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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Stephen King’s Favorite TV Shows According to His Twitter Raves

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“NOW WE’RE SUCKING DIESEL! If you don’t get it, you missed a great series.” Stephen King’s recent discovery of British police thriller Line of Duty – as relayed via a series of highly enthusiastic Tweets – was a delight to witness. King’s zeal is enough to make UK fans wish that he hadn’t binge-watched the BBC series from his home inside the sewers of Derry, Maine, but instead watched it at broadcast pace in the UK, where he would no doubt have made a sizeable contribution to the show’s Twitter larks. (King proved himself happy to join in with online TV show speculation when he correctly predicted the killer in HBO/Sky’s Mare of Easttown. You can bet he’d have had a take on the mystery identity of Line of Duty baddie ‘H’.)

Line of Duty isn’t alone in attracting King’s online praise; when the horror author watches a TV show he loves from inside the creepy Castle Rock devil shop he calls home, he lets his 6.5 million followers know about it. Below is a list of endorsements King has made on Twitter in recent years, from the usual sci-fi and horror suspects to a few less expected titles.

US MODERN CLASSICS

The Americans, Game of Thrones, Homeland, Sons of Anarchy and The Shield

In Stephen King’s house (inside Derry’s landmark water tower, The Standpipe) as of February 2018, only three shows were considered ‘appointment television’: FX Cold War spy drama The Americans, HBO fantasy epic Game of Thrones and Showtime spy thriller Homeland. King describes all three as “a cut above”. Going one further, three days after the Game of Thrones series finale aired, King called out the New York Times’ list of 20 best TV dramas for neglecting to include the HBO dragon epic. He’s glad the Times included FX cop drama The Shield, a show that “fundamentally changed TV”, but feels it should also have tipped a hat to FX motorcycle gang drama Sons of Anarchy. Get it right, New York Times.

INTERNATIONAL DRAMA

Dark, Fauda, Hotel Beau Sejour, Les Revenants, Marianne, Money Heist, To The Lake, ZeroZeroZero

Nothing scares Stephen King, not even subtitles. When he’s relaxing in his converted alien spaceship half buried in the woods of Haven, Maine, he enjoys nothing more than streaming a foreign-language box-set. He particularly rates German sci-fi Dark, which he called terrific, complex and very German, and recommends these explanatory recaps for anybody confused by its multiple timelines. Virus thriller To The Lake was called “a pretty darn good Russian series on Netflix,” while Israeli spy thriller Fauda was described as “all killer and no filler”. King called Belgian crime drama Hotel Beau Sejour “eccentric, brilliant and strangely touching. Supernatural fare for those who don’t ordinarily like it.” Speaking of the supernatural, King’s a fan of celebrated French horror Marianne, which he says could scare even “a sicko” like him. Also in French, he loved atmospheric supernatural zombie drama Les Revenants/The Returned, calling it sexy and scary. Netflix’s Spanish-language thriller Money Heist is “a firecracker” while he found Italian-Anglo crime drama ZeroZeroZero “bone-shaking, chilling, terrifying, epic,” and King found it hard to believe it could be bettered. High praise.

Why You Should Watch Black Summer on Netflix

By Ron Hogan

The Best French TV Shows on Netflix

By Louisa Mellor

BRITISH DRAMA

Black Mirror, Life on Mars, Line of Duty, The Stranger

From underneath his massive, transparent dome in Chester’s Mill, Stephen King will often enjoy a bit of British telly. Back in 2013, when it was still a Channel 4 show only just available worldwide on Netflix, King Tweeted that he loved future-tech anthology series Black Mirror, calling it “terrifying, funny, intelligent,” and compared it to an R-rated The Twilight Zone. The show creator Charlie Brooker, told Den of Geek at the time that despite being a huge Stephen King fan, his reaction was characteristically muted:

“I think I probably smiled? That’s about as effusive as I get about anything, because whenever anything nice happens in the world I always expect something appalling to happen immediately afterwards.”

BBC crime-drama-with-a-time-travel-fantasy-twist Life on Mars is another British favourite that King described in September 2020 as one of his favourite shows of all time, “the kind you go to when you’re feeling sad.” That same year, he called Harlan Coben’s mystery thriller The Stranger, starring Richard Armitage, as an excellent, addictive mystery. King’s British TV crush of the moment of course, is BBC crime drama Line of Duty, which he praises for having a central Mulder/Scully-type vibe between main characters Steve Arnott and Kate Fleming.

US THRILLERS

Big Sky, Bosch, Designated Survivor, Escape at Dannemora, Fargo, Mindhunter, Perry Mason, The Good Fight, The Man in the High Castle, The Morning Show

After he’s finished all the two-finger KitKats from the minibar at Room 217 of The Overlook Hotel, where he lives, Stephen King puts a thriller on the TV. Crime thriller, political thriller, legal thriller, alt-history Philip K. Dick thriller… he has time for them all. King is a particular fan of ABC’s murder show Big Sky, which stars Ryan Philippe and Vikings’ Kathryn Winnick. In February this year, he called it the best drama on network TV and said the final three episodes were stepping into Emmy territory. He calls Bosch an excellent detective series, one of the best on TV, with an engrossing story and superb cast. Kiefer Sutherland-starring series Designated Survivor he called excellent, complex and involving after its move to Netflix. Prison drama Escape at Dannemora is TV at its best according to King, who in 2015 described the penultimate episode of Fargo season two as the best thing on television in the last three years. In 2017, he strongly recommended David Fincher serial killer drama Mindhunter, and last year called the Matthew Rhys Perry Mason reboot a “damn good show.” In 2019, King called The Good Wife spin-off The Good Fight “the best show on TV”, and found nothing not to like about Apple TV+’s The Morning Show starring Jennifer Aniston. That was the year he also named Amazon Prime’s The Man in the High Castle season four as “amazingly good”, challenging and involving.

HORROR & SUPERNATURAL

Black Summer, Dracula, The Haunting of Hill House, Servant, Stranger Things, THEM

When he’s not nursing kidnapped novelists back to health in the remote Colorado cabin where he lives, Stephen King goes in for a bit of scare-action on the TV. He called Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House “close to a work of genius” despite not being a fan of revisionism of its kind in general, and praised M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant for its focus, acting and atmosphere, adding “if there’s anything creepier or more binge-worthy than this, I don’t know what it is.” He loved Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss’ BBC Dracula, calling it terrific and “VERY bloody”, found the first episode of Amazon Prime Video’s THEM scared the hell out of him, and praised Netflix’s Black Summer for reinvigorating the zombie drama: “Just when you think there’s no more scare left in zombies. THIS comes along.” As for Stranger Things, he described the first season as like “watching Steve King’s greatest hits” in a good way.

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Next week on What Famous People are Watching: is Stanley Tucci really that big on the Westminster Dog Show, or is he more of a The Underground Railroad guy? We find out.

The post Stephen King’s Favorite TV Shows According to His Twitter Raves appeared first on Den of Geek.

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dlwritings · 4 years

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Firecracker Soul | Dean Winchester

Chapter 12 - Textbook Toxic

pairing - mob!Dean x teacher!ofc

word count - 5,298

warnings - language, oral (m receiving)

additional notes at the end

(previous)

The week went by uneventfully for both Alice and Dean. On Monday, Dean had his meeting with Crowley. On Tuesday the pair went out for dinner, but Alice decided to forgo spending the night at his place so she could get some more work done before school the next day. On Wednesday, she woke up feeling like crap. Mother nature kicked her in the gut and made her bleed. She always hated getting her period on a weekday, because her first day was always her worst. If she didn't have school, she would lay in bed with a heating pad on her tummy, medication pumping through her system, and a Friends rerun on TV. During the school day, she had to power through it like a grown up.

But when she got home, she changed into sweats and threw herself into bed. She wasn't even through an episode of Friends when her phone went off. She groaned in annoyance as she looked at it, only to feel a little bit better when she saw it was Dean. You wanna come over tonight? Or should I say CUM over ;)

She rolled her eyes with a chuckle as she texted him back: As tempting as that sounds, I'm feeling pretty horrible right now, so I think I'm just going to whine in bed all evening like a loser

Dean: ? Are you okay?

Alice: Just thank your body for not giving you a uterus

Dean: Ah I see

She was just about to text him back when he texted her again.

Dean: Would me coming over to cuddle help or hurt?

Alice was glad she wasn't someone who got weepy during her period, because she was sure his kindness would make her lose it if she was.

Alice: You know you're the best, right?

Dean: I know. I'll be over in twenty

True to his word, Dean was at her apartment in twenty minutes. Even as she stood up to let him in, Alice found herself wincing with every step. Medication could only help so much on her first day. Dean took in her pained expression when she opened the door and frowned. "You okay, sweetheart?" he asked, pulling her in for a hug and kissing the top of her head as he kicked the door closed behind him.

"Not really," she said with a sad laugh. "You'd think after eight years or whatever I'd be able to handle this when it comes around." Dean just smiled sympathetically, and the two of them went into her bedroom. They sat on the bed, and he situated her between his legs.

"Is it your stomach?" he asked. She nodded and picked up the remote to play Friends again. "How can I help you?" he asked. "Do you want me to rub your stomach? Or do you just want your heating pad?" She thought for a moment. As nice as it would be to have Dean's gentle touch on her, she didn't think it would make her feel any better.

"Can you reach my heating pad?" she asked, motioning to where she had left the pad on the end table. He nodded and grabbed it, so she lifted her shirt and put it on her lower stomach. The controls attached to the cord had four different heat settings, and she always put it on the second highest. Dean kept his arms around her, and her head was resting on his chest.

"I'm surprised you're not watching Criminal Minds," he teased.

"Friends is part of the period routine," she said with a small smile. "No one can make me feel better like Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing."

"Not even me?" he asked, lightly kissing her neck.

"Don't push your luck, Winchester," she said. "You're great and all, but 90s Matt LeBlanc and Matthew Perry just hit different." She could feel his chest shake as he chuckled, and she looked up at him. When he met her eyes, she put her hand on the back of his head and pulled him down for a kiss.

Dean ended up spending the night, and he left to head home as soon as she started getting ready for work, not wanting to get in her way and mess up her morning routine. The way she kissed him goodbye with a cup of coffee in her hand before rushing off to her bedroom to put some makeup on made him feel weird. Something about it was so domestic. It wasn't a bad thing, it just caught him off guard. They had barely known each other for three weeks, but their relationship already felt like it had been going on for so much longer.

And he liked that.

On Saturday, Alice got to the diner before Christine. AJ brought her usual coffee, and Alice told her to go ahead and put their regular order in as soon as Christine arrived. The door opened just then, and her friend walked in. AJ went to place their orders, and Christine joined Alice at the booth.

All week, Alice had been trying to decide if she should tell Christine about Dean. Dean never explicitly told her not to tell anyone about his job, but she still felt like it was supposed to be kept on the down low. But she told Christine everything, and the last thing she wanted was for something to come up in the future that she wouldn't be able to tell her about because it had something to do with Dean or his family.

"You've got something on your mind," Christine said.

Alice chuckled. "Am I that obvious?"

"Only cuz I've known you for ages," she said. Her eyes lit up hopefully. "Is it about your masters?"

For some reason, Alice felt guilty. She felt like she was letting Christine down. Christine was a constant support, and Alice had pretty much given up trying to fill out her application. It wasn't that she didn't think about it anymore. She did. It just wasn't at the forefront of her brain. It should've been. She was free of Greg. She had Dean. She loved her job. She was happy. Life was good. Wasn't now the best time to think about pursuing something more?

She vowed then to go home and spend at least an hour on the application. If this was something she was serious about, it needed to be something she put time into.

"No," Alice said, "it's about Dean."

Luckily, Christine was equally interested in that topic.

"Oh my god," she said, leaning forward so her elbows were on the table. "You guys totally fucked, right?"

"God, Christine," she said with a laugh and a roll of her eyes. "That's so not what I was gonna talk about."

"But you have?" she asked.

"No!" she said with a laugh. Christine looked unimpressed as she leaned back and folded her arms across her chest.

"I don't know if I'm more disappointed in him or you," she said. Alice pursed her lips, and a slow smile grew on Christine's face. "You're not telling me something," she said. "What have you done? Has something happened since you rode his thigh?" Alice's eyes grew wide as she looked around, like she was afraid other people were listening. No one was.

"Okay," she whispered, leaning forward, "if it'll get you off my back, I'll tell you." Now, Christine was interested. So, Alice gave her a -quite undetailed- account of what had happened on Sunday. Clearly, the lack of details wasn't acceptable for Christine.

"Was it good?" she asked. Alice knew her face was red, and she looked down at her plate. "Oh my god, you loved it."

Alice couldn't hold back any longer.

"Of course I loved it," she hissed. "I am human, you know." Christine laughed. "God, it was so great, Chris," she continued. "I didn't know stuff like that could be that great. Plus, like-" She hesitated, the embarrassment from earlier coming back. She should've just dropped it, but she knew Christine wouldn't let it go now.

"Say it," Christine said with a grin.

Alice sighed. "Okay you can't make fun of me."

"Cross my heart," Christine said. Alice looked around again to make sure no one was anywhere nearby. She leaned forward again and lowered her voice even more than it already was.

"Because you put it into my head," she said, "I, I called him daddy."

"Yes!" Christine cheered, so loudly in fact that now people were looking at them.

"God, would you shut up?" Alice said, throwing a napkin at her, glancing apologetically at the people staring at them.

"I fucking told you," Christine said. "I knew you were secretly a kinky little bitch."

"Shut up," Alice whined, hiding her face. "It totally just slipped out."

"How'd he react?" Christine asked.

"He loved it," Alice whispered, moving her hands away from her face. "Like-" She shivered at the memory of his hard cock straining against his boxers. That was something she'd keep to herself. Some memories she wanted to just be hers. "Yeah," she said. "He really liked it." Christine fanned herself playfully.

"God," she said. "I really need to get laid."

Alice laughed. "Yeah you do." Christine rolled her eyes.

"So have you done anything for him?" she asked after taking a sip of her coffee.

She sighed. "I wish we weren't talking about this in public."

"Alice, no one is listening," she said.

She was right, of course. Alice was just trying to find ways out of this conversation.

"We talked about it the other day," she admitted. "He told me it wasn't a big deal."

Christine shrugged. "Then it's probably not a big deal."

"But shouldn't I do something?" she asked. "I feel like I'm being selfish."

"If he's not asking you," Christine said, "you're not obligated." She narrowed her eyes at Alice. "You want to though, don't you?"

"I just want him to get something out of this," she admitted. "He's so nice and selfless, and, I don't know. I want to see if I can make him feel good. But-" She hesitated. "-I've never given anyone a blowjob. I don't even know how to do it." Christine clearly was biting back a laugh. "Quit it!" Alice said, wishing she had something else to throw at her. "You said you wouldn't laugh."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Christine said. "It's just, I swear blowjobs are so easy. You pretty much can't get it wrong. Just, honestly girl, go to the store and buy some popsicles to remind yourself how you suck one."

"Jesus Christ, Christine."

"You wouldn't have mentioned it if you didn't want my help."

Again, she was right.

Christine noted her silence and continued, lowering her voice for her friend's sake. She had no shame, but she didn't want Alice to get any more upset than she already was. "Listen, just, use your tongue and relax your throat. If you can't take him all, use your hand. Don't rub him dry though, cuz that won't feel good. Make sure you get your saliva all up in there." Alice laughed a little, which had been Christine's goal. "And squeeze his balls. They like that. And don't use your teeth."

Alice scoffed. "I'm not an idiot."

Christine smiled, and then her eyes popped a bit as she remembered something. "Okay," she said, leaning close to her friend again, "if he's a decent guy, he's gonna let you know before he cums. He might even ask you where you want him to cum."

"Where do I want him to cum?" Alice asked cluelessly. Christine tilted her head from side to side as she thought.

"You could swallow, but I swear, that shit tastes nasty," she said. "Don't believe any of the shit you read. It does not taste good. There's no way to spin it." Alice crinkled her nose, and Christine shrugged. "But some guys find it super hot if you do."

"Or?"

"Or," she continued, "you finish him off with your hand and -if you don't have a shirt on- he could cum on your tits. Or your face. Or you could just let it fall where it falls." Christine chuckled. "If you really want to please him, you'll ask him where he wants to cum." Quickly, she added, "But don't do that if you're not comfortable with all the options. Again, if he's a decent guy, he'll just want you to be comfortable, especially if he knows it's your first time."

"Okay," she said with a slow nod. "Okay. I can do that."

"Oh, and eye contact," she said. "Guys love that shit, and you'll hit even harder cuz you got that whole innocent-doe-eyed look."

Alice laughed but nodded with another, "Okay."

They finished up their breakfasts, but both of them still had coffee, so they kept chatting. After a lull in the conversation, Christine said, "So what were you gonna talk about?"

Alice furrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"When you first mentioned Dean," she said, "I immediately brought up sex, but you said that wasn't what you were gonna talk about. What did you want to talk about?"

Right. The actual news she had to share.

"Oh yeah," she said. "You know how I said he's a businessman?" Christine nodded, and Alice hesitated. "You can't breathe a word of this to anyone," she said. "Okay?"

"Okay," Christine said. Alice wasn't completely satisfied, so she held out her pinky. "Seriously?" Christine said. Alice took pinky swears very seriously, so when she didn't respond, Christine sighed and hooked her pinky with hers. Alice leaned as close to Christine as she could over the table, and Christine met her halfway.

"Dean's a mob boss."

Christine sat back as confusion took over her features. "Here?" she said. "In Kansas?"

"No, in Idaho," Alice retorted. "Yes in Kansas."

"I thought the mob was only in big cities," she said, "like New York or Chicago." Alice shrugged.

"I know he's not lying," she said, "because I went to one of his meetings on Sunday."

"You what?" Christine said. "Are you crazy?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If the mob is anything like I think it is," she said, "the closer you get to Dean, the more danger you'll be in."

"Dean will protect me," she said matter-of-factly.

"Don't be naive," Christine said. "Don't you watch enough Criminal Minds?" Alice just raised her eyebrows. "Could Hotch protect Haley when George Foyet held her and Jack at gunpoint?"

"Really?" she said. "That's your argument?"

"I'm just trying to speak your language," she said. "Dean can say he'll protect you all he wants, but the bad guys always go after the person closest to their enemy. What are you going to do if that person for Dean is you?"

"I'm not," she said. "He would do anything for Sam, and I'm sure Lucifer knows that."

"Lucifer?" Christine repeated.

Alice cringed, wondering if she shouldn't have used his name. Well, she was in too deep now. "He's one of the other mob bosses in the area," she said. "Dean and the other guy, Crowley, are hatching a plan to kill him."

Christine threw her hands in the air in disbelief. "None of this bothers you?" she said. "Alice, this is textbook toxic."

"No it's not," Alice snapped back. "I've already lived textbook toxic, remember? This is different. Dean would never hurt me."

"Not on purpose," Christine said. "But like I said, how's he going to stop someone else from doing it?" Alice was getting annoyed now.

"If you met him, you wouldn't be saying any of this," she said. Christine didn't say anything. Her arms were folded across her chest again, and her right eyebrow was twitching, something that only happened when she was really mad. "Please," Alice whispered. "I just want you to be happy for me. Give him a chance."

"I am happy for you," she said. "I'm glad you found someone who treats you right, but you still have rose colored glasses on. You've only known him for three weeks. I just want to make sure you're thinking all this through."

Alice had thought about this too. She wasn't naive. She knew she and Dean were still in the early stages of their relationship and that things could very well take a turn for the worst, but she was completely and utterly under his spell. There was no going back. Not really. Three weeks in with Dean was completely different than three weeks in with Greg had been. To her, that was a sign towards success.

"I know," she said to Christine. "I am. I swear." She paused. "My dads want to meet him." Christine's hard expression quickly changed to a gentle smile.

"Really?" she said.

Alice nodded. "I guess I've been talking about him a lot to Dad whenever I'm on the phone. Mark said it's about time."

"Do they know he's, like, significantly older than you?" she said.

"Actually yeah," she said with a slight laugh. "Mark wasn't totally for it at first, but Dad was able to calm him down and get him on board. He was older than my mom, so he gets it. I think."

"Nice," Christine said with a laugh. "I think my dad would kill the guy."

"Yeah well, my dads think if a guy can fix a car, he's good enough."

"And Dean can fix a car?"

"He drives a '67 Impala that he's rebuilt, like, three times."

"I don't know what a '67 Impala is, but I take it it's good?"

"To my dads it's better than porn."

"You're disgusting."

When Alice got home, she sat in front of her computer and opened up the blank document she had saved as MASTERS ESSAY. Despite the late night she had pulled at school a few weeks ago to work on it, she still only had the prompts written at the top: Why do you need this degree at this juncture in your life? What are your short- and long-term career goals? What are you most proud of?

She decided to just write everything that came to her mind, even if she knew she wasn't 100% making sense. She just needed to get all the garbage out to make room for the good stuff.

She was on a roll when her phone rang. Without even looking up from her computer, she pressed accept and put it on speaker. "Yeah?" she said.

On the other end, Dean laughed. "Well hi to you too."

"Sorry," she said, lifting her fingers off the keys and picking up her phone to put it to her ear. "I was distracted."

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked. She looked at the clock and saw that she had already been working for over an hour.

"No, you're good," she said. "What's up? Why'd you call?"

"Can't I just call my girlfriend for no reason?" he asked.

"No," she said, a smile on her face.

He laughed again. "Alright, you caught me. Was wondering if you were planning on coming to dinner tonight."

"Crap," she said, putting her forehead on her hand. "Yes, yes, I'm planning on it. I just totally forgot. Were we supposed to make anything? I still have time to whip something-"

"Hey, hey, relax," Dean said with a chuckle. "We're just in charge of drinks tonight. I'm gonna pick up a couple bottles of wine on my way there."

"Okay," she said. "Sounds good."

"You sound stressed," he said. She shrugged even though he couldn't see her.

"I guess I am a little," she said. "But it's no big deal. My neck is aching through. I feel like I've been sitting at the computer for a year."

"Let me come over," he said. "I'll give you a massage." His tone was teasing, but she knew he was being somewhat serious.

"If you do," she said, "can you promise not to distract me?"

"I cannot," he said.

She giggled. "At least you're honest. Be here in twenty?"

"I'll make it 17."

Somehow, true to his very specific word, Dean was at Alice's door in 17 minutes. She buzzed him into the building and resumed her position on the floor by the coffee table where her computer was sitting. She was still working on the application essay even though nothing worthwhile was coming out. Dean came into the apartment, confused for a moment when he didn't immediately spot Alice. He saw the top of her head over the couch and laughed. "What're you doing on the floor?" he asked, walking over to her.

"I think better," she said.

"What do you have to think so hard about?" he asked.

"Just writing," she said.

"Writing what?" he pressed, sitting behind her on the couch so her back was now against his legs.

"Shh," she said playfully. "More massaging, less talking." Dean chuckled and made her scoot forward so he could sit behind her on the floor, not wanting to hunch over as he massaged her. He spread his legs so she was nestled between them, and he put his hands on her shoulders.

They were both quiet as Alice continued to work and Dean massaged her. She told him he could put the TV on at a low hum so he wasn't bored out of his mind. He thanked her and flicked on Game of Thrones, which was perfect because Alice didn't care about it so she wasn't distracted. They were together with only the hum of the TV making noise for a full episode until Dean clearly started to get bored. He didn't play the next episode. Instead, he brushed some of Alice's hair over her shoulder so her neck was exposed to him. He started kissing her skin, glancing at her computer to see if he could catch her reflection. The screen was too bright, so he only saw what she was working on.

"I didn't know you wanted to go to grad school," he said. She bit her upper lip and shrugged.

"Yeah," she said.

"What do you want to study?" he asked.

"It's nothing," she said, shaking her head. "It's stupid."

"What are you talking about?" Dean said, squeezing her shoulders lightly. "It's not stupid. It's great." She turned her head to look at him and noticed the sincerity in his eyes.

"You're serious?" she said.

"Of course I am," he said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Alice thought for a moment. Now was the perfect time to open up about Greg. She didn't have to go into all of it, but there was no reason she couldn't tell him a little bit. "Um, I had a boyfriend in college," she said after clearing her throat. "He didn't think it was smart for me to pursue a masters."

"Why not?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I probably won't get in anyway, and why break focus on the career I already have?"

"So he didn't want you to better your career?" he asked.

She scoffed. "Yeah. Pretty much I guess."

"Well, fuck that guy," Dean said, squeezing her shoulders again. "Tell me what you want to study. I'm sure it's great." She smiled softly and stared down at her hands. Dean started pressing kisses to her neck again while she composed her thoughts.

"Applied Behavior Analysis," she said.

"Mm?" Dean hummed. "What's that?"

"It's basically the study of behavior," she said. "Like, what causes it and why it happens and what the consequences are. Because every behavior serves a purpose, and knowing why someone does what they do helps us understand them as a whole."

Dean didn't even have to see her face to know she was smiling. It was clear to him that she had been aching to talk to someone about this -something she was clearly so passionate about- but had been holding back, probably because of her asshole ex-boyfriend.

"It's one reason I love Criminal Minds so much," she continued. "It's like, their whole job as profilers is to understand people's behaviors and how it makes up who they are."

"So you want to join the FBI?" he teased.

"No," she said with a giggle. "It's also good for teaching. Like, I'm a gen-ed elementary teacher, but I still have students with special needs in my classroom, and it always frustrates me when I don't know how to help them. I have one BD student, and-"

"BD?" Dean repeated.

"Sorry," she said. "It's an abbreviation. Behavior disorder."

"Got it," he said.

She continued. "Right, so his name's Peter, and he can get violent sometimes. Like, almost every time we're about to start our math lesson, he comes at me with anything he can get his hands on. Sometimes it's his pencil or my stapler or his scissors, but sometimes it's just his little fists. But it's not his fault he does that. Something in his brain is convincing him that lashing out will help him, and if I can understand that better, I can help him more."

Alice was barely breathing at all between her sentences, and she didn't even care that she was rambling. Dean had stopped kissing her neck and now just had his chin resting in on her shoulder. "You know how I told you I like the movie Good Will Hunting?" she said.

"Mhm," he hummed.

"Have you ever seen it?" she asked. Dean shook his head no. "It's so good. Matt Damon plays a guy with a crazy high IQ but a lot of, like, bursts of anger and abandonment issues. He starts going to therapy, and his therapist is Robin Williams, which doesn't matter but it does because he's such a good actor." Dean chuckled, and Alice continued. "The more he opens up and the more Robin Williams is able to understand and help him, the better he gets. The difference between helping adults with behavior problems and kids with behavior problems is obviously huge, but the basics are the same. And that's what I want to learn more about. I know it's cliche and cheesy and stuff, but that movie helped me realize that the more we push aside kids who struggle, the worse they get, and the more likely we are to lose them to violence and crime and alcohol and drugs."

Alice finally took a deep breath, then clicked save on her document. "Sorry," she said with a chuckle. "I totally just went off."

"Don't be sorry," he said. "I love that you're passionate about that."

"Yeah," she sighed, "well, how come I can't put all of that passion into writing?"

Dean kissed her cheek. "You'll get there."

Alice turned around and looked at Dean, resting her hand on his cheek. "You're really awesome, you know that right?" she whispered. He smirked.

"I do," he said, "but it's always great to be reminded." She just giggled and pressed her lips to his, kissing him and crawling onto his lap. He groaned against her lips and gripped her hips in his hands. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she rolled her hips against his. She started kissing across his cheek and down to his neck, smiling when she heard him let out a heavy sigh.

Dean jumped when he felt Alice fumble with the buckle of his belt. "Hey, hey, sweetheart," he said, grabbing her hands. "What're you doing?" She didn't look at him, just kept lightly kissing his neck.

"I think," she whispered, "now would be a great time for me to make you feel good." Dean wanted to keep his composure. He refused to melt under this girl's touch, but Christ, it was her fucking sweet tone that killed him.

"If you're sure," he said. She nodded, then pulled away from his neck.

"I'm sure," she said, looking in his eyes. He licked his lips before pressing them to hers, threading his fingers in her hair. She kissed him back, easily getting lost in that drunk feeling he gave her. "Okay," she said as she pulled away, escaping the kisses Dean kept trying to give her. "Okay. Sit on the couch."

He chuckled. "Yes ma'am." He moved to the couch, and she straddled his waist again, pulling her t-shirt over her head. She could tell he wanted to kiss her, but she stopped him by pushing his flannel off his shoulders.

Why did he always wear so many layers?

When he was in only his black t-shirt, she reached for the hem and pulled that over his head too. She kept her hands pressed on the couch on either side of his head and started leaving open-mouthed kisses down his body. She moved so her knees were on the ground and unbuckled his jeans, pulling them down his legs. He helped her by lifting his butt so she could get them off with more ease. His boxers came right after, and Alice had to stop herself from gasping like a weirdo.

She had seen a penis once in her life, and it was because she googled penis because she was so sick of not knowing what one looked like. So this? This was her first real penis. And she didn't know much, but she knew Dean had to have been considered big.

She ran her tongue up the underside of his cock, giving it slow kitten licks. She looked up at him through her eyelashes and locked eyes with him. When she did, she wrapped her mouth around him and took his cock, inch by inch. She kept her throat relaxed, just like Christine said, and did her best not to gag when he hit the back of her throat. She pulled away completely so she could suck the tip before sinking down on him again.

"Oh fuck," Dean grunted. His hand moved to her hair, and she looked up at him again as she pulled back.

"Should I go faster?" she whispered, swirling her tongue around him.

"God, sweetheart," he said. "Whatever you want. You're doing so good." She hummed around his cock, and he barely whispered another, "Fuck." He kept his fingers gripped in her hair, though he didn't force her movements at all.

It was taking everything in his power not to lose it right then and there. He wanted to fuck her mouth until tears streamed from her eyes, but he held back. She felt so good wrapped around his cock like that, and the way she kept looking up at him made him moan and tug her hair a little bit. She moaned as well, the vibrations destroying him. "S-Sweetheart," he said, "I, I'm, fuck I'm gonna cum, baby." She pulled back and lazily rubbed his cock, not quite enough to make him cum, but still keeping him on that edge.

"Where do you want to cum?" she asked, her voice slightly hoarse.

"Fuck, ah-" He tried to concentrate. "It's, it's up to you baby."

She had no idea why she decided this considering everything Christine said at breakfast, but Alice put her mouth back on him and continued sucking him off, now dragging her nails up his thighs so she could gently squeeze his balls. He let out a strangled, "Fuck," and came in her mouth. She swallowed most of it but pulled away towards the end so some of it ended up dribbling on her chin. Dean's chest heaved, and he leaned forward and wiped the cum off her chin with his thumb. He was ready to pull back, but she grabbed his thumb and sucked it between her lips, licking it clean before allowing him to pull it away with a pop.

"Jesus Christ, Alice," he said, chuckling in disbelief. "You're fucking incredible, you know that right?" She giggled and shrugged.

"It's nice to be reminded."

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A/N - whatever you do don’t watch sexy Dean Winchester compilation videos if you’re single and a virgin because it gives you FEELINGS that only YOU can handle because you do NOT have a Dean Winchester at your disposal

(next)

series masterlist found here

general masterlist found here

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jyndor · 3 years

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Cop-thing-anon here:

(I don't believe in the blue lives matter thing by the way)

I do get where you're coming from. I guess I see the thing about cops and cop AUs differently because the police is different and not as fucked up in my country. The thing about the fanart is just..I think you're reading too much into it. I don't think the artist really focused on the skin colour of Sokka, I mean, it's a kids show. Skin colour was never really mentioned or important in atla. But Sokka's personality is most likely why the artist was inspired to draw him as a "gangster", with azula (the villain) being a cop. It is kind of insensitive to draw that with the events going on, but I think that a lot of people in the fandom take some things way too seriously, for a kids show back in the late 2000's anyway.

hey anon, I say this with love and I am being sincere. I'm gonna need you to rewatch the show if you think skin color didn't matter. and it doesn't matter where you live because there is no part of the world, no culture, that isn't shaped by colonialism. I don't mean to be condescending so please bear with me, I truly believe in educating people as a part of allyship and anti-racism.

Anon, please know that I am not angry or anything but sincere in what I’m about to say. Just bear with me because I know that unlearning shit is difficult and can be painful, but we’ve gotta do it. I do appreciate you wanting to have this conversation at all. And I’m not writing this just for your benefit - this is for anyone who wants to learn about why A) race is a part of ATLA’s narrative and B) why critical analysis of mass media is actually important. So I’m not assuming you don’t know basic things about this stuff, I’m not trying to be condescending.

Now we’re gonna fix colonialism and imperialism XD wee okay here we go.

No matter where you live in the world you have some awareness of skin color. Your understanding of race might be different than mine, in fact it probably is. Race as we know it today is a social construct that stems from many things (and I wrote several hundred words on it but it was too much and too far removed from the point I’m trying to make so I edited all of that out. Yay.)

You don’t usually see imperialism, one of the major themes in Avatar, without colonialism. Imperialism is slightly different than colonialism - you can think of it like the ideology behind the practice of colonialism.* Imperialism can be used to describe expansionism in general - which has been going on since the bronze age lol humans, I stg - but usually when people today refer to colonialism and imperialism they’re talking about imperialism starting in the 17th century.

Now imperialism is not just a European concept. ATLA is set in a world that we know is supposed to be like a combination of different Asian cultures (with some influences from the Americas). And the Fire Nation is clearly influenced by Imperial Japan. So briefly:

Japan had a policy of sakoku (chained or closed country) which kept it mostly isolated (out of concerns that Japan would fall victim to something like the Opium Wars in China, among other things) from the rest of the world for a couple hundred years until the 1850s when a US Naval commander named Matthew Perry (I am not kidding) forced Japan to open its borders for trade to the United States by gunboat diplomacy, an oxymoron if I have ever seen one before.

Japan ended up signing unequal treaties with a lot of Western countries, and this bred xenophobia and hostility in Japan. The Emperor who signed these treaties died of smallpox, and after some internal conflict his son decided try to renegotiate these treaties. The US and European countries were not interested in renegotiating dick but the mission wasn’t unsuccessful because the diplomats A) exchanged some islands with Russia and B) were inspired by western economic policy and society to “modernize” Japan. Japan began industrialization and it converted to a market economy with the help of the US and other western powers.

So over many years, Japan went to war with China, Korea, Russia (and took back some of the land they exchanged with them), and others. From wikipedia:

Using its superior technological advances in naval aviation and its modern doctrines of amphibious and naval warfare, Japan achieved one of the fastest maritime expansions in history. By 1942 Japan had conquered much of East Asia and the Pacific, including the east of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, part of New Guinea and many islands of the Pacific Ocean.

But ATLA is not a Japanese story. The Fire Nation is not Imperial Japan. The Earth Kingdom is not China or Korea, the Air Nomads are not Tibetan monks, and the Water Tribes are not Inuit. The creators definitely drew heavy inspiration from all of these places and others, but ATLA is a story written by American people in the United States for American kids. It is an American story.

And it was created at a time when the United States was victimizing people in Afghanistan and Iraq (and other places) in many similar ways to how the Fire Nation victimized people. In fact, the show starts in the Southern Water Tribe, which represent Inuit people, indigenous people in Alaska, Canada and Greenland, I think it’s safe to assume that the genocide being referenced here is not one by Japan but rather by European colonizers and later by the United States and Canada.

Imperialism is in the show’s DNA.

And so is racism. In our world they are inherently connected. And visual cues from the show along with things the characters say suggest that we are meant to make the comparison between our world and the ATLA world. Every story has a purpose - it doesn’t have to be political, but for Avatar it is political, it is anti-imperialist.

In this article about how ATLA resonates with us in 2020, Aina Khan of the Guardian interviews Professor Ali A Olomi about using ATLA to teach at Penn State. “One of the things we see with the Fire Nation is the ideological justification for what they’re doing. We are a glorious civilization. We have abundance, we have wealth, we have technological advancement; we need to share it with the rest of the world. That’s almost word for word European colonisation.”

Zuko and Azula both call Katara a peasant. In fact, Azula calls her a dirty peasant. This is one step away from calling her a s*vage I mean come on. While peasant might just be purely classist (lol no) because Zuko and Azula are royalty, um it’s clearly racialized classism because of real life context. There is real history with colonizers calling indigenous people this, dismissing their cultures as primitive and barbaric.

Add into the mix colorism, which is bias against darker skin and privileges fair skin (which is a byproduct of imperialism) and you have clear race shit happening in Avatar.

When I saw that fanart, I was immediately reminded of black lives matter of course, but mainly of the fact that indigenous peoples are also at high risk of being victimized by police. Not just in the US. And how gross it is to depict a colonizer like Azula as an angry cop (representing the state) turning her gun on an indigenous man who is dressed like a gangster which... yike.

Mass media influence everything we do. The messaging we get, our politics, what we want to eat for dinner because we’re hungry and have been writing this stupid essay for three hours LOL. It’s important that people think critically about what they consume. Otherwise you get the goddamn United States with half of our population stanning a racist fraud. You want to know why US Americans are so ignorant? Because our education system sucks, because we don’t have any real media literacy. But apparently the rest of the world has some fucking nerve making fun of Americans** because all of us suck at it. No one is thinking critically about media.

A really terrifying thing about people is our ability to take whatever message we want from stories, even if it is in direct contradiction with the narrative of a story. There’s a movie called American History X which is explicitly anti-fascist, but because it’s a drama and Ed Norton is cut and looks badass and uncucked or whatever LOL, the iconography in that movie is fairly popular with neo-nazis. Yike. This is not at that level of course, this is some random niche fanart for a rare pairing.

For better or for worse, US media and entertainment gets a lot of attention and people around the world eat it up. Maybe you don’t need to know every little detail about US American shit, and I know we tend to dominate media, but black lives matter is not just a 2020 thing. People have known about it for years, since it started. If that fanart was created in 2019, which I think it was, the BLM movement had already existed for six years. If you’re watching an American show like Avatar and you’re making fanart on social media but you don’t know what BLM is in 2019... well educate yourself lmao.

Considering that Black fans have expressed frustration and discomfort in fandoms over and over again, and I am sure indigenous fans have too because fandoms are racist sometimes, it’s important that white fans help make fandoms better. And I am a white fan, and I consider myself an anti-racist. Which means I have to be active about racism when I see it.

btw I found this great essay by @cobra-diamond which you should read if you want more details about the similarities between Japan and the Fire Nation.

* that is very reductive but it’s fine lol

** I am kidding, unless you are english feel free to make fun of americans for non-gun, non-trauma related things pls

#anons #asks #racism tw #colonialism tw #atla #fandom racism #acab #police violence #indigenous right #nazism tw #oh lord shitty discourse tw #imperialism tw #anyway now i'm gonna eat

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spaceorphan18 · 5 years

Text

SO Watches Friends 1x01-1x03

Apparently, it’s been 25 years since Friends aired - and I’m seeing all these articles on it, how it was the greatest ever, how it sucked, how apparently the youngins are discovering it on Netflix.

So - I felt like, what they hey, I haven’t seen it in years, and I need to watch something while I have meals, so let’s see how well this show holds up.

Pilot - The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate (because how else is she going to pay for that apartment.)

It’s funny to me that this was the hot new show of the time. Because these people are... incredibly boring. The beginning montage is them sitting in a cafe talking about random boring things for what appears to be hours, then they go home and watch TV. This seems to be what they do on the weekend. I mean, I realize in the early 90s there wasn’t /that/ much to do - but still, they live in NYC, and most of the stuff they do on this show will be sitting around doing nothing.

So, let’s break down these characters, shall we?

Rachel - It’s her wedding day, but she skips out on her wedding because she didn’t love her fiance. I think this is supposed to be funny? While I do think, in general, all of the characters are more relatable (and nicer) than in later in the series, she’s such a weird amalgamation of what the writers (or network?) thought would be relatable? I mean - she’s kind of dumb, and rich enough that money isn’t a problem, and her family values are set back in the 50s - hence her getting married so her husband can support her instead of her father.

I get where the character is coming from - but while it might have been more of a progressive stance at the time -- it seems like a relic now.

Monica - Who is the most together one of them at the moment. I like early Monica, tbh, who appears intelligent (for the most part). They’ll later take her quirks and make her a neurotic nutjob - but I can appreciate her mature nature right now.

She goes on a date with Paul the Wine Guy - and again, it shows just how boring these guys’ lives are that they’re standing around her apartment with nothing better to do than to cheer her on about her date. Is this what people in ther 20s did in the early 90s? I was much too young to know. Anyway - Paul the Wine Guy is an asshate who uses lines to get Monica into bed. The network thought this would make Monica sleezy. I’m so glad times have changed enough that we can look back and be glad we can see that it’s really Paul the Wine Guy who’s sleezy, and that there are faster ways to figure out if a guy is a creep or not.

Phoebe - Phoebe has absolutely nothing to do in the pilot other than be there and be weird. I much appreciate it - because this show would be utterly boring and devoid of any quirky elements if she wasn’t there. Also - Lisa Kudrow sells the comedy while most of the rest of them (minus Matthew Perry) seem to be just reading the script.

Joey - I have no idea what Matt LeBlanc is trying to do here. Is he doing a NYC Italian accent? Is he trying out for a part? He’s kind of the most cringy during the Pilot but at least that’ll go away quickly.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Joey, he and Chandler are like two halves of the same character at the beginning, both with little development. But - funny enough, maybe it’s age, I found myself agreeing with Joey during the whole dishing out life advice thing to Ross -- there’s no such thing as soul mates or destiny, get out there and live life :P

Chandler - Like Phoebe he doesn’t have much to do other than make quips. Granted - he did have some of the best, genuinely funny lines of the episode. Matthew Perry’s comedic chops as well - and it’s a shame there is much Phoebe and Chandler stuff on the show.

Anyway, the writers originally toyed with making Chandler gay, which I find a shame, I think that would have worked so well. And added some diversity to this really, really non-diverse cast. I completely understand why this makes lists of ‘Things Straight, White, and Loosely Christian People Like’. 25 years later, it’s incredibly glaring. Even Saved by the Bell, which was ending its run at the time, managed to be more diverse.

Ross - I’m curious as to when Ross becomes that one Friend whom everyone hates. He’s recently divorced (from a woman who figured out she was a lesbian) and being really mopey about it (which, you know, is understandable). I don’t particularly like or dislike Ross at the moment.

I will say the whole Ross and Rachel thing is telegraphed from a mile here, and it’s weird that they’re going to drag this romance out for an entire season and a half when he literally asks her out at the end of the episode, and she says yes. Why, why, why is this going to be dragged out so much. (I know the reason - sweeps week - but still.)

Is the episode entertaining? Eh. It still has a lot of the trappings of an 80s sitcom - the annoying laugh track, the forced jokes, the surface level stories - only it’s new and hip because 20-somethings had never had a show to themselves without an older mentor around. At the same time, there isn’t anything that remarkable about any of these 20-somethings, which may or may not have been the point. I suppose we’ll see.

The One With the Sonogram (of Ross’s baby that he’s having with this lesbian ex-wife) at the End

This episode is merely a continuation of all the threads set up in the pilot. You can tell Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe aren’t developed yet, as they really don’t do anything other than crack one-liners at opportune times. I shouldn’t complain that these characters just don’t feel like they’re getting enough time together as a group (because obviously, there are a ton more episodes to go where they are) but I feel like they’re spending too much time in individual plot lines that aren’t that interesting.

Plot A) Ross finds out that his ex-wife (who’s a lesbian) is having his baby (because apparently they did it one more time after she left him? Idk), and he’s not doing so well with that. Idk - I don’t hate this plot line. For being the early 90s, the show is treating being gay with much more respect than pretty much everything before that (even if the idea of lesbians is treated as a joke rather than a serious thing people are). At least the gay stuff isn’t villainized.

Plot B) Rachel gives back the ring to her ex-fiance, whom she finds out was fooling around with her maid of honor. This is the first time we meet Barry, and everything about him screams douchebag. There’s nothing remotely interesting here, and it almost feels obligatory for Rachel’s story. Also - I find it ridiculous that he and Rachel would be having private conversations with a (child) patient there.

Plot C) We meet Monica and Ross’s controlling and judgmental parents who prefer Ross to Monica. While Elliot Gould and Christina Pickles are both fantastic actors - I cannot with the amount of judgy-ness that spews forth, and really can’t wait for them to be the quirkier people they eventually become.

Oh- and I forgot, this show decided for the beginning of season 1 to have these philosophical discussions about the differences between men and women, and I feel like this episode is supposed to loosely tie into that and I kind of roll my eyes and am like -- just be the situational comedy that you’re meant to be.

Is this episode any good? Eh, not really. There are some funnier moments in an otherwise bland and obligatory story.

The One With the Thumb (in a can that Phoebe almost drinks)

This episode is so boring that it’s almost tedious to get through all 22 minutes of it. Here we go!

Plot A) Monica dates a guy named Alan that everyone likes but she doesn’t and she finds it hard to break up with him.

I get what the writers were going with here - that she’d have to tell her friends that they need to ‘break up’ with Alan, despite them all really liking him. Idk - I don’t think the whole schtick is that funny, and feels pointless when we barely get to meet Alan himself.

I do have to note that Monica talks with one of her coworkers - who is the first PoC on the show, a black woman. But we’re never going to see her again, so...?

Plot B) Chandler starts smoking again - and we get a PSA plot line about the dangers of smoking. Friends is rarely going to be a preachy show, and it’s super weird when it is. It’s especially weird that it’s centered around smoking because -- who cares?

Plot C) Phoebe accidentally has good things happen to her. It’s almost like a running joke more than a plot line that ends with her ending up with a thumb in a can that nets her $7000. It’s... just a really dumb sitcom plot line. But, hey, we learn that Phoebe hangs out with homeless people. And, the episode gets a point for tying all three plot lines together at the end.

So... I’ll probably do these three or four at a time. And the first three? Eh, not great. It’s fascinating that this show became such a hit right off the bat - because there’s not anything uniquely interesting about any of these characters yet. And the plot lines are all so generic and/or dumb that there’s little to latch on to.

We’ll see how this goes.

#friends #so watches friends

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