#it's not supposed to be a fucking psa where the characters just talk for half the episode and say the message verbatim to the audience
Text
Feeling very violent rn so here's a very controversial opinion:
Everything after season one of Young Justice sucked.
Look, I know I'm obsessed with the show but that doesn't mean it's good, it means that I'm too deep into it at this point to get out. There are good moments within the other seasons but in general? They were not good.
I'm sorry. I understand that they wanted to be creative and have a neat narrative and deep lore and all that. And they do! The narrative and lore is extremely deep.
But the plot? The characters??
Season one was an actual functional show that balanced character development, plot and dialogue with world building, lore and messaging.
The other seasons do not do that.
Season two bounced back and forth between like 16 characters. We got some development for some characters but even that was minimal compared to the character development in S1. And this isn't me complaining that the og group wasn't in S2 enough. That's not my issue. I would've loved to focus on a new group and I think that Jaime, Bart, Ed and Gar would've been super cool to focus on. I loved what character development they did have and I craved more.
But the problem? The problem is when you have 16 fucking characters that you are trying to develop and shove into a coherent plot and have actual meaningful scenes. There just wasn't enough focus on S2. Imo, S2 was meh because the characters got left by the wayside. The plot, dialogue, world building, lore and messaging was fine, there just seemed to be a lack of heart/warmth in the show because of the characters. It's hard to get invested.
Then holy shit. S3 introduced more characters. And the plot got more contrived and 'big picture' to the point that it started to abstract. It felt like nothing mattered. There were no stakes, you were just watching things happen. There was 50 fucking things happening an episode and 80% of it was lore/world building. It felt like I was studying for a fictional history exam.
I'm pretty sure the main character in S3 was earth 16. Just the entire universe. Because goddamn. We checked in on almost every living being and EVERYTHING was a plot point. Most of it wasn't even relevant to anything happening in the season. Man it was.... it was bad.
And at that point it just wasn't enjoyable at all to watch. I probably should've stopped watching but at that point the sunk cost fallacy had already kicked in. I knew it could be good. Maybe it could be good again. And people were constantly praising it as cinematic genius so I was like 'okay well maybe I'm missing the point? Maybe you aren't supposed to enjoy shows? Maybe this is fine?'
But season four broke me.
The creators heard that people were frustrated by the lack of character focus and the episodes following 72 characters and the episodes switching between 50 different subplots every episode and their solution? Their solution was to take allllllll the different unconnected plots and, instead of evenly spreading them throughout the season, jam them all into 'arcs'. So you had a bunch of mini seasons consisting of 3-5 episodes dedicated to a cast of ~5-8 characters (some of them new). And each of these episodes had unconnected a plots, b plots and c plots.
THAT IS NOT A SOLUTION
Holy shit that is not a solution.
Not to mention the overarching plot of the season, in which we had no fucking clue what was happening until the final episodes where everything became a speedrun to wrap everything up. We literally had no idea what the main plot was until it was ending.
Good god it was bad. It's bad writing!
I know people liked it and good for them. You should like what you like and you don't have to justify it. But for me it was insanity. I'm sorry I actually don't want a season long subplot where Beast Boy is depressed and sleeps all day. I would be cool with it if it had anything to do with the larger story but, surprisingly, spending five minutes watching Beast Boy sleep every episode didn't make for compelling storytelling.
I'm still not over how we didn't even know who the main villain was until the end of the season. And then all of a sudden he does a villain monologue to tell everyone his evil plan and his motives. Super cool actually. I love it when I have no idea what the stakes are for the majority of a show. It's incredibly good storytelling when you leave the audience in the dark about a major player in the plot for all of the plot. And then doing an info dump evil monologue in the final episodes to rush through the explanation??? Fucking fantastic and not a sign of terrible pacing at all.
I'm just so frustrated. The show isn't about being a show anymore. The show is an entire cinematic universe shoved into 20 something episodes. It's desperate to tell every single story at once, audience, pacing and good writing be damned.
I'm so tired of the constant praising of Greg. His whole 'i don't write endings because life doesn't have endings' and 'i don't write cliffhangers, I just leave things open ended' thing is pretentious bullshit. I'm tired of pretending it's not. A good story has an ending. Stories are not life! Some of the best shows I've ever watched had planned endings. And oh my god. The cliffhanger thing... that's just semantics my guy. Greg you write cliffhangers. You can insist they aren't but I'm going to call a spade a spade.
It's also.... I'm fine with explaining things, in fact I love it because it's an excuse to talk about the stuff I love, and I have a fairly decent knowledge of comic book lore. So, I could not only understand what was happening in the show but I was also super enthusiastic about explaining it to people. But hey Greg? Hey buddy? If 90% of your audience doesn't know what the fuck is going on and needs to be familiar with super specific obscure comic characters from the 70's then you might have a problem.
I think I realized halfway through s4 that the most enjoyment I got from an episode was when an obscure comic character would cameo in it. But then I realized that a) they generally weren't explained at all and b) 50% of the time they weren't just hanging out in the background and they were vital to the plot. So to understand who the fuck they were and what the fuck was happening you had to be familiar with... well all of DC comics actually.
Anyway this rant is getting long and unhinged and I don't think there's a point so I'm going to cut myself off even though I have so much more to say on the topic. I think my general point is just that I didn't enjoy watching the later seasons and it's chill if you did and we should all respect each other's opinions ✌️
#rant#oh also the messaging sucked#the messages itself were fine. like 'you should go to therapy if you are depressed' and 'respect people's religions' and#'figuring out your gender/sexual identity is chill af'#those are great messages. the content is great and i don't disagree#BUT HOLY FUCK#yo Zatara ranting about his religion to Fate for 15 minutes is not how you get a message across#messages are supposed to be like themes and subtle points of the narrative#it's not supposed to be a fucking psa where the characters just talk for half the episode and say the message verbatim to the audience#itd be like if in season one M'gann stood up and spent ten minutes talking about the damaging psychological effects of body image issues#and everyone else just sat there and nothing happened and M'gann just kinda spoke about it#or if Artemis was just like 'im going to do a presentation on why child abuse is bad'#its just. thats not. thats not how messages in a plot work#but they didn't develop the characters enough. so instead of s1 where the messages were blatantly obvious#we just had side character zatara who we know nothing about talk about religion like he was doing a PSA for kindergartners#because we don't know his character and he had zero focus so that was literally the only way to get the message across#and im sorry but that's bad writing. if you are sacrificing character plot and narrative for a message then maybe scrap the message#or you know actually have a developed character do the message. like write the message through a developed character so it doesn't#need to be spoonfed to the audience like we're five year olds learning different shapes from a teacher
191 notes
·
View notes
Text
Weren't there once talks about a Portal and Half Life movie being considered? I feel like I remember that. Here's my elevator pitch for both.
Portal Movie:
Instead of a movie retelling of Chell and GLaDOS' dubious scientific relationship you just get a 2 hours long BURN-E style spinoff where you follow a Personality Construct doing menial repair work while Portal 2 happens in the background. You just see it scrubbing dirty panels clean like it's doing science dishes and then attaching them to test chamber scaffolding. It's in the middle of attaching the last panel when a tremor hits the facility and you hear Wheatley's "I AM NOT A MORON!" echo through the building. The quake causes several panels to detach, forcing it to start all over again, successfully ensuring the movie will go past the 2 hour mark. A wall visibly dents outwards before a TV screen crashes through with Wheatley on it. The third act is just the Construct cleaning up the debris caused by Wheatley's impromptu renovation and then slowly spelling out the words "TEST" on the wall with white panels according to Wheatley's specifications. Final scene - pan out, revealing the entire movie was taking place in this specific chamber of Portal 2's campaign. Roll credits.
Half Life movie:
Three words.
Resistance Movement Documentary.
Odessa Cubbage's Dubious Escapades Through Combine-Controlled Europe. It's supposed to be one of those "found family" style movies where a group of rebels come together to finally have a chance at beating the combine, except you're following the random side character that barely gets involved in anything. Instead it's like a mockumentary film with Lazslo being the Cameraman and Cubbage being the show programmer. They do a PSA on how to get in and out of City 17 with Eli helping Kleiner get through the city borders and everyone but Lazslo has their backs turned while a Bullsquid comes out of a bush and prepares to spit at Eli's leg. Alyx is in the middle of rewiring an electrical junction to disable a combine generator and Cubbage is right behind her talking at the camera trying to explain how her multi-tool works except he's 100% bullshitting. She turns to correct him and accidentally causes a short circuit. There's a scene where he's at Kleiner's lab to document the first ever local teleport experiment (yes the one with the cat) and he somehow fucks up while being assigned to "Flipping the switch" duty. Alyx and Eli are driving down the coast in the scout car while Cubbage and Lazslo sit in an attached wagon. Movie ends with the Vances being so fed up with the two they leave them at New Little Odessa and drive off into the sunset.
#Portal#Portal 2#hl#hl2#Half life#Half life 2#Portal movie#Half life movie#rambling#who needs JJ abrams when you've got a random guy on tumblr who isn't normal about valve games whatsoever
26 notes
·
View notes
Text
Smile for Me Week, Day 1: Secret
happy smile for me week!!! for my first trick, have a fic I wrote after thinking about my dad too hard. it ends well and it was pretty cathartic for me, but it does get a bit emotionally intense re: feelings about having to stay closeted in front of your parents for years, so fair warning. but it does end well I promise!!! I’ll probably post this on ao3 soon too, so look out for that!
-----
Never in a million years would Parsley have ever expected that being stuck in the same slapdash “mental health” retreat as his dad would end in anything other than frustration. And, to be fair, that was how things went for a while. But then that weird florist handed him one of his dad’s terrible dishes, and before he knew it he was getting drunk off his ass and actually talking to his dad for the first time in... years, probably. Somehow it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. The Kahlúa and birthday cake flavored vodka probably helped.
And then he’d been woken up in the middle of the night and suddenly urged out of the giant front gates with very little reason why— something something carbon monoxide poisoning. Not that Parsley really needed convincing to get the hell out of there at that point. Even a constant flow of free alcohol probably wouldn’t have kept him there for much longer. Those last PSAs were getting pretty creepy and, well, incredibly specific and aggressive towards one particular person. He had hoped that chicken te- flower vendor made it out alright, but he saw them a few days later in town. So things couldn’t have ended too badly.
The most astonishing thing, though, was the fact that he and his dad actually kept talking once they got out of that place. And he somehow didn’t wind up wanting to tear his hair out by the end of every conversation, even. Of course his dad frustrated him plenty of times, but it never got bad bad like it used to. Things between them were... good. Not good good, but just. Good.
So good, in fact, that Parsley manages to somehow metaphorically vomit up the words necessary to tell his dad he wasn’t attracted to women. He wasn’t even drunk— tipsy, certainly, but he was painfully in control of all his faculties that night.
It went... well. He knows the night ended on good terms, and he knows his dad didn’t get angry. He’s pretty sure his dad told him he loved him at some point, which is a good sign. It only happened a few weeks ago. He isn’t really ready to think about it very hard in any capacity. He’s scared that he’ll go looking for some specific sign, or a phrase, or a look— something that definitively tells him that his dad doesn’t look at him and wish he had another son— and come up empty.
Parsley takes what he can get, until what he can get isn’t enough anymore.
The tension finally breaks one evening; almost six months to the day they both left the Habitat. They were watching the end of some melodrama that was airing right before the hilariously disorganized cooking show they both enjoyed. And the stupid thing is that Parsley can’t even remember what his dad said that set him off so bad— but, god, his dad would know just the right string of words to tick him off enough to say something. It was something about keeping secrets. Something about how he didn’t understand why some people keep harmless stuff so close to their chest for no reason. Which is rich coming from him, the man who has to bluster his way through every emotional conversation he’s ever had. Parsley would be seeing red if his eyes weren’t already that color.
“See, I mean, like with your whole, uh, situation— Not that I’m tryin’ to rag on you or anything, sprig, but I just don’t see why you didn’t just go on and tell me! I wouldn't've been mad at you or nothin’,” Jimothan says, gladly shoving his entire foot in his mouth for the sake of scolding Parsley, just like old times.
Parsley, to his credit, doesn’t immediately blow up. “You didn’t exactly make it the easiest thing to do,” he says, his voice clipped and his jaw tense. His dad makes a bewildered noise next to him; a noise that wouldn’t be out of place in a sitcom.
“Now what’s that supposed to mean? I always told you that you could talk to me about anything, didn’t I?” Jimothan asks. The look of genuine confusion on his face almost makes Parsley want to drop it and just keep watching tv, but the fuse has already been lit.
“Sure, if you forget about all the times you showed me that definitely wasn’t true,” Parsley scoffs, pretending to focus on the tv again. The melodrama is still going. The character on screen is crying big, unrealistic tears. Parsley can’t make out what they’re crying about over the blood starting to rush through his ears. Every neural pathway in his brain left over from his teens is yelling at him to just let dad think that he’s right so the lecture that hasn’t even started will stop.
“What’re you— Parsley, what the heck are you talkin’ about? I’ve never— When have I ever said somethin’ that would make you think I wouldn’t—”
Something in his dad’s tone immediately sets Parsley’s blood to a boil. He sounds like he doesn’t understand; like he doesn’t even know where this is even coming from. He has no idea. Fuck, would it hurt less if his dad tried to justify himself instead? If he sounded angry instead of confused? Because this means that he just doesn’t know. Decades of hiding and bullshit and being afraid and he just didn’t know.
“Are you KIDDING ME?” Parsley fires back, eyes wide open and blood red. Jimothan almost jumps, having not been witness to his son’s temper in a while. “When HAVEN’T you said something that would make me think you wouldn’t approve? I wouldn’t— I couldn’t go a day without you making some comment about how I needed to get a girlfriend, or- or- how you couldn’t wait to have grandkids, or some other stupid thing about me “finally” getting a wife someday—” Parsley rants, his voice stuttering with the anger flying around in his chest.
Jimothan at least has the decency to look a bit stunned. “But— Oh c’mon Parsley, that was just me tryin’ to give you a little push! I thought you were havin’ a tough time talking to girls, so I figured I would just give you some pointers—”
“No! That’s just it! You just had to build up and build up this— this idea of what I was supposed to do! Every time you just had to make a comment like that it was another bullet on the fist— LIST of all the things I wasn’t doing right,” Parsley flusters. At some point in his rant his hands find their way to his head, and he tries to run his fingers through his hair to calm himself down, but they keep catching on tangles. “A-And you wanna act like I shouldn’t have been scared to tell you, but you—!”
“Scared?” His dad’s expression breaks a little, which just makes this awful situation all the more difficult. Shit. Shit shit shit, this wasn’t how this was supposed to happen. It shouldn’t even be happening, but the fire in Parsley’s chest isn’t dying down and he can’t keep his traitor mouth shut.
“Sprig, you didn’t have any reason to be scared, it woulda been fi—” Jimothan tries to start.
“Ugh, you’re not LISTENING!” Parsley feels like he’s seconds away from tearing his hair out. God, he sounds like such a teenager. “It wasn’t that easy! Of course I was scared! How the hell could I have explained— I just—!!”
“HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO TELL YOU I WASN’T THE SON YOU WANTED?!” Parsley finally screams.
The room gets quiet frighteningly fast. His dad just stares at him, his face slack with a cocktail of confusion, surprise, and what Parsley wants to hope is sadness.
Suddenly, all the anger and half-hearted bravado flies out of Parsley’s chest. His arms fall to his sides, and he’s left panting with the exertion of having just spilled out a flood of emotions that have been building since he was in elementary school. He doesn’t feel relieved. He just feels tired.
And then he starts crying. Which is just... great. As if this night needed some extra turmoil to really polish things off. Like most times, he can’t even stop himself; he was never good about not wearing his heart on his sleeve. Not his anger, not his disappointment, and definitely not his heartache. It’s not even a “dignified cry”, as his dad would put it— he’s hiding his face in his hands, and he can’t stop his shoulders from shaking every time he tries to suck in a stuttery breath.
He probably looks pretty pathetic right now, Parsley thinks. And in a few moments he’ll hear his dad get up and walk out of his apartment while mumbling something about seeing him later. And then in about a week’s time, Parsley will answer the phone, hear his dad’s voice, and both of them will never speak of this night ever again.
But something different happens.
Instead, he feels his dad’s sturdy hands take him by the shoulders and pull him into a firm hug. It’s an awkward thing; Parsley’s hands were still covering his face, so now they’re kind of pinned to his chest, and his dad is squeezing him just slightly too hard. They’re both out of practice, really.
Before Parsley can manage a “whuh” in response, he hears more than sees his dad take in a big, faltering breath while his shoulders start to shake. Parsley has only seen his dad cry a handful of times in his life. Most of them happened around the time the divorce was finalized. But after that... Nothing.
Jimothan makes a wounded noise of a sob. “Y-You’re— God, sprig, I would never...” he starts, but can’t find the words to finish. Parsley manages to find it in himself to forgive his dad for that pretty easily. He’s never been the most eloquent when it comes to emotional outbursts. Parsley manages to wriggle his arms free, and wraps them around his dad. The older man lets out a little sniffle in response, and then starts to run his hand down his son’s messy head of hair. It only catches a few times.
“You’re all I got, Parsley,” his dad mumbles through the thickness in his voice. “You’re all I got.”
Parsley lets himself cry just a little bit more, his chest finally starting to feel lighter than it has in years. The two of them exist like that for a while— clumsily hugging and crying and mumbling little fragments of things they’ve both been meaning to say. At some point they’ll have to break apart, and at some point the night will have to end. They’ll part ways with slightly stilted goodbyes, and very likely won’t speak of this night for at least a few months. But for now, they both let themselves have this moment.
And it’s not much, but it’s enough.
22 notes
·
View notes
Text
PSA: drunk driving isn't a FUCKING joke, guys.
I'm sharing this to vent, and also to make how fucking destructive drunk driving is a bit more real for all of you who haven't been unfortunate enough to witness it firsthand.
tw: blood, trauma, death. like, actual, real-life fucking death. i saw a kid die today. i literally watched a child die today over some FUCKING ALCOHOL.
I still can't get over the irony of the billboard I saw before it happened. It was one of those that warns against drunk driving, but in that witty, "memorable" sort of way or whatever. I remember commenting about how much of an issue it was in our area if they were putting up fucking billboards about it, but I didn't really think much of it past that. Looking back, maybe it was supposed to be a sign or something.
We came across him maybe ten, fifteen minutes later, heading north on the highway. He was driving on the right shoulder in his stupid red pickup, southbound against the flow of traffic. I found out later that he was going about 70-75mph. My mom's an excellent defensive driver, so she got over to avoid him and honked. I live in a relatively rural area, so the highway's usually pretty empty. I think that's the only reason he hadn't hit anyone sooner. But there was a lady in a white truck behind us. Right after we'd passed him, literally right behind us, he decided to speed up and swerve into traffic. The memory's some weird mix of hazy and clear now, but he drove right into her. Almost head-on. Their cars crumpled like aluminum foil. They were fucking mangled. Had anyone been in the passenger seat of either one, they would've been absolutely pulverized.
I asked one of the EMTs, later, how often she saw accidents this bad. She said that she saw them once maybe every five years, at least in our area. But she said that this was probably the worst she'd seen, just because of how many kids were involved.
The lady in the white truck had a young toddler with her, who was mostly okay because she'd strapped him into a car seat. (He was bleeding from his mouth, but it turned out he'd just bitten his tongue, or so I heard. My sister still has his blood on her shirt from carrying him.) His mom couldn't move her arm; she said she broke it. She had a really, really bad gash on her forehead, and another one down near her ankle. Her face was covered in blood. It looked like the movies. She was really calm once she found out that her baby was okay, just pissed. She had a hair appointment, she kept saying. How was she supposed to get to her fucking hair appointment with a fucking broken arm.
The guy was drunk off his fucking ass. His hands were covered in blood, though I don't know from where, and he was just...looking at them. Looking at all the blood. I thought he was on some kind of drugs at first (yes, that's a pretty big problem in rural areas), but then my mom asked him if he'd been drinking. He just looked away and kind of sighed, and then said "No" after a really long pause. I knew then that he had. It was too early to be drinking. The sun hadn't even set yet. I was too stressed to even register smell, aside from all the car fuel and the asphalt and the heat, but I heard from the cops later that you could smell the liquor on his breath. It was to the point where he wasn't even in his right mind. He kept saying his wife was in the passenger seat. There was nobody in the passenger seat.
He had three kids with him. The oldest went into shock pretty quickly, but I don't think he was hurt. My sister said she saw him later, once the first responders had arrived. He was just sitting in the back of an ambulance, staring vacantly. The youngest was a sweet little girl that my mom held for a while. She had bruising on her forehead, and she was bleeding from her nose. She said that she hurt everywhere. Bruises started appearing all over her body the more time passed. She could move her arms to cling to my mom, but she couldn't move her hands. She was airlifted off of the highway in the second chopper that landed. Last I saw her, she was on a stretcher in a neck brace. She was only 4.
When the lady who'd been following the drunk guy from the other side of the highway pulled out the middle child, he was unconscious. He'd been sitting in the middle seat; he'd only been wearing a lap belt. He wasn't breathing, and he didn't have a pulse. He just lay there on the pavement next to his dad's truck (stepdad's, I found out later, as the drunk guy corrected the lady when she screamed at him that he'd fucking killed his son. She was a godsend, and coincidentally, also a respiratory therapist). I watched his stomach go up and down, up and down with the chest compressions while the dispatcher kept talking in my ear. He was bleeding from his nose, so much blood, so much blood that it was pooling on the pavement under his head. It was surreal. I've only ever seen that shit in movies. It's not fucking "glamorous" or "exciting" or "dramatic" in real life at all. It's stressful and traumatizing. I don't wish witnessing that on anyone.
She managed to get him to start breathing once, just for a brief minute. I saw his nostrils flare, and his eyes opened just a little bit. His sclera, from what little I could see, were red like the toddler's mom's had been. I only remembered after the fact that that was an indicator of head trauma. I thought that maybe he'd be okay. But he wasn't. His pulse stopped again, and so did his breathing. He went under, and didn't come back up.
My mom asked one of the EMTs later if he made it, if he'd be okay. I learned today that EMTs can't divulge that kind of information. But I knew even before she walked away, even before my sister told me later that as long as she looked to have been in the business, she was visibly emotional. I knew even before the state trooper told us he was certain that "one of the kids probably wasn't going to make it." I knew when I saw his lips turn blue, when the first responders didn't arrive for a good ten to fifteen minutes and she'd only gotten him breathing once. He hadn't been getting oxygen for too long. I just...I just knew.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope he made it, once they got him to the hospital in what I'm pretty sure was the first ambulance to leave. But I don't think that I am.
He couldn't have been much older than 8. He'd shared a name with a character from Voltron. I don't think I'll ever be able to hear that name the same again.
It was the kind of accident you hear about on the news, where you see the pulverized cars and you go, "Oh shit, that was a bad accident!" But you don't think much of it, because you didn't see it happen. You didn't see all the blood. You didn't attach names to the people who were involved, with faces and lives and personalities.
It was the kind of accident where they brought out yellow tape. They completely shut down that half of the highway. There were probably a dozen plus law enforcement vehicles on the scene, sheriffs and police and state troopers. I think there were four ambulances there at one point, maybe even five. They called in two separate choppers, one for the oldest boy, I believe, and one for the girl who couldn't move her hands. It almost didn't seem real. It still almost doesn't seem real. I wonder what the drunk guy is going to think when he comes down off of his high.
That lady didn't deserve that. Her toddler didn't deserve that. That guy's kids didn't deserve that. His stepson died because was drunk driving! He was a fucking kid! He didn't fucking deserve that!
I wish there was some way I could help--start a GoFundMe, maybe, to help pay for their medical expenses. But I didn't get their contact information. I don't know how else to help.
I don't know what the point of all that was. Maybe just to vent. Maybe just to spread my story, what I saw. To make drunk driving more real for the people who haven't had to witness how fucking destructive it is, how it literally ruins people's lives in fucking seconds. I hadn't known before. I mean, I had, but I hadn't really known. Hearing about things and actually seeing them are two very different things.
If you happen to find this and feel moved by it, please feel free to reblog, repost, whatever. I just want to raise a bit of awareness about how truly, truly destructive drunk driving is.
#v.txt#tw vent#vent post#thinking out loud#PSA: DON'T FUCKING DRIVE DRUNK.#i saw a kid fucking die today#first responders#i have so much more respect for you guys now oh my gosh
16 notes
·
View notes
Photo
THE LDWS ENTRIES FOR WEEK 1 ARE IN!
Now it’s your turn to READ&VOTE!
Let’s refresh your memory first.
This week the word count was 100 words and this was the prompt:
[drabbles below the line]
HOW DO YOU VOTE?
Read all the drabbles.
Choose three that you like the most.
Fill out this VOTING FORM, telling us your favourites. (You can even leave anonymous feedback for the author).
NOTE: If you are a competitor, you CANNOT vote for your own fic. But please, do vote. :)
The voting period ends at 11:59 PM EST on Sunday night. Results will be posted and anonymous feedback will be emailed on Monday.
#1
Title: 100 Seconds
Author: sorion
Warnings: implied canon-typical violence
Summary: Seconds counting down to words that count.
"One hundred seconds, 007," Q says.
Bond knows. His reliable inner countdown always lets him know how close death is. Eighty seconds until he has to be off the empty German plane.
Sixty-eight seconds to not only outwit his personal death, but the death of everyone the crashing plane will kill in London.
Forty-seven to break the auto pilot, divert destiny from its path and the plane into the channel.
Thirty to grab a parachute, listen to the increasingly panicky voice in his ear.
"James! Fifteen seconds!"
Thirteen seconds for a jump and three words.
"I'm coming home."
Two.
One.
#2
Title: Delayed
Author: Ksania/Starrboned
Warnings: None
Summary: It wasn't flying that scared Q the most.
The stuttering departure board snaps into place, merciless and cold.
Delayed.
Impatient, Q taps his fingers against his thigh.
It wasn't flying that scared Q. He knew better than most how safe planes were, the intricate mechanisms that kept them afloat.
They didn't always land; Q waits for the inevitable to happen.
His eyes blink with the board: one, two, ten thousand - the seconds melt into months. Q stands still while the airport is buzzing around him.
"Q?" James's voice cuts like lightning through fog. "Have you been waiting for long?"
Q shakes his head, smiling thinly.
"Not at all."
#3
Title: Flight Plan
Author: Anyawen
Warnings: None
Summary: A chance sighting requires changes on the fly.
Be a dear and change my flight, won't you?
You'll survive 3 hours in economy class.
FIN2424 to Valencia. Leaves in 35 min.
I'm not a bloody travel agent. Book your own holiday.
I had been hoping to get back to London. Spend some time spoiling your cats. And you. Unfortunately ... <image0805202013.jpg>
… That's Nīkau Tama.
Indeed. They're announcing last call for boarding.
Keep your pants on.
Where's the fun in that?
Ticket confirmation is in your email.
Thank you, darling.
Just catch the bastard and come home, then you can thank me properly.
I prefer 'improperly'.
...
So do I.
#4
Title: Seatmates
Author: IrishWitch58
Warnings: None
Summary: Departure lounges are lonely, until they're not.
Airport departure boards were depressing if you rarely had the chance to decide your destination yourself. Bond watched the crowds as he waited for his flight to be posted. He was supposed to be accompanied by a Q branch expert but they were late. He'd kissed Q goodbye early this morning, holding him close in the grey dawn light. Saying goodbye was getting harder lately. Someone moved up next to him and he blinked. “Q? But you hate flying.”
“Overstated,” Q responded succinctly. “Valencia is warmer than London and I hate cold worse. There are perks. We're going first class.”
#5
Title: Boarding
Author: SouffleGirl91
Warnings: None
Summary: He waits to board the plane.
“Flight BA25007 to Kingston is now boarding.”
Heaving a sigh, he stood, clutching his ticket. Was he really doing this? Boarding a plane to Jamaica on the trail of a washed-up double-oh, just to tell him- no. No thinking about that right now. That could wait. It was a long flight. Plenty of time to decide how to tell him.
Shuffling into line, he fingered his passport. He missed having the power to skip the rigmarole and just board. But this wasn’t a sanctioned mission.
The new Quartermaster had better things to do.
This was personal. Bond had to know.
#6
Title: Homeward Bound
Author: Iambid/Flantastic
Warnings: None
Summary: It’s late, Q’s tired and James’s flight is due.
Heathrow is deserted.
Q is alone in the waiting area except for a lone family, waiting for a loved one. He’s waiting for James. He’s not sure if James ever thought of him as a loved one, not since Madeleine…
The arrivals board clatters, the quaintly old-fashioned sound waking him from his doze. He’s so tired, should have been in bed hours ago, but James asked him to be there and even after everything, he can’t say no to him.
He thinks to himself that maybe James is the loved one as he stands stiffly and waits for his agent.
#7
Title: Vision
Author: sunaddicted
Warnings: none
Summary: some dreams are bound to never become real
"I had a dream"
Raoul stretched amidst the rumpled sheets, reaching out to land a hand on James' belly "A nice one?"
"I was at an airport"
"Why?"
"Leaving"
"For?"
"I'm not sure, the flight details kept blurring and changing on the board" James looked down at Raoul, as if the key to his dream lay amidst those distorted features "I was leaving London. Permanently. It felt better than I always thought it would" shame burned on his tongue.
Raoul hummed, thumb tracing the pucker of a scar "It was just a dream" and like one, they had no future.
#8
Title: Fight and Flight
Author: stormofsharpthings
Warnings: no Archive warnings apply
Summary: All the comforts of the first-class lounge
It hadn’t been his finest moment, Bond admitted as he prowled through BritishAir’s first-class lounge. He’d had a monumentally stupid fight with Q and stormed out, demanding to take the next mission available.
The departure board flickered. His flight was delayed again and Bond groaned — more hours of inaction to brood over his poor behaviour.
He paced until the board flickered again, showing a further delay, and he slumped, defeated.
After a while, he rubbed his face and looked up glumly.
COME HOME, it flickered.
Bond sighed, a rueful smile emerging, wondering if make up sex was an option.
#9
Title: Time and Place
Author: Venstar
Warnings: none
Summary: Travel
It was a simple process. Approach the board and wait.
“Time Agent 007.”
The only acknowledgment of his name spoken softly through his earpiece was the slight turn of his head.
“Your countdown. 5,4,3,2,1…” The voice trailed off as the board flickered before 007’s eyes divulging his next destination. “You will have seventy-two hours to complete your mission. Good luck in 2424.”
“And when I’m done? How about dinner, Q?”
If a snort could sound posh, leave it to Q to figure that trick out.
Q countered his offer. “How about you return my equipment in one piece?”
“With pleasure.”
#10
Title: The Destination Board
Author: ladymars
Warnings: No Warnings Apply (Canon Character Death?)
Summary: M remains vigilant, even after everything.
She finds the oddest device when she first arrives. A departure board flickering with the destinations of the colleagues she had left behind. M does remember that 008 was to be deployed to Havana and that R had a conference at Frankfurt. Her new friends here tell her there's much more to explore and enjoy, now that she has time to repose, but she decides to linger. No rest for the wicked, of course. She catches an expected arrival at Altaussee, Austria followed by an unexpected one. Huh. She should have suspected he would have boarded a plane for him.
#11
Title: Trinity
Author: sparklycitrus
Warnings: None
Summary: An unholy alliance.
When the airport bulletins all over Europe began to glitch, Q was at home, packing. He’d already given away his cats, and the only things he was taking consisted of a single suitcase and his laptop. The train ticket Bond had sourced him sat securely in his pocket. He was cutting it a bit close, but there should still be time left before everything crashed. Literally.
In a remote part of Russia, Raoul Silva turned from the camera feeds to the man next to him. “Clever boy,” he commented, to which Bond merely smiled, as they watched the chaos unfold.
#12
Title: Buggering Off
Author: AtoTheBean
Warnings: None
Summary: He shouldn’t hope...
JB: Where are you?
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
NLQ: How did you get this number?
JB: That doesn’t answer my question, Q.
NLQ: No longer Q, actually. You’re not the only one who gets to retire and bugger off.
JB: I came back.
NLQ: Then you can carry on destroying someone else’s tech.
JB: ...
JB: Please. I need to talk with you. Just give me a hint.
He shouldn’t hope… shouldn’t invite this man into his fresh start. His thumb hovers above the screen.
He snaps a picture of the split-flap departures board, hits “send,” and runs for the gate.
#13
Title: (dis)quiet
Author: azure3795
Warnings: none
Summary: Waiting for an arrival.
Slots on the display board are flipping, a monotonous voice from the PSA intercom ever drowned out by the bustling of people arriving and departing drones on, and he waits.
He cradles a travel cup in his hands, the half drained beverage inside long since gone cold and sloshes around with dead weight. Logically, he knows it no longer provides the spot of warmth he seeks.
No matter.
“Q?”
He nearly jumps, but uses the momentum to plaster on a smile that doesn’t resemble a grimace. Good enough.
“Bond,” Q greets and thinks not of the Walther in his bag.
#14
Title: A Grand Romantic Gesture
Author: scarytheory
Warnings: none
Summary: Q is waiting for his flight to Berlin.
He was drinking his second coffee when Bond came.
“What are you doing here? Don't tell me you're trying to stop me in some grand romantic gesture?” he was joking, but his smile faded when he saw Bond's reaction.
“Oh, God. You are, aren't you?”
Bond sighed: “I'm bad at this. I should have prepared a speech. Or should I sing?”
“Please don't.”
“Just… Can you please stay? For me.”
For a moment Q wished he could do that. But nothing would change, he knew that, and deep down, even Bond knew it.
“Goodbye, James.”
The plane was leaving soon.
Thank you to our amazing drabble writers for their contributions this week!
Edited: Voting is now closed and results are in! You can view them here!
66 notes
·
View notes
Text
mtmte liveblog issue 9
back at it again, and its time for the shadowplay arc, HELL yeah
oh I'm so excited i love this arc lets DO this
oooh its nightbeat and quark!! way before they become relevant, which is so cool
‘one of those recepticon fanatics’ lmao imagine if they were...the recepticons. just doesn't have the same ring to it
god i fucking love all the politics of mtmte. i love how they’re talking about the senate here before we really get to See how bad they were (we heard a bit about it from whirl a few issues ago, and now here)
love how nightbeat is pretty much agreeing with the decepticon ideology here, even if its clear that he isn't Actually a decepticon - it just drives home the fact that, in this story, The Decepticons Were Right About A Lot Of That Stuff (or at least, they had a reason other than ‘destruction’ for rebelling).
AND THEN THERES RUNG!!!!!!! WITH HIS MODEL OF THE LOST LIGHT....god i fuckgin LOVE the continuity in this story bc the first time reading this ur like oh ok rung is old yea makes sense...but then later all the time travel stuff happens and then its like OHHHHH
damn poor rung nightbeat can rlly tell he's lonely just by looking at him vbhjdkdfhbjsjkdf geez. also nightbeat that's ur mystery stick bf from the future js!!
quarks extreme POV on all of the stuff is so interesting, and makes so much sense bc of Course he would think that as a non-combatant scientist who, due to his functional value in current society, wouldn't really benefit much from a revolution - in fact, he’d probably lose a lot. and that’s the sort of thing where you’re like, ok well think about everyone else dude, have some perspective - but at the same time, quark did suffer a pretty terrible fate, so his fears weren't entirely unfounded...augh, its so fascinating...im sorry I'm not gonna shut up about space robot politics this Entire time
HOW did nobody notice that dead body before now
ratchet spray-painting the hands he stole from pharma to match his own paintjob is like...kinda gruesome if you think about it hvbhsjkdfbkjdf
i love rewind sooo much oh my god
he rlly stashed rung’s comatose body in a wheelchair behind the bar hbkjdhfbshjkdf rewind
rewind and chromedome’s tag-team explanation....ough hhhhh THEM
wait a sec, rewind, you have medical records in your database? that is, at least according to regular medical laws, very illegal lmao. my favorite long-running theme in mtmte: the fact that hipaa and osha laws on cybertron are either basically nonexistent, or just universally disregarded
what the actual fuck is up w/cybertronian time units. that shit is wack as hell
ooh i love how chromedome looks different in the flashback - no shoulder tires! - that's a cool detail
how come prowl just said ‘minute,’ rewind was busting it up w/all the wack ass fantasy time units just a second ago. geez
also goddd i love the scenery of pre-war cybertron, its SUCH a cool setting like, visually and aesthetically and politically
like, i adore details like the sign in the bg that says ‘everyone’s shape serves a purpose.’ really adds to the ‘society on the precipice of civil war currently controlled by an increasingly-desperate faction who are doling out propaganda like crazy in an attempt to maintain their image and control over the populace’ vibe
good ole murder mystery setup. love it!
pre-war prowl is such an interesting character. actually prowl in general is such an interesting character...I kinda wrote him off during my first read of mtmte (and even a little during my second readthru) as just this dude who’s an asshole (espec bc my prev tf experience involved watching tfa as a kid, and this prowl is very different from tfa prowl lol)...but prowl is SUCH a multi-faceted and interesting character, even in the relatively little we see of him in mtmte
plus it was interesting to learn later that prowl was one of the characters that jro wanted for mtmte and didn't get, and MAN i wish he got prowl bc I would've loved to see what jro would've done w/prowl on the lost light, that would've been amazing. like, just imagine the arc he would have...I have no idea what that arc would BE, but I know it would be awesome. plus I’d be really interested to see how prowl would factor in, relationships-wise, amongst the crew of the lost light. so much potential!
anyways. I'm in a very talky mood tonight it seems. its currently 4 am so that kinda explains it. ok, moving on!
chromedome and prowl bantering....in their own morbid forensic-cop way...
skids bvhjdbsfjasf. speaking what we’re all thinking: is prowl gonna keep showing up in mtmte despite not technically being part of the cast??
swerves drawing of prowl lmaoooo
AND THEN REWIND IN SOME OF MY FAVORITE MTMTE PANELS....fuckgin cracks me up every time god. rewind was rlly about to flip their entire ass table just to demonstrate that prowl is a serial table-flipper...and then he cant even make the table budge and he just stares at his hands like ‘how could you betray me like this’ hvbajkhhsfdhksdf PEAK hilarity
drift hvbshfdjbasdfj his forcibly cheery expression even tho he’s being harassed by rodimus, who is a big whiny toddler w/drift lmao
rodimus is the type of guy who, upon drift not replying to one of his texts, would post a whole twitter thread being all like ‘these days u cant trust any1 to hav ur back...u think u kno someone and then they just ghost you...(1/14)’
again, rewind, HOW and WHY do you just Have medical reports, oh my god, somebody please call a hipaa agent I’m scared,
ratchet interrupting the story to give a quick medical PSA....that's Such an on-brand thing for Me to do that I feel like jro is assigning me ratchet kin as I read this
also, hey, its sonic and boom, those two decepticons from delphi! nice little continuity there
AND HERES ORION PAX SUPER COP
can’t believe idw made my dad optimus prime into a cop. smh. shouldn't be that shocked tho, I feel like half the idw characters are cops
orion rlly hit them w/the omae wa mo shinderu arrest strat
orion: I cant believe you're beating this guy up. anyways, now I'm gonna beat YOU up,
when ratchet puts his hand over drifts mouth and then gets spray paint on drifts face bhjdfsvsdjhfgbjdskf
pre-war ratchet and drift ;_; ratchet’s little inspirational speech...the fact that he tells drift that he’s special...the fact that drift remembered all of this even after 4 million+ yrs...it gets me bro it GETS me
ALSO the layers in the fact that drift then goes on to become a well-known murderous decepticon...so this little scene of him and ratchet in the past gives a lot of context to ratchet’s general attitude towards drift - ratchet clearly feels at least somewhat responsible for all the blood on drift’s hands, since he saved drift’s life way back in the day
the whole relinquishment clinic thing is such cool worldbuilding, bc of course that's the kind of thing that would develop in a society of robot aliens who are only allowed to work within the rigid confines of their alt mode
I love the whole matrix thing bc its kinda like being the pope or st but also you have a ton of political sway, so its a super important position, so of Course the corrupt senate would want full control over that power, and would assassinate the current prime to try to get their own guy in
god vhbhjsdkbgshjdf rodimus is such a dick lmao poor drift
HHHHH I love that the cybertronian version of an autopsy is taking the dudes body apart into the smallest components and laying them all out. that's so fucking cool
hmmmm chromedome maybe you should Not be interested in mnemology, how about that,
oh god. time to start being sad about op and senator shockwave. oh god
senator shockwave more like senator sexy
also the first time I read this I thought I had just missed his name and like halfway thru the story I went back and scoured the pages looking for it hbvhsjdfbshgfdsbj then I was like oh ok so we’re maybe supposed to just know who this guy is from another comic? but NOPE it was very deliberate and I only realized very close to the end that they were setting up some sort of reveal
its funny bc normally I'm not a huge fan of stories where politics play a huge role but I fuckgin love it here, the politics and worldbuilding is all so interesting and also balanced out with a healthy dose of cool sci-fi hijinks, so
lmao there's chromedome being obsessed w/people making the ‘pfft’ sound
also wow yet more hindsight, maybe you Shouldn’t be so interested in the Institute, chromedome,
OHHHH shit I forgot abt the red alert stuff happening at the same time as this :( :( :(
AUGHHH what a fucked up situation. god
oooof i gotta continue now!! what a solid issue, I love the shadowplay arc
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
How to Write an Accurate Lifeguard AU
So! It’s summer, which means everyone is writing lifeguarding AUs, and I, a lifeguard, am subjected to the same common mistakes being written over and over, so I’ve taken it upon myself to inform the public as best I can, because information is the best gift you can give anyone, especially a writer.
Before we begin, a PSA: I’m Canadian, so my information is valid primarily in Canada, and might be slightly different in other countries. I also guard at an outdoor summer pool, so my experience (and my advice) will be focused on how to write that experience, though I will talk a bit about guarding lakes and beaches. Cool? Cool! Let’s go!
Least to Most Dangerous Places to Guard:
Outdoor Pools: Low incident levels. Good visibility in the water, lots of people on shift at once, limited area for people to swim. Especially if you work at a private pool, like me, where people have to pay a membership fee, and are generally strong/experienced swimmers unlikely to experience a drowning incident.
Lakes (at a dock): Higher incident levels, and lower visibility in the water. With the added presence of things like rocks and branches in the water, injuries to feet are common. Drowning incidents are more common because it’s more difficult to tell where the bottom is, and you’ll probably be getting less experienced swimmers. Docks have a tendency to be very slippery, so you’ll probably get a few people hurting themselves there too. (Fun fact, if a lifeguard tells you not to run, it’s because they don’t want you to slip! We’re not just doing it to be annoying, spinal injuries and concussions are no fun for anyone.) Even if the area people are allowed to swim in is limited, people are liable to ignore it, which poses an added danger.
Beaches (with waves): Highest incident levels. The ocean is not to be fucked with. Visibility is low, and currents and tides are liable to drag even strong swimmers out. It’s actually not as uncommon as you’d hope for lifeguards trying to help a drowning victim to end up needing to be saved themselves. Beaches also attract a lot of people, which means there are a lot of people to keep track of, many of whom might not be strong swimmers, or might even be complete non-swimmers. Again, even if the area is limited, people might ignore it. A lifeguard working at a beach will be very good at their job.
And that pretty much exhausts my knowledge of things that aren’t outdoor pools. Everything from here on out will apply to those specifically.
The Basics:
1. If someone is on chair, they aren’t going to be talking to anyone
When you’re on chair, you’re watching the pool. You have to be paying attention, because you’re the one who’s supposed to notice an incident if it happens. Unless you want to show a lifeguard being terrible at their job, they won’t be chatting while watching the pool. Shifts on chair usually last fifteen minutes at one chair, fifteen minutes at the next, with two people guarding simultaneously, though this varies depending on the pool.
2. Lifeguards are not doctors, but they aren’t useless either
Lifeguards are trained in first aid, which means we know how to treat basic injuries, perform CPR, and use a spinal board. More often than not, if there’s a major incident, we’re calling 911. However, we do have to training. Where I live, the required qualifications are a Bronze Medallion Certification, a Bronze Cross Certification, a First Aid Certification, and a National Lifeguard Certification. It took me three years to be fully qualified. The qualifications in the U.S aren’t as strenuous, but I’m not an expert, so if you have a specific area you want to look into, I suggest doing it.
3. If your character is bad with kids, they’ll be a bad lifeguard
They don’t have to be amazing, but they should be able to treat a child with at least basic courtesy. You have to spend a lot of time with kids, usually injured ones, and if you’re not good at dealing with them, you’re screwed. More often than not, lifeguards are also swim instructors and coaches, (I teach swimming lessons and the U8 synchronized swimming team) so that’s even more kids. If you just want a very simple “they only watch the pool” lifeguard, that’s also a thing, and you’ll be able to ignore later sections of this post. Nevertheless, your lifeguard should still be at least okay with kids.
4. No swearing on shift
Like I mentioned, we work with kids. That also means we have to deal with crazy parents (more on that later) and they don’t like when people swear around their kids. So, no swearing at the pool! It’s a small detail, but it does a lot for realism.
5. Crazy parents
Pool parents are all the worst parts of entitled people yelling at retail workers, overprotective helicopter parents, and ridiculously competitive parents trying to relive their glory days through their children. They can also be really cool, but showing your character having to navigate dealing with an angry parent is, again, good realism, and a fun character and relationship building tool! Lifeguards talk trash about crazy parents all the time, so if you’re writing a group, it’s a great way to show them bonding. They won’t do it on shift though (same deal as the swearing, you’ll get in trouble)
6. Not all lifeguards are equal
There is a hierarchy within the pool staff. The more years you work at a pool, the more you get payed, the better your shifts are, and the more say you get in the way the pool is run. You’ll never be fully in charge (the pool is usually managed by a committee of parents and owned by the city) but you get more responsibilities. We have supervisors we send troublesome members to, and newbies who get the worst shifts.
7. It’s not all sitting on a chair watching the pool
Lifeguards aren’t just lifeguards. They’re also custodians, teachers, and coaches. We clean the bathrooms and garbages, we sweep the deck, we vacuum the bottom of the pool, we skim the bugs off the surface, we put all the chairs and floaties away at the end of the day. That’s pretty universal, but beyond that is where things start getting more specialized, because I live in an area where most families basically live at their summer pools. I’m not sure if it’s even like this in other parts of Canada. However, if you want to add some excitement (and cute kids) to your story or AU, this is the way to do it.
I mentioned earlier that I teach swimming lessons. Everyone who wants to work as a lifeguard in my area has to take an additional course where they learn to teach the various levels of swimming lessons. If you want to get even more elaborate, pools also usually have swim teams, diving teams, synchro teams and waterpolo teams, along with things like aquafit and free swim. Adding any of those into your mix could be a fun twist on relationships, since there’s joking rivalry between a lot of the sports (especially synchro and waterpolo). Additional interaction with kids, parents, and young teenagers will be required if you plan on throwing any of these in.
8. The swimsuits are the uniform
This isn’t a huge thing, but it’s important. You have to potentially save a life in that suit. It’s going to be practical. For girls, if you’re teaching, it’s a one piece, but if you’re on chair it’s usually a bikini, which generally looks like some very full coverage underwear and a practical sports bra. Guys have swim trunks. You also aren’t allowed to wear shoes on shift, (other than flip-flops) because swimming in shoes is nigh on impossible.
9. The staff is super close
There’s drama sometimes, sure, but you have to spend your entire summer with these people. You see them every day, whether you’re working or going out together. You have bonding days, you see each other in swimsuits more often than clothes, you deal with the same annoying parents and maintenance problems. You’ve probably seen everyone drunk or at least dealing with other staff members being drunk. You go out regularly, (lifeguard parties are real, and most mornings at least half our staff is hungover) you exchange secrets and embarrassing stories during slow shifts. These are your best friends from June to September. They’re your family.
10. To be a lifeguard, you have to REALLY want it
I’ve talked about all the courses, the crazy parents, and the sheer amount of things you have to do, so this should be pretty clear. But in case you needed to be convinced further, my manager said at one of our staff meetings that they’re “trying to make sure no one’s working more than fifty hours a week”. We work all the time, in the blazing summer heat, doing a job that ranges from boring to wonderful to absolutely terrifying. If you aren’t guarding you’re teaching, if you aren’t teaching you’re coaching, if you aren’t coaching you’re actually still coaching except it’s at a different pool for a competition. It’s a lot, but if you love it, you really love it.
And Finally, a Breakdown of Why I Hate the “Fake Drowning to Get CPR” Trope
Putting aside the consent issues, it’s also stupid, and here’s why:
CPR is only performed on unconscious, non-breathing victims. That means you’d have to fake being unconscious, and hold your breath through the entire process, which is impossible. Believe me, playing victim in training is hard. Not to mention, you can’t stop your own heart, and we monitor heart rate.
Lets say you were able to fake it. It’s at this point that this bad boy come into play:
This is a pocket mask. You put it over a victim’s mouth to avoid direct mouth to mouth contact, because, you know, ew.
Now, pretend there was no pocket mask and you really think getting air violently blown into your mouth before having your ribs broken by someone desperately trying to restart your heart is a good way to get a “kiss” from the hot lifeguard. Bad news: it might not be them doing breaths.
Removing an unconscious person from the pool is hard, and is usually a two person job. So even if the object of your affections is the one getting you out of the water, they might be the one doing compressions, while the person who helped with the removal does breaths.
They’ll also be wearing gloves the whole time, because CPR can sometimes make people vomit, and they might have to scoop the vomit out of your mouth.
Romantic, right?
But wait, it gets worse, because there’s no way you’d get that far. You’d get caught as soon as they checked your breathing, your heart rate, or your consciousness level. Depending on at what point they caught you, EMS might already have been contacted, at which point you’d have several lifeguards and a whole crew of paramedics absolutely furious at you, and probably a ban from the pool.
Moral of the story, don’t do it.
Hope this was helpful to someone!
24 notes
·
View notes
Text
Only Half a Blue Sky (Chapter Four)
Rating: M
Pairing: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes
Chapter Title: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
A/N: If you're still here, thank you for sticking around! But heavens, you should not trust me. :D Of course, my beta for this chapter had been nothing short but amazing. Thank you so much 12AngelOfDarkness21 (PSA: all remaining mistakes are still mine because I can't write on/at/in properly and so much other more grammar rules). I suck at chapter summary, so I'll just gotta tell you in advance that I have introduced a new character from a different universe. The competition really. So, are y'all ready for Player 3? Well, you don't have much of a choice actually. LOL! But I'm crossing my fingers that you'll like them. And off you go and hope you enjoy!
**
**
“Addiction is tricky. For example; a man who quit smoking for eleven years spent fifteen seconds in an elevator with a man smoking a cigarette. He gave in. What I’m trying to say is , I think I love you again.”
**
**
Bucky needs to tell Steve about his conflicting emotions. Not conflicting because he’s very sure about how he feels for the other super soldier. Instead, it’s the additional person that’s messing up with his emotions, making it impossible to be satisfied with what he has, when he selfishly craves for someone who is also — supposedly — his soulmate.
He wants to curse the day that Tony muttered his name so casually, no warmth or feelings. Nothing at all. Which hurt, at some point. But not as much as it hurts now, when he can’t tell Steve or touch Tony when he desires to.
Google doesn’t have much about someone who has two soulmates. It rarely happens, according to his research, with JARVIS’ help, of course.
‘JARVIS?’ he calls out, glancing up at the ceiling, where he knows JARVIS’ cameras are located.
‘Yes, Sergeant Barnes?’ the AI dutifully replies.
Bucky likes having JARVIS around very much. The AI is such a great help these last few days, especially when Steve’s been too busy to attend to him. Not that he wants Steve to mother hen him, because that’s really not healthy at all, and besides, he’s the one who suggested independence. But he’s lost his friendship privileges with Tony after the incident .
Ah, the loathsome incident, where he’d learned that he’s Tony’s soulmate, while the engineer introduced him to Dr. Banner. And thank heavens he hadn’t uttered Tony’s name or else the genius would have found out about being bonded to Bucky.
He can’t imagine what it feels like to be tied to your parents’ murderer. What a twist of fate. Cruel, cruel fate. Tony really deserves better.
Tony’s the other person who helps him — sometimes — to ease into the current century. It’s refreshing to have him around because he doesn’t mother hen Bucky like Steve would do. It’s a bonus that he’s got a great sense of humour and a truly amazing ass.
He mentally berates himself for thinking about Tony inappropriately. He feels like he’s cheating on Steve and at the same time defiling Tony’s privacy. God, what is wrong with him?
‘J, do you know who Tony’s soulmate is?’ he asks, trying to play nonchalant again while secretly hoping the AI doesn’t see right through him. But, perhaps JARVIS does, because why else would his heart suddenly start to beat so nervously? He needs to use his Winter Soldier training and calm himself down. ‘Just out of curiosity, y’know?’ he adds when it takes time for JARVIS to reply. ‘Also, you’re not going to tell Tony that I asked, right?’
Shit! He should not have asked that at all. Maybe JARVIS has some sort of protocol that reports things back to Tony?
‘I apologise if it took time to answer your query, Sergeant Barnes,’ JARVIS says, sounding more human with his sincerity. Tony makes such awesome creations. ‘I was checking and rechecking my protocols about your first question. I have observed that Sir takes caution with the soulmate agenda.’ There’s another short pause. ‘But upon my inspection, Sir hasn’t announced the matter of his having a soulmate or not.’
Bucky tries to process the new information. It doesn’t confirm or deny his theory about Natasha and Tony.
‘And as to your last query, I would like you to be rest assured that whatever inquiry you ask from me will be kept private,’ the AI continues. ‘Unless it’s a query that conflicts with my major protocol, which is to ensure Sir’s safety along with the residents in the tower.’
He nods at JARVIS. ‘Thanks, J.’
‘Any time, Sergeant Barnes,’ the AI replies.
It’s quiet again. Bucky’s alone with his vexing thoughts.
He needs to talk to Steve. Or he’s going to go batshit crazy.
**
**
Steve’s nowhere to be found in the tower, even when Bucky’s sure that the blond’s not in the Avengers HQ. He asks JARVIS where his soulmate — his first soulmate, not Tony — is. The AI tells him that Captain Rogers is in the workshop with Sir, surprising Bucky.
The two must have mended things between them. Not that there’s something to mend about, in Bucky’s opinion. Steve wasn’t the one who killed Tony’s parents. Bucky did.
The guilt over that fact will never wear out, will never go away. But there’s still a part of him that hopes it will.
He gets into the the elevator and asks JARVIS to bring him to the workshop, trying not to fidget with all of his nerves.
It’s only when he’s on the workshop floor when he thinks that perhaps he should leave Tony and Steve alone, for now. To catch up and go back to their old routines as friends. He’s heard a lot of this so-called friendship from Steve’s own mouth, one of the reasons why Bucky had trusted Tony with his arm, even when he had had his doubts about the genius.
‘JARVIS, are they busy inside with something? Is it okay for me to intrude?’ He doesn’t want to disturb the two’s bonding time, but he’s not sure if he’s okay being all by himself right now.
‘It’s perfectly fine to enter, Sergeant Barnes,’ JARVIS replies, and opens the door for Bucky.
He steps into the controlled chaos that is Tony’s workshop. He’ll never stop being awed by the wonders of Tony’s mind and invention. The future is amazing. And he thinks it might be sixty percent because of Tony’s brilliant mind.
‘Tony,’ Steve screams, pulling Bucky out of his astonishment about Tony’s lab.
The said man is actually up in the air. But he’s also falling, for reasons Bucky hasn’t figure out yet, seeing as he only just entered the room.
Steve’s too far to catch Tony. Captain America looks more panicky than Bucky had ever seen him on this side of the century. For a second he’s reminded of Steve’s face before he’d fallen off the train. Maybe not quite that sort of panic yet, but three steps from there.
It’s only thanks to his super soldier reflexes that Bucky manages to catch Tony before the genius can hit the cold, hard floor, saving Tony from a trip to the medical bay that they both have similar hatred for.
‘Oh my god.’ Steve has a hand over his heart, traces of his fright lingering in his voice. ‘You will be the death of me,’ he tells Tony in his patented Captain-America-is-disappointed-with-you tone.
Tony scoffs and rolls his eyes at Steve. ‘That’s impossible, Capsicle,’ he states with confidence, and with as much authority he can muster while being carried in Bucky’s arms, bridal style. He’s got an arm over Bucky’s good shoulder. Good thing the man had landed with his back on the flesh arm, instead of the metal one.
‘Well, you’re always trying for the impossible,’ Steve retorts, putting both hands on his hips like a cross mother.
The genius gives Steve a proud beam. ‘One of my personal talents,’ he agrees haughtily, which only makes Steve sigh in resignation. ‘Right,’ he says like he’s only remembering that he’s still in Bucky’s arms and looking everywhere but the Winter Soldier’s face. ‘Thanks for the catch, Red October.’ He taps his other hand on Bucky’s metal shoulder. ‘It’s okay to put me down now.’
Bucky obeys. Slowly, and mutely reluctant, but he does.
‘Thanks again,’ Tony says, not meeting Bucky’s eyes for some reason.
‘Do you need to go to medical, Tony?’ Steve asks with a concern he’s trying to mask somehow. ‘Maybe you need to check if there’s a broken rib or bone.’
Tony waves off Steve’s concern and walks away from Bucky. ‘Please, Brooklyn, it’ll take more than a fire extinguisher to break me.’
‘But it almost did,’ Steve points out in annoyance.
‘And in the end, it didn’t,’ Tony concludes, walking further into the lab. He stops near the broken fire extinguisher and a robotic arm, whom Bucky believes to be DUM-E. He pats the bot’s arm, who’s beeping in what sounds like concern. ‘I’m okay, DUM-E. It’s just an experiment gone wrong.’ There’s more beeping sounds that Bucky doesn’t understand, but it seems that Tony does perfectly. ‘Well, that’s lesson learned for you too that fire extinguishers are dangerous little shits.’
‘Tony,’ Steve scolds.
‘What?’ Tony turns to them innocently, still patting DUM-E on its robotic claw.
‘You’re not supposed to swear in front of your kids,’ Steve nags without heat.
‘Right,’ Tony agrees. He turns back to DUM-E. ‘Please don’t use words like fuck and shit because Mr. Rogers gets upset, okay?’ DUM-E beeps something back.
Bucky can’t see it but he can tell the smile on Tony’s voice as he tells his robot the instruction, while in the background Steve makes another sound of protest and mutters a reprimanding, ‘Language, please.’
Tony only glances back at Steve and gives the blond a shit-eating grin, while Steve raises both hands in the air in resignation. But he doesn’t look annoyed, Bucky notes. No, Steve looks far from irritated. The blond man actually has a fond smile on his face despite his attempt to show his vexation.
Steve looks fond. At Tony.
Steve is humouring Tony.
Steve looks fond at Tony and is humouring Tony.
Fucking hell! Steve Rogers is flirting with Tony. Not blatantly, but still... flirting! And Bucky would bet Tony’s whole net worth that Steve doesn’t even know he’s flirting, and practically swooning over Tony fucking Stark.
Of course not. Steve’s loyal to the very core and he’s not going to think about cheating on Bucky. But at the same time he’s a naive punk who won’t even know he’s got a crush even when it’s staring right at him.
And on the other hand, Bucky’s actually not jealous about Steve’s obvious-but-not-so-obvious crush on Tony. On the contrary he’s quite fine with it.
He’s fine with it. Why is he fine with it? He’s not supposed to be fine with it, right? Right? But he is fine with it.
This is a wonderfully, truly fucked up situation. What even is his life right now?
**
**
‘Remind me again why I need to be here?’ Rhodey asks dryly. His smile getting tighter by the minute. Tony also notes that his best friend looks tired.
‘Because,’ he not-whines, ‘I needed a wingman. Somehow.’
Rhodey sighs in disbelief. ‘Tony, this is not what the charity event is for,’ he lectures. ‘Finding a one night stand material isn’t why Pepper wants you in these events.’
He scowls at his best friend. ‘I know, platypus,’ he agrees, winding his arm through Rhodey’s. ‘But this is the best place to find someone of my calibre.’ The black man only narrows his eyes at him, as if he’s trying to piece Tony’s thoughts together.
‘You’re not dying from another poisoning, are you?’ He sounds worried, and Tony hates that Rhodey has to have some traumatic stress because of him.
‘No.’ He shakes his head. ‘I just need a new distraction,’ he explains as he subtly eyes Steve from across the room, laughing at whatever Sam is telling him. He looks away immediately, in the fear of getting caught by Rhodey or Steve. ‘I’ve been thinking about settling down these last few months. Maybe.’
Rhodey only stares at him, studying Tony’s face and reading him. ‘That’s great.’
‘Yeah,’ he agrees, and gives his best friend a smile. He expects Rhodey to ask him about details for his plan to settle down, or about his soulmate. But his darling sugar plum didn’t. Thank heavens for that. Because honestly, he’s not sure how he’s going to answer that query.
How does one tell your best friend that you’ve found your soulmate, but will settle for someone else? It’s not very common for people to ignore their soulmates and marry someone else, because such relationship are often doomed. Take Howard and Maria’s for example. Only a lucky few has been able to defy the laws of the universe, been able to stay happy and together despite not marrying their soulmates.
And Tony plans on being one of those lucky few, or so help him.
Besides, if he doesn’t find a suitable proxy, Natasha did say she’ll marry him. So, he’s not really losing here. In your face, universe.
His eyes wander to Steve again. He knows he said he’s going to let go, that he needs to stop being such a fool and move on. For Steve’s sake. And for his own sake, too.
Steve’s in navy blue tux, perfectly fitting him. He looks beautiful like he always does, but even more so than usual. And he’s standing there in radiance, representing everything Tony wants but can never have.
The pain follows like it always does, because fuck his life. Nobody has died of heartache though, right? He will survive this. He’s Tony Stark. Stark men are made of iron.
‘Shall we go rub elbows with your potential spouse?’ Rhodey teases, knowing exactly when best to pull Tony out of his dark thoughts. And this is why he likes Rhodey the best.
He wishes he’d been mated to Rhodey instead. That would have been easy. It’s never painful with Rhodey, it’s always easy. As easy as breathing.
‘Lead the way, sour patch,’ he replies.
**
**
Who knew trying to find a prospective mate is as hard as looking for a needle in a haystack. The answer is to bring a magnet. But he’s not quite sure if the magnet that he often uses to make people fawn over him is enough to pull a genuine needle towards him.
And try he will to attract the perfect needle to himself, metaphorically speaking. He’s always been a firm believer in not giving up unless tested thoroughly, until the facts and evidences are as clear as day.
So, he’s going to endeavour this boring gala when he could be in his shop right now and inventing something that could change the world. Or maybe just play catch with DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers. He’d probably formulate a few new schematics out of that. That’s how boring this gala is, all pretentious smiles and fake conversations with people who probably talk ill-mannered things about him behind his back.
But he’s here for charity and Avenger business. The team needs to shake a few hands and keep their ears on the floor for any information about the current HYDRA base they are trying to track, whom they think have stolen Loki’s magical sceptre from SHIELD.
And just to reprimand himself, he keeps himself to the opposite side of the room, where he’s going to be safely away from the Wonder Twins. Steve’s a distraction enough, not to add one James Barnes into the mess that is Tony’s errant emotions.
He truly needs to stop this pining and move on. But also, why was Rhodey taken away by those military guys for “classified” conversation, when he needed someone to distract him from his own lack of self-preservation? And Pepper’s not even here to help him out either. He should have gone with her to that Spain meeting instead.
‘Tell me, Stark,’ a deep husky voice begins, ‘how’s the green energy front doing?’
Tony’s almost annoyed at being disturbed with his long distance ogling, but he reminds himself that it’s for the best.
‘I can’t say financially better than before because that would be a lie,’ he tells the other billionaire, Bruce Wayne, owner of Wayne Enterprise. ‘But it’s doing great because I’m still richer than you.’ He flashes the man a smug grin.
Wayne only gives him a tight smile. ‘And still funnier, I see.’
‘Of course, Mr. Wayne,’ he agrees. ‘That’s my best selling trait.’ He winks at the man.
The other billionaire only gives a quiet amused huff in return.
‘How is it that you two are here together when there are people out there dying to talk with you?’ Dr. Helen Cho asks rhetorically as she approaches them.
‘Helen,’ Tony exclaims. ‘You’re here. And Banner didn’t even say you were coming.’ He wounds his arms with her. ‘It feels like he’s trying to have you all to himself when he knows very much how I love talking to you.’
‘I don’t think I can say the same about you, Dr. Stark,’ she replies, a small teasing smile on her lips.
But before Tony can react and pretend to be hurt, the other man clears his throat to insert himself in the conversation. ‘Dr. Cho,’ Wayne says as a way of greeting and reaches over for Helen’s free hand to kiss the back of it.
‘Mr. Wayne.’ She offers him a smile as he lets go of her hand. ‘It’s surprising to see you in a Stark event.’
‘Makes me curious too,’ Tony adds, attention back at the other billionaire. ‘I mean, you’re usually only out of your cave for Halloween events, right?’ He looks at him from head to toe, the man wearing a dark black tux, along with everything else that’s as dark as the night. His face is also fixed on a feature that Tony would call a Resting Bitch Face. ‘Although, it’s quite refreshing to have you out and about on these special occasions and representing your goth cult.’
Wayne doesn’t react at all, doesn’t break his stoic eye contact with Tony at the unnecessary comments that most would find annoying. No, Bruce is different. He’s perfectly confident in his own skin, so banters and insults don’t stir him at all.
The black haired man studies Tony for a few more seconds as if waiting for the genius to add more jokes on Bruce’s expense. And when there’s none, he merely looks down at his glass of scotch and stirs it slowly, knowing full well that his two companions are watching and waiting for him to say something in response. But the air in him says so otherwise, Tony notes.
One businessman to another, Tony knows how to read the other like a book. Everybody has telltales, according to Natasha. And right now, Wayne isn’t up to retaliate, but he’s luring them in by acting nonchalant about Tony’s statement, making them wait for whatever is going to happen next. Not to mention the sudden mysterious pause, as if he’s contemplating on something.
And people like them value their time. So, if they are giving it some time to think it over, it means it’s important. Bruce knows that Tony knows this too and he’s taking this opportunity.
‘You might be surprised as to what pulled me here tonight, Stark,’ he states smugly before taking a small sip of his scotch, not breaking eye contact with Tony. He brings his glass down and licks his lips, eyes still not leaving Tony’s. ‘I can promise that it will blow your mind.’
Tony’s only a man. A weak man who hasn’t gotten laid in a long time, so no one should judge him if Wayne’s words pushed his mind into the gutter. And, in his additional defence, Wayne is gorgeous too, even not adding that deep raspy voice. He can imagine that voice whispering filthy things to him while Wayne fu—
Okay, not the time. Not even if he’s trying to move on from Steve and denying his growing infatuation for James. Sometimes his libido and heart just can’t work logically. Both keep wanting things that are bad for him.
On the other hand, maybe what he needs is a quick fuck to forget about Steve. Pepper won’t approve of that solution, and it’ll only get him in hot water with the redhead if he creates more scandal when they’re groundbreaking in Europe with the green energy this month.
‘Now, that’s an offer I can’t refuse.’ He gives Wayne a lewd smile, expecting the other man to either show a hint of annoyance or back off completely. But, contrary to his prediction, Wayne’s eyes only grew more eager. Interesting.
They’ve known each other for a while, since that terrible Stark Expo where Vanko extracted his revenge. And they’ve always been competitive with each other. So, he’s out of his depths as to why Wayne is even interested, and since when.
That, or Tony’s reading it all wrong. But whether Wayne is indeed promising him what Tony is fantasising, or it’s truly just business related, he’s willing to find out either way because it’s the very distraction that he needs.
‘Trust me, you won’t regret it. I’ll make sure of that,’ Wayne vows solemnly, a layer of the smugness from awhile back vanishes, replaced by a small earnest smile. ‘Shall we, Stark?’ He offers his hand out to Tony like the proper gentleman he is.
He’s not sure if Wayne’s voice was suddenly softer than they were before, or if Tony’s imagining shit again. And for the life of him, he didn’t blush. He didn’t. Or maybe he did because Helen’s trying not to smile at Tony’s reaction. He’s not actually sure what’s on his face right now because he didn’t see this coming from Wayne.
He composes himself again and puts on his media mask. ‘Well, since I’ve always been up for anything different,’ he replies lightly and takes Wayne’s offered hand. ‘I guess I’ll see you around, Dr. Cho.’ He unwinds his other arm from hers and places a kiss on her cheek.
‘Sure, Tones.’ She kisses him back and whispers, ‘Enjoy. But not too much.’ And when she pulls back she winks at him cheekily.
Tony laughs at that. Bruce might be right and he’s becoming a bad influence on her. ‘And if you see my dear Rhodey, please tell him Goth Man has me, okay?’ he says while winding his arm through Wayne’s. Helen nods. ‘And you,’ he turns to Wayne, ‘stop calling me Stark it sounds as if we’re strangers when we’re practically frenemies.’ He rolls his eyes at the man.
‘Fine,’ Wayne agrees, though it sounds more like it’s a compromise and not something he happily obliged to. And Tony needs to remember that Wayne is a businessman like himself, who often doesn’t agree to someone else’s demand. They are people who are used to other people agreeing with their condition. ‘As long as you stop calling me Wayne, as well.’
Ah, there’s the compromise.
The other man leads them away from Helen slowly, and they talk as they walk.
‘Fine,’ he agrees, copying Wayne’s — Bruce’s — tone. ‘But that would be very confusing, y’know?’ The other billionaire gives him a quizzical look. ‘I already have a Bruce in my life… Dr. Banner.’ And if Bruce notices that Tony says his name deliberately, the other man doesn’t seem to mind.
‘I’m sure you will find a way to clear all the confusion, Tony,’ Bruce reasons. Maybe he says Tony’s name like it matters, like Tony has value, but it’s not enough.
Tony needs to accept that anyone can say his name with such love and adoration, but still have him feeling like it’s not enough. Only Steve could be enough.
**
**
Bucky stays by a corner nearest to Steve because crowded places still freaks him out. He’s rounded the perimeter thrice and knows all the exits by heart. He’s counted all the people in the gala, including the guards and secret agents. The feeling of the glock in his waistband is a comforting feeling, along with the rest of the knives he brought — total of eight, and Steve only has to know of two.
He also sticks to the corner because he doesn’t trust himself. Doesn’t believe himself capable of any semblance of self-control without Steve’s close presence to ground him, and remind him that he’s at a public function; and no it’s not allowed to stab someone with a knife just because their touch lingers far too long on Tony’s shoulder, or when they bat their eyelashes at Tony.
And that’s why Bucky has to stay by Steve’s corner of the room, when he’s itching to go over across the room and pull the engineer away from the rich looking guy in all black ensemble.
It doesn’t help that Dr. Helen Cho, bless her soul, is lucky enough to have Tony’s arm intertwined with hers. So lucky. Bucky wants to have Tony all dolled up in a tux on his arm too.
But life is unfair. Well, half-unfair because he’s got Steve. He’ll always have Steve and his warm smile, that’s full of love and concern that he throws Bucky’s way from time to time. And it’s everything he needs to survive this charade.
He told himself that he shouldn’t look across the room to where Tony is. He shouldn’t because it will only hurt, and will only make him angry with everyone that’s touching Tony who’s not him.
As if that task is easy. Not even with Steve to distract him, because Steve in a deep navy blue tux is a great distraction. But it’s not enough. Not when Steve has a job to do at this party, and is usually away from Bucky’s quiet corner near the wall.
So, pining over Tony is inevitable. It doesn’t help that the man is definitely the life of the party. Every person tries to get to him like moths to a flame. Tony is in his element, shining so brightly amongst these throngs of dim people who don’t care about anything or anyone except themselves.
Tony looks beautiful like this: surrounded by great splendour and important people but burning far more radiant than all of them combined. He likes this side of the engineer, even when Tony’s smiles are dimmer than the ones he gives back home. It’s still a sight to behold.
God, what would it feel like to see it closely. If he allows himself, he wants to be pulled in Tony’s circle and listen to him talk and move those lively hands of his. He wants to be part of those secret smiles he sends Rhodey when people aren’t looking.
But he can’t. He needs to look out for Steve, and at the same time contain his murderous glare of jealousy out of the public eyes.
He’s about to make peace with himself and stay where he is, and not disturb Steve or Tony, when the rich man from before is suddenly offering his hand to Tony. Dr. Cho looks like she’s swooning. And Tony… he’s flustered. From this distance it almost seems like Tony’s blushing.
‘Steve,’ he calls as he strides towards where his soulmate is. There must have been something concerning on his face because Steve’s face is masked with worry as he excuses himself from the group he was talking with.
‘Is everything okay, Buck?’ Steve pulls them away from the group, Bucky thinks. But he’s not sure because his eyes are glued once more to Tony, who now accepts the outstretched hand shyly.
Bucky’s going to break something, or cut someone’s hand. So, he looks away and faces Steve instead, because he needs those blue eyes to ground him and to stop him from doing something he will regret.
‘Buck, what’s wrong?’ Steve asks anxiously.
Only his great training under HYDRA could have masked the real wrath he feels deep within his chest right now.
‘Who’s that guy?’ He jerks his chin sharply towards Tony and the dark-haired stranger.
Steve follows Bucky’s gaze and doesn’t see the way Bucky’s feature clouds with more jealousy and anger as Tony snakes his arm over the man’s own.
‘That’s Bruce Wayne,’ the blond supplies. And Bucky can tell the small hint of dejection in Steve’s voice. ‘I didn’t know he was coming. Tony always said he’s a reclusive billionaire.’ He turns back to Bucky with a smile that doesn’t sit quite right on his lips. ‘Well, I guess he’s not so recluse.’ He glances back once more to the leaving pair.
‘I don’t like him,’ he states in a low growl.
Steve’s attention is on him again. ‘He’s okay, Buck,’ he assures doubtfully. ‘He’s actually friends with Tony. Wayne’s someone Tony trusts. So I guess he’s okay.’
Christ, Captain America having to repeat something twice and sounding like he’s trying to convince himself, rather than the other person is a painful thing to watch. Bucky wants to shake Steve and point out the truth that’s been staring Steve in the face the whole time.
‘I still don’t like him,’ Bucky says instead of pouring the reality of his own jealousy into the picture. ‘Tony could do so much better than that goth man.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, that man is going to be Tony’s boyfriend,’ Bucky explains as softly as he can, but the venom in his voice still colours his statement.
‘Boyfriend?’ Steve’s eyes are so wide with surprise. ‘Tony’s not gay,’ he whispers.
And that’s another surprising fact he didn’t know about Steve. Well, he did know that his soulmate can be quite oblivious. Just not this oblivious.
‘Oh, Stevie, I have news for you…’ He drapes an arm over Steve’s shoulder.
Bucky’s quite sure with his facts, he’s seen Tony looking at Steve’s ass, at Thor’s biceps when he’s around. Hell, he’s even dug old files about Tony’s past life and past lovers. And by far he hates Tiberius Stone the most.
**
**
IronBatFTW:
Hello, New York! Did you all have a great Friday night? Well, probably not as great as our renowned playboy, Tony Stark, who was spotted leaving the SI charity gala with another well-known billionaire: Bruce Wayne. Some of you must have gone, ‘OMG! Is this finally it?’ I did ask the same question this morning. This could finally be the denouement of our four years of pent up suffering under their slow-burn Jane Austen like love-hate relationship that we have watched since day one after that Stark Expo incident.
You have to be blind if you didn’t see the sexual tension between these two as they try to outsmart the other with their company’s success. It’s such a joy to witness the whole enemies-to-friends trope happening right before our eyes. And now we might just have enemies-to-friends-to-lovers trope that has been everyone’s bandwagon for quite some time now. Because this is it. It might happen indeed.
Don’t worry, little ones. I’ll keep you all updated like always. xoxo
#fanfic#stuckony fanfic#stuckony fic#gwyn writes#stucky#stony#winteriron#bucky x tony#tony x steve#steve x bucky#soulmate au#only half a blue sky
26 notes
·
View notes
Text
some Change Your Mind thoughts:
yellow has a lot of bubbled gems in her room. im very curious who they all are and what their “crimes” are. will they be freed now that the diamonds are more open to imperfections?
along the same lines, when they gonna unbubble all them rose quartzes at The Zoo?? she wasn’t even actually a rose quartz i think it’s time to stop punishing all of them smh
so like when them yellow lasers that makes gems poof didnt effect steven at all i assumed that was because he’s half human but now after seeing blue survive it so well im wondering if him being a diamond has anything to do with it too
white’s ship’s face is so fucking terrifying i love it so much. that blank stare. nice.
what the FUCK are lapis and peridot wearing??? if there was any question of how gay they were before(there wasn’t) this certainly proves it. no straight person dressed so garbage and pulls it off so perfectly
peri’s stars tho!!! she finally got ‘em!!! 😍😍😍
and her flying around on a fucking trashcan lid absolutely iconic
i just wanna take a moment to appreciate how important connie is to the story. it would’ve been so easy to brush her off to the side and just make her the human love interest that spends all her time as a damsel in distress but honestly??? she’s right there as one of the main characters, fighting along side the gems and providing some top notch little speeches. she may not be a gem, but she is stevens rock. im love.
blue using steven’s real name!!!!! and then yellow using steven’s real name!!!!!! hell yeah diamonds say “TRANS RIGHTS!”
so like we know how pink pearl turned all greyscale but like....how she crack her face like that?? i want answers!!
speaking of which them zombiegreyscaling everyone??? terrifyingly perfect choppy animation. it was so horrifying in the best way i loved it
the MUSIC, like especially that one scene when steven was falling trying to catch all the gems??? hell fucking yeah that’s some good music
FUSIONS so many FUSIONS
smokey quartz spittin puns immediately absolutely iconic
steven’s dance falling matched pearl’s style so perfectly im so proud of him!!
rainbow quartz 2.0 is mary poppins but also gave me doctor who vibes, which, like, so does mary poppins tbh so
steven doesn’t even dance to fuse with garnet, he just loves like really hard. need i say more?
the flame effect on their fusion light tho
i would die for sunstone they’re my favorite 90′s psa aimed at children
“unbelievable!” “oh you better believe it” “ok!” i love peri so much
all of their new forms look so great!! that grunge look on amethyst, that coolguy jacket on pearl, garnets new starshaped glasses and back to having more obvious separate pink and blue parts showing that saphire and ruby are both their own gems now but still choose to be together mmmmmm GOOD
GIANT LAVA WOMAN WHO MAKES GIANT LAVA SWORD OUT THEIR OWN MOUTH HELLLL YEEEEAAAAAAH they’re so spiderlike and pretty and could kill me in an instant im in love
connie’s new sword!! she get an upgrade too!! and more moving on from rose!! they’re a whole new crystal gems now and i love it!!!
peri getting to use her metal powers to save the day, partially by flying her trashcan lid, and also by catch bismuth!! nice!!! i love peri so much im sorry im biased
okay im just gonna say it. i KNEW we were eventually gonna see steven lose his gem. whether it got shattered or what i didn’t know but i was positive we would see it ever since eyeball ruby said she was gonna take it and steven stopped to say “what would even happen to me?” i don’t think they would put such a focus on that question without eventually answering it.
this, however, was an absolutely brutal way for it to happen. i cringed and felt a little sick tbh when it happened
this split screen to show steven is aware of both himselves at once? nice. i like that.
i have mixed feelings about steven being just steven. of course it’s wonderful to know all of this is him. there’s no rose/pink somewhere deep under there controlling him somehow or something, but it also means she’s not there watching him. his mom really is gone for good. that’s...really sad idk. i always assumed some day steven’s human side would die and he would go back to being rose, or probably pink now that he had changed so much for her, but....i guess he’s just steven. and he’ll always be. i mean i guess it’s possible he’ll find a way to change again. maybe have a kid and be able to pass his gem on to them. who knows? it’s certainly interesting to think about
rip rose/pink tho
like i know i already mentioned connie but...her carrying steven to himself....she really is so so important and needed by him
he turned white pink!!! ha!!
yellow and blue’s immediate disgust at white’s imperfection....wow...it says so much and i love it
“i’m suppose to make everything better!” “you can but first you’re gonna have to leave your own head” stay woke amiright
sadie singing greg’s song!! sadie has green hair(like me)!! she’s doing so well and im so happy for her
lars is home!!! LARS IS HOME!!!!!
he met lion!! they had a moment!!!
he and sadie talked and acknowledged how good they are doing and they didn’t get some cheesy get-back-together bs!!!
also he obviously talked about sadie a lot to the offcolors and that’s so cute
sadie and lars have matching eye scars
white diamond awkwardly trying to be a good person gives me life. this stage of reformed villains is what makes me love them so much. they try so hard and it’s so awkward in the most endearing way
the beetles are lesbians
i really hope we get to see all these healed gems in future season/the movie. i want to meet them, i want to see who they were besides their corrupted forms
garnet and pearl having a moment to cry after seeing all their friends healed <333
jasper being healed and having a moment with amethyst!!! yes!!! her little horns and leftover green spots!!!!! hell yeah!!!
the diamonds just peaced their way out to space!! just like “okay byyyyyyeeee”
this changed so much. i know there will be a movie, possibly more seasons, and im so excited to see where all this goes. this really is era 3
#my posts#su spoilers#um this is messy and made mostly just to get my thoughts out because#there are a lot#if you read this then rad thanks#i'd love to see your own thoughts :)
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald - Review
Okay so yeah, post got some likes so I’m doing it.
I am one of the lucky people who was able to see Crimes of Grindelwald already. It’s been released today here in France but since my cinema had a premiere yesterday night, I have been able to see it one day prior.
First of all, if you want PSA, you can find them here : [link]
So, let’s start with :
NON-SPOILER PART
Overall, I didn’t dislike the movie. I didn’t really like it either. I feel like there is too much information, too much plots at the same time, and in the end you don’t really care about any of them. The movie is a complete train wreck, tbh. Too many things happening and it’s all crashing together into some kinda alphabet soup where you can see the letters but can’t really form words.
The first scene is one of the best in my opinion, and yet also one of the worst. Nothing makes sense in it. You totally get what is going on, but you don’t understand how it could happen. It clearly summarize the movie, I’d say. It shows an action, done following a plan, but some element are just coming out of nowhere. This scene doesn’t look right at the beginning of Crimes of Grindelwald. It should have been the ending of Where to Find Them.
At that is, in my opinion, one of the movie’s biggest problem. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a good movie, but a bad introduction to a 5-movies-long saga. Most of the element that seem forced in COG could and SHOULD have been introduced in WTFT. Mostly characters, tbh. I’m mostly thinking Leta. Okay, technically she has been introduced back then, but I think we should have had more than just a photograph and a mention of being New’s ex. Tbh, I don’t even understand why she’s Newt’s ex but that might got too spoiler-y so we’ll talk about that later.
Other characters, in the contrary, are largely underused. They are clearly there to serve later in the movie saga, but in that case they have too much screen time and importance. I’m not only talking about then being too present in the movie, I’m talking about them being too present in the press tour, ads and everything. Part of the marketing of the movie has been done around them, all that for them not being a huge part of the movie. And I’m not talking Dumbledore here, well, not only Dumbledore at least.
Characters treatment, meanwhile, is one of the most inconsistent things. While some like Newt, Jacob, Grindelwald or to some extent Tina are faithful to what we saw in the first movie, others like Queenie, Credence or to so extent Tina seem kind of OOC. (Yes Tina is in both cases). I’m not saying how they are different, but while it didn’t displease me too much for Credence, it sure makes me want to start #justiceforqueenie. This leads to the relationships going from really great for most of them to a complete trainwreck in others and, in one case, abusive.
While I’m clearly saying mostly negative things, the movie isn’t all bad. As I’ve said, some characters are great, most jokes are great too and while some complain about the visual effects I wasn’t too choked by them. The music is discreet but immersive and that’s all I ask of a soundtrack tbh. It’s just mostly been through the WB effect. To quote Deadpool : “So dark and broody, are you sure you’re not part of the DCEU ?” It is a good story, just not rendered in a good way. You know, one of those story you like almost all elements but not how they’re treated and you just want to rewrite them yourself to fix it. That’s at least how I feel about it, I’m ready to kick J.K. out and write in her place.
Now this might be a bit confused but I don’t want to say too much. So if you don’t care about them, we can now enter into :
HEAVY SPOILER PART
They are, quite obviously, to be found under the cut.
I have a lot to say about it so I’m going to organize them into categories. I might forget some things but hey, I’m no professional. So, let’s start.
Scamanders and Lestrange - I find the trio to have a really good alchemy. The brothers are not depicted as the old-as-time “the successful asshole vs the weirdo angel” trope. Theseus, although successful indeed, never use it to compare himself with Newt. I don’t even think he compared himself with Newt. He’s successful, wants to help his brother the best he can and fuck, he’s a hugger and it’s refreshing to see brothers hug. (I’m saying that as someone whose sister has never hugged her, so I might be totally partial here). The relationship Newt has with Leta is also pretty good. You can sense that there’s history and it’s clearly not a case of the girl now being a bitch. Problem is, I have no idea why they split up in the first place. They seem to still go along, they seem to still care, if not feel love, for the other… And in the contrary, I don’t see why Theseus and Leta are engaged. Outside of “we need to bring Leta into the story”. They seem to go along pretty well, and clearly they care about one another but I don’t sense love. And it’s got nothing to do with the actor’s chemistry. They do have chemistry during interviews and all. No, it’s clearly lazy plotting. I think things would have been better if Leta had been engaged to Newt from movie 1 and a friend (maybe colleague) of Theseus.
The Lestrange lineage - Now you will not make me say one single good thing about that crap. The movie has indeed some good things but this is not one. First of all, it’s a mess. We don’t care about it for most of the movie and the moment we start caring, we learn that it’s not even really related to our story. Also, it’s quite the horrible story and it’s not treated in a good way at all. It’s also highly problematic, like a white man casting imperius to rape a black woman clearly sends some messages, but it’s not even used. There is no moral to this story. Lestrange is not depicted as bad because he raped the woman, he’s seen as bad because he never loved anyone besides Corvus, made Leta hate herself because she’s born of a rape and inspired revenge in the family of the woman he raped. And not only is there no moral to it, but it’s just a plot device. It’s just here to grow some artificial suspense as to the origin of Credence and only to reveal that it’s not even the real origin of Credence. And you know how it could have been avoided ? By saying that Youssouf is not the half-brother but the cousin of Leta. Leta is the daughter of arranged marriage, as is the custom with pureblood, and her father remarried to have Corvus. Now you can present him as being an asshole for not loving his wives and daughter. And Youssouf is not here for revenge but because he thinks he’s found his cousin’s brother and want to reunite them. Here. How to create your fake suspense without adding rape and racism.
Nagini the maledictus - She could have been removed from the movie. Really, she’s useless so far and I’m hoping she’ll have more use later. She’s got too much screen time and I’m sure she had to be connected to Credence somehow but then they should have been more warm to one another because so far all she’s done is stand silently behind him.
Queenie and the treatment of mental health - I love Queenie. She’s been my favorite for along time in the first movie, after a few rewatching got her replaced by her sister. She’s still a character I loved a lot and I was always defending her when a friend who doesn’t like her at all was talking bad about her. Now… Well… I get that she’s not mentally alright. And I suppose that someone like me who doesn’t have any mental health issue, I’m not the best judge of that. I actually find very interesting that she suffers from her legilimency, and the fact that it gives her panic attack, all alone in this city she doesn’t know, hearing thought she can’t even understand (French people think in French after all, at least most of us do) is a really interesting thing that deserves to be treated better.What I struggle with is how abusive they made her relationship with Jacob, and the conclusion that is given of her mental state. Queenie is a legiliment more powerful than most others, able to read thoughts without much efforts, and who never revealed her nature to any ministry member because she didn’t want to be used like a tool, an object. Yet she manipulate Jacob like a toy, taking his consent away as a mean to finally get engaged. She’ basically doing to him what the first movie established she didn’t want done to her. And when it’s revealed that she’s just struggling with her identity, her difference,there is only one conclusion. “You’re mad.” Or “You’re crazy” idk I saw the movie with french dub. At first it’s just a thought. Jacob has been manipulated by the woman he loves, he’s confused. And he regrets it immediately. But by the end of the movie, Queenie who’s been suffering, who seem to have found a solution, hears it again and this time it’s not a lost thought. It’s an affirmation. “You’re mad.” That’s all she’s gonna get from the people she counted on. Between a man who condamns her mental health and a man who offers to help, I can understand she choose the latter. But this still doesn’t make sense.If she’s such a powerful mindreader she should have known that Grindelwald is manipulating her. You know what I think ? I think Jacob should have turned.
The reference to WWII - One of the things I loved was that mention. Grindelwald show the future and it’s not a great one. Jacob, who has been in the first war, is shook to see that. It was strong. In France (and maybe elsewhere I don’t know), WWI has a nickname. “La der des der”. Basically, the last of the last (war). Seeing the violence of the war, the soldier who fought in it believed it to be the war who would put an end to all the wars. Never could another be worst, be more violent. History proved that it wasn’t the case. But at the time, they delieved it to the core. Jacob believes it to the core. And then, this man who has fought, this man who is of polish origin (if not a polish immigrant, i’m not sure if it’s been specified), sees the war, the violence, the people in line in a concentration camp. And tbh, I think this might have been a turning point for him. He’s seen what the human race has done worst, and then he sees that it’s not even the worst, and that the worst is to come. Many would just want to stop that, that’s what Grindelwald is proposing. While him not turning is a good thing, the contrary would have been interesting as fuck.
Paris yes, but not in France - Okay so this is totally coming from me being a French girl. I didn’t see Paris, I didn’t see France, in that movie. I saw it with French dubbing so idk if there was some french dialogue but if there was that’s the only clue we have that we’re in France. We could have been in another country, I wouldn’t have had a clue. I don’t see what the point was. Why settle the plot in Paris, exactly ? There was to use of France’s culture, history or anything. Nothing justified being in Paris. I mean sure the ministry was pretty. But yeah that’s all. You know, I think about it because I’ve just rambled about WWI and II but it would have been a nice thing.If Jacob was to be tempted by his PTSD, one thing that could have been nice to show are the “gueules cassées”. Gueules cassées literally means “broken faces”. It designates the soldiers that survived WWI but came back with huge disabilities and/or deformities. The movietakes place in 1927. Before 1930, disabled people struggled more than ever to find a job, most couldn’t find any at all. THIS is a huge part of French history and THIS goes in accordance with the message of Grindelwald that muggles are dangerous, destructives.
Grindelwald himself - He was… not that bad, actually. Maybe I was expecting too much bad things from him. Depp isn’t that terrible, I found that lately he’d been under-acting ? Don’t know if that makes sense. But he seemed to be at least invested. His plan wasn’t that great though, overly complicated for nothing and all. But overall, while not a great villain, not a bad one. I wish he was more manipulative, because right now it seems just saying “Hi” makes people join him like wtf. Also… “I hate Paris”. Yes dear, like every french people, get over it. :)
The Strange Case of Aurelius Dumbledore - Okay, two possibilities. One, Grindelwald is lying to Credence about his real identity, in order to give him a target. He’s just making him a weapon against Albus. Two, Grindelwald is telling the truth and Credence is actually a long lost Dumbledore brother. This would make no sense. Dumbledore is, at least 18 years older than Credence is. The younger Dumbledore is supposed to be Ariana, and she is only 5 years younger than Albus. (She was 14 when her mother died and Albus had just left Hogwarts so 17). It’s written black on white in the book that she was attacked when she was six years old. Their father was imprisoned the same year. Three years before Credence was born, his alleged father was imprisoned for life in Azkaban. Somehow, I doubt there are conjugal visits. This is totally messing the timeline up tbh. I really hope Grindelwald is actually lying.
So… I might have forgotten a few things. Don’t hesitate to message me if you want to discuss about these things or some I might have forgotten.
#fantastic beasts#hp#fb#fantastic beasts and where to find them#fantastic beasts crimes of grindelwald#fbcog#crimes of grindelwald#movie review#review#not tagging the spoilers#it's writing everywhere that it's a review#so each people will judge there level of spoiler#any further discussion about this will be tagged though#long post
5 notes
·
View notes
Photo
504: Secret Agent Super Dragon
Let’s move on to another oft-overlooked subset of MST3K – the Budget Bond films. These are always very bad, but often a lot of fun if you’re in the right kind of mood.
Brian Cooper is Super Dragon, pulled out of retirement to find out who’s distributing poisoned chewing gum to co-eds! Boy, if that doesn’t sound like the setup for a thrilling spy caper, nothing does! The plot seems to revolve around a Dutch student named Christine Bruder, so Cooper goes to Amsterdam looking for her. There, in between fucking his female colleagues and flirting with every woman he sees, he learns that Bruder was part of a plot to smuggle deadly drugs into the United States, hidden in fake Ming vases. An evil conspiracy is planning to dope the free world on a chemical that will cause us to violently attack one another, and then… uh, I don’t know what happens after that, but it’s probably safe to assume it’ll end in the bad guys ruling the world. That’s always the goal.
What’s with that spy movie cliché about the glamorous secret agent who sleeps with every woman he meets? Friends, enemies, co-workers, random waitresses… our suave hero loses no chance to insert Tab A into Slot B. He can’t walk down the street without having women throw themselves at him. This trope has been parodied to hell and back in everything from Austin Powers to The Million Eyes of Sumuru and it’s actually sort of weird to see it played straight, as it is here. As a PSA to my readers: never sleep with a glamorous secret agent. He probably has like nine venereal diseases.
The weirdest thing in the movie is a facet of this trope: it’s the bit where Cooper and Agent Farrell are busily smooching when a man breaks into her apartment and tries to kill them. They fight him off, and he commits suicide so they can’t question him. Cooper then throws his body out the window, turns the soundtrack back on, and the couple just pick up where they left off! Maybe it’s because I’m not a glamorous secret agent but I gotta agree with Tom Servo on this one: I don’t think I could have sex in the same room where I just watched a guy kill himself. It wouldn’t be right, you know?
I will say that this indifference towards death bothers me less here than it did in Master Ninja I, but the characters in Secret Agent Super Dragon have presumably have years of both physical training to kill and psychological coaching to deal with the consequences. Even so, just getting right back to the makeout session before the body’s even had a chance to cool seems unnecessarily callous.
The other trope I notice a lot of in Secret Agent Super Dragon is the death trap. Our hero’s life is threatened repeatedly but always in some contrived way that allows him a chance to escape. The first time he’s tied to a rail so some machine can come along and roll over his head. He gets out in the nick of time and it crushes a can of red paint instead. The second time he’s nailed into a coffin and thrown into the river. He holds his breath and inflates a flotation device. The third time, he’s trapped in a building rigged to explode. His buddy flies in with a helicopter. Why doesn’t anybody just shoot this guy? Villains that stupid don’t deserve to take over the world!
Yet another thing that stands out as remarkably dumb is the cause the charity auction is supposed to support – ‘an International Hospital for Babies with Malnutrition’. Okay, so, imagine you’re somebody whose child is starving, which probably means you’re dirt poor. Instead of sending food to you, these people expect you to bring the baby to a hospital, which may be in another country, so that they can feed the kid there. Is the complete impracticality of this supposed to be our clue that it’s a scam? The script never references that, though. Did somebody just pick a bunch of charitable-sounding words? Was it a bad translation of something that actually made sense in the original language? Are the writers just that stupid? We’ll probably never know.
Beyond that… it’s honestly really hard to say anything deeper about Secret Agent Super Dragon, because this is another movie that’s not very ambitious. It has some vague themes about drugs as the downfall of western civilization, but its characters don’t have appreciable arcs and there’s not much by way of symbolism for me to analyze. All it wants is to keep us mindlessly entertained for an hour and a half – and there’s nothing wrong with that, honestly, but Super Dragon isn’t even any good at it. Trying to watch without Joel and the bots I found myself drifting repeatedly. There’s the charming super-spy, the parade of blandly beautiful women, the evil mastermind with a vague plan to take over the world, the easily-escaped death traps… we’ve done this all before, and Super Dragon doesn’t even use the stereotypes in skillful or interesting ways.
The thing about spy movie tropes is they’re so easy to parody, and have been parodied so many times, that even somebody who doesn’t actually watch spy movies can spot them because we all absorb them through pop-culture osmosis. Playing them straight therefore runs a very serious risk of boring the audience. Of course Agent Farrell is working for the bad guys, because in a story like this, a character like her does – and of course she falls in love with Cooper and betrays her bosses for him. None of this stuff is even really foreshadowed (except that Farrell dyes her hair – can’t trust those unnatural redheads!) but we still know it’s coming because we’ve seen the same shit in fifty other movies. The bad guy wants to cleanse the world so it can be made anew? Been there. The movie wallows in misogyny but in all the same old ways, so I’ve got nothing new to say about it.
Throughout the film people talk about the ‘legendary Super Dragon’ but I don’t think we ever get a reason why Cooper’s so great. Bond films begin with a breathtaking action setpiece to show us that our hero has nifty gadgets and balls of steel – Secret Agent Super Dragon begins with Cooper playing dead by the pool. His most remarkable ability seems to be holding his breath for a really long time, and his gadgeteer, the kleptomaniacal Babyface, makes most of his gadgets out of literal toys. I think this might be a joke about the obvious miniatures some of these movies use… but I’m not sure. All I’m sure of is when that dinosaur waddled into the room I was halfway expecting it to demand the return of the Golden Ninja Warrior.
About the only place where the movie seems to accidentally brush by a real statement is in a moment that resembles a historical reference. Cooper has infiltrated a conspiracy meeting (by wearing a half-mask that leaves his rather distinctive chin fully visible) at which the Big Bad, Mr. Lamas, is delivering an expository monologue: their factory in India is in full production of the drug, which will be shipped to America in phony Ming vases and bring the world to its knees! If you’re going to talk about drugs making and breaking empires, China and India are where it happened.
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the East India Company fostered opium addiction in China because they wanted cheap tea and because the British government had vague plans, which never came anywhere close to fruition, to add China to their empire. The opium to feed this addiction was grown in India, often by farmers who would rather have been growing actual food but owed too much money to the EIC. This all led to the Opium Wars and a lot of other unpleasantness in which the British Empire came out looking even more like assholes than they usually did. In a story about conquering the world through drug addiction, then, having the drugs created in India and slipped into something Chinese looks like a reference to history repeating itself.
It may also mean something else. Secret Agent Super Dragon is relentlessly white, set mostly in a city in northwestern Europe, where conspiracies of middle-aged white guys drink booze and decide the fate of nations. The actual work that makes this possible, however, is being done by people of colour in the east. Not only does this seem to reference how western nations use other countries as battlegrounds and bargaining chips in their own power struggles, it can also serve as a reminder of something we frequently forget: a lot of what makes our comfortable lives possible comes from other countries, made by people who could never afford to buy it. My eyeglasses, the sweater I’m wearing, and the chair I’m sitting on were all made in China. Our entire economy depends on cheap foreign labor, and I wonder sometimes how much longer that can last before the whole thing falls apart.
Is any of this the movie’s intentional theme or message? I doubt it. The historical reference seems to be just a ‘hey, look how clever we are!’ moment and the rest probably goes no deeper than ‘oh, no, our children are doing drugs!’, which has been on the verge of ending civilization since at least the thirties. Secret Agent Super Dragon is just a dumb trashy Eurospy movie, and not even a very good one. I don’t hate it, but mostly because it’s not worth that kind of effort. The MST3K treatment renders it infinitely more enjoyable, especially when Tom and Crow do Jazz.
Agent Cooper was played by actor Ray Danton, who died in 1992, a year before the episode aired. Probably all for the best. I doubt he’d have been into all those jokes about how his character is perfectly smooth.
37 notes
·
View notes
Text
hey whats up gamers. I very rarely talk about my real life/work on my tumblr but i gotta talk about this cuz i cant fit it in 140 characters on twitter
i work at a deli, generally closing shifts, and anyways we just closed, all the slicers are cleaned, but just as im finishing mopping this chick catches me to get her something, and before I can get half way through my practiced “we fuckin closed, grab and go is over there, never ask me for anything again” sphell this lady drops something id never expect to hear working at a place like this. she drops the fucking sob story.
apprently, her fucking brother JUST got out of the hospital, and has a condition where hes gonna be dehydrated for days and one of the few things he can eat is the rotisserie turkey we cut. the rotisserie turkey is the driest, crumbliest piece of shit we carry in the department, and likely the whole store. drier than the turkey that is literally designed to have zero salt in it and is pale white and has the texture of a piece of wood. and her brother needs a pound of it RIGHT NOW.
I think i was just take aback at this point? did this chick jsut make up and drop the biggest piece of horseshit ive ever heard in my life, all for a pound of turkey at like 8:50 pm? i mean it worked and i cut her it cuz like what am i suppose to do at this point? despite lying straight to my face i’m forced into a corner or either A) she isn’t lying and I kill someone’s fucking brother and I aint goin to jail just cuz i want to clock out or B) she bitches at a manager which will likely be more annoying than going to jail, so I guess at the end of the day I’m the one whose taking the L
anyways, this has been your PSA about never fucking working at a grocery store, because you will learn how far people will go for a $6.99 product. She asked for my name because “i did a good deed” and I fuckin lied and said it was Joe because I hope she never interacts with me again. stay at school get a real job
26 notes
·
View notes
Text
Okay so full disclosure, a lot of the stuff the last anon was talking about how I should post to AO3 is baaaasically therapy-by-fic-writing, and in particular there’s one, which heaven help me I was writing on an AIRPLANE from Nairobi to Bamako (like a 6h flight?) this was a BAD DECISION, where we are talking about the aftermath of rape (cut for, well, that):
“The jails aren’t big enough for all the people who...” Rokia isn’t sure what to call it.
Lyme’s face is blank but her voice is strained. “I know that, too.”
“It was normal. Plenty of people did it.”
“I don’t care if every fucking person in the Capitol did it, Rokia, it was wrong.”
“It’s not like it was just me. I didn’t even have it that bad.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Eibhlin’s the one you should be worrying about, not me.”
“I worry about both of you, but that’s not the point.”
And the next line was obviously: “What is the point?”
And I stopped.
And I stared at my computer screen for a... well I have no idea how long, and then I wrote the next part, which is:
Lyme looks at her. “The point is that you shouldn’t have to talk yourself down from this anymore. The point is that you are well within your rights to punch anyone who so much as touches you without your express permission. The point is that anyone who paid money to fuck you should have the basic human decency to stay the hell out of your way.”
And then I had to put my laptop away and go hide in the airplane bathroom for a minute because I couldn’t fucking breathe. (PSA: don’t write shit like this on airplanes)
And like.
I am not good at feelings, in real life. Half the time I don’t recognize my own or know what the fuck’s got me wound up on any given day. I am not good at believing all the things you’re supposed to say, like “it’s not your fault” and “of course it’s okay to be upset about this,” and so on and so forth.
But I wrote myself into a corner and I had to find my way out.
And the only way out was all of this stuff that... I mean none of the specifics apply to me. Obviously. But the feelings? Yeah I recognize those. And the only way out of that conversation (and I needed a way out, because leaving that hanging wasn’t gonna work) was to write all these things I couldn’t actually say about myself.
And this was November 2014. I started writing at all in May 2014. The idea that I could take all this bullshit swimming around my head and throw it at a fictional character and make THEM deal with it? Was mind-blowing.
So that’s the other reason I haven’t posted some of this stuff: because it’s intensely personal, in the embarrassing “is this just your self-insert Mary Sue character?” kind of way. And I mean, she’s not me, not really, but there’s...echoes, like this one.
And if this thing I wrote because I needed to write it is something someone else needs to read? That’s... I have a lot of feelings about that.
(but those are real-life feelings so idk how to talk about them)
#writing#this isn't the only example but it's the earliest#why i write#(among other reasons)#rape tw#(for recovery and talking about shit)
3 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
ert84
eRt!
honeykiller666
Love Jensen and his Disney-eyes.
dietw4ter-blog
it was just a dream
matalasmates-blog
MatalasMates
jwilce
Outdoor photography