES; 2,721 words; M/M; TAGGED for Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Alternative Universe - Canon Divergence, Tumblr Prompt, Meet-Cute, First Kiss, First Meetings, Awkward Flirting, Kissing in the Rain, Umbrellas, Fluff and Humour, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Prompt Fill, One Shot

"I have nothing to say besides this is hands down the most cute way this prompt could've been filled and I applaud Becca for her ability to write such tender moments in a way underlined with laughs."

Ten Tender Kisses by @cheesecurdsgravyandfries

Ten drabbles featuring ten tender kisses.

Rated G for GENERAL AUDIENCES; 1,110 words; M/M; TAGGED for Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Fluff, tender kisses, Canon Compliant

"Reading this was pure joy. The happiness I felt from the first drabble continued to grow the longer I scrolled which is truly a beautiful feeling. Their banter is so perfectly in character and the dynamic the author has created between David and Patrick is a skill I envy."

I Didn't Know it was a Crush, David by squigmistress

David and Patrick arrive home after The Premiere and David wants to talk more about some of the wild stuff Patrick said when he was high on pain meds. What he doesn't expect is Patrick's big, gay feelings. But damn, does he love him for it. OR Patrick needs emotional safety to process some feelings and, of course, David is more than happy to hold him through it.

Rated T for TEEN & UP AUDIENCES; 1,548 words; M/M; TAGGED for Patrick Brewer/David Rose, david rose - Relationship, Queer Themes, Coming Out, Episode: s06e05 The Premiere, Coda, Feelings, Feelings Realisation, Gay, Canon Gay Character, Family Issues, Intimacy, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Anger

"Now, I've always been a sucker for introspective works, but this took it to a brand new level. It's such a fine needle to thread; however, the author does an astounding job at cataloguing the growth/development of Patrick's emotions."

Be your remedy by @jessx2231

Patrick closes his eyes and brings to mind all the times David has put on music while Patrick is engrossed in a book or his phone or even the occasional weekend work task. Eventually, David will slink into his space, just enough to rest his head in Patrick’s lap. He doesn’t always do so with the intent to fall asleep, but it’s usually not long before Patrick’s fingers involuntarily find their way into David’s hair — much like they are now — and David’s breath will even out for a while.

He can definitely make an abridged version of that happen.

Or, David can't sleep and Patrick helps.

Rated G for GENERAL AUDIENCES; Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings; 2,048 words; M/M; TAGGED for Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Fluff, Established Relationship, Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Married Life, very mild descriptions of depressive symptoms, but really just some very soft sleepy boys

"A warm hug is the best way I can describe this. Also, I already knew I need a Patrick Brewer in my life, but this solidified that."

the paths that your eyes wander down by @anniemurphys apart of falling in love at a coffee shop by them, @thankstwy, and @landofsonlali

Written for the prompt: "Twyla and Alexis reunite in NYC."

Alexis finds Twyla at a tiny corner table.

Rated G for GENERAL AUDIENCES; 568 words; F/F; TAGGED for Alexis Rose/Twyla Sands, Post-Canon

"The absolute perfect romantic comedy moment paired with some of the most in-character Alexis dialogue I've seen in awhile, not to mention how beautifully the mutual pining is broken."

a sense of expectation hanging in the air by Anonymous (i'll add the author once reveals are out for the Season 7 collection !)

Stevie starts to realize she has feelings for Ruth. How long though, will it take for her to tell Ruth that?

Rated M for MATURE AUDIENCES; 6,548 words; F/F; TAGGED for Stevie Budd/Ruth Clancy, Stevie Budd & Alexis Rose & Twyla Sands, Stevie Budd & David Rose, Stevie Budd & Patrick Brewer, Alexis Rose/Twyla Sands, Post-Canon, Getting Together, Sharing a Bed, Cuddling & Snuggling, Making Out, Fluff, Texting, Female Friendship, Episode: s07e08 RMG, Workplace Relationship

"The support from Stevie's friends—Alexis, Twyla, David, and Patrick—is so incredibly lovely. Despite the secret crushes, Stevie and Ruth refuse to let anything get in the way of them getting together and it's such a wonderful thing to see them immediately all-in the relationship."

got a fistful of four leaf clovers by iphigenias

Two weeks before Christmas Alexis calls David.

“So I think I like someone,” she says.

Rated T for TEEN & UP AUDIENCES; 1,754 words; F/F; TAGGED for Post-Canon, Getting Together, Femslash February, home is a place AND a person!

"Alexis's slow burn of building feelings for Twyla melts my heart. That being said, the realistic depiction of the difficulties that come with change provides a certain depth to this story it needs."

#schitt's creek #schitts creek #david rose #patrick brewer #stevie budd #twyla sands #alexis rose #david x patrick #david & patrick #stevie x alexis #stevie & alexis #twyla x alexis #twyla & alexis #twylexis #fic recommendations #fanficiton #*lolrecs #schitt's creek fic #february roundup

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zhuhongs · 3 years

Text

Since rewatching the guardian drama after reading the novel has made me mad about how bad and good both of them are I am Obligated to write out a list of what I think the perfect merger btw both versions of canon are. This will be in list format otherwise I’ll end up writing like 6k words again.

TLDR: the genre stays as supernatural from the novel and not Sci fi, bc that was rlly not fleshed out well. Shen Wei is a ghost king, and all the dixingren are ghosts or demons like originally intended. The ghost race naturally exists and wasn't born from kunluns shoulder fire or anything. They just exist separate from humans. Not all ghosts are former humans, some people are just born as ghosts, like Shen Wei. Zhao Yunlan has the guardian whip and all the cool stuff that comes with the Guardian order. Overall, i’d keep the novel’s plot and relationship progression and ending without the backstory. Instead the backstory is a merger of both canons. From the drama I’d keep the characterization and themes as well as like half the extra cases and omit the other half.

I’ll be elaborating much further on my ideal backstory and other stuff under the cut bc the rest is 1.5k and I don’t wanna clog the dash

Okay SO In my ideal backstory there are two timelines just like the drama but the mythology of the book. The god Kunlun is actually zyl that went back in time and became a god. But the one that went back isn’t the current Zhao Yunlan. There has to be an original timeline where the god Kunlun never existed. Thus the great seal nor the separation of the three realms don’t exist either. Zhao Yunlan must go back in time to become a god, meet Shen Wei in the past, and create the current timeline where the separation exists but isn’t perfect. The current timeline is the one that the majority of the series takes place in.

In the original timeline, Zhao Yunlan is just some dude living in a world where ghosts, fairies, and all other beings just live in a giant free for all and it's kinda just a mess.

Like there’s government in modern context and all and all races live with each other but there's constant tension. ZYL works at some equivalent of the SID (same staff and side characters, but novel vers. Lin Jing is a monk, CSZ a zombie, etc) to protect people and all that and their job is rather hard. One day encounters the thousands year old ghost king Wei (who isnt shen wei yet bc zyl gave him that name in the future) who works alone as like a rouge cultivator of sorts. He lives on the surface undercover as a professor still bc he’s trying to not catch Yezun’s attention but does all the stuff he normally does as Heipaoshi. The two ally together for a case and bc they both have the same goals of getting all races to live in peace. At current, there are forces working together to decimate the human race, all lead by Yezun

As they work together they become closer and all that. Shen Wei tells him about how he was unable to prevent the great war 5 thousand years ago and neither could the gods so he’s spent the past 5 thousand years trying to make up for it. As they search for ways to stop Yezun, they gather the 4 hallows and learn how to use them to manipulate time so ZYL can go into the past and stop the great war and separate the three realms (living, dead, ghost). Shen Wei wants to go back with him but he can’t because he was alive all those years ago so if he goes back it will create a paradox. ZYL promises he’ll find Shen Wei in the past and create a timeline where they could be together in peace (that is the current timeline)

When goes back he becomes the god kunlun because there needed to be a new god born at the time to prevent the war. Also this time traveller looked promising to Nuwa, Fuxi, and Shennong. And I know in the guardian universe gods are usually born and ppl don’t become gods. EXCEPT this can happen when a god passes on smth from their body onto them bc that did happen in the novel with Kunlun making shen wei a demigod. And since fu you and ma gui are supposed to be gods Nu Wa and Fuxi I think that when they die, they should make ZYL a god and that's how this stuff happens.

So like ZYL explains to the gods the time he came from and how he wants to save everything and they make him a god and he works to save everything just like he did in the drama but this time with the novel plotline. During this time he meets young Shen Wei (he’s still like a hundred or so years old) and they get close and all the stuff from the backstory happens. He gives him his name, all that good stuff. The entire time doesn’t let him know that he’s from the future or that his real name is ZYL. He just poses as kunlun.

The two of them alongside the other gods (who still die at the times they do in the novel) work together to end the war and establish the great seal and set up the cycle of reincarnation, per the current timeline. Although the seal and cycle of reincarnation aren’t perfect. Gods can’t reincarnate, and ghosts still don’t have souls. And just like the novel, doing all of this kills ZYL bc it takes a lot of energy to create the seal even though it isn’t perfect.

Shen Wei of course doesn’t want ZYL to die and zyl says it's alright because he fixed the timeline so there must One day they will meet again and ZYL reveals the truth about the timeline to shen wei before he dies. This becomes the promise that Shen Wei mentions to meet again. Before he dies, ZYL gives him the shoulder fire as a memento ( i still like the candy wrapper necklace deal but i’ll take this too. Maybe both.. The pendant is still just rlly cool.. Gay ppl)

Shen Wei knows gods can’t enter the cycle of reincarnation and still makes the deal with Shennong to strip Kunlun of his godhood and let him reincarnate. This sets us into the novel timeline where isn’t allowed to meet any of zyl’s reincarnations before he becomes zyl otherwise he will die and also fuck up the timeline. The same 5 thousand years of pining still ensue bc Gay Ppl and i love making Shen Wei suffer but he doesn’t have the shrine room thing bc i think thats weird and yea.. Bad.

In the meantime Shen Wei does a lot of things mostly just protecting the great seal and working for Hell to keep the peace but still does other stuff. He still watches out for ZYL’s reincarnations but doesn’t do much besides make sure they don’t die a premature death. They meet again finally at the beginning of the series and the timeline resumes like canon. And that's my master plan that merges both drama logic and novel logic while making a much better timeline. (I hope that makes some sense)

Da Qing is still Kunlun’s pet cat and important. Novel backstory applies to him. And I already mentioned him kinda but as for Yezun (Gui Mian in the novel) his deal is similar as in the drama but just a ghost. And he is a big player in the great war, he thought Shen Wei abandoned him as a kid but they were just separated. Shen Wei doesn’t know it's him till the end of the war and couldn’t stop him in the OG timeline and vows to bring him to justice and make amends. Shen Wei continuously tries to explain things to him but he just won’t listen and is imprisoned in hell bc yk… war criminal stuff and yeah he’s the main antagonist trying to break the great seal bc he’s still made about the past. Idk. Yezun wasn’t well written in the novel OR the drama so like… honestly he just needs to be completely rewritten and I don’t care enough about that. He can just be a weak villain idk

the drama characterization stays the same for everyone else bc found family go brr. However for Lao Chu i… hmm… i think he should still be a zombie but the reason he killed someone should be related to his brother. I like that addition and then shen wei realized his sentence was unjust and exempted him. i like that storyline merger. bc the brother thing and him admiring Heipaoshi was drama only. in the novel lao chu just murdered some kid for a rlly whatever reason.

uhhh in terms of the cases… id make adjustments to most of them. i think the li qian case should be like the drama bc the novel just had her as a murderer and it was boring.

For the mountain river awl one was fine… novel version was funnier and more interesting action wise tbh… rip zyl and his exorbitant flirting. uhhh the whole reveal that shen wei was the soul reaper thing was kinda… ehh in the novel but i did love the comedy of afterwards Shen Wei pretending he went into cardiac arrest when he actually just… has no pulse bc he's a ghost.

ID KEEP THE WORTH IT SCENE AND RAIN SCENE… THOSE FUCK SO HARD… I love the drama for adding those every damn day. the novel version of zyl losing his sight sucked and was sooo boring. Keep the drama version on that.

also id keep dr. cheng. i'm very pro dr. cheng and her friendship with shen wei it adds so much to his character imo. keep the fruit seller man and his wife for the merit brush..omg it adds SO MUCH the way the drama did it.. like the drams build up with the novels pace of that arc.. mwah. it felt like it dragged a bit in the drama but if it went faster and without the hospital ep and with sha ya (sorry sha ya) that would've been so good. tho keep novel version of da qings memory loss and lao li. that was rlly impactful.

id say keep some of the cases like the mirror one, the eyes doctor one, etc. just to like.. yk have more to fill in general.. novel pacing but drama characterization without the bs that wasn't fully realized. and novel ending ofc. And that’s it!!

I hope most of this makes some amount of sense but it probably doesn’t. In my head it all tracks but like ik most of u don’t know anything about the novel so this sounds like gibberish. Also I know this would literally never happen but this is MY ideal merger of the two canons that I feel compelled to expand on for some reason. Anyways, as io said,, we need to rebuild guardian. Like literally let me and the mutuals write Guardian and it will be 500 times better.

#🐌.txt #镇魂 guardian #as always... if anyone wants to ask me any questions abt this or guardian in general... pls do.. my mind goes brrrrrr #guardian meta

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arofili · 3 years

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HCs about Elemmírë?

Oh man, for a character we have next to no information about other than “Vanya” and “sang a really sad song about the Trees,” I have a lot of headcanons for Elemmírë!

First of all, Elemmírë is named after a heavenly body (possibly Arda’s version of Mercury?) and the name is not given in either a masculine or feminine form, so we don’t know Elemmírë’s canon gender. This of course means that Elemmírë is trans, you can’t change my mind! I’ve seen depictions of them as nonbinary, which I love, but personally my Elemmírë is a trans woman!

All the rest of my headcanons are pretty much made up whole cloth :)

I intended to make like, a bullet point list of headcanons, but I ended up referencing my recently created personal timeline of the Years of the Trees and the First Age, and...it kind of expanded into an essay on Elemmírë’s role in the larger story of that verse of mine. So, under the cut is a roughly 2,000 word essay on my take on this blank slate of a character!

Elemmírë is one of the Unbegotten elves who awoke at Cuiviénen. When she awoke, everyone assumed she was a male elf, which didn’t really sit right with her but she didn’t know how to express herself at the time. For the first part of her life she lived as a nér.

Elemmírë has a sister*, Calima (one of my OCs). Calima marries an Avar, who she manages to drag with her on the Great Journey despite his reluctance to go West. Right before Ulmo takes the Vanyar and the Noldor to Aman, Calima’s husband leaves her and disappears into Taur-im-Duinath...but not before Calima becomes pregnant. Elemmírë comforts her and supports her through the birth of her child, Elenwë - the first child to be born in Aman.

*(My headcanon around Unbegotten siblings is that some elves woke with soul bonds that connected them to other elves, which while they aren’t genetically related, they consider to be siblings of their fëa. This is the case for Elwë, Olwë, and Elmo; I also gave Nowë (Círdan) and Ingwë OC siblings. Finwë is a loner, which is part of why he’s so concerned about creating and keeping a marriage bond...)

While Ingwë is busy building Tirion with Finwë, his sister-in-law Alcariniel (the mother of Indis; her spouse died on the Great Journey and has yet to be reborn) leads some of the Vanyar to the foot of Taniquetil and founds what will become Valmar. Calima, Elenwë, and Elemmírë go with Alcariniel.

At this time, Elemmírë enters into the service of Varda. She develops a close relationship with her Vala, and feels more comfortable in the beautiful starry robes and among the company of mostly priestesses than she ever did in the more gendered Vanyarin society. She sings and composes hymns to Varda and the heavens.

About a century later, Elemmírë is an established and well-renowned musician in Valmar. It is then that she meets Findis, daughter of Indis, when Findis is visiting Taniquetil with her grandmother Alcariniel. Findis greatly admires Elemmírë’s songs and engages her in a discussion about poetry; the two quickly become friends.

After another hundred years or so, Findis’ half-brother Fëanáro has his fourth child. Finwë invites his whole family to the celebration; Findis now lives in Valmar and does not always attend these begetting day parties, but she happens to be in Tirion for the occasion - with Elemmírë, who tags along to the party.

At the celebration, Makalaurë (a young teen in Elf Years) sings a piece he wrote for his new baby brother, and Elemmírë is greatly impressed by his talent and offers to teach him personally. He’s had music tutors before, but none so renowned, and he is absolutely star-struck. Fëanáro has an inherent distrust of the Vanyar, but he cannot deny his son anything, especially when it comes to furthering his craft, so he agrees to let Elemmírë teach Makalaurë, on the condition that she move to Tirion. Findis offers to move back as well, so her friend won’t be alone; they move in together.

A few years later, Elemmírë takes her star student Makalaurë to Valmar so he can perform at her niece’s 200th begetting day party. This is, of course, Elenwë; Makalaurë is immediately besotted with her, and does his best to impress her. Of course, Elenwë is well into adulthood and Makalaurë is still an awkward adolescent, so nothing ever comes of this, but they do eventually become friends.

All this time, everyone has assumed that Elemmírë is a nér, but with every passing year she becomes more and more certain that is not actually the case. At last she confesses to her dear friend Findis that she thinks she might be a nís, and while Findis isn’t quite sure what that means at first, she’s very supportive and encourages Elemmírë to go to Varda with this revelation.

I do operate in a verse where some homophobia and transphobia exist in Aman, kind of accidently put into place by a well-meaning but ultimately harmful decision by Manwë, but Varda is significantly more chill than her husband. She doesn’t really get what Elemmírë is saying, but she supports her servant’s change in expression. Elven gender roles are pretty loose, so it’s not really that much of a difference, and with Varda’s support Elemmírë feels more confident in herself and comes out to the public.

Most elves, especially the Vanyar, likewise don’t really get it, and privately they still see her as a nér, but there is a firm taboo against rudeness which means they will refer to Elemmírë with the correct pronouns and honorifics and such because it would be incredibly rude not to. The discomfort with someone else’s non-normative expression is easier to deal with than the social impropriety of deliberately refusing to respect someone’s wishes about their personal identity.

This, along with Varda’s kind-of-confused-but-she’s-still-got-the-spirit support of Elemmírë means it’s a pretty smooth transition process for her. Since her name isn’t gendered, she decides to keep it, and she is much happier now that she can express her true self. She also has a staunch ally in Findis, who she has recently begun courting.

Again, there is some homophobia in my verse, and two níssi in a relationship is generally frowned upon, but the half-acceptance of Elemmírë’s gender allows them to exploit a loophole in that particular Law/Custom. Manwë, at least, still sees Elemmírë as a nér, and so doesn’t see anything wrong with her dating Findis. It’s not the ideal situation, but Elemmírë and Findis aren’t really the “fight the system” type, so they’re content to live with the happiness they’ve been allowed.

Eventually, Makalaurë reaches his first coming of age** and Elemmírë takes her student on a tour of all Eldamar to show off how exceptional a musician he has become. He is declared a master singer, and leaves Elemmírë’s side to pursue mastery in instruments, beginning with the harp. His teacher couldn’t be more proud.

**(In my headcanon, elves have two coming-of-age ceremonies: one when they reach age 50, and are considered physically mature and old enough to be given more freedoms in their decisions, including now being of a socially acceptable age to start dating; and the other at age 100, where they are considered a Full Adult and able to marry. Sometimes elves marry younger than that, but it isn’t super common. Age pretty much stops mattering, especially when it comes to age gaps in relationships, when an elf is about 150.)

Not long after this, Elemmírë and Findis get married! Makalaurë performs his then-masterpiece at their wedding. Also at the wedding, Findekáno is caught up in all the glorious romance, and the possibilities of same-gender marriage now that two níssi (one a princess!) can be wed, and confesses the depth of his love for Maitimo. Maitimo...immediately panics and brings up all the reasons why their love is doomed, how their aunts are the exception and not the rule and besides there’s that loophole they’re taking advantage of that doesn’t really work for néri like us - but notably does not deny that he feels the same way. Findekáno is heartbroken by the rejection; Maitimo is terrified of his feelings and distances himself from his beloved cousin for a time.

But of course that doesn’t last long - and it’s at the celebration of the birth of Laurefindil, Findis and Elemmírë’s son, that Maitimo brings himself to reconcile with Findekáno...platonically. Of course. Until a few months later where he just can’t take it anymore and breaks down and confesses he can’t deny his feelings any longer, and they get together at long last.

Findis, Elemmírë, and Laurefindil return to Valmar and settle down there. Laurefindil is buds with both his Vanyarin cousin Elenwë and his oodles of Noldorin cousins. At his first coming of age celebration, he introduces his cousin Elenwë (on Elemmírë’s side) to his cousin Turukáno (on Findis’ side), and Turukáno immediately falls madly in love and begins some intense pining that will rival even his older brother’s romantic dramatics.

As strife grows among the Noldor, Findis and Elemmírë distance themselves from Tirion as much as they can; Makalaurë is pretty much the only Finwëan who is allowed to visit them. However, Laurefindil misses his Noldorin cousins and, after his second coming of age, chooses to move to Tirion and join his grandfather Finwë’s court. He becomes even closer to Turukáno (who has by now married Elenwë) and is very loyal to his older cousin.

At the Darkening, Elemmírë is deeply grieved at the destruction of the Two Trees, and it is then that she composes her most famous song, the Aldudénië, “Lament for the Trees.” Her grief is compounded when her son chooses to go into exile with his Noldorin kin - and, almost worse, when her niece Elenwë chooses to leave as well.

Elenwë is the only Vanya who leaves (well, the only Vanya who is fully culturally Vanyarin without any Noldorin ancestry), mostly because she cannot bear to be separated from her husband and young daughter, but also because she knows the story of her Avarin father who stayed behind in Endórë and hopes that she will meet him on the hither shore. (Unfortunately, she perishes crossing the Ice. Idril will eventually meet her maternal grandfather, but not until just before she and Tuor sail West. Elenwë is reborn in Aman shortly after the founding of Gondolin; she reunites with her Vanyarin family and with her good friend Amárië.)

I don’t have a whole lot of headcanons for Elemmírë and Findis during the events of the First Age; they live mostly a quiet life. I think Elemmírë rededicates herself to the service of Varda, and pleads with her Vala to show mercy for the Noldor in their need. (Perhaps that helped to convince Varda’s husband to send an eagle to Thangorodrim?)

When they hear of Laurefindil’s death in the Fall of Gondolin (because of course Glorfindel followed his favorite cousin Turgon to his hidden city, and got a noble house out of it!), Elemmírë and Findis grieve his loss all over again. They don’t know how long it will be before his rebirth, and they soon decide to have another child together. This is their daughter, Faniel, who grows up on stories about her brother’s bravery.

Eventually Glorfindel is reborn, and he has a few good centuries in Aman with his family (and his husband Ecthelion, who he finally gets to marry; they had gotten betrothed the day before Gondolin fell, RIP) before the Valar send him back to Middle-earth to play the hero again. Elemmírë and Findis are once again heartbroken to lose him, but they are at the same time incredibly proud of their son for his bravery and dedication to all things good in the world. This time, he leaves with the blessing of Varda, his mother’s patron Vala, and a promise that he will return when his task is complete. He does, but not until the Fourth Age, when he sails back to Valinor with Elladan and Elrohir!

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sixtyfourk · 3 years

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001 you know me I gotta ask for Clive/Flora :3

I was hoping you would... :D Thank you for indulging me, and I’m sorry for this essay ^^

when I started shipping it if I did:

Long story… I was playing through all of the PL games this spring for the first time in years, and found myself really liking Flora, far more than I’d ever liked her when playing the games as a kid. Then, when I got to UF, I found myself getting really attached to Clive as well. Not only did I love both characters, but I really liked their interactions; I’d been getting upset about how much Flora was left behind, and lo and behold, “Future Luke” tells Luke that Flora should be included on the adventure, and that she’s allowed to be excited, etc.

Clive kept on sticking up for Flora, and they seemed to get along really well (not to mention all of the cute little moments they had together, like on the stairs to the Thames Arms), and I was getting really invested in their relationship. Then Clive went completely off the rails, and even though I knew this was coming, I honestly felt as upset and confused as Flora did. I wanted to hear his apology, and I wanted to see more out of a relationship that I felt had so much promise.

my thoughts:

I absolutely love Clora; I haven’t been this excited about a ship in a long time. I adore both characters, and the similarities in their backgrounds are just perfect for writing about; they have so much to bond over. They have a really cute and wholesome dynamic in UF, before they really knew each other, and I love the idea of that continuing and developing into something deeper as they slowly get to know the real versions of each other.

At first, Flora’s angry and confused, and Clive is lost in self-hate and regret; he’s just messed up so much already, and there’s no way that he can ever apologize correctly. But Flora just refuses to give up on getting the closure she needs, and just keeps on coming back until she gets it. They’ve got the perfect balance of in-game hints where the pairing isn’t pulled out of nowhere, and also open-endedness where there’s lots to explore as a writer.

I think they’d definitely need a lot of time before ever starting a romantic relationship. While there were little hints at the ship in the game (I think), romance was the farthest thing from Clive’s mind at the time (I don’t think he’d ever been interested in anything of the kind before), and it was Flora’s first proper adventure. Their falling-out in the game really solidifies the fact that they need a lot of time to process things and get to know each other all over again. I’d want them to become good solid friends first before going anywhere near romance. After that, though... ugh, the mutual pining would be so good, ahhh...!

What makes me happy about them:

So much. I really love how on the surface, Flora is the “cute” one and Clive is the “prickly” one, but really, they aren’t that different. Flora has a lot of issues and a lot of pain in her past like Clive, and Clive also gets deeply attached to other people (especially his family) like Flora does. I think that they have so much potential to help each other open up and deal with the difficulties from their pasts, and support each other when the other is going through a rough time. And honestly, they’re just really adorable together. They’ve got such a nice mix of sweetness and angst, and I just love thinking and writing about them.

(Also they’re holding hands in one of the end credits scenes...! I so rarely ship anything with any canon evidence, so that, and all of Clive’s little “Don’t worry, Flora” comments in the game just make me really happy).

What makes me sad about them:

Hhh…. I just think that Clive messed things up SO bad. He messed up from the beginning. It’s not even just the kidnapping part; that could probably be (generously) explained by Clive suddenly deciding that he didn’t want Flora to get stomped by the Mobile Fortress (although he should have told her/just not used the Mobile Fortress, but okay). It’s that he was pretending to be “Future Luke” all along, and, due to Flora’s past of having people she cares about replaced by lookalikes (Dahlia replacing her mom, herself being replaced by Don Paolo (and Luke gleefully showing her the Flora mask on the train ride home!), and less traumatically, Don Paolo replacing the professor), I think that “Big Luke” suddenly turning into “Clive” would be really upsetting for her.

Despite all of that, though, all Flora asked for was an apology--and then the two of them never get to talk again. I don’t know… I’m just sad that they seemed to get along so well before, and if Clive had been able to say sorry right then, maybe they could have parted on better terms than they did, just like Clive and the professor got to. Instead, we don’t get any apology or closure. Flora deserved an apology.

things done in fanfic that annoys me:

Ugh, SO many things. There’s about 100 stories with both characters tagged on ff.net, and I can only really recommend about ten of them. At best, it’s a generic “bad boy/good girl” dynamic, or Clive is suddenly super nice and Flora is incredibly ditzy, and at worst, Clive’s abusive. (please don’t read the earliest ff.net stories, no matter how desperate you get.)

Admittedly, people are very critical of Clora at the best of times, so I feel like there’s a higher standard for it than there are for other pairings. I just feel like Flora often gets written as the “everygirl,” sort of as a reader-insert that gets to date Clive. Or, Clive is a total woobie who gets immediately forgiven by Flora with no resistance at all. Honestly though, as long as it’s obvious that someone is trying their best to keep them in-character and on equal footing, I would be happy to read anyone’s take on them. They are a difficult pair to write, I think, so I don’t expect anyone to get it perfect (since there really is no perfect way to write them).

things I look for in fanfic:

Ideally? Just like 10 Years. The slow burn, the hard work to earn forgiveness, the friendship, the attention to their similarities, the acknowledgement of both of their traumas… boy, I will never stop recommending that story. I’m so glad it exists; it’s given me so many ideas and it addresses all of the things that make me feel bad about the pairing.

Outside of that fic… I just want acknowledgement of what Clive did wrong, him working to fix it, and them starting to understand each other and grow fond of each other. (Also… lots of angst and hurt/comfort, haha, but that’s me with every type of fanfic). Conversely, I’d like to just see them doing cute things together or going on an adventure without talking about the past constantly as well; once the apology is over, they don’t have to constantly return back to the past. I feel like Clora is a super good candidate for slow burn as well; I loved it in 10 Years and I’d love to see another take on it.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other:

Honestly no one… when I really like a ship, I can’t multiship without getting sad, haha… :’)

My happily ever after for them:

I’ve got several different AUs for them, but for one of them, I’d like to see them get married and move to St. Mystere. They can work together and take over Bruno’s job of repairing the robot residents and take care of the village. They’d visit and be visited by the professor and the rest of the family frequently, but I think that they’d both be happier away from London. I think Clive interacting with the Reinholds would be really funny too, haha… I do have a longer story I still want to write too, though, so my ideas for a happy ending for them may change a lot as I write.

who is the big spoon/little spoon:

It’s a 60-40 split, with Flora being the little spoon slightly more.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity:

I think they try to learn how to be good cooks together. Flora was never good, obviously, but I think that Clive also only knows how to cook the basics (lazy rich kid). Once Clive starts living with the professor, though, he realizes that it’s pretty much going to be up to him to feed this family, because the professor forgets to cook, Flora’s bad at it, and Alfendi’s a baby. He starts to work at getting better, and Flora decides to practice more too, and they wind up competing with each other. They also use each other as test subjects for the food they want to give to the professor (it’s okay if they give each other food poisoning, but the professor? Perish the thought!) By the time Alfendi’s a little kid, they’re both half-decent, but still make fun of each other’s cooking, and Alfendi will pick a side with whoever he’s feeling more charitable towards at the time.

They also have unscheduled midnight tea time at least once a week. Clive doesn’t sleep a lot, and Flora wakes up during the night quite often, so she often comes downstairs to find him pacing around, and makes a pot of tea. Sometimes she’ll go up again after having a cup, and sometimes they fall asleep on the couch together.

#answered asks #clora #long post #tw abuse mention #64's headcanons #pajcali #thank you so much for asking!!

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knifeonmars · 4 years

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Capsule Reviews - May 2020 - The Cape Stuff

I read a lot of comics in May. Here’s what I thought of some of the superhero and superhero-adjacent comics I read.

Arms of the Octopus

A nostalgia pick, the collection of several annual issues containing a crossover between Superior Spider-Man, The Invincible Hulk, and the All-New X-Men. It is an artifact of a very specific and bizarre time in Marvel Comics, when Doc Ock was Spider-Man, the Hulk worked for SHIELD, and the original five teen X-Men were stranded in their own future. For a pure, relatively straightforward crossover romp, it's quite enjoyable. Spider-Man is a jerk, the Hulk fights a robot, the X-Men are befuddled by the present, all of the major beats for that particular moment in the Marvel Universe are there, and it's got some really great art. Jake Wyatt, during his regrettably short-lived stint with Marvel and the great Kris Anka unfortunately overshadow the other contributors, but it's all very good, if not the most accessible comic.

Maxwell's Demons

I came to Maxwell's Demons having heard a lot of critical buzz and with my expectations set rather high. I did not care for this book at all. Ambitious is the best word for this series, and that's not a bad thing. It's got ideas, about the craft, about the genre, about philosophy in general. It never quite manages to carry things off though; it's not as smart as it wants to be, and the high-minded ideas are never incorporated in particularly elegant ways. Three of the story's five chapters are essentially extended monologues in which the main character rambles on about some glorified shower thought for 20-plus pages. The first and second chapters are the exceptions to this pattern, and are quite solid as far as pointedly derivative superhero riffs go, even if the second chapter's riff on "What if Miracleman #17 was significantly less intelligent" is more than a little shameless in its lack of originality. The fourth chapter, by contrast, is the nadir of the series, easily the most embarrassing Manic Pixie Dream Girl tripe I've seen played straight in literal years. I'm reminded a lot of Translucid, another superhero pastiche, which essentially sought to do for Batman what Maxwell's Demons seeks to do for Lex Luthor. I warmed to Translucid significantly on my second read and I wonder if the same will end up being true for Maxwell's Demons, but I find that Translucid simply did a better job of incorporating original ideas and stating its themes in ways less stupefyingly clunky than Maxwell's Demon's ever manages. I hate to call a book pretentious, especially an ambitious one, but at present that's how I feel about this book.

Twilight

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Howard Chaykin's Watchmen-for-mid-century-space-heroes epic. It's good. Fabulous art, some really interesting ideas and a great premise. It's also more than a little Chaykin-y, with most of the male characters having fraught but amiable relationships with their much-too-good-for-them-and-they-both-know-it ex-wives. It has this particular brand of low grade misogyny that idealizes women but in doing so denies them interiority and, ultimately, humanity. Leaving that aside, though it is a major point to leave aside, it’s story of humanity rotting over eons of immortality, mad space gods, and humanity’s proclivity towards colonialism and genocide, it's great. It’s not an altogether pleasant book, it can be nasty and strange, in ways both intentional and unintentional, but it’s original and engaging and decidedly well made. Something of an overlooked classic of that era’s DC output.

Green Lantern: Earth One

Literally the only one of DC's Earth One graphic novels that's worth a damn. Where most of the other Earth One books choose to start things off in a world resembling our own, Green Lantern starts off in a scifi future resembling something along the lines of Ad Astra or The Expanse, with Earth controlled by an only alluded to totalitarian government, humanity colonizing and mining the solar system, and Hal Jordan as a spacefaring roughneck who dreads the prospect of returning to Earth. Earth One is the rare Green Lantern story that manages to make Earth as interesting as the rest of the universe. The bulk of the action leaves this behind to focus on unearth the lost legacy of the Green Lanterns and refits their mythology in a clean way which will be unsurprising for anyone with a passing familiarity with the original comics but is still satisfying ad fresh. Fabulous art, fun take on the mythology, I'm left both wanting more and being satisfied with what we got.

Spider-Man: Life Story

In a just world, Chip Zdarksy, one of Marvel’s best writers these days, would be writing both Spider-Man and Fantastic Four, instead of having been relegated to shortlived spinoffs. Because life just isn’t fair sometimes, instead he was given this admittedly ambitious project, his all-encompassing take on the Spider-Man story as played out in real time. In the end it’s bold and engaging, but more than a little clipped in execution. Each issue is a snippet of Peter Parker's life as we catch up to him in a new decade so readers only get a quick glimpse of the action and are left to fill in the substantial gaps by drawing on our knowledge of continuity. The obvious comparison is John Byrne's Superman/Batman: Generations, but where that story really only took the broad strokes of those characters' continuity into account in writing its decades spanning story, Spider-Man: Life Story is dedicated to the remixing of Spider-Man's publishing canon. So it can’t just take an archetypal view of Spider-Man and play that out to its logical conclusion, instead it’s stuck trying to incorporate version of prominent Spider-Man stories like Kraven's Last Hunt, Venom, and Civil War. The result means that there’s a ton of exposition in each issue, and frequent use of shorthand to gloss over things which have happened since the previous issue, and it never manages to explore the series’ original ideas in detail. Also, I'll die mad that Michel Fiffe, the genius behind COPRA and one of my favorite cartoonists, public pitched basically this exact story a year or so before this project was announced, and even if Marvel didn't actually steal the idea, I'll forever pine for Fiffe's take on this premise.

Star Wars: The Crimson Empire Saga

Long before the Disney's take on Star Wars, with their codified takes on the mythology and careful curation of the franchise, there was the old Star Wars Expanded Universe, where seemingly anyone could tell any story they wanted using the mythology of Star Wars. While it resulted in some good stuff, like Timothy Zahn's fondly remembered Thrawn books, the vast majority of it was workmanlike or even bad. Crimson Empire falls firmly into the category of bad, a dumber than dirt story about an extremely cool space guy and his code of honor. It's the kind of story where multiple characters say "He's just one man!" right before or right after seeing their legion of anonymous flunkies getting demolished by the hero. It's got an inexplicable and bad love story. In the three miniseries collected here it spends about two pages total dealing with the idea that maybe, just maybe, the fact that it's main character is dedicated to the lost honor of Emperor Palpatine, a space fascist, maybe his code of honor is completely fucked. Of those three miniseries, only the first story is anywhere near something that could be called good. I wouldn’t called Crimson Empire utterly abysmal, but it’s not unironically good. If the name Kyle Katarn means anything to you, you might get something out of this as a nostalgia trip, but otherwise it has no redeeming qualities.

Deathstroke: Legacy

The first of the New 52 Deathstroke stories, which was never well regarded until Christopher Priest took it over with Deathstroke: Rebirth, I was driven to read this by a conceptual fondness for this era's Deathstroke basically looking and acting like an action figure. Through that lens, it's quite enjoyable. It's not as obviously in on the joke in the way that the classic Taskmaster: Unthinkable is, but it's over the top, has fun designs and baddies, and Joe Bennett (years before his career best heights in Immortal Hulk) provides consistently good art. As a pure action comic, it's good.

Wolverine MAX: Permanent Rage

Here's the thing about Wolverine: There are very few good Wolverine solo stories. Wolverine is a genuinely good character, but most of his solo stories are dumb action affairs, and there's literally never been a Wolverine comic that's even halfway as good as the Logan movie. Permanent Rage, the first storyline from the Wolverine MAX series though, is actually pretty decent. It plays out a lot like you might imagine a Wolverine movie made around 2004, with no superheroes, a Japanese setting that allows for some distracting orientalism, unrelenting violence, and a noir-inspired storyline. The present day storyline is all well and good, not great, but solid and relatively low-key, but what makes the book is the presence of Sabretooth as the main villain. His relationship with Wolverine, fleshed out through flashbacks drawn by some really talented artists, is probably one of the best takes on that relationship that Marvel has ever put out. The casting of Wolverine and Sabretooth as two lonely immortals, bound together by hate and the knowledge that they are each other's only true companions, absolutely makes this book. Is it great? No, but it's got enough interesting things going on that fans of dark superheroes stories would probably find something to enjoy. Subsequent volumes of Wolverine MAX moved even further from the character’s superhero trappings and supporting characters, which is a pity, but this one remains readable and enjoyable on its own.

Marshal Law Omnibus

A collection all of the non-licensed and non-text-only Marshal Law stories. It's weird, it's punk, it's violent, it's sick of superheroes but self-aware about it own silliness in a way that Garth Ennis' work like The Boys has never been (Incidentally, the fifth story contained here, Super Babylon, is just every self-righteous complaint Ennis made about superheroes in The Boys but presented with a modicum of good humor). It's quite fun as a mean-spirited anti-superhero romp, but anyone who is particularly invested in the moral rectitude of, like, the Flash, might find it an unpleasant read so I would advise avoiding it if that's you. It's also not perfect, even for what it is: it's approach to sex work and kink is very dated, it relies on sexual violence a little too much, and by the time you get to the final story, Secret Tribunal, it's come to revel in its previously ironic fascist and misogynist imagery and characters just a little too much. The third installment, Kingdom of the Blind, is for my money, the strongest of the lot, featuring both the most straightforward premise and the most incisive satire the collection has to offer.

#capsule reviews #words

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jennycalendar · 4 years

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2019 fic roundup

december was INSANE and i spent most of january dealing with the aftermath of Terrible Parents, but i am finally doing this! in nearly-february! good grief!

tagged by @catty-words! always a delight, cori <3

Total 2019 Word Count: 541,906 Total 2019 Hits: 29,555 Other 2019 AO3 Stats: Kudos: 3,184; Comment threads: 787; Bookmarks: 509; Subscriptions: 223.

Total 2018 Word Count: 338,835 Total 2018 Hits: 22,374 Other 2018 AO3 Stats: Kudos: 2,192; Comment threads: 453; Bookmarks: 280; Subscriptions: 69.

links and titles to 2019 works (buckle up, folks.)

[btvs] imperfections (148,374 words) y’all know about the braveryverse already but i’ll bring up some good points: jenny and giles accidentally adopt the entire scooby gang. also faith gets some actual support and is actually eventually stable enough to date buffy. good times.

[btvs] deliberate obstruction (5,492 words) the one where jenny is petty as fuck and attempts to sabotage every single one of giles’s dates after their breakup. not her best look, but it was really fun to write jenny being Not Great. she deserves to have that option.

[btvs] arch-nemeses (2,171 words) who doesn’t love some of that good old-fashioned ripper au nonsense? particularly when it’s spike and ripper being confusing nemeses who sometimes drunkenly make out (jenny thinks this is very funny).

[btvs] sick day (3,097 words) written because someone should take care of giles, damnit! probably not jenny, tho. she’s not the best at it. lucky for her giles loves her so much.

[btvs] simpatico (10,096 words) sister fic to the grieving process! set circa btvs season six! jenny is connor’s awkward aunt! giles is a repressed disaster who’s still pining but refuses to admit it!

[btvs] honesty’s the best policy (3,830 words) that one where giles and buffy are hit with a Truth Spell that means they say exactly what they’re thinking. is that all that bad for buffy? not too much. is it a little iffy when you’re a repressed watcher man who still haven’t told your girlfriend how much you love her? uh.

[btvs comics] i router, you giles (1,111 words) GOD this was written BEFORE i knew that giles and jenny were dating in the reboot comics and isn’t that a concept? a snarky-cute first meeting! ok not really that cute bc they just yell at each other a lot! but definitely snarky!

[btvs] transitional (3,152 words) good golly this is cute and i honestly forgot that i wrote it. which makes sense, bc there is a lot of stuff on this list. set in between season one and season two, in an attempt to bridge the giles/jenny gap between “awkwardly friendly coworkers” and “oh my god i think i like you”

[btvs] across the pond (5,323 words) FUN FACT this got nominated for a headline award and i’m SO PROUD OF THAT?! epistolary fic! giles leaves for england in s6 but without his wife! his wife is very mad and writes him VERY MANY LETTERS TO YELL AT HIM! perfect for those people who sometimes think “god, i wish jenny had been in s6 to yell at giles.”

[btvs] very really married (66,987 words) giles and jenny got drunk-married in las vegas and are keeping the marriage going so they don’t look like terrible authority figures. giles does not want buffy to know about his fake wife. giles does not want his fake wife to know about his real slayer. giles has a lot of problems and it doesn’t help that he might be catching feelings. big mess.

[btvs] bad dreams (2,267 words) GILES/JENNY/ANYA IS BEST SHIP NEXT QUESTION

[btvs comics] an open mic enthusiast (2,250 words) yet another giles/jenny comic-reboot meet-cute written before i knew they were dating!!! this time: jenny gets to see giles playing guitar. repeatedly. because she keeps going back to watch him at the open mic.

[btvs comics] blindsided (2,024 words) my first (and definitely not last) giles/anya fic! a shorter version of a plot bunny i hope to chase down in 2020 (ahaha did i say that WHOOPS)

[btvs] uncharted (16,469 words) my jenny calendar day fic! also known as “jenny calendar has a guilt complex: a novella.” no prophecy dream outs jenny to the group -- but she tells them anyway. and blames herself. and breaks up with giles while she’s trying to Fix Things. absolute mess. (thank god there’s a happy ending, right?)

[btvs] on the mending of hearts (9,236 words) that giles/anya fic where giles shows up at anya’s failed wedding and sweeps her off her feet and they have sex in his hotel room! except uhhh there’s a lot more drama and crying and anya really just needs some cuddles, tbh.

[btvs] extracurricular activities (1,003 words) straight up this one BARELY counts as a 2019 fic. i wrote it back in 2016 and forgot about it and found it on my hard drive and wrote an ending to it. it’s tiny, but it’s cute! lots of early-relationship calendiles fluff, as is My Brand.

[btvs] cookie dough and boy talk (a remix) (3,976 words) dawn, but in the ripper au! she’s a precocious little bab and ripper babysits her and gets semi-adopted by joyce. it’s a thing.

[btvs] a history lesson (698 words) a brief ripper au interlude between jenny and dru. dru tries to point out that jenny and ripper are in love. jenny very unconvincingly denies it.

[btvs] faith, hope, and pancakes (3,236 words) ripper au, now with faith! and she gets to hang with college-age jenny! who is dating her idiot boyfriend ripper! the Most Fun of times.

[btvs] compromises (750 words) this....was supposed to be a three-sentence prompt but I Can’t Do That. giles and jenny discuss (read: jenny yells at giles about) giles attempting to attack angel on sight.

[btvs] valentine buzz (3,422 words) i wrote this in may lmao but i just REALLY WANTED to write fluffy braveryverse valentine’s day nonsense!!! lots of cuddles and kisses and softness abound in this fic.

[btvs] days in goodness spent (5,893 words) this fic's point was a little more abstract and a little less blunt than most of the rest of these, but i wanted to explore the concept of giles slowly going from idealizing jenny to genuinely loving her. i hope i did it justice.

[btvs] to have and to hold (7,861 words) giles and jenny get married in the braveryverse. that’s really all there is. also i posted this on my birthday (may 23rd) AND it is the 23rd fic on this list!!!! WILD!!!!!)

[btvs] saw her in the streetlight, making all the world bright (5,738 words) took me like a year and a half to write the first fic in the ripper au, lmao. in which jenny is a snarky eighteen-year-old, ripper is a snarky college dropout in a band, and neither of them are at ALL good at communicating. especially not ripper.

[btvs] perfect (1,465 words) ripper au: it’s revealed that jenny hasn’t had sex before. ripper handles this with his characteristic maturity and grace (just kidding lmao he FREAKS. but it’s bc he loves her.)

[btvs] respite (1,106 words) i wrote this after issue 5 of the reboot dropped bc i was very emotional about canon power couple giles and jenny. in retrospect, i gave giles’s emotional maturity WAY too much credit--esp. given what’s going on now--but it was still fun as heck to write.

[btvs] shouldn’t we be getting together (3,193 words) this fic’s existence is a combo of me reading a summer camp ya novel and liking the Aesthetic but not the Culture & me talking endlessly w/ @jackalopingintothevoid about ripper and jenny’s teenage dynamic. so many of these fics have her galaxy brain takes woven in and i KNOW she knows that. lov u, jack.

[btvs] fragmented (6,158 words) written because of that one time my brain was like “but what if jenny WAS haunting the school?” happy ending because it’s me and g/j deserve some kisses.

[btvs/hp crossover] buffy summers, muggle-born (22,070 words) i CAME BACK TO THIS in 2019 and wrote a few chapters and DROPPED IT LIKE A HOT POTATO. hopefully 2020 will bring me the courage to pick it up again!!!!!! who DOESN’T want a carelessly-mashed-together crossover where the scoobies and the golden trio are all going to hogwarts together for some reason????

[btvs] in bloom (8,452 words) this was SUPPOSED to be the end of the jenny-anya-tara trilogy. it was not. (more on that later.) this was also supposed to be a fic where giles and jenny get together. jenny and anya got together. writing things is wild sometimes.

[btvs] i still want to be your girl (35,165 words) straight up i am so proud of this fic! s7 au: jenny was chased out of town by angelus. giles does not know this. jenny has been working with angel in la, but left with faith to try and help defeat the first. giles is not the guy she remembers. (but jenny’s not exactly the lady giles remembers, either. so maybe things might work out.)

[btvs/leverage crossover] what’s in a name (4,421 words) sophie’s & jenny’s relationship to their names & identities always so totally fascinated me! this fic was my way of exploring that. (also i got to give giles and jenny a toddler. that was fun too.)

[btvs comics] live a little (6,700 words) i had so much fun coming up with a backstory for giles and jenny in the comics that i am kinda tempted to eventually try and do it again. this one was fun to write, tho.

[btvs] kind of like hydrogen peroxide (7,501 words) THIS was FUN. ripper au, but it explores both jenny’s longing for High School Normalcy AND ripper’s fucked-up relationship to magic. also senior prom is a thing.

[btvs] mending fences (6,093 words) sequel to the aforementioned epistolary fic! lots of first-person self-loathing from giles, but also a LOT of love for jenny and his kids. also the man really truly needs to stop repressing.

[btvs] her father’s daughter (1,982 words) 2020 will bring us another chapter of this fic i swear to GOD. literally there’s only one chapter up so i cannot even TALK about my plans for it but uhhh if you want giles and jenny and their three daughters pls feel free to go to that prologue and check it out.

[btvs] a thousand different ways we fell apart (4,888 words) the au fic to encompass all au fics! inspired by the comic reboot and me being like. christ. do they go through this ridiculous shit in EVERY universe? ....and then i wrote a fic where jenny was a space traveler looking through multiple universe to try and fix her marriage with giles. extra fun.

[btvs] no such roses (4,814 words) this one turned out a TINY bit rushed, but the concept of jenny bringing giles back from the dead is always something that i love exploring. i might come back and rewrite this, someday.

[btvs comics] no perfect choice (4,801 words) OOF. wrote this one after issue 8 dropped. a lot softer and more tender than what actually happened, tbh. maybe i will reread it again to make myself feel better about comic calendiles and their brutal split.

[btvs] family (3,545 words) wrote this one p early in the year and came up with an ending to it much later! ripper au: the story of how xander came to live with giles and leave his parents. angst-with-a-happy-ending abounds.

[btvs] a california january (2,206 words) jenny and giles attend a funeral together. that’s pretty much it. this is defs one of the best things i wrote this year, tho.

[btvs] how i survived my summer vacation (volume two) (25,027 words) swear to god this is gonna be the next thing i update. the braveryverse NEEDS to continue. it’s got married calendiles, for god’s sake.

[btvs] clear and impartial judgment (3,977 words) that fic i wrote when i got mad at a lack of resolution wrt helpless. like!!! giles drugged buffy!!! do we not get to talk about the psychological ramifications that would have on her???? (well. canon doesn’t. but i do.)

[btvs] sunshine ladies (10,188 words) THIS FIC WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN and i say that with incandescent love in my heart. i intended for the ‘verse to be giles/jenny, and then i intended it to be jenny/anya, and then i was like....jenny has two goddamn hands, and there’s foreshadowing here for endgame giles/jenny, and i wanna write some giles/anya. let’s fuckin go. (DEFINITELY writing another installment in 2020 about this iconic ot3 of mine.)

[btvs] spirit-touched (4,769 words) the first smut i write and it’s calendiles ghost sex. i really think this is on brand for me, esp. considering that swath of asks in 2016ish where everyone wanted to know if ghosts could jack off. incredible.

[btvs] dear friend (28,865 words) this fic had such a rushed ending :( it’s a cute premise (you’ve got mail giles/jenny au!!!!!), but i lost interest halfway through, and as a writer i can rlly see that when i read it. another thing i might like to go back and rewrite at some point, tbh!

[btvs] familiar (2,034 words) AUGH i am SO proud of this fic. SO SO PROUD. it’s a concept i really can’t explain and the little twist at the end is something i really really like, so...just read it.

[miss fisher’s murder mysteries] unbearable (5,670 words) i need to write more mfmm in 2020 but the amount of good fic out there is deeply intimidating/delightful. this one was my little “what if it was phryne who thought jack was dead” and tbqh i had a lot of fun with it? bc pining phryne (who makes brief but extremely poignant appearances throughout the series) is an awkwardly, heart-meltingly sincere lady.

[ace attorney] man’s duty to society (544 words) wrote this as my first foray into aa fic while getting emo about miles edgeworth. would absolutely still die for that man.

[ace attorney] fancy running into you (5,887 words) lots of schmoopy narumitsu fluff! gregory edgeworth is alive! miles is trauma-free! phoenix is an artist! just!!! goodness!!!!!!!

[ace attorney] big sister (2,741 words) set in the same gregory-edgeworth-is-alive ‘verse: babey franziska comes to live with miles and his dad. she is a little impossible but miles kinda does love her.

[ace attorney] prince charming edgeworth and his incredible tux (8,042 words) this fic came from me being like “i want to write phoenix swooning over miles in a tuxedo and being like HE LOOKS LIKE A DISNEY PRINCE” and spiraled into something much longer!

[ace attorney] fate, choice, and everything in between (4,384 words) SOULMATE AU. nothing i love more than deconstructing soulmate aus. but like. in a romantic way. also phoenix and miles ARE soulmates and that is JUST facts.

Favorite Fic: I WROTE SO MUCH STUFF THO LIKE !?!??! how can one expect me to distill it to just one fic? i’ll make it my top threeL

a california january (I AM SO PROUD OF THIS FIC. it is soft and angsty and silly and devastating and tender. all the calendiles feels.)

i still want to be your girl (same mood!!! i’ve wanted to write this fic for literal years, and it’s one of those rare occasions where the picture in my head actually turned out BETTER when written out!)

sunshine ladies (this is like my giles/jenny/anya ship manifesto and it still makes me happy to think about them all co-running the magic box together and smooching a lot.)

Hardest Fic: OOF uh i went through a rocky period of writing when transitioning into college? no such roses and dear friend were hit the hardest by my insecurity & my desire to Finish Things rather than actually spend time on the craft. but i’m much more settled in now and my writing is DEFINITELY in an upward swing (as my newest fic -- as day follows night -- attests to quite nicely, imo)

Do You Plan to Take Prompts in 2020? always always yes! (i’m bad at following through with them, but am ALWAYS accepting them.)

What was the best thing about 2019? there were almost too many good things to COUNT, but i think all of them were made possible by me working extremely hard to get myself the FUCK out of my abusive parents’ house and into my first choice college!! i’m thriving, y’all.

What was the worst thing about 2019? realizing that both of my parents are fundamentally terrible people. that part kinda sucked.

Any last thoughts for 2019? i finally understand what it’s like to fall asleep feeling safe, and to notice the way the leaves change color, and to get excited about self-indulgent things like food and cuddly stuffed animals and my own fic and art. 2019 brought a lot of happiness into my life, and oh yeah also i’m in love! lots of cool stuff going on.

Goals for 2020

finish the latest braveryverse installment!

MORE ART JUST IN GENERAL. i love drawing, but there’s not a lot of free time for artsy celia when they prioritize writing so often!

write one of the many incredible longfic ideas that’s floating around in my head. it’s honestly probably only like two or three big ones, but at least DECIDE which one i’m gonna focus my energy on.

more giles/anya this year!

more giles/jenny/anya this year!

diversify! still gonna be writing about jenny forever, but like. it might be fun to write about a few new things here and there.

maybe some more ace attorney fic? maybe even some mfmm fic again? phryne and jack are never far from my heart.

not tagging anyone bc this is....january. but if you wanna do it, feel free!

#fic #fic roundup #ngl i'm like really proud of this list #stayed up.....two hours....to complete it

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captainkirkk · 6 years

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i saw those two recent anons about tddk/shipping and bakugou/how much he respects deku/how he was angry when he found out ppl shipped them so. so. i have a lot of thinky thoughts about this, and by extention a new barrage of questions for you! :D firstly, may i tell you how much i ADORE the fact that you made deku the person bakugou respects more than anyone else in the world??? that sits so well with me i don't ever wanna leave this chair. this is my ideal version of this story: bakugou (1/?)

Holy shit, another 10-part ask. The rest of the asks and answers to some of your questions are under the cut. Thanks, and I’m glad you’re enjoying this series!

growing to not only redeem himself and externalise his horrible habits so he can get rid of them and become a better person, but also him seeing deku and going “damn, fuck, shit, this guy is actually an AMAZING HUMAN BEING WORTHY OF EVERYONE’s UTMOST RESPECT, and giving that respect to him is not only 110% deserved, but it is also the least i can do, to akcnowledge the truth of how awesome and strong and KIND he is despite my DECADE-LONG torment, and give this to him. man. FUCK.” (2/?)

like, that’s a 10/10 character moment and i hope kiri was there cheering for him in the background the entire time and handing him his ass when bakugou was being a pansy about admitting this stuff to others and furthering his growth out of bully-land. fuck yeah. and also, i totally get what you were conveying with your response about fandoms, but i gotta agree with the anon on this one thing: tddk is absolutely the brangelina of the hero world, this is a thing now, no take-backs, sorry. (3/?)

and speaking of my faves, here come the questions (don’t worry if you haven’t got everything fleshed out tho!): 1. when did tddk get together? we now know it’s after kiribaku did, but was it during high school? my personal headcanon has always been that they realsie their feelings for each other at the start of year 2, and confess and get together about halfway through that same same year, i don’t like overlong periods of pining :/ 2. who proposed? and how? i dunno abou deku, but i always (4/?)

imagined shouto proposing by going outside, somewhere romantic, maybe by the sea, and using his fire (!!) to light up a bunch of lanterns that float up into the air and form a question mark, and then, when deku turns towards him with this bemused expression to ask what the “question” is, shouto’s kneeling with a ring. cue tears and kissess. if you haven’t got an idea for how the proposal in the history verse went, feel free to use this one, i can vicariously legitimise my ideas that way :3 (5/?)

but getting to the real meat of the stuff: one thing that has always irked me is how, in fics where tddk is together bakugou is always written as being disgusted with them and their romance, or not caring, or being outright derisive and mocking shouto for catching feelings for deku, and when i read history verse and saw your response about how bakugou grew to respect deku more than anyone else, my first thought was: if that’s the case and bakugou worked hard to become a better person, then (6/?)

does that mean he is genuinely happy for them? because he knows about shouto’s past and how terribly he suffered because Endickor, and he obviously knows how much he hurt deku, and so if they found love and everyone saw how good they are together, how much happier they make each other, then surely bakugou agreed and supported them? but if they got together while still in high school that may not have been the case cause bakugou may not have started to change yet. so??? which is it?? (7/?)

something else that made me lean towards the “bakugou is supportive” camp was also that tidbit in history… where you’re mentioning endickor’s trial (THANK FUCK THERE WAS A TRIAL I HOPE HE’S BEHIND BARS AND UNFIT FOR SERVICE FOREVER) and bakugou is described as being pissed that the reporters are hounding shouto, again, i assume, because he knows of shouto’s awful family situation and endickor totally rubs him the wrong way, like “omg if i hadn’t realsied what a dick i was i would have (8/?)

ended up like HIM, FUCK.” so yeah, i like to think he’s happy that tddk is a thing because he knows they both deserve that kind of happiness in their lives and he can see how painfully devoted they are to each other and how much love they have for each other. and he’s happy for shouto too, not just deku. i bet kirishima’s eyes well up every time he thinks of how GOOD and WHOLESOME the tddk relationship is and bakugou rolls his eyes but deep down he’s like “ UGH, same”. this is important. (9/?)

and most importantly: was deku best man at the kiribaku wedding? will baku be best man at the tododeku wedding? i bet he will. i bet he’ll cry and for once in his stupid life he won’t hide it. he won’t need to. everyone will be crying. tddk is just that beautiful. (10/10)

As always, you can have some of the answers. Not all of them.

Bakugou didn’t make a conscious decision to respect Midoriya. It happened without him realising it. He did, however, make a conscious decision to treat Deku better, to treat everyone better, and to properly make amends with him.

TodoDeku are kind of oblivious for a while. It’s just … very dumb on both of their parts. It’s less angsty pining, “He’s so amazing and he could never love ME”, and more these two just … not computing that all their interactions have romantic undertones. They’re both laying down hints that neither of them are picking up. They do get together before graduation, though. Thankfully.

Bakugou doesn’t openly admit it, but yeah, he’s happy for them. We’ve already begun to see some of Bakugou’s character development in the manga, and that continues during their time at UA. (He and Midoriya’s recovery goes unspoken for a while. Like in canon, they have small moments of reconciliation and what little they say goes a long way. They have a long, much-needed conversation where neither of them starts shouting, where neither of them gets violent, when they aren't under threat of being killed, in Midoriya’s hospital room after the July Attacks. That’s when they really start being friends again.) So, yeah, Bakugou doesn’t celebrate like the others when TodoDeku finally gets together, and he definitely doesn’t go around talking about how he’s happy for them, but he is glad that they have each other

You better believe that Bakugou has done so much reflecting on the fact that he’s Number Two now, a spot previously held by a very bitter, very violent Endeavour. He’s put a lot of work into overcoming the same power-hungry ideology Endeavour had, and being as patient as he can, and working with the one person in the spot above him, Midoriya, rather than resenting him. Todoroki has a lot of respect for that.

Kirishima is The Most Supportive Boy. He’s so proud of all his classmates, holy shit.

Bakugou says he doesn’t cry at the TodoDeku wedding, but Kirishima was right there. He saw those lone tears escape. You cannot fool him, Katsuki.

#tumblr/my laptop hates when i try and answer these #it always freezes on me fffff #ask #history verse #there aren't HEAPS of answers to your questions here #but i don't feel like making some of these decisions yet #esp since i'm trying to get through the next instalment for this verse #it's killing me i'm going to be dead before i get around to editing it #curiousbluepencil

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asoiafgotmeta · 7 years

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Canon Arya Stark Appreciation

Day 2 - “Favorite Familial Relationship”

Robb

(Choosing this because I think it’s underappreciated)

Fear cuts deeper than swords, the quiet voice inside her whispered. Suddenly Arya remembered the crypts at Winterfell. They were a lot scarier than this place, she told herself. She'd been just a little girl the first time she saw them. Her brother Robb had taken them down, her and Sansa and baby Bran, who'd been no bigger than Rickon was now. They'd only had one candle between them, and Bran's eyes had gotten as big as saucers as he stared at the stone faces of the Kings of Winter, with their wolves at their feet and their iron swords across their laps.

Robb took them all the way down to the end, past Grandfather and Brandon and Lyanna, to show them their own tombs. Sansa kept looking at the stubby little candle, anxious that it might go out. Old Nan had told her there were spiders down here, and rats as big as dogs. Robb smiled when she said that. "There are worse things than spiders and rats," he whispered. "This is where the dead walk." That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran had clutched at Arya's hand.

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb's leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. "You stupid," she told him, "you scared the baby," but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too.The memory made Arya smile, and after that the darkness held no more terrors for her. The stableboy was dead, she'd killed him, and if he jumped out at her she'd kill him again. She was going home. Everything would be better once she was home again, safe behind Winterfell's grey granite walls.

A Game of Thrones, Arya IV

This is more of a “Stark” memory rather than a Robb one, but it is one of my favourites. It’s such a rare moment, where not only do you see them all together, but you also see both Jon and Robb being mischievous big brothers instead of a Young Lords/soldiers/etc.

The memory made Arya smile, and after that the darkness held no more terrors for her.

She constantly associates her family and Winterfell with safety and happiness, and Robb is home and strength and everything good:

Also from AGOT:

She wanted to tease Bran and play with baby Rickon and have Robb smile at her.

"I will," Arya vowed. She had never loved him so much as she did in that instant. "I can be strong too. I can be as strong as Robb."

“As strong as Robb” - something all the Starklings think at one point of time or another. As strong as Robb, as brave as Robb.

And then look at her conviction that Robb will make things right, he’ll never give in to the Lannisters, who killed their father, he will fight them, and defeat them, he’s brave and strong:

If the Lannisters hurt Bran and Rickon, Robb will kill them every one. He'll never bend the knee, never, never, never. He's not afraid of any of them.

- A Clash of Kings, Arya X

"Robb will beat them." Arya got a stubborn look. "He'll beat them like he did before." - A Storm of Swords, Arya VIII

And of course the constant, “I have to get to Robb and mother, then I’ll be safe” - through books 2 and 3. The general perception of Arya as nothing more than a brave little badass who’ll fight everyone and of course the show version where apparently she’s been “travelling the world” when the rest of them have been doing ‘useful things’ - it sucks because of how wrong it is. She’s been fighting to get home. She feels alone and scared. This is a nine year old who keeps repeating phrases taught to her by Syrio and her father to give her courage to escape, who has to constantly remind herself to be as brave and strong as Robb, as her direwolf, who is convinced her mother wouldn’t want her because she was always the disappointing daughter at home, and now she’s worse, she looks like a dirty boy with messy hair and nails, she’s not even sure how much ransom her family will be willing to pay for her but she still wants to go home, she’ll even kiss and apologise to Sansa if Sansa pretends not to recognise her because of her dirtiness, that’s how lonely and scare she feels.

"Well," Arya said, "my hair's messy and my nails are dirty and my feet are all hard." Robb wouldn't care about that, probably, but her mother would.

- A Storm of Swords, Arya VII

She wanted Riverrun, not Acorn Hall; she wanted her mother and her brother Robb, not Lady Smallwood or some uncle she never knew.

- A Storm of Swords - Arya VIII

“Robb wouldn’t care about that, probably” - obviously neither would Catelyn, but she her self-esteem issues lead her to think that maybe because she’s not dressed like a lady, is actually looking worse than she ever did, maybe her mother wouldn’t want her.

Robb, though? He probably wouldn’t mind.

And I love how both Bran and Robb know her well enough to know how she’ll feel about her betrothal:

"Also, if your sister Arya is returned to us safely, it is agreed that she will marry Lord Walder's youngest son, Elmar, when the two of them come of age."

Robb looked nonplussed. "Arya won't like that one bit."

- A Game of Thrones, Catelyn IX

And her reaction to Joffrey’s death?

Arya edged farther into the room. Joffrey's dead. She could almost see him, with his blond curls and his mean smile and his fat soft lips. Joffrey's dead! She knew it ought to make her happy, but somehow she still felt empty inside. Joffrey was dead, but if Robb was dead too, what did it matter? - A Storm of Swords, Arya XIII

NO, revenge does not make her feel that satisfaction that the show writers think it does, it makes her feel empty. Joffrey, who caused Lady’s death and forced her to separate from Nymeria, who’s a Lannister and Lannisters killed her father and were responsible for everything that’s wrong with her life at the moment, his death makes her feel empty, because Robb was dead too, so what did it matter?

“When you smell our candles burning, what does it make you think of, my child?"

Winterfell, she might have said. I smell snow and smoke and pine needles. I smell the stables. I smell Hodor laughing, and Jon and Robb battling in the yard, and Sansa singing about some stupid lady fair. I smell the crypts where the stone kings sit, I smell hot bread baking, I smell the godswood. I smell my wolf, I smell her fur, almost as if she were still beside me.

- A Feast for Crows, Arya II

Needle was Robb and Bran and Rickon...

- A Feast for Crows, Arya II

TL;DR - We didn’t have Robb’s PoV and we only have him interacting with Bran on page but he’s still a major influence over Arya. She associates him with home, strength, bravery, the ideal, and still has faith that he’ll accept her even with dirty hair and nails, and basically, were quite close.

Edit:

As @olenoely pointed out - Robb was the one who pointed out (“miserably”) that Sansa’s letter did not mention Arya at all.

#canonaryastark #arya stark #robb stark #long post #Robb and Arya #arya meta #robb meta #house stark #book quotes #asoiaf meta

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brawltogethernow · 6 years

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I finally saw live action Beauty and the Beast, and for the record here are some of the impressions I took away from it:

- The Enchantress responsible for the premise is present as an actual character outside of flashbacks in this version, and her role makes no sense. She apparently moved into the town next to the castle after she cursed everybody to keep an eye on things, in the form of a Hollywood-homely woman of no status. Like I get that at the beginning she takes the form of somebody jerks might deride as a test of morals, but this was for ten years she spent just letting Gaston insult her to her face, so I can only assume it’s a kink of some kind. She’s also actively lifts the curse after personally observing that the conditions have been met, which raises so many questions.

- She waits until the last goddamn second too, after all the staff have been tragically rendered inanimate, even though the conditions to break the curse were met before that while she was already there. Wow.

- She still transformed and endangered the lives of the castle’s entire staff WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, which they rationalize to themselves by saying they should have done more to make their prince be less of a dick. But hey everybody knows that when somebody else is a jerk that’s your responsibility, so it’s fine. The Enchantress just walks away looking ethereal and smug at the end and I get the impression we’re not supposed to hate her? Too late. She’s definitely a chaotic neutral fairy with blue/orange morality AT BEST.

- Not only is the queer stuff in the film not acknowledging that the clock and the candle are an old gay couple, a wife is invented for the candle specifically to dispel this impression. She’s literally a bird though, so now you’ve just made one of your talking furniture characters a furry. As if this story didn’t have that overtone enough.

- Casting actually didn’t populate the fantasy-France setting exclusively with white people! It’s cool!

- Gaston has some kind of amazing inverted PTSD where thinking about his time in “the war” makes him feel better.

- Speaking of The War, this movie, instead of being set generically in no time period like the cartoon, deliberately anchors itself to a time period, but that time period is actually like ten time periods at once? Everyone wears tricorne hats, there was a plague a decade ago, and The War. There’s the famous waltz scene but in other scenes people dance the minuet. It’s confusing.

- I’ve seen people criticize this movie describing LeFou as pining for Gaston, introducing pointless unrequited gay angst, but I don’t get that impression at all? He’s definitely camp, but there’s nothing overt to suggest he’s got a doomed thing for his...friend? Boss? Bossfriend.

- Conversely, it’s film canon that Gaston bit LeFou on the stomach “wrestling”.

- HWHAT THE FUCK.

- Josh Gad says “bites” in “in a wrestling match nobody bite like Gaston” as fruitily as humanly possible, was this implication on purpose??

- I don’t.

- Anyway.

- LeFou and Mrs. Potts team up to spew boiling water on angry villagers at one point. It’s the best thing ever. BROTP.

- Gaston Disney-dies by falling off a high parapet but then he’s fine, boo. Embrace your brand, Disney.

- Shortly before this Gaston just fucking rips a piece of stonework off the roof of the castle with his bare hands? What the hell? Was the castle also made of candy the whole time and it was just never brought up because it wasn’t plot relevant?

- Gaston has the magical ability to reload his old-fashioned pistol immediately instead of taking two minutes per bullet.

- Belle doesn’t get any sheep to explain the plot of her favorite book to. She just does that whole line including “you’ll see” to thin air while walking through the village.

- The line about her always having her nose in a book and a far-off look is sung directly when she’s talking to someone on the street, I think she’s giving the Enchantress-in-disguise alms or something. This could have been contradictory on purpose to show the prejudice of the villagers but if so it’s pretty weak, like the implication is that this Belle isn’t daydreaming and bookish.

- Positive Belle things: She invents the washing machine? This is the good shit. Maurice is a ditzy toymaker instead of a mad inventor in this version, but Belle is apparently an inventor instead, and that’s the best. Smart little girls everywhere are going to take the scene where she rigs up a way to deal with her chores to heart.

- Other wholesome Belle things: The scene where she sees the castle library for the first time is so real, she does a little happy dance and is plainly completely enamored with this room.

- Instead of being toxic masculinity brought to life and given free will, Gaston just seems kind of crazy and falls apart slowly like a half-off Shakespeare character.

- Belle’s taste in books is specifically narrowed down to being Shakespeare, which is a shame because in the cartoon she’s clearly reading romance novels.

- The songs from the original don’t mesh up perfectly with changed events, especially like, in terms of emotional coherence.

- There’s also a clear quality difference between songs from the animated film and the other songs.

- The movie overall seems incredibly slow, yet the romance feels rushed. It never at any point convinced me it was happening for any reason beside that it had to for the plot. I finished the film and still barely feel like Belle and the Beast are more than book-bonded friends.

- At one point the beast is like ‘If you want an escape without leaving the castle, let me show you something in the library,’ and I was like ‘HURR DURR DURR, THEY’RE GOING TO ESCAPE INTO THE WORLD OF READING #LibraryPSA’, but then they ACTUALLY DID. There’s a magic book that can teleport you literally anywhere for basically no reason that is used pretty well to help Belle let go of being too hung up on her idealized impression of her childhood to move on with her life, and is then never brought up again.

- I thought at first it was some sort of illusion but no, it literally just has teleportation abilities. This also means that Belle’s old house has been untouched for ten years for some reason. I know there was “plague”, but...ten years.

- TIL that if you slow down “Be Our Guest” because I guess you really want to milk it because it’s everybody’s favorite song it’s basically “Cabaret”.

- Seriously! Every scene! In this movie! Was so slow! Find some energy!!

- After the curse is broken do they get to keep the teleportation book Y/N?

- Did the rest of the people in the castle ever use it? Did Adam even tell them about it? If I was cursed into animate silverware it would pick me up EXTREMELY if I could get a change of scenery by popping over to Cairo or the rainforest or just the theater for an afternoon. There are multiple people in this version with canonical spouses who have forgotten them outside the castle who they could have been checking on.

- I’d rate the cinematography a solid meh but the castle set was good.

- There’s a joke where LeFou says 'je ne sais quoi’ and his friendboss doesn’t know what that means, and I honestly have no idea whether it was intentional or not.

- I found all of the furniture people terrifying-looking, but that could just be me.

- Having Sir Ian McKellan in your movie and not having him be instantly charming is a FEAT, but this film did it somehow.

#beauty and the beast #disney

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iheartbuckynat · 7 years

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It’ll Be A Lonely Christmas Without You

Dear @king-queen-and-ace here is gift #4 (of 4). The fic that I was originally supposed to write for you over a whole month ago (again, even though you’ve forgiven me, still really sorry about that…)

I hope you like it!

Title: It’ll Be A Lonely Christmas Without You.

Rating: M (for swearing and references to sex).

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff.

Genre: Very Mild Angst with Fluff?

Summary: Bucky’s not having a good day, and he’s gone and bought a Christmas tree to boot. Set just after the Brubaker run. Based much more on their comic versions than their MCU ones. Canon compliant.

Author’s notes: I blame this angst on @king-queen-and-ace‘s prompt (the title of the fic) and, in equal measure, on @elithien (and this beautiful piece of inspiration) and @nataliaromanovs (for this beautiful piece of inspiration). Their art is so preeeeeetttttttyyyyyyyyy…

Thank you, @fuckyeahbuckynatasha, once again, for organising all the events that you do! Maybe next time I won’t be so late! ^_^;

In some ways, Bucky being a product of a less successful version of the super-soldier serum made him luckier than Steve. He could get drunk, for one. It took a lot to make it happen, but it was achievable. The buzz never lasted long enough, though… definitely not enough to get him to pass out completely (which was the ideal outcome at this point), but sufficient to at least see him through to a state of utter waste on his couch in nothing but boxers and a sleeveless undershirt.

In direct contradiction to all his years of discipline training, of muscle building, of ballet (yeah, the Soviets had trained all their elite spies in the art, Natasha hadn’t been special on that front, she’d just been better at it than anyone else), he was flopped back on the sofa, posture be fucking damned, his fifth bottle of vodka in his metal hand and one of the those A4 digital frames clasped in his right as it automatically transitioned, unnoticed by the apartment’s only occupant, through photograph after smiling photograph.

He was the quintessential picture of a broken-heart drowning in its own sorrow: his piercingly clear, icy eyes were overcast and glassy, his hair was unkempt, his face was dirtied with shadow so heavy it was practically a beard and his skin was a dehydrated wreck. His gaze, however… his gaze was intently focussed on the clichéd embodiment of holiday spirit twinkling prettily a few feet away from him. He smirked at the juxtaposition. Of all the unexpected things to have in his sparse, brick-and-glass apartment, James Buchanan Barnes was the current owner of a one-hundred-percent genuine (and unreasonably expensive) Christmas tree. It was bushy, it was bright and it battled admirably against the stench of potato-based ethanol for the right to infuse the air with its traditional scent of pine and joy.

He wasn’t afraid to admit to himself that he was mildly proud of his work. He’d done a decent job of the lights, but after he’d accidentally shattered a delicate glass bauble with his bare foot (and then picked out the multitude of very breakable slivers from his sole with tweezers) he’d given up decorating and just thrown a ton of tinsel all over the damn thing. It wasn’t the greatest tree he’d ever seen, but it wasn’t awful considering the minimal effort he’d applied in setting it up. The only glaringly obvious absence was the tree topper: an angel which, fittingly for his current situation and mood, rested on the floor just out of his reach, her eyes downcast and thus blinding her to his presence. “Metaphor’s kinda on the nose, isn’t it?” he asked her before deciding he sounded entirely too sober and took a hefty swig of the Russian cure-all (although technically this particular bottle was Polish, and pricier than the others, so it should have really been drunk first when he would’ve been better able to appreciate it. Then again, he thought, hindsight’s always been, and continues to be, a giant bitch).

In the silence of the apartment he could hear everything, despite (or maybe because of) the alcohol coursing through his body. He didn’t even have to try. Training, serum or a little of both, he wasn’t sure, not that he particularly cared… it wasn’t super-hearing (not like the gifts some of the others he knew possessed), it was more a hyper-awareness of himself and his surroundings. As a result the message he was receiving from his environment was, unfortunately for him, painfully loud and coldly clear: he was entirely alone. The littlest of sounds echoed out into the quiet, driving the point deep into his heart, like a blade slipping under the ribcage, burying itself angrily into giving flesh: the rhythmic and slow tick, tick, ticking of the analogue wall clock (he couldn’t bring himself to go entirely digital), the tiny, intermittent buzzing of the tree-lights, evidence of a loose connection in one of the strands (he’d have to fix that at some point), his own unusually heavy breathing, the clink of metal against glass as his grip tightened on the neck of the bottle, the clack of said glass against his teeth as he opened his mouth and vainly hoped the fire spilling into his throat would throw him into a pit of blissful oblivion… and the piercing shrill of his email notification.

He looked over to the far side of his foot rest (referred to normally as a coffee table) and glared at the offending piece of technology. “Not now, Steve (who else would it be today?). Fuck off.” He regretted the venom of his comment immediately (of course he did) and mentally apologised to his best friend as he sat up to reach for the phone.

~*~

One Year Ago

“This is going to take at least three weeks to heal.”

As James paused to allow the metal doors to slide open, Natasha looked up from her place in the wheelchair. “I was present at the infirmary,” she stated, her entire left leg cast and strapped up to the extended leg prop.

“That’s a spiral fracture to your femur, it’s not a sprained wrist.” He guided her smoothly into the elevator and pushed the button for the second floor basement. Alone as they descended, he continued their conversation. “Ordinary people have to be operated on for something like that, you know.”

“Again, I feel I should remind you that I was there,” she said as the corner of her ruby mouth quirked up in amusement, “looking at the x-ray of my leg, that the doctor was showing me, James.”

He placed his real hand onto her shoulder and traced it along the gentle slope in affection. “I’m just saying, spending that time recovering at my place makes more sense.”

“I have a bed at home, too,” she countered, “I also have a phone and a laptop with wifi. I’ve recovered perfectly fine from more serious injuries in worse conditions.”

“Just because you spent a week hiding out in a Somalian cave once with a broken arm and collarbone doesn’t mean you have to do that all the time.” The elevator arrived at its destination and slid open its doors. “You’re allowed to take your time to recover, and in a nice environment, too.”

“I’d actually been talking about the gut shot I took in São Paulo.”

He frowned, unable to recall the event. “When did that happen?”

“When I was sabotaging the primary operations of the international criminal commonly known as the ‘Favela Saint’.” There was no hiding the hint of pride in her voice as he wheeled her along the row of cars, heading towards a black SUV.

“The war lord?” he asked, mildly surprised. “That massacre was you?”

“It was originally supposed to be cleaner,” she admitted, “but things went south when they got to our man on the inside. Fortunately my improvised plan proved to be more effective than the original one. The only problem was I got caught up in the fray and took a hit to the abdomen.”

Being so intimately familiar with her body that he could practically recreate an exact replica of her from memory, he was completely certain that there wasn’t a single trace of that injury left on her. “The wonders of SHIELD medicine and super healing.” He opened the side door of the vehicle and picked her up carefully. “And don’t change the subject. Why don’t you want to stay at my place?”

Natasha didn’t answer until he’d placed her across the back seat and she’d shuffled into a more comfortable position. “I don’t want to impose,” she conceded, “and I know how to take care of myself.”

“It’s almost like you don’t want me around,” he said as he wheeled the empty chair into the back of the van.

She couldn’t see his face but she knew he was smiling by the sound of his voice. “You know that’s not true,” she said, not playing his game. He might have been joking, but she’d heard the hidden question underneath the fun: do you need me to give you some space? “You could stay at my apartment with me,” she offered (No, I don’t, but thank you for asking).

He stood at the side door of the van, giving himself an unobstructed view of her, and shook his head. “I know you, Nat. Being cooped up for almost a month is going to drive you crazy, and then add a big lump like me into the mix and you’re not going to feel comfortable in your own space… it’s not exactly a large apartment.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “You’re not planning on spending the entire time with me, are you?”

“Every single day, if you’ll have me.” He grinned and this time she did see it. “I got lucky. I don’t have another mission until the New Year.”

She didn’t believe that, not for a second. He’d been on his phone while her leg was being put into the cast, he must have been rearranging things then.

“I’m at your service, Ms Romanova,” he continued, “ready and willing to nurse you back to the pinnacle of health.”

It drew a reluctant smile from her as he shut the door of the van. “I don’t need you to do that for me,” she said once he’d settled into the driver’s seat.

“You don’t need anything from me, Nat, that’s why you’re so amazing.” He twisted around to face her. “Look, I get it. For people like us, spending three weeks together alone, with nothing else to do, is a lot of intimate time. That’s why it’ll be easier at my place, where there’s two bedrooms.” He watched her for a reaction at his attempt at humour but when she gave none he sighed. “I just want you to get well. If you’re most comfortable staying at your own apartment, then I’ll take you there. If you need some time alone, I understand that to-”

Natasha scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Fine,” she said, interrupting, “I get it. I’ll come to your dumb Christmas sleepover.” He grinned at her like a kid with a present, and her heart beat just a little faster at the thought that she could make him so happy. “We need to stop at my apartment first, though. I have to pick up a few things.”

“Sure, anything.” He pressed the ignition button and the van revved to life.

“You’re wrong, by the way,” she said as he reached for his seatbelt.

“About what?”

“I do need you, James.” His eyes flew to the rearview mirror and caught her waiting ones easily. “More than you know.”

He swallowed away the sudden dryness in his throat while he studied her reflection. They sat watching each other in silence for a long second, letting the weight of her words sink in, and then he smiled, unabashedly. “Onwards to Casa del Bucky, then.”

~*~

He was in awe. Truly he was. How she managed to do it, he had no idea, but Natasha Romanoff was sitting on his couch with her entire left leg casted up to the thigh (although, SHIELD being SHIELD, the cast was sleek, dark and high-tech) and propped up on the coffee table, cushioned by a myriad of pillows (he hadn’t been aware of even owning that many). She was sporting a thin, hunter-green t-shirt, a pair of black bikini briefs and literally nothing else. All adornments and makeup had been removed, her hair was tied back in a low ponytail (as was her way when she wasn’t working), and yet… and yet, doped up on cocodamol, half dressed in an old shirt and trapped by 3D-printed plastic as she was laying back on his couch, legs splayed, eating from a bag of chocolate covered pretzel sticks whilst flicking through random Christmas movies, she was still somehow the most sublime creature he had ever seen. It was like she was physically incapable of not being graceful. As if it was part of her very nature. For lack of a better way to describe it, Bucky thought she was fucking enchanting.

When she caught him staring she grinned and then placed a pretzel in between her teeth, tilting her head back and offering it to him. He leaned down into the couch, using the armrest as support for his weight, and bit the stick, pulling it into his mouth and crunching it. “These are pretty good,” he realised.

“I know,” she said, picking out another one and feeding it to him. “That’s why I had you get them from the store.” She proffered him a third one, but when he moved to bite it she pulled it back and kissed him instead. He didn’t mind the trade.

As he snaked his metal hand along her jaw, threading his fingers through her hair, he vaguely heard her dropping the pretzel bag. Before he could deepen the kiss, however, she pulled away, cutting him off from the source of the heat building within him and denying him the satisfaction of a full embrace. When he opened his eyes again, he found her holding a thin box wrapped in green paper. “Merry Christmas, James,” she said softly.

He blinked in surprise, his lust taking an instant back seat in favour of confusion. “I didn’t think you celebrated it,” was all he could think to say. He lowered himself onto the couch, careful not to touch her leg.

“No,” she replied, “but you used to.” She pushed the gift gently into his hands. “Open it, it’s Christmas Eve, after all.”

Touched by her kindness, he looked down at it and then up at her. “But I didn’t get you anything.”

Mirth danced across her features as she leaned down and lifted her bag of chocolate pretzels from the floor. “You got me these,” she said, shaking it.

His right hand rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. “You’re making me feel like even more of a heel.”

“I’m pretty sure they stopped using that word back in the nineteen fifties,” she teased.

“Oh,” he said, dropping his hand and feigning offence, “is that a dig at my age, Ms Romanova, great spy of the early Cold War?”

“No, Mr Barnes, it was a dig at your archaic use of slang,” she countered, sitting back and popping another pretzel into her mouth. “I’m practically the same age as you and Steve and I don’t sound like an old lady.”

“You do in Russian.”

Her hand froze in the bag. “What?”

“You sound like a babushka,” he said, grinning from ear to ear.

She gasped. “I do not.”

“You do.”

“James Buchanan Barnes,” she said, her voice hardening to give her a more commanding tone, “you will retract that statement immediately.”

Others might have cowered (and if he hadn’t been having so much fun, he might have, too). “I will not.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I have a mastery of nine languages, a proficient grasp of another eleven and conversational fluency of a further four, with particular eloquence in my mother tongue.”

His eyes flicked down to her lips. “There’s no denying what a gift your mouth is.”

“I’m being serious, James.”

“So am I,” he said, barely able to contain his laughter.

For a moment she said nothing as she assessed the situation. “Hand back the present.”

He shook his head once. “It’s too late, you’ve already given it to me.”

“James-”

“Alright, I was kidding,” he conceded.

She didn’t believe him. “You weren’t.”

“I wasn’t,” he confirmed. And grinned again.

She folded her arms and huffed lightly. “Do I really sound like an old woman in Russian?”

He placed the gift on the coffee table and slid his metal arm along her right, uninjured leg. “It’s not that bad,” he admitted, his humour dying down in favour of honesty. “When you’re being formal it isn’t noticeable, but you haven’t adapted it to the change in times as much as you have with other languages.” He stole her bag of pretzels away from her and ate one. “I suppose you didn’t consciously acknowledge the need to do so in the same way you did for the others, since you’re already so comfortable speaking it.”

“You’re probably right,” she said, figuring he’d had a point. “Everything I read in Russian is pretty high-brow or technical, and when I’m over there I’m usually speaking with aged dignitaries. I haven’t had cause to speak it informally for a while, not unless I’m dealing with scumbags… and I haven’t exactly wanted to emulate how they speak,” she sighed before coming to a reluctant conclusion. “I’ll have to rectify this.”

Bucky had to physically stop himself from groaning with lust. She was killing him softly, that was for sure. He’d pointed out a sensitive and personal chink in her otherwise impenetrable armour and instead of resenting him for it, she’d assessed what he’d said and acknowledged her weakness. God, he thought, she even handles her flaws with grace and dignity. He cleared his throat and shifted in his sitting position. “If you want practice there are some terrible Russian TV shows which are supposed to be pretty compelling,” he suggested, “and some pretty interesting movies.”

Her eyebrows lifted in mild surprise. “When did you find the time to watch all of those?”

“I haven’t, yet. I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity.”

“Well, we have another two weeks to go before I’m out of this cast.” She plucked the bag of pretzels from his hands, her mouth quirked up at the corner. “Now open your gift and try not to insult me again while you do it.”

He rolled his eyes and pretended to be exasperated. “I said you sound like a babushka, not that you were-”

“Digging a bigger hole, James,” she said, daring him to finish his sentence.

He leaned in, a tender smile on his lips, and kissed her gently. “I take it all back,” he apologised.

She fed him another pretzel and then handed him his gift from the table. “<What am I going to do with you, my darling?>” she asked in Russian.

He looked up at her as he peeled open the green paper. “<I can think of all kinds of things,>” he replied as he pulled away the last of the wrapping. “Is this what I think it is?”

The box was cardboard - a glossy white - and printed on it was an image of the gift it cradled inside: a photo frame connected to a power plug, complete with a generic picture of a happy family with a dog.

“Yeah, I got the idea from Tony’s office. All your photos in one frame,” she said. “Do you like it?”

He looked up at her and smiled. “This is really thoughtful, Nat. Thank you.”

Pleased to see that he approved of her choice, she smiled back. “That’s not the real gift, though.” She took the box from him and placed it cautiously on her lap, leaning it more on her right leg than on the cast.

“No?”

“No.” She pulled out a memory stick and showed it to him. “This is.”

His dark eyebrows creased in curiosity as he took it from her. “What’s on it?” he asked. “Photographs?”

She nodded. “As many as I could find with you in them, or with people connected to you. From your past, from your present. Anything I could get my hands on. There’s over four hundred of them on there.”

Four hundred? “Natasha…” he breathed. “This is…” he looked at her in wonder. “This is amazing. Thank you.”

She shrugged a supple shoulder, her eyes affectionate. “Happiness in a single drive. Easy to take with you if you ever have to make a quick escape.”

He laughed lightly, observing the stick for a second before looking back at her. “This is awfully sentimental,” he said.

“You love it.” She smirked, knowing without a doubt it was true.

“I do,” he admitted without hesitation, “almost as much as I love you.”

She leaned in, inviting him to meet her halfway. “Then prove it, you sap.”

The kiss was more heated than their last and Natasha made the mistake of moving far too much, too quickly. A jolt of pain raced up her thigh bone and left a deep, pounding ache in its wake. She hissed and he pulled away immediately.

“Does your leg hurt?” he asked as he put the memory stick back into the box and moved it to the floor, out of the way.

“A little, yes.”

“Do you want a pain killer?”

“Please,” she said, nodding.

He got up from the couch and fetched a glass from the kitchen area. With his space now free, she readjusted herself, wincing slightly as she shifted. Home Alone was currently showing on his flat screen and she did her best to concentrate on it in order to distract herself from the pain. One of the criminals was breaking into a house, barefoot for some reason, and stepped on some glass baubles.

“Maybe next year we can put up a tree,” she suggested once he’d returned with the water and pills. “One one would do nicely over there.”

His gaze followed her finger to a spot by the large window. “That’s an unusually festive suggestion, coming from you.”

She lifted her right leg and pulled her knee back slowly to let him slot into the space on the couch.

“You don’t like the idea?” she asked as she lowered her calf onto his lap once he’d sat down.

“I don’t mind it.” He let his metal hand slide absently along her shin. “But we don’t have to have one if it’s just for me. Besides, we live in New York, there’s a pretty impressive one in Rockefeller Center if I’m not mistaken.”

“Yeah, but it would be nice to have one of my own. Just once, you know? To see if it’s worth the effort.”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“And if it is, it might be a good tradition to start together.”

The implication of her suggestion was not lost on him. With their lives the way they were - fluctuating with the slow, unstoppable grind of time, with the fear of death lurking behind any corner they turned - tradition was not ordinarily a luxury they could afford to have. They would never be a family, not in the nuclear two and half kids and white picket-fence kind of way (not that that was what either of them wanted), but they were something, and it was deep, it was special. It was worth holding onto. It was worth building on. “I’d like that.”

“So we’re agreed, then. Next year, you’re getting a tree.”

“Looks that way.” He was enjoying the fact that she seemed so happy about it. “You’ve started decorating it in your head already, haven’t you?”

“Yes.” She sipped at the glass of water still in her hand. “My living space is made up of a web of safe houses in various, secret locations. I don’t get much of a chance to try my hand at decor.”

“That’s a pity. I bet you’d be good at it. You have excellent taste.”

“Flatterer.” She nudged him lightly with her toe. “When you were young, what did you use to top your trees with?”

He thought about it for a second before answering. “I don’t remember what they used to use in the orphanage, but in the army camp,” a smile spread slowly across his lips as he retrieved the memory, “we used to drink a bottle of whatever we had at the time and shove it on upside down.”

“An empty bottle of booze? Really?”

“The alternative was a rusty tin can.”

“Hmm,” Natasha said, “I didn’t have a lot to celebrate in my youth, but that even sounds depressing to me.”

He laughed. “It wasn’t that bad. Some of the G.I.s would get creative and turn a leaflet into paper wings for the bottle. And there was always a lot of food for Christmas dinner.”

“What about when you were a little boy, with your sister?”

“For that tree, mom used to put an angel on top.”

“So let’s do that.”

“No star for the Russian, huh?” He cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t think you believed in religion.”

“I can’t afford to,” she said in a low voice and then drained her glass of water before placing it on the floor, “not in my line of work, anyway.”

Bucky rubbed delicately at her ankle. “I believe in angels,” he said.

She look up at him and saw his expression. She debated answering him, knowing what he was setting her up for. She did it, anyway. “Oh?” she asked, playing ignorant.

“Yeah, and I’m staring at one right now.”

She let her head drop onto the back of the sofa. “Oh my God, James.”

He was laughing again. “Too much, huh?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed. She reached for the pillow behind her back and tossed it lightly at his chest. “That one was ridiculous.”

He caught it easily and narrowed his eyes with mischief. “Will it get me to second base, at least?” he asked.

Her pulse began to quicken at the thought. “Maybe even third,” she answered, “if you call and order the platter special from Ichiban’s Sushi.”

He grabbed his phone from his pocket and drew up the restaurant’s website. “I’m here to serve, Ms Romanova,” he said as he began filling out the online order form. When he was done he tossed it behind him and grinned.

“That was fast.”

“They guarantee delivery in thirty minutes,” he explained, “that doesn’t give us a lot of time.”

She nodded, agreeing. “Then we’d better hurry.”

“What’s more convenient for you? We could do it right here on the couch, or I could whisk you off to the bedroom.”

“Do I look like a fairy princess to you?”

“No,” he said, his grin turning feral as his gaze dropped to the parting between her bare thighs, “you don’t.”

He wet his bottom lip with his tongue, watching as she slowly shifted her hips into a more accessible position. “Make me scream, James,” she said, “only watch the leg.”

“Yes ma’am,” he whispered. And he did.

~*~

He reached over and picked up the phone from the coffee table, entering his passcode with his real hand while he used the other to help him polish off the remains of the vodka. When he saw who the message was from, he tossed the empty bottle to the far side of the couch and sat up, giving the email his full concentration:

Hi Barnes,

I found this polaroid behind one of my drawers while I was doing a clean out. I don’t know why I have this of you, I figured it might’ve been from a random dossier or something that I’d probably brought home at some point, but it’s not exactly standard SHIELD photography… Maybe it belonged to you or someone you know and it fell into my bag or something?

I didn’t want to throw it away, it seemed personal and it’s a nice picture of you so I thought you might want it back (if it’s yours). Have a Merry Christmas, Barnes, if you celebrate that sort of thing. And thanks for the save earlier this year. I owe you one.

Natasha Romanoff

Once he’d read the message he scrolled back up to the top and read it again, just to make sure he’d gotten every detail. Once he’d done that, he opened the attachment and recognised the photograph immediately. It had been taken at a rooftop barbecue during a summer day with some of the other Avengers at the time. Clint had been messing around with an old polaroid camera of Logan’s (how he’d gotten it, he had no idea) and passed it onto Natasha while making some joke about the number of old people at the party.

He gripped the phone tighter in his hand, his heart aching at the memory.

She’d caught him with his metal arm outstretched as he’d tried to reach for her and the camera. The smile on his face was half-posing and half displeasure at having his picture taken (Natasha had said it was sexy), with his eyes hidden by aviators and his t-shirt discarded because of the heat. She’d been laughing a lot that afternoon (Jessica Drew had been in fine comedic form), prompting him to return the favour by taking a few candid shots of her on his phone. Those were locked away in a secure safe, along with everything else which had evidenced their relationship, although if he was patient enough, copies of them would have eventually flitted across the screen of the digital photo frame which currently lay next to the empty vodka bottle on the couch.

He heaved in a shaky breath as his emotions threatened to get the better of him. Tossing the phone over to the other discarded items, he reached around the couch and picked up his final, unopened bottle of vodka. He’d saved this one for last (a shitty, commercial brand - it was all they’d had in the supermarket) so he wouldn’t be able to taste it. He cracked the seal and downed three gulps before coming up for air.

But it didn’t help. Of all days, he thought. Of all the days for her to make any form of contact it would, of course, be on the very day he was honouring his love for her by drunkenly decorating a Christmas tree. If that was fate trying to throw him a bone, it could go fuck itself.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and cradled his head in his left hand while his right one’s loose grip dangled the bottle. His long hair surrounded his face, placing him in shadow and mercifully shielding his view from the garish representation of love and family sparkling before him.

His shoulders shook as the tears began to fall. One by one they spilled into tiny, unseen puddles at his feet. He’d survived worse pains than the one he was facing (some of the people he’d killed, even before his time as the Winter Soldier… so many innocent faces…) but this one had been the cruelest. Every so often a memory of her would rear its beautiful head only to sting him with a venom as excruciating as the day he’d lost her. “Natalia…” he said in a broken whisper. She’s better off without me…

As thoughts of her assaulted him he gave up trying to reign in the tears, instead flooding the silence of his apartment with the sobs that wracked his body. He told himself that he would only give into the pain for a moment, that he’d allow himself a minute before he would take back control, but somehow in between that short space of time he ended up with his phone in his hands, and a message ready to send to her:

I love you imiss you so much im lost without you. Nothing feels the same nothingis the same. Youre my entire soul.

His thumb hovered over the word ‘send’ as he struggled to see sense through the fog of alcohol and longing. It was such an easy thing to do, to fall prey to that self-destructive temptation. It would do more damage than good. It would be selfish in every way, he knew that. But knowing did nothing to dampen the desires of the heart. She was gone, but she was also right there and it was supposed to be enough just to know that she was alright. But it wasn’t. Fuck no, it wasn’t. Because she didn’t love him, and that left him utterly empty inside. As if someone had ripped out the very parts of him that had kept him alive and scrapped him thin.

His better conscience won in the end, like it was supposed to, like she would have expected of him (like Steve would have). He deleted the message.

Cathartically, it seemed to break the spell (enough for him to take in a more sure breath than the one that had sent him spiralling downwards). Time’s up, he told himself, no more of this. She’s better off without you. His minute of self-pity was done.

He stood up, resigned to the reality of his situation, and stumbled his way to the bedroom, to sleep it all off.

~*~

His waking the next morning was not exactly a very pleasant affair. He’d left his phone in the living room and had no means to check the time, but given that he’d left his curtains open it was easy to see that the sun had yet to rise. He guessed that made it around six in the morning, which meant he’d gotten less than four hours of sleep. But it was Christmas Day, people had made plans with him in them and he wanted to visit Rebecca. So he got up (the hangover would die away quickly enough) and he walked out of the bedroom into the darkness of the rest of his open-plan apartment.

The sight of the tree, still blinking jovially, surprised him for a moment. The air was tinged with the smell of stale vodka, the empty bottles of which twinkled with multicoloured refraction of the Christmas lights. The sight was unexpectedly pretty, given the state he’d left the room in.

He set up his coffee machine, feeling his way in the dark, unwilling to switch on the ceiling lamps and ruin the view. While it percolated he retrieved his phone from the couch and, with a heavy sigh, he re-read Natasha’s email and began crafting a suitable response:

Hey Nat,

Yeah the photo’s mine. Someone took it while messing around with an old polaroid camera at a party. It must have gotten mixed up with some documents or something (or maybe you took it home on purpose? If so, I’m flattered). Could you keep it and give it to me the next time we meet? I kinda want it back since it’s one of the few decent photographs of me that exist out there. Of course I don’t know when that’ll next be, so you might have to keep it on your person for a while (which is not a thought I mind). I trust you to keep something like that safe for me until I can get it back.

And in case you’re curious, I do celebrate Christmas, I even got a tree this year. A friend suggested I get one, she thought it would brighten the place up. She was right… sort of.

You don’t owe me anything, Nat, you never have. Just know I’ll always be there for you, if you need it.

Take care of yourself.

Yours always,

James.

He put the phone down without sending it and started on making himself (a large) breakfast, turning on no more than the stove’s hood light. The pancakes, eggs and bacon took longer to make as a result, but as he sat himself on the dining time, facing the tree as it shone out, illuminating the entire apartment with its pretty, Christmas spirit, he decided it had been worth the extra effort. She would have loved it. It would have been a great tradition.

He smiled to himself as he shovelled a forkful of pancakes into his eager mouth (a hyped-up metabolism and a liquid dinner could drive a man to starvation), and thought about how the saying, “it’ll look better in the morning,” was kind of true. Maybe he’d needed to get it all out of his system. Bucky had his good days, but he had his bad, too, and they tended to build and climax in unhealthy bouts of self-loathing and heavy-drinking sessions. Yesterday had been the latter, but today… who knew?

He looked down at his phone again and evaluated his intended reply with a critical eye. “No,” he said, to no one in particular, “this is too personal.”

With a clearer head and a full belly, he edited the message:

Hi Natasha,

Yeah the photo’s mine, thanks. It must have gotten mixed up with some documents or something. Could you keep it and give it to me next time we meet? I’d really appreciate that.

Thanks for the Christmas wishes, I’d reciprocate but I have a feeling you don’t celebrate the holiday, so I’ll just wish you well for the New Year.

There’s no need to thank me, you’re more than welcome. I’m always around if you need anything.

Take care,

James.

Polite. Not too personal. Perfect.

His heart beat painfully in his chest, but he sent it anyway.

When he was done, he took his cup of coffee and walked over to the couch, analysing the tree as he approached. It definitely needed to be finished. “Alright then, you’re up, angel face. Make this look good.” He picked up the porcelain ornament and carefully placed her into position, adjusting her a few times to make sure she was securely set and facing the right direction.

When he finally took a step back to survey his work he found he was sufficiently satisfied - at least enough to get him through the rest of the day.

He raised his cup in a toast. “Merry Christmas, ‘Tasha,” he whispered.

#buckynat secret santa #king-queen-and-ace #buckynat fanfiction #winterwidow fanfiction #buckynat #winterwidow #charlie writes #very mild angst

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