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#side note i fucking hate how he was characterized in the last couple movies
sakusbo · 3 years
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how do you watch all three captain america movies and not understand people criticizing the government
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mcustorm · 4 years
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45 M/M Gay Movies, Ranked
The other day I bit the bullet and decided to watch Brokeback Mountain for the first time. All I knew about that movie was that it was basically the CMBYN of yesteryear and somebody got killed with a tire iron. Anyways, so I finish the movie and realize that I’ve seen a *lot* of gay movies, especially in the last couple of years. So here are my rankings according to nothing but my personal preference. I won’t write about all of them, but you can ask about something if I leave it out.
I wish I could give you a rubric for this. The reality is, there are some radically different movies on this list with different tones and intentions. There’s buddy comedies, tearjerkers, small indie features, big theater releases. So trying to rank them all is TUFF.
The Way He Looks - Such a beautiful coming-of-age movie. Maybe the 2nd one I saw on this list? Perfect length, perfect characterization, simple yet compelling, clever. And nothing feels better than reaching a happy ending (for once, because some of these movies’ endings-- SHEESH) that’s been earned. It just hasn’t been topped.
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2. God’s Own Country
3. Pride
4. Kanarie - Yea, we don’t talk about this movie enough. It’s one of the most recent that I’ve seen. Beautiful. The way that it references apartheid and the war to reflect the protagonist’s feelings? Flawless.
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5. Jongens - The first movie that I saw on this list, gets many a bonus point for that.
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6. Moonlight - Yes, I am black. Yes, I understand this movie may be too low. Moonlight kind of scares me. In general, there’s not nearly enough discourse surrounding this one for me. But while it’s not exactly a popcorn-muncher, to me it’s the most personal movie on the list. When I look at Chiron and all that he’s been through, I can’t help but draw parallels to my own story up to this point. It holds a mirror up to me in a way that no other movie on this list does. That makes me uncomfortable.
But it is so poetic. Have you guys seen the script for this? The directing, the SOUNDTRACK, the acting. Phenomenal. 
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7. Weekend
8. Call Me By Your Name - Yes, I am aware of people’s beef with this one. Yes, I understand a lot of people may feel this one is overrated. While I do think this one gets worse on rewatch, the truth is, it’s not really *that* overrated because hot take: most (meaning over half) of the movies on this list range somewhere from “just okay” to “painstakingly bad”.
It’s the score, the cinematography, the subtext in most all of the dialogue, the acting, the way that you can smell the apricots through the fucking screen. People who say this movie is a vacation ad are fucking CORRECT. One of my biggest gripes however is that it’s too fucking long. And uh, that age difference...
And Armie Hammer’s a weirdo...
9. Dating Amber* - Dating Amber has one of those “Duh” premises that sounds like it could’ve been done like 30 times before yet I can’t think of any other examples of it. So what you’d think would be a wacky premise actually turns out to be a frankly poignant movie with an emotional story arc for the main two characters.
10. Hello Stranger: The Movie* - This movie, which is the first sequel (sorta) on the list, frankly had no business being as good as it was. Even though the web series is required viewing, I felt the movie fixed like all of the series’ issues: pacing, lack of compelling drama, the awkward quarantine format. The drama and stakes are there without us having to visit Angst City. And the theme and the ending reprise is HEAT.
11. Uncle Frank* -  Uncle Frank is like The Help of gay movies. Like The Help, it’s *overall* a short, sweet and fluffy movie set decades ago. Like The Help, you’ll still come out of it feeling pretty good even though it has some dark moments. Also like The Help, you’ll wonder after the fact if the central white girl absolutely needed to be so...well, central for this story to be told. Bonus points for Paul Bettany and Character Actress Margo Martindale.
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12. Brokeback Mountain - Tragic.
13. Moffie - Set during the South African border war, same as Kanarie. You even hear the word “moffie” throughout Kanarie. Anyways, this is a war movie for the gays, and a very intense watch. I liked that it was a much more realistic view of what a soldier endured during that period, and of course on the flip side I thought it was more thorough in its depiction of the rampant racism. I gotta find a good book on this era.
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14. A Moment In the Reeds
15. Get Real - Maybe the most out of place movie on the list. I need to rewatch it. I do recall absolutely loving the score, however. Like, I fucks with this:
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16. Freier Fall - When I finished Brokeback I was like, “Wait, wasn’t that just Free Fall with extra steps?” And yea, it kinda is. But even discount Brokeback is still pretty good.
17. Beautiful Thing - There are few things to like about this one, the relationship between the two guys, the mother’s love for her son even though it’s not all rainbows, that nice little final scene. I did not care for the dark-skinned woman being portrayed as, you know, the drug abusing, school dropout, gossipy, butt of jokes neighbor. But that guy really looks like Tom Holland tho.
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18. Love, Simon - It’s at this point that I move from “Yea, that movie is good, you should watch it!” to “Look, you may like it, you may not.”
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19. The 10 Year Plan - This movie is so fucking cheesy that there was cheddar coming though my speakers. But when I think of “Hallmark/Lifetime, but for the gays” this is the crown jewel. There’s some other movies on this list that could’ve taken some notes.
20. The Christmas Setup* - The trend of fluffy-white-gay-cable-network-movie continues and in good form. It’s not deep. It’s not really thought provoking. It’s cute. Fran Drescher is there. You should watch it.
21. Giant Little Ones
22. Hidden Kisses
23. Alex Strangelove - In a unique twist, the emotional core of this one is arguably between Alex and his girlfriend. All that ends up happening, however, is we the viewer keep wanting more Alex/Elliott scenes; those are the most electric in the whole movie. The end result is a hot yet endearing mess.
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24. Fair Haven
25. The Thing About Harry - Freeform’s attempt at making a cheesy rom-com for the gays. It’s...okay. I personally feel like the main character’s friend is highkey trifling but it’s whatever.
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26. Your Name Engraved Herein* - So I guess I’ve decided I officially hate angst. I mean, I get how it’s often necessary to tell an effective story, but I’m just not here for 2 hour indie angst fests that get passed off as “high art” anymore. I cannot do it. Somehow this is Brokeback’s fault...there just has to be a better way to tell gay stories in the 2020′s. Anyways, the last song was fuego.
27. The Perfect Wedding - Easily the most bizarre movie on this list. It’s so bad, I liked it a lot.
28. Naz and Maalik - The first half of the movie with the two leads just riffing is some pretty great stuff. The back half starts throwing plot developments that are just less than interesting.
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29. My Best Friend
30. The Curiosity of Chance
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31. Being 17 - Boring. Angsty.
32. And Then We Danced
33. Center of My World - Has some of the most trifling characters EVER. I was so angry. This movie for me has *0* rewatchability.
34. Just Friends
35. 4th Man Out - This movie was basically “a bro/Hangover-style movie, but for the gays.” I absolutely love the intention, but the execution was a little shoddy. One day we’re gonna get a flawless movie that nails what this movie was going for. I hope we remember this movie whenever that day comes.
36. Latter Days - So fucking preachy. 
37. GBF - Another bizarre one, but at least this movie gets how wacky it is.
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38. Beach Rats
39. Shelter - I’ve noticed a lot of people like this one. To that I say...yikes. Remember that scene from Family Guy where Peter says he doesn’t care for The Godfather? I did not care for Shelter. It insists upon itself (not really, but still).
40. Handsome Devil
41. Esteros - It’s at this point of the list that we shift from “Movies that are the definition of ‘ight’ “ to “These movies are bad. Bad. BAAAAAD.”
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42. Monster Pies
43. Were the World Mine - I couldn’t even finish it. Wanna watch a better musical? Go watch Kanarie. Wanna watch a better Shakespeare adaptation? The Lion King is the movie for you, or even fucking She’s the Man.
44. North Sea Texas - So boring. I actually think this one may need a rewatch, because I swear it shouldn’t have been as terrible as it was.
45. Salvation Army - I have no idea what this movie was going for. I understand that it is autobiographical, however...it simultaneously barely has any plot or character developments. This one has shades of Beach Rats, but it’s significantly worse, and I didn’t even like Beach Rats that much.
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So that’s it, thanks if you made it down this far. I guess I’ll update the list as I inevitably watch more of these. I would love movie recommendations! 
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pffbts · 5 years
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↳ bts: the way i see them.
―author`s note: this is a rough characterization which might not all be the real thing. literally, the longest thing i wrote here. even though it was exhausting, i can say i`m proud of myself. i hope you understand my pov for each and every one of them. and if you want you can tell me which one caught your eye the most in my ask box! anyway, happy reading, lovelies!<3
 ―seokjin
you`ll feel like the luckiest person, i swear.
as if that`s the home you need.
because seokjin is a homebody, as much as i`ve witnessed him to be.
he`ll always cook―yes, that`s his number one business.
he`s not going to let you come any closer to the kitchen or the gas or the microwave even though you continue to plead him that it`s alright and that you can at least make him a nice cup of tea or coffee once in a while.
in return of that he will tell you to treat him with tea or coffee at some fancy café, thus involving the investment of your credit/debit card.
now to the good part: pyjamas shopping
ever heard of that? no, i guess.
but it`s like a free item, or like a compulsory item/characteristic that comes with dealing and having seokjin in your life.
he loves his pyjamas, that`s his ‘loml’
probably owns too many for you to steal and he won`t even notice, i guarantee you.
people usually go for window shopping at some fancy store but kim seokjin will forget about window shopping and enter into the store to buy bear printed pyjamas.
if he`s in a good mood, he`ll probably buy you some too.
he`ll always end up calling you from the other side of the store in that loud, childish enthusiastic voice to see if the pink suits him or the baby blue one.
“which one do you think i`ll look good in?”
“jin, it`s not a suit. just get something that`s comfortable for you.”
“yahhh! i want to be presentable to you. choose one!”
against your wish, he`ll end up buying three sets of pink pyjamas.
you wanted the blue one, btw.
now to the best part of the century: guitar obsession.
literally, i feel like there are not many people who know that seokjin, indeed self-taught himself the guitar during the wings tour.
i, myself was so happy to see that.
he looked so calm and himself when he played it.
tbh if you ever hear him once playing it, you`ll be obsessed.
you`ll drag his guitar every time and request him to play it.
seokjin will be literally standing in his towel, his upper body still wet after the a nice warm shower and you`ll be sitting on your bed telling him to start playing.
your reason: “you look hot. now play me some sexy songs.”
seokjin doesn`t know why but you`re his cutest lil shit.
you never fail to make him laugh out loud or fall in love with you harder than the last day.
sometimes his ears would go red if he continues to stare at you for more than two minutes.
he gets flustered too soon and ends up gathering his composure after too many loud bursts of whining.
seokjin is the type of person to take care of our food supplies, he will not forget to pick you up from your workplace/college on time, never fails to make the most delicious tiffin.
like who even needs canteen food and fancy decorative restaurant food when you have none other than kim seokjin to take care of you.
he`ll be a little savage sometimes but that`s okay―it`s his way of loving you.
 at the end of the day, keeping you happy and content is his only business.
―yoongi
uncharacteristic at its finest.
no doubt the reason you`ll fall in love with him genuinely would be because of his uncharacteristic smile―those savouring gummies on display for you to eye feast on.
he`s the kind of person who will be the reserved and shy ones during the first couple of meetings but then as they open up like turning pages after pages in those story books, you`ll end up putting your palm up against his mouth to stop him from continuing his further liberal and capitalistic jokes.
the reason you`ll end up never leaving him because he was holding your hand all the time.
strangely that`s a very cherry on the top situation you can ever encounter with min yoongi
this man, however poised he is, never fails to make you feel special and it`s not like making food for you or arranging your clothes.
but rather he will look into the tiniest details and whenever you`ll scrunch your nose at that eye shadow shade, he`ll jump in from the other side of the room―his thousand dollars headphone around his neck like those three dollars chain (you know what i did right there, yes bye.) and tell you that you look beautiful nonetheless.
you`ll end up having a no make-up look and he`ll still never waver to look at your direction all the time.
 he`s just that kind of person―never underestimating the real you and always silently curious of what it is that makes up to you.
the most fun part with yoongi will be napping―yes, i understand that`s the dumbest thing i ever said but see what i`m trying to imply here.
you`ll never be bored because he `ll find some reason to make you feel less bored.
he`ll throw different ideas about how he wants to nap and what he wants to do.
you`re glad that one of that idea actually worked aka napping in different countries.
but it`ll be six hours with snacks spread in front of both of you and yoongi would be lying on the sofa talking like a drunk yet a sane person and you`ll be munching onto the lays while discussing a serious topic of napping.
a very peculiar person but unusually a good peculiar, you see.
for most of the time, he will not give any effort and just silently let you know that he loves you but when he gets loud, boy, does he get loud.
he`ll end up writing 349873897483 songs about you and you`ll never get bored of them cause they`re made with love.
he compares his love for you like poetry―literally liberal poetry.
i`ve no idea how he does that but that man―*sigh* you should be blessed you met him, held him and talked with him because i don`t think you`ll ever regret loving that one man. 
  ―hoseok
hmmm, first of all, figures, sun, laughter.
those are the three things that define jung hoseok of who he is.
also, another word―the much need glucose of my scorching Indian summer days.
alright, that was a phrase.
anyway, hoseok isn`t an easy person.
i can assure you that because the people who laugh a lot, talk a lot and are loud af 24/7 are the ones who hide the most.
it`ll take a lot of sad movies, a lot of sad memories to erupt at the same time for him to tear up.
i guess no one will fucking forget mama 2018.
hoseok isn`t an easy person but he`ll be the easiest one to talk to first.
it`s the understanding part that will take a while. but all that is in the insides.
let`s start with the outside―that is, his bright side.
he`s a dancer, so obviously he`ll be the energy in-between both of you.
sometimes i don`t know why but having him around you will feel like as if he`s transferring bit by bit of his energy into you and soon, you`ll find yourself swaying with that, swaying and moving with him.
that`s where your freedom of laughing freely starts, you`ll throw your hands in the air while he`ll be quick to hold onto them tightly and make you twirl on your own.
he`ll make those sounds as if putting the bgm to shame.
tbh having jung hoseok in your life is like living a constant life on a reel with sounds providing the perfect synopsis to your actions.
he`s like tunes you`ll never end up hating but nevertheless love to hold onto.
hoseok isn`t much of a work freak.
but he`ll be there to make things helpful for you, like if you need help with some stuff―he`ll be always up for some hand.
of course, you won`t have to be worried about the neatness of your room.
he`ll always end up putting things at the right places by the start of your week but will be expecting to meet with a mess of what you`re by the starting of the weekend.
but he doesn`t mind.
seriously, he doesn`t. yes, he does get frustrated but that`ll only show at the point when you both are in a stable relationship with each other. in the beginning i guess, he`ll exhale loudly, sigh a lot while arranging your stuff but he`ll not complain.
even though he`ll nag at the stable point of your relationship, he`ll just try to put things together inside you―sometimes changes are good, right??
also, the thing about hoseok is that―his temper fluctuates a lot.
but just like i said before, he won`t show that much often, not until he`s too much in this ride with you.
if you, by any chance break that tight and taut shell of his then he`ll breakdown a lot.
he`ll let you take a stroll inside his mind and especially his heart.
he`ll start getting raw with whatever he`s going through. but he`ll continue to assure you that he`s still the same happy guy whenever he`s around you
the reason, i guess, he doesn`t show these insides of his is because he doesn`t want you to feel down. he doesn`t want to become a different set of sadness on top of your own.
he wants to keep things neat, bright and vibrant for you.
he would rather be the brightest thing in this room of yours than the moon that gets overshadowed by clouds on some frequent occasions.
to conclude everything, he wants to live happily and he wants you to live happily before both of your time fades away.
―namjoon
*sighs*
a calming yet chaotic person striving hard to let you know that happiness exists in the saddest places on this earth.
yep, that`s what namjoon is.
keeping up with namjoon is difficult because he doesn`t blend in with every situation.
he likes to keep that distance you can`t see with naked eyes.
it would take a few moments for you to understand that this guy isn`t always what he let people show.
just like hoseok, namjoon has two sides of himself but for namjoon`s case, he lives in his insides rather than outsides like hoseok.
he keeps things real, and to do that he writes a lot.
a whole ‘mono’ exists to prove that point.
forget about his use of auto-tune here and there in the songs of that playlist and just go through the words.
he makes you think even though you don`t think that often and he`ll make you google things up to understand the depth of the facts he stated.
he keeps things simple.
from his clothes to his mind―he hates complicating things and that`s such a beautiful thing i can never fully describe you.
he hobbies are simple too―going for casual walks and visiting non-historical places aka parks, lake sides, river sides.
cycle is his best friend. #KimDaily is proof.
physically through a stout man, he doesn`t carry himself like that.
i`m going to say this again and again until you slap me hard but namjoon is a simpleton―he keeps thinking too simply that words don`t get stuck and gets overflowed through his hand.
i personally, relate to that.
but he`s overthinker―strange combination, i know but he thinks and complicates things a lot which makes him frustrated and so he writes a lot.
that`s the exact reason he`s always the one who contributes to the music making of Bangtan a lot more than the other three writers (hoseok & yoongi)
he runs out of words―yes, namjoon do runs out of words. if you watch some of his interviews, he stops and thinks what word to choose at that certain situation.
and you want to know why? because he has too many things at the same time in his mind and sometimes he can`t even pinpoint on single syllable over the other.
keeping up with namjoon means keeping up with his philosophical side too.
you`ll probably end up woke till 4 in the morning because human emotions are a mind-blowing concept to discuss with kim namjoon and sure it is! when it involves namjoon, it`ll always turn out to be the best thing to talk about.
namjoon`s source of entertainment isn`t for everyone.
for me, i think it`s perfect.
library dates? fuck, that`s better than sex.
to love him is to love him with your insides because this man doesn`t believe in the outsides of that person.
he prefers to dwell in the insides and pull out the string which will become the next topic of debate for both of you.
he`ll keep you on your toes when he finishes a book because then he`ll tell you everything about the characters which you, yourself couldn`t find.
he`ll tell you about things you never knew and you`ll realize that he`s by far the best thing after google.
he`s the nerd that is handsome, strong and had beautiful hands which are soft like feather.
so hold onto them tightly and don`t forget to give him his kisses.
―jimin
park jimin, you beautiful creature.
first of all, thank his parents.
listen, this man is the epitome of love.
he has always been that hard-working kid at the front of your class, never getting distracted. always loving what he does at that moment.
his parents are supportive of what he does and he never discourages them.
instead he saddens himself by degrading himself.
nothing makes me happy than knowing that he is in a better place of mind now, that he calls himself cute this days, that he loves the word ‘lovely’ too much.
 that he says, ‘i love you’ too aggressively in English these days.
i think smile suits him better than those smexy sunglasses, right?
talking about sunglass―btw, just like seokjin`s pyjama obsession, i think jimin has a knack for buying too many aesthetic coloured sunglasses.
you`ll probably end up buying too many of them too if you ever go out with him.
he`ll always make sure you`re getting enough share of food and everything necessary to survive in life.
he`ll always look out for the time you spend overworking yourself and drag you to take a rest.
but when you do the same, he`ll be like ‘babe, no worries. see i`m so strong!’
he is the kind of person i fucking need in life.
the kind of person who listens and doesn`t stop himself from crying along with you.
he`ll always lend you that undivided attention, that unshared shoulder to lean onto.
he`ll pick up the pieces for you and give you the time and space.
never will he once try to invade a space inside you without your permission.
though a flirty type of person, he is serious too.
he knows when to draw the line and the reason he is like that maybe because he loves skinship a lot.
yep, even though i`m not a big fan of skinship, park jimin sure makes me wonder what`s it like to cuddle for three hours with the loml.
thank you, jimin, now i`m depressed.
i don`t know about kinks that much but park jimin 3873873% has a praise kink.
and sure why the fuck not.
he`s after all a very beautiful, god-like person from inside and out and you better give him some love while passing by the street beside him.
100% shirt guy aka my type.
99.9% of the times that i`ve seen jimin, he`s always wearing light coloured or pastel shaded shirt and boy, he looks so good in them.
he looks better when his hair is half-wet and it`s messy.
he looks more beautiful when his face is bare and his eyes don`t have that perfect eye shadow.
his eye smiles. f u c k.
you`ll end up squeezing his face 23.5 hours a day and he won`t mind because he likes the way your skin feels against him.
also, just like hoseok his temper is very similar too. so i won`t explain much on that cause it`s too similar for me. like, no wonder whoever made them roommates, they know what`s cooking.
you`ll probably end up staying up another night with him watching too many cat videos. it`s thing that come in the whole package so you really can`t avoid even if you`re not a cat person.
on a serious note: the more you give him, the more he`ll cross the boundary of love. he`ll make you overwhelmed and thirsty with the needs.
he`ll not stop until he gives his all to you.
he`ll want you to keep going on with your life even though he knows it`s hard. he`ll give you his voice, his shoulders, his chest to rest for a while―to make you distract, to let you think of nothing but the warmth that radiate through his shirt.
he`ll probably end up loving you more than what`s meant to be and you`ll always end up thinking what did exactly you do to deserve such a precious human being.
―taehyung
i`m really tired but he`s my ultimate bias, the loml so here we go.
wow, i`m already blushing.
anyway, let`s go!
kim taehyung is the perfect definition of loving some fictional character so much that you want them to be real.
he`ll do the most animated stuff in real life and you`ll question your eyes.
but he`ll prove you wrong.
he`ll walk up to you, put on a simple snapback cap and a simple white/black t-shirt and boom! he`s the boy next door or the senior in school you`ve a crush on.
he stops everything from spinning around you and never hesitates to be honest with you.
for me he`s the most inside person ever. more than both namjoon even.
like namjoon can be vocal about his thought a few time but taehyung―no, at least i`ve not seen him much often.
even if he does, he will not talk much about himself.
he`ll try to sidetrack the conversation and make it about more of the others than of his.
taehyung dwells with the insides that continues to remain a secret to me.
if you think about it much harder, we basically know nothing about him apart from his little hobbies.
but the few things that you`ll end up encountering with him are: reading too many manga/comics over time and comparing the number of aesthetic earrings of each other.
taehyung`s wishes and habits are innocent like even though he`s a completely different person on stage.
but we all know that.
it`s because that`s a stage and you can`t just reveal the roughest patches of your character to a whole audience waiting to feed their insatiable hunger.
even though he likes investing in clothes and accessories, he does it to distract himself.
he`s the kind of person who doesn`t go out very often stays up inside his room with a jar of mixed fruit jam and bread on top of the bedside cupboard to diminish the sudden hunger while he`s binge-watching the newest anime.
he`ll end up listening to too many songs at the same time because he`s in that mood.
the one thing i love about him is that he loves to remember the little things that people usually forget about each other or the moment they`re living in.
he`ll remember the feelings, the way his heart swelled up when he looked at you, or the way his mouth wavered when he couldn`t scold his favorite character for doing something foolish.
he loves the little things and for me even though he looks into those details he never judges them.
he will respect you and never discourage you to be what you really are.
he will expect you to do the same thing in return.
dates with him will involves―too many junk foods, too much time to spend in museums and learning the names of capitals, too many time spent in loose clothes.
he`ll always be the type of rather buy clothes online than going store to store for that perfect fit.
also, apart from seokjin, i think taehyung is another homebody.
maybe that`s the reason he knows where to draw the line and never cross what he shouldn`t.
even though he`s a homebody, he isn`t much of a help with household works but tbh that doesn`t even matter.
if you want you can be the mess together. if you want you can spend a whole day cleaning while laughing at each other`s stupid mishaps.
i think those days will turn out well if you resonate enough with him because he`ll make sure to gift you the same resonance.
―jeongguk
will he ever stop being the cutest brat in the whole world?
i personally, don`t want him to stop.
jeon jeongguk, you mastermind of weightlifting.
first of all, being with him mean he`ll definitely use you as a weight lifting object or like being the weight which he can keep up with.
meaning, out 5/7 days in a week, you`ll end up half-asleep at 4 in the morning while sitting Indian style on top of his back while he does push-ups.
he`ll let you sleep for those extra hours later on though.
i mean he grew up well with seven characters inside him.
so basically you`ll find all of them inside him.
being with him is like being with seven men at the same time but jeongguk has his own flavour too.
even though he`ll act like his hyungs, he`ll have you a taste of his own at that stable point of your relationship with him.
first he`ll show you his fun side, his strong muscle side but then as times passes, as seasons come along with the progress of your relationship with him, he`ll show you the bigger picture.
the bigger picture that is him sitting his purple coloured studio listening to the saddest love songs, trying to write the happiest lyrics, eating too many foods as occasional mukbangs.
he`ll end up crying a lot and you`ll end up becoming his side pillow most of the time.
but it`ll be too overwhelming on your side because he`ll become the small spoon and you`ll feel like you`re holding the whole solar system in your arms with hot and cold combined.
like taehyung, he liked storing memories but for him to notice the details takes a while because he`s still a kid and innocent and most importantly, impatient.
he`ll roll the clip for the tenth time and then he`ll realize the detail and when he does, boy, have you seen that smile?
ugh, my chest hurts.
for him, catching details come with the person who holds them. for example, have you seen the way he looks up to namjoon or like how he always gives jimin special attention.
he knows who needs what but he waits for his chance.
sometimes as for his young age, he sure does jump onto the conclusion but that`s just childish and you shouldn`t take that side of him seriously.
clearly, he`s joking.
but jeongguk knows where to joke and where to not.
for me, gguk is the one among all the seven who possess the most flaws.
he has a lot of rough edges and he needs some polishing on that.
but that`s acceptable. he`s literally watching six different types of human being all the time and he`s clearly confused unknowingly whom to completely follow.
so i feel like at some point in his 30s, jeongguk will become what he really is.
for now, he`s young and the youngest of his group so he`ll be okay.
he`ll grow up strong and be the best boy in the world.
so yes, give him the love he needs and never let him stop from showing his true colours because i`m sure, he`s something more than what meets the eyes.
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badfanfics · 5 years
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fallback - chapter two
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chapter 2: flashes (august 2017)
this story was previously untitled - many changes happened from original published draft :-)
HEADS UP: tom doesn’t rlly appear in this chapter - he is mentioned in a flashback and at the end --- i also got a bit carried away w this chapter. 
if you have any requests on what you want to see in following chapters or in any ‘extra’ sections of this story (ie: how tom and bea met, their first kiss, interviews, or generally any specific or general moments for Bea or between her and  family/friends/tom/etc) please feel free to message me either personally or go to my ask page and send your requests :-) 
One reason why love is a difficult word for Bea is because everything she ‘loves’ and everything she enjoys have a good side and bad side to it. For example, acting and being famous. She loves spreading joy by creating entertainment, the idea she has inspired or encouraged people, acting and creating new worlds and characters and bringing them to life, meeting new and a large amount of people, all the travelling opportunities, and being recognized for her talent. But she hates how her whole childhood has been and probably the rest of her life will be characterized by the media scrutinizing and criticizing and magnifying everything she has done. She despises how the media acts towards females – such as focus on their fashion or bodies – and hates how sometimes, the media have terrible questions and stray away from the movie and it’s behind the scenes or from the important stuff.
In this instance, Beatrice thinks she mostly loves premieres. Yes, she hates how some media outlets, not all, have the most boring or sexist questions. She hates the amount of flashing lights that she swears is deteriorating her vision. And yes, she’ll prefer to be in pajamas, watching Netflix rather than going to a premiere. But, she loves the ability to celebrate the project with the cast and crew and families and friends, being able to meet fans at the red carpet, seeing the excitement and hype for the film, seeing how the film actually turns out, and something about how the premiere symbolizes the end of a project. She’s always excited to move onto the next project. The premiere is something that combines all the reasons she loves acting, even just a little bit, in a few hours of an event.
One thing she loves the most about premieres is the pre-premiere tradition Logan and Bea superstitiously follow. It started back when Logan lived with Bea rather than her then-boyfriend-now-fiancée and they had the best premiere they ever attended. Ever since then, Logan makes sure to have breakfast ordered to the house whilst Bea has all the skin care supplies prepared.
“WAKE UP BITCH!” Logan screamed from the foyer, using her spare key to call Bea. As this is Logan’s first time not seeing Bea immediately when Logan comes in, she assumed she was asleep. “I GOT THE CROISSANTS.”
Bea was currently trapped under Noah’s sleeping state, his breath reeking of the alcohol from last night. She has been trying to get to the bathroom to change into sweatpants rather than booty shorts and look somewhat more presentable for the last hour. “Noah,” Bea groaned, shaking him slightly, making him stir slightly, “can you move?” She asked gently, slightly annoyed.
He stirred, “No” he whined. “We have time and I want you with me.” He mumbled.
“I told you yesterday,” She sighed, “Logan and I have this tradition. I spent the last few days with you non-stop…I need time with Logan.” Noah begrudgingly moved, groaning at the loss of contact. Bea never knew someone could be this clingy.
Bea slipped into the bathroom, quickly slipping on a sweatshirt to cover up her bandeau and sweat shorts rather than her booty shorts. Tying her hair up into a messy bun, she quickly ran downstairs. “Sorry, sorry,” Bea profused as she met Logan who’s already eating her own chocolate croissant, “Noah’s a heavy sleeper.”
The interior designer and stylist rolled her eyes, “I don’t get why you’re with him.” Logan was skeptical and knew something was up with their relationship from the very beginning, but Bea doesn’t like to open up and Logan knows Bea likes her distance. It just sucks – Bea is an world renowned actress and knows how to lie about how she’s feeling pretty amazingly. In fact, Logan knew something was up as Bea often drowns herself in work whenever she feels upset – and for the last year, Bea has been working non-stop that Logan has barely seen her maid of honor.
“It’s fine.” Bea mumbled, finally taking a bite out of the creamy deliciousness of the croissant.
Logan grabbed Bea’s wrist. “That’s not an answer.”
“Yours wasn’t a question.” Bea poked her tongue out, “Okay I know you don’t like him, so let’s move on.”
“You’re getting it wrong.” Logan groaned, “He’s okay. I don’t like him for you.”
Bea decided just to swap topics, she can’t handle confrontation like this because it asks her to directly confront her own personal, conflicting emotions – not a character’s, but her own. “So, since we haven’t seen each other since our last wedding planning session, what else have you and Will decided?”
The girl sighed at her best friend not opening up to her. Bea is Logan’s personal diary and knows everything – Logan just wants to help her as much as Bea helps Logan. “So, I want you to go wedding dress shopping with me in a bit. I got an appointment at this boutique I’ll send you the address for, but they let you customize your gowns so I’m planning on doing that too.” She noted, “That in mind, I’m getting you an early maid of honor slash birthday gift that day too.”
“Babe!” Bea exclaimed, “You don’t have too!”
Logan smirked, “Trust me. It’s a good gift but it requires extreme effort on your part.” Bea scrunched her eyebrows, “Good effort! Promise.” The actress scrunches her eyebrows, skeptically, before Logan physically swipes at the air and acts as if it swiped away the conversation. “But William absolutely loves the bakery you chose, thank you so much. And none of the bridesmaids are hating the dress design you picked.” Logan decided on designing the dress and just asked Bea to choose which design goes to which bridesmaid and which designs should be created.
As soon as the breakfast and wedding talk was finished, it’s been an hour and the two found themselves sitting on Bea’s L-shaped couch with skins masks, milkshakes, and their hair up in buns for a deep condition. The TV was playing ‘Bachelor In Paradise’.
April 12, 2016
Tom and Harrison came back from the outside, sweating from their previous game of basketball – both shirtless. “What’s this?” Harrison asked, eyes bewildered as they saw Bea and Logan lounging with skin masks, their wet and recently showered hair up in towels.
“Premiere day.” Logan stated, “It’s our pre-premiere tradition, we always do this.”
“Want to join?” Bea inquired, sitting up more to look at Tom and Haz. “We have some extra masks.”
Tom and Harrison shrugged, making Bea and Logan rub their hands together to look like they are scheming something. Tom sat next to Bea and Harrison sat next to Logan, not wanting to third-wheel the blossoming couple. “Mask me!” Tom exclaimed, opening his arms after grabbing Bea to straddle his lap, making her chuckle.
“Wait, y’all need to take quick rinse because you two smell bad and rinse your face real quick.” Bea instructed, climbing off of Tom’s lap and causing the two boys to stand up, “Oh, and don’t forget that it has to be relatively quick. We have to end this a little earlier because we have to pick up your family at the hotel.”
Tom’s head fell back, “Oh shit, yeah.” Tom noted, “Thanks.” He smiled dreamily, holding his gaze with Bea as his heart blossomed. He couldn’t wait to get Bea to meet his family, especially as she was the celebrity crush of his brothers and they doubted their relationship. His stomach felt butterflies, especially as she remembered something so dear to him – he’s always been a major family person. He knows she’s nervous to meet them, but that’s why her extra effort means a lot to Tom. “I would give you a kiss, but I don’t want to mess up your face mask.” He motioned to the face mask, glossing over her face. Bea responded with a dimpled smile and by closing her eyes particularly tight to motion she got the intent behind the message.
Eventually, the two boys were in sweats and the girls were placing the face masks on their faces. Tom had dragged Bea into his lap once more – making her laugh, and once she finished putting the mask on, he held her closer and let her cuddle into his shoulder.
“These feel so good what the fuck?” Tom exclaimed, “How come I never did this before?”
“Mate, yeah what?” Harrison asked, “Is this some glorious American thing?” He teased, making the two girls roll their eyes.
Bea lifted her head off of Tom’s shoulder, making Tom rub her shoulder, not exactly wanting her to leave his embrace. “They say beauty is pain, but your own beauty depends on your own choice, so choose well.” Harrison rolled his eyes whilst Tom chuckled, staring at Bea with stars in his eyes.  
“What show even is this?” Harrison eventually asked, eyes widened in surprise but also enjoyment, seeing a girl cry on screen for what felt like the hundredth time as she cried about being ignored by a guy named Jared.
Tom answered, having watched sections of this season when it came out with Bea. “Re-runs of Bachelor in Paradise.”
“Literally the best show out there.” Bea teased, making Logan motion to the sky, as if praising God for blessing the world with the show. “It’s basically all the rejects of Bachelor and Bachelorette on one island, screwing each other over – both in a bad way and in another way.” Bea raised her eyebrows suggestively.
“Sounds like Love Island, but with more purpose.”
“I don’t know!” Bea screamed at Logan who’s been chanting for a couple for the last ten minutes, “Listen, it’s just – I hate speaking in that accent so I just, I don’t know! I get annoyed at her!” Bea then started doing her best southern-belle accent, which due to her cameo role in a Western television series, caused her to be pretty damn good.
Logan chuckled, doing her own best southern belle accent. “Do you think you’d ever do bachelor in paradise?” Before Bea could answer, she took a sip of her strawberry milkshake – “dude, I would so leave William for the show – like just for the show. I’ll go to the dream location, get the payout for drinking and dishing, and then go home back to William.”
“Wow, I know what I’ll be saying in my maid of honor speech now.” Logan threw a pillow at Bea.
“Okay, time to shower. I dibs first!” Logan exclaimed, standing up and running to her old room, now converted to a guest room.
Almost as if her disappearance started a machine, as soon as the bathroom door in her old room closed, Noah came out of the room, wearing just sweats and an open robe, walking down the stairs sleepily. “What are you wearing?” He asked, chuckling.
“Face masks, want one?” Bea smiled at her boyfriend, who grabbed a tissue and approached her. Grabbing one tissue, she wiped her face of some of the green junk and pressed his lips to hers.
“Not really, no.” He said, after pecking her lips.
Bea playfully pouted – trying to ignore her own disappointment at her ruined face mask, “That was my face mask.”
Noah pouted in response, leaning in to kiss her once more. “Sorry, candy girl.” He fell back onto the seat beside Bea, turning to look at the TV. “Oh, is this this nonsense show you always try to show me?”
The brunette nodded in response. “Alright, I’m gonna grab a bowl of cereal and then head out to meet Colin.”
Bea nodded, “Sounds good.”
Like machine work, Logan came prancing down the stairs as Noah walked into the kitchen. “Hi Logan!” Noah called out as he walked towards the kitchen island, oblivious to how Logan hates him. Logan, however, caught a glimpse of his chest. “Oh, so that’s why you’re dating him.” The actress rolled her eyes and threw a pillow at her.
Hours later, Bea and Logan were moisturized and in the middle of getting ready by Logan’s friend and fellow stylist (who happens to be Bea’s official stylist) gave them their outfits and doing their hair and make-up. In particular, Ines managed to get Marc Jacobs to customize a dress inspired by Raven’s iconic superhero outfit. It was a long, dark blue, evening gown with a leg slit that starts about five inches away from Bea’s underwear. The hip has a built in belt, reminiscent of the belt from Raven with gold and red jewels. There is another red jewel at the curve of the deep V-Neck allowing some coverage. The dress had no sleeves, but the back has an attack black cape. The outfit was wrapped together with strappy ankle booties. Logan, on the other hand, wore something less intricate; a black, cold shoulder, knee length cocktail dress with a ribbed waist matched with nude heels.
Currently, Bea was bent over her chair – Ines applying her concealing foundation to her shoulder to continue and hide her break up tattoos from the public, as instructed by her publicist. Bea has a clean image – part of it was being an actress everyone watched and can watch grow up on screen. They do not want to see a tattoo on her. While Ines was covering up her pinky promise tattoo with ‘promise’ in RDJ’s handwriting on the back of her shoulder, her assistant Camille sprayed temporary purple hair dye in Bea’s hair before throwing it up in a clean bun. The makeup was already done – Bea wore purple lipstick, very slight contour, brightening mascara, a subtle cat eye, and had a diamond shaped red jewel on her forehead like Raven whilst Logan had a deep red lip, an aluminum eyeshadow, and a killer cat eye. Logan had her hair up in her natural ‘black girl curls’, as she calls them, but in a contained bun. Now, all they’re waiting for is Bea’s two tattoos (the pinky promise and the ‘Coraline’ key with a bumble bee flying through the hole on her foot) to be covered and her purple bun to be finished.
“God, I don’t even know why you’re famous.” Logan always teased Bea, and this teasing is partly why she’s so down to earth. “Like cool, you won 100 academy awards, baftas, whatever award, and acted in thousands of shit, but like – wow you don’t deserve all this attention. So much hate. You got two break up tattoos and only an idiot does this.”
The actress gaped her mouth in fake offense, throwing a spare makeup wipe at her best friend. “Okay star interior designer, tell me, when did I not take you to any of them?”
Logan putted her lips out – “Perks, I guess.” She popped the ‘p’, making Ines and Bea laugh even more. “Okay, but seriously – I’m proud of you. Legit I love all the reviews of this film.” She noted, pulling out an article on the phone she’s been playing with for thirty minutes rather than continuing their tea session. “’Bea Downey is a literal superhero as she saves the DCU’”
One thing Bea never learnt? How to take a compliment without making a joke out of it. “But I’ll never be as good of a super hero as the dancing zebras somewhere in South America.” Logan smirked.
“Okay, we’re done.” Ines sighed, looking at her two works of art. “Photo and Insta story time.” Bea and Logan were littered all over Ines’s portfolio, mainly Bea through promotional tours and premieres. “Okay, okay, remember the time you took us out for coffee and ran into William and knocked his trays of coffee ove-YAS QUEEN!” What can they say – Ines is the ultimate hype queen.
Eventually, the two were entering a van. “What’s up Big Ray?” Logan called out while Bea kissed both his cheeks to greet the security guard and driver who’s been protecting her since she started, and her uncle beforehand. “Do you remember our first time riding a limousine?” Logan sighed, “now we’re stuck in a damn van, Ray!” She joked with the big man, who laughed and flipped her off.
“Next time you should be on the red carpet with me!” Bea invited, both jokingly and seriously, “Logan keeps insulting me and being ungrateful.” She teased, earning a kick to the leg from Logan.
Big Ray heard the audible thumb of heel against ankle, “Hey, don’t touch the merchandise.” He joked, making both of them chuckle.
Text from Noah: hey – colin and ray and I got here few minutes ago. Looking for my favorite and best looking accessory <3 I think your uncle is waiting for you at the gate?? Spoke to him for a bit, but he didn’t seem to move. Love you, pls get here soon.
“What the fuck!?” Logan called, “No man should call a girl his accessory.”
Bea was about to protest, until she heard even Big Ray sheesh. “Yeah, hate to break it to you and love the guy, but yeah.”
“Also love the fact he had no emojis or nicknames in your phone.” Logan observed, “Just saying.”
Bea was known to put emojis next to important names in her phone; her family had emojis they themselves picked out, Logan got the hand rock symbol, Tom and Harrison had the British flag while Tom was also named ‘tommy boi’. “I invited you because I love you, not because I want a psychoanalysis.”
“I’m here to support you, and if supporting you means that you need to hear a psychoanalysis, I’ll be glad to provide it.”
Another text popped to her phone before she could reply. Facebook Message from Harrison Osterfield (nickname: hazzy): Tuwaine, the twins, and I are tuning in!! don’t forget to remember us when ur being interviewed….we want them shout outs
Facebook Message from Harrison Osterfield (nickname: hazzy): kidding xx love you loads, miss you, and wishing you all the best xxx
She smiled, her cheeks turning pink and her heart feeling lifted; she felt blessed to have a friend like him, even if they weren’t as close as before. Typing out a quick and loving reply, the sounds of screams slowly came into earshot – even three blocks away from the premiere.
“Here we come.”
Bea opened up the window, greeting each and every one of them as best as she could, occasionally recognizing one of them from a previous conversation. Observing the heat, Bea started reaching into the pre-packed stash of water bottles (that Big Ray always packs, because he’s paranoid) and gently throwing them out the window. “Hey! Stay hydrated! Take care of yourself!”
“Ooh, I’ll pass them out, you sign them.” Logan thought of, making Bea immediately agree and take out a sharpie.
As they ran out of water, Bea opened up her iPhone and went to Instagram to make a quick story.  “Hey guys!” She greeted the camera, “I’m entering the venue right now and already see so many of you. I know not everyone could make it here tonight. However, if you are here – please please please hydrate and find shade and take care of yourself. Additionally, thank you all so much for your support – if it’s attending the premiere or waiting until the last day, thank you so much for everything. I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for you guys.”
“Okay, you’re here.” Big Ray grinned, letting them go as now the red-carpet security will now have direct responsibility of watching them. “Have fun and don’t get into too much trouble. I’ll be in the green room if anything wrong happens. But if anything bad happens, I’m blaming red carpet security.”
Bea smiled fondly at who felt to be an honorary second father. “Thank you Ray.” She smiled, pressing a kiss on each of his cheeks once more. “Plus, I bet you it’ll be Logan who’d do anything.”
Logan flicked her best friend and the two exited the car.
Flashes and flashes of lights drowned them, but the two knew how to swim.
“Beatrice!” A paparazzi screamed, “Bea!” Another one followed. Bea did some quick poses before running over to the fan area; in particular, a fan who looked scarily familiar.
The ginger was screaming at the top of her lungs, “Philomena!” Logan separated now, wandering around the carpet until she spot sight of someone who made her rage. Yes, she loves him for Bea, yes, he’s so kind – but he broke Bea’s heart once, she’ll be a damn terrible best friend if she lets him do it again.
Running as best as she could in her nude stilletos, she was quickly next to Bea who was talking to a group of ten fans, getting to know them personally. “Hey Bea,” Logan whispered, grabbing her attention.
“Do I need to get interviewed now?” Bea quickly asked, knowing the drill of the events. “I thought I would have more time with fans – I always get-“
Logan interrupted her with two words that made all the air leave Bea’s lungs.
“Tom’s here.”
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katiekeysburg · 6 years
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many many many thoughts on Infinity War
i’m not sure this will even make sense.  spoilers
why does the read more not work on mobile
spoilers
spoilers
spoilers
last chance
GOTG
My favorite thing about the movie, by far, is the role the Guardians of the Galaxy played in it.  They are my favorite, so that’s not surprising, but I honestly expected they’d be more like guest stars.  They will probably be benched for most of the second film tho, so I guess this makes up for it.
Everything about meeting Thor is absolutely perfect.  The crew’s fawning over him, Peter’s jealousy, “a pirate and an angel had a baby”.  Thor assuming Rocket is in command because Peter is being so childish.  I was laughing so hard for the whole thing, but my favorite moment was when Rocket goes to leave.  Peter has a short aside with him, not unlike their aside when Peter, Gamora and Drax leave Rocket behind on Behar in GOTG2.  Except they part on better terms, indicating how much both characters have grown.
Canon Starmora caught me a bit off guard, but then it’s been a couple years since GOTG2, and now the unspoken thing is now spoken.  That’s an area rich for fanfic to fill in.  I think my main issue was that tonally that seen just careems all over.  Gamora’s flashback, begging Peter to kill her, then they’re kissing.  Then Drax interrupts.  Of all the moments in the film, this one need to breathe a little more to let it happen more naturally.
My favorite part of the movie might be the bit on Knowhere: Gamora’s grief when she thought she killed Thanos, and Peter’s attempt to kill her.  The first GOTG shortchanged Gamora’s decision to move against Thanos and why; at that point she’s just made up her mind.  So I loved seeing a bit more of their family dynamics.  Peter’s attempt to kill her went on a bit too long IMO, but I loved the whole concept.  I didn’t think he’d be able to do it, but he tried! My poor baby.  He’s grown so much.  I can forgive him his ultimate actions, they are understandable and there’s plenty of material to support him.  
Gamora’s too make sense.  I am most upset about that particular death, as her character arc is REALLY NOT COMPLETE.  In my GOTG2 meta I discuss how she’s just barely begun to learn to deal with her emotions.  She’s apparent come some distance since then, since she can tell Peter she loves him. But if this is really the end for her, she won’t ever get to complete her arc and I hate that.  I assume she’s bound with the soul stone and will be back, but I HATES IT PRECIOUS.  FUCK YOU RUSSOS/MARKUS AND MCFEELY IF YOU RUINED THE ARC OF ONE OF MY FAVES.  It would be a really poor choice to fridge her like that, for fucking Thanos and Peter. FUCK.
Anyway, all the Guardians are used to absolute perfect effect within the larger story and with perfect characterization so bless James Gunn for co-producing. Mantis and Drax could have been easily sidelined, and while they don’t really have arcs of their own, they are used to great effect.  
THOR
Thor is my second favorite part.  He zings with everyone, although I didn’t expect the team up of him and Rocket.  It makes perfect sense to send him on a quest, which mirrors his quest to be worthy of the hammer in the original Thor.  It even requires a trial.  And his arrival on Earth with Rocket and Groot is one of the greatest moments ever put on film.
Kinda pissed about Loki tho, even though what we did see of him was perfect.
Other than the Guardians, Thor and Hulk are the only characters who haven’t been in character stasis since Phase 2.  Which is thanks to Ragnarok so BLESS TAIKA WAITITI
STARK/STRANGE/PETER
The Facial Hair bros are not my favorite, but I do appreciate the Stark/Strange pair up.  Their friction is immediately believable and it works. This is Tony’s worse nightmare - not only was he worried he was going to die in space, but now Peter Parker is there too.  It’s really the only climax they could do for Tony at this point, although I’m pretty pissed his character has basically been in neutral since The Avengers.  We’ve seen him try to overcome his fears, try to compensate for them, try to protect against them, and he hasn’t really grown much as a character since then.  He’s struggled, but it hasn’t gone anywhere and it leads him here anyway.  Worse, rather than just be responsible for the Avengers who are at least powerful adults in their own rights, he has Peter who is there because of his actions.
Just cause Tony is a popular character is not a good reason to leave his character spinning until they could get to this movie.  BAH.
Thank goodness for Peter.  I died at his Aliens references.  He lightens up the two Facial Hair bros who would otherwise get too dire.  This group gets a lot better when the Guardians show up tho.  They all get to zing off each other.
I just want Peter and Peter to talk more pop culture.  I really need to write that fucking heist fic for the two of them.  SO MUCH. Fuck.  Anyway, Tom Holland was pure perfection and also used really, really, really well.  
THANOS
I saw praise for developing actual motives for a villain and making him understandable.  Overall I feel pretty meh about Thanos though - he works excellently as a foil for both Avengers and GOTG but independently I don’t think he’d be that interesting.  He’s certainly no Loki or Ego.  It made sense to make this movie his movie, his quest, given where it ended, but I still feel it was a little underdeveloped.  Why go after the stones right this second? What’s he been doing since the Avengers, besides having the gauntlet made?
TEAM CAP
If this movie makes one mistake, it’s who they choose to leave on Earth.  The problem with sending all your funny people to space is that everything on Earth after that sort of lagged.  The only relief was really Bruce reacting to everything he had missed while he was gone, plus whatever lines they could scrounge up for Rhodey and Sam and Oyoke.  The sidekicks do all the heavy lifting but the Earth scenes lack the cohesion of the rest of the movie.  It’s mostly set up and dreary exposition.  If I cut anything out of the movie (besides making every battle shorter) I would cut out Rhodes talking to the Colonel.  That whole scene is WAY too long to establish that Cap is still a criminal and Rhodes was on the other side. 
Honestly, of the many failures Civil War had, one really evident one here is the lack of my ability to care for Vision and Scarlet Witch.  Neither of those characters nor their romance has been developed enough for the importance the plot tries to place on them.  It was present in Civil War but never really clicked.  I think it’s partially the ridiculousness of the very young-written SW in combination with the ridiculous purple android.  The relationship never manages to feel real.
The best part was Black Widow, Scarlet Witch and Oyoke all fighting together, and I want my female Avengers movie.
Cap is given basically nothing to do but show up and look cool.  I’m assuming he will therefore have a bigger part in the next movie, but FUCK if I’m not still pissed at the Russos/ M&M for continuing to kick the Stucky can down the road.  As far as I’m concerned, they’ve never reached and real emotional catharsis or resolution that was promised in Winter Soldier.  Poor Bucky literally keeps getting PUT ON ICE as they used CW to set up this movie, and used this movie to set up Avengers 4.  Deeply uncool. 
FINAL THOUGHTS
The ending sucked.  I hate walking out of a movie theater on a down note.  I get where we are in the structure and why they did it and it will ultimately be fine, but it’s not a great place to end the movie.  It was almost as bad as walking out at the end of Deathly Hollows 1.  It would have been worse, had we not known pretty much everyone that dies has another movie scheduled.  I am kind of glad most of the Guardians are gone actually, since if Gamora is gone at least the others aren’t there to mourn her.  Pretty harsh to leave poor Rocket alone tho, as he’s the least capable of dealing with it. He’s going to make a good foil for Tony in the next movie. 
The stinger at least helped.  The nerd boys in the row behind me thought Fury was calling Nova and I had to correct them that it was Captain Marvel.  They were like “Oh, her.” Fucking sexist ass nerd boys can’t get excited for Captain Marvel.  It will be a great move into Phase 4 to have her show up and work with Gamora in the Soul stone to save all these emotional constipated male superheros who just can’t seem to deal with their issues.
Putting Avengers members with the GOTG crew really just highlights how much of Phase three has been treading water to get here, for every Avengers character but Thor and Hulk.  I absolutely blame Markus and McFeely and Civil War for this too.  Poor Tony has been stuck since IM 3 but Civil War could have done a lot more than look cool and manufacture conflict to get everyone in the right position for this movie.   
TLDR: Infinity War is better than Civil War but suffers for the lacks in CW, just as it’s buoyed by the strengths of the other franchises.  And fuck Markus and McFeely.
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vrahno · 6 years
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Most dubs in my country are rubbish, cartoon dubs especially, and that goes for the four Bionicle movies too. I went through them to see how many translation screw-ups I can find, just to share my (and probably other Hungarian fans’) long-held frustration with an international audience. You may need a few years to spare cause it’s a lengthy list.
Mask of Light
The title, ”A fényálarc” (The light-mask) is already iffy, as in the movie the artifact is called “a fény maszkja” (the mask of light). They also had some trouble with character titles like Toa or Turaga -- in this language, titles usually come after a person’s name, but the dub kept the English word order. Interestingly, the local release of the books (written by one of the movies’ translators) did mostly pay attention to this.
Unity, Duty and Destiny are correctly rendered as Egység, Kötelesség, Végzet, yet in the sequels and the books, they become Egység, Felelősség, Kötelesség (Unity, Responsibility, Duty). As a side-note, the G2 webisode dubs went back to the original translation.
Not technically a translation issue, but Pewku’s name is always pronounced as “Pevku”.
For specific examples in the dialogue, I’ll quote the original lines first, then translate the dub’s lines back into English as accurately as possible, with their errors intact.
Hold your Rahi, I'm coming! Hold the Rahi, I’m going! - “Hold your horses” is not a meaningful expression here, but they kept it in the dub despite there being other animal-related idioms they could have used.
Your own Captain of the Guard... The new Bodyguard Captain... New?
Must I unleash those who should never see the light of day? Must I unleash those who must never see light? - Another expression taken literally.
Their unity can be poisoned, their duty will be broken, and their destiny I must shatter. Their unity I can poison, their duty I can break, and their destiny I can prevent. - Terry’s talking about the Rahkshi powers here, so the last should have been kept as “shatter”.
Shadows that cower in the depths. Exactly as foretold. The shadows cover the depths, just as the prophecy said. - Mishearings and mondegreens are a staple of this translator couple’s work (yes, there were two people working on this shit). Did they even have the original script?
“But you wander off every chance you get looking for stories. What about your story?” “I don't have a story.” “Only 'cause you won't stand still long enough to make one.” “But if you have the chance, you wander off looking for stories. What kind of story do you long for?” “I’m not longing for a story.” “Only because you can’s stay in one place for long enough.” - So Takua’s looking for stories, but he’s not, because he’s too busy looking for stories?
“Keep 'em busy. I'm…” “Running away and leaving me!” "Keep him busy. And I’ll...” “I’d rather run away.” - Maybe not a mistake, there’s room for artistic freedom after all (and I think Takua’s line is kinda funny), but given the other examples, it’s just as likely they simply misheard the line.
Lewa in this dub doesn’t use treespeak. Instead... Word is deep-wood that you seek the Seventh Toa. The world is a deep forest if one’s seeking the Seventh Toa.
If Toa Lewa helped on your search, might he be a... spirit-lift? Say, if Toa Lewa helps you search, will he also become an... elevated spirit? - I know he’s kind of an Indian-hippy mix in this movie, but the fuck is that supposed to mean? He’s only asking if his company would lift Jaller and Taku’s spirit, as in cheer them up.
Er, I've been a second! But, er, I've never flown one myself. Um, I’ve seen such a thing, but I’ve never flown on one. - MNOG is not canon in the dub. (Or perhaps Takua means the Gukko he rode didn’t look like the movie design?)
Your village has fallen to… Rahkshi! The Makuta's sons. Your town has recently been... attacked! By Makuta’s sons. - So how do T&J know what a Rahkshi is if they don’t hear the name?
Frozen? What could do this to them? They’re frozen, how could they harm us? - This is another habit this translator couple has, reordering the original words and inserting some new ones to get a different meaning out of them. At least in this case, the line still fit the situation.
Takua’s grumpy “Tunnels.” line is missing.
Makuta originally says “They will not disturb you.” to Mata Nui, but the dub reinterpreted the line to refer to the three new Rahkshi. Some other dubs also did this.
Do you think the Turaga were right about us? What do you think, was Turaga right? - “Turaga” is not the name of a single character.
But, united, our power defeated the Rahkshi! But if we unite, we will defeat the Rahkshi! - Beyond mixing up plural and singular words, these translators also have a hard time interpreting past, present and future tenses.
I have but one destiny. Yours lie with the Matoran and the Turaga. We don’t share our destiny. Yours is tied to Matoran and Turaga. - The intended meaning is somewhat there, but sounds hella awkward.
Summon the Matoran! Conjure up the Matoran! or Subpoena the Matoran! - Yes, “summon” can mean those too, but the relevant meaning here is “gather”.
My duty is to the Mask of Shadows! My doom is the Mask of Shadow! - Eh. Both lines sound random, but I guess they sort of make sense if you consider Makuta’s originally intended characterization as a well-meaning guy who has been corrupted by his mask. To be fair, the ending scene of the movie is a mess even in English, so whatever. But it’s still not a correct translation
The city of the Great Spirit, my island home, refound. The city of the Great Spirit, my island home, has recovered. - I think the translators didn’t get Vakama was talking about Metru Nui here. Seems they thought he was referring to the villages on Mata Nui being rebuilt.
Legends of Metru Nui
The translated title has “legend” in singular. Not a big deal. What is a bigger deal is that titles like Toa and Turaga are now correctly placed after the character names... but they went overboard with it, as even the Toa Suva becomes “Suva Toa”, which makes no sense. It’s not a Toa named Suva, it’s a shrine dedicated to the Toa.
Pronunciation-wise, Dume is not only spoken aloud as “Duma”, he’s even called that in the subtitles. Nuju became “Nuyu”.
Prove yourselves worthy Toa. Prove that you are worthy for the Toa. - Again, it makes some sense but sounds awkward like that. Why not “for the title of Toa”?
Mask maker, you saw Toa Lhikan last, right? Mask pourer, you saw Lhikan Toa last, right? - But Vakama carves masks, he doesn’t pour them into molds.
... we sought out, found and recovered these Great Disks. ... to find and discover the Great Disks. - Great redundancy.
Cross the sea of protodermis, and be honored as Toa. Cross the protodermis, so we may greet you as Toa. - Since the word “sea” is missing here, Makuta’s callback at the end loses some of its context.
“Do you thing they went this way?” “Why do I bother?” “Ah, do you think they went this way?” “What does it matter?” - A joke died here. Nidhiki’s supposed to be lamenting Krekka’s stupidity (the Toa hopped into a one-way transport chute, so they couldn’t have gone any other way), not responding to him with a nonsensical answer.
Matau’s “Check out these wings.” line becomes plural in the dub, even though he’s only talking to Nokama.
“Stock boy” is translated as “numbskull” (I guess Onewa would say such a thing, but it’s still incorrect) and “record keeper” as “record holder”. The word “record” of course refers to “records of the past”, what with Whenua being an archivist, not “record achievement”, which is what the translators thought.
Look beyond your history, and see what is. Look beyond your past, and see what it is. - The exact opposite of what Lhikan meant.
You (singular) shall help both your brothers (plural). You both (plural) shall help your brother (singular). - Onewa is a single person and there’s two of his brothers there, you fucking shits.
I believe it is time to depart. I think it is time to split up. - But they don’t split up. They just leave the cell. He said “depart”, not “part”. This is another line multiple dubs misinterpreted.
"Follow me!” (in singular, since Krekka’s talking to Nidhiki only) “Hmm. No. Get down!” “Follow me!” (plural) “Hmm. Fools!” - The fuck happened here? Why are both Krekka and Nidhiki suddenly multiple persons each?
It's amazing what you can learn when you're not always speak-teaching. It’s amazing how much you can learn when you’re not being taught. - Nokama’s a teacher. She is the one doing the teaching, not the one being taught. Again the line completely changed its meaning.
Maybe he sneak-passed! Maybe he snake-sneaked! - Can’t decide if it’s “snake” or “sneak”, so just go with both?
“Hey, Nokama, I see us taking a romantic ride-drive.” “And you believe Vakama has odd visions!” “You, Nokama, do you feel-see what a romantic journey we’re on?” “And do you still think that Vakama’s visions are weird?” - Another joke lost. Matau’s fantasizing about a future ride that only he sees. Not only that, Nokama’s retort is worded wrong, as the emphasis is placed on “do you still think” instead of Vakama’s visions.
As mentioned, Dume doesn’t say “sea of protodermis”, so Makuta’s callback becomes the following: Perish in the real sea of protodermis. Die in the protodermis’ really-big sea!
Without the Mask of Time, it will take a lifetime's journey to find both our destinies! Without the Mask of Time, both of us can spend a lifetime searching for our lost destinies! - But their destinies aren’t lost. It will just take a long time to find them.
In MoL, the line “This is they way of the Bionicle” was translated as “This is the rule of Bionicle”. Here, it becomes “This is the law of Bionicle”. The third movie will have a third variation because another thing this translator couple hates is consistency.
Web of Shadows
The title on the DVD cover, “Árnyak hálója” (Web of Shadows) differs from the one they actually use in the movie, “Árnyak hálójában” (In the Web of Shadows). That’s a warning sign right there.
I gotta say this is one of the worst dubs of anything I’ve ever heard. Sure, there are dubs that are far worse on a technical level, and this one at least has passable casting and the dialogue mostly matches up to when the mouths are moving (or flashing). But there’s a thick aura of uneasiness, the line delivery sounds awfully stilted and forced throughout, and you can tell none of the people involved wanted to be anywhere near the recording booth. The translation is an even bigger mess than ever, and the VAs under and overact at all the wrong spots. There’s a few moments where the dub actually sounds great, but as a whole it’s a cringeworthy experience. I guess they were really fed up with these movies by this point.
Titles are again arranged in the English word order. As for pronunciations, Sidorak is for some reason called “Sidoraak” and Keetongu becomes “Keeetongooo”. And as if to make up for ditching Lewa’s treespeak in MoL, Matau’s chutespeak is cranked up to eleven, to the point where he ends up sounding like a fucking Gungan.
The Toa united in a dutiful pledge. They made a pledge to the Toa Metru vow of obedience. - The what? It’s also of note that the dub actually calls them Toa Metru, which never comes up in the original. In fact there’s lines not only in this dub but other as well that can’t be heard in the English version, so I wonder if the translations were based on some preliminary script.
“Well, that stunk.” “It would appear there was an error in our transport. Pilot error.” “Wow, this is smelly.” “It seems that an error has slipped into our transportation. A grave error.” - Fuck you.
Well, there goes the old neighborhood! That there is an old acquaintance! - Another expression interpreted too literally.
The Onu-Metru Archive houses a specimen of every Rahi beast ever discovered. At least… it used to. The Onu-Metru Container is chock full of the widest varieties of Rahi monsters. At least... the discovered ones. - Yet again they remove the main point of a sentence.
We go to the Coliseum, we rescue the Matoran, we leave. We go into the hall, finish our work, leave. - They said Coliseum in LoMN, so why not here?
I assume your telling me this without twitching uncontrollably means the Toa have already been captured. I assume when you talk about this event you have already trapped the Toa. - Leaving out chunks of sentences that can be tricky to translate is another forte of this couple.
“Well, fire-spitter, we can't say you didn't show us the city. 'Course, we can say that you got us captured, poisoned, and, seeing as I don't think we've been brought up here for the view, imminently smash-dashed.” Onewa barely audibly muffles „not Vakama's fault”. “He agrees!” “We can’t complain-say you didn’t show us the city. And perhaps nor that it’s your fault we got catch-caught, poisoned, and because we haven’t been brought here for the view, it’s your fault we die." “Baloney.” (clearly audible) “I agree!” - I agree too, but this is more than baloney, this is bullshit. How did “of course we can say” become “perhaps nor can we say”? Well, at least they got “we” and “say” right.
When Vakama starts mutating, the dub has the others react with: Whenua: “Hey, ho, ho, be careful already!” Matau: “Wow, that’s so dangerous!” Ruining what was meant to be a serious, disturbing scene.
Even now their broken bodies are being brought to me. And their broken bodies have been brought here to me. - “Even now” and “are being” are not past tense.
What do you say, mask smelter? What do you say, mask pourer? - Again with this pouring. Maybe they misheard “smelt” and thought it was “melt”?
Unity, duty, destiny. It starts with unity. Unity, responsibility, duty. Starting with duty. - Reminder that two translators got credited for this.
I'm sure it could have helped our old Toa selves, but… now? It obviously helps us reacquire our Toa selves, but...now? - The meaning is yet again changed to complete nonsense. So the Temple helps them change back, but it doesn’t because they’d have to change back for that first? And why is “it could have helped” translated as “it obviously can help”?
“You're not worried they're going to tell him you said that?” “They are loyal to me.” ”Right. Like you are to Sidorak!” “… Yes.” “Aren’t you afraid these are going to tell him what we’re talking about?” “They are loyal to me.” “Of course. Like you are to Sidorak!” “... No.” - The subtitles actually do say “yes”. So watching the dub with those turned on is an experience onto itself.
“I wonder what's taking the Rahaga so long, I mean how hard is it to get directions?” “Well, when they're to a creature that has not been seen since the time before time… hard.” “How hard can it be for Rahaga to discover-find the direction?” “As in the case of creatures that hasn’t been seen since before the beginning of time... hard.” - This doesn’t even make grammatical sense. However, maybe I’ve misheard a particular word (amit - amik), so just in case, here’s a different interpretation: “As in the case of creatures that haven’t seen since before the beginning of time... hard.” - Does this make more sense perhaps? It’s grammatically more correct, but it suggests that these supposed “creatures” are blind. In either case, the sentence is totally wrong, since the word “creature” in the original line is singular, not plural. Unless they meant that there’s more than one Keetongu, which is just as wrong. Or maybe they meant the Rahaga? That’s even more wrong.
Because of you, the Rahaga will be put where they belong: in a cage. Thanks to you, the Rahaga have been put where they belong: behind bars. - On one hand, I applaud the translators for taking advantage of Sidorak’s extra lip movements and fitting the words to them. On the other, the line still isn’t accurate.
What I applaud them even less for is their wrecking of Matau’s speech to Vakama at the end. In the original, the writers wisely held back his chutespeak to make the speech that much more convincing and serious. But in the dub, they stuff it full of these stupid made-up words that just make it laughable. I won’t attempt to type them all here. Just imagine it’s Jar Jar in Matau’s place or something.
Still, there are yet more things wrong with that scene. In English, Matau brings up the three virtues woven into his speech in succession, reminding Vakama of his life as a Toa. In the dub, both duty and destiny are translated as duty, meaning there’s only two virtues. Also, there’s this: You're our leader, Vakama. You're my leader. You’re our direction-leader, Vakama. Our leader.
Not strictly an error, but throughout the film, the terms “defeat”, “strike down” and “destined to fail” are all translated as “destroy”. Also, “elemental powers” never come up. Instead, they’re “special powers”.
In light of all you've given, you owe us nothing. Despite that I know you’ve given so much, you owe us nothing. - Again they turn part of the line completely around. Keetongu owes them nothing because he’s done so much, not in spite of it.
He wants to know why you'd want that. Seeing as you've made peace with the beast within. He wants to know why you wish that. Have you made peace with the beasts within you? - And yet again. The second sentence is not a question, it’s a statement.
The Makuta! He is gone. Makuta! He’s gone from here. - As usual, the wrong part of the sentence is given emphasis. The point is that he truly has escaped, like Norik claimed. Not that he’s gone “from this specific place”.
As for this line, the delivery is just as bad as the translation. I’ll attempt to convey it through writing: We'll find a way to defeat him. Because that's what Toa do. We find a method to defeat him! That’sthee... Toowah’s... faith. - And no, they didn’t choose the Hungarian word for “faith” because it fit better to Vakama’s mouth movements. Translating the line literally (”Mert ez a Toa dolga”, instead of “Ez a Toa hite”) would, on the other hand, have perfectly fit. But they didn’t. So they got both the translation and the lip sync wrong, and as a result the delivery is shit too because the VA had to make these silly pauses and needlessly extend the words where necessary.
“This is the way of the Bionicle” is rendered here as “This is the way of life in the world of Bionicle.”
So the couple who localized these movies are actually some of the most prolific translators working in the country’s industry, with decades of experience and thousands of scripts, books and comics to their name. Yet their grasp on both the English and Hungarian languages just keeps deteriorating further, and to this day they continue to wreck every almost dub they touch. I’m gonna stop fucking around and name them: László Katona and Zita Csányi. The former also translated the few Bionicle books we got in this country, and while they have plenty of issues, the translation is much more competent. Most people mainly have a beef with Csányi, whose dubbing scripts for animated productions are consistently some of the worst in the industry, and she’s especially infamous for the wretched translation work she submitted for the Ben 10 and Steven Universe franchises. I’m a fan of neither, but as a mere casual cartoon watcher, I’m appalled by the sheer stilted-sounding nonsense I keep hearing whenever I come across any of those shows on tv. Mishearings, taking foreign idioms literally, constantly confusing past-present-future and singular-plural, or just straight-up rewriting the dialogue into something completely detached for their original meaning.
But moving on to everyone’s favorite Bionicle movie (note: this sentence was translated by Zita Csányi)...
The Legend Reborn
Now, at the time Lego’s Hungarian website advertised this as “A legenda újjáéled”, until the web team got notified that the DVD is actually called “A legenda újjászületik”. A red flag already. The dub was produced by a different company and a different translator who was somehow just as bad. With this film, they didn’t even try to sync the dialogue to the mouth movements, so that’s the level of quality we’re dealing with here.
You never hear the word Glatorian in the dub. They’re just called gladiators, which gives me vibes of all the European DBZ dubs that avoided saying the word Saiyan at all costs. Also, the Skopio is merely a scorpion. Yet they kept everything else. The Great Beings are inconsistently called “Giant Beings” or just “Giants”. I take it the translator thought the Great Spirit Robots were supposed to be GBs? Not that the movie makes it clear.
Its name echoed my rebirth – the Mask of Life. My rebirth can thus be summarized as such: the life born from the mask. - That’s one way to overwrite a simple sentence.
You just won me a lot of bets. You won me heaps of money. - Bets in this case referred to Kiina’s conviction that there’s life on other planets. Maybe there was money involved (does Bara Magna even have currency?), but the translator probably just thought Kiina made a bet on Mata Nui’s arena fight. Which would make little sense as he wasn’t even scheduled to fight.
The Glatorian are headed for Tajun. The gladiator is headed for Tajun. - Ah, good ol’ singular-plural confusion.
Those Bone Hunters are gonna be eating Skopio belly for weeks. The scorpion’s stomach is gonna be digesting Bone Hunters for weeks. - This is the fucking opposite.
Not an error, I just think it’s amusing that instead of calling him a “filthy thief”, Kiina calls Berix a “goddamn thief”. I call him worse.
I like fixing things, and I'm good at it, too. I mean, c'mon, who do you think got the lights working, huh? I like tinkering with things, and I’m pretty good at it. Who’d have thought the lights here work? - Maybe it’s just me, but this doesn’t give me the impression that he was the one who patched them up.
Wait, what you did with the Vorox tail and Click, could it work with these? Wait, what have you done Click and with the Vorox tail, could you do it with this? - Did this translator speak either of the two languages required for his job, I ask?
Of course! Fire is your elemental power. The Mask of Life has simply ignited it. Of course! Fire is your elementary element. The Mask of Life simply recognized this fact. - This just sounds stupid.
Guess it's a stand-off. I think this is a dead-end. - I guess technically. But there’s more suitable expressions he could have used.
I told you, Raanu, pitting Vastus against Tarix would pack 'em in! I told you, Raanu, it’s a mistake to pit Vastus against Tarix. - That means the opposite you dumb fuck.
I saw them being dragged away. Through the hot springs. I saw that they dragged them away to the hot springs.
Did you ever think maybe you weren't the only one that needed to believe there was something more? Did you ever think that you were the only one who wanted to see more with it? -Huh? With what?
I am closer to becoming the warrior I must be if I am to reclaim my empire and free my people. If I reclaim my empire and save my people, I will become the warrior I wanted to be. - No. He has to become a warrior because he wants to save them. It’s not that he has to save them because he wants to become a warrior, you mongrel piece of fuck translator. To be fair to him, TLR sucks. Technically, the others do too but the dubs suck more.
If anyone’s wondering, or I should say if anyone even made it to this part of the post, there’s only one major translation goof I recall from the 2015 webisode dub: they called Skull Basher Skull Grinder. Oh, and the introduction episode just plain wasn’t dubbed at all, if you count that as a goof. The Journey to One wasn’t dubbed or subbed either cause Netflix’s online content still hasn’t been localized here.
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timelordthirteen · 7 years
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And Then You
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Nicholas Rush/Lacey French, Explicit
Summary: On a forced sabbatical from teaching, Nicholas Rush heads for the tiny town of Storybrooke, Maine, hoping for peace and quiet and the chance to work on his research. What he finds instead is Lacey French. Lacey's in a dead end job as a waitress with a abusive husband when Rush walks into her life. Over the course of his summer sabbatical the two become friends, and eventually lovers. There's more to their relationship than either of them want to admit, but Rush still has the specter of his late wife, Gloria, holding him back, and Lacey's way too good at lying to herself.
Notes:  This is for the lovely @anonymousnerdgirl, who prompted a Rushacey Waitress (the movie) AU. I didn't get to put in all the things I wanted, but I hope this still suffices. I am the worst Santa ever, in case you didn't know. I put in some timeline references since most of this story is flashback, but jumps to the present as well. This is only my second time writing Rush, so forgive my horrible characterization. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Posted in three chapters on AO3, but one big pile here. (11,752 words)
[AO3]
Late August
The duffel bag bounces unceremoniously onto the backseat of the rental car, the door shutting after it with a thud. It seems too loud and sharp for so early on a Sunday morning, and the lack of any passersby or any other sounds save for a few chirping birds and the wind has a strange finality to it.
He glances up at the pink Victorian house, with a small smile. Mal’s family home is definitely not his style, but he’d gotten rather comfortable there in such a short time. Crossing to the mailbox, he opens it and drops the keys inside, then turns back to the car and bends to climb into the driver’s seat.
There is no one to see Nicholas Rush off.
There is no one on the street, no other cars, and he doubts anything except Granny’s diner is even open down on Main Street. The house is clean and the few personal items he’d accumulated during his stay are in the trash bin in the kitchen. In a few minutes, it will be as if he’d never been here at all, as if he’d never disturbed the quiet little town of Storybrooke, Maine.
He knows it isn’t entirely true, at least one person is probably forever changed by his presence, and he is quite sure it isn’t for the better. Lacey French is never going to be the same again, not with her husband in jail and a local lawyer drafting divorce papers. Certainly not now that she is essentially homeless either. He made sure to leave his name and address for Midas, slipping a piece of paper under the door of his office before he packed up the car. Paying her legal bills and helping her leave her arsehole husband is the least he can do after upending her life.
Go home, Nick. It was fun, but it was never going to last.
Her words ring in his ears, making his neck burn and his chest ache. None of it was supposed to be permanent, and it’s probably a miracle it lasted more than a couple frenzied, adulterous nights. Inside he’s a jumble mess of feelings he doesn’t want to deal with, and knowing that he’s heading back home to California, having them at all feels like even more of a betrayal. A betrayal of whom though, he isn’t sure anymore. Both Lacey and Gloria have every right to hate him, he is an absolute bastard after all, and it’s a small favor that he’ll never have to look either of them in the eye again.
The discovery he made about his work, about what went wrong with Icarus has made him restless. It’s something that can’t wait, not if there’s a chance to resurrect the project and give it new direction. If the result of the university board’s inquiry is that he’s terminated, then so be it. He will still have a purpose in Icarus, and that’s what he needs now. Purpose and distraction.
Rush sits behind the steering wheel for a long moment, watching the first few drops of rain splatter and trickle down the windshield, before starting the car. The weather mirrors his dark mood. He keeps his eyes on the road, but as he passes the last shop on Main Street and heads out of town, his mind is elsewhere.
Late May
His so called sabbatical is probably just a formality on the way to firing him. While there are moments where he resents Mal for forcing him into it, it’s ultimately his own fucking fault. In hindsight, he hasn’t been handling things well since the abrupt termination of the Icarus project, but telling off the head of the department and then throwing a chair through a window is always a bad career move. He’s lucky Mallory stepped in and offered this chance for some time away, even if it was on the condition that he actually go away.
Once he is out on the road heading north, crossing from Massachusetts into New Hampshire, it starts to feel almost freeing. He doesn’t have to worry about preparing new syllabi or grading exams. There are no meetings, no office hours, and hopefully no distractions. He glances to the side at his satchel, the pile of papers and his laptop stretching the leather to its limit. If he’s very very lucky he might make headway on something, publish a paper in the spring, and be somewhat redeemed. At least academically. There are things he carries which cannot be forgiven.
The tall, dense trees loom over the sides of the road and cast strange shadows. It reminds him of the drive he and Gloria took up the coast to Washington one summer. It was the first trip they’d taken in years, and later would turn out to be their last. He hated everything about traveling in general, but something about his wife’s bright smile and her hair shining in the sunlight made it more than worthwhile.
A sign up ahead announces another S curve, and Rush squints. The setting sun piercing the windshield of his rental car as he rounds the first corner, hitting him right in the eyes. His head is starting to hurt, though he supposes that’s more from the hours of flying, driving, and lack of caffeine than the glare of the sun. He glances at the clock on the dashboard and sighs. It’s just after eight and he’s already knackered, but his destination is only a few more miles away.
Another green road sign welcomes him to the town of Storybrooke, and he slows the car as the highway gives way to a quaint, traditional Main Street, lined with storefronts. Ahead on the right is a glowing red sign that says Granny’s Diner, with an arrow pointing towards a light gray building. Diners always have coffee, and even bad coffee sounds like the best thing in the world right now.
The place is empty when he walks in and the interior looks like something right out of the 1950s, complete with a chrome soda fountain behind the counter. The white formica tables have a slight sparkle and the vinyl booths shine red in the bright fluorescent light. A woman comes out between two swinging doors with a stack of plates in her hands. Her uniform is comprised of a white button down shirt that’s tied off instead of tucked in, showing off her navel, and the shortest red shorts he’s ever seen. He can’t see her feet but the clicking against the tile floor suggests heels. Her hair is pulled back in a ponytail, the mass of brunette curls swaying as she walks along behind the counter.
Rush blinks. The whole thing is surreal. If it wasn’t for the scandalously short skirt, he would think he’s gone back in time.
The woman sets the plates down and shivers, her whole body shaking as she rubs her hands up and down her arms. “Hey there, welcome to Granny’s,” she says, stepping up to the counter. “Can I get you something?”
“Coffee?” he replies, his eyes widening as they meet hers. They’re very blue but tinged red at the edges with dark circles underneath. She looks like she’s been tired for a long time, a feeling Rush knows all too well.
“Sure thing.” She’s already turning around to the set of tall metal coffee urns behind her. A few seconds later she facing him again and setting down a plain white mug. “Milk, cream, sugar?”
She nudges a small dish of sugar and sweetener packets towards him. Next to them is a collection of half and half cups mixed with some kind of flavored creamer.
Rush glances up at her as he moves to sit on the nearest stool. “Nothing, thank you.”
He blows over the rim and takes a small, quick sip, biting back a groan at the sensation of the hot coffee gliding down his throat. It’s actually really good coffee, and he’s very thankful because there’s probably not a real barista for fifty miles.
A little while later, after she serves a few more late evening customers, workers from the local mine he overhears, she comes back to offer him a refill. He nods and doesn’t look up from the calculations he’s been using to distract himself from watching her walk around the place. The sway of her hips was becoming entirely too mesmerizing, and he’s not sure why. He chalks it up to feeling out of his element, and being so far away from home and anything remotely fucking familiar. His brain needs to focus on something, so it picked her. That’s all.
He notices her name tag says Lacey, which ends up drawing his attention to her chest. He lifts the mug and takes a small, cautious sip, trying to avoid any further realization about just how small her white blouse is and how few buttons are holding it closed. He can feel his face flush a bit, but silently insists it's the scalding hot coffee and not the fact that he’s actually noticing a woman for the first time in - well, a very long time, anyway.
Rush sighs and sits back, his spine pulling and popping in three different places as he stretches. He’s supposed to pick up the key to Mal’s place from a woman named Martha Lucas, but he was too tired to track down an old woman right now. His headache has mostly abated, but it’s left a lingering stiffness behind in his neck and shoulders. Caffeine had not been the answer. “Is there a place to stay the night?”
“Sure,” Lacey says, flatly. She jabs a thumb to the side as she straightens. “Right next door is Granny’s inn.”
“How convenient,” he mutters, flipping his notebook closed. He slides off the stool and pulls out his wallet, tossing a few bills on the counter. He’s sure that’s more than enough to cover his two cups of coffee, and he supposes that young women stuck in small towns, working at diners after nine o’clock at night should get decent tips. “Thank you for the coffee.”
Lacey snatches up the money, moving to the register to close his tab. She peels off the singles and tucks them in the pocket of her apron. “Yeah,” she says, giving him a small, tired wave. “See you around stranger.”
It’s three days before he sees her again, and by that time he’s already mostly settled into a pink Victorian that’s entirely too big for one person.
“Black, just like your soul?” she quips, the corner of her mouth curving as she sets a mug on the counter.
Rush picks it up, smirking. “Aye.”
Lacey leans forward on her elbows and watches as he scribbles some annotations in his little notebook.
“What’s that?” she asks, stretching her torso over the counter.
Rush looks to the side, spying her through a curtain of his shaggy hair. She’s wearing a wedding ring and he can’t recall if he noticed that first night or not. He pauses with the tip of his pencil touching the paper poised to draw another integral sign. “Math,” he says shortly.
She snorts and shakes her head. “Yeah, I can see that. Thanks, Einstein.”
She moves down the line to another customer, and he resumes working his way through his notes with a slight smile on his face.
The next day when he sees her there are marks on her right arm and a spot above her eye that appears swollen. His eyes keep darting to the ring on her finger, a small, round diamond solitaire with a plain band behind it, and he wonders what kind of arsehole she’s been saddled with and if that’s the reason why she hasn’t said more than four words to him.
Rush isn’t an idiot. He may not care for people in general, but he has no tolerance for men who would abuse a woman or a child. But he also knows it’s not his place.
He’s counting out money to leave on the table for her, when a man comes in. Lacey goes to him immediately, and though their voices are hushed, he can see they’re arguing. The man grabs her arm roughly, and Rush watches, digging his nails into his palm as he stares daggers at the back of the man’s head. Lacey catches his eye as he goes to leave, and he pauses with the door half open for a moment before stepping out into the summer heat.
The look in her eyes keeps him from falling asleep that night.
Early June
Granny’s becomes something of a routine for Rush. He’s been in Storybrooke for three weeks, and for most of it he’s kept to himself. There was a point last week where he was hit with another headache, and he realized that he’d been living off coffee and cigarettes for three days. He figured coming to the diner for lunch would ensure he ate at least one real meal a day, but staying until Lacey’s shift ends at three has become an inexplicable habit.
It’s not as if he gets a lot of work done, or that he likes to be around people. It just feels better being here than hanging out in a massive, old house all by himself. He thought it would be ideal, at first, but the place has started to feel oppressive and the strange creaks and noises keep distracting him. From the corner booth at Granny’s he can work on parts of his research, keep up a steady stream of very palatable coffee, and occasionally people watch.
Mostly, he just watches Lacey.
The man, who he assumes was her husband, hasn’t appeared again, and it seems that she’s just moved on as though nothing happened. Eventually the bruises fade, but her ring remains.
She likes to sit across from him sometimes, on her break just after lunch. She talks about nothing in particular, the weather, movies, or the small town rumormill. He chimes in now and then, if she pauses to pop another onion ring in her mouth, or if something completely ridiculous. Yesterday she went on about the purple elephant shitting on his car until he stopped and looked up. He knows she does it on purpose to see if he’s paying attention. If he ever says something incongruent she never mentions it, and the whole thing is strangely comfortable.
“So where’s your wife?” Lacey asks on a rainy Thursday.
Rush stops with his pencil halfway through drawing a sigma symbol. The tip breaks under the slight pressure and he swears. Her fork clatters to the plate, and he lets his head drop as he takes a steadying breath.
“She’s gone,” he manages.
He hopes she knows what that means, hopes it’s enough for her to drop it and never bring it up again. He imagines this is what she might feel like too. There’s a fresh bruise on her thigh, just at the edge of her skirt.
She doesn’t meet his eyes. “Oh.”
Mid-June
The Rabbit Hole is Storybrooke’s only bar.
Rush blinks and rubs his eyes as he steps inside. There’s a haze to the air in the place and a tinge of something burnt, despite there being no smoking allowed.
He has no idea why he’s here. He could just as easily buy a bottle of something passable at Clark’s drugstore or the grocer. It wouldn’t be the fine whiskey that Mal keeps in her office, or the expensive wine that still fills the nook in his kitchen at home, bottles that Gloria bought ages ago. But it would definitely get him drunk.
He spies Lacey bending over a pool table at the far end of the room. Her blue blouse gapes open as she lines up her shot, and a dribble of condensation runs over his thumb and drips to the floor. He watches her clear the table in ten minutes, her opponent never getting a chance to even touch the cue chalk. She laughs and looks around at the small crowd that’s gathered, then saunters to a nearby table to down a shot of something.
Lacey takes the money from Keith, making a point to snatch it from his fingers and count it in front of him. His glare is really all the payment she needs, but the extra cash is good for her emergency fund. She's got a decent amount in there now, but she knows leaving won't be easy. When she turns to head back to the bar, she spies Rush across the room. His eyes are fixed on her, and the corner of his mouth is curved slightly.
She licks her lips and gives him a wave, which he returns, surprisingly. He’s so hard to read sometimes that she can’t tell if he actually likes her, or if she could just as well be Leroy sitting there nattering on about whatever. There have been moments where she wondered, where she thought too long about his eyes, his hair, his mouth. There have been nights too, recently, but she isn’t ready to acknowledge that just yet, not even to herself.
They meet at the bar, and he smiles. “That was quite a show.”
“Thanks,” she says, feeling oddly elated that he was there to see the whole thing. “Not that Keith’s much competition, but he has a problem with his mouth writing checks the rest of him can’t begin to cash and I’m happy to teach him as many lessons as he’d like.”
Rush laughs. “What are you drinking?”
“Whiskey,” Lacey answers, and she realizes in the month he’s been here she’s never heard him laugh before.
He orders their drinks and they move to one of the tables against the wall. It’s a spot she likes because she can see most of the room and still be in the shadows. He’s talking about something, something about a friend and a billiards tournament in college, but her gaze is lingering on the open buttons of his shirt, distracting her. His voice is nice though, even if she only catches every third word, his accent thicker than usual. It might be the alcohol or he might just not care anymore if he sounds ridiculously Scottish.
She kisses him first.
He seems surprised when she pulls him against her in the short hallway leading to the men’s room. His hand fists in her hair as he presses her into the wall next to a poster for the library fundraiser. The floor’s dirty, the wall’s dirty, everything about this is dirty, but she likes it, likes how hard and wet his mouth is and the scrape of his teeth over her neck.
The vague sound of billiard balls clattering and the strained tones of Springsteen mix with the low rumbling of his voice in her ear, asking if she's sure she wants this. She hisses a yes against the skin of his throat, loving the way he gasps as she teases it with her tongue.
“Your place?” she asks, and the question lingers between them like their hot, panting breath.
He swallows, and knows this is it, one of those moments he can’t take back. “Yeah.”
He moves first, running a hand through his hair as he steps out of the shadows and walking over to the bar to close out their tab. She counts a full minute and then follows, striding quickly to the table where she left her purse.
Rush leaves the Rabbit Hole, his stomach in a knot. It was one thing to kiss her in the dark, in the back hallway of a bar, where they can both pretend that maybe it was just the alcohol. It’s entirely another to agree to take her back to his place. They’re both - well, he’s not married, not anymore, even if he sometimes feels like he is. But she definitely is, to a man who clearly mistreats her. Later he’ll wonder if that was it the whole time, if she latched on to him to get her out of a bad situation.
He’ll be wrong, of course.
She comes out a few minutes later, and they take his rental to the stately, pink house. The drive is quiet, but her hand doesn’t leave his thigh, the motion of her thumb burning through his jeans and making him half hard by the time they get there.
Rush shoves her against the wall inside the door, kissing her until she's practically climbing him, wrapping her legs around his waist while she claws at his shirt. They make it to the bedroom mostly clothed. Their shirts are lost somewhere between the top of the stairs and here, and they spend a few anxious, wordless minutes dispensing with the rest. She sits on the edge of the bed, watching him push his jeans down, and then his boxers, licking her lips at the sight of his cock. He steps forward to stand between her open legs and she looks up at him, waiting.
His hand cups her cheek, thumb brushing her lips before he says. “Turn around.”
Lacey nips at the pad of his thumb and grins, then scoots back on the bed, turning over until she’s on all fours.
The tip of his cock pushes inside her and she wiggles her ass, begging for more with her forearms digging into the mattress. Rush groans and slips inside her in one smooth stroke. She gasps, and he presses his palm flat against her back, pushing her forward a little bit more so he can go even deeper.
She’s wet and sticky and tight, much too tight, and he can feel her stretch around him, little squeaks and gasps falling from her mouth when he starts to move. It’s slow and steady at first, but then she’s moving too, faster and harder, slamming her ass into his hips, showing him how she needs it, and Rush is happy to oblige. He needs it this way too, needs it to be rough and angry, nothing like it should be, or that she deserves. It has to be different so he can lock it away and keep it separate from how it was before.
Lacey bites her lip and digs at the sheets. Her ring feels tight on her finger, heavy, and she can’t look at it. She’ll be raw and sore in the morning, but then she’ll remember how he feels right now, touch herself and ache for him all over again.
His fingers are biting into her skin, holding on as tight as he can while they move at an almost violent pace. There will be bruises, on both of them tomorrow, evidence that this happened, that it was real. But they’ll fade, as these things do.
He leans over her; reaches around to rub her clit until she cries out and clenches around him. The sensation makes him come too, whispering sweetheart over and over against her sweaty skin.
It’s the first time he calls her that.
Early September
Lacey sighs and leans over the table to grab an errant fork, dropping it into the plastic bin with the other dishes. Then she frowns and folds her rag over the end of a finger to scrub angrily at a crusted splatter of ketchup that’s probably been there since last night. Ruby’s always a little sloppy with the last clean up when it’s near closing time. With a quiet grunt, she hefts the bin onto her hip and strides around the counter to head back to the kitchen.
The lunch rush is over and she has time to think again, time to replay things in her mind and wish the outcome were different. She sets the bin down in the big sink and squeezes the rag in her hand. Her nails dig it, squishing dirty water over her wrist before throwing it down on top of the dirty dishes. With another sigh, she turns on the water and washes her hands. Most of the bruises are gone, and in another month or so this chapter of her life will be behind her.
She’s not sure what she’s going to do after that, where she goes from failed marriage in a dead end town. There was a moment when she thought she knew, when she was laying in a soft bed with the sunlight streaming in through the sheer curtains, his burr in her ear, soft and low as she orgasmed. But now -
Lacey huffs and pushes through the doors back into the dining room. Rush has been gone almost a month. He left her, and there’s nothing she can do about it, no matter how much it frustrates her. It’s not like she didn’t encourage him though. He showed up at her apartment, trying to apologize, and she didn’t want to listen. It had seemed so clear then, that it was all a sham, a way to pass the summer and fuck up her shitty life. Of course he was always going to leave, of course she’d always be stuck here. It had felt like anything else might unbalance the whole fucking universe or something.
She’s wiping down the counters and tables when she finds it. She had missed a couple dollars on one of the tables, left by Mr. Clark who owns the drug store. Her hand slid into the front pocket of her apron and there it was. The creases are worn from being opened and refolded a few times, and the paper has lost most of its crispness leaving it slightly yellowed and soft. She swallows and unfolds it carefully, laying it on the table and smoothing it flat with her palms. Her eyes close for a moment and she can’t help the smile as a memory comes flooding back.
Early July
Rush tears a sheet off her order pad and flips it over, his pencil moving quickly over it, letters and numbers and symbols. She understands little of it. His shirt is the same one he wore yesterday, and he looks like he hasn’t slept much.
“What are you doing?” she asks as he nears the bottom of the small piece of paper.
He sighs and frowns. “I thought I had something, but -”
“But?”
He crumples the page in his hand and makes a frustrated noise. Then he throws it towards the tray of coffee mugs. It bounces off the edge and lands in one of them, but he doesn’t notice.
“Nice shot,” she mutters. Then she fishes out the paper and unravels it, smoothing it against the counter.
Rush is nattering on about gravity fluctuations, and she has no idea what that has to do with his foul mood, but he’d been this way for the past week. They haven’t said anything about what is happening between them, and she’s not even sure what could be said. They meet up at the Rabbit Hole, they have a drink or two, they go back to his place and fuck. It’s simple.
They don’t call it what it is, an affair. Adultery. Cheating on a memory.
She looks down at the wrinkled paper and tilts her head. “Did you lose a y somewhere?”
Rush lifts his head and blinks. “What?”
Lacey pushes the paper towards him. “Look advanced calculus is obviously not my thing, but I did set the curve in my algebra class, and, well, you had a y here and then you just like lost it?”
He stares at the paper for a moment and then shakes his head. “Fuck,” he mutters as he leans back against the booth. “I’m a fucking idiot!”
His outburst draws a few stares, but luckily at two in the afternoon there’s hardly anyone around.
She shrugs. “You’re tired. You need to take a break.”
Rush rubs his eyes and then runs a hand down his face. His cheeks feel scruffier than usual, and he probably needs a shower, but he was on a roll last night and success has been hard to come by lately.
“Yeah,” he sighs. Then he scowls down at the paper and makes a note with his pencil. “You’re right though. I just lost the variable all together like some first year moron.”
Lacey laughs. “Well, I’ll try not to let it go to my head that I found a mistake in the great Dr. Nicholas Rush’s work.”
Rush gives her a look, and then glances around before reaching his hand across the table to touch hers. She turns her hand over and slides her fingers through his, giving him a squeeze before pulling away.
“Did you ever think about going to school?” he asks tentatively. He knows that she’s smarter than she lets on most of the time, keeping her wit to cutting sarcasm and billiards. She’s capable of so much more than this, and he hates to see good minds wasted.
She huffs and purses her lips, picking at the chipped blue polish on her nails. “I did,” she admits, “but, you know, school costs money.”
“I do know,” he says. It’s not like he could have afforded it either. “But there are scholarships. You’re smart, Lace, you could -”
“I did,” she interrupts. “I, um, I had a scholarship.”
Rush sits forward. “For what? Why didn't you go?”
“It was for dance.” She keeps her eyes on the table as she says it, glancing at him only briefly to see his reaction. His head tilts slightly, his brow knit. “I thought maybe - I don’t know.”
“Thought what?”
His voice is soft, and she bites her lip. When he sounds like that she wants to tell him everything.
“I thought I wanted to do something artistic,” she explains. “Like fashion or design. But the dancing, the performing, to keep my scholarship? It was all just too much. I didn’t love it anymore once it felt like a job, you know?” He was still looking at her, his dark eyes piercing through her, like he saw so much more than she wanted him to.
She rolls her eyes. “Besides, the world doesn’t need another art or music major, right?”
“Nonsense.” Rush frowns. “Everything has value. Every occupation. Not always in the same situations, you wouldn’t want a writer trying to redo your plumbing, but that doesn’t make what the writer writes worthless. And I happen to know there is a great deal of skill in dance, just like there is with music. Timing, counting. Harmonics as well. It’s all math, right?”
Lacey’s eyes are bright and there’s a lump in her throat blocking the words she wants to say. He shrugs, and she can’t help herself. She slides out of the booth and comes around to his side, pushing him towards the wall so she can sit. He’s staring back at her, wide eyed and surprised.
She kisses him and it’s different. The few times before has been hard, rough, all teeth and tongues and pushing each other against walls. This is soft and full of - something. Her mouth catches his bottom lip, pulling gently, her tongue brushes it once and then it’s gone. She’s gone. His eyes open and he is alone, the door behind the counter swinging back and forth on its hinges.
Early September
The paper crumples under Lacey’s hand, her nails digging in and tearing the middle. She doesn’t stop until it’s shredded all the way down, and then she balls it up in her hands, angrily squeezing it against her palm.
She throws it towards the trash can by the register, and misses.
“Fuck,” she breathes, leaning forward on the counter. Her breath is suddenly ragged, her heart slamming in her chest and grabs for the stack of napkins, wrinkling them as well and throwing them in the trash.
“Fucking fuck him!”
Granny ducks her head out through the order window. “You okay, Lacey?”
Lacey sighs and her shoulders sag. Granny’s face is nothing but kind concern, and for some reason that stings. She doesn’t want to feel this way about Rush at all. She doesn’t want to care, and she doesn’t want pity for it either.
A tear slips from the corner of her her but she wipes it away. “Fine,” she says, turning to Granny and forcing a smile. “I’m fine.”
The old woman doesn’t look convinced, giving Lacey a small frown before she goes. Lacey sinks down to the floor and buries her face in her hands. There’s no one in the diner right now and if she pops up unexpectedly she’s sure she can play it off. Plenty of people in this town already have a low opinion of her anyway. Who cares if they think she was sitting on the floor crying.
Just like that the front door opens and she hears Leroy and Mike chatting as they come in from their swing shift at the mine. She smoothes her hair back and rubs her eyes. No one said anything about bruises on her arms and face for the last two years, what’s a little red eye?
Later, as she’s ringing up Leroy’s bill, her foot kicks the balled up paper sending it bouncing across the floor. Leroy frowns, then bends and picks it up.
Lacey’s left hand clenches into a fist while she holds out his change with the other.
What’s this?” he says unfolding the paper. It’s torn in several places and almost as wrinkled as his shirt, but it’s readable. He blows out a low whistle. “Damn, sister. This looks complicated.”
She lets out a short, humorless laugh. “That’s an understatement.”
Mid July
“So, you’re married,” Rush says.
Finally, she thinks, giving her ring a cursory glance. Most days she doesn’t even notice it. Putting it on in the morning is habit. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t say anything else, just continues to work the numbers across the page. He’s got a bigger notebook now, three subject, having filled up and ruined the smaller one.
“And I’m sure you’ve noticed he’s a fucking asshole.” She twirls the straw in her glass of iced tea, watching the liquid swirl around in a little whirlpool.
Rush makes a half laugh, half grunting noise. “Then why are you with him?”
She sighs and sits back. “Same reason most women are, I suppose. He used to be sweet, I thought he was the one. Plus he owns our apartment and once my dad found out I wasn’t a pure little virgin perfect daughter anymore, he kicked me out. So I stayed with Garrett and just - never left I guess. He’s out of town a lot for work so it’s been easy to do whatever I want without him knowing. Neither of us have any friends in this town.”
He frowns. She knows as well as he does that none of those are good enough reasons, but he can see how a lot of people in Storybrooke just pass her over, look at her without really seeing. There’s a bruise by her eye again and he wonders how many of them have even noticed it.
“I’ve got a stash though,” Lacey says quietly. “I'm - I’m going to leave.”
Rush lifts his head and sets down his pencil. She’s staring at him, and he swallows. There’s an unspoken question between them.
She gasps when her back hits the wall just inside her apartment door.
It’s the first time she’s brought Rush or anyone other than Ruby here. It’s small but cozy, and she cleaned it that morning. Garrett’s in Florida for the week, and she wonders why she hasn’t done this before, why she hasn’t brought another lover home and fucked them in their bed. It feels like the ultimate fuck you, and she smiles.
Rush’s hands are in her hair, fingers curling in the strands and pulling just a little, and his body is pressed flush against hers. His lips drag over hers, open and hot, teasing a little before he kisses her properly, and she moans into his mouth, the lingering taste of coffee rolling over her tongue. When he pulls back, his teeth catch her bottom lip, scraping lightly, and he must like whatever noise she makes because he’s smirking down at her.
She raises an eyebrow. “So is this some like student teacher thing?” she asks, grinning. Her hips lift off the wall to push against his and she can feel his erection heavy against her thigh.
He laughs, low and a little dark. “You’ve never been my student,” he replies.
His hand moves to her thigh, lifting it until her leg is almost wrapped around his waist, and then he pushes hard, grinding the seam of his jeans against her and making her gasp with the friction.
“But I could be,” she says, smiling, her fingers pulling at his shirt. “I think I’d fucking kill it at physics.”
Rush presses a kiss to her cheek, then her jaw. “I’m sure you would.” He means it.
“Would you like that?” she asks, undoing the last button and running her hands up his bare chest. “Me sitting in the front row of your class every day? Short skirts, no panties?”
He groans and laughs at the thought because he knows what sweet torture that would be. “I do have some self control, you know.”
It’s her turn to laugh because they both know it’s a lie.
She remembers the last time at his place, just a couple of nights ago. She loved the sound he made when his cock slid in her mouth for the first time, the living room rug biting at her knees when she pushed herself forward. He swore when the tip hit the back of her throat, and she came hard to the movement of her own fingers when he pulled her hair.
Neither of them have any self control when it comes to each other and this. And that should scare the hell out of her.
He presses against her again and she bites her lip, letting out only the tiniest of gasps before he lets her leg drop. Then his hand is yanking the zipper on the side of her skirt down, and she sighs as he steps back, the cool air of the room hitting her fevered skin. He kneels, pulling down the red skirt and her panties with him, until she’s bare and her clothes are tossed over by her couch. He stops a moment, palms rubbing over her thighs, easing them apart as his thumbs touch the sticky wetness clinging to her folds.
They haven’t moved from the door yet, but he’s on his knees between her legs, tongue sliding over her clit. Her hand fists in his hair, her back arches, and she wonders what she tastes like to him that he likes doing this so much. He hums against her cunt, the vibrations shuddering over her sensitive skin as his tongue curls into her briefly, darting in and out a few times just to drive her mad with want. It makes her want him inside her again, spreading her open and seeing how deep he can go, but then there are his fingers, two of them, pushing into her.
Her hips roll against his mouth and hand, and he sucks on her clit, slipping a third finger inside, wanting to make her come. He loves that he can do this to her, and that she lets him, that all it takes is a lingering look for them to know what comes next.
Her hand tugs at his hair and he knows she’s close, slows his fingers and pulls his mouth away, licking the tangy sweetness of her off his lips.
“Fuck, Lacey, I love how you taste,” he says, working his fingers deep into her. “Love how wet you get for me.”
She cries out in frustration, loving and hating it when he keeps her on edge like this.
“Are you like this for him?” he wonders out loud.
It’s been bothering him all these weeks. If she’s seeking him out because her abusive arse of a husband can’t or won’t satisfy her, because she has no other options, or if there’s something more. He can’t decide which he’d rather it be, but there’s a tight, sick feeling in his gut that maybe this means nothing to her, even as he tells himself it’s nothing to him.
She bites her lip and wants to resist answering, doesn’t want him to know how badly she needs him, how no one else has ever made her this crazy. “No,” she gasps, “for you.”
He grins against her thigh and his hand speeds up again, thumb rubbing her clit until she comes. He laps at the moisture spread on the inside of her thighs, and then stands, offering her his fingers. She moans around them as she sucks them into her mouth, her hands already working at his belt.
Early September
Rush sighs and picks at the frayed patch of denim on his knee. He’s been replaying every conversation, every moment with Lacey in his mind since he got back to California. It's like a humming in his head, drowning out the gentle sounds of the breeze and the rustling leaves in the garden. He can tell it had taken a lot of courage for her to even ask, and he was a bit surprised it hadn’t already come up in all his time in Storybrooke. Of course he’d done the stupidest thing imaginable, the worst possible fucking thing he could have done because he was, basically, an arsehole who fucked up everything that wasn’t math.
Well, he fucked that up too sometimes, but this was worse.
Something had struck him in that moment, and it was like every word he ever knew, including all the curse words he so readily flung at his walls of calculations, fled his mind. He’d stammered and waved his hands, paced back and forth behind her sofa, and then he’d just - left. Like a coward. He went back the next day to try apologize, but she told him exactly what he needed to hear. It meant nothing. It wasn't going to last. So he packed everything up and left Storybrooke.
Now he's sitting on the back steps of the house he’d shared with Gloria for over a decade, staring out at the garden like he has almost every night since he arrived home. She had designed and taken care of it since shortly after they moved in, up until she’d been confined to the hospital. He's been paying a sizable monthly fee to a landscaping company to maintain it like some kind of memorial to the past. His head feels fuzzy, his mind unable to focus on anything but the scent of roses wafting on the breeze.
It’s been four years since Gloria died. Four years in which he’s gone from the depths of grief and depression, to nearly losing his job, to meeting Lacey and feeling like he was finally himself again. Maybe better. Maybe he’s actually come out of the other side of the worst day of his life a better person. Somehow. Or maybe he’d just finally given enough of a shit to try.
Rush snorts and kicked a smooth oval rock off the bottom step. It skitters across the paving stones and lands in the grass. He sighs again.
“Will you tell me about her?”
How are you supposed to describe the person you thought was your soulmate? How do you explain that they understood you better than you did yourself? How do you talk about the destruction they left behind by their leaving, the shards scattered around that used to be you?
And how the hell do you tell that to the person who wasn’t afraid to approach you, who accepted all your rough, angry edges, and who put you back together piece by piece without even knowing that’s what they were doing?
Some people live their whole lives and never find what we had.
He can hear Gloria’s voice like it was five minutes ago, like he’d just walked out of that hellish hospital room. He sniffs and swallows, swearing that he can still smell that noxious sterile scent. It smelled like people waiting to die, like hopelessness and loss.
Rush takes a deep breath and closed his eyes. Nothing about this summer was normal, and now he’s just supposed to go back to work on Monday, back to class and teaching and research. Back to his life, such as it is. He has to present his new findings on Icarus in a week, and he should be in his office going over every calculation for the tenth time. But he’s here, staring at some plants and trying to sort out his fucking life.
“She was -,” he says out loud. Then he frowns and looks around into the small yard thoughtfully. A crow cocks its head at him and then flies off. He sighs again. “She was a force.”
Rush smiles.
Yes, that was the best way to describe Gloria. They had enough similarities that they got on well, but to most they looked like complete opposites. He was - is - always a barely approachable misanthrope, while she was polite and thoughtful. They were both intense when it came to their work and very focused, but where he knows he can be too single minded when he gets into something, Gloria was more steady and even. She could obsess, certainly, but it was metered out over days and weeks of practice and contemplation instead of 36 hour binges with too much caffeine and no sleep.
Gloria was beautiful, smart, and funny. She was light and happiness in his otherwise dark, mundane world. The house still feels empty without her. It has become a place he existed, occasionally, and slept, sometimes. The couch in his office at the university probably gave him more good hours than his expensive memory foam mattress here. The house is just here, just a remnant, a memory best left in its fucking box.
The time he’d spent in that pink Victorian had started to feel comfortable. It was strange how in just four months he’d gotten so used to the trees and the clean air and the warm glow when the sun hit the windows in the study. If he closes his eyes he can see Lacey there on the sofa while he worked, her nose in a book, or sitting across from him at the diner, smirking about some joke she’d made at his expense and stealing fries off his plate. With Lacey everything had felt lighter and more vibrant again.
With Lacey, he felt - alive.
Just thinking about Gloria weighs him down and leaves a hollow ache in his chest. He’d gone to the cemetery yesterday morning after not having been there since the day of her funeral. He’d taken flowers and stood there staring at the headstone, not really knowing why. It seemed like the thing people did when they lost the love of their life, but it was an empty gesture. The walk back to the house was long and by the time he made it in the door his whole body hurt from trying hold in his tears.
The worst part is all he can think about was Lacey and how he’d left things. How he’d just plain left. She’d reached out to him, tried to understand him and the burdens he carried, and he’d just fucked off back to California, to the university and a job that his heart wasn’t in anymore. He rubs the back of his neck and tries not to think about that first time, how he’d pushed her against the wall, her smell, and the feeling of her legs wrapping around his waist.
The pain only seemed to dull when he was with Lacey. He had let the empty places full up for a while with her bright eyes, her laugh, and that endearing way she would bite her lip when she was thinking. She probably hates him, but he needs to talk to her, to explain if he can. He owes the truth to her, just as he’d owed it to Gloria when she lay there hooked up to so many machines. He hadn’t been brave enough to face things then, not really. Now maybe he can keep his shit together long enough to say what needs to be said.
Rush exhales and stands up, pulling open the back screen door and stepping inside. It snaps closed and he pushes the inside door shut as well, turning the deadbolt. He has come to some sort of conclusion sitting on the steps, like working back through the lines of an equation to find an error, and now he needs to get back to Lacey as soon as possible. It will mean flying across the country again, and driving up those winding roads to Storybrooke. It’s madness, but he has to try, he has to make things right. If she’ll let him.
Two Days Later
Lacey slumps against the couch and angrily jabs her thumb at the channel button on the remote. The paper she’d found in her apron pocket a couple weeks back is sitting on her coffee table next to a letter from her lawyer. A lawyer Nicholas Rush is apparently paying for. She pawned her ring yesterday for a lousy 500 bucks, and she has to be out of the apartment in a week. All part of the requirements for a quick divorce and a restraining order, but she has a voicemail from Mallory Vincent that a certain pink house is available if she needs it. Rush is responsible for that to, she assumes.
Fuck him, she thinks.
She sniffles and then swears, pushing up off the couch. She moves towards the kitchen to refill her wine glass, but stops when she hears a knock at her door. It comes again when she failed to move, but she stands there, staring.
“Lacey?” comes Rush’s voice.
She nearly drops her glass. She never thought she’d hear that sound again, and her feet take one, unconscious step towards the door before she stops. She closes her eyes and turns away.
No.
“Lacey!” he calls out again, thumping his fist against the door three more times. “Please open the door.”
She swallows and turns back, crossing the space and putting her hand on the deadbolt before she knows what she’s doing. Her forehead leans against the wall beside the door, but her hand doesn’t move. When he knocks again, she can feel the thudding vibrate through her palm.
“C’mon, Lace!” he pleads.
Then his voice drops. It was still louder than normal, but only so she could hear him through the door, like he knows she’s standing there undecided about opening it.
“I want to tell you about Gloria.”
His voice breaks a bit on her name, and Lacey feels her chest tighten again. She knows how hard it is to open up about these things. Sometimes she can barely say her mother’s name without wanting to cry, which is pretty unfortunate considering the new girl at the diner is named Collette.
“She was beautiful, and smart, and amazing,” he continues. “And I loved her, very much.”
Lacey squeezes her eyes shut, refusing to cy. She wants to scream at him to shut up and go home. It’s okay that he still loves his dead wife, she just doesn’t want to hear about it. She wishes Garrett was dead, that he was her great lost love so she can understand half of what Rush must feel. That might make it better, she thinks, it might make it hurt less.
She’s always been excellent at lying to herself.
“But she’s not you, Lacey,” Rush says, hoping his voice is making it through the gap in the door.
Hoping that the shadow he saw a few seconds ago is really Lacey and not the curtains fluttering or a trick of the light, hopes he isn’t talking to an empty room like a fucking idiot. Then there is a sharp click, and he steps back. The door swings open partway and Lacey moves into the space, looking like she’s barely holding things together.
Rush feels like shit. He wonders if he should have come at all and opened wounds that hadn’t even healed yet. “Hey.”
Lacey wraps her arms around herself, her hands pulling back into the oversized sweatshirt. “Hey.”
Rush looks her up and down. She looks so small and fragile, and all he wants is to hold her. “Can I come in?”
Against her better judgement, she nods and steps aside, and Rush follows after her, shutting the door behind him. She takes a seat at one end of the sofa and clicks off the TV before tossing the remote on the coffee table.
“So,” she snaps, “you’re in.”
Rush rubs his palms against his jeans, unsure if he is welcome to sit closer to her or not. He opts for the middle cushion, halfway between the other end of the sofa and her legs.
“Look, I’m a fucking asshole -”
Lacey snorts. “Yeah, that’s a word for it.”
His lips quirk and he nods. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry, alright? I should have brought it up sooner, but it’s -” He waves a hand and then ran it through his hair, falling back against the sofa.
“Hard,” she sighs, fiddling with the cuff of her shirt. He looks good in his white shirt and dark jeans, and that annoys her. “I know.” Then she shrugs and met his eyes. “My mom.”
He nods again. “Gloria was a force in my life. Like gravity. Steady, inevitable -,” he pause and huffs. “And fucking complicated.”
Lacey gives a short laugh and then wipes at her eyes. “I’m sure she was great.”
Rush smiles. “Yeah. But she’s not here anymore, and I - I didn’t even realize I’d come to terms with that until I left. I went home and - “ He shrugs. “It wasn’t right. It didn’t feel like it used to.”
He reaches out, hesitantly, and puts his hand over hers. After a few seconds, Lacey looks up and turns her hand over, letting him thread his fingers through hers.
“What did it feel like?” she asks.
Rush swallows hard and closes his eyes as his vision blurs. He feels himself squeeze Lacey’s hand and hers squeeze back. It grounds him in the moment and the lump in his throat eases.
“Nick?”
He opens his eyes and shakes his head. “Like a house,” he says simply. “Just - a house.” Lacey frowns at him. “I always used to think of it as home, our home. Mine and Gloria’s. Maybe even more hers than mine sometimes, but - it’s gone. She’s gone.”
Lacey squeezes his hand again. “It’s okay, Nick. I know you love her, and I’m - I’m not -”
“No,” he snaps, shifting abruptly so he is facing her, his leg pulled up on the cushion between them. “No it’s - it’s not that,” he tries to explain, his hands clenching and opening in the air between them as he fights to keep them and himself still. It won’t do to start pacing and waving his hands now.
He shuts his eyes and takes a breath, opening them again as he exhales between his lips. “I mean, yes, I love her, but - she’s not you.”
She feels like she’s sinking into the couch, like her very existence is unraveling because nothing matters. Next to the specter of Gloria she is nothing, she is not enough. Her bottom lip trembles and no sooner does she open her mouth to speak than Rush’s lips are on hers. He kisses her firmly, his hands cupping her face, and his lips opening just enough to catch hers. She feels the very tip of his tongue and shudders. When he pulls back his eyes are dark and wild, and she’s pretty sure she’s stopped breathing.
“And you’re not her,” he adds. “And you don’t have to be, so put that out of your head.”
Lacey scoffs. “Yeah, I’m not fucking gravity or whatever.”
Rush shakes his head again. “No, you’re - “ he pauses, his eyes staring into hers, like he wants to fall into them. “A supernova.”
She laughs, and Rush sits back, taking her hands in his as her body shakes slightly. “Right, okay,” she says. “I’m a catastrophic and destructive astronomical event. That sounds about right.”
Fuck if those words from her lips don’t do things to him, but somehow he doesn’t think she really understands. He’s shit at this. This is why he wasn’t able to face the hospital and the doctors and the inevitable. Sure there was Icarus to bury himself in, but that was always just an excuse.
“No that’s - that’s not - fuck.”
Lacey snorts. “I get it, Nick.”
“No,” he sighs. “You don’t. You’re -” His hands flail at bit as he struggles for words. “Unstoppable.”
Then he brings his fist down on his thigh and takes a breath. “And I love you.”
Her mouth gapes. “What -?”
He loves her. And he thinks she’s unstoppable. Nicholas Rush thinks she's un-fucking-stoppable, like an explosion from a collapsing star. And somehow that’s the best thing anyone had ever said to her or about her.
A lock of hair comes loose from her hair clip as she looks up. “Nick, I -”
He raises a hand and she stops. “You don’t have to say it. It’s - I just needed you to know, and if you don’t, that’s fine. But I went home, all the way back to fucking California, and - and it wasn’t anymore. It wasn’t home.”
He’s jumbling everything now, his brain rapidly trying to catch up to the fucking leap his heart had apparently made without permission. But he barely has a chance to say everything that’s trying to rush out of him before Lacey launches herself into his lap and kisses him, pushing her tongue in his mouth as her legs squeeze his sides. One hand goes in her hair, pulling the clip loose, while the other holds her face and tilts her head to a better angle.
When they finally came up for air, Lacey is grinning. “Shut up, Nick.”
Rush smiles. “You’re distracting me, sweetheart.”
She shrugs one shoulder and bites at his bottom lip, pulling a lovely feral sound from his throat. “Oops.”
He moves to kiss her again but she leans back, pressing one hand to his chest.
She closes her eyes, briefly, and takes a breath. It’s all so obvious now. “I love you too.”
The talking part of the evening is clearly over as Lacey starts unbuttoning his shirt, cursing as she goes.
“Why do you have to wear these fucking button down shirts all the time?”
“I’m a professor,” he snarks, slipping his hands under the hem of her sweatshirt. His fingers dance up her sides until his thumbs are brushing the underside of her bare breasts. No bra. “Fuck.”
She pauses, her fingers holding the second to the last button and gives him a look. “And here I thought it was because you looked so fucking sexy in them.”
He lips quirk and he cups her breasts, making her lose her grip on his shirt when he rubs the pads of his thumbs over her nipples. “I think you’re the only one with that opinion.”
“Mmm,” she hums and arches into his touch. “Does it matter - oh - if I am?”
Rush stops teasing her nipples, and brings his hands to her waist. “No,” he answers softly. “Yours is the only opinion I give a flying fuck about.”
Lacey grins and pulls the last two buttons of his shirt free before pushing it off his shoulders. “Damn straight, Nicky,” she says, smirking at the way he rolls his eyes.
“Hate it when you say that,” he replies, half smiling. Then he shifts and settles back against the couch, pulling her with him, and groaning as her hips roll into his.
“Obviously.”
She smiles at him, her heart soaring when he grins back, and leans in to kiss him, cupping his scruffy cheeks in her hands. His fingers curl around her hips and pull her closer, his mouth slowly slanting over hers. Her arms slide over his shoulders, one hand coming up to thread through his soft hair as she sink into the kiss. His tongue probes at her lips, seeking entrance, and she gladly opens, letting their tongues slide together.
After a moment, she moves one hand, skimming it down over his stomach and then the bulge in his pants. He moans in response, the sound reverberating straight through her. He pulls her to his chest as his mouth breaks away from hers to run his lips over her jawline. She lets out a small gasp and squeezes her knees on either side of him.
“Nick,” she breathes, and he hushes her gently.
Lacey is lost in the anticipation, heat burning between her thighs, screaming to be sated. They should go to her bed, she thinks, they should do this properly or something. It isn’t every day someone declares they loved her. In fact, it hasn’t ever been any day at all. Everything Garrett said was a lie to get into her pants or get her to stay with him. She can’t say that she’s ever really, truly been in love before right now. That should be sad, given that she’s about to turn twenty-six, that she’s been married. But she doesn’t feel anything except a stupid, flippy feeling in her stomach and an almost overwhelming desire to fuck Nicholas Rush into her lumpy, old couch.
She leans back and reaches down to pull up the hem of her shirt, twisting a bit to get it over her head. Her pelvis grinds against the hard ridge of his cock, her thin leggings no barrier to the wetness between her thighs. His breath hitches and he grunts out a little ‘fuck’ that makes her smile.
Rush’s fingers dip down to the waistband of her leggings, feeling her muscles tremble beneath his touch. Lacey French is fucking amazing, and he’s still reeling from the fact that she said she loved him too. Given how bleak everything has seemed for the last month, he hadn’t expected such an ending. Especially from himself. But the revelation of his feelings was too much to keep in, like when he knew without a doubt he had the right answer. Oddly, it feels just like it had when he realized he loved Gloria, and there is a strange comfort in that, a rightness in his mind and heart.
Lacey gasps out his name as his hand slips beneath the waistband of her pants and underwear in one deft move. Her fingers curl around his wrist, the other grabbing at his shoulder as his fingers slowly explored her. She can feel the callous on his thumb, created from the pressure of his pencil, as it rubs against her clit. There’s something so erotic about the little rough spots on his hands and fingers as they stroke her sensitive flesh. It reminds her of the scrape of his whiskers when he licks her to a frenzy. Rush has a lot of rough parts, but she loves every one of them. They made him feel so real, so human, like she’s really connected to someone.
“So wet,” Rush hisses close to her ear, his breath dancing over her as he circles her clit.
She cries out as he presses a single digit into her, hips moving earnestly in response to the mounting pleasure.
“Fuck,” she pants, letting her head fall against his shoulder. “Please, please, please!”
She’s close. Her pussy is already fluttering around his finger and then he adds a second, drawing a long moan from her.
“Oh -” Lacey bites down on her lip, her eyes closed tight as he thumbs at her clit just right and rocks his hand against her, fingers thrusting shallowly.
That is all it takes.
She cries out as her orgasm hits, her whole body tensing all at once as white dots flash behind her eyelids. It was always intense with Rush before, but this is different. They’re different. Everything is fucking different now that they are officially in love with each other. As the pleasure dulls to a quiet roar in her ears, Lacey smiles and kisses his bare shoulder. Rush is in love with her.
She’s going to have to repeat that to herself a lot.
After a long moment, Lacey lifts her head and looks down at him. “Hey.”
Rush smiles softly. “Hey.”
Then he pulls her down for a kiss that quickly turns desperate and needy. Her hips start moving against his, tormenting his aching cock as she moans against his lips. He feels her hands sliding over his arms and down his chest to fumble with his belt. Eventually she yanks it open, and starts tugging on his zipper.
He grunts and pulls back, lifting his hips so she can eased his jeans and underwear down, watching as she stands up to shuck her leggings. Then she straddles him again and takes his cock in her hand, stroking him firmly and tearing a long, low moan from his throat. The need he feels for her isn't new, but it is different. Before it seemed like only she could fill those hollow places he’d ignored for so long. Now he feels whole, renewed, and free. He feels like he can try giving back what she has given him, that he can let himself love her without reservation, and without the past holding him down.
His head lolls back against the sofa as she twists her hot little hand, smearing precum along his shaft. “Fucking hell, Lace.”
Lacey grins and then kisses him, desperate and messy. She raises up on her knees, breaking the kiss, and guiding his cock to her aching center. She lets the head slip back and forth between her folds until he keens. She gasps against his lips and he licks at her, flicking his tongue over hers, teasing as he lifted his hips. She lets her weight drop and they press together slowly, savoring the slow slide of his cock inside her, and moaning in each others mouths as skin meets skin with nothing between them.
“Are you sure, sweetheart?” he asks, panting, and she nods
Lacey bites her lip and moves back just a little, feeling him shift against her slick pussy. He pulls on her hips and slides back in, and she whimpers. Oh, it feels just as good as she remembered.
Rush breaks away from her lips, and presses his forehead to hers. His eyes gaze into hers as he rolls his hips up, lifting her and letting gravity draw her back down. Everything hot and tight, wet and soft.
“More,” she begs, running her fingers through his long hair as she rocks into his movements. Her knees push into the sofa cushions, the textured fabric biting into her skin, but she ignores it and moves her hips as faster.
Rush picks up the pace of his thrusts, using his arms to lift her as best he can, drawing out and slamming into her over and over.
“So. Fucking. Good,” he gasps, dragging his lips along her collarbone.
Lacey’s hands scrape over his chest, and curl around the back of his neck to hold him close.
“Oh, Nick,” she moans, her head falling back. “Yes. Yes!”
She’s close again, teetering on the edge. Her nails dig into his shoulders as she holds onto him, biting down on her bottom lip. Then she feels his hand between them, his thumb seeking and finally pressing against her clit. Her mouth falls open in a silent scream, everything so intense she can’t make more than a squeaky little gasp. The pulsing of her cunt brings him over the edge just after, and the look on his face in that moment is enough to make her tremble all over again.
He looks relaxed for the first time since she met him. Not even a whole six pack of beer, or the exhaustion after 30 hours in his office scribbling on the whiteboard has made his jaw go slack like that. When he looks at her, his eyes are dark, but glowing in the low light, more open than she’s ever seen. In that moment, Nick Rush is an open book to her, and she feels tears well up in her eyes.
“So, you love me, huh?”
Rush nods. “Aye, I do.” Then he gives her a lopsided grin. “Maybe next time we’ll make it to the bed. Or even out of our clothes.”
Lacey laughs and kisses, her thumbs stroking the soft whiskers on his cheeks. “Maybe,” she says. Then she turns serious and sighs. “Where do we go from here?”
He brushes her hair back from her face, the corner of his mouth curving up. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But I’m not leaving again, without you.”
“Would you stay?” she asks. “Here?”
He shrugs, his thumb brushing lightly over her neck. “Yes. If you wanted.” Then he smirks. “But have you considered moving to California?”
Her head tilts as she considers his offer. “Is the weather nice?”
“Nah,” he scoffs. “It’s shite. In the winter it rains for five days at a time, there’s fog every other morning, and the summer’s too hot to breathe.”
She shakes her head. “Sounds lovely.”
“It is,” he says softly. “The people are nice too, sometimes they even remember to use their fucking blinker before they cut you off.” Then he sighs. “But I have to start class on Monday or Mal really will fire me. I have a return flight tomorrow morning, so if you’re serious -”
She giggles and wraps her arms around his neck, shutting him up as she presses her body against him in a tight hug. It’s a good thing she doesn't have much she cares about here, there will be less to pack. “Yes,” she whispers into his neck. “Fuck this place.”
His arms come up to hold her, marveling at how perfect everything feels. Gloria was right, some people never had what they’d had, but somehow Nicholas Rush has been lucky enough to find it twice. And he’s never letting it go again.
54 notes · View notes
magicalgirlmascot · 7 years
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Heya I don't mean to sound passive aggressive in any way, but I was just wondering why is it that you dislike Super a lot? I mean you're allowed to like and dislike whatever you want, and I'm in no way trying to change your opinion. I'm just curious as to why you seem to have a burning hatred for it?
Nah you don’t sound passive aggressive ^^ if you were you wouldn’t have acknowledged that my opinion is a valid one, you’re cool
I’ve avoided going into too much detail to avoid The Discourse, but essentially it comes down to a few main points: ships I don’t like, characters I don’t care about, pacing, terrible one-note characterization, and the fans.
I know a lot of that sounds really petty but with all my Sweet Home Alabama discourse yesterday are any of you surprised
I’m going to put my more detailed reasoning under a cut because boy howdy it is long and I have some Things To Say
Ships I Don’t LikeOkay this, honestly, is incredibly petty, and it’s not even the pettiest thing on here. But I HATE Trunks/Mai. I hate it. It is the worst ship that’s had the word “canon” sneezed at it in all of DB history, and that’s coming from someone who firmly believes Yamcha/Bulma was unhealthy for both parties. One of my rules for accepting writing commissions and requests is that I will not accept ships with an “aged up” child character in a relationship with an adult. (Aged up children in relationships with other aged up children are a different story, as they’re at least at the same stage of development, but that’s an issue for another day.) Trunks/Mai has the opposite problem: it’s an “aged down” adult character in a relationship with a child. You can argue about Future Trunks’s age all you want, but that changes nothing about kid Trunks and Mai. She’s in her forties. He’s nine at most. How is this not the creepiest thing in the world what the fuck.
Even with Future Trunks and Future Mai, it still grosses me out because it’s the same thing. Assuming the Pilaf Gang did (somehow) wish to be young again in the Future timeline (which...I don’t see how they could have, that doesn’t make sense continuity-wise, but continuity has never been DB’s strong suit), that still makes her way older than him. And if they didn’t, well, that’s just worse. Also how is she still that young looking.
Honestly the only reason I can think of for Toei/Toriyama to bring that into existence was so people would stop shipping Trunks with Goten and Future Trunks with Gohan. Which. I get it, you don’t like it, they’re your characters, et cetera, but could you maybe not have done it in a somewhat less creepy way? Dude. What 40-something wants to be in a relationship with a kid? Even if said 40-something looks like a kid? It’s creepy and gross and I hate it more than any other canon ship.
Characters I Don’t Care AboutI’ve heard a lot of people refer to Super as The Goku and Vegeta Hour and...yeah. DB’s never been great at remembering their MILLIONS of side characters (humans especially once Z happened) and Super doesn’t take enough steps to change that imo. Don’t get me wrong--I like Goku, and I...tolerate Vegeta, but characters who were once considered major players are relegated to backseat viewers again, and nobody can keep up with Goku except Vegeta sometimes (when previously most of them could at least hold their own). I’ll admit, I like the looks of some of the new characters, there are some who seem like they have interesting characterizations (like Kale.....though I’ll be the first to admit I’m biased as hell towards buff women). But Zamasu/Goku Black or whatever just seemed like a couple of shitty Hot Topic teens. I went to high school with people like them and they were annoying.
There’s just too much of a focus on a few specific characters while other characters get the shaft, and the new characters and plot points they bring up just...aren’t interesting. I don’t give a shit about yet another “gotta get stronger” plot you guys. Ugh.
PacingOKAY I’LL ADMIT this is the pettiest thing on this list but like...I’ve never liked the DB anime’s pacing. Ever. Remember how I used to liveblog DBZ? I got like 10 episodes in and got fed up with how long it took to get anywhere. Stuff that took like...a couple chapters in the manga took five half-hour episodes to deal with. And you’d think they would’ve learned in 30 years, especially since they don’t have to base everything off the manga now, but no, the pacing is still awful. And it’s not just the whole “Namek takes half a season to explode” stuff (although that is really annoying, and knowing the real-world reason for it doesn’t make it less annoying), it’s that every shot lasts longer than it needs to. You could cut the running time in half just by trimming the shots slightly. It’s bad, and I’ve always stuck to the manga because of it. It’s not that I’m a Manga Purist(TM) or anything, I just...can’t watch the anime.
Terrible, One-Note CharacterizationYou all know who I mean when I say this, but it extends to more than just Yamcha.
Videl’s character was absolutely decimated in this show. 18′s the only female fighter we have left anymore because of it. I once saw an argument saying that Videl not fighting anymore makes sense because she was traumatized by being killed by Buu, which okay fine fair enough, but 1) nobody said she had to fight in life-or-deaths situations, AT LEAST LET HER BE SAIYAWOMAN AGAIN YOU COWARDS, and 2) that doesn’t mean you have to get rid of her firecracker personality and replace it with the sweet, docile housewife type. We saw it with Chi-Chi...sort of, we don’t need it with Videl, too. Once a female character gets married in DB, they stop fighting (except 18) and stop being important to the plot (except Bulma...sometimes (remember when Bulma was the main character? Pepperidge Farm remembers)). Three times is a pattern, Toriyama, I’m just saying.
Goku even gets hit with shades of this. He’s not an idiot, you guys, he can read a dang grocery list. Yes, he’s selfish and simple and bad at communicating and often doesn’t realise what he’s done wrong until it’s pointed out to him, but he’s also a fast learner, a really good tactician (like. look at some of his fights in DB and early Z, those are some Good Tactics), and not a complete asswipe. We don’t get to see those good traits much in Super. He had no reason to not tell people the stakes for the tournament to get them to join. None. There was no reason to lie. Yes, his biggest flaw is his inability to communicate with his friends and teammates (COUGHS LOUDLY AND LOOKS AT THE CELL ARC) but Jesus you guys, his friends would have helped him if he told them the real stakes too? He didn’t need to lie? There was no point? I’m so angry?
The worst of it though is Yamcha. For the love of fuck, you guys, Yamcha has more characterization than just “guy who sucks at everything and has a thing for Bulma.” Like that’s some Funi dub shit there, not original canon. What happened to when he said he’d given up fighting in the Buu arc? Where did that go? You could have done so much more with that concept rather than have him still be overconfident in his abilities and slamming him at every turn. Even when he does get to do stuff, it’s obvious that it’s just a setup to make him fail so Vegeta will look good by comparison. It’s awful. The writers have such an obvious hard-on for Vegeta and they keep cutting Yamcha down. Those bits where he’s waiting for Goku to ask him to the tournament even though we all know he won’t? They’re not funny, they’re just sad. Also, on that note, why is Roshi there? Yamcha surpassed Roshi years ago, Roshi himself says so! I get that he wasn’t in the RF movie because his voice actor was busy, but they couldn’t have given a better reason than just Tien leaving him behind because he didn’t think he could keep up? At least have him sick in bed with a fever and wanting to go anyway and being forced to stay behind by a worried Tien or something guys, geez. And his VA was obviously around for that arc of Super, so what the hell.
(Yes I was salty earlier about Yamcha still fighting and shit but if you’re going to drop the “Yamcha retiring from fighting” plot point then at least DO something with it you cowards)
FansOH GOD, THE FANS. Not to say that people who dislike Super are perfect or ideologically pure (I once knew a person who bragged about trolling/picking on Super fans...we do not talk), but the people who do like the show seem to spend an awful lot of time yelling at us and telling people they’re not real fans if they like GT more than Super or don’t like either or whatever.
And of course the VegeBullies are out in full force over it, too. VegeBul gets a lot of screentime, and when fans of other ships (GoChi primarily) say “hey we’d like more content” they get shut down or yelled at. They demand more content despite already having more than anyone else at this point. Shut the fuck up and let me enjoy the fact that Tien and Yamcha stood next to each other again in peace.
But that’s getting dangerously close to ship war territory and I try to stay out of that. (It’s hard, because I’m a salty, bitter person, but I try.) I’ll also say Not All VegeBuls(TM) even though I shouldn’t have to because if I don’t I’ll get at least 10 angry anons in my inbox flipping their shit.
You know what the really sad thing is? When Super was first announced, I was mega excited. And I really liked the first couple episodes! But they veered away from making it the Martial Arts Themed Slice of Life Comedy Hour we deserved, they retold the same story the movies already did instead of just making the movies canon and continuing from there (thereby drawing it out way too much), and they just...fucked it up in general. I can’t stand Super and while I don’t expect to sway anyone’s opinion with this, you did ask me why, and I hope now you can understand.
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Vol. 5: January Recommendations
Aaaand, we’re back for another month of irregular recs! Click below for the list!
The Pure and Simple Truth by 221b_hound  | @221b-hound
Rating: Mature
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: Eventual Sherlock/John
Summary: The truth wasn’t always beautiful, but it was theirs. The truth of Sherlock and John and Mary; the truth of siblings and the terrible things they did. It wasn’t pure or simple, but it was what it was.
Crickette’s Note: I know I’ve rec’d other stories by 221b_hound. I absolutely want to visit her Captain’s of Industry AU. I would have to say that her Lock and Key series is probably in my top 5 all time most favorite fan writing in this fandom.
This is a break from my usual rec a fic. I am rec’ing the series. I believe that like her other series 221b_hound will weave masterful storytelling and that after S4 this will be the very series a lot of us will want to glom on to. Her characterization of Holmes and Watson is in my opinion what is going on under the surface of the show. So give it a read, yeah? (Also read Lock and Key, Unkissed, Captains of Industry.) (Do it.) (Right now.)
The Liquid Measure of Your Steps by Mazarin221b | @mazarin221b 
Rating: Explicit
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: Sherlock/John Watson
Summary: The murder of a young alpha dancer at a posh omega club gives John and Sherlock a peek into the shadier side of the entertainment industry, where young, unsuppressed alphas are left as vulnerable targets to any omega intent on using their own bond compulsion against them.
Crickette’s Note: So this story is from Alpha/Omega Universe. I adore this. None of the issues with consent. The banter between Sherlock and John is some of my favorite. It reads real. “Animate Cock!” I just wanted to say that. Anyway, I have read this story more than once. This story might be my go too when I read bad A/O and I need eyeball bleach. I wanted to rec this because I really enjoy the universe that she creates and would love to see more from it.
Where the Good Things Grow by Anchors
Rating: Mature
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/ John Watson
Summary: "I have a magic garden."
As come-ons go, John's heard worse.
Crickette’s Note: Hands down this story is magical and lovely. The writer uses bright descriptions that make you visualize exactly where you are. Plus it’s magic tea. I love tea. Especially magic tea. The writing is very lyrical and I enjoyed it. I keep thinking. It was beautiful.. Sorry you’re going to have to read it to understand. I can’t quite capture it and that is a good thing in this case.
Fire and Ice by Laur | @notesoflore
Rating: Explicit
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/ John Watson
Summary: They hadn’t seen each other since Autumn, when John’s power had been fading and Sherlock’s growing. Now that it was Spring, the balances were shifting again, and Sherlock drank in the signs of John’s increasing vitality. The Summer King’s hair, dulled silver during the cold Winter months, was beginning to sprout threads of gold again; the skin peeking out of his warm clothing, too pale still, was regaining its bronzed tones.
“It’s been a long Winter,” John accused, his words billowing into the air. Sherlock inhaled deeply, pulling that damp, Summer-sweet cloud into his lungs. “Your eyes are as icy as ever, but I swear,” he pulled a hand from his coat pocket and reached up, “every Spring, when I touch you…” His burning hot fingertips brushed Sherlock’s frozen cheek, and the Winter King gasped, a shudder rippling through his body as his gaze bore into John’s, “…they melt.”
Crickette’s Note: Lymphadei and I talk a lot about this list and we usually start the month off with.. Well this is what I’m thinking… and Oh yeah that’s a great fic, have you read this one? When I got the notification that this was posted (I subscribe to Laur and you should too!) I told myself to wait because I was working on something. But then Lymphadei linked me. So I took it as kismet and read it. As soon as I finished I sent her a message. I CALL DIBS IT'S MINE! I’M REC’ING IT!!! It’s all ok because I think she has a Laur story she is rec’ing this month too! The magical realm this is set in it just perfect. I love the idea of them as these fey creatures. I would love to see more from this universe. Especially if there is more Johnlock. It's hard to explain without giving total spoilers.
Like Relationship Counseling (But with Bruises) by PoppyAlexander | @fuckyeahfightlock
Rating: Mature
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Summary: "God, you filthy bugger."
Crickette’s Note: I actually told a friend that this story was so fucking hot that everyone should read it and cuddlefuck it. Yep. Cuddlefuck this. The banter is perfect, the back and forth between John and Sherlock is sexy as fuck. Oh and it's switchlock at its very best. So fun for everyone. I absolutely adore PoppyAlexander’s work.. I tend to try and savor her work, so I stop myself from binge reading each thing, its more like I find it when I find it and then remind myself not to go crazy. I do reread a lot of her stuff… One day I will have read it and I will be sorry. You can’t go back and read something for the first time all over again. But you? You should binge read everything she does. Its brilliant.
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The Seafarer; or, A question of Time by DoubleNegative | @onethousandhurrahs
Rating: Explicit
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Summary: “Put two ships in the open sea, without wind or tide, and, at last, they will come together. Throw two planets into space, and they will fall one on the other. Place two enemies in the midst of a crowd, and they will inevitably meet; it is a fatality, a question of time, that is all.” - Jules Verne The Indian Ocean, 1880: John H. Watson, MD, meets Sherlock Holmes and is deduced.
Lymphadei’s note: Anything written by DoubleNegative is, in my opinion, a gift from the Johnlock gods. Throw in a bit of history and forbidden romance, and I am living! If the sexual tension is not enough to get your blood pumping, then a good villain and background sapphic romance should do the trick. The build-up is slow and pleasure is deferred, but the story is well worth the wait.
The OtherWorld by Laur | @notesoflore
Rating: Teen
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Summary: Dealing with a personal loss, the grieving Holmes family moves to the Pink Palace Apartments, out in the middle of nowhere. Sherlock hates it - the boring house, the weird neighbours and especially his newfound stalker John. But then he's lured through a secret passageway to a whole OtherWorld, where nothing is ever boring and everything is as it should be, and embarks on an adventure that could mean leaving the real world behind forever. A Coraline fusion.
Lymphadei’s note: Soooo, I love Coraline??? So when I saw this, I screamed? Like, is that even normal? Obviously, Laur’s works have become quite a favorite for Crickette and I. The writing is always beautiful and the plots, intriquing. The OtherWorld was no different. Laur simply took a brilliant movie and made it her own in a quite a clever and enjoyable way. The more I gush, the more I give away, but if you’ve seen Coraline, then you’ll have a basic idea of where the story goes. Just don’t get too comfortable.
W.A.T.S.O.N. by nondeducible | @nondeducible
Rating: Gen
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Summary: Sherlock has been called a cold, calculating and heartless machine throughout his adult life. It’s only fitting that he finds his first true friend in an Artificial Intelligence.
Lymphadei’s note: I can’t even begin to say how sweet I found this story… Okay, well obviously I can, but seriously! I love this story. Being a strongly empathetic person, sometimes to my detriment, fics like these just pull at my heartstrings. Sherlock was so alone and once again, as in every story of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, only one man (or machine) was capable of being his conductor of light. If you’ve nothing on, go read this right now. It’s a lovely AU that will leave you wanting more.
Miles to Go Before I Sleep by Cyphernaut
Rating: NR
Pairing: Sherlock/John, Greg/Mycroft
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Summary: Sherlock charges Mycroft with John's safety while he's off tearing down Moriarty's web. Mycroft takes this a step further and brings John home with him, using what he knows of Sherlock and John's (non-sexual) ageplay relationship to create an impromptu "happy family" with Greg.
Lymphadei’s note: Look, I’d just finished rereading the Wee Doctor series by Americanjedi and I needed some daddy Sherlock. I was not disappointed. It’s mostly platonic save for a bit when John is “Big.” Then, I put my slash goggles on. I would say it’s up for interpretation. For the most part, we get to see a sweet side of both Greg and Mycroft, and a John that is too cute for words. Once again, it is proven that Sherlock is willing to do anything for John, so if you’re still reeling from TLD like me, this is a wonderful read.
Perpetual Motion by Fay (Orphaned account)
Rating: Explicit
Pairing: Sherlock/John
Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Summary: Everyone thinks that they're a couple, but Sherlock's self-sexual and John's straight, so they're never going to fall in love, are they? Even if neither of them can imagine life without the other. **** Sherlock hadn’t been in the least bit cold, but he felt warm through and through when John snuggled in beside him. He wondered idly if they could stay like this forever; cuddled up in front of the fire with nothing more complex to solve than the mystery of the box in John’s pocket. “You said that had a present for me,” he murmured with his lips almost touching John’s earlobe. “A small present,” cautioned John. He reached into his dressing gown and drew out a flat box wrapped in unadorned royal blue tissue paper. “Still it’s the thought that counts.” Sherlock arched an eyebrow. “And what thought was that?”
Lymphadei’s note: So, a majority of fics I’ve recced today are fairly innocuous. Yeeeeah, not this one. Here be lots of sex. Lots. We get a bit of interesting background on Sherlock as well as front row seats to witness the developing relationship between our Baker Street Boys. There’s no “bromance” to be found here, but pure, explicit gay sex and romance between men. If that doesn’t hook you in, I don’t know what else will.
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That’s all for today, folks. See ya next month!
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charliedayofficial · 7 years
Note
do you have any fics that are JH and after s8 where they like get back together?
Hi, anon! Sorry for taking so long to respond but I’ve been scouring all of my previously read fics and the ones in my TBR folder to see what I can recommend to you. While I haven’t read all of these, I've skimmed them all enough to the point where they’re written in a style I like(I’m not big on script format or first person fics). Anyway, here is what I was able to dig up for you!
Nowhere But Lost by Zenkindoflove
Author Summary: Hyde is cynical, depressed, alone, and would really like to keep it that way. But what happens when something inside of him resurfaces and is more than unhappy about his current living arrangements? JH, ED COMPLETE!
My Thoughts: This is seriously one of my all-time favorites. Characterization is great, the plot is great, JH is so fucking cute, and there isn’t much to complain about when it comes to the writing. While this plot isn’t THAT unique, it really doesn’t matter. PLEASE READ!
Outside Looking In by rebeldivaluv
Author Summary: Interconnected vignettes telling key moments in Jackie and Hyde’s relationship, as viewed by the people who know them best.
My Thoughts: Out of all the fics I’ve read, this seriously might be my absolute favorite. The characterization is really spot on, the characters are funny, the writing/story is amazing, and I get everything I want to see with JH. This one is pretty fluffy, which I can’t complain about. I’m really impressed that the author was able to craft a fluffy fic where JH have to get back together, but there’s no angst that makes your heart hurt. I really enjoy reading from other characters perspectives and how they see JH interact in different situations. Cannot recommend enough!
Steven Who? by kezztip
Author Summary: Set just after Misfire Season 8 – Jackie’s world tumbles in on her when she realizes it is really over for her and Hyde and seeks to escape how awful her reality has become. The method of that escape is pure Jackie
My Thoughts: A perfect mix of angsty, funny, and sweet. kezztip is the queen of writing season 8 fics
Come Clarity by Zenkindoflove
Author Summary: Twenty years is a long time to stay gone…
My Thoughts: I personally find this to be the most accurate post season 8 fic where more than 3 years have passed. I’ve never found it believable in other post-season 8 fics where Hyde has a significant other that isn’t Jackie. Jackie changed the game for him so I don’t see him able to fully/truly commit to someone else. This fic is beautiful, cute, funny, and JH is in their purest form. I also enjoy that the author didn’t have the story focus on them talking through their issues from their last breakup, it was more so on reconciliation and finding each other. I wouldn’t say this fic is fluff, but I also wouldn’t say that it’s angsty. Please read it though lol
20 Questions by ShanghaiLily
Author Summary: Just after New Year’s day in 1980, Jackie Burkhart decides to disappear from the basement to save her sanity. When Xmas rolls around and the Formans beg Jackie to attend their party, she ends up involved in an elaborate game of 20 Questions with Hyde that could change both of their lives. T-rated w/ some M chapters. Story is COMPLETE! This one is for the Zennies who hate Season 8!
My Thoughts: This story is really enjoyable, but not perfect. This author tends to be really hit or miss with the characterization of the characters so it can be slightly irritating. Even though how JH and their relationship is described can be frustrating, the story is good enough to look past it. This story just has a really creative way of getting JH back together
The Morning After by ShanghaiLily
Author Summary: Jackie goes to Las Vegas for Fez’s wedding, drinks a little too much, and then wakes up in married to the last person she ever thought would commit to her. This is what happens the morning after.
My Thoughts: Like I mentioned earlier, this author really has hit-or-miss characterization. I really like this fic though because I’m a sucker for Hyde not only being a complete sap over Jackie, but it’s nice to see him kiss her ass. Let’s be real, we all deserve it after the travesty of season 8
That’s My Baby by kezztip
Author Summary: This is a JH story with a twist instead of the wedding and baby being the happy ending, it’s going to be the rocky start. All of you who love to watch Jackie outzen Hyde will be on board with this one.
My Thoughts: This is definitely my favorite kezztip fic. Jackie is so strong in this fic, which I can never get enough of. The author really has Donna grovel to Jackie as well because Donna is TERRIBLE to her in season 8. The writing and characterization are just so well done in this story. I seriously cannot stress that enough! I find it to be the most realistic JH reunion fic post-season 8 because of Jackie’s attitudes towards the gang, her new life/job, and her new outlook on life. After Fez, I can really see her shutting down her hopeless romantic side so she can focus on something she can control; like work. The middle of the fic kind of drags because it’s very clear what the author intends to do, but it quickly picks back up once that part of the story is resolved. This is a must read, especially with what you’re looking for!
The Right Road Lost by zpplnchick
Author Summary: After a car accident, Hyde wakes up to a twisted version of reality he comes to find is actual hell and with no memory of how he got there, a hell that Jackie’s been living in for the past few months. Set during Season 8, shortly after “Sweet Lady”.
My Thoughts: A more detailed, drawn-out, and angstier version of “Nowhere But Lost”
The Tough Get Going by kezztip
Author Summary: What if Jackie went back to her job in Chicago instead of sticking around Point Place to take Hyde’s crap? Say hello again to the strong, determined Jackie we saw glimpses of in Season 7 as she finds a new love but then is pursued by her old love JH AU
My Thoughts: !STRONG JACKIE! and the plot kind of reminds me of a rom-com
Made Bare by mistymountainhop
Author Summary: A heartbroken Hyde considers his relationship with Jackie kaput. Too bad Jackie sees it differently. She intends to get a proper resolution with him, but breaking through his hostility—and getting past his wife—may well prove impossible
My Thoughts: Noone understands JH better. Period.
November Rain by luvcali76
Author Summary: JH Post Season 8. A torrid encounter on Halloween night, 1984, leads ex-couple, Jackie and Hyde, to spend the next month reevaluating their past.
My Thoughts: *sigh* I really hesitate adding this to my list because I really hate this fic. The only thing I like about it is the last chapter, but even that is eh. This is a really popular fic in the fandom, but it’s definitely not for me. I find it too angsty, I don’t buy Hyde in another serious romantic relationship, and I don’t buy Jackie cheating. There’s a trend in some JH fics where they have Jackie cheat on whoever she’s with so she can have these one-night-stands with Hyde. It’s not in Jackie to cheat, no matter who it’s with. It bothers me and the plot isn’t good enough for me to look past it. It’s super angsty too, which also aren’t my favorite so maybe that’s why I don’t like it so much. I’m adding it to the list though because many people do like it, and you may be one of them!
Imagine by heatherlea75
Author Summary: 1980 has been a lousy year for the entire gang, particularly Hyde and Jackie. When a beloved cultural icon dies, the two take an impulsive trip to New York, together. While there, they remember old impressions of one another and discover new things about themselves
My Thoughts: While this is a JH classic in the fandom and a ton of people love it, I’m not the biggest fan. One of the main problems I had with it was I found Jackie acting way too desperate to appease Hyde after all he had done to her in season 8. It is important to note that the writing is solid and there were parts of the story that I did enjoy. While it may not be my cup of tea, you may like it!
Chasing the Time by pastelpink
Author Summary: Everything was different apart from one thing: Jackie still loved Hyde. (Set during Season 8)
Cliches and Things They Say by heatherlea75
Author Summary: Jackie is looking forward to the new direction her life has taken. Hyde is happy with the same old, same old of his. But when once faces a familiar and seemingly inevitable situation, and the other an unexpected dressing down, both reevaluate their lives.
My Thoughts: I’m surprised that I haven’t read this yet, but I found it buried down deep in my TBR folder. The writing is solid, there’s definite angst, and you’ll definitely get the ending you’re looking for!
Misguided Ghosts by JoyfulHeartEO
Author Summary: The gang has left, Jackie and Hyde are the only ones left. But after Sam left they stopped talking. When something happens to Jackie will Hyde be there for her? Or will he be selfish and only help himself. Its time to grow up, but will he?
My Thoughts: While this fic is incomplete and not the best written, there’s a super sweet Hyde in it which is always a fun thing
Life As A House by kezztip
Author Summary: A Crossover with the movie - Jackie’s Uncle George invites her to spend the summer with him to help with a ‘special project’. She agees but she will get more than she bargained for when she finds out the real reason behind her Uncle’s invitation.
My Thoughts: kezztip is one of my favorite fanfic authors for season 8 related fics. She usually crafts a strong Jackie who stands up for herself, something that we didn’t get to see in season 8. While this isn’t the best fic she’s written, it’s still worth a read!
Friends or Lovers? by JoyfulHeartEO
Author Summary: N/A
My Thoughts: This fic is super long and the author is known for their sugary sweet fics. From what I’ve skimmed, this looks to be her attempt at an angsty fic. This could be a hit-or-miss, but it should be pretty decent 
Pain Without Love by YouLivexYouDie
Author Summary: Three-shot. Jackie Burkhart is about to experience something life changing. She will never be the same afterward nor will the people who love her. Eventual JH
My Thoughts: This actually looks really good! The writing looks pretty well done and what I’ve seen has definitely intrigued me. While this place during season 8, it’s still basically what you’re looking for
Happy Holidays by YouLivexYouDie
Author Summary: Three-shot. Jackie planned on spending the holidays alone, that was until Eric Forman decided to come back from Africa early. JE friendship, eventual JH.
My Thoughts: I love fics with Jackie and Eric friendship, especially when Eric helps JH and their relationship. This also takes place during season 8 instead of after
All It Takes Is Love by SwanseaGurl
Author Summary: Jackie Hyde post season 8, two shot
My Thoughts: Also takes place during season 8(Sam is still there so it’s season 8 no matter what the author says) and it’s pretty short. Regardless, I think it’s one of the better short season 8 fics that I’ve read
For Her Sake by heatherlea75
Author Summary: Jackie and Hyde’s final break up is brutal, though all is not as it seems. When his involvement in certain activities forces Hyde to take drastic action, the fate of his complicated relationship with Jackie appears doomed. But is it?
My Thoughts: This is such a good fic! There’s romance, crime, mystery, and plenty of drama! I’m really picky about season 8 fics, especially if Sam is in it. The author was really creative with this story, so I highly recommend! 
Let me know if y’all want any other fic recs
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bibliophileiz · 6 years
Text
Meredith Glynn gets a mytharc episode!
It’s not “Regarding Dean” but last night’s Supernatural  episode has some good stuff.
Funny or otherwise notable things: - Cas’ face in this first scene with Donatello is very “wtf” and vaguely suspicious and we really should have just seen the end coming - “If bacon’s what kills me then I win.” This is funny, but also ... so in-character and thematically relevant. - Dean is just ... so optimistic now compared to how he was in the beginning of the season when he thought he lost Cas and Mary, and now he’s like, “Family reunion, guys, we’re gonna get there!”    - “Eureka! Eureka, eureka, eureka, eureka, eureka!!” “Are you stroking out?” - Cas looks REALLY suspicious when Sam says they have most of the ingredients Donatello’s list. - “I’ll go with you.” Date night. - MARY GETS LINES!! That’s like the first time this season. - Also props to Sam Smith’s acting when Jack says Sam and Dean aren’t there. - You can tell after Jack says he didn’t care how much Michael hurts him, that Mary’s like, “Oh this brave innocent sweetheart is making my heart hurt, also I should probably tell him how this is actually going to go.” - Dean wears a nice jacket for his date with Cas. - Old married couple alert: Cas snapping that he doesn’t get words wrong, Dean, and Dean rolling his eyes. - Very progressive ancient warriors. ‘It could be a ‘she’ who frees us,’ and ‘these are very pretty male warriors’ - Also Cas translating while fighting is hilarious to me. - ‘I hate doing this, you are very beautiful’ I feel you, large inappropriately blond dude. - “I thought you were a damn ghost. Turns out you’re just from another world, which is actually weirder.” - “Who’s the kid?” “I’m Jack! I’m happy all the time!” “Good enough.” - I am appropriately creeped out and saddened by Donatello’s crazycakes act - Bobby’s compound reminds me of a more post-modern, apocalyptic version of the camps in Robin Hood movies. In Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Robin’s hideout works as a refugee camp as much as headquarters for his campaign against the sheriff of Nottingham. - “You want to take it from me!” Donatello channeling Bilbo Baggins. - Donatello should not have Darth Vadered Cas’ husband, Cas is already having a bad day. - Bobby’s giving Mary heart eyes, and I am ... not sure how I feel about that. - I love that it only took Sam and Dean five minutes to try to convince Bobby to go to their world with them. - Sam’s “We were so close,” just breaks Dean’s heart, you can tell. He’s been trying to keep Sam’s spirits up ever since Kaia died, and Sam’s just hopeless. - You know Cas means business when he takes his coat off.
More spoilery, involved, thematic things below.
‘We needed you’
There’s a lot to unpack in Dean and Cas’ conversation on the staircase, even leaving aside all the destiel subtext.
It’s clear from their discussion that each views resurrection differently. Cas sees it as something you do because you need someone physically -- he raised Dean “because God commanded it. Because we have work for you.” Dean, on the other hand, thinks of resurrection as something you do because you need someone emotionally -- there’s no reason for Dean to have sold his soul for Sam in the first place other than that he wanted his brother back.
Jack’s views align closer with Dean’s. He brings Castiel back in a moment of loneliness and fear, not because he needs Cas to physically do something for him. So when Cas asks, “What have I done to repay him?” I think the answer is ... You sat up with him all night letting him chatter about monsters and fantasy movies and told him about his mother. That’s literally all a child wants out of a stepparent.
As a side note, it’s pretty interesting that Cas keeps invoking Kelly. “I promised his mother.” For all there was never a time in their relationship that he wasn’t planning for her imminent death, I think Cas really cared about Kelly, and that’s a bond that Jack doesn’t share with anyone else right now, although that may change given Mary telling Jack she was there when he was born. 
To deal or not to deal
It was bound to happen, but we finally got an in-show comparison of the consequences of each Mary’s decision.
Resurrected Mary Winchester spent the last season blaming herself for ruining her son’s lives by making a deal with Azazel to bring John back. Making the deal meant Azazel marked Sam as one of his chosen apocalypse-bringers, setting the entire Winchester family on a path that led to Sam and Dean making their living as hunting. Not side job-hunting like Jody or Donna. Not balancing hunting with a family (that she can see) like Wally or her father. All she sees is that Sam dropped out of Stanford and Dean never finished high school -- that’s if she DOESN’T know Dean left Lisa and Ben. This guilt makes her distant from her sons, especially Sam. All this adds up to a lot of regret on her part.
Also regretful was Apocalypse World Mary Campbell who saw John die and didn’t accept Azazel’s offer to bring him back. And it wasn’t a “sad that her boyfriend died but what can you do” regret. Bobby specifically says Mary regretted not taking that deal. He also called John the love of Mary’s life, which seems thematically relevant to the show’s big picture (”We save the world”), small picture (”All we have aside from this car is each other”) theme. I love that Mary’s regret as the world is ending is that she didn’t save John. It seems like Mary was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t.
You can go your own way
Jack’s decision to kill Michael and save Apocalypse World is particularly interesting to me for a few reasons.
One, Jack has never set out to kill anyone. The only times he’s (intentionally) killed people people have been when those people are immediately threatening someone he loves -- he makes the silver bullet hit Buddy the shifter when he sees Buddy about to shoot Sam; he kills the angel who is about to stab Dean; he kills Zachariah when Zachariah threatens Mary.
The rest of the time, not only is Jack not plotting people’s deaths -- which is pretty unusual for characters in this show -- but he’s actively pleasant and friendly. He greets everyone, including people he’s just walking past, and is enthusiastic and cheerful about everything. He is the exact opposite of a killer.
Which is ironic, because everyone thinks of him as a killer. Or at least as a weapon or a threat or some useful tool, and they frequently plot to have him kill someone. Lucifer assumes Jack will help him kill Michael. Asmodeus assumes he will kill Michael and Lucifer and raise the Shidim and send those killers running amok to boot. The angels want to use him to make more soldiers. Even Team Winchester falls into this trap. While they love him and consider him a member of the family, both Sam and Dean admit Jack is useful to have around because he can open the portal and get Mary back.
And then there’s Cas.
First of all, I want to say I love Cas. He’s my third, maybe fourth favorite character on this show. So please don’t interpret this as Cas hate.
But Cas does this too.
First of all, I think there’s still a small part of him that expects Jack to go off and effortlessly save the world. And second of all, while I still think Cas is one of about two examples of a good stepparent on TV, his custody dispute with Lucifer over Jack smacks of one-up-manship.
I’m specifically thinking of this line Cas delivers to Lucifer when they’re imprisoned by Asmodeus: “Jack would rather kill you than hug you.”
That’s not how I would characterize Jack to someone, nor even necessarily true. Jack’s response to everyone is more hug than kill, and while he’s repeatedly said Lucifer doesn’t mean anything to him, I have a hard time believing his first response would be murderous animosity rather than, say, suspicious curiosity. Cas’ whole conversation with Lucifer in fact seems like he’s using Jack to hurt Lucifer, and while I’m by no means saying Lucifer is a victim or has more right to raise Jack than Cas (because RAPISTS SHOULDN’T HAVE PARENTAL RIGHTS, FUCK you if you disagree), it’s alarming that Cas is using his own son who he cares about to emotionally manipulate the guy who killed him. And while I don’t really think Cas would ask Jack to kill Lucifer ... by throwing that line out there, he definitely opened that door. And that seems far more insidious to me than Sam telling Jack, “Hey it’d be great if you’d open that portal and get our mom back, but if you can’t we still love you.”
My point is, everyone, even well-meaning people, have an agenda when it comes to Jack, who up to this point has pretty much done what other people told him. He even nearly let the Shidim out before he realized he was being played. But he himself doesn’t have any grand plans -- he’s not plotting to rule heaven or kill someone he doesn’t like or even save the world. Everyone else has grand plans, Jack has none.
Until he sees Michael’s angels attack this camp of innocent people.
Neither Mary nor Bobby ask him to kill Michael. In fact, Mary and Bobby are the first people he’s ever met who know what he is and what he can do and DON’T immediately start hatching plans for how to use him. (Maybe Bobby and Mary should be his parents.) It’s a great direction of Jack to take, not the least because it will throw off everyone who does have plans for him. Lucifer would approve of the target, but not the motive and everyone else would be like, Just come back, dammit!
I hope Jack succeeds on his new venture because a, fuck Michael, and b, it will be good for Jack’s self-esteem. I wouldn’t be surprised if the season ends with Jack deciding to stay in Apocalypse World to help rebuild, which would be a nice end to his story and put Cas in the position of having to choose between Jack and Dean the Winchesters.
The moral gray area
After Cas zaps Donatello’s head, Dean asks him, “Who gave you that right?” and Cas says, “No one. I took it.”  Cas frequently does the wrong things for the right reasons but he always (or at least since Season 8) owns it and is willing to pay the consequences, which is often more than can be said of the Winchesters. The moral  grayness of what Cas did to Donatello is not any blacker than the moral grayness of what Sam and Dean do every single time they torture and/or kill a demon, which they frequently do without checking to see that the human is no longer inside.
The reason Sam and Dean are coming down so hard on Cas is a, I think they’re feeling some guilt about dragging Donatello into this in the first place and b, they know Donatello.  Sam and Dean operate by a different set of rules when it comes to people they love or even just ... know. (I don’t think they love Donatello.) They kill demons that are inside meat suits all the time -- unless said demon is inside a hunter they’ve been drinking with at a wake all day or, God forbid, Jody!
And again, you’ve got a big picture, small picture dichotomy too. Cas will do “whatever it takes” -- including frying Donatello’s brain -- to save the world from Michael. Dean will do “whatever it takes” -- including threatening Kaia -- to save his mom. I think we’re supposed to see both of those as problematic, given Dean’s ‘oh shit’ look when Cas says that. Of course, at the end of the day, Cas also did it to save the ones he loved (the Winchesters and Jack) while Sam and Dean keep hunting to save people. 
This has been a super long post, so I will end with this simple yet very important question (VIQ): IS SCOOBY DOO THE MOST HOLY MAN?
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rowanartist · 6 years
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Fan Fiction Quotes 2017:
"[Steve and Bucky] start a scholarship fund for Women in STEM students and name it after Peggy Carter"notes of ao3 ficyes!
"Maybe it was why he was failing so horribly now, he was too wrapped up in thinking to actually focus on the too-soft task that was quite literally at hand."Xpersonally relatable, overthinking
"He tries not to, but Steve gets that cold, sick feeling that he always gets, whenever somebody talks about him being attractive. He knows how he looks, and he can’t spend two minutes online without being reminded that the world is a big fan of the strong body and jaw that the serum gave him. He just wishes it didn’t feel so much like it’s because being scrawny and sick was some kind of aberration that had been corrected. That he wasn’t worth a dime of love or affection until he was Captain America."ch1while this might be a more extreme case, what are you supposed to do with being called beautiful? It's nice to hear but also confusing, there's more to me. "“Dracula,” Nat says simply, and heads for the elevator. Romania, then. -- “I’ll bring garlic!” Steve calls after her, and she sends him a smile over her shoulder."ch2amusing and playful. Made me smile "Tony Stark is a good person to cry in front of. He’ll only ever mock your strengths, not your weaknesses."[ch3]interesting characterization of Tony
"Ma'am, this is Steve Rogers. Yes ma'am, that one. I appear to have an unconscious HYDRA operative on my front stoop. Yes ma'am. Tied up with his own jacket. There is a gun, ma'am, but its barrel is currently at a 90-degree angle. I guess I need ... the FBI? No ma'am, I have no earthly idea."[X: ch9]funny, :) "chewing on the totally amazing future invention that is grilled cheese with egg and ham on it (seriously: why do these people still have wars)"[X:ch10]I've never tried egg on a grilled cheese... "Hey. Note: it is useful knowledge for living to have a list of things that are good no matter what."[X:ch20]good note. "His anger is a sound between his ears like a train. It is a tight band around his chest. It is hands that ache to do violence."[X:ch23]seems like good wording
"He started sketching Bucky out dancing, spinning a dame around with a huge grin plastered on his mug. He penciled in a big ol’ bow on the back of her dress like she was the best present a guy could want. But the picture was still all about Bucky. The crinkles around his eyes, staring Steve down with a challenge for him to get out there and have a whirl. Steve could hear Bucky’s laugh now."[X]pretty picture "Steve was a furnace built of muscle and good intentions, held together with a Brooklyn drawl and a heap of sass. "[X]lol
"It's not that different from close quarters fighting, really," she told him. "Think of it like you're trying to block me from getting past you, but do it to the beat. Stay loose and ready to move in any direction."[X]found because I liked some of the authors other works and the Fandom. I don't have any experience with fighting and little with dancing but it would make sense from the grace of good fight scenes in movies and tv. "I need to be able to trust anyone I'd want to go to bed with, not necessarily be in love with them."[X]interesting idea...
"A son’s faith in his father is absolute when he is small; especially when that father is the only parent the boy has"[ch7]part of growing up is learning and accepting that your parents are wrong, and sometimes it takes someone special to tell you
"Badass by day, adorably snuggling our nightmares away by night."[X]stumbled along this because of another post and tumblr's check out other posts feature. . .
"The Hulk is part of you, but he's not all of you. We know that,"[X]a reread, i don't think I pulled this quote our last time. Reread because of another quote [quote art]
"Reviewing what he knew of both [Peggy and Nat], Bucky wondered for a moment if he should be afraid, but figured that they would both take a 'firm, but fair' attitude when they ruled the world."[ch2]believable "Sorry. Just.” Bucky let go, but made Steve meet his eyes. “Fuck, I'm sorry, I'm not nagging, honestly.” -- “He cares about you, Steve, and is telling you so,” Peggy said. “Accept it like the fucking adult you are.” -- “I have cartoon pajamas, I am not an adult,” Steve informed her. "[ch4]the bold could have been a quote on its own, but on a more serious note I wanted the rest of the conversation... "Do you have any idea what it's like to be married to the angriest saint in the world?"[ch 10]amusing... "He's good and giving and kind, and sometimes he doesn't feel well and is under the impression that it cancels out everything else."[ch10]I relate, it can be hard when you're frustrated and angry with yourself "“Have fun,” Peggy said, and physically shoved him away from Steve and out the door, because she was very helpful like that."[ch12]yeah, I've had a few moments like that... "“I don't not enjoy having you here,” Steve said, pushing up on one elbow. “Bucky, don't ever think that. It's more like...I can't feel anything. Like I go numb, and don't care. And that mixes with sadness, sometimes,” he admitted. “But mostly it's just...dull. And awful. But I still know that someone loves me and is here and cares.”"[ch16]ponder Same series "Bite your tongue. There are so many ways to love people, and you got to do them all today,” Bucky pointed out. “It's a perfect Valentine's Day. One love isn't better than the other, and it shouldn't be given priority.”"[X]interesting point, Valentine's day really doesn't have to be about couples/romantic relationships, but all types of important relationships! Same Series "there's a middle ground between throwing a fit and being completely determined to not bleed on anyone else,” "[ch1]But finding that middle ground can be difficult. I also feel Steve's response when Bucky said that Steve had a "shit day": "Plenty of people have had worse days,”
"“Bucky you’re having a panic attack and I need you to listen to me. I need you to breathe. Focus on me okay? Focus on me and try to breathe with me.”"[part5]handling a panic attack. Sometimes it can be hard to accept the help remembering to breathe, like I messed up and don't deserve it. "Felt the need to explain himself more, as though acting without talking through it first was dangerous"[part+1]kinda get this for different reasons?
"Anytime [Bucky] managed to scrape together enough money after all the bills, he dragged Steve to the latest exhibit, marveling over everything. Steve, tending to look at things through a more artistic gaze, gaped at the beauty of science and Bucky’s child-like enthusiasm."[X]I'm not sure which one I'm more like. "Getting his overactive mind to shut the fuck up is a work in progress."[X]yeah, I know the feeling "as if [Bucky]’s the sunshine to cut through Steve’s rain."[X]just really nice turn of phrase "“You’re thinking too hard.” A whisper. A life boat to which Steve shamelessly clings to."[X]isn't it nice to let yourself do that? "I love spending time with you. I don’t regret a single second of it. I don’t need my space. But a relationship is between equals, Steve. After everything that happened, I needed to find myself apart from you, like you have. We needed to get back on the same page"[X]maybe. Standing on your own doesn't necessarily mean space. I will need to work on that some day, reaching out and making my own place.
"But this means showing emotion or allowing himself to feel. It means overwhelming himself, easily. It means not being able to convey everything he’s feeling ending in frustration ending in doubt, leading to locking himself up in a room. He hates it."[X]comments
"The Winter Soldier," Stark repeats. "Freezer Burn, the Russian Mob. Ice Ice Baby. Sid Vicious, the White Russian, Psychosicle, MC Hammer and Sickle--"[X]I like the variety of nicknames, quite a few I haven't seen before.
"Wow," the man says, without introducing himself. "Guess they did freeze at the peak of freshness"[ch11]lol, very Tony like
"Yes, okay, so you’re Bucky Barnes and you’re President Barnes’ son and that holds a lot of weight. But you could have chosen not to go. You could have said that it wasn’t your problem and just stayed home. But you went, and you talked to those people and you inspired them and you showed them solidarity. That was all you, and that counts. No matter what you think, that counts."[ch4]choosing to try to make a difference, no matter how seemingly small , can be very important "I’m the only person who ever gives it to you straight. Which is ironic seeing you’re as straight as a paperclip!"[ch16]not straight jokes are kinda amusing. I'm not sure if that's problematic or not... P.S. once I finished the fic I realized how much I liked Aunt Helen!
"He's an adult, you can't trust him to do the job correctly."[ch12]this fic is also in my fic rec. These kids are hilarious! "Not really much to tell." He shrugged. "Best friend. Prat. Housemate. Sometimes co-parent, sometimes yet another child to look after. That sums everything up perfectly."[ch12]amusing
"Hlupak—Czech word for "idiot". I have arbitrarily decided that Czech and Sokovian share some vocabulary, including insults. It is also my headcanon that hlupak was something Wanda called Pietro a LOT."[ch1:end chapter notes]lol
"wondering whether the total inability to sleep is a side effect of the serum or a side effect of his life."[X]sounds like a conundrum ""I know my brother. He would never be happy without somewhere to run.""[X] "You'd be smarter to stay out of this," Steve warns. -- "I don't believe intelligence was mentioned in the orientation packet." -- "That's 'cause we're all idiots. I don't want you to lose your home, Wanda. "[X]yupI wish there was more.
"As much as you can,” he said, “stay in the eye."[X]odd little fic but not bad
"Right. Does that mean Iron Man's gonna come get you?" -- "Captain America—actually." Purple Shirt groans as he tries to sit up. "He—worries too much. "[X]that sounds likely :) "You carried an orphaned kitten around in your jacket for like a week. You want me to be scared of you? Try harder."[X]cute
"Faint gamma signature, uncomfortably familiar shade of mindfuck blue, localized weirdness... You know, I really hate portals. Have I mentioned how much I hate portals?"[X]the bold bit was particularly amusing, in the laugh in order to not be negative way "Scientist wrangler and pop-culture expert," Darcy interrupted cheerfully."[X]nice intro for Darcy! "Think about it. My lady love, your lady love, every terrifying woman they know, bonding...""[X]Peggy, Pepper, Nat, Jane, Darcy, Maria, Kate maybe others... "Sam was wearing his you're being stupid right now face"[X]most characterizations of him he does this enough it's a know thing "Frank Sinatra launched into a jazzy rendition of "I'll Be Seeing You," the opening number of Darcy's "Old People" playlist. "[X]of course Darcy has an "Old People" playlist. Followed by: Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy; You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To by Dinah Shore more from the comments: "The Trolley Song" (because Darcy is terrible), and ends with Vera Lynn singing "We'll Meet Again." "So they were there like gentlemen, waiting on the sidelines and holding Peggy's flower while she kicked that Bad Week's ass."[X]a quote from the comments; I like it for the facing hardships motto... "The archer plays Cupid!"[X]more from the comments
*brendaonao3.tumblr.com: Brenda’s Long-Ass Under-Appreciated Fanfics Appreciation/Rec Post Part 1*
"he hated making Bucky worry for no good reason, mostly because of how often he made Bucky worry with reason"[X]not really sure how I feel about it, characters seem good but I'm not sure I feel the chemistry?
"Iron Man pinned to the ground, held down by Alice and the White Rabbit while the Mad Hatter bashed at his helmet with a teacup"[X]very amusing and I should draw. Statues.(Also, later:"That's a big whale")
"Yeah, real handsome. All the dolls will be swooning.” Bucky winked, and it was easy as anything to reply, “There's only one doll whose swoon I want, sweetheart"[X]goofy and fun, I like it "younger man hunched in a similar manner over his book, sitting crosslegged on Steve's bed. Steve remembered glancing up from his sketch of something unimportant at the same time as Bucky looked up, and their eyes met, and they leaned across the bed toward each other. When they kissed, their bodies formed an arch over the bedspread, like the ceiling of a cathedral. Then they went back to what they'd been doing"[X]nice imagery
"Sometimes, even with all of the positive developments - or maybe partly because of them, who knows - it all gets to be a bit much for Steve, which makes him feel guilty, because it’s not like he’s the one who’s working through seven decades of manipulation and brutality"[X]relatable, the "why should I be the stressed one?"(note: talking heads song this fic, Bruce) "such as interrupting one of Tony’s endless attempts to impress him with Midgardian science by saying, “Truly a valiant effort, my friend” and patting Tony on the head), "[X]amusing, I bet Tony has an opinion on that, not sure what though [Steve]"Are you judging me right now?" [Sam]“Not at the moment, no. But I reserve the right to do so at a later date, depending on what your dumb ass comes up with next" [Steve]"Fair enough"[X]comments
"Anytime Bucky gets in the elevator alone, JARVIS talks to him the whole time."[X]awww
" would wrinkle his nose, not because of the smell as much as what the smell meant"[X]personal reasons: yeah I don't like the smell but I'd never thought about it before until I learned of the part it played between my parents...I like this fic center
"Because I don’t understand,” he admits at last. “You’re--good. Everything about you is good. If anyone can see the truth about me, it should be you. I want to understand what you see in me so that I can try to be good again too" It feels ridiculous, having said the words aloud. [X]same paragraph as the next quote "He has a fleeting half-thought about what it would be like to fling himself off the rooftop, but he knows he never actually will."[X]...not actually suicidal?
"Guilt or croutons, Steve, those are your choices. You'll just have to live with it."[X]I feel you Steve
"The Winter Soldier reads each and every label carefully, deciding between hydrocodone and acetaminophen and naproxen sodium."[X]*whine* the first one is more heavy duty than the other two (Tylenol and Aleeve)
"He could simply read the title off the book, but he loves the way Bucky’s eyes light up when he gets to tell Steve about whatever he’s reading."[X]this is sweet, and the answer is amusing "Figures. You love the man who sings about the little people. That’s so you."[X]I like the music section that follows this quote...
"He lets it sit on his tongue, imagines he can feel it dissolve into fats and proteins, weaving together to build muscle or stoking the fires of his mitochondria, warming him."[X]meditative idea??
"A good spy never let on that his primary observations about the human character came from Disney films"[X]lol "The human version of toast that lands butter side down, every time,"[X]wow, what a way to describe Clint Barton!
"He craves [human closeness], Bucky knows, reveres it so much that he’ll never take it for granted, that he rarely dares to ask for it"[X]relatable
"Genuine kicker of all Nazi ass, and he blushed like a schoolgirl. Dork."[X]comments
"He's not so stupid he'll ignore the fact that when Steven "My Blood Group is Apple Pie" Rogers threatens to end you, he means it literally literally."[X]not actually from the fic rec but this one inspired one on the fic rec... "hobo-sex-kitten "[X]uhm, where else can that even be applied. Tony narration can be unique
"‘I’m Bucky Barnes.’ He meets him halfway for a second. ‘And I take my own orders.’"[X]this line just stuck me
"Explain how necking with an estranged assassin is a favor," Bucky replies, miffed."[X]this fic, the story game?
"Ah, shit, you came in through the window didn’t you?"[X]made me laugh
"Being Iron Man doesn't make his brain shut up, exactly, but it tunes out the shit that doesn't matter better than anything else he's tried, and he's tried everything.)"[X]makes me think about my boyfriend explaining how SCA fighting or shooting at a gun range are for him.
*pause on the fic rec, I'll get back to reading it later
"Look man, all I’m saying is that for years you gave me someone to look up to for my entire life. ....You gave me someone to look to when I was feeling lost. I know that I’m nothing special, but you seem pretty lost right now. Figured you needed a little push, just like you used to give me."[X]Steve and Violet pt5, Tumblr fic
"More than once, James has ended up on the couch with Sam playing with his hair with a nature documentary on mute. He does the narration. Orcas are assholes"[X]found because of unclesteeb.tumblr.com
"When Steve thinks about Sam his heart does this funny thing where it feels like it’s overrun with kittens and puppies. Everything’s tiny patters of fluffy feet and pastel sugar plums made of candy. "[X]again, unclesteeb
"It's always the middle of winter, Jimmy never dreams of spring, no matter that his entire life is about being reborn, again and again -"[X]nice symbolism, and I'm not even a literary nerd. Also, from the fic rec from before...
"It's like he puts out some super pheromone that makes one believe in truth, goodness, and harebrained schemes."[ch1]I read the original story previously because of a fan art "Confirm. Green thing Hulk is tough and focused. And it's so big that it draws attention away from Steve"[ch1]amusing,particularly Steve's reaction :) "Building is a mission-assist for everyone."[X]awww/lol "One day at a time, Sam says, unless it takes one minute at a time, and then you do that."[ch7]good advice from Sam, of course Just all of chapter 8! "It's rude to assign gender without asking, Stark."[ch9]response to Tony arbitrarily tendering one of his bots (admittedly he does it to annoy Tony but...) "Barnes receives a majestic eyeroll, worthy of bald eagles and amber waves of grain."[ch11]amusing "Assists in your mission to live a good human life"[ch11]awww! Cuteness, I love this AU at Halloween time!
"and sits crammed into the corners of sofas, staring out."[X]same Series as previous set. I relate. Is it "a desire for human hugs" (blame Frozen for the phrasing) "America's mighty chin of stubbornness juts out like Plymouth Rock."[X]lol "Captain Fret wearing his worried expression"[X]yup
"All of the Bucky/Banner introductions, throughout the universes, have generally gone as well as two introverted weapons of mass destruction meeting could go."[ch6]was inspired by the last one
"I get lost in that feeling. Sometimes I need to rehash everything to get it all back in order in my head."[X]relatable I think from this fic rec
"I know that we– well, I –the last few times we’ve tried to, um, God why can’t I just say this out loud?"[X]because your normal Bucky. A lot of people feel that way, we shouldn't have to but it's not weird to! (Mini soap box)
"He’d found not one, but two, families in his long lifetime. People he cared about not because he had to, not because they shared any blood ties, but because they had come into his life when he felt like he had nothing else, and made it better."[X]the importance of any type of family!
"Steve quirked an eyebrow, putting his hands on his hips in his best ‘Captain America does not approve of your sass’ pose."[ch1]reminds me of doing the same with my boyfriend. "It’s just- I know it doesn’t look like much but we found it together. Yeah, it’s kind of old and beat up, and it’s little and broken but it’s still good. Yeah, still good."[ch2]yes, that probably does sound familiar! Disney!
"The Moon is a protector, Bucky. He’s bruised." Steve gives his fingers a squeeze, remembering a similar look on Peggy’s face once upon a time, when he stood in front of her with a broken transponder in his hand. “When I found someone worth flirting with."[X]awww, smile
"not his tiny blond ball of fury (whom he now remembers is a large blond ball of righteous fury),"[post]from the linked post, inspired this fic
"[Being surly to Captain America] It's like being nasty to Superman. He could do it, but he'd just feel like shit afterwards. It's not an experience he's eager to repeat."[X]amusing, means he's done that before...
""Yes, Pepper," they chorus like the good little schoolboys they might have been, once upon a time"[X]lol
"The next time he visited the pediatric ward at New York-Presbyterian, he brought a ton of socks and some puffy paint, so the kids could paint their own. The project was a hit with parents and internet knitters alike."[X]awww!! "Avengers Stitch and Bitch. "[X]comments
"he still has bad days where he sits in the dark by himself because the thought of being around anyone--even Steve--is like jackhammers in his skull and shattered glass under his skin. "[X]not nearly that bad for me, but I kinda get that "refrigerator with a magnet that looks like his shield."[X]cute. Near the end.
"the one who doesn't laugh as much or as loud as he used to, but whose eyes still crinkle in genuine humor at stupid puns and in wonder at some of the marvels of this modern age."[X]quiet emotion, not a lack of sense of humor
"This whole talking about our feelings like adults thing is hard. It made me hungry again. Didn't it make you hungry again?"[X]amusing, don't love the pairing 'cause I only know one of them and I really like him with Steve - though I've liked others
"he doesn't have anything left but a broken heart and some sourdough starter"[X]I've now seen a fair amount of Great British Baking Show " (Sure, the therapy sessions and the anti-anxiety drugs are helping too, but Steve's always been a big believer in the efficacy of hard work and good food for making a person feel better after their world's been turned upside down, and the bakery provides both in spades.)"[X]any combination of methods that helps
"You're going out with Barton. What makes you think you're in any way qualified to give me relationship advice?"[X]amusing deflection banter
"Bucky, you've always needed Steve and me to see the light in you, because you could never see it in yourself. That hasn't changed."[X]Peggy bring the truth...
"Hey! It’s dumb heroic shit. I don’t do stupid, unless there’s a reason for it."[X]yup, sounds like him "Barnes and Rogers, Brooklyn’s own troublemakers."[X]again, yup
"Never felt right pursing any selfish whims when there was so much injustice in the world, so many wrongs begging to be righted."[X]Bucky. Pirate AU. I really like the art - which is how I found it
"Steve gets to sleep in the middle and Clark and Buck equally love and fear his toes. His body radiates heat, but his damn toes are always cold and what the shit??? He’s so warm and yet?? Why just the toes?!"[X]Tumblr head cannon for Steve, Bucky and Clark Kent. I know cold toes!
"He does [sex] more for the happiness and emotional connectivity and that natural high of pleasing the ones he loves the most."[X]Tumblr head cannon for Steve, Bucky and Clark Kent.
"He’d never even told her he was pansexual (he figured he wasn’t bi because that could potentially discount aliens and since humans are technically “not him” he figured pan made sense). He’s spent a lot of time in the shower thinking about his sexual identity to be honest."[X]again the wibtersupercap head cannons. Lol. Even if the rest isn't really my thing at all
"Sex is so very complicated to him. He wants it, he doesn’t want it. It feels good…he’s never in the mood. He wants physical contact…he doesn’t want that much…but yeah sometimes he does? He’s all very confused about himself. "[X]MORE head cannon stuff. Almost done, over halfway. Even not identifying as ace I get this. Relatable, personal .
"Kal could totally be an indicator of “Hey I need attention, love me plz.” "[X]more head cannon stuff, almost done.
"They feel alone in the world, walking beside people who don’t really belong to them but are there all the same."[X]they being Steve Rogers and Clark Kent - so on point!
"I have all this pent up emotion and nowhere to put it, and my boys are beautifully conveying and taking out their motions while I put my fist through the bathroom mirror."[X]ahhh.
"Steve's stomach gurgles noisily and Bucky laughs. "If I could move right now, I'd make you pancakes, but it's going to have to wait until morning.""[X]sex burns calories
"alfred ['s Tumblr]: guns and sometimes miniature cakes"[X]comments
"He wants to live on steamed dumplings from now on."[X]I'm with you Barnes, they are good! "He wakes up early in the morning blanketed by the full-size chest of Captain America. Talk about purple mountains' majesty."[X]lol
"Steve sleeps in the day when he isn’t out and then he’s up all night, up all night long, finding something to do, jogging, TV, sitting at the window, all night, all night."[X]yeah, depression
"Steve hops up on the washing machine, swinging his legs – they’re only a couple scant inches off the ground, but he likes doing it"[X]relatable
"the tired face of Bruce Banner overlayed with that of the Hulk"[X: story 2]imagery. Draw. "Steve from Brooklyn was still there since Bucky could see him. He didn't need any other assurance."[X: story 3]comments
"well, i say bopped–it was the sort of wild swing you take with a frypan when someone startles you in the kitchen."[X]hilarious
"led by the bastard child of paul bunyan and lady liberty"[X]what a way to describe Captain America
"Okay, guys, fair warning, this is gonna get pretty meta pretty fast. Because you know that I love Cap-spotting as much as the next person, and this comm is literally one of the most uplifting places on the internet right now, because it’s first and foremost about human connection and how heroes really are just like us, and they go out to get Chipotle or whatever, and we desperately need that in this shit show that’s called our lives, especially after what happened in NYC."[ch1]okay, this makes sense, though privacy should also be a thing... Maybe there's not pictures? Then the continuation! "[stan the smithsonian guard] also got a photo out of this, and the opportunity to tell cap that his older brother fought in the 107th during the war and knew bucky barnes. cap apparently got a little choked up. can’t blame him."[ch3]poor guard on duty when Cap took back his uniform... Stan even gets cameos in fics "and i heard pepper potts might have implied a thing or two right after it turned out bucky was alive, and even the paps are scared shitless of that woman. AS THEY VERY WELL SHOULD BE."[ch3]oh the things that could get done if Peggy and Pepper were in the same time! "Other auctioned “items” include a self-defense lesson with Natasha Romanoff, archery practice with Clint Barton and Kate Bishop, and a day in a lab with Tony Stark, and they will all be donated by the happy winners to the beneficiaries of the Youth Program at the Potts Foundation."[ch3]YEEEEES! "And it was nice to see that you can come back from something like this, maybe not whole, but at least not completely shattered, you know. Reassuring. "[ch3]motivational "We don’t want Captain America, the hero who’s supposed to represent the majority of Americans, to be someone we can’t identify with at all because of the lifestyle he chooses."[ch3]a haters comment. Me: so the majority of Americans can't relate to following one's heart toward happiness?!
"It’s been nice to have people around him he can indulge skin hunger with as much as his libido."[X]a friwnds Tumblr. I'm not sure (or maybe I just don't have the energy to analyse it) why this quote stood out to me...
"Sure, he didn't need glasses, and sure, they were practically useless, but they were badass. Plus they made the world look purple"[X]not overall relevant but a cute warming read "Natasha winds up throwing Clint down the garbage chute and if that's not some kind of metaphor for Clint's life he doesn't know what is."[X]lol!
"Put on one of these obnoxious Christmas monstrosities that Tony has decided to inflict on us and get up to the main floor, because when I say that Santa has been, man has he been."[X]comments "Nope, it’s 9am. That is not too early. It’s Christmas, stop being such a Russian humbug and get up."[X]little 3+1 Christmas fic
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