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yourlocalfictionalenthusiast · 3 years

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IN LIFE, IN DEATH...

PART THREE

Part One, Part Two

Warnings: just some swearing

May 1995

“We’re totally gonna get a record deal!”

Luke said for the tenth time in the past hour as he bounced in his seat.

It was Friday night and normally, you would all be messing around at the park, the beach, or just watching a movie in the studio. But when your phone rang and it was the booking manager for the Orpheum telling you that Sunset Curve is officially the new opener next month, the boys insisted on being there the second your shift at the diner was over.

So instead of arguing about having another Star Wars marathon or playing at the pier, you were all packed in your regular booth at Cece’s for celebratory milkshakes. You sat on the very edge of the booth, practically falling asleep on Alex. Ever since you got the call that morning, every cell in your body felt supercharged with excitement.

But now that the day was coming to an end, you could hardly stay awake enough to pay attention to the conversation.

Bobby, who was in your usual spot, pinched Luke’s arm. “Don’t jinx it, dude.”

“It’s not jinxing if you know for sure.” Luke said. “I mean, we’re awesome! And we’ve worked so hard to get to this point. It’s all gonna pay off.”

As much as you wanted to believe him, you were still nervous. There was nothing you were prouder of than your music, and you knew that a crowd that big would be good for gaining a lot of new fans. But the idea of that many people seeing you perform and hearing your lyrics was nerve-wracking.

You could tell the others felt the same way. Bobby was biting his nails, Alex was bouncing his leg so hard it almost hit the table and Reggie was slumped against the wall. Luke just stared at all of you, his bright smile never fading.

He snapped his fingers so loud that you jumped at the noise, then he started digging in his pockets. “I know what’ll cheer you guys up.”

Luke pulled out a safety pin, then brought its point down into the table, his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth in concentration. After a few minutes, he brushed off the table and presented his design proudly. It was four words in huge slanted letters.

‘SUNSET CURVE WAS HERE’

“Seriously, Luke?” Alex said, his eyes wide. “Cece’s gonna kill you!”

Luke just smirked and handed him the pin, gesturing to the space under the words. “‘C’mon, man. You’re up first.”

It took a lot of convincing, but Alex eventually gave in, and one by one, you all signed your names.

‘Alex,

Bobby

Reggie

Luke

(Y/N)’

You heard the sound of Cece’s heels hitting the floor as she exited the kitchen. Panicking, you shoved the pin in your pocket just in time as she came up to the table.

Before she could even see that anything was different, Reggie pointed at Luke.

“He did it!”

Cece frowned before inspecting the table, letting out a deep sigh and putting her hands on her hips.

“Are you vandalizing my diner, Patterson?”

Luke paled. “It was a group effort.”

“But it was your idea,” Alex said with a smirk, no doubt trying to pin the blame on Luke to keep his spot as Cece’s favorite. You had to bury your head into his shoulder to contain your laughter.

You could tell from the way that she was struggling to keep a straight face that Cece wasn’t actually mad but you weren’t gonna tell Luke that. He tried to kick Alex’s leg under the table but he hit yours instead. You hissed in pain and Luke paled even further.

“Shit, sorry, (Y/n).”

“And abusing my staff?” Cece joked, shaking her head.

Luke flashed her a charming smile as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry, Cece. Just got a little excited.”

“I can see that.” She laughed then turned to you. “Hey. Get up. I got you something.”

You looked up at her in confusion but she didn’t offer you any answer as you dragged yourself up. Cece pulled a small blue box out from behind her back and handed it to you. “What’s the occasion?”

Cece rolled her eyes. “Just open it.”

The first thing you saw was a folded piece of paper with your name on it, under it was a silver key. You picked it up and held it in between your fingers as you carefully unfolded the paper to see three words in Cece’s careful handwriting.

just in case

You looked up at her, eyebrows knitted together. “Cece?”

She just winked as she put her hand on your cheek. “Honey, you know that I couldn’t have more faith in you and your rockstar dreams. But just in case things don’t work out...well, I couldn’t imagine giving this place to anyone else.”

You flew into her arms and hugged her so tight it was a little painful. Of course, all you wanted was for Sunset Curve to get signed to a label and take over the world. But this place was like home to you and the idea of owning it some day made your heart swell. “Thank you!”

The booth erupted in cheers and Cece playfully glared at them as she tucked you under her arm. “But you have to promise you’ll keep these boys of yours from doing any more damage to the property.”

Bobby scoffed. “Hey, we’re not-”

You slapped your hand over his mouth before nodding at Cece. “I’ll try my best.”

The bell on the door jingled to announce the arrival of another customer, and Cece left to greet them. You twirled the key around in your hand and looked at the boys' smiling faces, unable to hide your own.

As you settled back in the booth and took a sip of your milkshake, you couldn’t help but feel like everything was coming together.

2020

L.A was somehow so different, yet exactly the way you remembered.

The way the bright lights flooded the streets, to the way that every surface you see was decorated with a piece of art, made you anxious to re-explore the city you loved so much.

You couldn’t help but stare through your swinging legs at the crowds walking around below, listening to the soft buzzing of the Orpheum’s sign above your head.

An hour ago when Luke had suggested walking around the city, you figured you would end up here eventually. But now that you were actually here, you couldn’t help the hollow feeling that settled in your stomach.

It must’ve shown on your face because Luke launched into one of his motivational speeches. “C’mon, guys. I know being dead wasn’t our first choice. But you gotta admit, it is easier to get around.”

Reggie pouted. “Easy for you maybe. I lost my shirt on that one.”

You hadn’t even noticed that he was shirtless until it reappeared in a flash and he sighed in relief.

“So, why did you bring us here?” Alex asked Luke. “Just another painful reminder of where we never got to play?”

You smiled sarcastically. “Yeah, thanks, Luke.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “Because, we’re not done yet!”

He slung his arm around Alex’s shoulder, and gripped yours as he poofed you all down to the sidewalk, pulling away from you as fast as possible once your feet were back on the ground.

“I’m telling you.” Luke said. “We’ve been given a second chance. Let’s go see how many clubs we can hit before sunrise!”

He started walking down the street and Reggie was quick to follow, leaving you and Alex behind. As you watched them skip down the sidewalk, Alex let out a sharp ‘hey!’ and you whipped around to see him rubbing his shoulder.

A man in a long black suit stared straight into your eyes before tipping his hat to Alex and disappearing down the street. Every hair on your body stood on end as you stared at the spot where he was just standing.

“That was weird.” You said, turning to Alex. “You okay?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, I’m good.”

You could hear Luke and Reggie’s excited shouting as they ran down the street, but you and Alex kept your distance. He reached his arm out to you and you took it automatically.

Over the last six months, Alex had become your best friend. You had always been close but last summer when things got bad with his parents, he turned to you.

And when things started to get weird between you and Luke or you had a fight with your mom, Alex was the only one you wanted to talk to.

“Alright.” Alex sighed. “Out with it.”

“Out with what?”

“I know you’re dying to talk about Luke.”

“I am not!”

Alex raised his eyebrows, clearly not convinced.

“Besides, there’s nothing to talk about.”

“Nothing-” He took in a sharp breath. “(Y/n), for someone so smart, you’re acting like a dumbass.”

You put a hand on your chest, dramatically gasping. “Alexander Mercer! I had no idea you were capable of using that kind of language.”

He flashed you his middle finger before unlocking his arm from yours and pulling you into his side. “Seriously though. What’s rolling around up there?”

You were quiet for a few minutes as you rested your head on his shoulder. “I just want to know what I did, you know?”

Alex nodded, but didn’t say anything, as he knew that you were just getting started.

“I mean, he’s always been there. He's always been my person. The one who I could count on for anything. Then that night in the studio, I thought…”

You trailed off and Alex held you a little tighter. Even though he wasn’t there, he could probably describe that night in exact detail from the amount of times you had told him about it. “I just miss him."

“Yeah, I know.” Alex said, his eyes glued to Luke’s back. “But, hey, you know that he loves you, and that didn’t change because of one night.”

He started to say something else but cut himself off as he saw Reggie and Luke approaching, both with big, goofy smiles. Reggie took your arm that wasn’t around Alex’s back and locked it in his.

“What are you guys talking about?” He asked.

“Nothing!” You said way too fast, cringing to yourself as you dragged Reggie down the sidewalk. “Come on, Reg. Let’s go see if that old comic book shop is still around.”

As the night wore on, you became more and more thankful that you weren’t able to get tired.

You spent the whole night sneaking into concert venues, clubs, and pretty much any place you wanted now that there was no chance of getting caught. It wasn’t until you passed a small street-side café that you let yourself think about the one place you hadn’t been yet.

Cece’s Diner.

When Julie told you it had been 25 years, you assumed that it had closed down. That Cece had moved away. Maybe even reconnected with her son and lived out her life. It seemed like such a perfect thought that you didn’t want to ruin it with reality.

But now that you had seen the way things had changed in the time you had been gone, you were now filled with a sense of urgency. You launched up the sidewalk until you were in front of the boys.

“Hey, guys?” You asked. They all stared at you curiously as a smile slowly spread across your face. “Anyone up for milkshakes?”

When you walked up to the diner - for only an instant - it was as if no time had passed. You felt the urge to run inside, throw your hair up in a ponytail, and make a beeline for the kitchen before you got in trouble for being late for your shift.

Only as you got closer, you realized how much had changed. The building, which had always been a little ordinary and worn like a well-loved home, now felt about twenty stories tall. You dragged yourself forward toward the door, unable to look away.

The boys lingered behind you, but no one said a word.

Your hand reached for the doorknob before you remembered that you wouldn’t actually be able to touch it.

I really gotta get used to that, you mumbled to yourself as you walked through the door.

It looked so different that you almost didn’t recognize it.

The bright blue paint had been replaced with brown on every wall, bookshelves lined the corners of the room, and long leather couches had replaced the booths and tables. The old jukebox had disappeared, and some old jazz song was playing over speakers over your head.

“Can I help you?”

A voice asked from behind the counter. It was a boy that looked a little older than you, messy black hair and an uninterested smile. He dragged a blue pen across the margins of a book as he waited for your answer.

“You can see us?” Alex asked, to which the boy rolled his eyes.

“I’m talking to you, aren’t I?” He said, raising his eyebrows when you all failed to answer either of his questions.

“My, my. Aren’t we chatty.”

“Who are you, exactly?” You said, trying to mask your annoyance with a smile.

“Teddy.” He said, pushing himself off the counter and making his way around until he stopped just a few feet ahead of you. “And you’re (Y/n).”

A shiver ran down your spine. “How do you know that?”

“You were a friend of my grandma’s.”

Before you could ask what the hell he meant by that, a man came walking out of the kitchen. He looked so much like Cece that it made your stomach flip. It was her son.

And as you looked back at Teddy, your mind slowly connected the dots. “You’re Cece’s grandson?”

He nodded.

“Okay, this is just too weird.” You said as you rubbed your temples. There was no way that this was actually happening, right? Maybe you somehow fell asleep and are having some weird ghost dream.

“Okay, well I definitely feel old.” Alex sighed.

Your head was spinning. “What is even happening right now.”

Teddy smiled. “Well, it’s too bad we’re dead or else I would buy you coffee and explain it to you.”

You internally cringed at his pick-up line but you couldn’t help but laugh a little. Normally, random guys flirting with you made you uncomfortable but behind his cocky attitude, he seemed like a genuine guy.

Maybe it was the way that he twirled his pen between his fingers the way that Cece used to, but something told you that there was more to him than meets the eye.

Before you could answer, Luke spoke up. “Well, it was nice meeting you. But we really should be getting back home.”

You could see that he was right as the pale light came in through the windows as the sky started to lighten.

But you couldn’t help but notice that this was the first time he had interjected in the conversation since you got there, and a small part of you wondered if that had anything to do with the way that Teddy was staring at you.

You shook those thoughts from your head, giving Teddy a soft smile.

“Maybe next time.”

Though you weren’t capable of getting cold, you still shivered a little as you walked through the door and back out onto the street. You could feel Luke’s eyes on the side of your face, flickering down to the sidewalk when he saw you looking.

You gave him a light nudge on the shoulder, and he gave you a soft smile that you couldn’t quite decipher the meaning behind.

That was pretty much all you got from Luke these days.

“So,” Luke said, his enthusiasm returning in full force as he threw his arms over Alex and Reggie’s shoulders. “I think it’s safe to say we’re officially back in business.”

The second that you landed in the studio, your jaw dropped.

Julie was sitting at the piano, her voice shaky but full of passion as she belted out the most beautiful song you’ve ever heard. Her fingers hit the keys expertly and you smiled.

You closed your eyes, listening to her voice echo through the room and getting lost in the warm feeling the lyrics filled you with. It wasn’t until she stopped singing and sniffled quietly that your heart dropped.

Both you and Alex surged forward to comfort her but Luke shook his head and swirled his finger, signaling to meet up outside. You wanted to protest. To stay and comfort your new friend.

But Julie sniffled again and you thought that maybe it would be a good idea to give her space. You made a mental note to talk to her later and poofed out of the garage.

In Life, In Death Taglist:

@ifilwtmfc @instabull @wanniiieeee @tenaciousperfectionunknown

JATP Taglist:

@caitsymichelle13

Let me know if you want to be added!

#luke patterson #luke patterson x reader #luke patterson imagine #julie molina #Reggie Peters #Alex Mercer #jatp fanfic

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theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 3 years

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So I was showing my sister your amazing Q-A posts, when I came across Peter's. I realized that you just keep mentioning the incompetence of the Order, and how they're just a bunch of babysitters who don't do anything throughout many posts, but never actually wrote a rant about them and their members. Can you do that, while stating all the things they did/didn't do and their uselessness to the Order? What can I say I love your rants!

Caveat that it has been a while since I’ve read books 5, 6, and 7 of Harry Potter. I have a fantastic memory but some things may slip my mind. If I grievously offend anyone and it turns out the Order does actually do something, anything, of any vague importance then feel free to let me know and shame me on the internet.

With that, the story of why I think the Order of the Phoenix is a ridiculous organization that was mostly there because Dumbledore felt the need to have a guerilla resistance group (you’ve got to have a guerilla resistance group! Or, if Tom has a secret cult, I must have one too! BUT WITH BIRDS! COO COO KACHOO TOM RIDDLE!)

First, let’s look at our lineup.

Yes, we have a few aurors in the midst, but even with them the lineup is... worrying. In the first war we knew that key figures had presumably just graduated Hogwarts and joined the Order (James and Sirius). For all we know, they were recruited even before graduation. This makes sense as James’ is a big financial win for Dumbledore and was probably, perhaps with Longbottom, in charge of funding most of their operations. That and he and Longbottom give Dumbledore a voice in the Wizengamot (which so far as I can surmise is the only real governing body in the country, the ministry exists, but it all boils down to the Wizengamot).

The point being, James, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and Lily are all barely squeaking out of Hogwarts not only when they join the Order but also even by the time they die. More, it could be because the books are from Harry’s point of view and he has a serious thing about worshipping James, but James in particular is made to sound very vital to the Order’s operations. A twenty-one-year-old who charged Voldemort without a wand (I really shouldn’t give James shit for this, it was a desperate situation, an attack they had not anticipated, he’s young, and panicking. I will still give James shit for this.)

Otherwise we have Mundungus Fletcher, who gives strong vibes of being an alcoholic and is just a generally unreliable, shady, dude who will steal your silverware and pawn it on the black market when you aren’t looking.

We have Molly and Arthur Weasley, whose only use I can possibly think of is being moral support and... I don’t know... providing safe houses maybe? Seriously, we have no indication they’re good at dueling (less so as Harry’s shocked when Molly takes on Bellatrix and miraculously wins). We know Arthur’s not a very intelligent guy. Arthur and Molly have no sense of... Well, suffice to say, if Dumbledore gave them any real information they’d run away screaming. They throw Percy out of the family for becoming Fudge’s secretary, I’m sure Dumbledore was just internally screaming and begging them not to do it so he can make Percy a spy. But he can never say as much as such a notion would horrify Molly and Arthur. Molly and Arthur are also presented as vital members of the Order by the way. Molly and Arthur. ARTHUR.

We have what remains of the Marauders in the second go around: Remus and Sirius. Remus, while a competent wizard, nobody can quite trust for the reason they couldn’t quite trust him last time: he’s still a werewolf and has no reason to support the current government. Sirius is recovering from ten years in hell and is in no condition to do anything, knows it, loathes it, and is clawing at the walls of the safehouse he was pretty much forced to provide the Order.

We then have the aurors. Kingsly seems competent enough but more than him we have Moody and we have Tonks. Tonks is young and seems very very green, she was a good enough duelist to get into the auror corps but we know she’s dreadfully clumsy and often seems to treat Order business as this very exciting super secret mission she’s on. Moody, is a paranoid wreck who is almost comical for his utterly ridiculous skepticism of everything and seems incapable of making any true plans or taking any real action.

Looking at the Order of the Phoenix is kind of like watching “Dodgeball”, you just have this really weird collection of people who try to dodge wrenches, only the Death Eaters aren’t much better, so it kind of evens out.

But onto why I think they do nothing... It’s because we see them do nothing.

We don’t get much information on the first war but at best it seems like there were a few minor skirmishes in the street now and then. I always imagine something like the Sharks and the Jets in Westside Story. They’re walking along the streets, spot each other, dramatic music ensues and a rumble begins, then they scamper away when the aurors come in.

Remember that these guys aren’t a legitimate organization and really don’t have the structure of one. Back in the day they were probably, essentially, a street gang.

We get a little more evidence of what we see them get up to in the later books. And it’s all just kind of sad.

Remus is sent on the world’s most ridiculous and hopeless quest to recruit werewolves. Why do I say ridiculous and hopeless, what the hell does Remus have to offer these guys? Werewolves are ridiculously oppressed by the current government, they cannot obtain an education, they cannot hold jobs, they’re desperately unemployed and people routinely talk about wiping them out. Remus comes up to them and says, “Hey guys, come support the guerilla movement that supports the government that talks about killing you all the time! It’ll be great!” They’ll either put Remus’ head on a pike or if they’re nice just laugh at him until he leaves. I’d say it’d be worth it, except that it’s an exceedingly dangerous task that probably would end with Remus’ head on a pike. As it is, it ends in embarrassing failure. And this is one of the more legitimate Order missions.

Hagrid, similarly, is sent to talk to the giants and it ends in equally embarrassing failure for the same reasons (why would the giants ever support the ministry and or Dumbledore who promises them nothing). Also, sending Hagrid to talk diplomacy, with anyone, ever. Surely, there’s no way that could possibly go wrong.

Otherwise their big task seems to be to babysit Harry and transfer him from the Dursleys to the Burrow/Grimmuald Place. The first, they fail at, Mundungus gets put on the job the one day something actually happens and it’s a complete disaster. The second, they also fail at, as I never understood why they couldn’t just portkey him where they needed him to go or at least closer by. The polyjuice flight across the sky was... really unecessary.

You can tell by the seriousness with which most Order members, i.e. Tonks, take the babysitting Harry duty that this is a very serious task for very serious people. Given this, Tom’s lack of overt action in the fifth and sixth books, the fact that we don’t seem to see them do anything even in the seventh book... Yeah, this and keeping an eye out for that prophecy are their most exciting jobs.

Remember that rescuing Harry from the Department of Mysteries wasn’t really Dumbledore’s idea. That was an emergency situation where he had to pull out the stops, more, I suspect Sirius went “CHAAAAAARGE” and gleefully rushed out into glorious battle with the Order directly behind him and Dumbledore going, “Well, shit.”

I guess the last thing I’ll say is that we also see that Dumbledore has very little confidence in the Order. He gives them nothing important to do and, more, gives them virtually no intelligence.

He never tells the Order about the horcruxes (their existence or Harry, Hermione, and Ron’s super serial mission to track them down and destroy them). He never relays to them that Harry himself is a horcrux. He never reveals the suicide ploy with Snape or that he was in fact dying before that point. He never reveals Malfoy’s assassination attempts. Dumbledore doesn’t tell them jack shit.

If he relies on anyone, usually when he’s forced to, it’s Severus Snape. This I think is not only because Snape is forced in a way to be loyal thanks to the life debt to Harry as well as his own overwhelming sense of guilt but also because he’s the only really intelligent and competent one there.

The Order’s just... if you need someone to pick up Harry or else keep an eye on him when Mrs. Figg is busy: they’re your guys. Otherwise, they make Dumbledore feel good about himself?

#ask #anon #the order of the phoenix #harry potter #headcanons

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azureflight · 3 years

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My entire friend group have uninstalled WoW and started FF14

It still feels surreal we are doing this. Now, it is perfectly possible that we will be back to WoW within the month, talking about how disappointing the “weeb game” was, but, this stills feels like a seminal moment.

I have been a Warcraft fan since I was a literal kid trying (and failing :P) to play Tides of Darkness on my aunt’s desktop. I spent so many hours and so much of my allowance playing Reign of Chaos in internet cafes.

When WOTLK trailer dropped, we had hijacked the computer lab and projected it to the auditorium for all to see.

I have been part of real life, unironic Horde vs Alliance infighting in college gaming clubs. I remember us all wearing Horde/Alliance merch, enthusiastically and rather foolishly, but completely seriously, arguing about lore, about who did what wrong and who was “more at fault”.

I own, almost every single Warcraft book, comic, guide ever published. I own hard copies, I own digital copies. I have watched and read and listened to every single piece of lore ever produced about this setting.

I have kept my sub up and played through all of the content draught, the infamous SoO, the practically less than 2 patch worth expac that was WoD.

I have allowed my sub to lapse for the first time during BFA.

I was so hyped for Shadowlands back when it was announced, and was annoyed when they changed the release date, causing me to waste my vacation time that I had taken for it. But a mere month of the expac in and I was already bored of it. And now, 9.1 is out and I am done. I barely played this patch and I have not only cancelled my sub, but went and removed the game from my PC.

Maybe this is a stupid overreaction and in the next patch, at the worst the next expac, I will be right back at the fur shop like the old fox I am. However, I know it feels different.

Throughout the years, I had many a thing that frustrated me about this game. Made me rage even. But I hadn’t quit then. No. The feeling that has been creeping up on me, isn’t rage. It is disinterest. I just, don’t care anymore.

Most of my friends over the years have switched to the Horde and this has been a sore spot for me. I stuck with Alliance, having some alts to play with them, and they had some Alliance alts to play with me, but... It wasn’t the same, it wasn’t enough. Several online friends, I had already lost contact with.

And now we are all gathering in FF14! I had the discord chat of my life! So many people I hadn’t talked to in years, on top of my actual real life friends whom I hang out with, are all jumping into this new journey.

My best friend’s progression guild is looking to make a full guild transfer, currently all of them except one have characters and a guild in FF, trying to convince the last guy to make the switch.

And then there is the lore. That’s why I fell in love with this setting in the first place. I loved this story, the cheese, the heroism, the over the topness, all of it. It was never “high art”, but it was unique in its own way, it had heart and it had characters and stories that I got invested in. Deeply so. I hadn’t start playing WoW because I was a connoisseur of MMORPG genre and “calculated it to be the best among its contemporaries”. I dived head first in Vanilla because it was Warcraft.

And now, I honestly cannot bring myself to care about this story, or its characters, other than a passing resentment. This was not the case, less than a year ago. I had bought the bloody Shadows Rising novel, I had read it and I liked it.

Now I am just, over it. This sense was rising, this sense of feeling less and less care for it, as expac after expac went in wildly nonsensical directions. But I had things that I had liked well enough to keep at it and have hope, hope for a good enough story that would keep me engaged. But I lost it. Something broke in 9.1.

I guess I realized, or rather I perceive, that the actual writers of this story do not care about it and none of it matters. There is no story. There is no plot, no continuity. Just an endless stream of “cool” shots in cinematics that ultimately don’t matter because, it has no basis and it has no relevance. It exists because someone wanted to make this cool scene, without caring what came before it, or what will come after it. Each scene exist, not to progress a cohesive story, but simply because someone wanted it to exist. And the next “cool” piece will flagrantly retcon the last one, ignoring or outright invalidating the stakes and hooks that had been set up in the previous one.

This is no longer a story of people, who were dramatic and weird and fantastical, but ultimately people. No. This is now a check list of what someone wanted to do in WoW setting and all the characters are empty puppets and all the plots matter only as much as they matter in any given single cinematic or questline. There is no pay off, and there is no logic. Characters aren’t allowed to live and react. Things only happen because the author said so, and the characters just bend and transform to do their bidding. And they feel no reason to explain nor establish as to why a character acts the way they do, let alone trying to make it believable or internally justified.

The gameplay aspect is the least important to me, the exact opposite of the majority. But I am sick and tired being punished with powerlessness for what I like story wise or aesthetically. I am sick and tired needing to read through guides upon guides, copying meta builds, just to have my class be remotely playable.

And most importantly, I am sick and tired of a game that will put me through genocide, deny me justice and vengeance under the guise of need for cooperation and then deny me playing with my friends across factions.

Now I get to play with all of my friends without jumping over the hoops or giving up on what I love. Because there are no stupid factions in FF14. And I can play multiple classes without hating myself.

I had several favorite characters in this game. They are still, mostly, alive. But do I care about them anymore? Jaina, Anduin, Sylvanas, Turalyon, Tyrande, Genn... No. I don’t care and it doesn’t even hurt anymore, it just feels like I had wasted my time and money. It feels exactly like how I felt during season 8 of GoT. An empty feeling of waste, so I leave.

Will I care about the characters or the story in FF14? I don’t know. I don’t think I will stick around if I don’t. But will I go back to WoW? A piece of me wants to hope for a superb turn around, but... Honestly? I don’t see it happening. And anything less than an epic turn around that fixes all of this, the lore, the classes, the playerbase division? I won’t bother anymore.

So off to the greener pastures! Maybe I will come crawling back within the blink of an eye, eating this post, repenting for ever having left. Maybe... I just don’t think so.

#World of Warcraft #shadowlands #Anduin Wrynn #Jaina Proudmoore #Sylvanas Windrunner

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penguinwithitsarseonfire · 3 years

Text

Your Hand Print's on my Soul

Part 1 | See the Full Series Here

Pairing: 13th Doctor x Reader

Word Count: 5,069

Warnings: None

Summary: After a terrifying adventure causes the Doctor to have a realisation about you, she seeks advice from some old friends.

A/N: Fair warning, this will be a series, but each fic is a standalone. I’m using this to practise writing different characters and/or different writing styles, This fic features the Paternoster gang, because I love them!!

It hadn’t been a startling realisation, which was what had surprised her. Her realisations were often the cause of something dramatic. This one, however, didn’t involve an Earth shattering life or death situation, no one had held her by gun point until she’d had an awakening, and it hadn’t taken someone else pointing it out – like an alien hell bent on taking some other culture over or the like.

No, it had been in a quiet moment. Just the two of you, lazing the day away.

You had been smiling, completely entranced in whatever you had been reading, sitting on the TARDIS steps whilst the Doctor had been tinkering. She had looked up for a moment, trying to remember which wire she was supposed to reconnect into the chameleon circuit, and there you were.

Under the glow of the TARDIS’ crystals, your skin warm and soft, your eyes sparkling, it had sort of… clicked.

The Doctor loved you.

She considered it for a moment, let the thought roll over in her head.

You had laughed at something in your book, and the Doctor realised she always wanted to hear it, that it was, quite possibly, just the very best sound in the world.

Yes, she loved you.

It made sense, really. It was surprising she hadn’t realised it earlier.

So she kept the thought with her, held it close to her hearts, and smiled at you softly. Before you could look up, before you could wonder why the clacketing and hissing from her tinkering had stopped, she turned away, resuming her work.

The life or death situation had caused the next realisation.

You had gotten separated from the group, and those awful, hideous (well, the Doctor assumed they were hideous, but she had admittedly never seen them) Vashta Nerada were back.

Her and the rest of the fam had found themselves back to the TARDIS, and the Doctor was about to manipulate where the light was falling over the park in a move that basically just involved popping the TARDIS in and out of time milliseconds apart.

But you weren’t there.

You weren’t there.

And so the Doctor had thrown herself into the TARDIS, furiously using every tool available to her to find some sort of evidence that you were alive – a bio print, a residual security scan, a photograph, anything.

And then you had stumbled out of a shadow, shaking, the person you had been with gone.

And the Doctor had realised then; she couldn’t lose you. Not ever.

Yaz had wrapped you into her arms and her and Ryan had ushered you into the TARDIS. The Doctor began her complicated flying manoeuvre, the day was saved, and Graham made tea.

And the Doctor realised; she had to make a plan.

The thing was though, she wasn’t really very good at this sort of stuff. Hell, she wasn’t any good at any sort of intimacy, platonic, romantic, or otherwise – as Graham could attest to.

Actually, y’know what, if Graham was to come to her today with some of those fears he’d had, The Doctor quietly reckoned she would’ve had a much better response.

That wasn’t what she was supposed to be thinking about, though.

But this was why she had found herself, parked over the Medusa Cascade, legs dangling out of the TARDIS door, cup of peppermint tea in hand, and just staring into space. Thinking about, well, thinking about you.

And what she ought to do.

“Hey,” you said, you voice only slightly louder than the low hum of the TARDIS’ engines. It was enough to pull the Doctor from her thoughts, as you so often did, even if you were the subject of her thoughts. “Are you alright?”

The Doctor nodded, turning slightly so she could look at you. You were wearing a plain green jumper and pyjama pants covered in question marks. The Doctor eyed the jumper curiously, it was setting off alarm bells in her mind, as if she was supposed to recognise it.

Then it hit her.

“Where’d you get those clothes?” She asked.

You looked down at your clothes and flushed. “Oh – um, the TARDIS. I’m pretty sure she gave them too me.”

Of course she did. The TARDIS knew the Doctor better than she knew herself.

She was surprised that the TARDIS had given you that particular jumper, and, if the Doctor concentrated, she could almost remember how it felt to wear; stumbling out of her – or well, his, TARDIS, fresh from the time war, itching to throw leather jacket on over it.

She liked it though; you wearing it. She wondered how you would look wearing something she wore today, like her suspenders or her scarf, or even her-

No. This wasn’t what she was supposed to be thinking about.

Still though, despite that, it suited you.

You nodded to the space beside the Doctor. “Do you mind if I join you?”

The Doctor blinked, turning her head to the empty space by her side, then back at you. “Yeah, of course. You’re always welcome.”

You gave her a warm smile. The Doctor focused on it, the way your eyes lit up, the way your nose creased ever so slightly, the way that utter kindness seemed to radiate off of you. She wanted to preserve it, capture that smile and hold it safe in her memory.

You toed off your slippers and joined her, leaning against the door when you had settled.

After you had all settled down after that awful, awful trip, Graham had asked to go home for the night. Ryan and Yaz had followed suit, and the Doctor didn’t blame them. After a day like today, she would to check in with her family too. It had been a frightening day, which the Doctor had apologised profusely for. Today had been worse than when they had run into the Death Eye Turtle Army – which was saying something.

You had chosen to stay, citing that if you had left the Doctor alone, she would get into trouble, and she wasn’t allowed to get into trouble without one of the rest of you present.

It was a good rule. Clara had once had a similar one.

The Doctor sat there awkwardly, staring into her mug. She didn’t know what to say, how to comfort you, or what sort of words were the ones that you needed. She used to be so much better at this, and it was infuriating.

She took a sip, swallowing down her awkwardness, and turned to look back at you.

The stars seemed to reflect themselves in your eyes, bright and vibrant, as if they were reflecting your soul. You stared back at the Cascade in wonder. “It’s beautiful.”

The Doctor, who was memorising your face, the way the light hit your cheeks, the way it danced in your hair, hummed in agreement. Beautiful was certainly the right word for it.

You turned up to look at her. “I can’t imagine what goes on in that great big brain of yours, but I’m here – if you need.”

The Doctor blinked again, and her mind whirring back to the very first thing you had said. Are you alright.

She stared at you dumbfounded. You weren’t even thinking about yourself, you were just worried about her.

The Doctor was acutely aware of how close you were in the narrow opening. If she leaned over just an inch or so, she could brush her shoulder against yours, feel the heat from your body.

She didn’t.

“It’s called the Medusa Cascade,” she said, turning away from you to look at the view. She gestured towards it. “It’s got around 15 broken moons – some of them are just cracked, but others, like the 15th, are full on debris that float in orbit around each other. The eight is my favourite but humans can’t breathe on it. It’s also the halfway point of the universe from Earth, give it another couple of decades and you lot will be able to see it with telescope. It’s even got-“

The Doctor paused for a moment. You had sighed quietly, staring downwards at your dangling legs. The Doctor swallowed, you were sad, of course you were sad, it had been a traumatic day. She tried to think of a way to fix it, to make it better.

“One time,” she continued, trying out for a story. A story would be good, she could totally tell a story, she was a great storyteller, she could keep Bruce Springsteen or Queen Alexia of Koros enthralled. The Doctor and storytelling? An excellent combination. “There were a whole bunch of planets that were taken here, and they were put out of temporal synchronisation with the rest of the universe by one second. It was actually a pretty intense feat of engineering, thinking on it now, but back then we had to-”

“You’re rambling,” you said, a small, sad smile on your face. “It’s okay Doctor, you don’t need to talk if you’re not comfortable. We can just sit here and watch the view.”

The Doctor clamped her mouth shut. She heard her teeth rattle inside her head, and wondered, belatedly, just how comical she looked, staring at this wonderful human with big eyes and a dumb expression.

She tried again.

“I’m probably down there right now,” she said, gesturing at a spot that held dancing green gas.

“Really?” You asked, your voice perking up. “But how can you be down there when you’re here? Wait, this is a time travel thing, isn’t it.”

The Doctor grinned, you had always been clever. “Yeah, younger versions of me are probably running around there right now, touring moons, sealing rifts in time, or trying out Rodravian ice-cream.”

“So you come here often?” You asked.

“Yeah,” The Doctor said. “This place here, it’s probably one of my favourites in the universe, well, after Earth of course – and Space Vegas, I’ve got to take you to Space Vegas-”

You laughed, soft and gentle, causing the Doctor to pause. Good. Laughter. That was important. Then, you looked at her more seriously. “So why here then? What makes it so special?”

The Doctor chewed on her lower lip for a second, staring back out onto the Medusa Cascade. She drummed her fingers against her mug of tea, which was still warm, and stared out at the plumes of coloured gasses that floated among the stars. After a moment, she said. “I… I guess it’s just a place that holds a lot of good memories.”

“With loved ones?” You prompted.

The Doctor looked at you, watched the way the light was reflected in your eyes, pools of colour shifting and whirring, as if it’s life came from you. “Yeah,” she said, and her voice cracked. “With loved ones.” She cleared her throat and turned away. “It’s a good place to think, too. I always come here to think, it’s quiet, it’s safe.”

Your voice was tentative, unsure, when you spoke again. It was as if you weren’t sure if you could, or rather, if you should ask. “What do you come here to think about?”

You.

The Doctor gulped back the rest of her peppermint tea in a single mouthful, set the mug aside. Then, she drummed her knuckles against her thighs. “Well,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m quite tired, I think I might head off to bed.”

She didn’t look at you as she stood, she couldn’t look at you. If she did she would be met with your big sad eyes, your worried expression, facing the way you would chew your lip when you were nervous, something the Doctor didn’t think you even realised you did. No, she couldn’t face that, because if she did, she would never leave – and she had to leave. She couldn’t have this conversation with you.

Not yet.

“Doctor-“ You tried, but the Doctor was already hurrying to the console. This was selfish of herself, cruel, even. She knew that. Of course she knew that. But she couldn’t handle this just yet. She needed a moment, she just needed to talk to someone about this, ramble on for a bit to slot all her thoughts into place.

She paused. Oh. Of course.

She turned to face you, looking at that spot between your eyebrows and above your nose so it looked like she was looking at you, but she wasn’t actually – because she couldn’t, wouldn’t, face your eyes. “I’ll take you somewhere tomorrow, somewhere really nice, and really calming – that is, if you’d like? Just the two of us.”

“Uh,” you said. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor replied and she risked a glance into your eyes. She regretted it immediately. You looked so confused, so hurt. “Well then Y/N, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You’re off to bed?” You asked, as if not quite believing her.

“Yep,” The Doctor said.

“Doctor… before you go,” you chewed your lip for a moment, as if contemplating something heavy, and then, just as suddenly, you flung yourself into the Doctor’s frame, wrapping your arms around her.

The Doctor felt warm, she could feel one of your hands rest against the back of her neck, as if they had found the right spot to be in. The other was against the curve of her back, resting their gently, as if you thought the Doctor was going to pull away.

The Doctor raised her arms slowly, careful not to jostle you, and returned the gesture. It had been a long time since she had hugged someone, and she felt awkward, unpractised. At the same time though, it was wonderful. The weight of your body was flush against hers, as if holding her wasn’t quite enough for you. No, you were grounding the Doctor, holding her stable in way the Doctor had never felt before, not in this face, at least.

Then, all too soon, you pulled away. “I just wanted to say thanks, for today, for um… For not giving up on me.”

That baffled the Doctor. Thanking her? It was her fault you had almost-

“Yeah, um of course. Uh, bed, that’s where I’m going now.” She gave you an awkward wave, before shooting off from the TARDIS console.

The Doctor had lied.

The TARDIS groaned in disapproval as the Doctor scurried off to the library.

“Yes,” The Doctor hissed. “I know, I know that was awful of me.”

The TARDIS whirred again.

“And selfish,” The Doctor said. “You don’t need to just tack it on, I know.”

The worst thing about it was though; the books were no help at all. Granted, the TARDIS hadn’t made it easy, but, after scouring the library for any sources that could help her process this information and work out how to move forward – well, none of it fit.

She huffed, blowing a strand of her out of her face, and glared at the growing stack of books that hadn’t given her any ideas at all. No this wouldn’t do.

“Alright,” she said to the TARDIS. “I think I need better help. Any ideas?”

Which was how, that morning (well, relatively) she found herself knocking on an old wooden door, you standing by her side.

“So who’re we visiting again?” You asked, stifling a yawn. The Doctor ebbed away a pang of guilt, it was obvious you hadn’t slept well.

“Some old friends,” the Doctor said. “Haven’t seen them in a while. I don’t think they know about my face.”

You scrunched your face up. “What do you mean by that?”

Any response the Doctor could have given was stolen when the door flew open. The man narrowed his eyes at them. “You will state your name and the purpose of this visit.”

“It’s me,” she replied. “The Doctor.”

His eyes regarded her carefully. “Well,” he said, after a moment. “You never told us that you could regenerate into a man.”

The Doctor’s hands flew to her face. “Wait, no, everyone’s been saying-,” she frowned at him, and was somewhat embarrassed that it had taken so long for the cogs in her brain to slot into place. “I’m a woman, Strax.”

“Who is it?” Came a voice from inside, and the Doctor smiled.

“It’s the Doctor,” Strax said, opening the door wider now. “He says he’s a woman now.”

“She,” Jenny admonished, ushering Strax aside. “And what do you mean the Doctor’s a…” her voice trailed off as she caught sight of the Doctor. Her eyes widened, looking the Doctor up and down. Nervously, she swallowed. In a clipped voice she said. “Ah. Right. A woman, got it.”

The Doctor rocked backwards and forwards on the balls of her feet. “This is Y/N,” she nodded to you. “I thought you’d be a great tour guide.”

By the Doctor’s side you gave an awkward little wave. “Hi.”

“And it’s nice to see you too,” Jenny pursed her lips towards the Doctor, and regarded you with curious interest. “Well come on in then,” she said, stepping aside to allow both you and the Doctor to enter. “How long’s it been for you anyhow? Since you last saw us?”

“Aw,” the Doctor drew out the sound, giving her an awkward look. “A while.”

Jenny hummed. “Yeah, well, that doesn’t surprise me. When did all of this,” she gestured to the Doctor’s general space, then gestured for Strax to close the door. “Happen?”

The Doctor’s expression brightened. “Only a little bit ago!” She twirled around the foyer, arms out, her coat billowing slightly around her. She loved the way it swooshed. “What’d you think?”

Jenny’s voice was a little strained when she responded, and the Doctor could have sworn she had muttered ‘marriage’ under her breath. “It suits you.”

The Doctor clasped her hands together. “I was hoping to see-”

“She’s busy,” Jenny said suddenly. “Interrogating someone.”

You cocked your head to the side. “Who..?”

“Ma’am,” Jenny explained. “The Lady Vastra.”

You didn’t look as though that had cleared anything up, and stared at Jenny like a confused puppy, which was adorable-

And not what the Doctor should be focusing on.

“I’m happy to wait,” The Doctor said, tearing her eyes away from you and over to Jenny. “I know how she can get when she… interrogates someone.”

You shook your head in bafflement and spoke under your breath. “What..?”

“I was wondering though, if you could give Y/N here a tour of Victorian London-”

“It’s just London, for us, Doctor,” Jenny said with an amused smirk.

“Around just London, then,” The Doctor amended. “Around some of your favourite sights,” the Doctor turned to you. “The tea shops are fabulous, you’ll like those.”

You blinked rapidly, and turned to the Doctor. “Uh, can we talk?”

The Doctor nodded and you pulled her aside. You hand was warm, even through the fabric of the Doctor’s coat, and she didn’t want you to let go. You did. “Doctor, why are you sending me off with this woman experiencing unparalleled levels of gay panic and this small potato man?”

“Potato man?” The Doctor admonished. “Y/N, he has a name.”

In the distance, the Doctor heard Jenny whisper the words ‘gay panic’.

You shrugged slightly. “Well I haven’t been told it.”

The Doctor reeled, how had she forgotten to do that? She pointed to Strax. “This is Strax, he was a nurse in the Sontaron empire,” she leaned in close to you, as if she was sharing a secret. “Essentially just mass produced clones,” then, spoke louder. “But can find the cure to almost any illness” Strax stifled under your gaze.

“And this,” the Doctor pointed to Jenny, not registering Strax’s reaction at all. “Is Miss Jenny. If an army of angry mind possessed Victorians come after you, she’s the best person to have by your side.”

“Mrs,” Jenny corrected, then turned to you. “And it’s lovely to meet you. Any travelling companion of the Doctor’s is…” she pursed her lips again, looking at you like she couldn’t quite make you out. “…is a friend of ours.”

“Right,” you said.

“And we would be more than honoured to give you a tour of London,” Strax said, his voice growing an edge of reverence and excitement. “I will show you the most strategic points of warfare, so that I may crush you in the fields of battle for the glory of the Sontaron empire!”

You looked at him blankly, and Jenny turned to him suddenly. “You’ve not been eating my sweets again, have you?”

Strax paled. “What? I – no, of course I haven’t. You have done me the most grave disgrace by suggesting otherwise-”

“You have been eating my sweets,” Jenny narrowed her eyes at him. “You took all the sherbet fizzles again, didn’t you.”

Before Strax could reply, the click of heels against the hardwood floor echoed down the hallway. Vastra emerged, tugging at her veil slightly. The Doctor could see straight through it, she always could, after all, but she wondered if you could see it.

Judging by the way your mouth fell open in shock, the Doctor assumed you didn’t see the veil afterall, which was different. “She’s a-”

“Yes.” The Doctor said.

“In Victorian-”

“Yes.”

The Doctor watched you consider it for a moment, then your face brightened. “That’s so cool.”

Vastra blinked, and it was the only indication that she was surprised. The Doctor was glad she still remembered how to read her old friend. “Well, that is a pleasant, if unordinary, reaction,” she cleared her throat. “Jenny dear, would you please introduce our guests.”

“Oh ma’am,” Jenny said. “That’s-”

“Me,” the Doctor said with a knowing smile. “C’mon Vastra, you know me.”

Vastra eyed the Doctor curiously, and her eyes widened in surprise. “Well, if I did not know any better, I would say that you’re the Doctor. I don’t know another soul who would wear suspenders of that colour.”

The Doctor grinned. “It’s so good to see you.”

“And I you,” Vastra smiled brightly, and her entire face emulated warmth. “I must compliment you Doctor, you are looking far better than any of your last faces can compare.”

“Marriage,” Jenny hissed.

“Oh come now dear,” Vastra said, but her eyes were still on the Doctor. “It was only a compliment.”

Jenny muttered something about flirting with half the galaxy, but the Doctor wasn’t paying attention, because your eyes were sparkling, as though you had solved the Collatz Conjecture. “You’re married?” You breathed. “To each other?”

Vastra’s smiled softened to you, like she was amused. “That is how marriage works.”

“That’s amazing,” you said. “How was the ceremony?”

Both Jenny and Vastra looked towards one another in amusement, and spoke at the same time. “Violent.”

“Your interrogation is over now, right?” The Doctor said, because she was itching to talk to Vastra.

“Oh, you were doing the interrogation,” You said. “How was it?”

“A bit too fatty from what I would usually enjoy,” Vastra said, her eyes twinkling. “But filling none the less.”

You let out a soft little ‘oh’, as if hadn’t occurred to you that Vastra’s interrogation technique wasn’t exactly above board. Then the Doctor realised that it probably hadn’t.

“And I am more than happy to speak to you, Doctor,” Vastra said again. “You know my parlour is always available.”

The Doctor turned to you. “You wouldn’t mind spending time with Jenny and Strax for a bit, would you?”

“Uh – no, no, of course not. You do what you gotta do space woman.”

The Doctor grinned, squeezing your shoulder, and jogged off to catch up with Vastra, who had already left the room. She knew you would be safe in Jenny and Strax’s hands, they wouldn’t let anything hurt you.

The parlour was how it always was, two tall chairs surrounded in an assortment of plants. Tea had already been brewed, because Jenny was nothing if not efficient, and Vastra sat in her designated chair.

“Your companion saw straight through my veil,” she mused, gesturing to the tea and silently asking if the Doctor would like some.

The Doctor nodded, and Vastra began serving. “Yeah,” the Doctor said, bouncing over. “I’m pretty proud about that, I think we’ve just seen so much now that nothing could be fazing anymore.”

“Well I’m sure you are one of those more delightful sights, Doctor,” Vastra passed her a mug and the Doctor took a whiff. It was French Earl Grey.

Then the Doctor realised what Vastra was saying. “I think this is the moment where Jenny would scold you about flirting, again.”

“Perhaps,” Vastra said with a smirk, which told the Doctor that Vastra knew exactly that, and that she didn’t mind it either. “So, tell me what is so urgently important, that I finished my meal early.”

The Doctor drummed her fingers against the warm ceramic. "My - my travelling companion, no, my friend, I... I think I, no. I know I..." The Doctor cleared her throat. "It's love."

"You're in love with your travelling companion," Vastra surmised, not as a question, but as a fact. "Is this something your friend knows?”

"Y/N," The Doctor said, squirming under the way Vastra had said the word ‘friend,’ like it wasn’t true in the slightest, like she could already see you were something more. No, that was ridiculous, the Doctor was reading too much into it. "And no - I... I haven't been able to work out what to do."

"So you've come to me," Vastra said, an edge of humour in her voice.

"You're my friend."

"Ah, so it's a bit of girl talk you're after," Vastra mused. "I suppose I can indulge you," she said, and then, after a moment. "My friend."

“It didn’t hit me really dramatically or anything, but I just… We had a really awful day yesterday, with the Vashta Nerda, which was already awful enough, but then Y/N got separated and I…”

“I understand,” Vastra said, her voice soft. “Although, Doctor, if you’ll allow me to say, you've been in love with many people before, need I remind you that I have been friends with most of them."

"Yes but, I haven't.. I don't..." The Doctor groaned. "I've never been a woman before."  

Vastra raised an eyebrow, and took a sip of her tea. "So that's what this is," she said after a moment. "You've come to me because I am a woman who has seduced another," she scoffed. "You might be better seeing the Madame Julie D'Aubigny."

The Doctor almost smirked. "You've heard of Julie?"

"Doctor, I am a lesbian lizard woman from the prehistoric period living in Victorian London," Vastra said, in the matter of fact tone she often only reserved for the humans she considered unintelligent. "I make it my business to know of humanities greatest women."

The Doctor had a sip of her tea and took in a heavy breath. She hadn’t said these things to anyone before. It was new, it was frightening. It was also so very, very important.

"You know how humans can be can just be so bright, like there’s just that little something that shines within them, and, when you’re around them, it’s like that brightness is shining on you?" The Doctor started.

Vastra hummed, her eyes going thoughtful, knowing. Of course she knew, Vastra was another person who had fallen in love with a human.

"Y/N is like that, but... but more,” The Doctor said, and even she could tell that her voice was just filled with so much feeling. “I don't even know how to describe it, it's just – oh and that smile? Sometimes I take Y/N places just to see that smile, it's everything. Y/N finds the beauty in the mundane, and just adores absolutely everything I show." 

The Doctor sobered. "How do I... what do I even do with that?"  

Vastra leaned forward for a moment. "Well, do you want to be with Y/N?"

The Doctor swallowed. Did she? Could she do that to you? Could she collapse her absolute everything into you? Would it even be fair?

She thought about the way you had hugged her, how safe the Doctor had felt, how secure she had been. Perhaps, just maybe, it would be alright, to let you in, to fall completely into you.

But it would be cruel, it would be so much, and she would never want to put that burden on your shoulders.

At last, the Doctor whispered, in a broken voice. "I don't know.”

"Well," Vastra said, having another sip of tea. "I suggest you determine the answer, because I cannot tell you what you don't know, that is not how matters of the heart operate - or in this case, hearts."

“How do I do that?”

Vastra regarded her. “Doctor, that is not something I can tell you. Only you know your hearts,” she paused.

The Doctor took a sip of her tea, it was fruity, with a floral aftertaste. It reminded her of bergamot. She took one more, then another, swallowing down her thoughts.

Only she knows her hearts? What did that even mean.

The Doctor perked her head up, the pieces falling into place.

“I’m a time traveller,” She breathed.

“You are, yes.” Vastra said, frowning slightly. “That is one of your defining traits, Doctor.”

“No, I mean, I could just see another face of mine, one that’s better with all of,” the Doctor gestured vaguely around her, the tea sloshing in it’s mug. “This.”

Vastra raised her eyebrows. “That wasn’t exactly what I meant, Doctor.”

But she didn’t get the chance to reply. The door to the parlour flung open, and in stormed Jenny, with half the skirt from her dress burned off. You were walking behind her, frazzled and dazed, your hair flying everywhere and ash littered over your shirt. The Doctor noticed you had even lost a shoe.

“My word,” Vastra gasped. “What on Earth has happened?”

Your wild eyes found the Doctor’s, and immediately, the Doctor knew that her own crisis could wait. Something more important was afoot.

Part of her was excited, she had missed going on adventures with the Paternoster gang.

Besides, she had to work out which version of herself to talk to next, and that would take time.

“Well then,” the Doctor said. “C’mon team,” she screwed up her face. “Hm, no, wait. Crew?” her face then brightened. “Victorian slumber party – yes. C’mon Victorian slumber party-”

Vastra rolled her eyes, but was giving the Doctor a small smile. “You are not calling us that.”

“-let’s get a shift on.”

A/N^2: This was a bit of an awkward place to end it, sorry about that. I wanted the focus to be on the relationship advice but it all kind of spun away from me. Also, you won't BELIEVE how hard it was writing this without writing pronouns for reader, so, I have a question: how would you feel if I wrote Y/P for "Your pronoun"? I'm anxious about the fact that it could pull people out of the fic, but also, I don't want to alienate people by writing in a pronoun. So, thoughts?

#the doctor x reader #thirteenth doctor imagine #13th doctor x reader #thirteenth doctor x reader #13th doctor #Doctor Who #DW #did I post a fic yesterday? yes #and now I've posted another? yes #even though I said I wouldn't be writing as much bc uni? also yes #look I've got the rest of today and tomorrow to finish it up I'll be fiiiiiiiiine #and by finish it up I rlly mean start #but it's fiiine #this is also another: no beta we typo like men one #bc I'm too tired to edit whoops #also: @ the folks who've been going through my masterlist #I see you and I appreciate you #I've gotten a spam of notifications from y'all and it's made my heart swell

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angrylizardjacket · 3 years

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dirtbags // 3: Charlotte

Summary: High school AU, 1985, Winter. The year’s off to a strange start as Charlotte and her friends find out that not only does Lola work at the new diner that opened up in town, but her dad owns it! Charlotte humbles Nikki in a very un-Charlotte manor, and Vince’s parents decide to host an English exchange student in an attempt to give him a good role model; instead, they get Razzle.

A/N: 8466 words. Do I care too much about this AU? Yes. as always, for my dears @misscharlottelee and @newyeareva ft. a softer world quotes

the city sometimes feels like a movie set. maybe this is the big scene. maybe i can be an extra at least.

Charlotte’s only a few practice hours away from being able to get her provisional license, and she berates her past self for not getting it sooner, especially not when her Winter Break has been kind of a shit-show and she’d rather tear off her own arms than ride in Tommy’s shitbox of a car with Vince Neil.

Since his blowout house party, Vince had essentially been grounded for the rest of the school year, had his car privileges revoked, and the only people his parents apparently trusted him to hang around with outside of school, were Tommy, Charlotte, Eileen, and Peach. Tommy was delighted. The girls, unsurprisingly, were not. Vince himself was downright somber, and had sulked for the remainder of the semester, and well into the break.

He had been in a particularly sour mood since last night, New Year’s Eve, when his parents had announced they were going to be hosting an exchange student from England for six months. Vince is convinced it’s an attempt to give him some sort of role model his own age, and spent most of his parents’ New Year’s Eve party ranting to Tommy and the girls while they played cards in his basement.

Her saving grace is Eileen, of course, who’s father had bought her mother a shiny, new car for Christmas, and had given Eileen the keys to her mother’s old station wagon.

“It’s kinda dumb that we’re taking two cars,” Peach, Eileen’s little sister, pipes up from the back seat, hands fiddling in her lap. It’s New Year’s Day, and while their various parents were sleeping off their hangovers, they’d suggested the kids check out the new diner that was opening today. Vince jumped at the suggestion of freedom, and everyone was in agreement, but Eileen and Charlotte took Peach in Eileen’s car the moment Vince slid into Tommy’s front seat, holding the flyer he’d gotten at the mall that told them all about the diner’s opening day, “just saying, we could all fit in one.” But she’s met with silence, “are you going to be mad at him forever?” She finally sighs.

“Yes.” Both Charlotte and Eileen answer automatically. Peach sighs as dramatically as she’s able, and sinks as low into the seat as she can. Charlotte turns on the radio, and hums along to something familiar, but that she doesn’t quite recognize, staring out the front window at the back of Tommy’s car. Vince turns around in the front seat and flips them off.

“I’m gonna ram them,” Eileen says, with absolute sincerity and serenity, leveling an intense glare at where Vince was now waving.

“Don’t,” Charlotte advises, equally level.

“I don’t get why you’re still mad, I’m not even mad,” Peach huffed, pouting. Charlotte and Eileen share a look; at sixteen years old, Peach was top of almost all of her math and science classes, but she was still a teenage girl, and an absolute fool for a blonde boy who made her cry. Charlotte knew that feeling all too well, but thankfully she’d moved on from the ‘wondering why she wasn’t enough’ stage to the ‘realizing her ex is a cheating douchebag and it was never her fault’ stage. She really hopes Peach can move on to ‘realizing Vince made her cry and hasn’t even tried to change since then and deserved to get his car keyed’ stage quickly.

The diner was bustling when they arrived, a large decal on the inside of window, black, thick and flowing lettering, outlined in gold, reading Leo’s. Through the window, several booths were already filled, as were a host of the stools along the counter. It looked warm inside, inviting in golds, yellows, peaches and oranges, neon signs and rusted street signs, band and comic book memorabilia, and photos. Behind the counter -

Lola. Smiling.

“I’m freezing my butt off, can we go in?” Peach asks, hands shoved deep in the pockets of her parker, the only person who did not recognize the girl currently pouring coffee for an elderly gentleman at the counter.

Inside, the diner is warm, filled with the sounds pleasant chatter, and of the Beatles coming from a cherry wood jukebox in the corner.

“Lola!” Tommy can’t help himself, lighting up at the sight of her, and once Lola finishes pouring her customer coffee, she looks to their confused little group, and waves.

“Find yourselves a seat, I’ll be with you in a moment,” she calls back, smiling bright and wide, hair tied back with a bright, red bandana.

The teens do as they’re told, pulling off jackets and gloves and scarves, sliding into a booth by the window, looking around, wrapped up in the smell of warm food, and the confusion of Lola’s presence, and completely unfamiliar demeanor. There’s an uncertain kind of quiet among them, having just expected to spend lunch at a cool new diner, but this has shift everything, only Peach, blissfully unaware of who Lola even was, seemed at ease, rearranging the sugar packets in their little holder.

Lola comes by with menus, and cups, and a pitcher of water for the table, looking pristine and put together in a tight, black blouse, skirt, and scuffed black combat boots, little peach-coloured apron tied around her waist. She pulls a notebook and pen from the pocket of the apron, looking around at them all, as if finally taking a moment to assess the situation.

Charlotte picked up a menu.

“You work here?” Tommy asked, and Lola confirms brightly, but doesn’t give any further details. She does, however, thank them all for coming, and recommend a few of her favourites.

“I’m also partial to The Lola, for obvious reasons,” she gives an actual laugh at that, as if implying one of the burgers was named after her was giving away too much information, and Charlotte was quickly scouring the menu.

Beef patty, double bacon, American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a home-made smokey maple-barbeque sauce, on a toasted bun.

“The menu’s kind of misleading,” Lola admits, moving to look down over Charlotte’s shoulder as she was reading, “all the patties are home made too, with Leo’s signature blend of herbs and spices.” That asked more questions than it answered. No-one’s quite sure what to say.

“Can I get a milkshake?” Peach pipes up, and Lola’s smile grew wide as she asked what flavour, “chocolate, please, and do you have curly fries or regular?”

“Hand cut,” Lola tells her proudly, but that means very little to Peach, who’s just glad to be having food, “still need time to think?” Lola asks the rest, and they all give her awkward, quiet smiles and nods.

Lola leaves, heading back to the counter, and the moment she’s gone, the whole table explodes with whispered confusion, leaning in, asking questions and not getting any answers.

“You guys are being super fucking weird,” Peach hisses loudly at them all, while Charlotte and Tommy argue about how the other should have known. Eileen, quietly delighted by the chaos, demands to know if anyone else thinks Lola might secretly have a twin, and Vince, who’s had the least contact with her aside from Peach, is babbling about how it’s weird to see Lola so chipper; their mutual confusion is enough to set aside Eileen and Charlotte’s hatred of him, at least for the moment.

When Peach demands they explain what they’re all whisper-shouting about, disturbing the booth behind her, they all quiet down, and Tommy and Eileen take it in turns explaining their full understanding of Lola. Charlotte takes the time to actually look around the diner now that she was inside.

There’s two other waitress, one behind the counter, the other always moving on about the various tables and booths on one side, making sure the customers are happy and food and drinks are delivered, both in the same outfit as Lola, though with varying footwear.

The view to the kitchen is unobstructed behind the counter, a half wall where meals ready to be delivered were sat, but a clear view to where three people in the kitchen, two by the grills and fryers, turned away; a broad-shouldered man towering over the grill with the longest hair Charlotte’s ever seen braided neatly down his back, and a comparatively shorter man, also with far shorter hair, though enough to be pulled up into a messy pony tail. The shorter man’s working the fryer, and putting together burgers as the taller man cooked up their various ingredients. There was also a strangely familiar kid with a mop of dark, curly hair washing dishes on the other side of the kitchen, barely visible.

Lola worked diligently, smiling and chatting away; she collected dishes, and ferried meals, and handed out slices of desert from the cute, multi-tiered desserts display on the counter. When she came back, milkshake in one hand, basket of fries in the other, Peach is fully caught up on each of her friend’s short but confusing histories with her, and blurts out -

“You’re Lola?” Injecting new meaning into the words, into the name, as if anyone else at their entire school had the same name. Lola’s smile goes a little tight as she places the fries and the milkshake before the redhead. Standing back up, she taps her nametag, which reads Lola, with little flowers drawn around it, and confirms, though it’s clear she’s more on edge than she was before.

“You guys ready to order?” She asks, still trying to keep up her chipper attitude, pulling out her notebook again. Everyone’s quieter this time, looking over the menu and finally deciding on food.

“My mom heard the owner was a chef, is that true?” Tommy asks, looking up from the menu to Lola again, and the tense set of her shoulders loosens considerably at the question.

“Leo is a chef,” Lola nodded, grinning broadly, “trained at the Culinary Institute of America back in the sixties, and worked his way up to being the head chef of Parker House in Boston, which I know probably doesn’t mean much to you guys, but it’s,” Lola laughs a little struggling to describe it, “it’s fine dining at it’s finest, but for the past twelve years, he’s been running Leo’s in Salem, and now he’s here, still using all that fine dining training for the anyone who wants a good meal at a good price.”

“Is that something they have you memorize in training?” Vince says, a little awed, and Lola gives a strange little smile.

“Leo’s my dad.”

Everything kind of fell into place after that, finally making sense, and the gang’s confusion quickly shifted to understanding, and the air around the table seemed to clear. It was easier after that, the teens in the booth ordering quickly, and the chatter picked up to a normal level as she moved away, shouting their order back to the kitchen once she was back at the counter.

She doesn’t spend much time at their table, still in charge of waitressing half of the tables and booths, but she always gives them a nod as she passes, and their meals are being delivered efficiently, so there’s no reason to complain.

The food itself, for diner food, is nothing short of spectacular, which kind of just raises more questions - why if Leo can cook food that tastes this good, and with all the experience he evidentially has, would he open a diner in suburban LA, and not a high-end restaurant? But it feels kind of intrusive to ask, so Charlotte simply enjoys her food, and her friends’ company.

Up until Vince starts complaining about the exchange student again.

“His name’s Nicholas, he shows up in a week, and mom’s making me clear out the basement so he can sleep there,” he’s despondently poking his milkshake with one of his fries, head propped up on one hand, “I’ve been asking for years if I could move into the basement, and this fucking Nicholas just gets it?” His whole expression scrunches up at the thought, and he angrily eats his fry.

“Wait, so the issue isn’t that you have to clean up the basement, it’s that he gets to use it as a bedroom and you don’t?” Charlotte frowned, lowering her own burger, “why would you even want to sleep in the basement?”

“Privacy!” Vince throws his hands in the air, eyes wide, “Tammi keeps complaining about getting cramps in the back of my car, but my bedroom walls are paper thin,” he huffs, “I need my own space.”

“Tammi?” Peach asks, her voice high and almost painfully chipper, “Tammi Frisk? She scored the winning goal in the softball final, right?” She’s not looking at Vince, when Charlotte looks over to her, she’s looking at her plate of fries, pushing the few left around without eating any, smiling in a way that’s clearly forced.

“You were at the softball final?” Tommy asked, frowning slightly. Peach did not look up.

“For the school paper,” she explained, voice still strange.

“You’re still with Tammi Frisk?” Eileen asks, making sure the disgust is clear in her voice as she draws the table’s attention away from the clearly uncomfortable Peach. Charlotte’s lip curled; she wanted to make sure her expression was as judgmental as possible when Vince turned back to her.

It’s not that she cared about who he was dating, she was mostly apathetic to Tammi, and knew little more about her than the fact that she was on the softball team, but Charlotte knew Vince had been dating Tammi when he’d decided to crush Peach’s heart publicly at the start of the last semester.

Neither Peach nor Eileen had told any of them exactly how, but apparently Eileen’s hatred was well warranted, both against Vince, and according to Eileen, Tammi too.

Vince, immediately sensing Eileen’s shift in tone, and seeing the look on her face, frowns.

“Kind of,” he responds flatly, and his gaze flicks to Peach, “not really,” he backtracks, and his indignation at the whole situation seems to fizzle out with a sigh, and he slouches, going back to paying attention to his burger, “she’s sort of hanging out with one of the second-string football guys, but they’re not... and we’re not really...” he trails off, despondent once more.

At least Vince seemed to be self-aware of the fact that he was an asshole to Peach, at least he had the decency to feel bad about it. Why he kept inviting Peach to hang out, despite the fact that he knew Eileen, who hated his guts, would come along too - invited or not - baffled Charlotte.

Tommy was his friend, and a guy, Charlotte was a cheerleader and technically popular, and so was usually begrudgingly invited too, but Peach, sweet Peach, recent Science Fair Winner, junior reporter for the school paper, treasurer for the AV Club, by all accounts ‘a nerd’ when judged by her interests, was still on the guest list of Vince Neil’s life, even if he wouldn’t admit that out loud.

It kind of made Charlotte want to punch him in the face.

But that’s not news.

“I hope the English exchange student is a decent influence on you,” Charlotte tells him. Vince scowls.

“You sound like my parents.”

you make me want to pretend to be a better man.

Now that school has started back up, Vince has thankfully had his car privileges returned, and Charlotte can return to not glowering in the back seat of Tommy’s car when he picks her up on the way to school, and drops her home on the days they both have practice.

But it’s Wednesday, first week back, and he’s uncharacteristically quiet. Usually he’s babbling about practice, or cheerleaders he thinks are pretty, or Lola, but today, he meets Charlotte in the carpark, leaning against the trunk of his car, hands in his pockets, quiet. It’s decidedly unnerving.

“What’s wrong, Tom?” Charlotte asks, yanking the passenger door open once he unlocks it, sliding into the seat and putting her bag by her feet.

“Nothing,” Tommy voice betrays the lie, the thoughts so clearly on his mind that he was trying to avoid talking about. Charlotte won’t push him, if he wanted to tell her, he would, and he usually does, “put on some music, will you?” And Charlotte obligingly opens the glove compartment in front of her to look through the collection of 8track tapes he keeps in there, several of which had been Christmas gifts from Charlotte herself.

Feet on the dashboard, Charlotte’s more than content listening to Bon Jovi, bopping her head to the beat, when Tommy finally finds the words for his thoughts.

“Lola and Nikki Sixx are friends.”

Up until now, Charlotte was under the impression that Tommy, like her, thought Nikki and Lola would be great as friends, Tommy’s current tone implies otherwise.

“Is that not good?” Charlotte’s careful about her words, still not sure where Tommy’s hesitation was coming from.

“No, they make sense,” he’s quick to try and backtrack, words spilling from him almost too fast, “they make sense as friends.” He deliberates, before asking, “Charlie, you’re not friends with Nikki Sixx are you?” And it sounds like he already knows the answer. Charlotte hesitates.

“He keeps bothering me during my free periods, I wouldn’t exactly call us friends -”

“He called you Charlie,” its deadpan and accusatory in equal measure, and Charlotte shrinks back into her seat as Tommy keeps talking, “he called me ‘Charlie’s cousin’. It was weird.”

“I thought you wanted to be his friend -” she tries, right as they pull up to a red light, and Tommy fixes her with an unamused look, the only expression that makes him seem older than his years.

“Did you tell him I was obsessed with him?”

“No!” Charlotte snaps, automatically defensive.

“Because I’m not -”

“I never said - I told him you were a fan! That’s all! Like Duff was!” Charlotte tries to clear up, and Tommy looks back at the road, though this time he thankfully looks more pensive than angry. Only Bon Jovi cuts through the tense air between them for the rest of the drive back to Charlotte’s house, and when Tommy pulls up outside, he doesn’t say anything to her when she gets out.

The next day, like clockwork, fifteen minutes into her free period, Nikki Sixx comes climbing over the school’s fence, into the garden Charlotte had been trying to force herself to study in. In all honesty, she’d been waiting for him, picking at her nail polish beneath the table and reading the same sentence in Moby Dick over and over again.

“Miss Lee,” Nikki nods to her, a little gruffer than usual, “you seem more tense than usual; I can help you with that if you want,” but he still manages to smirk his way through an unsubtle come-on, and Charlotte rolls her eyes, not in the mood for their usual banter.

“I’d rather sit on a cactus,” she tells him icily, without even a teasing edge. Nikki’s eyebrows shoot up at the hostility, and he puts the packet of cigarettes that he’d about to offer her on the table, knowing she’d turn them down anyway, “I thought people weren’t meant to know that we know each other.”

“What people do?” Nikki frowned, raising his lighter to the cigarette between his lips, “is this about yesterday? I talked to your cousin, big deal. Everyone knows you two are related, and everyone knows you,” he looks pointedly to the embroidered logo on her cheer uniform, “I wasn’t even looking for him -”

“Dude,” Charlotte felt as though she was about to tear her hair out, “you called me Charlie to him, people don’t just call me that!”

“Plenty of people call you that! That leggy redhead you’re always hanging around calls you Charlie -”

“My friends call me that -” Charlotte snaps, “and I know you know that’s Eileen Austen.” And Nikki’s wearing a dreamy look, like he’s thinking unholy thoughts about Eileen as Charlotte speaks, before snapping out of it as the first of her words register like a bucket of ice water to the face.

“I’ve called you Charlie before. To your face.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Charlotte tells him dryly, crossing her arms, “it’s less effort if I don’t correct you. We’re so not friends that I don’t even care about correcting you.” Back when this school year started, Charlotte wouldn’t have dreamed saying half the nasty shit she’s thrown at Nikki Sixx, and at some point she may have to confront the idea that being around him has made her meaner, “but did you tell my cousin that I told you he was obsessed with you? Because I never -”

“I said I was glad he was a fan!” Nikki scowled, sitting back and glowering at her across the table, “all I wanted was to ask Lola if she wanted to sit on the roof with the rest of the smokers, and your fuckin’ yappy, dumbass of a cousin -”

Punching someone in the face hurts a lot more than Charlotte had been anticipating, but it’s worth it to see Nikki toppling backwards off of the picnic bench and onto the cold grass. His cigarette lies some few feet away while he lays groaning, clutching his cheek, and Charlotte’s standing, leaning, thighs pressed against the picnic table for support as she’s staring down at him, breathing heavy through her nose while the adrenaline rushes through her system.

“What the fuck, Charlie?”

“Don’t talk shit about Tommy,” her heart’s thundering in her chest, she can feel the blood rushing in her ears, and when she looks at her hand, she sees the skin of one of her knuckles has split enough to draw blood, “he has done fucking nothing to you apart from support you, and think you’re really fucking cool, for whatever dumbass reason, so don’t you dare talk shit about him.”

“Jesus Christ,” Nikki groaned, eyes closed, trying to catch his breath after being winded so thoroughly, hand still cradling his cheek. That’s how Charlotte leaves him, slinging her bag onto her shoulder, and stalking towards the library to finish the rest of her free period in peace.

When Tommy drives Charlotte, Eileen, and Peach home after school that day, he’s quiet once again, but it somehow feels completely different to the oppressively accusatory air of the day before. The three girls were chattering away, trying to plan a trip to the mall for the upcoming weekend, and only when Peach and Eileen were waving goodbye in the rearview mirror did Tommy speak up.

“Did you punch Nikki Sixx in the face?” There’s a smile in her cousin’s voice, and Charlotte’s not quite sure how to react.

“I had good reason to,” she says, carefully guarded.

“He said you guys were friends, and then he thanked me for being coming to the gig a while back; told me he’d asked you to bring me specifically,” Tommy’s tone was oozing pride, and if Charlotte had been looking at him, and not frowning out the window, she would have seen how he was all but preening.

“He told you all that?” Charlotte’s anger at her memory’s of the morning’s altercation was fading fast.

“He hung out with me and Lola by the carpark for lunch,” Tommy paused, snorting a laugh, “didn’t want his buddies to find out a cheerleader gave him a black eye.”

“I - what? No I didn’t...” Charlotte’s eyes went wide, and finally she looked at her cousin’s beaming face.

“You definitely did; Lola laughed at him for a full ten minutes because of it.”

“Serves him right,” Charlotte said, with a begrudging little smile.

Nikki sits with Tommy and Lola on Friday too, which Tommy is delighted to inform Charlotte on Saturday while he’s driving them both to Vince’s, where his parents have invited them over to meet the exchange student. Nicholas.

He arrived on Wednesday, but Vince’s parents have given him the rest of the week to settle in, and had invited around the few friends Vince has that they deem to be a positive influence, if only so he knew a few faces around school.

Charlotte had been picturing some over-gelled boarding-school boy, used to itchy uniforms and strict rules, and about to get a good deal of culture shock hanging around Vince and the rest of their motley little pack, but when Charlotte brings this speculation up in the car, Tommy’s quick to dismiss it. Vince, from the little Tommy had spoken to him in the past two days, was over the moon, claimed that Nicholas - Vince had called him Razzle - was amazing. If Charlotte felt an quiet sense of foreboding at that sentiment, she felt it was justified.

The first thing either of them hear after being directed down to the basement by Vince’s mother, is Alice Cooper playing almost obnoxiously loud; Charlotte’s not sure why, but it eases something in her chest.

Nicholas’s - Razzle’s? - room, first and foremost, is possibly the coolest bedroom Charlotte’s ever been in. He’s decked it out with movie and band posters, though most of the band’s she’s never heard of. There’s string-lights above a desk, a bed crammed into one corner with a bright duvet, and even a sofa, and a few beanbags all crowded around a low, wooden table that had mostly been taken up with a record player, which is where they found their friends.

The name Razzle suited him, Charlotte considered, as she took in the newcomer’s appearance, all spiked up dark hair and ostentatious clothing, animatedly telling a story while Peach and Vince hung onto his every word. He looked almost wild, like collection of half-thought ideas all vying to become a reality through the texture of his clothes, the height of his hair, the hint of amusement that tailed his words, the passion shining in the blue of his eyes when they flicked to look at her and her cousin, standing on the stairs and watching him.

His words grow quiet as he takes them in, as if waiting for something to happen, for someone to introduce them.

“You must be Charlie and Tommy!” His accent, thick and bright, made her nickname sound so familiar on his lips.

“Charlotte,” Vince corrects, giving a surprisingly respectful nod to Charlotte, who tries to shrug nonchalantly.

“Charlie’s fine. You’re,” and Charlotte hesitates for a moment, ignoring Vince’s eyeroll, “Razzle, right?” Razzle’s smile is blinding at her immediate use of the nickname, and he waves them in.

Peach throws Tommy a cushion from the sofa when he asks, and he settles himself on the floor next to Vince, while Peach and Eileen squeeze over to make room for Charlotte on the sofa clearly only made for two people.

“I was just telling these guys ‘bout my band’s very first gig, ‘nd how I had to sneak out just to get there,” Razzle settled back into his own beanbag, hands out and ready to return to his story, eyes still shining with anticipation at the memory, or possibly just glad to have an audience.

Oh, Charlotte thought, looking at this boy she barely knew, already fighting off a smile in the face of his infectious enthusiasm, maybe Vince was becoming a better judge of character.

“You’re in a band?” Tommy’s eyes light up, and Charlotte gives her cousin a fond smile; Razzle has already won his seal of approval.

we need more good crazy. it'd be nice to watch the news, and think, 'that's fucking insane', but feel a little jealous instead of just alone.

Heather hasn’t been glowering as much at lunch, and the rumour is that it’s because she’s getting laid. Well, it’s less of a rumour to Charlotte, since Heather confirmed as much to the rest of the cheer squad when one of the girls asked her, but she’s being coy and secretive about who she’s with, which is the really weird part; Heather won’t say, and no-one’s coming forward, and lord knows that most guys at their school would jump at the opportunity to claim they’re banging the Vice Captain of the Cheerleading Squad.

But Charlotte knows not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and instead just smiles back when Heather gives her a sunny smile in the cafeteria.

Tommy is less than thrilled with the news when Charlotte brings it up in the car after school. Nikki’s still sitting with him and Lola during lunch, despite his bruising going down considerably over the weekend, and Tommy is equal parts delighted and uncomfortable, for reasons he can’t seem to put into words.

“At least Pam’s single,” he says it with as much of a dreamy sigh as he can manage, though it comes out more forlorn than anything else. Charlotte pets his shoulder, and reminds him that so is over half the squad; he perks up a little at that.

They pull into Mick’s gas station, and Charlotte waves to Mick and Lola, who are sitting on the step by the door sharing a cigarette. Lola waves back.

“Meant to give this to you,” Lola says to Charlotte, still sitting while Mick begrudgingly heads inside. Tommy follows him in, not needing to fill up the tank, but rather just looking to drown his sorrows regarding Heather in a jumbo slurpee. Outside, Charlotte waits with her hands in her pockets, giving Lola an amused smile, watching as the dark haired girl pulls a pin off of the jacket she practically lives in, and hands it over.

It’s a piece of black card stock cut into the shape of a star, barely an inch in diameter, taped to a safety pin. It say Punched Nikki Sixx in silver pen, one of the points of the star already a little bit crumpled.

“You’re a little bit punk, so you get a pin,” Lola tells her, smiling around her cigarette, looking quietly pleased, and perhaps even a little bit proud; whether of herself or of Charlotte, Charlotte can’t tell, but it still makes her flush.

“I thought Nikki didn’t want anyone knowing that a cheerleader gave him a black eye,” Charlotte mused, looking at the little pin, and Lola’s face scrunched up, expression falling.

“So? Who gives a shit?” She shrugs, looking away tone having shifted to almost forcibly neutral in an instant, “wear the pin or don’t, I don’t care.” Lola stands with a groan, without giving Charlotte a chance to respond, and calls to Mick that she’s heading to the diner. Mick waves, Tommy calls out a farewell, and Charlotte frowns, wondering what just happened.

“I hate that,” Nikki says flatly, the moment he spots the pin where Charlotte’s fixed it to the strap of her backpack. There’s no hard feelings between them after last week’s altercation, thankfully, though they don’t talk about it. If Charlotte’s glad that he still showed up, if she’s realised she may, in fact, enjoy his company, she keeps that information to herself.

“Lola made it for me,” Charlotte tells him. Nikki leans in, squinting at the handmade pin.

“Of course she did,” he sighs, leaning back. Surprisingly, there’s quiet between them for a few, long moments; maybe, Charlotte considers, this will be one of those mornings where Nikki uses their time together to catch up on sleep, and Charlotte can actually use her free period for it’s intended, study-related purpose, but then Nikki sighs like he wants her to ask what’s wrong.

So she does.

“I need a new band.”

“I can’t help you.”

“I know,” Nikki nods with resignation, “I was gonna ask this guy I work with, Slash, he plays guitar, but he’s already in one -”

“Wait, you don’t mean Duff’s friend Saul Hudson, do you?” Charlotte frowned, intrigued despite the stab of anger she felt at the mere mention of her ex. Nikki seemed taken aback by her question.

“You know Duff McKagan?”

“I dated him for a year and a half,” Charlotte finds herself suddenly very interested in drawing connecting triangles in the back of her notebook, not looking at Nikki, who’s quietly processing this information.

“He’s in a band now,” and neither of them seem to be quite sure why he offered that information, but they both let is hang between them for a moment.

“Makes sense,” Charlotte nods, tone flat, “with Saul - Slash?”

“Yeah,” is all Nikki has to say.

“Slash is a good kid, I always liked him,” Charlotte offered, and finally she looks up, “Tommy plays drums.”

“Marching band isn’t exactly -” Nikki begins, but Charlotte’s shaking her head.

“No, like, legit drums,” she enthuses, “his parents fixed up their whole garage to make it sound proof for him,” but she doesn’t want Nikki to think she’s pushing her cousin on him too hard, not after last week, so she sits back, and crosses her arms, trying to play it cool, “I mean, you can ask him yourself, see if he’s any good.” She shrugs, but Nikki looks like he’s already considering it.

“How many musicians do you know, Charlie?” He finally asks, giving her a faint, amused smile.

“Probably too many,” Charlotte responds with a longsuffering smile, before her mind turns to the things Tommy himself had told her, “I heard you and Lola are getting along; what’d I tell you?” She teased, and much to her surprise, what she could see of Nikki’s face, for his hair, was turning pink.

“She’s a bitch; you know she’s a bitch, right?” He asks, but he’s grinning, all sharp and dangerously amused.

“I knew you guys would get along,” Charlotte gives a pleased little sigh, as if she’d manufactured their whole friendship herself. Nikki rolls his eyes at her, and the bell goes.

Tommy, as it turns out, thinks they’re sleeping together, at least that’s what he tells Charlotte when they’re on their way to Leo’s after school to meet up with Vince, Razzle, Peach, and Eileen. The news of Nikki and Lola’s potential affair surprises Charlotte at first, but after a moment of consideration, she thinks she should have seen it coming.

Tommy’s reasoning is that they’ve become friends far quicker than he’d realised, and Nikki’s always giving Lola lifts after work, like they’re going in the same direction, even though he’d pretty sure Nikki doesn’t live near Leo’s. It also turns out that that was what had been bothering him about Nikki and Lola being friends; he still tries to insist he doesn’t have a crush on Lola, but he and Charlotte both know that’s mostly a lie.

So Charlotte can see how conflicted he is when he tells her that Nikki’s looking to start a new band, and that he asked about Tommy possibly playing drums. A beat of silence follows, and then, without looking away from the road, Tommy mutters a quiet thanks, knowing without asking that Charlotte had been the one to recommend him. Charlotte leans over and bumps her forehead against his shoulder in unspoken acknowledgment.

“Duff’s in a band,” Charlotte’s voice is soft and a little unreadable.

“Sorry,” Tommy mutters, tone somber like it’s the worst news in the world, “we could throw rotten tomatoes at him?” He suggested, at the mental picture alone was enough to make Charlotte laugh, “or is that just in the movies?”

“I think that’s just in the movies,” Charlotte says, amid giggles, “besides, the rest of his band doesn’t deserve that.”

In the week that Razzle’s been in LA, Vince and his family have taken him to several, sophisticated restaurants in the vicinity, and Razzle had apparently loved them all; Leo’s was no different. He was sitting across from Charlotte in the booth, at the end of the table, reading the menu intently as the others chattered away about their day, making noises of intrigue every time he spotted something new he wanted to try. His knee knocked hers under the table, but it barely seemed to register, so engrossed in the menu that he muttered the faintest apology.

“Afternoon, guys, welcome,” Lola at work never failed to startle Charlotte, despite the fact that she’d been here once already since the first time. At least her chipper introduction seemed to bring Razzle back to reality.

“Hi, yes - oh! I know you!” Razzle lit up at the sight of Lola, and the rest of the gathered teens watched with interest, trying not to give away how intrigued they were to see Lola’s reaction, “Miss Honky Cat, you work here?”

What?

“Alright, Razzle, you found me, did you wanna order something?” Lola says, with a good-natured eyeroll, and an easy grin, hip cocked to one side. Razzle asks her what she recommends, and orders that, and then the rest of them, who had been sitting in stunned silence, are quick to order for themselves.

When she leaves, it’s mere moments before Tommy asks what that was all about, and Razzle’s eyes go wide.

“That’s Lola, innit? From school? She’s in my music class, was playing Honky Cat on the piano in the second music room, the Elton song, you know, when we had some free this morning,” he explained, confused, “she called me Rocketman when I picked what she’d been playing, but I told her my name’s Razzle.”

“You’re an enigma,” ironically, it’s Eileen who says this, wearing a fond little smile, while Razzle just looked bemused.

“I think it’s the accent, chicks fuckin’ love it,” Vince pipes up, smirking, and Razzle tries to hide his own pleased little grin since he can’t very well deny it, “Pam was all over him in Phys Ed yesterday -”

“We were just having a conversation -” Razzle was quickly turning red, while Vince clutched at his arm, putting on a high voice, twirling his blonde hair around one finger as he pretended to be Pam.

“Oh Nicholas, tell me more about The Clash, please, I want to know more!” He ended with a fake moan, which had Eileen and Peach laughing, while Razzle grabbed Charlotte’s hand and exaggeratedly mouthed ‘help me’.

“Pam’s into Razzle?” Tommy groaned, breaking the moment, falling dejectedly against Vince, who was already leaning pretty heavily on Razzle, who was then ejected from his seat and onto the floor, while Vince was draped over where he was just sitting, and Tommy was draped over Vince, “I’m gonna die alone.”

Despite Tommy’s despair, the rest of the table was greatly amused.

Thankfully for Razzle, it wasn’t a far fall, and he’d held tight to Charlotte’s hand, so at least he hadn’t ended up flat on his back, and Charlotte gave him an apologetic grin as she helped him to his feet. He lets go to dust himself off, and it’s here Charlotte notices his maroon, velvet pants, and black and white leather shoes with their little heel.

“Fancy threads,” Charlotte points out, notes of approval in her voice. Razzle makes a move to straightening a jacket he’s not wearing, and clicks his heels together, drawing the attention of the rest of the table to his shoes, of which they all make various noises of approval, or at least interest.

“I dress to impress,” and judging by his tone, if he were as crass as Vince or Nikki, he would have winked, but Charlotte’s kind of glad he refrained. He then shoves Vince, and by extension Tommy, back up to a sitting position, retaking his seat across from Charlotte, this time purposefully knocking his knee against hers.

Charlotte’s glad that Lola’s back with their drinks, so she can look at something that’s not Razzle’s sunny smile, because she doesn’t want to think about how pretty it makes him look. Stupid, British, band boy and his stupid, blue eyes.

But then she’s looking at Lola, and all she can remember is Tommy’s dejected expression when he told her that Lola and Nikki were possibly sleeping together, and Nikki’s half-hidden, bashful grin when he calls a bitch with a kind of fondness that Charlotte had never heard from him before. The urge to protect her cousin, from harm, from heartbreak, is carved into her bones, but part of her knows it would him hurt more to let him keep falling for Lola when she’d never really end up catching him. Suddenly staring into the depths of her soda became the safest option.

i have loved since you. but when the new paint gets scratched, there you are underneath.

Heather, of all people, is holding a party, and she tries to limit the amount of people she tells - the squad and her friends were the first to be invited - but of course, the guest list spirals out of control, and it’s exactly one and a half days before Tommy’s mooning over the fact that he’s been invited to a party at an actual cheerleader’s house.

“Dude, you’re killing me here,” Charlotte tells him at lunch; she’s finally sitting with him, Lola, and Nikki, though Nikki’s late. Heather had coyly asked her to ask Vince to bring Razzle - the cute English guy, specifically - and Charlotte had picked up her bag and left. Something about Heather in a good mood was worse than when she was being catty.

“You don’t count, you’re my cousin,” Tommy waived her off, and Lola snorted a laugh from where she was laying in the grass, using her backpack as a pillow. “You going?” Tommy pokes Lola in the ribs and she smacks his hand away, but makes an affirmative noise, and throws her arm over her eyes to shield them from the sun.

Something about how that makes Tommy smile, almost pleased, has worry sinking heavy in Charlotte’s gut.

“Heather asked me to ask Vince to invite Razzle,” Charlotte’s not quite sure why she says it, or why it makes Lola bark a laugh of her own, but at least it get’s Tommy’s mind off of last time he and Lola were at a party.

“Of course -” Tommy sighs, but then, in the very same breath, he lights up like a lightbulb, “wait! If Heather’s preoccupied with Razzle, and Pam’s going, then I -” he turned sharply to Charlotte, eyes wide, “is Pam seeing anyone?” Charlotte gives him an amused, but longsuffering look, shaking her head.

“You gonna put the moves on her?” Lola’s smirking, and Tommy’s steadily turning red, but refusing to be embarrassed.

“It’s now or never, you know? She’s graduating in a few months, will go to college and date some meathead, college footballer, this is my chance,” he enthused, and Charlotte pet his shoulder in solidarity.

Nikki joins them halfway through lunch, right as Lola and Charlotte find themselves playing angel and devil on Tommy’s shoulders regarding how he should dress for the party. Charlotte’s firmly of the opinion that he should be be wearing bright, eye-catching things - “Come on, you know Pam likes those new-wave guys!” - while Lola was adamantly recommending to go all-out punk.

“Don’t ask Nikki’s opinion, you know who he’s going to side with,” Charlotte implored, and as if to prove a point, Nikki throws his bag to the side, and lays down with his head pillowed on Lola’s stomach.

“Because Nikki has taste,” Lola throws her arm above her head, into the grass, neck at an awkward angle as she looks, wide-eyed to Tommy.

“Thank you,” Nikki grumbles, and immediately closes his eyes, “what are we arguing about?” A pause, then, “and why is Charlie here?”

“Heather asked Charlie to bring Razz to the party next weekend,” Tommy says, the words sounding rote off his tongue, before he gets into the meat of the argument, laying himself back in the grass. Somehow it makes Charlotte feel left out, being the only one left marginally upright, and she slouches a little lower against the fence.

Tommy explains his conundrum, and much to everyone’s surprise, Nikki refrains from giving his opinion, sighting that he has no clue what Pam would like, and that he’s not taking the fall if Tommy looks like a dickhead and crashes and burns while talking to, arguably, the most popular girl in school.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, asshole,” Tommy groans, without really thinking, and as the realization and subsequent horror took over his expression, Lola barked a laugh, and even Nikki was grinning.

The moment was surprisingly light, Tommy’s face buried in his hands, though he’s now hiding a smile, and Charlotte is surprised at how easy it is to smile and laugh here, these people accepting her presence without another thought. The politics of the cafeteria make it all feel so foreign, but Tommy said ‘Charlie’s sitting here now’ and Nikki and Lola took it in stride.

And later, Eileen will ask her where she was at lunch, will go on to sigh and roll her eyes as she recounts barely sitting through five minutes of the cheerleaders buzzing like cheerful, little hornets, discussing who would be at the party, and how they would coordinate their outfits. She’d spent another five minutes with the swim team, who spent the entire time picking apart her backstroke technique since she ‘finally decided to join them’.

“This is why I don’t sit with them,” Eileen had frowned, sitting in the McDonalds carpark, absentmindedly violating her soda with it’s straw out of frustration, Charlotte, wide-eyed, quietly eats her terrible, oily fries, and lets Eileen vent, “if I have to listen to one more five-am-gym-going-wannabe-sports-scholarship tell me my form is off, I’m going to go full Carrie-At-The-Prom at our next meet,” Eileen warned, and reached over to snatch a fry. Very few people were ever privy to Eileen’s frustration, as the redhead seemed to do a rather good job of bottling it up, but Charlotte personally felt honored that her friend could be so honest around her.

“I was thinking of joining yearbook, maybe? Or the school paper with...” a strange moment of hesitation, “with Peach,” Eileen paused, taking a long moment to think, and take a sip of her drink, eyes glass as she stared out at the highway as cars passed before them, “auditions for the school play are on Friday,” she adds, like she’s seriously considering it, “it’s Singin’ In The Rain, Keanu actually suggested I should audition.” The idea that Keanu and Eileen have talked enough for him to suggest that she audition for a musical and for her to serious consider it is kind of baffling; Charlotte doesn’t process the meaning behind any of this now, however, just files it away in the back of her mind for later.

“Macy moved to Portland over the Summer,” Charlotte feigns seriousness with her suggestion instead, trying not to give away how amused she is, already anticipating Eileen’s response, “we’re holding cheer tryouts to replace her on Tuesday,” Eileen’s expression is already souring, almost comedically disgusted at Charlotte’s implied suggestion, though she lets the blonde finish, “you were the best bottom-right to the pyramid we’ve ever had,” she said, barely stifling giggles as Eileen turns to her.

“I’d rather die,” her lip curled, and Charlotte leaned over the center console of the minivan to press her forehead against Eileen’s shoulder, and Eileen reaches up with her free hand to scratch gently at Charlotte’s scalp, before bursting out with, “and my form’s not even bad! The coach loves me, Charlie, she loves me, they just think they’re better than me, bunch of clique-y, insular, webbed-toe bitches.”

The words hang in the air, a surprising outburst from the usually reserved and thoughtful girl.

“Do they really have webbed toes?” Charlotte asks, turning so her temple still pressed against the soft cashmere of Eileen’s sweater, but she was following the ginger’s gaze out to the highway ahead. Eileen gives a tired, little laugh, as if her outburst had left her exhausted.

“No.”

Charlotte wants more than anything to ask her what’s wrong, but knows better than anyone that Eileen only says exactly what she wants someone else to know. Instead, she offers her fries silently. Eileen takes one.

“Peach and I got into a fight today,” voice barely above a whisper, Eileen follows her words with a sigh, and suddenly her out of character frustration made complete, and utter sense. For all that she’s known both Peach and Eileen, Charlotte has never known their altercations to be quick or painless affairs, “Vince invited her to Heather’s party.”

“He invited her himself?” Charlotte’s not sure what the issue is beyond their general dislike of Vince, but if Vince himself is starting to possibly change, then it’s hard to see the issue.

“Yeah,” Eileen seems to know what Charlotte’s thinking, and pauses to find the right words, “I don’t trust him, and I don’t know how she can trust him either.” There’s a quality to her voice that Charlotte’s only heard rarely; uncertainty, “and I don’t want her going to Heather’s party, I barely want to go myself, and what if she drinks, and what if she does terrible things she regrets -?” Eileen cuts herself off, squeezing her eyes shut and leaning her head back against the headrest.

“I get it,” Charlotte says, so gentle, so understanding, but Eileen’s still quiet.

“She’s my little sister, Charlie,” Eileen sighed, “and it’s like our parents couldn’t care less, so I have to protect her, and I have to keep her from the guy she thinks is the love of her life, and I have to be the one to always remind her of all the shitty things he’s done and remind her that life isn’t a goddamn fairytale.” She sounds close to tears, soda cup between her knees and hands clutching, white knuckled, at the steering wheel, or else she may have been tearing her hair out.

There was a shake in her voice, tight and exhausted in equal measure, like the words had sat, unspoken, pressed against her teeth, for far longer than Charlotte had realized she’d been thinking them. Charlotte rests her hand on Eileen’s.

“She loves you more than anyone else in the world, you know that right? She’s just sixteen, you know all the drama and shit we went through last year -”

“I can’t watch her go through what you went through with Duff,” the words escaped Eileen in a rush, and she clamps her mouth shut, sitting forward in the driver’s seat, lips pressed into a thin line, as Charlotte’s heart sank in her chest, “I’m sorry.”

“No, I know what you mean,” Charlotte sat back in her own seat, nodding dejectedly, fiddling with her bracelet.

“You... Charlie, you know you’re my best friend, and I love you, and seeing you in pain with no way to help,” Eileen’s hands slid down the sides of the steering wheel as she forced herself to relax, though her words have Charlotte’s heart swelling with fondness, “it fucking killed me,” she admitted, leaning back, letting her shoulders sags with the weight of her words, like the weight of the world, and as she leaned back, she looked to Charlotte, so unguarded, so sincere, “I can’t let Vince break Peach’s heart like that.”

Eileen has always looked and seemed older than her seventeen years, but it’s strange to see her like this, to be reminded that she holds within her this unassuming duality. To protect is her first instinct, herself, her feelings, her friends, her family, but she’s still so young, just a kid; she still deserves to be protected too.

“I’m so tired,” Eileen murmurs, gaze dropping to her hands, now folded in her lap, and she huffs a humorless laugh, “I’m seventeen, Charlie, I’m fucking tired of feeling thirty.”

#nikki sixx #tommy lee #vince neil #nikki sixx imagine #tommy lee imagine #vince neil imagine #motley crue #the dirt #the dirt imagine #motley crue imagine #the angry lizard writes #charlotte & lola #lola&charlotte

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orangeoctopi7 · 3 years

Text

It’s Fine (It’s not fine)

@forduary week 1 is Hurt/Comfort. The one’s definitely more on the hurt side of things, but I promise there’s some comfort at the end!

Stanford Pines is six years old. He’s in his bedroom, reading quietly. He’s just getting to the climax of the adventure story he’s reading when his brother Stanley crashes into the room. It wouldn't normally be a problem, Ford is really good at tuning out the world around him while he reads, but Stan is complaining loudly.

“I’m booooooard!” The boy moans, grabbing onto the post of their bunk-bed and dangling off it dramatically.

“Whaddaya want me to do about it?” Ford asks in irritation, not looking up from his book.

“Let’s go play on the beach! Or go to the comic store! Or… or something!” Stan suggests. “Anything but just sit around here doin’ nothin’!”

It was a hot summer afternoon. Ford didn’t want to go down to the beach or the comic store when he knew for certain anywhere they went today was bound to be crowded with people. He just wanted to sit and read in his room and enjoy some time to himself.

“Can’t you go by yourself?”

“Are you kiddin’? Ma would throw a fit!”

Ford heaves a long-suffering sigh, places a bookmark to hold his place, and snaps his book shut before thumping it down on his bed.

“Well we don’t hafta go if ya don’t wanna.” Stan says lamely.

“It’s fine.” Ford assures him.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s fine.”

* * *

Stanford Pines is ten years old. He’s at recess, trying to lie low. Stan got held back for the whole half-hour because he’d been caught trying to sneak the class pet, a newt, into his backpack. This of course leaves Ford at the mercy of Crampelter and his thugs, who have little to no mercy on any given day.

“C’mon freak, fight back!” The towheaded bully taunts him, holding Ford back by the forehead as he tries to struggle past the blocking arm for his backpack, held just out of reach. “I know I seen you taking boxing lessons back at Mel’s Gym!”

“It’s ‘I saw’ or ‘I have seen’, and just b‘cuz I’m taking lessons doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to pick a fight I know I can’t win!” Ford protests.

“Pfft, you’re no fun.” Crampelter scoffs, before grabbing onto one of Ford’s hands while he continues to reach vainly for his backpack. “But y’know what does sound fun?”

“Let go of me!”

“Seeing how flexible your extra fingers are!” Crampelter starts to push Ford’s pinky finger back with his thumb, stretching it to its limit.

“Stop it! That hurts!”

But Crampelter just keeps pushing and pushing until Ford is sure some tendons are going to pop, when a shrill whistle echoes across the playground.

“Hey! Crampelter! Drop the freak!” The teacher on recess watch commands.

The bully finally lets go, and Ford stumbles to the ground, holding his injured hand close to his body.

“Here, lemme look at that.” the teacher pulls Ford’s hand away to check it. “Eh, ‘snot bleeding or broken, you’re fine.”

As they walk back from school that afternoon, Stan rants over and over that Crampelter Will Not Get Away With This, plotting various methods of revenge, most of them too fanciful to ever come to fruition.

Ford is silent the whole time, his gaze turned towards his shoes.

“Hey.” Stan suddenly stops his ranting and places a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help.”

“It’s fine.” Ford mumbles.

“I promise I’ll try not to get held in for recess again.”

“I said it’s fine.” Ford assures him, knowing that hoping Stan won’t get held back from recess again is like hoping it won’t snow in January. Technically possible, but highly unlikely.

* * *

Stanford Pines is fourteen years old. He’s a freshman in highschool, and he and his brother are in detention after he was caught letting Stan look off his algebra test.

It’s not that Ford has anything against sharing his answers with his brother. It’s not like he has any sort of moral high-ground here. It’s just that Stan is always so carelessly obvious about it!

“I said I was sorry, alright!” Stan hisses at him, trying not to draw the teacher’s attention.

“We’re not in middle school anymore, these things actually go on our record now!” Ford hisses back. “You have to be more careful!”

“Well maybe if you would actually slip me your paper instead of making me crane my neck over your desk! Nobody’s gonna notice if you hand your test in two minutes before everyone else instead of five!”

“That’d be even more obvious! Maybe if you wore your glasses for once!”

“Maybe I would, if you could hold your own in a fight!”

“What does that even have to do with anything!?”

“You don’t wear glasses in a fight, genius! That’s just asking for them to get broken! And I know I’m always having to step in and save your skin, so why would I even bother wearing them in the first place?”

“Hey!” The teacher overseeing detention snaps at them. “No talking!”

The boys shut their yapps and go back to studying, or at least pretending to study.

“I’m sorry.” Stan murmurs, once he’s sure the teacher is no longer paying attention to them.

“It’s fine.” Ford grunts back.

* * *

Stanford Pines is 17 years old. He is begrudgingly walking down to the beach with his brother.

“C’mon Ford, it’s October, there’s only a few more days of weather nice enough to work on her left! And the dumb science fair isn’t until April!”

“I still have so much research to do before I can even start!” Ford complains. “Not to mention procuring parts, testing different models--”

“That all sounds like stuff you can do once it gets cold.”

“I should be in the building phase by then!”

“Alright, look,” Stan jabs a finger in his brother’s direction. “If you wanna spend the last few warm days of the year cooped up in the library, that’s your problem. But I’m gonna enjoy the sunshine and the beach, and finish fixin’ up the Stan’o’war. We’re so close, I can practically taste the treasure and babes!”

“...Fine.” Ford grumbles.

“No, no. You go do your nerd thing. I’ll put the finishing touches on this thing we’ve been working on together since we were pipsqueaks.”

“I said it’s fine.”

* * *

Stanford Pines is 17 years old. He’s just come back from the most humiliating moment of his life (thus far). He confronts his brother, the offending evidence crinkling in his clenched fist. Stan tries to play it off like it’s not a big deal. Like he expects his brother to say It’s Fine.

It is most definitely not fine.

* * *

Stanford Pines is 20 years old. He’s showing his new roommate around their humble apartment.

“I really ‘preciate this, Stanford.” Fiddleford McGucket tells him for the sixth time that day. “Most folks wouldn’t offer to put their TA up in their apartment, ‘specially not when you’re lucky ‘nough to get yer own place!”

“Well, I’ll be starting the Doctorate program myself, next year! That makes us equals, in my mind.” Ford says proudly. “And I’m happy for the company! The only reason I have the apartment to myself is because my last roommate and I parted over… differences.”

“Heh, you too, eh?” McGucket chuckles. “Least you weren’t kicked out, like I was!”

“Why were you kicked out?”

“Oh, several reasons. I think the robot in the kitchen was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Ford laughs. “Well, I for one would love to have a robot that does our dishes and cleans the counters.”

McGucket grins and leans against the table.. “See, I knew we’d make great roommates!”

Unfortunately, McGucket’s leaning is more than the wobbly table can take, and it tips over on its side, scattering textbooks and papers everywhere. The two friends begin cleaning up the mess, McGucket apologizing profusely.

They’ve almost finished putting everything back onto the table when Fiddleford picks up an old photo of two little boys standing before a derelict little boat.

“Well bless my soul! Is this you, Ford?”

Ford’s heart skips a beat. He hadn’t realized he left that photo lying on the table!

“Ah, yes, that’s me. That was the day I decided I wanted to be a researcher--”

“And lookit this little fellah next to ya!” Fiddleford interrupts Ford’s soliloquy. “He looks just like you! I can’t believe I’ve known you for three years, and you never told me you had a twin!”

“Er… it just-- it never came up.”

“How in tarnation does yer own twin brother never come up?” Fiddleford asks incredulously. “So, what’s his name?”

“Stanley and I are not on speaking terms.” Ford says stiffly. “I haven’t spoken to him since I was a teenager.”

A multitude of expressions dance across Fiddleford’s face before Ford can hope to interpret any of them. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He finally says.

“It’s fine.” Ford says tersely, snatching the photo back.

* * *

Stanford Pines is 21 years old. He’s trying to get a good night sleep before his first dissertation tomorrow.

Trying being the operative word.

The past year rooming with Fiddleford McGucket has been great, for the most part. Ford loves spending time with an intellectual equal. McGucket accepts all of Ford’s idiosyncrasies, and Ford accepts all those of his friend.

Well, almost all of them.

It didn’t take long after they started rooming together for Ford to realize one of the several reasons McGucket had been evicted from his last apartment had nothing to do with his penchant for robotics, and everything to do with his penchant for late-night banjo playing. As much as it cut into Ford’s sleep schedule, he didn’t have the heart to complain to his roommate about it. He knew he had plenty of his own bad habits that were difficult to deal with, like his coffee addiction, his antisocial behavior, his tendency to start a project and just leave it laying wherever he was around the apartment, and his few dozen subscriptions to cryptozoological newsletters.

The digital clock on Ford’s bedside table reads 2:20 AM when the music finally, thankfully stops. He sighs and turns over in his bed, hoping to finally fall asleep.

When he wakes in the morning, groggy as a hung-over sailor, Fiddleford at least has the decency to look apologetic.

“Sorry, did I keep ya up last night? I kinda got lost in the music an’ lost track of time.”

“It’s fine.” Ford mutters as he pours himself a large mug of the strongest coffee he can brew. This is the first roommate he’s gotten along with since… since he started college. He can put up with this.

“Well, if’n ya need me to, I can start headin’ up to the practice rooms in the assembly hall fer my jam sessions--”

“It’s fine.”

* * *

Stanford Pines is 31 years old. He’s spreading thick globs of slimy aloe vera on his hands. He’s been letting his muse take control of his body while he sleeps for about a week now. Bill says he’s not used to the limits of a physical human body. He’s injured Ford’s body just about every night so far, but last night, when he picked up the hot coffee pot by the pot instead of by the handle, was the worst by far.

“This keeps on happening, Bill. You need to be more careful.” He gently chides his muse.

“WELL HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT’D HAPPEN? WHY DIDN’T THE IDIOT WHO DESIGNED THAT THING INSULATE THE WHOLE CONTAINER INSTEAD OF JUST THE HANDLE? YOU COULD DESIGN A COFFEE POT WAY MORE EFFICIENT THAN THAT!”

Ford smiles, blushing. “Perhaps I’ll get around to modifying it someday. But for now, as I was saying, could you please be more careful with my body at night?”

“HEY, YOU’RE ACTUALLY LUCKY THIS HAPPENED. IF I HADN’T DROPPED THAT POT, I WOULD’VE TRIED DRINKING IT THE SAME WAY I DO IN MY NORMAL FORM, AND THEN YOU’D PROBABLY BE BLIND. SO WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT, YOU SHOULD BE THANKING ME!”

Ford pales. “Er, perhaps I should help you practice using my body first, just to decrease the risk of that sort of thing.”

“OH, I’M SORRY! DO YOU NOT WANT MY HELP? DO YOU NOT WANT TO ACHIEVE GREATNESS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE?”

“No! No of course not! That’s not what I meant!”

“DON’T FORGET, I’M DOING THIS FOR YOU, SIXER! I’M AN AGELESS BEING OF PURE ENERGY! THE ONLY REASON I’M HELPING YOU SPEED UP THE PROCESS ON BUILDING THE PORTAL IS BECAUSE I KNOW HOW PATHETICALLY SHORT YOUR MORTAL LIFE IS. YOU’RE JUST GONNA HAVE TO TRUST ME. OR ARE A FEW BUMPS AND BRUISES TOO MUCH FOR YOU TO HANDLE?”

“Of course not! It’s fine! I’m fine!” Ford insists, finishing bandaging his burns.

* * *

Stanford Pines is… probably 45? He’s not quite sure. He’s lost track of time after traveling the multiverse for so long, especially after the Do-Over Dimension.

He’s making his way through a crowded alien market, hoping to find something he’ll be able to use in his Quantum Destabilizer, and also hoping not to be recognized by any bounty hunters. It’s annoying, having to wear a hood and goggles and mask everywhere he goes, but that’s just the way it has to be now.

It’s fine.

It’s only until he can complete the Quantum Destabilizer. After that… it didn’t matter what happened after that.

It’s fine.

* * *

Stanford Pines is 62 years old. He’s sitting in a hospital bed. Despite what that may suggest, his life has finally taken a turn for the better. Bill is gone, Weirdmaggeddon is over, and, miraculously, no one died. Stanley was going to be ok. The kids didn’t hate him. He’s achieved his goal of destroying Bill Cipher, and survived! He’s fine. They’re all incredibly, wonderfully, fine.

The doctor is giving his vitals one last check before officially discharging him from the hospital. It’s obvious that under normal circumstances, Ford would not be leaving the hospital any time soon, but thanks to the incredibly persistent insistence of his family, and the fact that the hospital is already absolutely filled to the brim with people who were injured during Weirdmageddon, and the fact that Stanford was instrumental in stopping Bill, they’re making an exception.

“Alright, you’re free to go!” The doctor finally says, handing his clipboard over to Ford to sign.

“Hooray!” Mabel cheers as her uncle signs his exit papers. “Now you’ll be able to help us set up for our birthday party!” She slings an arm around his neck to hug him, completely forgetting about the thin layer of bandages around his neck. Ford can’t suppress a yelp of pain.

Mabel reels back, hands flying to her mouth. “Ohmigosh, I’m so sorry!”

“It’s fine.” Ford forces a smile.

“I wasn’t thinking!”

“Mabel, really, it’s fine.”

“Ford.” Stan says firmly. Ford recognizes the expression on his face from the last few days. It’s the look he gets on his face when he’s remembering something painful. “You gotta stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” He asks, confused.

“Saying ‘It’s fine’ when it’s not.”

Ford raises an eyebrow. “Stanley, it was just an accident. It really is fine.”

“Oh, yeah, of course this was…” Stan stammers, apparently coming back to the moment. “Mabel’s not-- this was just an honest mistake. But you say… uh, or at least, you used to say that a lot. Even when I could tell it wasn’t really fine. You gotta stop that.”

Ford shifted in his bed uncomfortably. “I’m just being polite.”

“There are ways to say things aren’t fine while still being polite.” Dipper points out.

Ford can feel himself flush. “I’m not good at that. I always come off as rude… or angry.” Saying it’s fine is just easier. He can just move on and forget about it. Control his emotions. Remove them from the equation for the time being, process them later when he’s alone, so nobody gets hurt.

Stan takes a deep breath before he speaks again. “You just gotta trust us, that we’re not gonna leave you just ‘cuz you get angry sometimes.”

Is that really what he’s been afraid of this whole time? That certainly seems to be a part of it, but not the whole. All the same, he does at least feel that he can trust his family. And he can try to be more honest with them when something is bothering him.

“I think I can do that.” he says as he gets up from the hospital bed, ready to go home.

#Gravity Falls #Stanford Pines #Fanfiction #My Writing

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lothiriel84 · 3 years

Text

I Relate to the Sparrow

“Arthur,” Douglas clears his throat, the beginnings of a mildly problematic intuition stirring at the back of his mind. “You do know what ‘attractive’ means, right?”

“Of course I do,” Arthur scoffs, about as offended as he ever gets, which is to say, hardly at all. “What do you take me for?”

A Cabin Pressure ficlet. Acespec!Arthur, pre-canon. Title borrowed from Susannah Pearse's eponymous song cycle.

They’re sitting in an overpriced café in the main concourse of Prague Airport, enjoying the momentary respite from their employer’s sharp tongue – just a spot of Arthur-wrangling, nothing Carolyn couldn’t sort out in the blink of an eye, should she want to, but as they’re genuinely quite early there’s no real objection to letting the boy roam freely around the duty free area just a little longer. Not precisely the brightest of chaps, Arthur, but he’s really not all that bad, when you get to know him; and for all that he’s already witnessed countless displays of Carolyn’s maternal exasperation at her son’s misplaced attempts at making himself useful, he suspects no one would ever find the bodies of anyone who was foolish enough to dare touch a hair on Arthur’s head.

“What do you reckon?” Nigel nudges him, eyes darting sideways as a gorgeous specimen of the flight attendant persuasion walks past them, her pristine uniform doing a rather marvellous job at putting her long legs and delectable backside on display.

“Hmm. Not too bad,” he agrees easily, taking a sip of his alcohol-free passion fruit martini. “Reminds me of one of my old flames, actually.”

Well, not so much an old flame as a mutually enjoyable layover in Bern, somewhen between wife number one and wife number two. He’s certainly had his fair share of fun in his brief spells of singlehood in between marriages, not to mention his early days as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed first officer at Air England.

“What about that one?” he drawls at length, glass subtly raised to point at a stunning redhead strolling down the concourse, her low-cut dress leaving very little to the imagination. “Ten to one says she wouldn’t think twice about jumping into bed with an airline captain.”

“Well, we could scarcely call ourselves ‘an airline’, but I take your point,” Nigel concedes at length. “Carol’s best friend’s a redhead, and she’s always on about her latest conquests. Makes you wonder, you know.”

The rustle of several bags signals Arthur’s approach, mercifully without any sign of an irritable Carolyn hot on his heels for a change. “Hello, chaps,” he greets them, looking if anything even jollier than his usual self, which is something of an accomplishment when it comes to someone whose entire personality could be summed up as ‘perpetually cheerful’. “Did you know they have four different types of Toblerone in the duty free shop?”

At his side, Nigel sighs almost imperceptibly, and downs the rest of his virgin mojito. It’s not that he doesn’t get on well enough with Arthur, he even told Douglas as much on the first leg of one of their earliest intercontinental flights together; he just happens to find constant chatter a little tiresome, and who can blame him when he’s married to the most talkative woman this side of the English Channel. Not that Douglas ever had the occasion to exchange more than a few pleasantries with Carol, which is just as well, given how Helena seems to hold some kind of long-standing grudge against the woman for reasons she never actually cared to explain.

“Care for a spot of bird-watching, Arthur?” he says instead, keen on forestalling any potential diplomatic issue between his captain and their employer’s only son and heir. “Nigel and I spotted a few truly remarkable specimens earlier on.”

Arthur blinks, confusion apparent on his face. “Birds? How did they even get in here?”

“They’re not actual birds, Arthur,” Nigel explains, only just managing to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “We’re talking about women.”

“Ooh, I get it,” Arthur nods, plainly not getting it in the slightest. “What about them?”

“Attractive women,” Douglas clarifies, as if talking to a twelve year old. “It’s who can get most in however long it takes for Carolyn to hunt us down and shout us back to our respective duties.”

“Brilliant. How about that girl sitting on the bench, the one with the book? She looks like she’d give really good hugs.”

The two pilots exchange a surreptitious, disbelieving look at that, which goes completely over Arthur’s head. Each to their own and all that jazz, but for all that he’s got a good thirty years on her, Douglas can think of at least a dozen plausible scenarios off the top of his head in which he’d very much rather take a rain check.

“Suit yourself,” Nigel shrugs at length, twirling his empty glass so that the melting ice cubes clink against one another. “I can see at least four other people from where I’m sitting that I’d rather take to bed, and I’m not even counting that gentleman in the indigo suit over there.”

“How do you mean?” Arthur frowns, looking like he’s slowly and earnestly puzzling over the meaning of that sentence in his head.

“I mean,” Nigel huffs, pinching at the bridge of his nose in what is most likely a desperate attempt to keep himself from snapping at his boss’ offspring. “We’re not all straight here. I believe we’ve been through this before.”

“Oh!” Arthur’s eyes widen, almost comically, and then he’s shaking his head. “No, not the you being bisexual bit, I know that. I meant the bit about taking random strangers to bed.”

“Arthur,” Douglas clears his throat, the beginnings of a mildly problematic intuition stirring at the back of his mind. “You do know what ‘attractive’ means, right?”

“Of course I do,” Arthur scoffs, about as offended as he ever gets, which is to say, hardly at all. “What do you take me for?”

As luck would have it, Carolyn picks that exact moment to emerge from the crowd, phone still in hand. “Ah, there you are, drivers. I bring good news.”

“Absolutely not, Carolyn,” Nigel interrupts her before she can get another word in. “I don’t care if it’s the Queen herself, tomorrow’s our first day off in weeks, and I’m not going to give up on that.”

“O ye of little faith,” Carolyn sighs dramatically, and just like that, the entire conversation is forgotten.

A week later they’re on standby, and it’s just the two of them in the Portakabin – Nigel having apparently decided he feels lucky enough to brave the airfield canteen for a latte and whatever it is they’re trying to pass off today as pastries – when Arthur approaches him, and from the look on his face, he’s been ruminating about this for quite a long time.

“Douglas,” the boy begins, somewhat hesitantly. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“You just did,” he sighs, putting his pencil down and pushing the crosswords further away on his desk. “Go on.”

“I mean, it’s kind of a personal question. You don’t have to, if you’d rather not.”

“I’m not telling you how I got your mother’s Talisker off the plane, if that’s what you’re planning to ask,” he ventures, and that seems enough to momentarily derail Arthur’s train of thought.

“Wasn’t going to ask about that, actually,” Arthur shakes his head at length. “You know that game you and Nigel were playing in Prague?”

Douglas nods, slowly. “Bit sexist, I’ll give you that. Still, just a spot of harmless fun, hey? No harm done.”

“Yes, no, I mean – I’m still not sure what it was all about.”

“Come on, Arthur, I distinctly remember you mentioning at least two different girlfriends ever since I started out here at MJN Air. You can’t be seriously suggesting you didn’t at least have an idea as to what was going on there.”

“But,” Arthur pleads, a faint note of distress starting to tinge his voice. “You and Nigel, you’re both married, right?”

Douglas is suddenly reminded of everything he’s managed to piece together about Carolyn’s ex-husband – Arthur’s father – so far, and quickly realises he’d better tread carefully now. “Yes, we are, Arthur. I promise neither of us was seriously planning on cheating on our respective wives; it was more of a hypothetical question, you know – something along the lines of, who would you rather sleep with if you weren’t married. Not one out best moments, as far as game material goes, but there you go.”

“Yes, but – I was wondering, how can you tell?”

“How can I tell what, exactly?” It’s Douglas’s turn to start feeling confused, if he’s perfectly honest. Not that he’d ever admit that out loud.

“That you’d like to, you know. With them.”

“Arthur,” that half-formed idea from a week ago is back now, and it’s getting more and more disturbing by the moment. “Are you trying to tell me that you’ve never – ”

He trails off, struggling to reassess the situation to the very best of his judgement. “Not,” he hastens to add, “that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Oh, you mean sex,” Arthur nods his head sagely. “Yes, I’ve done that.”

“Right,” Douglas feels pretty much like he’s grasping at straws now, but he’s still determined to see this through, whatever this is. “So, you must have been able to tell, that you wanted to. That you were attracted to them.”

“Well, that was easy. They were my girlfriends, of course I knew I fancied them. How does it work with someone you’ve never even spoken to?”

“Surely, with each of your girlfriends, you had to go through a stage in which they were but strangers you’d only just met?”

Arthur tilts his head to one side, considering. “I suppose so, yeah. I still didn’t know I wanted to have sex with them back then, though.”

“It’s not – you’re making it a bigger deal than it actually is. You were attracted to them, that’s the point. Doesn’t matter the exact moment you decided to act on it, so to speak.”

“But, I mean – with your wives, you didn’t just – I don’t know, look at someone walking past you on the street and go, oh, I know I’d like to have sex with them one day.”

“It was precisely like that with the current Mrs Richardson, in point of fact,” he points out, though he elects to omit the – neither small nor insignificant – detail that he didn’t so much bump into Helena on a stroll through the park as she was one of the bridesmaids at his second wedding.

“Oh. Okay. No, it doesn’t work like that for me at all.”

Douglas can almost hear the wheels inside his own head finally click into gear. His daughter would be appalled if she knew he’d put most of her half-hour lecture on sexual orientations and gender identities out of his mind as soon as she was finished with it, but he hasn’t precisely forgotten it, either. “If I recall correctly, some people experience sexual attraction differently than most. As in, some might not experience it at all, while others do but only occasionally, or under very specific circumstances. I’m not saying that might be your case, but I believe it could be something worth looking into, should you feel like you want to.”

For the longest of moments, Arthur stands stock still, turning the idea over and over in his mind. “Wow,” he exhales at length. “That’s just – wow. Thank you, Douglas.”

Before he knows it, he finds himself with an armful of Arthur, looking for all the world like he’s out on a mission to put the ‘bear’ into ‘bear hug’.

“Oh dear,” Carolyn’s voice makes itself heard from where she’s only just materialised in the doorway, clearly debating whether or not she has the energy to deal with whatever nonsense is going on in there. “Please tell me it’s not Hug Your Pilot Day, again.”

“That’s not even a thing,” Douglas protests, only to think better of it. It’s Arthur they’re talking about, after all.

“Don’t be silly, Mum,” Arthur grins, unrepentant. “That’s not until May.”

“Someone give me strength,” Carolyn huffs under her breath, even as her son plants a quick peck on her cheek and dashes off, only narrowly avoiding knocking Nigel – who appears to have finally found his way back to the Portakabin – over in the process.

“This is going to be a long day,” Nigel announces philosophically to no one in particular, and resumes his usual place behind his desk.

#Cabin Pressure #Douglas Richardson #Arthur Shappey #Nigel (Cabin Pressure)#Carolyn Knapp-Shappey #pre-canon #asexual character #asexuality spectrum #family & supportive father figures #MJN Air is a family #I wrote a thing

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yee-fxcking-haw · 4 years

Text

What Happens Next?

Summary: You begrudgingly go out dancing with your best friend, but you're consumed by the fear that you'll run into James Barnes. You two shared a wonderful afternoon in highschool and somehow ended up at prom together. Unfortunately, James ruined everything with a horrible prank at your expense. Of course, at the most popular dance hall, he shows up.

Hi guys! This is my very first fic ever so pLeAsE be nice. I apologise for typos and for being long winded. I want to preface this by making it clear that I have absolutely no idea what I am doing I just hope y'all have fun reading the story. My comic book knowledge is eh, it's set in the 1940s ish?? LOL I suck y'all are in for a wild ride. Maybe four or five parts if you guys like it?? Maybe??? Please like it????>

Warnings: Mentions of death. Asshole guy tries to get reader to leave with him without consent. Eventual smut. More specific warnings will be at the beginning of each chapter.

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"Molly I do not want to go dancing." You bite off the end of the sentence as you put the rest of your clothes away.

Your best friend is sitting on your bed, touching up her makeup in a delicate handheld mirror. She rolls her eyes in a dramatic manner then slapps the mirror down on the bed and huffed at you. You can't help but laugh at her theatrics.

"It's not my thing." You say in a softer tone, trying to ease the tension you'd created with your snapping.

She looks at you with her soft brown eyes and pouts her red lips.

"Oh for Pete's sake I don't even own a dress." You say as you motion at your overalls.

"That is a sorry excuse and you know it, they're all I wear- you can borrow one of mine." She says, stressing the last half like you're hard of hearing.

"Yours are all too nice! I rip things and spill things and lose things, no way I'm using one of yours." You take a glance at her lovely yellow dress, decorated with a delicate white floral design. Of course she could pull that off, but you could never.

"I have plenty I don't wear anymore, you can just have one."

You cross your arms and scowl. You know how this is going to end, but you won't go down without a fight. Molly is one of those girls that just got what she wanted, like it was a fact of life. She's too pretty, too convincing, and dangerously clever.

"There's going to be people from highschool there. Please don't make me do this." You beg, maybe the pity card will work. Graduation was only two months behind you, so a lot of the humiliation still stung.

This was true, the majority of your highschool career was indeed filled with self induced bullying.

"What if he's there?" You ask, feeling much more serious.

Molly's hands stop and she looks you in your eyes, they soften a little as she sees your genuine anxiety. Your mind goes to that horrible boy, James Barnes. Handsome enough to get himself out of any trouble, heartless enough to ruin highschool for you. Against every ounce of good sense in your body, you had developed a crush on him the last two years of highschool. It was probably those blue eyes that looked silver in the right light. The contrast of those eyes against his chocolate brown hair that always laid so well combed on his head. He had this way of walking down the halls with such confidence, you'd swear he had every intention of owning the building one day. You assume it was the hormones, the desire to be wanted by the most wanted boy in school. Any girl could fall victim to those looks, even you. You had even grown to find his childish antics somewhat amusing. All of his pranks and obnoxious behavior had become something adventurous that you'd always longed for, something that had been missing from your life.

She interrupts your thinking by running her hands through the rest of your hair to undo the last half of the braid.

"Well, I say we get you all dolled up and show him how blind he was." She offers you a soft smile and a pat on the shoulder.

Your eyes drop to the floor, trying to give off the impression that the carpet has suddenly become very interesting to you. You hear her sigh while she reaches a small hand up to tilt your chin towards her face.

"He can't ruin dance halls, he can't ruin our fun, he especially can't ruin college boys." Her voice takes on a mischievous tone and you see that light in her eyes that only means you've already lost. You can't help but smile at her endearing girlishness.

"Fine, but I will not wear pink."

Like a five year old who's just been told she can have a sleepover she squeaks and runs to collect her makeup off the bed.

"Please no lipstick. I'm begging you." You smile at her, knowing full well she will pitch a fit over your reluctance to wear that awful stuff.

"Just a little, to give you a touch of color?" She says, using her sugary voice to convince you.

Another easy victory for her, you roll your eyes and throw up your hands. She's on you immediately, doing God knows what to your poor face. She works with light touches, most of the application is not so bad. The mascara is the worst, it tickles and makes your eyes feel heavy. You can't find it in your heart to object though, given how joyful she is about the entire ordeal. She runs her finger through your hair a few times, pulling some pieces forward to frame your face. She steps back and crosses her arms in a very self satisfied way.

"You really are pretty." She says, not beautiful, just pretty.

"I'm not ugly." You shrug and turn to the mirror.

Slightly shocked, you take in your rather foreign reflection. You did look pretty. She had been very light with the makeup like she had said, she had given you just a touch of color in all the right places. Your lips look rosy, your cheeks blushed gracefully, the color to your eyelashes gives your eyes lovely definition. She tosses your hair to one side and smiles. She had given you the appearance of a girl who knew what she was doing with her looks. Perhaps you could fool a college boy into a dance with you. The overalls stood out sorely, but that would be remedied with one of her elegant dresses.

"So… what do you think?" She asks cautiously.

"I think you might be right." You smile softly at her.

She replies with another triumphant squeak and grabs her bag. She hoists out a bright red dress and thrusts it at you.

"Red? Molly this is the most attention grabbing color you could put me in! Did you pack this before you left, before you even asked me?" You're slightly offended, but mostly impressed. Of course she had, she knew she would get her way.

"Oh just put it on you big baby."

With a huff you toss the dress over your chair and unclip your overall straps. You give her a glare as you shove them down your legs. You discard your shirt to the pile in the corner of your room and she sighs at your messiness. You hold the soft dress in your hands before throwing it over your head, admiring the way it glides over your skin. A very welcome contrast to the roughness of denim. It falls down your body, you have to tug a few times to get it all settled. It hugs you a little tight in a few places, as Molly is slightly more petite than you. You turn again to the mirror to inspect your transformation, again shocked by what you see. The red brings out the blush and lipstick even more, making you look like you've just been caught doing something not so lady-like. Molly walks up behind you, that same satisfied smile on her face.

"Now that's a lady." She says smugly.

You sigh in defeat, not only had she convinced you to go dancing, but she had made you somebody worth dancing with. You reach up to try to flatten your hair a little and she snatches your wrist.

"Don't you dare ruin that volume. Grab your shoes, let's go." She scurries off downstairs, you assume to let your mother know of your plans for the evening. You take a moment alone in the mirror to run your hands over the dress. It really is a pretty dress, delicate neckline with a bow to tie the waist. It brings out your curves in a very flattering way, giving you that much envied hour glass look. You had that going for you, you were full in all the right places. As much as it pains you to admit, Molly had made you look pretty. Pretty, just pretty. You wonder what it would take to be beautiful.

You go to grab your boots instinctively, but catch yourself. You wander over to the closet to fetch the little black dress shoes your mom bought you for graduation. They looked almost like black ballerina slippers, very sleek and feminine. They feel very strange once they're on your feet, but Molly would have an absolute meltdown if you tromp down the stairs in your boots, so you suck up the slight discomfort. On your way downstairs you hear Molly and your mom laughing about something, probably at your expense.

"Well I'll be! How hard did you have to fight her to get her in that thing?" Your mom exclaims when you round the corner into the kitchen. She takes in your appearance with a dropped jaw.

"Oh Molly you did wonderfully." She touches your hair, smoothes the shoulders of your dress and steps back.

"Thank you ma'am, she's a lovely canvas."

Growing slightly irritated at the gawking, you shove past them to grab the keys to your truck.

"Alright y'all this ain't a museum quit your staring."

They both chuckle at your grumpy state.

"We're just saying you're pretty is all." Your mom says gently, knowing too well your hatred for dressing up.

You turn and sigh, you know they mean well. They don't know how difficult it's going to be to go out and just be pretty next to Molly. Molly is gorgeous, and she'll be told that by any man who sees her. You'll be given a once over and they'll move on to her, you'll become her shadow all evening and the truth of it fills you with dread. Your hand sneaks to your stomach to try and calm your nerves. You think maybe you can feign an illness, get out of this whole charade that will inevitably end in you watching Molly be swept off by countless men, while the most action you'll see is the root beer bottle touching your lips while you sit alone.

"Oh no you're not doing the sick act." Molly is all too familiar with your tricks. She grabs her purse while your mom laughs.

"Molly get her out of here before she has the most sudden case of the flu known to man!" They both laugh deeply at this and you grumble while they usher you towards the front door. Your mom gives you each a kiss on the cheek and smiles fondly.

"Be safe, stay away from soldiers, and always keep an eye on each other. I will allow a small amount of mischief but nothin' that requires me getting dressed to come pick you two trouble makers up."

You and Molly chuckle at her little speech. She was well aware that you two could very well get yourselves into a right mess, given the years of shenanigans. You lean in and hug her tightly.

"It's just the dance hall ma. Nothin' we can't handle." You reassure her.

"Oh I know that. I'm worried it can't handle you." Another round of laughter, Molly opens the door and bows with a dramatic sweep of her hand.

"After you Madame." She says through laughter.

You roll your eyes, at her, at your mother, at the absurdity of this entire evening. Maybe it won't be so bad to get out and have fun again. Since you graduated you've been hesitant to show your face anywhere around town. Going to the dance hall was a big deal as it was just outside the city. James and his best friend Steve were there often during the weekends in highschool. You always admired Steve a little, he reminded you of yourself. A shadow to an attention grabbing best friend. Steve always seemed sweet, you wondered how he could be best friends with such an ass like James. Then again, James seemed harmless until he proved to be heartless.

"Very well, but I'm driving," you announce, Molly tries to object but you whip around quickly and give her a warning look.

"Fine that's fair, you've already budged on a lot tonight." She ends her sentence with a sweet giggle.

"I love you both! Keep her from biting any heads off Molly!" Your mom calls out as you walk to your truck.

"As always!" Molly calls back.

You climb into your old blue truck, the only thing you have left of your father. The war took him, not an uncommon story around these parts. This truck has become a thinking spot for you, a little sanctuary made of cracked leather and discarded soda caps. You smile fondly as you start up the engine. Your father and you had a friendship that you believed to be rare. He never once made you wear a dress, or brush your hair. He admired your stubborn nature, he used to tell you the world had another thing coming if it thought it was ready for a girl like you. Swallowing the tears that threatened to spill, you reach over and pop the lock of the passenger side door so your best friend can join you. Molly hops into the passenger seat and gives you a wide grin.

She says your name softly, you glance over to offer her confirmation of your attention.

"Thank you for coming with me. I owe you." She's set aside the joking to genuinely thank you for stepping out of your comfort zone for her. While Molly was at times irritating due to her ability to always get her way, she was a genuine, loyal friend.

"You sure do." You laugh, flick on the lights and shift the gear to drive.

Your dad had taught you how to drive at 14, something he was very proud of while your mother was horrified.

"If I'm gonna send you out on the road, you're gonna know how to handle a truck. I want you surrounded by all this metal, much safer than all those little show cars people got now." You can hear his strong voice reciting his speech for why he wanted you to start so young.

He had succeeded indeed. You could handle a truck better than anyone you knew, every time you drive you thank him for it. There probably wouldn't ever come a day when you'd part with this ugly blue truck, not when it held every memory you love.

The drive to the dance hall is filled with Molly yammering about all the fine young men that will be there. You try to listen, but your mind is stuck on James. It's a Friday night, of course he'll be there. You were a fool to think there was any maybe about it. He would be there, you would see him, and you would have to relive his most horrible prank all over again. Your only hope was that Steve would be with him, if Steve was there James would somewhat behave himself. You hoped so at least. When you pulled into the dance hall parking lot your stomach began to tie itself in knots. A white hot embarrassment clawed at your lungs and your stomach. You could already see faces you recognize from highschool, you wanted nothing more than to run back home with your tail between your legs. You pulled the truck into a spot along the road, so you were turned away from anybody that might see you. The thought of somebody seeing your face then leaning over to whisper to their friend was enough to make your eyes water. You curse yourself for being so damn sensitive about the matter. It was only prom right? Only a stupid dance, that's what you always said. That was until that arrogant coward James went and-

"Are you ok?" Molly asks quietly.

You hadn't even heard her calling your name. Your thoughts consumed by the horrible shame eating at your insides.

"Just worried." You say, almost a whisper.

She's quiet for a moment, contemplating your anxious state. She reaches over and covers your hand with hers, rubbing it with her thumb affectionately.

"He can't take this. You get to smile, you get to have fun. People like him peak in highschool and end up miserable the rest of their lives. People like that don't get to ruin things for people like you." Her voice is calm, resolute, it brings you the peace you've craved since you left the house.

You think of your dad, how livid he would be if he knew you were letting some stupid boy steal your thunder. You could never let him see you this bent out of shape over somebody like James. You take one deep breath, begging the air to steady your nerves. Looking over at Molly, you smile at the honesty in her eyes. She's right, he doesn't get to have this too. He had his moment, his last hoorah. Prom was all he was ever going to take from you. You fluff your hair a little, tossing it to one side like Molly had at your house. Taking one last breath, you square your shoulders and smile at her.

"Let's give 'em hell." You say.

"Atta girl! You're a knockout hon, you'll see." She hops out of the truck and runs around to meet you on your way out. She hooks her arm in yours and pulls you towards the building. So far none of the people heading in have turned to throw any rotten fruit at you, so you allow yourself to relax slightly and follow Molly's lead. As you make your way to the door you notice a group of soldiers leaning against the wall, a few smoking, a few cradling beers. Naturally their eyes wander over to you two. You anticipate the eyes that land on Molly, but not the eyes that land on you. You're especially caught off guard by the low whistle that leaves the lips of a particularly handsome soldier. You must look like you've never even seen a man before, let alone had one compliment you. Molly doesn't miss a beat, letting out a soft giggle and raising her free hand to wave.

"Evening boys, y'all here to dance or cause trouble?" She says with her flirty voice. They all chuckle.

"How's a little of both sound, sweetheart?" The one that whistled says with a deep husky voice. You blush and try to hide your sheepish smile by looking down when his eyes meet yours.

"Sounds like a plan." Molly winks and ducks into the doorway.

The lobby is absolutely packed with people, some saying excited hellos, some couples all over each other, all far too busy to even notice you two have entered. This brings you even more relief, maybe you would make it through tonight without having to relive any painful highschool memories. People probably didn't even care anymore. That's what happens after highschool anyway, it all gets forgotten while everyone finds their own way. That's thinking optimistically of course, an event like prom was sure to be remembered, but for tonight you're determined to pretend it never happened. Clinging to Molly like a life raft you let her lead you into the dance hall. You are absolutely floored by all of the movement, the bodies wrapped around each other, the band blaring on the stage, the twinkling lights illuminating the entire event. It's all so incredible. Everyone seems to have completely lost themselves in the movement of the band's driving melody. They're playing In The Mood by Glenn Miller, a song you've learned is a hit at places like this. You crane your head to take in the entire room, out of the corner of your eye you notice the soldiers from the front door, the one guilty of the whistling has his eyes glued to you. You offer him a shy smile, he returns it with his own confident grin.

"Molly that soldier won't stop looking at me!" You say urgently.

"Well then let's go." She says it like it's obvious. You don't even get the chance to object, she yanks you around and you're on your way over to the group of charming soldiers. Your eyes are glued to your admirer, who looks pleased with Molly's decision to bring you over.

"Hello again." She says with her signature confidence.

"Hi there." His friend says, giving Molly a long look up and down.

"I'm afraid no young man has had the guts to ask either of us to dance, either of you up to the challenge?" She asks.

The two men give each other a knowing look. The friend offers Molly his hand immediately.

"It would be a pleasure darlin'." He says with a goofy smile. He's very handsome, warm brown eyes with tight curls to match. A strong jaw and a bright look in his deep eyes. Built strong and broad like most soldiers, dwarfing Molly. You hear her giggle and ask him his name as he sweeps the off into the dance floor. You're left with your soon to be dance partner, tongue tied and full of nerves. You glance up at him through your lashes, hoping you don't look too helpless. He offers you a small smile. His eyes are a deep brown like his friend's, but his hair is a rich auburn. Freckles decorate his handsome cheekbones, pairing beautifully with his rich eyes.

"What's your name sugar?" He asks with confidence while he steps forward, placing his left hand on your waist, moving his other to hold yours up in a typical pose for dancing like this. You're so very thankful for his obvious experience. If this was all left up to you, there would be nothing but awkward silence and a sorry excuse to duck and run out of the building. His confidence puts you at ease, so you settle into the dance, a slow easy pace to match the new song the band had begun to play. You tell him your name softly and give him an awkward glance.

"Thank you for the pity dance. That girl that stole your friend is my best friend. She had to practically drag me here." You add a chuckle to the end of the sentence, making sure it comes out soft and feminine.

He smiles down at you, a look you can't quite decipher crosses his eyes. Before he speaks again his eyes drift to your neckline quickly then dart back up. You try to stuff the uncomfortable feeling it gives you deep down so you don't ruin the dance.

"Ain't no pity dance sweetheart. You're a vision in red. My name's Daniel." He says, eyes dancing over your collar bones briefly. You suppose this is the kind of attention that you should expect at a place like this. This is the kind of attention girls come here for isn't it? You sure hope so. Finding yourself lost for what to say next you think about what Molly would say. Despite your nerves, you let your free hand slide to play with his collar, you bat your eyelashes and give him what you hope is a flirtatious smirk. This seems to boost his confidence a little, he lets the hand on your waist drift down slightly. You swallow that uncomfortable feeling and ignore the gesture.

"So Daniel, how long have you been a soldier?" You internally kick yourself for the disgustingly ditsy question. This is why you don't go dancing.

"About a year, joined right out of highschool." He says, shamelessly watching your neckline now instead of meeting your eyes.

Channelling Molly, you utterly shock yourself with the sentence that leaves your mouth next.

"Well if you think I'm a vision in red, you should see yourself in this uniform."

This apparently sparks something in him, because he drops his hand so his fingers are on the side of your ass, and the hand holding yours drops to mirror it. You grab his shoulders to steady yourself, he brings you flush against him and drops his head so his lips are at your ear.

"You should see me out of it hon." His voice is low and sinister and you positively hate it. You plant your palms on his chest and look up at him with as much alarm as you can convey.

"Look dude, I'm new to this but I'm not an idiot. You need to find another girl if this is how you want tonight to go," you snap.

He doesn't drop his cocky smile for a second. Before you can even react he has you by the wrist, dragging you into the lobby and out the door. The bastard had positioned you for a quick escape while you were dancing.

"Hey knock it off!" You holler, looking around wildly, pleading for someone to notice. They're all far too caught up in their own activities to notice, just like when you and Molly arrived. Your legs betray you as you stomp along behind him, desperate to avoid a scene. Your stomach starts to flip and you dig your heels in once you're in the parking lot. You yank your arm back and call out to him again.

He turns on you like a wolf, grabbing the sides of your face with a crushing grip. You let out a whimper while your hands fly to his and attempt to pry them off your face.

"Look hon, you got two options, embarrass the hell out of yourself, or come with me and have the time of your life." Now that he's this close you smell the alcohol on his breath.

"You pig!" You snarl, your foot comes down on his right foot hard and you spit in his face. He hops back and howls, grabbing his foot and wiping his face. You turn on your heels to run into the building but his strong hand is around your wrist again. He yanks you so your back is against his chest. Before you can object to this horrid action, a strong and smooth voice echoes from behind the both of you.

"I ain't no genius, but I don't believe a woman wants to be held like that by a man that she's just called a pig."

Daniel's arm releases you and you stumble forward, not even sparing a glance back at your rescuer, you run into the lobby and find a table to brace yourself on. You swallow as much air as you can to still the rattling of your bones. You hear shouting, maybe the sound of a fist connecting with a face. Daniel let's some colorful language fly at his assailant, followed by heavy footsteps and a slamming car door.

You let out a huff, flattening your fingers out on the cold wood of the table. Willing yourself to relax before you see Molly again, the last thing you want is to ruin her night out.

"Are you alright doll?" That smooth voice from the parking lot asks from behind you. You feel a wave of calm wash over you. It was just a voice, a stranger's voice, why did it bring you so much peace? Dropping your shoulders, you turn to face whoever this bold savior is.

"I am now, thank you for-." You freeze, suddenly feeling like you're in even more danger than you were at the hands of Daniel. You stare directly into eyes so blue they look like silver. Your throat closes, Your heart hits the bottom of your stomach and you bring your arms around your abdomen. Those beautiful lips part and he says your name gently, like you're some wounded animal he doesn't want to scare off. You damn the butterflies that flutter in your stomach at the sound of his voice saying your name like that. Those eyes have you trapped in their gaze, you will yourself to run, to rip your feet from where they're planted and run like hell. You can't fucking move though, not away from him.

"James." You whisper. Embarrassment burns white and hot in your gut. You swallow thickly and grab your elbows, wishing to hold yourself tightly, hoping maybe if you squeeze hard enough you'll crumble and disappear.

"Uhm, th-thanks for that." You blurt out then turn to run to your truck, hoping to hide until Molly comes out to find you. You need the safety of that dingey cabin, to smell the leather and the oil and have your nerves stilled by memories of your father.

He calls out your name, hot on your heels as you stomp to the truck. You won't turn around. You will not fall for it again.

"Doll please, hear me out." That damn name always turned your legs to jelly. Not tonight. You whip around, hair flying wildly around your shoulders. He comes to a jolting stop and looks at you with begging eyes. Your finger comes up to point at him, you take two stomps forward and place it firmly on his chest.

"Do not fucking call me that. Stop fucking following me." You say as firmly as you can, trying to hide the pain behind the words.

"Please just listen." He says after a breath. His eyes soft and honest, those stunning eyes. Shit. You fell for it.

You cross your arms and look to the side, following some tail lights down the road.

"I am so sorry…" He says with a weak voice.

Part Two

#bucky x you #bucky fic #bucky x reader #winter solider x you #bucky barnes smut #marvel smut #captain america #sebastian stan #sebastian stan smut #bucky barnes #marvel

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s-horne · 4 years

Note

BASICALLY its about tony showing his love through food sorry that was really long

okay so i had this idea, and im really swamped with work so im passing it over to you: tony associates caring and love with food. when he was really young, he would sit on his mamma's hip, one of her arms around his tiny waist as she stirred with the other, and as he grew older and howard started demanding more of her attention (for this charity or that benefit); the only time tony and his mom spent together was in the kitchen together. 1/2)

years later, tony equates food to love. he cooks for the people he cares about. and then i lost the thread of the idea but it involves steve and tony and peter and tony cooking for steve and teaching peter recipes that he can later teach his kid (2/2)

Please enjoy 3k words of Tony in the kitchen; preparing meals for his husband and their friends, his&Steve’s adoption process, and then Tony’s legacy

*******

Spaghetti Bolognese

It was an affront to the meal. His Mama would kill him if she knew how he was preparing it.

It was the only meal she’d actually known how to cook and they had a weekly Thursday night dinner date in the kitchen when Howard worked late at the office. She’d carry him round on her hip when he was too small to see what she was preparing on the countertops and, when he’d grown a little taller, sit him in pride of place to sound out every word of the passed-down recipe written in her mother’s cursive handwriting.

Of course, Maria knew exactly what the recipe called for – which was a good job when Tony tripped over some of the measurements or skipped down a couple of lines by accident – but she let him play along until he was old enough to help her cook the actual meal itself.

It was definitely the thought that counted, Tony tried to tell himself as he stared down at the meagre ingredients in front of him. He had to work with what he had and what he had wasn’t much. The only tomatoes he’d had in his cupboards were the tinned kind, so the sauce wouldn’t be as good as his Mama’s when she used the fresh tomatoes from the farmer’s market they had to drive out of town for.

He’d only wanted to make something a little special for Steve. Their anniversary had been interrupted by a battle and they’d gone from a romantic meal at a five-star restaurant to suited up and locked in a fight with an alien invader. Given that they were meant to eat out, their kitchen wasn’t exactly stocked for cooking.

“Need a hand?”

Tony lifted his gaze from the two jars of dried herbs he’d been choosing between. Neither were particularly appealing so he was glad of a distraction. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“Woke up,” Steve said, stifling a yawn behind his hand as he wandered over to Tony. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Tony agreed with a roll of his eyes, a fond smile tugging at his lips. He turned back to the dried ingredients in front of him as he waved to the other side of the kitchen, eyes drawn to the way his ring caught the light. “You can chop whichever onion hasn’t gone off over there. I think there’s actually a part of the serum that means you won’t cry whilst you chop it.”

Steve huffed a laugh, trailing his hand over Tony’s hip as he passed him. “Pretty sure that’s not a thing.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out. Dice it finely, please.”

Vegetable Soup

Vegetable soup was easy. Most soups were easy, really. Tony could make most of them with one hand. Chopping the vegetables was sometimes a little tricky with his arm in a sling, but he could stir the vat of broth easily.

After a battle, it was all that anyone needed. A few loaves of bread in the centre of the table and a mountain of pain relievers handed round with the crockery and they were set.

“Can I help?”

Tony looked up from the pot and over to Peter, hovering in the doorway with his arms wrapped round himself. He looked young, so much younger than he was. “You’re meant to be resting.”

“Couldn’t sleep. The pills hurt my head.”

“But they heal everything else.” Tony beckoned Peter over before he turned back to the stovetop. “How do you feel?”

“Like someone dropped a bus on me.”

“Been there. Grab a tomato and stop chopping.”

Peter did so wordlessly, shooting Tony a soft smile as he slid into a chair by the table. “What else do you want me to do?”

“A few peppers, if you’d like.”

“How thick?”

“Whatever you want.” Tony watched Peter out of the corner of his eye, the way that he winced when he reached for a fresh vegetable in the middle of the table and how he moved gingerly with his eyes narrowed into slits. “How bad is it?”

Peter sighed. He worked on carefully dicing his whole pepper before he spoke again. “Bad. I can’t go home. No one can see these injuries. They’re already questioning me and this will push them over the edge of kicking me out.”

“You’re already home,” Tony said lightly, concentrating on adding a few spices to his soup instead of looking back at Peter. He could feel eyes on the side of his face and fought the urge to turn with everything he had. “After we’ve eaten, I’ll show you the papers.”

The pot bubbled, loud in the otherwise silent room. Tony smiled down at it as he stirred in large circles, scraping the side of the vat where the sauce threatened to burn.

“I’d like that.” Peter sniffed a little and let out a muffled curse. “Well. I’m done with these. Can I help you make the bread?”

Rosemary Focaccia

Tony loved making his own bread. When he was a child, their cook would only let him in the kitchen if he promised to be calm and quiet and she’d quickly realised that one way to keep him like that was to prop him in front of an oven to stare at the bread as it rose.

The smell of yeast and the uncooked dough turned Tony’s stomach as he’d gotten older, but there was nothing better than the scent the bread produced when it started to bake. Fresh rosemary only added to that, or maybe even a few cloves of garlic mixed in with the dough.

Focaccia took a long time to knead and for the rising process to get done perfectly, but spending that long watching over it in the kitchen meant that Peter could sit at the breakfast bar to finish his homework and not be alone.

Peter hated being alone. They’d discovered that pretty quickly after he’d moved into the tower with the rest of the team and had all started going almost out of their way to ensure that Peter didn’t have to suffer by himself. It wasn’t exactly a hardship for Steve to sketch in the communal living room instead of his bedroom, or for Sam and Bucky to train on the mats in the middle of the gym whilst Peter ran laps around the edge to get out of his own head.

And if definitely wasn’t a problem for Tony to dig out the recipe books that had been sent to him after their cook had passed away and flick through them to find an old Italian favourite that would take him a good couple of hours to perfect.

Cookies were a staple in Tony’s recipe book. There were many different varieties, so many tweaks that could be made to each batch to make a different cookie type for any occasion.

“–so that’s why Ned isn’t allowed into the theatre practice room anymore,” Peter said in-between bites of a pecan and chocolate chip cookie. “So we can’t go in to see Madison when she’s in there. We have to meet in the math rooms.”

Tony nodded along as though he’d understood any word Peter had been babbling on about. “Right.” He wasn’t sure what exactly he’d asked to prompt Peter’s longwinded explanation, but he didn’t mind the company.

“Oi, Spider-kid.”

Peter jumped comically at the voice from behind them and Tony shot an arm out to catch him before he fell off the breakfast bar he’d perched himself on. “Jeez, what – oh. Black Widow. Ma’am, I didn’t, I’m sorry, I–”

“Gym,” Natasha said, throwing a thumb over her shoulder to show where she wanted Peter to go. “Spar session. You’re ten minutes late.”

Peter’s eyes went wide and he scrambled for his phone, paling when he realised that he was, in fact, late. Tony couldn’t hide his amusement and snorted loudly, earning himself a dirty look from Peter and an unamused eyebrow raise from Natasha.

“And don’t think you’re getting out of it, either,” Natasha said to him. “Steve is already down there with Thor. They could do with a third. A mediator of sorts.”

“Oh, no.” Tony shot a faux-upset look towards Peter before grinning at Tash, “sorry, but these cookies just aren’t going to bake themselves, now, are they? Pete’s good for the job, though. Practical experience and all that.”

Peter’s glare was about as powerful as a newborn kitten’s, but it tugged at Tony’s heart nonetheless. Giving him a smile, Tony reached for the batch of raspberry cookies he had just pulled from the oven and counted out ten.

“A special treat,” he said, urging Peter off the breakfast bar and herding him in Natasha’s direction. Setting the cookies on a plate at his side, Tony winked at the kid. “For when you’re finished. You’ll need to get your sugar levels back up.”

Rigatoni Pasta Bake

The only difference between Tony’s preferred version of a pasta bake and the classic that Ana had taught him as a child was that his was a bit more adventurous. It served to make things just a little bit more exiting. Everything he did was done with a flair of the dramatics, so it made sense for cooking to follow the same lines.

Making his pasta bake was an excuse to throw everything in his cupboards into the mixture. A hundred different varieties of cheese for the topping, ground beef and sausages for the filling and whatever vegetables he found in the back of the fridge to make the meal just a tiny bit healthy. Tony loved to make it, loved to spend an entire afternoon shaping each piece of pasta if he really wanted to get out of his head. Experimenting with different sauces was his favourite – a tomato sauce for a rainy Sunday afternoon, a cheese sauce for an evening in front of the television, a mushroom and white wine sauce for a romantic evening in.

His pasta bake was the first meal he’d made when they’d finally adopted Peter, legally and truly. Maybe a small part of him had been wanting to show off, but Tony had really cared about making sure Peter had a real square meal. Something to help him recover from the small scrapes he’d gotten in his night-time brawls, to repair some of the damage of malnourishment from his previous home.

It was something so simple, but made with so much care.

Apple Pie

As stereotypical as it may have been, Steve loved apple pie. It had been something of a staple in his household when he’d been growing up and his mom had made it whenever they managed to get the fresh ingredients needed. Steve spoke so fondly of her hours in the kitchen, telling how he was often too ill and weak to do much more than sit at her side and watch, that sometimes Tony felt as though he’d been there too.

Sweet pastry wasn’t Tony’s favourite thing to make, so he chose to keep it for really special occasions. The sort of days where he wanted to spoil Steve a little, wanted to make him feel important and loved and all the things that Steve made Tony feel every day.

Tossing out the apple cores and scraps he’d collected on the side of his chopping board, Tony settled in to decorate his pie. He preferred the open-top approach, liking to cover his filling with thin slices of apple and a sprinkling of cinnamon and sugar instead of more pastry. Lost in thought, Tony startled when Steve wrapped his arms around Tony’s waist and pressed a kiss to his neck.

“Happy birthday,” Tony murmured as he fell back against Steve’s chest. “Wasn’t expecting you up just yet. Thought I tired you out last night.”

“Hm. You did a pretty good job, but the bed was empty. I don’t like it when the bed’s empty.”

“Sorry, darling. Wanted to make this for your birthday breakfast.”

Steve nosed at Tony’s shoulder, dropping kisses to the bare skin there. The first thing Tony had found on their bedroom floor when he’d woken at the crack of dawn was a workout shirt of Steve’s. Given its size, the material hung off Tony’s frame. It wasn’t practical, but it was cozy.

Sexy, as well, apparently, if the hardness pressing against his ass was anything to go by.

“Pie for breakfast?” Steve asked, hooking his chin over Tony’s shoulder as his hand shot out to snaffle a piece of apple floating in the bowl of warm water at Tony’s elbow. “How lucky am I?”

“Of course it’s pie for breakfast,” Tony said, hands working quickly to place the apple slices on the top of the very-nearly finished pie. He kicked at Steve’s ankle for punishment of the theft, but couldn’t find it in him to be too mean. “It’s not every day you turn four hundred and seventy-three.”

Standing as close as they were, Tony felt Steve’s laugh vibrate through him.

“Demon.”

“That’s me,” Tony replied happily, laughing with Steve and tilting his head to one side when Steve bit at his neck in retaliation. “Now, get off me, you brute. Let me stick this back in to brown.”

Moving back a fraction, Steve’s hands danced over Tony’s stomach. “How long do we have?”

Tony sighed happily when the pie was in, his eyes falling closed when Steve swapped from biting to sucking a deep bruise just above his pulse point. “Long enough.”

Indian Potato Pie

“Here, try this.”

Whatever Steve had been about to say was cut off by Tony shoving a forkful of potato-filled pastry in his mouth.

“Well? What do you think?”

Steve fanned his mouth. “I think it’s hot,” he said through the mouthful of crust. “Did you cook this with lava?”

“But what about the texture? The filling – do you think it needs more of a kick? I only put in a small amount of chilli flakes this time and a lot less ginger than I did before. I think I liked it better last time.”

“Tony,” Steve reached out and caught Tony’s hand, taking the fork from him before twisting their fingers together, “this pie is perfect. You’ve been making it since you were a child. You’ve perfected it so much you could make it in your sleep.”

“No,” Tony said dismissively, turning back to the counter and peering at the unbaked pie on the side. “I think it needs more salt. You can taste it in the crust. Let me just redo the pastry.”

Steve used his grip on Tony’s hand to pull Tony into his chest, wrapping his free arm around Tony’s waist to hold them close together. Tony gave up without a fight, his shoulders slumping as he rested his hand on Steve’s chest.

“Please stop worrying,” Steve whispered. “Replace the bit you shoved in my face and pop it in the oven. It’s going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do.” Steve ducked his head and caught Tony’s lips in a sweet kiss. “I know you and I know our son. He wouldn’t be bringing someone home unless they were special to him. There’s no way we can scare them off. Not with a pie, at least.”

Tony Stark-Rogers’ Recipe Book

The book had taken him years to complete. Tony had started it as a young boy when Jarvis had bought him an empty journal for his fourth birthday. For the first few years of its existence, Tony had hidden it under his bed just in case Howard ever entered his room and caught sight of it.

Every page had been handwritten, carefully crafted letters spelling out the words of each recipe (and most of them had even been spelt right because Jarvis had helped him).

There were sections of his Mama’s recipes, the ones she’d passed down to him from her Mama and even her Mama’s Mama. Though Tony had never gotten to meet either of them them, he’d known even as a child that that was pretty important.

Ana Jarvis had a section as well, one with special Hungarian recipes that Tony had needed a lot of help to spell. He’d shown Ana one day, down in the kitchens. He’d pointed out all the best bits that he’d coloured in the colours of Hungary’s flag and Ana had started crying. Tony had been horrified and started tearing up himself before she promised him that he was a lovely little boy and she was crying because she was so very proud of him. Even as an adult, Tony remembered that he’d gotten a huge hug that night before bed and an extra special plate of lemon squares brought up to his room – made just for him!

As he’d gotten older and his book had gotten fuller, Tony had carefully moved it from journal to journal, cutting out pages and sticking them back into the next edition with slight amendments or scribbled changes to quantities. It was his pride and joy.

“You’re going to take care of this, aren’t you?”

The child stared at him with wide eyes, so big they were nearly popping out of their head. They didn’t speak a word, but their head just about wobbled off with the velocity of their nodding.

“You’re going to listen to Nonno when he tells you what to do in the kitchen?”

Another round of silent nodding and Tony laughed, bending down to his grandchild’s level. Holding out his arms, he let his precious recipe book rest in the palm of his hands, ready for the taking.

“Go on then, bambino. It’s yours.”

Tiny fingers curled over the edges of the stained and battered book, complete concentration etched all over the child’s face. The love Tony felt threatened to beat right out of his chest and he reached out to flick his grandchild’s nose.

“What shall we bake for your first try? I’m pretty sure there’s a good recipe for mini cupcakes in there, somewhere, and I need an assistant chef.”

Tony had no qualms about handing his book down to the next wave of Starks. His children had grown up in the kitchen working tirelessly next to him to feed their teammates and friends, their siblings and their partners. It was time.

The kitchen was the heart of the home, after all.

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bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture · 3 years

Text

And we’re back for the second chapter, which is a lot shorter than the last - only half the size, thank goodness. I have a feeling this will go by somewhat faster than the first chapter, if only because there’s so much less happening per chapter and less worldbuilding to pick at.

Being up to forty followers already is actually really neat - I was expecting this project to go under the radar a bit longer. Thank you for all the likes and comments, and especially the reblogs!

[No. 2 - Roaring Muscles]

Have to admit that the title page is definitely something - it’s deliberately styled in the same format as Western comic book covers. And in so, you can really see the difference in art style between the Westernized All Might and Horikoshi’s normal style for Izuku.

The next page is a full body shot of All Might posing (RIP all the pens that died inking that one image), with some background panels covering the basics about the man - that his age and quirk are unknown, and that his strength has made him popular even since his debut. He’s got a lot of merch, branding, magazine covers, newspaper headlines, movie adaptations, etc etc. and, of course, that creepy fucking mask.

If Izuku has one of those, I am both disappointed and completely not surprised. I both look forward to and dread the day someone draws him wearing that monstrosity. Also-

Is that the same keychain Ochako gets during the Secret Santa swap in some hundred and twenty or so chapters?

Alright, not the same one, but a similar pose. Not surprising, since I doubt Hori even remembered this panel at the point Ochako was given it, but it would have been an interesting little callback if it had been.

Moving on, we learn that since he became active, there’s been a notable decrease in the appearance rate of villains - with a graph showing the decline. His existence alone is a deterrent to villainy, which in no way will cause issues decades down the line. But yeah, basically Izuku confirms that All Might’s earned his title of ‘Symbol of Peace’ - and that the same man with so many accolades just told him he could be a hero.

(That last panel, of just Toshinori and Izuku, which is so uncluttered compared to the other panels… mmm, gotta love it. Makes it feel so much more poignant and dreamlike, which it probably was to Izuku at the time.)

The next page gets right to where we left off, with Izuku on the ground crying his eyes out while his mind plays through all the doubts and negative words thrown at him over the past chapter years. However, he’s finally heard what he’s always wanted to hear from this Alolan Exeggutor lookin’ dude:

Who also happens to be the No. 1 hero and Izuku’s idol. Izuku wonders if he could wish for anything more than that, so of course, Exeg- I mean Toshinori continues on, saying Izuku is worthy of inheriting his power. Which snaps Izuku out of his happy crying to actually look up at his idol, confused as heck.

BABEY.

But yeah, Toshinori laughs at Izuku’s expression and says that it’s a proposal, and that there’s work to be done. Also, this is the first instance of ‘my boy’ shown in the manga - while I know in Japanese it’s supposed to be just a translation of ‘young man’ or something close, I choose to see it in a different manner, as per my Dad Might agenda:

Look, you have to admit things went from 0 to 100 real fucking fast here, I will not take criticism on my interpretation. While we’re on the topic of ‘0 to 100’:

Toshinori please get that checked that’s a lot of blood jesus fuck. But yeah, he offers Izuku his power (which outside a shounen manga is questionable, kids, don’t trust that.) Izuku is still confused, naturally, so Toshinori clarifies he means his quirk. He explains how the tabloids like to guess what his quirk is, while he avoids answering with jokes, because All Might has to come off as a natural born hero.

(Also that dramatic posing, he’s such a fucking loser, I love him so much.)

You can really fucking tell he’s a performer at heart. I feel like it fits with his love of movies too - he probably liked acting out the dramatic hero speeches and fights in old superhero movies. Which I mean, also makes sense since heroes in the current era are as much actors and performers as they are public servants who handle crime and disasters.

Toshinori explains his quirk was passed down to him like the Olympic torch, which Izuku mentally stumbles over, and when that is confirmed, Izuku falls into a dazed rambling over this, completely tuning out of the outside world; he thinks about all the previous theories put out there, then basically confirming that his power being passed on is nothing anyone has ever considered, in part because there’s so little known about quirks, and even the reason ‘quirk’ [which in Japanese is ‘Individuality’] is used, because they’re unique to the person who wields said power.

(Also, I want to know what the other six mysteries of the world are, Izuku. Why won’t you share that important tidbit with us? Worry about the quirk later!)

Toshinori cuts into his rambling, asking if Izuku really doubts him and that it’s nonsense, he has secrets but he doesn’t outright lie. Izuku does snap out and try to apologize, but Toshinori continues on:

One For All. Certainly a power that comes with no downsides, hidden legacies, or enough mysteries to fill the other six damned slots of the mysteries of the world. Izuku repeats the name slowly, and Toshinori goes on to explain it:

A small detail to note, there’s eight lights in the background, already revealing how many holders there currently are at this point. Notice how much weaker OFA must have been back at the beginning, compared to the power Toshinori has, and then expand that to what Izuku starts out with. And interestingly, it’s called a ‘crystalline network of power’, and that it ‘links those crying out to be saved and those with brave and true hearts.’ For our first description of OFA, it… sure seems poetic and almost romantic. Wonder if that will hold up in the chapters to come.

Anyways, moving on from that, Izuku asks why him, and Toshinori says he’s been looking for a successor, and that he believes Izuku worthy. Even as someone who is quirkless and a ‘mere hero admirer’, he was more heroic than anyone else there. Izuku tears up again, and Toshinori slaps himself in the forehead, saying it all depends on what Izuku says.

Izuku gets to his feet and rubs away the tears, thinking about what he’s been told and how Toshinori’s greatest secrets (hah) have been divulged to him. He asks himself if he has reason to refuse, and immediately decides that no, he doesn’t, and tells Toshinori he accepts while reaffirming he’s got no reason to refuse. Toshinori says he expected nothing less than that quick answer.

Seriously, look at the intensity of that reply, he is down and willing to do this. No second guessing, no hesitation.

This seems like a good stopping point, since the second half of the chapter is all the training, including the montages, so I’ll finish things up in the next one (yes, I know, not taking five posts to get to the point, who would have thought?) and we can get into the crazy fun stuff.

#chapter 2 #opening arcs #readthrough #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #yagi toshinori #midoriya izuku #ofa afo #figures I should tag that since this is the first mention of what it's all about #we'll see how that explanation gets built on later #also no hesitation at all #Izuku is READY for that quirk #which makes sense when he wants to be 'the strongest hero... like All Might'

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makeste · 4 years

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not a cavalcade of Katsuki panels

damn, anon. you stone cold came for me with that last part. and just fyi to all onlookers, this was before I had posted the headcanons ask proving this exact point lmao.

but a challenge has been issued now! so I will do my best to pick a variety of impartial panels featuring a veritable medley of characters. not sure I can really provide much in the way of insightful analysis of symbolism and metaphors and stuff, but I can certainly type a lot of words about the pretty pictures, and about how cool people look when they’re standing around all serious surrounded by clouds of billowing smoke.

why I like it: I figured we’d start off strong. no point in holding back. can the other panels possibly even hope to compete. maybe. we’ll see.

why I like it: because, you see, he punched a giant robot, and it exploded. you see that, there? and the text was all “SMAASH” in humongous comic book letters, and it was pretty cool. also Deku is very tiny and the robot is very big. and just to clarify, most of the time if a tiny fifteen-year-old child tries to punch an 80-foot robot, it’s not actually going to go all that well, and the robot probably will not explode. but in this case it did! and so this is a very novel and unexpected outcome, which makes it all the more visually striking, which is a very good thing to be when you are trying to show off the brand new superpower which your protagonist just inherited, and letting people see it in action for the very first time.

why I like it: so you may have noticed we just skipped a whoooole bunch of chapters lol. this is because there are almost 300 of them, and so I’m going to have to use a bit of discretion. anyway so this is a gorgeous panel. just, everything about it. the lighting; the expressions; Shouto’s hesitation; and his mom facing away, not looking back yet, and us not yet knowing how she’ll react. and the fact that they’re visually separated by as much distance as possible -- at opposite ends of a two-page spread -- and yet they’re so close, closer than they’ve been in years. mm. anyway it’s pretty.

why I like it: first of all because there’s nothing like seeing a deserving character get punched in the fucking face, and few characters IMO have been as deserving as Stain. and second because this is Deku, showing up to save the day out of nowhere at the last minute, because excuse you, but he’s a motherfuckin’ hero. sorry to interrupt your evening plans of stabbing a kid while lecturing him about why, philosophically, he deserves to die. but I’ve got a package here for a Mister Stain. it’s from Mister Smaassh, with two A’s and three S’s.

why I like it: fyi, anon said nothing about a cavalcade of BakuDeku panels. you didn’t think I’d let that loophole go to waste, did you? but nonetheless I will try to restrain myself until we get to the second ground beta fight. anyway, I like this panel because All Might’s canonically 7′2″ self looks about twelve feet tall here, and he is just TOWERING over these two boys, who’ve been tasked with somehow outwitting him during this curiously sadistic final exam. and it’s just an interesting perspective, because we know they both look up to him, and here they are physically looking way, way up, up, up at him.

why I like it: now this is how you do a villain entrance. I love absolutely everything about this. the sheer scale of destruction, and the way he’s just sort of casually hanging out there in the middle of the panel almost dwarfed by all this dust and smoke and carnage, and yet is unquestionably the focus of the page. the way that you can’t actually see his face, not yet. not until the end of the chapter. the way the clouds are drifting so calmly and peacefully in the night sky in stark contrast to the horrific events that are about to take place on the ground. this panel gives me literal chills, especially when I think about All for One’s creepy theme music playing in the background.

why I like it: this panel is so iconic to me that it’s one of the first ones I immediately knew I had to go and find when I got this ask. this entire fight is perfection from start to finish, and there are other panels that are more artistically striking if I’m being honest (in particular, the ones where he’s half-transformed with his face perfectly split down the middle between Muscle Might and Skinny Steve). but there’s just something about his determination in this panel, though. something about the fire in his eyes, and the way he clenches his fist. “my heart is still the heart of the Symbol of Peace.” I remember being sooooo fucking anxious when his true form was revealed, wondering if this was it, if the people watching were going to turn on him, if he was going to lose both the fight and their faith. turns out I was wrong on both accounts. basically what I am trying to tell you guys is that this panel was and is still the most badass thing I’ve ever seen.

why I like it: because he’s just a frail old man doing what he can to protect the last flickering embers of the thing that enables him to fight on. there’s something so fucking desperate and yet so determined about this image. he knows it’s futile, but still he persists.

why I like it: damn it was hard to find a “you’re next” panel with just the right angle I like best. this is probably as close as it gets, but I kind of wish Deku was somehow visible in this image as well. but at any rate this is an amazing moment, and All Might is dramatic af for basically no reason but IT’S BADASS. “no I’m not going to actually look where I’m pointing. it’s cooler this way.” or was it because he wasn’t sure if he could keep the emotion off of his face if he actually turned and looked? in this moment of knowing that it was finally over for him, that he would never be the Symbol again, and knowing that he had no choice but to move on and entrust that burden to the next generation? damn.

why I like it: I... fucking... okay, here’s a fun fact. did you know that I still get emotional over this panel almost a full two years after reading it?? obviously a good 84% of it is the context -- All Might losing his power; Deku being forced to take up the mantle before he feels ready; All Might feeling responsible for him; and both of them being so desperately grateful to have each other in that moment. but don’t underestimate that remaining 16% either though! this is just an extremely well-drawn hug, on top of everything else. All Might pressing Deku’s head to his shoulder with his fingers laced in his hair is some mighty fine fiercely protective hug tropes there, you guys. and the way Deku is clinging to his shirt so tightly his knuckles have probably gone white?? while he cries?? while both of them cry? ON THE BEACH? WITH THE WAVES LAPPING SOFTLY AT THE SHORE IN THE PEACEFUL NIGHT AIR?? jesus fucking christ. this hug contains more emotions than I am capable of carrying inside me at once. I just sort of have to let them flow in and out little by little until they finally subside.

why I like it: you bet I skipped right from Kamino straight to Deku VS Kacchan Part 2. no regrets. anyway, so these two panels are an absolutely gorgeous one-two punch. so much has changed from the days when they were innocent little kids marching off into the woods to have adventures. they’ve changed. their relationship has changed. and yet, at the end of the day, Izuku is still willing to follow Katsuki even without being given any kind of explanation. and Katsuki still seeks out Izuku when he’s on the verge of having a spectacular emotional breakdown. because he doesn’t know who else to turn to. and because despite everything, there is trust there still, on some deep, fundamental level neither of them fully understands or knows how to acknowledge. anyway, so these two panels just give me a ton of feels all about the passage of time and how everything changes and how you can’t get back what’s lost, but also sometimes if you look deep enough you find that parts of it were never fully gone.

why I like it: because in a striking display of dramatic main character energy, these boys decided to stage their life-changing destiny-affirming rival fight on the coolest possible stage in the middle of the goddamn night. and then Katsuki made it even better by producing WAY MORE SMOKE than his attack by all rights should have produced! and then they went and crouched down all symmetrically so as to more poetically make intense eye contact at each other. I really like panels with smoke and/or dust clearing dramatically. there are like four more of them coming up on this list. what can I say. it’s cinematic.

why I like it: I actually had this one as my icon for a while. it’s rare imo to see an action panel that’s so balanced and has so much going on and is so clean and easy to read. both of their poses are so dynamic. I like the way the arc of Izuku’s kick is drawn, and I love the way you can clearly see that Katsuki propelled himself backwards with his quirk in order to dodge it. it’s just a really cool little panel that for me perfectly sums up the general feel of this fight, and its awesome choreography.

why I like it: actually you know what, before I go any further, let me skip ahead a bit and add three more panels with this same energy.

I just really, really love these rare moments when all differences between them are momentarily forgotten and they’re just two teenage boys caught up in the intense pressure of an awkward social situation. the one enemy neither of them is the least bit equipped to handle. anyways Horikoshi clearly enjoys it too because he seems to delight in drawing it over and over and over.

why I like it: because it’s more billowing smoke and dust. because it’s Endeavor, the guy we all swore we would never ever root for, and then 160 chapters later Horikoshi pulls this shit without an ounce of shame. because it’s All Might’s pose, but tweaked juuuuuust enough so that Enji can avoid copyright claims. because he knew that pose well enough to know which arm not to use. because Endeavor is a profoundly flawed human being, wholly incapable of filling the void All Might left behind. and yet he still tries. because it’s better than nothing, and because it’s all he can do. it’s the one thing he can do, his sole redeeming virtue. he tries. he doesn’t give up. anyway so yeah, Horikoshi didn’t have to take the single most unlikable person in the entire manga and give him the world’s most controversial and openly scorned redemption arc. but he did! and I think it’s one of the best things about this entire manga.

why I like it: because nothing in BnHA is just black and white!! it’s messy and layered and complex, just like in the real world. Shouto despised his dad for almost his entire life. with good reason! Enji was abusive and selfish and treated his son more like a prized possession than a person. we as readers are fully aware of all of this, and we sympathize with Shouto 100%, and that’s completely by design. Horikoshi is well aware of this. so for him to still give us this little moment, where Shouto is so relieved that Enji survived that he drops to the floor and presses his face against his hands in this little prayer gesture -- whatever you think it might mean -- is just so fucking powerful, and again speaks to his commitment to refusing to let anything in this series be completely clear-cut and unambiguous. I love that the characterization of Shouto and Natsu hating their dad exists side by side with the equally authentic characterization of them being terrified that they’re about to watch him die. because those two things aren’t contradictory! sometimes that’s just how it is. anyway so this is a beautiful moment of nuance that instantly adds so much to this relationship with just a single panel.

why I like it: for once the symbolism is so obvious that even I can’t fail to miss it! Izuku’s face half in light and half in shadow as he thinks about the power bestowed on him. “All for One’s power.” anyway so in my mind Izuku having AFO could not be any more fucking foreshadowed if he was wearing a freaking t-shirt with the Musketeers saying on it and the background was peppered with little Sistine Chapel-esque images of AFO giving his quirk to his brother lmao. but regardless of how it does end up playing out, this is nicely done.

why I like it: I wasn’t sure whether I should include this image, given that I just made a whole separate post about it a few days ago. but I just really like it, okay. this is one of the all-time great entrances in the series. Bakugou being perched on that pole for absolutely no reason other than to add visual interest. Todoroki’s hair blowing dramatically in the wind. Katsuki’s frayed pant hems and characteristically asymmetrical facial expression. the fact that you just know both of them spent the ride home with their faces pressed to the windows of their taxi cab hoping desperately for an opportunity to break in their brand new licenses, and then lo and behold. that’s amazing you guys. it’s almost like you’re main characters or something.

why I like it: they did great.

why I like it: because I lost my fucking shit at this fucking reveal and can you even blame me?? we knew coming in how much trouble Endeavor and Hawks had dealing with just one of these Noumus, and then Horikoshi goes and divulges that the villains have at least A DOZEN MORE waiting on standby. including Hood right there in the foreground, which is a fantastic touch! this panel, for me, almost instantaneously established the League as a legitimate threat once again, and gave me the kind of spine-tingly evil vibes I hadn’t felt since the Kamino arc. and while the payoff might not quite have lived up to my expectations, the Mirko fight at least was more than worth it.

why I like it: BILLOWING SMOKE AND DUST CLOUDS. you just see this vast landscape of destruction that Tomura has oh-so-casually wrought, and this once-powerful enemy utterly defeated on his hands and knees bowing before him. and it’s just like, oh. Tomura just became a fucking king, didn’t he. he finally stepped up and became the main villain. really the main villain, not just an awkward fumbling NEET whose adopted dad is not-so-secretly pulling all the strings. he did this himself. he went out and conquered and Awakened and won himself a fucking army. and he’s just standing there so cool and casual in the aftermath of it all. and then he goes “oh wait, you guys have money right, that means you can buy us the good sushi.” yes, Tomura. yes.

why I like it: um because this panel is fucking amazing?? hello?? do I really need to explain this one. the detail is jaw-dropping. he’s got the little scars which are either from the head wound that caused his death, or from his Noumufication. his expression is fucking heartbreaking, and the transition from Kumo to Kuro is so subtle and seamless, and yet it distinctly is both of them. this panel is gorgeous and fucking haunting and almost made me gasp when I first saw it.

why I like it: the decision to have the night sky take up so much of the space in the panel was [chef kiss]. nothing says existential like the night sky on a cold winter’s night.

why I like it: this is the best panel in the entire fucking series.

why I like it: dude. showing his actual family holding onto him with their hands in the same spot as the severed fashion!hands was a stroke of genius in and of itself. but combining that with the emotional tension of them desperately trying to hold him back and protect him from AFO?? that’s just so fucking smooth it’s almost inhuman. just how much meaning can you cram into a single image?? sometimes I wonder just how far in advance Horikoshi plans these things.

why I like it: guess I’m just a big fat sucker for panels of Tomura calmly standing around in the ruins of his own senseless destruction. the sense of scale on this one is really great, too. and yet again, those dust clouds. gotta love it.

why I like it: because Tomura literally appears out of nowhere, like he’s ripping a hole through the fabric of time and space. it’s so fucking sudden and he looks evil as FUCK, and Deku and Kacchan are totally caught off-guard, and it is scary. this is one of those panels that made me say “holy shit” out loud. in fact I practically screamed it. and the angles are all funky and weird, and the sky is all BLACK FOR NO REASON, and it really just feels like Tomura could reach right over and just MURDER THEM like it was nothing. just like that. this panel is so incredibly effective at conveying how hopelessly outclassed the boys are. they’re not even in his league, and it’s honestly terrifying.

and on that happy note, we have come to the end of my list of favorite panels! and I gotta say, it’s really gratifying that a good deal of them are from this year alone. I said it in another post a few days ago, but imo the overall quality of the series has been insanely high as of late, and it honestly just blows my mind whenever I stop to think about it. the art is still this good six years into the game. the story is still this good. we are spoiled goddammit.

#bnha #boku no hero academia #midoriya izuku #bakugou katsuki #all might #endeavor #todoroki shouto #shigaraki tomura #horikoshi kouhei #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks

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blessedsage99 · 4 years

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Why Lapis and Pearl Could Work As A Great Pairing

It is without a doubt that most people agree that Lapis and Pearl would do absolutely anything for Steven. Maybe not anything as Lapis jumped off to the nearest solar system to get away from conflict, but he is in fact the one person she would indefinitely pull out extra stops for (ie; willing to indulge befriending Peridot, live on and try earth, go into the ocean once more, etc) . But I do not think that would be the one of the driving forces between their relation but it might be one of the factors to goad them into trying and befriending each other. And perhaps…. More.

Similarities On a surface level you can perhaps glean several similarities, perhaps similar shadow and body type, sasuke pointing hair… And then another layer and find their personalities are vastly different. Pearl is very educated, prefers order, dramatic, emotional, enjoys engaging in combat, very forgiving (ex; is quick to forgive Peridot once she actually makes the amends to not call her an object), and does her best to make up for mistakes (ex; several episodes of making it up to Garnet).

Lapis is very lazy and blase, the barn she and Peridot have formed together has no sense of order and moreso chaos, she instantly flies at the first sight of conflict, is the least forgiving gem out there (ex; holds it against the crystal gems for pretty much the entirety of the series, and Peridot goes lengths and miles to try and get Lapis forgive her and still is unable to and it takes Steven to intervene and scold her to make an attempt), and honestly? Lapis hardly ever apologizes for her mistakes versus Pearl. She shows signs of guilt but she never really apologizes to Peridot for anything she’s done to her nor Steven nor… Well, really anyone else, except in Future.

But that aside, it’s when you think about their more lighthearted sides and trauma is where most of their similarities lie.

Hobbies

As off as it sounds, it’s fairly essential in pretty much any relationship to cross over a few hobbies, even if you don’t share everything, it often all starts with something along those lines. And Pearl and Lapis share a huge chunk of their hobbies, believe it or not.

Both Lapis and Pearl definitely enjoy reading, Pearl being the educational beast she is and Lapis probably enjoys the relaxed activity. In fact their genres might be even similar as Lapis and Pearl enjoy reading odd textbooks (ex; The hairstyles book for Lapis, and the engineering book for Pearl) and both enjoy dramas (albeit, perhaps this might be different) like Camp Pining Hearts and Pearl was willing to write a play and overseer one in Jamie’s case. This perhaps is b-level canon however, in the comic issue Camp Pining Play, Lapis is willingly engaging in participating and acting out in a play, she even enjoys it.

If given incentive of enjoying the subject already, Lapis is willing to perhaps enjoy the drama of things along with Pearl.

Both enjoy singing, if we’re going off Lapis was previously like other Lapis, that would mean singing and dancing is looked down upon on her caste. So the fact she even makes the attempt to do so in Distant Shore means she’s practicing in it, and if we want to add another layer of it, in the game Unleash the Light, one of Lapis’s key items is the Crying Breakfast Friends Sing-Along. And who else enjoys karaoke? Pearl (ie; the commercial karaoke). Also Lapis does it in Future so like if you want canon material it’s right there in Why So Blue.

This is a bit of a stretch but it’s clear that Lapis enjoys the arts which her participation in the class and what the heck else she does with Peridot in the barn, and Pearl has at the very least has experience in it. (ex; the drawing she makes, despite her humble opinion, makes it clear she’s done it before, in fact I’m willing to bet she even painted that fucking painting of Rose Quartz) It perhaps could lead to some more experience and artworks together if you know what I mean…

Casting that aside, it’s clear the two have a main stream of things to enjoy together should they choose to versus some other couples. (And different ones should they choose to introduce the other, Pearl with baking and sword fighting and Lapis with farming and flying, etc)

Traumas

Now this is the important part, I’m willing to argue they both can share extremely similar and relate to each other’s problems. They just have vastly different ways of coping with it, or well… They both have some similarities there as well, but we’ll address that in the next paragraph-ish.

But the biggest one? Both miss their homeworld. Dearly.

In fact it’s the driving force for Lapis’s introductory episodes and one of Pearl’s where she tries to get Steven into a rocketship back to her home. Both are ancient and dusty as fuck, or well, at least heavily implied to be ancient with the fact of Pearl commenting she learned the sword when she was only ten thousand years old (Sworn to the Sword iirc), the war was six thousand which implies Pearl learned before it. And Lapis, it’s merely conjecture however the fact that Lapis isn’t a vegetable after and still has a strong sense of identity after being in the mirror for 4 thousand years says something (ie; My name is LAPIS LAZULI!), the likely conclusion is the fact it’s because that’s not even close to how old she is. It’s only a fraction of her lifetime, which means both are… Well, old as hell. And even more likely? They come from the same ‘homeworld’ unlike Peridot or Amethyst who were made after and Garnet who has herself.

The second one is the one both of them likely have their divisive opinions on, especially as they were from opposing sides of it, is that they were both part of the War.

Both obviously have their trauma’s from it, as shown as Pearl in ‘A Single Pale Rose’ she’s still traumatized over the thousands of shattered gems (which is essentially corpses to her) she was forced to witness right after the war, and Lapis being forced to watch inside the mirror as everyone condemns her to being a crystal gem. I’m willing to bet she saw everyone die while inside the thing as well. As well as considering Lapis never really got over anything as she was gonna literally yeet herself away at the mere IDEA of the war… Well, who else could help her but another person who knows the horrors as well? And Pearl has experience as she had a support system unlike Lapis who got worse and worse purely just by being herself.

Moving on as I don’t have a cool and smooth transition... This might be a bit of a stretch, but the last thing they both share very heavily over is the fact both were objectified.

Pearl was born to be an object, whereas Lapis was forced to become one, the mirror. And both consistently fight over the fact throughout most of the series. In the movie, the thing that makes Pearl remember herself is the freedom to be herself, and when she returns to her homeworld she’s forced to be reminded of her place when she talks to Holly Blue and returns to Steven in the final season. Lapis is obviously shook over it and holds it against the fact she always feels like she’s being used, (‘[...] AND YOU CAN’T KEEP ME TRAPPED ANYMORE!’) she longs for a safe place and to be free just as well just as Pearl does and the freedom to express herself (ie; her art). And who else but Pearl----- *coughcouhgcough*

Differences

I covered this in the first part where it's obvious the two have very vast differences when it comes to their personalities. But I find it important to have differences as both have something to bring to the table with their differences, no? Another essential part of a working couple.

And to quickly cover what I had before, their personalities. Pearl is literal and Lapis is sarcastic, Pearl is outwardly emotional and sobs and Lapis moodily and angrily exists, so on and so forth. How does this work? It’s also one of the hardest parts of their relationship, should they ever try it out because one of their biggest differences, is one of their flaws in a relationship as proven over and over.

Pearl is all give and no take, and Lapis is all take and no give. Which is a mix for a toxic relationship, as Pearl would constantly be giving to Lapis as Pearl’s entire worth as shown in her previous relation was all about what she would give to Rose, or else she was nothing. Even by the end of the main series she still needs to be reminded she’s still something without her. And Lapis’s emotional baggage? Let’s face it, Lapis is selfish and it’s all about her. She’s angry? She’s gonna fuck you up (ie; Jasper and the two Lapis), Lapis doesn’t want to deal with war? She doesn’t even think twice about what Peridot wants, and jumps away despite Steven calling out towards her.

But, but, but, but… It’s also a mix for something amazing as after their development, they’re kind of the perfect people to call each other out. In theory of course should they communicate.

Lapis would teach Pearl to be a little more selfish and care about her own needs, whereas Lapis needs constant reminders to actually take notice about what others want and feel (ex; the way she immediately rushes in and notices Steven’s expression at the last moment). It’s clear that Pearl isn’t willing to be treated that way should Lapis do so (ex; the way she snapped back at Peridot and towards Holly Blue) and Lapis upon caring enough? Is in fact willing to try to do better (ex; Why so blue, and Alone at Sea). It’s just that Lapis is farther behind on maturity (considering she ran away and panics instantly twice in a row). They can strike a perfect balance should they put the effort to do so, which would lead to the possible second problem they might have and would need to work through.

And the second difference the two of them have?

Fusion.

It’s the one trauma Lapis has that Pearl wouldn’t understand, and, it’s something Pearl clearly finds something addicting or to use above others. In fact she needed a crash course on it with the string of episodes of what she did to Garnet. Because Pearl is the kind of person who would desperately try so hard to not repeat the same mistake, she’s probably she’s willing to wait a millennia about it or even be fine with never fusing with Lapis. Because consent is important, but I think because of her actual experience with good and loving fusions? She might not be actually be a bad candidate for helping Lapis should she ever want to try again.

The Biggest Conflict

Now, for the biggest problem of the relationship. Uh, let’s be real here…. Despite all these arguments and nice claims and all.

Lapis doesn’t like Pearl, at all. Perhaps she even holds the biggest grudge against Pearl because Pearl was the one who literally carried her around in the mirror for a good chunk of time, doesn’t even bother to learn who she was, and even was willing to bubble her and trap her further. And Lapis probably has incentive to keep it against her for purely that fact as she was holding it against Peridot for the same fact, except for the fact Pearl has made zero amends to apologize for it. So why would Lapis ever want to talk to her?

You might consider the possibility of Steven but it’s not his job to make them friends. The only thing the two of them would do for him is to pretend to be friends, as shown in ‘Hit the Diamond’ and ‘Gem Harvest’ but otherwise, there’s clear distaste from Lapis’s side (ie; The New Crystal Gems) and her consistent ‘fuck the crystal gems’ attitude from the beginning. Maybe for him they might try something however I doubt it’s enough.

Regardless, I do believe an apology is due on both sides whenever they are ready. And that would be the start of perhaps their romantic relationship shenanigans which I consistently desire. Also I’m a slut for tense relationships to friendship to lovers if people would just---

Anyway I think there’s a lot more material for them to work with and they might actually be a pretty awesome couple

#steven universe #su meta #pearlapis #lapearl #steven universe analysis #pearl #su analysis #lapis lazuli #pearl (Su)#sage text #meta #i like geniunely thought about this a lot i lay awake at night thinking about them i just FEEL LIKE THERES MORE THAN WHAT PEOPLE BELIEVE Ok

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by-nina · 3 years

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For auld lang syne, my dear (Counterpoint)

AO3 | FFN Part II of For auld lang syne, my dear Rating: T (alcohol, mild language) Genre: Fluff/Romance/Angst Word Count: 2,151

A/N: Part two of For auld lang syne, my dear coming through! This was supposed to be the second part of my FMA Secret Santa work this year. Even though it officially isn’t, it’s still something I wanted to make with the prompts I was given. So here you go and I hope you like this one, @megthemighty! (My first Havolina!)

Happy New Year to you all, and I hope we’re all able to dance our way through better days.

It sometimes seems like it was only yesterday that she heard that old holiday song on a train platform, saying goodbye to a boy who once brightened a few lonely days, hoping for a dance that would never come. On most days, she’s able to bury that moment away like it happened in another life.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and Riza is far from home and the quiet holiday mornings she used to spend alone by the fire. The change is stark before she even reaches Central. Closer and closer to the city, the air grows a little warmer and the sky fades into a duller shade of black, compensated by the brilliant lanterns and ornaments adorning every building. Everything else is a blur from there. A party with more guests than she personally knows, a glass of champagne in hand, a nicer dress than the ones she usually wears on a night out in town.

Riza would be perfectly happy to just sit back and let the night play out around her. She’s here because Rebecca had convinced her to come along, insisting that they try something a little different from the usual year-end festivities in the East. But home is all that Riza looks for the whole night. Thankfully, no one is a happier reminder of it than Rebecca. With all her energy, they may as well be back home, dancing the night away at the town plaza.

Then, they find Lieutenant Havoc by himself at the party, and Riza finally begins to truly have a great time. It’s almost as if she and her two dear friends have got their own little world in the corner of the room. Sometimes she jumps into the conversation, laughing along to inside jokes about their respective hometowns and from their days at the military academy. She’s equally happy just to listen as Rebecca and Havoc get carried away with their thoughts—some oddly specific and similar, others wildly different and conflicting.

“… and what difference does it make if you do it tonight?”

Havoc leans back in his chair smugly, as though he’s certain the argument is over. “Look, everyone gets emotional on New Year’s Eve. It could be good or bad, but when you get carried away, it’s not like it’ll be the same the next morning.”

“Bullshit, you’ll be fine! You’ve been single for, what, a month?”

Riza sets her glass down on a side table. “I’m sorry, what are you two talking about?”

Rebecca rolls her eyes. “Mister Loverboy here thinks that he shouldn’t try and find a girlfriend tonight because it’s New Year’s Eve, and nobody can commit.”

Even Riza, who is far behind the other two in terms of dating experience, fails to grasp the idea. “What?”

Havoc makes a comically scandalized face. “You two are ganging up on me! Hear me out—Hawkeye, as our voice of reason and the most level-headed person in this room—”

“Hey! You don’t get points for flattery, Havoc!”

“—do you think you could find a boyfriend or a girlfriend right here in this party, on New Year’s Eve, while everyone is drunk and emotional and, well, they’ve all got too much on their mind right now, don’t they?”

Rebecca and Havoc watch Riza expectantly as she picks up her glass again, considering the question as she sips the last of her drink. As if it will help her think clearly. “I’ve got good news for you, Havoc,” Riza finally says after a while. “You can definitely find a girlfriend in this party, on New Year’s Eve.”

“See?” Rebecca places a hand on Riza’s shoulder and grins at Havoc. “That’s the voice of reason for you!”

Riza continues, “I think that sometimes, trusting someone enough to be vulnerable around them is a good start. And your relationship shouldn’t just revolve around the first spark, anyway. It’s your choice whether or not you’re going to work on it. If you like someone enough, I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to do that.”

They look at her like she has just read their fortunes.

“Well, well, those are some big words from you, Riza!” Rebecca says. “Do you actually have a boyfriend I don’t know about?”

“You know I don’t, Rebecca. But what point were you trying to make against Havoc, anyway?”

“That if there’s someone he likes, but he won’t do anything about it tonight just because it’s New Year’s Eve, then he’s a coward.”

Havoc grabs at his chest dramatically and hunches forward, exaggerating the look of pain on his face. “Ladies, you’re breaking my heart! All I want is to have a lasting relationship with a good woman! I’m telling you, I’ll treat her like a princess, and every day I’ll tell her how much I love—”

“Her boobs,” Riza and Rebecca say in unison, bored, but with a hint of knowing laughter.

Rebecca reaches forward as Havoc takes out a cigarette from the pack he has been keeping in his coat pocket. She pushes his hand aside and grabs the pack, then tucks it between the cushions of the couch that she and Riza are occupying. “Put that thing away, you’ll never find a good woman smelling like smoke. Let’s dance.”

“What the—”

“Your girlfriend’s not just gonna waltz in and find you here on your ass, Havoc. Dance floor, now. Riza, let’s go!”

Riza waves off the invitation, chuckling. “I’ll be fine here, thanks. You two have fun.”

Rebecca drags Havoc out into the dancing crowd, and Riza sits back contentedly with a newly filled glass of bubbly. She doesn’t know how much time she spends watching her friends under the sparkling lights, their laughter ringing so loudly that it seems to carry over the music and the chatter around the room, but she does notice how they change. The more they dance, the closer they seem to get to each other. They become locked in a gaze, eyes glinting with more than enjoyment. Even the way they move seems to say that they’ve got every part each other memorized.

Time goes by quickly from then on, and suddenly midnight is only a few minutes away. The music changes with Rebecca and Havoc still out on the dance floor; they exchange a look of understanding and recognition. And perhaps it’s because they had grown up with the song as well—or maybe Rebecca and Havoc are so intoxicated now that they are both made entirely of warmth—but Riza senses feelings of comfort and home being communicated between them, all without words. They might have gone back in time to their childhoods, or they might have come up with a world with just the two of them there on the dance floor.

Riza smiles.

How could she have never seen it coming?

Then again, there are many things that Riza never saw coming, like those distant memories that come with the music now filling the room. It sometimes seems like it was only yesterday that she heard that old holiday song on a train platform, saying goodbye to a boy who once brightened a few lonely days, hoping for a dance that would never come.

On most days, Riza is able to bury that moment away like it happened in another life. She can look at the man the boy has become without imagining what might have been or thinking that she might still feel the way she did before. That other life ended in Ishval, and although she has kept the Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang in the life she lives now, it has been strictly out of duty. She swore to follow him and protect him; there is nothing more to it. Nothing about a dance, no vestiges of a precious shared past.

But sometimes, she is reminded of the past without warning, like now.

“Hello, Lieutenant.”

Roy Mustang isn’t supposed to be here.

He hadn’t planned on going to any party tonight. It was supposed to be like all the other year-end holidays he has spent in this city. Unpeaceful, a blur of faces both familiar and unfamiliar at Madame Christmas’ bar, the promise of a quieter morning with family once all the festivities were over. But then he ran into Havoc earlier this evening, the latter making his way to this fancy new lounge that had opened at the northeast side of town.

“Come on, Chief,” Havoc had said, “you need to get out more often. It’s New Year’s Eve.”

The invitation wasn’t even an appealing one, at least to Roy. It’s been many years since he last truly enjoyed New Year’s Eve, because throughout these many years he has changed so much. He has been in the military for what feels like a lifetime now, gone to hell and back during the war in Ishval, and he no longer feels the holidays the way he did when he was a young boy. He does remember some things, though, like breakfast made from the leftovers of New Year’s Eve dinner, the market filled with toys and books and rare delicacies, the music.

And her.

Riza hardly looks different from the young girl who saw him board a train for Central many New Year’s Eves ago, but he knows better than anyone that that isn’t true. She’s about as distant from her younger self as he is from his. She’s also easier to imagine back in that time than Roy finds himself to be. At most, he can point out how much longer her hair has grown since that day—it’s not yet past her shoulders, but it frames her face differently. Beautifully.

“Hello, Lieutenant.”

The music has changed to a familiar old tune, and perhaps it’s why he calls her attention without thinking. Roy wishes he hadn’t. She was watching the crowd’s merrymaking just now, with a warm, lovely smile that he had been lucky to see once before. He didn’t mean to make it go away. But when Riza hears his voice, her expression changes, and she rises to her feet so quickly that she almost loses her balance. There is a deep pink hue on her cheeks.

“Lieutenant Colonel.”

He laughs a little. “I’m sorry, that was so formal. It’s New Year’s Eve. Just call me…”

Roy stops himself.

“… Mustang.”

Riza nods slowly, then sits back down. Roy gingerly occupies the spot at the other end of the same couch. They’re silent for a few moments, listening to the holiday song played by the live band from the other side of the room, sung by the crowd in varying degrees of drunkenness.

“You should be dancing too,” Roy finally says. He isn’t sure if he means it as a suggestion or an invitation.

She smiles in a resigned manner, reaching down slightly to rub her ankles. “My feet are aching from these shoes.” Riza pauses. “How about you?”

Roy shakes his head. “I’ve had too much to drink.”

How easily they lie to each other.

Riza resumes watching the crowd, so she doesn’t see Roy watching her as the song plays on, or perhaps she pretends that she doesn’t. He tries not to think of all the reasons they have to deny each other a dance. He takes comfort in the memory of her twirling on the platform of Cameron Station, of singing for her in the living room of her childhood home. And if he’d truly had as much to drink as he claimed he did, he would have abandoned all judgment to take her out to the dance floor, just to have those things again.

For old times’ sake, Roy tells himself.

The spell breaks at the stroke of midnight, when the song ends and jubilant greetings ring out around the room. Roy and Riza return to the present and exchange cordial, if tentative smiles, once again becoming Lieutenant Hawkeye and Lieutenant Colonel Mustang. No complicated past, no uncertain future. Only the present in which they are able to welcome the new year together, if not in the way either of them had hoped.

“Happy New Year,” they tell each other.

Riza hesitates to take Roy’s hand when he offers it. When she finally does, her hand feels rougher than he remembers, her grip turned firm by the mastery of her self-control. He knows she is wary of the lines they cannot cross, even though they’ve been far past that point for much of her lives. But he won’t do that to her. Roy would never offer her something he knows he cannot give. He cares for her far too deeply to do that.

For now, he puts his faith in better, kinder years to come.

#Fullmetal Alchemist #Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood #FMA #FMAB #Royai #Havolina #Roy Mustang #Riza Hawkeye #Rebecca Catalina #Jean Havoc #fanfiction #fanfic #fluff #romance #angst #pining #mutual pining #writing #written by nina

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years

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Isabelle Huppert: The Most Dangerous Actress in European Cinema

Etre actrice, c’est avant tout faire l’apprentissage de sa liberté.

- Isabelle Huppert

At 66 years old, Isabelle Huppert has had a long, celebrated career and is regarded in the highest echelon of French actors. Among actresses, Isabelle Huppert holds the record for César Award nominations (France’s Oscar award), with a whopping sixteen. She has also had twenty of her films in competition at Cannes, more than any other actress. And she is among just four actresses who have won the Best Actress prize at Cannes twice.

Not a bad track record.

Though she has appeared in a few American productions over the years, including “Heaven’s Gate” (1980), “The Bedroom Window” (1987) and “I Heart Huckabees” (2004), her best films have all been European.

Extraordinary women marked by tragedy and surrounded by mystery — these are Huppert's trademark cinematic roles. The films of Isabelle Huppert tend to be filled with sociopaths, self-mutilators, and murderers.

There was the jealous postmaster in “La Cérémonie,” the gun-toting young bride in “Coup de Torchon,” and the prostitute who poisons her family in “Violette Nozière. “The Piano Teacher,” “Elle” and “Greta” would make a crazy triple feature. Overall Isabelle Huppert, one of the iconic dames of French cinema, has garnered a reputation for being cold and steely. The French actress, now in her mid-60s, consistently chooses roles that are morally complex and sometimes hard to watch. And yet we can’t bring ourselves to look away.

Susan Sontag, who once called Huppert “a total artist,” said she had never met “an actor more intelligent, or a person more intelligent among actors.”

Huppert has been called France’s Meryl Streep for her technical skill, but for all her shape-shifting, Streep’s strongest women have never gone so dark as the roles Huppert has played.

Huppert expresses the moods and mental state of her characters with precision and great sensitivity. Her seemingly expressionless face and sparing facial expressions have become something of a trademark.

Fiction has a tendency to inflate things, she said once in an interview with The Financial Times in July 2017. "But when I look at people on the street, I find that most of them are pretty empty in their eyes. I have to do even less." To observe, she has been taught, you have to take away, not add something.

Isabelle was the youngest of five children, born in Paris to an engineer father and a mother who taught English. Her mother is credited with spotting her talent early on, and encouraging her to develop it. She was already well on her way as a teenager, getting acting jobs while studying at the National Conservatory of Dramatic Art in Paris.

Huppert’s résumé is remarkable over five decades: Just over 140 films since her debut in 1972, for many of cinema’s most audacious visionaries, including Claude Chabrol, Claire Denis, Curtis Hanson, Hal Hartley and François Ozon.

In “Things to Come,” a wistful, funny drama by the French director Mia Hansen-Love. She plays Nathalie, a Parisian philosophy teacher whose husband leaves her for a younger woman, whose mother dies, whose publisher won’t reissue her book — and yet, who finds unexpected freedom in all of these losses. Nathalie heads toward the light and Michèle toward the dark, but both roles showcase Huppert’s great ability to derive power from vulnerability.

What directors loved about Huppert — and she prides herself on being an auteur’s actor — was her ability to convey moral complexity in the most unique ways.

Working with such auteur directors, Huppert can inhabit extreme characters — "survivors who can be victims and rebels simultaneously," says the actress. "My films give these women a voice. Because even though they live on the edges of society, they are there: women who live brutal lives. It's a brutality that they themselves never sought out," Huppert told Zeit Magazine.

Paul Verhoeven who directed her in “Elle” described Huppert as a “pure Brechtian actor,” in that she puts distance between herself and the audience, without trying to seduce it or seek its sympathy.

The actress is notorious for her illegibility - her almost Bressonian lack of expression, and the profound unrest she’s able to convey from behind the stillness of her freckled resting face. Pauline Kael, the famous film critic, once complained that “when [Huppert] has an orgasm, it barely ruffles her blank surface.” If Kael had lived to see “Abuse of Weakness,” “Elle,” or “I Heart Huckabees,” perhaps she would have come to appreciate how the stillness of Huppert’s unbeatable poker face allows her to normalize even the strangest and most perverse of characters; to make it seem as though any of their behaviors, no matter how unusual or demented, are as natural to them as we are to ourselves.

It’s a quality that European directors and audiences have embraced, but which can seem more foreign to Americans. Huppert loves American cinema, but she also knows her sensibility is distinctly French.

Huppert is known for her privacy and reserve - she generally doesn’t talk to the press about anything other than her films - and if there’s a connection between her autobiography and the roles she chooses, that’s something that only she knows.

Aware of her own enigmatic appeal, she has no qualms about exploiting it. She has even less desire to charm, although her formidable impassivity sometimes betrays a hint of vulnerability. Not that she will let the viewer get too close, however, as she is forever intent on remaining “more like a question mark than a statement”.

Isabelle Huppert is not just courageous when it comes to choosing film roles and artistic collaborators. She is fearless, and such is her integrity that we trust her instincts and follow wherever she leads. That’s what makes her the most dangerous actress of our time.

Below is a top ten list of Isabelle Huppert films. They are not in order nor are they her very best. There are simply too many films in her body of work that would deserve equal consideration. Instead the list is made up of films that given an introduction to her wide ranging talents.

1. The Lace Maker 1977

Isabelle Huppert won the most promising newcomer award for her graceful, guileless performance as Pomme in Claude Goretta’s masterly adaptation of a Pascal Lainé novel, which took its title from a Vermeer painting. Whether doing her chores at a Parisian beauty salon, playing blindman’s buff on a Cabourg clifftop with dashing Sorbonne student Yves Beneyton, trying to eat an apple without disturbing his reading or choking over dinner with his snooty parents, Huppert is mesmerising.

2. Violette Nozière 1978

The first of her seven collaborations with Claude Chabrol earned Huppert the best actress prize at Cannes. She was 25 when she played the demure schoolgirl who shocked 1930s Paris when details of her double life as a prostitute emerged following the poisoning of her father. Violette claimed he had abused her, but Chabrol thinks otherwise and exploits Huppert’s genius for switching between fragility and cruelty to counter the surrealist myth that the teenage parricide was an anti-bourgeois icon.

Huppert embodies this character that’s chiefly concerned with finding love. She walks the streets at night, characteristically promiscuous, but don’t call her a prostitute. She’d refute. Throughout the film, she gives more money to the men then vice versa. At night, when she leaves her quiet bourgeois home, and finds a man to accompany her, she looks unusually bothered. The film is sometimes maddeningly ambiguous but perhaps that’s the point - Chabrol and Huppert want us to feel mixed about her.

Violette is a woman with an air of mystery around her. She’s precocious but not as clever as she thinks. Huppert gazes and kisses her own mirror reflection. She writes fictional love letters to herself as well. Huppert quietly stresses the motivation behind the character: desperate to find someone to love, or else she’ll have to love herself. Except, she can’t even love herself because she feels stifled by her home life. And as ever with narcissism, there are dangerous consequences.

3. La Cérémonie 1995

“Chabrol only ever cast me as fairly ordinary characters,” Huppert once revealed. “They just have rather particular destinies.” While she would go on to embody Chabrolian womanhood (“not victims, not fighters, somewhere in between”) in Rien ne va plus (1997), Merci pour le chocolat (2000) and Comedy of Power (2006), she gave her finest performance for him in this seething adaptation of Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone.

An upper-class family warns their meek maid (Sandrine Bonnaire) about the local mail lady, Jeanne (Isabelle Huppert). They become friends regardless. Huppert plays Jeanne as kooky, comic, and rebellious. We gradually find out more cryptic background on her character, which gives her spirited attitude a darker edge. She’s either heartbroken or heartless. Huppert portrays a character with so many contradictory traits without ever making it feel false.

Huppert performs the role cunningly. Jeanne is energised like a child, but she’s smart enough to know how to win over the maid. She’s a little silly - when she enters the family’s home while they’re away, she touches everything. Huppert balances all of this next to the near-mute Bonnaire, both slowly exacting their revenge against the upper class. Chabrol’s trademark: clash of the classes.

Huppert thoroughly deserved her first César.

In 2014, Huppert performed Jean Genet’s play The Maids with Cate Blanchett. The play was inspired, as was La Cérémonie, on the same true-story about the Papin sisters.

4. The Piano Teacher 2001

The Piano Teacher is an elegantly made film about the deranged endeavors of love. Huppert plays a buttoned-up music instructor, Erika, who attracts the eyes of an unassuming man half her age. She still lives with her mother and there’s a danger that lurks behind her carefully placed gaze. She’s been sexually repressed for such a long time; her repression and self-hatred has slowly evolved into masochism. It drives her to haunt peep shows, spy on copulating couples and mutilate her own genitals. This disturbing film really made an impact world wide.

Nobody said this film was an easy watch!

Haneke gives the spectator all the intricacies of the concept of perversion inserted in Huppert’s character of Erika, a successful piano teacher and an apparently impeccable social life. Well, that’s what Erika keeps on the surface.

Huppert declared the second of her four collaborations with Haneke to be the film she had long been searching for.

5. 8 Women 2002

There’s no validity in the truism that Huppert doesn’t do comedy. In fact she proved she could both dance and sing (the plaintive ‘Message personnel’ is a career highlight) in François Ozon’s chic 1950s musical whodunit. Sporting a tight bun, a buttoned-up twin-set, pursed red lips and butterfly spectacles, Huppert invokes the spirit of legendary farceur Louis de Funès as Catherine Deneuve’s argumentative sister. She gives an indelible display of neurotic, spinsterly bitchiness that is simultaneously piteous and hilarious.

6. Elle 2016

A successful woman enters a real ordeal after being raped by a stranger in her home. Powerful, ‘Elle’ unravels all the nuances of a character’s life inserted into a completely incongruous personal, social and psychological reality. Here, the character will demonstrate how her attitude towards the world follows a sociopathic pattern of acting, despising any form of emotional attachment and using other individuals solely to satisfy her most primitive instincts. The film earned her an Oscar nod for Best Actress, which was fabulous but also made me wonder what took so long. Certainly she’s turned out enough superb performances over her nearly five decade career to have earned this recognition sooner.

7. Coup de Torchon 1981

Having survived a seven-month stint in Montana for Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate(1980), Huppert ventured to Saint-Louis in Senegal for Bertrand Tavernier’s Oscar-nominated transposition of Jim Thompson’s pulp novel, Pop. 1280, from a small Texan town in the 1910s to west Africa on the eve of the Second World War. Although Pierre-William Glenn’s sun-scorched Steadicam imagery seems antithetical, this is a darkly droll noir that sees Huppert in an unusually skittish mood, as the abused colonial wife who forges an unlikely alliance with Philippe Noiret’s pathetic rogue police chief, who is humiliated by everyone around him, and suddenly wants a clean slate in life - but resorts to drastic means to do so.

8. Merci pour le chocolat 2000

The film follows the nuances of a French upper class family, exploring the destructive ways in which each member acts on the world. Directed by Claude Chabrol, ‘Merci pour le Chocolat’ is an interesting film, bringing a more cadenced plot that values studying each meander of the behavior of its central characters.

The movie is set in Lausanne, and that Swiss location, having an ambient sense of buttoned-up severity and menace, is an appropriate setting with a Nabokovian mien for this horrid tale of sociopathy.

Huppert dominates the film with the slightly frigid poise of a great dancer who has retired to become an exacting teacher. She plays Mika, a woman who presides wearily and almost negligently over the prosperous chocolate business built up by her late father. But however disengaged she is in the boardroom, in the kitchen she loves chocolate with a passion - concocting various types of drinking chocolate, using subtly differing recipes, with fanatical and murderous care.

There is something fascinating about Huppert's face here. In repose, it has a kind of unsettling serenity, the serenity of a cunning and covert predator who has already decided on an unspeakable course of action.

9. La Séparation 1994

Isabelle Huppert and Daniel Auteuil play a couple on the verge of a separation. The relationship’s mainstay is their child, one-year-old Loulou. Autueil gets most of the film’s focus, but he’s essentially a sitting duck, nervously shifting between passive-aggressive contempt and hopeful endearment, as he prepares for the outcome of his girlfriend’s infidelity. He says, “Never two without three.” This could be the quote-totem of the film.

The director smartly leaves the interloping lover out of the film (he’s never seen or even named). Instead, we study Auteuil’s growing impatience and Huppert’s pivotal decision. She adds a lot of depth to a character that could’ve just been the unsympathetic partner of the cuckold.

Huppert gives her character integrity and even though she’s ostensibly guilty, she never comes off as purely selfish. She’s troubled, as well, by their situation - we sense her detachment not due to ego but because she’s boggled in trying to assess the right mode of conduct. Huppert and Auteuil have great chemistry, changing gears effortlessly between vitriol and affection.

Huppert’s distinctive talent for suppressing suffering is readily evident in her slowly disintegrating relationship with Daniel Auteuil, as Huppert imparts chilling intimacy to a withdrawn hand, an unanswering gaze, a treacherous silence and a careless word in conveying the pain of falling out of love.

10. Madame Bovary 1991

Not her greatest film but certainly one of the most accessible for anyone not familiar with the talents of Huppert. Based on Gustave Flaubert’s fabulous novel, the film brings the exacerbated trajectory of a young girl who has a highly romanticised view of the world and craves beauty, wealth, passion, as well as high society. It is the disparity between these romantic ideals and the realities of her country life that drive most of the novel, leading her into two affairs and to accrue an insurmountable amount of debt that eventually leads to her suicide.

This adaptation of ‘Madame Bovary’ is perhaps the best of any adaptation to date. Claude Chabrol manages to capture even the most emblematic nuances of Flaubert’s book, elevating a unique atmosphere for the unfolding of scenes.

However, the main point of distinction between this work and the others is the presence of Isabelle Huppert as protagonist, delivering a powerful and visceral performance from the first to the last scene.

#isabelle huppert #film #cinema #french #france #culture #art #actress #acting #artist #icon #femme #huppert #french cinema

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